Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Let me 'break it down' for you, Doughbacca-style...(LONG)
Fellow "sub-optimal" DEs,
Tonight's release of "the Plan" is now starting to sink in, as we try to determine just how it would actually affect us, what we think, what we'd change and the things we'd throw out.
I've already seen wild acceptence or denial of the Plan (in part or inwhole)as presented, along with a well-deserved amount of concern about the timetable and outcome should the proposed changes come to pass.
I share your concern.
I can't really follow Sintrosi's request via the "DE Plan CONCERN..." thread, since I can't just say one or two sentences on this subject. It wouldn't be true to me and it wouldn't be true to my character.
So, I've decided to take my normal route and respond in-depth, between the eyes and 'call-it-like-I-see-it'.
Come with me as I 'break it down'...
/swingsopenthedoorslowly
"Our Droid Engineer Player Correspondent, Sintrosi has done a fantastic job getting the issues together, as they all have. Based on interactions between the Droid Engineer developer(s) and the Player Correspondent, we have put together the following Droid Engineer plan.
Yea...on this we all agree. Indubitably. ...'nuff said.
"In addition to this list, anyone who has a droid will see a benefit as we change the Droid AI that controls droids following their owners (the players). This needs to be addressed. Basically, droids need to follow and intercept objects/creatures/players without getting hung up on things or getting lost.
Yea...I'd say that that's a no-brainer. In EU and the movies, droids are very near 'sentient' beings...they should behave as such in SWG (to the extent that is practical for a "game").
"For the Droid Engineers, I have listed the top three items which the developers are going to work on first and then included a bunch of other items below that to give you an idea of the direction the Profession is going in.Please understand that I need to help set realistic expectations. Some of this work requires a lot of people, more than one team and a fair amount of developing and coding. As we go forward, I will include the progress of these changes in my updates.
What I heard from this?
"This will all take a while, guys. Seriously."
Working in the software industry, I know what it means when an author/developer says there is "a fair amount of developing and coding". Don't anyone start believing that these things will appear next week.
More on my personal feeling for the ETA below...
Without further Adieu:
Item #1
Combat droids. We want to add Droid Modules that will convert many droids and give them combat abilities. ONLY Droid Engineers will be able to make and use these modules.
This is one of the first points that needed more clarification.
- Will other players be able to own/operate that droid, assuming it had other service modules installed?
- Will DEs be able to use the modules installed in other droids without consent of their owner?
Setting expectations, these changes involve a lot of people and its not something that’s going to happen fast.
I'm hearing you already put the brakes on this stuff before it's even gotten started. It's almost like the Dev team is shying away from even wanting to try any of this. To me, saying that something 'involves a lot of people" or is "not going to happen fast" is kind of a perfect setup for being able to never deliver (and have plausible deniability). I understand the need to set expectations. If you'd given me an actual ETA (estimated), I'd have expectations. Were the statement above muttered to me at my workplace, I'd hear someone defeated by the project on their plate before it even got going.
Some of the abilities Combat Droids would have (barring any unforeseen difficulties) would be:
Ed. Note: I love the statement "barring any unforseen difficulties)"...for various reasons.
* Multiple combat modes for droids
What does that mean?!? You could have listed 3 or 4 of the possible items you were considering in paren. behind that. Right now...that's about as vague as can be, to me.
* Short range blaster
* Long range blaster
Okay...now we're getting somewhere, finally.
But, what kind of speed/damage we talkin' here?!? (both I, as a user, and my combat clients want to know)
I assume that I'll probably need the assistance of a Weaponsmith to make these right?
* Anti-droid reactions
Meaning? Like....an allergic reaction?
A nuclear reaction?
Details, details, details.....why can't we just get details?!?!?!?
I assume you're talking about some kind of power/wound "drain" here. That actual name or animation that happens doesn't really matter. The effect is the same. This is needed, I suspect, for the guys that might eventually do PvP with their droids fighting each other. 
* Anti-creature reactions
Hmmmm....I assume this is like the 'Cow-Tipping' module or something?
The electric R2 electromag lightening shock?
Item #2
Droid engineers should be able to take out more than one droid at a time, but only one combat droid. The big challenge is integrating multi-droid controls. It’s too early to tell what the impact is going to be.
Actually...I think this should be altered to read:
Droid engineers (and other players) should be able to have multiple service-only droids out at any one time. However, only one combat droid could be used by a DE (since only they can utilize that feature) out at any one time.
