CUEmu - Thread Posts

ArythBandar

Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:54 am

I don't see how medium armor was that over powering in the first place. My Probot died just the same, all it was good for is a distraction for my mark, now without decent armor it becomes nothing more than a fancy toy. And what gives with these combat modules giving a 'combat droid' (in essance a Probot, nothing more) a CL10 equivalency? That seems like a waste of time and resources. Hell, a Carrion Spat has is CL10 and you can ride those. It seems to me that there is no incentive for buy droids anymore. I don't think I'll buy any more untill they fix the nerf (and I have anumber of friends who feel the same way).

Another thing, No Droid Commander. CH makes perfect sense to me (animals have minds of their own and they need a skilled trainer to teach them tricks and to know how to handle the tough critters). What does a droid need? All it needs is some command line saying "Listen to this guy, he's your new boss now." The droid would go, "but of course," and go aboutunquestionally obeying his new master b/c they have no other chose, they have to follow their programming.

So, devs, instead of wasting precious time brainstorming a Droid Commander prof (that will just provide you with more bugs that need to be fixed) how about concentrating on all the other profs that actually need some fixes?

Shian_Tavkin

Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:55 am

#41

TickTock wrote:

Shian_Tavkin wrote:

You surely didn't think a Probot was overpowered before Pub 7, surely not. Have you actually played using one?

I don't know about you, but I've played using one. Is the pre-7 Probot overpowered? Yes and no. Pre-7, it was not overpowered as it was, because you could not heal it. Once it had expended its life, you had to store it and let it heal naturally, drastically decreasing its usefulness. But that isn't the case anymore with droid repair kits, is it now? (At least once they are working correctly, which atm I hear they might not be?) Suddenly you have a 900 HAM ar2 40% across the board resist little beast that can be healed. What does that mean? Well, firstly, if you care to do the math the probot has an effective 6k HAM bar against all damage types. Impressive, but what if you're healing it too? If you just had a 6k HAM droid, healing it for say 500 points of damage is just that... healing 500 points of damage. But if you have a 900 HAM ar2 40% droid, healing it for 500 points of damage isn't 500 points anymore. It is healing it for about 3300 damage, once you factor in damage reductions.

Once you add in the ability to heal this puppy, it puts to shame even the most twisted and exploited of BE created critters during their prime using bugged DNA. So a pre-7 Probot IS overpowered... in a post-7 environment. Current BE's can't make a NCH pet even remotely this good anymore, since they tightened up the restrictions even further in pub7.

And since we're talking about DE's now, maybe you should all consider laying the **edit** off of TK421? He has the hideously unenviable position of both deliveringoften unpleasant information to the DE community from the Devs, AND he has to hold back the tidal wave of illogical raving seething bile that half of this community is spewing forth. Most of you wouldn't do half so well, armchair correspondents the lot of ya.

And didnt I just say un-nerf the armour OR increase the HAM...you did read that bit huh?

Nobody is trying to be better than BE here, but the fact remains that in it's current state the probot is not a viable, saleable product, except for novelty value.

On the subject of healing, you want to see what those kits are going to cost.

All this because of a technicality

Shian -- Master Droid Engineer/ Master Artisan

Akkori

Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:56 am

#42

Well, it looks like a good dose of double talk in there....and I think we gota make it so they CANT give those bland, neutral messages. We need to compose and ratify a series of questions that every DE who attends the CHat's will send off to the chat admin. For example... (please do not take the quotes as criticism, I'm not pointing fingers or anything)

Instead of - "...with the implementation of the Droid Invasion, many DE's feel cheated. The "combat droids" are much lower than BE'd pets, and more or less useless in all but the lowest level combat, what can you say to the DE's that are dropping the profession because they feel let down..."

Try - "Are the current, Live,playerowned and usedDroids hitting the mark the Devs have set for power and usefulness specifically in combat?"

Instead of - "Just Wondering How Many New Droids do we Expect is Publish 8 if any?"

