Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: About DE only combat droids. My 2 credits.
One problem that I see posted about a lot is that we will get dabblers just to get this great droid, thus ruining the economy for us. If implemented well, this can be avoided. One solution is to make it not only DE-only, but MDE only, or perhaps a combination or Lvl 4 skills (2-3 minimum). That way, if you want it, you're going to have to pay for it. At 92 Skill points for master, that's a pretty pricey droid, since skill points are the biggest commodity in the game.
And no, I do not want it more powerful than creatures. Otherwise there will be NO deterent to the l33t d00dz, since they only play for the tops items.
The important thing will be to see that if we go ahead with it, that it be done carefully and thoughtfully. It must be done with care, and these discussions help outline all possible problems. Otherwise we'll just end up with a whole slew of new problems.
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If CH's can have a rancor, why shouldn't we be able to make something like an AT-ST? Not that I think we should, but if these things exist in the game as pets why should we be happy with a CL 15-25 combat droid as our maximum?
Because putting the CH class in the game and giving it Rancors is the biggest mistake the devs could have made. They know it,and they have been constantly paying for it / nerfing it ever since. The only reason Rancors haven't been nerfed to CL15 is because having a CL15 rancor in the gamewould be dumb.
Devs will not make that mistake again, especially considering that they have enough trouble coming up with creative ways to nerf CHs to make the game challenging again.
I agree with Sin also
Let's think about this from a powergamer point of view (For those who desire nonfactional pets)
Hmm... I could get Exploration IV and Hunting IV then Master Creature Handler to get an army of Creatures of higher CL which have some pretty awesome resistances without having to handle a single harvester or grind out a single item. All I have to do is go blow stuff up to get bigger pets so I can blow up even bigger stuff. Exploration IV is very useful because it lets me move quickly over broken ground and be able to avoid aggro through mask scent and Hunting is handy for seeing information about creatures I'm to tame or blow up.
Or.... I could grind through Engineer and stockpile thousands of units of materials to grind for hours on end so I can take Droid engineer where I would stockpile tens of thousands of units of materials to grind for hours on end so I can get Droids which are likely less effective (should be) than Creature Handlers. When alls said and done Engineer can be used to... Um... Why did I take Engineer again? Ack! I need Master Artisan too?! Nuts!
Now from the Crafter point of view (For those with some inkling towards contributing towards 4/5 of the game content which involves violent activities)
What I can see is some Crafters using Droid Engineer as a vehicle towards being able to contribute towards combat since they are likely already Engineers. Is it a bad thing that Crafters would have an outlet to be able to use a crafting skill to contribute to the galactic cold war or hunting actions? I really and truely don't think so.
Crafter and Powergamer don't belong in the same sentence. No powergamer in their right mind would muscle through the grind of becomming a Droid Engineer just to get pets. Yes, crafters will may use this as an opportunity to be able to do something other than craft and I say all the power to them.
Fidg'Ter Gizmacher
IsaacPalinander wrote:
I have a lot of difficulty understanding the opposition to Sintrosi's opinion. ONE (count it, ONE) DE-only combat droid that is less powerful than an MCH pet located in the MDE box is not going to break anything. Anyone who invests the 93 skill points to get to MDE (novice artisan + eng 1-4, etc) can hardly be considered a dabbler at that point. Anyone who would invest those points and the grind time solely to get that one droid is a complete moron. While this game is full of complete morons, I seriously doubt we'd see a huge influx of people into our profession by who just want the one droid. People who do those sorts of things tend to be the people obsessed with power and power would be obtained to a much greater degree by becoming an MCH.
Yes, the MCH type people won't have any interest in the profession (though you can get MDE much quicker than MCH if you have the resources or cash). BUT, you would still have a relatively large (relative to the number of people in the profession) number of people who aren't like that, who like droids, but never wanted to be a DE before because it was only crafting. They wouldn't intentionally hurt the profession, but they would have a much different view of what it should be (which will only be reinforced by the precedent you are trying to set). You have to ask yourself if you want toforget the utility aspect of DE, because the devs will quickly forget that existed if they start working on combat droids.
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
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I have a lot of difficulty understanding the opposition to Sintrosi's opinion. ONE (count it, ONE) DE-only combat droid that is less powerful than an MCH pet located in the MDE box is not going to break anything. Anyone who invests the 93 skill points to get to MDE (novice artisan + eng 1-4, etc) can hardly be considered a dabbler at that point. Anyone who would invest those points and the grind time solely to get that one droid is a complete moron. While this game is full of complete morons, I seriously doubt we'd see a huge influx of people into our profession by who just want the one droid. People who do those sorts of things tend to be the people obsessed with power and power would be obtained to a much greater degree by becoming an MCH.
Can't understand...ok, I will try again.
