So.....that Tech Broker

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Whatever Frontier does, they always do basically the same thing in the same way all the time every time. So, yeah. People are going to have the same complaints if they keep doing the same thing. That's . . . pretty normal I think.

They provide sidegrades without RNG sooooo....it is same as Engineers? Whut?

Because they don't do way you want them to do doesn't mean they do same thing.

It results in same thing - you being disappointed. But that's not very convenient conclusion, isn't it?

 

[Han_Zen]

Do we get the ‘fun’ of also engineering these new modules?

I hope they are 'pre-engineered' and can't be modified further.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I like the idea - at least this feels a bit more like "Crafting", but it raises a few questions:

1. Can these new weapons and ship modules be Engineered? If so, by current Engineers or by new Engineers?

2. I noted Corrosive Resistant Cargo Racks listed, but these have long been a Professor Palin exclusive item - will he still sell these, or will he offer some new item instead? And will these be the standard 1t/2t racks or will we finally see some larger capacity racks?

3. I also noted Meta-Alloy hull - which suggests this may give us some Corrosion resistance. Will this be something Engineers will be able to improve like other hull types?

I know, I know, the beta is coming, test it and find out... but the more I can find out first, the better.

 

[Sylow]

I agree with many others here, the "new tech broker" is the same old thing. Grind. It might be hot news for some developers here, but cheap flash games and Everquest are not the pinacle of game design any more.
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So really, why must it -again- be material collection? Is anything else really that hard to imagine or implement? Sure i get it, FD wants this to be work and to take time. But there's other ways for that. (And no, timers are not better, either. ) Some people here already calculated that they will need about 4 hours a piece for the upgrades we saw up to now. I personally wouldn't even mind if the time required would be double of that, if it would be time spend with more interesting activities.
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Just imagine that the broker suddenly realized who he's dealing with: a pilot with a ship! I know, that idea is hard to understand, but please just try. Now, as soon as the broker get it that he's not dealing with a material trader, but with a pilot, he might get to some ideas on what to use the pilot for. So he could remember some guy who stole something from him. So instead of telling the pilot to bring him 20 units of iron, but not the iron from the market but the iron you mine, he tells him to recover the stolen goods. The pilot agrees, so he has to cross the bubble to find the target. Perhaps he needs a FSD interdictor to get to the target, then hatch breakers to get the stolen stuff. Perhaps the target jumps to another system, so you better have a wake scanner along to follow. Perhaps the target currently is not around in supercruise and after 20 minutes of searching the system the mission giver decides that it might be better to draw the bad guy out by killing his lackeys. So it suddenly turns into a massacre mission, but you don't even tell how many kills are needed. After the hidden counter is filled, the bad guy may turn up or you get an update, that he coordinated the fight and now you know where he is hiding. So the next destination is an undocumented planetary base, so it requires some SRV action to recover the goods.
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And finally, when everything is recovered and the player returns to the brokers site, a wing of ships is near the brokers base and the mission updates, requesting that they will be killed before delivering the stuff.
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Add in some traveling time, e.g. make sure that the complete distance traveled is over 500 LY and that some destinations are like 150.000 lightseconds from the entry point and this easily requires more than the calculated four hours. But that time spent will feel active and productive, instead ofjust yet another material collection. And that above was just a quickly written example on how to do it.
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All the puzzle pieces are in game, we have chain missions, we have a number of different missions which each can be used here. The little glue to put them together is easily found. (E.g instead of killing the bad guys lackeys to draw him out, there might be a snitch who needs to be bribed. But he wants 20 units of painite, so off you go for mining... )
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So as we have all those small pieces, why not use them? Why once again fall back to material collection? The only two possible answers are lazyness or lack of imagination. Please let it be the second, there's plenty of people here who can help out...
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[frostypaw]

Do we get the ‘fun’ of also engineering these new modules?

This might be a shock but if you don't enjoy it nobody's forcing you to do it.

lack of imagination

And the sum total of imagination shown there was "rather than use mats you've got, do pewpew" - forgive me if I don't act amazed.

 

[Dommarraa]

I agree with many others here, the "new tech broker" is the same old thing. Grind.
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I also agree with many other here, it looks great

 

[Sylow]

I hope they are 'pre-engineered' and can't be modified further.

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In contrast, i think they are FDs "sneaky" plan to get rid of grandfathered equipment. It'd all be like "sure your old cannon has godlike G5 engineering on it, but if you fully engineer this new shock cannon, it very likely is better than your old garbage". So while people will still have their grandfathered stuff, they will phase a lot of it out in favour of the new equipment. It's most likely the best way to do it, without having yet another community uprising.
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[Kaocraft]

They provide sidegrades without RNG sooooo....it is same as Engineers? Whut?

Because they don't do way you want them to do doesn't mean they do same thing.

