Droid Engineer Archive

Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-03-2004 08:45 PM

Anybody for checkers?

Every other crafting class can capitalize on enhancing others' abilities, but apparently nobody planned on DE...

As this goes farther and farther along, it seems DE was thrown in at the last stage of development of this game, and nobody gave it any thought as to how this profession would fit into the Big Picture (tm)...

*Bangs head on table*

I know TH has a hard job and all, and I respect his efforts.That said,I have yet to see a time when TH correctly explains a detail point about anything that has to do with this profession. When he tries to get into the details he always minces the words and gets it somewhat backwards.

that's a pretty old quote isn't it?

Malitevv: The quote is from today.

I will quote the late great Sir Alec Guiness:

"What...have I done. My God....what have I done."

(TH: Please explain the 110 medical droid in the context of your quoted remark.)

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duncje wrote:

Anybody for checkers?

Every other crafting class can capitalize on enhancing others' abilities, but apparently nobody planned on DE...

As this goes farther and farther along, it seems DE was thrown in at the last stage of development of this game, and nobody gave it any thought as to how this profession would fit into the Big Picture (tm)...

*Bangs head on table*

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/agree

*Bangs head on table next to you*

/beckon other DE's to come bang their heads on the table

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Kilarny wrote:

Malitevv: The quote is from today.

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Okaythen. The thoughts are not new though. He said the same thing a month or so ago.

There are days I just want to..............nevermind.

/bangs head on table with Duncje

Walks in...sees the table getting pummeled by headbangers and goes to find a wall, instead....

The wall will likely hold up better in the long-term....something tells me this isn't going to end anytime soon.....

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Shian_Tavkin wrote:

Thunderheart Wrote:

Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

The other thing is that harvest maintenance, surveying and another class of abilities isn't a viable alternative because of the technological limitation. However this DE effort has let the devs lay the groundwork to add more modules in the future.

This was a strong start and like everything else, it will continue to develop.
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Now it's late, so I'm not even going to comment, my blood pressure is high enough already.

Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-03-2004 08:45 PM

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I guess I just don't understand the logic.

For instance, I've repeated it a half-dozen times in the past weeks, but I see no reason why something like a slicing module could not have a higher MINIMUM slice when used with a "slicing droid". I.E.right now, a Master Smuggler gets a slice of between 15-35% - a slicing module could increase the MINIMUM to like 18/20%-35%. The hard cap stays, and the minimum simply given a slight boost.

This is why I may not have been so "positive" about future droid changes - I have been waiting since last summer for the profession to be worked on, and telling us outright that droids will never have acutal utility beyond what they do now is very sad to me. With the exception of the merchant module (which I fear will get nerfed before it arrives), the proposed droids add little essential value to droids, or even make them much more desirable.

Saying that it's "free skills/abilities" is like saying "armor gives free protection",or that BE clothing gives "free skills".

Some feel that DE should be akin to a BE - well, a BE can make awesome clothing that can increase some stats up to+25. I don't think anyone is asking for anything near that powerful - justsomething to make having a droid out when doing certain activities desirable to the average player. As I have suggested in other threads,currently with each and every slice a Smuggler goes through two laser precision knife charges. What if having a slicer droid out while slicing meant you only went thorough one knife charge instead of two? Most smugglers make their own knives, even at novice levels - is this really game unbalancing?

There have been so many cool ideas, like making a droid a very-limited use factory (say, it canproduce no more than 10 items in a run). How useful would THAT be for making R3 droids to order (sincethe R3 requires 2 Adv Droid Brains from a crate which needeight identical subcomponentseach) - Or to any number of professions. We are told that things like that (and survey modules) are technically too challenging.

So I guess my question is, what do *THEY* want droids to do?

We have answered the question dozens of times, but we really need to know if the utility of droids will surpass what was given to us in the "where we are/going" post or if novelty modules are all that's in our future.

Audio

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PlasticBabyOracle wrote:

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Shian_Tavkin wrote:

Thunderheart Wrote:

Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

The other thing is that harvest maintenance, surveying and another class of abilities isn't a viable alternative because of the technological limitation. However this DE effort has let the devs lay the groundwork to add more modules in the future.

This was a strong start and like everything else, it will continue to develop.
==============================================================================

Now it's late, so I'm not even going to comment, my blood pressure is high enough already.

Message Edited by Shian_Tavkin on 03-03-2004 08:45 PM

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because they just gave that job to the chefs... *sigh*

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Isn't that the truth. The only difference that I can see between a droid module buffing someone's skills vs. chef food buffing someone's skills is that the droid would kinda be a permanent buff. Chef foods have to be eaten and re-eaten to sustain the effects. That could be solved with battery consumption in the droid though: one battery powers the generla functions like propulsion and a seperate battery could be used for each individual utility module. For example, an Adv R3 with 6 modules would require 7, 1 for general functions and the other 6 expended as each module's particular function is used. Make the batteries more difficult to make

You could make the arguement that just allowing droids to have crafting stations, thereby allowing crafters to be mobile, is an augmentation. Certainly a 110% medical module would be. I really wish that the devs would tell us what they intended droids to be in this game so we can get our expectations in check.

Chris

"For instance, I've repeated it a half-dozen times in the past weeks, but I see no reason why something like a slicing module could not have a higher MINIMUM slice when used with a "slicing droid". I.E. right now, a Master Smuggler gets a slice of between 15-35% - a slicing module could increase the MINIMUM to like 18/20%-35%. The hard cap stays, and the minimum simply given a slight boost."

I was thinking something similar, but more along the lines of a crafter's "amazing success" chance. Don't crafters get an increased chance at getting an amazing success in experimentation if they're using the highest quality tools they can? Why couldn't a slicing droid increase the potential for a higher slice? Yours would probably be more appropriate though.

Chris