Engineers The Engineers is turning into a deja vu for me

[mbar]

I can honestly say since 2.1 was released I haven't launched the game, and I don't even have it installed on this laptop:

http://i.imgur.com/Ep89C6z.png

After I did my last video in the beta there has been nothing to draw me back in to the game. In a way it's becoming like Eve - I'm enjoying seeing other people's stories but there is nothing wanting me to take part in it myself.

It was exactly the same with Powerplay. I've never ground for merits, and I'm not grinding for engineer upgrades either.

For me it's this: In any other MMO (but I'll use Eve here because it's the one I played the most) I could do PvE things in dungeons, solo or as a group (like 5/10 sites, sleeper sites, etc.) all in my own time and pace. They would drop stuff I needed to make cool new things, but they wouldn't drop everything.

However what they would also drop is shiny loot I could keep - or I could sell to buy the parts and materials I needed. That is my effort was paid off by being able to meet supply and demand.

In ED there is none of that. As solo I have to collect everything, and there is no real co-op - even when P2P instances do work.

What there is, is an expectation that if I want to progress I have to spend most of my free time doing it. To fly literally light years to find the small chance of getting the materials I need. To drive literally tens to hundreds of KM all for the small chance of finding that particular rock to shoot.

And then on top of that it's down to random chance that I get something I want - and a very good chance that all that effort will be wasted.

Rollocks to that.

Much better would be a game where I can dip in and out, spend an hour or two doing PvE sites, collecting materials and loot and dropping it off at a trade hub to sell TO OTHER PLAYERS who would benefit from my spent time - and my spent time will benefit me. I want to be able to go away, come back a day or two later and have enough money to buy the stuff I need.

Then maybe the game would be more fun. But it sure isn't that just now - for me it's just a pretty space engine with a Yard Work Simulator.

TL;DR - It's a VIDEO GAME not a TIME SINK. Video games should be fun, ED isn't fun in it's current incarnation.

+rep

I still have hope that FD can find a sweet spot with Grind vs Reward. I think a lot of the angst on the forum is related to too much grind not enough reward.

Currently I'm grinding rep in Empire and it is slow going compared to what it used to be. If you are Elite now, then good on you. Reset your save then see how much more work it is now. That is just ONE example. Never mind the engineer grind, credit grind, merit grind, interdiction grind.

 

[Muetdhiver]

For me its the SRV I do understand lots of players wanted it and the same with FPS and walking around when that eventually comes.

For me the game is all about piloting a ship and if the game is turning into a multi-role environment then I will just ignore them and pilot a ship even if it means not benefiting from the extras added.

Indeed, adding game mechanics without gameplay/content along them is a waste of resources. You can push players to use them via extrinsic rewards
(sure, driving is not that fun after a while*, but you canget the material for that extra special upgrade... XD, just need to do it for 2-3 hours). => what we got now, pretty much.

Say we can walk around/in ships. Then what ? (Once your toured your Orca 2-3 times, if there is no gameplay/content associated with it, it will be pointless).


*I am not saying that driving the SRV is not fun, going into crater/canyon racing when exploring is fun, but only for a while. I still do it at times, but this is quite
slim as far as content/gameplay goes.

 

[Arithon]

1.1 - Community Goals - I enjoy these, but I haven't taken part in one for some time.
1.2 - Wings - They were a good start, but NavLock appears to be broken in 2.1 and the absence of co-operative missions for wings is a major failing. You can wing up, but do nothing collectively.
1.3 - PowerPlay - I tried to take part, but found it too repetitive. While it's good for grinding credits, it isn't much fun. I couldn't find anyone who enjoyed PowerPlay. The only use players had for it, was to sign on to a power for 4 weeks to get their "special weapon".
1.4 - CQC - Just don't play it.
1.5 - Ships - The new ships were great, but the variants seemed to me to be a cop-out to make up numbers without actually creating anything new. A wasted opportunity in that regard.
2.0 - Planetary Landings - While very pretty, landing on planets didn't add anything to game play. Base attacks get you wanted, so if you're not a pirate...? I describe finding materials with an SRV as "pointlessly driving in circles". The lat/long is hard to read and you cannot set way-points (unless you use a station). As a result, I didn't visit planets very much.
2.1 - Engineers - Aside from the 1.6 core updates which were exceptional improvements, the Engineers themselves have serious flaws in their implementation. Namely randomness. There's no process. Random materials. Random results. I don't grind and Engineers REQUIRE it. So I have unlocked two engineers and upgraded one ship to level 1.

Powerplay and CQC could be unplugged and I doubt anyone would shed a tear. Wings was supposed to create co-operative play and still has not achieved that goal.

