Droid Engineer Archive

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

AO,

Here is my point. If people want a droid to kill, they can buy a full probot. If they want a Droid to Tank, they can buy a 1 combat 5 AR droid, if they want a hybrid, you mix it up.

Many people I know have 2 comat droids, one ot Tank and one to kill, they use them depending on the occassion. With the old Uber regen rates, you only had the need for one type. One to kill, EVERY droid was a Tank droid.

Now if you want good regen you sacrifice attack power, you can't get one for free. It's just like with BE's, when they are making pets, if they want good regen, they need to work on that stat, making something else weaker.

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LOL I'm sorry, Straker, but now it's "uber" regen? Come on...it was pretty frickin' slow.

Regardless, it seems you agree with me - it was a nerf. Not just a tune down of a stat, but an actual REMOVAL of a feature. You seem to be happy to be nerfed - I wasn't. Mostly because right now, we are so gimped as a profession it simply added insult to injury.

It would be one thing to defend the change if we were an otherwise healthy profession, but right now it was just another slap in the face. We can debate the merits of variety in Probot modules all day, but to the end users it's just one more reason not to use a combat droid because they just got nerfed...again. This is NOT good for our profession, no matter which way you cut it - you may have more fun switching in and out types of modules, but that doesn't help us sell more droids. Many people will see the patch notes and not buy one now.

Droids are less powerful now. Your happiness at something to "mix it up" aside, it's that simple. Look at this as a customer, and not a DE.

AO

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AudioOrgana wrote:

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

AO,

Here is my point. If people want a droid to kill, they can buy a full probot. If they want a Droid to Tank, they can buy a 1 combat 5 AR droid, if they want a hybrid, you mix it up.

Many people I know have 2 comat droids, one ot Tank and one to kill, they use them depending on the occassion. With the old Uber regen rates, you only had the need for one type. One to kill, EVERY droid was a Tank droid.

Now if you want good regen you sacrifice attack power, you can't get one for free. It's just like with BE's, when they are making pets, if they want good regen, they need to work on that stat, making something else weaker.

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LOL I'm sorry, Straker, but now it's "uber" regen? Come on...it was pretty frickin' slow.

Regardless, it seems you agree with me - it was a nerf. Not just a tune down of a stat, but an actual REMOVAL of a feature. You seem to be happy to be nerfed - I wasn't. Mostly because right now, we are so gimped as a profession it simply added insult to injury.

It would be one thing to defend the change if we were an otherwise healthy profession, but right now it was just another slap in the face. We can debate the merits of variety in Probot modules all day, but to the end users it's just one more reason not to use a combat droid because they just got nerfed...again. This is NOT good for our profession, no matter which way you cut it - you may have more fun switching in and out types of modules, but that doesn't help us sell more droids. Many people will see the patch notes and not buy one now.

Droids are less powerful now. Your happiness at something to "mix it up" aside, it's that simple. Look at this as a customer, and not a DE.

AO

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I see your point AO, and I understand that from a customer POV it looks to be negative. But this is the same thing we're going to have to deal with when/if droid decay goes in. And most of us hail droid decay as a good thing in the long run. From my POV (a DE POV), we can actually start to sell repair kits again, and it more than makes up for the lack of droid self-healing. Since Pub17, my repair kits and combat droids are starting to sell again, and I'm pretty happy about it.

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

I want to clarify something, I DON'T think the current state of droids is good. I do think that Droid "healing" should come from either Droid stims or Auto Repair Modules, something that we as DE's can control. Not some mystical healing that just forces Droids to regen.

Armor is still borked, Droids are having problems fighting stuff their level, these are issues that need fixed. However, the answer isn't to just gives Droids some huge regen to compensate. If we get more regen, it need's to come from Auto Repair modules, after all isn't that what they are for. Raise that value.

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Would you really classify what they had as "huge" recharge rate?

It was pretty slow. Unless I missed some bug where it was sped up, in which case I STILL don't think it was right to remove it, the speed should have instead been corrected.

