Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: The Consensus On Combat Droids -- POLL SUMMARY
OuterDarkness wrote:
Answering the questions on this survey reminded of the old old question..
"So have you stopped beating your wife?"
Not the kind of question you can answer with Yes or no.
And then there is the bit with control and sample population and standard deviations...
Actually, it was worse than that. At least the above question has a proper answer if you aren't easily mislead. (The answer is no becauseyou can't stop beating your wife if you never started.)
I believe I mentioned at the time that the poll was awfully leading, and even though I appreciate Sodan's attempt to gather information I am bothered by the fact that it is being presented to the Devs as our concensus. I'm further bothered by Sodan's reaction to very legitimate complaints about his methods even if those complaints were perhaps presented a bit too aggressively.
Sorry, but I'm not seeing where he put words in your mouth. You asked one question but answered a different one and nowhere did you make it completely clear that that's what you were doing. Worse, it's very easy to misinterpret your summary of point #5 so that it sounds like there is consensus for a DE-only combat droid.Those arepretty objectionable actions by a supposedly unbiased poll-taker, so I think that you should be giving him some slack.
Furthermore, presenting your summary as a consensus is incorrect anyway. Many people do not agree with the results of the poll, so regardless of majority there is no consensus. And as some have posted here, there were people who did not "vote" simply because the original poll was so leading.
The devs aren't going to be able to do this the easy way. Our profession is so screwed up that, frankly, they're going to have to dig deep into our forums to even get a partial view of community opinion. I don't believe that we can present a clear summary - Thunderheart is just going to have to bite the bullet and spend several hours reading the first several pages of posts.
Kollos wrote:
Furthermore, presenting your summary as a consensus is incorrect anyway. Many people do not agree with the results of the poll, so regardless of majority there is no consensus. And as some have posted here, there were people who did not "vote" simply because the original poll was so leading.
You know, you're right. I was trying to build something, to see if there were any points where, say, many, no, most people agreed. For a while, given the number of people who voiced their opinions -- with explanitory comments in many cases -- I began to believe that there was a majority consensus to many of these points, having personally tallied them. But after you anda few others (totalling a small fraction of the poeple who actually took the time to vote instead of just naysaing) voiced your concerns, I have decided that there is no consensus: Nobody agrees on anything.
Are we happy now?
/endsarcasm
The following things are true:
The Official DE Plan and its references to DE-only combat-modules loaded into protocol droids, etc., is agiant flop with the DE community. NOBODY WANTS THIS, DEVS. However, there is consensus for new combat droid chassis that we can make and sell. There isconsensus in favor ofa game-balancing system (such as, but not limited to certs)for new and powerful combat droids. The consensus is that DEs should be able to use all the droids that they can make, except for class-specific droids such as BH-droids.There is consensus -- with a vocal minority --that DEs should get some kind of "special" DE-only perk such as a DE-only droid chassis, DE-only features or modules, or an extra combat droid. The consensus is also that DEs should get droidekas somehow.
You wanna refute that most people believe this, fine: start your own poll. And if the results prove contrary to what I have found based on the numbers, I'll gladly have that submitted to the devs. Hell, part of the whole reason for the poll was to move past this and onto other issues, but here we are, mired by the vocal minority.
It really irks me how some people just want to tear things down all the time. Build something up fora change. Don't just kick back and knock the efforts of others. I challenge each of you who challenged my methodology or the results of the poll to refute my findings. I will stand by your findings and /sign them happily if the results are contrary.
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
You wanna refute that most people believe this, fine: start your own poll. And if the results prove contrary to what I have found based on the numbers, I'll gladly have that submitted to the devs. Hell, part of the whole reason for the poll was to move past this and onto other issues, but here we are, mired by the vocal minority.
Sodan, the point is that your "findings" are misleading and tainted due to the leading questions you used in your "research."
The problem here is that your poll was leading and the summary was biased. Particularly with regard to point #5, you asked one question but answered a different one.
And now you refer to me as the "vocal minority." Presumably you include me in that same group in your summary as well. However, I am most definitely NOT part of the alleged "vocal minority" you refer to in your summary. Yet another reason that your poll and summary are tainted and should not be used to represent the Droid Engineer community as a whole.
The longer this drags out the more I distrust your poll and its results. Rather than addressing the issues presented, you flame away. It's starting to seem rather clear that this whole poll and summary was just another attempt to further your own agenda, because if that was not the case then I would think you would be less reactionary with your responses.
