Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: CL, high level droids, stacking combat modules
I've seen talk of a Droid Handler profession, and although that seems interesting, it would add yet another potentially unused and buggy profession to the game when in some areas we're already hanging together by bare threads.
Has there been talk of simply allowing higher CL droids to only be called by higher CL characters? I.e., if you're CL30, you can call a droid of CL30 or below. It would be similar to calling pets, where you'd get a message like "you have no hope of controlling this droid" or somesuch. Not exactly realistic, given the nature of droids, but it would solve the overbalance problem and allow us to build high quality droids that don't cap at CL30.
Otherwise, the CL-based droid HAM and non-stacking modules and non-differentiation between the various chasses is just ... nauseating.
tom_guyette wrote:
Has there been talk of simply allowing higher CL droids to only be called by higher CL characters? I.e., if you're CL30, you can call a droid of CL30 or below.
Well... that's the whole imbalance right there. It adds greater power to the player at no cost (where the only applicable currency is XP and skill points), and so you have to increase the difficulty of every mob to compensate. But then these high level droids become a requirement for every player.
So, sorry but never gonna happen.
Besides, I don't see much difference between calling a droid that's my level vs. grouping with a PC who's my level. It doesn't throw the game off balance when I do that, and I can't imagine rolling your own limited companion would have more impact than grouping.
tom_guyette wrote:
But wouldn't droids in this case be considered just another class of weapon? There doesn't seem to be an imbalance in having multiple levels of quality in weapons people of various CL ratings can use, or multiple levels of armor quality ... and frankly, I'm shocked that characters below CL40 aren't using combat droids for the very reasons you cite. Somehow, they're just not.
Its all about the DPS for PvP.....
A Droid being used in PvP will increase the DPS of a character by approximately 50, when using a CL30 droid. The only way to compenstate for such a change would be to decrease all weapon damages, to account for the increased DPS that would be provided by a Higher level droid. This would also force PvPers to use a droid in combat, in order to stay competitive.
Besides, I don't see much difference between calling a droid that's my level vs. grouping with a PC who's my level. It doesn't throw the game off balance when I do that, and I can't imagine rolling your own limited companion would have more impact than grouping.
Again, its about PvP...
Groups do not automatically particiate in PvP, like Droids can.
You aren't thinking about the min/maxing that has to be taken into consideration with every single game change. The CU went a long way towards removing the 'I win button'. Having higher end combat droids without some sort of limitation in place would go against the balancing that was done with the CU.
You can't simply give anyone the ability to use a high CL combat droid, without some sort of additional cost. As it is, CL30 Droids can make or break a toons ability to win in PvP and PvE. They are pushing the envelope on where droids should be, that anyone can use.
What I expect to see, in the not to distant future, will be Faction specific combat droids. They would be the higher CL droids, but with the same Faction perk limitations of only being able to help in Faction related combat.
tom_guyette wrote:
Besides, I don't see much difference between calling a droid that's my level vs. grouping with a PC who's my level. It doesn't throw the game off balance when I do that, and I can't imagine rolling your own limited companion would have more impact than grouping.
Say you and that PC you grouped with both had CL 80 battle droids. You almost just doubled your firepower at no cost to you. Is that balanced? This isn't a pointed comment; just trying to help you understand the balance issue.
Also, it really does steal the thunder (or purpose) of creature handlers who spent a lot of skill points to be able to do essentially the same thing you do with that battle droid.
IMHO, they should have thought more carefully about the pet handling class when SWG was first beign designed. It should have been a Droid Handler profession to begin with, and gave the taming of pets to a Ranger with limitations (like CL 30 max tamable). If this was done at inception, no one would miss the high level creature pets.