Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Five Easy Fixes Please Dev Team, Give Us A Bone To Chew On
There are five small things that are "broken" about the DE profession that make a huge impact on how we sell droids.
These five things I never see mentioned by the Dev team, and I don't think I've ever seen our corrispondent address. But these five "fixes" would make the profession a lot more bearable and the bland "future" talk we keep getting a lot easier to swallow.
The first few are useless chasis that just need a module socket, the last few "bugs" with module frame combinations. If these things were fixed, our tree would still be incomplete, but at least rather fully functional for what it is.
- Add one service module to Protocol droids
- Add one service module to the BLL, two to the BLL Adv
- Fix surgical droids to be able to take item/data storage mods
- Fix LE and Protocol droids to repair
- ALLOW TALKING DROIDS TO BE NAMED
That's it. Those are the only real "bugs" that come up as a practicing DE for me. I've gone through the tree over and over, and this is the major "bugs" that I repeat to customers over and over.
The BLL and Protocol are absolutely useless - without a single module socket, they can do nothing but follow you (and the Protocol can't even be used as sign!). The broken module combos are undocumented and go against the current "all modules are interchangable" way the profession works. Yes, it's on our long-term list to have this changed, have more droids have unique functions, but for where we are now, it's necessary.
Getting these five simple things fixed will not only allow us to take a bit more pride in our work, but go a long way to satisfying us until the additions we keep hearing about happen.
These five things I don't hear about very often, only in passing - yet when together are really what makes DE's "broken" rather than just unfinished.
Audio
Agreed.... 5 very small beginning fixes that would breathe some life into our products. 
Virtanis wrote:
Agreed.... 5 very small beginning fixes that would breathe some life into our products.
Exactly.
With all this hub-bub about coming chasis, combat droids, etc. - it makes me want to make sure that these things aren't forgotten.
I've gone through the tree, and these are the major "bugs" that our current products have.
We need to fix these products before we introduce more/change anything further.
Just these five fixes wouldn't make DE's much more useful in the grand scheme of SWG, BUT they would at least make everything we have already work.
Not to mention the huge time saver it would be when not having to explain all this to every customer...
Audio
Kiom wrote:
That would be nice if they did that instead of "the master plan". I would love to see things fixed before new stuff is implemented.
My point exactly... 
Audio
Fix DZ70 HAM = low level combat droid
Fix Probot HAM = medium level combat droid
These can easily be hotfixed (afterall they were nerfed in a hotfix) and solve 2 problems in one. The stimulate desire for these droids and they save the devs having to go away and design some new content
ASHRID wrote:
Actually its even easier than that
Fix DZ70 HAM = low level combat droid
Fix Probot HAM = medium level combat droid
These can easily be hotfixed (afterall they were nerfed in a hotfix) and solve 2 problems in one. The stimulate desire for these droids and they save the devs having to go away and design some new content
I disagree.
Those are seperate points, balance wise.
This is about bug fixes to seemingly useless things and broken modules, of which there is no balance issue, just a "Huh? Why haven't they fixed that yet????"
Audio
Audio jests:
"Huh? Why haven't they fixed that yet????"
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That's exactly what I was lampooning in a post I made a while back. The postwas a mythical discussion the Droid Engineers had with "TalkingHead" *cough*. To paraphrase Clinton, "It's the Bugs, stupid!"
Yet the funny thing was, a couple posts down. Thunderheart responded with a very vague quip about something "being an easy part". I assumed that he was referring to fixing bugs when he made that comment (I even asked him, but got no reply).
It *is* all about fixing bugs first, then adding more flourish and functionality. Why can't the dev's recognize this??? I just don't get it!
Yet the funny thing was, a couple posts down. Thunderheart responded with a very vague quip about something "being an easy part". I assumed that he was referring to fixing bugs when he made that comment (I even asked him, but got no reply).
It *is* all about fixing bugs first, then adding more flourish and functionality. Why can't the dev's recognize this??? I just don't get it!
These fixes should be easy.
Yet we hear nothing about them.
The sad part is, I don't even think the Dev team is aware of them. And I don't hear Sintrosi talking about them.
I'd be a lot happier as a DE if they'd just fix these things.
But then again, I'd be a lot happier if they just acknowledged our existance beyond, "Yeah, we have some great plans for you guys, which are really broad and will take months/years to implement, just sit tight!"
Audio
What truly depresses me is the speed and mental focus the CH skill gets from the Developers. I've almost concluded that the majority of the Developers are only old enough to remember watching ROTJ.
Why?
15 minutes in Jabbas palace, thats the only example of "CH" found in 4,5 or 6.
If I am wrong about their age I am truly sorry, and I don't mean it rudely. It would just seem to me if they where my age (32) or older the core of the Star Wars world would not be so forgotten.
I have the original 4,5 and 6 (Without the enhanced sceans) on Laser Disc and would be happy to lone them for a short while to the team. Course this would only need two things.
The Developers have a Laser Disc machine.
And actually know what Laser Disc is.
Ryde wrote:
What truly depresses me is the speed and mental focus the CH skill gets from the Developers. I've almost concluded that the majority of the Developers are only old enough to remember watching ROTJ.
Exactly.
These are all "easy" fixes, that someone could do in an afternoon.
But, as you said, they are much too concerned with other classes, and not DE's - they don't hate DE's, they have indifference to us.
Audio
Those are seperate points, balance wise.
This is about bug fixes to seemingly useless things and broken modules, of which there is no balance issue, just a "Huh? Why haven't they fixed that yet????"
Audio
While my suggestions may not relate to the specific problems you refer to, these are also problems and since they have been nerfed from an original acceptable state to their current state putting these 2 things right _should_ take less time and dev resource than fixing bugs that have been in from the word go.
Add to the fact that this frees up development time in the new year to design and impliment the low and mid range combat droids and not only do we stimulate the droid market _now_ (especially in light of the non-CH CL nerf thats coming) we create an opportunity for the devs to do something that needs to be done rather than spend that time doing something that they have already doneand nerfed(and in the DZ70s casenerfed to completely useless)