Sandro Sammarco: Each Engi upgrade/roll will be better than the next

[Wedgetail]

The suggested changes undermine a lot of what has neen achieved by dedicated players and devalues much of the current end game (that being advanced pvp).

I'm of two minds about this argument. On one hand I agree (to a point), that their efforts shouldn't be devalued, but on the other, what do they actually *lose* by doing so?

The other risk is that by always measuring intended or suggested changes against what the current "best" modded pilots had to go through it can eliminate (or at least substantially limit) the ability to evolve the game. Most, if not all multiplayer games with progression have gone through this at some stage (D3 and WoW spring to mind) and three to six months later no-one could remember what all the fuss was about

 

[two quiet suns]

i didn't specify a timeframe for the clarification, just said it was needed. Are you suggesting we are silly for wanting to discuss it in the absence of any additional information? Also, sadly, i don't get special dispensation for saying or doing something which perhaps in hindsight wasn't the best idea because i've been doing my job all day (and yes, i do host seminars which require me to be working 24 hours sometimes). Especially as a developer, and dealing with this subject matter, saying something so vague and open to interpretation, he should have realised this would be the result. Sorry, no. 'just did a expo' doesn't work as an excuse for me, perhaps i'm used to people having to live outside their comfort zone some of the time when i'm paying them to do a job.

help me, somebody, anybody, help me to stop reading this forum before i lose my mind.

 

[jasonbarron]

The proposed system would mean everyone ends up with the same results in the end, which then begs to ask the questions, why even have engineering if that is the case?

Instead of each roll getting a better result than the one before, just make the materials easier to get and increase storage space. problem solved. No need to re-write the book.

The "point" of the engineers was that Fdev was trying to create a fun system that everyone used for a scattering of g5 rolls that they would then be happy with and call it good, and now they know that they missed that mark by a country mile and need to revisit the mechanic. Look, with all of the mod combinations and special effects that can be applied there is more than enough diversity for players, so I'm not buying the "But mah diversity!" argument. The engineers are a travesty that have driven many players away, and short of stripping them from the game completely, any proposal to make them more reliable is welcome to those of us who value our time and prefer to have our piloting/combat abilities measured by skill rather than blind luck.

 

[Stealthie]

The "point" of the engineers was that Fdev was trying to create a fun system that everyone used for a scattering of g5 rolls that they would then be happy with and call it good, and now they know that they missed that mark by a country mile and need to revisit the mechanic. Look, with all of the mod combinations and special effects that can be applied there is more than enough diversity for players, so I'm not buying the "But mah diversity!" argument. The engineers are a travesty that have driven many players away, and short of stripping them from the game completely, any proposal to make them more reliable is welcome to those of us who value our time and prefer to have our piloting/combat abilities measured by skill rather than blind luck.

Honestly, that's the way I see it to.

I just don't think FDev realised that people would be willing to put so much effort into securing G5 mod's.
I think they figured that people would just make whatever mod's they stumbled across the mat's for and be happy with that.

Given the way it's actually turned out, it's good that they're willing to reconsider things but I hope they've got the guts to be willing to do whatever's needed to properly improve things rather than just create some kind of "band-aid" which might make some people a little bit happier for a while.

I hate to say it but, are we really able to trust the same bunch of dev's who just nerfed AX weapons to handle this properly? [where is it]

 

[Stealthie]

I'd say it's exactly the other way around.
Sometimes I suspect they love these sort of forum wars their often ambiguous announcements provoke. Leads to all sort of creative ideas that they can pick up the most promising from...

Exactly.

Nobody's smart enough to consider every facet of a subject adequately.
Everybody who's willing to learn can learn something from other people's opinions.

