Droid Engineer Archive

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
To make it short, our Droid Correspondent got the DEV's all convinced that all us Droid Engineers were in favor of a Droid Commander profession. Then when they started acting on what our correspondent told them, they got a major backlash from the DE community and found out that our correspondent feed them his opinion instead of representing the community. Alternatives to the Droid Commander were proposed:

ROFLMAO... you're either lying or you're so totally clueless that you're laughable. Drashk argued against the Droid Handler profession in the Correspondent forums - which we all know for a fact due to the Dev's slip-up that allowed everyone to be the Entertainer Correspondent for a brief period. He told the Devs flat-out that if they implemented a Droid Handler profession that at least 85% of Droid Engineers would be up in arms. Turns out his estimate was low. The Devs went forward with Droid Handler anyway, and Drashk was proved correct.

It wasn't until after the DH fiasco that Drashk started to believe that it was the right idea all along. But you'd have had to have been paying attention in order to know that, which you clearly weren't.

2. Add droid controlling as a branch of the existing DE profession - Second most popular - DEV's never even replied or even acknowledge it at all. No explaination why by the DEV (shut up pure crafties) as to why this hasnt been considered. Would have allowed non-crafters to invest some skill in the artisan and droid engineering profession in order to control better than CL10 combat droids. Also allows Master droid engineers to control the strongest combat droids and gives them the flexibilty to do more than just pure crafting with their DE skills.

It is impractical for a couple of reasons, whether you want to hear them or not. The Devs don't want a clone of Creature Handler, which has already proven to be problematic. Furthermore, they can't simply add high level combat droids to the existing Droid Engineer profession because that would be unbalanced - Droid Engineers are already full-fledged crafters, so they would have to give up something in order to receive combat abilities like high level combat droids. They've stated very clearly that no higher level combat droids are going to be added to the game without the expenditure of ADDITIONAL time, experience, and skill points. Adding these droids to the Droid Engineer profession does not accomplish this requirement, and that's why it's not going to happen.

3. Droid Command - Least popular - Seems to be the one the correspondent and the DEV's still intend to ram down our throats against our better judgement and wishes.

If you want high level combat droids, unfortunately some form ofDroid Commander (aka Droid Handler)is the most practical option. It allows the Devs to balance the combat abilities of new high level combat droids against the time, experience, and skill points required to use them.

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Quite lying Kollos. The DEV's have never stated any position at all and have never commented whatsoever about putting droid control in the existing DE profession. Your putting words in their mouths that they have never said. Your so rabid about protecting your pure crafter position, that your stating your position and your opinions as if your repeating the official DEV's position which has never been stated.

There's one reason why you and the rest of the pure crafters are so protectionist and so intolerant of any possible role or style of player of the DE profession except pure crafting. That is because you have an extreme fear of some of the power players that might take an interest in the profession. Your position is based on cowardice. You know such players can run you out of business if they decide to take up crafting. If it wasn't for that, you wouldn't have a reason to care if your fellow DE's used the combat droids they build or not. There's a small group of very loud pure crafter here trying to drive the direction of the DE profession based on their own selfish protectionist objectives. Because in reality, weither or not droid control is part of DE is completely irrelevant to their style of play. But because of their cowardice, they are screaming and yelling to get any other style of playing the DE profession eliminated so the power gamers they fear wont come to the profession. I have no respect for them or for you Kollos.

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Unbelievable. Someone disagrees with your point of view, and therefore they are cowards? How mature.

Look, a good percentage of DEs have no interest in combat. A lot of us have combat skills, but most of our skill points are dedicated to Master Artisan and Droid Engineering. That said, we knew what we were getting in to when we took up the profession. We didn't become DEs so that we could be "uber leet doods," we did it to make and sell droids.

Now if you have a problem with that, that's your perogative. But don't come in here saying that 85% of the community is wrong just because you want your very special droideka for you and you alone.

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Quite lying Kollos. The DEV's have never stated any position at all and have never commented whatsoever about putting droid control in the existing DE profession. Your putting words in their mouths that they have never said. Your so rabid about protecting your pure crafter position, that your stating your position and your opinions as if your repeating the official DEV's position which has never been stated.

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
To make it short, our Droid Correspondent got the DEV's all convinced that all us Droid Engineers were in favor of a Droid Commander profession. Then when they started acting on what our correspondent told them, they got a major backlash from the DE community and found out that our correspondent feed them his opinion instead of representing the community. Alternatives to the Droid Commander were proposed:

1. Cert System - Most popular - DEV's killed this one as unbalanced and not possible to resolve.

2. Add droid controlling as a branch of the existing DE profession - Second most popular - DEV's never even replied or even acknowledge it at all. No explaination why by the DEV (shut up pure crafties) as to why this hasnt been considered. Would have allowed non-crafters to invest some skill in the artisan and droid engineering profession in order to control better than CL10 combat droids. Also allows Master droid engineers to control the strongest combat droids and gives them the flexibilty to do more than just pure crafting with their DE skills.

