jUSt PLaY tHe GaMe and You'LL get MaTS!11

[Viajero]

Too general. There should have never been powercreep indiscriminately disseminated into the gameplay in the first place. When you devalue player past investments in the game by hitting them with a power creep nerfbat, how willing do you think are they gonna grind for that crap? And once they do, when will they have to grind again just to play core gameplay when another round of power creep goal posting gets introduced?

"Value my time" for rears. 500 hours played down the drain. Keeps me nice and salty.

I think I see what you mean by powercreep, but I do not think the time you have spent goes down the drain. You also have to remember that that power creep (I presume you refer to engineers) necesitates a time investment aswell. I.e. it is not granted instantaneously for just having access to the Engineers (otherwise Horizons would indeed be a form of Pay to Win).

There is a balancing act in the game design in that, all else being equal, a player that decides to avoid engineers and upgrade from his default rated Cobra to a, say, A rated Krait (and do some synthesis for his ammo) needs to spend an "equivalent" amount of time in the game to a player that instead decides to engineer that same default rated Cobra and stick with it. And then after that amount of time both players could compete in a balanced state. Now, the actual details (and success) of the balance are up for discussion but I hope you get the gist of the principle. It is not time wasted either way.

Now this balance act has a hard stop once players get to an A rated "big 3" ship since they can not access larger ships or better modules anymore. Although the player that opts not to engineer them can still spend more time amassing more credits or synthethising that can allow him/her to play more aggressively than his engineer counterpart though, so there is still some balance principle leftovers even at that level.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I think I see what you mean by powercreep, but I do not think the time you have spent goes down the drain. You also have to remember that that power creep (I presume you refer to engineers) necesitates a time investment aswell. I.e. it is not granted instantaneously for just having access to the Engineers (otherwise Horizons would indeed be a form of Pay to Win).

There is a balancing act in the game design in that, all else being equal, a player that decides to avoid engineers and upgrade from his regular A rated Cobra to a regular A rated Krait needs to spend an "equivalent" amount of time in the game to a player that instead decides to engineer his A rated Cobra and stick with it. And then after that amount of time both players could compete in a balanced state. Now, the actual details (and success) of the balance are up for discussion but I hope you get the gist of my theoretical example.

Now this balance act has a hard stop once players get to the big 3 since they can not access larger ships anymore (the player that opts not to engineer them can still spend more time amassing more credits than can allow him/her to play more aggressively than his engineer counterpart though so there is still some balance principle leftovers even at that level).

The powercreep however instantaneously manifested in the environment. Rendering my collected equipment much less efficient. Right down to unfun when it comes to combat. There was no balance - just lazy design due to the overpowered stuff created, i.e. overpowered players that had no more challenge vs environment.

 

[Bigmaec]

The powercreep however instantaneously manifested in the environment. Rendering my collected equipment much less efficient. Right down to unfun when it comes to combat. There was no balance - just lazy design due to the overpowered stuff created, i.e. overpowered players that had no more challenge vs environment.

You're not wrong on this one. But I guess most players demanded to be invincible NPC gankers.

 

[Alone Wulff]

Material traders came about as a direct result of players complaining on the forums/Reddit that mat gathering was too slow and boring. In response FDev added mat traders and increased (doubled iirc) the drop rates for all mats.

I haven't checked specifically, but I'd be very surprised if during the period leading up to this, there wasn't a small percentage of players telling the people doing the complaining that the game isn't for them back then too.


Sure. Here you go:


There was a time before Engineers and mat gathering where maybe this game would have been more up his street. Sandro Sammarco seemed to rely heavily on time sinks and busy work to stretch out content. Maybe they'll get someone in with a bit more imagination and the game could be more appealing to a wider audience. Who knows?


Right that's it... hand in your bloke card on your way out. You sound like my wife.

Like the other person, I know now that the problem here is because you've misinterpreted my comments.

You've even quoted me saying "It sounds like..." as your evidence that I'm "telling" someone the game isn't for them, when in fact "It sounds like..." is clearly an opinion, which was my intention.

