Droid Engineer Archive

---

Gavvot wrote:

What I'm asking is a purpose and a role for those droids in combat.

For combat, it's just to give folks an edge. We've seen recently that used in a smart way, droids make the difference. I suspect that our current droid combat role will simply be to 'buff' a low to mid level players combat abilities...not replace them outright. When two evenly matched players PvP, the one that has a droid should win...cause it gave him that something extra.


The balance isn't right.

I understand now why TH always said we all had to wait for the CB/CR. Getting the (new) balance right will all happen there. I think the Devs are keenly aware that we don't want a gimped combat market so I think (I think) that we might see our bots be a bit more powerful, a very tiny bit, until DC comes along as a way to offset the lack of a high end market.

However, the sales we get from JTL will more than address some of our concerns on sales.

So, instead of:

Low-end combat, High-end combat, JTL and Utility markets

...we'll get...

Low- to Med-end combat, JTL and Utility markets

Once DC hits, the numbers on our combat bots will likely be balanced so there's mo' betta' stratification. I would very much expect that someday we're going to be selling Probots for less than we are now..../shrug

---

/bow

Respectfully,

---

babyblue_d wrote:

---

TheRealTK421 wrote:

• How the crafting process might be able to be changed to ensure that we don't see 10000 of the "best" item on a vendor and altering things so that hand-crafting actually has a reason to be "better".
  
  Example: The best cars in the world? Hand-crafted.

---

This would make me so happy since I only do things by hand. Also by doing this it could DRASTICLY help the devs item count buy bringing down the # of unwanted items made simply to "not waste the schematic"

---

It likely would reduce the item count some but not drastically. People will still crate things in large runs...just not the "best" items possible to be made. Those should be hand-craft only.

The real benefit to this is that the 'nothing but the best' market can't be crated...it must be hand-crafted. This makes hand-crafting matter (which right now it rarely, if ever, does). So..you'll want a 120 Harvest R3? Yea, you're not gonna be able to factory make that....not the modules anyway.

I know that will hurt some but it will also gives these droids (and weapons, armor, whatever) more real value and fetch the premium price that they should get.


/bow

Respectfully,

TK,

I completely agree with you that an non Droid Handler combat droid shouldn't be more than something extra.

The problem is that, for the moment, it is not an extra at all.

Low, medium or high level. In PvP, droid don't have a place, in PvE, they do, but as tank filled with auto-repair, not as extra damage, or only on very low end PvE.

With the requirement to make a good combat droid, it is hard, it requires high quality exepensive resources, it requires lots of sub-component, clearly, it makes the current combat droids targeted to high level characters.
They have to be expensive.
But their function, and use doesn't match at all with that.

Combat droid should worth what they cost.
And for the moment, they don't.

If the combat droids were balanced combat DZ70 would have a purpose and sell very well to low level fighters.
They don't.
Instead, we have medium level fighter(because they are once they have the money to buy it) that buy low/medium combat droids(the best we can do) and use them for a few days until they become completely useless for them.

A high level combat character should have a use for a high level non-droid handler combat droid.
Even as a small extra.
It does not atm.

---

Gavvot wrote:

Combat droid should worth what they cost.

---

You're sort of making an assumption here on value that may not be appropriate.

"Worth" (value to the player) is an entirely subjective issue. Our combat droids have usefulness.....but not in any situation. They are best when used at the right times in certain ways.

If you're a ranged profession, yea...that rockin' AR Tank Combat bot you have will really help (especially with repair kits).

If you're a melee profession, the Combat/Damage model does help (as stated, I solo'd a fambaa with mine).


It's in the way that you use it.


Anyway, I don't want to get caught up in how things are now. Cause it's all about to be turned on its ear, flipped upside down, batted around and then shaken (not stirred).

I can assure that I'll do my utmost to ensure that our combat market isn't cut off at the knees. We've already been there...we don't need to go back.


/bow

Respectfully,

Message Edited by babyblue_d on 09-02-2004 10:24 AM

---

TheRealTK421 wrote:

Great story...and exactly the reason why I'd like to see hand-crafting be king of quality.


The situation would be a tradeoff:

If you used factories, you'd make more droids....but they wouldn't be as good as hand-crafted droids.

If you used hand-crafting, you'd have higher quality....but your production levels wouldn't be anywhere close potentially.


This means that there's choice involved (as it should be) on both the DE's part and the client's part.


For now, you will be stuck hand-crafting droids that are identical in "best" quality to what comes out of a factory. If we can get a good plan in place and get it sold, that's gonna change.




/bow

Respectfully,

---

I actually like this. I'd rather tinker than mass produce anyway. In fact, I don't think I've ever run off any actual droids in my factory except arkayd's, seekers, and bomb droids. Most of the time, its GP and memory modules.

---

TheRealTK421 wrote:

Great story...and exactly the reason why I'd like to see hand-crafting be king of quality.


The situation would be a tradeoff:

If you used factories, you'd make more droids....but they wouldn't be as good as hand-crafted droids.

If you used hand-crafting, you'd have higher quality....but your production levels wouldn't be anywhere close potentially.


