Materials can't - I get your point though that some things can be exchanged, but for everything else I am required (probably a better word than forced) to do the tasks set before me by FD.
Come on... The game is a full of requirements. In fact I'm struggling to think of any game that doesn't have some form of requirements in order to achieve goals.
Want to visit Sol. Then you need to get friendly with the Feds and build your navy rank.
Want to work with an engineer. You've got to meet their requirements first.
Want to buy an Annaconda. You need to get enough credits.
Can you see how silly it can get.
The issue is that you, like all players have, preferences as to which activities and hence requirements you prefer to undertake. It's impossible to design a game of any complexity in which every activity is equally attractive to all players. One of the strengths of ED are the diverse activities that support differing player preferences and play styles.
I personally enjoy mining and prospecting for materials in the SRV. I have become skilled in those activities and can find the materials I want far quicker than those with less experience. I've earned my advantage. I don't enjoy grinding for credits and rank so flying a Cutter is nothing but a distant dream for me: Advantage to those who get enjoyment from meeting those requirements.
Personally, I don't enjoy mining too much and I'm not really good at it, and kinda loathe the SRV (that wonky wobblyness is just so awkward compared to the crispness of a nice ship). But now I do actually get rewarded for those activities with unique items I can't get somewhere else.
So I either just "push trough" some mining and SRV driving, without enjoying the activity itself too much, for the sheer reward, or I might even find some enjoyment in a previously "meh" activity that I never really gave the place it deserved.
Feeling forced or coerced to do something, because there's a reward to be had? That's a weird way of thinking. My teenager is all enthusiastic about cleaning up her room and doing her homework for a concert ticket to her favorite band. ^^
Personally, I don't enjoy mining too much and I'm not really good at it, and kinda loathe the SRV (that wonky wobblyness is just so awkward compared to the crispness of a nice ship). But now I do actually get rewarded for those activities with unique items I can't get somewhere else.
So I either just "push trough" some mining and SRV driving, without enjoying the activity itself too much, for the sheer reward, or I might even find some enjoyment in a previously "meh" activity that I never really gave the place it deserved.
Feeling forced or coerced to do something, because there's a reward to be had? That's a weird way of thinking. My teenager is all enthusiastic about cleaning up her room and doing her homework for a concert ticket to her favorite band. ^^
I don't agree on the SRV, I think FD have done an excellent job on its handling and controls. I have a cheap hotas for the ship and a old xbox controller for the SRV. I think you should practice it a bit more and give it a chance. The wave scanner is quiet good when you get the hang of it as well.
It should, for sure. I remember watching the live stream when he talked about it though and the look on his face as countless commanders spammed the chat with 'what about storage', 'when are we getting storage' etc was like that of someone being told he was going to have to delay his appointment with Britains's most fat-fingered proctologist for a few hours because he needed triple root canal surgery first.
I had the impression of someone who was grudgingly acquiescing to demands mainly to shut people up rather than out of any actual acknowledgment that it was really something of a necessity and one that should have been factored into the Engineers update from the very earliest planning stages.
That's for two reasons and the issue around storing materials and commodities isn't even the greatest one really, at least not in my eyes. No, the greatest one is that we're now given the chance to make unique improvements to our modules but are not then able to store those unique modules if we need to swap them out, other than by sticking them on a second suitable ship which we leave in a hangar.
Prime example - I own an Anaconda which is currently set up for trading. I have a class 8 power plant on it, not because I actually need it for my trade build (or for mining) but because the jump range loss due to the additional mass is tolerable compared to having to jump all over the galaxy buying different power plants every time I want to rebuild it from a trader to a miner to a combat ship.
So lets say I upgrade my power plant via the Engineers. Then I want to refit my Anaconda as an exploration ship and take a trip out into the black. Obviously I'm not going to be running a class 8 power plant on a stripped down exploration ship and there's no way that I'm going to just sell my highly modified level 8 power plant and then have to set about collecting the materials and commodities to upgrade another one (which might not even end up as good thanks to RNG things) when I want to build it back up again.
So what do I do now without storage? I have a simple choice - I can either spend 146m on a second anaconda, or if I have the rank 187m on a Corvette or 208m on a cutter, just so that I can stick my super special level 8 power plant on it and leave it parked in a garage.
I know that historically there has been resistance from the devs to implementing storage, which I assume is why it wasn't part of the engineers update and why Sandro made a comment (which was very much less than a definite committment in the stream I saw) to 'look at' it for 'later'. I never understood why it wasn't in the game from day one to be honest and I guess I never will, especially when we do have ship storage.
I don't agree on the SRV, I think FD have done an excellent job on its handling and controls. I have a cheap hotas for the ship and a old xbox controller for the SRV. I think you should practice it a bit more and give it a chance. The wave scanner is quiet good when you get the hang of it as well.