It results in same thing - you being disappointed. But that's not very convenient conclusion, isn't it?

People don't like the random material drops. They don't like that their progress, success, and failure is Random. That's what is at the core of the frustration. You can dance around it all you like, but that's what it is. So - they provide sidegrades which are purchased with RNG loot drops. That's why it's the same thing. Again, say whatever you want about whether the RNG is necessary or good or whatever. People don't like it because it takes away player agency. If you don't understand this then I'm not surprised you think the Tech Broker is some whole brand new totally different thing and that people are Just Impossible to Please. But that's the core of the issue if you care to understand it. Do with that information whatever you want.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

People don't like the random material drops. They don't like that their progress, success, and failure is Random. That's what is at the core of the frustration. You can dance around it all you like, but that's what it is. So - they provide sidegrades which are purchased with RNG loot drops. That's why it's the same thing. Again, say whatever you want about whether the RNG is necessary or good or whatever. People don't like it because it takes away player agency. If you don't understand this then I'm not surprised you think the Tech Broker is some whole brand new totally different thing and that people are Just Impossible to Please. But that's the core of the issue if you care to understand it. Do with that information whatever you want.

I understand you want acquire stuff in very controlled manner. But this game doesn't carter that gameplay style very well. It is design choice. You can clash against it, but I really start to wonder at this point why would you expect that to change.

So....I understand you what you are saying. Also I am not here to translate why FD as devs ignore that. I am just guessing they see those things differently. As I don't require this control, I enjoy game more.

 

[Sylow]

And the sum total of imagination shown there was "rather than use mats you've got, do pewpew" - forgive me if I don't act amazed.

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You seem to only look at pure mechanics. And even then, you're wrong. Sure in the example i gave, there's a lot of pewpew, but i also brought other stuff. (See: bribe some snitch for info. There can also be whole chains about finding a mining site, bringing samples, etc. But if i go there, we'll have walls of text of what is possible. )
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But the essential difference you seem to ignore: it wouldn't plain old "gather materials and be done for", but rather be something with reason. It would be the story of stolen properyt recovered. (Or rightful property stolen. ) It would be the story of a mining site found and samples brought back, it would be the story of confirming the existance of an earthlike planet in the monkey head nebula.
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But alas... perhaps i am wrong, and finding yet another 20 units of iron is just way more interesting.
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[frostypaw]

They don't like that their progress, success, and failure is Random.

Pls sir can has linear game?

Many of us LOVE that randomness, that's it's not always the same two skeletons waiting at the dungeon entrance that we can kill the same way and get the same guaranteed drop that we can farm 2000 times to trade for the great fairy sword.

We are more interested in playing the game than getting the great fairy sword via the quickest means possible. THAT is the game, not booping people with the OP sword and laughing afterwards.

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You seem to only look at pure mechanics.

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But alas... perhaps i am wrong, and finding yet another 20 units of iron is just way more interesting.

Can you not see the irony (pun intended) in you objecting to me doing what you've just done?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Pls sir can has linear game?

Many of us LOVE that randomness, that's it's not always the same two skeletons waiting at the dungeon entrance that we can kill the same way and get the same guaranteed drop that we can farm 2000 times to trade for the great fairy sword.

We are more interested in playing the game than getting the great fairy sword via the quickest means possible. THAT is the game, not booping people with the OP sword and laughing afterwards.

I think biggest schism in this discussion is 'making your own destiny' vs. 'skill of being able to survive and succeed with what you have'.

People who enjoy having control in games will find ED a disaster. People who enjoy having practically this virtual life thrown at them to survive will find ED beautiful.

That's basically it.

 

[frostypaw]

I think biggest schism in this discussion is 'making your own destiny' vs. 'skill of being able to survive and succeed with what you have'.

People who enjoy having control in games will find ED a disaster. People who enjoy having practically this virtual life thrown at them to survive will find ED beautiful.

That's basically it.

This is something FDev need to come to terms with and firmly plant their feet on one side or another. The in-between leads to this never-ending strife.

 

[Han_Zen]

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In contrast, i think they are FDs "sneaky" plan to get rid of grandfathered equipment. It'd all be like "sure your old cannon has godlike G5 engineering on it, but if you fully engineer this new shock cannon, it very likely is better than your old garbage". So while people will still have their grandfathered stuff, they will phase a lot of it out in favour of the new equipment. It's most likely the best way to do it, without having yet another community uprising.
.

If that is the case, I hope they go further and make them not stack with the 'standard' components.

'Engineered Meta-Alloy armour is great, but they dont stack with HRPs and MRPs unless those sitt in a military compartment.' sort of thing.

If everything adds on top of each other, the power creep can get massive.

 

[Kaocraft]

I understand you want acquire stuff in very controlled manner. But this game doesn't carter that gameplay style very well. It is design choice. You can clash against it, but I really start to wonder at this point why would you expect that to change.

