Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Project: Droid Engineer Chassis Experimentation System Upgrade
DigitalOne wrote:
This wouldsignifugantly hurt me as a mass producer, and anyoneelse who worksin bulk aswell.
Straker_Atrella wrote:
I know the resource types wouldn't change, we would need the same, but you would need huge huge amounts of quality stuff. So if I want to continue making Droids with maxed modules like I can right now, I would need to have far above average resources for EVERYTHING.
If you make one or two droids a week, it may not be much, but if you make more, it is going to hurt. I use about 300k Crappy steel a week, and about 100k good steel. What you are talking about means I would need 400k a week of good stuff. Plus Fibro, plus Ore, plus Copper and anything else that quality doesn't depend on now. Average just wont be good enough.
Drashk wrote:
Out of all of the crafting professions, Droid Engineer lacks the most from a natural market balancing effect. Weaponsmiths and Armorsiths have resource quality which dictates the number of 'uber weapons' a single crafter can prodcue, as well as the single largest market (combat types). Tailors have shear number of items that they can produce. Chefs have a 100% consumable market. Architects and Shipwrights are balanced by the shear number of resources required to produce their goods.
woah there, i have been a WS and i can tell you from experience that a WS can indeed supply a ton of weapons disportionate to the number of buyers. Weapons dont consume as much in the way of resources as droids and more critically subcomponents.....also since there isnt an issue of immense customizability ppl know what weapons they need and can just go pick it up...in other words 5 WS can supply an entire server pretty easiliy if they were to organize and setup a group effort. as it is now id say on my server there are probably like 5 bulk weapons providers and like 20 small shops that do like 1/20th of the biz the big 5 do. As it is now a DE cannot supply that many droids, why? we have an almost unlimited combination of droid models and module mixing.
So even if your goal was to supply enough droids to keep half the server supplied it is impossible. Keep in mind that if we add in new modules and function odds are they will have experimentation...so if they have experimentation and so do all our subcomps it will be a willy nilly nightmare to make any kind of standardization between one DE and another. of course modularity could help sort it out at that point 
but i digress. i dont think the chassis idea is bad just adding experimentation to all the subcomps..adding that much experimentation to me means to balance it out we would reduce the number of subcomps in ratio in other words add experimentation in for all subcomps but then a r3 only need a frame, a brain and arms done. there has to be a balance.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
What you've brought up here is tantamount to a 3rd DE revamp of sorts.
The first 2 Revamps were lacking, to say the least, especially if you compare them to what happened with Chef and Bio-Engineer.
I do think this fundamental issue of chassis use, experimentation, etc. is important (very much so...I've ALWAYS been about our 'quality' game), I hesitate to want to push too far on this when we already have other major issues in front of us as a community.
- Decay
- Higher-end combat droids
- Various and sundry important DE/droid fixes (naming, etc.)
- DE/droid quest or loot rewards, etc.
Now...if we had some input from the Devs that this is an idea that we should run with and flesh out....that's a different story.
I just hate to see us run off on another huge initiative when so many of our past ones (almost universally backed by the DE community) still stand unfinished and unaddressed.
I know you have a larger vision for all this too. I guess I might hold off on piece-by-piece feedback on the proposal until the entire vision had been laid out.
As I stated before, I'm just trying to get the ball re-rolling on putting together different ideas as to how to improve the profession as a whole. The actual ideas posted aren't as important as showing the DEV team that we as a community can bring about civil dicussion without a ton of flames.
One of the biggest issues that happened prior to the Droid Publishes was the major amount of negativity that was flowing from the DE community, any time discussion about a certain profession was made. This eventually lead to the DEV team backing away from a certain amount of feedback from this community.
So far, the amount of discussion has been healthy and has helped to promote discussion that the DEVs could take a look at and see what the community would like to see, and what it would not like to see.
Gron_DM wrote:
woah there, i have been a WS and i can tell you from experience that a WS can indeed supply a ton of weapons disportionate to the number of buyers. Weapons dont consume as much in the way of resources as droids and more critically subcomponents.....also since there isnt an issue of immense customizability ppl know what weapons they need and can just go pick it up...in other words 5 WS can supply an entire server pretty easiliy if they were to organize and setup a group effort. as it is now id say on my server there are probably like 5 bulk weapons providers and like 20 small shops that do like 1/20th of the biz the big 5 do. As it is now a DE cannot supply that many droids, why? we have an almost unlimited combination of droid models and module mixing.
