Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: UPDATE: The new Correspondent forum and Test Center changes
Thank you for that heads up Sintrosi... It was well written and sums up a huge problem for DE's.
Folks, we all know we got many, MANY problems, but she did a good job being honest, succinct, accurate, and constructive with that reply. IfSOE magically waved their programming wand and fixed those very problems she mentioned, we'd all be a much happier lot, even with all the remaining bugs, broken modules, and miscellaneous problems we all face. Now we know the magic wand isn'tgoing to happen, but there must be a focal beginning to the repairs needed for the DE profession, and her reply highlights a very viable beginning strategy.
/applause
Excellent post Sintrosi. Thank you for keeping us all informed, you are the best correspondent EVER. I think you did a great job explaining are top issue, when only one could be addressed.
Also,
Javac wrote:
On top of that, there's no decay or reason to replace a droid, ever! There's been lots of ideas floating around about this too.
There is decay in droids (and pets). Both lose vitality from repeated abuse in combat, which leads to a reduction in HAM values.
Great post! good resume.
another issue is our market has to renew itself. NO PERMADEATH AGAIN PLEASE... but why not for example make droids need "maintenance" as a car does... no money but something DEs could take careof.
Would allow us to see ourcustomers from times to times to take care of maintenance, maybe get a little tip, and perhaps sell more droids...
Ifno maintenance for a very long period of time... droids could then permadie after a few warnings.
well that would be another long term fix possible, dont yoou think?
I think you hit the nail on the head there, keep up the good work. =)
The Bazaar category is not a major issue at all. Other than MSEs and DZ70's you arne't going to sell any droids with the bazaar limit of 3000cr. If you do, then you are undercutting your own market.
Adding a "consumable" droid so that they have to come back was met with so much uproar from the permadeaths that the DE class went from dead to buried. Now that the permadeath is gone, the damage is done -- i.e. "Why have a probot when I can have a pet" Dunno. Why not have both, as I do?
My Advanced probot with 2 L4 armors can withstand some hits. The problem is that it does no damage worth speaking of. The problem is that the market is slanted so heavily towards CHs. Pets can be medic-healed. Anyone can carry around a pet stimpack and heal his pet without the "chance" of destroying it like a Droid Repair Kit. And you don't have to have a friend with a certain rare module in his pet to fix your pet.
All pets, creatures and droids alike, should be healable only by the BE pet stims and Vitality packs. or make DE-made equivalent. IF Attack Droids are designed (aren't they?) to compete with pets, then make them do so. Advanced Probots are supposed to be CL16. They should stand toe-to-toe with CL14 and CL15s and have a good chance of winning.
Creature Handlers are going to have the additional advantage of being the only profession that can make Player Mounts. This is going to widen the gap even more. At least I have the hope that vehicles and spaceships are going to be DE-elite-elite professions. THEN maybe there will be some real advantages. But then it's just like the MSE at Novice DE. It's a droid, but you can't do anything with it. DEs will have to powerlevel up to vehicles in order to sell anything worthwhile.
And here I am on Radiant sitting with 500,000cr value of stock on my vendors. Sitting. At least I can now sell BH droids at a price I'm comfortable with.
Sky273 wrote:Great post! good resume.
another issue is our market has to renew itself. NO PERMADEATH AGAIN PLEASE... but why not for example make droids need "maintenance" as a car does... no money but something DEs could take care of.
Would allow us to see our customers from times to times to take care of maintenance, maybe get a little tip, and perhaps sell more droids...
If no maintenance for a very long period of time... droids could then permadie after a few warnings.
well that would be another long term fix possible, dont yoou think?
Again, this would only serve to hurt already weak sales. If people aren't inclined to purchase them in the first place, how will adding restrictions and limitations increase sales? Such a move is typically one of desperation on the part of a company and is often refered to as 'cannabalizing your market'.
Brynnan wrote:The Bazaar category is not a major issue at all. Other than MSEs and DZ70's you arne't going to sell any droids with the bazaar limit of 3000cr. If you do, then you are undercutting your own market...
A) This assumes the market remains as high as it does now. There is no indication this is true and every reason to believe that as the market matures prices will drop. Already we are seeing a reduction in the price of resources and I have seen DEs on my servers who are severely undercutting the general market while still turning a profit (albeit a small one).
B) This also assumes they do not raise the 3000cr limit. Since the Devs have already admitted the envisioned a much 'cooler' economy I would imagine there is every chance that limit will be raised if the economy stays where it is and option A does not occur.
C) You are forgetting about Seeker droids and possibly Probe droids (I know many DEs sell Probes above 3000, but often not far enough about 3k that they might not consider dropping the price to get it onto the vendors). I myself make a fairly decent number of sales on Probe and Seeker droids. Perhaps not a terribly large amount directly from the bazaar but then those bazaar sales often lead to vendor sales.
Thank you Sintrosi.
I think the issue you addressed is a great one. I have sold hundreds of droids since launch but I can tell you for sure that sales have dropped sharply in the past month. So whatever they do to increase our sales and demand as a profession is a step in the right direction.
On another note it is great to hear that you have heard something from the Devs. Thank you for your patients working with the Devs.
Isshadech wrote:
I agree mostly, however, i dont think probot's should be uber powerful (ala empire strikes back, wasnt really all that tough was it?)
How many gazillion times must people bring this up and deliberately misreport an event in the movie? The Probot in Empire Strikes back WAS tough, it blew up so easily because it had a self destruct. Han Solo said this to Leia over the radio when he reported in. I also heard that there is also a bit in the original script, that didn't make it to the movie, where a probot soloed one of those big yeti like creatures.
A probot should compete with a level 15 creature pet. This is not "uber powerful". Uber powerful would be a droid that could compete with a rancor, which would be one of the newcombat model droids to be implemented sometime before the year 2005.
Also, the DZ70 should have its laughable40HAM multiplied by a factor of10 or should not be a combat capable droid at all.
I agree with everything in Sin's post.
Daive wrote:
Isshadech wrote:
I agree mostly, however, i dont think probot's should be uber powerful (ala empire strikes back, wasnt really all that tough was it?)
How many gazillion times must people bring this up and deliberately misreport an event in the movie? The Probot in Empire Strikes back WAS tough, it blew up so easily because it had a self destruct. Han Solo said this to Leia over the radio when he reported in. I also heard that there is also a bit in the original script, that didn't make it to the movie, where a probot soloed one of those big yeti like creatures.
A probot should compete with a level 15 creature pet. This is not "uber powerful". Uber powerful would be a droid that could compete with a rancor, which would be one of the newcombat model droids to be implemented sometime before the year 2005.
Also, the DZ70 should have its laughable40HAM multiplied by a factor of10 or should not be a combat capable droid at all.
I agree with everything in Sin's post.
I'm not saying that I dont want a combat droid. I just know that a probot is actually a probe droid, and therefore should be used as such. More along the lines of information gathering, with a bit of firepower on the side. As far as "soloing" a Yeti creature, big deal - the creature didnt have a blaster cannon. If you want to get technical, we shouldnt be able to take multiple blaster shots, and neither should animals in the wild be able to take them.
I just would like to be able to craft some of those roger, roger doods 
they are mighty funny.