Engineers An even simpler streamline for Engineers! Cutting a whole level of faff out, with very minor changes.

[CMDR Rell Starland]

The upgrades are significant enough even without experimental effects.

Stahlkopp you seem to be the voice for keeping things the way they are and you are certainly entitled to that voice, but do you have any suggestions to go along with your criticisms of proposed compromises? It's great that you enjoy the current system, but many do not and would like a more clear cut path to engineer upgrades and I am open to finding a way that keeps the integrity of the challenge open to players like you.

You are also entitled to not care about the frustrated players. I don't know if they are the majority or the minority, but if they are a sizable part of the player base it is in your best interest and the interest of the continued development of the game that as many people as possible enjoy playing.

So please, what constructive refinements do you bring with your criticisms?

Edit: I see you have posted some ideas on another thread and I think those could go a long way to reduce some frustration. Thank you!

 

[NeilF]

Although I see some potential in OP's suggestion, it's not complex enough for my taste.

Way too easy, no challenge at all.

I can understand that. But I might point out, personally I don't see a challenge in being forced to do something which actually is only perceived as a challenge because it involves doing a mechanics I don't enjoy, or because it just involves doing a specific task longer than I like doing it.

That's not a challenge in my book, more a penalty...


What I might suggest the alternative (in the OP) does offer, is if you do enjoy "the challenge," and for example want to get rarer materials, then this is rewarded by the Engineers giving you more reputation for them. Thus if you enjoy said challenge, fill your boots... If you want however, to have a more laid back relationhip with the Engineers, then the suggestion welcomes this too.

So you can take The Engineers as serious as you like... Or not as may be the case for some...

 

[CMDR Rell Starland]

I can understand that. But I might point out, personally I don't see a challenge in being forced to do something which actually is only perceived as a challenge because it involves doing a mechanics I don't enjoy, or because it just involves doing a specific task longer than I like doing it.

That's not a challenge in my book, more a penalty...


What I might suggest the alternative (in the OP) does offer, is if you do enjoy "the challenge," and for example want to get rarer materials, then this is rewarded by the Engineers giving you more reputation for them. Thus if you enjoy said challenge, fill your boots... If you want however, to have a more laid back relationhip with the Engineers, then the suggestion welcomes this too.

So you can take The Engineers as serious as you like... Or not as may be the case for some...

Stalhkopp had a pretty solid idea here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...the-Removal-of-%93Engineer%94-Materials/page7 that involved, among other tweaks, a rarity exchange setup where you could exchange an equal rarity component for the one you need.

IMO it's a pretty fair compromise.

 

[NeilF]

Stalhkopp had a pretty solid idea here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...the-Removal-of-%93Engineer%94-Materials/page7 that involved, among other tweaks, a rarity exchange setup where you could exchange an equal rarity component for the one you need.

IMO it's a pretty fair compromise.

Absolutely agreed. Access to crafting should be a challenge and be a nice reward for risk/challenge. But I (& it seems many others) see the current mechanics as being little more than a time sponge penalty. But we are where we are now, and I doubt FD will invest much time changing things (*note*), hence why my suggestion (in the OP) is still far from ideal, but at least it hopefully adjusts the mechanics so as leveling up and paying for crafting is more relaxed, and the "time sponge mechanics" are less obvious/important.

BTW, the discussion of material swapping was also hit upon with the idea of Material Brokers at Engineer locations, where you could for example swap a number of X for Y. But in truth this is simply a variation of the suggestion in this thread that basically steamlines that very outcome (I believe).


(*note*) - Infact all I think FD will do is keep dishing out more materials, more easily, and allow leveling up to be done more easily in other ways. As Sandro would put it, the fix of least resistance. I fully suspect this entire thread is therefore a total waste of time and effort.

 

[Stahlkopp]

BTW, the discussion of material swapping was also hit upon with the idea of Material Brokers at Engineer locations, where you could for example swap a number of X for Y. But in truth this is simply a variation of the suggestion in this thread that basically steamlines that very outcome (I believe).

Well, I don't know about these suggestions. However in my suggestion, you could only trade materials of equal grade (for example rare vs. rare). This would still 'force' you to get the same level of X if you want Y.

