drone

[Menolak]

09-11-03

I am still debating with the coders over the feature I have in mind (which I won't reveal until I can guarantee that it is coming ). I can repeat what I said. If it works, it will have been worth the wait. It will not be a droner PA though. If a droner gets found, he is dead, PA or not. Those little boni won't make a droners day either. Droners need two things: a ton of bugfixes and... well, that special feature I wrote both up and gave it to the coders, I will go on their nerves, but that's about all I can do. Don't give up hope yet
__________________
Jan "Callash" Doerrenhaus
Content Development & Storyline Coordination
REAKKTOR.COM
A division of Schwiezer Systems Ltd.
original post (http://neocron.jafc.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81393&perpage=15&pagenumber=2)

well, two patch later and still waiting for the special feature and bug fixes... did you guy forgot about droner once more?
and people dont talk aboout the new improve implant... like he said

Those little boni won't make a droners day either

[SeXy Happy]

yes we need to get some information back from Callash on the status of this. I know a lot of people that would lom back to droning, but as of yet wont because of bugs that are in it. Please give us the love and some info on whats going on Callash.

[John.nl]

In Callash I trust.

I'm so patient it hurts. Please give me the strength not to lom my wpw and rcl the next months or so.

[Ryuben]

<--has seen 3 old school droners lom over u better hurry up ;)

[SeXy Happy]

Ryuben what server?

[ezza]

why do you really want PA for your droner?

im not capped on my droner, is it not possible to cap your drones currently, cos thats the only reason i would want droner PA, if its to look l33t what the point you spend most of your time away from your body so you aint gonna see it anywayo_O

[jernau]

I've seen 2 droners in the last month.

I've only logged mine in to get stuff out his apts for longer than that.

I haven't even seen any of the DATA guys around since DOKEMON.

All the great droners are gone.

[Ehyuko]

Gone or lomed to something else Jernau, waiting for the days drones are competative.

If drones ever became as useful as say, rifles cannons or psi abilities I would so spend the 6-8 hours it would take to lom back.

Edit: Any new potential droners don't hold your breath waiting for any balancing or enhancements being tossed your way, drones are often the very last thing to look at after extensive work is done on the other classes. Could it be the low droner population caused by their ineffectiveness causing the low population? Chicken and the egg where does it start and where does it end?

[jernau]

Originally posted by Ehyuko
Gone or lomed to something else Jernau, waiting for the days drones are competative.

If drones ever became as useful as say, rifles cannons or psi abilities I would so spend the 6-8 hours it would take to lom back.

Yeah - gone from droning is what I meant.


@ezza - We see our bodies as we leave them to go fight, as we return to them and/or as they drop dead and we pick a GR. Unlike other classes we can admire ourselves easily from any angle and distance not just arse-watch.

[J. Folsom]

Originally posted by jernau
All the great droners are gone. I'm still around, though I wouldn't call myself a great droner. Probably one of the few remaining droners on Saturn...

[ezza]

Originally posted by jernau
Yeah - gone from droning is what I meant.


@ezza - We see our bodies as we leave them to go fight, as we return to them and/or as they drop dead and we pick a GR. Unlike other classes we can admire ourselves easily from any angle and distance not just arse-watch.

i wasnt attacking at droners, ive recently started a droner myself and have fun droning, but i just dont see why you would want PA, but i guess if other classes have it no reason droners cant i suppose.

is there some problem with drones or something that i havnt hit yet?

[Elric]

I'll have a droner on saturn soon, certainly not as a main character though, chances are he'll be my construct / research bitch. Other than that, as soon as droners are viable again, Im getting my planned droner into action asap. I aint holding my breath though :(

[SeXy Happy]

I would admit that even I have left my droner on Saturn to pursue droning on Pluto. But I still love the droner class. I think there would be more if the bugs ever got worked out.

As far as the PA thing. I don't think its necessarily a PA in the traditional sense of others PA's that droners are looking for. We dont need the extra armor, because we barely get hit anyhow, and if we do we are dead. But instead of using the spy pistol/rifle pe for the dex bonuses only, I would like something of a wearable armor/helmet, that gives us the bonus plus droner bonuses too. As far as what to fill the void of actual armor treatment I dont know. I would be happy that instead of getting any bonuses to armor just more buffing on droner stats (willpower or RCL) or something extra that droners would benefit from.

[ezza]

yeah ok i im down with that reason,i was just getting the feeling that there was something really messed up with droners or something.

[jernau]

Originally posted by ezza
i wasnt attacking at droners, ive recently started a droner myself and have fun droning, but i just dont see why you would want PA, but i guess if other classes have it no reason droners cant i suppose.

is there some problem with drones or something that i havnt hit yet?