So even if your goal was to supply enough droids to keep half the server supplied it is impossible. Keep in mind that if we add in new modules and function odds are they will have experimentation...so if they have experimentation and so do all our subcomps it will be a willy nilly nightmare to make any kind of standardization between one DE and another. of course modularity could help sort it out at that point
I disagree with you on a single DE not being able to supply such a high number of droids. I can name at least 3 servers where this is currently the case, at least the last time I stopped in to look. A single server should be able to support at least 10 Master Droid Engineers, with a semi-equal market share, that is dependent on the amount of time put by each DE.
So, you do agree that the core of what is being suggested is on target, but thatcertain aspects need to be adjust?
Drashk wrote:
Gron_DM wrote:
woah there, i have been a WS and i can tell you from experience that a WS can indeed supply a ton of weapons disportionate to the number of buyers. Weapons dont consume as much in the way of resources as droids and more critically subcomponents.....also since there isnt an issue of immense customizability ppl know what weapons they need and can just go pick it up...in other words 5 WS can supply an entire server pretty easiliy if they were to organize and setup a group effort. as it is now id say on my server there are probably like 5 bulk weapons providers and like 20 small shops that do like 1/20th of the biz the big 5 do. As it is now a DE cannot supply that many droids, why? we have an almost unlimited combination of droid models and module mixing.
So even if your goal was to supply enough droids to keep half the server supplied it is impossible. Keep in mind that if we add in new modules and function odds are they will have experimentation...so if they have experimentation and so do all our subcomps it will be a willy nilly nightmare to make any kind of standardization between one DE and another. of course modularity could help sort it out at that point
I disagree with you on a single DE not being able to supply such a high number of droids. I can name at least 3 servers where this is currently the case, at least the last time I stopped in to look. A single server should be able to support at least 10 Master Droid Engineers, with a semi-equal market share, that is dependent on the amount of time put by each DE.
So, you do agree that the core of what is being suggested is on target, but thatcertain aspects need to be adjust?
sure like AO or myself or digital but i cant bulk stock things like crafting droids, maybe simple 2 module versions but not r3s...there is so many popular module combos i stock like 7 kinds of r3 cause of this and could stock another 7 if i wanted to and still not touch on but a small portion of DE flexability. ill agree combat bots, harvest droids, bh droids/bombs, and simple craft/storge combos do get bulk made, i bulk make them myself. what the issue is your pushing will mean worse stats and more work on DE's and without better modules to equal higher demand aka demand higher prices i dont see this as an improvment.....
however...i agree with chassis experimentation in regards to a component of decay but i still think we need to have more marketability then decay and these chasis upgrades...if we can get it all in 1 fowl swoop great but i want to see need and decay as prime targets fixed first.
Message Edited by Gron_DM on 11-16-2004 11:00 PM
The major reason that I put together this suggestion was to start discussion on what could happen in the future. We are seeing a major sweeping change happening with the Combat System and the Combat Professions. If something of this magnitude also was to effect the Crafting professions, what would you like to see happen?
I'm not talking about adding new modules. I'm talking about fundamental changes to how we craft. This would be on the same scale as what will be happening with the Combat Upgrade.
Saying that we are broken and should stay that way, won't stop what could happen if a change was to occur to our crafting system without us voicing what ideas we like and don't like, now.
Drashk wrote:
The major reason that I put together this suggestion was to start discussion on what could happen in the future. We are seeing a major sweeping change happening with the Combat System and the Combat Professions. If something of this magnitude also was to effect the Crafting professions, what would you like to see happen?
I'm not talking about adding new modules. I'm talking about fundamental changes to how we craft. This would be on the same scale as what will be happening with the Combat Upgrade.
Saying that we are broken and should stay that way, won't stop what could happen if a change was to occur to our crafting system without us voicing what ideas we like and don't like, now.
well in line with fundamental changes id like to see resources dumbed down to 1 of each type no quals and the quality is rated on the user rating. the users rating would change the more the made said parts...but that is just one of many alternate crafting types other then the current crafting model...which i dislike as it makes resources more critical then the crafter....
Gron_DM wrote:
well in line with fundamental changes id like to see resources dumbed down <snip> which i dislike as it makes resources more critical then the crafter.... (targetting those two comments)
This was part of what the original crafting system was supposed to be like, but was bugged. What we are seeing happening with the Data Storage and Repair Modules is a buggy version of the original crafting model.
