Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Pertinent stuff from the chat
Nifty wrote:
Eniako wrote:
For those that say, join a group to tank. I dont recollect anywhere on the box that it said that in order to play solo (an ability they promised) you had to be a CH.
umm, what's your point here? Are you saying you can't solo in this game unless you're a CH? I solo a lot, and I'm not a CH. I'm a Master Ranger working on Pistoleer. I solo just fine and dandy. I know what I can kill without armor and buffs, and I know what I can kill with armor and buffs. I also am glad that there are things that I cannot kill solo, but I can help to kill while grouped.
It was a quick aside in response to an earlier poster who maintained that if you wanted a tank that you could either be a tank yourself or hunt with a group or if you wanted to do otherwise become a CH. Im solo all the time as well, without benefit of pet or otherwise. I actually considered deleting that section as it took away from my main point, which was that this publish, which was supposed to help DE's become a viable part of the economy has done nothing to further that aim. Nerfing BE pets will not make a crappy droid anymore attractive. Ohhh fear me and my R2 combat droid...yeah right.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Right on.
Sooty wrote:
Shian, your problem is you are trying to argue from a position that simply is out of touch with the reality of what a CL10 pet should be, or be able to do. As a BE and very recently retired CH I am very aware of how totally out of touch with reality current BE non-CH pets are.
Typical, wild CL10 mobs;
- Bageraset - 900 HAM, no resists, 90-110 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Female Forest Slice Hound - 750 HAM, 130-140 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Krahbu - 1100 HAM, no resists, 80-90 damage every 2 seconds, 0.27 to hit
- Young reptilian flyer - 1100 HAM, no resists, 90-100 damage every 2 seconds, 0.3 to hit
I have tested a new probot against all of these except the flyer and it slaughters them. Its a good probot but not perfect - 144-153 damage, 0.91 atk spd, 1k HAM, 0.38 to hit (from memory) and the fights are no contest, even several on it at once.
I would ask what exactly do you expect to get for ZERO skill points andnegligible monetary cost (even a brand new character can make enough running delivery missions in a single day to buy one of these - an established character can afford one from pocket change).
The new probot is a great companion for a low level melee player. Have it watch your back and join in if you start getting overwhelmed, while you tank. Equally, one of the higher HAM, lower attack droids is good for a low level ranged profession player, quite capable of tanking against CL10-15 mobs that such players should be using to get xp. Yes, they lose viability as the player increases in personal skill, but again, what do you expect for zeroreal investment (i.e. skill points)? You also seem to be conveniently forgetting, or ignoring, that droids can now be healed for both damage and wounds.
The BE pets will get fixed, AS THEY SHOULD BE. As a BE I argued that non-CH pets were far too powerful and refused to make ones that I considered out of scale. Remember that a non-CH pet with 10k/7k/4k HAM and 50% kinetic resists makes a mockery of low-to-mid level CH pets from the wild. That is equivalent to a CL30 wild mob in its primary role as a tank. Please don't tell me you think that is acceptable or fair.
You speak the truth, brotha'!
I know that DEs will likely hang me in effigyfor backing you on this but you 187% correct. And, you have the knowledge and in-game experience to back up your statements (as both a BE and MCH).
Well said, sir. Thanks for posting this.
/bow
Respectfully,
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Sooty old bean, it may come as some surprise to you, but the probot has been part of our skilltree since the beginngin, and you cant build a decent one until you are very high up in the profession. It follows that your argument that skillpoints have not been spent is dead before it even starts,from my position as a DE.
Completely irrelevent. You are trying to cloud the issue now by talking about the requirements to BUILD a probot, not use one. Any newbie straight out of the box can buy an advanced probot within one or two days of starting playing. Using the probot, and therefore making sure its use does not unbalance the game, has absolutely nothing to do with making one.
From any other profession's point of view, you might as well say that Faction 'pets' should also be nerfed down since thay also cost no skillpoints. The argument doesn't wash. The game was designed to have whatever combat value a CL10 'object' is as a freely available object to players of any and every level.
