Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Probots Needed To Be Nerfed
Droid_Engineer_Rho wrote:
It's just that they should only have been nerfed AFTER their proper replacements became available!
I agree with this. This is what bugs me about the way the Devs work. They don't think of their customers first. It's one thing to know that something will need to change -- It's another thing to change it without considering the problems it will cause some people.
There was no reason to nerf the Probot before combat droids were introduced.
And R-model droids are supposed to be maintenance droids..
and so on and so on and so on...
Sorry to sound all bitter, but nothing in the droid-world is what it's supposed to be.
I wasn't debating what they should be sold for (not going to drag that issue up again) I was debating the strength versus cost of production.
I don't disagree with droid requirements. I imagine most higher level droids requiring more time and resources (more in line with the requirements of a BLL).
What I do disagree with is the broad stroke in which you decided that thetheeffort involved infindingthe resources required,maintaining various harvestors and factories, and selling that product was trivial and in noway merited a useful product.
Would it make any sense it only cost an architect 5k credits worth of resources to make a heavy harvester?
Would it make sense if a probot the size of a wookie required the same amount of materials as a house?
as I mentioned, that was the price if you bought all of the resources and master artisan stuff, that brings harvester time/maintenance down to nothing and crafting time on a probot is negligable. as to the refrence about the PA halls, I was speaking of cost of creation vs what it is they are making. the probot is a decent combat droid (granted not nearly as good as we should be able to make) but nothing extraordinary. That coresponds with the fact that it takes relatively few resources (and only 1 specific resource for the armor) and is easy to make.
Jenden Morn - Master Droid Engineer - Mos Espa, Tarquinas
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
So, why did you post this except to cause a stir?
First, you are wrong - go watch ESB. The Probot that Han shoots is assumed to have had a self-destruct, that's why it was destroyed so easily. Listen to the dialogue.
Second, there is no point to a recon droid in this game - so you are saying the Probot was intended to have no use at all?
Finally, you are missing the big point of all of this.
They took away Probots because "anyone" could have one, and weeks later gave EVERYONE creature pets that have the same stats as the pre-nerf Probot.
They took the #1 product of a crafting profession and gave it to a combat profession to sell.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Audio
I would have to agree with Audio here completely. As DEs, we did get shafted on this one. As it is, we have plenty of droids that do little to nothing. We also have plenty of droids that (can) all do EXACTLY the same thing. Mouse Droid Advanced or R3 Advanced. Only difference is the cost (to us AND to our customers). When they ask you straight out "What's the difference between all this stuff in a Mouse droid and all this stuff in an R3?" can you look them in their virtual faces and tell them "Um...20,000 credits?" How's THAT for fun?
The BLL does NOTHING except be huge and almost annoy people as much as Rancors, Grauls, and those big turtle thingies--except BLLs don't shake the screen when they walk. I remember when I was waiting to get Master DE. I saw the BLL and said "The droid has NO module slots. What the heck does it do?" The answer was an unfortunate NOTHING. So I said to myself "Self..." (because that's what I call myself when I talk to myself: self) "...It's probably the Advanced BLL that has the module sockets..." based on the pattern I saw with the other droids. When I reached master, what did I find? BLL Adv = STILL USELESS. I mean come on--even the standard Mouse droid has a single module socket!
The Repair droid cannot repair. The surgical droid cannot do anything any better than a similarly equipped mouse droid. The Power droid itself RUNS OUT OF POWER (you just GOTTA love the irony there). Droids with functional repair modules cannot repair themselves. If we were given new battle droids tomorrow, the probot would go the way of the standard mouse droid: sure people would ask for them once in a while, but for the most part they would become non-desireable. Keep in mind that in all likelihood, if we got new battle droids tomorrow, they'd probably have one or more issues as well.
So nerfing the probots was unfortunate, but when non-ch pets came around, that's when the unfortunate convered to being shafted.
Oh, one quick counterpoint to the "Who wants a droid when there are pets to be had" debate that no one seems to be bringing up. Yeah, we talk about armor on the Probot, and yeah, it can sorta kinda tank. But how many pets can improve your healing efficiency? Or store items for you? Or act as a private, portable crafting station? The only "output hopper" a Graul has is one I don't want to be near when product ejects from it, if you catch my meaning. 
I don't understand what's so hard about adding new droids.
Go to Lok, there's droideka there. Those things are -meant- to be combat machines. They should be DE-only, leave probots and the such as the "non-DE pet." When mounts come in, CH's will become much more meaningful and if DE's don't get any attention soon - you'll have Star Wars without droids. That's like Sea World without water. I'll even bet that more people began SWG in hopes of pod racing and droid-engineering, only to find that it's **edit**.
Anyway, here's how I'd like to see new droids:
1) Allow them to learn skills. The more you use your droid, the more experience it gains. You can open up an experience panel and teach it several attacks - at the limitation of skill points. Master engineers could experiment the number of skill points a droid could have at the expense of speed and HAM.
2) Allow some droids to equip player-crafted equipment. This would mainly go for weapons, but also add some new armor types that is wearable by select models of droids.
3) More add-ons. Instead of having a droid with a food/chem crafting station, it could have a wearable's factory that worked much slower than the real one... or maybe a chemical harvester upgrade that can be deployed easily when all you need is 150 bronzium iron.
4) Auto-pilot. When personal vehicles come in, I'd love to see R-models given the ability to auto-pilot a vehicle to a given waypoint.
I have a pre-nerf Probot with 40% resists, 3.2k hams
This thing can tank a LOT more than any of the non-CH pets I've seen. It's also the way I think it should be. It'd be ridiculous if I had non-CH pets + my PP probot, but I'm a strong advocate of droids and a stronger enemy of **edit** wars. I'd rather everybody ran around with a droid instead of 5 story high monsters... it just makes NO SENSE!
Every time I see one of those god damned grauls or rancors in a town I just slap myself in the head and think "WATAF was sony thinking"
Hehe best idea yet. If they won't fix you DE's why not let you combine MSE's and fireworks.
ScrreeEEEeeeeeEEEEeeEEeEeee *boop* *boop* *beep* BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Haha I'd buy a few crates of kamikazee'rs =)