3. Droid Command - Least popular - Seems to be the one the correspondent and the DEV's still intend to ram down our throats against our better judgement and wishes.

But seems that the DEV's bowed up their backs and decided to give us CL10 combat droids to spite us for objections to the Droid Commander profession and our refusal to accept a model that has already proven itself a failure in its first implementation in other professions.

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You really need to take a look around and read up on your issues. You might actually want to go back about 4 months and even read a few posts made by Sintrosi about the subject of 'possible futures'. It was a burried post, but anyone that has really paid attention to the Droid Engineer forum and has been around for some time would be able to at least point you in the right direction.

I will however clue you in on something that could get me a reprimand, if it is considered a breach of ethics to post on something that was mentioned months ago in the Correspondents forum, which you, Arden, will more than likely report so that you can get me removed from the Correspondents program and find someone who supports your best interests, instead of the Communities. The DEVs werelooking intoturning DE into a hybrid combat profession way back in Sintrosi's day and even made comment about it to Sintrosi. (This is what I was refering to earlier.) Over the course of months, the Community made it clear to the DEVs that they did not wish to become a hybrid profession, due to the ramifications of doing so. As time went on, the DEVs made plans to change the combat system and also listened to the Communities comments and decided to move the course of action towards a Droid Commander profession that would actually be a better balanced system then to create a hybrid that would result in another dabbling profession that Creature Handler was. So, to say that I was the one who was trying to push my own personal views is an out right lie, especially considering that there was hint of this quite a while before I even took up the Correspondents position.

To further back this up, I actually proposed 2 different Cert systems on this fourm that found rather good feedback from the community. One of which was posted before I stated my personal opinions on the DC issue. The last Community proposal that I made was actually a bit of a compromise and would have allowed DE the ability to control slightly more powerful droids, a Cert System and a mini profession. In my first week as Correspondent, I informed the DEVs that the majority of the DE community wanted to stay the profession that they signed up for and that the Droid Handler profession would ultimately piss off a vast majority of the community, but don't take my word for it. Ask the dozens of 'Entertainer Correspondents' that have read the post.

You are entitled to your own opinion, but at least get the facts straight and actually do a little reading into the matter. I only support the Droid Commander profession because it keeps Droid Engineer the profession that 3000+ people have chosen to play (yes there are at least 3k people that play DE believe it or not).

I have read dozens of suggests from the same hand full of people trying to justify turning DE into a hybrid profession and I have yet to see one rational example of why this should happen, when compared to the other game mechanics and professions. Here are a fewthings that need to be digested by everyone.

1. The prerequistes of an existing profession can not be increased.Once the game was launched, the prereqs could not be changed due to the impact that any change could have. The only possible way that the prereqs could theoritically be changed would be to drop everyone from that profession to initiate the new prereqs. That would more than likely result in hundreds of thousands of XP being lost by hundreds of DE.


2. The DEVs are not going to base a hybrid combat profession completely off of crafting XP. In order to add a droid handling ability to DE there would need to be a XP cost that was in line with the combat abilities. This is where the problem begins. Where do you put the Droid Combat XP requirement? Do you base it on one tree in DE, which would result in thousands of people picking up DE just to get a huge combat advantage, like they were doing in the pre-CH nerf days, or do you spread the handler ability out over the entire profession and add in Droid Combat XP requirements through out? Any route you take in trying to add combat ability to a crafting profession would result in some kind of over balancing situation.


3. There must be some kind of additional skill point / XP cost to balance out combat bonus provided by a Combat Droid. Simply adding a handling ability to any profession without an additional skill point / XP cost would unbalance the combat system that the DEVs are currently working on. The skillpoint to profession ratio is based upon sacrify. Professions cost the skill points that they do to create a balance with the game mechanics, especially when refening to combat abilites.


4. Droids in SWG are not the droids seen in the Star Wars movies. If the droids in SWG were those found in the movies, then they would be a Player Character.

I haven't tried to push my views on the DC profession on anyone, but I have tried to make sure that at least a few people are fully aware of what it is that they are against and the ramifications of shooting down the idea. From the feedback that I have recieved from those in the community, through PMs, I'm glad that there have been a few that understand why I took up the vocal stance that I have and remained the Community Member that everyone knew me as before I was chosen as Correspondent.If theDEVs thought that I wasn't doing my job as Correspondent and passing on the Communities interests and concerns, I wouldn't be in this position.

Fine Drashk, then produce the DEV post that states they considered the hybrid solution and ruled it. And their reasons why it was ruled out, not yours! That means a post by a RED NAME and nobody else. Cause to put it bluntly, I don't trust you any farther that I can throw you. Sorry but I dont buy your destroy the game balance issue with the hybrid solution. I see absolutely nothing wrong with adding combat exps to the DE tree. How is that different from the smuggler profession? Answer, its not! The smuggler is a very popular and successful hybrid profession. It has crafting exps (i.e. spice) and it has combat exps (pistol skill). That right there shoots down your anti-hybrid explanation. If what your say is true, then SOE must remove the smuggler profession from the game. And there's more than one way to skin the balance issue. You can scale back the top end combat droids so they are less powerful than the master creature handler pets. Capped at CL40 would probably do for balancing considerations. But CL10 is a joke that nobody has a use for and the DEV's have wasted their time developing. So put up the post by the RED NAME that rules out the hybrid solution or shut up.