I even go on to say why I had that opinion. New players who use forums and Reddit to look into the game first before buying it will see the type of negative feedback I responded to and may assume it's the game as a whole, when in fact it's just one person who doesn't like how the game works for them and so berates the developers and the game as a whole. So all I did is reply with my viewpoint as a follow on and a 'suggestion' that generally anyone who comes on hating on the game because an intended feature doesn't do what they want it to, maybe the game isn't for them. Not that I should have to explain myself...

 

[Alone Wulff]

Same thing.

No... it's not. It's not my problem people don't know the difference between an opinion and a statement.

 

[Viajero]

The powercreep however instantaneously manifested in the environment. Rendering my collected equipment much less efficient. Right down to unfun when it comes to combat. There was no balance - just lazy design due to the overpowered stuff created, i.e. overpowered players that had no more challenge vs environment.

Not sure what you mean there, your gear is as efficient as before no? Or are you thinking PvE?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Not sure what you mean there, your gear is as efficient as before no? Or are you thinking PvE?

Dude, my weapons went from cannons to squirt guns. Most notably versus AI hulls. Tho I wouldnt be surprised to find out they have cancer in their shields now too.
Im other words: I have to fight bulletsponges.
I really dont get why people dont think this might be unfun. It's a common thing players are unhappy with. Especially when yesterday was just fine but today they have to do more grind to do what they did yesterday. That is pretty much down the drain for me.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

No... it's not. It's not my problem people don't know the difference between an opinion and a statement.

The general rule is to discuss the topic and not the poster. Your valuable opinion about others doesnt matter in this context.

 

[Viajero]

Dude, my weapons went from cannons to squirt guns. Most notably versus AI hulls. Tho I wouldnt be surprised to find out they have cancer in their shields now too.
Im other words: I have to fight bulletsponges.
I really dont get why people dont think this might be unfun. It's a common thing players are unhappy with. Especially when yesterday was just fine but today they have to do more grind to do what they did yesterday. That is pretty much down the drain for me.

Oh ok, you meant rather PvE then. Obviously the gradient of difficulty in PvE needs to also be spread out all the way with the new scale, I agree. If there are some imbalances there it would be a "simple" matter of correcting it with time.

Personally I have played Elite without Engineers for a looong time after 2.1 (other than hyperdrive mods) and never saw a major issue PvE myself to be honest. My Engineer "carreer" is relatively recent. But maybe that is just me.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Oh ok, you meant rather PvE then. Obviously the gradient of difficulty in PvE needs to also be spread out all the way with the new scale, I agree. If there are some imbalances there it would be a "simple" matter of correcting it with time.

Personally I have played Elite without Engineers for a looong time after 2.1 (other than hyperdrive mods) and never saw a major issue PvE myself to be honest. My Engineer "carreer" is relatively recent. But maybe that is just me.

Did you do combat? Do you have advanced combat rank (deadly)?

 

[Viajero]

Did you do combat? Do you have advanced combat rank (deadly)?

A reasonable share of combat, yes. Not solely though, BGS related mostlyt so sometimes combat, sometimes other stuff. I am more of a generalist so I do a bit of everything. I have not reached Elite rank there yet, close but no.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

A reasonable share of combat, yes. Not solely though, BGS related mostlyt so sometimes combat, sometimes other stuff. I am more of a generalist so I do a bit of everything. I have not reached Elite rank there yet, close but no.

Same here. Only I encountered meaty AI. It'd take me like 3 times longer to kill them. And that wasn't just for the upgraded flight behaviour. My weapons simply barely scratched their hulls. And they were perfectly fine before.

 

[Glacieredapollo]

Dude, my weapons went from cannons to squirt guns. Most notably versus AI hulls. Tho I wouldnt be surprised to find out they have cancer in their shields now too.
Im other words: I have to fight bulletsponges.
I really dont get why people dont think this might be unfun. It's a common thing players are unhappy with. Especially when yesterday was just fine but today they have to do more grind to do what they did yesterday. That is pretty much down the drain for me.

