Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Sodan's Hybrid DE Proposal
Well, I agree with your percentages... but I don't see how we can avoid talking about CL when the entire pet system is built on CL levels (the same system they implemented that is "so different" than what Holocron had in mind when he was talking about Certifications).
Lonkley wrote:
In all these discussions, we should stop talking about CL. We have no idea what droids they are planning. The devs will place the appropriate content into to the tree. We cant get hung up on language. so therefore, I propose we just go by percentages.
100% of MaxCL at MDE
75% of MaxCL at Box 4
55% of MaxCL at Box 3
40% of MaxCL at Box 2
25% of MaxCL at Box 1
10% of MaxCL Novice
shuffle numbers as you like, but basically 100% at MDE, and let the devs decide the capped CL.
/bow
Lonkley wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
If the hybrid thing can work, then I'm all for it. My fear is that if they come back and do anything that smacks of saying "No." that our one voice will waffle again into something new.
there's nothing "new" to change to tk.
By "new", I meant some other proposal (of the many that have been floated and never responded to)...
we've always had 3 choices
1) Certs - They didn't say this wasn't possible to code. They said it was too time/money intensive. Basically, droids don't rate high enough in their book to get what would be the "best" fix...so we have to choose something else.
2) Hybrid - As best as I can tell, they have not totally shut the door on this but I'm betting they haven't yet seen a proposal that meets their requirements. We don't know....they won't actually show up and TALK about it.
3) DH - This was the plan from WAY back. Some of you may remember the post where they stated that they had 'considered the options' and this one was the one they 'decided was best'.
This last part is important because what I hear (in Devvy-Dev speak) is:
"We are going to do this."
The amount of work that they did to make this occur says to me that they will only trash this idea and undo all that work if, and ONLY if, we come up with some hybrid system that they couldn't think of...
Does anyone honestly see that happening? Shouldn't we be considering the fact that they likely did consider a hybrid situation and (for whatever reason they won't tell us) it was shot down?
Devs said no to #1
Players said no to #3
all thats left is #2, or nothing, or #3 at a later date, probably Space, where they will slip it in a new profession.
I'm all for #2 (I think Sodan's proposal is one of the better that I've seen). I suspect that it won't quite pass muster for the Devs or they'd have gone that route right from the beginning.
I realistically believe that #3 is not the best solution but will get >CL10 combat droids into the game sooner, since some amount of the work (50%? 80%?) has already been done.
Ripping the guts out of what they have changed already (on the way to #3) will be:
- time consuming
- may cause bugs to occur (that might not otherwise be there, had we simply
accepted option #3)
- may not be possible from their viewpoint vis a vis balance, etc.
- may lead to those much feared 'uber templates' that they are so horribly afraid of...
- << Insert obvious Dev concerns here >>
Let's assume for a second that #2 is an option (and they agree to it). However, getting there means that we won't see the system roll out for, say, another 4 months. However, if were to simply accept #3 (which is already some portion complete), we might have the new changes in P9 (maybe 2 months off).
What's the 'voice' then? Would you rather wait for a system that MIGHT not be better (we have to consider that possibility) or would you rather have a system that you find distasteful get >CL10 droids into the game sooner?
I think that's really the tradeoff that we're looking at here, folks.
Respectfully,
Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 03-05-2004 10:37 AM
Virtanis wrote:
Sodan,
I'm all for Hybrid DE's, and I've voiced similar opinions in the past.
My biggest problem with this is twofold:
1) Combat droids of very high power (CL35) really don't belong in this setting of SWG (and even the developers have said the same recently).
This argument doesn't really hold water, there are already High powered NPC droids in the game. If they don't belong in the game, why are there high level Droid Mobs? And they are adding new droid mobs to the game with the Super Battle Droid. So to say high powered droids don't belong is counter-intiutive to the Devs actions.
2) CL35 is just too much, IMO, when you take into consideration Medium Armor and 40% resists across the board. (And no, I'm not in that camp that believes the Probot is too powerful, but a CL35, Medium armor, 40% resists would be hella powerful, you have to recognize that!).
It's all in how much HAM the droids have, and how much damage they do. If you have lower HAM and higher armor, it balances out. Or if you have low damage and high armor, it balances out. The key here is the implementation.
-----
If we knocked the max CL level down to say 25, then my two concerns above would be nullified and I'd fully support this idea.