The Crafting changes that occured around Publish 7 would have actually put a lot of this problem to rest, since it allowed a 12 point crafter the ability to gain a 100% experimentation. The reason it was removed, was due to a lot of people arguing for resource qualities to matter more.
Hopefully, when the non-CU is worked on, a mix of both will happen, allowing for higher experimentation to be effected by both resource quality and skill. Unfortunately, if the way we craft now does change as well, it would mean little to nothing to Droid Engineers.
Drashk wrote:
DigitalOne wrote:
This wouldsignifugantly hurt me as a mass producer, and anyoneelse who worksin bulk aswell.
Straker_Atrella wrote:
I know the resource types wouldn't change, we would need the same, but you would need huge huge amounts of quality stuff. So if I want to continue making Droids with maxed modules like I can right now, I would need to have far above average resources for EVERYTHING.
If you make one or two droids a week, it may not be much, but if you make more, it is going to hurt. I use about 300k Crappy steel a week, and about 100k good steel. What you are talking about means I would need 400k a week of good stuff. Plus Fibro, plus Ore, plus Copper and anything else that quality doesn't depend on now. Average just wont be good enough.
Both of you just pointed out the one thing that change to this system would affect the hardest. Being able to produce hundreds of droids a week. This actually hurts the profession overall. The ability for a single Droid Engineer to produce 100 to 200 Droids a week, on a single server, hurts the overall health of the entire profession. A single DE should not have the ability toproduceenough droids for50% of the population on one server. Don't the two of you realize that this is what you are debating for?
Out of all of the crafting professions, Droid Engineer lacks the most from a natural market balancing effect. Weaponsmiths and Armorsiths have resource quality which dictates the number of 'uber weapons' a single crafter can prodcue, as well as the single largest market (combat types). Tailors have shear number of items that they can produce. Chefs have a 100% consumable market. Architects and Shipwrights are balanced by the shear number of resources required to produce their goods.
Decay is only one part of the overall equation as to why the Droid market is shrinking. There appear to be less Master Droid Engineers now then ever before (from what I am seeing). Its not because of demand, since we see that people honestly want droids, by the number of people who ask each week. Its not because we don't produce items that people want. (see last item). It is in part because a single person has the ability to produce a lions share of the enitre market. This is the core of the problem for our profession, as a whole. In my opinion, this needs to be addressed before Decay and need can be dealt with.
I admit that the system that I'm suggestion here may not be the right way to go about it, but inorder for our profession, as a whole, to grow, the core experimentation system needs to be examined.
I sort of agree with what you are saying, but now you are turning this into Hand crafting over Mass Factory crafting.
I don't agree with your Weaponsmith and Armorsmith analogy though. First, they all use Subcomponants, in which experimentation doesn't matter at all. Second, the amount of resources that they use of quality is much much smaller then the scale of what you are suggesting here for us.Third they have a lot higher profit margin, they make more money because there is more need. Do you expect Droid prices to go up after this?
Ok, here is another reason why your proposal is wrong on a fundamental level. How many weapons and armor are made with total maxed stats? I'm talking 1000 stat resources for everything. None. People are not running around with them maxed, therefore, "the bar" for weapons and armor is who can make the best at good prices.
The problem is this, for the past year, people HAVE been running around with maxed droids, at least in things like HAM, Armor, and Modules. Yet even with the maxed values, the DE market isn't all that it could be. Now you want to make those maxed values harder to obtain? Shouldn't we be looknig at making Droids more viable, not making them worse in a customers eyes?
You said so yourself that there are less and less DE's out there. Sure I am busy, I sell probably 20-30 Droids a week, more or less. What is stopping somebody else from opening a location and selling the same droids as me? Work and resources. You can bash industrialists all you want, I spend a TON of time keeping my vendors stocked. It's just more work then most people are willing to do for the profit.
The second thing that stops other people from opening a vendor like mine is resources, quality ones. My Harvestors, Bombs, Combat are as good as you can get on the server. Don't be mistaken, if this change did go into affect, I would do the work, and continue to make the best Droids available. Keeping 100+ on my vendors. How much harder would it be for others to compete then? A lot, expecially the newer DE's.
Right now a newer DE can make money selling Med Droids, Entertainers, and Crafting droids. This change would make that even harder. Will they come buy Entertainer Droids with 6 modules from me, or with 5 modules from the new guy? My bet is me. You probably think I am a greedy monopoly guy. Actually the opposite is true, I help out new DE's all the time, with advice nd resources. In fact, I am getting low on Lidium ore from helping them.