Faction pets have other issues that restrict their effectiveness. They cost significantly more (Faction takes longer to earn than cash does by an order of magnitude at least). They cannot be used against most PvE content. If they die they are gone forever. Comparing them to droids is, well, silly 
Now that said, the problem is that this CL rating appears to work differently in CH/BE and in the DE combat droids (notwithstanding BE's currently broken state). The fact is that your tests may well be valid, but so what? Wild animals lose against trained entities, be they droids or creature pets. So what?, would you not expect that training (or programming) would improve the performance?
CL doesn't work differently for BE, its simply that the system is far more fluid than DE crafting and subject to many more variables. This leads to min-maxing templates that 'leak through' the edges of the crafting system creating the anomalous 10k CL10s that are still being created while disallowing 2k ones. The devs are working on a fix for it, but that won't happen until the next publish most likely.
You say ahh, but you can heal a droid now, but do not say that pets have been healable all along. What about wounds, you pick up some food and feed your pet, I have to build a repair kit or use a repair capable droid.
None of that is the issue here. To put it simply, I cant buff a probot, nor can I feed it chef food. That was acceptable in balance terms when armour existed. Now armour no longer exists...what compensation do we have for the pet side benefils? You seem to have conveniently forgotten that buffing aspect completely.
Not forgotten at all - buffs are effectively useless on pets, given the frequency with which they autostore. Unless the CH is also a doctor or hangs around with one all the time, I doubt they ever use buffs, it simply isn't worth it. As far as the chef food goes, you havea valid point (something I am willing to concede in any debate, unlike most people on these forums). But comparing a 500hp buff that wears off in 30mins to medium armor is not valid. Far better to use that example and call for some form of supercharging/shielding/whatever device that acts the same way for droids to a comparable degree - i.e. is consumable, a moderate increase and takes a reasonable level of resources to make.
Btw, most CH buy food specifically to feed their pets to heal wounds as foraging is not a skill inherently part of the make-up. As such they have the same issue as a droid user - obtaining a wound repair 'device' and using it on the pet. Pets being healable all along is irrelevent, what does that have to do with the current status? Surely the whole point is that the two different pet types should have similar capabilities and functions in order to be balanced.
What I don't think is acceptable or fair is the neutering of a low level tank. Not only that, but one that contributed to the immersion of the game.
They were always weak, and now they are weaker, and you say thats fair. Well, each to their own opinion, mine is different to yours. I never expected a great deal of support from the BE profession anyway, sad to say. I think I'll just leave it at that.
*edit because someone I know posted between us
I don't think I'll comment on what you said TK, I'm sure I dont need to after all this time
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-19-2004 01:12 PM
Actually, I am saying this as a current droid user! DE are doing themselves a great diservice atm. Hardly any on my server are stocking droids (I checked 15 today, all any of them had were BH droids), so how the heck can they tell if the customers want these things or not. I ahve bought one already, I want to buy several more for myself and a couple of friends but I can't because the DEs seem to be too busy bemoaning their fate to actually make the damn things. REad what I said - I never sold many non-CH pets because of the bugs in the system. I have an excellent reputation for being honest and trustworthy, and in order to maintain that rep I stayed out of the non-CH business as much as possible because it was, and is, clearly faulty. In fact, if you check back on my posting history you will be able to see that I opposed non-CH biological pets existing at all.
This is not about BE vs DE, you are the only one here trying to turn it into that. I was simply trying to show that the current adv probot is perfectly suited for its role as a low level combat aid, and said straight up from the front that BE pets can be overpwoered still and should be brought down to the same level. No, a probot isn't going to help against a rancor. Well, it shouldn't. It is however a great help in low level activities, is quite capable of clearing out multiple CL10 wild mobs (thus answering your question of should it be better than wild CL10s - it clearly is, both from an external appraisal of stats and from a practical application in the field) and is not useless as so many DE are saying.
One last time - an advanced probot is a zero (real) investment addition to a player's capabilities that has more than adequate firepower and defenses to deal with any wild mobs that it should realistically be faced with.
