Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: droid storage beating the imp crackdown?
Kollos wrote:
Y'all are still missing the point...
Why should a droid that isn't even present be scannable?
If the droid is there with you, then sure, scan away. But if the droid is "stored" and not even present, there's no logical reason that it should be scannable.
Well if you want to be logical about it, then you should only be able to call a droid at the place where you stored it.
That would make absolute sense, but is that the sort of logic you want to promote?
Some things come down to gameplay, and in this case, the good gameplay call is to give Smugglers unique benefits for their invested skillpoints and allow the profession to live up to its title. Smugglers specialize in moving contraband from Point A to Point B. But with a droid, everybody can now effectively smuggle. That's a huge hole in the system.
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
My solution since you asked:
Back off. Let DEs make droids that can actually do things. Item storage, crafting stations and medical modules are the ONLY things that DEs can make. That is my position.
No one is saying that we should nerf storage. No one is trying to remove storage capabilities from droids. We're simply saying scan 'em if they're storing things. You can store whatever you bloody well please in them, just don't expect it to shield you from scanning. How's that taking anything away from you guys? If, in fact, droids are not being scanned (and we don't even KNOW this yet), the it can't be intentional, and thus wasn't something that was "given" to you by the devs. It's something that slipped through accidentally, like being able to slice a weapon twice. Now THAT was a bannable offense. I don't think this should be bannable, but it SHOULD be fixed.
If the devs determine that this issue needs addressing, then a comprimise whereby smugglers use DE consumables to slice droids with item storage to allow for some lesser smuggling ability seems reasonable to me.
No, I'm going to have to say that there should be no compromise. Yes, it's a pain to own five droids, but people could do it and put smugglers out of business. Smugglers selling compartments means we put the profession itself in danger. We should, as electronicnomad has said, be the transporters, plain and simple. There need to be consequences, advantages, and drawbacks in this game and players need to get over the notion that they can do whatever they want. It's SUPPOSED to be inconvenient and/or dangerous for you to wander around with your sliced goods or illegal drugs. They're ILLEGAL. If you wanted to move them without getting caught, you should've become a smuggler. Or you shouldn't have had them sliced in the first place. You make your choice, you live with the consequences. Simple as that. But smugglers really are under attack here. The core of our profession is being carved up and handed out to other players who haven't invested skill point 1 into the smuggler profession. That's wrong.You want a compromise? I've got one for you. You guys can make items that let you de facto smuggle the day I can make items that let you de facto make droids. That's a compromise. Past that, though, we're trading away the abilities of professions. There's no manageable way to make smugglers the guys you go to to move contraband if we allow people to do it on their own. Smugglers become useless when that happens and I would imagine that droid engineers of all people could sympathize with feeling useless in this game. You guys are getting your dev love now. We have been waiting since launch and have had barely any posts on our forum from the devs. Personally, I'm glad that the DEs are getting attention, but don't start trying to take away other professions' abilities now that you are, please.
Before any further impairment of DEs, there needs to be a great improvement of the profession. Remember the droid invasion? It turned into the chef, Imperial Crackdown and smuggler patch. After that insult you guys want to take away from DEs. Seems a little crappy, thus the bile from me.
No one is impairing DEs. This is an unintended problem of the datapad. It's not a feature of droids that was added and then nerfed, ok? You act like you're entitled to this. You're not. Did you invest skill points in smuggling? No? Then you don't get to smuggle, dig it? You're entitled to make droids. You're entitled to corner the market on making droids. You invested the skill points in that, so by all means, go ahead and make droids. But do not try to take away my ability to smuggle. You complain that we're impairing DEs by asking bringing up this issue. I'd counter that you're basically contributing to the nuking of a profession by permitting this problem to go unaddressed or treating it as some sort of function granted to DEs. Moving contraband undetected is the smuggler's job. Making droids is your job. Droids should not be moving contraband undetected.