And if what you said was true about you supporting the position that the majority of DE's favor, then there would have been no blacklash here on the forums that caused the DEV's to officially post that the Droid Commander was being abandoned because of people when around you and made their objections known to the DEV's.

You like posting figures on how many people play the DE profession but you forget to mention that Droid Engineering almost always comes up as one of the holocron professions. Did you account for the percentage of DE's that are really holocron chasers? I'd bet the number shaves your figures way way down.

I haven't jumped to the conclusion that your highly biased towards your own position and are using the Droid Correspondent postion to steering things that way. It's a conviction that's grown the longer and longer I've read your posts. In fact, the past few months have convinced me completely of it. That's why I'm in favor of your replacement.

Drashk, you want to end this. Then get Thunderheart, Runesabre, or JustG in here and post in their own words why they eliminated the hybrid solution.

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Drashk, you want to end this. Then get Thunderheart, Runesabre, or JustG in here and post in their own words why they eliminated the hybrid solution.

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Look in the Droid Invasion thread on the Development boards, it's made clear there

ArdenStarmariner-

I just took up Novice Troll, and need training. I have been informed that you are one of the best Master Trolls out there. Can you please give me training in for the following: Intermediate Personal Attacks, Advanced Lying, Intermediate Flaming, and Master Misrepresentation of Facts?

Thanks in advance.

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Arcid wrote:

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Drashk, you want to end this. Then get Thunderheart, Runesabre, or JustG in here and post in their own words why they eliminated the hybrid solution.

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Look in the Droid Invasion thread on the Development boards, it's made clear there

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Then post the link and it better be to a post by a red name quoting directly the reasons why the hybrid solution was elminated. I've scanned the Dev Tracker for months and have never seen a post by any of them that they even gave the solution any consideration whatsoever. All I've heard is Drashk and the pure crafties talking.

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:

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Arcid wrote:

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Drashk, you want to end this. Then get Thunderheart, Runesabre, or JustG in here and post in their own words why they eliminated the hybrid solution.

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Look in the Droid Invasion thread on the Development boards, it's made clear there

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Then post the link and it better be to a post by a red name quoting directly the reasons why the hybrid solution was elminated. I've scanned the Dev Tracker for months and have never seen a post by any of them that they even gave the solution any consideration whatsoever. All I've heard is Drashk and the pure crafties talking.

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Sorry?, You expect me to wade through that thread and link you directly to the info because you're to lazy to do it yourself? You're the one who's been making all the fuss, so why don't you put in a bit of effort and do the work yourself if it means that much to you.

I'm not under any delusions here. This battle has already been lost and will go the direction the correspondent and pure crafties are steering it. I'll give our correspondent one thing, he's skilled at perception management and has the DEV's believe exactly what he wants them to.

But I want to hear it from the horse's mouth directly. Not the person who has put a ring in their nose and is leading them around.

Call me a throll all you want. But I firmly believe the DE profession is being steered in the wrong direction. And I have the backbone to stand up and fight for what I believe in dispite what people think of me. Which matters not at all...

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Arcid wrote:

Sorry?, You expect me to wade through that thread and link you directly to the info because you're to lazy to do it yourself? You're the one who's been making all the fuss, so why don't you put in a bit of effort and do the work yourself if it means that much to you.

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Ah, but this is the genius of his posts - he must know that he is re-writing history. So, all he has to do is make these crass statements, and then tell us to do hours of work to disprove them. In the meantime, people who don't follow the DE forums regularly read his posts, and walk away with misconceptions.

I have disagreed - strongly at times - with some people on these boards. But I have never found anyone who makes such distasteful, non-constructive posts as Arden does.

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Arcid wrote:

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:

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Arcid wrote:

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ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Drashk, you want to end this. Then get Thunderheart, Runesabre, or JustG in here and post in their own words why they eliminated the hybrid solution.

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Look in the Droid Invasion thread on the Development boards, it's made clear there

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Then post the link and it better be to a post by a red name quoting directly the reasons why the hybrid solution was elminated. I've scanned the Dev Tracker for months and have never seen a post by any of them that they even gave the solution any consideration whatsoever. All I've heard is Drashk and the pure crafties talking.

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Sorry?, You expect me to wade through that thread and link you directly to the info because you're to lazy to do it yourself? You're the one who's been making all the fuss, so why don't you put in a bit of effort and do the work yourself if it means that much to you.

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Yeah. Right. Do you really expect me to believe this line? I wasn't born yesterday. You can't find the post because it doesn't exist...