Droid Engineer Archive

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Thunderheart wrote:

1. I need to know if you agree or disagree with Sintrosi's Plan

2. I need to know if you agree or disagree with the rough DE plan in general

Also, please post the changes you would make to the DE plan. Thanks

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This is not his plan! It's really misleading for you to try and pin it on him when he was mearly the one who posted it!

TH, my answers are:

1. I need to know if you agree or disagree with Sintrosi's Plan: I think you mean Sintrosi's State of the Profession so that is what I am going to comment on. I totally agree with her assesment of the profession. It has been bad. The first couple of months I was hopefull that all the issues would get patched up but it never really happened. Last month I actually cancelled my account because I was so fed up with this profession. Last month on a small patch to fix some droid problems a day after the large patch, we lost almost all ability to build any droid. It took 2 days before anyone at SOE even confirmed that there may be a problem and another 2 days before we could build droids again. 4 days of down time in a profession will not make anyone happy. I went ahead and signed up for one more month in hopes that the Devs saw just how bad we have it and will go ahead and patch us up but I am not holding my breath on that one. The biggest reason I signed up for one more month was because Q3P0 apologized for the down time and I thought that was very big of him.

2. I need to know if you agree or disagree with the rough DE plan in general: I agree with the 3 points in the plan laid out. But I also think that the bugs on Gorantoths list need to be made a priority as well. Its a lot of work that needs to done. But, IMHO its work that should have been completed before the game was launched but we dont need to go there.

Only thing I want to add to that plan. I want to see products that we as DE make become something that in this game would be in demand. I look at the other merchant classes and I see them making millions of credits. But I look at my DE friends here and you will see that if any of them have millions of credits its because they have a skill outside the DE profession where they make that money. Heck, in the last two weeks I have made more money off Krayt dragon hunting than I have off droid selling.

Thank you for your concern Thunderheart. We desperatly need help.

1. Agree

2. Disagree

Would like to see some role for DE in vehicle creationand would like combat droids that people would be proud to own.

Speaking for my second character: 4404 DE

1: Totally agree

2: If i wanted to be a ch i would have played the class. Your plan is to make us the mechanical ch of the game.

Lame

#1) Sintrosi's state of DE. = YES

please TH let this be the last time you ask us if Sintrosi represents up well, it is mildly insulting

#2) Dev's plan for the DE profession = ASK SINTROSI

TH your learning, You will often feel the heat of the boards here, but we love yeah

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Thunderheart wrote:

1. I need to know if you agree or disagree with Sintrosi's Plan

2. I need to know if you agree or disagree with the rough DE plan in general

Also, please post the changes you would make to the DE plan. Thanks

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1). There is no Sintrosi's Plan I am aware of. If you mean her 'state of the profession'. I agree 100%

2). disagree.

changes you would make to the DE plan:

1. fix all currentbugs (modules, experimentation, customization, datapad informations, ...)= Goranoth's list


2. (re)introduce decent combat droids (with a wisely designed certification system if needed for balance).


3. add some new modules as proposed in http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=24426

I'd rather see bug fixes and small changesthan a big unclear "plan" with no timeframe.

KaGe

1) Agree.

2) No. It is too vague and nothing conclusive from it. It gives everyone the feeling that it takes MONTHS(6 or more) to implement it, which totally BS when we need to subscribe to this game for 1 year to get what we deserved !@

1) yes

2) no

1. Yes I completely agree with Sintrosi's State of the Profession post. It is a little dramatic but effectively shows what DEs have been through since SWG began. Sintrosi has been doing an excellent job with the meager scraps of information on DE from the DEVs.

2. In general, I disagree with the DE Plan as it was posted. There are some good ideas in there but not enough detail and too many questions about them to decide if it would help or hurt DEs. Its not a real plan at all, just a list of ideas some good and some bad. Just an outline for a couple ideas that might work well or could just be a repeat of CH problems again.

You're asking for changes to the DE "Plan"?

The first thing I'd like to see is fix the existing bugs for droids. Gorantoth's stickied post should be a checklist for the developer(s?) to work from. What purpose does a BLL droid have? Walk around and look neat? Give the broken droids a purpose to make them attractive for customers to buy! Or make them useful for building player citys. Like a Protocol droid having some purpose than to be a house decoration. Or like others have said for the BLL to be able to redeed and move your entire house without having to buy another small house to "warehouse" all your resources.

A new combat droid for a Master DE or a certification for other Master level combat professions would give more incentive for players to embrace the full profession instead of dabbling. If DEs would have a DE-only combat droid, there should be some other less powerful combat droid for others. Having new combat modules is sort-of attractive to have, but who wants a Protocol C-3PO droid become the terminator? Well, maybe a little just because it seems like a "neat" joke. Why not just provide a Battle Droid instead?