About the only reasonable comrpomise that I've seen so far is the one where we can slice droids but the effectiveness of the slice corresponds with a drop in storage capacity. Personally, I'd put a hard cap at between one and three items stored. Remember, this is NOT about removing storage capacity from droids. you can store whatever you want. It's about removing storage capacity in EXCHANGE for making the inventory in the droid unscannable. It's a tradeoff, not a nerf. Droids should be scannable, that's all we're asking for, not "Get rid of droid storage!!" This isn't about nerfing your profession, it's about protecting ours. Your profession can still make droids which will still store plenty of items and, as of publishes 7 and 8 do a whole hell of a lot more. I hardly think we'll be gimping you by holding on to the meager shreds of our own professional abilities.
/agree
Kollos wrote:
One Smuggler can protect an entire party and all of their illegal items. One droid can protect 10 items, but you can't be using those items, you can't have easy access to them, and once the scan has been initiated it is too late to stash the items. That is hardly going to make Smugglers useless... in fact it might just advertise exactly how useful Smugglers really are.
RaiCella wrote:
Assuming that this IS a bug and that it WILL get fixed, what do you suggest the smuggler and DE communities do about it?
That's yet another point. It's not a bug. Ergo, it's not going to be fixed. If it gets changed, it will be a nerf origninated by Smugglers against Droid Engineers.
Droid Item Storage also protects items from decay upon death. We've had that feature since what, patch 5? No acknowledgement from the Devs at all, despite it having been /bugged BY DROID ENGINEERS in an attempt to find out whether or not it is a bug.
You're making an awfully rash assumption that this is a bug at all. If it were, don't you think we'd have received some sort of response from the Devs about the obviously related death decay protection?
No.
Solo4114 wrote:
Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:
My solution since you asked:
Back off. Let DEs make droids that can actually do things. Item storage, crafting stations and medical modules are the ONLY things that DEs can make. That is my position.
No one is saying that we should nerf storage. No one is trying to remove storage capabilities from droids. We're simply saying scan 'em if they're storing things. You can store whatever you bloody well please in them, just don't expect it to shield you from scanning. How's that taking anything away from you guys? If, in fact, droids are not being scanned (and we don't even KNOW this yet), the it can't be intentional, and thus wasn't something that was "given" to you by the devs. It's something that slipped through accidentally, like being able to slice a weapon twice. Now THAT was a bannable offense. I don't think this should be bannable, but it SHOULD be fixed.
If the devs determine that this issue needs addressing, then a comprimise whereby smugglers use DE consumables to slice droids with item storage to allow for some lesser smuggling ability seems reasonable to me.
No, I'm going to have to say that there should be no compromise. Yes, it's a pain to own five droids, but people could do it and put smugglers out of business. Smugglers selling compartments means we put the profession itself in danger. We should, as electronicnomad has said, be the transporters, plain and simple. There need to be consequences, advantages, and drawbacks in this game and players need to get over the notion that they can do whatever they want. It's SUPPOSED to be inconvenient and/or dangerous for you to wander around with your sliced goods or illegal drugs. They're ILLEGAL. If you wanted to move them without getting caught, you should've become a smuggler. Or you shouldn't have had them sliced in the first place. You make your choice, you live with the consequences. Simple as that. But smugglers really are under attack here. The core of our profession is being carved up and handed out to other players who haven't invested skill point 1 into the smuggler profession. That's wrong.You want a compromise? I've got one for you. You guys can make items that let you de facto smuggle the day I can make items that let you de facto make droids. That's a compromise. Past that, though, we're trading away the abilities of professions. There's no manageable way to make smugglers the guys you go to to move contraband if we allow people to do it on their own. Smugglers become useless when that happens and I would imagine that droid engineers of all people could sympathize with feeling useless in this game. You guys are getting your dev love now. We have been waiting since launch and have had barely any posts on our forum from the devs. Personally, I'm glad that the DEs are getting attention, but don't start trying to take away other professions' abilities now that you are, please.
Before any further impairment of DEs, there needs to be a great improvement of the profession. Remember the droid invasion? It turned into the chef, Imperial Crackdown and smuggler patch. After that insult you guys want to take away from DEs. Seems a little crappy, thus the bile from me.
