Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Sodan's Hybrid DE Proposal
Sodan check your email please. (I know it takes me forever to notice I have one).
I made an executive summary to append to the plan.
TheWoody wrote:
Well, with that said, are there any other outstanding points with this plan that we haven't covered yet?
I would like to re-address the issue of compatability with existing game mechanics so that we're all on the same page.
One of the best features of this plan is that it doesn't require any new game mechanics that are not already in place in SWG. The two major features are the "combat droid levels" and the "+1 Combat Droid" mod. Both are ALREADY in the game.
Droid levels are idenical to CH "Max Pet Levels". Glance at the CH trees and you'll see it in every box. The "+1 Combat Droid" mod is also analogous to CH. A Novice CH, for example, a player gets a skill mod called "Additional Pets +1", allowing them to increase the number of pets they can call. This is different than the "Stored Pets" mod which increases the number of pets they can store.
The ONLY major difference in the implementation of this plan as compared to CH is that the droid levels are found in 0040 DE while the +1 Additional Droid Pet is found in 0004 Marksman.
I submit that this is a trivial difference because the SWG system ALREADY counts up the boxes and adds up the skill mods to see how many pet levels and additional pets a CH can have. The only difference is where the box is located.
I believe that this arrangement will make it easy for the devs to implement, not require any additional profession and skill trees to fill, and fit well with the existing system that governs the number and level of pets a player can call and store.
AudioOrgana wrote:
Kollos wrote:
FWIW, this isn't a bad proposal on its own merits. It's "bad" in the sense that it is a hybrid DE proposal, but as hybrid DE proposals go it's okay. The main sticking pointI think you're going to run into is that you're adding pre-requisites to an existing profession. I just don't see them allowing that because it would screw around with so many existing characters.
Another potential problem (from the Devs' point of view) is that, once again, you're adding new abilities to a profession (DE) without any cost. Yes, there's a cost built in for the new dabblers who pick up DE in order to get the new combat droids, but where's the cost for existing Droid Engineers? You're giving us a freebie, and I doubt the devs will go for that either.
/sigh
Kollos, did you read the initail posting and the variants?
Yes, of course I did. I did not read all 15 pages of replies, however... if reading 15 pages of replies is required in order to understand the proposal, then it is not a good one.
Both of those things are covered. In a way, this is basicly the same thing as a mini-profession, it just has overlapping prerequisites.
They weren't covered clearly, and the fact that this is the same thing as a mini-profession is news to me. It looks an awful lot like a bunch of new skills are just being added to the existing Droid Engineer skill trees to me. Unless it has changed since I first read it.
If you take the additional certs activated with Ranged Support (or whatever other ADDITIONAL prerequisite) and put them in their own skill tree, nothing would change. Just picture it as a fifth tree super-imposed over an existing one - it only is "activated" when you get the ADDITIONAL prerequisites.
But that's not what the proposal calls for (a 5th tree) and so that's not correct. Adding all of these abilities to existing Droid Engineer trees, even if you also require a new pre-requisite in order to obtain those abilities (and it's not even clear that this is possble), isn't the same thing as a mini-profession. The biggest and most important difference is that you're still required to be a Droid Engineer in order to get these new abilities. In a true mini-profession, you would not have to be a Droid Engineer. Another important difference is that by adding these abilities to an existing tree you're giving the abilities to some people for free - the people who already have the pre-requisites.
This is *NOT* changing anyone's character as-is. If this was implemented as it's written here, on patch day we would all be Crafting DE"s if we already were - that wouldn't change.
It's not a freebie. Unless they add a new novice profession, this is exactly how a mini-tree or even a full-on Droid Handler would work. Pre-reqs would be gathered from existing professions.
It is a freebie. You're giving free new skills to Droid Engineers who already have the proposed pre-requisite. They don't have to pay a thing in order to get those new droid commander abilities. That's why I doubt it is going to happen.
It's not all about Droid Engineers, people. The devs told us that they're not going to give higher level combat droids to anyone without the additional expenditure of time, experience, and skill points. If you implemented this proposal today, I would get it all for free because I already have the pre-requisites.
It's fine to not like the idea, but the people that have so far seem to just not understand it. It truly addresses the concerns that everyone has shown - for crafters to remain crafters, for people who want to pick up just Droid Handling, or people who want to do both.
It gives a great deal of choice to dealing with Droids - Is that what people are afraid of? That they can have their cake, someone else can have their different cake, and everyone gets something that they want? Or do you just want YOUR cake, and no one else should have any cake unless it's the one you want?
That's again, beside the point - it seems that with the reasons given for dissention each person who has disagreed simply hasn't fully understood what is being proposed before speaking out against it.
Or maybe we did understand the proposal and you just don't understand the problems with it.
phamcar wrote:
There is one item that I don't agree with on this plan. There is more to combat than marksman, so I don't think the ranged support tree should be the pre-req. I think any other tree of any combat profession would be appropriate.
