Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Please help me understand your change of heart.
TheWoody wrote:
Just thought I'd put this up again until it is answered (or I'm banned). I don't personally wish to see this dodged
TheWoody wrote:
... It's one thing to impliment a change no one wants. It's quite another to impliment it, lie to the general public by smearing our names across it as the reason, then lie to us again by claiming ignorance.
There's two arguments at stake here. The first is that the general population does not want this change. we can say that is something that can't be disproven and can't be more obvious.
The second argument is the personal insult made against all of us. As I said, he knew all the facts, but said it anyway. Here's the proof (Sorry GnomeAD):
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=52500
Personally, I don't thinkthe community willbe happy till both issues are resolved. And it may take more than an apology this time Thunderheart, because of this post. Start coming up with ideas mate, because this is the perfect example of a politician class "Critical Failing"
/support TheWoody
And i will add that :
now you have began to talk about what is going on describe exactly what you were thinking of about the DH we did not even know that ! the tree , the requirement , the abilities ...? I still cannot think that you have made a whole eliteprofession only to handle droids with no others advantage ...
WAY TO GO GUYS !!!!!
PROUD OF YOU !!!
AND THUNDERHEART - TRY READING AND UNDERSTANDING IN FUTURE
THIS IS NOT A DIG - BUT YOU HAVE CLEARLY MISUNDERSTOOD US IN THE PAST
SEE HOW KEEN THESE GUYS ARE
IM PROUD TO BE A DE TODAY !!!!
Well seeing how a cert system is out of the question how about making a tree with driod handling only worth 5 skill points for the novice tree soo people can handle decent driods. Then make a driod handling master tree like a regular tree. I think I can manage 5-7 skill points to handle decent driods. You should definatly give BH and smugglers a bonus at master for driods they would really help both trees out.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
The Cert system will not work.
WHY!?!?!
See...
This is my point, TH. You come in here and say, "this won't work". However, you cannot explain why, with specifics and details.
What I'm hearing you say here is the Devs don't want to do the work involved to make the cert system work. That's not a "it's too hard" issue, that's a "we don't want to do the work to make droids function correctly in the game" issue.
I'm about one more post from you away from hitting the "Cancel" button, my man.
With a cert system, all the combat in the game would have to get harder and people without a Droid Cert would have a tougher game to play.
The only players without a droid cert would likely be true crafter-only types. If that's the case, they won't have to worry about combat...they'd never do any.
Only those that wanted to do some combat would need to take a side-line combat profe...
Nevermind. I am not going to be able to explain this to you. You obviously are NOT our voice to the team and I am convinced that none of the Dev team are interested in helping us to shape the future of this profession in the direction that 90+% of the DEs know is needed. If they were, they'd be here helping us with this "very important thread".
So much for communication...
On a side note, I find it interesting (and very telling) that you have yet to apologize for either:
1) Lying outright to the playerbase
2) Aggregiously getting our desires so totally wrong, even in the face of what Drashk himself told you.
It's very clear to me now that you all don't listen. You have no interest in listening.
/bow
Respectfully,
One of the best posts i've ever seen...
I think you are writing off the cert system too soon.
One of Holocron's explicit design goals of this game is to encourage specialization. What better way can you do that then by granting droid certs at elite combat masteries. You cap it at one, no matter how hard the profession you master is, and potentially tier the difficulty of the droid based on the number of points you used in the thoughest profession you mastered. So a Commando and a BH would get access to slightly tougher droids than a pistoleer or a rifleman. The crafting elites could get a "combat buddy" which wouldn't be tough enough to do real fighting against uber mobs but might keep them safe when they are out tending the harvesters.
Yes you might need to rebalance things, but you are doing that anyway. This also will make the creature handlers more unique in the same way that removing the need for tents makes scouts more unique.
To appease the DEs, you just give them access to the best combat droids and/or perhaps let them have more than one called at once. A new profession would be crazy. You don't have enough droid content to keep one happy, what makes you think you can do two?
Holocron has stated that he was slightly bummed that this game turned into pet wars, and that he was going to combat it by at least making it droid wars. Adding a new droid handler profession is not a realistic way to do that.
As a slightly scarier proposal, you could eliminate the dabbling in multiple masteries by creating a skill point extension off of the elite masteries. So say I master bounty hunter, I know have access to a new (very small) skill tree to get me access to combat droids. Make it take 5-10 skill points, something like that. Just thinking out loud on that last idea.
Grom
I'll say it again TH ... you think your paying customers agree with your viewpoint? Then use this forum as you keep telling us it's designed to be used, and open a thread on this topic in the In Concept or In Development forum and ask for honest feedback from all your customers on this topic.
Come on, just do your job, that's all we're asking. This is NOT just a DE issue, it affects everyone in the community ... most of whom don't visit the DE forum but will be screaming in outrage if anything like what you're proposing is dropped on them without prior discussion.
Or is all that talk about re-designing these forums to "improve communication" just a load of BS? Come on ... do your job.
