Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Who SHOULD handle combat droids, anyway? (warning, borders on a discussion of certification)
Based on canon, it seems that it was the TRADE FEDERATION who controlled the droid armies. So I suppose one could give a droid-handling certification to merchants, who need the ability to take on bodyguards. A droideka-certificate would be a mighty fine perk for master merchants, who really get little other benefit from the class. (Yes, yes, we save a few thousand credits a month on maintenance... Oh BOY!!!!).
Then again, we look for the ability to handle multiple droids. This, to me, falls logically into the Politician class, although the inability within this game to simply give a droid some orders and have it do it's thing is rather limiting.
How about Squad Leaders? Maybe they should gain some kind of ability to have a team of battle droids, since after all, it's their job to LEAD a SQUAD.
I could go on. There are a lot of professions that could logically make use of new improved droids. Maybe what we need is not one new profession, but a HUGE number of new droids, specific to each. How about giving each elite profession a certification for a particular basic kind of droid? What if then, as one became better at one's elite profession, one could unlock more abilities within a droid? It seems to work OK for survey tools with range, why not give more powerful characters something akin to this?
So give droids a 'base' function, enabled with a basic chassis certification. This would put the user somewhere above a probot in terms of combat ability, but need not be any stronger than, say, a cowardly gurreck or rock beetle. Then have 'extended abilities' on the droids, usable by those with sufficient skill. This is akin to Creature Handler special attacks in many ways, but could certainly be scaled to reasonable levels.
Now for Droid Engineers: We want to be able to use what we make. I don't think I've ever seen anyone stating, though, that we must be able to use them at the same level of efficiency as a true combatant. So what if DEs get basic certs in all droid styles, but even a Master only got to unlock the first level of specials? We'd still need to go train a different elite profession to get all the functions of a given battledroid, but at least we'd be able to make some use of virtually all the droids we craft.
When responding, please be kind. I may still be feverish and thus just talking nonsense. ;-)
Droid_Engineer_Rho wrote:
I understand the concerns the developers have, I think, and although I think they're really off-base in a lot of ways,
I don't understand the concerns of the devs. I thought we squashed the very thought of aDroid Handler proffession a long time ago. I agree with you on certs Rho. And I think we should get at least some use of all the droids we make if not complete use of all the droids we make.
I like this idea - much like weapons for which you don't have a cert do 1/10th damage, droids could be used by everyone, but at a significant reduction to efficiency.
Droid_Engineer_Rho wrote:
...
Now for Droid Engineers: We want to be able to use what we make. I don't think I've ever seen anyone stating, though, that we must be able to use them at the same level of efficiency as a true combatant. So what if DEs get basic certs in all droid styles, but even a Master only got to unlock the first level of specials? We'd still need to go train a different elite profession to get all the functions of a given battledroid, but at least we'd be able to make some use of virtually all the droids we craft.
When responding, please be kind. I may still be feverish and thus just talking nonsense. ;-)
A cert system for droids just wont work IMO.
The devs have spent six months constantly restructuring, balancing& tweaking the pet/CH/CL systems. A pet is a pet, regardless if it looks like a rock beetle or a droideka. The issue becomes one of game design & balance. The devs werent happy with people having 3k HAM armoured tanks for no skill point investment (a free passport to high level content they called it). They werent happy with players having 10k HAM AR1 75% tanks by taking just 5 skill boxes in CH. A non CH pet nowadays means something with 1-2k ham, 100 dmg and a few low resists if you are lucky.
Any combat droid system must be subject to the same CL scale as CH, easiest way to do this is the introduction of a DH class. Adding certs toexisting skills just powers everyone up, droids become a requirement.A true DH skillgives the potential for the introduction of high level combat droids. No DH class means no useful (higher than 10CL)combat droids.
Castillo wrote:
A cert system for droids just wont work IMO.
The devs have spent six months constantly restructuring, balancing& tweaking the pet/CH/CL systems. A pet is a pet, regardless if it looks like a rock beetle or a droideka. The issue becomes one of game design & balance. The devs werent happy with people having 3k HAM armoured tanks for no skill point investment (a free passport to high level content they called it). They werent happy with players having 10k HAM AR1 75% tanks by taking just 5 skill boxes in CH. A non CH pet nowadays means something with 1-2k ham, 100 dmg and a few low resists if you are lucky.
Any combat droid system must be subject to the same CL scale as CH, easiest way to do this is the introduction of a DH class. Adding certs toexisting skills just powers everyone up, droids become a requirement.A true DH skillgives the potential for the introduction of high level combat droids. No DH class means no useful (higher than 10CL)combat droids.