Arnwald wrote:
I respect your post and it is interesting, there is only one annoying point...
Your BE pet doesn't cost +30k and need tons of sub components... plz tell me if I am wrong
No it doesn't take a lot of mined resources to make on. It takes personal time collecting dna (not running harvesters), can only be made by hand-crafting (impossible to factory run any stage of creature making) and and indepth knowledge of a totally undocumented, variable output crafting system. Please understand, I am not trying to belittle the efforts required to make a droid in any way, but don't get the idea that making BE pets is 'easy' in any shape or form. They are different styles of crafting, one is more intensive in terms of personal time, the other in terms of pure resources. Both are valid and neither are 'easy'.
FWIW, in making high level CH only pets, it would often take me 6 or 8 hours of personal time at the keyboard actively working in sampling, crafting, resampling and experimenting to make one pet I felt was worthy of putting my name on to sell. During that time I would get incapped probably half a dozen times and killed probably on average once per. In constructing the pet I had to continually reference an excel spreadsheet to have even a chance of keeping track of what would be the end result. Finally, even after all that, having a lot of personal experience and an intensive RL background in system analysis, I still had no guarantee that the pet would even be usable until I made the final combination of template and body type ('skin') - for no obvious reason it was far too easy to make a pet over CL70 that was therefore useless. Or in trying to make a kimogila I had no guarantee I wasn't short-changing a customer if it came out at CL45, because that was the minimum level for that body, even if the stats would have only rated a CL38 in a different body. There was also about a 1 in 10 chance that the final combine would crit fail, destroying an entire days work in one click. My worst ever was in trying to make a very high (CL65+) razor cat to some fairly exacting requirements from one customer. I spent 6 hours on Dathomir collecting the dna I needed, getting killed twice by mutant rancors in the process (both caused by other players driving through and starting a mass aggro). I then spent the next evening combining, resampling and recombining over 40 dna samples to make a template as required. Twice I had it perfect apart from a special attack not coming through, for NO reason other than bad luck. On the final combine a single critical fail destroyed everything - over 18 hours effort, lost. Pray that, if you do get high level combat droids in the future, you don't have the same requirements .
Sooty wrote:
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Sooty old bean, it may come as some surprise to you, but the probot has been part of our skilltree since the beginngin, and you cant build a decent one until you are very high up in the profession. It follows that your argument that skillpoints have not been spent is dead before it even starts,from my position as a DE.
Completely irrelevent. You are trying to cloud the issue now by talking about the requirements to BUILD a probot, not use one. Any newbie straight out of the box can buy an advanced probot within one or two days of starting playing. Using the probot, and therefore making sure its use does not unbalance the game, has absolutely nothing to do with making one.
From any other profession's point of view, you might as well say that Faction 'pets' should also be nerfed down since thay also cost no skillpoints. The argument doesn't wash. The game was designed to have whatever combat value a CL10 'object' is as a freely available object to players of any and every level.
Faction pets have other issues that restrict their effectiveness. They cost significantly more (Faction takes longer to earn than cash does by an order of magnitude at least). They cannot be used against most PvE content. If they die they are gone forever. Comparing them to droids is, well, silly
Now that said, the problem is that this CL rating appears to work differently in CH/BE and in the DE combat droids (notwithstanding BE's currently broken state). The fact is that your tests may well be valid, but so what? Wild animals lose against trained entities, be they droids or creature pets. So what?, would you not expect that training (or programming) would improve the performance?
CL doesn't work differently for BE, its simply that the system is far more fluid than DE crafting and subject to many more variables. This leads to min-maxing templates that 'leak through' the edges of the crafting system creating the anomalous 10k CL10s that are still being created while disallowing 2k ones. The devs are working on a fix for it, but that won't happen until the next publish most likely.
You say ahh, but you can heal a droid now, but do not say that pets have been healable all along. What about wounds, you pick up some food and feed your pet, I have to build a repair kit or use a repair capable droid.
