I don't mind a bit of a grind wall. It beats the heck out of a pay wall any day, but then, I don't really consider it a grind as I don't set out strictly to acquire materials for upgrades.
Does anyone else think the concept of engineers is terrible?
- Thread starter Endealon
- Start date
It is also good to recognize there are two different and very seperate engineering concepts implemented in the game.
1. Ship engineering.
2. Suit/weapon engineering.
Without making a clear distinction discussion gets muddled.
These types of absolute comments gets me going ,that's for sure. If one thing, it's far, far from impossible to make progress. I'll even say you're doing it wrong and get good. In fact, just by playing most of what the game offers I get everything I need. Then again, I have no need to engineer 4 ships, 10 suits and 20 weapons within a week, for me to feel some kind of accomplishment..
There are a few things to point finger at with engineering, for sure. Mostly in the gathering department
I expect no less than to be accused of white knighting or whatever you grinders throw around these days
MDH
That is an interesting concept... Is that an absolute statement?
I don't have a problem with engineering (I also don't 'grind') but have helped other players in acquiring materials for engineering...
Gosh, I am at Kuk currently engineering 5 Hull reinforcements up to G5, with mats I collected just playing how I wish.
Well, that's fine for first time and rebuy maybe, but in late-game with billion-tons of credits - game becomes dismoraling.The concept of being able to upgrade components is fantastic.
The implementation of Engineers is bad. The grind for resources is miserable, having to ship your ship around the galaxy to talk to the engis is bad... the fitting system for keeping track of your pre-engeneerd stuff is bad.
Possibly those with the (also bad!) FC's can work around some of these issues, but for those without it is just bad bad bad.
The implementation of Engineers is bad. The grind for resources is miserable, having to ship your ship around the galaxy to talk to the engis is bad... the fitting system for keeping track of your pre-engeneerd stuff is bad.
Possibly those with the (also bad!) FC's can work around some of these issues, but for those without it is just bad bad bad.
I'm OK with engineering I guess, it adds a layer of customization and you can take 1 ship model and outfit it to do several different pursuits. I suppose that could be considered a bad thing too.
My problem with it IS the grind. Not so much the grind itself but the hopelessness of it. Meaning, you work hard to get your needed quantity of a thing (say, Opinion Polls), get 6 of 10 and spend the next MONTH trying to find the last 4. That's complete bull**** to me. I know there's a way of getting them through FC bartenders, but that's kind of bad form to me as well. The game should always provide an avenue to get what you need. I don't mind the grind as much as I resent the hopelessness the grind can bring.
The bartender trading needs a buff, to include DATA imho.
My problem with it IS the grind. Not so much the grind itself but the hopelessness of it. Meaning, you work hard to get your needed quantity of a thing (say, Opinion Polls), get 6 of 10 and spend the next MONTH trying to find the last 4. That's complete bull**** to me. I know there's a way of getting them through FC bartenders, but that's kind of bad form to me as well. The game should always provide an avenue to get what you need. I don't mind the grind as much as I resent the hopelessness the grind can bring.
The bartender trading needs a buff, to include DATA imho.
I agree. That would be very useful.
Yes, in the dedicated thread.
And i've added my opinion too
In essence, i dont mind engineering as it is.
However, the way materials are gathered should be improved but not in the way OP wants it (buy materials with credits)
And if the op wants to use credits (which we are drowned in and are meaningless) to buy materials, i have all the rights to express my opinion against it.
No offence, but
Now who's trying to chase people away?
I play this not just for the beauty, the game play, but the challenge as well. I don't want it to be easy. Did you ever play FE2? If not, then that game was hard, Oh and dead was dead, no insurance nonsense.
Probably not the same situation as even assuming your hull and hrp were engineered I’m still at least twice your hull strength. Not much to be done about the reverbs (an AX build can’t afford the PD/ECM, and a cutter isn’t moving at +250mps into a station if it wants to dock). The alpha that followed it up was… Incredible. I wonder if it might have been a penetrating torpedo that did I me in. In any event, the point was dealing with gankers is quite a bit more involved than “anyone can do it in an unengineered type-6, here go watch a video and get good.”
In that case... What game? The game is ABOUT striving to gradually improve your ships, weapons, etc - unless you think it's about gaining credits and climbing a rank ladder. There's no character development, except what you make yourself (roleplaying).
Players gaining "end game" large ships in a matter of hours is already ruinous.
Yeah, funniy, innit?
Take away the 'grind' and there is suddenly nothing in the game to do...
