Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Fostering better DE communication or Why this DE forum needs a memory wipe...
Believe
/bow
Kilarny wrote:
P.S. What do you mean by us DEs"Blowing this thing and going home?"
I heard a smuggler say it once, in regard to blowing up the Death Star.
Sounds filthy.
Your spin, not mine.
Respectfully,
Seriously, I thought better communication made for a more positive forum, not the other way around.
CapnSteve wrote:
Seriously, I thought better communication made for a more positive forum, not the other way around.
I know for sure this hasn't been the case in the past. However, the difference is that were ARE now the focus. That has not been the case before.
I find it a bit hard to believe that we can't go back to being positive. We sure were at a time when there was FAR less chance of us getting Dev attention. Let's just go back to that positive 'place' we used to have an enjoy the fruits of that change in attitude.
/bow
Respectfully,
JustG wrote:
Thanks so much for the positive vibe... it means all the difference. Friday we read overyour 10 questions again and tried to see how many we could solve within the boundaries of the next two publishes. We will be putting together the In Dev and In Concept posts this next week. We will also set bounds on what kind of stuff we can and can't change.
I know you have been through alot as a profession, and some of you are rather jaded, if not outright bitter. We dev's have many many many things to do, and 32 other professions to serve as well, so now that the time is here I would much rather spend our time and energy productively and positively with you. I have exchanged PM's with a couple of you and I assure you I do understand your viewpoint. Please continue to be patient with us, and I promise much more info this next week.
- Why would you basically make the DE's product less viable with architects?
- Why would you change the rules on this formula after 5 months of gameplay and planning?
- Is there a chance you'll put it back? Any fairness doctrine would dictate such.
As such, I would just like to point out that my biggest problem with the profession, aside from the bugs, is the lack of content. Not just high end content, but more particularly low end content.
A novice droid engineer is only able to make a mouse droid. He can install a level 1 item storage module, level 1 data storage module, or a level 1 medical module in this. None of these modules are desirable by any player, simply because there are higher levels of each. As such players will wait until they can purchase the highest end module, or something functionally equivalent (twin level 4 modules for example), leaving low-end droid engineers with little to no market for their products.
It is my hope that, with the upcoming utility droid publish, this can be somewhat corrected. There should be something that each level of droid engineer can make that is not duplicated and improved upon at a later stage.
Armorsmiths have product that is viable from the novice skill on, simply because their customers have to weigh the damage it protects against as well as the encumbrance that they can afford and still function as their profession. Weaponsmiths have customers of varying skill levels for each of their weapons, as well as different damage types to offer.
Tailors have a market for their product of all levels because players want to look unique, and if something isn't being worn often, it will be shortly as people try to look unique.
Architects, of course, have a large variety of buildings and decorations (including factories at novice level). I cannot speak of chefs, because until recently their product was on a back burner compared to the smuggler's spices being readily available, and in most cases superior.
I feel that this lack of low-end content only hinders the droid engineer profession, by making it appeal only to those who love droids (as I do) or those who have the patience to grind through things that will never sell, simply to get to another item that gains more experience per item so that they can eventually gain the products that sell or are in demand.
Thank you for your time.
CorvidianX wrote:
As such, I would just like to point out that my biggest problem with the profession, aside from the bugs, is the lack of content. Not just high end content, but more particularly low end content.
A novice droid engineer is only able to make a mouse droid. He can install a level 1 item storage module, level 1 data storage module, or a level 1 medical module in this. None of these modules are desirable by any player, simply because there are higher levels of each. As such players will wait until they can purchase the highest end module, or something functionally equivalent (twin level 4 modules for example), leaving low-end droid engineers with little to no market for their products.
Enjoy!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=38892
/bow
Respectfully,
JustG wrote:
Folks,
Thanks so much for the positive vibe... it means all the difference. Friday we read overyour 10 questions again and tried to see how many we could solve within the boundaries of the next two publishes. We will be putting together the In Dev and In Concept posts this next week. We will also set bounds on what kind of stuff we can and can't change.
