Bio Engineer Archive

Zazo,


How you explain that most (if not all) of the veteran DEs here agree that decay is needed (as a way to better the DE profession) then?


And, I don't accept the "greed" argument alone. It is simply wrong that a user can buy a product that NEVER EVER decays.

Or do you disagree with that?



/bow

Respectfully,

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Schardour wrote:

It would also pull nearly every live entertainer from the main servers and leave them only with bots and macrotainers

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Not to mention that some of the existing smaller servers are suffering from a low population as it is. Most people even anti afk paople will not want to restart on a new server from scratch. The entertainers probably would. But 90% of the anti afk combat people I've seen see it as a "i find a live entertainer if i can, if not i go to a bot" sort of thing. These people are not going to restart on another server, they shouldn't have to. Nor should we.

Message Edited by Dreamland on 10-25-2004 11:12 AM

TK, I think one of us has mis-read Zazo's post. I read it as saying a decay system as things stand would be worthless because droids do not provide sufficient advantage to make them worth having if they have to be replaced too frequently. I don't entirely agree with that sentiment, but it is a concern. If any droid decay implementation is too heavy-handed people will simply stop buying our products because they are not worth the trouble.

EnigmaBSc

Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 10-25-2004 11:26 AM

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duncje wrote:

The most pressing issue is necessity.

There is no current, absolute, NEED for droids, as there are needs for other crafted products. Yes, our droids provide some good services, but none of them are absolutely needed.

Every other crafting class has items that are needed by the community; armor, weapons, harvesters, but there is not a need for droids. Everything our droids do is replicated in kind in some game system. You can heal wounds in camps and med centers, non-CH pets (esp. the uber ones that are an obvious bug) are as good or better than combat droids, interplanetary survey droids will be yesterday's news with the no-wait, no-cost travel that JtL brings.

In order to have a saleable product, we need to provide something that is an integral part to everyday life in this game. We don't have that currently.

(One exception to the need idea are BH droids, but one product to one class does not a market make.)

Thanks Tiggs

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I totaly agree. The least we could get would be droid decay since there isnt high demand for droids anyway but I would rather see droids that have specific functions which are in demand like armor and weapons.

I've been a MDE a few months now on Gorath and I keep hearing the same thing " There aren't very many DE's around" !!! My fist guess for the reason of the lack of DE's would be that unless you just have the "itch to be a DE because droids are cool etc", well then other than that there is no motivation to be a DE...too much work to get there and no reward...just lots of hard work to make a few credits.

The only thing that keeps me in business period is selling R3 BH detonating droids for 50K each...if i didnt have the few customers I have buying these, I would be making very little credits(no tolium = no business for me). If I didnt enjoy making droids for the cool factor I would have dropped this profession already and probably will if things dont change.

its not often I feel the need to quote myself

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zazo wrote:

Well think of it this way the value of the product to the customer is paramount. If the customer does not think the end product is worth it then what will happen is rather than buying more they will buy less.

If something like decay is implimented to increase the need for replacements then it must be offset by an increase in versitility. If a droid is to decay like armor it has to be as valuable as armor.

mark my words if you impliment decay on droids without an increase in versitility and abilities what you will get is alot of people only buying mse droids with medical and storage modules by the crate and nothing else.

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First, I am not against decay but it must be handled delicately. It is simple economics what do DE's sell the most of right now?

Medic droids

Storage droids

I dont sell nearly as much of anything else as I do these 2 types of items

Second,How would non combat decay be implimented? because the bulk of the droids sold are non combat.

Third, other than Doc for buffing name 1 profession that would seriously be detrimented by not having anydroids other than storage? There simply isnt one, merchants use them but not much, very few entertainers use them and only then because they are pretty, I have yet to sell any musician recording modules. And the only combat droids I sell are for those either with no combat skills or those grinding out new professions.

Making them decay without increasing their overall versitility is a mistake because the few customers we do have will only resort to buying mse's for storage and dox will buy crates of the things for buffing. Decay must come with a benifit that will find the customer needing the item and having to buy more rather than saying to themselves. "well, gee it only does that and it will only last this long? why bother."