Try - "How many new, player controlled and owned Droid chassis can we expect in P8?"

...and so on. They are pretty good at weaseling out of things. Dont make it easy for them.

Odano Akkori
First Mayor of Tempest
Jaxian Bay
Elder DE, Rifleman, Swordsman
Jedi will never be a starting profession...Looted items and quest items will never be better then crafted items, this is not a loot based game...CH will return shortly...CH and BE will not be back in game...Rangers are getting their revamp next!...The stealth system will not be changing in the spy expertise...Need any more examples of things the devs said that did not hold true?

CaixCatab

Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:06 am

#43

I dont care if Runesabre was referring to armour only, and I dont care that he may have omitted any thoughts or reference to damage dealing or speed or..for that matter, what the misconceptions he might have been under were.

Just trying to make sure you don't waste energy on directing your constructive criticism towards an issue just because of a misinterpration.

What I do care about is the end result for a player, because that directly equates to saleability.

And the end results for combat balance? Leveling time? Stealing-fun-from-other-professions? I think I noted, somewhere amoung the SOEapologetic stuff,we, as DE's, are biased towards droids. We don't really want to care about anything else that makes it easier to sell our droids, and I still don't think we can, as a group, handle putting the bias aside.

The Probot never could do much, except be a minor tank - and now it can't even do that right, as he would know if he had ever played the game with one. None of my testing has been against BE pets (because I know that is no solid foundation for testing)...

(Good, just wanted to make sure.)

....it has been against minor NPC groups, including enemy faction NPC groups, creatures in the wild (lair missions) and so on. The fact is it is less able than it once was, even with healing (supposing you can keep it in range to be healed).

So how far up the combat skills trees would you be willing to concede the droid retains some value of usefullness? My R3 does about half (.... I think. Not sure on MY damage =) ) my dmg if I'm not using specials, but it costs me no HAM and he has limited abilities to tank. I'm unarmed IV/Pistols IV, and when I pitted him against some white-con critter (can't remember what it was, but it wasa lair) I'd say depending on your luck, the droid would be able to singlehandedly deal with one of them without healing.

So, I figured that the little bot will be usefull to aboutMaster Marksman/Master Brawler, either as an extra body to be damaged or some extra damage, if your not group hunting. How far off do you think I am?

From that evidence I conclude it is less saleable now (apart from novelty value) than once it was. Add to that that it was a minority choice in the pre Pub7 days and the nett result is that it has been nerfed, however you want to measure it. Saleability is key in this.

... from a DE point of view. Which we're all uniquely qualified to see. Because we're biased. As a crafter class, our key point is saleability, as you said.

Is that the right key point, from a game enveloping perspective? Is that the only point worth considering?

Moving on to your view regarding our 'fitness to debate' you use the not so clever tactic of putting words into my mouth.

My sincere apologies. I'll try and stay away from that kind of thing in the future (that's what happends when you try and speak figuratively 6am hehe).

I did not suggest they come to us with 'each and every thread of idea they have'. What I do however think they should do is utilize the 'in Concept' approach in order to get feedback before the event of coding.

I can agree with that. I still think the only view you'll get out of us is a biased one, but maybe it'll have some form of usefull impact on the game developement.

Producing a body of work to Test Center is far too late a time to get feedback.

Good point. How much detail do you think it's reasonable for an announcment of that kind to contain?

My only other comment is that there are a large number of intelligent human beings on this forum, and profitable debate does indeed occur, to think otherwise, or that we are in some way not good enough or 'unfit', is patronizing.

Along the end of that pharagraph, I said: "We're way to biased to be able to consider enough of the balance issues that needs considering." I am, as an intelligent human being (IMHO anyway

), perfectly well aware of the bias I have towards the profession I decided I wanted to be a year ago.

You can consider myacknowledgement ofthat as me being patronizing,or take itfor what it is:Me recognizing the bias I share withthe dedicated people of this profession.

