Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Proposed Reconciliation for Droid Engineers and Smugglers
The area in green is...........................Correct.
Kollos wrote:
RaiCella wrote:
How many storage droids are you selling per customer anyway?
Typically 1-2. Or rather, I typically sell 1-2 droids per customer, and they all have storage in them. I can count the number of pure "storage droids" I have sold in my 7-month career on one hand. But more to the point, I have seen no increase in saleswhatsoever since patch 6, which means that this new feature of Droids has had no impact on Droid sales.
People buy storage in droids because they need more storage, not because it turns them into Smugglers.
/bow
Respectfully,
RaiCella wrote:
"People buy storage in droids because they need more storage, not because it turns them into Smugglers."
Then why are you fighting to keep them as scan-evading smuggle bots? We never want to remove droid storage. We just want it to be scanned like every other piece of portable inventory.
this problem has nothing to do with giving or taking form any profession in the game. Remove all your personal feelings as smugglers or as droid eng.
If everyone in the game can move freely with contraband no matter thier profession or alliance, then why did the devs even code the publish.
Droid StorageModuals being unscannable and availible to erveryone completely removes the basis of the publish.
It is an obvious bug, no form of bent logic or "we have it now dont we?" statments are going to change that.
The description of droid storage moduals does not say "a secret unscannable storage modual" it is storage period just like a backpack.
You need not fear the smugglers, or look for any comprimise. The bug takes away from the DEVS. It completely undermines thier Publish. So I would say no need for discussion, no need for compromise, talk to the devs. Not Smugglers.
IF a future addition of "smuggling compartments" is created. What you have outlined in the original post is somewhat what i would lean toward, though decay of the compartment shielding in some fashion would be needed. Or everyone will get it once and then be a smuggler light forever.
Sirgleno, you are a credit to your community. you are approching this without malice and i salute you.
Dude, we have the DEVS and everyone at SOE pissed at us, you think the Smugglers can do anything to us? You gotta stand in a very long line to get a piece of a DE these days.
RaiCella wrote:
Smugglers will never be happy if droids always beat scans. And we are a large and vocal profession. In my opinion, DEs will fare better in the long run by working WITH us instead of AGAINST us.
GnomeAd wrote:
Dude, we have the DEVS and everyone at SOE pissed at us, you think the Smugglers can do anything to us? You gotta stand in a very long line to get a piece of a DE these days.
RaiCella wrote:
Smugglers will never be happy if droids always beat scans. And we are a large and vocal profession. In my opinion, DEs will fare better in the long run by working WITH us instead of AGAINST us.
GnomeAd,
Actually...I'd hope that the Devs (and everyone at SOE) understands...
They need not me be mad at us. The situation that occurred with DEs was of their own making, due to a lack of paying attention to what the player community had been saying.
That is the ONLY way that they could have misread our intent, comment and feedback. The fact they were operating under the mistaken impression (that we were "very clear" about wanting a DH profession) is the quintessential example of this point.
They don't get to be mad at us...they need to be kicking themselves and figuring out how to not allow such a situation to occur in the future. If they have anyone to be upset with....they need to be introspective.
/bow
Respectfully,
Kav wrote:
If everyone in the game can move freely with contraband no matter thier profession or alliance, then why did the devs even code the publish.
Because what you say is not true. Only a smuggler, or someone grouped with a smuggler, can have contraband ready to use at all times. Everyone else must have it hidden away in their droid. The smuggler's advantage is that they can simply ignore the Imperial Crackdown - it has no effect on them at all. Everyone else must use a PITA droid that can only hold 10 items and deal with its clunky and unwieldy interface. Either that or be a high-ranking Imperial Officer... which is really where you should be focusing your attention, not on droids.
Droid StorageModuals being unscannable and availible to erveryone completely removes the basis of the publish.
Wrong. See above. Furthermore, wasn't this little feature tossed in as an afterthought after the patch had moved to Test Center? That hardly sounds like "the basis of the publish" to me. Lower the level of melodrama and exaggerationin your posts and you'll get better responses.
