Weighing up my own experience I think there are many truths in the posts here, but that there is a risk of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". By that I mean that I do think there's some good in the changes from Bioware in that the "something interesting" is now more interesting. Is it interesting enough? That's another question, but it's better than what I have got before.

 

So here's how I view the effects of the new changes:

 

The Good

1. I am getting at least a lot more frequently speeder parts, and triangualtion of the interesting part is now easier without the disruption of the grey items. It's more foucsed digging and the speeder parts over time i still think will be more valuable then lots of grey items.

 

The Bad

1. Sites seem to be easier to deplete now, so you can at times really struggle to find a site on Tatooine to dig for your Dread seed armor, just because the sites have been depleted. That's no fun.

2. I guess for some, a source of income from selling junk items has disappeared - I am not sure if this is a game-breaking change, since there are so many mechanics to farm for credits, but it may have been a fun thing on the side of all the digging.

3. The loot table seems to struggle with proper randomness and hence there's a lot of exploiter repulsorlifts etc in my inventory at least, where as for as with most people (I think), pleasure speeder parts are missing. Distribution of speeder parts seems to be skewed either to periods of time (for 1 week it's only dropping item x, for the next week it's only dropping item y to "make the numbers" for the wanted statiscial drop rate) or skewed towards instances, people etc, such that one individual does not experience a good distribution, but across people parts are well distributed. Trading would of course solve this, but GTN is the best market-maker for any item, and these items are not GTNable.

 

Recommendation: (Net net I am overall in favor of the direction the changes but maybe with some new tweaks):

1. The treasure that depletes the site needs to be good. Not gray (a bug) nor boring crafting material

2. Finding the depleting item should be more difficult to keep the site open longer, allowing for searching for star forager/dreadseed armor. Maybe even get rid of depletion of sites, but rather give a warning that on entering the site, "the special treasure for this area has already been found" so we can still search for speeder parts or star forager parts.

3. Distribute randomness of drops better. (I think Bioware should look into the random roll tool they have - for example me an my guild were doing HM 55s "only" getting smuggler gear the whole time for about a week. I am mentioning that because I think it is a shared mechanic that is affecting this part of the game AND the rest of the game.

4. Make speeder parts GTNable. As mentioned earlier, this is a far better market-maker than the Trade or General chats, bring more buyers and sellers together and making price discovery easier.

 

My 2 cents in what ended up being a long post.

@ Da_jon; From what I know, once an area is depleted another area on the same planet opens up. It's not CD-based and there are no 2 areas similataniously active on a planet. Also it thus can never be there is no active site on a planet. So that works fine, unless they changed that too post-2.2.3.

 

Thank you for letting me know this, I had been planet/instance hopping every time after going to all 3 seeker areas and seeing 2/3 depleted then depleting the 3rd or watching the 3rd be depleted. Good to know that there is always a single instance up that you can seek in per planet.

Unless they changed it with the last patch, that's not how dig sites work at all... All 3 dig sites start out up when a new instance of a planet opens up, and once they are depleted they are down (for about 2 hours I think).

 

I've depleted plenty of planets and had to move on to another planet to continue digging. I've also stopped digging at some sites when it was taking too long to find anything good, and moved on to another site on the planet without having depleted the previous site. I've also been digging on planets with friends at 2 separate sites in the same instance at the same time - so dig sites are definitely not a one-at-a-time situation, and they definitely do work on some kind of respawn timer.

 

_______

 

That said, since I'm posting here I'll throw in my opinion about the changes (first time in the forums... this seeker droid stuff is that big a deal to me lol) -

 

I've stopped digging since a couple days after the update, and would love to see things rolled back to how they were. Things seemed to be working just fine how they were.

 

I never had trouble finding stuff (have 5+ sets of each of the armors, 2 pleasure speeders, and have (and have sold a few of) the other 2 speeders. I wasn't getting rich off of it either - I'd make about enough to pay for my triangulation enhancers and then maybe have enough left over at the end of a day of digging to buy a cartel pack off the GTN. The one thing I was never able to dig up was a "Star Forager" title, and after the changes it just wasn't worth the time and credits to keep trying.