Kitsunetsuki wrote:
I trust that [the devs] will get a balanced picture by reading the primary results, and Sodan ought to feel the same, even if he thinks they will arrive at a different conclusion, so that should be the best solution for everyone.
I'm not into the business of guessing what conclusions the devs will come to in fact I have stressed all along (see the original posting) that the dissent's voice should also be heard. But, yes, I'd be thrilled if they read the poll thread and came to their own conclusions. That's been the whole point all long: Get the devs info about how the DE community feels and have them use that to sculpt the future of the profession.
I felt a poll was a good way to accomplish those goal since, as is exemplified in this thread, general consensus can appear to be over-shadowed bya vocal dissent. Read the poll thread yourselves, you'll see there are many points of agreement.
I never said this was an official poll.I never said I was un-biased -- I voted too. In fact I said that the poll was unscientific and that my numbers were loosely tallied. The points were gathered from themes I saw in many threads. My point on the DE-only perk is that 1) clear but not overwhelming majoritysupports DE-only droids, 2) an additional number of people support DE-only perks such as modules or extra droids.I did not set out to find consensus on this larger point. However, it became apparant through peoples' responses thata substantial majority favors some manner of DE-only perk such as special droids, features/modules or extra droids. Like it or not, this is a point of agreement by many folks. I think that conclusion is an excellent point of departure for more info-gathering which I had planned to do. Perhaps a poll on what DE-only perk people prefer, for example.I frankly don't think its worth the effort given some of the responses here. I know it bums a lot of you out, but if the devs throw in any of the DE-only perks or their equivalents, I'll be tickled pink. And I know a lot of DEs and even non-DEs who will be too.
Anyway, I stand by my overall summary of the consensus on combat droids and I appreciate your reply, Kitsunetsuki.
Kollos wrote:
Sodan, the point is that your "findings" are misleading and tainted due to the leading questions you used in your "research."
The gaunlet has been thrown down, man: Do your own poll in the manner you think is most fair and appropriate. I will vote in your poll and encourage all others too as well and if the results are contrary to the general points of agreement I found in my pollI will back you in submitting it to the devs. It's time for some action on your part.
I'm not so stubborn as to change my mind when presented with more information. Lets see YOU produce it. How do you respond to the challenge?
/applaud-again to Sodan
What we really need is Sintrosi to respond.
SINTROSI GIVE US THE LOVE! 
Sintrosi wrote:
Thanks Sodan -- I am going to copy this to the Correspondent board.
Woot! Thankya, thankya!
2 mins after I post asking for Sintrosi she comes!
Coincidence? Or do I have magical powers?
/wish [Million RL dollars and my FSC] !!!!!
...................................................
/cry
As I have said before, Sodan, these polls are useless. Even if I were qualified to create an unbiased poll (and I am most definitely NOT qualified to do so - there are entire companies devoted to creating such polls), it would still be useless because of the self-selected nature of the forum participants. I wasn't joking when I said that we cannot present a consensus response to the Devs because in this environment it is virtually impossible to create consensus.
In all seriousness, as I have already said, the only way the Devs are going to get any sort of reasonable picture of this community's collective opinion is for them to take the time to actually read this forum. There is no shortcut for them because there are simply too many issues and too many opinions. Our profession is screwed up far beyond the point where a couple of opinion polls will be able to gather and summarize an adequate amount of information. That's why I oppose these polls - no matter how you present them they are inadequate, biased, and do not present the collective opinion of this community. Get the Devs in here to read so that they can understand as many of the issues as possible - they screwed us up in the first place, they owe it to us to at least read what we have to say.
And I stress this community. The silent majority of players who have chosen not to respond, or the even larger silent majority of players who do not frequent these boards, will likely never be heard without intervention from the Devs using a required-responsein-game poll.
Kollos wrote:
As I have said before, Sodan, these polls are useless. Even if I were qualified to create an unbiased poll (and I am most definitely NOT qualified to do so - there are entire companies devoted to creating such polls), it would still be useless because of the self-selected nature of the forum participants. I wasn't joking when I said that we cannot present a consensus response to the Devs because in this environment it is virtually impossible to create consensus.
