Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: DE's I need two things from you please
babyblue_d wrote:
my question is how if i can just bearlymake ends meet now that the market is thin with DE's how can i be expected to make it when the DE's ranks flood with the dablers .. of even masters to get the cool combat droids ... i have found it harder to sell with just the small influxe of Holocron users
If you find just the influx of Holocron DEs a huge burden on your business, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done for you. I mean, how much worse will it be when DE becomes a viable profession and people take it up for that reason?
I think we can all agree that we don't want to encourage people who aren't serious about droid crafting to become DEs and dilute the profession, but we should take that as the goal, not some much broader issue that doesn't necessarily entail the problems you foresee. That is, make the goal to add combat droids without diluting the profession. There are lots of ways that could happen.
i agree with the DE plan, better than nothing done like the last 4 month right.
also it seams to add alot more fun thats what i want from a game.
only thing i would like is that DEs can use multiple combat droids, like CH (1 strong or 2 midlv or 3 weak ones) so they would not get more strengh than actually planned but more variety and fun.
....my question is how if i can just bearlymake ends meet now that the market is thin with DE's how can i be expected to make it when the DE's ranks flood with the dablers.....
My answer to this is simple. Aside from improving the probots a little. You do to DEs what Armorsmiths have. Droidekas go only to master DEs. Just like composite only goes to master AS. Tadaa, problem solved.
Rhiannon
Counter point: I too am a MDE on Intrepid, I make ends meet fine and I don't push as hard as some of my competitors do. I make the best products I can make, I explain them as fully as possible to my customers and I get repeat business despite the shortcomings of our current droids. With actual working droids and improved functionality the prospects for DEs is bright, with combat droids both for the Masses and for Masters, it's positively beaming. (gaawd I can't believe I posted an upbeat statement)
The number one request from my customers and potential customer is .....(drumrolll) .... COMBAT DROIDS!!!! This is After I've shown and explained our current Probot to them..so please don't think the probot as it stands is the answer. Combat droids alone for selling to customers will easily double sales for All DEs, of course Master lvl products sell better.. thats one of the points of being a master, do the work to reap the rewards. Even better for to have a nice decent Master only Combat Droid
Dabblers will always be there, they come, they go, they may or may not impact the market at all. If we get actual decent sellable droids, you Will have customers, far more than if you just had droids that only other crafters want, harvester droids, survey droids, entertainer droids. Combat is thebackdrop of this game like it or not, combat droids puts in back in a position to take part in the game and provide a product that 90% + of the ppl can and will want to purchase.
Many ppl are posting a fear of increased players choosing DE....news flash, there were MANY more DEs here before you that were Masters of their craft who have hung up their spurs and quit due to frustration. The numbers of DEs now is probably at an all time low, yet some seem to want to partially gimp the profession to keep other players away and preserve the market for themselves. Thats a highly self-serving attitude, the idea here is to fix DEs and make it fun to play, not burdensome. If its fun, yes more ppl will want to be DEs some will come back who were here Before you. You want artificial limits on how many ppl can be DE..that is exactly the extension of where that attitude is leading. This IS a game and is Supposed to be fun, those credits your scrambling after and fighting to keep for yourself dont somehow translate into real cash....unless your E-Baying.
/agree
With comments below...
Nailliar wrote:
Counter point: I too am a MDE on Intrepid, I make ends meet fine and I don't push as hard as some of my competitors do. I make the best products I can make, I explain them as fully as possible to my customers and I get repeat business despite the shortcomings of our current droids. With actual working droids and improved functionality the prospects for DEs is bright, with combat droids both for the Masses and for Masters, it's positively beaming. (gaawd I can't believe I posted an upbeat statement)
Agreed. I'm a competitor of Nailliar's and I make a decent living even with not selling our gimped droids like the famous non-repairing LE repair droid. If we had good combat droids and service droids it would be an AWESOME proffession
The number one request from my customers and potential customer is .....(drumrolll) .... COMBAT DROIDS!!!!
Agreed. When I start talking probot, most get immediately turned off. They know that probies suck since the nerf and that CH pets are way better. I mostly sell the advanced model with med/crafting/droid repair or item storage to other crafters.
