Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: I still want maintenance fees instead of certs
Making money in this game is still very easy. Eveybody would have a high end battle droid in no time. I rather have certificates in the DE profession (instead of a seperate droid handler profession.
Just my 2 credits.
Yet another great idea posted in yet another thread.
You have to buy a registration from someone (some kind of NPC) to be able to use the combat droids, and of course the higher level combat droid you are trying to use, the more maintenance you have to pay.
That way, anyone who can -earn money- can use the droid, it's not restricted to profession, and is a very realistic aspect.
As Silostri says (I know I mispelled that, sorry), you need a certification for a high end weapon, but a droid should be able to roam free? Well with this, is will take a certain type of certification that is not class or skill based, but rather it is bought and paid for, and has a constant maintenace fee (simular to a house or a vendor) that will encourage it to stay out of the hands of newbies.
What kind of pricing scale though? That could be debated. I do agree that droid engineers could pay less of these maintenance fees, since they are the ones that created them, and know more about them, they could be considered more responsible with them (kind of like a straight A student pays lower car insurance than a drop out). It could be something added to one of our existing skill trees (how Merchants get reduced vendor fees in one of their skill trees). But the pricing would have to be thought through. I am far from a n00b, but I have trouble paying for harvestors and houses, which are fairly low (meaning that probably anyone could support them). I wouldn't want something to be too high that it's impossible to pay, and still be able to do other stuff that's needed of your class, but it needs to be high enough that a n00b would really have to work to be able to support it.
This would eliminate Silostri's (sorry, again) fear of a MDE just giving away free Droids Of Death and batteries (with the earlier mentioned advanced battery idea), and no matter how much a Droid Engineer might just give away these droids, the n00b still has to support them his own way (just as how I got all the houses I have ever had for free, but I must still pay the upkeep on them).
This way, anyone can use droids, just as it should be (droids might essentially be weapons when they are combat droids, but let's try not to turn every class into a carbon copy of each other), newbies will be discouraged from getting high end droids off the bat, certification systems or new classes will not prevent Droid Engineers from making the product that they create, and it seems balanced for everyone (if implemented properly).
Thanks virtuoso (GOD DAMNIT I hate not being able to remember names, lol) for the great idea, and a great alternative to limiting certifications.
Why would anyone want a combat droid if they haven't got a weapon cert? Put the certs in the combat classes where they belong.
I think certifications are good, as long as we DEs also get them. Basically we get cert in a droid when we can build it. Other professions get them wherever the devs think it's reasonable.
There should be a combat droid between the stupide DZ70 and the probot and one after probot. Everyone would be able to use the DZ70. Halfway in marksman or brawler you get cert for the first new combat droid. A novice combat prof (pistoleer, carbineer, etc.) get probot cert, and halfway through master they get cert in the second new combat droid. (Maybe at master combat prof there could be yet another combat droid?)
Well, for one thing, we artisan-types NEED combat droid escorts a heck of a lot more than combat-types do, just to survive harvester runs on n00bie planets, nevermind trips to Endor and Lok.
ranaki wrote:
Why would anyone want a combat droid if they haven't got a weapon cert? Put the certs in the combat classes where they belong.
But who says that our droids have to be so overpowering that -anyone- would have an uber pet?
I mean, seriously, I don't know about you, but I'm not asking for Super-Pet or anything like that. I am looking for droids that can be viable -support- units. Therefore, our high end droid wouldn't really need a cert, and players with it wouldn't be overpowered, because it would cost money to maintain it, and it wouldn't be overly powerful. The overly powerful pets -should- be Creature Handler pets, and even moreso the Bio-Engineer'd pets, in my opinion, but only certain people can use them, where the droids just make good support, and anyone who can afford them can use them.
I really don't see how overpowering it is for someone to be able to have something that they have to pay for, that's not going to be overpowered. We're not giving people AT-ST's here, we are giving people support units. I mean, as of right now, ANYONE can have a 3k HAM 200 damage pet. Why not take that away, and give that to our probots? Give our DZ70's some decent stats so people with a little bit of money, or starting off, have a reason to get one of those. And then the high end droids will cost more maintenance to use, but won't be all that overpowering still?
Certs are a bad idea, because we're not even a combat class. We're going to be adding certs for what? A total of 3 or 4 droids? No, that's dumb. And especially when I should be able to use what I make (and don't compare DE to WS, because they are completely different).
If anything, you should have to buy a registration from an NPC, and just as a house or harvestor has maintenance fees, there are fees that you must pay on your droid, and if you run out on your maintenance, then you can't use it again until you pay more into the maintenance pool.
People who -aren't- Creature Handlers would have a reason to come to us, but you wouldn't see everyone with one, because a lot of people might say it's more worth it to just have the low level pet that anyone can have and not have to devote so much money into.
And everyone says that it's so easy to make money in this game, well one question: If it's so easy to make money, where's mine? I'm struggling to keep my harvestors running because I can't make any money, and if I haven't sold about 5 or 6 droids on the bazaar tonight while I was at work, I'm losing them. Not even enough money to reclaim the deeds. They nerfed my only source of income when they nerfed the payoffs for terminal missions, my droids aren't selling consistantly enough, and I am tired of running destroy missions ALL DAY LONG to make money. It's one of the reasons I hardly play anymore, because I feel like I -have- to do the same thing over and over again, because if I don't, I lose my income, lose my resources, and can't level up anymore. But that's a different topic that I've gone off on too much.
Certs = Bad
Maintenance fees = a good compromise, not everyone will have a droid, and it's more realistic.
ranaki wrote:Why would anyone want a combat droid if they haven't got a weapon cert? Put the certs in the combat classes where they belong.
Lol, you obviously haven't had to make a harvester run then, all mine are on Corellia, that hasn't stopped me being agro'd and even DB'd by mobs, it doesn't stop mobs spawning on top of you, or teleporting straight to you, the planets are just too dangerous to travel without some sort of backup, now being a DE I'd prefer that to be a droid to a creature, right now I don't have a choice, I'd like that choice, I've had to take Novice Pistoleer just to be able to survive my harvester runs, and scout to be able to run up hills at anything faster than a snails pace, I've got medic so I can heal my wounds, if I'm gonna make master DE somethings got to give, and it isn't going to be Master Artisan.
So no, I don't believe that only combat professions should be allowed to use Combat droids, all you'll do is make the strong stronger and the weak weaker. I'm all for a good method of stopping newbie characters from having a Droideka straight off the shuttle, but not allowing Elite Masters the right (whatever their profession) is just wrong, if you want canon for it, the Trade Federation wasn't a combat organisation and it had massive droid armies.