Droid Engineer Archive

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GarVa wrote:
You can not agree with someone without trolling about it or arguing about it guys, please play nice.

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DigitalOne wrote:

Im telling you, you would be nieve to think that people are going to stick to 0,0,4,0. I stand by my statement Dabblers are not reliable consumers, and cannot be expected to stay in that one column. You acknowledged yourself they might take on 0,0,4,2 for grinding purposes, well this gives them access to BH droids, the mainstay of some peoples business. Thats all it takes. Furthermore this talk of rare resourses being to time consumeing or expensive, who just said that money was in no short supply? This argument dosent really work. So does the argument concerning the need for factories, since most combat professions have an excess of lots.

It is by and far simpler to spend 50-100k on a droid from a MDE then spend 45 skill points and having to build 22 subcomponents (for argument sake, our simple little probot, could easily be more...my cassandra vision calls for advanced combat modules with advanced brains). There's no reason why the majority would want to go further. There are many professions with many templates that take only a single line to achieve what they want. Skill Points are a critical commodity.

Increaseing the popularity of our profession is one thing, but this invites far to many people who are potential comptitors. Do not underestimate willingness of combat professions, not all combat people abhor crafting, there are some who are looking for this chance, since nothing of the sort exists. I would expect more than few. I feel like some sort of Kasandra, your inviteing a trojan horse! Theres not enough built in defense against so called dabblers chooseing to expand.

What you see as the universe coming to an end is the DE profession becoming valuable to other people. This paragraph sums up another EXCELLENT reason why this is a good plan. It is something that is new and unlike every other profession. A "Dabbler" who expands is no longer a dabbler, but a Droid Engineer. Again, all i see is protectionism. You cant have cool new toys and not share them with other people.

Futhermore this to egregious a change to the definition of the profession, some people do not want to see DE associated with combat above crafting, as it will inevitably become. Toassume abstinancefrom the built in combat functions as a solution is foolish.

Possibly, but there are a lot of fools in this world. There is certainly a portion of the DE base that refuse to make astromechs into combat units. Same thing. No one is going to wake up one patch morning to pull a combat droid out of their datapad that forces them at gunpoint on the next shuttle to go hunting on Dath. The "pure" crafters very well may stay home and craft. Either way "some people" is not "most people". Most people think this is a strong and workable solution that reasonably addresses all factions concerns.

I have nothing against more DEs, but youropening the gates to mongol hoards who will distortwhat we have(and our peaceful way of life Seeit for what it is as a shot in the foot.

Again, a very elitist attitude. Being a Droid Engineer isnt a private club. For the profession to be successful, it will grow. Thats just a fact. Just because people havent suffered as long as the rest of us doesnt mean they shouldnt be welcomed.

There are so many latent functions to this proposal that i canteven begin to see, there may be some thing beyond prediction that could end up harming us aswell. Its best to keep combat out of our profession.

Change is essential however, This is just the wrong direction however.

I suppose change is great, so long as it doesnt effect you. No matter what, if a succesful addition is made to DE, there will be a HUGE influx of players. If DE is made viable, they will come. Just look at BE, when it was broke, no one played it, their class rewritten, they were flooded with new players. Look at chef, there stuff was useless, became totally rewritten, lots of people became chefs. If they had made the Droid Handler, there would of been a flood of people to make the droids, and could cause the exact problems you worry about with a hybrid. Bottom line you are afraid there will be other people and you will no longer be in a profession with only a handful of other masters on your server.

Markets will come and go, and thats to be expected.Markets may change or diminish, but others will be created. Keeping the profession stagnant and undesirable is NOT an acceptable barrier to entry. The dev's want as many people possible benefiting from their code time, not a handful of people on each server.

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Bottom line, there are 3 ways to get combat droids

1) Certifications - The devs have said this will NOT happen.

2) New Profession - good or bad this was KILLED

3) Hybrid - The current proposal, and its under consideration

Without a plan we will never get combat droids. Some DE's are happy with that notion. Most DE's arent, and their customers sure as hell want them. So then the question is if not this plan, what do you suggest that fits within the Devs parameters? The last two words being key. Everyone has a plan or idea of what to do, but usually by the second sentence the plan has something that is contrary to the Devs statements of requirements.