None of that is the issue here. To put it simply, I cant buff a probot, nor can I feed it chef food. That was acceptable in balance terms when armour existed. Now armour no longer exists...what compensation do we have for the pet side benefils? You seem to have conveniently forgotten that buffing aspect completely.
Not forgotten at all - buffs are effectively useless on pets, given the frequency with which they autostore. Unless the CH is also a doctor or hangs around with one all the time, I doubt they ever use buffs, it simply isn't worth it. As far as the chef food goes, you havea valid point (something I am willing to concede in any debate, unlike most people on these forums). But comparing a 500hp buff that wears off in 30mins to medium armor is not valid. Far better to use that example and call for some form of supercharging/shielding/whatever device that acts the same way for droids to a comparable degree - i.e. is consumable, a moderate increase and takes a reasonable level of resources to make.
Btw, most CH buy food specifically to feed their pets to heal wounds as foraging is not a skill inherently part of the make-up. As such they have the same issue as a droid user - obtaining a wound repair 'device' and using it on the pet. Pets being healable all along is irrelevent, what does that have to do with the current status? Surely the whole point is that the two different pet types should have similar capabilities and functions in order to be balanced.
What I don't think is acceptable or fair is the neutering of a low level tank. Not only that, but one that contributed to the immersion of the game.
They were always weak, and now they are weaker, and you say thats fair. Well, each to their own opinion, mine is different to yours. I never expected a great deal of support from the BE profession anyway, sad to say. I think I'll just leave it at that.
*edit because someone I know posted between us
I don't think I'll comment on what you said TK, I'm sure I dont need to after all this time
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-19-2004 01:12 PM
Actually, I am saying this as a current droid user! DE are doing themselves a great diservice atm. Hardly any on my server are stocking droids (I checked 15 today, all any of them had were BH droids), so how the heck can they tell if the customers want these things or not. I ahve bought one already, I want to buy several more for myself and a couple of friends but I can't because the DEs seem to be too busy bemoaning their fate to actually make the damn things. REad what I said - I never sold many non-CH pets because of the bugs in the system. I have an excellent reputation for being honest and trustworthy, and in order to maintain that rep I stayed out of the non-CH business as much as possible because it was, and is, clearly faulty. In fact, if you check back on my posting history you will be able to see that I opposed non-CH biological pets existing at all.
This is not about BE vs DE, you are the only one here trying to turn it into that. I was simply trying to show that the current adv probot is perfectly suited for its role as a low level combat aid, and said straight up from the front that BE pets can be overpwoered still and should be brought down to the same level. No, a probot isn't going to help against a rancor. Well, it shouldn't. It is however a great help in low level activities, is quite capable of clearing out multiple CL10 wild mobs (thus answering your question of should it be better than wild CL10s - it clearly is, both from an external appraisal of stats and from a practical application in the field) and is not useless as so many DE are saying.
One last time - an advanced probot is a zero (real) investment addition to a player's capabilities that has more than adequate firepower and defenses to deal with any wild mobs that it should realistically be faced with.
Ah well, I should know better than to argue with you, because you know it all don't you.
I NEVER said or tried to say that I wanted any conflicts with BE, but all the same you accuse me of it. Shades of Pluto is all I'll say to that. You know who I mean.
I think its best to drop this with you, because you are the one who won't see it from a DE point of view (and why should you really I suppose). We are in the DE forums though, I don't remember coming to your forums and spouting when the nerf bat hit you, neither would I.
Whateber else you may have said, discounting Pet buffs because of an autostore bug is absolutely not fair. It's a bug we suffer from just as much as you, but even so, not so often that a Buffed pet doesnt exceed a Probot in any fight you care to try out. The duration of a buff far exceeds any fight in PvE. Similarly with Chef foods, so it 'only' lasts 30 mins..thats long enough. Put the both together and your pets have a serious advantage.
