Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: I finally realized what was REALLY bothering me. It's us.
Page 1 of 5
Straker_Atrella
Sat Oct 23, 2004 5:51 pm
#1
As many of you know, I have been kind of bummed out over the past few days, was partly dissapointed with JTL (been since I got into Beta,) yet last night I realized what REALLY has me upset.
It's us as DE's. Don't get me wrong, I like all of you people, just keep reading and you will see what I mean.
The problem starts here.
The Player economy. Let's use FC's as an example.
Most ships only take Flight Computers, not Droids. There are a limited amount of Flight Computers to be sold. Say maybe 3000 of each level. That's it, then the market is gone. You can move them from one ship to another, they don't wear out. Eventually you wont be selling any more.
Now this is what really bothers me, DE's say hey at 1k, I am making a 15cpu profit. I'm making money.
No your not.
No your not.
DidI mention that you'r not?
Here is why.
Everybody else is making more. While you may add small amounts every day, everybody else is adding much much more. So yes, eventually shuttle tickets, harv maint and other fixed game things wont be a problem. Yet as a part of the PLAYER economy, you are a non-player.
Don't think so?
A 2 Minute Mission pays 32k
A suit of Composite Armor costs 200-300k
A set of Stun Armor Costs 500k
A good T21 goes for 100k
An uber SLiced t21 goes for 1 million plus.
A good Stun Baton goes for 10k
A good Ackley Stun Baton goes for 5 million +
A crate of Brandy sells for 100k+
Other Foods sell for even more.
A full set of Doc buffs in crates goes for about a million.
Getting buffed by a Doc costs 15k.
Mind Buffs cost 10k
Good Herb or Avian Meat sells for 200-300 cpu
A good Loot item sells for 1 million - 100 million
Now you may think that it's all the same money being passed around and around. IT'S NOT. Missions are free money. Each server probably has 100+ Million a day (probably way more,) just added to it from missions. That is free money that is added to the economy. EVERY single other person, whether they are a Combatent, Scout, Doc, or Armorsmith gets part of that free money. Prices on other servers may vary, but missions still pay 32k, if prices on your server are less, then that "mission money," is sitting in peoples banks.
The problem isn't Droid Decay, the problem is that DE's are Idealists, they think Droids are cool. They think that 15 cpu is plenty of profit. Yet what they don't realize is that 1k, 10k, heck 50k, is a MINISCULE part of the new money added every day.
While you add 1k, somebody else adds 10k. When you add 10k, somebody else adds 100k. You consider 1 million a lot of money, to others, that is nothing.
This means that right now, you can see a weapon that you like, say an Ackley Stun Baton. It costs 5 million. You bust your Arse selling Droids for the next 3 months, finally getting to 5 million, yet when you get there, they are being auctioned for 7 million. Their value didn't go up, EVERYBODY else just has more money to spend, you'r still a small fish.
You can keep adding money to your bank account, but when others are adding more, you fall more and more behind.
Not a new problem, same thing DE's have been dealing with. No Droid decay has contributed to it all along.
The Problem Continues.
"Droids will have a very usefull and strong role," in JTL.
Sound familiar? That is what we were promised from the Devs about JTL. You know what, their right. Droids and FC's are 100% usefull, usefull in a very cool way, everybody will want one.
It's from a crafting point of view that we got hosed. No complexity, no named resources, no quality mattering. Basically any piece of junk will do it. Things that will sell for 1k.
At the same time, Tailors got a new valid Market, the new clothes sell for more then our FC's.
Armorsmiths got 2 new types of Armor to make, now they will sell to those 2 new races. Like they need more money.
Shipwrights are added, a class which the wealthy with tons of resources will make the most money doing, getting richer.
Time was dedicated to Armorsmiths, Tailors, and Shipwrights, they all GAINED in the player economy.
Sure Droids were looked at, time was spent on them. From a PILOT point of view time was spenton Droids, but certainly no time was spent from a Droid ECONOMY point of view. Our "problems" were never considered at all.
In fact, a large portion of the money we make from JTL is offset by the loss of sales in Custom Kits.
We take it lying down.
When I first saw how Droids were done in Beta, I thought ohhh boy, man the DE's wont take this lying down. The Devs better brace for shock.
Yet what happened? Here is what De's say...
"JTL wasn't meant to fix Droids."
"Ohh well when Droid Decay comes in, we will be ok."
"I can make 15 cpu profit on Fc's."
