Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: TH, A possible compromise without a new class.
DE's want to be able to sell their products to anyone. Combat Droids are not a solution to that unless they can be used by anyone with any combination of skills/professions.
1 Combat types want "tanks" or support.
2 Non Combat Types want bodyguards that can actually be of some aid and not croak in 2-3 hits.
3 Devs want to keep the combat system balanced.
All three of these are in conflict with one another (less so with points 1 and 2). Certs are a bad idea because of overlaping possibilities. The thought of someone with some Uber combination is annoying. I dislike the idea of a Droid Commander class because it will severely limit the marketability of droids that are programmed to respond to the commands of any master. Unless you plan on giving Droids special abilities that only a Droud Commander can exploit there is simply no reason to add a new class.
Someone else, I forget who, proposed placing the DL bonus in Master slots. This seems to me the best solution proposed so far. how hard can that be to do. I mean we get a +(number)whatever skill/ability/defense with nearly every skill box. adding a +10 or +20 Droid Level to Master (insert proffession here) shouldn't be too hard. It also has the benefit of keeping some kind of balance as far as skill points needed to access these(I mean you have to master 3 professions to get them!).
Furthermore, certain professions could get higher bonuses than others. DE, SL, and BH... three classes it would make sense to have some kind of afinity with handling droids could get +20. Other crafting professions (Artisan, Smuggler, Armorsmith, Chef, etc), the medic profesions (excluding Combat Medic), Politician, the Entertainer Professionsand the Scout professions get +15. The combat professions (Marksman, Brawler, TKA, etc.) and Combat Medic only get +5 (they have combat skills already). Creature Handler would be the only classs to receive a lowly0 (as if they need any).
OR
Keep the same basic formula above but split the DL +s between Novice and Master (ie Novice DE gets +5 DL, Master gets +15... Novice Entertainer gets +5, master +10... etc.)
Further, this has the benefit of no one player ever having the ability to control a Droid with a DL higher than70 (if anyone could ever manage to Master DE, BH, and SL which is impossible if my math is right)
As far as the impact on combat balance... That should be negligible in so far as Master Professions should be more "worldly" than non Masters. They SHOULD have some kind of bonus. And the ability to controll a DL 25 Droid at Master Artisan still would not put the Class on par with a Master Marksman that can supliment his own skills with a DL 15 Droid.
This will aslo increase the cross masterring of professions to a degree making more rounded charachters that much more appealing. Personally I think this is a very fair solution that takes into account every possible issue. Especially when you considder that having a Master DE/Merchant/Artisan(or me)with a DL60 Droid is no less balanced than having a Master CH/Carbineer with a CL 60 pet... Not to mention a master marksman with an ATST!
Seriously, if this is not a workable solution please tell me why. All feedback is encouraged. We are not going to solve this without it.
giving the strongest players the strongest droids is still no solution to me at all. its the main point of imbalance i dunno how u can see this as best solution also that it includes that there will be no real markets as only the rich highlv players will need droids.
combat droid commanderwould only limit combat droids over lv 10 to themself all other droids and all utilitydroids nomatter how good they are are useable by everyone. CDC isnt requiered it could also be DE to get the highlv droid abilitys, but noone wanted it when devs planned to do so, thats why they had to make an extra profession.
a cert system is simply wrong, its not possible to give droids only to some classe, its not possible to give droids only to some skilllevels and its not possible to give droids out without skillpointcost, so its needed aprofession CDC or DE to control them.
Simple. AT-STs are for PvE only. You can bring up the issue with the guard command, because this is on the list of 'things to be fixed'.
OutlawEdi wrote:
Think about it this way...
Master BH/Scout/Marksman would have a DL of 50... How is that different than a Master BH/Scout/Marksman with an ATST?
Neither of which are additional skill points.
The skill point cost and experience cost are the keys to the entire problem that the DEV team has with a Cert System.Linking a cert to existing skills in existing professions does not account for balance in the DEV books. PvE has seen a lot of re-vamps since this game launched and going with a system that is entirely based off of giving current professions increased combat ability from an outside soruce would mean that PvE would need to be re-vamped yet again, but this time it would need to become much more difficult. Don't forget that the combat re-vamp is on its way as well.
Nelus wrote:
if u want a market to sell droids, u need DH.
- if the ability to use droids better is in the DE tree all droid users will make their own droids.
- and if ur idea of a MBH with its droids beeing as strong as a MBH/MCH it is imbalanced as u get the same power for half the skillpoints, asuming that ist not possible to be MBH/MCH for balance issues.
- only thing left is DH, DEs will sell highlevel combatdroids to DHs which will be far more than DEs on each server, and DEs will sell low lv combatdroids(good for DEs that havent mastered it yet) and utility droids to everyone.
Limiting it only to a DH class is not opening a market that will create enough demand to be worth keeping the profession. Making them available to ALL players is the only way to make them a viable commodity. Creating a new class will solve nothing, only create more whining and moaning. I don't see a DH profession as it has been outlined appealing to anyone. There will be none to buy the droids I can make... Whereas now there are thousands of customers that are willing to buy a combat droid that isn't completely worthless like Probots are.
Drashk wrote:
Neither of which are additional skill points.
The skill point cost and experience cost are the keys to the entire problem that the DEV team has with a Cert System.Linking a cert to existing skills in existing professions does not account for balance in the DEV books. PvE has seen a lot of re-vamps since this game launched and going with a system that is entirely based off of giving current professions increased combat ability from an outside soruce would mean that PvE would need to be re-vamped yet again, but this time it would need to become much more difficult. Don't forget that the combat re-vamp is on its way as well.
I know exactly what you are talking about and even created an entire system that was rather widely excepted by the community as being one of the better Cert system designs. TH has already stated that this chain of thought has too many weak links in it and that there needs to be an actually point cost attached to the ability. Adding certs to pre-existing all professions does not qualify as this required cost.
OutlawEdi wrote:
I'm talking more along the lines of the +# CL bonus that is awarded throughout the CH class, not certs like weapons. Giving the points to Novice and/or Master professions spread out in some manner will assure that skill points are used to get these points. The bigger bonuses going to the professions that would most logically interract or rely on droids overall.