Yep. Be prepared to ditch your combat stuff for cargo racks so you can lug around commodities until they decide we should get storage for all this stuff.
Oh, and forget about hitting up RES until you can ditch all that stuff. Every pirate there will firing at you.
THIS is the ultimate insult to the Engineers "upgrade" - it takes forever to find materials, you need a boat load to get multiple upgrades AND YOU HAVE TO HAUL THEM AROUND WITH YOU 24/7....what <bleep> idot designed THAT?
THIS is the ultimate insult to the Engineers "upgrade" - it takes forever to find materials, you need a boat load to get multiple upgrades AND YOU HAVE TO HAUL THEM AROUND WITH YOU 24/7....what <bleep> idot designed THAT?
Novel idea.
Look for the rare stuff first, once you have it, grab the common stuff in no time.
Storage? Yea. Module storing and swapping between ships, too. But you're really making this harder than it needs to be.
Perhaps I should have expected this but after trekking to get meta alloys, then trekking back to get my Annie then trekking all the way to Deciat (~40 jumps total) I had sort of expected to have access to an upgrade.
But no. Now I need to trek to a bunch of other places to find some tin foil hats and a badgers fur Sporran.
Right now I'd happily walk away from this Engineers grind but I know that if I do my ships will become obsolete in a few months. Which to echo a sentiment voiced elsewhere: FD has now forced me to grind out this rubbish or give up on the game.
Indeed, and you might have noted in my post i actually did comment on that. Although i think you need to be careful with the word "most" there unless you have done a fair and unbiased survey of all players
One thing to keep in mind, and people seem to overlook, is that in most cases, you will always get a positive result, you just won't always get the max result... and the min-maxers don't like that.
It would be like in D&D, going to the old Wizard, and saying, here is my sword! Magic it up! And he says, ok, but it will be a bit random. So, you get your sword back, and sure, it could be a +5 Vorpal, or it could be just a +1, or it could give you +1d6 Fire damage, +5 AB vs Giants, but -3 AB vs Goblins. No matter what, you are getting an improvement overall. The Wizard did what you asked.... just not what you may have been specifically hoping for.
Yeah, some of the results are a bit weak, but FD said they have biased the rolls so give better results, so its shouldn't be often you get something too poor back, it should still be a decent upgrade for the level you are rolling for.
Lol I did indeed make a sweeping statement without caveat (I'm usually so balanced).
Let's say 'a significant chunk of the player base'.
Sounds like it's exactly the same as D&D.
Is that a good thing in Elite?
Like others I feel there are enough variables to keep the dastardly min / max at bay for quite a while. I've said that before. So it's probably time to stop saying it now.
Through this drama I've also come to realize that min / max doesn't worry me too much anyway. People play their way and all that.
I also think the argument that the m/m crowd will basically grind out their max, or walk away, is tough to refute. Sounds like human nature to me.
I went into this with a deliberately open mind. I like the idea of 'uniqueness' a lot in principle and I don't have other MMO (if that's what ED is) experience - so it was a new thing.
But I for one hope there is some change. What we have feels wrong.
Honestly the spinning wheel UI really exacerbates the situation - at least rework that!
Come on... The game is a full of requirements. In fact I'm struggling to think of any game that doesn't have some form of requirements in order to achieve goals.
Want to visit Sol. Then you need to get friendly with the Feds and build your navy rank.
Want to work with an engineer. You've got to meet their requirements first.
Want to buy an Annaconda. You need to get enough credits.
Can you see how silly it can get.
The issue is that you, like all players have, preferences as to which activities and hence requirements you prefer to undertake. It's impossible to design a game of any complexity in which every activity is equally attractive to all players. One of the strengths of ED are the diverse activities that support differing player preferences and play styles.
I personally enjoy mining and prospecting for materials in the SRV. I have become skilled in those activities and can find the materials I want far quicker than those with less experience. I've earned my advantage. I don't enjoy grinding for credits and rank so flying a Cutter is nothing but a distant dream for me: Advantage to those who get enjoyment from meeting those requirements.
Herein lies my weakness - I am still convinced that "forced" was the right word but I altered it to "required" when under challenge but your post demonstrates that it wasn't the right thing to do.
Here's what I mean.
If I want an Anaconda then there are multiple ways of doing this:
- Missions
- Bounty Hunting
- Trading
- Mining
- Etc
Each role offers me credits as a reward for my time and in turn I can use this to purchase what I like. At the same time, if I stick to particular factions systems then at the same time I can work on reputation to eventually rank up - when it's time the game offers me choices as well to suit my playing needs. (Kill / Trade / etc)
The currency in play here are credits / reputation and the method to increase it is varied - it's up to me, the player, to find something I enjoy, not have 1 route forced on me.