If theres one thing that cant be allowed to happen, its to stay the way we are, at this point in time we are an absurd rendition of a class, with evidance to thoughtless construction everywhere. Things need to happen.

But whatever happens its ESSENTIAL we retain community, its the reason i chose DE, and have put up with load after load of crap. I sure am an Eliteist, we all are, and have to be to survive. I dont want to walk around the corner and see 100 DEs hocking there wares in downtown corronet, i also dont want to be the only one either. There should be more, but how much is enough? There should be somecatche to MDE skillpoints dont cut it, right now the catches are way to many, and its obvious there detramental. but i think there has to be some way to keep a lid on it. be it as conservitive as it is. (This is all coming from a hippy, btw, im as shocked as you are.)

I see alot of danger in the proposal, things we may not be aware about. Its obvious there needs to be alot of though into fixing DE to make up for the lack thereof during game construction. And i dont want to let some sort of oversight trivialize the profession i love. This proposal theatens to do so. I garantee some sort of i told you so in the future.

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Lonkley wrote:

Without a plan we will never get combat droids. Some DE's are happy with that notion. Most DE's arent, and their customers sure as hell want them. So then the question is if not this plan, what do you suggest that fits within the Devs parameters? The last two words being key. Everyone has a plan or idea of what to do, but usually by the second sentence the plan has something that is contrary to the Devs statements of requirements.

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DigitalOne wrote:

Apperently my fears sound groundless. But then again i thought everyone was aware that droids, unlike all other crafting professions, save architect, suffer from the eventual decay of there products. Droids however, with the exclusion of BH droids, do not, once a droid is purchased it belongs to the owner forever, until it is deleted.

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DigitalOne wrote:

Dabblers should be dependanton us,right now repair kits are in the refinement tree, and basic components for them innovice, these should be moved elsewhere should thisproposalgo live, after all can CHs craft there own pet medicine? No, thats what BEs are for.

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JavelinCatcher wrote:

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Gyros wrote:

Novice Elite Brawler and Marksman skills are 35 skill points to earn... Adding in the DE 0040 at a cost of 54 more skill points... So89 Skill points to have MAX combat Droid Capability at novice level... (please check my math) Mastering an Elite Combat in Marksman and Brawler is 92 Skill points + 54 Skill points for DE 0040 would make it 146 skill points to be a master elite Brawler or marksman skill with max Combat droid capability...

The BH profession would be hurt worst of all... If a player masters BH that takes 217 Skill points... This does not allow enough skill points to even make novice DE... Commando however is only 169 skill points to master... which would allow for Master commando and DE 0040 at 223 skill points total... This in and of itself is a balance issue... But fear not here is a Compromise to balance the checkers....

Add DE 0040 skill pluses for combat droids to BH Investigation Tree and +1 Combat Droid to the Investigation 1 Skill ... I know the flaming will start here... "Why do the BH's get Combat Droids built in to their skill but we don't will cry the other professions..." To answer this here is why SKILL POINTS The BH stands NO CHANCE of getting higher level combat droids... But the BH profession is forced to Buy Seeker and probe droids for the investigation tree wich is based on Bounty Hunter XP, all other skill lines are based on specific weapons XP... They have to use droids, therefore the knowledge gained in using BH droids (and the cost of buying them) adds to the Combat droid usage knowledge... The DE0040 skills could be dispersed through out the BH profession or just placed in the investigation tree.... I suggest the investigation Line myself...

Add Suggestions and Comments.... NO FLAMING PLEASE

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Well, the +1 Combat Droid would still fall in Range Support 4. The Bounty Hunters have that. The issue is whatever "skills"/"modifiers" appear in DE 0/0/4/0. Following your math, I would not be adverse to duplicating those in the BH Investigation tree. Lets look at the concerquences of doing that though:

1) By default, a MasterBounty Hunter gets a additional combat droid....which btw, I may not be all that hard pressed to be against doing so. Most Bounty Hunters I know have taken up Creature Handler at some point to help them with the Investigation tree. In fact, this would be a perfect way to incorporate a "IG-series" combat droid that many people would have liked to see. I'm not saying where in the tree that would be; I'm just saying it would be appropriate. Star Wars "Lore" Bounty Hunters often worked with partners. To be honest, Bobba and Jengo were the exception to the rule rather than the baseline. It seems fit that experienced Bounty Hunters get a combat droid "partner." How does this fit in with game mechanics? Just by nature their marks are a bit tough to take out anyway. Most Bounty Hunters I know have taken up Creature Handler to assist in taking out their marks. It only seems fit to me that theybe using droid companions rather than creatures. Possibly you could condense the skills/modifiers into Investigation 3 & 4 (asBH already have increased modifiers in their trees weapons trees already).

