Droid Engineer Archive

I think part of the reasons people charge the prices they do is precisely because they know the droid they just sold will last forever. If droids decayed, I'd imagine prices would drop a bit. As far as droids that people would keep buying one way or the other, doctor droids for sure, also harvest droids (once they get fixed), and most likely storage droids (sure you can store your items back in your house/bank, but then they do you no good when you're in the middle of nowhere on dath and just had your armor/gun give out on you).

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Maisland wrote:

While I am sure that there would be people who would replace droids that wore out, I would not be one of them. None of the droids that I have now do anything important enough for me that I would feel that the expense would be justified.

I do not have a Doctor, so my medical droid would not be a great loss... I can always go to the med center if I need to heal wounds (I usually end up doing that if I'm in a town anyway).

My Entertainers would do without their party droids if they started to decay. They don't do anything really functional anyway.

I would harvest creatures by hand if my harvester droids decayed... I may end up doing this anyway after recent events (in fact, I only saw the threads on this topic after coming here to post about the problems I have recently had with my harvester droids).

I would empty out my storage droids and move the stuff to my house or the bankif it were to decay.

I already refuse to spend money on customization kits because they do wear off over time.

I have replaced droids in the pastwith better ones that I have either had custom made or found on a DE's vendor, but I would not be willing to replace a droid because it wore out. Several of my characters have had to save up just to buy each droid they own... and in some cases it took me months to collect the credits in the first place. The only way I would be willing to have droids wear out, is if the prices on them came way WAY down... like bazaar prices... and I don't see that happening.

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I wouldn't have a problem if my droids decayed. I haven't had a problem finding a droid engineer on Chilastra - 3 different engineers have made custom droids for me, and I see a droid vendor supplied by different people at nearly every mall I go to. Maybe I'm just fortunate on Chilastra? Or maybe it's just that I don't mind the extra time it takes to personally interact with the droid engineers. I know that I'm not representative of most players, given that I'm not in so much of a hurry to get uber loot and pwn people and whatnot.

Anyway, I do understand the feeling of getting attached to a droid. My medical/crafting station droid became obsolete recently, so I destroyed him. I know I could have just given him away, but I am aware of the no-decay problem. Personally I would actually ENJOY having to go to a droid engineer and getting my droid's modules replaced, since the chassis itself generally doesn't take any wear and tear (besides occasional /bonk). I am one of these guys that enjoys the social aspect to this game, and I have gained some good friendships with my crafted goods suppliers. To keep things moving though, I don't think any kind of overhaul should take any longer than a buffing session or so, and a player will only need to get one every 1 or 2 months, depending on usage.

And please don't make us replace our droid's chassis. Getting a new one of the same kind and color really isn't the same. As money is not a big object for my character, I would pay just as much for an overhaul as I would for a shiny new droid. I can understand about the argument for combat droids needing complete replacement, but in the end, or simplicity's sake, it may be better to make them follow the same decay rules as all the other droids.

= Andrew
Chilastra.Palacek

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JodoKai wrote:

I'm a DE, I've been a DE for a very long time, and I'm totally against Droid decay.

As has been stated before, droids are not all that desierable, sure it's convientinet to sit outside the starport and buff, but how much harder would it be to just sit in the Med center 200 meters away? All droid decay would do is make our product less desireable.

Right now my biggest sellers are Bomb Droids, and Probots (can't quite figure that one out but who am I to argue).

I make ADV MSE bomb droids and ADV R3's. These are one time use droids that keep my business going. With the changes to GCW, PvP will be stepping up and these will sell even more.

I don't think we need decay, I think we need more droids that blow up

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Jenden wrote:
I think part of the reasons people charge the prices they do is precisely because they know the droid they just sold will last forever. If droids decayed, I'd imagine prices would drop a bit. As far as droids that people would keep buying one way or the other, doctor droids for sure, also harvest droids (once they get fixed), and most likely storage droids (sure you can store your items back in your house/bank, but then they do you no good when you're in the middle of nowhere on dath and just had your armor/gun give out on you).

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Exactly.

The average droid I sell goes for over 100K. I've charged this high for a very long time, partially because I'm always in stock and I've been a DE for so long - but mostly because they last FOREVER.