A droid is not a pet. The armour has composite segments in it and I cannot accept that that makes no difference logically. In gameplay terms, and for balance reasons it seems it does because we were nerfed. Ok. You win, and your pets remain victors in the unneccessary battle between BE and DE that I and all my fellows never wanted. Comparisons and dumbing down to the lowest common denominator is what both of us seem to be facing, in a never ending spiral downwards..and that is what is silly, cos it reduces everyones fun.
Oh I am so sorry you find the vendors empty. I wonder why that is? Well I'll tell you its one of two things. Either you have no idea of the complexity increase we have been hit with, and the great pile of new (and sometimes very rare) resources we need, and dont understand that factories need time..lots of time in our case since the fundemental build for combat has changed.......Or it's the DE's like me who, having made samples of each new droid , and tested them, are so disgusted with the performance that they dont think it is ethical to sell near useless product. Actually much like you say you ethically work. I have let some of myfriendstry them out, and apart from laughing, they universally said they don't want them..even for free. Now do you understand?
If you cant even take one step towards a DE point of view in this, then whats the point of continuing to talk to you? So we can practice debating skills? Well, I don't play that game..so goodluck and be happy.
Must be wonderful to be so wise, I'm sure we all appreciate your unbiased viewpoint.
Now, you might not like the differential, but droids are not pets, and however you look at it there should be differences, or whats the point in thenm being seperate entities.
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-19-2004 08:48 PM
No way TK I at least also support this point. It does make sense. However, I think according to lore a probot (imp probe droid, btw why did they change the name???) would be much tougher than this. As such, the devs choice of using this particular model in this fashion was a mistake, as is using R3s and LEs for combat as well.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Right on.
You speak the truth, brotha'!
I know that DEs will likely hang me in effigyfor backing you on this but you 187% correct. And, you have the knowledge and in-game experience to back up your statements (as both a BE and MCH).
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Ah well, I should know better than to argue with you, because you know it all don't you.
Nope, not it all, just evidently a whole lot more than you about the use of pets in actual gameplay, as opposed to made up situations like duels. And don't give me some nonsense about droids not being pets - any npc controlled by a player is a pet, whether they be faction, biologicial or mechanical.
I NEVER said or tried to say that I wanted any conflicts with BE, but all the same you accuse me of it. Shades of Pluto is all I'll say to that. You know who I mean.
I think its best to drop this with you, because you are the one who won't see it from a DE point of view (and why should you really I suppose). We are in the DE forums though, I don't remember coming to your forums and spouting when the nerf bat hit you, neither would I.
Whateber else you may have said, discounting Pet buffs because of an autostore bug is absolutely not fair. It's a bug we suffer from just as much as you, but even so, not so often that a Buffed pet doesnt exceed a Probot in any fight you care to try out. The duration of a buff far exceeds any fight in PvE. Similarly with Chef foods, so it 'only' lasts 30 mins..thats long enough. Put the both together and your pets have a serious advantage.
A droid is not a pet. The armour has composite segments in it and I cannot accept that that makes no difference logically. In gameplay terms, and for balance reasons it seems it does because we were nerfed. Ok. You win, and your pets remain victors in the unneccessary battle between BE and DE that I and all my fellows never wanted. Comparisons and dumbing down to the lowest common denominator is what both of us seem to be facing, in a never ending spiral downwards..and that is what is silly, cos it reduces everyones fun.
If you cant even take one step towards a DE point of view in this, then whats the point of continuing to talk to you? So we can practice debating skills? Well, I don't play that game..so goodluck and be happy.
Must be wonderful to be so wise, I'm sure we all appreciate your unbiased viewpoint.
Now, you might not like the differential, but droids are not pets, and however you look at it there should be differences, or whats the point in thenm being seperate entities.
/sigh. Why is it that instead of talking things through like rational human beings, people have to get in a huff and pull the 'well, I'm not going to talk about it any more' act? You are the one that brought up any semblance of conflict between BE and DE, it was not something I even touched upon, as it shouldn't exist once the code works properly and one of each can be called at the same time. I stated up front that non-CH BE pets are currently broken and need fixing, yet you persist in trying to compare current droids to them. When I presented wild stats for CL 10 creatures you effectively ignored that, again trying to build some kind of BE vs DE arguement that is not only ridiculous in concept (soon players will be able to call one of each) but counterproductive, because it undermines the one valid pointyou have made in this thread.