2) This gives a small alternative to get combat droids to those who simply don't want to take up a crafting profession. It is more however, more expensive skill point wise(77 for Master Marksman, 77 for Master Scout, 6 for Novice BH,14for Investigation4). These folks also don't have any way to build their own droids...so again, that puts another Bounty Hunterdependancy on us. I'm not sure if they would go for that or yell at us for suggesting this.

3) It still doesn't solve the "melee inequity problem." Which to be honest, I'm starting to think that if a melee character really wants combat droids, they can spend the 29 extra skill points for Novice Marksman and Range support 4. It's not completly worthless to them as they also get the melee/range defense bonuses fromthere as well. Is it the best use of a melee person's skill points? possibly not. I've found people make some interesting decisions about where to spend their skill points.

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I see your points here Javelin... I really do, but would it be so bad for the majority of players who do not want to go into crafting professions to be BH's????

My call on this is let them be BH's... I honestly think you will see more players staying in or dabbling in the CH profession them spending thier skill points to be a BH... The tough call here IMHO is CH's going for DE 0040... That would be a lot of Creature power, unless they were capped to CL70 total between Droids and Creatures...

I regurards to BH's dependancy for combat Droids.... What professions wouldn't be dependant upon us the MDE's??? I know that most of my Droid business is driven by the fact that my customers know that They and I both want the same thing in droids...Quality, Utility, Star Wars Feel, and FUN...

And the melee/Ranged balance part (IMHO) is covered by DiLunes post as quoted by Sodan on page 3...

DiLune wrote:

I think the combat droid certs should be included in all novice combat elite boxes (including SL, Commando and BH.) That solves your problem of melee vs range. It doesn't actually add any power in particular to any of those professions. Why? You cert the ability to use the CL10-13 basic combat droid there. (people could already have a CL10 pet at this point.) So you haven't added any power to the professions unless theythen go up the DE 0040 line to get higher CL droids.

Many combat elite already have scout SP spent for harvesting and movement mods. It doesn't take that much more over what they already spent to go up into CH and pick up some pet power. Crossing into artisan does not lend itself to combat capabilities so that is where a combat modeled player's "dead" SP would be hanging. (the tradeoff checkers analogy.)

The prof that suffers though is the BH because for him to cross into DE to get droid levels is almost crippling under this model. (By that I mean the Proposed Droid Hybrid in general, not my particular proposal.)

(Had to addanother item. Many many combat people spend 9 SP to get range support 3 anyway for warningshot. They are really only giving up 5 SP to get to range support 4 if that is a requirement.)

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Javelin I would personally like to thank you for your Comments and Ideas... If the rest of the DE community could all discuss these tough issues that benefit us all... We would all win out in the end...

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JavelinCatcher wrote:

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DigitalOne wrote:

Dabblers should be dependanton us,right now repair kits are in the refinement tree, and basic components for them innovice, these should be moved elsewhere should thisproposalgo live, after all can CHs craft there own pet medicine? No, thats what BEs are for.

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I was under the impression this was part of the proposal.

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DigitalOne wrote:

Im willing to yeay your proposal provided you consider the following changes.

Yes sir!

To shuffle around certain subcomponents in the blueprints tree, and move them into intermediate contruction and production, this includes stim components in novice, raising them a notch into one of the above. This discourages dabbleing further, and rounds off the profession alittle more, since right now the most usefull column is blueprints, the tree is alittle unbalanced as i see it.

OK, that's not so much a concern about the proposal, but the DE profession in general. Seperate issue.

To consider reviseing the decay rate on droids, if this condition rating thing is true it should play a larger role in droid combat, perhaps decay quicker,preforably at the same rate as weapons and armor and not just through incapacitation. Droids are complex machines after all, being shot at and hit with blunt objects really dosent make you any younger.