"Droids are cool, we should be happy with that."
Sure some people (myself,) got upset, but overall, nobody seems to care. In fact, we have just shown the Devs that we DON'T care. No coding time should be spent on us, were happy with how things are.
Why should we be in an uproar.
How long have DE's complained about no money? How long have we griped about exp not mattering, nor resource quality? How long have we complained about Droid Decay?
A long long time. It is safe to assume the Devs know.
JTL took a long time to code, there were a lot of Developers working on it. They needed to build a new system implementing Droids into space from the ground up. Totally starting from scratch. While they were doing this, they KNEW about DE problems. Yet they totally choose to ignore them. They built a system that was cool functionally, yet suffered from EXACTLY all our past DE problems. If your building a whole new system anyway, why not make it right? They CHOOSE to make it wrong.
"JTL wasn't designed to fix DE problems."
Why not?
Why not have made Droids so great from a CRAFTING point of view that we had an extremely good space market. Other professions get the ground market, Shipwrights and DE's got space. Some people will play Ground only, some will play Space only, others will play both. So while the ground Droid game may still have had problems, we woudl have made more in space. Making up for it.
In fact, if they made Droids good enough in Space, there would not be a need for Droid Decay or ANY huge Droid changes later. Time could have been spent on other professions or Content.
They passed up a huge chance to "fix" us, and we took it lying down. Some people are actually "happy" with it.
The future wont be better.
A while back it was "JTL will be good for us."
Now it's "the Combat revamp or when they add Droid Decay, will be good for us."
Let's assume that the CR will be good, or Droid Decay does get added. Even Droid Commander.
It wont matter. You'r talking months and months down the road.
Lets say that 6 months from now DE's are making the same amount as everybody else. Let's say 500k a day.
Now we increase by 500k a day, they increase by 500k a day. If a DE started with 10 million and they started with 200 million, yet we still grow at the same rate. Who has deeper pockets? Who can pay more on auctions?
Every single day we fall further and further behind. It doesn't matter if you are making a "profit," if everybody else is making more.
That is why JTL was so crucial. It was a chance to fix things before they got any worse.
This is why I am so upset.
Obviously, I am upset how Droids were Implemented in JTL by the devs.
Yet I figured out what really has me upset. It's that the Majority of the DE's just don't care.
It's either they are too caught up in the "coolness" of droids, or they just don't understand how bad we got gyped in JTL.
I hope this post helps both types.
Jenden
Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:19 pm
#2
I understand what you're getting at and where you're comming from. Yes, I'm annoyed that they didn't add more to droids with JTLS, but I'm also of the opinion that bitching about it now really doesn't get us anywhere. JTLS is about to go live, and they're not going to make sweeping changes in the next couple of days to it. That means our best chance for getting anything rolling is after JTLS is in and integrated, I'd say about a month or so. At that point, I really think its more or less up to Drashk to push our cause on the correspondent boards or whatever dev communication. Our position has been stated, the devs know what it is, and making a lot of noise about it just makes it more of a touchy subject for them.
duncje
Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:29 pm
#3
Straker,
A lot of the problem with pricing stems from need. Droids aren't necessary, by any means, to any profession. Buffs, armor, weapons, everything else in your list is necessary for combat. Harvs are necessary to make those items. What are droids necessary for? Nothing.
What about the stuff that's not necessary? Basic clothing, furniture, items like this do not sell well, and when they do sell, they sell for very cheap. Why? Because most people out there won't pay decent amounts of money for something that isn't needed.
The main problem with DE is that we are really not an integral part of this game, haven't been since this game started beta. Everything a DE does is replicated in kind in other game systems to an extent. BH droids, interplanetary survey droids and exploding droids seem to be thethree that are not. Interplanetary survey droids are out the window with JtL, as it will cost nothing to travel, and you won't have to make multiple hops to reach even the farthest planets. Hospitals and camps mimic med droids, harvesting droids provide a very slight bonus to harvesting, yada, yada...
The thing that needs to change, and really doesn't seem likely, is droids need to be absolutely necessary for day-to-day gameplay. We thought that might be the case with JtL, but that's out the window. 3 ships that use droids, and the rest use cheap (resource-wise) flight computers, that have no decay, so they don't need replaced.
A lot of the DE's that are still around (these boards are nowhere near as active as they have been in the past) have come to the realization that droids are not a money-making enterprise. I'm not in this for money, I enjoy making droids, and talking about them with my (relatively, compared to AS or WS) few customers.