The numbers of DEs now is probably at an all time low, yet some seem to want to partially gimp the profession to keep other players away and preserve the market for themselves. Thats a highly self-serving attitude, the idea here is to fix DEs and make it fun to play, not burdensome. If its fun, yes more ppl will want to be DEs some will come back who were here Before you.
Agreed -- and that's coming from a person who thinks DEs shouldn't undersell! (Ehem, Nailliar 
) I still train all Novice DEs who ask and help out Novices who are cool with parts free droids, etc. The more the merrier. I don't think "more people will want to be DEs for the droids" is a good justification for naysaying new combat droids.
Let's say it again, drum roll: *droideka* -- cymbol crash!
LoL undersell?!.. you never heard of Madcat have you? LoL
Actually my biggest competitor was another Master on Naboo and his friends who posted Everywhere and I charge more then him, in fact I check out some of the shops and guild halls between AH and Bestine, you'll see the prices vary and many are lower or higher than mine. 
Oh and we had someone selling Probots on the bazaar on Intrepid too, but I forgot that name of that <insert rude commentary about dubious lineage>. I rarely see novice DE's although I've trained several who became masters, some of whom have quit already. I paid my dues to the SOE money-sinks to get my training.
Kitsunetsuki wrote:
babyblue_d wrote:
my question is how if i can just bearlymake ends meet now that the market is thin with DE's how can i be expected to make it when the DE's ranks flood with the dablers .. of even masters to get the cool combat droids ... i have found it harder to sell with just the small influxe of Holocron users
If you find just the influx of Holocron DEs a huge burden on your business, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done for you. I mean, how much worse will it be when DE becomes a viable profession and people take it up for that reason?
I think we can all agree that we don't want to encourage people who aren't serious about droid crafting to become DEs and dilute the profession, but we should take that as the goal, not some much broader issue that doesn't necessarily entail the problems you foresee. That is, make the goal to add combat droids without diluting the profession. There are lots of ways that could happen.
The ones that take it up because of the 'cron will probably drop it once they hit master to go to the next profession, so I wouldn't worry about that.
The market being flooded by other crafters is a problem all crafters face. Too many weaponsmiths for instance, end up with a oversaturated market. It's one of the biggest problems in a closed system such as online games.
To compensate, prices must be fairly high in order to recoup more of the costs with 1 sale. The onesthat sell low contribute to the flood. Of course, selling too high results in people not wanting to buy it either. It's a gamble. That's the way all businesses are though.
An idea for auto healing Droids...
Rather than conjuring up heals out of nowhere, why not have medical droids be preloaded with stimpacks by a medic? Then, the droid master would set a list of players it should concentrate on healing. So, if it senses someone in need of a heal, it runs over there, uses one of the pre-installed stimpacks, and heals the next person.
The types of stimpacks the droid could use would be based on the medical module installed. A medical droid with the most basic modules would only be allowed to use A's and B's. Medium modules would be able to use C's, and the high level modules would be able to use D's. The high-level medical modules should require rare resources in fair amounts (read: hundreds of units), so as to keep them rare and expensive.
As for the pre-loading process, you could require that a medic able to use the stimpack he's loading load them (e.g. only those with Novice Medic can load Stim A's and B's, but if the player only has Novice, he/she cannot load Stim C's). Or, you could just have it where anyone can load the stimpacks, so long as they have the stimpacks in their inventory.
I'm sure no one is still reading this, but here goes:
1. Sintrosi has been an accurate barometer of the DE profession in all of her posts.
2. While the DE "plan" has some good ideas (power droid usefulness in harvesters, repair droid functionality), it fails to address the ONE commonality to all of our requests: we want a market for what we craft!
To that end, we need combat droids that are as good or better than creature pets that anyone can own. We need real combat droids chassis, not R2s with blasters. Making improved combat droids and making them controllable by DEs only is like making uber-weapons that only weaponsmiths can weild. We are an artisan class!
