Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: About DE only combat droids. My 2 credits.
DE become a full-fledged combat class? Look at the Big Picture. DEs are limited by skill points just like all other characters. Between mastering DE and, in all likelyhood, Artisan there aren't many points left. Granted, there are enough to master another class but how many go on to get Merchant ability in order to run their business? Quite a few.The end result is aprofession wherethe majority master two crafting lines (Artisan and DE) and likely dabbles heavily in merchant. The skill points that can be spent on combat skillsarevery limited.
Add a DE-only combat droid; a powerful droid, more effective than what's available to the non-DE populace, but not near as powerful as the CH-only creatures. What do you have? Increased combat effectiveness for DEs to improve survival in the wilderness or do other activities, such as missions. Would this DE-only droid suddenly convert the DE to a full-fledged combatant? No. The DE does not have the other skill lines needed to be a warrior. The DE likely hasn't mastered, or even come close to mastering, a combat-line nor have a collection of skills to make them a combatant.
All a DE-only combat droid would do is serve as a perk and much-needed tool for the DE. It makes sense that there are certain droids complex enough that only one familiar with droids can adequately use them. Providing a Droid Handler or some-such profession is not introduced the DE is the most capable class to handle these droids.
Drashk wrote:
Kollos, you once again have taken a quote from someone else out of context of what was being talked about so that you would prove a point. Thank for proving my point that 'manykeep missing the point of what is being said byquite a fewof the DE-only side of the arguement.'
Once again? Show me where I have ever done that, including this time?
You just don't get it, Drashk. I fully understood the debate and made a very accurate point. Sorry that it is over your head. Your analogy was seriously flawed - there is no reason for Weaponsmiths and Armorsmiths to flock to that profession just so that they can craft their own weapons BECAUSE ANYONE WITH THE PROPER CERTS CAN USE THEM. The best Rifle, the best Pistol, the best Carbine... NONE of those are TIED TO WEAPONSMITH. That is exactly the opposite of what you and others are proposing for Droid Engineer, and BECAUSE it is the opposite it is a flawed analogy.
I completely understand the other side of the argument. What people like you don't understand is that getting what you want radically and fundamentally alters our profession. You keep totally ignoring that point, which pretty much means that every comment you make is useless.
ShadowGriffon99 wrote:
Add a DE-only combat droid; a powerful droid, more effective than what's available to the non-DE populace, but not near as powerful as the CH-only creatures. What do you have? Increased combat effectiveness for DEs to improve survival in the wilderness or do other activities, such as missions.
[... skipping ...]
All a DE-only combat droid would do is serve as a perk and much-needed tool for the DE. It makes sense that there are certain droids complex enough that only one familiar with droids can adequately use them. Providing a Droid Handler or some-such profession is not introduced the DE is the most capable class to handle these droids.
If only that were true.
1) Droid Engineers don't need increased combat effectiveness from their own profession. If you want the ability to run around in the wild and tend your harvesters or run missions(things that I do all the time), then pick up some combat skills. Droid Engineer is a crafting profession and as such it makes little sense to ask for increased combat ability from that profession itself.
2) Adding a DE-only combat droid would make Droid Engineer a derivative of Creature Handler. Non-crafters would be drawn to the profession in order to obtain the "perk", which would dramatically alter the droid crafting economy. I'm all for competition, but not from people who have no interest in the crafting side of our profession. Many, many alternate perk suggestions have been made that do not involve mutating Droid Engineer into a combat class - why are none of those suggestions acceptable?
3) I keep hearing that Droid Engineers are the most capable of being able to handle the best combat droids, but that's just plain wrong. I'm a game designer and game programmer myself, with multiple published games, but I'm far from the best game player out there. Just because a Droid Engineer knows how to MAKE a combat droid does not mean that he or she knows how to USE it effectively in combat. That responsibility falls to those trained in combat skills - Squad Leaders, Bounty Hunters, Commandos, and the like.
ShadowGriffon99 wrote:
DE become a full-fledged combat class? Look at the Big Picture. DEs are limited by skill points just like all other characters. Between mastering DE and, in all likelyhood, Artisan there aren't many points left. Granted, there are enough to master another class but how many go on to get Merchant ability in order to run their business? Quite a few.The end result is aprofession wherethe majority master two crafting lines (Artisan and DE) and likely dabbles heavily in merchant. The skill points that can be spent on combat skillsarevery limited.
Its by choice that you dabble in all these other skills. If you want to have some fun with combat, pick up a combat profession, if you want to have some fun with crafting/business, pick up crafting/merchant, if you want to do both, pick up a little of both. The whole underlying structure of this game is the necessity to make choices, you can't rewrite a profession because you don't like that.
Add a DE-only combat droid; a powerful droid, more effective than what's available to the non-DE populace, but not near as powerful as the CH-only creatures.
Just a heads up, after the changes with non-CH pets this will be lower than our current probot, if you are asking for a DE only combat droid lower than our current probot, while I don't think it makes sense or is needed, it doesn't cause the problems we'll have with stronger ones.
What do you have? Increased combat effectiveness for DEs to improve survival in the wilderness or do other activities, such as missions. Would this DE-only droid suddenly convert the DE to a full-fledged combatant? No. The DE does not have the other skill lines needed to be a warrior. The DE likely hasn't mastered, or even come close to mastering, a combat-line nor have a collection of skills to make them a combatant.
Yes, but that is only the start. It does set a precedent and change some people's fealings on what the true purpose of the profession is. As I've mentioned before, this can cause some serious issues with the crafting/utility side of the profession being neglected.