I'm the member of a gaming community with 40+ Elite players, none of whom are now playing. I cannot tell them to come back and that 2.1 has changed everything, because most of the issues that caused them to leave the game prior to 2.0 have not gone away. We cannot progress our player minor faction with a small group because the background sim erodes it every night faster than we could progress.

While missions have been improved, they haven't been fixed, or at least there are new bugs. For example I had a hostage mission last week, but after collecting 7 pods, the mission just vanished. I couldn't complete it. Stuck with 7 illegal pods. These are things that were broken prior to 2.1 yet seemed to slip through the BETA still not working.

We don't have any co-operative or group activities for Wings - nothing for my community to do together, other than trade runs or bounty hunting which can be done in SOLO without bothering to join others.

We need group identity (align to minor faction), group management (ask Mobius) and group messaging (in game communication to all players in your faction).

Currently Elite seems to be implemented as a shared single-player experience rather than a mutli-player game and that doesn't really work.

I think the technical achievements that Frontier have made have been truly amazing, but these are let down by the implementation of the game mechanic. What do I mean? Well, planets look amazing but why would I go there? There are stations in space, so stations on planets are not reason enough. Materials you say? Well try it. Driving an SRV around in circles metal-detecting is dull as hell. And random. I'll win every lottery this year before I find Yttrium on a planet without spending hours on Google. How is that right or fun? We're target-oriented animals (hunters) but we cannot set a target without a process to find the prey. There is none. That's the problem. How would I fix it? Surface scanners. Surface way-points.

When members of the community like TitusBalls and Thrudd are expressing concerns, you have to look hard at where things are going.

 

[Titus Balls]

When members of the community like TitusBalls and Thrudd are expressing concerns, you have to look hard at where things are going.

Mehh I wouldn't worry so much about my opinion, I'm just a grumpy player.

But yourself and other community ambassadors - who are supposed to champion the game at events and on the internet - have all been expressing the same concerns. If Frontier can't get you on-side then that is more worrying.

 

[Rezri]

I'm the member of a gaming community with 40+ Elite players, none of whom are now playing..

That's really sad, isn't it? My private group of 250 is now a ghost town, Teamspeak for Elite is empty. Used to be jam-packed. Friends list well beyond that 250 player group size, and I was seeing only 1 or 2 online when the ball dropped this release. A huge group of friends I got to share laughter and enthusiasm with are now gone and have lost confidence. As I said before, I'm holding on to hope that this gets turned around, but the desire to log in right now is just gone.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Just came back from Maia so figured I'd bring some MA. Unlocked Farseer, and apparantly had enough stuff collected to do a bunch of mods. Now my armed explonda can jump a full light year further, my engine runs 15% cooler and I've gained some shield mjs. Sold off some explo data and am now close to unlocking lvl3 with pretty much no effort required. While some cool ideas have been floated around here (more advanced scanners that can show what kind of mats are on a part of a planet, for example), and some functionality just needs to exist (storage!) in its current iteration Engineers works very well as long as you regard it as some extra spice in your game, rather than the center of everything. I've in total now made about 20 mods for numerous ships, each improved my ship in my chosen direction, while I spend zero time looking for any specific object. In short, there was exactly zero grind involved.

Ofcourse, for those who have planned a whole string of specific lvl5 mods that you 'need' to get ASAP the experience is entirely opposite. But I sincerely doubt FD intends Engineers to be something you can just do in a rainy afternoon to get massive increases. It seems more likely FD intends Engineers to be a casual, slow and 'automatic' process, where your ships evolves over time as the player bumbles through the galaxy. In that sense Engineers (IMHO) represents the core controversy around ED. Depending on your own approach and mentality, Elite/Engineers is nothing but a grind, or a completely grind-free experience.

We don't have any co-operative or group activities for Wings - nothing for my community to do together, other than trade runs or bounty hunting which can be done in SOLO without bothering to join others. Powerplay and CQC could be unplugged and I doubt anyone would shed a tear. NavLock appears to be broken in 2.1. Engineers - Aside from the 1.6 core updates which were exceptional improvements, the Engineers themselves have serious flaws in their implementation. Namely randomness. There's no process. Random materials. Random results. I don't grind and Engineers REQUIRE it. So I have unlocked two engineers and upgraded one ship to level 1.

