Merchant Archive

I posted this on the current"weekly roundtable" thread which seemed to focus on a misunderstanding of the droid issue.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=in_live&message.id=1362&page=6

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Could you drop a hint when we will see the post about the DROID INVASION, please?
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Ill be doing it this week. I had to push it off until some of internal discussions were finished. 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.

... Combat droids themselves have to stay level 10 or under for the general population otherwise everyone would rush out and get the better pets. That leaves a wide range of powerful combat droids that needs to be in the game, but to get those droids, players have to spend the time and energy to earn them.

So what we'll have is a Droid Engineer profession and a Droid Handling profession. All players will have access to combat droids up to level 10 and DH's will get a wide range of heavy combat droids to handle.

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It sounds like you misunderstood the discussions that I saw! The closest to a "Droid Handling profession" that got favorable response was the idea of certification for higher level droids -- no implication of a separate class.

Artisan based classes as a group have a major problem with combat because they use their skill points up on their primary activities. Almost all of them need more combat ability than they can have just to be able to service harvesters etc. in dangerous areas. Many want enough combat capability to be able to participate in GCW, and to go hunting with their friends.

The droid certification was supposed to go to Artisans and elite artisan based classes. Merchant's in particular should be able to use combat droids as shown in the cannon (Episode 1 in particular). Giving a lvl 11-50 combat droid to an elite artisan in stages over reaching mastery would not be unbalancing, A master of an elite artisan class doesn't have enough skill points left to overdrive that droid, but could group with similar level combat friends to good effect, and not be a useless tag-along.

If you felt the certification had to be concentrated in one class, I would suggest merchant. Most Artisan based class masters have had Merchant skills in the past to place vendors. The certification would give them reason to keep the class, instead of dropping it once their vendors were placed to recycle the skill points into combat capabilities.

Sorry but this is an online game, so game balance comes first. Putting combat droids as a merchant only makes no sense in this game. A DH profession makes alot of sense as it is a way to control game balance.

Speaking as a master merchent and not as a leader of uber droids,

EO

WHAT????? I guess I better read the DE board again. The only way a "Droid Handler" profession makes sense is if there are also wild droids out there to be captured and tamed like the CH has.

The CH can completely on his own acquire, tame, and use in combat many powerful pets. Yes, I know the BE can make pets and isn't a CH, but that's their problem.

If anyone should be able to handle a droid, it's the person who built and programmed it, right? Why in the world would I need a seperate profession to tell a droid that I programmed what to do?

Philomorph: "in character" argument:

It takes skill to be able to direct the actions of multiple droids, and because the droids are "intelligent" (IG-88), it might take more skill to convince them you are a capable master... Also, just because a Weaponsmith can craft an item, doesn't mean he can use it.

"out of character" argument:

BE and CH are seperate classes, if DE got DH skills, I'm sure you would hear all the BE's complain. Also, if they made one crafting class *that* good (Giving both crafting ability, and combat ability), it would really unbalance the game. Could you imagine in Weaponsmiths got certifications for everyone weapon they could make?

The one thing I'm wondering about is, what if someone masters DH and CH. Would that mean there would be a player running around with a dozen or two NPCs following him?

The only reasson the DH skills aren't going in to DE is because the DE profession is against the idea. But the devs are not going to just give out high level droids to every one because it will unbalance the combat professions even more than they are. You are going to HAVE to spend skill points (wow this arguement comes in every aspect of the game!!) to get them. The reason for that is to prevent you from being the best of the best in combat AND having the best droids..not supposed to work like that because it makes you too powerful and makes the game unfun.