Droid Engineer Archive

I'm getting a little tired of reading posts about implementing a new Droid Handler Profession an/or a Droid Certification system. I dug up a post made by Holo when they announced the Probot nerfing.

Pending changes with pets & droids

It should be apparent to everyone that pets and droids are overpowered--most notably the probot. In this post I'm gonna be upfront and say "yes, this is a nerf."

The issues:

1. In general, creatures owned by players are too powerful. The most powerful creature is 3-4 times as powerful as a player.


2. Creatures and droids owned by players are easy to get healed via a loophole.


3. Combat droids ownership is only gated by the money to purchase them - you can give very powerful droids to low level players.

We're going to take the following steps, and invite comment on them before they go in:

1. Nerf the probot. We'll work on developing a more robust combat droid system (most likely centering around certifications for combat droid use), but in the interim, the probot needs to come way way down so that it isn't abused.


2. Scale all pet stats down (including NPCs and droids) so that they are within the ranges for typical players, rather than being way more powerful than maxxed out players.


3. Fix the loophole whereby you can instaheal pets. Players are not currently incurring the actual load of maintaining pets.

We intend to do #1 and #3 as soon as possible (today, very likely). #2 may take a bit longer, but we're still talking on the order of a day or two.

-Raph Koster,

Notice Item #1 in the list of steps they said they were going to take. It does state the possibility of implementing a certification system for combat droids. This does not mean that they have officially decided to do it, or if they have that they have actually been able to work on it. But to me, it seems likely that some sort of certification system is coming. It says nothing about instituting a new class to manage those certifications.

In my opinion, certifications may be the best thing to do for balance issues. I think it would be very tricky to implement it and I am a little worried about it, which is why I hope they do take their time to work out the details of such a system. I do not think a new profession, a Droid Handler class, is a good idea at all. Let me say that again. I do not think anew DroidHandler class is a good idea at all! First of all, it would require more skill points that people just will not have. They would never introduce a new system of skill advancement such as Usage XP only just to satisfy one profession. Skills are not free and they never will be. Secondly, it would limit the market for droids. Everyone can have a non-CH pet, and they are still more powerful than any droid out there. Sure, a theory posted earlier stated that everyone would have the opportunity to have one low-level battle droid, but I guarantee a creature pet will still be better than that droid. So we are left with selling these great battle droids to only one class.

In short, CERTIFICATIONS will be put in place when we finally get our combat droids.

Don't even bother discussing a new profession though.

I don't think droid handler is a good idea either, I mean, they're droids they follow orders. I can't think of a logical reason why a probot is any harder to deal with than a mouse droid. Ongoing maintence costs might be effective at limiting droid usage. Combat droids get beat up and need repairs, if it's sufficently expensive to repair a combat droid people won't use them often.

Let's say we make a droid that can tank a krayt while a player kills it, but in the process the droid takes so much damage that it will take 10,000C worth of materials to repair it to full functionality (it won't regenerate or perma-die).

Notice Item #1 in the list of steps they said they were going to take. It does state the possibility of implementing a certification system for combat droids. This does not mean that they have officially decided to do it, or if they have that they have actually been able to work on it.

Certifications are most definitely coming. The fact that Holo has said publically (much more recently than the post you cite) that they are discussing whether to implement certs as a "Droid Handler" profession or just roll them into DE proves it: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=502906#M502906.

Remember that the post you're referencing was made during the great Probot Nerf discussion. Back then Novice CHs were running around with 3 Rancors out (now you have to be a Master CH to use even ONE), Probots had 3150 HAM with armor that worked like the Heavy armor in an ATST worked now and did 150 damage on 1.5 speed... pets ruled SWG in a way far worse than they do today.

I do not think a new profession, a Droid Handler class, is a good idea at all.

The alternative they've given is rolling the combat droid certifications into the DE tree itself. That effectively makes DE a combat class, and a game breakingly powerful one at that - DE would get the ability to craft a weapon AND an automatic certification to use it at the same time under that scenario. Weaponsmiths, for instance, don't get automatic certs to the weapons they can craft the moment they can make them. If they did, the point of having combat classes at all would be totally nullified.

Thank you for that link, I was not aware of that post.

I don't agree with handing DEs certifications that would in essence turn them into a combat class. That just is not the purpose of a crafting class. I'm not keen on creating a new class to handle those certifications either. I think my main issue is that, as a DE I would like to be able to own and use any droid I create. It would just seem logical that since I created it, I would know enough of the ins-and-outs to utilize it. Not to mention wanting to make sure modules/harnesses worked before I started trying to sell it to others. I will admit, however, the reason I wanted to go into DE was because I wanted to have my own droid. I like being able to use what I make myself and I know that what I make could be of use to someone else. It is unfortunate that most of them are of little or no use at the moment.

I had an idea regarding certifications though. In any starting profession a cert for one combat droid could become available at level 4 in any branch. This would not be additive as many people go through many branches. I wouldn't put it at Master either since not all people go to the Master level of their starting profession. Then a second cert maybe at the Advanced level of an elite profession and a 3rd at Master of an elite profession. The only issue I can see is that some branches are easier to go through than others (Surveying can be knocked out VERY quickly).

At the same time I would like to see that DEs can at least own all of the different types of droids. It wouldn't be required that they could call more than two at a time (gotta be able to call that repair droid to repair our own droids, but then with the cert system, by the time we can make repair droids we should call two and at Master three), but I would like to be able to see all of my own creations without having to delete earlier ones to make room.

There was an idea on another post, I apologize for not remembering who or where, that suggested a sort of point system. All pets, droids and creatures would have a number. As we advance in skills we earn additional points toward a Pet Calling number so that we can only call as many pets as our number will allow based on the pet's number. I.E. By Master Whatever we have a number 12, a Droideka has a number of 8 and a probot a number of 4, so we could call those two out at the same time, but not two droidekas. Just a random example. I really liked that idea, I just doubt SOE would implement it.

Well, just some thought. Again, thank you for the link to that post. It was informative.