Let me ask you this as purely a food for thought type question;

Are you concerned that the TTK increase against PVE is a mechanic to serve the power creep of engineering when Fdev could've just as easily changed a different variable (rate of spawn of elite lvl, better weaps, etc.) and gotten more challenging NPCs instead of making them soak more damage?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Let me ask you this as purely a food for thought type question;

Are you concerned that the TTK increase against PVE is a mechanic to serve the power creep of engineering when Fdev could've just as easily changed a different variable (rate of spawn of elite lvl, better weaps, etc.) and gotten more challenging NPCs instead of making them soak more damage?

Well, they chose to spawn engineered NPC indicriminately with player combat rank factoring in. And engineered stuff populates CZ - which was a staple core activity for playing BGS. While they could have restricted it to special regions (like, say Anarchies e.g.) they chose to do it everywhere. I don't mind adjusting the environment to the power creep. But to just assume everyone would engineer the crap out of their gear now or simply forfeit the content they were enjoying before - that just doesnt work.

 

[Jukelo]

Oh ok, you meant rather PvE then. Obviously the gradient of difficulty in PvE needs to also be spread out all the way with the new scale, I agree. If there are some imbalances there it would be a "simple" matter of correcting it with time.

Personally I have played Elite without Engineers for a looong time after 2.1 (other than hyperdrive mods) and never saw a major issue PvE myself to be honest. My Engineer "carreer" is relatively recent. But maybe that is just me.

Thing is, there is already a gradient in difficulty. Most NPCs do NOT have engineered mods, it's mainly Dangerous and above.

 

[Craith]

Really? This seems to be the #1 response from non-casual players. Ok, let me play the game. When I read about Elite before I bought it, combat was my main desire. Big space battles are awesome.

1. Decide I want to do some combat
2. Sell my ship and trade for something combat focused
3. Spend whatever left on parts
4. Grab some combat missions that - from their very gently caressing vague description - sound fun
5. Die a bunch of times on the combat missions, quickly realize that because the mission pays low, doesn't mean it will be easy
6. Through trial and error, figure out exactly which combat missions are possible to complete
7. After completing some missions, the soul-crushing realization of how long it will take to progress to conflict zones sets in as I'll need a 150m FDL
8. Decide I need to make more money faster
9. Switch to trading ship
10. Not bad, make about 10m credits, but get very sick of jumping and cruising, miss the thrill of combat. The best hauler is still verrrrry far away from being purchased. Need money even faster.
11. Pick up a Dolphin as I heard passenger missions are nice, can't do anything just yet because you'll want to blow your brains out without an engineered FSD
12. Lookup felicity, need meta alloys
13. Fly a mind-numbing amount of jumps in a non-engineered mid grade FSD to Darnielle's progress, none for sale despite it being "so easy, just buy them!" online
14. Find a spreadsheet containing known locations of them on planets
15. Buy an SRV
16. More ungodly jumps to a planet with barnicles
17. Land, wrestle with glitchy rubbish SRV controls
18. Find barnacle, finally get a meta alloy
19. Yet more netflix and jumping to Felicity
20. Engineer my FSD, get a piddly increase in jumping
21. Rage-sell my dolphin and try mining
22. Time spent vs credit income is utterly ridiculous compared to trading or passenger missions
23. Rage crash my mining ship into the sun
24. Buy an ASP, honk around sytems, quickly get bored of supercruising to planets
25. Go back to Bubble to sell my data, get a laughable amount of credits, not going to jump 5000 lys away doing that ad nauseum to get a higher amount of credits
21. Quit the game because after doing ALLLLLL that over WEEKS of playing and I haven't even made a dent in FSD progress. I've literally been playing the game trying to progress and have poopoo for mats.

Oh but GOD FORBID I try to "farm" any mats or lookup clever ways to get mats. No no no, you should just be playing the same missions over and over and over and over again until you get enough for the next level of engineering. You went to Dav's hope to try and get mats faster to save time? LOL, if you had just played the game for 100 more hours you would've had the mats anyways!!!