All a DE-only combat droid would do is serve as a perk and much-needed tool for the DE. It makes sense that there are certain droids complex enough that only one familiar with droids can adequately use them. Providing a Droid Handler or some-such profession is not introduced the DE is the most capable class to handle these droids.
As for a perk, not only do you already have a perk in that you are the only profession that can make droids, but even if we were to get a perk shouldn't it relate to I don't know.... something in our profession? I fail to see how combat relates to our profession. As for DE's being the best ones to use our droids, last I checked their weren't any leadership or tactics tree's in DE. You are controlling artificially intelligent things, you don't need an owners manual, you need combat experience.
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Sintrosi,
Im a guy that been against the DE only droids since the debate started, and Im also a guy that is man enough to admit when hes wrong...
What you said just now makes more sense than anything Ive seen in the debate (read only about 5-6 posts about it) here. I didn't like the idea because oftwo things: (1) Turning a crafting pro into a combat pro. Think about it, you advance through the DE tree by crafting xp, not by getting xp from handling droids (like CHs, btw I hate the CH pro). (2) My Master DE char is a crafter, not a combat char, I dont need a droid for anything, I dont hunt, pvp, or shot anything besides what attacks me on harvester runs, why would I want a combat droidthat Im not even going to use?
Now I have changed sides and am in favor of the DE only droids after erading your post. After thinking about it, it would bean unfair balancewith anyone could use the "super droid", plus it wouldcause the Devs to give us combat droids that still suck (or nerf the super droid after a week).I agree with what you said 100%, but I will say this:for that "super DE only droid" we're talking about...the cert for it needs to be in MASTER DE, not even in the IVblocks to keep people from flooding our profession just to handle the droid. If we're going to have a DE only droid, lets make sure that droid is really for DEs (real DEs) only.
Once again, nice work.
Daker-Naritus wrote:
You have 2 choices: (1) support non-DE droids so that we can take advantage of that market, or (2) let the CHs and faction NPCskeep the whole market, and become another combat profession (one of over a dozen).
Your call.
False choice. You also have the option of pushing for general-sales droids (which realistically aren't gonna be higher than CL10- 15) AND a powerful MCH droid that can compete in power with CH pets. The faction NPC's have their own weaknesses, ie. perma-death and PvP vulnerability, and CH's are gonna be limited to CL-10 merchandise.
And if some DE's want to play a combat role, that hardly affects you.
Dingzk wrote:
Sintrosi,
Im a guy that been against the DE only droids since the debate started, and Im also a guy that is man enough to admit when hes wrong...
What you said just now makes more sense than anything Ive seen in the debate (read only about 5-6 posts about it) here. I didn't like the idea because oftwo things: (1) Turning a crafting pro into a combat pro.
We wouldn't be a "combat profession". We'd be what I think was intended in the first place (but given our state in beta, we'll never know for sure) - a pet class.
Think about it, you advance through the DE tree by crafting xp, not by getting xp from handling droids (like CHs, btw I hate the CH pro).
That's a good justification for not making us as powerful a pet class as the CH... but it really doesn't preclude us from becoming a pet class either.
(2) My Master DE char is a crafter, not a combat char, I dont need a droid for anything, I dont hunt, pvp, or shot anything besides what attacks me on harvester runs, why would I want a combat droidthat Im not even going to use?
Your choice... a lot of us scrap up the points to get as least SOME rifleman/carbineer/pistolier skills. Though that's hard with the MA/MDE/Merchant overhead.
Now I have changed sides and am in favor of the DE only droids after erading your post. After thinking about it, it would bean unfair balancewith anyone could use the "super droid", plus it wouldcause the Devs to give us combat droids that still suck (or nerf the super droid after a week).I agree with what you said 100%, but I will say this:for that "super DE only droid" we're talking about...the cert for it needs to be in MASTER DE, not even in the IVblocks to keep people from flooding our profession just to handle the droid. If we're going to have a DE only droid, lets make sure that droid is really for DEs (real DEs) only.
I agree... but I'm afraid our "general sales" droids are gonna suck anyway.
Once again, nice work.
Grimjakk wrote:
I agree... but I'm afraid our "general sales" droids are gonna suck anyway.
If we force the Devs to spend time creating and balancing a DE-only combat droid, that is virtually guaranteed.
Jenden wrote:
SnowDog2003 wrote:
I agree. Why is it a problem if we're both a crafting and a combat-type class?
Because then both parts of the profession just become watered down.
I don't see how that could be the case... would our (working) utility modules suddenly stop working? It'd be awfully hard to water down DE any more than it already is.
If all of our modules get fixed and some of the new ones we've been asking for get put it, DE will be a very strong and competative crafting profession. If they were also to add combat, for the sake of balance theyd have to take part of that out again.
False. They don't "have" to do anything of the sort. None of the modules we've been suggesting even show up on Dev radar, how could they nerf 'em if they're not planning on adding them?
If we were a full fledged combat profession and a full fledged crafting profession there would be enourmous balance issues, as you would essentially be getting two professions for the price of one.
Does the fact that CH's sell more pets than we do make them a "full-fledged crafting profession"?Having one MDE combat droid hardlyturn us into a "full-fledged combat profession". Any DE that wants to go that route STILL has to invest heavily in one of the weapon-centric professions.
On top of that, assuming you would want it to be a decent combat class, you can currently master it much quicker than any other combat class. I'm not talking about how much it would cost, as the economy is already screwed up, I'm talking about the fact that if you have the resources/money you can master the profession in 2-3 days (you can grind out 1 advanced droid chassis every 6 seconds, that makes for good advancement time).
(Puposely) Bad assumption. In all the posts on this board, not one person hasasked that DE become a "decent combat class". Just a decent pet class.