If the money aspect is getting you down, it won't get any better, at least not for a looooong time. The thing that has to change is that droids need to become an integral, necessary part of this game, and until then, there won't be a lot of credits in this business.
If you're looking to print your own money, you'll need to go WS or AS, as they can charge top dollar, because their items are basically required to play this game.
It all comes down to necessity, did I make that point clear? 
Message Edited by duncje on 10-23-2004 07:31 PM
Straker_Atrella
Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:43 pm
#4
duncje wrote:
Straker,
A lot of the problem with pricing stems from need. Droids aren't necessary, by any means, to any profession. Buffs, armor, weapons, everything else in your list is necessary for combat. Harvs are necessary to make those items. What are droids necessary for? Nothing.
What about the stuff that's not necessary? Basic clothing, furniture, items like this do not sell well, and when they do sell, they sell for very cheap. Why? Because most people out there won't pay decent amounts of money for something that isn't needed.
The main problem with DE is that we are really not an integral part of this game, haven't been since this game started beta. Everything a DE does is replicated in kind in other game systems to an extent. BH droids, interplanetary survey droids and exploding droids seem to be thethree that are not. Interplanetary survey droids are out the window with JtL, as it will cost nothing to travel, and you won't have to make multiple hops to reach even the farthest planets. Hospitals and camps mimic med droids, harvesting droids provide a very slight bonus to harvesting, yada, yada...
The thing that needs to change, and really doesn't seem likely, is droids need to be absolutely necessary for day-to-day gameplay. We thought that might be the case with JtL, but that's out the window. 3 ships that use droids, and the rest use cheap (resource-wise) flight computers, that have no decay, so they don't need replaced.
A lot of the DE's that are still around (these boards are nowhere near as active as they have been in the past) have come to the realization that droids are not a money-making enterprise. I'm not in this for money, I enjoy making droids, and talking about them with my (relatively, compared to AS or WS) few customers.
If the money aspect is getting you down, it won't get any better, at least not for a looooong time. The thing that has to change is that droids need to become an integral, necessary part of this game, and until then, there won't be a lot of credits in this business.
If you're looking to print your own money, you'll need to go WS or AS, as they can charge top dollar, because their items are basically required to play this game.
It all comes down to necessity, did I make that point clear?
Message Edited by duncje on 10-23-2004 07:31 PM
Yep, that's EXACTLY my point.
It's likely that a large precentage of the population will at least dabble in space,many many play there more then on the ground.
You can't fly without a reactor. You can't fight without shields or weapons. Why didn't they make Droids (or FC's) NEEDED for space? For example, who does the hyperspace calculations without a Droid?
They made a ship/shipwright/Droid system totally from the ground up. Why didn't they make it where you NEEDED a droid?
Not needing a droid by most people was a known issue, they knew that. Why not fix it for space?
If you'r making a new system totally from the ground up, why not do it right? The fact that you can't even experiment on FC's proves to me they just wanted to get the Droid parts over and done with, not really caring.
Your post was correct. So why was the problem repeated?
Jenden,
I like the DE boards because most DE's are calm and logical people. Yet sometimes the Squeeky wheel gets the oil, as the saying goes. Before JTL, we were told to be patient, because JTL would be good to us. Now it's wait more.
The longer you wait, the longer you fall behind in the player economy. True some people don't care about money, but others do.
Coding takes months, planning to code takes months, testing takes months. So instead of being upset now, ensuring they know we are upset, so they can ensure we are in future plans, we should wait? Let's wait 6 months, only to find out we were overlooked AGAIN. Then get mad. Only then, it's another 6 months, until the changes can be implemented.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should rant and rave and throw fits at the devs. We just need to take off the Rose Colored glasses. JTL was BAD not good for DE's.
Message Edited by Straker_Atrella on 10-23-2004 06:44 PM
psikobunny
Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:52 pm
#5
I'm in agreement that what we got from JTL isn't all it was cracked up to be, but your interpretations of that situation don't mesh with mine.