In summary: why isn't there an "easy/medium/hard" difficulty slider for Solo mode? That way, all the hardcore elite players who play the game 40 hours a week will feel special, and people who have video games as a hobby with only a few hours a week will get satisfaction and progression? Then you can create a subforum specifically for easy mode, that way we don't get condescending elitist responses from someone who has 1000 hours into the game and loves everything about it.

I am Elite in Combat and have never set a foot into a FDL (apart from trying it once in a beta - hated it). You don't need a FDL to do combat. It is (one of the) current Meta-ships, but that only makes it a bit easier in it, not necessary. Below I try to answer your points with my ideas, but the most important thing first ... if you want help, ask around point 2., not at 26. Now you already built up a lot of frustration and it will be hard for you to enjoy the game, no matter what comes in the future.

1. Good thing ... I too prefer combat the most.
2. Why sell a good ship? Keep it as a backup, should the worst happen you can always sell it on the rebuy screen, and it gives you alternatives - imagine you don't like the new one. Selling ships also always includes 10% loss. You can also go into combat with nearly any ship, if you choose wisely.
3. parts are important, especially thrusters and PD
4. this can be tricky ... many combat missions (I am looking at you, solo massacre missions) have very high kill counts that are time consuming. For starters I'd suggest going to a Ressource Extraction site (RES), difficulty of your choosing. You will have police helping you (don't shoot them!), unless you go for a Hazardous one. You can also choose when and whom to engage, giving you an alpha strike. And you will only encounter "civilian" ships - skip Conflict Zones at the beginning, the ships there are a lot tougher. This is possible in the starter sidewinder, although I'd upgrade a few parts first to be fun (see 3.) Nav-Beacons are also a possibility.
5. make sure to check the difficulty of the mission. Payout is dependent on you rank and you standing, but difficulty is stated in the mission. If it is in red, telling you something along the lines "this might be to tough" - get another one first. Or go for a RES.
6. all (solo) combat missions are possible to be completed in nearly every ship - I do most in an Eagle (admittedly heavily engineered). Wing Missions can be to tough (wing assassinations I no longer try in the eagle)
7. You don't need a FDL for a Conflict Zone ... I do low and mediums in my eagle, mediums are tough, for high its TTK is to high. An unengineered A-rated Sidewinder can complete low intensity conflict zones sucessfully.
8. That is your choice ... but making money is extremely fast anyhow.
9. I hope you kept your prior ship - spicing things up makes it more fun, do a trade run, get into the combat ship, blast some pirates out of the sky, repeat - less tedium. Also try rare trading, those are more engaging than simple A-B-A runs, and you also get quite a bit in exploration data - map any earthlike worlds and waterworlds, and you'll make quite a few millions extra on the first run
10. Why the rush for the so called best?
11. check all the passenger missions, not all are long distance trips
12. good thing, but Elvira Martuuk in Khun might be easier to unlock, if you just care about the FSD.
13. I hope you scanned the systems on your travel - many jumps = many scans. You are unlucky here, since the supply just run dry. There are also other ways to get meta alloys, there are people supplying them for example, some for palladium, some even if you just ask nicely.
14. one way to find them, but not the only one.
15. good choice. although it is possible to harvest them with a (small) ship, an SRV is much easier
16. (see 13.)
17. can't follow you there, I find the SRV extremely easy to control. - I set it up like my ship, including rolling, so it is just natural to adjust to anything the terrain brings. Full Throttle + low G = high chance of losing grip
18. Congratulations.
19. (see 13.)
20. ship was probably still to heavy. D-rated modules are lighter, A-rated is not always the best.
21. don't sell ships ... but ok, it was not a calm calculated decision
22. I start to wonder what the expectation of a non-ridiculous income is ... did you try core mining? even normal mining in a medium ship gets you a few hours per evening, if you are doing it relaxed (since you won't have optimised equipment just starting out) - people are making hundreds of millions per hour with core mining.
23. that'll not help you earn money ... but you know that, again, it was not a calculated decision.
24. Exploration is not for everyone - but you don't need an asp for exploration, jump range does not help you get more scans in the same time. (If you want to go to colonia or beagle point, jump range helps for sure). Just scan earth like worlds and waterworlds - for the rest a FSS scan is enough, if even that ... your choice.
25. distance from the bubble has no influence on payout (except for the chance of first discovery bonus ...)
21. (I guess 26.) ... Just saying, if you'd stayed in your combat ship, you'd probably already gotten your 150M ... or at least improved your flying and collected a few nice combat built ships. You'd built up your reputation in the area and people would pay you better for the missions. You'd probably not get the 50M wing massacre missions yet (which are a lot of work doing them solo, 81 kills or similar), but 10-20M ones should be available for you.

