First off, please go read the post I just made in the Discussion forum regarding pending changes to pets and droids... it explains the general situation.

OK, now that you've read that--how will it impact you? Well, for now, you will retain customers for your probots. But frankly, probots are going to have to fall in power around 70% just to make them fall in line for now, until such time as we can get a cert system in for combat droids.

The specific changes we're discussing are to reduce the probot to around 800-900 in stats, remove their armor, and remove their armor-piercing weaponry in favor of weaponry more in line with their new level of difficulty.

We realize that this is going to impact your market for droids significantly, and that you're already suffering from other problems with your profession. But we have to take action given what players are accomplishing with these droids. We do have a couple of droid engineer fixes in the next update:

• Droid medic modules should now have a variable effect on medical wound healing, depending on what quality medical modules were built into the droid.
• Droids will allow a person to drag an item on top of their pet droid to store an item in it (assuming that the droid has a storage module, of course).

I realize these aren't everything that you want or need, but they're intended just as a start.

Aain, we realize how badly this will impact your markets. But we see it as unavoidable. We welcome comment on what other band-aid actions we could take while we work on a cert system.

Sadly understandable.  Its still a fighting pet that people aside from CH can use, which should not limit the market too much.

We just need to know how to pitch them right.

At least we all know DE's are definately getting worked on

Thanks!

Iphis

How long until this cert system would be implemented?

I assume that means certain skills would be needed to gain those certs.  Will a new skill tree be introduced?  Or will they be added to an existing tree?  If so, which current tree would they be added to?

As this is a fairly large change, I *urge*, heck...*beg* that you are absolutely 150% sure of your change before you take it to the live server.

I suspect however, that you won't really know if you hit the nerf on the head until it goes to the live servers for a few days...ah well.

It's pretty awful/annoying/frustrating/add your adjective when a large gameplay change comes...and it comes late (this problem was known in beta....) but to top it off the change keeps getting tweaked.

Just speaking from past experience and it'd be nice to reduce frustration level of those who are already frustrated for other reasons.

They're not worthless yet.

They're still a fighting pet any class, level, whatever can use.

People will still want to buy them.

There is nothing you can really compare them to, even with the nerf.  They're just not as powerful now.

*shrugs*

Iphis

Holo,

HHmm Lots of mixed feelings on this one.  Though I must admit the Probots did seem a bit out of line so it is understandable.  I'd have been a bit more concerned with this "nerf" had you not presented it in the manner you did.  Well done. 

  Given us atleast some insight as to your thoughts on this and understandings that we do have issues which are being looked at.

I am not a DE so bare with me.  I know the going rate for probots is 20k, but could a DE cover his costs selling them at 5k?

If so, Don't think of the Probot as a "big ticket item" that everyone aspires to have.  But as something that a player would not mind losing.  This way you can build up a returning customer base.

Sell them cheap, and sell a lot more.  Get more XP.

Please enlighten me 

-gustavef

Something tells me this one will be ontop of the DE discussion for quite some time

Can we get it sticky? So it doesn't get pushed to the bottom with "How can I rename my droid" threads?

Thanks

-Kralis

I never really thought the probots where THAT powerful.  I still had to avoid a LOT of creatures. The droids certainly aren't all powerful or anything.

I mean, here I am, a human with like 900 HAM by default.

Why is it that when I get a bounty mission (if I were a BH) or am supposed to attack a stormtrooper (or I guess, a Rebel NPC), they have 9k stats PLUS armor with good stats?

Why is it that those humans have 10 times my HAM?  They're human, after all.

And why is it now being changed where a droid made of steel has 800-900 HAM like I do now, with no armor or whatever else? (actually, that'd be less HAM than I would have if I foraged some grubs and ate them....that's just not right)

(yes, I know the theory of having 'tougher' mobs to fight, and hence the added HAM to compensate, just making a point and asking why one human and his droid are going to be so much weaker than another human)

I guess I'm just frustrated at the DE profession being so essentially useless at the moment except for probots, and how even those are going away.....and also how I had to waste skill points in 3 other trees to become a Master Artisan for making droids when the skill tree implies that all you need to be a DE is Engineering.  Just seems like a lot of wasted time, resource gathering, and crafting for nothing right now.

Hopefully the DE's will have the certifications to use the droids they built.

Holo,

I certainly understand the reason for nerfing probots and CH pets, I agree that their power was a little out of whack.

That said, droid engineers need drastic improvements/fixes to non-combat droids to make our profession viable, and in line with the SW universe.

* Protocol droids should be a viable alternative to the glut of languages everyone seems to know. I guarantee a good response from the player base if you allow them to /unlearn languages and use a protocol droid for immersion.

* Binary load lifters and power droids should be a measureable benefit, improving harvestor maintenance time and/or cost.

* XP advancement requirements for the Droid Engineer seem to be out of whack with the rest of the elite professions. I think the 28k to get from Eng IV to Novice DE is dead on, but 48k to reach any box on the DE skill tree requires twice the time other professions do.

There is an excellent list of DE issues at http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=4117

TO H DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS TO YOU......HOLOCRON

THIS IS BULL IF OUR CLASS IS NOT MISSED UP ENOUGH.

you are going to pull our on own way for income..........

how about nerf some of the other class first, we cant sell crap as it is

and you want to nerf the only thing that we do have to sale

if you do something like then i want some compsation for my time.

1. we get no user exp so the only way we can make level is through the grind of making droids and destoring them i was in the beta and from the beta to now you have made ZERO changes other then incressing the exp. need to make level.

2. I know every one on the dev's side say that they hate to here "but in EQ" well in EQ and my pet was allways blue or darkblue to me that is all iam asking here.....but you are talking about droping our to 70% of what they  are that is now way helping our class there are not like they Probot is a level one BluePrint droid it is a level 3 BluePrint droid, my track droids are usless they can get killed in like 2 hits so you are going to take the only droid that we have to fight with.

3. i want some of my rescsouces back or the ammount used to make them and any other droids droped.

4. as far as ablitiy to fight i dont know about other DE but i died like rain falls, my only to fight is through my bots. so if you do this you better let the droid eng be able to pull more then one since we can make them.

5. not to mention that we as droid eng. were spouse to have battle droids so where are they. Mabey we as droid eng. can have a battle droid eng pet only, one that only we can have.

SWG need to be fixed but make us pay cause you messed up is not my proble i was in the beta and still put in bug reports. and tell people that they should bug stuff if things happen that dont look right.

if i get band then so be i will cancel my account and go back to playing my other game and will inform people not to buy or play this game till it get fixed as many reviews are say.

thank you

P.S hopefully i wont to have to say things for nothing.