Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Certs? NO! Make a Pet Skill Tree Never Seen before, something new.
Let me summarize what I believe you're saying.
All pets start out as CL10 (or lower) that anyone can use.
The pet ITSELF will have its own profession tree(s) just like a player has, costing XP and the player's skill points to level up. Therefor the player would be giving up skill points for that specific droid to become better and it would take the same "time investment" to level up just like any normal profession.
Very interesting idea and probably the most original to date.
Theres of course a few things that would need to be ironed out. Like not making the pets tradable (without them losing their skill points, since the skill points invested are the original player's skill points).
I would really like to hear the Dev's opinions on the possibility of something like this being implementing.
-norax
Thunderheart wrote:
Virtanis wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
How do you guys feel about something like this?
Thunderheart, Anything but a DH class.... please. Options are out there, ideas have been made and said. Please, please make every effort to avert a DH profession!
Im reading and gathering all of the ideas put forth and presenting them to the devs. Keep in mind that a bunch of the proposals put forth the idea of a "mini profession" or adding a droid handling tree to the DE profession which is basically what's on the table.
The important thing to remember is that any proposal has to include the following design criteria if they are going to be considered by the devs:
- Any player can handle any pet or droid as long as its CL 10 or below.
- Any pet/droid above level 10 has to have a significant skill point/experience point expenditure.
- Reference CH's and the fact they have to spend points for an entire profession to get those benefits.
- Factions pets (which could be some droids) will be added at a later date.
Keep proposing good ideas and Drashk and I will keep looking for things that the devs and community can agree on.
Re: Droid Invasion
I understand that the droids you are probosing may be powerful combat droids, or they may not be, we will not know til they are in game or we get some stats. But I do not understand why you are compating them to Creature Handler Pets. They are not pets, they are droids. Programable machines.
Creature Handler pets are living beings with personallities and manerisms that have to be dealt with by a trained Creature Handler (hense the Profession). Droids are machines that are programable (by a Droid Engineer) to act the way they program them, Obey who they program them to obey, ect......
To say that you need to spend SP or XP to be able to control a droid just doesn't make sese to me. If you want to make them profession specific fine (ie: Combat droid certs for combat professions, Surveying droid certs for crafting professions, ect....) and make the higher level droids only available to the Masters of those professions. But they should be the same droids available to all at certain levels (ie: Master Rifleman gets the same certs as a Master Carbineer), You can even give the Hybrid Classes specific droids (ie: Smuggler Droids, Bounty Hunter Droids, Combat Medic Droids). But not a seperate profession that is just absurd. This will bring about the same problems we had before the Creature Handler rebalancing last publish. All the bandwagon jumpers will flock to this profession and it will be R-o-b-o-P-o-k-e-m-o-n.
You also said something about Faction Pets. I am all for Making Faction pets dependent on Rank, but that should be all. I hope you are not thinking along the same lines and want to make us have to spend SP and XP to be able to control Faction Pets too. To me Faction Pets and Droids are much more similar than Droids and Creature Handler Pets.
Faction Pets - Soldiers who follow orders of thier superiors.
Droids - Machines who follow orders of who they are programed (by DE) to follow orders from.
CH Pets - Living beings with thier own personality and manerisms that need to be trained and controlled by someone who has the necessary skills and abilities to do so.
I also feel that if you want to really limit them and the amount that people can have and use they should take alot of resources and different types to make the higher the level ones. This will make them very expensive not only for the Droid Engineer to build but for the consumer to buy. Hopefully this will limit the amount players will be able to buy and Droid Engineers will be able to make.
I think Combat and other types of droids would be a great addition to the game, but if only a new profession (Droid Handler) or Droid Engineers are going to be the only ones able to use the high level ones I would rather not see them at all. I think it will just be a problem waiting to be NERFED.
Thunderheart wrote:
- Reference CH's and the fact they have to spend points for an entire profession to get those benefits.
Please, please, please will the devs STOP treating Droids and creatures the same? There's logical sense why you need skill points to be a CH and the only argument that's been made as to why you'd need skill points to use a droid is because the CHs have to do it.
FYI
Creatures are NOT Droids
There is no reason why you should have to sepnd a lot of points to get decent combat droids. Now, I'm not saying super uberful droids... look at continuity. Except for a few select droids, the advantage that they had were their numbers, but a single droid combat droid should be a match for average level droids. If you remove the nerf about having creatures/pets out together, and possibly raise the level up to 15 for Droids that would be a good balance. I see that you could have a few lvl 15 roger roger droids out which would help, but not "unbalance" (ironically, the game is so unbalanced that a CM and Rifleman were able to take out 15-20 other players) the game.