(*note*) - Infact all I think FD will do is keep dishing out more materials, more easily, and allow leveling up to be done more easily in other ways. As Sandro would put it, the fix of least resistance. I fully suspect this entire thread is therefore a total waste of time and effort.

I guess that's fairly sure.

 

[lomac]

That is all nonsense and too much work. I'll finally fix it for you:

In communications you type this command: /iwin name_of_module

Result is a replacement module in your current ship, grade 5 and best possible roll.

100% customer satisfaction guaranteed, because even those who would like to work for their module still can and are not forced, well not officially forced, to type this.

Do I have to type that from my SRV, because if so this is a terrible idea. As long as I can type it from my ship I like your idea and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[Mephane]

No, I was trying to be helpful in your attempts to dumb this down good enough, so that absolutely everyone will be satisfied 100%. Also you now can stop drawing great plans about non existing games, and you can continue playing the existing one [yesnod]

Clearly you must have hated the game before 2.1, because it was all totally dumbed down when you could buy anything with *gasp* credits.

 

[hookandsling]

That is all nonsense and too much work. I'll finally fix it for you:

In communications you type this command: /iwin name_of_module

Result is a replacement module in your current ship, grade 5 and best possible roll.

100% customer satisfaction guaranteed, because even those who would like to work for their module still can and are not forced, well not officially forced, to type this.

I've tried hard to find a way to make your post less constructive and have concluded it's not possible.
It's clearly perfect. Like the Engineers then...

 

[NeilF]

On a side note. I guess the proposal in the OP could even be done in parallel to the current behaviour?

So a very minor change would simply allow you to turn up with materials and "donate" them to an Engineer (any they're interested in), to level up with them. And everything else just stays as is?!


Then, everything else, such as payment for crafting being done at a cost to reputation (level), is up for further discussion/consideration.

 

[PiLhEaD]

You collect materials (as currently) - Ideally a reduced list of them... Engineers... give any materials that they're interested in. This will increase your reputation with them. Common materials increase your reputation a bit. Rare materials more so. As your reputation increases, higher level crafting is offered to you. When ever you craft, you lose some reputation, in effect as payment. That's it!...

Yup, like it, nice and simple, easier to navigate as a player, and allows us to continue to play the game as we want.

It also does away (potentially/partly) with the need for commodity/material storage - so is a bit of a win-win.

I suspect that FDev will still want to force encourage players to try new things (wake scanning, mining etc), and that this wouldn't satisfy that itch for them, but I think it's a good idea!

[up]

 

[sp0q]

To be honest, when you think about it, that's really not that different from what we have now - we gather mats to spam dummy blueprints only to skip them and gain reputation. The main gripe is that the system has no flexibility built in. Since 2.1 dropped I am not able to do a level 1 FSD range upgrade cause I have yet to see a god damn sinle unit of arsenic. Today I lost 6 hours of driving around in the SRV - if that's not pointless and dumbed down to hell gameplay, I don't know what is (and I did use all the guides on where to find what kind of mats).

I'd say that at the current state of the implementation, any kind of ease of use feature would come a long way. Something like NeilF suggested - spending those useless 100 units of Iron to jump one reputation step. Or use a one grade higher material to exchange it for a needed one at an engineer base - craft it down essentially. Or spend three mats of other kind to exchange it for the needed one.

Each and every one of these changes is stone brick simple to implement and would be a savior to people who simply did not have the luck. Not lazy-ing it out - people who spent hours upon hours doing the thing but had no luck with getting that single vital drop. It's not really making it 'easy' when you think about it, because to get a single very rare material you'd still need to sacrifice other three of the same level - see, time is still wasted so the 'hardcore players' don't feel like we, the Call of Duty children, steal their stuff, and at the same time it keeps us from crossing the boundary of cutting ourselves.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I'd much prefer the current system with these adjustments:

1) All commodities/mats can be offered by mission-givers, tied to the BGS. This way, you know where to look for them.
2) With high enough faction rep, you can ask them to reward you with one of the commodities/mats as long as its one they would otherwise randomly offer. This costs some local rep.
3) Margin of parameters when rolling is reduced a bit.

In other words: less RNG in the rolling, more ways to 'force your luck' in gathering.

