Class Conception: Astromech Droid

[Zacho]

Hey, so this is just an idea I've been tossing around in my head. Obviously not pressing the devs to work on it or anything, just thought the conversation would be fun.

A big part of my love for Star Wars has always been the droids, Astromechs being my favorite. I love the personality the little guys have. I'd like to imagine, if they were implemented as a class, they could be really fun.

Models could be pretty widely customizable since there's only around 3-4 astromech designs I can think of off the top of my head (R2, R6, T3, etc) and the uniqueness of them usually comes from palette swaps (see R2 and R4)

Animation would be light as well, since they just sorta slide around (pretty sure the T3 model in KOTOR didn't even have moving animations other than a light nudge)

I imagine gameplay-wise they would be a support/specialist class.

Weapon-wise, I think they'd be rather light, with a blaster pistol mounted on them, and possibly a stun gun? I think a flamethrower would be a fitting addition, however it would have to come at a point cost high enough to remove the ability to have the following support option:

I think it could be beneficial to have health and ammo drops from them, since as it stands (as far as I'm aware anyway) there's no healing class in MB2. It could operate similar to the health/ammo drop in Battlefront 2 (2005) in which there is a limited amount in reserve, and each drop is a combination of health and ammo (not individual, saving a slot in the point buy menu)

Obviously the ability to heal is quite high-priority, making them a target, so I don't think they should have too much health, but they should have enough to get by. I'd say around 80 health and 20 shields or so?

I think they should also be ever so slightly slower than the average unit, keeping them in the back lines so that frontliners must retreat to get healed up.

Obviously this would take a lot of time and effort and I'm not really pushing for it to be added like I said earlier, but I think it's a cool concept. What do you guys think? Better ways to fit it into the game? Or is it lame and bad?

 

[Lessen]

From what I've seen and remember, dev leadership is pretty against adding a healing class. If Astromech were ever added, a more combat-oriented spec would be much more likely, whether that be some kind of interesting firepower or some other kind of teamwork-oriented combat utility.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

From what I've seen and remember, dev leadership is pretty against adding a healing class.

In general it is pretty unimaginative. We've seen multiple concepts for astromech that get posted on this forums and a lot of them are more creative than just a healing/ammo dispenser in terms of actual abilities. One concept I had an idea for one day was EP3 inspired, where a droid would throw out "pools" of various things for different effects on the ground that could also be combined with other parts of their kit (like weapons) so you could put out an oil slick that slows people down if they go through it but then you can also light it on fire with a flamethrower or jets. Or throw out coolant to make something slick, or a pool of water and zap it with the electricity weapon from kotor. Etc. Basically class relying on CC/AOE combo effects for its abilities. While also having things like beam weapons (which we dont exactly have any of at all right now) inspired by kotor. Even the clone wars series had some interesting concepts for abilities. Though these aren't really being considered right now and were just some ideas I threw out one day.

I do want to see more unique and fun classes added though that aren't just variations on abilities and things and ideas we already have.

An astromech with things like a flame thrower, stun weapon, beam weapons, cool unique abilities, etc. are something I would like to see.

 

[Zacho]

In general it is pretty unimaginative. We've seen multiple concepts for astromech that get posted on this forums and a lot of them are more creative than just a healing/ammo dispenser in terms of actual abilities. One concept I had an idea for one day was EP3 inspired, where a droid would throw out "pools" of various things for different effects on the ground that could also be combined with other parts of their kit (like weapons) so you could put out an oil slick that slows people down if they go through it but then you can also light it on fire with a flamethrower or jets. Or throw out coolant to make something slick, or a pool of water and zap it with the electricity weapon from kotor. Etc. Basically class relying on CC/AOE combo effects for its abilities. While also having things like beam weapons (which we dont exactly have any of at all right now) inspired by kotor. Even the clone wars series had some interesting concepts for abilities. Though these aren't really being considered right now and were just some ideas I threw out one day.

I do want to see more unique and fun classes added though that aren't just variations on abilities and things and ideas we already have.

An astromech with things like a flame thrower, stun weapon, beam weapons, cool unique abilities, etc. are something I would like to see.

Wasn't aware the dev team was against healing, which is totally understandable. And my bad, I didn't know other people had already made concepts.

I wanted to keep my ideas manageable and short just to start a conversation, which is why I didn't get too involved or creative that way.

 

[Tylenol]

We could probably add "no suggesting regenarating health" to the forums rules.

 

[Damn Polak]

adding yet another class to open mode would be insane imo

but the above ideas could be implemented and tested in FA presets, where they don't influence entire mb2 balance

 

[Tylenol]

adding yet another class to open mode would be insane imo

 

[Zacho]

It might be cool to introduce the Cryo damage introduced in KOTOR with the astromech. I mean, movement impairing attacks in games like this can often be annoying (see force pull and push to an inexperienced player) but it's worth playing around with, I think. I mean hey, the scariest thing is a Jedi getting too close for comfort, a droid that could slow them down would be a blessing in that case. If slowing people down is annoying though (cough Mei Overwatch) maybe it could give an enemy a debuff in which they take a bit more damage from attacks, lets say 15% more?

I think the oil slick idea is interesting. You could block off areas which could be really nice. Not sure how that would work visually in the engine, though.

One thing I've never been a big fan of is the floating jets that R2 has in the prequels and clone wars. Always felt weird to me. It's canon, so I could see it being implemented, but it's never something I've liked to see when it happens on-screen (when R2 flies Anakin out of a hundred foot deep pit in The Clone Wars, I lost my shit)

I think something that needs to be considered as well is melee for this class. Obviously a droid can't punch and kick, but we could possibly repurpose the stun baton which is used in Jedi Outcast?