No one is impairing DEs. This is an unintended problem of the datapad. It's not a feature of droids that was added and then nerfed, ok? You act like you're entitled to this. You're not. Did you invest skill points in smuggling? No? Then you don't get to smuggle, dig it? You're entitled to make droids. You're entitled to corner the market on making droids. You invested the skill points in that, so by all means, go ahead and make droids. But do not try to take away my ability to smuggle. You complain that we're impairing DEs by asking bringing up this issue. I'd counter that you're basically contributing to the nuking of a profession by permitting this problem to go unaddressed or treating it as some sort of function granted to DEs. Moving contraband undetected is the smuggler's job. Making droids is your job. Droids should not be moving contraband undetected.
About the only reasonable comrpomise that I've seen so far is the one where we can slice droids but the effectiveness of the slice corresponds with a drop in storage capacity. Personally, I'd put a hard cap at between one and three items stored. Remember, this is NOT about removing storage capacity from droids. you can store whatever you want. It's about removing storage capacity in EXCHANGE for making the inventory in the droid unscannable. It's a tradeoff, not a nerf. Droids should be scannable, that's all we're asking for, not "Get rid of droid storage!!" This isn't about nerfing your profession, it's about protecting ours. Your profession can still make droids which will still store plenty of items and, as of publishes 7 and 8 do a whole hell of a lot more. I hardly think we'll be gimping you by holding on to the meager shreds of our own professional abilities.
Kollos wrote:
You're making an awfully rash assumption that this is a bug at all. If it were, don't you think we'd have received some sort of response from the Devs about the obviously related death decay protection?
Hehe, that's almost too funny.
If after seven months of live, you honestly expect clear communication from the Devs concerning non-functional or misfunctional aspects of the game, you are living in some alternate dimension from the SWG I've been associated with.
The fact that the Devs haven't made a statement doesn't mean anything is working as planned, just as much as it doesn't mean it's broken. From a gameplay point of view, though, this breaks Smugglers' ability to have a unique contraband role in the game, so I'm labelling it broken.
Solo4114 wrote:
No, I'm going to have to say that there should be no compromise. Yes, it's a pain to own five droids, but people could do it and put smugglers out of business. Smugglers selling compartments means we put the profession itself in danger. We should, as electronicnomad has said, be the transporters, plain and simple. There need to be consequences, advantages, and drawbacks in this game and players need to get over the notion that they can do whatever they want. It's SUPPOSED to be inconvenient and/or dangerous for you to wander around with your sliced goods or illegal drugs. They're ILLEGAL. If you wanted to move them without getting caught, you should've become a smuggler. Or you shouldn't have had them sliced in the first place. You make your choice, you live with the consequences. Simple as that.
Baloney. The game has been balanced with sliced weapons, sliced armor,and spices included. If you retroactively make those items worse - which the Imperial Crackdown is doing - then you're nerfing anyone who uses them.
However, if you add content (the Imperial Crackdown) while providing a way around that content for people who aren't interested (Droid Item Storage) then you have remained largely neutral and don't affect the balance of the game.
You chose to be a Smuggler knowing full well that Smugglers can't smuggle things. I'm all for Smugglers having some sort of unique ability that allows them to stand out, but not if giving them that ability nerfs everyone else. Find something new to give Smugglers, but don't make everyone else change the way they've been playing for 8 months in order to give you that new ability.
"From a gameplay point of view, though, this breaks Smugglers' ability to have a unique contraband role in the game, so I'm labelling it broken."
Sorry, but that's terrible logic. You could easily reverse it and say the smugglers smuggling breaks my ability to sell droids. You could also say that because bounty hunters get the scatter pistol, that breaks the pistoleer profession.
Message Edited by CapnSteve on 02-12-2004 06:15 PM
electricnomad wrote:
Kollos wrote:
You're making an awfully rash assumption that this is a bug at all. If it were, don't you think we'd have received some sort of response from the Devs about the obviously related death decay protection?
Hehe, that's almost too funny.
If after seven months of live, you honestly expect clear communication from the Devs concerning non-functional or misfunctional aspects of the game, you are living in some alternate dimension from the SWG I've been associated with.