I gotcha on this; but it's not anything I hadn't cognated before. I've covered news polls and statistics as a journalist before and know a few things about the art of taking them.That's why polls on news websites for example are highly innacurate: the voters are self-selected and don't represent a broader swath of people. If SOE wanted to do it right, they'd have a private company do it so they could take the right representative and random sample of users, etc.
These things did not escape me since I've given them thought and reported on them before. However, my poll was never intended to be a scientific poll. I never claimed to be unbiased. Click on my username and scan my posts -- my opinion is out there. It was merely a tool for getting info about people's take in this forum on issues that appeared to be very contentious, but in reality were not.
Are the questions leading? Yes, the questionswere calculated at finding broad areas of agreement based on areas of agreement that I believed, and this poll confirmed, already existed. (Guess, what people? Most DEs want to be able to use all the droids they can make except for profession-specific droids and droid functions). I read LOTS of posts on these issues, almost all of them. And I used those postings as the basis for my poll questions. The whole premise of the poll was that there were points that we already agreed on. As I said in the intro "I think there are lots of points we agree on, and perhaps we can list those and say we have a disagreement on the remaining points ... and we can then just punt to the Devs so they make the final call with our collective feedback." But even though the questions were couched the way they were, you could still disagree and say no and many people did.
I think we should use the information we gained -- read it yourself -- as a point of departure. For example, although there afew who disagree, most people recognize that a game balaning system, possibly a cert system, is probably appropriate for new and powerful droids. I think its time to move the debate from the general points onwhich we agree to the specifics, aka what game balance system would be most pallatable. Better to proceed with the debate and consensus building than throw up our hands and say "this is useless, it's not a representative sample."
The challenge is still there for those who would take it up: craft a better poll (even if it is bound by the constraints of being posted here) and we'll take the tally again. If you don't like my questions, think that my bias skewed the results, then lets see what you have to offer. I will stand by your fair and honest results! Otherwise, please lets move on. (Hopefully, SOE will post "official" polls, BTW, that would be awesome)
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
Your attitude is just plain jank. I told you my numbers were not perfect. I told you it wasn't a scientific poll. I never said this was an official poll. Then you spit this bile as if I've said otherwise.Sadly, you're not gonna change the fact that the people who want a special DE-only perk are in the majority with your vehemance. This is precisely why I took the time to take this poll: to put trolls like you in yourproportionate perspective.
You're right, you never said it was an official poll, but when someone calls for their poll to be forwarded to the Devs I take it as an indication that they feel their numbers represent the majority.
What's really sad here is that I'm not opposed to a DE-only Droid, but I'm vehemantly opposed to it being a Combat Droid. There are plenty of other ways they could help us out then by giving us a combat Droid.
Many people added additional comments. Although I started trying to canvas opinion on a DE-only droid, it became apparent by reading people's comments that there are lots of people who favor some manner of DE-only perk. I am one of those people: give us droidekas to sell, droideka advanced with special features for DEs only. You can try to narrow the consensus, split hairs on the vote count, but you're not gonna change the fact that the majority of people who responded to the poll favor some manner of DE-only perk such special chassis, modules/features, or additional combat droids.
I'm not trying to "narrow the consensus", I'm simply trying to make sure the numbers reflect the original question. I'm sorry if you have a problem with that. The original question dealt with DE-only Combat Droids, and although many people may have added comments about other types of DE-only perks, they are outside the scope of the question. A responsible poller would have taken the actual results and posed a new poll with questions designed to find out just what types of DE-only perks people may be interested in. Instead you just lumped them all together below the heading of question 5, which is a terrible misrepresentation.
Rather than lament your loss in the marketplace of ideas, you should cherish it and move on. Pull the ol' Spock "needs of the many" attitude. It will help your ulcer.
Finally, as for the limited reach of this forum and its ability to gather DE-consenus: No shizzit sherlock. Not every DE in the universe trolls here as you do; not every DE voted in the poll. There's an old saying among the Robert's Rules of Order crowd, however, that might work well here: The meeting is decided by those who show up.
No ulcer here. And certainly not a troll. Just because I'm passionate about my concept of the DE profession doesn't make me a Troll. We all have reasons for wanting what we want. I have very logical reasons to want to keep DE a strict crafting profession with no chance that someone will only climb DE to get some special combat perk (whether it is better than something else available or not). Just because I call your results into question and disagree with your opinions doesn't give you the right to label me that way.