A segment of the DE population, which I feel is a minority wants a CH-like setup, but most of us want to be crafters, and make money selling our creations. If you strengthen combat droids and allow everyone or at least all elite professions to use them, you appease DEs that want combat, but you don't alienate the crafters that would be left with no gain, as anyone that could use the new droids would also be able to make them.
TH,
One additional comment worth noting:
Lots of DE/Wanna-be-CHs on these forums are arguing the following: "We need to be the only ones to control combat droids to keep noobs with too much money from buying them." Keep this in mind:
There is no such thing as a noob with too much cash.
(1) You can only have one character per server. Any player who starts a new character (a noob) has nothing.
(2) Anyone who is a noob has no cash...they have to earn their way to having money.
(3) By earning their way to having money, the noob gains experience and is no longer a noob.
(4) So you ONLY have non-noobs buying droids.
Also...do you know what the difference between a novice DE and a combat class is? 35 Skill Points (15 of those for doing nothing other than starting as an novice artisan alone + 20 for classes) and 30,000 CRAFTING xp. Not only does that amount to only a couple of hours of crafting to most players, but the crafting has no relation whatsover to droid control training.
Droids and noobs is a HYPOTHETICAL problem...the only way it can be a problem is if (1) a DE gives the nooba droid for free (never happens); or (2) the noob magically starts with the 25k credits it takes to buy a good probot (also never happens).
Easy solution: Let ALL classes control 1 or any type of combat droid, let DEs command 2 combat droids. This makes everyone happy.
Sigh, I hate these 20 page threads. But since we have someones ear, we need to voice our opinion.
1. I agree with Sintrosi's State Of The Profession (not plan, that confused alot of people).
We've had some fixes, but the majority of our problems - some of them glaringly negligent (repair droids, surgical droids, power droids that need batteries 
) - have gone unresolved for so long it's just not funny anymore.
I mean, at first they gave me a chuckle, but after months and months of putting up with them, it isn't anymore.
Issues need to be resolved sooner rather than later at this point.
2. I liked most of what was proposed in the DE plan but think a few changes need to be added to make some of the changes useful for our profession.
Mouse bombs would be funny, but I'm sure they won't produce that much damage, so I'd rather see resource put towards more important changes before something like that is implemented.
Not fixes, because I understand the plan was not supposed to address fixes - those are other issues that will be addressed seperately and can behandled concurrently.
I think combat modules were a compromise for actually bringing out additional combat chassis. If they can be used only in actual combat droids, that would be my preference. I do not want combat modules being places in non-combat droids. I think that's countrary to everything we've ever seen or expected from Star Wars. I'd hate to see an R2 with a blaster. In fact, I'd be pretty pissed.
I think DE only combat droids would work if the usage skills were added properly.
I perscribe to the CH model for combat droids. Add combat modules and droids as high level DE items, and add droid usage (droid levels similar to creature levels and stored droids similar to stored pets) as low level skills - better yet, just add all droid usage skills to one DE branch like experimentation.
I think this would encourage people that just want to use combat droids to take a few DE skills and leave the crafting to the dedicated DE's. It would be easier to implement and maintain as new combat droids come out. And easier to adjust if 'pet' changes need to be made if programmed so pet changes propigate to both CH and DE at the same time.
I don't think it would "ruin" the profession, I don't care that we're "only a crafting profession", and I don't care if people label us as "droid handlers". We need new markets and this will be the biggest possible market.
I think that combat droids would work just as well as combat pets already do if implemented similarly.
Oops.....
I also do not promote any high level combat droids usable only by master DE. This would encourage players that don't care about the profession to take master DE just to use some super-uber droid.
I agree mostly with the plan, i do not agree with making the DE class a CH class, we need combat droids, we need bug fixes, we need additional modules, what we don't need is a crafter/combat hybrid. If everyone wants DE's only to call powerful combat droids, make a Droid handler profession. Combat Droids are weapons, can weapon smiths use thier own high end weapons? No. not unless they go up the appropriate tree. I agree that we need to get more droids in the game, if nothing else it would help the star warsy feel of the game, i really hope they do not go live with de only combat droids. It makes no sense. the state of the profession was well thought out and completely accurate, thanks for the great job your doing TH..
Rad (former Master DE)
Radlu (Master DE in training)