I say just stand behind the basic idea, and let the Devs tweak the numbers to balance it into the game. The basic proposal is a good idea, and a solid one.
Virtanis wrote:
Sodan,
I'm all for Hybrid DE's, and I've voiced similar opinions in the past.
My biggest problem with this is twofold:
1) Combat droids of very high power (CL35) really don't belong in this setting of SWG (and even the developers have said the same recently).
2) CL35 is just too much, IMO, when you take into consideration Medium Armor and 40% resists across the board. (And no, I'm not in that camp that believes the Probot is too powerful, but a CL35, Medium armor, 40% resists would be hella powerful, you have to recognize that!).
-----
If we knocked the max CL level down to say 25, then my two concerns above would be nullified and I'd fully support this idea.
Knocking the CL lvl down to 25 is ok in my book to account for the armor; I'm totally ok with this.On the other hand, its not as if CL 35 CH pets do not have armor, but we'll have to look into that.
Down the line it would be also be cool to have customizable armor with adjustable resists. That would make the lower CL 25 lvl ok. Cna someone, maybe a CH-- gasp -- help us out here with stats of typical Cl 25 and Cl 35 pets. I could not find an easy list after lookign around.
Sure, you're right. The CL lvls will be evenly distributed. But I think its important to make reference to CL lvls so we can do the CL lvl/skill point math -- in fact we must for balance sake and so TH and company understand..
Lonkley wrote:
2) CL35 is just too much, IMO, when you take into consideration Medium Armor and 40% resists across the board. (And no, I'm not in that camp that believes the Probot is too powerful, but a CL35, Medium armor, 40% resists would be hella powerful, you have to recognize that!).
In all these discussions, we should stop talking about CL. We have no idea what droids they are planning. The devs will place the appropriate content into to the tree. We cant get hung up on language. so therefore, I propose we just go by percentages.
100% of MaxCL at MDE
75% of MaxCL at Box 4
55% of MaxCL at Box 3
40% of MaxCL at Box 2
25% of MaxCL at Box 1
10% of MaxCL Novice
shuffle numbers as you like, but basically 100% at MDE, and let the devs decide the capped CL.
/agree with both of you. I will modify the proposal to add a CL 25-35 variable.
duncje wrote:
Virtanis wrote:
Sodan,
I'm all for Hybrid DE's, and I've voiced similar opinions in the past.
My biggest problem with this is twofold:
1) Combat droids of very high power (CL35) really don't belong in this setting of SWG (and even the developers have said the same recently).
This argument doesn't really hold water, there are already High powered NPC droids in the game. If they don't belong in the game, why are there high level Droid Mobs? And they are adding new droid mobs to the game with the Super Battle Droid. So to say high powered droids don't belong is counter-intiutive to the Devs actions.
2) CL35 is just too much, IMO, when you take into consideration Medium Armor and 40% resists across the board. (And no, I'm not in that camp that believes the Probot is too powerful, but a CL35, Medium armor, 40% resists would be hella powerful, you have to recognize that!).
It's all in how much HAM the droids have, and how much damage they do. If you have lower HAM and higher armor, it balances out. Or if you have low damage and high armor, it balances out. The key here is the implementation.
-----
If we knocked the max CL level down to say 25, then my two concerns above would be nullified and I'd fully support this idea.
I say just stand behind the basic idea, and let the Devs tweak the numbers to balance it into the game. The basic proposal is a good idea, and a solid one.
Virtanis wrote:
1) Combat droids of very high power (CL35) really don't belong in this setting of SWG (and even the developers have said the same recently).
This argument doesn't really hold water, there are already High powered NPC droids in the game. If they don't belong in the game, why are there high level Droid Mobs? And they are adding new droid mobs to the game with the Super Battle Droid. So to say high powered droids don't belong is counter-intiutive to the Devs actions.
It does hold water... those droids are NPC's and cannot be player controlled. The Droidekasare leftovers of the Trade Federation's invasion of Lok, etc, etc, etc. This discussion revolves around a method to get droids into player's hands, and, players shouldn't have control over extremely powerful droids that the Empire has outlawed at this time in the game. Even Runesabre said this much in thebig Droid Invasion thread.SOE already dropped the ball with Creature pets and immersion, andI seriously believethey're not going to make that same mistake again with droids.
