Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: THIS PUBLISH WILL MAKE OR BREAK THE DROID ENGINEER

botched
Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:30 pm
#1

I plan on leaving droid engineer if this new patch does not bring anything short of spectacular. And from what I understand this is the same for alot of other DE's. I am currently a Master DE and a Master AS, and as both I can tell you what droid engineers are missing out on.



#1. Competition through Resources and Skill Tapes. Armorsmiths cancompete in the types of armor they make, and the resources/experimentation determine the outcome of it. Where as with droids they are cut and dry. They are all the same thing, and resources/experimentation dont make any noticeable difference in the final product. 9 total deviation points in an ADV probots HAM is pathetic.


#2. Appreciation for your skills/product. When armorsmiths make a good product, everyone thanks them, and still pay a half mill to a million credits for a suit of adv composite. People actually get excited for good armor. When we make a good adv probot and sell it for 40k we are told we over charge, and we dont ever get recognition for having a made a top level droid. And when was the last time you saw someone get excited over the new batch of probots you were making?


#3. Armor is extremely usefull... droids are not nearly as usefull. Why is it that armor is extremely relied upon so heavily, and droids are not? I dont think any crafting profession should be above another. I am not saying thatarmor should be nerfed... but I am saying that droids should be in just as much demand as armor. Possibly by bringing more functionality to droids this can be accomplished. But I am not trying to find solutions here, I am pointing out the differences.


#4. Income. As a droid engineer i make around 300k on a good day. As an armorsmith who has just started I make about 2 million in a good day. I am not trying to be greedy, but why make 300k when you can make 2 million.


#5.Construction Time. With Armor there are pretty much three things you nest (excluding the psg which suck anyway). Layers & Segments. With droids there are so many freakin things that need to be nested, and so many different components to put into droids its stupid, and extremely time consuming. When I make armor I just make the layers, then the segments.The segments go into the armor, and the rest is resources. And once you get the hang of armor it is easy as pie to make. Droids are just way to component intensive (not to mention diverse), and time consuming for the return you get.



When I started droid engineer I did it because I thought droids were neat. Well the truth is that they are neat, not very usefull though. And you can still use a droid without having to make one. At first when I saw people wanting DE to be able to control uber droids I was against it. (Dont get me wrong I still hate the idea of a droid handler class) But now I am totally for it... I think that selling droids with a side of combat will bring some need advantages to DE.


In conclusion Droid Engineer needs alot of work done to it. If the new changes dont float my boat I am out. Eventually if droid engineer is a worth while thing to do I will come back to it. But right now as it stands droid engineer is unappreciated and lowly valued in swg.
Sketh
Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:41 pm
#2

Well, if you are in it for money, might as well not even wait.


DE is still a labor of love.






______________________________________

Sketh Rial - Acting CEO CGZ Enterprises - Trade Minister for Riverveil
Master Droid Engineer - Master Artisan - Propagandist - Novice Carboneer
Visit Sketh's House of Droids (Tent) -3814, -1683 Riverveil, Corellia, Chilastra
Droid Owner's Manual - Version 4
dhcpSilicon
Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:48 pm
#3

I didn't know they were planning any DE fixes this publish...
BlueMorgoth
Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:51 pm
#4

Point 4 says it all. All you are interested in is money. 300K a day is far more than you will ever need in SWG - even playing a combat char with their high consumables list. Besides, why should you have to interact with your customers and be friendly and helpful when you can make a pile of stuff in a factory, drop it on a vendor, never talk with anyone and yet make ten times the amount of money?

Might as well say goodbye because none of the other things will be addressed.



Sox na'Kreyte : Wanderer, looking for professional counciling
Retired Master Droid Engineer, Master Merchant, Master Artisan,
Titzosh Irssoko: Master Chef, TKM
Tyrena, Corellia (-4027, -2324), Bria
botched
Thu Jan 29, 2004 3:34 pm
#5

Why is it that all of you just focused on the income part of my statement. 300k or 5 billion a day its still more than I spend. Did any of you bother to even read the rest of my statement? Do any of my other statements even register with you...


Yousee my post as a personal attack on everyone that is a droid engineer. What I was trying to do was show how much work and effort a droid engineer puts into a droid, and the return they get on it is practicly nothing. You call it a labour of love?your in denial. How often do you get people telling you they love your droids.


Droid engineers deserve a product with functionality and qualitythat is just as in demand as those an armor smith makes. They also deserve to have a product based on resource quality and experimentation. Right now both mean almost nothing in a droid. I would love nothing more than to compete with other droid engineers on who could make the best combat droid. Or who could make a droid with the most storage.


Unfortunately these things dont look like they will come to pass. But I will wait for patch 7&8 to find out and see what happens. I am hopping for DE's to be able to control more than one combat droid at a time. Become a crafting/droid handling class.


