Droid Engineer Archive

Ok here goes. Yes as stated before I don't think Probots are that powerfull, but I am only talking about AR3 and AR4 Probots since no one on my server has made Master Droid Engineer. I have yet to see AR6 Advanced Probots with Extremely High Quality materials and a very good Experimentation round. I'm guessing if I can kill two whites with one AR3 Probe then I should be able to kill reds with an AR6. So here are my rants and Raves:

1) Bravo for making Pet Permadeath. This should give us plenty of repeat sales (well if the probes were not going to be nerfed). This also helps us because AR4s are sorta worthless compaired to AR3s since they have less effective armor.

2) Yeah nerf sounds good for those newbies that are getting droids at the 1k rate that some people are selling on server. However this is a problem of something that has been an issue since beta. Droids are too easy to create and give too little XP to create them. If they were harder to create and we did not need to create so many to lvl then probots would cost 300k and keep most newbies from affording them. However instead of looking at the falures of the past here are some new ideas (ah.. we have posted this many times) that you can do to help everything:

a. Make some droids that are DE only while others are general. This include a few combat droids.

b. Make DEs able to have multiple droids. If your going to nurf Probot by 70% the DEs should be able to have 4 of them out at the same time to compensate for the underpowered droids we are getting.

c. Or make the normal Probot DE only and make the Tracker droid more powerful to be used by everyone else. This is probably the better short term solution since otherwise DEs will most likely not be able to function in a combat setting.

3) I agree that CH are too overpowered, but I am sure they say not. Well at least we are not the only ones getting alittle loving.

Here is my final say to this issue. Right now the only way for me to get to my Harvesters on Dantooine is to take down 3 or 4 yellows and whites on the way. There will be no way for me to get to my harvesters after this patch is in place unless I can have something powerful to offset the nerf. Give us something anything. Make an option to create DE Probots that are standard or higher lvl so we can keep going as DEs. If my Probot is nerfed then I am done for it because I won't be able to keep my harvesters where they are, and I might not be able to take them down. To put it plainly (which seams you already know this) Master Droid Engineers will become equal to Novice Marksman with this patch. All this time and effort wasted because some newbie got 1m credits and picked up a AR6 Probe.

Hello Holocron,

I understand that there may be people abusing the probot a bit and it may need to be fixed, but this is not the solution. I am a crafter and weaponsmith. I have hardly any interest in combat and want to save my points for crafting skills. I bought the probot becouse I got tired of constantly getting incapped or slain while trying to go maintain and empty my resource extractors, or while out surveying for new resources.With him it made the job a little safer, althoughnot completely safe. I have a fine example of a probot and he still gets destroyed sometimes by stronger enemies like gunrunners and such. If it were possible to avoid some of these enemies it would'nt be so bad, butI hit areas quite a bit where you can't get through and they start attacking from 120m away. Also I watch my radar while walking and there is nothing ahead, then out of nowhere an agroed mob appears right on top of meand attacks me. Is that fair? It is probably due to server lag, but either way it usually ends up in death without the probot. If I am using him I sometimes barely escape with my life.

I dont think you should have to be "certified" to use a probot for Defense, nor do I think they are over powered compared to the average agroed enemiesI run into. A mountain squill with 10k HP will beat a lone probot everytime.Maybe you should add the ability to use a probot forOffense in some of the higher combat skill trees. But dont take away the defensive capability of them from people who only want to stay a little safe out there. Besides needing a certification to use a droid hardly goes with the continuity of Star Wars. You turn them on you tell them what to do and they do it. That's what droids are for, to do things that we can't do easily, or don't want to do. I can't see why you would need to "learn" how to tell a droid what to do, a child can do that.

I dont think the problemis in the Probot, the problem is in certain people who abuse them. If your going to nerf something, nerf the ability to make them "attack offensively". As a defensive weapon they are perfect the way they are. I hope you read this and take my and other crafters point of view into consideration instead of acting rashly. If we lose our protection then we who want to craft are completely helpless out there and that is not fair, not in a galaxie where there are droids who can help keep us safe.

Thank you for your time,

Kagon

Starsider

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onyandbrad wrote:

Not only that... what about making sense... I guess they don't care about that either. Why would a droid have less HAM then ME? Makes no sense. Why would a droid have less HAM and armor then a naked newbie with no skills? Does that make sense AT ALL?

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I udnerstand CHs and droids are WAY out of control.

However, I paid 20,000 credits for my probot..and its going to be reduced in power 70%...I would NOT have paid 20,000 for what the result will be. I guess im an idiot or something because i still avoid a lot of stuff and get killed every now and then, so no I dont know how to 'sploit' them correctly i suppose.

Also, if you are going to reduce them that far, you better fix Faction mission difficulty. I cannot complete a Imperial Destroy mission solo and im novice Gunfighter. I had to buy the probot to take fire for me. I can't kill multiple red rebel NPCsalone, and I shouldn't have to group to do faction missions IMHO.

No whining, something needs to be done, these are just thoughts.

LOL So it's true. One of my customers just told me..."Did you hear? They're going to nerf Probots!"...

Welll first off, I don't want this to turn into a flame post but that is just unavoidable at this time. INSTEAD OF NERFING, FIX THE PROFESSION!

The Probot is our only sellable product! Unless you want to count the storage and medical and crafting droids (all of which you can put in an MSE). Can't charge much for an MSE, can't even give them away.

1) Why don't we fix UXP!?! Why are we the ONLY class that does not receive UXP

2) Why not make the different modules take different frame.. ie. Medical mod only usable in medical droid frame?