(1) We will probably only get "ONE (count it, ONE)", maybe 2, new droid chassis. If you put in a DE-only droid, you are preventing us from getting what we NEED (not what would be nice to have). If you haven't figured it out, we NEED sellable droids that are worth something to our customers.
If you look at the player stats, less than 15% of players are in advanced crafting professions (the ones who need crafting stations), andless than 40% are medics (the ones who heed med modules; MOST of those being combat players who pick up medic to heal damage in battle and don't need a droid with a med module to heal wounds). If we don't get combat droids, over 60% of players have no reason to buy a droid.
We also need several options for sellable combat droids because having only one means that players will only buy one. If we have several to sell, all with strengths and weaknesses, we will sell several.
(2) No class in game is a powerful as a MCH. Reason: Devs screwed up by putting CHs in game, and can't fix it because that would require taking them out of the game. If you think the fact that MCH exists is a justification for other classes to become more "uber" you are incorrect. If 10% of all players were already CHs, they would be nerfed to CL20 pets, simple as that. Devs will not do that again, and further break the game by adding CH #2, formerly known as DE.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
...Devs will not do that again, and further break the game by adding CH #2, formerly known as DE.
Daker,
With all due respect, I think you're giving the Devs entirely too much credit. They could very likely do this precise thing.
They have shown repeatedly that they have something of a knack for not effectively listening to their playerbase. Sorry...I call it likeI see it (and I've seen a LOT of changes in this game, friend).
/bow
Respectfully,
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If 10% of all players were already CHs, they would be nerfed to CL20 pets, simple as that.
That should read:
If 10% of all players were NOT already CHs, they would be nerfed to CL20 pets, simple as that.
In other words...CH's aren't getting nerfed because SOE doesn't want to lost 10% of their playerbase.
Aaahhh the Floodgates... Get a Grip! NO one will give up 64 skill points and 1.6 million in credits to grind up to Master Droid Engineer to get 1...ONE CL 40 droid! Master CH gets up to CL 70 AND can call out Multiple pets and Use much better pets all up and down the CH tree to run their precious combat missions Making money vs. Spending money to grind up DE.
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With all due respect, I think you're giving the Devs entirely too much credit. They could very likely do this precise thing.
They have shown repeatedly that they have something of a knack for not effectively listening to their playerbase. Sorry...I call it likeI see it
As do I...maybe we are not seeing the same things. Here is what I have seen:
(1) Devs propose cutting all non-CH creatures to CL10
(2) Devs propose to redistribute CH creature levels to make it harder (as in you need to be much further into skill tree)for CHs to have powerful pets and to keep them from handling multiple powerful pets (ex: can now have only one graul)
(3) Devs implement nerf on TC to prevent faction pets from being used in PvE (reverted yesterday, but still done).
(4) Devs propose cutting all non-CHs to 1 pet total (regardless of type), and CHs to 2 pets total.
I totally agree devs don't give a **edit** what we think. If they did,some of the above nerfs wouldn't have happened.
You don't agree, however, that devs seem to be doing everything they can to limit people to minimal pets? You don't agree that it appears they have a very anti-pet attitide right now and will be unwilling to give us a new CL25-35 powerful pet?
I'm not saying devs won't do it because it doesn't make sense...I'm saying devs are concentrating on pet balance right now and are unlikely to give us something that circumvents their pet nerfs.
Well after reading all the posts to this thread I figured I might as well throw my credits in the pile as well. =)
I really like the way Sintrosi is leading our community. He has the pulse of our thoughts. Of course there is always going to be 2 sides to an argument but the way I see it as long as the majority of our views are expressed I will be on happy fish.
As for the single combat droid idea I would very much like to support it. If your want to be a pure crafter fine go ahead and be one but let your other fellow DE's have their fun as well. Also, think of it this way the more people that join our ranks is the more power we have to fight the DEV's for change.
Perfect examples of this are the CH's. They are a huge community and they seem to continually be getting attention because of their rank size. I don't think we will ever get that many people in our profession but its a step closer up to the top and I am all for that.
You kind of mistook the meaning in my post.
I really do agree that they are trying to solve the 'pet problem'. However, my point is that they have shown in the past an ability to 'miscode' their intent. The Probot nerf is a perfect example.
The decided that it was a good idea to 'solve' the Probot problem but, at the same time, had the lack of foresight to see where that particular change would lead (massive influx into the CH skill tree 'exploit'). If I had confidence that their actual produced changes followed their intent, we never would have seen that entire situation take place.
Does that help to get my meaning across?
Basically, what I'm saying is that their intent doesn't follow the actual code that they are releasing (in no small part due to the $$$ that CH accounts represent and the fact they have shown a marvelous proclivity to not listing to TC players).
/bow
Respectfully,