 

Triangulation enhancers, repairs to armor from having to fight the 54-55 mobs guarding/burrowed in dig sites, and travel to different planets (and taxis on planet) to dig all have costs and can no longer be supported by any reasonable amount of digging.

 

So I hope there's some happy medium (if not a complete rollback) that will make it worth digging again - it was a lot of fun and gave me something to do while waiting around between ops and HMs and was a great addition (and sometimes alternative) to the dailies "grind".

Edited August 2, 2013 by Panegyrist

Of all the things Bioware could be fixing...they worry about people using the seeker droid to find piles of loot.

 

"face palm"

 

Like it matters THAT much what someone does with THEIR OWN seeker droid? How on earth does this effect anyone else? I really fail to see how this is even a factor in anything. Why is me setting for 2 hrs finding loot with my droid something to worry about? This is ridiculous.

 

Change your name to Nannyware. Seriously.

The seeker now gives two messages, and maybe always did, but we notice it every time now because the finds are far more infrequent.

 

For any armor piece, I have so far ALWAYS seen, "Your Seeker Droid Found Something Interesting...".

I also see that message for the item that depletes the area, which has only been Purple Secure Crate or a Pleasure Speeder so far in my experience.

 

For ANYTHING else, I so far have ALWAYS seen, "Your Seeker Droid Found Something..."

This is when it digs up anything from a gray item, to a seeker boost, to a blue secure crate or an Explorer/Exploiter part.

 

I actually prefer the "Found Something..." without the Interesting tacked on at the end because if it digs up a "chest graphic", I know it will be a speeder part.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Aieranda

The seeker now gives two messages, and maybe always did, but we notice it every time now because the finds are far more infrequent.

 

For any armor piece, I have so far ALWAYS seen, "Your Seeker Droid Found Something Interesting...".

I also see that message for the item that depletes the area, which has only been Purple Secure Crate or a Pleasure Speeder so far in my experience.

 

For ANYTHING else, I so far have ALWAYS seen, "Your Seeker Droid Found Something..."

This is when it digs up anything from a gray item, to a seeker boost, to a blue secure crate or an Explorer/Exploiter part.

 

I actually prefer the "Found Something..." without the Interesting tacked on at the end because if it digs up a "chest graphic", I know it will be a speeder part.

 

Yeah, I think we started to zone out the screen text during the "good old days" when you found all kind of stuff. Either that, or it was broken before and only ever showed the "something interesting" text and now that it has been fixed (like a pet, not a broken machine) we see both screen responses.

You can still also get the epic rep item as the treasure that deplets the area.

Also if you get the item for the titles it also says something interesting like for the armors

 

The seeker now gives two messages, and maybe always did, but we notice it every time now because the finds are far more infrequent.

 

For any armor piece, I have so far ALWAYS seen, "Your Seeker Droid Found Something Interesting...".

I also see that message for the item that depletes the area, which has only been Purple Secure Crate or a Pleasure Speeder so far in my experience.

 

For ANYTHING else, I so far have ALWAYS seen, "Your Seeker Droid Found Something..."

This is when it digs up anything from a gray item, to a seeker boost, to a blue secure crate or an Explorer/Exploiter part.

 

I actually prefer the "Found Something..." without the Interesting tacked on at the end because if it digs up a "chest graphic", I know it will be a speeder part.

Some sort of better medium has to be made as it went from wonderful and being able to make some credits to almost worse then any level grind could be, hours of digging and only 3 or 4 items found. On top of lots of trails that up and die after following it for 20 minutes, makes looking for anything a huge pain. Please come up with something close to what it was but not like it is now, Perhaps you can add in some type of distance meter so if you go the wrong way you can know sooner then when the trail ends and you won't have to back track as far to get on the trail again.

Today on Alderaan I ran into multiple occasions where I'd get the green arc, start moving towards the find and reducing the arc size (using Mk II buff) only to have the arc suddenly expand out to the larger, farther away size in the complete opposite direction of where I'd been narrowing my search.

 

There were others in the area, but not within sight of my toon (i.e. zeroing in on the same find).

 

I also had a "special treasure" GSI Share Certificate that closed a site...complete waste as I already have legend standing and they simply aren't worth enough vendor wise to count as special.

