Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Poll Do you want to be a crafter or a combat class?
My opinion is that DEs should be the provider of assistants to all the other professions. What we already have is a limited version of that, but this can be expanded.
In particular, for the issue of combat droids, I see our role as providing mid-level protection for low-level combatants. For all the pure entertainers, pure crafters, pure (non-combat) medics, our droids should be better than their own capability, but not as good as an elite combat character. Ideally, a droid would be comparable to a Master Brawler or Master Marksman with no elite profession and no special maneuvers.
For those with elite combat professions, the droid in no way replaces them. In aone-on-one combat droid vs. elite commando, the commando should win handily. But for a non-combat character the droid provides a significant "survival boost" in the wilds, or for example protecting the medic who wants to help in PvP. Set the droid up, let it intecept or absorb shots fired at the medic, buying the medic time to escape at the cost (possibly) of his droid's vitality.
Obviously, a combat character WITH a combat droid would have an advantage over a combat character without one.
Given all this, I would like fornew droids to be usable by anyone, but maybe a DE can use more than one (with restrictions).
Well.. i for one see it like this.
Creaturehandler learn how a pet works. And can use it in battle after training. They learn to control them and the better they get the more they learn about the animals and how tocontrol tougher pets.
Droidengineers: Well.. basicly. We can build and program them.. but dont know how to use them? Dont sound good to me. This is machines that do as we program them too.. not living thing with minds of their own.
It should be optional. Those that want to craft.. craft. Those that want to learn how to control tougher droids must learn how they work first.. thus have to achive some skill in droidengineering.
Just how i see it =).
how many times is this going to be brought up? this has been argued over and over and over in hundreds of threads. crafter/combat, crafter/combat, crafter/combat.
DE is not solely a crafting profession, nor is it a dedicated combat profession. We're lucky in that we can do both to some extent and the probability is that we're going to be able to do a LOT more sometime in the near future. I don't want to be pigeonholed into being a pure crafter class and I also don't want to be pigeonholed into being a pure combat class either. We're DE's and we do it all, baby!I'm going to wait and see what the fine folks at SOE and lucasarts have planned for us, and then I'm going to get on with the business of ENJOYING the game as a droid engineer.
The closest word describing how I want to be, is Hybrid.
Since I keep erasing my motivation and trying to reforumlate it, I'll keep it simple: The way I always saw the Droid Engineer when I first decided I wanted to be one (before they upped to skill point cap to 250) was something like this;
It's nota "pure" crafting profession, since we essentially make pets with various uses.
It's not a "pure" creature handling profession, since we create our pets (that, and compared to a CH they're so underpowered it's not even funny)
I want to be a kind of combined profession, based of crafting, dipping into creature handler and bio-engineer, moving so far in the edge of combat that we'll at least get an honorary mention after a fight. As of right now, we're a reduced crafting class due to bugs, inbalances (de-cay) and general usability to anyone but other crafters, we're not even in the CH/BE family tree (probot schopot), and let's not even get into damage dealing.
crafter.
then I can or not use the droids I make. (options)
there should be no special COMBAT commands or capabilities for DEs other than having an extended number of noncombat chassis droids out at master, perhaps.
Crafter.
This profession is about crafting droids, not using them to fight, repair, heal, store, or craft with. What we make is for use by anyone in the general sort of sense. You don't call a weaponsmith that makes only pistols a pistoleer. Droid Engineers are a crafting class. Our professional playground is gathering the resources to make parts to put together a droid. It is not to simply create a droid and use it to rule the Meatlump gang down the street. If you want to be a combat class, you choose CH or Pistoleer or Rifleman, etc. A CH does not create anything. A Creature Handler finds ways to use their pets for specific purposes like being mounts or attack creatures. A Droid Engineer makes stuff....pure and simple.
Crafter
We craft droids. True, we can use them in combat, but we can build a lot more than just combat droids. I have trouble seeing us as a combat class or hybrid class without requiring some combat skills. I can't see someone programming a droid to do combat without them knowing how to do combat in the first place. I like how we currently have plenty of skill points left to master about another 1.5 professionsafter master artisan and master droid engineer. This gives someone the option of being completely a crafter or having a combination of crafter and entertainer/brawler/marksman/scout/politician. There's advantages to being a master droid engineer and master merchant, but there should also be advantages to being a master droid engineer and a master brawler/marksman. My point is that I think droid engineer should be a diverse profession that allows a couple different droids to be built and useddepending on what other professions you decide to master.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Sodan,
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
The poll questions hacks the issue into extremes. Some folks, like me, want to be able to craft and kick butt. It s a matter of playstyle, and ine person's playstyle should not be dictated by another.
Once again, you summarize the answer very well.
The best answer to the poll is:
I want the possibility (and flexibility) to do both.
I want to craft AND I want to be able to be a combatant.
