Droid Engineer Archive

Let it be clear - this is game based onsomeone's imagination of a fantasySci Fi. The game is not based on reality. Using real life analogies is worthless. If anyone could make a Robot at Star Wars level- it would take a company to do it not one person. The entire DE class is make believe concept introduced to allow you to ESCAPE the "real" world. And most things that happen in this game could NEVER be done in real life.

Lets takeaprinter and computer.It ismade by numerous companies. One company makes the ink to be placed in the printer cartridge another makes the cartridge. Another makes the Ribbion that slides on the bottom - Ooo another makes the metal bar that the printer head slides on.. Another company makes the frame. Another company buys all the pieces and partsand may actually make some of the parts then assembles it. Nowa computer is even more convoluted as far as different companies involved. The processor - the morther board - box - memory - power supply - ribbons - cords - heat sink - sound card - video card -operating system- etc etc etc...

Now the operating system alone was produced by hundreds of computer engineers. NOT ONE PERSON.

So if we TRUELY wanted to simulate as close as possible to reality maybe several thousand DE's together could make one Advanced high tech robot then have an assembly line to mass produce it. And theprogramming of that advancedcombat droid would need team of software engineers to do it. Sooooodoyou REALLY want to simulate reality? NO YOU DON'T. None of us want a simulation of "true" or "close to"reality.

So can we quit using real life analogies on a game so FAR away from reality its not funny.

This game is made to be *cough* fun *cough*. Arewe having fun yet?

So in order to make this game fun we need challenge - if there is no challenge - no sense of accomplishment - no ability to say - Ooo look me me I'm "Billy Bad Arse" What do we have left? We have some pretty sceneries and failure of agame many of us dreamed about. For your ZEST to be a "Billy Bad Arse" you are unbalancing the game - reducing the challenge, fun and accomplishment.

Many aspects of this game still needs to be adjusted in the "nerf" and "enhancement"sense in order to reach the fun, challenge and accomplishment phase - its a balancing act. Unfortunately, the creators of this game have an almost an impossible task to reach this -zone- of "challenge (butnotfrustrating)" and"accomplishment (but not monotonous)" = fun ( buteach person has a different concept of fun)

So what does all this boils down to. It's pretty simple... certifications are a MUST for a gate for anything powerful. If you want powerful droids - it must be gated. It MUST be balanced to ensure the fun and challenge of the game. Some of you are fighting so hard you dont even know what are you fighting for.

The game was released too early - too many phases of the game was incomplement. Too many classes broken. Whats been done is done - however lets hope SOE has learned from this mistake and doesn't release EQ2 too early for the sake of $$$. Lets hope SOE puts more resources in game they are making 3.5 million plus a month. Lets hope SOE gets PAID correspondants for each class to show "us" the consumers they are on top of every issue. Lets hope SOE can get back to basics and get it right...

-JediAvenger-

If Droid Handler was implemented in beta, or a week or two after release this would have been great. But like I stated in my previous post, most of our sales from this new class will most likely be new people joining the game, which means very few.

If they do put this profession ingame, they should at least return the Probots to their original pre nerf stats. This would go in with everyone able to have level 15 creature pets. This would allow us to compete with BEs.

If anyone was to ask me this is not the way to go...

The devs should not introduce big changes to the gameplay for a profession, this only creates more fustration and anger. Just look at AO...

What they should do is fixing bugs that are there and making ALL droids and modulesworthwhile making and using!! This means both fixing bugs but also changing or maybe adding modules and droids so that they serve a purpose.

When this is done they can start introducing new droids and modules, with all new abilities and functions. Based on a working and useable system this shouldnt be that hard. Especially if they read just some of the great ideas from enthusiastic DE'sfor new droids and uses found on the boards.

Lets just all pray for a better tomorrow for DE's

Horza Dent. MA, DE. (Bria)

Ok I had originally posted this under "The Final Solution....Revised". The link is below.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=21851

Let me offer you some of my ideas as a way tonot need a Droid Handlerprofession while letting anyone who pays his/her dues to own a combat droid.Basically the problem is not just with droids but the devs are trying towrestle with pets in general, who should have them, how many they should have etc...regarding a "faction point" tree not just fordroids but for pets (and for vehicles in the future). So here is what I offer as an alternative solution to a Droid Handler profession:

First, it seems the root of the problem with pet handling is balance. By pets,I will be talking about all three types: faction, creature, and droid pets.Here are two examples of unbalance:

We all know Creature Handlers can eventually obtain three high HAM creatures out (and I think they have the potential to have 3 faction pets out as well as one droid) at the same time. That is like a miniture army. Likewise, there are Imperial faction members can have 3 ATSTs out at the same time.Yet while these two examples require loads of xp to acquire, because there is no xp requirement for droids, anyone can own them. The flip side of those examples are the rest of us. We can have one low level creature, 3 faction pets, and a droid out at the same time. So the vast majority of players (unless they have ATSTs) are at a disadvantage compared to a few professions.