All that you are doing is quadrupling the amount of work there is to being a DE without fixing our Need or Decay problems. Sure this is only a part of your fix, I'll wait ot see the rest, but from what I have seen so far, it seems to be way way more then what we need. It seems far more oriented towards making droids "cooler" and hand crafting, then increasing our market need.
Drashk wrote:
Straker_Atrella wrote:
Drashk wrote:
Ok Drashk, now I am annoyed. Some ideas, you and I agree on, some we don't. Yet is this sarcasm really needed?
First and foremost, my comments were not geared towards being sarcastic in any way. As I stated, I was boiling down the comments to their root form inorder to see where the issue with a change to the base experimentation was. I may have used the wrong words to do this, and I apologize for the misconception.
You are looking at Experimentaion only and nothing else. Architect needs a ton of resources, their quality needs to be Decent just not that high. Armorsmith needs a lot of Scout resources. Weaponsmith needs more named resources then we do. De's need a decent amount of named resources, decent amounts, need tons of subcomponants, and have a small resource market.
Each crafting profession is different in several ways. You are picking one and trying to match that without changing the others. For example if you were proposing your above changes, yet cutting our resource quality in half, that would be different, but you are not.
If you will note, I haven't even listed any numbers as to what would be changed. You are kind of jumping to conclusions here. You keep stating that everything would become worse, yet the only numbers that can be quoted are examples. The entire reason that I didn't post any numbers was so that the community could come up with them and discuss them.
Ok then, if resources needed were dropped by say 50%-75% then this would be more feasible, you shoudl have said so earlier. Everything becoming worse? Yes, I feel that way. I'm sorry, but I simply don't think the Devs will let us have 7 or 8 modules, I doubt our HAM will go up, nor will Armor levels.
So if nothing goes up, yet we need to have better resources to just hit current stats, that means we are on a treadmill running in place. We are working harder to achieve exactly the same thing we have now. Take a look at Droid Brains for example, if quality mattered on those, you would need Copper, Ore, Chemical, Gas, and Metal x2. Each of those would need to be 600+ in OQ and Conductivity to simple achieve the current standard. That is simply one subcomponant. Honestly 600 isn't that bad, yet for EVERYTHING?
You seme to have faith that the Devs will let us achieve better numbers then we have. I don't have that. So yes, massivly increasing droid complexity and work is making things worse IMO.
The truth is Drashk, you love Droids, you love the intricacies and complexity of them. You want them to be as "cool" and complicated as possible. You don't care about money, you just want droids to be diverse and fun. This has been your agenda, for a long time.
Agenda? I think you are confusing me trying to promote a better health of the profession by bringing about discussion with something that I want to see done. If I was interested in pushing an agenda, I would be posting all of these ideas on the Correspondents forum, which is something that I have not done, and will not do, at least not without first having approval by the community.
Ok maybe agenda was a bad word, my back was kind of up, because I did take your above comments as insults.
I admit that the number of credits that I sale a droid for is not as important at the sale of the droid itself. Should that not be the goal of someone who is here to promote the overall health of an entire profession?
No it shouldn't. Seriously.
The way that you gauge the value of a product in an MRPG is how much people are willing to pay for it. Value determines what a product is worth. The fact that normal Armor sells for 300k over nad over again, a good T21 sells for a million show their value.
The only TRUE way to ensure that DE is a healthy profession is by ensuring that it has a healthy place in the economy. Having fun crafting, feeling good giving droids away, and just digging droids in general does not mean a profession is healthy.
The only true way to gauge if a crafting profession is by seeing how CUSTOMERS feel about it. As a DE, our view is skewed, by our love of the profession, so we want to make things the way WE want it, not what is good for the game neccesarrily. Good for the game is how it will affect our customers.
If DE will ever be considered "healthy" as you said, then a good DE will make as much as a good AS or WS. Credits are the only true gauge of success.
This change would give the customers nothing. Quite possibly the opposite, Droids may get worse. Yet at the same time, DE's need to work harder to make Droids that are just as good as before. Skewing our profit vs time ratio even further. This is bad for business.
I'm sure many of you think I am a greedy money hungry personI am not. All I am saying is that the "Credit" is the only scale that we haveto judge what customers feel our product is worth.