Now, it's time for some honesty. Those droids cost me almost nothing to make. Every few months I mine some new metal or chemical, but I just set up a few harvesters, mine until it's gone, and I've got enough to last me a year. Droids take very few resources, in terms of quantity and rarity. We only need to worry about quality on a few of the modules and the final HAM. Droids aren't terribly difficult nor expensive to make.

If decay happened, and a droid had to be replaced every 3-4 months (longer for lighter use, less for heavy/combat use), on patch day I'd go out to my vendors across the Galaxy and reduce my prices by 2/3. My average droid would go from over 100K to 30-40K/droid. Immediately.

People pay 30-40K for a base elite weapon (a standard T21, etc.), and I think it would be worth it to most to do that replacement every few months. Sure, some people wouldn't, but many people would.

It's so utterly sad for me to see DE's who think our profession is worthless, because they just aren't opening themselves up to the possibilities. The business person in me thanks you - it's because of DE's like you I've made a fortune selling droids. It's not hard to sell the best, and it's not hard to give people the droids they want - if you know what they want. But, as someone who wants the DE profession to thrive, I really question how hard they have tried, because the profession that a few people have outlined in this thread seem like they are playing an entirely different game than I am.

Many, many players happily use droids every day.

Docs can't live without medical droids.

Most crafters *need* crafting droids - who wants to be stuck in their house all day?

Rangers and lesser-skilled scouts pay for their harvest droid in a session or two even at today's prices with the extra harvest.

Most combat players wouldn't dream of not keeping their best armor and other decayable items in an item storage droid - and paying what could amount to a few hundred credits a week (divided over a lifetime of a storage droid) for that extra storage space is worth it, and the no-decay just really sells the whole deal.

Combat droids get a bad rap because people are expecting CH-level firepower and want to use them against NS elders. Combat droids, used at the appropriate levels for the appropriate reason (extra firepower while leveling novice/beginner elite professions, as a distraction and strategic tool at later levels) can be very useful, and are ESPECIALLY effective in groups. Get a group of combat players, hook them all up with high damage Probots and some dedicated auto-repair R3 droids, and you've got some massive firepower there that can last almost infinitely. Problem is, very few DE's are aware of the ways in which all combat droids have uses and they don't educate their customers who have no idea how they can be useful outside of point and shoot functionality.

And for entertainers, who need droids with no quality, I'd sell them even cheaper. Maybe people would buy them up and use them as /tips - I have people who do that now, if they were cheaper and didn't last forever, my guess is more people might.

Finally, let's not forget space droids. It amazes me how many of these I have sold - yet, even though the average person buys several on their way up, once they are master they have their level 6's and they last...forever. All the other parts of a ship decay when a ship gets blown to Alderaan, but not our droids (must be all that duralloy we use, LOL).

Yes, we have room to improve. We need more relevance, we need more reasons for people to need us. That's all a given. But if we keep pinning our future on wanting more, more, more - we are just going to be disapointed and in the same rut we always end up in. Even if 1/2 the people who used droids stopped using them (something that I do NOT think will happen, but seems to be a common fear), we'd STILL be making more droids as a community than we are now.

Then we can work on getting those stragglers back by trying to come up with things that would be worth it for them. But right now, there are enough people out there to make the need for DE's swell on every server - if only their droids didn't last...forever.

DE's - think of every single droid you have ever, ever sold. Now, imagine if just 1/4 of those droids needed replacing every three months or so. Would you be a needed profession then?

AO

AudioOrgana,
Let me start by saying I've been a DE at least as long as you have, so I'm not some causal crafter that hasn't been in the thick of things. The fact of the matter is, droids are not needed.

I don't know a single serious crafter that uses a droid to craft. Why would they when they can don't get a bonus a home crafting station gives? Sure they sold great during the Hologrind, but that's over now, and it's mostly the serious crafters back to doing the crafting.

Most Doc's use their Droids to buff outside of starports, 200m away is a Hospital that works just as well. The only possible use is buffing in the field, which a camp can provide. So yes Doc's can live quite easily without a med droid.

Combat Droids are worthless compared to BE pets. BE pets are cheaper (if you're charging 100k a lot cheaper) they can be buffed, and use Chef food. Why anyone would by a combat droid is beyond me (like I said probots are one of my biggest sellers, but I only charge 30k and they have max HAM). The people that could get some use out of a probot can't afford 100k or more to buy it. Even you stated combat droids are limited, so why buy one when a BE pet can be used for any occasion?

