Droid Engineer Archive

Good lord!! I couldn't agree more with ror. To think I nearly droppeda treefrom master artisan to free up skill pts for MDE. Forget about it. That would be foolish. The vehicle sales and electronics component sales alone are more worth my while than these new droids.

Those of you who slam Ror for claiming that "everybody loves" the new droids, are either newbs or actually born on the day before today. Can you ever recall any patch that didn't introduce some new feature that everyone went Ape-shi* over despite its little to no practical advantage over existing features?? If you need proof, look at the AV-21 speeder, ok so it has swoop speed with no slowdown for terrain, correct? SO WHAT??? I have never gone anywhere that my swoop actually slowed down to a point where I could even NOTICE it. Maybe if you go head-on into the cliffs and canyonsides of dathomir, maybe then. So does that little inconvenience make AV-21's worth millions of credits??? If you think so, then you are less than smart. People love them because they are NEW and relatively rare and noobs will think they are cool and will ask them how they got one and will be impressed that they could afford a million credit swoop.

The new droids and their instant "popularity" are nothing more than this. It's called the honeymoon-effect. Please tell me you people aren't that naive. The only assesment that is made that i can disagree with is the ad barker one, for die-hard crafters, or players with a crafting dedicated alt, this droid allows you to use your character to actually handle issues maybe even work on a combat proffession like TK, instead of wasting time spamming coronet just to keep your business growing. As a master merchant i could really use one of these so i dont have to spam myself during peak hours and can actually play during those hours.

I was thinking the survey and scout droids would be a godsend, because planet hopping for resources takes hours to find what you may need at a suitable density on suitable terrain. If the resource rarity issue is as Ror put it, then FAR better results should be granted by these one-use droids. they should deliver a waypoint to, say 50% minimmum density, that way we still have to hunt for the worthwhile densities but will get a head start on the hunt as a result of expending a pain-in-the-ass-to-craft droid.

As for the scouting droid......HOOORAAYY!!! I thought to myself as a master doc /rifleman with no scouting skills, now i can finally harvest my own avian meat by bringing one of these droids along!! Ummmmmmmm....no I can't. I still have to be a scout. THEN WHAT IS THE FREAKING BENEFIT HERE???? This is equivalent to requiring all of us to have explore 4's terrain negotiation mods in order to ride a speeder over hills without it bogging down to a crawl!!! NONSENSE

Our friend here at Noid mechanics has done all of us a great service by getting the no-crap truth out about these droids his assesments may not be 100% true to each and every single player, as I pointed out about the merchant module, but as far as rule-of-thumbs go, he is quite right and I applaud this thread. As a whole, the benefits do not outweigh thecosts in skill points or resources to make/use these droidsThanks for stopping me from wasting skill points on a DE trees, i think I'll keep them right in Master artisan where people can get legitimate use out of what I make, rather than cash in on the latest novelty.

---

Binstubbs wrote:

So what? BE's were selling crap kaadu's for millions of credits and were selling out when the mount patch came out. I refer you to the paragraph about the "honey-moon" effect, and how it applies to new features such as the new speeder and our new "useful" droids.The peopleI refer to as noobs are those who are selling the droids, and think they are selling out of them because they are soo great. I made my point concerning this fallacy in assessment of our new droid modules fairly clearly, and in 2 (maybe 3 weeks if you're lucky), you'll see how right I am. Go poll some BE's and find out how many low-level kaadu mounts they sell out at 100k+, much less millions

---

The BE's lost a market because of speeders. Direct competition for them.

But let me tell you something, Im also a BE with my alt and I get tells asking for mounts. It may not be as frequent from when mounts were introduced, but I do make them. However, as I said, the market for mounts may not be as it was before because of vehicles doing direct competition.

Droids however, dont have a direct competition, and the need for them will remain. There is always as you say a "honey-moon" effect when new things come into the game, but the after effect will not be something that will make our droids be an after thought. Right now im working so hard to make droids I find it a burden. I WANT that "honey-moon" effect to pass so that I can at least have my vendor stocked well and not have people coming over and I would have to take adv droid brains out of my as$!