There is a subtle but important difference in those statements.
Sintrosi: Please note that this solves the issue of non-DE players that have strong need for use of multiple service droids at the same time.
As for the recent one-pet rule announced for CHs...
CHs should only get one pet. DEs should only get one combat droid. All players should get to have multiple service-only droids out at a time. The reason that multiple pets isn't going to stand is that all creatures are related to combat and aren't "servicable" entities. They can't heal you, store your items or schematics or repair your droid.
Item #3
"Increase Repair Droid functionality. What is planned is to Make Repair Droids work similarly to current pet healing standards. One of the ways we would make Droids more star warsy is to give the Repair Droids expendable droid items to charge up.
Uhhhh...did you really just say "We will attempt to fix Repair Droids again"?
That's what I heard. Explain to me how the statement above is fundamentally different than any other repair-related statements have that been sent to us (the players) before.
I think what is on most of our minds is...
How does this 'action item' relate to healing a droid's white pool stats?
...or black HAM wounds?
Or vitality?
Will it all be able to happen in one model or will an actual Repair droid of some kind be needed?
What I heard was..."We will attempt to fix Repair Droids again."
Here are things we are thinking about doing going forward:
We want to make the Droid AI so that it targets healers from time to time.
I can only assume they also mean other droids with Med-modules installed...but who knows.
Medical droids have a perception that they don’t work, so to change their functionality, the following additions could be made:
"Medical droids have a perception that they don’t work"....huh?
I can't even figure out what was said there. The droids don't have a perception that they don't work. Why did you all just give my Med droids a complex?!? Now they are gonna be sullen and 'wonky' all day...and I'll have to make a trip to Hagen Daz again. Thanks.
But seriously...
* Add stim and health pack functionality
Yea...the Medics will love that one. Although, I guess we'd have to buy the stims/health packs to put in them from somewhere, right?
Medics note: This is a way for you to make money...don't shy away from it. Make a Master DE your partner now....really, really.
If you're the "I fight in the field" guy and want to be able to do the healing yourself (instead of having a droid), just think about this......UXP.
Devs: We will start getting UXP for all these wonderous things, right? /sigh
* Increase Medical Droid accessibility be letting them out of storage in more places that the are now
I don't understand. I can take my droid out anywhere I want right now. Oops...I shouldn't have said that.
Please include "Outposts on adventure planets" (i.e. Endor's Smuggler outpost) as an example of where a droid should be able to be called.
Also...what happens if a droid is both med and combat...?
Will it be able to be pulled out in all these extra places? Or will the combat abilities take that away?
* Give reduced mind cost to medics
I guess that's a bonus...as if medics have another reason to use a droid. We already sell a ton of droids primarily to healers. I actually don't think they need yet another incentive to use them...seriously.
* Automatically stim incapacitated players
Uhhhh....huh? Well, okay. I don't mind that. It'll let me solo easier, if nothing else.
I'd have to think that the Medic crowd will be up in arms about this...since it digs into their XP.
You'll need to address that issue first if you want to move forward with this idea, that much is for certain.
The one time where I see this as a huge bonus is when your medic is the one that's been incapped (and no one can get healed). Let's not all look on these items with a dour outcome. There can be good sides too...if you look.
We think all droids when they are used should take power and wound damage. This change is going to take a fair amount of balance planning and would be best supported if Repair Droids were reworked first.
See...this is weak.
It's not too hard to see how this could/would play out:
"Power" wounds....Mind HAM. (note: for those playing the home game, this also doubles as a 'battery time' indicator too. Think, people, think.).
"Rust" wounds......Action HAM
"Hardware failure" wounds......Health HAM (note: this is the "My droid's Adv. Brain decided it didn't like being overclocked" wound).
That gives you a link into standard damage/wound models and systems. Three types of damage that require their own individual or combined healing methods.
Done.
What was so hard about that?!?!!?
There is a perception that Power droids do not work.
Perception? Are you guys really reading the boards and stuff or getting some of that mandatory playing time as a DE?
Please....don't make a Q-3PO Food-related "Tip of the day" post. Power droids do NOT function as intended. Let's call a duck a duck.
To address this, we could give Power Droids the ability to add power to a harvester and attach directly to the facility.
A good move on your part. This solves a lot of issues and requests. Good form.
Functionally, maintenance fees would go up a bit, but they would not require power. The Power Droid WOULD degrade over time and would have to be replaced.
My only concerns is related to the Architects that will cry out over loss of energy harvester sales.