Kurt_Mendel wrote:
TH,
Thunderheart wrote:
Droid Certs wont work because there are so many combat class combinations that some one will inevitably find an uber-combo with a powerful droid.
Every time this comes up, I make a statement to that effect. No one wants to hear it, and it's always argued against, 1-starred, whatever (as I'm sure this will be as well). People either don't recognize, don't believe or don't care about the balance implications of attaching droid certifications to existing professions. Perhaps you can elaborate further on them so that people can understand why what they keep asking for just isn't possible without breaking the game.
Real easy soloution to that - cap them.
I had assumed with any cert system this would be the case.
It's meant to be a benefit of an elite profession - like getting a T21 at novice rifleman. If you already have the cert, and gain it again from another profession again, it doesn't double the cert - you are already certified.
Think of it like weapons certification, not a skill bonus. It's not "droid bonuses" it's "droid certifications".
There could be "Droid Level" 1-3. Once you have "Droid Level 2", it doesn't matter if you pick up another profession enough to get another "Droid Level 2" certification - you are already certified, it is irrelevant. They don't stack - so you don't get to Level 3 until you get to Level 3 naturally.
This is why what TH says makes little sense - again, this could be the great equalizer. With most crafters being forced to pick up merchant soon with the vendor changes, there is little room for us to experience the rest of the game. You know, we like to be able to do things like visit themeparks too.
The combat classes will eat up the difference - droids are never going to be as powerful as an elite weapon in a masters hands. The only change in balance would be allowing non-combat people access to some of the rest of the SWG content.
That doesn't unbalance anything - quite the contrary, it could provide some balance that was sorely missing.
Audio
This is so silly. a Cert system would doom us to level 20-25 droids for the rest of the game, when we all know Destroyer Droids were far better than that. And AGAIN if you do a Cert System, your still building droids only the people who have the Cert can use! And thats what shocks meso much, your against a DH cause they get to use "Heavy" Combat Droids, but your only with a guy who has the Certs getting your strongest Droid. Makes no sense.
"Like Siliclastic Ore through the hourglass,these arethe Droids of our Lives!" <cue theme music with violins>
Wowsa, guys! This is better than a soap opera! Now I want to know whoThunderheart has been secretly seeing. And will we ever find out who that orphaned Rodian's father REALLY was? Is he the lost heir to the Imperial throne? Will the DE's struggle to come out from under the foot (or is that derrier) of tyranny succeed? Tune in tomorrow. Or in a few minutes, if you cannot wait that long.
Sorry all. Had to interject some humor in here. Lots of nostrils and tempers flaring, and we all need to just take a step back and assess where we are and what we can do to salvage the situation. Things are a mess, no one is happy, direction is all but lost.
Thunderheart, this is where you come in and work with Drashk and try to figure out a new direction for us. This is the opportunity to make things right and really come up with workable solutions that meet the requirements and capabilities of the dev staff and the needs and hopes of the DE community.
For all the ugliness, we all want it.
Kevm wrote:
Not sure if this has been said before or not, but since a straight cert system wont work..how about a skill point based cert system?
Basically it will be a 'new profession', but would only be like, 1 tree, and 4 teirs. If you want to use very basic combat droids you spend the skill points for teir 1. You want better droids, then spend more skill points. The max CL of the best driods would be maybe CL 25 or so. This would satisfy the DE who want to be able to sell driods to any profession not just a CH clone, and would solve the problem of needing to spend skill points to use driod without introducing a complete stand alone DH profession.
I don't think you can get away with a whole new profession just to use droids. what would all the skill trees do? But if you create a single tree, that would cost, maybe a total of25 to 35 skill points, then you'd have people who would sacrifice skill points in other professions to use droids. Have pre-req's too. since you'd expect combat droids to be used by the combat professions, have the first teir of this new skill tree require novice pistoleer, novice carbineer, novice rifleman, novice commando, novice TKA, or any of the other novice combat professions.
None combat specific droids, such as present day droids with combat madules, would still be CL 10 or less and could be used by anyone.
Would this satisfy the DE's and TH?
There's another thread with this idea too.
Personally since Certs are out I support this method as a decent compromise.
- SOE is a company.
- A company tries to maximize income and minimize costs.
- The guys on these forums are a minority. The majority of the player base is playing the game no matter what.
- Even the guys on these forums who are pissed off still play the game.
- You hire one community manager to keep the forum idiots at bay -> low cost.
- That manager fights a lost cause: he has to give the impression that the devs actually listen. His second function is to communicate the biggest bugs, so these can be fixed. Fix the big bugs -> people stay. (I should add: fix the big bugs of the professions with the most players).
Sideeffect: Low costs for finding the big bugs (one comm. manager payed, several forum idiots for free).
- Of course the devs DON´T listen: they know, what they can implement with the least amount of work while focussing on things like vehicles to get new players on board.
The only problem: some of us still believe in Santa Claus.
You can remove this post if you think its a "flame", it probably is. I don´t care.