Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Engineer, Droid Commander, and Droid Cert System A possible compromise
Hey Pluto
I never said I wanted him removed, I said it might be getting time to move on (meaning me not him lol)
And, I'm not saving face you silly CH, but I do know when I'm being backed into a corner. Seems to me his proposal offers a way out of the corner, and unlike some, I am willing to move my position in all this if it makes sense to do so.
I think he is trying (actually in more ways than one 
) but I have yet to see a better compromise, so kudos where it is due say I.
As to what BE's can or will be able to do in the future, you know I really don't care. As in I have no interest in that. I certainly dont know where you get any idea what I do or dont want regarding mirroring the pet professions. My point is and always has been that a Droid is NOT a pet. There are no reasons why anything designed for CH/BE should have bearingon a Droid.
TK, I guess you are right, the system is set up for it.
Better get my high heels and fleshwrap then eh? Hmm going to be lots of takers for DE skill teaching I think (NOT) so I suppose its Artisan and Scout I have to offer. I wonder how many people I have to teach to get to that huge amount of App points...more than I am likely to find I fear.
Shady exploits in darkened rooms it is then, I'll drop mine if you drop yours first eh lol
What a life!
/bow
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
TK, I guess you are right, the system is set up for it.
It's just that they have put this situation into play. The spam around the Coronet starport actually locks by box up at times, I think. We've all seen the 8000 different spammed messages out there but the point is...training to get AP, and people needing to get trained, aren't outrageously hard to find. I train 4 to 5 people a day, usually.
Better get my high heels and fleshwrap then eh?
I'm not sure what "fleshwrap" is....but...
High heels? /drool
This Wookiee's got a weakness for those.
I wonder how many people I have to teach to get to that huge amount of App points...more than I am likely to find I fear.
It depends on the skill, usually. You can get roughly 100-120 AP points by teaching one 'tree' (4 boxes). I don't think getting the AP to take advantage of Drashk's proposed system will be that bad, honestly. We are obviously going to have to accept some kind of compromise if we want a solution that gets us closer to "fixed".
Shady exploits in darkened rooms it is then, I'll drop mine if you drop yours first eh lol
Errrrrr...you're dropping DE?
Respectfully,
Nope TK, not DE but skill dropping and regaining amongst friends is one way to get APP points fast enough to be useful..its probably an exploit at that, but it too goes on all the time.
Come to think of it, isn't there a cap on APP points...? I do believe there is.
OutlawEdi wrote:
Drashk wrote:
The entire reason that I support the Droid Commander idea is because it will give DEs the best window of opportunity for a crafting system that does not create cookie cutter droids.
Respectfully I dissagree. The best avenue for a crafting system that does not create cookie cutter droids other than the revamp you mention later in the post is more utility, moremodues and more functionality. Combat droids will do the exact opposite and create a new cookie cutter mold which we'll be forced to dedicate a factory to.
I agree with OutlawEdi. I support the addition of new combat droids, but adding new combat droids is not the best opportunity to enhance the droid crafting system. If you want to enhance the droid crafting system, then we need to focus on new utility droids, not new combat droids.
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Nope TK, not DE but skill dropping and regaining amongst friends is one way to get APP points fast enough to be useful..its probably an exploit at that, but it too goes on all the time.
Come to think of it, isn't there a cap on APP points...? I do believe there is.
The way it was explained to me that it SHOULD be working is...
- You have a skill
- You surrender it.
- If you happen to have enough XP in the same skill needed to get that box back, you could immediately relearn it. This, it was explained to me, is how the system apparently works and is designed to run.
What you should NOT be able to do is endless (and VERY quickly) surrender, learn, surrender, learn, ad nauseum....to get fast AP built up. THAT is an exploit.
In any case, this may all be moot unless we hear back from the Devs that this plan actually has some legs or is workable as a jumping-off point.
/bow
Respectfully,
First of all I have to admit that I'm neither DE nor CH, but I have the strong desire to have more droids in SWG (combat and non-combat - but I guess combat is a lot easier to implement at first) which is why I'm trying to bring in an objective as can be outsiders opinion into this discussion. I'm also trying to think a bit like a dev might think, concerned for balance issues and realisability with as little effort possible. Maybe you could read my opinion and point out where I have totaly missunderstood the issues of the DEs and of balancing.
1) DEs having more combat droid abilities
As I understand it there is a majority that doesn't want only DEs to have combat droid capabilities because they want a large market (and only selling to their kind won't make that available because everybody will craft for themselves) ... Some say they don't want DEs to have any combat droid capabilities because to them DE is a complete crafting profession (so they are against the proposal of integrating +20 into the DE skills).
Now a Droid Handler or Commander or whatever you call it will be inevitable due to balancing issues the devs simply have to handel. But I as an outsider could understand DEs having a special "gift" commanding droids as they (should) know exactly how they tick ... Could you maybe tie the better understanding of droids the DEs posess with the DC capabilities ... don't give DEs a +20 just like that ... give DEs a +25% ( depending on the skill tree rank of DE and what ever balance fits) modifier on abbilities of DCs (and DCs only). So if a normal non-DE would go up the Droid Commander skilltree and earn +4 droid levels ... a DE would get +5 (so 1 more while spending the same amount of skillpoints in DC ... but much more in his DE).