Beyond that, this seems acceptable and expected.
In the vein of good combat droid abilities, Mouse Droids could have the ability to be remote bombs. This would be a high level Droid Engineer craftable item. The droid would follow someone, run up to them and explode. This is going to be dependent on the Droid AI balance.
Enough has been said on this already. It's a good idea. I would be careful concerning how this could be used to grief but all-in-all a very worthwhile change.
So...will a small thermonuclear device module fit into my MSE Adv.? (only at the Master level, of course...)
We want to add more droid commands to play specific animations and possibly put a droid in “decoration mode” where you can tell it to repeat an action. We agree with the players that there should be more droid personalities and to give Protocol Droids a stronger role. Many different options are being considered.
I'll have to consider this more carefully before I post at length. I like the general idea but, as always, the devil is in the details.
So here are the top three items and the points of interest that will be developed going forward. I hope you like these changes and as time goes by, Ill let you know what happens and when.
Well....errr...okay.
I have some concerns over how this will all play out...but I'll try to stay positive and constructive, even in the face of my self-admitted jadedness.
Again, I look forward to getting your feedback. Please work with Sintrosi in the Professions forum to get information and opinion into the pipeline.
I'll actually take the opportunity to give feedback in much greater depth on each post, as a separate topic (as they should be).
/tiphat
Have a great weekend
/bow
Respectfully,
Gorantoth wrote:
I think you hit the nail on the head with everything you've put in here. Lots to think about, and clarifications from Devs are always nice to have.
Gorantoth,
Coming from you, my friend, thatis high high praise indeed.
/bow
Respectfully,
I completely agreee. There is a definate lack of detail / explanation here. After the lengthy detailed explanation of the CH changes I was expecting so much more out of this announcement.
It's really sad when a CH nerf sounds better than what we DEs are getting 
First, let me say that it's nice to finally be getting some much needed attention from the devs. Second, let me say that Sintrosi is really doing an outstanding job of being our advocate. I would like to see her in a second "term" :-)
My reaction to this plan:
Item #1
Combat droids. We want to add Droid Modules that will convert many droids and give them combat abilities. ONLY Droid Engineers will be able to make and use these modules. Setting expectations, these changes involve a lot of people and its not something that’s going to happen fast.
Some of the abilities Combat Droids would have (barring any unforeseen difficulties) would be:
* Multiple combat modes for droids
* Short range blaster
* Long range blaster
* Anti-droid reactions
* Anti-creature reactions
New modules sound interesting, but I don't want to convert existing droids. I want new droids; I'm sorry, but from the continuity of the expanded SW universe, nothing we can currently make is a combat droid, except maybe the probot. I would like to see new artwork and some droids that are really made for fighting, like an IG-88, or droidekas, or the little pencil-necked trade federation droids, or any number of really great and imaginitive models that can be readily found in the Star Wars droid archive. While combat droids are an important thing to the profession (most important to me, that's for sure), giving me a laser gun to put in a treadwell (maybe it should have 6 laser guns?) isn't a good solution. We should most definitely be getting new schematics and new droids, not just nifty little modules that will make your dz70 follow someone to their house and kill them on the toilet.
Having said that, this is a good start. But please, please, please, give us new droids.
Item #2
Droid engineers should be able to take out more than one droid at a time, but only one combat droid. The big challenge is integrating multi-droid controls. It’s too early to tell what the impact is going to be.
Why should we only be allowed to take out 1 combat droids when CH can take out 3 grauls and effectively solo a Dark Jedi? If there are fixes in the pipe so that CH can't do this...then that's ok, but Im not aware of that, and if we end up being at a disadvantage to CH in those terms, then I"m going to bitch about it. Anyway, why is it a challenge to integrate multi-droid controls? CH can already have multiple creatures out, and anyone can have a pet + a droid out. What's the trouble? Maybe I'm wallowing in my own ignorance here, but I'd still like a better explanation than that.
Having said that: sounds good, but give us an ETA and don't make us gimped compared to CH
Item #3
Increase Repair Droid functionality. What is planned is to Make Repair Droids work similarly to current pet healing standards. One of the ways we would make Droids more star warsy is to give the Repair Droids expendable droid items to charge up.
I like how repair droids are working now, for the most part, although I like the idea that only "LE Repair" droids would be able to repair. I like the idea of funtion separation.
Having said that: this sounds great.
