Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Certs? NO! Make a Pet Skill Tree Never Seen before, something new.
Odysseusa wrote:
Don't make droids be able to solo a rancor. Why do people always have to assume extremes? Currently we have a droid that isn't worth throwing at meatlumps. TH, the devs, and apparently you assume we want a droid that can "solo rancors." Don't you think there is a CL somewhere in between?
I have allways felt this opinon of the current probot is way off base.
With my BH i am also a CH currently useing CL18 BE pets. My little probot can tank something just as well if not better in some cases due to it's armor.
I would not enter combat without it. It is a wonderful droid.
They craft AND use their own items. They also sell lower-level items to the general market.
That's actually a pretty good idea for a Droid Engineer class, if you want DEs to ever be able to use their own droids...
I like this Idea, Give the Droid Skill pts, have it go up in boxes really slow or fast depending on its use, and haveing a custom droid sounds cool.
Quote from The Star Wars Databank:
K-3PO (Kay-Threepio) was the property of Commander Narra, a veteran Alliance starfighter pilot who flew in the legendary Renegade Flight. Narra used K-3PO to record his memoirs and keep track of the numerous military engagements he was involved in over the years. After a while, K-3PO absorbed these stories and became a tactical expert.
I think this is what we need Droids that learn from us and become better with use. If I have to vote I say Yes to haveing a Droid that has a skill tree.
Jenden wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
This might be a possibility.
Assuming you want the removal of the DH profession idea and Droid Certifications is a big combat imbalance, adding a Droid Tree to the DE profession might be an option. It would probably work more like a "sprinkling" of Droid/Pet possibilities throughout the profession though. Otherwise you get a lopsided skill advancement.
How do you guys feel about something like this?
Same way I felt last time it was proposed that we put combat droids into the DE profession. I think its a terrible idea. I don't see how it improves the profession (I'll explain why, just hold on to the flame throwers for now) in any way.
Ok, so you throw some certs to combat droids in the DE tree. There are 2 results to this.
A: Combat droids are correctly balanced as to not make DE overpowered, which means they have no net effect on the profession. All it does is wastes resources. Making them a little more powerful than a probot lets someone solo slightly higher end mobs, but nothing that will really make a difference. You're not going to be able to go to dathomir and starting taking things down left and right (assuming you don't have any other combat skills). If you've got other combat skills, then you're essentially just puting the certs in those combat skills, as they're not affecting you because your a DE, they're affecting you because you're a (insert combat profession of choice here).
B: they are overpowered, meaning that either everyone and their brother becomes a DE (since you essentially get a combat and crafting profession for the bare minimum number of skill points) and/or the crafting portion of the profession gets castrated in an attempt to balance out the new found combat aspect.
With either result I wouldn't expect to see any of the great ideas we've thrown out on this forum for non-combat droids.
Jenden, you got it all wrong. So did TH. This would not be something for DE only. This would be avail to anyone who wants it. There would be no PLAYER SKILL TREES added. Rather, it would be a skill tree the droid would posess. It would have its own tree, its own skills to learn. Thereby, allowing anyone to use it...but only people who use it diligently to have it worth anything.
P.S. I also like the Memory Wipe thing. If traded between 2 players, 1 not being DE, the droid's memory is wiped and must have its skills started from scratch. (meaning if a new weapon had been put on it) that new owner would have to pay to have it swapped out for original weak weapon.
wasn't responding to your idea, was responding to TH's. I do, however, think your idea is flawed in the same way all the cert systems I've seen are. It raises the general combat capability of players, meaning that the general difficulty of the environment must be raised to restore balance, meaning players must use droids (weather they want to or not) in order to be as effective as they were/should be. Adding in a money or time sink doesn't change anything, most players have too much time and money on their hands, and those that don't aren't the ones that cause problems in this kind of system. If there is no permanent and restrictive cost to players (skill points) it just won't do anything.
Barfalomue wrote:
Jenden, you got it all wrong. So did TH. This would not be something for DE only. This would be avail to anyone who wants it. There would be no PLAYER SKILL TREES added. Rather, it would be a skill tree the droid would posess. It would have its own tree, its own skills to learn. Thereby, allowing anyone to use it...but only people who use it diligently to have it worth anything.
