Droid Engineer Archive

Please have no droid certifications. Thank you.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Virtanis wrote:

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Thunderheart wrote:

How do you guys feel about something like this?

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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!

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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.

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2 More quick things:

(1) You know, experience and skill points are not the only limiting factors in the world... Implementing the droid certification idea COULD be a great opportunity to add some really neat content to the game.

Example: Implement a plan with certifications in various professions to allow the use of better droids. For the sake of argument, lets say any player who has 3 professions mastered at the same time gets a CL25 combat droid, and a player who masters an elite profession gets a CL15 combat droid. These people have to spend skill points to get these droids, and the plan ensures that no player is going to get a droid that unbalances their combat ability (ex: a CL25 droid doing 50-100 damage every couple of seconds is not going to significantly unbalance a TKA/Pistoleer/Smuggler who can do well over 1000 damage per second).

Ok, so there is an argument that this alone is a little unbalancing...is skill points the only solution?

What if instead of skill point limits, you used content limits? Example: Although certain professions allow you to use certain droids, combat droids cannot be simply made. Instead they require 2 components that you cannot make or harvest.

The first component would be droid schematics. Since the empire destroyed the droid armies, parts and plans for combat droids are not easily available. What if you had to do a series of tasks for Nym to get a one-use schematic for a combat droid, which you then have to take to a DE to have them make?

The second component would be a droid license. There could be 2 or more "technology officers" placed in the capitol (or other towns) on each planet. In order to get a droid license you have to do various tasks for the officer, and then pay a filing fee to obtain the license. To keep people from farming these, the licenses need to be no-drop and need to be used in the taming process to activate a combat droid you buy. These are good for only one use, and if you tame a droid with it the license disappears and you have to get a new one to tame another combat droid.


The point of this process would be to fashion a series of hoops that both add fun and depth to the combat droid process, while at the same time both (1) limiting combat droids to those who "earn" them; and (2) preserve DEs ability to sell their services to everyone and have a better market (as they have been asking for). If you were to also make combat droids permadeath again (like they should be) this would be a SERIOUS limit on combat droids that allow DEs to sell their services without implementing DE-only droids that ruin the DE profession (through the influx of CH wanna-bees).


(2) Although you say that givin nothing to DEs this pass is not an option...most DEs don't even want combat droids this pass. As shown by Drashk's most resent poll, most DEs want bug fixes and more non-combat functions for current droids before combat droids. Some are even saying they don't want combat droids AT ALL if they are limited to DEs (this may nto be a majority, but the feelings are still there). I think almost all of us are willing to wait however long it takes devs to get it right.

No certs no DH. Add a column in DE for Droid usage that is accessible with prerequiste engineering 1 thru 4. But that one column only equals 49 skill points. Maybe a CL 25 Droid or whatever scheme you devise in Droid levels.
When you complete Master Artisan the other three columns open up giving stronger options in combat as well as the crafting abilities. The Droid Enigneers get the most powerful Droids. That is 140 points, enough ?
That should be a minimal amount of code as the tables for each box would be updated like the Creature Handler profession was. Only two skill trees to modify. If the Droid Engineers don't want to fight then don't. But let those of us who are dying to get into the GCW go for it. The Droid Engineers should have a special ability against the AT-ST in PVP also. Some sort of stun for 10-15 seconds where it can't fire or move. An electromagnetic pulse bomb which would be built and certified at Master Droid Engineer level.

Zardoz


Zardoz999

I'm unsure how hard it would be to implement sabacc1000's idea but I feel it would effectively solve the desireability of droid engineer products. This option would allow droid engineers to sell higher level droids to people other than droid engineers while ensuring that people have to be able to work to operate such droids. I also that the idea of a pet handling subclassmight be a sutible solution.

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Mizraal wrote:
I'm unsure how hard it would be to implement sabacc1000's idea but I feel it would effectively solve the desireability of droid engineer products. This option would allow droid engineers to sell higher level droids to people other than droid engineers while ensuring that people have to be able to work to operate such droids. I also that the idea of a pet handling subclass might be a sutible solution.

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I agree it would be tough to implement, if not the toughest of all the ideas to implement. Devs can't just copy/paste the Creature Handler code with this idea. However, if we're going to go through with Combat Droids we might as well do it right.

-norax

All I have to say is if you put a droid control skill tree in DE then you had better put a creature controlling skill tree in BE as well. Frankly it'd be extremely unfair that DE's would only have to spend skill points to be able to make and use thier creations while is BE's have to also master CH to use OUR creations. So if you do put the droid control tre in DE you are seriously altering the balance between these two pet creating classes.

Ok, I want to make two things clear from the start: 1) I am not a Droid Engineer; 2) I read every word on the first three pages of this post before I finally gave up. That being said, here's my opinion for what its worth.

Giving Droids their own skill tree and xp system and requiring DE to "train" the newlygained skills is a GREAT idea. This is the best idea for having Droids of Lv. 11 and higher (which I'm not sold on, but the community seems to want/need).

Using Memory Wipes to remove unwanted skills and/or to prevent trading of fully trained Droids is another good idea.

However, operating under the assumption that this will be too difficult to code and/or implement, I am a fanof a Droid Cert system.

• Everyone Can Use a lvl 10 Droid


• Starting Professions get Lvl 15 Droid Certs in their Master Box


• Elite Professions get Lvl 20 Droid Certs in their Master Box


• Hybrid Professions get Lvl 25 Droid Certs in their Master Box


• Droid Engineers get Lvl 30 Droid Certs in their Master Box

I vote NO on a Droid-Handler Class / Skill Tree. This makes no logical sense and doesn't fit with the spirit of StarWars.

Please remember Combat Droids and Assassin Droids are illegal in this time period. Also keep in mind that the only people in the movies who ever owned Droidswere Artisans and Politicians (Luke inherited his while still a moisture farmer.) I understand that combat droids are desirable to the majority of players and thus will be implemented. I just wish that more effort were put forth to balance the flavor of StarWars with the needs of the players.

Tam Darkfell (Intrepid/Infinity) / Vendt Darkfell (TC)

Wow I wasn't going to post on the whole DE combat droids issue but this is a hella good idea. Although accually I considered this myself. I already thought about this, I just figured Id get flamed to heck and put down because someone else already posted it. GJ and goodluck. Glad someone had guts enough to post this.....cause I obviously dont hehe....

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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?

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This would be a mistake. There needs to be a separate Droid Handler profession. Take a look at the Bio-Engineer and Creature Handlers. One class crafts the creatures, one class uses the creatures. A Bio-Engineer can't necessarily use every pet he can craft unless he is also a Creature Handler. And consider for a moment that a Bio-Engineer has higher entry requirements than Droid Engineer does. Folding Droid Handler into Droid Engineer would be a slap in the fact to every Bio-Engineer in the game unless Creature Handler was also folded into Bio-Engineer. It's fairly easy to see that folding Creature Handler into Bio-Engineer is a bad idea. I'm not sure why it's not equally easy to see that folding Droid Handler into Droid Engineer is a bad idea. Droid Engineer is a Crafting class, not a Combat class. Let's keep it that way.