Second, it seems it is too easyfor low level newbies to get thebest stuff and level quickly. The devs want to stop this because they are less likely to play as long therefore wont pay the money SOE is in business for.Hence in an attempt to stop newbies from acquiring a super probot or combat droid like the upcoming droideka, the Devs have done the following two things in an attempt to rectify the situation: nerf probots and propose a droid handler tree.

A droid handler tree would be a horrible idea but I see the logic behind it both as a lazy "quick fix" and from their business prospective. Like I mentioned above If newbies level too fast with good droids, they may not play as long hence less money for SOE. So we need to balance not only the one army player but also the levels at which you can get pets. This should be donewhile not upsetting the current game too much (angering DEs and non DEs with nerfs and taking away thier droids) while adding depth to the game and a new level of playability.

Here is a possible solution for ALL pet ownership:

Faction Pets: At the momentthe Rebel and Imperial military rank system does little more than give you the ability to hold more faction points at each level from my understanding of it. To make this more meaningful, Faction Rank should give players the ability to control more faction pets. At the level of private, players should not be able to control three faction pets at once but one only. With increasing rank, faction players get more faction pet choices as well as increasing pets out at the same time, eventually adding upto 3 faction pets out at a time.At the highest rank, I fully support 3 ATSTs as a reward for hard work. To the greedy SOE: think of the time players will spend to get to this level! (Note: I am pretty sure you cannot get an ATST until the rank of seargent but this model should be more broadly applied if that is the case as it would limit the amount of ppl with extreme pets).

Creature Pets: No need to nerf creatures since Creature Handlers go through much xp to obtain the creature pets they get (they do earn it), the current system will work and act as a gage to bring other pets like droid pets up toa comparable level.

Droid Pets and Vehicles:

In the real world, in order to drive a car or operate special machines, people need licences. Yes this does mean I am talking about certifications but not a new skill tree. In every city on every planet, there should be a certification officer who acts much like a faction recruiter but who can certify you to use a certain combat droid or vehicle. Since the planetary governments would not want just anyone to run around with a droideka, there is justification that you would need a licence to roll around with it (much like you need a permit for a gun from the government in real life). You talk to him and he will send you out on special missions much like a faction recruiter. You gain certification xpdepending on your profession(s) by destroy, craft, survey, deliver, etc missions.When you get a certain # of licence xp points needed for a certain item, you can choose the item to be certified in (aka what to buy with your points). For example:

A low level certification could be: Probot Droid certification with light armor. In order to get a probot cert with heavy armor you would have to get the licences for light and medium armor first. This would create a market for low level DEs as there would then be people would want to buyProbot with Armor 1 or 2 because that is all they are certified for.

More things you could be certified in:More droids out at once for Non DE players (although this should be an inherent feature to DE similar to creature handler for if nothing else to exhibit the wares) up to 3. More than one combat droid at once. More pets able to be stored. Swoop Bikes. Landspeeders. etc.

Note certification would only be for certain droids mostlyupcoming combat droidslike droidekas andprobots as well as surgical droids when they will be able to heal players themselves. Non Combat droidslike R2s and C3POs are common droids that can beowned by anyone since theyare useful and are none destructive.

ALL pets: There COULD be a general pet limit to how many you can have out at a time when you start out as a newbie. Certifications could then allow you to be able to eventuallycontrol more at a time. At full certification a player could be able to control a maximum # of pets out at the same time. You will have to choose which to bring out. The limit would be imposed so that Non creature handlers can have as big an army as a creature handler. If a creature handler has 3 creatures and 3 faction pets, a non CH can have 3 droid pets and 3 faction pets to even it out.

There are several reasons why certification in this way could work well. 1) It means everyone could eventually own combat droids but will keep newbies from leveling too fast (Droid Handler would leave people out, upset ppl who say everyone should be able to control them, and not ruin DE sales). 2) Droid Engineers coming up through the ranks would be able to sell droids with low level armor. 3) There would be more of a balance with pets between droids and creatures and faction pets. 4) This does not require extra skill points or a new profession to master like Droid Handler thus keeping the game very close to the way it was before.