I've only been a DE since march...in the scheme of things about half the game and it is my alts profession so you got me there...but I have been in business for 10 years in RL if you make a marginal product disposable without a cost reduction or value increase you will eliminate any desire for it

• Mandoviol and Ceremonial are already strong perks for the Musicians - I'd like to see similarly great dances (not "2" versions of dances we already have in Entertainer, but something as new to dancers as a new song and instrument are to Musicians - really cool new dances) as enticements for Dancersto become Master Entertainers.
  
  


• Further extended ID options addedin Master Entertainer could be very nice. I'm sure that Image Designers have other ideas that may fit well here too.
  
  


• And as long as we're dreaming... I've always wished for the ability to control lighting more in our environments, especially the darkened stages of static city Theaters, though cantinas are pretty dreary as well. I once dreamt up a concept for Master Entertainers to be able to control stage lighting via a light-panel in static city theaters or somesuch... I'd really just like to see some way that proper light shows could be added into the game as an overall performance enhancement to the various entertainer professions, and something along those lines could be a really nice perk for any entertainer to Master.

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Tiggs wrote:

That does clear it up for the noob (me). I have read through the rest of the posts and I know that even by making macroing a bannable offense this would make you happy. But I can't make that call. I will bring it up with no promises made, ok? They will either tell me sure Tiggs or no way in hell due to whatever reason they have. So all I will promise coming out of this is I will ask. The worse I can be told is no =)

Thanks for responding to my thread I really appreciate it everyone.

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I closed my response in the Entertainer forum version of this thread with this, but really wanted to cross-post it here, as it holds just as true.

I have four issues I will take up here, primarily Entertainer income and our relations to the combatants.


First thing first, the entertainer mission are a joke at best. They max out at 200 cr to both novice entertainers and to toughs of us that have master entertainer as well as a master in dance or music. In addition, they take more time to complete then most a combat mission do.
I am not asking for high paying mission such as the master combatants get, adding a zero to the payout would do. That would bring it in line with the recon missions from the explore mission terminal, and with the survey mission from the artisan mission terminal (the one you get when you have some combat skill as well). Neither of witch involved combat or the risk it brings.

If entertainers were not so depended on other players to tip us, we would have a lot more freedom to simply have fun in the profession we chose. The average combat player is not appreciative of entertainers, least of all the live ones, and putting our livelihood in thair hands is not good for neither part.

I know the argument of Risk vs Reward, but entertainers are not like other professions. We are an entirely new game play style very much different from the combat the that Risk vs. Reward model comes from. Thus we deserves a new model for reward as well, one based on our characters skills and the time we use.


The second issue I wand to take up here is our relation with the combatants. I think this is mainly because of the way battle fatigue works.

Lets look at medics as an example: The combatants fight, get wounded and the HAM bar display that they have lost some "permanent" action/health, the combatants go to the medic and the medic gived the combatant the action/health back. More over if a combatant cannot find anyone to heal thair wounds they can just sit in a medical centre to have them removed.
Now look at Battle Fatigue, players start out a 0 FB and the gain FB while they fight.

So the medic gives something that was lost back, while we take something that was gained away. More over the only way to get rid of BF is to se an entertainer, and thus many se BF as something introduced to justify us.

I suggest you reverse the way BF works. So instead, it starting at zero and the increasing it will start at say 5000 and the fall to zero. That way it will physiologically at least feel to the combatants that we "recharge" something.
As long as we are seen as a "necessary evil" they have to use, to get to do what they find fun, we will never be on good terms with them on the larger scale.

I know you said that you did not wand links, but I suggest you go read the topic where TH said that recursive macros would go away. Take notice of what is being posted entertainers, then you have a good idea of what we face.


Also when you create your entertainer character try "levelling up" live.
Preferable play at least one hour at the time in a public cantina like c-net or Theed. It will give you feeling for just how bad the whole AFK situation are to us.


Ok one last thing the I will stop. Please give us more tool to Entertain other players with, give us the ability to actuarially do what our profession say we do, make us in to true entertainers!

Message Edited by Jeryld on 10-25-2004 12:16 AM