Droid Engineer Archive

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TheWoody wrote:

I'm not saying I don't support your idea here, but in the end it may come down to a decision on Sodan's plan or nothing.

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But how do we know until we try? Why can't we submit 2-3 proposals, priortized in the manner we see fit. My personal leaning would be I REALLY REALLY want the proposal I set forth above. If there is any the devs can handle it within the next 2-4 months, that is what I want. However, if (and only if) I had to swallow Sodan's plan because they devs wouldn't consider mine at all, I might go for that.

I guess that is my point...why settle? Why not propose what we really want, and see what the devs say. If we get nothing, we give a little more on our stance.

I think if you asked all DEs "If both Daker's plan and Sodan's plan are possible and acceptable to the devs...which would you ideally want?"...most would say my plan. Why not propose both, with one having the gold star endorsement and the other being the fallback, and see what happens?

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Daker-Naritus wrote:

...The DH proposal failed because it limited droids to the DEprofession (spread throughout) and didn't provide anything to sell to others...

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Actually, no. The DH proposal did not spread the droids through the DE profession. It spread them through the new Droid Handler profession.

The two primary objections to this appear to have been that many Droid Engineers wanted to be able to command the droids they built and because it created a smaller marketplace for the heavy combat droids (people wanted to be able to sell to anyone).

There were naturally other smaller issues which I am trying to weed out in a thread I started last week, but these were the primary objections.

I'm sorry mate, but we did ask, it was confirmed several times by Runesabre and Thunderheart that the 'mini-tree' idea was a no-go.

I tried searching for the threads but I think the search feature has been busted since they upgraded the forum boards. Can't seem to find anything before then (it claims I've only ever once posted about George Lucas, and I know I've made fun of him many more times than that while here )

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TheWoody wrote:

I'm sorry mate, but we did ask, it was confirmed several times by Runesabre and Thunderheart that the 'mini-tree' idea was a no-go...

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The Devs did also say that no existing class was going to get new certs but Sodan's proposal involves that very thing.

Basically the Dev's have said 'the solution can't involve X' on so many things that honestly there is no possible solution right now. All three statements can be attributed to Devs:

1. Players will have to be certified to have droids higher than level 10.

2. No current classes will be given new certificates.

3. We will not create any new classes.

If you can work out a solution that conforms to all three of those conditions and gives us droids that are greater than level 10 then you're a smarter guy than I am. The fact is that at least one of those rules is going to have to break.

Sodans doesn't need to involve certs though. It could very well work with just creature levels and rating there. Add in an extra flag saying 'this is a combat droid' to make use of the rating thing in the Ranged Support tree, then have a CL usage rating for combat droidsso that it works exactly the same as CH CL levels. (both of whichthey would have to have had anyway when they were initially made into the game for DC; and would similarly have to be added in to this one to avoid certs)

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Daker-Naritus wrote:

This proposal is totally different, and allows people to spenda balancedamount ofskill points outside the DE profession to get access to combat droids. It addresses the EXACT reason everyone shot the DH proposal down in the first place (limiting droids to only DEs).

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Misunderstandings aside. This proposal is EXACTLY the same asthe proposedDroid Handler profession, which the majority of swg players (including Non-De's) shot down last month in a thread with over 1200 messages. The only difference is its a new 4x2 grid (which is morework to implement)instead of a standard 4x4 grid.

I think Sodan's plan works best. It wasthe Dev's whooriginally suggested the hybrid class, so they must of felt at one time it was Ok to make DE a combatant, and I doubt they were even thinking of adding the Ranged Support we are suggesting. It was shot down by the community because the community wanted everyone to have droids. Hence the "we want a droid handler". We didnt, and the majority of the playerbase agreed. So now we go back to step 1 knowing what we didnt know then, that our choice is VERY limited.

Arguing it doesn't involve certs is semantics. What the devs were saying is that current classes won't get to control the new droids because that involves giving something toone class and not another.

Even if you were to accept that it's not simply a bit of linguistic trickery, now you are violating the first rule.

Like I said, obviously one of the rules has to be broken, there's really no way around that. I think it is a product of multiple people trying to say what they believe cannot happen and combined they paint an impossible picture. The problem is in figuring out who misspoke.

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Lonkley wrote: [snipped]

Misunderstandings aside. This proposal is EXACTLY the same asthe proposedDroid Handler profession, which the majority of swg players (including Non-De's) shot down last month in a thread with over 1200 messages. The only difference is its a new 4x2 grid (which is morework to implement)instead of a standard 4x4 grid.

I think Sodan's plan works best. It wasthe Dev's whooriginally suggested the hybrid class, so they must of felt at one time it was Ok to make DE a combatant, and I doubt they were even thinking of adding the Ranged Support we are suggesting. It was shot down by the community because the community wanted everyone to have droids.

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I don't thing that the devs gave anywhere as much detail as this, which contributed to the misunderstanding. I do recall them saying "mini-profession" and interpreting it as less than 4 columns myself. And I particularly recall that they never said what the pre-requsites might be, because that concerned me a lot.

I would prefer Sodan's plan as well, though I don't think it would be acceptable to require combat experience to master the profession, which seems an implied possibility.

Neither gives much of a market for droids, I expect, unless the DC profession is suprisingly popularand slow enoughto master that everyone buys new droids at each level. Droids need a wider market, and there are other proposals that offer that possibility. E.G.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=59251&page=1

Does anyone remember this post? TH said they had given up the idea of a separate profession back in January.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=22719#M22719

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duncje wrote:

Good ideas here as well. I just have a couple issues, given the current state of DE.

• This proposal would be much harder to add in terms of game developmentthan the other one. it just seems that the other profession is much more implementablefrom the devs point of view.

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Actually....you could have just stopped right here.


I think the time available for us is key to 'the answer'.


This is a great proposal as well Daker and exactly the kind of thing we need for most everything coming our way.

Really.


/bow

Respectfully,

While the New correspondant is being decided on I'm going to link tothe ideas for implementing Combat Droids from the In Development forum so we have a chance of TH responding to them and see what the possibilities are.

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

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duncje wrote:

Good ideas here as well. I just have a couple issues, given the current state of DE.

• This proposal would be much harder to add in terms of game developmentthan the other one. it just seems that the other profession is much more implementablefrom the devs point of view.

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Actually....you could have just stopped right here.


I think the time available for us is key to 'the answer'.


This is a great proposal as well Daker and exactly the kind of thing we need for most everything coming our way.

Really.


/bow

Respectfully,

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Daker, of all the proposals that have been discussed over what feels like eons of time, yours is the second most workable I have seen.

I prefer Sodan's proposal because it is simpler and fits in with what Runesabre is apparently thinking (he does not want to add in new professions where thay are not needed). I also think you are being over worried about 'your market' being adversely affected by this mythical flood of dabblers, but there we disagree.

So

Choice 1 - Sodan's proposal

Only if that one cannot be done could I support this proposal, and then only because it is better than nothing, which is the only other option at this point. I do appreciate your work on this though.