For those who have been playing the game for awhile, to not discourage them by needing now to get licensing, xp points could be converted into licensing points at the License Officer (a reverse version of faction points becoming xp). If I have pistol orcrafting ormedxp pts as a current player, I could convert them at a ratio to license/certification xp points.

And last but not least this is the most easily upgradable option for SOE if they wanted to add more droids/vehicles/etc one at a time in the future. Just add another licensing option on the License Officer of (enter your city here) and it could be as simple as that.

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Anchmed wrote:

A couple of thoughts - the 'handler' idea doesn't fit - lets change it

DE can still make the same droids they always have, and can use them just like anyone else -

Some changes - allow the DE to put components produced by other artisans/crafters into the final assembly, yes, I want to be able to put in a lightning canon component into a droid so it does a different type of damage. I want the Architects to produce the crafting stations I put into the droids, I want the medical droids to actually heal but the Docs of the game have to produce the charged components I can refill the droid with.....etc....etc...etc.....

Now for the realclass instead of Droid Handler/Rangler

How about SOFTWARE ENGINEER

The SE, takes the basic droid produced and begins to enhance it, namely, changing the AI and routinesassociated with it to provide new and special manuevers. I produce a probot that can attack with the normal attack, heck, all I knew how to do was program the attack command. The SE came along and said, well, well, well. Lets give it a knockdown, here is how I program it, by the way, the success of the knockdown is related to the components I used ( GP has to be high quality, MM has to be high quality and the software design and coding ability of the SE are included also. Lets just carry this example a little further. I build a 3po droid which the SE promptly takes and begins to program with TKA moves, rock'n I say!

So, the SE sees my power droid and says, pretty kewl but what can you do with it. Nothing really I say. He says, let me hack on it awhile and see what I can come up wtih. Before you know it, he has added the programming to allow my Power droid to remember the WPs for my harvesters and trained it to take power out to them and run maintenance on them. WOW I say, as a DE I can still produce the same ol stuff I could before that people can use but as an SE also, or in conjunction with an SE I can really make things that rock and are far more useful.

Phlay

Master Arch/Droid Eng

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Bloody brilliant!

Love this idea Phlay. sad 'cause it is definately something I would luv to see in game but have low hopes the devs will ever implement

Ya know if they got enough of us together before they built this da*mn thing we coulda helped make this a much better game.

Note to Sony: Next time you build a MMORPG build a forum for the game and bounce ideas into the hardcore players interested in your game idea, take the 100 best posters with the brightest ideas, fly 'em to your production facility, put em up in a hotel for a month and pay em a nominal fee for their time have them evaluate game development plans and brainstorm ideas/solutions with the team - gauranteed your game will be 100x better for it ya silly sods.

Forgot to add that tho I love the idea of an SE, don't mind the more powerful weapons or the stimpack charges coming from droid -

Follow up:

Phlay -

FANTASTIC idea for getting around Holo's concern about putting a profession out of work (medics/drs) - advanced surgicals give all benefits they do now, but can HEAL as well - BUT require the Drs/chemists stimpacks to do so. (I'd add maybe they suffer 10% penalty in healing too (just a number)).

Have to be too careful to become overly dependent on other crafters as well.

Only unfortunate thing is that it doesn't address base issue which is stopping Newbie from using an advanced/high-end droid even tho they have less programming options (attack vs headshot 4 lets say).

Great idea(s) just don't solve the root problem of a newbie running around with a high-powered droid.

Until your solution puts a gauranteed stop to that - then it won't fly with SOE.

I still hope they consider some of the other ideas u put forth tho.

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jcarlson34 wrote:

In the real world, in order to drive a car or operate special machines, people need licences. Yes this does mean I am talking about certifications but not a new skill tree. In every city on every planet, there should be a certification officer who acts much like a faction recruiter but who can certify you to use a certain combat droid or vehicle. Since the planetary governments would not want just anyone to run around with a droideka, there is justification that you would need a licence to roll around with it (much like you need a permit for a gun from the government in real life). You talk to him and he will send you out on special missions much like a faction recruiter. You gain certification xpdepending on your profession(s) by destroy, craft, survey, deliver, etc missions.When you get a certain # of licence xp points needed for a certain item, you can choose the item to be certified in (aka what to buy with your points). For example:

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Got excited by this idea when I thought of it this way:

In DE skill tree add in under Intermd level - abilty to craft schematic: 1st Level Droid Handling Licence

under Advanced level - abilty to craft schematic:2nd Level Droid Handling Licence

under Expert level - abilty to craft schematic: 3rd Level Droid Handling Licence

Then tieing certain droid types to those levels - players having to obtain one of these for a price from DE - but realised problems:

Problem 1: Any player including newbie could beg borrow recive Droid Handling Licence unless the ability to use that License was certified across all player skill trees (again won't get rid of cert problem just a more interesting way of doing it)

Problem 2: Droids are still customizable - you can still put a high level module in a low level Droid - which is a huge potential for future exploits (unless maybe those high powered modules are changed so they will only go into a general socket cluster and therefore will only fit into certain crafted droids which are more high end).

?thoughts

Indeed.. the Software Engineer thing sounds cool to me.. However, the things that are proposed that the software engineer could accomplish are things that I thought DE should have since DAY ONE! These bugs in DE need fixed, and to me, it should take a brand-new class (like Software Engineer) to accomplish it. However, if that's the only way SOE can fix a bug, then I say "have at it".

As far as certifications for droids are concerned, I think I'll quote a chunk of message I posted on a different thread regarding this matter. It's been brought up before in various contexts, but I think it needs to be looked at, since it has the potential to really turn DE around.

Higher-level combat droids would require specific parts that wear out quickly. Combat droids are used and abused every day moreso than a non-combat droid. It makes sense that these droids would not only require hideous amounts of power, but would have things such as power cores and whatnot that are used heavily and decay rapidly. Have you priced a power core from your friendly neighborhood architect lately? A rather pricey chunk of hardware... and the part could only be replaced by a DE. This is just a simple example, but you see where I'm going with this. It creates a huge money-sink to the uber-wealth battle types, and spreads the cash out amongst various artisan classes rather than just one. It also would create repeat business.

The key here is that instead of a n00b hitting up his guild for 100k to buy the latest "psycho world-crusher droid", he would have to continuallykeep it physically maintained, which is expensive.

I realize this would require coding the ability to replace subcomponents within droids, and is too complicated to be implemented anytime soon. However, I see it as a cool way to smoothly settle this whole "droid handler" BS, as well as limit who can afford to maintain/abuse an uber-droid. It would also create a new type of DE that could use currently-existing skills to specialize in a sort of "chop shop". Strictly dealing with replacing old components with hotrod or customized parts and reselling droids.. a rather sweet subplot to be explored..

Cheers,

Mirius Barakiel -ZAM Enterprises- Kaadara,Naboo,Sunrunner

ACK! It should NOT take a different class to fix DE..

Yet another "No-Edit-Button" casualty.

Mirius

I don't like it and I'll tell you why. It's a duplicated effort.

The reson CH and BE work is becasue it's a totaly diffrent skill set. If driods mirrored the functionality then what is the point? May as well cluster the 2 together because the only diffrence will be the character modles.

As it is now, droids are a nice complment to a normal players game. If you take that away you end up makeing driods less significant and impactful to the playerbase not more.

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standup_philosopher wrote:

Indeed.. the Software Engineer thing sounds cool to me.. However, the things that are proposed that the software engineer could accomplish are things that I thought DE should have since DAY ONE! These bugs in DE need fixed, and to me, it should take a brand-new class (like Software Engineer) to accomplish it. However, if that's the only way SOE can fix a bug, then I say "have at it".

As far as certifications for droids are concerned, I think I'll quote a chunk of message I posted on a different thread regarding this matter. It's been brought up before in various contexts, but I think it needs to be looked at, since it has the potential to really turn DE around.

Higher-level combat droids would require specific parts that wear out quickly. Combat droids are used and abused every day moreso than a non-combat droid. It makes sense that these droids would not only require hideous amounts of power, but would have things such as power cores and whatnot that are used heavily and decay rapidly. Have you priced a power core from your friendly neighborhood architect lately? A rather pricey chunk of hardware... and the part could only be replaced by a DE. This is just a simple example, but you see where I'm going with this. It creates a huge money-sink to the uber-wealth battle types, and spreads the cash out amongst various artisan classes rather than just one. It also would create repeat business.

The key here is that instead of a n00b hitting up his guild for 100k to buy the latest "psycho world-crusher droid", he would have to continuallykeep it physically maintained, which is expensive.