Harvesting Droids: Expecially with the new changes to Scouts and Rangers, havesting droids are all but useless. You may sell a few, but when the rangers and scouts realize that they can harvest faster without them, that their units per second actually go down when using it, it will stop being used. It's not worth the extra time to use the droid, the benefit isn't that noticable.

So that leaves us with storage droids. I'll give you this one, not needed but highly desierable. If you're charging 100k for an MSE with a lvl 6 storage module you have guts. I'd get laughed off my server if I tried that.

Now after all that, I will say again, I have been a DE at least as long as you, and I love the profession. I love making droids. I make money selling droids, but I am realisic and know the limitations of my product. DE's, as we are now, make luxury items not requiered items. Make the luxury too expensive and we're done.

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JodoKai wrote:
AudioOrgana,
Let me start by saying I've been a DE at least as long as you have, so I'm not some causal crafter that hasn't been in the thick of things. The fact of the matter is, droids are not needed.

I don't know a single serious crafter that uses a droid to craft. Why would they when they can don't get a bonus a home crafting station gives? Sure they sold great during the Hologrind, but that's over now, and it's mostly the serious crafters back to doing the crafting.

Most Doc's use their Droids to buff outside of starports, 200m away is a Hospital that works just as well. The only possible use is buffing in the field, which a camp can provide. So yes Doc's can live quite easily without a med droid.

Combat Droids are worthless compared to BE pets. BE pets are cheaper (if you're charging 100k a lot cheaper) they can be buffed, and use Chef food. Why anyone would by a combat droid is beyond me (like I said probots are one of my biggest sellers, but I only charge 30k and they have max HAM). The people that could get some use out of a probot can't afford 100k or more to buy it. Even you stated combat droids are limited, so why buy one when a BE pet can be used for any occasion?

Harvesting Droids: Expecially with the new changes to Scouts and Rangers, havesting droids are all but useless. You may sell a few, but when the rangers and scouts realize that they can harvest faster without them, that their units per second actually go down when using it, it will stop being used. It's not worth the extra time to use the droid, the benefit isn't that noticable.

So that leaves us with storage droids. I'll give you this one, not needed but highly desierable. If you're charging 100k for an MSE with a lvl 6 storage module you have guts. I'd get laughed off my server if I tried that.

Now after all that, I will say again, I have been a DE at least as long as you, and I love the profession. I love making droids. I make money selling droids, but I am realisic and know the limitations of my product. DE's, as we are now, make luxury items not requiered items. Make the luxury too expensive and we're done.

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I do have to point out that a doctor can't buff as well in a med center as he can with the droid. Droid has a medical rating of 110 compared to the med center's 100 (meaning the droid gives you a 10% bonus to buffing/healing). As for the crafting droids... Most serious crafters I know may do a lot of their high end crafting near a good station, but every single one of them I know still keeps a crafting droid around to make that random item on the fly and would buy one again immediately if theirs decayed since the price on them compared to the time they last is insignificant.

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ZallusNuranxis wrote:

Now I don't propose that a droid goes *POOF*, but there should be a way that they need repaired over time. Maybe droids should have a new stat bar called "Wear" added to the HAM bars. The Wear Bar starts out maxed and decays over usage. Once this bar gets to a certain level, the droid won't obey commands and/or have deminishedmodulefunctions.

Can't seem to spell today

Message Edited by ZallusNuranxis on 02-18-2005 12:34 PM

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i like that idea...that way peeps won't lose their stuff if it's storage, but can have the option to upgrade and fix the droid or totally trash it and the DE can reuse thenon-decayed/broken parts or reuse the metal used for the droids....kinda like the recyclers we have forsmall stacks ofresources...that would be cool and it would make DE more useful to swg

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Jenden wrote:

I do have to point out that a doctor can't buff as well in a med center as he can with the droid. Droid has a medical rating of 110 compared to the med center's 100 (meaning the droid gives you a 10% bonus to buffing/healing). As for the crafting droids... Most serious crafters I know may do a lot of their high end crafting near a good station, but every single one of them I know still keeps a crafting droid around to make that random item on the fly and would buy one again immediately if theirs decayed since the price on them compared to the time they last is insignificant.

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Okay so instead of 2400 buff you get a 2200. Do you think Docs lose money over that?

