Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Humbling asking for DE Support to the Architect Community
Thanks Tendral.
I definately don't want to turn a deaf ear, but its important to keep a positive tone so that we can all cover as much ground as possible.
What really matters here is understanding how, as a community we may better understand each other. In any community, there are sub-groups that all have to interdependencies. What I will do is add a thread to In-Live that shows which Correspondent handles which profession and I will put links to all the professions to make the click-through for everyone much easier.
Beyond that, all I can do is urge people to visit different professions and intermingle. Cross profession discussion is a good thing 
CaLVines wrote:
Yeah, ask TH about communication.
That guy is PAID for communicating. It's his ONLY job. And he is so incompetent and unprofessional that it hurts.
His job directly deals with communicating between all areas of Development, and helping them keep communication simple enough between said areas for all members of Development to understand and co-ordinate together. The fact that he does this job and not you gives you no right to tell him he's incompetent or unprofessional. Just because he doesn't do his job in the manner you feel it should be done does not make it wrong. Nor does it make every single "**edit**" any of the many facets of this community may have his fault. That's like me telling you "Hey man, that's now how you pump gas."
Yes, he has a tought job. Yes, he may do a good job at some points.
He does his best to appease everyone. That does not mean everyone is going to be happy 100% of the time with the presented results.
But for a person in his position, answering to the question "why did we recieve this nerf" with "because profession XYZ requested it" is not only bad, it's insulting. Clarifying after that is the least he can do.
With the little time he has to spend on the forums each day, it's better than nothing. Hell, a single day goes by that he doesn't post and people start to freak out and get whiny.
Maybe he should spend more time thinking about what he posts here. Proofreading it. I think we can expect that from him. He is the only voice form the devs to us. Shouldn't we be able to just understand him, instead of having to post several threads with requests to correct info that should have never been posted in this form in the first place?
Maybe you should spend more time appreciating the fact the he even does attempt to bring all facets of this community into the "development loop" instead of openly criticsizing him? And you don't have to postseveral threads with requests to correct info in order to get his attention...that's almost saying he's an invalid. Maybe if a facet of the community has a concern based on what his response is, people could take the time to post to one coherent, respectful thread instead of Page One of each forum being flooded with hate posts instead?
It's not just about ThunderHeart here folks, this is about everyone involved in this community. Take a moment to formulate yourthoughts/concerns in clear, constructive, helpful posts offering suggestions and alternate ideas/suggestions instead of just bashing a guy cause you don't like he response.
I'll bet you see better results in the long term.
(Sorry if this comes off as an attack or a rant on anyone, it is not meant to be. I am merely offering helpful, constructive ideas, instead of sitting here wondering how much longer until the Thread Lock comes.)
TH is not a correspondent that does charity work for a For-Profit company. He is a paid employee and as customers that give money to the company that pays his salary, therecan have certain expectations of performance. So being upset about poor communication is the customers right.
With that said it is perfectly possible that TH gave the programmer the correct information and that was misinterpreted to mean something completely different, hence the current problem.
At this point TH needs to figure out the problem, stop smoke screening and get more clarified information to the programmer. This change was not was requested. Hopefully it will be put back at the next publish. Until then crafting station production has come to a standstill on all servers. New players are SOL until then.
Limbonik wrote:
CaLVines wrote:
But for a person in his position, answering to the question "why did we recieve this nerf" with "because profession XYZ requested it" is not only bad, it's insulting. Clarifying after that is the least he can do.
With the little time he has to spend on the forums each day, it's better than nothing.
No, Limbonik, it is most certainly NOT better than nothing. He implied that we asked for this change, and we did not.It seems to me that the job description for a Community Relations Manager would include the ability tocommunicate clearly.Misleading people - whether those people are other players or the Devs - is at best incompetence for someone in his position. Yes, it is a difficult job. That's why he's being paid to do it.
All he had to do is answer the question like this instead: "This was an unavoidable side effect of implementing a request made by Droid Engineers." But instead, he wrote "This was due to a request made by Droid Engineers."
The former accepts responsibility for the change and explains that there wasn't anything they could do about it if they were going to implement our request while simultaneously implying that we (Droid Engineers) couldn't have known that it was going to happen. The latter implies that Droid Engineers are responsible for the change because we asked for it specifically, which we did not.
I wouldn't blame TH for this problem. I am sure he can copy and paste and send the DE Top 5 to the right programer. The programer for some reason changed this. It may have been an intential nerf, or simply while setting up the variable in the code the wrongbox was clicked on (if their programing tools are that good) or a 1 was placed in the code rather than a 0. Either way it wasn't what was asked for.
I will say that top 5 issue could have been made much clear given examples like, give a rating to crafting stations in droids and have that rating affect experimentation while using the droid. Have a storage rating on the modules clearly stating the the amount of storage given. That would have been clear and left nothing to interpitation. However I can't chomp the chops of a volunteer, cause you get what you paid for and I paided nothing for that. I can be upset at the programmer for not paying attention and clearly understanding what was needed. Or they did intend this, in which case I am crying nerf as this was not a resonable nerf.
Message Edited by Meplorium on 02-17-2004 03:30 PM
Kollos wrote:
Limbonik wrote:
No, Limbonik, it is most certainly NOT better than nothing. He implied that we asked for this change, and we did not.It seems to me that the job description for a Community Relations Manager would include the ability tocommunicate clearly.Misleading people - whether those people are other players or the Devs - is at best incompetence for someone in his position. Yes, it is a difficult job. That's why he's being paid to do it.
All he had to do is answer the question like this instead: "This was an unavoidable side effect of implementing a request made by Droid Engineers." But instead, he wrote "This was due to a request made by Droid Engineers."