Your only valid point is that I should stay away from political comparisons, and your mistake is in propogating your argument with further political examples..so hello Pot, this is Kettle.

Well, since I seem to have been right on what he was refering to with the lvl 150 sentence, I'd say that makestwo valid points. But who's counting...

So you say that because the Devs have been working on the game for years they know best eh? The DE 'Mob' as you call us should not participate eh? Well if you like to believe that, thats your own affair, in which case what are you doing on the forums in the first place?

I think we're biased, not stupid. They way I Iook at it, our correspondent has two primary missions: Brings bugs and stuff that isn't working to the attention of the developers and take our (biased) opinions and show them to the devs. There is a difference between us participating, and us ordering the devs around.

As for what I'm doing on the forums, my initial reason for posting in this thread was to clear up what I viewed as a misconception on your part. Then I realized I was having fun participating in a discussion between Droid Engineers and decided to chip in my two creds.

Have they never been wrong? There is only one group who understand the playability of this game, and that is the players. Devs may know what they want to achieve, but history proves that as with all development the design does not necessarily translate into actuality of gameplay.

Yeah, I'm repeating myself. But still. And we're always right? I'm not saying we should offer them our fanatical devotion, but we're still biased towards one profession, and one profession only. We may know what we want to achieve, for our profession of choice...

Finally, it is gameplay that counts. In that respect (at the very least) comparing any aspect of a probot to CL150, or even (if it was a typo) CL15 is quite fatuous. There was a reason people preferred creature pets, and we sold fewer probots, the CL10 pet was better in gameplay terms - and I frankly do not care what their arcane formula tells them, in this case playersare always better judges ofwhat 'level' a 'pet' is, and they spend their credits accordingly.This will not change in the probot's favour as a result of Pub7, and as such does nothing good for DE.

Just incase I'm reading that wrong, but in an ideal world, the money is supposed to be spent 50/50 on creatures and droids. And I agree, work remains to be done to make that happen (power levels beyond the two being balanced, is more related to up to how long using the CL10 pets will be usefull, which (I think) I addressed somewhere above)

And after all that, I want the armour back because it distinguished a Probot from a organic creature. As we are now our probot is nothing more than an expensive, weakcreature made of metal, and that is not good for DE.

As I'm not up to date on probot prices in comparision with an equal leveled pet, I can't answer the pricing. As for armour, I think TickTock had some nice mathematics on that.

(And leave our correspondent alone TYVM...)

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GrafvonSoden

Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:06 am

#44

You people saying a probot was equal to a peko peko albatross are full of S.H.I.T. It took out my 40% resist medium armor probot in 1 (I'll spell it out for you ONE) hit! - Then me in 2 hits. The only use for them anymore is scan proff - decay proof backpacks.

Message Edited by GrafvonSoden on 03-19-2004 11:11 AM

TickTock

Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:06 am

#45

Shian_Tavkin wrote:

And didnt I just say un-nerf the armour OR increase the HAM...you did read that bit huh?

Nobody is trying to be better than BE here, but the fact remains that in it's current state the probot is not a viable, saleable product, except for novelty value.

On the subject of healing, you want to see what those kits are going to cost.

All this because of a technicality

And you're probably right, their armor alteration was probably too much. But if you try to fix the current probot by claiming the old probot wouldn't be overpowering, people will just poke holes in your logic and the argument won't fly. Nor should people be flying into hysterics because they can't seem to understand Runesabre's comment about the probot's armor. It doesn't take a degree in English to have the reading comprehension necessary to tell that Rune was comparing probot armor to cl150 armor, not probots to cl150s.

Eniako

Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:19 am

#46

ArythBandar wrote:

It seems to me that there is no incentive for buy droids anymore.

This is, to me, to me the greatest tragedy of this whole Droid Invasion thing. As I understood it, one of the intents was to make the Droid Engineer a viable part of the economy. I dont see this happening. I had no interest in buying a combat droid Pre-publish 7 and I have less of a desire now. While I understand the need to have balance to avoid people soloing mobs they shouldnt, give me one good reason that I should waste anywhere from 5 to 45,000 credits on a piece of metal that wont last 5 seconds against anything bigger than a chuba?

