Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Who should be able to use combat droids?
**edit** I have to agree with this one too.......too bad there is soo many good ideas, but none listened too.
And what the heck! I was gonna say something that I thought was really important.....And now I forgot! F! Ill prolly post again when I remember it.
So, my vote is NO certs, NO Droid Handler, NO mini-profession, just low and mid-power droids to let non-combat characters contribute in a group fight and to give combat characters with droids an edge over those without.
Low power droids aren't going to make you contribute any more to a group than with a probot.
The big problem with introducing high power droids is that they give too much combat power to newbies and combat characters. That forces the level of the mobs up. They have to require enough skill points to be used (with appropriate experience) to keep that from happening. Hence certification or a new class.
The right place for the certs is in the Artisan based classes. That DEs should get some is obvious, to use their own product, but some should go to others so there are customers who are not just lazy DEs orgrinders ofthe profession for combat purposes. TH's comments, though,made it clear that they could not change a whole bunch of classes.
My suggestion is for the rest of the certs to go to Merchant. Almost every crafter takes merchant skills at some point, though they usually drop them since they are useless once you have your vendors placed. If the highest level of droid calling was for a Master Merchant/Master DE, that would pretty much be the only combat skill that character had. A Master Merchant/Master other-artisan shouldn't be too weak to compete with Smugglers or even CHs who weren't maxed out for combat.
We all agree that a DH profession is a lousy idea, because all the real content is in DE. TH's comments only offer the possibility of certs on one or two classes. I think this is the only way to go.
Unfortunately, this is stiring little interest in the Merchant forum, and without that it will never happen. Most merchants have no interest in combat. We need to stir up the Trade Federation to see where its interest lies!
Well...(dons patented Human-safe Asbestos Battle Shorts [tm])...
Let's look at the Star Wars films...answer? Anyone.
Let's look at SWG...answer? Hoo boy! If anyone can use a Droideka or other high-powered Combat Droid, all that work on "rebalancing" just went down the tubes, didn't it?
DE's should have been "empowered" as BE's recently were, from the very beginning. Instead, the very first thing to get the Almighty Nerf Bat was the Probot. Now tell me, with the class "rebalancing" going on (read: Nerf every NPCdownward, and all PC Combat classes [yes, TK's and Commandos your time is coming, sadly] downward), willhigh-end Combat Droids throw a large Monkey Wrench [read: Holocron's involved in this! I can smell it!] in the works? Yep.
A DH profession you say? You've got to be kidding. Certs? Again, you've got to be kidding. In the Star Wars films, anyone can use a droid. That's their purpose - they aid life forms - they are machines.
Long story short, it's another fine mess SOE has gotten us into. They couldn'tengineer their way out of a wet paper bag given a dry bag, a bottle of water, and detailed instructions.
Again , I think that this should all stay under Artisan or DE , and not involve a Handler profession
True , BEs can't use all the creatures they make , but they can make all sorts of useful items NOT involved in cloning animals.
With Droid Engineer , all you get is droids , droids , and some droids that you can't use.
Perhaps the answer isn't in making UBER droids , but allowing us to use MORE droids at once of the same power level , and having combat droids with different combat types (ie Faster rate of fire than a probot , but less damage , etc)
Just my 2 cents' worth
I dont know if it was mentioned( because i dont have time to read it all, time for bed), but maybe they could add a certain amount of "Max droid lvl" to the engineer skill blocks in the artisan tree. novic artisan gets the standard lvl 10 as do the others and for each lvl of engineer it would be something like the new CH tree.
lvl 1 engineer:+2 to max droid lvl
lvl 2 engineer: +3 to max
lvl 3: +4 to max
I admit that this wasnt the best time period to set the game in. However, it's been set here, and from this point on i don't want things would could be generally fun not be accessible to us because of "continuity" or "starwarsiness". The questions of "is it fun?" should be the overriding factor for every decision made, not how closely we can make swg become a rerun of the movies.
I'm sorry for the real world example, i was just trying to make a point with it. De's have no practical experience with combat droid use was my point. So therefore it makes sense to create a new class that does. Everyone has some droid use experience, and thats why everyone should be able to use utility and light defensive droids.The larger combat droids however should only be used by those willing to spend points to acquire the skill and expertise in their use. Thats all i was attempting to get across. A cert system just doesnt cut it, how does learning to be a certain tree in any of the current professions relate at all to operating complex combat droids?
I'd love to combine together my thoughts with those of Kyroneus and Hack2K... And add in a thought I had from another thread.
Let droids be versatile -- made to different purposes, but not terribly powerful. Maybe the best droid is only equivalent to a CL 20 pet. I'm pretty happy with my level 10 probot. I don't really need a more powerful droid but if people want one I think CL 20 would be noticably better.
Next, put in just a few handling certs for those Level 11-20 droids. Engineering gives a few, DE gives a few. I'd love to give some to Entertainers who need them as much as artisans, but it's even harder to justify... Maybejust sprinkle droid handling levels intoeach of theMaster profession boxes -- as part of becoming a master of any profession, one learns how to deal with the most complex tools of the trade -- including droids.