 

[sp0q]

I'd much prefer the current system with these adjustments:

1) All commodities/mats can be offered by mission-givers, tied to the BGS. This way, you know where to look for them.
2) With high enough faction rep, you can ask them to reward you with one of the commodities/mats as long as its one they would otherwise randomly offer. This costs some local rep.
3) Margin of parameters when rolling is reduced a bit.

In other words: less RNG in the rolling, more ways to 'force your luck' in gathering.

Exactly, any kind of ease of use.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

(*note*) - Infact all I think FD will do is keep dishing out more materials, more easily, and allow leveling up to be done more easily in other ways. As Sandro would put it, the fix of least resistance. I fully suspect this entire thread is therefore a total waste of time and effort.

My thoughts too - the same way we are able to make millions easily now, while it was a pain in 1.0.

 

[NeilF]

To be honest, when you think about it, that's really not that different from what we have now - we gather mats to spam dummy blueprints only to skip them and gain reputation. The main gripe is that the system has no flexibility built in. Since 2.1 dropped I am not able to do a level 1 FSD range upgrade cause I have yet to see a god damn sinle unit of arsenic. Today I lost 6 hours of driving around in the SRV - if that's not pointless and dumbed down to hell gameplay, I don't know what is (and I did use all the guides on where to find what kind of mats).

I'd say that at the current state of the implementation, any kind of ease of use feature would come a long way. Something like NeilF suggested - spending those useless 100 units of Iron to jump one reputation step. Or use a one grade higher material to exchange it for a needed one at an engineer base - craft it down essentially. Or spend three mats of other kind to exchange it for the needed one.

Each and every one of these changes is stone brick simple to implement and would be a savior to people who simply did not have the luck. Not lazy-ing it out - people who spent hours upon hours doing the thing but had no luck with getting that single vital drop. It's not really making it 'easy' when you think about it, because to get a single very rare material you'd still need to sacrifice other three of the same level - see, time is still wasted so the 'hardcore players' don't feel like we, the Call of Duty children, steal their stuff, and at the same time it keeps us from crossing the boundary of cutting ourselves.

It could be introduced in part, as just a minor additional bit of behaviour if necessary... Or completely replace the current approach of "payment".

And as you point out, its simply to make the whole thing less of a faff, and more accessible/friendly.

 

[GG7]

Clearly we're in disagreement then.

Maybe rather than sarcasm, lead with an explanation of what you see the problem is? It is possible of course you've misunderstood something, or I've not explained something very well, so jumping in all guns blazing isn't ideal.

Don't feed the trolls.

You're idea is headed in the right direction. However, FD's apparent obsession with grindy gameplay will likely prevent them from considering anything that would make this feature worthy of 100% player participation.

I'm waiting to see what their "major point update" actually changes before I attempt to do anything new with the Engineers, but there is also a very good chance I will be playing NMS by the time they get around to releasing it, and who knows what my opinion on ED will be at that point.

 

[NeilF]

Don't feed the trolls.

That reply was 3-4 weeks ago, before it become obvious what he was. It would have starved most likely by now

You're idea is headed in the right direction. However, FD's apparent obsession with grindy gameplay will likely prevent them from considering anything that would make this feature worthy of 100% player participation.

I'm waiting to see what their "major point update" actually changes before I attempt to do anything new with the Engineers, but there is also a very good chance I will be playing NMS by the time they get around to releasing it, and who knows what my opinion on ED will be at that point.

Well, as ED stands at the moment, having missed another development cycle to actually move gameplay forwards, and instead concoct a convoluted easter egg hunt, comprising of a huge injection of mediocre RND-time-sponges to pay for a new bag of more powerful weapons which risk unbalancing PvE and PvP... I'm out for the moment (Not played for 3-4 weeks now).

I'll now waiting until we actually get the first true new game play, or mechanics with depth added (in over a year IMHO)...

 

[Runis]

Don't feed the trolls.

You got the trolls wrong. They are those who have "Suggestions/Enhancements" for every aspect of the game and never happy.

FD's apparent obsession with grindy gameplay will likely prevent them from considering anything that would make this feature worthy of 100% player participation.
[..] but there is also a very good chance I will be playing NMS by the time they get around to releasing it, and who knows what my opinion on ED will be at that point.

Prepare to start another grind in NMS, because theres much of it (materials, alien words etc.) needed to be done there also.