P.S. I also like the Memory Wipe thing. If traded between 2 players, 1 not being DE, the droid's memory is wiped and must have its skills started from scratch. (meaning if a new weapon had been put on it) that new owner would have to pay to have it swapped out for original weak weapon.
If I am reading this right, I think it is an awesome idea. This also makes droids more "Star Warsy", gives an organic method for gating, and still keeps everyone in the loop.
This means that instead of trying to fit something into the current rule system, the rules have to change a bit. That is perfectly fine by me. With this system, we can havedroids thatare basically real NPC's, rather than profession tools. The droid progresses seperately, although not completely independant, of the owner.
So as a master swordsman, I buy a "new" droid from a DE (er... make one). As I go out and fight, my droid is being trained. I spend points that the droid earns on learning new "droid" skills. After a time, the droid "levels up" and is much, much better than the level 10 pet he started out to be.
But I even like the notion that you have to spend something for the droid to level. How about XP? Lets use me as an example again. I am already a master swordsman, and my combat XP and sword XP is maxxed out. For me, experience gain does me no good at all. Well, I then start purchasing skills for my droid. The droid is still limited,and points are legitimately spent on the droid's skills. Instead of leveling myself up, I am leveling up the droid. It gives me something that is almost even akin to content. End-game kind of stuff.
Instead of making droids mindless tools, you would then have a personal investment in a droid.It becomes more useful as the player progresses. When I show off my powerful droid, it commands some respect. Even our utility droids could benefit from this idea. The hard caps can be expanded by experience.
Memory wipes make perfect sense. Maybe also a restraining bolt that actually costs the amount of experience to purchase as the droid has built up. So if you can "afford" the restraining bolt, you can avoid a memory wipe. I know this isn't simple, so it can probably be tossed. But it makes for some interesting droid play.
I wouldn't be quick to make them die easily, either. Make them require maintainence, and make them require something from the DE to keep them fit and healthy. We talked about a city building for DE's once, how about an Oil Bath that is a money sink. Let them grow and have personality. Even if it is mostly made-up. Almost the opposite of decay. They decay without attention, but we have several ways of making them great investments.
The more I think about it, the more I love it.
- Droid as NPC
- Droid gains skills with owner
- Droid isn't disposable
- Devs can put money sinks in place that will be a good trade-off for investment (less whining)
- No insta-uberdroids - still will have "pretty uber" droids, but not off the assembly line
- No trading of insta-uber droids
- 4 players does not necessarily = 8 players, unless droids are very old and a lot of experience has been spent on them. Then, why not?
Great start on an idea, Barfalomue.
i would be happy with any change, aslong as its not a new discussion.
this has been discussed for half a year now, and there is no DE playerbase to ask left cause most dropped and only a few hardcore crafters remained as it was the only skill of DEs.
i prefer to bring in the initial plan, just add new droids and new combat droids up to cl10 all sellable and usebale by everyone. and as a gift for des, a few droid related abilities, multiple droids out, boost and stuff and a special DE droid. des are not slaves for combat classes we need something special our own.
if it is really that playerprefer stop playing SWGthan havingtheir profession get a combat ability they could accidentially use one time. than there would really be needed to make DE (pure crafters) and DH(pure users).
/bump
As a very viable solution to the "droid issue" I feel this is not getting the proper consideration and fear this thread is getting buried.
The main ideas that are getting discussed are
A. DH/DE
B. Certs
Skill trees for droids requiring DE training/upgrading, time consuming advancement and customization, perma death for droids, and maybe a flat one time skill point cost sounds way better to me cuz it is just more fun.
Sounds decent. Couple ideas for it too.
1. DEs are the only ones able to have thier droids become "master droids" on thier skill trees. However it would only do something minor like "install a fusion generator" that would make it never use batteries. No one would climb the DE tree just for that but it could still be dang useful.
2. Make DEs able to sell to the public without the public selling to eachother... without DE help. If one non-DE wants to sell another his droid he will need to put a (DE crafted)restraining bolt on it, /consent the DE, and then the DE would get a new option on the radial menu for a memory wipe which basically returns the droid to deed form will all upgrades and xp lost.
Gonna post a link to the other new idea that cropped up, that way people will see both ideas I hope.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=53933