I do not believe this is technically possible. If it was, we would have already had decay on droids. They do not seem to have that much control over datapad objects (vehicles being a prime example - they can't keep them from auto-healing).

Also figure out a way to implement ware and tear on utility droids, perhaps have modules "break", but instead of having to buy a whole new droid, a droid engineer could repair or replace the module for a service charge.

Again, something we have asked for since beta; it doesn't seem probable or possible.

infact figure out a way to include overall droid maintinance, this could solve both these problems. Its a logical part of the star wars universe.Wound repair is one thing, but alot can go wrong with droids, think of your computer.

Ditto. It's not that I disagree, it's that realisiticly in what little time they would have for the Hybird it will never get accomplished.

Alsoalso givecharged droid deeds a thought, i put a proposal for them several months ago, and reposted it on this board awhile back. This might be an alternative to droid decay.

Other things are important to me, i want people to think of DE as a crafting before combat, i think we can all agree on that. There needs to be a way to define DEs as such if only symbolically. Image is very important, how do we retain the image as crafters when theres tons of gun and armor totingDroid technicians running around with droids in tow?

Do wereally care about image; there is no way for us to go but up anyway. Yes, I have sold a ton of droids since the patch because people simply wanted something new/different to buy, but people still think of DE as the most gimped crafting profession in the game. I don't know about you, at this point we look so pathetic that I don't care anymore how we look - I just want some dang function.

Now think economics, we need some limits here and there. This proposal is good, infact to good, and i think were asking alittle much by Dev standards. How do we make competition among DEs viable without makeing it vicious? Right now were lucky, theres no market for droids, this makes the 10 of us per server pretty set as we have close to a planet to ourselves.We're not really ment for competition on a greater level, our products dont reflect uniqueness, improved performance, or any sort of diversity. we need to figure out some way of telling us apart if our ranks are going to double, Think of some viable perks that a DE can use to give themselves some sort of renown, as there is amoung weapon and armor smiths. We are going to enter a bigger scene, how do we prepair ourselves?

This was a concern brought up earlier, and I utterly disagree. If too many DE's is a problem, then give me more problems. This is a natural flow of an MMO - you can try to predict and prepare but it doesn't matter. Perhaps your business isn't "meant for competition", but the whole point of an MMO is to develop and adapt. Some of us would have to change the way we do business, no doubt about it.

However, I think you need to start thinking about crafting the way the Devs are. They don't want people to be "An Armorsmith" that is your sole stop for armor. In fact, DE's are already FURTHER ahead with this than most crafting professions; it's very easy to split up DE business (Youmake combat droids, I make utility...") among multiple DE's. An AS can't really say, "You make the Ubese, I'll make the composite..." if they want to be equal partners.

You say there is "no market" for droids, again, I disagree. I've pulled in about a million and a half credits a day since the patch. No advertising, nothing - just putting them up on a vendor and letting people buy them. And I only sell combat droids - I only make utility droids for friends.

With the proposed additional modules in Publish 8, this is pretty much IT for DE as far as function. We were never part of the "grand plan" of SWG - in fact they had to scramble to find the few "utility" modules to throw at us that wouldn't upset their mythical balance; just the fact that they had to have a meeting to come up with new ideas shows we were never intended to have more function than we did, that there were never any slicing droids or survey droids in the works - it just ain't gonna happen in SWG, maybe SWG2.

Without this type of hybird implementation, we will never be more than we are. I'd rather have too many DE's than everyone quit as they have lbeen dropping like flies ately- again, if the two big issues with this plan are a) melee people'shand-to-hand skills don'tautomatically qualify them for combat droid use,and b) it might attract too many DE's to the profession, I think it's a major design triumph.

These are some big things, like i said think of the latent functions. Thers problems with your proposal sodon, but we can work around them.

I don't see the problems with the proposal, I see problems with the profession that go beyond the scope of combat droids. While some of the issues you brought up are indeed important, they fall beyond the scope of this proposal. We aren't going to get brand new decay systems implemented - we are mere months away from the Space Expansion, and this is what little attention we are going to get for quite some time. This proposal is meant to get combat droids in the game, not be a pancea for the whole profession.

AO

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Message Edited by AudioOrgana on 03-31-2004 03:04 AM