Engineers Why the "Pin Recipe" system?

[WreckWren]

Why does the game use this system?

I can't think of any reason for it other than deliberately obtuse design. Perhaps I'm missing something?


It seems that you might get a whole lot of materials and not know their uses, venting them to make room for the one or two materials in the "pinned" section.



It definitely doesn't stop anyone just looking at what they want to, as the information is available online & we have the ability to screenshot. It just makes it needlessly complicated, hampering gameplay for no obvious reason.


So, is there any point to this system at all?

 

[X-Terminator]

Laziness I guess.

 

[Flimley]

I here what you say and It would certainly be nice to pin multiple blueprints of intent from each engineer.
So I just take iPhone snap shots for the moment to get around this.
Flimley.

 

[jacozilla]

Why does the game use this system?

I can't think of any reason for it other than deliberately obtuse design. Perhaps I'm missing something?


It seems that you might get a whole lot of materials and not know their uses, venting them to make room for the one or two materials in the "pinned" section.



It definitely doesn't stop anyone just looking at what they want to, as the information is available online & we have the ability to screenshot. It just makes it needlessly complicated, hampering gameplay for no obvious reason.


So, is there any point to this system at all?

It was a halfway measure, as with many things FD does. On one hand, having an in-game way to view info needed to play in-game more efficiently is a good thing. So positive step forward FD even tried.

But your examples of why this isn't needed because we can use other online tools or screenshot are bad ones - those are precisely things we need to stop doing, and have FD built in true, competent native support in-game. The pin recipe function is of course far, far from that needed standard, but is a step towards it.

So instead of suggesting it not be there at all because we can use outside, 3rd party online tools or manual workarounds like screenshots - which is a horrendously inefficient method - it would be better to push FD to implement a better recipe viewer - such as simply making Engineer recipe viewing remote access. e.g. Just like powerplay, you can view all powerplay benefits without actually going to a powerplay zone. Why we need to actually go and land to just see the recipe is typical FD adding more quality of life pain than anything else.

Going to the Engineer to actually do the mod - no problem, makes sense.
Inability to remotely view any discovered/unlocked Engineer recipe - completely illogical why we can't and no reason it can't easily be made remote viewable

 

[Straker]

Yes, its a strange thing. By only allowing you to pin one receipe per engineer reinforces the fact that you are grinding for one upgrade at a time (per engineer). The whole problem with this is that the outcome is randomised within a set of controlled parameters. What I specifically am referring to is that by only allowing you to pin one recipe, it puts you into a linear progression path, which is not really what Elite Dangerous should be about but then they tack on a form of randomness at the end of that. Is that not a recipe for time wasting?

 

[WreckWren]

Yes, its a strange thing. By only allowing you to pin one receipe per engineer reinforces the fact that you are grinding for one upgrade at a time (per engineer). The whole problem with this is that the outcome is randomised within a set of controlled parameters. What I specifically am referring to is that by only allowing you to pin one recipe, it puts you into a linear progression path, which is not really what Elite Dangerous should be about but then they tack on a form of randomness at the end of that. Is that not a recipe for time wasting?

You hit the nail on the head; it's standardised & structured gameplay for the masses in a game where we're supposed to be blazing our own trail, as the tagline reminds us.

The fact that it's an artificial limitation on the information you can get despite serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever is worrying. Why would FD do this? Dismissing it as a placeholder is a little generous to FD, given the colossal amount of time 2.1 supposedly took.


It's absolutely infuriating to look at that stupid little pinned recipe and know that someone, somewhere, thought that was an acceptable use of their paid time.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

I suspect there's meant to be more but some weird mechanic restriction prevents it. Like you say, something as inherently useless can't be by design.

 

[Straker]

I suspect there's meant to be more but some weird mechanic restriction prevents it. Like you say, something as inherently useless can't be by design.

Yes. The usual answer you'll hear will probably fall into the following two categories:

1. A complication or limitation in the client-server model
2. Requires more UI work and there was no time

I understand how much work creating and maintaining a user-interface is. It's not just about what you do now but also how you are laying a foundation for future additions. It requires a lot of thought, however I'd counter with a cliche by saying that 'it is the little things that count'.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Maybe FDev looked at the Robigo mission stacking and decided that was a bad thing.

The Engineers are a finite resource.

Already we're seeing "I've got all the upgrades" type posts.

There's a type of post we see pretty regularly from wealthy, high rank players which is:
"I've sucked the juice out of this release, I'll see you when the next one drops"

I'm not saying Fdev have got the balance right, (I haven't started upgrading yet) but they are trying different things.

There is a balance between providing novelty vs longevity, challenge vs burnout.

Development is also a finite resource.