Other than that, the plan works for me. A great job was done here. I hope it flys.
Phamcar,
The Revised Hybrid DE Proposal includes a variant that allows more flexibility in the combat pre-req. Go to that thread and vote for the one you like!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=6911
Kollos wrote:
It is a freebie. You're giving free new skills to Droid Engineers who already have the proposed pre-requisite. They don't have to pay a thing in order to get those new droid commander abilities. That's why I doubt it is going to happen.
It's not all about Droid Engineers, people. The devs told us that they're not going to give higher level combat droids to anyone without the additional expenditure of time, experience, and skill points. If you implemented this proposal today, I would get it all for free because I already have the pre-requisites.
Kollos, you have to take it as not being free, but that you've already paid for it. Or take it from the point of view of a starting player. The skills are not free. The point is you have to use the additional skill points, whether or not they have been used already.
duncje wrote:
Kollos wrote:
It is a freebie. You're giving free new skills to Droid Engineers who already have the proposed pre-requisite. They don't have to pay a thing in order to get those new droid commander abilities. That's why I doubt it is going to happen.
It's not all about Droid Engineers, people. The devs told us that they're not going to give higher level combat droids to anyone without the additional expenditure of time, experience, and skill points. If you implemented this proposal today, I would get it all for free because I already have the pre-requisites.
Kollos, you have to take it as not being free, but that you've already paid for it. Or take it from the point of view of a starting player. The skills are not free. The point is you have to use the additional skill points, whether or not they have been used already.
Yep, we can't escape that there are already lots of players out there who are DEs. We can't escape that there are lots of players out that have 0004 Markman. Few are the players, however, that have the0040 DE and 0004 Marksman. That means that most players -- I would say judging on the stats I've seen, 98% of players -- would need to go up the 0040 tree. Most DEs would need to go up the 0004 Marksman tree which we have noted is like going up 0400 Marksman FOUR TIMES due to the cobmat exp requirement.
Finally, if a player already has these skills, well, we'll have to differ on that -- I say they've earned it! They spent the time and money and they are still investing the points.
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
I'm sure you'll all be thrilled to hear that I am about to start a new job and probably won't have time for SWG anymore, or at best I will only have a small amount of time. So since I won't be able to play much, if at all, it wouldn't be right for me to campaign one way or another.
Gratz on the new job, man. Sorry it will cut down on SWG time. I've been feeling the pinch at work too.
Thanks. It looks like it's going to be fun, but it's also going to be a lot of work. I'm probably going to have to completely re-arrange my life once it starts, but if it goes well it should be worth it in the long run. :-)
FWIW, this isn't a bad proposal on its own merits. It's "bad" in the sense that it is a hybrid DE proposal, but as hybrid DE proposals go it's okay. The main sticking pointI think you're going to run into is that you're adding pre-requisites to an existing profession. I just don't see them allowing that because it would screw around with so many existing characters.
Ok, this argument has been addressed. There is NO additional pre-req to the DE profession. The additional pre-req is for the USE of combat droids. A player could craft their way to MDE as they always have been able to under this plan. They cannot USE the combat droids until they spend the extra points on Ranged Support 4.
Ah, I see what you were trying to do. Do you think that the Devs can do that, though? Have skills in a skill tree that you don't get unless you have some other pre-requisite? Given the problems that they've had with various other ideas, this seems like a stretch to me. They apparently can't even see what's in your data pad, after all, so I think that their ability to do this is a MAJOR assumption.
If it is workable, though, it's an interesting concept.
Another potential problem (from the Devs' point of view) is that, once again, you're adding new abilities to a profession (DE) without any cost. Yes, there's a cost built in for the new dabblers who pick up DE in order to get the new combat droids, but where's the cost for existing Droid Engineers? You're giving us a freebie, and I doubt the devs will go for that either.
Ranged Support 4 requires 30k in combat exp. Combat exp is only a tenths of regular exp like pistol exp. So if you make 400 pistol exp shooting a mob, you only make 4 combat exp. There is the additional cost.
Also, unlike a 0044 CH, a 0040 DE cannot tame/make their own droids. Any bonus that DEs get under this plan is offset by the combat exp they need to get AND under the totatility of the circumstances.
I'll note that these two objections are "devs won't do it" objections.
I get the impression that you didn't understand what I meant. What new and additional cost is there under this proposal to a Master Droid Engineer who already has the Ranged Support tree of Marksman?
My interpretation of what the devs have told us in the past is that they're not going to give higher level pets (beyond CL 10) to anyone with the expenditure of additional time, experience, and/or skill points. And by anyone, I mean any already-created character. So you can't just add a few abilities to an existing tree of DE and then slap on an additional pre-requisite that already exists in the game because someone, somewhere, is already going to qualify. And you'd be giving that person the new abilities for free.