I do co-op missions with friends. Could be done more elegant, but its certainly possible and in some cases even required. Just because you dont like powerplay doesnt mean you have to pretend nobody likes it, if you'd bother to check you'd find a fair bunch of people do hardly anything else than powerplay. I have played 20 hours or so in wings in 2.1, not sure what you mean with 'navlock is broken in 2.1'. In any case it works fine over here. As for your '2.1 is seriously flawed' comment: yes, aside from the improved performance, graphics, audio, mission system, persistent NPCs with portraits, USS changes, AI upgrade, enhanced BGS influence, security changes, enhanced thrusters and dozens of other things, what did the Romans ever do for us? [rolleyes]

 

[Arithon]

I do co-op missions with friends. Could be done more elegant, but its certainly possible and in some cases even required. Just because you dont like powerplay doesnt mean you have to pretend nobody likes it, if you'd bother to check you'd find a fair bunch of people do hardly anything else than powerplay. I have played 20 hours or so in wings in 2.1, not sure what you mean with 'navlock is broken in 2.1'. In any case it works fine over here. As for your '2.1 is seriously flawed' comment: yes, aside from the improved performance, graphics, audio, mission system, persistent NPCs with portraits, USS changes, AI upgrade, enhanced BGS influence, security changes, enhanced thrusters and dozens of other things, what did the Romans ever do for us? [rolleyes]

When I last asked Michael Brookes when there would be co-op missions he said "Not any time soon", so I challenge your claim. I'm not talking about asking a Wingmate to tag along while you do a solo mission, I'm talking about missions that require a wing. That doesn't exist as yet. i.e. "You and two wing-mates must work together to ...."

Everyone I asked in my gaming community about PowerPlay responded in the negative. I'm not speaking for "everyone" just "everyone I asked".

Currently if you engage wingman nav-lock, you don't drop out with your wingman. You drop out anything from 300km to several Ls away - sometimes the wrong side of a planet! That's not how it used to work and I cannot see how that is intended behaviour. It's been broken like that every time I've tried to use it since 2.1 dropped and I heard similar reports over the weekend from others on Mobius PvE TS.

1.6 did a lot (my exact words were "exceptional improvements") but 2.1 specific implementations (engineers) have problems. You cannot pretend they don't. Today's server update has taken place since my post earlier. They have modified the total number of materials and data ships can hold and are adding clues to materials locations into engineers news pages. These are addressing some of those issues.

I love Elite and play around 3 hours per day - you don't buy a CV1 only to play Elite if you don't like it, but out of my gaming community, I am the last man standing and it's very lonely on that TeamSpeak these days. That cannot only be the fault of those 40+ players. I would be remiss as an ambassador of the game if I didn't put my hand up and say "there's a problem guys!" when so many people are losing interest and cannot be tempted back.

 

[ElectricZ]

When I last asked Michael Brookes when there would be co-op missions he said "Not any time soon", so I challenge your claim. I'm not talking about asking a Wingmate to tag along while you do a solo mission, I'm talking about missions that require a wing. That doesn't exist as yet. i.e. "You and two wing-mates must work together to ...."

...

Currently if you engage wingman nav-lock, you don't drop out with your wingman. You drop out anything from 300km to several Ls away - sometimes the wrong side of a planet! That's not how it used to work and I cannot see how that is intended behaviour. It's been broken like that every time I've tried to use it since 2.1 dropped and I heard similar reports over the weekend from others on Mobius PvE TS.

Can confirm both of these as Co-op is pretty much how I play ED. I have a friend whom I've been co-op gaming with since Kali in about 1995 and the "multiplayer" in Elite is about as frustrating as we've ever seen. I also asked FD directly about adding co-op wing missions and was told not to expect anything on that front - it's not even on "The List." Considering that 1.2 was added a year ago to specifically allow CMDRs to fly together, this is baffling to me. In my opinion, and one that I will keep repeating until someone from FD cares to comment, I think this is because instancing is so messed up and unreliable that they couldn't implement synchronized, sharable missions. I also believe that the horrible matchmaking in CQC as well as lack of any kind of game lobby or global chat in CQC has the same cause: if all players could actively communicate with each other in a waiting room, you'd have tons of people saying "There are 300 people in here, why can't I see any games?" "You can't either? I thought it was just me." Again, pure speculation on my part. But a technical reason behind lack of co-op play makes more sense to me than believing that FD thinks no one wants it or it won't add value to their game.