2) CL35 is just too much, IMO, when you take into consideration Medium Armor and 40% resists across the board. (And no, I'm not in that camp that believes the Probot is too powerful, but a CL35, Medium armor, 40% resists would be hella powerful, you have to recognize that!).
It's all in how much HAM the droids have, and how much damage they do. If you have lower HAM and higher armor, it balances out. Or if you have low damage and high armor, it balances out. The key here is the implementation.
Agreed... and we have no clue how they're going toimplement the devilish details. You can assume though that they're probably going to be working on a scale similar to the CL stats, abilities, damage, and ratings of CHcreature pets (because they're not going to re-work their monolithic pet system to apply it to a more agile or dynamic droid pet system).
-----
If we knocked the max CL level down to say 25, then my two concerns above would be nullified and I'd fully support this idea.
I say just stand behind the basic idea, and let the Devs tweak the numbers to balance it into the game. The basic proposal is a good idea, and a solid one.
I'm all for getting a plan to the Dev's that they're not going to take one look at and pronounce it as "overpowered, NEXT..." We need to be concerned about this just as much as they would.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
/bow
Lonkley wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
If the hybrid thing can work, then I'm all for it. My fear is that if they come back and do anything that smacks of saying "No." that our one voice will waffle again into something new.
there's nothing "new" to change to tk.
By "new", I meant some other proposal (of the many that have been floated and never responded to)...
we've always had 3 choices
1) Certs - They didn't say this wasn't possible to code. They said it was too time/money intensive. Basically, droids don't rate high enough in their book to get what would be the "best" fix...so we have to choose something else.
2) Hybrid - As best as I can tell, they have not totally shut the door on this but I'm betting they haven't yet seen a proposal that meets their requirements. We don't know....they won't actually show up and TALK about it.
3) DH - This was the plan from WAY back. Some of you may remember the post where they stated that they had 'considered the options' and this one was the one they 'decided was best'.
This last part is important because what I hear (in Devvy-Dev speak) is:
"We are going to do this."
The amount of work that they did to make this occur says to me that they will only trash this idea and undo all that work if, and ONLY if, we come up with some hybrid system that they couldn't think of...
Does anyone honestly see that happening? Shouldn't we be considering the fact that they likely did consider a hybrid situation and (for whatever reason they won't tell us) it was shot down?
Devs said no to #1
Players said no to #3
all thats left is #2, or nothing, or #3 at a later date, probably Space, where they will slip it in a new profession.
I'm all for #2 (I think Sodan's proposal is one of the better that I've seen). I suspect that it won't quite pass muster for the Devs or they'd have gone that route right from the beginning.
I realistically believe that #3 is not the best solution but will get >CL10 combat droids into the game sooner, since some amount of the work (50%? 80%?) has already been done.
Ripping the guts out of what they have changed already (on the way to #3) will be:
- time consuming
- may cause bugs to occur (that might not otherwise be there, had we simply
accepted option #3)
- may not be possible from their viewpoint vis a vis balance, etc.
- may lead to those much feared 'uber templates' that they are so horribly afraid of...
- << Insert obvious Dev concerns here >>
Let's assume for a second that #2 is an option (and they agree to it). However, getting there means that we won't see the system roll out for, say, another 4 months. However, if were to simply accept #3 (which is already some portion complete), we might have the new changes in P9 (maybe 2 months off).
What's the 'voice' then? Would you rather wait for a system that MIGHT not be better (we have to consider that possibility) or would you rather have a system that you find distasteful get >CL10 droids into the game sooner?
I think that's really the tradeoff that we're looking at here, folks.
Respectfully,
Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 03-05-2004 10:37 AM
Runesabre has said that he is against adding new professions until existing ones are fixed. The so-called "Invasion" is not the fix to DE.At least it doesn't seem that way with what's on Test and the limited knowledge we have of P8. If DH/DC is not getting put in the game until DE is fixed, that's further down the road than you're guessing.
The Hybrid DE is the perfect stepping stone to DH/DC as well. They give Hybrid DE's some mid-level combat droids, and it leaves the door open for higher powered droids at the controls of a separate profession down the road. And it's a fix (maybe not a fix-all, but at least a partial fix) for DE which would allow them to add professions such as DH/DC probably more quickly, rather than less.