I guess I don't see your point about auto-repair, as they take similar resources to combat modules, cost the same to make - as DE's it's six to one, a half-dozen to another. It doesn't help our business. Just means it's more complex, not better.

I don't see it as raising the value, as I have found auto-repair modules only really good when stacked in a seperate droid. So perhaps you are saying we will sell more auto-repair droids to people? I just think it's not going to happen - how many people are going to buy a droid just to benefit everyone elses droid? Sure, SOME coordinated groups will, but overall it's a nerf, any way you cut it. The majority of people just want something they can point and shoot with and not worry about.

As to mystical, no more mystical than auto-repair modules themselves. If droids and this technology actually existed, I don't see it as a strech to think that a small scale version is built into every droid.

This was a nerf. Plain and simple. We had a feature. It's gone now. We can hope that people will utilize auto-repair, or buy enough droid repair kits to give us credits, but banking on that hope just isn't going to do our profession any real good. For many people, it just will become too much bother.

Finally, it's the credibility of combat droids that worries me the most. We fought long and hard to have them classified as "decent" instead of "a joke" after the first nerf (as the microscopic portion of players that remain from launch will remember) and they were actually doing well until the CU. To the average player (who doesn't understand DPS or other such details) the value of the droids has dropped. There is no distinction here - to our customers, these droids once had a slow recharge ability, now they get nothing at all. No matter how convincingly you attempt to diffuse that, the perception is going to be there no matter what.

I sympathize with your want to see this as a positive change, with DE being so horribly broken all over again, but forcing people to buy more consumables and making DE's kit makers instead of droid makers isn't going to help our bottom line. It was not done in our interests, it was done to "balance" their precious CU. They've got a long, long way to go for that hope - and again, droids were dismissed with a hand wave in the name of "balance" with no concern for us as a profession, or how our customers would react.

Were you here way back when the Devs decided they'd help our profession by making all droids perma-death and told us it was good for us? I guess I just don't have that faith in this change, either. I hope I'm proven wrong, but if anything combat droid sales have again dropped. No one is going to say, "WOW! They nerfed combat droids - let's go get a new one!" A few will find their way to auto-repair, but most will just give up and try to find some other way to deal with all the inequities and imbalances the CU has brought upon SWG.

AO

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

AO,

I am looking long term, not short term. The regen rates before and current have nothing to do with Droids. Nothing at all. They are side effects of the changes being made to the pet system. Before Pub 17, pets had a default regen rate that was fast, you may not call it uber, but when my 4500 HAM droid can go from 1 - 4500 in a minute, I call that uber. Now regen got changed to where it is a stat on pets, with the default being the current "10" we have now.

I never said I was happy with the current state of droids. I never said I was happy with the current regen rate. What I DID say is that "fast" regen on droids should come from Auto Repair modules.

Look from a customers point of view? Ok. Then I want a full probot with fast regen, full combat, all crafting mods, Datapad, Med module, Maint module, Harvesting, and heck all Entertainer modules. From a customer point of view, that is what I would want.

Fix the problems with droids, make customers want them, but don't fix them in a manner that "breaks" other parts of the profession. WIth the faster regen, auto-repair modules were useless, as were Droid stims.

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Well, as I said in an earlier post, the regen must have been turned up since the last time I used a combat droid then. In my experience it certainly took a lot longer than one minute to recharge a droid. However, as I also said, it should have been turned DOWN, not removed.

What I fail to see about your argument is the reason this is a good "long term" change. I see you justifying the move in terms of game balance, but I don't see how it's GOOD for us. Our products now are lacking a feature they used to have. Yes, auto-repair modules may sell better now, but their effectiveness is really not worth it unless you stack them in R3's and use several in a group. Our combat droids are less powerful now, ANY way you cut it. That reduces their value.

The average person who just bought a Probot for defense has been nerfed substantially. The value of individual droids has gone down.