I know you have been through alot as a profession, and some of you are rather jaded, if not outright bitter. We dev's have many many many things to do, and 32 other professions to serve as well, so now that the time is here I would much rather spend our time and energy productively and positively with you. I have exchanged PM's with a couple of you and I assure you I do understand your viewpoint. Please continue to be patient with us, and I promise much more info this next week.
best,
- g
"this next week" - Meaning this week (2/16 - 2/21) or next week (2/23 - 2/28)?
Thanks, and don't forget to read Goranoth's bug list JustG! We look forward to hearing more.
Right now there are two levels of DEs. The handful who are in the know, and the rest of us. We keep on hearing promises about this class. Just a FYI, but in 2 days it'll be my 6 month mark as a Master DE, and I've been hearing promises since the begining. I've also picked up BE, and I'm amazed at what a robust and interesting profession it is.
In the interest of keeping this positive, we have seen some improvements to the class:
- Item storage no longer destroys your items
- Colourization of droids
- Multiple crafting stations in one droid
- A slight probot increase after the drastic nerf (silver lining)
- The most recent patch fixes
The problem is that the profession IS broken. You cannot deny that. This game has been out for 7-8 months now, and the profession is still broken.
JustG mentioned that some of us are jaded, if not bitter.I think that's an understatement, a gross one at that.
It's up to the players to teach people how to use new droids because the in-game help is... lacking. It's up to the players to tell people what droids can and cannot do because of all the bugs/quirks/lack of in-gmae help.
There have been countless constructive discussion threads for the class, which have gone ignored for the most part. DEs as a class (including myself, I have had a lot of constructive comments in the past) have done an excellent job of providing feedback, ideas, and whatnot.
Droids are an integral part of the Star Wars universe, yet you don't see them very much. You have people using mouse droids with storage now, just to get around the crackdown, which is ticking off smugglers and having some of them calling for nerfs.
Gorantoth has had the issues list posted ever since I was a DE, and only now some of the issues which were EASILY fixed are being addressed. Most of the bugs on there can be fixed extremely easy, and it would have been nice to see some progression throughout the entire time. Instead, we're at the point where it's finally time for our class fixing, and 5 DEs at most know what's going on, whereas the rest of the class is kept in total silence. Where are the posts from the DE dev? Where are the posts from TH giving us some direction on where the class is going? Well, THs post showed up in a CH thread demanding that a lot of pets be added to their class. There has been nothing for DEs, and it's supposed to be our time in the spotlight.
Constructive ideas have been posted, debated and agreed upon to death, bugs have been pointed better than many other professions out there and all we've got is silence.
For the first time, I actually had the surrender box open for DE. We've been patient, now reward us.
CorvidianX wrote:
I would just like to say that, while I am one of the somewhat jaded and bitter droid engineers, I would like to look at the upcoming changes as a step in the right direction.
As such, I would just like to point out that my biggest problem with the profession, aside from the bugs, is the lack of content. Not just high end content, but more particularly low end content.
A novice droid engineer is only able to make a mouse droid. He can install a level 1 item storage module, level 1 data storage module, or a level 1 medical module in this. None of these modules are desirable by any player, simply because there are higher levels of each. As such players will wait until they can purchase the highest end module, or something functionally equivalent (twin level 4 modules for example), leaving low-end droid engineers with little to no market for their products.
Untrue -- I have actually sold lots of MSE's with lvl 1 med modules, both on the Bazaar. I don't think novices can exepect to make tons and tons of money. With rather mediocre resources and only a few experimentation points I could still easily charge 6-8 cpu for my Med MSEs, easily enough to recoup my costs (at least for those droids, the grind to master was another thing altogether). My price was cr700 on the Bazaar, if I recall coreeclty, and cr500 on my own vendor, just to encourage people to come there and shop more. I had a 3k auction on the Bazaar as an ad. (That droid incidentally sold at 6k just after the patch that upped the limit :-)
Novice DEs with master artisan can make vehicle customization kits, too.
Something that would be _really_ nice, though, would be if it were possible to swap modules in droids, letting people re-use their droids with new modules when they switch professions. The switch would be done by using a limited use module switching kit, made by DEs. Hmmm. Or maybe not, since it might reduce droid sales. Oh, well. Lots of ideas, only 1% of which are good.