I was using my experience as a CH and a BE to explain why I figuredthe DE droids are both the way they are, and that they are far more useful than being given credit for. Yet you had to say, and I quote, "I never expected a great deal of support from the BE profession anyway, sad to say. I think I'll just leave it at that", coloring the whole arguement with your own obvious bias, not mine.
Have I ever said BE pets should be better than droids? No. Have I said the current BE non-CH pets are fine? No, quite the opposite, both here and in the BE and CH forums. Did I agree with you that some form of chef food equivalent for droids would be a good idea? Yes (conveniently ignored by you). Did I state that, from experience, doctor buffs are rarely used by CH because of the storing and other isses? Yes. Yet you attempt to refute that by making some pointless reference to duels. Yes, biological pets can get buffed by doctors - same cost as for the player, but those buffs vanish the second the pet stores for any reason, from the rampant autostore issues to getting stuck on server boundaries or going into slow motion/sideways running after the first fight when the player has to store them manually to use them again. At 5k-6k for a set, its simply not worth it, especially if you have to queue up like you do on my server for buffs (and some docs won't buff pets even if you pay them).
This is not a case of me not taking'one step towards a DE point of view' - it is obvious that several DEdo agree with me (or it it me that agrees with them? its not important either way) - you are simplyput out that I won'tone step towards YOUR point of view. Well, in fact I have, on the chef food buff point - I just disagreed that a temporary 500ptHAM buff was the equivalent of permanent medium armor, which I believe was your view. So, you are just put out that I won't take TWO steps towards your point of view. Sorry, but that was your one good point.
The opinion of myself and friends is that while the new droids are not very powerful, they certainly confort to, if not slightly exceed what is expected from a CL 10 pet- they chew these things up in the wild. Even the powerful BE CL 10 pets were KOed by my Disco-ball erm DZ70
while i realise that pitting these against each other in a duel doesn't really solve anything (ie BE pets are still better tanks) it is useful to get a guage of the current power level of the droids.Sooty I have to say your point of view is welcomed here as outside reference is essential to coming up with fair proposals- especially a CH based one. While I don't agree with everything you've said I appreciate your efforts and flexibility when it comes to our issues- we need more give and take and unfortunatly I see a lot of droid engineers screaming TAKE TAKE TAKE
Asking for medium armor to be restored is a fairytale and would make our pets considerably in excess of CL10, light armor perhaps, maybe at the expense of lower damage/speed caps on all combat capable chassis. In my opinion a 160 dmg 0.75 speed 1.1K HAM with medium armor and 40% resists is too powerful for a CL10 pet.
One thing that has ticked me off is the increased complexity in making a combat capable droid and losing 66% of our droids with inherent function (a big step backward IMHO)
My stock of silicastic ore is severly depleted- though thankfully some new stuff spawned- YAY
Overall i think the current droids are about right though they require a bit too much effort to make for the end results and when the bugs are worked out of the game (ie BE pets at lower levels and able to call one of each at the same time) they'll be a good choice for crafters on harvestor runs and newbs trying to lvl up.
Am i happy with this patch?- no, in my view they increased the work done in making a droid for no overall improvements and took away inherent functionality in droids(the little we had) While i have no quibbles with the armor reduction (well maybe a few) I think the lvl 6 and lvl 5 armor schematics should be adjusted, afterall we have to make combay modules to improve a droids attack, why should we have to make the same armor modules for a lower defense?!
Well just my 2 pennies
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Thats my whole point
It doesnt matter that the probot was AR2 it still has only 1k HAM. At least people could have a little Starwars.
For heavens sake it's armour might have been like an Albatross...BUT NOTHING ELSE WAS so where was the crime??
The damned thing is now unplayable with, and thats from one who makes them.
Un-nerf that armour or put some HAM into it, but at least make it playable.