This means that there's choice involved (as it should be) on both the DE's part and the client's part.


For now, you will be stuck hand-crafting droids that are identical in "best" quality to what comes out of a factory. If we can get a good plan in place and get it sold, that's gonna change.




/bow

Respectfully,

---

I love the ideas they you and the other crafting corrispondants are thinking up and working on. It would bring changes that would get me back into crafting. I never gone far past master artisan since it was all a grind and now real personal reward for me. I would love to have hand crafted items that i could say, look what i made, and not have some guy with a factory say, yeah, so what? I just made 500 just in my factory just like. Very unpersonal in the end.

It would improve all crafters, even weaponsmiths in making the ultimate weapons. hand crafted perfection, then given to a master smuggler, who inturns does a perfect slice, think of the quality the weapon be and how (i hat this word) uber it would be. it would be the ultimate one to own. It would end up being a very hefty price tag, and bragging rights for all who were involved with it.

I been watching the discovery channel lately, mostly the bike shows since i am a biker in heart, to poor at the moment to own the hog i want. but the hand crafted bikes are the best. some range up to $100,000 or more. Causing major competitions to make the best bike. Well, i see with these changes, that someone somewhere will start the trend of crafter build off's to see who can make the best (insert item here) and i know many many crafters will join in. And i see these changes sparking off even greater changes that will lead to even a greater game.

I love the design plans. Tell the other corrispondants too. Thanks for the hard work and dedication to your proffesions. I does show when good things come about. Now beat up those devs and whip them till they work faster. lol. just don't leave marks.

I have mixed feelings about this hand made are better than factory stuff change.

On one side, it does make sence, and limit to availability of top quality stuff.

But the consequences doesn't looks good.
Price for top quality stuff will raise faster, and as most of the players only want the best, most of the crafters will only make the best(try to find chitin armor, or padded).

That will promote concentration of crafters, as to have a chance to survive to success, crafters will have to regroup and run 1 shop with several identical crafters, just to keep in stock (already happening).

Also, forcing crafters to use factories as the schematics require factory-made component, and on the other side give penalty to the crafter when he use a factory doesn't sound right. It send two oposite messages to crafters : you must use factories, but you must not use factories if you want top quality O_o.

Beside, those changes will affect much more some professions than others.
Not really a big deal for a tailor or a smuggler, but for an armorsmith, very very big negative impact.
I think that DE are as usual somewhere in the middle.

---

Gavvot wrote:
I have mixed feelings about this hand made are better than factory stuff change.

On one side, it does make sence, and limit to availability of top quality stuff.

But the consequences doesn't looks good.
Price for top quality stuff will raise faster, and as most of the players only want the best, most of the crafters will only make the best(try to find chitin armor, or padded).

That will promote concentration of crafters, as to have a chance to survive to success, crafters will have to regroup and run 1 shop with several identical crafters, just to keep in stock (already happening).

Also, forcing crafters to use factories as the schematics require factory-made component, and on the other side give penalty to the crafter when he use a factory doesn't sound right. It send two oposite messages to crafters : you must use factories, but you must not use factories if you want top quality O_o.

Beside, those changes will affect much more some professions than others.
Not really a big deal for a tailor or a smuggler, but for an armorsmith, very very big negative impact.
I think that DE are as usual somewhere in the middle.

---

What i have seen on the armorsmith foram that they are always in a question of which direction to go when theyget a name and sales are out of the roof. Either they go with factory made stuff and have only a few colors that almost everyone buys and have no specail loot items added. Or they go fully custom armor only which they charge a large stinking amount which includes color and loot items. I truely don't really see it affecting them any more different than they are now. I think it will enhance the custom order crafters with more ability to shine and they will definatly raise the price, but they already charge a hugh amount above factory armor. Those who buy custom orders already have the cash to blow.

The only two pros that really won't be affected are Architechs and Taylors, they really don't have much at all that would is affected by experimentation.

---

babyblue_d wrote:

My question is: This thing I have been doing for the last year hand crafting droids feeling that in some small way that made them better, more personal, more disirable it's been useless? ... why did i spend 4 days at my PC building droids for the droid invastion revamp to make 3 mill when I could have set up factorys and made 5-10 times that much for half the work.

The system now is not fair to the deaticated player its slided to the power crafter and thats not right.

10:24 AM

---

So because you refuse to do the work necessary to make that many droids, the person who HAS done the work and created a large business should be punished?

That's like saying to a combat player that they play "too good" and should have your XP gain reduced signifigantly because of "casual" players not being able to keep up.

It was your choice to construct those combat droids by hand, I just don't get what you are crying about. You feel as if someone else plays the game better than you, and your ego can't take it? If you like making droids by hand, by all means continue - but don't sit and whine about it when other people use the game systems available to them and work very hard producing industrial quality droids.

Yeah, that person who keeps a fully stocked selection of droids - must be a bad person. Meeting the demands of players when others can't or won't is a bad thing, right?