I'm guessing a lot of the work they've done on the DH/DC profession (we're all assuming this was at least in the works, which may not even be the case) could be "cut down" a bit to fit into Sodan's proposal. If they did something this beneficial to the DE profession, I'd be willing to wait, what's a few more months?
Shensen wrote:
Thanks for the explanations. So here's what I'm understanding out of this. We enable people to earn points so they can use high level combat droids, which in turn gives us a better market to sell in. Sounds good so far. There was a comment that said something like "Many DE's will want to use combat droids..." so are you saying that a Master DE in the current system can make everything and make it the best, but cannot use combat droids without spending skillpoints elsewhere? Oh my brain hurts
I'm all for anything making Master DE a better profession. I would not want to have to sink anymore points into anything...it's bad enough spending the points for MDEwith it being as useless as it is. And what's with the damn resource spawns? Lidium extrusive, Duralumin Aluminum, Dioxis Gas...gimme a break. If we have to be useless then at least remove the "specialized" resources so we can make the best useless stuff lol.
Hey sleepy head how's the coffee? lol! 
MDEs will be able to make all the droids and all the modules as usual, if they want to be able to USE the combat droids, they would need to have some combat skills -- a lvl 4 tree in marksman or brawler.
The system for enforcing this is ALREADY in place. When you call out a pet and you lack the skills it gives you an error message saying some thing like "you lack the skills to control this creature". Under this proposal, MDEs would be able to make all the droids they could always make, but they would also need the aforementioned combat skills to CONTROL the combat droids.
The only problem I could see would be mechanics of requiring 'a' level 4 combat branch instead of a specific one, since no other skill tree works this way. The closest analogue I can think of would be to require ranged support 4, much like squad leader.
Virtanis wrote:
If we knocked the max CL level down to say 25, then my two concerns above would be nullified and I'd fully support this idea.
I say just stand behind the basic idea, and let the Devs tweak the numbers to balance it into the game. The basic proposal is a good idea, and a solid one.
I'm all for getting a plan to the Dev's that they're not going to take one look at and pronounce it as "overpowered, NEXT..." We need to be concerned about this just as much as they would.
Virt,
Are your concerns resolved if the proposal is changed to CL 25? I am modifying it so that the devs can choose from somewhere between CL 25-35 since we do not know how much HAM is involved on the droids.
Mmmm, much better now thx 
I like the idea then since I already have all of the unarmed tree.
Coffee is GOOD.
<Force sip> 
duncje wrote:
Runesabre has said that he is against adding new professions until existing ones are fixed.
If that's true, then DH should never have been on the table (much less had any work done on it to bring it to release, of which quite a LOT was done...as I understand). The fact that it nearly was released shows this to be patently false.
You'll note that he only made the statement that you attribute to him after the whole DH thing blew up on the boards.
The so-called "Invasion" is not the fix to DE.At least it doesn't seem that way with what's on Test and the limited knowledge we have of P8. If DH/DC is not getting put in the game until DE is fixed, that's further down the road than you're guessing.
Runesabre stated that the "Droid Invasion" really is contained together in P7 and P8 together. They will start the 'invasion' in 7 and finish in 8.
The original plan (as I understand it) was to release DH/DC with Publish 8. So, they MUST have had a pretty good amount of work done on this. I think that DH was closer to reality than YOU think...and we slammed the brakes on it.
The Hybrid DE is the perfect stepping stone to DH/DC as well. They give Hybrid DE's some mid-level combat droids, and it leaves the door open for higher powered droids at the controls of a separate profession down the road.
I definitely do NOT see this happening. You're talking about 2 fixes instead of one. With the other professions, bugs, missions, themeparks, Space Expansion, etc. that they have to work on...they have to work on their development 'economy' for each profession "fix".
I suspect we will get one, or the other, but not both.
And it's a fix (maybe not a fix-all, but at least a partial fix) for DE which would allow them to add professions such as DH/DC probably more quickly, rather than less.
Not if a ton of work to make DH/DC was already completed and/or laid out.
I'm guessing a lot of the work they've done on the DH/DC profession (we're all assuming this was at least in the works, which may not even be the case) could be "cut down" a bit to fit into Sodan's proposal. If they did something this beneficial to the DE profession, I'd be willing to wait, what's a few more months?
About $50-60 for each player that gives a rat's ____.
/bow
Respectfully,