Something I totally forgot to mention in my original post was the potential for slightly faster objective completion. On Deathstar, for example, a droid might be able to open doors at like a 0.2x speed, as well as unlock the Falcon faster, etc. The challenge is getting the droid there, since it probably wouldn't be the strongest or fastest outright.

 

[Tylenol]

A wholly support based class would be interesting and would be a perfect fit for a droid with maybe 50hp and 50 armour. It could be a Rebel and Imperial class with certain identical features, like 'motor' for faster movement), droid circuits for faster hacking and etc. But with team-exclusive things as well like oil slips for rebs or tasers for imps. I like it

 

[Damn Polak]

yeah i've seen that, i really hope they're just fucking kidding in this schedule

 

[2cwldys]

I genuinely love this idea, also could put that MEDAK voice clip to use!

 

[Zacho]

Looks like I'm gonna have to find a vat of acid to dip my brain into, for now

 

[k4far]

Looks like I'm gonna have to find a vat of acid to dip my brain into, for now

 

[Lessen]

yeah i've seen that, i really hope they're just fucking kidding in this schedule

What do you mean? We have concepts for new classes, but they're neither high priority nor developed enough to have an explicit release schedule.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

Wasn't aware the dev team was against healing, which is totally understandable.

Certain types of healing we think are fine (Like hero heal that allows for a very limited amount of healing that requires skillful use of dodging, guerrilla tactics to fully utilize but is still limited in its scope to keep a bit of glass cannon but still have some tankiness/staying power. But we have a lot of "resources" in this game whether it be grenades, ammo, health/armor, darts, etc because its a last man standing mode we believe that managing those resources is part of the skill of the game. Health included. Can't really have regenerating health while also having capped max ammo. People who buy ammo 2 can already easily run out before the round ends, that will be even worse if someone has regenerating health. And having X number of health/ammo packs invites a lot of toxicity "im better you should have healed me, my class is more valuable" blah type arguments.

And my bad, I didn't know other people had already made concepts.

I wanted to keep my ideas manageable and short just to start a conversation, which is why I didn't get too involved or creative that way.

Nothing wrong with what you did, was just pointing out that what was here so far was uninteresting and giving some points about how it could easily be made more interesting.

It might be cool to introduce the Cryo damage introduced in KOTOR with the astromech.

Something we thought about, and why i mentioned the ice patch bitch. One of the combos if you didnt have the coolant leak or whatever was that you could freeze water with a cryo weapon from kotor.

I think something that needs to be considered as well is melee for this class. Obviously a droid can't punch and kick, but we could possibly repurpose the stun baton which is used in Jedi Outcast?

Yeah, that is probably what would happen if an astromech was added.

Something I totally forgot to mention in my original post was the potential for slightly faster objective completion. On Deathstar, for example, a droid might be able to open doors at like a 0.2x speed, as well as unlock the Falcon faster, etc. The challenge is getting the droid there, since it probably wouldn't be the strongest or fastest outright.

I believe this was something we also discussed in the past, but felt like it might be a bit too strong of something to have.

yeah i've seen that, i really hope they're just fucking kidding in this schedule

Pretty much what Lessen said. We have been trying to make several new classes for a long time. Almost as long as I have been a team member and none have really succeeded. However, why would wanting to try to get a new class in the game be a bad thing? We have a ton of things in the SW universe that aren't seen/used as well as roles that aren't seen/used in mb2. Plus it would spice things up for a lot of people.

 

[Torlo50]

hmm... I'm not against the idea, per say, but I do not think that a healing class should be implemented in such a way. Honestly, I like the CC for IMPS and Buffs/Debuffs for Rebels, with some standardized stuff for both sides. Would be nice to have an AoE stun though, especially as a counter to the rolling deka. Maybe no damage, can hit friends, and does a stun animation for all classes, but droids getting a "lightning" effect. Deka moving slower and the like.

 

[Damn Polak]

from my point of view it's extremely hard to believe making a big change (like adding classes) wouldn't break the game somehow
and it's not like this kind of change can be easily reversed with a patch, once you commit to it, a lot of players probbably will take its availability for granted
i hope i'm wrong, but don't say i didn't warn you if it turns into some bs drama

edit: just occured to me that adding a new classes just for the sake of it sounds like designing mistake
shouldn't there be an obvious purpose (specific place in the mb2 classes foodchain or favoured playstyle) to begin with, not some cloudy "we need 2 more classes" dev goal? Obv i'm not seeing everything since the available info are very general but still

 

[MaceMadunusus]

if it turns into some bs drama

So nothing new for MB2 then?

edit: just occured to me that adding a new classes just for the sake of it sounds like designing mistake
shouldn't there be an obvious purpose

Well at least IMO they aren't being worked on for the sake of adding something. We've designed, tested, and thrown out many classes. They have all had some purpose or role. Realizing that role or purpose is a bit harder though, so we aren't going to over promise something specific. They definitely have their place.

As the roadmap threads notes though, there is a possibility of items on the roadmap never making it to a live build.

 

[Lessen]

from my point of view it's extremely hard to believe making a big change (like adding classes) wouldn't break the game somehow

bear in mind that SBD is already breaking the game so it's not like the current state of the game is that ideal

 

[Tylenol]

edit: just occured to me that adding a new classes just for the sake of it sounds like designing mistake
shouldn't there be an obvious purpose (specific place in the mb2 classes foodchain or favoured playstyle) to begin with, not some cloudy "we need 2 more classes" dev goal? Obv i'm not seeing everything since the available info are very general but still

MB2 is getting stale for a good number of people, especially those who don't give much of a shit about duelling. New classes or at least some sort of additions would at least make things interesting for once