Im also a Master Chef, and when we had our revamp, there was a bunch of people on the chef forumwho thought it wasnt up to their standards... yet after all this time, anyone who would say the Chef revampwas a"flop" as some would say it or a"nurf"will not have many people agreeing with them because time has passed any many have personally benefited greatly from the new foods. Same thing is happening here.

I was thinking the survey and scout droids would be a godsend, because planet hopping for resources takes hours to find what you may need at a suitable density on suitable terrain. If the resource rarity issue is as Ror put it, then FAR better results should be granted by these one-use droids. they should deliver a waypoint to, say 50% minimmum density, that way we still have to hunt for the worthwhile densities but will get a head start on the hunt as a result of expending a pain-in-the-ass-to-craft droid.

They are NOT one use droids, mine come out to 13 uses. I dont find it a pain to craft.. maybe my factory is complaining but not me, I just sit back. At least I feel I did something complex.. as droids should be. But thats just how I feel.

As for the scouting droid......HOOORAAYY!!! I thought to myself as a master doc /rifleman with no scouting skills, now i can finally harvest my own avian meat by bringing one of these droids along!! Ummmmmmmm....no I can't. I still have to be a scout. THEN WHAT IS THE FREAKING BENEFIT HERE???? This is equivalent to requiring all of us to have explore 4's terrain negotiation mods in order to ride a speeder over hills without it bogging down to a crawl!!! NONSENSE

Scouts and Rangers would feel a wee bit ticked off it we gave an innate scouting ability to anyone without the need to spend in skill points. Wouldnt you agree?I mean itsprobably their biggest source of income. The benefits to a scout are:

1. you dont have to walk up to the corpse to harvest, great for ranged folks like yourself!


2. the droid gives a bonus to harvest (gets more than you)


3. you can tell the droid to harvest while you are fighting something else. You have no idea how I love this, than having to peace to have to harvest quickly before the corpse dissapears.

/mood sarcastic

Heck why dont we just throw the whole skill point system out and give everyone a droid for each profession instead!

Im following TK and leaving this thread

/bye!

Message Edited by neinnunb on 05-01-2004 04:18 PM

                          .=+.             ------------------
                  \`--._,'.::.`._.--'/   _/ May the CU       \
Acktu - Sunrunner   .  ` __::__ '  .   _/ \ be with you      /
Beta 3, JTL,          -:.`'..`'.:-         ------------------
ROTW & TOW Beta tester  \ `--' /
                          `--'

Scouts and Rangers would feel a wee bit ticked off it we gave an innate scouting ability to anyone without the need to spend in skill points. Wouldnt you agree?I mean itsprobably their biggest source of income. The benefits to a scout are:

1. you dont have to walk up to the corpse to harvest, great for ranged folks like yourself!
   
2. the droid gives a bonus to harvest (gets more than you)
   
3. you can tell the droid to harvest while you are fighting something else. You have no idea how I love this, than having to peace to have to harvest quickly before the corpse dissapears.

/mood sarcastic

DE's get the money NOW, sell al lthe droids you possibly can. Because they ARE mostly crap & the newness WILL wear off REAL SOON. When that inevitably happens, your business is going down the toilet. Well, not like it was before, god forbid, but face facts: at least half these new modules are indeed junk. Dummies will go "wow" & buy them TEMPORARILY. But like ALL new things, this will wear off & your sales WILL drop drastically once people wise up. FACT.

The survey droids are garbage. That is simply the way it is. They are not worth the materials to make.

Ditto harvesting droids. The original poster was right...get a combat droid in both these cases. I bet you I can use a COMBAT droid, harvest & leave the lair & start a new one as fast as a dummy who is fiddling with a stupid harvesting droid can clear the lair 75%. So far, that's been the case. I know why they require Scout skills (as they SHOULD)...but it should make a scout WITH the droid better at harvesting than one without. And that just IS NOT the case. Let's hope the Devs learn that fact & make them better.

Ditto the Stim droids. They should require med skills, just make the medic better than a medic without the droid. Right now, that medic would be a better contributor to the group's success (let alone solo) if he just had a combat droid.