Here are things we are thinking about doing going forward:
We want to make the Droid AI so that it targets healers from time to time. Medical droids have a perception that they don’t work, so to change their functionality, the following additions could be made:
* Add stim and health pack functionality
* Increase Medical Droid accessibility be letting them out of storage in more places that the are now
* Give reduced mind cost to medics
* Automatically stim incapacitated players
This sounds good too, I like these things a lot.
Having said that: I agree with some of the doctors that this shouldn't be allowed to overrun their profession.
We think all droids when they are used should take power and wound damage. This change is going to take a fair amount of balance planning and would be best supported if Repair Droids were reworked first.
How are you going to "rework" your repair droids until you know how the dynamics of such gradual power consumption and damage would be? If you rework repairing first, you're going to do this: rework repair system, rework decay system, rework repair system again now that we know what we really need. Let's have a decay system first. In the short term while the repair system is designed around this, it will stimulate the droid economy by "un-saturating" the droid market.
Having said that: I'm glad that this is on the list of priorities. For some people, this is the _top_ priority so that the droid economy doesn't tank more than it has/is.
There is a perception that Power droids do not work. To address this, we could give Power Droids the ability to add power to a harvester and attach directly to the facility. Functionally, maintenance fees would go up a bit, but they would not require power. The Power Droid WOULD degrade over time and would have to be replaced.
I like this idea. How 'bout coming up with some things for BLL to do with harvesters too? Seems to me that it would be natural to send out 3 droids at a time to service your harvesters: a BLL to retrieve resources, a power droid to keep the harvesters running, and a "protector" droid that would keep the other two droids from being PvP'd or agro'd. Wasn't Luke going to teach R2-D2 and C3P0 how to work a water vapor harvester in ep 3?
In the vein of good combat droid abilities, Mouse Droids could have the ability to be remote bombs. This would be a high level Droid Engineer craftable item. The droid would follow someone, run up to them and explode. This is going to be dependent on the Droid AI balance.
I love this! This totally adds an element of realism to me. Seems like a perfect rebel tactic would be to capture these little mouse droids, which according to continuity are primarly operated by the Empire on the deathstar stations, and load it with explosives!
Having said that: no matter how cool this would be, it will not substitute for having real combat droids.
We want to add more droid commands to play specific animations and possibly put a droid in “decoration mode” where you can tell it to repeat an action. We agree with the players that there should be more droid personalities and to give Protocol Droids a stronger role. Many different options are being considered.
This is really great. Good.
Ok, so I know this post was long, but these issues are important to the DE profession (at least, if SOE wants me to have _fun_ being a DE). Most of these things sounded pretty good to me with a couple of suggestions from me, but...
Please, don't nerf combat droids before they even happen. Modifying existing droids for combat just isn't going to cut it; would you take your honda civic and put a solid-state laser on it, give it bulletproof windows and try to sell it to the US Department of Defense? We need new schematics and real combat droids. If I don't get to make a Droideka and call it "Pillbug" I think I might go postal.
Edit: Although I tend to focus on combat droids, I'm keenly interested in the other major problems in the DE profession. I'm not one of those guys whose sole purpose in life is to build a private droid army. I like crafting and I like droids. It would be nice to have a Droideka, but I want to see all these other things happen and happen right.
Good call on your post and the detail you put into it =). Now if the Dev's would be so kind as to put detail into it. I mean to make us wait all day, *miss* the deadline for crying out loud and this is what we got??? I could have thrown that together in 10 mins at 3:50pm PST, said "hey this work for you dev's in the room with me here? Good, now send it to the correspondent and let's break early today and enjoy our weekend! These silly DE's will buy it, they did last time so we'll keep a few percent of our players around in SWG waiting to see what we do next!"
But that would have been in a ten minute crunch. I'm sure they had other things to work on...oh wait! They didn't. As Q-3PO put it, when an issue comes up that needs working on they create a team from currently SWG devs...artist, coder, etc...and sit and work on just that issue. So um....all day or hours at least and this is what we got?
Biggest complaint...(sounds familiar to other parts of SWG)...fix current bugs, give us more content to DE.
Okay enough complaining on it from my end =). I went Master DE and I'll be damned if I'll let them nerf me into dropping it hehe.
I admit they have some good ideas, but the MSE bomb idea soooo needs to be worked on. Follows a target and then explodes? When does it know to explode? What if the target despawns if it's a mob? Will the MSE return to us and ask for more juice or explode?
