Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Pertinent stuff from the chat
I have to agree with the devs, the old probots were out of place. With 5 probots (used one after another)and at the time pistoleer 4000, master smuggler, I was able to solo a Peko Peko Albatross.......
When you go into the wild now there is no creature under something like level 40 with any armor at all. Now my personal opinnion, droids should at least have light armor but they dont. I alsothink that the current probots, with no armor, should have at least 3200 HAM.
What it comes down to, If you want to tank become one of the brawler professions. If you want a pet to tank for solo play, become a CH. Otherwise find a group and get another player to tank for you. Not everyone SHOULD be able to solo the entire game and good probots that everyone can use sure does help that along too much.
The issue is the DE's missed their day in the sun. Sure, this new regime may be how the BE pets WILL BECOME, but until then, pets are still too much better than droids for DEs to get their chance to shine.
RbT
TheRealTK421 wrote:/bow
GnomeAd wrote:Brannoc *puddy* Hi, with the implementation of the Droid Invasion, many DE's feel cheated. The "combat droids" are much lower than BE'd pets, and more or less useless in all but the lowest level combat, what can you say to the DE's that are dropping the profession because they feel let down ? ThanksKeldarin We know that level 10 BE pets are still overpowered. We are still trying to tweak the power levels of the low level cloned pets.Keldarin The goal is to get the droids to be comparable in power to those cloned pets.Keldarin Situationally they will have different advantages but neither should be straight out better than the other.
What I took away from this is that our combat CL droid power/level is correct but its the BE creatures that are out of whack. At some future point, this will obviously be corrected. Then, we will be on a more level playing field in terms of a combat market.
However, they ARE supposed to be (by design) for lower-level players. They aren't designed to be used in higher-level combat situations.
Brannoc ·Dhashian· Are there any plans to restore the Probot medium armour, because right now it has no tanking abilities, which is the main point of the combat droids.Runesabre In order to maintain the proper combat balance of the game, it was necessary to reduce the probot armor to appropriate levels. The current probot armor was akin to what a level 150 creature would have.
Hmmm...that sounds like respectable armor to me (but I'm not a combat 'nut').
Respectfully,
Designed by use for lower level players doing WHAT?
If the current probot stats, as an example, are where they're actually aiming to drag BE creations down to... who do you think is GOING to use these droids (or pets for that matter)? At least with CL10 'useless' pets you could have it be a mount. Is the only use any of your droids going to have be the crafting station module, or storage module? Because aside from those uses (which are highly situational at best), i can't think of a single thing I could do with EITHER of my characters with a droid statted in that range.
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
I think your misinterprating. He said: "In order to maintain the proper combat balance of the game, it was necessary to reduce the probot armor to appropriate levels. The current probot armor was akin to what a level 150 creature would have."
When you've cooled of a bit, and read it a few times, don't you think what he said actually sounds a lot more like "the old armourof a probot was the same as the kind of armour you would've found on a lvl 150 pet." or "Level 150 critters would be expected to have an armour like that".
He does not mention the probot's damage, speed or HAM. He does not (the way I read it) talk about the probot as an entitity, at all. He is not saying that pre-patch probots are level 150 pets. He's refering to the armour and nothing but the armour.
He is saying the had the kind of armour that usually belong on level 150 pets.
This is the correct interpretation of what I was saying in the chat.
Runesabre,
Just to further put this in perspective, what is the relative AR (to a comparable mob) CL level as it stands right now (in P7)?
I'm thinking we are at about CL35ish....yes?
/bow
Respectfully,
GnomeAd wrote:
KeldarinSo I hope everyone has been enjoying the new Combat Droids in the lastest Publish, Droid Invasion. We have even more planned for the upcomming publish with additional droid modules to add lots of new utility and fun functionality to brings droids even more to the forefront of the SWG Universe.
In other words, we're working on it, be patient
THAlso, the Live Events team has been running some great live events with the droids in many cities.
Spawning in city for rampant slaughters until they're all dead. Not bad.
Brannoc*Ryu_KnT* what kind of droids are in the works? and about the rumor of the Droid Handler class, is it possible or just rumor?
BlairWe are discussing a lot of options for the droid commander. We have floated a lot of ideas by the community but I don't think we've come up with what the "right" solution is. We want to get high level combat droids into the game for you, but not unbalance what we have.
Funny, we came up with the "right" solution a couple months ago (allow combat droid certs that cost skill points equivalent to what a CH spends in order to activate the certs, hence lessening what a character can spend on their avatar's combat abilities and therefore maintaining balance)
Brannoc*Shiggins* Hi Devs , Just Wondering How Many New Driods do we Expect is Publish 8 if any?
RunesabrePublish 8 will see the introduction of several new and interesting droid utility modules. We also have some new droids coming up in some of the new adventures we are developing.
IE, new modules and PvE droids.
HadenThe "blastromech" you've seen in the newsletter will be showing up eventually as part of a dungeon.
IE, PvE droids in the Corellian Corvette
Brannoc*Llith* how often will these invasions happen and where can they take place? like the one in theed last night
THWith regards to the "Droid Invasion" live events, we have have run the event at least once on each server. We are continuing through the weekend. You can check the official site and the Live Events forums for more info on Pex's events.
IE, most of the players on the server won't catch these events, but maybe Pex will pre-announce them so we can crash the city
HadenWe'll also try to "automate" all successful events, like the droid invasion live event.
HadenIn the Imperial Crackdown, for example, we took a live event that was very well-received and added it to the game as a scripted event.
Judging from the lack-luster implementation of the Imperial Crackdown (aka Rebel Faction Farm), this doesn't instill much confidence.