3) Fix the storing of droids so that when you store them, the damage, power remaining and condition is saved.

4) The condition decay should be greatly lessened, sometimes my droid will drop to 0 after two fights.

I feel that a droid change is needed but not in this way. You have just upset many people, and utterly destroyed a class that is necessary to SWG. Way to go once again SOE!

Speaking of... why select probots as the ultimate combat droid anyway? What about any of the trade federation droids? I mean, probots are supposed to be probe droids. Information seekers, not tanks. It makes no sense.

Let me make this clear. I just want to be a droid engineer. I want to build droids. I want them to be useful. This is what I would find fun in this game. I don't care about the credits. I wouldn't charge for them at all if I could make a living without the money. I do, however, want to maintain my harvestors. Is that too much to ask? I just want to build droids!

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Good point. Any machine should be more durable than a person. Even C3P0 would have been able to rip your head off your shoulders if he had been programmed to.

Just curious so...did you guys also feel that the DZ70 was overpowered? I guess you could always drop it's HAM from 40 to 10 and equip it with a foam bat. We could probably sell those for about 30 cred =)

Rare.

FU bud. Just because you don't like them, just because you hate that they are in demand... you want to ruin the only class I want to play the game for!

Another slap in the face!

If you want to make them RARE and as valuable as they SHOULD BE. Make them harder to build. Increase the resources, make them very complicated. Like large houses. Large houses are hard to build because they take a ton of resources.Make them worth more XP to create to balance the difficulty. This would increase the cost of probots, and keep them out of the hands of newbs, while still allowing DEs to be useful. I mean, you still have to fix everything else about DEs, but I think this is a start. In fact, I think all droids should be hard to build and require a lot of resources, but they should be worth it. It would make the game a lot more consistant with the movies too.

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Just nerf them Devs. No one cares about the market effect. Just make them better and this IS making them better. Too many Probots out there. Nobody wants to buy anything else and I HATE that.

"Increase the resources, make them very complicated. Like large houses. "

Exactly, you hit the nail on the head.

For example, why doesn't everyone use large harvesters? Because almost every part needs to be factory made, and one run is only enough for ONE harvester. No architect in their right mind would be selling these for under 100k. Thus not everyone has one, I actually have not seen any yet.

Make the probots require a factory to build (like the useless medical droid frames - just another frame but requires a factory). Droids should also take MUCH more resources. Thus giving us something to lvl on and not flooding the market.

Question for the devs: If your boat was sinking, how would you go about fixing it?
A) Fix the hole
B) Dump gelatin in the lake so the water will harden and not enter the hole
C)Wateris too powerful since it can move through holes. Hit it with the nerf oar!

Here is my take on it - Feel free to not take me seriously Devs, no one ever does.

I am a bit of a noob, been playing for 2 weeks. Through a little luck I managed to make 400k selling minerals. I took EVERYTHING I had and invested it in becoming a droid engineer. I figured I could have fun and make money at the same time. Wrong. I have 1k left, and no way to make money. I cant even fight, let alone make something usefull. Im about a day from making probots.

There is no excuse - fix the problems, dont nerf. You could just make them permadie or take damage that needs to be repaired - instead you just ruin a great part of the game. The DE will now be totally useless. Thanks. The only people this nerf will help are the people with the money in the bank. I am totally, utterly, completely, screwed.

Do you copy? The only people you are helping are the ones with MILLIONS in the bank. Do they care if probots get nerfed? Hell no! The can just do something else! Ive sunk weeks and 100's of thousands of creds into becoming one, and im getting screwed.

At least fix SOMETHING. Please? You can fix something right?

Frankly, I'm dissapointed. Not specifically at you Holo, but somewhere down the line, SOE has dropped the ball.

These balance issueswith creatureswere discussed ad nasium on the beta forums, and for whatever reason (be it time constraint, apathy, poor logistics), they were not dealt with til now. We should not have to pay you for the frustrations and changesthat come with beta testing, and we are.

I urge you to take very careful steps when 'nerfing' Droid Engineers - they are a very weak and under-rewarded class - lets notmake them any more so. If you are going todowngrade the probot - argueably one of the few 'good' things about the class, *please* consider improving the class in other ways before you do so- the minor improvements you are suggesting for the DE in the next patch hardly make up for the loss of our one really effective droid.

You've been mostly ignoring the DE forum for weeks now. The last time you were here you were talking about giving us the ability to color our droids and fixing storage containers (since these should have been in release anyways, that's hardly 'great news').Now you're telling us you're going to heavily nerf our combat abilities.

Do you have anything actually good and *interesting* planned for this class? Or are you going to make a few comments, throw us a some ratherunspectacular fixes to existing bugs, and then disappear again until the next DE nerf comes along? Attention to the DE board (and our issues) has been horrible, and in this instance I think I can blame you specifically, or at least whoever should have been doing your job while you were away.

There is a long long list of serious issues with this class which has been floating around for some time, I personally would like to hear what you have planned that actually might bring some value to the class (I assume others would as well).

On the issue of the Probots, I see your3-point solution as a heavy handed knee-jerk reaction tothe problem. *With* the removal of the healing exploit of which you speak, Idon't see them as overly powerful, and I think the level 25 cap you suggest is too low for a 'top of the line' combat droid.

Certifications are certainly a warranted measure. But I question their implimentation. If you plan on adding certifications that prevent other players from using the probot, you will have effectively taken away most of our revenue stream. Are you going to give us some more useful combat droids? The only other one we have is the 'fugitive' droid, and that is a complete joke at its current '50 hit point' level.

Thank you for your time,

Zapgun.