What we need is more details and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it'll be another month or so before we get those details. They'll talk to Sin and say they are working on a document to flesh these ideas out more...in January after Politician hits as a new class and then Urban developer hits as a new class and all the bugs from Mounts and Player Cities setttle they might get back to us =). Might....
Miednight wrote:
What we need is more details and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it'll be another month or so before we get those details. They'll talk to Sin and say they are working on a document to flesh these ideas out more...in January after Politician hits as a new class and then Urban developer hits as a new class and all the bugs from Mounts and Player Cities setttle they might get back to us =). Might....
This would be funny if it weren't so likely to be the case....sad but true.
/bow
Respectfully,
Item #2
Droid engineers should be able to take out more than one droid at a time, but only one combat droid. The big challenge is integrating multi-droid controls. It’s too early to tell what the impact is going to be.
All I gotta say is: **edit**? As stated above, CH can call up to 3 at a time with no problems, they can also add a droid on top of that and still no issues.A normal player can still call a pet and a droid, no conflicts there. I don't see the big issue.
Also, making conbat droids for us only is just trying to make us into those sadistic CHers. We have been asking for combat droids to SELL. Our customers want combat worthy droids probably more than ourselves. Yes, I would love to use one in combat and have it actually do something worthwhile, but I would LOVE to be able to make countless creds selling my new creations.
I believe DE should be able to have more than one combat droid out at a time, though. We would have the know-how and technology (logistically speaking) to control them. I'm not trying to get us to be a combat class, but it only makes sense for it to be that way.
And on further note, it's been said before that "we aren't meant to be a combat class, so stop making us like the CH". Well, to point out to those people, CH isn't a combat class either. It's based off of scout. Scouts hide, set up camps, and collect from dead creatures. Very little in their class has anything to do with combat. CH profession has NO bonuses whatsoever to combating creatures, nor does it have any plus for using any specific type of weapon. All they can do is tame and train creatures. It happens to be an EXPLOIT at the moment that they are so adept at solo-ing such powerful things as Dark Jedi, or the like. I'm not necessarilly calling for a CH nerf (at least not worse than they are already going to get), but I'm just calling for the same exploitable abilities to be given to us. If the Devs aren't happy with doing that, then YES, nerf CH, by all means.
TheRealTK421: I agree with you completely on your post above. It sounds like something I would have written!
HamsterPimp signature reads:
The Master Droid Engineer Profession needs to be fixed before anymore of my friends leave the game forever!!
Hamster: I have watched as your signature has evolved over the months, and I want to tell you I have always found it very humorous. It has about it a certain desperation and truth, and yet is also a bit exagerrated. It has given me many chuckles every time I see it.
Peace, fellow Droid Engineers. We are obviously not having any luck with this game, but it's just a game after all, and I have quit playing my droid engineer character until true features are implemented, which from the Plan is going to take months and not even be very good when they finally do implement it.
I may be making a big mistake, but I am taking one of my characters and turning him into a droid engineer. So, I have started to read your forum. Just a couple of coments on this thread.
Some have asked (demanded) that the probot be fixed. Right now, the probot is a viable alternative to the CL 10 pets that non-chs will be soon allowed. The best non-ch pet will be the Carrion Spat. It is 1100 HAM, and hits for 90-110. Right now it has 15% resists on kenetic and 3 others, but resists is one of the things that is going to be adjusted on pets under level 30, so who knows what they will be later. So a probot with medium armor and 40% resists, is about comparable. It doesn't hit as hard, but it can tank better.
As to why the "plan" is so vague, I am afraid the reason is probably that it is still so far off. It is only in the talking stange so there is just not a lot of hard facts to put out there. The BEs got a similar vague plan over a month ago dealing with their clones. That has still not even made the TC. I am afraid the wheels of progress grind pretty slowly.
Probots can't be healed during or after combat. They regen slowly. You can't repair thier vitality either. They usually do ranged attacks so they're not as effective at tanking. Finally, they hit for 50-56. Thus the carrion spat is still superior -- More HAM, more damage and you can heal their damage and vitality.
Graeme wrote:
Some have asked (demanded) that the probot be fixed. Right now, the probot is a viable alternative to the CL 10 pets that non-chs will be soon allowed. The best non-ch pet will be the Carrion Spat. It is 1100 HAM, and hits for 90-110. Right now it has 15% resists on kenetic and 3 others, but resists is one of the things that is going to be adjusted on pets under level 30, so who knows what they will be later. So a probot with medium armor and 40% resists, is about comparable. It doesn't hit as hard, but it can tank better.