I have ominous feelings for BE in all this too.....and no, I don't want them nerfed down to our level, that would be even more silly than where the Probot is now.
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-19-2004 08:43 AM
Shian, your problem is you are trying to argue from a position that simply is out of touch with the reality of what a CL10 pet should be, or be able to do. As a BE and very recently retired CH I am very aware of how totally out of touch with reality current BE non-CH pets are.
Typical, wild CL10 mobs;
- Bageraset - 900 HAM, no resists, 90-110 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Female Forest Slice Hound - 750 HAM, 130-140 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Krahbu - 1100 HAM, no resists, 80-90 damage every 2 seconds, 0.27 to hit
- Young reptilian flyer - 1100 HAM, no resists, 90-100 damage every 2 seconds, 0.3 to hit
I have tested a new probot against all of these except the flyer and it slaughters them. Its a good probot but not perfect - 144-153 damage, 0.91 atk spd, 1k HAM, 0.38 to hit (from memory) and the fights are no contest, even several on it at once.
I would ask what exactly do you expect to get for ZERO skill points andnegligible monetary cost (even a brand new character can make enough running delivery missions in a single day to buy one of these - an established character can afford one from pocket change).
The new probot is a great companion for a low level melee player. Have it watch your back and join in if you start getting overwhelmed, while you tank. Equally, one of the higher HAM, lower attack droids is good for a low level ranged profession player, quite capable of tanking against CL10-15 mobs that such players should be using to get xp. Yes, they lose viability as the player increases in personal skill, but again, what do you expect for zeroreal investment (i.e. skill points)? You also seem to be conveniently forgetting, or ignoring, that droids can now be healed for both damage and wounds.
The BE pets will get fixed, AS THEY SHOULD BE. As a BE I argued that non-CH pets were far too powerful and refused to make ones that I considered out of scale. Remember that a non-CH pet with 10k/7k/4k HAM and 50% kinetic resists makes a mockery of low-to-mid level CH pets from the wild. That is equivalent to a CL30 wild mob in its primary role as a tank. Please don't tell me you think that is acceptable or fair.
Right on.
Sooty wrote:
Shian, your problem is you are trying to argue from a position that simply is out of touch with the reality of what a CL10 pet should be, or be able to do. As a BE and very recently retired CH I am very aware of how totally out of touch with reality current BE non-CH pets are.
Typical, wild CL10 mobs;
- Bageraset - 900 HAM, no resists, 90-110 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Female Forest Slice Hound - 750 HAM, 130-140 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Krahbu - 1100 HAM, no resists, 80-90 damage every 2 seconds, 0.27 to hit
- Young reptilian flyer - 1100 HAM, no resists, 90-100 damage every 2 seconds, 0.3 to hit
I have tested a new probot against all of these except the flyer and it slaughters them. Its a good probot but not perfect - 144-153 damage, 0.91 atk spd, 1k HAM, 0.38 to hit (from memory) and the fights are no contest, even several on it at once.
I would ask what exactly do you expect to get for ZERO skill points andnegligible monetary cost (even a brand new character can make enough running delivery missions in a single day to buy one of these - an established character can afford one from pocket change).
The new probot is a great companion for a low level melee player. Have it watch your back and join in if you start getting overwhelmed, while you tank. Equally, one of the higher HAM, lower attack droids is good for a low level ranged profession player, quite capable of tanking against CL10-15 mobs that such players should be using to get xp. Yes, they lose viability as the player increases in personal skill, but again, what do you expect for zeroreal investment (i.e. skill points)? You also seem to be conveniently forgetting, or ignoring, that droids can now be healed for both damage and wounds.
The BE pets will get fixed, AS THEY SHOULD BE. As a BE I argued that non-CH pets were far too powerful and refused to make ones that I considered out of scale. Remember that a non-CH pet with 10k/7k/4k HAM and 50% kinetic resists makes a mockery of low-to-mid level CH pets from the wild. That is equivalent to a CL30 wild mob in its primary role as a tank. Please don't tell me you think that is acceptable or fair.