As to your fantastical customer request, that's taking it a bit overboard I think. I did not say "let the customers fufill their fantasies", I simply said look at it THIS situation from the customers point of view. It's a nerf. They had something. Now they don't. It's just another factor.

So if what you say is true (I can't confirm it myself now, obviously) then yes, it should have been turned down. But to just cut out regen totally was wrong, and just serves to make the current dire situation even worse. It simply isn't a good time for us, and putting in the patch notes that regen is gone killed my sales. Killed them. I was selling a 4-5 combat droids a day and now I'm lucky to sell one. And they were the ONE product that was selling post-CU.

I guess we just disagree as to what is more important.

AO

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RasalTheWise wrote:
I see your point AO, and I understand that from a customer POV it looks to be negative. But this is the same thing we're going to have to deal with when/if droid decay goes in. And most of us hail droid decay as a good thing in the long run. From my POV (a DE POV), we can actually start to sell repair kits again, and it more than makes up for the lack of droid self-healing. Since Pub17, my repair kits and combat droids are starting to sell again, and I'm pretty happy about it.

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I'm really glad that yours are selling. Post-Pub 17, mine nosedived.

As to decay, I partially agree but have to say they are totally different beasts. This was a nerf to the performance of a droid in real time, as in it's capabilities; decay simply means it will eventually need to be replaced, not that it's functions in the game will be reduced. You would just have to replace it once in awhile, not get lesser function out of it when you use it.

I think this is an essential distinction. As long as the performance remains the same, it will be a lot easier to get people to simply replace/refresh/whatever every few months to maintain that. In this case, combat droids got (ANOTHER!) big nerf (after the CU-HAM nerf) - this is where I am talking about the customer prespective.

However, as I have said in the decay threads before we were in the current mess, even if 2/3 of our customers stopped using droids, we'd STILL be selling more droids than we were before if that 1/3 got theirs replaced regularly.

My wants for DE are simple. To have the need for higher droid production in the game. This can be partially accomplished by satisfying customers and also by making our products other than indestructable. In the end, I don't believe the comparison between this situation and decay is ultimately valid - because decay has a huge, impacting, all-encompassing benefit to our profession (self-renewing market) and this big nerf MAY give one module a bit more use (auto-repair) but in my opinion it's not anywhere near an even trade. I just see droid use going down because of it.

That said, at this very moment I *woudln't* be on the decay bandwagon. Three or four months ago it was my #1 priority. Now that they've nerfed and broken so much and we can't get a straight answer about anything because they are too busy cleaning up the CU/Kashyyyk mess, no, it's not the time for decay. It would KILL us. The main draw of decay was medical and crafting droids - those droids that people bought almost two years ago and are still chugging along. Since medical droids are obsolete, and crafters have dropped like flies in a snowstorm, the benefits to us would be much less at this point. Even storage droids have taken a dive since inventory was increased (not that I am complaining about that one...).

Unfortunately, while we were in a great position to get decay not very long ago, when we had a variety of droid needs, the climate has changed so that I can't uniformly support decay anymore. It's a shame, because it is SO necessary to long-term health, but right now the vaccine, no matter how much potential good could be done, would kill the patient.

AO

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AudioOrgana wrote:

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

AO,

I am looking long term, not short term. The regen rates before and current have nothing to do with Droids. Nothing at all. They are side effects of the changes being made to the pet system. Before Pub 17, pets had a default regen rate that was fast, you may not call it uber, but when my 4500 HAM droid can go from 1 - 4500 in a minute, I call that uber. Now regen got changed to where it is a stat on pets, with the default being the current "10" we have now.

I never said I was happy with the current state of droids. I never said I was happy with the current regen rate. What I DID say is that "fast" regen on droids should come from Auto Repair modules.

Look from a customers point of view? Ok. Then I want a full probot with fast regen, full combat, all crafting mods, Datapad, Med module, Maint module, Harvesting, and heck all Entertainer modules. From a customer point of view, that is what I would want.