Lack of actual co-op content aside, I can confirm Arithon's nav lock issues since 2.1. Sometimes it works great, sometimes it does not. I've had my wingman drop into a station and get pulled in as expected, dropping 15-20km outside a station. Wonderful! But then the next time I get pulled in, it's 800KM out. No biggie, you can just go back into SC and drop with the "safe to disengage" method. Where it becomes a MAJOR issue though is when your wingman is under attack and you lock in on his beacon, but it dumps you 1.5 ls away and you have to go back to SC, lock in on the actual low wake of your wingman and hppe you're not too late. When the sync or whatever it is gets so bad, you can actually see your wingmate's wing beacon show separately on the scanner screen, a fair distance away from the ship. This was not the case before 2.1. I know, because again, the vast majority of time I play ED is with a wingmate.

It's very good to see Zac post that a server side fix was going in for some engineers stuff today and that another .X patch is coming, but the game's still got a lot of serious problems with basic mechanics that need to be solved.

 

[NeilF]

Of course, doubling/trippling storage limits (as per the latest update) doesn't really help. Any fix of this nature means:-
1) CMDRs are still going to hit the same micro-management issue(s), now just a while later.
2) Still going to have to put up with the same insanely over-bloated stamp collecting exercises to "earn" crafting...

It's going to be fascinating to see how far they can back pedal, or more importantly indeed, how far they want to back pedal.

And I know there's undoubtably more changes on the way, but:-
1) Why are we in the short sighted mess in the first place?
2) I fear the fixes will be spit and gum, so ultimately we'll be left with a bizarre shell of an unfriendly mess of an implementation.

 

[Ironwolf]

PEGI 7: Nothing is placeholder.

 

[Bzek]

It's going to be fascinating to see how far they can back pedal, or more importantly indeed, how far they want to back pedal.

I am really afraid that it will be like Powerplay. That is to say, not much at all.

Since they need to put their development effort in the next feature in the roadmap they might not have the bandwidth to change much of previous deliverables. They kinda shot themselves in the foot by not leaving themselves a chance to really iterate on features and not putting enough effort/resources to get it right the first time.

It is incredibly bad work from the software project management side of things.

 

[Ian Skippy]

When I last asked Michael Brookes when there would be co-op missions he said "Not any time soon", so I challenge your claim. I'm not talking about asking a Wingmate to tag along while you do a solo mission, I'm talking about missions that require a wing. That doesn't exist as yet. i.e. "You and two wing-mates must work together to ...."

Everyone I asked in my gaming community about PowerPlay responded in the negative. I'm not speaking for "everyone" just "everyone I asked".

Currently if you engage wingman nav-lock, you don't drop out with your wingman. You drop out anything from 300km to several Ls away - sometimes the wrong side of a planet! That's not how it used to work and I cannot see how that is intended behaviour. It's been broken like that every time I've tried to use it since 2.1 dropped and I heard similar reports over the weekend from others on Mobius PvE TS.

1.6 did a lot (my exact words were "exceptional improvements") but 2.1 specific implementations (engineers) have problems. You cannot pretend they don't. Today's server update has taken place since my post earlier. They have modified the total number of materials and data ships can hold and are adding clues to materials locations into engineers news pages. These are addressing some of those issues.

I love Elite and play around 3 hours per day - you don't buy a CV1 only to play Elite if you don't like it, but out of my gaming community, I am the last man standing and it's very lonely on that TeamSpeak these days. That cannot only be the fault of those 40+ players. I would be remiss as an ambassador of the game if I didn't put my hand up and say "there's a problem guys!" when so many people are losing interest and cannot be tempted back.

Oh, like that. No, there are no specific wing-missions, and I'd love to see them added. But as the mission board is shared across instances, so a wing can all take the same mission. Espescially when it involves high-sec base assaults that can be a tough challenge, with about 12 million to split for a full wing. As for the navlock, I've had that twice in total. When we both restarted our client it was fixed. Navlock itself works, but I suspect there is some kind of wonky p2p issue that is causing this and other bugs. Thats why it seems people who for example have weird interdictions going on also are more likely to experience other such issues. A year ago or so someone did some testing, and apparantly there is a difference in network load based on mode, when testing in a 'solo instance' (so no other cdmrs in the instance, regardless of mode). I'm curious as to whether this might be related the anecdotal evidence that some of these issues might happen more frequently in Mobius compared with in Open.

 

[Stagno Jones]

I'm curious as to whether this might be related the anecdotal evidence that some of these issues might happen more frequently in Mobius compared with in Open.

I play almost exclusively in open,never used mobius and never played in a private group (though most of the guys I used to play with no longer play ) and it has happened quite a few times for me. Sometimes it works fine and at others instancing becomes almost impossible,so I would say it's definitely a problem in open play.

 

[Ironwolf]

It is a shame that some of the long time passionate players are loosing interest.
Understandable, as I think we all share similar concerns.
A lot of you who posted in here do care about this game, it is obvious to see.
FDev, forgive my previous blatant negativity, but please listen to them.

