Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Decay System 2.0
The Integrity Decay vs Battery Charge is the major issue and just will not fly. Customers are already complaining that droid batteries do not last long enough (or cost versus usage is too high). All this piece will do is shorten the useful time for the droid more then ever.
now reason for this idea makes more sense working from the price guide i use a med droid with lv6 and food/chem is 18k no wonder you so kean to replace droids more often.
IceTigger wrote:
As I said, “all that needs to be done is to get the current system to work”. It is known that the current vitality system for droids is broken. I can not say that about other pets because I do not own one. In the scenario described, the vitality on the droid should probably have been down to 85/100 or something instead of 98/100 with a serous hit on the HAM. After the use of a recondition kit and the droid equivalent to vitality pack, at best the vitality should have been 99/99 and fully repaired HAM. But that does not occur and it is a known problem.
Actually Ice, the system is working exactly as designed. The Vitality loss that a droid receives is right in line with the way that it works with CREATURE PETS. Correct me if I am wrong, but are droids exactly like creature pets? Are there pets running around that can hold a crafting station on their back or carry 10 items for a person? The answer is no, just encase you haven't been paying attention. Why is this? Droids are different then pets - plain and simple. The Vitality system is great for a pet that has the main function of being a combat buddy. The same can not be said for the 1/2 million+ droids that are used solely as a crafting station, storage, and/or buff station. 1/2 million? Could that be right? Lets do the math here. Over 250,000 people have subscribed to the game at one point in time or another. even if only half that number has bought 1 droid, we still have 125,000. Now, most people that end up buying 1 droid will end up buying 1-5 droids when they figure out that item stoarge is decayless, or 110% medical is better than 100 and lets you get XP almost anywhere, or a that being able to craft anywhere is a huge freedom. So, we end up with anywhere between 125k to 625k droids in circulation. Ask anyone that has been in the game for over 1 month whether or not they have at least 1 droid, not counting the helper droid or strictly combat droid. 90% of those people will more than likely tell you yes. Then ask them how often they buy a new droid because their droid wore out from non-combat use. This doesn't include how many of them bought a new droid because of new modules or content. This is how many of them bought a droid because it no longer would work anymore. Barring any game bugs, you will have few that have bought a new droid because of it being damaged. Why is this? The system that you say isn't working is working 100% the way it was intended - to cause decay in combat pets.
There arefour main reasons that someone buys a new non-combat droid.
- They are new to the galaxy and haven't bought a droid yet.
- A new droid/module was introduced.
- A bug/issue has made the droid useless
- They have switched professions.
Do you see a pattern emerging here? The only other reason that someone will buya new droid is if they simply feel like buying something new. Out of all of the sales potential, the first on the list is usually what keepsyour averageDE in business. Noob sales. Thats not a very good ratio of sales, when you take into consideration tha the number of MDEs has risen considerably since Publish 6 and talk of higher end combat droids was released. Even when JTL comes out, unless there is a decay system along the line, we will only see a quick sales spike for a 1-3 months as new people join or new droid features are released.
Two other crafting profession have it almost as bad, if not worse,then Droid Engineers, when it comes to the decay issue - Architects and Tailors. Architect creations are completely dependent on re-sales to people either upgrading, or replacing because of not paying upkeep. Not a perfect system, but Architects also don't have to worry about crit fails on their structures. Tailors have to deal with a bugged decay system that allows a person to keep wearing clothes that are 0 condition, but they also have a huge market for BE clothing, if they can find a supplier.
The big difference between DE crafted items and Tailor and Architect crafted items is that the later two tend to generate a lot more return business. We aren't talking about higher revenues, we are talking about return business. The typical person that buys a house will end up buying at least 20 items of furniture to add to their house. If a person buys a harvester, they more than likely will buy 2+ harvesters. Ifa person buys an item of clothing, they tend to buy an entire line of clothing that goes together.
The entire reason for the introduction of a decay system isn't to make more credits or to shaft the droid owner. The decay system is there to stimulate repeat droid sales for some other purpose than to replace a droid because of new content, or the random noob customer. The way the system currently is, the DE community (ingame) is at a pretty good ratio of MDEs per server. Each time something new is introduced to DE, more MDE join the ranks. Without a decay system in place, to help stimulate the economy, our profession will eventually be choked off to the point where only new content keeps us afloat. Don't take my word for it...do the math yourself.
Stravros wrote:
"A typical med droid is 50k"
Im fairly new mde but im still selling almost one or 2 droids a day, and if not my side line helps out, being greedy will just mess us up,
droid needing batterys to function:yes
more than one droid at time:yes
power droids not needing recharge or last much longer:yes
droids fall apart after 2 months:no way as i said before all that will happen is mouse droids will stampede around the galaxy. since people wont want to invest money in droid thats going to wear out.
Stravros, sales are completely based upon the server you are on, and what droid you are selling. I'm guessing that Ock was talking about an Adv R3 with the works and that you are talking about an Adv Surgical droid with 2 modules. Greed is not the issue here. The issue is trying to create a return market that will always allow you to sale 1-2 droids a day. As each server gets older, the sales market shrinks. Take a look at the server that you are on and compare it to other servers. FarStar is months behind Shadowfire, my server, which is a few months behind the other servers. Sales based solely off of new content and new people joining the server is great as long as new content stays constant and new people keep on joining. Let us look at the sales turn over that an AS or WS has. The system that is being suggested wouldn't lead to such a high turn over rate as either of these professions, however it would cause a turn over rate based on the same principal...useage. This is what is at the heart of the system. The rate of decay can be changed and the decay vs charge length can be removed, as long as a system is developed that can create a steady flow of repeat sales for all future and current Droid Engineers, that isn't entirely based off of new modules or new droid types.
Stravros wrote:
droids fall apart after 2 months:no way as i said before all that will happen is mouse droids will stampede around the galaxy. since people wont want to invest money in droid thats going to wear out.
Funny you should mention this, because once upon a time droids used to die almost after the first use. Even when the legendary Perma-death was around, that killed off a droid when it was incapped only 1 time, people still bought droids because they recognized their value and this was when only Med 110% modules were the best known function that a droid could have. Yes, there will be people that will moan and whine about the addition of a Decay system, but those are more than likely the same people who own 5 eXploited MSE with more modules than were ever intended in a droid.
If MSE were seen stampeding around the galaxy, it would be a set up in sales from what we see now and I for one would be willing to make a little bit of trade for the simple benefit of being about to have a higher volume of sales for all Droid Engineers
The Vitality hit could be the first step, as I laided it out about. When Droid Commander comes out, DEs are going to get some attention as well, in the form of additional droids and some possible other changes. This would be the time frame that I can see the Decay system being slipped in. This won't happen until after JTL is running stable and the DEVs and art department return to full schedule on improvements. I honestly don't see the DEVs taking any amount of time out of their current schedule to throw in a Decay system, no matter how small the change, until after JTL.
OckVofad wrote:
Personally, I'd like to keep it as simple as possible so that it could be done as a hotfix or as part of a mini-publish. That means making it straight forward like battery usage or incap = vitality hit.
As I've noted above the devs are not going to give us our own Publish again. I just dont see it happening so we need to compromise in some fashion.