Jenden
Thu Jan 29, 2004 3:43 pm
#6

Eh, everyone else is going for the credits statement, so I'll go for this one...




b10tch wrote:


#2. Appreciation for your skills/product. When armorsmiths make a good product, everyone thanks them, and still pay a half mill to a million credits for a suit of adv composite. People actually get excited for good armor. When we make a good adv probot and sell it for 40k we are told we over charge, and we dont ever get recognition for having a made a top level droid. And when was the last time you saw someone get excited over the new batch of probots you were making?





I think that depends on what your looking for with appreciation. Being a great armorsmith will earn you fame, but, from my experience, not necessarily appreciation. As a DE I get quite a fw comments every day from people who love the droids I made for them, this is what I see as appreciation.



Jenden Morn - Master of Droids- Tarquinas
Droid Engineer Blue Glowy
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Groupy of the best band in the galaxy, Solar Flair
3D art of Jenden by Saeelwenea

botched
Thu Jan 29, 2004 3:45 pm
#7

Actually Woodrow brought me to this conclusion.... at first I was skeptical of his choice to leave MDE, but now I understand. He felt the same way I do aboutmost of the above.
botched
Thu Jan 29, 2004 3:54 pm
#8

"I think that depends on what your looking for with appreciation. Being a great armorsmith will earn you fame, but, from my experience, not necessarily appreciation. As a DE I get quite a fw comments every day from people who love the droids I made for them, this is what I see as appreciation."



True you will get some appreciation. But you dont get appreciation for making a better product. Each master DE will make the exact same droids. The modules will be different, but the ham and the quality will be the same. That is why no one gets excited over a new batch of droids you make. They may appreciate the droids you build, but when was the last time you a customer came in saying they were able tosolo a krayt becausethey had thierprobot out?


HavSomBeer
Fri Jan 30, 2004 6:28 am
#9






Jenden wrote:
Eh, everyone else is going for the credits statement, so I'll go for this one...




b10tch wrote:


#2. Appreciation for your skills/product. When armorsmiths make a good product, everyone thanks them, and still pay a half mill to a million credits for a suit of adv composite. People actually get excited for good armor. When we make a good adv probot and sell it for 40k we are told we over charge, and we dont ever get recognition for having a made a top level droid. And when was the last time you saw someone get excited over the new batch of probots you were making?





I think that depends on what your looking for with appreciation. Being a great armorsmith will earn you fame, but, from my experience, not necessarily appreciation. As a DE I get quite a fw comments every day from people who love the droids I made for them, this is what I see as appreciation.





Heh - I wish. Last night I got a mail from someone I'd made an Advanced Probot, max armour and medical, some 10 days ago. He'd decided he'd been ripped off because there were droids with higher HAM (about 3 points) and anyway, he could get them cheaper now. I could rest assured that I'd never see any of his money again.


I told him that the droid was about the best he could get, I'd made him aware of the relative value of the droid in combat, I'd built it to order within half an hour of his request, I'd spent another half an hour teaching him to use the **edit** thing, for which I got the impressive sum of 40k. What did he want? A refund of the difference?


"Just foolin ya m8."


Player Bounties. We need Player Bounties and we need them now.





_____________________HAVILAND TUF______________________________

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________________________________________________________________
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Redondo
Fri Jan 30, 2004 9:30 am
#10

I just started DE and after crafting through numerous MSE droids now have 0/0/0/2. I have made enough Advanced droid frames to get a couple more boxes, but more and more I get frustrated with this profession. At my current level in DE I can make absolutely nothing salable in this game except seeker droids. As I look through the skill tree I can see that there is really nothing salable for quite some time. Playing a BH on another server I have four droids, one is medical with 10 storage, and the rest I have all for storage. Granted I dont need crafting stations and such as a BH, but I have paid no more than 50k for all of my droids. So where does the novice DE come in and make any money? I mean I picked up novice architect to dabble a bit and have made some houses, furniture,and crafting stations. All of these have complex schematics requiring similar components, but fairly simple resource requirements. I have gotten more XP and money (over $100k) dabbling in architect than playing casually as a DE. As a novice architect you can make multiple house types, 8+ types of furniture, an equipment factory, and crafting stations. So where is the fun in DE? I love droids even if they just follow me around and do nothing, but give us some salable products. For instance rather than having tiers of modules just make them standard or experimented to good levels. Who in this game is ever going to want a Level1 item storage module? I have dabbled in a lot of professions and find that almost every other profession at least has fun beginnings and I have never felt the need to grind through a profession until now. Novice medics can sell Stim As and Bs, woundpacks, and novice artisans can sell clothes, personal harvesters, etc. and these are basic professions. I cant sell a single Novice DE item, cause you know everyone lines up for an advanced MSE droid with a medical capability rating of 55 and a one item storage compartment.