 

There are definitely issues with the way the system works that really need to be addressed if the system is going to be expanded in the future.

I really don't see how people can complain about the new seeker droid. I finshed my armor sets and all 3 speeders months ago but decided to try to get another Pleasure Speeder. I dug for 1 1/2 hours today. I found 2 Pleasure Speeder pieces, 6 Exploiter pieces, 4 Explorer pieces, 4 armor pieces, and a title. You know what I would have found in 1 1/2 hours before? Maybe an armor piece, a 28 enhancement, a some other worthless stuff before the sites got closed.

I really don't see how people can complain about the new seeker droid. I finshed my armor sets and all 3 speeders months ago but decided to try to get another Pleasure Speeder. I dug for 1 1/2 hours today. I found 2 Pleasure Speeder pieces, 6 Exploiter pieces, 4 Explorer pieces, 4 armor pieces, and a title. You know what I would have found in 1 1/2 hours before? Maybe an armor piece, a 28 enhancement, a some other worthless stuff before the sites got closed.

 

For 2 hours I had the Traders Circle zone all to myself. About an even dozen times I would zero in on a site only to have the circle go red instead of giving me my find.

 

I have built 5 speeders, finally completing my Pleasure Speeder today and gave away dozens of other pieces to my GM to sell for guild credits. I have many suits of Dreadseed and SF armor. None of this is the point.

 

The point is that a lot of effort still goes into seeking, though now it is for nothing. You can't even make enough credits to cover the cost of 1 MK II buff, let alone the 6 you go through in an hour. The system wasn't perfect before, but it was a sight better than it is now. At no point should a GSI share certificate be the "special treasure"...nor should 4 basic comms for that matter. In an hour and a half before the nerf, I would make 150k credits selling everything to a vendor (or my repair droid because I had to keep summoning it and my mail box to empty my inventory).

 

I'm not advocating that back, but it has to be better than it is now. As usual, a game company overreacts and over-nerfs something without thinking. I shouldn't be surprised.

For 2 hours I had the Traders Circle zone all to myself. About an even dozen times I would zero in on a site only to have the circle go red instead of giving me my find.

 

I have built 5 speeders, finally completing my Pleasure Speeder today and gave away dozens of other pieces to my GM to sell for guild credits. I have many suits of Dreadseed and SF armor. None of this is the point.

 

The point is that a lot of effort still goes into seeking, though now it is for nothing. You can't even make enough credits to cover the cost of 1 MK II buff, let alone the 6 you go through in an hour. The system wasn't perfect before, but it was a sight better than it is now. At no point should a GSI share certificate be the "special treasure"...nor should 4 basic comms for that matter. In an hour and a half before the nerf, I would make 150k credits selling everything to a vendor (or my repair droid because I had to keep summoning it and my mail box to empty my inventory).

 

I'm not advocating that back, but it has to be better than it is now. As usual, a game company overreacts and over-nerfs something without thinking. I shouldn't be surprised.

 

as usual, we wont hear a word out of the devs over this, and it will sit and rot. eventually they will wonder why no one uses it anymore and come to the completely wrong conclusion. meanwhile, they have the worst communication I have seen on any game in a long while.

Seeing "you have found something interesting" in red letters on the screen just to find a 5-credit Republic Ammo Box is a major let down. I can understand they didn't want it to be an endless cash cow, but surely there was a better balance between being an okay way to spend time and complete waste of effort if you don't want yet another speeder or more armor - and as I still haven't finished the seed arc, I'm not sure I can even dig up either yet anyway. Edited August 5, 2013 by Macarrin

The change is horrible. The seeker droid digs was something nice added to the game to give players something to do. Yea you dug up alot of trash, but at least you made credits off it. Now you make almost nothing in credits and it's become trivial how quick you can now get the armor and speeder parts. Really you wanted to change it that a person can get all the parts for the speeders in less than an hour? As that's what I've been able to do now.

 

What is the point of doing the seeker droid digs anymore when there is nothing new to dig up? The more unique items like com boxes and such are still just as rare, but instead I get piles of the same armor and mount pieces. At least before I could get some gear/mods for alts, or make credits while looking for that rare stuff. But why bother when I already got all the unique pieces in only a few hours? You trivialized it.