It is an obvious bug, no form of bent logic or "we have it now dont we?" statments are going to change that.
It's not at all obvious, and no amount of ranting and raving about itis going to make it obvious. "Realism" is not the only reason that things get added to games. There's this little thing called game balance that overshadows everything else. There's also this little thing called ease of use... something that this feature provides, yet you want to remove.
Ok, lets try something a little more constructive this time.
Smugglers don't want everyone and their brother being able to avoid scans without them, DE's don't want to lose any of our worth, here's an idea (just tossing it out, haven't put a whole lot of thought into it).
(Note: I'm not sure exactly how the crackdown works, but this relies on a scan being more likely to find something if you've got more illegal items on you)
Droid storage modules we currently have no longer avoid scans (I'd say in compensation up the storage capacity by 5 or so), but we get a new component, "Sensor Shielded Droid Compartment" which takes some part from a smuggler (maybe in underworld 4 or somewhere). This storage compartment could hold ten items and would shield them from scans, BUT the compartment itself could be caught by the scan. Assuming its harder for them to pick out one item than 10 or the fine is less for 1 item than 10, this still does not completely screw over smugglers but it also gives DE's a use (as well as a new module).
Sirgleno wrote:
Ok,
Now I realize that the whole droid storage issue is contentious, and I only ask that in replying to this thread you keep everything flame free.
How about if Smugglers could slice the droid to give it limited smuggling abilities, perhaps up to 50% effectiveness at master Smuggler. This would allow for droid enhanced smuggling, and could work seperately from the smuggling mod, effectively giving the smuggler with a sliced droid 97.5% chance of beating the scan. This whole issue can be a boon for both professions here, I really want to see us working together on this one.
There will be no compromise on this from me, a Smuggler. Moving contraband should be the central role of a Smuggler, and the introduction of contraband scans into the game was the baby step in moving towards a "real" system of smuggling.
A Novice Smuggler has invested skillpoints to get a 15% chance to beat a scan. The bottom line for me is that nobody should be able to exceed that level without investing skillpoints in Smuggler. Moving contraband is the profession-defining role of Smugglers, and it shouldn't be doled out for anybody who buys a droid (or puts on an Imperial uniform).
Kollos wrote
Everyone else must use a PITA droid that can only hold 10 items and deal with its clunky and unwieldy interface.
Kollos also wrote
There's also this little thing called ease of use... something that this feature provides, yet you want to remove.
Guys, this is all pointless any way. The devs probably won't be able to fix this because of the way droids in the datapad are handled. Think of a droid in your datapad as being in your safety deposit box. You have access to it, but it isn't really "on you" until you call it. Even then, the items in the droid aren't in your inventory, they're inside your droid, you just have the ability to get them out when you want.This issue wasn't done on purpose by the devs, it's just a function of the game mechanics. Even if the devs wanted to fix it, I don't think they would get to it for quite some time due to the complexity of the fix.
The smugglers ability to avoid scans was put in as an afterthought by the devs. It wasn't even planned from the beginning, and it seems like it wasn't thought out very well. Sorry, welcome to the world of SWG.
GnomeAd,
I think you bring up a good point, but I believe it WILL get fixed. The other datapad bug involving vehicle repair is being looked at, and is probably related.. the databases aren't communicating with eachother well. (surprise surprise!)
I, and other smugglers are working under the assumption that it will be fixed one way or another, and we feel that because both the smuggler and DE communities are getting "attention" soon, we have the opportunity to come to the table with a unified voice on how to fix it.
Hopeful? Yes.
But what else can we do?
Okay...well, you came to us.
RaiCella wrote:
...we have the opportunity to come to the table with a unified voice on how to fix it.
What's the 'fix' here?
I really do happen to believe that it's right and cool that Droid Storage have some ability to avoid Crackdown scans.
I do see the point that Smugglers have as it relates to their 'services' in the game.
Is there a middle ground? Probably.
Do we have any solutions anywhere that seems to address this fairly on both sides? Not that I've seen.
If you have some idea on this....feel free to let it fly.
/bow
Respectfully,