Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Hybrid DE Discussion: Melee Balance
SkyeDarkangel wrote:
Had the module certs been tried/denied already?
No but it is a combination of two other plans that have already gotten shot down SEVERAL times. Mere certifications in existing professions has been shot down by the devs. DE-only droids has been shot down by both devs (because the only way devs will allow it is to spread CL modifiers throughtout all 4 DE trees) and players (because DE only droids doesn't provide anything new to sell).
The beauth ofSodan's proposal is that (1) it consolidates all "Droid Level Points" into one tree so that you don't need the whole DE profession to have combat droids, and (2) it hybridizes combat droids so that DE is not the only requirement. This allows players to diversify their characters and promotes only minimal intrusion into the DE profession (discouraging increased competition...everyone would be full DEs if that was what it took to get combat droids).
You proposal has already been tried several ways and it has been shot down multiple times.
Thank you, was curious since they're adding Cert's for new modules in Publish 8.
SkyeDarkangel wrote:
Thank you, was curious since they're adding Cert's for new modules in Publish 8.
Certs for utility modules, yes. Certs for combat modules is a different (and ugly) animal that was beat to death until players finally cried for mercy and gave up...
Daker-Naritus wrote:See, that was my point TK...
If you add a +1 to the top of each brawler tree, you might as well add a +1 to the top of each marksman tree as well (because it would be unbalanced otherwise...if brawlers get it in a normal tree, marksman should too).
My thought was that almost all players have at least one marksman or brawler tree completed, so that turns this requirement into a nullity....everyone is going to do it anyway so it does nothing. The general effect would be a combat droid "certification" in all of the normal marksman and brawler trees. Certifications are bad...
Now, the ranged support tree....that is a little different. Not every marksman picks up the ranged support tree, because the specials you get out of it aren't that great. Additionally, it takes a bunch of combat xp to move up the tree (which can be gained through BOTH brawling AND marksmanning by the way...you don't have to use a gun to earn these). Many people view it as a waste of skill points and time. That is what makes it a good prerequisite for the combat droids...it is not something everyone already does.
If you wanted to make it marksman v. brawler fair, I think I would much rather see the requirement move from ranged support to a scout or other neutral tree. Then again, however, you have a problem....
All CHs already have to take up the 2 trees that it would be logical for this requirement to sit in. So you are stacking even more pet power in the CH prerequisites...
I really think the best solution is to put it in the ranged support tree and leave it. Honestly, the tree makes a good skill point sink that not everyone alkready does...
Well said. This is exactly why the only brawler equivelent I could think of would be Master Brawler. The skillpoint expenditure is much greater since there are 3 other trees to complete, but Master Brawler has a few perks all by itself. With the Warcry 'nerf' I 'm sure far fewer people will be taking up Master Brawler.
There is an evalutaion method, I could call, 'testing the limits' (Or what ever)
Take one box ranged 4, what is the skill cost. Ok, any ranged/melee box 4, cost the same ?
For a test imagine pplacing that qualifier in ANY lev 4 box. What skillpoints does that cost. Effectively Nothing. Because (virtually) Every body has a lev 4 box of some sort.
Like you said its a kludge. in ranged it would favor marksmen over melees. In both, it would still favor marksmen and melees, over CHs, or Tailors.
Ranged is a little more intuitive to think of as a requirement than melee. Neither are as intuitive as DE. And both are really 'free checkers'. But the same can be said of most any ramp requirement.
The only ramp requirement skillpoints that arnt 'free' are the ones that are largely or totally useless, to a player reaching the elite profession atop the 'ramp'. Commandos for example. How many commandos really use thier polearms, or two handed swords ?
Yeah, I didn't get that either.
JavelinCatcher wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Daker-Naritus wrote:
Alternatively, you could add the +1 to all 4 brawler trees. However this gets into the realm of "giving people extra checkers for something they already did without any extra effort" and makes it so that all brawlers can easily meet the requirement.
I'm starting think this might be possible...
Add a +4 to the top box in each tree................................however..............
A check is put in place such that a Master Brawler (or some variant that had other top box Brawler trees) would only receive the +4 once. Once you get it one top level Brawler box...that's that. The other 3 won't get you anything.
Basically, this is a 'cap' that would apply evenly to the Brawler but would provide the same benefit.
This would solve the melee vs. ranged issue.....sort of....
The only other sticking point would be that Brawler XP to get to a top box will be indescribably easier than gaining Combat XP for Ranged Support.
I'm keeping an eye on this (when I can)...great thread, Sodan. You da' man!
/bow
Respectfully,
Point of clarification, why should brawlers get +4 when Ranged folks would be capped at +1?
guy joins the devs for a weak and he's already starting to babble 
Sorry...I meant that to be +16.