Hopefully, 10 minutes reading through a thread like this can help the dev's avoid certain pitfalls or take things in a direction that the majority of people approve of. [up]

 

[Aashenfox]

The "point" of the engineers was that Fdev was trying to create a fun system that everyone used for a scattering of g5 rolls that they would then be happy with and call it good, and now they know that they missed that mark by a country mile and need to revisit the mechanic. Look, with all of the mod combinations and special effects that can be applied there is more than enough diversity for players, so I'm not buying the "But mah diversity!" argument. The engineers are a travesty that have driven many players away, and short of stripping them from the game completely, any proposal to make them more reliable is welcome to those of us who value our time and prefer to have our piloting/combat abilities measured by skill rather than blind luck.

yup. they didn't expect hardcore MMO players to play it like a hardcore MMO. The reasoning behind several bungles over the years. It;s a difficult thing to balance when you have a community with SUCH A HUGE skill separation, and the game requiring catering to both demographics (super casuals and extreme minmaxers) to succeed.

 

[Para Handy]

help me, somebody, anybody, help me to stop reading this forum before i lose my mind.

You can always select "Ignore this Thread" from the thread tools drop-down menu.

(It won't help but it will make you feel better. )

 

[racer1]

You seem to have quite a different image of the upcoming changes to the Engineers. The way I see them would lead to great unification in the end results. While the path to this point might still yield some diversity but in the end (which will be reached pretty soon) we'll get a handful meta-builds with otherwise all perfect clones of each other. How boring (from the point of view of a PVE player) is that.

You already have that though, the changes would just make the unification happen sooner.

I'm a 98% PvE player, most of my upgrades are just 1 or 2 rolls and I'm happy.

But occasionally I want to improve something e.g. FSD range, so I go farm some mats. It takes hours, even using the most efficient current method. I go and roll the dice and chances are I come away frustrated. It is not just a PvP thing.

I did this at the weekend, 3-4 hours got me about 18 rolls on my FSD. It improved from 48 to 50%, I wanted more but it will do, because there is nothing more boring than sitting in a distribution centre scanning wakes for an hour...

I don't really believe there is much to lose from upgrades converging to "the best" more quickly. As a PvE player it is very rare that I notice the difference between small differences in my upgrades.

We don't know how it will work yet, but there will likely be ways to still get variation e.g by storing a module and removing the mod each time before you roll. You wouldn't be any worse off than now.

 

[Jex =TE=]

IMHO, this could either be really good for the Engineers, or really really really bad. Lol

It all depends entirely on how FD implement it.

Just from my readings (missed all the live streams and whatnot), if your roll always improves on the last until you hit some sort of maximum possible for your grade, then that simply means all of the PvP (and maxers) crowd will have to grind out each upgrade until they reach the limits of what can be done, and everyone is on equal footing again.
Which then just makes these upgrades rather pointless. Lol

I said it would go like this before Eng's hit. I pointed out that they would all get to a point where everyone is "A" rated again and we'd all be the same. All that happened is people did a grind to get back to where they were.

So the old system, A rated has simply become F rated and the new ones take over so 5 is now A rated and we're back at square one.

 

[Truesilver]

The problem is the PVP audience. I'm pretty sure to know where the majority sits, while FD can be absolutely sure about it due to telemetry data. It's their choice, their game...

FD's second faulty prediction was CQC and the rose tinted vision that most PVP'ers who want a fair and balanced fight would go there instead of seeking competition in the main game.

If Frontier ever released a version of CQC in which we can use the main game's flight model, guns and ships, I and half the guys I know would never play the main game again.

Alternatively, if Frontier ever released a permanently open Fish Beta, I and half the guys I know would never play the main game again. (We never play the main game during Fish Betas, not ever.)

Finally, if Frontier ever released a set of powerful Private Group tools, permitting us to limit Engineer modifications, I and half the guys I know would ... yes ... never play the main game again.

Almost all of us hate the PvP arms race in RNGineered Open. Why do you think PvP-ers complain the entire time about RNGineering? There's a reason why the PvP League is fought with highly restrictive rules, with the agreement of literally 20 major PvP groups. We detest grind2win. But the problem is that Frontier currently offer us no other mode of play.

Hence we've all had to spend 90% of our game time since 2.1 on PvE acquisition - which is the last thing most of us want to be doing.

 

[metascrawl]

Another 10 pages of panic speculation on an unexplained unclarified comment from sandy... no wonder we don’t hear a lot from the devs!