The former accepts responsibility for the change and explains that there wasn't anything they could do about it if they were going to implement our request while simultaneously implying that we (Droid Engineers) couldn't have known that it was going to happen. The latter implies that Droid Engineers are responsible for the change because we asked for it specifically, which we did not.
Guys and Gals, the Droid Storage Compartment bug has been on the list of bugs in the Droid Issues list by Gorantoth for months and months !! This was a bug brought up by the Droid Engineering community months ago and it was finally corrected to use Droid Engineering experimentation instead of Artisan.
Jumping all over our Dev team for actually starting to look at our issues and fixing them is beyond belief !!
Gorantoth actually updated the bug list saying this one was fixed in the issues list.
Should they have put this in the patch notes ?? Yes.
Was it a small enough fix to be overlooked to be added to patch notes ?? Yes again...
We in the Droid Engineer community should be thanking the devs for FINALLY getting around to our bugs and issues list and actually correcting things. Not bashing them across the face when they actually do a fix.
I'm not being a fanboy here. I had my threads locked in the past because I got too overheated and p.o'd a dev or two. The fact is we DID ask for this to be fixed and it was.
TH is not blaming the community for anything. He is only stating the fact that the DE community has asked for the change to DSCs since the first Centralized Droid Issues were written. What everyone really needs tobe aware of is that chaning an existing system will always have some sort of consequince on theprogramming side ofthings thatmay not bring about exactly what the community intends. The Communityasked for the change, but due to how thegame code is written and layered, a change that seems so smallto thegame user is a large undertaking for theDeveloper. The 'simple' change to the DSC is a prime example of how complex this game really is.
Welcome to the real world of crafting. Try being a weaponsmith where a gun might take "Plumbum Iron" and "Link-Steel Aluminum" and depend 50/50 on OQ and Conductivity. Right now, on Kettemoore, the last run of Plumbum was 900+ OQ and a whopping 10 Conductviity. Or Aluminum - which usually has condutivity topped at 700'ish no matter what kind it is.
If I could make something as a weaponsmith that was this highly sought after, and it's quality only depended on one statistic, I'd have no trouble cranking out perfect copies by the thousands. But that's not crafting and it makes things way to easy and predictable.
What makes a difference from one crafter to the other is the materials he has on hand and his ability to figure out which of those materials will be best for a particular product.
Master Crafters generally have the same capabilities. What distinguishes their products is the care they take in selecting materials, the skill enhancement tapes they may have invested in, and what they decide is "acceptable" as a final product.
Having the quality of something like this decided by only one factor - OQ - made it nearly impossible for any crafter to produce a product any worse or better than another. Introducing two ingredients with 50/50 on two stats introduces a lot of room for individuality. Ok, some crafters will never be able to make a "perfect" one because they missed a resource or miscalculated which were the two best ones to use. That's how the system is supposed to work.
Eventually the hoarded materials and schematics will dry up and everyone will be on level playing ground.
Gribnitz wrote:
I'm not being a fanboy here. I had my threads locked in the past because I got too overheated and p.o'd a dev or two. The fact is we DID ask for this to be fixed and it was.
No, Gribnitz, you're making the same mistake.
We did NOT ask for them to change the stat requirements for Droid Storage Compartments. This is the issue that is causing Architects to have a fit.
Thanks for the clarification Drashk. I know a thing or to about programming and what you discribe as the situation is very possible, but god that is weak programming if that is truely the case, which I highly doubt and here is why.You do have objects or subroutines that handle those sort of things and by changing one variable it points things todifferent subroutine. However looking over the different profressions and how componentA takes quality x into concideration and component B in the same profession takes quality x and y into concideration I'll have to call BS on this one. The subroutines are passed variables from the properties of component A not the properties of profession 5. So that explaination is simply not consistant with how the software works. If that was the case then all components made by profession 5 would then consider property x and y in all components made by profession 5. That just isn't how the software works.
This isn't your fault Drashk and you are just passing on informationand doing a good job at it, but not allthe customers are that clueless about programmingto buy intothis stuff. It can not be so hard to admit a mistake. Really it is best if they did otherwise an honest mistake which everyone makes turns into them looking like fools. Could you please make this one of your issues for review. I know the list of DE issues is the longest in the game, but this affects all crafting professions as they all use the static crafting stations. Thanks
I think you're correct about this, though maybe I'm beign negative.
Kollos wrote:
Gribnitz wrote:
I'm not being a fanboy here. I had my threads locked in the past because I got too overheated and p.o'd a dev or two. The fact is we DID ask for this to be fixed and it was.
No, Gribnitz, you're making the same mistake.
We did NOT ask for them to change the stat requirements for Droid Storage Compartments. This is the issue that is causing Architects to have a fit.
We DID ask them to change the experience awarded from Artisan to Droid Engineer, and the experimentation used from Artisan to Droid Engineer. No one is complaining about these changes.
The problem is that Thunderheart, through a very poor choice of words, has implied that Droid Engineers requested the former.
I fully understand how different (and sometimes seemingly unrelated) parts of the game can affect one another in ways that you'd never expect. However, it is important to keep straight direct consequences and indirect consequences. We did not ask them to change the stat requirements, so sayingor implying that we did is flat-out wrong. Were they changed as an indirect consequence of our request? Sure, I'll believe that. But when people ask why the stat requirements were changed, SAY THAT.
Shadowmite wrote:
If I could make something as a weaponsmith that was this highly sought after, and it's quality only depended on one statistic, I'd have no trouble cranking out perfect copies by the thousands. But that's not crafting and it makes things way to easy and predictable.
actually its not highly sought out. its rarely sought out. But i get your point and agree with it. But you have to understand that DE doesnt have experimentation, and as such there's a bit of surprise when it shows up.