Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Combat droids, Certs, Droid Handler, and Balance
Ok, I've thought through this issue for a while now, and I honestly don't think there is anyway around it. There can be higher level combat droids with a DH profession or no higher level combat droids. Now before the flames immediately start, hear me out.
Currently, the primary source of credit flow into the game (and many of the player styles) revolve around PvE. It is a delicate balancing act to make sure missions and MOBS aren't too easy for players, but at the same time they aren't absolutely impossible (as it is I'd say they're too far on the easy side but thats a different debate). If any existing profession were augmented with more combat abilities (and this goes for any profession, not just combat or non-combat) there would have to be a corresponding reduction in their existing skills or a corresponding increase in the skills of everyone else as well as an increase in the difficulty of "The world" (creaturs, NPC's, and missions) in order to compensate. The net effect of this, as it should be, is zero. Players would not be (and could not be in order to preserve balance) any more powerful in relation to everyone else and the environment than they currently are. All this would do is make droids a requirement for any profession (otherwise they will be inferior to everyone without droids). While more droids in the environment is a good thing, a player should not have to have a droid just to be where they should be (or were before) in terms of combat capabilities.
Even as I'm thinking about it now, I see that the only possible cert system would be giving droids to everyone and increasing the overall difficulty of everything in the world. Any cert system that did not give droids to everyone would not be able to compensate, as many professions do not have combat skills to increase or decrease, therefore they could not be adjusted. The environment is the only global variable, it is the only thing that can be changed to restore balance. So now we've got a cert system that has no effect other than to piss off many established combat characters because they have to have a droid to do the same thing they used to be able to do on their own.
This leaves two options, no combat droids over CL10 or a droid handler profession. Yes, logic dictates that anyone can use a droid, but game balance supercedes logic. I actually don't really care what option they go with, if anything I'd rather them go with no high end combat droids as that gives them more time/resources to focus on utility functions for droids, but I think either choice would be good for the profession.
If you can find an error in my logic or come up with a cert system that doesn't have the flaws I've pointed out feel free to post them.
What would you think about a cert system that gives people the option of buying higher levels of droid control without actually needing a seperate profession? I love the cert system that's been proposed on the boards, but I know it can't work as is. likewise, I really don't want a droid handler profession at all.
So how about a compromise that allows you to buy x amount of Droid CL as a seperate box for each profession, with a skillpoint cost and a token XP cost (Remember that it's the Skillpoints that are the main issue). This way you can have the cert system that the vast majority of DE want, with the skillpoint cost as the concession to the game mechanics
Suggestions anyone?
Jenden wrote:
If any existing profession were augmented with more combat abilities (and this goes for any profession, not just combat or non-combat) there would have to be a corresponding reduction in their existing skills or a corresponding increase in the skills of everyone else as well as an increase in the difficulty of "The world" (creaturs, NPC's, and missions) in order to compensate.
Beautiful, and a real concern that DE's in general don't appear to be considering much. Some of us don't want our own classes messed around with merelyto satisfy a very small but vocalminority.
After reading through these very passionate but poorly thought out posts against a droid handler profession, I've yet to see anything remotely convincing. I get that some DE's don't want a class that they feel might trodd in their territory - what I don't get is that if the territory becomes so much better for the addition of the class, what's the problem?
A good alternative to this Cert stuff? Check out my post here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=53337
Barfalomue wrote:
A good alternative to this Cert stuff? Check out my post here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=53337
I do like the idea, but it still doesn't offer any solution to the balance issues, if anything else it creates even more. Someone levels up the droid to its maximum skills, and immediately sells it or gives it to a new player, this allows that player to access content that they should not be able to (because they are not yet skilled enough or do not have appropriate skills). Even if it had to stick with the original master, it still gives players access to higher level content than they should be able to. In order to counterbalance this, they have to make the environment that much tougher. Any players in this tougher environment will have to have a droid in order to get to what they should be able to (and used to be able to) get to without a droid, forcing players to have droids, weather they want to or not. Also, it makes CH an entirely worthless profession. No matter how much I hate it, some people like that kind of thing, and if anyone can have a strong combat droid then everyone would be more powerful than a CH (as they had to spend a good number of skill points to get their pets, whereas the people with droids still had all their skill points for other professions.
I agree.
I have been pondering this issue since it was posted and this was the only solution I could come up with. If Certs aren't going to work, and I don't see how you can make a full blown profession out of calling and using droids, this "auxillary skill tree" or whatever you want to call it is the only thing that makes sense to me personally.
I posted this in TH's thread, but it seems to fit here too:
How about a skill point based cert system?
Basically it will be a 'new profession', but would only be like, 1 tree, and 4 teirs. If you want to use very basic combat droids you spend the skill points for teir 1. You want better droids, then spend more skill points. The max CL of the best driods would be maybe CL 25 or so. This would satisfy the DE who want to be able to sell driods to any profession not just a CH clone, and would solve the problem of needing to spend skill points to use driod without introducing a complete stand alone DH profession.
I don't think you can get away with a whole new profession just to use droids. what would all the skill trees do? But if you create a single tree, that would cost, maybe a total of25 to 35 skill points, then you'd have people who would sacrifice skill points in other professions to use droids. Have pre-req's too. since you'd expect combat droids to be used by the combat professions, have the first teir of this new skill tree require novice pistoleer, novice carbineer, novice rifleman, novice commando, novice TKA, or any of the other novice combat professions. Each Teir in the cert system would cost skill points and require combat exp..and lots of combat exp.
Non-combat specific droids, such as present day droids with combat modules, would still be CL 10 or less and could be used by anyone.
Would this satisfy the DE's and TH?
> with the only pre-requisite being ranged support 4
Or the brawler equivilent?