 

My GF loved going out and doing the seeker droid stuff when she was bored, it was a fun side activity in the game and added something non combat to do, but now you have killed that for her. Unless you plan to implement a ton of new items to toss into the dig sites, you have pretty much ruined a neat little side activity for many people.

 

And sorry but claiming the dig sites were affecting the economy, get real, how out of touch can you be? You can earn so many more credits in far shorter time by doing the countless daily quests in the game and earn far better gear. Yet the lower level stuff being dug up was somehow affecting the economy and crafters? lol what a joke.

 

At least make it worth our time to come back and do this, before we at least would have a little money flow. The rewards now are a joke and what used to be hard to get is beyond easy to aquire. It's boring, why would I want to come back just for a chance to keep getting more of the same speeders and armors?

Edited August 7, 2013 by PanzerKraken

It really is beyond horrible now. It was tedious before, but at least you were getting some stuff to keep it interesting, and make a little money in the process. Now, you get nothing for literally hours at a time, except the occasional piece of completely worthless trash or an angry critter to fight. I completed the Seeker Droid questline in order to acquire a Dreadseed helm for my Sith Warrior, but after this new change I've given up on it. I'll wear something else. Spending hours on Tatooine doing nothing and FEELING like I'm doing nothing is a horrible waste of my play time.

 

You've hit the nail on the head. At least the grey stuff we got was worth something. I was just trying the area in the desert on Tatooine (northwest of Outpost Thorazan) for 15 minutes and I got two grey items worth a total of 11 credits and a reputation point item. The GSI stuff is largely pointless -- so the reputation points are useless. And, the fact I am putting in this time and only getting 11 credits! Give me a break. I didn't mind the old version -- at least we got something for our trouble.

Despite knowing better, I decided to do some digging on Tatooine as I was passing through and I depleted the site by digging up the purple GSI rep token... Besides the fact that I can't use it because I'm maxed, a rep item sure does not seem like a 'special treasure' to me, even if it is purple. The only plus side is that I can sell it for some decent credits, along with the two green rep items I dug up.

I totally agree with every complained made in this thread!!

 

Why should only boring daily's that have been done to death be the 'only' way to make credits in game? Personally I only ever dug for short spells on rare occasions and only if i was ever passing a site and found it fun. it was a nice change from the constant killing of mobs that you find in daily's.

 

So i decided I give it a try and check out the New Seeker Droid setup. Alas i never got to dig every site was depleted. Come on i only have a limited time to play what's all this depleted rubbish?

 

Instead of fixing things that are broken the powers that be decided to waste resources and break something that was working and players enjoyed.

I guess I don't understand the attraction to the Seeker Droid. I spent some time doing it before, as an alternative to running dailies, or repeating the same flashpoints over and over again to earn gear/money/rep.

 

The seeker droid was a nice alternative, and at least if I found some mods, I was getting some reward for my time.

 

Now, if I either already have, or don't have any interest in the DreadSeed/Forager armor or the GSI speeders, I have zero incentive to slam on the brakes when I see that red text telling my seeker droid is active.

 

The seeker droid has so much potential to be an alternative mini-game to break up the monotonous grind of dailes/flashpoints/ops. All you have to do is give us some fun and interesting reasons to stop and play when we encounter the areas.

 

Feedback/Suggestion:

Make the rewards for the system on par with (or slightly less than) running dailies. Whether it be commendations or credits, or items we can sell. Mindlessly wandering around a planet should merit some kind of reward in the same way mindlessly running dailies on black hole does.

 

Add something interesting to the loot tables. Perhaps some companion only armor pieces, or even companion only armor sets with a unique look (I'm not talking game breaking here, just something fun and unique)

So originally, I ran the seeker droid arc with another character. I found it terribly boring and had not revisited it until this weekend when I found out I NEEDED the seeker droid for the new czerka flashpoints. So I started it, and after 30 minutes, the droid not only found NOTHING. not even grays, and the target couldn't make up its mind if I was close or not and was wildly inconsistent.