The only "serious crafter" that would make things on the fly with a droid is probably a DE or an Architect. Every other profession expeimentaion matters, but even if this were true, how many times have they been away from towns with public crafting stations and away from their house and said "Crap I forgot my T21 better whip one up"? I would bet they were in a city like Coronet and instead of using the public ones they used the droid.

I guess I feel that if Devs are going to spend more time on DE, how about they give us something people NEED, something that if it decayed, people would actually WANT to replace it, because I gotta tell you, no one is going to replace those harvest droids, or those combat droids. The crafting station droids probably won't be used enough to decay anyway, so that takes them out.

If you want to fix something give probots back their armor. It would balance out with BE pets better. Droids can't be buffed, can't eat chef food, and have KD, dizzy, or disease attacks, so the armor would help balance out the two.

Just my thoughts on things.

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JodoKai wrote:

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Jenden wrote:

I do have to point out that a doctor can't buff as well in a med center as he can with the droid. Droid has a medical rating of 110 compared to the med center's 100 (meaning the droid gives you a 10% bonus to buffing/healing). As for the crafting droids... Most serious crafters I know may do a lot of their high end crafting near a good station, but every single one of them I know still keeps a crafting droid around to make that random item on the fly and would buy one again immediately if theirs decayed since the price on them compared to the time they last is insignificant.

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Okay so instead of 2400 buff you get a 2200. Do you think Docs lose money over that?

The only "serious crafter" that would make things on the fly with a droid is probably a DE or an Architect. Every other profession expeimentaion matters, but even if this were true, how many times have they been away from towns with public crafting stations and away from their house and said "Crap I forgot my T21 better whip one up"? I would bet they were in a city like Coronet and instead of using the public ones they used the droid.

I guess I feel that if Devs are going to spend more time on DE, how about they give us something people NEED, something that if it decayed, people would actually WANT to replace it, because I gotta tell you, no one is going to replace those harvest droids, or those combat droids. The crafting station droids probably won't be used enough to decay anyway, so that takes them out.

If you want to fix something give probots back their armor. It would balance out with BE pets better. Droids can't be buffed, can't eat chef food, and have KD, dizzy, or disease attacks, so the armor would help balance out the two.

Just my thoughts on things.

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The overpowered non-CH BE'd pets are bugged/exploited, so there's no point in bringing combat droids up to that level just to bring them right back down when its fixed. I do agree that there needs to be more "need" for droids (and its on the top issues list), but I think you underestimate how many people will continue to buy droids. Any droids that given even a minor bonus (harvesting and medical specifically here) are seen as "required" by any serious player and they will pay for it. If that weren't true, then people wouldn't be buying the droids now, and they wouldn't pay an extra 200k or whatever for a weapon that does 10 more damage (just an example, been too long since I've been weapon shopping to give accurate numbers).

Jenden Morn - Master of Droids- Tarquinas
Droid Engineer Blue Glowy
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Groupy of the best band in the galaxy, Solar Flair
3D art of Jenden by Saeelwenea

There is no real way to test this, but I would be 80-90% of all the harvesting droids you sold over a month ago, are collecting dust in a data pad right now. People get excited. They see a higher number so it HAS to be better. It give a bonus it HAS to be better with it. They use it religously. Time goes by and they forget to take it out. They remember pull it and realize the bonus isn't that great. Not only that but they either have to walk eveywhere now, or wait 15 seconds to pull it out at every lair. The harvesting droid has become a bigger pain than the benefit it gives. It can be done faster without the droid, so the units per second actually decrease using the droid. Spend an hour with the droid, spend an hour without, and all other things being equal you'll get more without the droid.

This is how it went with my whole guild. When they first came out, I supplied the whole guild. I was the first major DE on my server to have some above 100 (even beat Rasal ), and I saw the exact trend I just described over and over again.

If you force people to make a choice, spend more money, more frequently or find away around, I'd bet they'd find a way around it.

EDIT: About the BE pets: The HAM is out of wack. They'll still be able to get buffed and use chef food. They'll still be able to have special attacks like KD, Dizzy, and Posion. Even after this bug gets fixed, BE pets will still be a better option than a droid. Give us back the armor to balance it out.

Message Edited by JodoKai on 03-14-2005 09:01 PM

The way I see it its a no-lose situation. If people don't think the droids are good enough to buy again, they're not buying the droid anyway. If people do think so, they'll buy another droid when they wouldn't have before. Its not going to change how useful people see the droid, and can only increase sales.