'End game ships', really? What are they? Anaconda? Cutter? Corvette? Fleet Carrier?
There is no character development, apart from RP, already, just do the numbers to get to elite in everything.
Yes, this is certainly a facetious response, in case you missed that last note of such.
I agree. Selling all sorts of modules and ships from my carrier is nice, but I can only sell them more expensive than on any regular starport. The option to sell things cheaper is not available. That sort of personal market doesn't make any sense.
As a workaround to the most common issues all these engineering and material and data grinding brought to us I often suggested a used market where players can sell their ships and modules, even engineered ones. How often did I have to put a painful engineered module into the trash because my storage was full? What a waste of time. Prices for offered used ships and modules could be calculated by the game itself. This would bring easier access and more variety to all sorts of ships and weapons and something to spend Credits on!
To me, it's more like they're giving us illegal access to military technology. And i suppose that adapting these techs on a device that is not designed for them while making them invisible to scans and accepting the risk of being caught or denounced must not be within anyone's reach. So, for ship engineers, that might make sens.
But for on-foot engineers, most of the "exclusives high-end secrets techs" are just absurd.
You give an acceptable answer yourself : "How the did they get all that polonium anyway without being classed a security risk?"
I guess that theses mats are tracked (even if for some mats, that sound a bid stupid, like iron). That's why CMDR can't buy them or engineers can't sell them. It's just illegal.
Yep, ok on that, the gameplay loop to get mats (grind and regrind) is bad. Very bad. And, indeed, it's just a make up to avoid spending crédit in-game for theses. But the overal idea beside ship engineer and the justification is not so bad.
The implementation of on-foot engineers, on the other hand, is completely messed up. Neither done nor to be done again.
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I understand the concept, and it's not a bad idea. My criticism lies in its execution.
Give me the chance to pay 100,000,000 credits to the engineer on duty for 1 mod, and have him do the grind, get the materials and everything needed for the job.
I edit my post to answer some more point.
Because that would require him to have his own smuggling network. That's not the engineers' job and they probably don't want to take that much risk, event if he may has enough time left over from his official, unofficial jobs and family stuff. This is really not the same as just replacing stolen stock.
This is definitely a YMMV kind of thing, especially since there are multiple ways of engaging with engineering. Only one of those ways of engaging with engineering I think most would agree is not fun. And yet it’s by far the most popular way of doing so, which seems bizarre to me. But it is a well know phenomenon among game developers. Some players will choose the slowest, most boring way of accomplishing their goals in a game… as long as it has zero risk or mental effort on their part.
Again, this is a YMMV thing. In my experience, when it comes to the current engineering loop, the time required is fairly trivial… if you pursue engineering alongside normal gameplay, rather than instead of normal gameplay. The closest thing to going out of my way to acquire engineering data are wake scans. Personally, I’ve found that scanning one on my way out of a station’s mass lock to be pretty good flight-assist off target tracking practice, and it’s at least something to do between exiting the station at high rates of speed, and starting my jump out.
Again, this is a YMMV thing. Personally, the way I engage in engineering feels natural… assuming I’m a struggling transport pilot. Credit reward inflation has gotten so extreme that I’m playing a wealthy dilettante instead, but the desire to engineer my ships keeps me in that mind space for the most part.
What I consider obtuse are the various “one weird trick” guides to ED out there. Or, as I like to call them, the “How to ruin your ED experience by abusing this one weird trick” guides.
That isn’t to say that I don’t think there’s room for improvement. There’s plenty. But IME, 90% of the complaints about the current engineering loops seem to be self inflicted. Engineering mats are everywhere. Players just need to stop paying attention to Netflix, and start paying attention to the game, to claim them.
The concept is cool.
The execution is grind-fest level 9000 bad.
I like the idea of having specialists that can tinker with your stuff.
Customizability is often enjoyable in games.
But when sitting at a site and logging out, and then logging back in so you can recycle the junk you have to collect is considered "gameplay" - Then you have made a game mechanic that is even less fun than killing 10,000 rats in the starter zone of an MMORPG.
The execution is grind-fest level 9000 bad.
I like the idea of having specialists that can tinker with your stuff.
Customizability is often enjoyable in games.
But when sitting at a site and logging out, and then logging back in so you can recycle the junk you have to collect is considered "gameplay" - Then you have made a game mechanic that is even less fun than killing 10,000 rats in the starter zone of an MMORPG.
There is a very simple solution to that, one which I, and apparently a few other, found...
I just don't do that... simple!