How about some information on what future ideas may be planned for DEs to be a part of player cities, vehicles or the space expansion? DE making a swoop bike or providing droid pilots for vehicles and ships? Is there some storyline for SWG that may give hope to DEs to stay with the game?

TH, thanks for putting up with any bitterness from all the DE posts. It has been building up from many months of watching the forum for any attention by the DEVs that bugs are going to be fixed and seeing CHs get all the attention.

A lot of us were going nuts refreshing the forum over and over again to see what was being posted by the DEVs. The anticipation last week was extreme, but it turned out to be a bitdisappointing. I'm still hopeful something good will be coming for DEs.

1. I agree 100% with the State of the Profession.

2. I disagree with the 'plan' almost entirely.

Proposed Changes:

Rather than giving us the ability to slap ranged combat modules into a 45 HAM protocol droid, or a 275 HAM R2 droid, give us a viable combat droid. The proposed combat modules do little, if anything at all to help the profession. I'm having a hard time understanding what the hold up is on adding Droideka schematics, I mean the models/animations are done. I've seen them on Lok and even fought a few while in the Warren. While I hate to keep comparing us to CH, I'll say this: The devs are making more creatures available to be tamed, but we're stuck with the same old probot which may or may not be better than what we have currently.

MSE bombs are a joke, I really don't like that idea at all. The last thing we need is yet ANOTHER module that can go into the MSE.

Increase the amout of storage for storage modules! At our best, we can craft a level 6 module that holds 10 items. 10! I get asked about storage modules all the time, however I warn my customers that it is only capable of holding 10 items. After that, they usually pass on buying a droid. period

Give Binary Load Lifters a purpose in the Galaxy, right now they're nothing more than walking billboards with heavy HAM. I think a melee combat version might make a nice tank, or perhaps a ranged attack version capable of firing missles or lasers or something. (Ok, that suggestion was out there, but I think its better than the MSE bomb thing)

Remove the ability to stack modules. This is silly, it needs to go already. This ability is an insult to all the MDE's who've worked hard to get where they are.

Power droids: Too costly to make, little benefit gained. Wow, a walking box that makes funny noises. Hah, look, it eats batteries too!

Medical droids: I think the proposed plans for surgical droids are great. It encourages interdependance with doctors/medics.

Anyways, Thank you Thunderheart for visiting our dev deprived forum and asking for concerns. I have more ideas, but I won't post them yet. Baby steps. This thread is full of plenty of ideas, an overwhelming amount of us are crying for new combat droids/chassis to sell. That should take priority over anything else to be added.

Also, if the devs could go down the Centralized Droid Issues list compiled by Gorantoth, and fix like 2-5 'issues' per month I'd be one happy MDE.

(1) STATE OF THE PROFESSION

I agree with most of what Sinostri said. However, i think that solid deadlines and dedicated chats may be asking a bit too much. I would rather hear the plan, then know that it is one of the current priorities.

(2) DEV-PROPOSED DE PLAN

Item #1

I disagree with handing protocol and R2 droids attack modules, if that is in fact what you meant. Quite frankly, i think there should be different attack *models*, differening in attack, defense, battery consumption, range, and reactions, etc (all experimentable).

Item#2

multiple droids out is a given.

Item#3

I'm not sure what you meant by this, but if its similiar to giving repair droids expendable charges that repair other droid's white-bar-HAM, then that's great. Perhaps, autonomy in repairing, as well as time between heals, could be dependent on the level of personality chip.

Add Stim and Healthpack functionality to medic droids? What does this mean? I think the other med droid suggestions are right on.

Power droids--the harvester idea is great, but it will be tough to balance the line between paying for a power droid or paying for power. Perhaps, depending on experimented effectiveness, it would add a modifier to the maintainence cost per hour for that harvester (i.e. between .70-.99)

*The power droid shoud DEFINATELY provide power for any droid in the same group. For instance, my power droid would prevent any of the droids in my group (including other PC droids) from needing recharging.

MSE bombs is just silly. Thumbs down

\mood serious Thanks, Thunderheart

dammit, sorry

Thunderheart,

Thanks you for gathering information from us.

I 100% agree with all of Sintrosi's posts. It was through concise and most importantly the truth. She has been doing a great job. She seems to be on the ball and really wants to make a the DE communities voice heard.

As for the DE plan, it has some great ideas I would like to see.