So....I understand you what you are saying. Also I am not here to translate why FD as devs ignore that. I am just guessing they see those things differently. As I don't require this control, I enjoy game more.

Well first of all, it wasn't always like this. So there's that. The whole "loot" thing wasn't even in the game until 2.1. And secondly a pure RNG approach is not the only way to implement a looting/crafting system in the first place. And even the system as it is, could be so much better if it were just consistent enough and legible enough to allow players to engage with it intentionally. I don't think that possibility is out of reach and I don't think your enjoyment of the game would be diminished if were that way.

 

[Andovar]

I always reckon FD should be cut a little slack when bringing in any entirely new system .. but that's a very interesting idea going forwards. Might be worth a suggestion in focussed feedback when beta starts, that some tech unlocks could be given as mission rewards?

Agreed.
There's definitely a lot of room here with what this could be expanded into.

 

[Kaocraft]

Pls sir can has linear game?

Many of us LOVE that randomness, that's it's not always the same two skeletons waiting at the dungeon entrance that we can kill the same way and get the same guaranteed drop that we can farm 2000 times to trade for the great fairy sword.

We are more interested in playing the game than getting the great fairy sword via the quickest means possible. THAT is the game, not booping people with the OP sword and laughing afterwards.

You think the opposite of randomness is linearity. OK. Not sure there's any point in discussing this further.
Randomness *is* linearity, because randomness decouples your outcomes from your choices. Randomness makes everything the same.
The opposite of linearity is variety, choice, and consequence.

Also Elite doesn't have skeletons in it. You might be on the wrong forum.

 

[Sylow]

Can you not see the irony (pun intended) in you objecting to me doing what you've just done?

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No. For i looked at the screenshot and at the stream. All there was is "collect stuff". The game doesn't provide any more, so even if i try to look beyond pure mechanics, there is nothing to look at.
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So let's imagine that using the mission system somehow is really waaaay to complicated. Let's pretend (despite we know better) that missions are implemented in a very unflexible way and can not be used differently, even the current "bland grind" idea could be upgraded by dropping in some flavour text, why the player would have to supply that stuff. It still would lack any logic, but even a weak try would be better than nothing at all.
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If this is not what you mean, then please let me know what the whole "objectint to me doing what you've just done" means. Maybe it's the language barrier again and i don't get your point?
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If that is the case, I hope they go further and make them not stack with the 'standard' components.

'Engineered Meta-Alloy armour is great, but they dont stack with HRPs and MRPs unless those sitt in a military compartment.' sort of thing.

If everything adds on top of each other, the power creep can get massive.

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Power creep is a thing, and based on all we know, it's quite certain to come. The whole thing that you'll be able to reliably engineer equipment to levels which in the life game are considered godrolls guarantees that the equipment of many players will significally improve in the next time. So: power creep confirmed.
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But there's also something positive about that: when engineers were introduced, FD ran into balancing problems. Too much random just left some players with great gear in short time while others scraped along with garbage. (Sure, bell curve and everything, but if the playerbase is big enough, there's also a significant number of players on each end of the courve. ) When the players equipment and power level becomes more predictable, it'll also be much easier to scale difficulty accordingly.
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So it's very likely that most players ships will get more powerful when looking at the raw numbers. The gap between unengineered and engineered ships will widen. But i also expect NPCs, especially dangerous and above, to noticeably gain power.
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[IndigoWyrd]

You think the opposite of randomness is linearity. OK. Not sure there's any point in discussing this further.
Randomness *is* linearity, because randomness decouples your outcomes from your choices. Randomness makes everything the same.
The opposite of linearity is variety, choice, and consequence.

Also Elite doesn't have skeletons in it. You might be on the wrong forum.

I beg to differ... Bugs fixed? Chrome(d) Orca Paint? Engaging Content?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Well first of all, it wasn't always like this. So there's that. The whole "loot" thing wasn't even in the game until 2.1. And secondly a pure RNG approach is not the only way to implement a looting/crafting system in the first place. And even the system as it is, could be so much better if it were just consistent enough and legible enough to allow players to engage with it intentionally. I don't think that possibility is out of reach and I don't think your enjoyment of the game would be diminished if were that way.

Ohh dear.

It have ALWAYS been like this.

Beta:
* 'Why I can't find all modules in all stations? FD'?
* 'Why I can't have all information about all stations all the time?'
* 'Why I have to keep looking in signal sources to find this and this?'

That was just beta.

Some of FD approaches were too tedious for all of us and gradually got improved and replaced. But ED spirit is still a quite a random chance approach. It is how this game is.

Also it is not pure RNG approach. It combines looking around, knowledge, maybe even a bit of external one, chance and not obsessing over what you want, but figuring out what you could get with what you have and what you might gain if you look around more.

As I said, I understand you want it controlled. But I don't think this game gonna give you that.