 

this is the polar opposite of fun, and someone in a leadership role at Bioware needs to figure out how to make this worthwhile. At least before I could use the greens I found or sell them. now its just a waste of time.

Once again, today I deplete a site by digging up a purple rep item. That is so not a 'special treasure'.

 

So originally, I ran the seeker droid arc with another character. I found it terribly boring and had not revisited it until this weekend when I found out I NEEDED the seeker droid for the new czerka flashpoints. So I started it, and after 30 minutes, the droid not only found NOTHING. not even grays, and the target couldn't make up its mind if I was close or not and was wildly inconsistent.

 

this is the polar opposite of fun, and someone in a leadership role at Bioware needs to figure out how to make this worthwhile. At least before I could use the greens I found or sell them. now its just a waste of time.

 

The inconsistency is crazy. The droid telling you to dig over one way, then a completely opposite direction, then back in the direction of the first dig, and then saying nothing is around....yup, happened to me a lot today. Also, if you keep digging when it says nothing is around, many times it eventually comes up that something is there; I think that's how I got my first pleasure speeder part, actually.

 

The only reason I even do digging is if I'm working on something else that takes me through the area, I figure I'll dig a little and maybe get something good.

I'm so furious, I have to vent. I just decided to try some digging again while I waited for Groupfinder to pop on the Czerka flashpoints. So I go to Alderaan and start digging. My very first hit takes a while to dig up, but it turns out to be the 'Special Treasure.' Only, it's not so special: five Basic Commendations. Okay, fine. So I switch instances and head to another spot. Start digging again. Five minutes later, for the second time in a row, I hit on a 'Special Treasure' with my first successful dig. And what is it this time? Three Permacrete. What the hell.

 

No way am I ever bothering with this minigame again.

Once again, today I deplete a site by digging up a purple rep item. That is so not a 'special treasure'.

 

 

 

The inconsistency is crazy. The droid telling you to dig over one way, then a completely opposite direction, then back in the direction of the first dig, and then saying nothing is around....yup, happened to me a lot today. Also, if you keep digging when it says nothing is around, many times it eventually comes up that something is there; I think that's how I got my first pleasure speeder part, actually.

 

The only reason I even do digging is if I'm working on something else that takes me through the area, I figure I'll dig a little and maybe get something good.

 

Honestly, the only way to be remotely accurate is to use the Mark II Enhancers. They will pinpoint in no time. If you use the Mark Is or nothing at all you'll be out there all day. With the Mark IIs it's a quick deal and you're out. Thank said, the Seeker Missions are rarely much in the way of "fun" and hitting the same items over and over gets old.

 

Lastly, 4 Basic comms as the "special treasure" is a joke. 10 Ultimates? That I could see, but 4 basics does nothing to help you if you're leveling and even less if you're already geared, less than zero =p

What a completely worthless and baffling change. The droid telemetry does not function properly, and even if it did, you get nothing for effort.

 

I couldn't care less about gsi speeder parts. Duplicate non-tradeable junk.

 

The dev that worked this system over should be terminated in favor of someone who understands that if it isn't fun OR rewarding, no one is going to keep paying to do it. Idiot.

 

I won't do seekers anymore. I also have cancelled my sub because it is ridiculous to run the same dailies over and over ad-nauseum when I'm max rep and I don't need the credits.

 

I have been here since launch and will go ftp, park my toons, and look for a game THAT IS FUN. FUN BIOWARE. SHOULD BE YOUR GOAL *******ES.

Edited August 14, 2013 by johnduane

Well this is bummer, I was about to go and get seeker droid to do some treasure hunting but, after reading this I don't see a reason to bother with it. I already have the explorer mount by buying the parts on fleet. This really bugs me because I love treasure hunting even if it is mundane. You guys should Chang it back and go after the people setting up bots that are abusing the system. DON'T PUNISH EVERYONE FOR THE ACTIONS OF A FEW.

Had to weigh in here because I found the most interesting thing in a long long time of digging in the dirt. I was on Tatooine at the digsite right by the entrance to the Dune Sea. After about 30min of digging I found the "Special Treasure" in the area...and it was the "Hyrotti Scrapper"! Yes, the smoking 90% speeder. Yeah, I smiled.