Engineers: Reality and Human Nature vs. Design Intent - Why the design Creates Tedium

[frostypaw]

I didn't dismiss you because you disagree with me, I disagree with you because most of your arguments make no sense, a lot of them are objectively wrong, and you have a strong tendency towards smug dismissiveness in the way you say things. If you don't want to rub people the wrong way, maybe stop trying to pretend your g don't stink.

Nice language there - you said you could easily prove something then didn't make a single effort to do so - why would you expect anything else but being dismissed. You have not demonstrated anything that you claim and have simply said "you're wrong" and engaged in some name calling. That isn't discussion.

If you think word of mouth and reviews don't mean anything, your hugely mistaken. I myself talked 3 other players into buying this game. If I didn't like the game to begin with, would Frontier still have 3 more customers?

You assume that those who come after you who weren't used to the old system will whine as much. This isn't a given.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Engineers foster burnout and frustration by introducing a wait wall between the acquisition of a ship, and the ship's ability to live up to its full potential

it is min maxer's curse. It is always that wait that eats them.

Let it go You don't wait for anything. You enjoy what you got now. If you can't....that's something for you to deal with.

 

[B1rdy]

Engineering in incidental, as I'm always picking things up - interesting rocks, bits of metal, scanning this, that and the other... my Materials and Data bins are perpetually full - which means, if I want to Engineer a brand new ship, I usually have no problems fully upgrading a brand new ship the day I buy it.

I paid for the game is a very bad argument. I also paid for Skyrim but I don't want to be a sorcerer. But parts of the game are only possible for sorcerers, so the game is locking me out of content that I paid for. I can make this argument for almost every game that gives me some freedom. It's such a week argument.

At least in Skyrim you progress in what you are doing. Engineering in ED requires you to do stuff, wouldn't do normally. That way you might end up with full mats and data storage but are unable to mod anything you want. Even the new system won't remedy that, there is only the material trader as a workaround. And let's be serious, what kind of "personal narrative" is driving around on a planet waiting for Arsenic to pop up. Cheap game mechanics are cheap.
If you could actually get weapons upgrades, for instance, by doing combat, that would be a more real progression.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

You know Tetris, basically the same, yet never truly the same, it kinda is always challanging and entertaining.
Tetris isn't a grind it is joy.

What makes elite a grind is that the tasks you have to repeat are neither joyful nor challanging. they mostly take a long boring mind numbing time.

if the task is entertaining I don't mind doing it for a long time.

 

[Blackcompany]

You know Tetris, basically the same, yet never truly the same, it kinda is always challanging and entertaining.
Tetris isn't a grind it is joy.

What makes elite a grind is that the tasks you have to repeat are neithr joyful nor challanging. they mostly take a long boring mind numbing time.

if the taks is enttertaining i don't mind doing it for a long time.

Exactly this.

If obtaining mats was fun, Engineering would be much improved.

But shooting rocks? Waiting on USS to drop some RNG nonsense? Nothing about acquisition of mats is fun, and that's a serious issue with the system no one wants to fix.

 

[frostypaw]

Exactly this.

If obtaining mats was fun, Engineering would be much improved.

But shooting rocks? Waiting on USS to drop some RNG nonsense? Nothing about acquisition of mats is fun, and that's a serious issue with the system no one wants to fix.

That's cos you're meant to be collecting them as you play along with the rest of the game, not ignoring the rest of the game and just collecting loot.

 

[cyberus]

Are you goin to publish this novel OP?

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

That's cos you're meant to be collecting them as you play along with the rest of the game, not ignoring the rest of the game and just collecting loot.

That's what i thought but it seems you need a cargo rack for some of it and then those Engineers are so fussy. They'll take a (insert silly name) for one upgrade but not for another. Sure you can go to merchant to get one, my wife loves shopping, but they won't take cash. Oh no, you need a (insert silly name here) but that's only available from a (insert silly name here) merchant who for some reasons descides to set up shop at XYZ which is no where near the engineer.

It's all very silly and as such cannot be taken seriously.

 

[Muetdhiver]

That's cos you're meant to be collecting them as you play along with the rest of the game, not ignoring the rest of the game and just collecting loot.

The chances of "finding" a metalic meteorite during a skimmer massacre mission or a base raid or a salvage job are... rather slim.
When people do SRV races, they tend to not stop to pick rock either. Seems to me material collection on planets is :

1) Nearly fully out of the regular gameplay loops, aka material collection by rock shooting is a disjointed mechanic.
2) Full RNG+time with zero skill involved. One would expect meteorites found mostly in craters, but nope. Just drive in circle and they will appear. Anyone from the immershun brigade is available for this ?

Same for HGE's in systems in specific states. Then again, once can wait for dumb luck to happen and wait 2 years to fully engineer a ship. Again, a suberb specimen of Full RNG+time with zero skill involved.

 

[B1rdy]

That's cos you're meant to be collecting them as you play along with the rest of the game, not ignoring the rest of the game and just collecting loot.