I see a lot of speculation. You and I must have vastly different ideas of what constitutes panic though.

help me, somebody, anybody, help me to stop reading this forum before i lose my mind.

Why, don't you have enough willpower to do that yourself? Or to at least stop reading this particular thread if you find the conversation so objectionable? Just don't read what you don't want to read. It really is that easy.

 

[Alikat]

I only read through the first couple pages of this thread, so not sure if this idea's been put forward yet, but I saw some people flipping out over infinitely improving rolls, and I'm pretty sure this is how it will actually work:

Using DD5's as an example, lets say you make a dd5 roll and get 126%, and keep it. When you make a second DD5 roll, the slider will now be 126-130%, the cap, so there will now be a cap but over the course of 6-10 rolls you'll improve towards the optimum.

I think this is perfectly balanced if secondary rolls stay as-is. Meaning you do a dozen rolls tops to get optimal sliders, then possibly up to a few dozen more to get the secondary effects you want on top of those optimal rolls.

That's potentially still dozens of rolls on a single module, now multiply that by all the modules on your ship, then by all your ships. It's still a grindfest but no longer one that feels so futile.

As some one who spent three days farming up the mats to make 150 dd5 rolls(on top of 40+ attempts made previously) and didn't go over 134% while there are pvpers flying around with 142% rolls they got on the first try, I support this change.

 

[Truesilver]

The problem is the PVP audience. I'm pretty sure to know where the majority sits, while FD can be absolutely sure about it due to telemetry data. It's their choice, their game...

FD's second faulty prediction was CQC and the rose tinted vision that most PVP'ers who want a fair and balanced fight would go there instead of seeking competition in the main game.

If Frontier ever released a version of CQC in which we can use the main game's flight model, guns and ships, I and half the guys I know would never play the main game again.

Alternatively, if Frontier ever released a permanently open Fish Beta, I and half the guys I know would never play the main game again. (We never play the main game during Fish Betas, not ever.)

Finally, if Frontier ever released a set of powerful Private Group tools, permitting us to limit Engineer modifications, I and half the guys I know would ... yes ... never play the main game again.

Almost all of us hate the PvP arms race in RNGineered Open. Why do you think PvP-ers complain the entire time about RNGineering? There's a reason why the PvP League is fought with highly restrictive rules, with the agreement of literally 20 major PvP groups. We detest grind2win. But the problem is that Frontier currently offer us no other mode of play.

Hence we've all had to spend 90% of our game time since 2.1 on PvE acquisition - which is the last thing most of us want to be doing.

"Most of us" still translates to "I and half the guys I know" I guess? Or do you actually think you and your friends build the majority of the whole community? If not so, please explain why FD should cater to a minority.
Furthermore, as much as you don't seem to care about the desires of PVE players, how can you possibly expect that the PVE players care about what you want?

P.s.: I know that's a silly stance on a rather artificial war between PVE'ers and PVP'ers. But both groups are not guilty for this situation IMO. Blame FD for the bold move to squish both player groups into one and the same game.

I was attempting to explain why RNGineering is such a problem for most of the Open-world PvP hardcore, why we have been desperately seeking a rebalance since 2.1 and why CQC is not an answer for us. Even the PvP League only comes around once a year.

For the rest of the time, unless we're doing arranged fights with friends, since 2.1 we've been trapped in the arms race nightmare.

I fully accept that we are a minority within a minority but we are also the one single group of players within this game for whom modding up to near max-spec is not optional. It's that, or (as many of my buddies have) uninstall. You don't need hardcore builds requiring hundreds of hours for any type of PvE activity, nor for arranged PvP, nor even casual Open-world PvP, but it's mandatory for serious Open-world PvP.

Hence the ultimate irony of 2.1 RNGineering - those with generally the least inclination to do it are the ones required to do it most.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

PvE Players have no reason to whine about Engineers. In fact, they should rejoice at them, even as they are right now.
Given that NPC's, last I knew, did not have access to Engineered components, save the Elite level of NPC's, Engineering is only beneficial to PvE players.

PvP Players on the other hand, virtually have to stay competitive in their Engineering, but this is a problem they've created for themselves.

