Droid Engineer Archive

I am strongly opposed to the droid cert system that is floating around this board. As a former Master Creature Handler (retired last weekend) I am of the opinion that are pets really screw with the group centric aspects of this game. With my pets I could get better combat experience, stay safe and make more money faster than in a group, EVEN after the last CH nerf.

What people are proposing with the droid cert system is that the higher you are up the combat profession the better droid you qualify to use. One thing I hated about SWG in the past was how everyone relied on a pet. With the nerf to non-CH users for only a level 10 pet, we are finally seeing a move away from a pet centric game. People are banding together to do missions, relying on armor, mitigation and buffs to take down difficult creatures. Creatures are still here but not to the drastic scale that they used to be.

What you DEs are proposing will insure that you folks are rich without little care of the direction of this game. I can only see pain from this general direction if it went into place. Imagine being in a group of masters hunting higher level creatures (which is quite common for me). Imagine the pets were CL25 each, which would be a decent pet level. That's a CL of 200. That's quite a difference! Either the devs will completely end up nerfing all combat droids because this, or they will end up doing an across the board rebalance of the high end mobs. Based off of SOE's previous behavior they will most likely nerf them until people consider them useless. The nerfed the other pets, they will nerf droids if the cert system goes through.You will end up being as useless as you are now, which is really quite sad because droids are very cool.

I firmly believe there is not much market in level 10 pets. They are much to weak after you get into hunting stronger creatures. Which leaves the question of where to put the advanced (lvl 10+) combat droids. Most DEs I've seen agree that giving them to themselves would be a bad idea. That pretty much kills a market because droid engineers could make their own and typically would not buy from each other. Which leaves the inevitable, much-hated of putting advanced combat droids in its own profession. This at least gives DEs a market, saves them from nerfing and gives the dev great control for tweaks and balances.

I beg DEs to please reconsider messing with the rest of the other combat classes who do not want to be pidgeon-holed into droids because you can't effectively fight without them. Thank you. Feel free to one star and flame away.

No. You have some excellent points.There is more to consider here than the obvious. If droids were around since launch, they would be an acceptable evil. Now that so many have gone on for so long without them...

Perhaps the Dhandler and DE tree droids are our only 'solid' grounds...

Actually, you bring up a good point. No single-profession should put their wants ahead of anyone else's. Especially if it ruins the game for other professions.

I too was getting sick of seeing a rancor or some type of animal everytime I turned around. I hated how this game was such a CH driven game. I hated debating to myself whether I should buy a PA Hall or a Spat that I can ride around on (LOL).

Please read this link. I think it gives opportunity to everyone in the game:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=53337

At some point along the development process, some programer at SOE started to see some similarities between droids and creatures and how they were implemented. At the time, the creatures had a more complete programing system than droids. From that point forward, droids have been doomed to play a lesser roll is SWG.

This droid "problem" will never go away, I repeat - never - go away, until the devs make a clear distinction between creatures and droids and the way the influence the game.

Droids have not played a lesser role because of inferior programming. They played a lesser role than creatures because they are generally not combat oriented and this is a combat centric game.

Droids have not played a lesser role because of inferior programming.

Man. Have you used a droid?!?

I do agree with your statement about droids not being central to combat, I just wanted to poke some fun.

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Monthigos wrote:

Droids have not played a lesser role because of inferior programming. They played a lesser role than creatures because they are generally not combat oriented and this is a combat centric game.

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Perhaps the devs should think about making the game a bit more diverse. There are tons of people who run around mining, crafting, talking, sharing. There are entertainers, crafters, healers, surveyors, Mayors. Why not have some droids to assist with their duties?

To give a few examples:

Mining: Have a droid patrol extractors, pull the resources, add maintenance & power fees from it's hopper, etc. (this one has been posted before)

Crafting: Have it already. But an addition would be having a droid that can deliver to a customer. Supply target, required cash or exchange item & off the droid goes. Have to pay it some cash for it's travel ticket if off planet or via shuttleport. (this kind of was posted before) You could also implement a "Factory Output Hopper Retrieve" function.

Talking: Give droids the macros players have (i.e. "R3PO gives Xandar a hug" and so forth)

Sharing: similar to the droid delivery idea. Allow trading with droids.

Entertainment: Allow a droid to play music while its master does the counter-dance part and vice-versa

Mayors: Allow Mayors to put a droid on city patrol. Give command in city hall terminal ability to choose city alignment (rebel/Imperial, defaul neutral) This would allow droid to warn city militia when opposing overt faction members enter city. Also, this droid could be used to grant zoning rights, if no one is around. The person wishing to build uses the radial menu on the droid, which then sends amessage to the mayor and/or militia saying: "Xandar has requested rights to build in our city. Would you like me to give him permission?" In turn, you type simply "Y" or "N" to grant rights. Another good Mayor Droid would be one that could go around to every building in the city (upon command) and send a status report via in-game email (current surplus maintenance for buildings, current surplus power for factories/extractors...basically All Structure Status) to each owner, and a general status report to the mayor. People often forget to check their maintenance and the building collapses. This would offer a friendly and interesting way of supplying the information to the owners. Perhaps also allow the city-droid to take votes from citizens & then take them & add them to ballot, collect surplus taxes, etc...