The fact that the Devs haven't made a statement doesn't mean anything is working as planned, just as much as it doesn't mean it's broken. From a gameplay point of view, though, this breaks Smugglers' ability to have a unique contraband role in the game, so I'm labelling it broken.
CapnSteve wrote:
"From a gameplay point of view, though, this breaks Smugglers' ability to have a unique contraband role in the game, so I'm labelling it broken."
Sorry, but that's terrible logic. You could easily reverse it and say the smugglers smuggling breaks my ability to sell droids. You could also say that because bounty hunters get the scatter pistol, that breaks the pistoleer profession.
I'd side with the smuggler on this one. Contraband is the Smuggler's realm. Pretty much they make the spices and slice the gear that is contraband. Their ability to help people smuggle contraband may impact your sales, but in no way replaces the functionality of item storage that droids offer. Peoplewanted storage droids before the Crackdown, and they will continue to want them.
Storage has many uses other than smuggling. I store all sorts of things in my droids, not just contraband.A side-effect of droid storage might be a back-door smuggling system, but it is not the only function of droid storage. Also, storage is not strictly the DE's realm. Backpacks that you can equip hold just as much as 5 droids, and it is more accessible. Droids are a supplemental form of storage -- less convenient but a nice perk. If your assertion is that contraband storage is the intent of droid storage, then yes smugglers would be impacting your business -- but I don't think we can reasonably claim that contraband storage was ever the purpose of droid item storage.
The function of DEs and their creations are to provideassistance and versatility. Droids offer assistance with combat, medical skills,crafting, or storage. They offer versatility in that anyone can get a droid with a mixture of features that suits their needs, combined with their aesthetic choice of what it looks like. These two things should not replace other peoples'concept functions. Smugglers deserve to keep the upper hand in smuggling contraband -- not Imperial officers and droids.
Kollos wrote:
You chose to be a Smuggler knowing full well that Smugglers can't smuggle things. I'm all for Smugglers having some sort of unique ability that allows them to stand out, but not if giving them that ability nerfs everyone else. Find something new to give Smugglers, but don't make everyone else change the way they've been playing for 8 months in order to give you that new ability.
What should a Smuggler do other than smuggle?
And what nerf are you talking about? Closing a loophole? Making illegal items illegal (finally)? Making you have to decide between the risk and reward of a few buffs that you could live without if you wanted to?
I could write a LOT more, and I probably will later, but I'm truly interested in how you see the role of a Smuggler and what Smugglers should be doing in SWG, if not transporting contraband.
I agree. Stop by my shop. I got just the droid for you.
electricnomad wrote:
I could write a LOT more, and I probably will later, but I'm truly interested in how you see the role of a Smuggler and what Smugglers should be doing in SWG, if not transporting contraband.
I'm all the way with Rai on this.
First, from a "realism" standpoint ... if a scan team is going to stop you to search you, they'd be fools not to search the droids. Droids should be included in a scan, just like a backpack or pouch should be scanned. They're containers ... nothing more.
Secondly ... from a gameplay standpoint ... having a mindless droid beat an Imperial scan team destroys the smuggling profession, because then everyone can essentially be their own smuggler. Any idiot with an empty droid suddenly becomes George Jung, rather than having a player need to invest skill points and time to learn the smuggling trade.
Finally ... the argument that "smugglers don't currently smuggle, so anyone that becomes a smuggler assumes that risk of doing nothing" is, to be frank, horse**edit**. Droid engineers, by and large, are completely useless. Droids generally are of little value, other than containers and being able to buff right outside the starport rather than at the med center 50 feet away. And yet ... the developers have seen fit to bless you people with the upcoming patch. It's analogous to making the "chefs make worthless food, so anyone that's a chef is wasting their time" argument prior to this patch. Now chefs are armed with a bevy of items to help all species and professions. They have become much more important to the game, as you droid engineers will be after the next publish. To assume that droid engineers should be able to mass produce smugglers simply because it can be done is a nonsensical and selfish notion, at best.
Please recognize when a portion of one profession completely negates another's profession.