The ONE thing the initial poster was NOT correct about is the Entertainer droids. They RULE. Everyone loves them & for good reason. They don't screw a profession & make someone able to use a droid to replace profession skills. Which would be MORONIC in every single case. But they DO allow the professions to do what they do, BETTER, at less cost to themselves. They help optimise the professions & let you do effects that cost too much Action to bother with normally, but that are still great & desirable. Too bad the Devs only allowed that in this one, INTANGIBLE case.

This patch was a great start but only that: a start. I WANT DE's to make good money & have sales. But wouldn't you rather it be from selling VALUABLE stuff, instead of a fad that is doomed to die off REAL quick, like the situation IS INDEED now? Hint: in a month, people will laugh if you say "buy some survey droids!" or "this droid can use Stim A's!". They're crap. I want & expect better & rather than DE's sticking their heads in the sand & trying pathetically to convince themselves it's all soothingly ok....demand more. There droids are all great ideas & ALMOST do the trick. Just not quite.

Nothing a patch or two can't fix. And hey...where's the Image Designer droid? =)

---

Ninja007 wrote:

The survey droids are garbage. That is simply the way it is. They are not worth the materials to make.

Speak for yourself. I know they have already saved me quite a bit of time/money, and I don't even do much resource harvesting. The only complaint I've heard about them is the survey tool use, other than that they are saving people huge amounts of time/money.

Ditto harvesting droids. The original poster was right...get a combat droid in both these cases. I bet you I can use a COMBAT droid, harvest & leave the lair & start a new one as fast as a dummy who is fiddling with a stupid harvesting droid can clear the lair 75%. So far, that's been the case. I know why they require Scout skills (as they SHOULD)...but it should make a scout WITH the droid better at harvesting than one without. And that just IS NOT the case. Let's hope the Devs learn that fact & make them better.

Actually, that IS the case. A scout with a high level harvesting droid will harvest more than a scout without one.

Ditto the Stim droids. They should require med skills, just make the medic better than a medic without the droid. Right now, that medic would be a better contributor to the group's success (let alone solo) if he just had a combat droid.

You can get these droids to heal you for easily 1000 HAM for every heal a medic can get you. What people don't see is the speed of these things, 1 second delay? get some 100 heal stim A's and you've got yourself something thats easily better at healing than someone with novice medic.

The ONE thing the initial poster was NOT correct about is the Entertainer droids. They RULE. Everyone loves them & for good reason. They don't screw a profession & make someone able to use a droid to replace profession skills. Which would be MORONIC in every single case. But they DO allow the professions to do what they do, BETTER, at less cost to themselves. They help optimise the professions & let you do effects that cost too much Action to bother with normally, but that are still great & desirable. Too bad the Devs only allowed that in this one, INTANGIBLE case.

This patch was a great start but only that: a start. I WANT DE's to make good money & have sales. But wouldn't you rather it be from selling VALUABLE stuff, instead of a fad that is doomed to die off REAL quick, like the situation IS INDEED now? Hint: in a month, people will laugh if you say "buy some survey droids!" or "this droid can use Stim A's!". They're crap. I want & expect better & rather than DE's sticking their heads in the sand & trying pathetically to convince themselves it's all soothingly ok....demand more. There droids are all great ideas & ALMOST do the trick. Just not quite.

I think your wrong, guess we'll see in a month.

Nothing a patch or two can't fix. And hey...where's the Image Designer droid? =)

---

Detonation Module: This module mounts in any droid, but the droid is destroyed upon activation.
Unfortunately, you need multiuple modules to do any real damage, so you still have to purchase an
expensive droid (that will only be used once). With six modules (the maximum) it can give up to a
single 1500-damage area effect. Droid announces to all a 3 second countdown and will be disarmed
if it is incapped in this time. This module requires Novice Smuggler or Novice Bouty Hunter to use. Since
it does less damage than a single special attack from either of these professions, there really isn't much
point. Don't waste your money. Our Evaluation: ALMOST worthless.