Tell us, how many Datamined Wake Exceptions have you found by just "playing along"? How many Chemical Manipulators?

 

[frostypaw]

The chances of "finding" a metalic meteorite during a skimmer massacre mission or a base raid or a salvage job are... rather slim.

Chances of hunting through all the drawers to find batteries, nails and other bits of loot as an inevitable part of the process of shooting down some mutants are pretty slim too.

Loot often involves hunting around a bit and there's rarely anything rewarding or skill based about that process in itself.

Meteorites are not normally in craters. Ones big enough to form craters are probably obliterated or buried underground - the smaller ones that fall all over and remain on the surface are what we're finding.

 

[Dommarraa]

Tell us, how many Datamined Wake Exceptions have you found by just "playing along"? How many Chemical Manipulators?

Thats why they gave us Brokers.

Principle is sound though:
There is no need to grind to do engineering. Materials can be gathered "naturally". If you grind its your own choice.
There is no need for G5 everything. To claim they are mandatory is again entirely your choice.

Edit : Dont get me wrong, I am 1-roll-G5ing everything I can lay my hands on, but thats a choice, and I stop when I am bored

 

[Funny]

Thats why they gave us Brokers.

Principle is sound though:
There is no need to grind to do engineering. Materials can be gathered "naturally". If you grind its your own choice.
There is no need for G5 everything. To claim they are mandatory is again entirely your choice.

Edit : Dont get me wrong, I am 1-roll-G5ing everything I can lay my hands on, but thats a choice, and I stop when I am bored

Nah, broker rates are too high to be useful for that. And whether G5 is mandatory or not is irrelevant, fact of the matter is, if G5 mats are outside people’s loops, even the lesser materials are outside most people’s gameplay loops. So your argument makes very little sense.

 

[Dommarraa]

Nah, broker rates are too high to be useful for that

No they are not - In my opinion

fact of the matter is, if G5 mats are outside people’s loops, even the lesser materials are outside most people’s gameplay loops.

Thats just random words that has no logical value

So your argument makes very little sense.

Everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot ?

Wow - High level discourse here

 

[B1rdy]

Chances of hunting through all the drawers to find batteries, nails and other bits of loot as an inevitable part of the process of shooting down some mutants are pretty slim too.

Loot often involves hunting around a bit and there's rarely anything rewarding or skill based about that process in itself.

As of now, I think some mats and data are so elusive, the chance to find them by luck it too low.

Thats why they gave us Brokers.

Principle is sound though:
There is no need to grind to do engineering. Materials can be gathered "naturally". If you grind its your own choice.
There is no need for G5 everything. To claim they are mandatory is again entirely your choice.

Brokers are a good addition but only a workaround to the problem. They could also worsen the situation because players will potentially find an easy source of G5 mats and only trade most other mats.
When people obviously want to tweak their ship and Engineers is about that, the solution can't be "don't aim for it".

 

[frostypaw]

As of now, I think some mats and data are so elusive, the chance to find them by luck it too low.

Nobody's asking you to fumble around in the dark - can talk to other cmdrs and find out where they found things - what sort of missions and locations etc.

I agree with your second point though. There's a real risk people will now just mode-switch all day at places like Dav's Hope and trade instead - which is I think why the mat trader rations are what they are to discourage such.

 

[AsukaZ]

I don't mind driving around in the buggy for a few hours following my nose (wave scanner). I'm lucky I guess.
I find I pick up plenty of materials, lots of high grade stuff too.
The DSS helps identify planets with a higher probabilty of finding what you're looking for.
If I can trade mats up for rarer ones then all the better.
I didn't have much trouble though finding high grade mats from missions and specific SS's in specific systems, just moved there and hung around for a while. I enjoyed the nomad faffing about thing.

Not everyone's approach to material collection I know. Still it filled up my coffers to overflowing (if some of you guys knew what I've thrown away you'd probably cry) and I didn't feel the grind one little bit.
Like I say, just lucky I guess.

No idea what that says about design intent and human nature, just my experience.

 

[B1rdy]

Nobody's asking you to fumble around in the dark - can talk to other cmdrs and find out where they found things - what sort of missions and locations etc.

That is another critical point - in-game information - but I was more onto the point, that even if you know where too look, you still need to invest a serious amount of time to be successful. And if you don't even do that, the chance of happening to come across is pretty low for some of the stuff.

 

[Blackcompany]

That's cos you're meant to be collecting them as you play along with the rest of the game, not ignoring the rest of the game and just collecting loot.

Except you either shoot rocks, or play the game. One of the two. You don't get to do both at once.

Not to mention, shooting rocks, as game play, is so absurdly boring I don't know how it's still a thing.

 

[Sylveria]

Except you either shoot rocks, or play the game. One of the two. You don't get to do both at once.

Not to mention, shooting rocks, as game play, is so absurdly boring I don't know how it's still a thing.

Some feel the same way about PvP. Or other activities in the game, too.

Not everyone has the same idea of "fun".