This issue is really just "let's punish those Droid Engineers who are the most able because those who of choose not to put in the required work to get to the same level". There is no issue here - you stock your vendor with 20 droids, someone stocks 2000. It's not like they have some special version of SWG, it's that they have made different choices, choices that ANYONE can choose to make.

You choose not to mass produce and get some sort of superiority complex over it - in a virtual world made of 0's and 1's I don't get that, but hey, to each their own, until it interferes with "my own".

If it weren't for the few Droid Engineers with the initiative to create a large scale industrial corporation, think of how many exponentially less droids would be in game. There are thousands of customers per server, and a handfull of special-order mom and pop outfits can't begin to handle them, especially if they construct everything by hand. I've found that most of these customers don't even know about all the types of droids available, or even that they can use combat droids - it's people with high profiles like myself, and, presumably the industrial droid engineer you spoke of, who get the word out to get the "little guy's" the business you get.

I keep hearing romantic notions about crafting by hand, but that's all they are - romantic notions. I use the same interface to construct my droids as you do, I just don't make the same clicks over and over. I have to work hard finding large quantities of identical resources to make these factory runs, and I spend a great deal of time transfering crate after crate from factory to factory (try dragging and dropping hundreds of crates in one play session on a lag-filled planet). It's just making efficent use of my time and keeping up with demand.

No one should fault you for doing business the way you choose, but neither should you fault people for using the advanced crafting systems to their advantage.

It's akin to two master rifleman, one with a uber-T21 and the other using a DLT-20 and the one using the DLT-20 complaining that the guy with the uber-T21 deals more damage and therefore gets more XP/reward than he does. If the guy with the DLT-20 wants to put in the work, he could earn the means to get his own uber-T21.

However, if the guy with the DLT-20 has the romantic notion that using a lower-damage rifle is somehow more "noble" and chooses not to do the work required, or does not want to (thinking those who use their profession at it's fullest are automatically "power gaming"), he has simply made a choice and decided on his own his station in the game.

Smaller DE's will NEVER do the volume that someone that can produce more droids will - that's just common sense and mathmatics. Asking them to reward you for taking the "high ground" would be like gating those T21 users because the DLT-20 users choose to not use the advanced tools (T21/factory) available to them.

You can do it too. Every industrial droid engineer began as broke and skill-less as everyone else who ever began SWG. If you choose not to do the work, for whatever reason, to get to that level, then by all means enjoy your profession whatever way you wish. But trying to nerf those who play it on a different level because you choose not to play that advanced part of the business game isn't the answer.

Smaller DE's have their advantages. I rarely take custom orders because I don't have the time to play the combat game, and do all my industrial crafting, and do special orders. Industrial DE's cannot stock awfully varied droids; you won't find R3's with two entertainer modules, one medical, two crafting stations and data storage on my vendors, you have to go to a smaller DE for that. If I do a run of 100 combat droids using the best fiber available, and a week later I still have 95 left and better chem spawns, I'm stuck with 95 obsolete droids that are worth 1/4 of what they were when I made them. When I put up 100 droids, they are all the same color - which I am finding is increasingly important to people who don't like the customization kits - which I don't sell - nor do I sell batteries most of the time (I leave that for the newer DE's making their way up).

Industrial crafting and hand-crafting can and do exist very nicely together, and when I read things about "hand crafted should be better!" in many ways they already are. You can provide a level of customization, especially as Droid Engineers, that no one producing droids by the crate can even begin to compete with. Customers share your romantic notions as well - I know many who find out about droids from people like me then end up giving special orders to their neighborhood DE's just because they like that type of service.

You don't do the volume that Industrial producers can, therefore you don't get the same level of profit. It's very cut and dry. Shafting those who are playing the crafting "end game" by subsidizing those who do low volume (by choice) wouldn't do anything but increase your volume, which you are already saying you don't want to do. It just doesn't make any sense except in, as I said, the idea of a romantic notion - which isn't what gameplay should be based on.

AO

Well sorry Kalano, but I think you don't know the AS profession very well.

It would be easier to have a private audiance with the pope than to have a custom made armor on my server.

Customer can change the color of composite armor any time they want.

AS do make factory runs with looted Items. In fact, they have to.

When you build armor, you need identical segments, so, must be factory made, and those are a very big part of the final result of the armor on base and sepcial effectiveness and encumberence.

Armorsmith is probably the crafting profession in wich each additional experimentation point have the biggest impact on what you can make because even with more than 12 points, you can still improve the armor by lowering encumberence, and still have the slice to do better.

And to give you an idea, last week, 2 set of compo armor(1 full suit and 1 4 piece suit) were auctioned for more than 3M each on my server.

I'm not very fond of the way armor currently works as armor require creature resource like buff and food, each time one of those raise in prices, all the other follow.

Basic offer and demand law, but inflation on my server is getting really insane (full suit of compo seem to take 100K per month increase).
(I think half the server have an AS alt to make his armor and supply money for all the stuff they need).


Currently, for us DE, the components that must be factory made don't have any kind of impact on the quality of the droid we make, for AS they do have a very big impact on the final product.

Big difference.

Message Edited by Gavvot on 09-06-2004 08:18 PM