I really think the best all-around compromise has always been the mini-profession idea. No freebies for anyone. Appropriate built-in costs for the new droids for anyone who wants to use them. Allows Droid Engineers who want to be pure crafters to just play DE and ignore the mini-profession, and allows Droid Engineer to remain a full-fledged crafting profession with all of the "perks" that supposedly come with a crafting profession. Allows combat players who have no interest in crafting to just pick up the mini-profession and ignore DE, and allows the new combat droids to be balanced on their own merits without having to take potential crafting abilities into consideration. Allows people who want to do both to pick up both. It's really the best of all possible worlds.
I like this plan better. And it avoids additional professions. There are already too many. We should fix this one, rather than make new ones.
I agree that we don't need any more professions, but I just don't see any other way around the Dev's stated objections.
The longer all this goes on, the more I wish we'd been able to see what the Devs had in mind for Droid Handler before we killed it. There's a remote but non-zero chance that it might have been cool. I think we might have been better off taking Droid Handler and convincing them to make it a mini-profession.
duncje wrote:
Kollos wrote:
It is a freebie. You're giving free new skills to Droid Engineers who already have the proposed pre-requisite. They don't have to pay a thing in order to get those new droid commander abilities. That's why I doubt it is going to happen.
It's not all about Droid Engineers, people. The devs told us that they're not going to give higher level combat droids to anyone without the additional expenditure of time, experience, and skill points. If you implemented this proposal today, I would get it all for free because I already have the pre-requisites.
Kollos, you have to take it as not being free, but that you've already paid for it. Or take it from the point of view of a starting player. The skills are not free. The point is you have to use the additional skill points, whether or not they have been used already.
Exactly. Its just serendipity you personally qualify.
Look at it from this point of view. Lets say 1% of the populace is DE (very generous). Of that 1% how many have ranged 4? 30%? 20%? be generous and say 50%. That still leaves 99.5% of the populace spending the skill points (in most cases the combatants adding the 39 points of artisan/DE)
So you're lucky. Consider it payment for the pain and suffering of being a broken profession for 9 months.
I know personally I have ranged support 2. So I'll have to work for it. Considering all the combinations possible. I doubt a Lot of people have DE 0040 and Ranged Support 0004 right now, im sure if the dev's are really concerned, they will run a query to get the exact numbers.
99.5% population spending points vs a New Profession
and 99.5% is a low number in my opinion.
Lonkley wrote:
duncje wrote:
Kollos wrote:
It is a freebie. You're giving free new skills to Droid Engineers who already have the proposed pre-requisite. They don't have to pay a thing in order to get those new droid commander abilities. That's why I doubt it is going to happen.
It's not all about Droid Engineers, people. The devs told us that they're not going to give higher level combat droids to anyone without the additional expenditure of time, experience, and skill points. If you implemented this proposal today, I would get it all for free because I already have the pre-requisites.
Kollos, you have to take it as not being free, but that you've already paid for it. Or take it from the point of view of a starting player. The skills are not free. The point is you have to use the additional skill points, whether or not they have been used already.
Exactly. Its just serendipity you personally qualify.
Look at it from this point of view. Lets say 1% of the populace is DE (very generous). Of that 1% how many have ranged 4? 30%? 20%? be generous and say 50%. That still leaves 99.5% of the populace spending the skill points (in most cases the combatants adding the 39 points of artisan/DE)
So you're lucky. Consider it payment for the pain and suffering of being a broken profession for 9 months.
I know personally I have ranged support 2. So I'll have to work for it. Considering all the combinations possible. I doubt a Lot of people have DE 0040 and Ranged Support 0004 right now, im sure if the dev's are really concerned, they will run a query to get the exact numbers.
99.5% population spending points vs a New Profession
and 99.5% is a low number in my opinion
Can someone dig out the Astromech numbers? i beleive they were only as to mastered profession, but let's just throw some more cold water on this with hard facts. I estimated a 2% DE population to be conservative.
Ok, this argument has been addressed. There is NO additional pre-req to the DE profession. The additional pre-req is for the USE of combat droids. A player could craft their way to MDE as they always have been able to under this plan. They cannot USE the combat droids until they spend the extra points on Ranged Support 4.
Ah, I see what you were trying to do. Do you think that the Devs can do that, though? Have skills in a skill tree that you don't get unless you have some other pre-requisite? Given the problems that they've had with various other ideas, this seems like a stretch to me. They apparently can't even see what's in your data pad, after all, so I think that their ability to do this is a MAJOR assumption.
If it is workable, though, it's an interesting concept.
I think it's easily workable as it's not adding a standard 'pre-requisite' as professions go. It's simply adding a single skill (+1 Active Droid) to Ranged 4! Completely useless without the + droid levels from DE, and vice versa.
ROFLMAO... thank you Lonkley, that was funny. Sad, but still funny.
Lonkley wrote:
I think we need to look over the verbage of the plan, if Kollos, who is a veteran DE, misses the key point. If he missed it, whats the chance TH will get it?