Do a search.

Don't let me put you off droning - It's still fun in it's own way but it's too buggy and too unbalanced especially as you get near cap.

KK could do a lot to fix drones :
Reduce TLs by 25%
Fix the whole issue around "local"
Fix all the bugs (especially the SL related ones)
Upgrade the droner RPOS (even bi-planes had compasses ffs)
etc
etc
etc

They have done jack-shit for us other than nerf our damage in beta and add useless items no-one uses.

PA won't solve this - that's true. It could at least cover up a couple of the most annoying imbalances though.

Personally I'd rather have a droner helmet of some kind that gives lots of T-C and RCL but no armour. That way droners can get into stealth be able to cap damage on the only weapon we use at end-game. Currently neither is possible without major gimpage.

[SeXy Happy]

there kind of is. its just all the bugs that are in there with droning. That is what the turnoff is to people. That and some don't like to stay that far away from all of the action. Personally I like being able to stay way far away from OP fights and slam revenges into the enemies OP.

Although I am still learning techniques to be able to stay alive. Distance is meh friend and I am still learning that.

But yeah, so pretty much it is all the bugs that are out there. And other turnoffs too, such as not being able to collect your loot. And the fact that droning can be a money sink, unless you are in a clan that doesn't mind supporting you until you are able to use the rare drones and acutally keep them alive. :)

[Myrlin]

After a 3 month break I just came back and started a droner spy as my only character (I play on Pluto). I would love to see some droner loving in the near future. Having a droner PA would really give me a goal to work for, and remove the temptation to LOM over to rifles so I can wear the cool looking PA :)

Seriously, drones have been overlooked for a long time. KK needs to give them some attention and come up with some PA bonuses that really help the class.

[SeXy Happy]

yeah and we really need Callash to give us an update on what is going on with the Droning "fix".

[Callash]

I cannot report anything until I have something to report :(

[SeXy Happy]

:( Thanks for the drop anyhow Callash. Hope to hear something soon.......*wait impatiently some more*

Thanks though.

[jernau]

Originally posted by Callash
I cannot report anything until I have something to report :(

Understood :(

[Ehyuko]

While droner bugs were a problem I found it was more the fact that I was useless in combat in both pvm and pvp that made me lom.

@jernau: I know many players whom quit this game after playing droners because they found pistols/rifles/cannons to be less involving as drones but drones to frustrating to play as.

@ezza: When you fully cap out and find yourself doing the same damage as a mid level player with a TL 60-70 weapon compared to your near capped TL 116 one, it's hard to find a reason to continue to play a droner other then the hugely different playstyle. That combined with the cost penalties of droning, the time sinks and the difficulty of finding people who will make drones for you is what gets droners in the endgame.

[ezza]

Originally posted by Ehyuko

@ezza: When you fully cap out and find yourself doing the same damage as a mid level player with a TL 60-70 weapon compared to your near capped TL 116 one, it's hard to find a reason to continue to play a droner other then the hugely different playstyle. That combined with the cost penalties of droning, the time sinks and the difficulty of finding people who will make drones for you is what gets droners in the endgame.

hmmok

as im not capped cant comment but if what you say is true about the damage that sucks big time:(

[SeXy Happy]

Yeah the damage does suck. I wish we could see what Callash proposed to the team to have changed. Amongst the bugs I do wish we could dish out some more damage. I know that people say that we should get more damage because we almost never die. But if our body is found there isn't jack crap we can do, unless you can drop drone and stealth out. Anyhow, I do hope that something is done to the damage that a drone deals out.

[jernau]

Originally posted by Ehyuko
@jernau: I know many players whom quit this game after playing droners because they found pistols/rifles/cannons to be less involving as drones but drones to frustrating to play as.

Hence "unbalanced" ;).

If they just made it rewarding once the XP stops coming a lot of people might stick at it longer. At the very least don't take the piss by giving our joke weapons the highest TLs in the game.

[-FN-]

I just wanna get in the "I"ll LoM back to drones when they're balanced to a better level" line with FN who is currently only a tradeskiller :(

and expired :( :(

and been hacked twice :( :( :(

wait, why do I still play? I forget sometimes...

Oh, right, for that rich and full flavored feeling, leaving a smooth and sweet aftertaste... mmmm, Neocrack...

[craio]

Well my main character is a droner and on saturn (since recently capping PN :) ).
If ya read all these threads you really start to think you can count the high lvl droners on one hand and have fingers left ...but then you check the ingame auction-forum and see that when a riggers dream(part) is up for auction atleast 5 different people are bidding on it ... WTF??