I realize this would require coding the ability to replace subcomponents within droids, and is too complicated to be implemented anytime soon. However, I see it as a cool way to smoothly settle this whole "droid handler" BS, as well as limit who can afford to maintain/abuse an uber-droid. It would also create a new type of DE that could use currently-existing skills to specialize in a sort of "chop shop". Strictly dealing with replacing old components with hotrod or customized parts and reselling droids.. a rather sweet subplot to be explored..

Cheers,

Mirius Barakiel -ZAM Enterprises- Kaadara,Naboo,Sunrunner

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I think alot of this is overthinking, and other parts of it are things that would be cool in the future. The immediate fix for the DEs is a simple simple simple fix. Make combat probots more powerful, make their armor work like it is supposed to work, and create methods for healing them. The only reason pets are so much more popular than droids is the droids are nerfed beyond useless. Fix that and DEs will have their first major victory. THEN start working on advanced features like those discussed in this thread. I think DE needs a more immediate fix, the longterm coolness can come after.

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I_Banzai wrote:

I don't like it and I'll tell you why. It's a duplicated effort.

The reson CH and BE work is becasue it's a totaly diffrent skill set. If driods mirrored the functionality then what is the point? May as well cluster the 2 together because the only diffrence will be the character modles.

As it is now, droids are a nice complment to a normal players game. If you take that away you end up makeing driods less significant and impactful to the playerbase not more.

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Droids are in rare use, they are bugged, and they are ineffective from the perspective of most players. Personally, I know how to use my probot, and thushe is an excellent complement to my character. (The best trick of all is to get over the concept of the droid asapet tank. I treat my probot, Data, like a bleed. Either I or my bat draw the aggro, and THEN data starts firing. He may only be hitting 35 a pop, but he's hitting fast, and it's like a constant draw down of damage for the enemy). However, the question isn't about people like you or I, it's about the DE profession in general. Only widespread increase in use is going to produce long term viability for the DE, and for that, you've GOT to make droids MORE attractive. Frankly, some of the ideas in this thread, such as certification, would make it less attractive to the playerbase at large. Droid engineers are a crafting class, not a combat class, and thus are very different from CH the profession. But droids and pets have a LOTin common and should be comparable. You musn't confuse the differences between CH and DE with the differences between pets and droids. Pets are not Creature Handlers, and droids are not Droid Engineers. Making droids comparable to pets doesn't change that.

I agree with banzai that making some type of droid CH is a bad move.

Droids are everywhere in the star wars universe, if it were up to me all droids of all levels regardless of how powerful would be available to all players. I for one could give two flying you know what's about this so-called balance myth. Its a PvP fairy tale, a ghost objective that games like Asheron's Call have been chasing for years. The only questions worth asking regarding droids and their proliferation are:

1. Will it be fun?
2. Does it fit the Star Wars Universe, as told by Skywalker Ranch?
3. Is it cool?
4. Will it be a boon to the DE profession?

If the the 'it' above is 'varied and interesting droids of varied talents and levels of power are available to ANY player for the right price' the answer to all 4 is most clearly YES YES YES YES.

If this were actually star wars, anyone could go buy any droid of any skill or power they wanted if they had the money and knew where to go. I see no reason why it shouldn't be the same here.

Ughhh, it's late - excuse the gammar errors. Boy, do I wish this board had an edit feature.

-JediAvenger-

I for one could give two flying you know what's about this so-called balance myth. Its a PvP fairy tale, a ghost objective that games like Asheron's Call have been chasing for years. The only questions worth asking regarding droids and their proliferation are:

1. Will it be fun?
2. Does it fit the Star Wars Universe, as told by Skywalker Ranch?
3. Is it cool?
4. Will it be a boon to the DE profession?

Ok lets apply your logic.

1. Will it be fun?

It would be cool to own a lvl 200 Droid pet called Doood with 30,000 hps.

2. Does it fit the Star Wars Universe, as told by Skywalker Ranch? Yep, robots all over the place. Ieven think I recalledCH pets named Gangsta in Star Wars episode 7 (Rebels Strike back with Mutant Pets)

3. Is it cool?You cant get any cooler than a lvl 200 droid named Doood.... MAN, it doesn't getany betterthan that!Regardless, I want a robot named Dooood to beat up the Ch pets named Gangsta.

4. Will it be a boon to the DE profession? To make a lvl 200 pet would certainly would be a boon.

Unfortunately, after 90 days with everyone in the game running around with Droid pets named Dooood andkilling missions in a single AE hit of 15k. I would predict the game would end in less than 6 months. Everyone would be quiting in droves because there was no balance the "ghost objective" that never was.

Balance is a VITAL part of a game like this.

-JediAvenger-