Examine Horizons ... there the currency used are materials that can only be found by scavenging on a planet. As long as you enjoy driving an SRV and going on a planet surface you will enjoy Horizons. If not then like me you will avoid it as the only way to get materials is by scavening ... you're forced to do that as there is no alternative method. (That I know of)
Now examine Engineers ... it's the same deal as Horizons. Once you unlock an engineer the recipe to try a modification requires several parts.
- Scanning debris
- Scavenging something on the planet
- Mining something
- Buying something
- Etc
What ever it is thats asked of you for most you can gather these as you go about your business - when trying to get more money for that Anaconda as long as you scan ships you will accumulate Engineer materials.
However Engineers also expects you to do some tasks that you may not enjoy and as there is no alternative you're forced into doing that.
EG: For an FSD drive upgrade, which would be nice (but not essential), I need Sulphur and some mining commodity. Thankfully I can trade for that mining part from another player (thanks for the tip earlier) as I detest mining - too boring - but Sulphur .. it's a material so it can't be traded; I must gather it myself; I am forced into gathering it; and unless mistaken the only way is by going to a planet surface ... see Horizons
You get the point ?
With the core mechanics of the game there is ONE currency - credits - with multiple ways to accumulate it and many ways to spend it.
With Horizons there are many currencies - materials - and only 1 way to gather them (via planet surfaces). Three is no alternative (that I know of)
With Engineers there are many, many currencies - materals / commodities - and a couple of ways to gather tham but for some there is only 1 - to get them you're forced to do what ever FD wanted.
That's my beef.
So .. to conclude - I need to spend some time to determine if some of the recipe materials I can get from alternative means other than racing about in an SRV ... if you're forced into taking that route because there are no alternatives then Engineers is not for me.
Yea, and this has been heaviely criticized since way before I joined these boards.
"everything is the same, there's no special rewards, effort does not get rewarded .. blabla"
There's two things in life you're forced to .. death and taxes .. ED has neither.
I'm thinking that there is a serious design flaw regarding the need to keep some material in your cargo hold. Most material is kept in the new section of your cargo, why having some material not go there?
Yea, and this has been heaviely criticized since way before I joined these boards.
"everything is the same, there's no special rewards, effort does not get rewarded .. blabla"
There's two things in life you're forced to .. death and taxes .. ED has neither.
A simplistic view of life, and not everyone pays taxes
That aside, I think you (deliberately) miss the point:
If you want to do X and the only way is to do it by Y then you're forced to do Y ... either that or stop playing (which kind of defeats the point of the devs making enhancements to the game)
(If you don't like the term "forced" then suggest an alternative that emcompasses a lack of choice/options in achieving said goal and I will consider using it from now on)
Then if there are alternatives that is good (not seen it myself yet but I will make a special effort to check next week) and I will withdraw myself from the discussion.
(If you don't like the term "forced" then suggest an alternative that emcompasses a lack of choice/options in achieving said goal and I will consider using it from now on)
I don't FORCE my daughter to clean up her room.
I buy her expensive concert tickets in exchange for her keeping her room tidy. A chore no teenager likes.
I could force her - punish her, take her phone away, ground her, scold her, scream at her, threaten and scare her. Oh, and I'm pretty sure she'd love to be rewarded for eating a whole bag of chips. That's not how rewarding works, though.
There's several options between forcing yourself to "grind the mats" and "stopping to play". *) Engineers themselves are not "content" in the classical "level 50, level 60 - level 59, can't use level 60 'content'" sense.
They're some gameplay element that has to last another 2-6 month - depending on when the next game changing gameplay element is added. I doubt it will be multicrew or spacelegs, unless of course they add specific 'content' that is only accessible to multicrew, which they have actually avoided thus far. (they might even need to increase the reward for wing/multicrew at one point in time to bring it up to par with "all for me", since doing anything in wing so far is actually less rewarding than doing it solo .. a pity .. even if it's just the option to "copy" missions over to your wingmate, so you can pursue the same goal). Most of the group content in other MMOGs is "group only" (I did some of that stuff with my "kiting" characters .. necro, bard, minstrel - but that "forces" you to these classes, since no others are capable).
2-6 month is a lot of time to get stuff done, so panicking after 2 weeks that one's not trough yet and that it's a "terrible grind" is a bit over the top imo.
The "terrible ranking grind" for the corvette turned out to be about 40 rather casually spent hours running missions. uh. I spend more time than that clipping my nails.
*)
a) ignoring it completely until your run out of other reasons to fly your ship
b) casually picking stuff up (found 3 Arsenic mining a metal rich ring for the mining CG) and going to the engineer you have mats for just to increase the rank
c) trading with other players for stuff you want
d) cooperating with other players to find better hunting grounds for the rarer mats and documenting them somewhere
e) focusing on one part that benefits your playstyle the most, finding the rare mats for this (goes with c and d), then picking up the common ones
