Droid Engineer Archive

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=54419#M54419

Thunderheartstates the following:

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.

Now, lets take a look at what the DE's want:

• The ability to craft combat droids (yes, I too would like to see survey, music, etc droids, but that is another can o' worms)


• The ability to sell combat droids


• The ability to use our own combat droids

This appears to put us at loggerheads. A majority seem to dislike the idea of a Droid Handler (DH) class - but on the other hand, there is the problem that if the droid usage skills for combat droids is placed in the DE tree, this would cause DE to be the flavor of the month, and the crafting DE's would be forced out of business - a sentiment that I tend to agree with.

So, here is my proposed solution:

Create a "mini class" with two trees for Droid Handler. Each tree would have four bubbles, and there would be a mastery. The first tree would be droid control, the second tree would be droid tactics. The bubbles could have something like this for abilities

Droid Control:

1. Advanced power usage (doubles battery time)


2. Medium combat droid control (requires medium combat droid tactics to use the medium combat droid)


3. Advanced Droid Calling (allows the droid to be called/stored w/o the normal wait period after combat)


4. Heavy combat droid control (requires heavy combat droid tactics to use the heavy combat droid)

Droid Tactics:

1. Advanced Droid Tactics (gives a +10% attack modifier for defense for the droid)


2. Medium combat droid tactics (requires medium droid control to use the medium combat droid)


3. Advanced Droid Attack Tactics (gives a +10% modifier for attack for the droid)


4. Heavy combat droid tactics (requires heavy combat droid control to use the heavy combat droid)

Droid Handler Master - allows the use of two medium combat droids at once.

So, there is the DH class. Now for the kicker to make the DE's happy:

Add all the abilities of Droid Control into the existing droid constructon tree, and all the abilities in the DH Droid Tactics tree into the existing droid refinement tree.

In order to make the DH class slightly better than just going DE, do not allow the use of multiple combat droids, as attained at master DH to the DE tree.

Well, that's the best I could come up with the criteria that the devs have posted, and having read all the threads for the last 48 hours.

"Add all the abilities of Droid Control into the existing droid constructon tree, and all the abilities in the DH Droid Tactics tree into the existing droid refinement tree. "

Wouldn´t this still allow DEs to have heavy combat droids without sacrificing additional skillpoints ?

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Zoppo wrote:
"Add all the abilities of Droid Control into the existing droid constructon tree, and all the abilities in the DH Droid Tactics tree into the existing droid refinement tree. "

Wouldn´t this still allow DEs to have heavy combat droids without sacrificing additional skillpoints ?

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Yes, it would.

However, the thing is, the devs are already saying that one option is to simply make DE the class that controls the combat droids.

What this idea does is allow two roads to combat droid control - either a non DE could take the DH mini-class, or the DE could achieve his own mastery to the same end.

Your still going to have a lot of people going DE instead of DH with a priority of combat droids. By taking the DE route they spend more skill points (though really not a whole lot more) and they can't have 2 droids at once (though they can still have their one heavy) but they will in exchange be able to make all their own droids, as well as sell off other droids cheap to make some side cash. Don't get me wrong, more DE's is a good thing, but more people that are DE's because they want combat out of it is a bad thing in my opinion.

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Jenden wrote:
Your still going to have a lot of people going DE instead of DH with a priority of combat droids. By taking the DE route they spend more skill points (though really not a whole lot more) and they can't have 2 droids at once (though they can still have their one heavy) but they will in exchange be able to make all their own droids, as well as sell off other droids cheap to make some side cash. Don't get me wrong, more DE's is a good thing, but more people that are DE's because they want combat out of it is a bad thing in my opinion.

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Ah, but if you look at the DE skill trees I chose to graft the DH abilities into, they do NOT include blueprints.

I should also add that I think that the medium combat blueprints should be at the 3/4 blueprint bubble level, and that the heavy combat blueprints should be at 4/advanced.

This means that the peeps who want to make their own droids AND be uber combat will effectively have to master DE - which would eat up all their combat skill points.