In a perfect world, they would have had the resources and time to make droids work from a crafting standpoint very similarly to ships. Modular design, looted and crafted parts, all with numbers that meant something, but that dream isnt realistic. File it all under "woulda been nice" and it could very well have solved lots of our economic problems. The dev team did a fairjob using the resources they had to bolt a space game onto the ground game and integrating it in the bare minimums. Focus was required, and they stuck to it. You can read between the lines in a lot of Development posts and in JustG's diary, and its pretty apparent that they got a load of work pushed on them late in the game when LucasArts realized that ship differentiation needed a LOT of work. The things given to other crafting professions were the bare minimums to make the additions in JTL work. I wandered a bit off point with this, but what I'm trying to say is that JTL is an expansion, not a revision. SOE just doesnt have the Development power allocated to swg to fix the economic issues AND put out a product that meets the goal.
Should we be up in arms? Please peruse some of the other Profession Forums, best examples of outrage and indignation lately are probably in the Musician and Dancer Forums. Look at them and see how much good it does them. Getting a rage on, making demands, and casting aspersions on the Developers ancestry doesn't cut it in the long run. I've always been glad that the DE community has been above that, by and large. Taking what we are given, letting them know in response what does/doesn't work, and doing our best to make the system work and treat the people that make this game for us as people. It could always be better, but gettingbitter over the fact that it isn't won't change a thing.
There isn't anything wrong with being an idealist, or an optimist. We're better off than so many other professions, it's silly.
babyblue_d
Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:57 pm
#6
Jenden wrote:
I understand what you're getting at and where you're comming from. Yes, I'm annoyed that they didn't add more to droids with JTLS, but I'm also of the opinion that bitching about it now really doesn't get us anywhere. JTLS is about to go live, and they're not going to make sweeping changes in the next couple of days to it. That means our best chance for getting anything rolling is after JTLS is in and integrated, I'd say about a month or so. At that point, I really think its more or less up to Drashk to push our cause on the correspondent boards or whatever dev communication. Our position has been stated, the devs know what it is, and making a lot of noise about it just makes it more of a touchy subject for them.
/agree
shureI would like to make more money as a DE .. but for me its not that big an Issue. heck I give away droids to any oneI know on a personal level.
I have a combat char and I "keep up with the big dogs" just fine, if I want a aklay stun batonI get a group together and kill it for bones. ect. ect. ect.
and like Jenden said its a touchy subject.
maby if it was a big consern for meI would be up in arms like you. but its not that big a deal "For me"
Ihope this gets taken care of but asI see it "charging more" is not the awnser its simple economics .. you have a tap (goods comeing in) and no drain (goods leaveing) look at the list of money makers you listed what do thay all have in commen? decay hat would hapen to the price of armor if armor deacy was removed??
So thats what it comes down to we need decay.
Message Edited by babyblue_d on 10-23-2004 07:00 PM
Electro5
Sat Oct 23, 2004 6:59 pm
#7
Everything you posted is true. But I think the main reason that we really don't put up a fight is because DE was never good, and likely won't be good at making money for a while.
I know I personally play this game for fun, and I'm a DE for fun. I like customizing droids, I like selling them. Would some new droids or droid decay be nice? Sure. But if I wanted to make money, I would just say screw DE and switch to just selling resources to the other rich crafters.
Are we getting screwed over in the grand scheme of things? Probably. But to a number of us, it really doesn't matter. I know that personally, I don't care about money much. If i can afford to buy what I need, I'm ok. I don't need to spend millions on auctions and stuff. I mine my own resources, so thats not a problem. Hell, I sell my drodis for much lower prices than most people do. Right now, I'm at less than 4 million credits. And I could care less. I enjoy rendering a service to the community, and more personally than say a weaponsmith who just tosses everything on a vendor and never even has personal contact with any of his customers. At least half of what I sell are custom orders, and those are the ones that make it worth while to continue being a DE.
Straker_Atrella
Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:10 pm
#8
I'm not suggesting we go off on rants, and attack devs ancestry for example. What I am suggesting is that we at least stop ACTING happy about it.
We can let the Devs know in our calm rational DE way.
Sorry man, I'm not buying the not enough coding time point of view.3 SIMPLE things could have been done to make Droids better in JTL.
1. You need a Droid or FC to fly all but the starter ship. You can't fly without one.
2. Droids or FC's wear out when a ship dies, or they can be targetted.
3. FC's have some meat to them. I'm not even talking experimentation. Some more resources, Advanced Droid brains, Sensors, or Microsensors, already in game things.
While not perfect, it would have been far better then what we did get. People would have at least needed FC's or Droids, a repeat market, and a little more to them, so they arn't selling for 1k.
In Beta, we saw bigger changes then those done in a matter of days. You can't honestly tell me that those 3 things would have been all that hard to code in from the BEGINING.