Brannoc*puddy* Hi, with the implementation of the Droid Invasion, many DE's feel cheated. The "combat droids" are much lower than BE'd pets, and more or less useless in all but the lowest level combat, what can you say to the DE's that are dropping the profession because they feel let down ? Thanks
KeldarinWe know that level 10 BE pets are still overpowered. We are still trying to tweak the power levels of the low level cloned pets.
Still trying to tweak? Is it really that difficult?
KeldarinThe goal is to get the droids to be comparable in power to those cloned pets.
So why was the goal not met in Publish 7?
KeldarinSituationally they will have different advantages but neither should be straight out better than the other.
Duh.
Brannoc·Dhashian· Are there any plans to restore the Probot medium armour, because right now it has no tanking abilities, which is the main point of the combat droids.
RunesabreIn order to maintain the proper combat balance of the game, it was necessary to reduce the probot armor to appropriate levels. The current probot armor was akin to what a level 150 creature would have.
That's reasonable
Brannoc*Valeria* When are there going to be new player controlled droids added to the game?
BlairWe have plans to implement new droid modules for the next publish. Additionally our art team is hard at work on new droids. We rolled out additional combat droids wiht publish 7 that you will see in a few weeks.
BlairWith each publish more droids will be released.
IE, question not answered. New modules are not new player controlled droids. New droids in the Corellian Corvette are not new player controlled droids.
Brannoc·K[r]u|aw|· Have you ever considered addind some kind of looted or quest rewarded droid components/modules that could bring the droids up par to, let's say a Bio-Engineered non-ch pet ?
BlairWe really want to add additional high level combat droids to the game. It's fun, it's Starwars, and I love the idea of having a droid in combat.
So do we.
BlairThe key thing is to make sure we aren't unbalancing the game as a result.
We already figured that one out for you.
BlairJust handing high level combat droids to players, even on a limited basis, wouldn't be a good idea.
Correct, and that's not what we're asking for (see above)
Message Edited by GnomeAd on 03-18-2004 08:23 PM
SWG-Runesabre wrote:I think your misinterprating. He said: "In order to maintain the proper combat balance of the game, it was necessary to reduce the probot armor to appropriate levels. The current probot armor was akin to what a level 150 creature would have."When you've cooled of a bit, and read it a few times, don't you think what he said actually sounds a lot more like "the old armourof a probot was the same as the kind of armour you would've found on a lvl 150 pet." or "Level 150 critters would be expected to have an armour like that".He does not mention the probot's damage, speed or HAM. He does not (the way I read it) talk about the probot as an entitity, at all. He is not saying that pre-patch probots are level 150 pets. He's refering to the armour and nothing but the armour.He is saying the had the kind of armour that usually belong on level 150 pets.This is the correct interpretation of what I was saying in the chat.
Er, k? What creatures are we talking about again? CL145 Peko Peko albatross, i.e. 'weaker' than the prenerf probot medium armor with 40% resists, has Heavy Armor and 100% resists to kinetic and higher than 40 in most everything else. 40-50 times the HAM too with special attacks I believe. Ok, well thanks for putting the 'game' one step further away from Star Wars. If I wanted to play Everquest I would sign up for that.
Padre
Thats my whole point
It doesnt matter that the probot was AR2 it still has only 1k HAM. At least people could have a little Starwars.
For heavens sake it's armour might have been like an Albatross...BUT NOTHING ELSE WAS so where was the crime??
The damned thing is now unplayable with, and thats from one who makes them.
Un-nerf that armour or put some HAM into it, but at least make it playable.
I have ominous feelings for BE in all this too.....and no, I don't want them nerfed down to our level, that would be even more silly than where the Probot is now.
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-19-2004 08:43 AM
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
You surely didn't think a Probot was overpowered before Pub 7, surely not. Have you actually played using one?
I don't know about you, but I've played using one. Is the pre-7 Probot overpowered? Yes and no. Pre-7, it was not overpowered as it was, because you could not heal it. Once it had expended its life, you had to store it and let it heal naturally, drastically decreasing its usefulness. But that isn't the case anymore with droid repair kits, is it now? (At least once they are working correctly, which atm I hear they might not be?) Suddenly you have a 900 HAM ar2 40% across the board resist little beast that can be healed. What does that mean? Well, firstly, if you care to do the math the probot has an effective 6k HAM bar against all damage types. Impressive, but what if you're healing it too? If you just had a 6k HAM droid, healing it for say 500 points of damage is just that... healing 500 points of damage. But if you have a 900 HAM ar2 40% droid, healing it for 500 points of damage isn't 500 points anymore. It is healing it for about 3300 damage, once you factor in damage reductions.
Once you add in the ability to heal this puppy, it puts to shame even the most twisted and exploited of BE created critters during their prime using bugged DNA. So a pre-7 Probot IS overpowered... in a post-7 environment. Current BE's can't make a NCH pet even remotely this good anymore, since they tightened up the restrictions even further in pub7.
And since we're talking about DE's now, maybe you should all consider laying the **edit** off of TK421? He has the hideously unenviable position of both deliveringoften unpleasant information to the DE community from the Devs, AND he has to hold back the tidal wave of illogical raving seething bile that half of this community is spewing forth. Most of you wouldn't do half so well, armchair correspondents the lot of ya.
Padre
PadreBook wrote:
The BE correspondent just said in another thread that he doesn't believe that the dna was bugged it is just a reflection of the wacky crafting system.
Padre
po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe... Bugged or not, certain DNA's allowed BE's to break the system.