Concerning Easy-medium-hard ... this setting already exists - you choose how hard you want your enemies to be, to a point. Nav Beacon / Low RES = Very Easy, Low Intensity Conflict Zones / RES = Easy, Medium Intensity Conflict Zone / High or Hazardous RES / Non-Human Signal Sources Threat 4 or less = Medium, High Intensity Conflict Zones / NHSS Threat 5 = Hard, NHSS Threat 6+ Very Hard.

Of course those difficulties are relative, some may argue it is all easy / hard, but you get to choose.

 

[Vetinari]

I almost forgot what the OP was now.

Read the mods response above (I can see a lot of thought has gone into it and Frontier chose an option) and I think the person is meaning 'One day engineers came in, I was already high combat rank so for me overnight everything changed, a lot of the NPC ships I met were engineered immediately. Its different to a new player who will meet un-engineered ships while they rank up and probably engineer up at the same time to match. For seasoned veterans it was a major imbalance overnight.' - I could be wrong so don't flame me or they may have meant the engineering they did under the old RNG system was 'wasted time and effort' as the new engineers overwrote that work, although for a more guaranteed result.

Should this post be titled ' The RNG needs a bit of work' rather than what it is? Is that the issue, the R ness of the RNG, do we want a non random RNG? A more 'defined' RNG with parameters maybe? Maybe an 'exclusion' RNG - you cant have 30 Wake Scans in a row without getting a G5 for example, it excludes the possibility of the 30th being random and makes it G5 if one not already given? Do we want more USS/HGE drop rate especially? Is that what this post is about?

PVP - Seems to be different as some of them don't want to 'play the game' they just want to buy what they need, undock and fight PVP from day 1. Maybe there a way Frontier can do this without affecting the game?

Sorry, outbreak of reasonableness, normal duties will be be resumed shortly.

 

[Jukelo]

I almost forgot what the OP was now.

Read the mods response above (I can see a lot of thought has gone into it and Frontier chose an option) and I think the person is meaning 'One day engineers came in, I was already high combat rank so for me overnight everything changed, a lot of the NPC ships I met were engineered immediately. Its different to a new player who will meet un-engineered ships while they rank up and probably engineer up at the same time to match. For seasoned veterans it was a major imbalance overnight.' - I could be wrong so don't flame me or they may have meant the engineering they did under the old RNG system was 'wasted time and effort' as the new engineers overwrote that work, although for a more guaranteed result.

The vast majority of NPCs do not scale with player rank or ship, the only ones who do will always try and interdict you in supercruise, and because the interdiction minigame is broken against NPCs you never have to face them if you don't want to.

 

[Vetinari]

Which is all fine but my comment was in reply to the CZ/Res site comment. Maybe I confused it. NVM.

 

[Garbarrage]

Although the player that opts not to engineer them can still spend more time amassing more credits or synthethising that can allow him/her to play more aggressively than his engineer counterpart though

Once a player has one of the big 3, what can they buy with credits that will make them more competitive than the player who sinks endless hours into Engineering?

You've even quoted me saying "It sounds like..." as your evidence that I'm "telling" someone the game isn't for them, when in fact "It sounds like..." is clearly an opinion, which was my intention.

You can be condescending with your opinions too.

when in fact it's just one person who doesn't like how the game works for them and so berates the developers and the game as a whole.

It's a lot more than one person though. The topic of unnecessary grind is one of the most common gripes on here.