How could it have been done TOTALLY right?
Let's say the Devs wanted to "fix" DE as a profession, by making it better in space. Here is how it could have been done.
1. First, do number 1-3 up above, that's crucial.
2. Make FC's able to hold 5 modules (equaling an ADV R3 with a data pad.)
3. Add new module types. Such as a Reactor Management Module, Shield Management Module, Imperial Communication Module, IFF module, and many more. Basically a module for each type of Pilot "program." You can still do each of the programs without a module, just ont as well.
4. Make it so on these new Modules Resource Quality and Exp matter. Give a few things to experiment on. The better the Module, the better the Program works.
People could just buy Simple Astro Droids or FC's if they didn't have a lot of cash, they would NEED them in fact to fly. However, if they wanted to perform at their best, they would need the FC's or Droids with modules. Better Modules, performed better.
We would actually have a high end market, that had Decay, that was desired. Possibly, no other ground Decay would be needed.
I'll 100% buy that there may not have been enough time or devs to make this last part, it is much more complex.
I wont buy that for the first part though, they built the system from scratch, they SHOULD and COULD have built that in as well.
Straker_Atrella
Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:21 pm
#9
Ok second Postto Baby and Electro,
I understand that not everybody wants money or needs a lot of it. That is up to you. Yet because that is your philosphy, doesn't mean it should be everybodies. As a whole we should try and fix the profession in such a way that it suits everybody. Wouldn't you be happier if you did make money?
Camp the Ackley and get bones myself? Yep, I have killed the Ackley about 6 times. Got bones, twice, crappy ones. When I go back now, it's usually camped 24/7 by groups of people. The same people who then sell the bones for 5 million plus. One baton just went for 20 million.
Everybody just keeps saying wait it will get better, always looking towards the future. Every day, as a DE (I'm not saying were the only ones either,) you fall more and more behind in the grand scheme of the economy. Sure eventually it may get fixed, but by then it will be to late.
The big money missions will be going away as well. Meaning there will be less "new" money in the system. This will push prices down. This means that the people with the fat wallets will already have a big edge.
duncje
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:04 pm
#10
Straker_Atrella wrote:
I like the DE boards because most DE's are calm and logical people. Yet sometimes the Squeeky wheel gets the oil, as the saying goes. Before JTL, we were told to be patient, because JTL would be good to us. Now it's wait more.
Straker,
Judging by your forum registration date, you weren't around for our "Try to the the Squeaky Wheel" phase. Around Nov 03-Jan 04, these boards were a virtual uproar. We were mad at the Devs, mad that we were seemingly overlooked at every turn. We were told to wait for the "Droids Rebuilt" publish, and it got us a few new toys, but nothing necessary. These boards were extremely negative, and it got us basically nothing.
Basically, DE's aren't in the "Big Picture" of this game, and likely never will be. Everything necessary is already taken by another profession, which leaves leftover scraps for us. We should havebeen vital in JtL, but the devs obviously didn't see it that way.
Now, we'll likely get nothing for a long time. Possibly until the next expansion, if even then. The only thing we can hope for is bug fixes, and maybe a little lovin' in the fabled Combat Rebalance.
The outright dearth of DE's should give the Devs a clue, but they seemingly don't care. We had 2 publishes directed at us, and it hasn't helped much, mostly because no new ideas came out of them. They gave us stuff that wouldn't upset their precious game balance (of which there is little anyway), all the good ideas (for modules, etc.)would've broken the game or been to hard to code, or so they claim.
Unless new systems are added to this game that require a droid, we'll continue in the same boat we've been in since launch.
But the thing is, we endure anyway, because we love droids, and...... because we're masochists 
(Just a note, as you probably haven't seen me around much before, I played this game since beta, until April of this year, then took a hiatus and came back about 3 weeks ago or so.)
GnomeAd
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:19 pm
#11
Baahhhh...triple post!
Message Edited by GnomeAd on 10-23-2004 10:20 PM
Straker_Atrella
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:21 pm
#12
duncje wrote:
Straker_Atrella wrote:
I like the DE boards because most DE's are calm and logical people. Yet sometimes the Squeeky wheel gets the oil, as the saying goes. Before JTL, we were told to be patient, because JTL would be good to us. Now it's wait more.
