Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: WAKE UP! FACTION PETS!!!
Dateline: October 2004. DE’s wait in anticipation for the imminent (delayed) release of the SWG ‘Space’ Expansion pack. The hope is that now, finally, we will get droids that people NEED and maybe even combat droids that people really WANT. Most of the oldies drag up the same old complaints like ‘look what happened in Publish 7 and 8’ and ‘What did we get then eh? Smoke machines, exploding mice and R3’s with blasters taped to their domes’…
WAKE UP! Do you want something special? Do you want something worthwhile? Something BIG? Then organise a plan for faction pets, and DO IT NOW! Are you telling me people wouldn’t rather have an AT-ST as opposed to some R3 mutant? Look at the options:
Empire:
Probe droids - good ones again and about time too.
Dark Troopers - BAM! There’s your level 30+ go out and party!
AT-ST - Death from above!
Rebels:
K3PO - Rebel Command Droid (white C-3PO)
AA-ASP Droid - Modified heavy labourer with armour and weapons
Alliance Hover Tank - Trundle, trundle FTOOM!!
All or Neutral:
Battle Droid (roger-Roger)
Droideka
Spider Droid
I’ve seen Sodan and Jenden, even TK, come up with some beautifully detailed plans, that WERE considered; at length and in depth, you can’t tell me those of you with that kind of expertise can’t draw together a ‘Yep, we’ll take faction units, np, here’s how it works’ I mean COME ON! ANYONE can use a faction pet! No matter how unbalanced, you do a few faction missions and you get tea and biscuits with the Emperor and ‘Oh, would you like a Dark Trooper? I have a few lying around’.
IT’S TIME TO STOP LICKING OUR WOUNDS AND TIME TO START GOING FOR THE KILL. They’ve handed us the opportunity ‘Well, unless you could maybe do something with faction pets, we dunno’. Grab it, drag it under and devour it whole. Sod 2 and 4 branch DH’s.
FACTION PETS! THEY’RE HERE; NOW; THEY COULD BE OURS.
*Cass winds a lock of hair and twists a foot oh-so-casually* IMHO 
Kisses
Cass
R0ZM4N wrote:
IT’S TIME TO STOP LICKING OUR WOUNDS AND TIME TO START GOING FOR THE KILL.
AT-STs and Hover Tanks are vehicles, not droids. I want to make useful droids, not faction vehicles.
Besides, if you haven't noticed, faction pets are pretty much useless anyway, they don't do anything in PvP, and they are very limited in PvE.
This is Great! 
These are fair comments, that’s good, let’s get the ball rolling then:
Enigma said "I don't think players should be forced to be factioned if they want to use high level combat droids"
To that I’d say, you don’t have to be factioned, you can use neutral droids when not overt but overt droids would be of a higher level
Caixthecheekyrascal said "Faction pets would work to increase sales, but they wouldn't improve my personal ability to use them the way dropping other skills to fit DC into my template would"
That’s right, I’m completely ditching any idea of droid commander in order to make a quick, effective rollout possible. Besides, if you want a bit of combat once in a while you can do Master DE, Master Artisan, enough in merchant to place what you need and then take the points back out for Rifleman which is a fine profession, but I digress, forget I said that… Basically, No DC.
Duncje said "AT-STs and Hover Tanks are vehicles, not droids. I want to make useful droids, not faction vehicles."
Again, good point, I’d say though that the difference between a battle droid that stands 20 feet tall and an AT-ST is that the droid has a brain where the pilot should sit, so there’s not a real problem with RP. On the other hand, if everyone was worried about it, there are HUGE battle droids available in the expanded universe, we could ditch the ST all together.
Discuss 
Kisses
Cass
duncje wrote:
AT-STs and Hover Tanks are vehicles, not droids. I want to make useful droids, not faction vehicles.
Besides, if you haven't noticed, faction pets are pretty much useless anyway, they don't do anything in PvP, and they are very limited in PvE.
I agree on all counts.
Faction pets are useless in PvP. The most elite combatants are always going to be able to own the best pet in the game (lest the game become pet-wars), and most PvPers are elite combatants. They'd be more useful in PvE, but you have to be overt to use them. But you have to be an elite combat player to be able to risk going overt. If a non-elite combatant goes overt for any period of time some elite combatPvPer is going to notice you and take you and your pet out.
Enigma said "I don't think players should be forced to be factioned if they want to use high level combat droids"
To that I’d say, you don’t have to be factioned, you can use neutral droids when not overt but overt droids would be of a higher level
again you, would HAVE to be overt to use any droid over CL10 unless you found a way to balance them aginst CL-10 pets(as thay are basicly nutral faction pets) if this issue was over come i think you might have a better shot.
Basically, No DC.
Right for this to work it would be a alternitve to the 2 and 4 tree DC propsal if its done right im all for it
Discuss
Message Edited by babyblue_d on 04-06-2004 01:52 PM
Not all of my characters are factioned, and I don't think players should be forced to be factioned if they want to use high level combat droids.
Message Edited by KzinKiller on 04-06-2004 02:10 PM
You missed my point. I'm fairly certain that the developers do not want pets to be so powerful that they can't be "owned" by an elite combat player, because if pets are that powerful, than every single elite combat player will get these pets and then theGCW will become a game of pets fighting pets while players sit and watch. And if the pets are not that powerful, they will continue to be useless in PvP.
My point is that faction pets aren't really very effective right now, and pushing for DE to become part of an already gimped game mechanic as its path to combat droids just doesn't make sense.
But even with that aside, I don't want my good droids to only be usable by the PvP community.
I'm quite happy for factioned players to have content that is not accessible to non-factioned players. However I feel that to deny > CL13 combat droids to non-factioned players would be a shame. If the community as a whole feels differently then I shall accept that decision.
I don't fully understand how the non-factioned droids in this proposal would work? Would they all be CL13 equivalent? Would they be normal craftable droids that all players could purchase and use or would they be restricted to non-factioned players? If restricted to non-factioned, how would this work?
How do you fit factioned and non-factioned droid engineers into all of this? Can only factioned droid engineers craft factioned droids? Can neutral droid engineers craft droids for both factions? Wouldn't this push things in favour of the non-factioned droid engineers? Perhaps only factioned DE's can craft the top droids, but neutral DE's can craft the lesser ones for both factions?
I'm afraid as someone who has never used a faction pet and takes little part in combat I'm probably going to contribute a lot more questions to this proposal than I am answers. I'm not against it - I want us Droid Engineers to have as many strong proposals around as we can - I just don't understand all the intricacies of the issue.
EnigmaBSc