Lonkley wrote:
guy joins the devs for a weak and he's already starting to babble
Yea, you're right. +1 at the top box for each Brawler tree. However, only one "+1" applies. They would not 'stack'.
Problem solved (except for the Combat XP-getting / time-gate thing).
/bow
Respectfully,
See, that was my point TK...
If you add a +1 to the top of each brawler tree, you might as well add a +1 to the top of each marksman tree as well (because it would be unbalanced otherwise...if brawlers get it in a normal tree, marksman should too).
My thought was that almost all players have at least one marksman or brawler tree completed, so that turns this requirement into a nullity....everyone is going to do it anyway so it does nothing. The general effect would be a combat droid "certification" in all of the normal marksman and brawler trees. Certifications are bad...
Now, the ranged support tree....that is a little different. Not every marksman picks up the ranged support tree, because the specials you get out of it aren't that great. Additionally, it takes a bunch of combat xp to move up the tree (which can be gained through BOTH brawling AND marksmanning by the way...you don't have to use a gun to earn these). Many people view it as a waste of skill points and time. That is what makes it a good prerequisite for the combat droids...it is not something everyone already does.
If you wanted to make it marksman v. brawler fair, I think I would much rather see the requirement move from ranged support to a scout or other neutral tree. Then again, however, you have a problem....
All CHs already have to take up the 2 trees that it would be logical for this requirement to sit in. So you are stacking even more pet power in the CH prerequisites...
I really think the best solution is to put it in the ranged support tree and leave it. Honestly, the tree makes a good skill point sink that not everyone alkready does...
In short let me express the concern this way:
Ranged support allows ranged professions to get access to droids more cheaply than melees.
Ranged support is already giving skills that are useful to ranged combatants and yet is worthless to a brawler.
Depending on how you look at it, the melee player is spending 15-29 more points on droids than ranged.
So this is certainly a significant inequity.
Now, certainly one can say: well yes, but I think ranged support just makes more sense and maybe melees shouldn't have droids cheaply anyway.
Well, first of all I disagree with this. There are many possible character stories that would result in a melee/droid user and I think they are just as valid as the ranged counterparts even if they might not personally appeal to all.
But more importantly, I think that a lesson that has been learned from initial problems with getting ideas straight for droids is that a story or vision of the game world cannot overcome fundamental game issues. No matter what we have to consider the underlying game. We have to look at this as a design problem in terms of game balance.
When thinking about game design issues I tend to think of them this way: whether things are balanced at this moment or not, the intent is that they will be and we should assume that this will indeed occur at some future point. Any changes that imbalance something one way will need to be corrected for now or later.
In this case giving an advantage to ranged will have to mean some counterbalance measure to maintain parity between profession groups. This will be bad in a couple of ways. First of all, we're already having enough problems balancing things. Second of all it will mean that ranged professions will have to take a cut in power (or melee an increase in power) for the OPTION of using droids and this will be bad for those ranged who do not actually choose to use droids.
I think that by its nature anything like this has to be fairly general.
What are you seeking to get out of using Ranged Support as a gate for this skill? The ability to hang the skill on one box? Well if so then I would note that ranged support is already required for squad leader and combat medics. Is it the combat xp? 30k combat xps for ranged support 1 would take an advanced players a couple of hours to obtain (less than an hour for myself FWIW and heck I'm capped out at 300k combat xps, enough to buy ranged support 10 times over).
You see there's another big issue for melee characters in that they already have problems picking other professions. There are already quite a number of advanced hybrid profs that rely on ranged skills (commando, smuggler, BH, SL, CM) and only two that have melee weapon prereqs (commando, smuggler) both of which are predominantly ranged based in their actual content (what combat content smugglers have revolves around pistols, and commandos are all about guns). Melees already have fairly limited options. Another example: it is possible to master combat medic and an elite ranged profession but not combat medic and an elite melee profession. Hybrid options for melees are are already severely lacking. Adding more to this is going to make a problem that already exists even larger.
For all of the above reasons, if this proposal is indeed taken on (i.e. gets through the devs) I really do hope that one of the first steps is looking at ways to open up droids for both sides of the combat spectrum.
Of course another reason to do this is that if the system uses ranged support it's going to sell pretty poorly with melee characters (who frequently bring up the lack of hybrid melee content). Politically/strategicallz speaking I think you shouldn't be so quick to make enemies. No, that's not a threat, just a prediction.
No matter what though whenever we're talking about systems like this, the implications for other professions can be nearly as important as those for the profession that is getting the content.Message Edited by StGabriel on 03-26-2004 02:55 AM