This post is dead on.
Thunderheart wrote:
Castillo wrote:
A cert system for droids just wont work IMO.
The devs have spent six months constantly restructuring, balancing& tweaking the pet/CH/CL systems. A pet is a pet, regardless if it looks like a rock beetle or a droideka. The issue becomes one of game design & balance. The devs werent happy with people having 3k HAM armoured tanks for no skill point investment (a free passport to high level content they called it). They werent happy with players having 10k HAM AR1 75% tanks by taking just 5 skill boxes in CH. A non CH pet nowadays means something with 1-2k ham, 100 dmg and a few low resists if you are lucky.
Any combat droid system must be subject to the same CL scale as CH, easiest way to do this is the introduction of a DH class. Adding certs toexisting skills just powers everyone up, droids become a requirement.A true DH skillgives the potential for the introduction of high level combat droids. No DH class means no useful (higher than 10CL)combat droids.
This post is dead on.
This makes me so mad I want to spit.
Droids were just considered a red-headed step child of the CH class, and therefore, were not taken into consideration, despite thousands of posts on this board and the main board about droid cert systems.
So, what is being said is that DE can either be a CH or a BE clone - who needs to run massive hoppers.
I held the faith since the first month of the game as a DE. I put up with the probot nerf, the non-acknowledgement of the devs, the broken modules.
But now I see that the devs ignored everything that we said for the past half year, and now we are gonna just have to take it like they intended from the beginning.
Castillo wrote:
A cert system for droids just wont work IMO.
The devs have spent six months constantly restructuring, balancing& tweaking the pet/CH/CL systems. A pet is a pet, regardless if it looks like a rock beetle or a droideka. The issue becomes one of game design & balance. The devs werent happy with people having 3k HAM armoured tanks for no skill point investment (a free passport to high level content they called it). They werent happy with players having 10k HAM AR1 75% tanks by taking just 5 skill boxes in CH. A non CH pet nowadays means something with 1-2k ham, 100 dmg and a few low resists if you are lucky.
Any combat droid system must be subject to the same CL scale as CH, easiest way to do this is the introduction of a DH class. Adding certs toexisting skills just powers everyone up, droids become a requirement.A true DH skillgives the potential for the introduction of high level combat droids. No DH class means no useful (higher than 10CL)combat droids.
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/agree people dont understad this, the cert would be too easy for people to dabble to get the best pet... i for 1 dont see this working
Why not have certifications based on number of SKILL POINTS SPENT, not any particular class. That way, everyone can use them, but it gates out low level characters from using high level droids. A Tailor/DE/Merchant with all skillpoints spent will be able to use the same droids as a BH/Medic with the same number of skillpoints spent.
For example, we get basic L10 droid certs at char creation.... and we get a bonus at 200/250, another at 150/250, etc.... of course we should be able to use the non-combat functions of all droids at any time.
Thunderheart
What about alternative methods of increasing Droid CL and tieing this in to Skillpoints cost without forcing people to take a new profession to do what most people agree is totally contrary to the style of Star Wars.
Here're a few questions that will help to hammer out a solution.
1) How many points of CL is 1 Skillpoint worth?
2) What in your opinion constitutes a fair price for anyone to increase their Droid CL by 1 Skillpoints worth?
3) Do you think that people should be limited in what combat droids they can use by their profession or by what they put into it?
so when you said: "The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions."
you really meant: "The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted [something we could/would notdo, so we will give them] Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions."
good. at least we understand each other now.
/wants to go throw up
By focusing on combat droids here your limiting your scope. The devs are trying to give people what they ask for in the only way they can. I do not think a cert system is possible that both retains the balance of the game as well as prevents droids from being required for players to be as strong as they were before (which is a requirement, you cannot diminish the power of others just to introduce combat droids). The only solution, if you want combat droids, is a droid handler profession.No one is forcing people in to this, this is the result of a general consensus that people want to see more combat droids.
Sketh wrote:
This makes me so mad I want to spit.
Droids were just considered a red-headed step child of the CH class, and therefore, were not taken into consideration, despite thousands of posts on this board and the main board about droid cert systems.
So, what is being said is that DE can either be a CH or a BE clone - who needs to run massive hoppers.
I held the faith since the first month of the game as a DE. I put up with the probot nerf, the non-acknowledgement of the devs, the broken modules.
But now I see that the devs ignored everything that we said for the past half year, and now we are gonna just have to take it like they intended from the beginning.