I do not believe that we are in an either/or situation. There has to be room for both playstyles to exist.
/bow
Respectfully,
Amen Brother,
I also like to play both styles of the game, crafter and fighter. I dont have to have the uber droid to be happy, but I hope that SOE could find a way to let DE's who wish to join hunting partys be wanted by the hunting partys, not just tolerated. I used up way to many skill points on MA and MDE to be a very effective fighter myself, whats wrong with my droid doing the talking for me?
Walleyedai Weedbedai
Gorath Server
Droid Engineers have always been and should always remain a crafting class.
The existence of the Probot or of any other combat droid does not change this - rather, it reinforces the fact that Droid Engineers are nothing special when it comes to combat. Why? Because ANYONE can use a Probot. This is as it should be. We are not a pet class any more than Chef is a pet class. Just because we MAKE the pets (Droids) that ANYONE can use does not put us in the same category as Creature Handlers.
And that is the key. Give us all the combat droids you want, but DO NOT require that a character be a Droid Engineer in order to use those combat droids. Let us make new and cool combat droids that everyone can use, or at the very least that a majority of people can use.
We are a crafting class and we should remain that way.
UMM, but won't this certy system just make high level combat professions that have them even higher, while us who can' t PVP effectively because we used our skill points for the last 4 months on one of the most useless professions but held them just hoping that one day it will be fixed did it for nothing, making not very much moneybecause droids don't really sell that well cause they aren't that usefull, half are broken.
Also DE's have to be master artisans because of the dependancy, I don't know about you DE's but I'd like to see some profficiency in droid usage, don't make a master commando even more powerful cause only that profession can use this really bada$$ droid. That will only widen the gap.
Droids were made to do somthing that it's owner couldn't do himself, wanted the luxury of having somthing else to a remedial task for him, or help in doing somthing better.
Also a little upset that DE's were not included into taking over a factional base, but a BioEngineer is??? I don't quite understand.
Just saying, I've been playing this game since the second week it came out, got a good guild, got a good city, but I am sorely disapointed in the core game itself, this could have been the best game ever, but it isn't because it wasn't thought out thuroughly. Proof is in the pudding, but hey, they got there 400,000 users x $50 a game so I guess they made thier money. Reminds me of american cars of the 80s, flood the market now take care of the problems later, or in the next model year as SWG2, LOL
For those of you that say CRAFT, then craft, don't do combat, but I cannot take the frustration of making a usless product, I like to go out and support the guild in a raid or in some PVP, it breaks the monotony, but don't kill the dreams of us DE's that like to do other things. All I am saying is if you want to craft and not kill then craft, it is your option, do not take the option away from others.
RearAd, Kettemore
RearAd wrote:
For those of you that say CRAFT, then craft, don't do combat, but I cannot take the frustration of making a usless product, I like to go out and support the guild in a raid or in some PVP, it breaks the monotony, but don't kill the dreams of us DE's that like to do other things. All I am saying is if you want to craft and not kill then craft, it is your option, do not take the option away from others.
Who's taking the option away? All we're saying is that Droid Engineers are a crafting profession, not a combat profession. We make the tools that people use to fight, but in and of ourselves we are not a combat profession. ANYONE can use a Probot, not just a Droid Engineer. And that's the way it should remain.
If you want to make droids AND fight, then pick up a combat profession. It's the same thing that Weaponsmiths or Armorsmiths have to do if they want to fight.
I'm voting hybrid. After all, we [droids and their engineers] are the 'swiss army knife' of the star wars universe. We aren't weaponsmiths because our droids are more than a simple weapon. We aren't creature handlers because our goods are to be used by everybody. We aren't bio-engineers because that'd just be stupid to have an exact same profession but replaces the models. We craft things that allow us to do almost anything anywhere. That is the very essense of droids.
On the other hand, Our product doesn't just affect ourselves, but those who actually useit. We already touch two of the four main areas of the game: healing and crafting. The only things we don't affect are entertaining and combat.maybe by this argument we should limit ourselves. We only build the tools, it's the others who already usethe end goods(medical droids need medics, crafting droids need the correct crafter type).
But at the same time, why should we ever attempt to limit ourselves at anything? There's nothing stopping self-limitation (much as we do with the cluster exploit and the MSE droid with high modules inside) and it still leaves the avenues open for those who do wish to explore what it would mean to have combat abilities. It all falls in line with my personal belief that weshould never limit ourselves without trying the potential out first.
In the end I have full confidence the Devs will come up with the most adequate solution to the big picture, and how we fit into it. My picture only includes droid engineering. Their picture is much grander, and they have a lot more at stake than I do. But if I did concern myself with trying to change my picture, then I would have to say that at no point should we build frames around ourselves. There is no way we will become too powerful, however I don't want us to remain as we are: too weak.
(ok.. I couldn't come up with a very good reason on why we aren't bio-engineers... so sue me)