---

Binstubbs wrote:

So what? BE's were selling crap kaadu's for millions of credits and were selling out when the mount patch came out. I refer you to the paragraph about the "honey-moon" effect, and how it applies to new features such as the new speeder and our new "useful" droids.The peopleI refer to as noobs are those who are selling the droids, and think they are selling out of them because they are soo great. I made my point concerning this fallacy in assessment of our new droid modules fairly clearly, and in 2 (maybe 3 weeks if you're lucky), you'll see how right I am. Go poll some BE's and find out how many low-level kaadu mounts they sell out at 100k+, much less millions

---

You can not expect to get a skill for free in any manner whatsoever. I'm pleased with the harvesting droid, as my alt is a Master Rifleman/Ranger. I don't have to run in to harvest and back out to attack again now, plus I get a harvesting bonus. No more running back and forth unless I need to loot the creature as well...

Just because I have a five-axis autolathe does not give me the ability of a CNC Machinist, nor would I expect a non-Artisan to be able to use a planetary survey droid (lets not forget the eating of the survey tools, either....I finally havea reason to do factory runs of tools).

The utility droids do exactly what we needed them to do, which is provide a useful utility to professions that make them useful. Now, I'm not 100% happy with how some of the ideas were implemented, nor am I happy that every droid I've made with a level 3 structure maintainence module not only doesn't show the module in the data, but won't maintain my structures.....

But things are a lot better than they were

---

Rorrlancca wrote:

I respect the opinion of TK and the others, even when I disagree with them. I'm willing to give up sales to do what I think is right, and I think my customers respect me for that. If I'm wrong, I'll lose some business that may go to my competitors. Such is the way of capitalism. If I'm right, my competitors will lose business because they will have jeopardized their relationship with their customers. Either way, I've taken the only stand that I can, given my honest, thoughtful opinions.

Regards to you all, and best of luck!

Rorr

---

So if we sell the droids that have been implemented, we aren't doing the "right thing"?

Please.

We aren't taking money from little children's mouths here, and to suggest that we are scamming people by selling them the products the game gives us to is streching, to say the least. No one is in poverty here, unless they choose to be (there is nothing noble about being poor...), most people are dying for something to spend their money on, and even the slightest functionality is worth it to them.

This is a silly argument - the people that say that all these modules are useless are the same guys who CAN'T or WON'T sell anything.

Those of us who are selling them are having good experiences...those that aren't bothering aren't.

I wonder who is more informed?

All I know is my business is 90% combat droids, and I get almost universal thumbs up on those - and because of huge demand I've been forced to carry certain utility modules and as soon as I put up five harvest droids for sale they are sold and at least one of those person is in a guild/city, and as soon as they try it out (and see the tangible benefit before their eyes) they want more of them.

Again, some of these modules are crap - some of them are quite nice.

You don't even understand them. You say, that all the Harvest droid can do for you is replace a macro - newsflash - it gives a bonus to the harvest of like 20-40%. As someone said above, for a serious organic harvester they can pay for that droid in hours just in increased volume. Even at just 20%, that's an extra harvest for every five. That adds up when you are doing large animals and harvesting meat that sells for 10-20cpu to doctors.

It's clear that the people who are crying foul here haven't even tried out the droids or really know anything about them.

It's sad - for you guys. The rest of us are having the best time we've ever had in SWG as Droid Engineers.

Oh well. I'm not going to waste any more of my time trying to convince you to havea blast like the rest of us - I've got millions to make before I sleep, and dozens of customers to make happy to finally have something new and useful to them to spend their credits on. When someone purchases a product, goes out and uses it for several hours and returns to buy more identical copies - they must be getting some value out of it, or they must have so many credits they don't care. In either case, everyone wins - except for you guys.

You said you have customers buying combat droids from you because you are so "up front with them", well, I'm up front and honest with my customers as well - I have four very detailed email guides I send out and always answer all questions - and they are buying both kinds of droids from me and leaving and returning to thank me. Want me to post some of the mails?

Finally, I hope those customers that you sent away with wrong information about the harvest droid found a DE that actually understoodthe productand knew what they were doing - it would be a shame for someone to not use droids because an uninformed DE who hadn't even made the product (and if you did, didn't understand it) yet thinks they have enough information to bash it.

AO