Where the real problem lies is in the mixing of PvE and PvP - aka Open.

Since it's an anything-goes environment, true PvE play is not possible, as anyone can be a target at any time, for any or no reason at all. This means PvE players have little option except to adapt to the environment.
But this really isn't a problem either. At least not one with the game itself. It's more like saying "I want to go to the bar where all the sailors are drinking, but I don't want to hear any cursing."

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with Engineering.

I love that we can modify our systems.
I hate how we modify our systems.

I love that there is something like a crafting system in Elite.
I hate that we have little option in what we can actually make (synthesis is a different matter).

I love that there are options to what improvements we can make to any given system.
I hate that those options all all exclusive, and that some are, honestly, useless. (Faster FSD Boot Time AND Increase FSD Range? Nope, one or the other).

The real issue with Engineering isn't the (over) Engineering of ship's core systems, its in the weapons systems, and more specifically, in Weapons Special Effects.

Certain effects are simply far too useful - Thermal and Cascade come to mind. Incendiary munitions are not and should not be a Weapon effect, but rather an Ammunition effect.

Real-World Case In Point:

I own a SPAS-12 shotgun.
I can walk into my armory right now, pick up a box of Buckshot, load it up and fire buckshot. It functions like a standard shotgun.
I can also pick up a box of slugs, load it up, and I've got a long-range option.
I can pick up a box of Dragon's Breath shells, and turn my shotgun in a flame-thrower (thermal).

It's still the same shotgun. No changes required to switch from one kind of round to another.

I can even mix my rounds, loading shot, slug and incendiary rounds into it at the same time, and fire each in turn.

The point is, it's the ammo that makes the difference, not the weapon.

This should have been considered during the Weapons Special Effects planning meeting right from the start.

It's nearly too late to change this at this point - the amount of salt this would produce would boarder on lethal, but really it's where the real problem lies.

 

[Aashenfox]

I only read through the first couple pages of this thread, so not sure if this idea's been put forward yet, but I saw some people g out over infinitely improving rolls, and I'm pretty sure this is how it will actually work:

Using DD5's as an example, lets say you make a dd5 roll and get 126%, and keep it. When you make a second DD5 roll, the slider will now be 126-130%, the cap, so there will now be a cap but over the course of 6-10 rolls you'll improve towards the optimum.

I think this is perfectly balanced if secondary rolls stay as-is. Meaning you do a dozen rolls tops to get optimal sliders, then possibly up to a few dozen more to get the secondary effects you want on top of those optimal rolls.

That's potentially still dozens of rolls on a single module, now multiply that by all the modules on your ship, then by all your ships. It's still a grindfest but no longer one that feels so futile.

As some one who spent three days farming up the mats to make 150 dd5 rolls(on top of 40+ attempts made previously) and didn't go over 134% while there are pvpers flying around with 142% rolls they got on the first try, I support this change.

Yeh, that's all great but you glossed over the only important part, the secondaries!! How do you actually propose they work? What if I would be happy to sacrifice a lot more heat generation for a better primary or even secondary stat, and what if you get a secondary you don't want? It's all messed up bro, when you follow it to the logical finish, there is no way it can work without having a profound effect on existing modules, or leaving some with pre-rebalance modules and some with post-rebalance modules.

 

[jasonbarron]

I was attempting to explain why RNGineering is such a problem for most of the Open-world PvP hardcore, why we have been desperately seeking a rebalance since 2.1 and why CQC is not an answer for us. Even the PvP League only comes around once a year.

For the rest of the time, unless we're doing arranged fights with friends, since 2.1 we've been trapped in the arms race nightmare.

I fully accept that we are a minority within a minority but we are also the one single group of players within this game for whom modding up to near max-spec is not optional. It's that, or (as many of my buddies have) uninstall. You don't need hardcore builds requiring hundreds of hours for any type of PvE activity, nor for arranged PvP, nor even casual Open-world PvP, but it's mandatory for serious Open-world PvP.

Hence the ultimate irony of 2.1 RNGineering - those with generally the least inclination to do it are the ones required to do it most.