Of course having been a Weaponsmith I do see it being a bit "unfair" of only letting DEs have this modifier advantage in usage of their products (of course only if they take DC skills with my proposal) ... I'd love to see something simulare to the other combat-item crafters, modifiers to make them be able to use their products a bit more effectively in combat - or maybe even to have abilities to help out their group members during battle by modifying their buddies weapon/armor/droid with special "tweak-packs" limited to a certain time giving players with crafterabbilities a special role in a combat group ... bringing back the once proposed combat engineer into the game and adding a lot more content and tactical possibilities
2) The Cert. Suggestion as prereq. for DC
I'd love to see everybody being able to have a decent combat droid because as I understand Star Wars it shouldn't be to complicated even for a Kid to command a droid. I'd love to see a lot more droids than creatures being used in combat - I'd love to give all players the abbility to call a cl12 droid but only a cl10 pet - but I don't think that fits into balance either and might bring a huge outcry to the rather important CH community - important due to the fact that they are a major part of the players influencing the producer not wanting to anger and lose these many paying gamers.
But here is probably where the balance issues the devs have will kick in. Although you can't compare droids to creatures 1:1 (CH can tame for themselves and sell for others and they have a much wider variety of pets to command) you have to look at the now present balance issues in the system concerning creature pets. A master CH and the +60 challange level points you get from getting there cost 106 skillpoints ... effectivly making +1 cl cost 1.76 SP. This seems to fit in with the proposed cert system (+1 cl costs 2 SP) ... but if you look at the first +2 cl a novice CH gets ... this costs 49 SP in prerequirements (that aren't too combat related either except if you're fighting on a hillside as brawler) ... making these first added cls very more expensive than the proposed cert system is ... and I suspect there are balance issues as to why this is so. The cert system is proposed to cost this little to make it obtainable be almost anyone who still has 2 or more skillpoints free ... essentialy giving almost everybody a cl12 droid withough comparable costs to CH. I just don't think that will be accepted by the devs due to balance and "fairness".
3) The Droid Commander mini-profession
Having the balance issues in mind and compared to the CH I still don't see the major advantage of breaking down the mini DC and the Cert system in two totaly new systems to the game which will probably take a lot more dev work than combining the two into one "normal" DC profession. Paying 6 SP for +3 droid level is the same as paying 3x2 SP for 3x+1 droid levels ... only it demands you concentrate more on this direction effectivly balancing the issue a lot more than "cheap" certs. I can understand that this might be a political attempt to satisfy all DEs in the forums to an extent ... but the bottom line is that it's the same as a DC with no prerequirements but a more complicated to sell to the devs and inplement.
As a bonus I'd like to comment on DEs being dependant on mastering artisan - I have to say that I'd love to see more "dependacy" of all crafters in the game ... but only for the high end items. Apart from the fact that it is simply more realistic to buy certain items you could never build yourself in such good quality as needed if you should be specialised on something else (that's part of the reason why big companies have suppliers in RL) ... this is a MMORPG and there should be a lot of interaction also between crafters wanting to create the best items.
Being dependant on others (in form of having to have business relationships) is a big part of this game ... combat chars are already dependant on crafters, they have to buy armor, weapons, buffs etc. from many different players ... they are also dependant (or should be from the develepors point of view) on supporters to heal and buff (entertainers and medics) and dependant on other combat chars to form a group to master high level content. In the same way crafters should be dependant on each other to master high level items. But that's just my opinion of course and is only ment to be a subnote to my thoughts on the subject as a whole
If you find spelling mistakes ... you can keep them ;
KoenmaAtego wrote:
Is there any idea how many skill points it will take to master this "droid commander" profession? I would like to get a general idea so I know what professions could fit with it. Also, knowing about the prerequisites would be cool too
I dont think this is a compromise at all. Its no different than changing Droid Handler to Droid Commander and saying there will be no Droid Handler profession.
The cert levels costing skill points is no different that picking up a tree in Droid Commander. It may look different on paper, but the mechanism is the same. Furthermore, it makes even less sense, since its now adding new code for no reason. As someone pointed out, there's no reason it wouldnt fit in a standard skill tree, and now Drashk has something to fill 18 boxes. I dont think there's anything in stone that the skills have to follow the 5-4-3-2 point progession. Im sure they could just as easily do a 2-2-2-2 progression, at least for new profession.
I think all this proposal does is put a different coat of paint on DH, and creates more work doing so for the sake of appearance. The only real benefit i see is DE's getting a bit of free stuff, and really that could be done with the current system to. Overall though, I rather have a DH profession than this, since the mechanism is already there and the time wouldnt have to be wasted coding the mechanics (and breaking god knows what in the process). (Not that im supporting DH).
A couple other things
With the demise of hologrinding, AP will drop signifigantly. That leaves surrendering, teaching repeatedly (which knowing SOE is considered an exploit).
I think the general rule of xp capping is 2x what you need. So if you need 125k in a skill, it capps at 250k.. but thats just a guess. AP does cap.