Combat Modules - Great idea! However I don’t want my Protocol Droid whipping out a T21 and screaming in it’s effeminate voice “DIE JEDI DIE!!!“ It sucked in AOTC…it would suck in this game. I think what people want are droids specific to combat. Like the Droideka and Trade Fed battle droids with interchangeable mods. Why should these be limited to the DE….Heck while your at it limit Armor…so that only Armorsmiths can wear Composite, and that Weaponsmiths are the only ones that can use Heavy Particle Beam Canons. Don’t make an “ARTISAN” Class a psuedo-combat class.

Multiple Droids - This is definitely what is wanted. But modify what you got going in with the CH changes and Allow more droid options. Okay “one” Combat pet and “one” Combat droid for certain classes. But seriously take the Bounty Hunter they use droids all the time. In fact they were described as Master Droid users. Allow them to have an extra Combat type out or a higher level more advanced type of Combat droid. Look at all the combat classes in that respect. Gage their abilities and let them whip out higher level droid types. Artisan shold be able to bring out several utility droids at a time…See Below for what I am talking about(Power Droid, Binary Load Lifter, and LE Repair Droid).

I’ll Repeat this: Don’t make a crafter into a combat class…that is just dumb.

Repair Droids - The LE Repair Droid can't repair. I don't mind minor repair abilities on other droids Like an R2 unit, but the LE Repair Droid should be the only fully capable one. Allow them to maybe do what a Power droid can do to power harvesters allow them to pay maintenance and what not. Increase credits spent and let them go around and keep your harvesters maintained.

I’ll Repeat this: Don’t make a crafter into a combat class…that is just silly.

Medical Droids - All your ideas are great! But make it provide the full range of abilities to just the surgical droid. I don’t want my MSE to heal me…I want my surgical droid to do it! And allowing the medical classes full access to this feature is great. Basically tier it. Non medics can have a limited Surgical Droid. One that is semi beneficial but not one to replace the Medic Class. And then the Medic Classes get use out it like other artisans get use from a droid with a portable crafting station. They can go and heal anywhere.

I’ll Repeat this: Don’t make a crafter into a combat class…no one wants it.

Power Droids - I LOVE IT! Just make sure the cost of power savings throughout the droid's life-time is greater than the increase in harvester maintenance plus the price of the power droid combined. How this is done will dictate how much the droid can be sold for. If it's too low, DEs won't profit from making them, or won't be able to sell them at all.

Things not mentioned in the DE Plan:

Binary Load Lifters: Make them like the Power Droid/LE Repair droid Idea. Let them go get my resources at the Harvesters. IT’S A LOAD LIFTER!!! It is designed to carry a lot of stuff. Which leads me to a new building type that Architects can build a Droid Hub. That has power and resource storage so your Power Droid gets the power from it to fuel all your harvesters, a Place the Binary Load lifter can store all the resources it gathers. And lets us players have a decent place to store stuff other then having to put up a second house as a garage. It just cost X to maintain and these droids will all decay over time and need to be replaced. Cargo Capacity gets smaller in the Load lifter and power droids die out etc…

I’ll Repeat this yet again: Don’t make a crafter into a combat class…that is just lame.

Protocol Droid: Well…lets put this into a Roleplay Situation…They are defined as a Etiquette and Translator droid. Last I checked its darn easy to learn any language I want. Save speaking any because I play a Wookiee. Make someone have to spend Skill Points to learn more languages. Now I am not talking like 5 points per language…more like 1 point per but that makes it so not everyone is going to know every single language in the galaxy. So the demand for a Protocol Droid well versed in over 6 million forms of communication would be an item that most players would like to have. The best Role-Playing exp I had was when some new player didn’t know that as a Wookiee I couldn’t speak anything but Shryiiwook. 30 mins went by of him screaming at me to speak in plain English while I kept trying to tell him I couldn’t (ps he was just role-playing it and it ruled) (I know player communication is very important and if no one can understand each other the game breaks down…so allow “Like 3 free Languages” the rest need to be purchased…or something like that.)

I’ll Repeat this one last time: Don’t make a crafter into a combat class…that is just not right.

Charge Status - Anything that requires charges/batteries with droids should be visible somehow by examining or looking at the droid. Right now we have no idea when a probot will say *Low Power* and stop fighting.

That and For the love of pete TH look at this Thread…

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=33835

Gorantoth has complied all of what your asking for…it’s a nice hop skip and a jump away!

And I think everyone would agree that “BUG” fixes are the highest items on our wishlist, just above establishing at least one effective combat droid.

Thanks for a good basis for making the Droid Engineer a Killa Class, Thunderheart.

Roorukk

TB Industries

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