Straker,
Judging by your forum registration date, you weren't around for our "Try to the the Squeaky Wheel" phase. Around Nov 03-Jan 04, these boards were a virtual uproar. We were mad at the Devs, mad that we were seemingly overlooked at every turn. We were told to wait for the "Droids Rebuilt" publish, and it got us a few new toys, but nothing necessary. These boards were extremely negative, and it got us basically nothing.
Basically, DE's aren't in the "Big Picture" of this game, and likely never will be. Everything necessary is already taken by another profession, which leaves leftover scraps for us. We should havebeen vital in JtL, but the devs obviously didn't see it that way.
Now, we'll likely get nothing for a long time. Possibly until the next expansion, if even then. The only thing we can hope for is bug fixes, and maybe a little lovin' in the fabled Combat Rebalance.
The outright dearth of DE's should give the Devs a clue, but they seemingly don't care. We had 2 publishes directed at us, and it hasn't helped much, mostly because no new ideas came out of them. They gave us stuff that wouldn't upset their precious game balance (of which there is little anyway), all the good ideas (for modules, etc.)would've broken the game or been to hard to code, or so they claim.
Unless new systems are added to this game that require a droid, we'll continue in the same boat we've been in since launch.
But the thing is, we endure anyway, because we love droids, and...... because we're masochists
(Just a note, as you probably haven't seen me around much before, I played this game since beta, until April of this year, then took a hiatus and came back about 3 weeks ago or so.)
The comment in yellow is what bugs me. JTL was the PERFECT chance to do that.
Yet it wasn't done.
I'm not asking for the boardsto be in an uproar. I have been around a little longer then my post date would seem.
We did get a lot in the Droid publishes, a lot of our big money makers (relatively) are the Harvestor Droids, and Bomb Droids. So the squeeky wheel did get some oil.
Again, I'm not asking for us to go off the deep end. I just think we need to let them know they messed it up.
Way to many people happy making 1k off an item. Saying "well at least I'm selling something." I don't want the boards to be in flames, but at least let people know they really mucked this up for DEs.
I want clear logical threads asking why they did us wrong. Then Drashk can lead the Devs to them.
If the Devs actually visited our page today, they would think we are happy with JTL.
Message Edited by Straker_Atrella on 10-23-2004 08:34 PM
GnomeAd
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:46 pm
#13
Straker,
I think I've finally figured out what's bothering you...It's you. You're unhappy because DEs don't make as much money as Armorsmiths or Weaponsmiths. You're unhappy with what we got out of JtL. You're unhappy with our response to JtL. Let's face it...you're unhappy. As far as I can see, you only have two choices here. Get over it or go do something else.
You can get over it by stop trying to make DE something it's not. DEs aren'tthe central rolein SWG. That's just the way things are. Looking at the game as a whole, I just don't see that changing. Ask your self what you would do with DEs if you had the power to make us anything you wanted. Then ask yourself how that would affect the game and the other players. Should you be required to have a droid to fly a ship? How would that be beneficial to the new player who only has 1k starting money and wants to get into space? Should a droid be required to heal wounds? How would that be fair to existing Doctors and Medics? The fact is that we don't have one key role in SWG, but we do have a supporting role in just about every profession. How would the absence of droids effect this game? Imagine Doctors only being able to heal wounds and buff in hospitals. Imagine only being able to craft in your house or by a public crafting station. We play a minor supporting role in this game. You CAN make money as a DE. It's not easy, but nothing worthwhile really is.
I know more long term DEs than I do long term Weaponsmiths or Armorsmiths. Why? Once you've maxed out your bank account (takes them about two months of playing) what is there for you to do? There's only so much to buy, only so much you can make. It might be an old joke, but money doesn't buy happiness. A person with 200 Million credits is no happier than a person with 100 Million credits. If you're going to be a DE, you have to learn to accept our role in this game and be happy with it.
The other choice is to go do something else. Want to have as much money as a Weaponsmith? Go be a Weaponsmith! It only costs 63 skill points. Better yet, drop being a crafter all together and just run Janta missions all day. See how long that keeps you interested. There again, once you reach a maxed out bank account, where's the fun.
Look, I can see that you're unhappy. Anyone who's been a DE for any length of time has been where you are now. We yelled, screamed, begged and pleaded with the devs to do SOMETHING...ANYTHING. Heck, even TK's almost been banned quite a few times. Eventually, we've all made one of the choices above. Only you can make yourself happy. I see you as a valuable member of the DE community. I'd hate to lose you. But if you're really not happy being a DE, maybe it is time for you to move on to something else. After all, this is a game. It's supposed to be fun.
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