Maybe I am seeing this all wrong, so please let me know, because this profession seems like it will only be fun when I get master, so I will keep grinding.





Prin Eckbo
Hall Monitor

OrionsByte
Fri Jan 30, 2004 9:59 am
#11






Redondo wrote:

I just started DE and after crafting through numerous MSE droids now have 0/0/0/2. I have made enough Advanced droid frames to get a couple more boxes, but more and more I get frustrated with this profession. At my current level in DE I can make absolutely nothing salable in this game except seeker droids. As I look through the skill tree I can see that there is really nothing salable for quite some time. Playing a BH on another server I have four droids, one is medical with 10 storage, and the rest I have all for storage. Granted I dont need crafting stations and such as a BH, but I have paid no more than 50k for all of my droids. So where does the novice DE come in and make any money? I mean I picked up novice architect to dabble a bit and have made some houses, furniture,and crafting stations. All of these have complex schematics requiring similar components, but fairly simple resource requirements. I have gotten more XP and money (over $100k) dabbling in architect than playing casually as a DE. As a novice architect you can make multiple house types, 8+ types of furniture, an equipment factory, and crafting stations. So where is the fun in DE? I love droids even if they just follow me around and do nothing, but give us some salable products. For instance rather than having tiers of modules just make them standard or experimented to good levels. Who in this game is ever going to want a Level1 item storage module? I have dabbled in a lot of professions and find that almost every other profession at least has fun beginnings and I have never felt the need to grind through a profession until now. Novice medics can sell Stim As and Bs, woundpacks, and novice artisans can sell clothes, personal harvesters, etc. and these are basic professions. I cant sell a single Novice DE item, cause you know everyone lines up for an advanced MSE droid with a medical capability rating of 55 and a one item storage compartment.


Maybe I am seeing this all wrong, so please let me know, because this profession seems like it will only be fun when I get master, so I will keep grinding.








I went against the grain; I refuse to "grind" DE. As such, I've been a novice DE for, oh, goin' on three months now. Now I'm not saying I haven't done my share of grinding sessions, but I decided that sitting down and just grinding my way to master isn't what my character wants to do.


I also decided to take skill boxes in an order that would allow me to make good droids rather than making more droids. As such, rather than grinding up the Blueprints tree, I've spread out my training a bit depending on what I wanted to do next. The first box I took was Intermediate Droid Production. This allowed me to build WDG crafting stations, effectively taking my business mobile. So now when people asked for a droid (or for any artisan components) I could do it right there and then instead of looking for a public crafting station.


Anyway, that's just an example of my "unorthodox" progression through DE. Right now I'm at 2-2-0-3 and making about 10k-15k a day, just on droids. Frankly I'm making much much more selling resources, but that's another discussion.


I guess my point is that it is possible to enjoy the profession as you go through it, it just takes a lot more time. If you believe getting there is half the fun, you might want to look in to taking your time and picking up skill boxes that allow you to diversify a bit. However, if you're goal-oriented and the only thing you care about is making it to master, then I'm afraid you're right... enjoy the grind.



Checking your spelling (and punctuation, too) will ensure that you're making sense to more than two people.
- +----=X Biranno Runningstar X=----+ -
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Thero_Speer
Fri Jan 30, 2004 10:30 am
#12

I notice with this proffession you will not make as much money as you would like. 300K is good and I make on average about 10K credits a day and 0 of that is from Droid engineer. Im a Arcuitect to and I make my money off of that. But as Far as Droid Engineer goes. I like it because it seems like a fun profession.



Thero Speer (Sunrunner Server)
Thero Speer(Radiant Server) Novice Bounty Hunter
Lematea Speer(Shadow Fire Server)Master Architect, Master Artisian, Master Droid Engineer.

Come Visit My Shop on the ShadowFire Server.

Planet: Naboo
City: Near Theed
Location: Not hard facing the starport of Theed go Right and out of the city and turn right and follow the River to my shop.
HawkCormyr
Fri Jan 30, 2004 10:36 am
#13






dhcpSilicon wrote:
I didn't know they were planning any DE fixes this publish...







No ...
there is nothing for DE in the publish 7 or 8 , they are adding a new profession and the basics objects that are necessary to them, you can be sure that the next fixes for the DE will be none of the one listed by Gorantoth but will be brand new one and all realtive to the Droid commander...






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"I will tell you this, Droids (and DE's) are going to be the MAIN feature
for the January publish. We will be fixing alot of things and adding
combat droids. Yes, talk is cheap." - JustG 11/25/03
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