Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Combat Droids for Merchants
It appears that effective combat droids could become available as soon as the next release, but the developers have a problem with making them available to combat types where they would be unbalancing. As a result there is consideration of a new "Droid Handler" profession. Droids for all others would be limited to lv 10 (like Adv Probots are now).
An alternative is to put these skills into an existing elite profession (or professions). Droid engineers don't want it only in their class, since they want to sell their products, and their correspondent has proposed a scheme where every class gets skill points toward droid handling.
I don't think that proposal is going to fly as stated. Mostly, it gives too much droid handling ability to existing combat classes that can use them as tanks to take out the largest mobs in the game and is seriously unbalancing. Also it requires modifying the skill trees of every class, adding a new one might be easier.
My suggestion is to add this skill to merchant and Droid engineer only. The skills to call higher level and more droids would be distributed among the skill boxes for the two classes. A combined mastery of Merchant and Droid Engineer would be required for the greatest droid effectiveness. Since this leaves few skill points for combat, it would definitly resolve the balance issue.
Why merchants? Lots of reasons:
1) StarWars: In Episode 1 the Trade Federation used armies of droids, and I am sure Watto and other merchants had combat droids for protection (though we don't see them used).
2) Roleplay suitability: While we may not have combat skills, a merchant's economic power should be usable to avoid being a pushover. It gives us a role in the GCW, and a way to experience more of the game without investing skill points in combat skills.
3) It is an active skill: Most of the merchant skills can be used once and dropped, this skill is needed every time you call a droid. It is a reason architects and weaponsmiths should keep it instead of dropping it once their vendors are placed.
4) Merchant is common to the crafting classes: If you make something salable, you probably had Merchant skills for a while to place your vendors, and you probably have Merchant experience left over. It lets crafters get those combat droids into action soon, but isn't such a quick and easy class to master that there will be a flood of combat types picking it up for sport.
Combat droids are going to be most useful to Artisan based classes as guards on harvester runs, and for their occasional ventures into combat activity. I don't see that this is going to make Merchants into a major combat class. But then again, I have heard a proverb attributed to Japan "Business is war."
If this is going to happen, we need Doc to make a proposal soon. Lets show our support, or argue against it if you must.
I also posted this on the Merchant board
It appears that effective combat droids could become available as soon as the next release, but the developers have a problem with making them available to combat types where they would be unbalancing. As a result there is consideration of a new "Droid Handler" profession. Droids for all others would be limited to lv 10 (like Adv Probots are now).
An alternative is to put these skills into an existing elite profession (or professions). Droid engineers don't want it only in their class, since they want to sell their products, and their correspondent has proposed a scheme where every class gets skill points toward droid handling.
I don't think that proposal is going to fly as stated. Mostly, it gives too much droid handling ability to existing combat classes that can use them as tanks to take out the largest mobs in the game and is seriously unbalancing. Also it requires modifying the skill trees of every class, adding a new one might be easier.
My suggestion is to add this skill to merchant and Droid engineer only. The skills to call higher level and more droids would be distributed among the skill boxes for the two classes. A combined mastery of Merchant and Droid Engineer would be required for the greatest droid effectiveness. Since this leaves few skill points for combat, it would definitly resolve the balance issue.
Why merchants? Lots of reasons:
1) StarWars: In Episode 1 the Trade Federation used armies of droids, and I am sure Watto and other merchants had combat droids for protection (though we don't see them used).
2) Roleplay suitability: While we may not have combat skills, a merchant's economic power should be usable to avoid being a pushover. It gives us a role in the GCW, and a way to experience more of the game without investing skill points in combat skills.
3) It is an active skill: Most of the merchant skills can be used once and dropped, this skill is needed every time you call a droid. It is a reason architects and weaponsmiths should keep it instead of dropping it once their vendors are placed.
4) Merchant is common to the crafting classes: If you make something salable, you probably had Merchant skills for a while to place your vendors, and you probably have Merchant experience left over. It lets crafters get those combat droids into action soon, but isn't such a quick and easy class to master that there will be a flood of combat types picking it up for sport.
Combat droids are going to be most useful to Artisan based classes as guards on harvester runs, and for their occasional ventures into combat activity. I don't see that this is going to make Merchants into a major combat class. But then again, I have heard a proverb attributed to Japan "Business is war."
/sigh Apparently nobody is interested in Merchants getting droid certificates except for one DE who came up with the idea on his own.
Oh well, I guess we will continue to see crafters of all types dropping their Merchant skill once their vendors are placed.
I'm sort of confused about the whole underlying issue, actually - I see a bunch of people up in arms, but I haven't quite wrapped my mind around what the specific issues are yet, or what the devs seem to be heading for.
I can tell you that I, as a merchant, don't have any particular interest in controling combat droids. If you ask me the same question as a Rifleman you might get a different answer. But as a merchant what we do is sell things.. I want to sell those droids to as many people as possible .. I don't want to control them. If the proposal is for a merchant vendor droid I'm all for that. My understanding is that mobile vendors are an extreme challenge though, but that doesn't mean they are impossibile.
Haruspex77 wrote:
DocSavag wrote:
I'm not saying I'm fighting the idea of merchants/crafters getting higher level combat droids, but it isn't really creating a whole lot of passion in me.
Well, you don't seem to be alone in that attitude. It is a shame, because Merchant seems to be the only place to put Droid certs (except possibly DE, though they rejected the idea) except for a new and completely worthless class.
Unless they trash the "anyone can train one" feature of droids, the whole DH class does nothing but absorb skill points for droid certification. There isn't any other content that fits it. They dropped miner in beta for a similar reason, why are they even thinking in this direction. What skill and prerequsits will it use?Combat experience on top of Master Artisan seems likely to satisfy the balance issues. It doesn't even really satisfy what the DEs were looking for -- the ability to sell droids to lots of folks.
Merchant has been awfully weak in value for skill points andis really a common element of all the crafting classes.There isStarWars movie support for Merchants using droids in combat. I think it would be easy to sell to the devs. But without some active support it won't happen, and the forum merchants seem to be a bunch of pacifists in a game about a war.
What we need is a Sith Lord to incite the Trade Federation to violence!
DocSavag wrote:
I'm not saying I'm fighting the idea of merchants/crafters getting higher level combat droids, but it isn't really creating a whole lot of passion in me.
Well, you don't seem to be alone in that attitude. It is a shame, because Merchant seems to be the only place to put Droid certs (except possibly DE, though they rejected the idea) except for a new and completely worthless class.
Unless they trash the "anyone can train one" feature of droids, the whole DH class does nothing but absorb skill points for droid certification. There isn't any other content that fits it. They dropped miner in beta for a similar reason, why are they even thinking in this direction. What skill and prerequsits will it use?Combat experience on top of Master Artisan seems likely to satisfy the balance issues. It doesn't even really satisfy what the DEs were looking for -- the ability to sell droids to lots of folks.
Merchant has been awfully weak in value for skill points andis really a common element of all the crafting classes.There isStarWars movie support for Merchants using droids in combat. I think it would be easy to sell to the devs. But without some active support it won't happen, and the forum merchants seem to be a bunch of pacifists in a game about a war.
What we need is a Sith Lord to incite the Trade Federation to violence!