For those that say, join a group to tank. I dont recollect anywhere on the box that it said that in order to play solo (an ability they promised) you had to be a CH.

Eniako Pathfinder
Ex-Master Bounty Hunter, Ex-Master Combat Medic, TK Master, Master Fencer, Master Brawler

PokinJoo

Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:28 am

#47

[quote]

Brannoc*puddy* Hi, with the implementation of the Droid Invasion, many DE's feel cheated. The "combat droids" are much lower than BE'd pets, and more or less useless in all but the lowest level combat, what can you say to the DE's that are dropping the profession because they feel let down ? Thanks

KeldarinWe know that level 10 BE pets are still overpowered. We are still trying to tweak the power levels of the low level cloned pets.

[/quote]

so bio engi's are gonna get nerfed cause the devs cant seem to give the de's a driod with 3k ham and 200ish damage ...

all i have to say is ... WoW

==================================================

measure with micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with axe.

Lochar

Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:33 am

#48

I wasnt at the chat but my interpretation is that probots are what they would like their model to be for CL 10 pets, and that any BE made ones will prolly get the nerf stick later.

I will say the dmg is alot better on a probot now that was except for the original probots. the only bad thing is they cant take agro or they have a lifespan of a few seconds, plus they do have any specials like a BE pet possibly can, so I think they need to have other advantages.Right now its just a boon to dmg and nothing else, and only 1 type of damage at that.

I also played with other droids, LE-rpair only humanoid droid with combat capability is a joke, it does melee only and while funny to watch, its basically useless. R series are very kewl to watch in combat and funny to see melee and get incapped.

Nifty

Fri Mar 19, 2004 11:10 am

#49

Eniako wrote:

For those that say, join a group to tank. I dont recollect anywhere on the box that it said that in order to play solo (an ability they promised) you had to be a CH.

umm, what's your point here? Are you saying you can't solo in this game unless you're a CH? I solo a lot, and I'm not a CH. I'm a Master Ranger working on Pistoleer. I solo just fine and dandy. I know what I can kill without armor and buffs, and I know what I can kill with armor and buffs. I also am glad that there are things that I cannot kill solo, but I can help to kill while grouped.

Starsider: Abici Sselof, Master Entertainer, Musician and Pistoleer; Master Pilot

Ravenx

Fri Mar 19, 2004 11:11 am

#50

When will you people realize that all these useless publishes they keep throwing at us with even more bugs is just a cheap way of keeping you around till the space expansion comes out. That marketing scheme will get you to buy the buggy expansion and after that you will just realize your in the same boat you are in now. SWG team has little to no interest in how we as a playing community feel just now there asking how us the community can add our ideas to make the game more interesting. We as the community have beentelling them since beta how to make the game more interesting yet they still don't want to listen. Droid Invasion along with the Imperial invasion are nothing but a sick joke and we the community are the ones being laughed at all the way to the bank.

Naufragus

Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:55 pm

#51

if my probot had the armor of a 150 level creature, then why in the world did he fair so badly...

PadreBook

Fri Mar 19, 2004 2:06 pm

#52

TickTock wrote:

PadreBook wrote:
The BE correspondent just said in another thread that he doesn't believe that the dna was bugged it is just a reflection of the wacky crafting system.

Padre

po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe... Bugged or not, certain DNA's allowed BE's to break the system.

Well the developer in charge of BE does the worst possible job at communicating anything. Like what is the acceptable range, why do some successes lower stats and other failures raise attributes, why is there NO documentation in the BE field? This is the same rocket scientist that dropped the Jedi will be your main character bombshell in the chat, which by the way he (and the rest of them) failed to answer the number one question--will already unlocked characters lose their second (Jedi) character when that change goes through? Seems pretty obvious a question to me.

Padre

Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: Pertinent stuff from the chat