The easiest to do change i'd like to see is remove the damn blinding screen that comes up whenever the drone is hit,try taking on someone inside MB with that..

And the biggest issue to me is still the one hit kill in drone vs monk.

[Brammers]

Well I'm still droning on Pluto :)

...and I'll stay tuned to this feature that Callash has in mind.

So to all capped droners out there, who can cap the damage of the PB20? I know I can't unless I get a done combat 3 boost or (maybe) LOM all my CST to WPW. (Which isn't going to happen)

But whats really mad, holding a rare Particle Nemesis and getting a rank 86/ ermm thats just insane!

[Chicane]

I'm sure happy to see droners out their. I thought they had all gone. My main char is a droner on saturn and I'll be so happy if we get an update that helps us.

[JiNxY]

Originally posted by Callash
I cannot report anything until I have something to report :(

:( :( :(

so that means, nothing has been started, and drones havent even been put on the list of things to look at.

droning is fun, its a completely unique style of gameplay within neocron, but once you reach the PvP stage you feel useless.
monkocron seriously dented drones viability

[craio]

Originally posted by Callash
I cannot report anything until I have something to report :(

Or in the light of BDoy ,who is said to be finished...
If ya got nothing at all to report it sounds to me that BDoy wont have anything truly new for droners...

Plz tell me otherwise :(

[Menolak]

why do you really want PA for your droner?

DOnt get me wrong here.. on that regard i tottaly agree with Callash..Droner pa is a useless thing..youre found no matter what anyone can kill you... since where spy....
But i want something to be PvP efficient.. like someone else said.. its one hit one kill.. if its not kill you get the snow screen and cant do shit....and we barely do damage on other player so.. One of the best droner ive ever saw wasn't even close to kill my rifle spy... So imagine any other class.

[Rinaldo]

Just to follow through.

I just had the most frustrating evening of PvP with my droner as my drone kept on displaying the clan name of an ennemy clan to whoever was to see it. The question is definitely not droner PA but rather gameplay that hits the droner in Neocron.

- Teaming issues result in discrepancies between the droner and its drone. The fact that my drones was designated to everyone as Biotech (while I am DoY) resulted in 3 different Particle Beam destroyed by my clan and allies.
- Communication issues is difficult: the faction channel seemed to work, but I am unsure that it does now while I am droning...
- Resistance issue: it takes almost no time to target a drone from afar for a APU, simply due to the large aiming rectangle of the drone. This means that the drone last a very short time when targeted... with 'static' screen. Moreso, every body's damage output has been developed (including tanks, which are now more immune to drone than ever), but the drones.

And I am not getting into the local list, lack of compass, SL, lack of droner indicators (health, etc.). Just looking at pure normal gameplay.

To summarize, I feel that the droner is a loner as much for PvP as for PvM these days and that no 'upping' of the RCL and WPW bonuses on our various implants will really suffice.

One thing to pounder on for KK: why fix the MindControl brain implants with negative WPL effect and not the Droner buff which _adds_ WPL rather than any other interesting caracteristic for droners (Transport, etc.). It looks to me that it was just to nerf the other classes, not to help the droners...

[Menolak]

one other thing i just realize....
CS = 105 str
malediction = 115 str
Disruptor = 115 dex
first love =114 dex
judge = 100 dex
libby = 91 dex
antibuff = 110 psi
HL = 101 psi

those are the one imo that are the best weapon for each class
here the drone
particule nemesis = 116 already higher then anyother weapon
punisher = 122 ...
so to get a drone with 110% i need a better CST then to build a CS.. i cant have slot either...so no mod for me.... (well mod on a drone would be stupid anyway...too much mod to buy). But the thing is that ordinary weapon get to boost there weapon wih mod so they can go up to 120% wich is almost imposssible for a drone... + anyone would agreed..a TL 122 should be doing more damage then a TL 115..even a non rare weapon can hurt other player more then a rare TL 122 drone...

[Rai Wong]

I still play my 70/60 droner....but rarely they just suck the best thing yet is the revenge drone.

They are next to useless in op wars apart from surveillence, the particle beam range is too short to be usefull and the damage sucks. The missile drones work better then the PBx for me the advanced support drone is the best for pvp and everything else.

I wanted to lom my spy, but too many points to lom and I still enjoy droning sometimes despite they suck.

[Menolak]

I still enjoy droning sometimes despite they suck.
same here...
Drone are the only thing that i really enjoy in this game... but if something not made fast about it..ill quit.