Barb-Wire wrote:
not having a droid handler type profession would the same as removing CH and letting BE also tame and make their own pets. whats the difference. the DE cant have their cake and eat it too.
combat droids dont fit into this timeline in anything other than an entertainment medium.
i say if DE want to make combat droids AND control them then they shouldnt be able to make anything more powerful than a lesser bol. otherwise make a droid handler profession. it only makes sense. if a DE wants to control droids let em take up droid handler.
I really like Barf's idea. I think the only part that might not fit Thunderhearts requirements is the skill point cost. I think if you made players spend their own skill points on there droid then it would fit. Example, you open up your droids skill tree and and he has enough combat XP to learn a new targeting system, You would need to
A) had to use your droid so it could get the combat XP
B) Have to spend a few of your skill points so your droid could learn the skill
C) Take your droid to the DE to get the new targeting system installed
I would prefer the droid had it's own skill points but this compromise might work. Using skill points would be the only way to get your droid over CL 10 and the more skill points you spend the stronger your droid would become.This ideawould still allow all players regardless of profession to own droids. I think the skill point cost should be jsut enough to suck up the few leftovers a Master BH has.
If the droid had it's own skill points I don't think it would be much of a balance issue, because like Barf said in the previous post- with this idea only a high level character could have a high level droid. This would mean instead of balancing all combat all you would have to do is add uber mobs at the highend if you even had to do anything. If a low level character was using his droid all the time it would take him twice as long to progress through his own skills because the droid would be sucking up his XP.
Its about the only idea that doesnt unbalance the combat classes and does not include Droid Handlers.
The only problem I forsee is that the Devs can't simply copy/paste Creature Handler code to make it. It would require the most development work out of all the ideas. But honestly, if Combat Droids are worth doing at all it should be done rigtht the first time. All options must be weighed so that we don't all regret our choices 6 months from now.
-norax
Kriel wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:This might be a possibility.
Assuming you want the removal of the DH profession idea and Droid Certifications is a big combat imbalance, adding a Droid Tree to the DE profession might be an option. It would probably work more like a "sprinkling" of Droid/Pet possibilities throughout the profession though. Otherwise you get a lopsided skill advancement.
How do you guys feel about something like this?
extremely bad idea, crafting profession and combat should not be soo easy to get skill point wise
Darn it Thunderheart, you've hijacked this thread and now half the posts are completely off the original topic!
-norax
Using them in combat .. it would make more sense for something like the "Squad Leader" class to gain additional generic (droid/creature/faction) pet slots. It would also make sense for their to be faction related droids and your faction rank to increase the number of droids you can simulatenously use.
Adding a "Droid handler" in addition to "creature handler" is the mirror scenario for bio-engineer and droid-engineer. It's the logical step in the game balance looking at existing mechanics. The general idea is poor. Unlike a creature handler which can gather resources without a BE, the DH would be absolutely dependant. It just doesnt immerse me in a SW universe, "i've been a droid handler the past 40 years, switched'em on every morning narry' a twitter out of them".
Take what SinjenRandell spelled out and combine it with Blaisedinsd's proposal to use the players SP vs having the droid have SP and wow, what a terrific proposel!
Not only does it satisfy TH's requirements but it also makes each droid less disposible. Especially if you allow droids to be DBed(I suggest 3 DBs and it loses all knowledge learned.)
Excellent idea!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=53933
Which according to another TH post is similar to one of the options we have on the table. I set it up to mimic the CL progression for a CH capping at 30 but being a mini-profession which has less point cost total. I still think this can get us a useful droideka type droid.
I'd love folks thoughts over on that thread, read it through for the latest comments.
Thanks,
Ywi Odiwovvi
Master Droid Engineer
Corbantis
Hey barf, this thread has way too many off topic posts, mostly because of TH missing the point completely with his first post in the thread. Maybe a new thread should be started with a subject line that says something like "droids should have droid skill trees" or something.
Improvements on droids in this game must be something different than pets or else it is just a waste andif they are just combat pets with different graphics they should just go to CH's. Droids should be something better, something to add to the Starwars theme of the game.
Again, I like the idea of having combat droids only attack creatures. Faction pets should be changed to be able to attack all NPC's. And CH pets should be able to attack anything. The Empire would not allow non-military combat droids, and based on the movies dont't even use military combat droids. Maybe Rebels could slice their droids to attack NPC's but get a TEF anytime they do and maybe even a bounty.