Fix the problems with droids, make customers want them, but don't fix them in a manner that "breaks" other parts of the profession. WIth the faster regen, auto-repair modules were useless, as were Droid stims.

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Well, as I said in an earlier post, the regen must have been turned up since the last time I used a combat droid then. In my experience it certainly took a lot longer than one minute to recharge a droid. However, as I also said, it should have been turned DOWN, not removed.

What I fail to see about your argument is the reason this is a good "long term" change. I see you justifying the move in terms of game balance, but I don't see how it's GOOD for us. Our products now are lacking a feature they used to have. Yes, auto-repair modules may sell better now, but their effectiveness is really not worth it unless you stack them in R3's and use several in a group. Our combat droids are less powerful now, ANY way you cut it. That reduces their value.

The average person who just bought a Probot for defense has been nerfed substantially. The value of individual droids has gone down.

As to your fantastical customer request, that's taking it a bit overboard I think. I did not say "let the customers fufill their fantasies", I simply said look at it THIS situation from the customers point of view. It's a nerf. They had something. Now they don't. It's just another factor.

So if what you say is true (I can't confirm it myself now, obviously) then yes, it should have been turned down. But to just cut out regen totally was wrong, and just serves to make the current dire situation even worse. It simply isn't a good time for us, and putting in the patch notes that regen is gone killed my sales. Killed them. I was selling a 4-5 combat droids a day and now I'm lucky to sell one. And they were the ONE product that was selling post-CU.

I guess we just disagree as to what is more important.

AO

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I think you keep missing where I keep saying that droids should have fast regen. Just that fast regen should come from auto repair modules. Meaning turn up the repair rate of the auto repair modules.

I never said droids shouldn't have fast regen, I said they shouldn't get it for free.

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

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I think you keep missing where I keep saying that droids should have fast regen. Just that fast regen should come from auto repair modules. Meaning turn up the repair rate of the auto repair modules.

I never said droids shouldn't have fast regen, I said they shouldn't get it for free.

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No, I hear it - I just think that's a poor justification for a nerf that kicked us while we were down.

The value of a combat droid has decreased, because in order to compensate now you need to add auto-repair modules and make a sacrifice.

This makes combat droids less powerful, which means less sales.

My issue isn't with the reduction of self-healing, it's the absolute removal of it.

In the end, it makes little difference to us as DE's anything but cosmetically if we shove auto-repair or combat modules in - our sales certainly won't go up because of this. However, the percieved value of combat droids by the customer is justifiably seen as being reduced, which means they were nerfed and nerfed things don't sell well.

I understand the theory, but think the application is proving to be very different.

AO

Well, I think you guys are overreacting and missing the "big picture" here. I made a noob-ish probot the other day. I put in a couple of combat modules, a medical module, a storage module, and an auto-repair module in it. Nothing real super-duper quality, but just what I could make with my noobish DE resources. It came out with a level 18 droid, and when I took it out and hunted with it, level 20 creatures were overmatched by the droid. I even attacked a level 25 NPC and the droid bested it pretty easily.

So despite the cries of "nerf!" what we have here is the ability to create droids that require no certifications, and even without armor, and with only 2 combat modules, it's still able to solo level 20+ creatures pretty easily. And it'll even hold your luggage for you, lol.

That's not too shabby

Last night I was clearing level 22 mobs with my pure Probot as well, sure I hit it with some Stims on occassion, but not that often.

If peoples droids are dying to things half their level, then it appears we are back to the bug with some things hitting far harder then they should. Beware the level 4 Durni.

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Straker_Atrella wrote:

If peoples droids are dying to things half their level, then it appears we are back to the bug with some things hitting far harder then they should. Beware the level 4 Durni.

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Its not just that they are hitting to hard. Check out the Health on the mob as well. I've noticed a number of creatures that have are listed at a CL-so and so, yet have the Health and damage output of something that should be CL+a lot more then it should be.

Most of the instances of this issue that I have seen are rather close to borders such as outside static and player cities.