Yes, and I take his follow up explanation to be "so who cares about you and your tiny group of hardcore buddies?" or sentiment to that effect.

Piccomander, my question to you and other pve players; why do you care? PvPers have already ground out better modules than most/all of you, and it's not like you're using your own ships to measure your skill against other players, and heaven knows the NPC's don't care about how your ship is equipped.

Why do you care whether the grind is reduced allowing all of us to more readily obtain quality modules in return for the often soul crushing difficulty of obtaining the requisite materials in the first place?

 

[Alikat]

Yeh, that's all great but you glossed over the only important part, the secondaries!! How do you actually propose they work? What if I would be happy to sacrifice a lot more heat generation for a better primary or even secondary stat, and what if you get a secondary you don't want? It's all messed up bro, when you follow it to the logical finish, there is no way it can work without having a profound effect on existing modules, or leaving some with pre-rebalance modules and some with post-rebalance modules.

Secondaries as in the random secondary effects that trigger after the primary sliders, don't need to change at all.

If by secondaries you mean stuff like heat generation sliders on an increased powerplant mod, I see no reason those can't scale towards the optimal max as well. Pick any ship on coriolis and go through engineering it how you choose while selecting 'best' on each mod, to get an idea of what that looks like. It's perfectly fine balance wise. If I took either of my highly engineered pvp ships and set all their mods to 'Best' on coriolis, their stats would be worse than they are now.

 

[Aashenfox]

Secondaries as in the random secondary effects that trigger after the primary sliders, don't need to change at all.

If by secondaries you mean stuff like heat generation sliders on an increased powerplant mod, I see no reason those can't scale towards the optimal max as well. Pick any ship on coriolis and go through engineering it how you choose while selecting 'best' on each mod, to get an idea of what that looks like. It's perfectly fine balance wise. If I took either of my highly engineered pvp ships and set all their mods to 'Best' on coriolis, their stats would be worse than they are now.

ok, so riddle me this, Batman...

I do a G5 DD roll. I get all sliders maxed, and bonus secondaries of multiplier 8% mass -10% (gold to a buckyballer). Then I roll again, and this time I keep my maxed sliders (cos nothing can get worse), and now I get multiplier 8% and heat generation -12% (gold to a combat pilot), who decides what is 'better'? What if after that I get an optimal mass bonus? How many bonuses can I stack or how can I choose which I want to keep or discard? See what I'm saying?

 

[racer1]

"Most of us" still translates to "I and half the guys I know" I guess? Or do you actually think you and your friends build the majority of the whole community? If not so, please explain why FD should cater to a minority.
Furthermore, as much as you don't seem to care about the desires of PVE players, how can you possibly expect that the PVE players care about what you want?

P.s.: I know that's a silly stance on a rather artificial war between PVE'ers and PVP'ers. But both groups are not guilty for this situation IMO. Blame FD for the bold move to squish both player groups into one and the same game.

I'm a mostly PvE player with 1500+ hours of play. I'm totally for the every roll will be better change.

I enjoy a bit of mat/data gathering but as I've said in my other posts, gathering mats to upgrade an FSD, for example, takes hours and mostly ends in frustration at non to minor improvement in my range.

It is not just a PvP thing. I've upgraded most of my modules for the ships I use regularly. Over time I acquire more mats just by playing so can do some more rolls, but the randomness of the upgrade means I regularly leave engineer bases frustrated with the RNG mechanics.

 

[Alikat]

ok, so riddle me this, Batman...

I do a G5 DD roll. I get all sliders maxed, and bonus secondaries of multiplier 8% mass -10% (gold to a buckyballer). Then I roll again, and this time I keep my maxed sliders (cos nothing can get worse), and now I get multiplier 8% and heat generation -12% (gold to a combat pilot), who decides what is 'better'? What if after that I get an optimal mass bonus? How many bonuses can I stack or how can I choose which I want to keep or discard? See what I'm saying?

I'm not understanding the confusion. The sliders will eventually end up at their optimal maximums. Secondaries will continue to work as they are now. You make a roll, see the secondaries, you choose if you keep them or you don't, keep rolling til get you get ones you want?