You speak the truth, brotha'!
I know that DEs will likely hang me in effigyfor backing you on this but you 187% correct. And, you have the knowledge and in-game experience to back up your statements (as both a BE and MCH).
Well said, sir. Thanks for posting this.
/bow
Respectfully,
Sooty wrote:
Shian, your problem is you are trying to argue from a position that simply is out of touch with the reality of what a CL10 pet should be, or be able to do. As a BE and very recently retired CH I am very aware of how totally out of touch with reality current BE non-CH pets are.
Typical, wild CL10 mobs;
- Bageraset - 900 HAM, no resists, 90-110 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Female Forest Slice Hound - 750 HAM, 130-140 damage every 2 seconds, 0.28 to hit
- Krahbu - 1100 HAM, no resists, 80-90 damage every 2 seconds, 0.27 to hit
- Young reptilian flyer - 1100 HAM, no resists, 90-100 damage every 2 seconds, 0.3 to hit
I have tested a new probot against all of these except the flyer and it slaughters them. Its a good probot but not perfect - 144-153 damage, 0.91 atk spd, 1k HAM, 0.38 to hit (from memory) and the fights are no contest, even several on it at once.
I would ask what exactly do you expect to get for ZERO skill points andnegligible monetary cost (even a brand new character can make enough running delivery missions in a single day to buy one of these - an established character can afford one from pocket change).
The new probot is a great companion for a low level melee player. Have it watch your back and join in if you start getting overwhelmed, while you tank. Equally, one of the higher HAM, lower attack droids is good for a low level ranged profession player, quite capable of tanking against CL10-15 mobs that such players should be using to get xp. Yes, they lose viability as the player increases in personal skill, but again, what do you expect for zeroreal investment (i.e. skill points)? You also seem to be conveniently forgetting, or ignoring, that droids can now be healed for both damage and wounds.
The BE pets will get fixed, AS THEY SHOULD BE. As a BE I argued that non-CH pets were far too powerful and refused to make ones that I considered out of scale. Remember that a non-CH pet with 10k/7k/4k HAM and 50% kinetic resists makes a mockery of low-to-mid level CH pets from the wild. That is equivalent to a CL30 wild mob in its primary role as a tank. Please don't tell me you think that is acceptable or fair.
Sooty old bean, it may come as some surprise to you, but the probot has been part of our skilltree since the beginngin, and you cant build a decent one until you are very high up in the profession. It follows that your argument that skillpoints have not been spent is dead before it even starts,from my position as a DE.
From any other profession's point of view, you might as well say that Faction 'pets' should also be nerfed down since thay also cost no skillpoints. The argument doesn't wash. The game was designed to have whatever combat value a CL10 'object' is as a freely available object to players of any and every level.
Now that said, the problem is that this CL rating appears to work differently in CH/BE and in the DE combat droids (notwithstanding BE's currently broken state). The fact is that your tests may well be valid, but so what? Wild animals lose against trained entities, be they droids or creature pets. So what?, would you not expect that training (or programming) would improve the performance?
You say ahh, but you can heal a droid now, but do not say that pets have been healable all along. What about wounds, you pick up some food and feed your pet, I have to build a repair kit or use a repair capable droid.
None of that is the issue here. To put it simply, I cant buff a probot, nor can I feed it chef food. That was acceptable in balance terms when armour existed. Now armour no longer exists...what compensation do we have for the pet side benefils? You seem to have conveniently forgotten that buffing aspect completely.
What I don't think is acceptable or fair is the neutering of a low level tank. Not only that, but one that contributed to the immersion of the game.
They were always weak, and now they are weaker, and you say thats fair. Well, each to their own opinion, mine is different to yours. I never expected a great deal of support from the BE profession anyway, sad to say. I think I'll just leave it at that.
Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-19-2004 01:12 PM
Now, how about a compelling reason for non-n00b players to buy a droid? Something USEFUL? Our business is still going to be lacklustre unless something more than smoke and bombs is in store for us.