 

[NeilF]

OK... For those of you who are finding The Engineers difficult to "put up with", see if this suggest would relax the strictness of the reputation increase and crafting payment enough such that you could then feel you could play the game the way you want to and still "Engineer" on the side? - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ole-level-of-faff-out-with-very-minor-changes

 

[Enderby]

It's not that it's difficult it's just that it's boring.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

I actually really enjoy the engineers and it's rekindled my interest in the game. I just think it needs a few things tweaked/added to make it a better release. As stated earlier in the thread what concerns me more is the overall flavour of design decisions made over the last few years.

 

[NeilF]

It's not that it's difficult it's just boring.

Agreed, but part of the boredom (IMHO) is how fastidious the entire mechanic is. You need to collect specifics... The proposal above is relaxing that so you can level up and pay for crafting by supplying the Engineer with any materials they are interested in for their work. Common materials only increase your reputation with them a small amount. Rare ones more so.

It's a small change that makes The Engineers less onerous and more relaxed to participate in.

 

[Elooder]

Just came back from Maia so figured I'd bring some MA. Unlocked Farseer, and apparantly had enough stuff collected to do a bunch of mods. Now my armed explonda can jump a full light year further, my engine runs 15% cooler and I've gained some shield mjs. Sold off some explo data and am now close to unlocking lvl3 with pretty much no effort required. While some cool ideas have been floated around here (more advanced scanners that can show what kind of mats are on a part of a planet, for example), and some functionality just needs to exist (storage!) in its current iteration Engineers works very well as long as you regard it as some extra spice in your game, rather than the center of everything. I've in total now made about 20 mods for numerous ships, each improved my ship in my chosen direction, while I spend zero time looking for any specific object. In short, there was exactly zero grind involved.

Ofcourse, for those who have planned a whole string of specific lvl5 mods that you 'need' to get ASAP the experience is entirely opposite. But I sincerely doubt FD intends Engineers to be something you can just do in a rainy afternoon to get massive increases. It seems more likely FD intends Engineers to be a casual, slow and 'automatic' process, where your ships evolves over time as the player bumbles through the galaxy. In that sense Engineers (IMHO) represents the core controversy around ED. Depending on your own approach and mentality, Elite/Engineers is nothing but a grind, or a completely grind-free experience.



I do co-op missions with friends. Could be done more elegant, but its certainly possible and in some cases even required. Just because you dont like powerplay doesnt mean you have to pretend nobody likes it, if you'd bother to check you'd find a fair bunch of people do hardly anything else than powerplay. I have played 20 hours or so in wings in 2.1, not sure what you mean with 'navlock is broken in 2.1'. In any case it works fine over here. As for your '2.1 is seriously flawed' comment: yes, aside from the improved performance, graphics, audio, mission system, persistent NPCs with portraits, USS changes, AI upgrade, enhanced BGS influence, security changes, enhanced thrusters and dozens of other things, what did the Romans ever do for us? [rolleyes]

You are an explorer? I think that's the main reason why you are not finding the Engineers as bad as most of us here - if you are capable of finding fun in seeing the same star systems over and over again with the same planets and same stars and only the background changing when you're in a nebula, then you will definitively enjoy Engineers. The problem is, exploration is boring to others for the things I just listed above. Mining is too for very similar reasons. Trading is repetitive as hell... Wouldn't you, yourself, be even happier if your exploration actually had any meaningful consequence other than to have your name plastered on some systems (that nobody may ever see)? Like have your exploration be an actual long mission? That would change something in the universe? I don't mean "would you not have fun", I mean "would you not have even more fun"?

Yes, exploration is an entirely valid profession as are all the others but since the game in general, from the beginning, was very grindy, repetitive and samey, people are expecting more of the Engineers (like of all previous expansions) since, if you take them all away, you are left with the very same core game you had when it all just started and that game is actually fun, but only when you're just beginning.

This post is not meant as any kind of personal attack on you but just an attempt to explain (to myself as well) the reasons behind the whole thread.

Also, it was more than apparent that it will end up this way already in the Engineers beta, but back then either nobody saw it for what it was or FD didn't listen (haven't been reading the forums back then too much but from what I did read, hardly anyone caught wind of it back then) and it's something that should not even have gotten to the beta stage, the way it is implemented.

 

[Kerrash]

I feel that the mechanics in place for the engineers, may be more fun for players who are just starting out. I found it frustrating to actively search for micro resources but it feels rewarding if you stumble across them.

My advice would be to carry on doing what you enjoy and simply treat them as added optional 'spice'