Engineering Under Threat - Open Letter etc

[Rat Catcher]

Ignore - @galahad2069 - explained quite succinctly

I don't agree.

This is another example of where you could see the relative balance in the pre-Engineered system. 1v1s were generally much shorter than they were now, but wing fights were not. Focus fire already had an effective damage increase by making it easier to identify, isolate, and engage targets at increased range.

For the first time in a while I'm not sure what you are saying, blame inexperience...

Would you be kind enough to fill out the detail please - or explain the second paragraph as it appears to have gone 'in one ear and out the other' with me... Thanks

 

[galahad2069]

well, it takes a single high speed pass and a single short and precise burst of fixed machine gun fire for some pros to obliterate an opponent in, say, il-2, and people still find it fun. ok, not for everybody. i exaggerated the example just to illustrate that time to kill is a relative factor, and i'm fine with extending the fun time and so broadening the audience. not until we get asleep though! i'm glad to hear you find ttk appropriate in wing fights, as you have guessed i have no good metrics there. to be honest, not even in pvp in general in late years. but most videos are boring and could use a 4:1 compression factor

Here's a somewhat compressed video for you. Only 2 rounds of a 2v2 training, nothing special, I'm nowhere near as good as the current top players, but it's still FUN:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Uv8S3OjOQ


If you really want to do anything with hitpoint inflation, you'll need to start with the shield booster stacking (e.g. max 4 boosters per ship).

I cannot really say anything else, join the ECCE discord and see for yourself. Prism SFN's, Screaming Eagles Sparring and NATO training ringfights (nearly) every weekend, Wyrd Wednesdays in LHS 278 every, well, Wednesday, etc. etc. Meet the toxic™ psychopath® gankerz and the also the good guys. Tons of fun, it's totally worth it to bite the bullet and engineer a ship.

The PvP community is awesome, you'll be surprised.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

You appear to be missing the 'root' of the argument - by no longer being in a conflict situation (be it by Combat Logging or just a dropped connection) a 'kill' has been stolen, and that is almost as painful as being kicked in the nether regions to some combat fans

My apologies for staying in solo.

 

[Rat Catcher]

My apologies for staying in solo.

Ah, the vaguaries of the written English language....
(Try reading it again, but with a facetious slant )

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Not always. How much exploration data are you willing to give up to save face and not clog? But if you did choose to clog in an effort to save perhaps hundreds of millions in explo data that wouldn't be because of your ego, it would be because you did nothing to deserve losing all you hard work and efforts. And did what you had to do to protect your assets.

I'm not advocating for clogging to be accepted, but it shouldn't be misunderstood either

I've been blown up in solo by NPC's, just before turning in my data. Annoying, but a known risk I have to accept. Haven't logged yet. So there.

 

[znôrt]

Tons of fun, it's totally worth it to bite the bullet and engineer a ship.

i actually have a (bi) fdl more than halfway there, might as well walk the last bit and follow your advice one of these days. bookmarked

 

[galahad2069]

i actually have a (bi) fdl more than halfway there, might as well walk the last bit and follow your advice one of these days. bookmarked

You will be welcome.

Feel free to drop me a line if you need the discord invites.

 

[Morbad]

well, it takes a single high speed pass and a single short and precise burst of fixed machine gun fire for some pros to obliterate an opponent in, say, il-2, and people still find it fun.

And it is fun, in those contexts. However, you're also not starting most encounters with an enemy behind you and well within optimal weapons range...there is more gameplay leading up to one's ability to line up that burst of fire.

Would you be kind enough to fill out the detail please - or explain the second paragraph as it appears to have gone 'in one ear and out the other' with me... Thanks

1v1 encounters while common enough, are probably not the majority of PvP engagements. Balancing for one scenario without considering the implications on others can easily cause problems because not every consideration applies equally.

Basically, defensive inflation helped shields enormously, hull significantly, but modules only modestly. Offensive inflation that doesn't have to do with raw damage--such as increased resolve distances, greater weapon ranges, and certain special effects--matters less in a 1v1 than it does in group engagements. I was pointing out that the synergistic effects of focus fire can compound the effects of facing multiple opponents, making organized opposition greater than the sum of it's parts. Simply inflating damage might result in a mostly linear reduction in the time shields are up in a 1v1, but it would result in issues with those aspects of the game that haven't seen quite as much defensive inflation, and would combine with a variety of changes that have already allowed focus fire to keep better pace with defensive inflation.

I'll try to illustrate what I'm talking about...take this encounter, which happened shortly before Engineering:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IPEGdUw1Gs


CMDRs are generally splitting into small groups and engaging whoever is closest. All vs. one focus is much more difficult to achieve; effective weapon ranges are generally less, focus can be temporarily broken via a variety of mechanisms (heatsinks were common and silent running had no hard counters), and because it was more difficult to ignore those trying to peel you away from your targets.

The same fight in the current system of the game would almost immediately result in each side being able to pit all of their numbers vs. a single opponent for the entire duration, giving whoever had the most ships a more profound advantage than in the past, and one that would quickly grow. Survival after shields failure would also be far more unlikely, even for opponents that still had countermeasures left. My CMDR loses shields in an FDL when under heavy focus fire now, and it's railgun hits though the FSD from every hostile ship in a 12km diameter sphere...evasion is virtually meaningless at such long ranges and breaking subsystem lock impossible with someone constantly renewing emissive. My CMDR's fate is all but sealed the moment those shields fail...unless no one has emissive or long range weapons. 1v1's pretty reliably take 2-3 times as long as they used to, but wing combat durations are far more variable; often shorter than before with their outcomes being decided much earlier on in the fight.

 

[Julio Montega]

Let us look at the current problems we have in the game:

• build disparity -> traders and hybrids are weaker in combat than fully kitted out fighters
• engineering amplifying this gap
• multicrew being a nice feature, but a multicrew ship facing multiple fighters looses, due to the high defenses
• defenses benefit more from engineering, than offense does, due to the modular approach of defenses

How do we tackle this, optimally to a point where engagements no longer take 20 minutes,
and everyone has a fighting or fleeing chance?

 

[Old Duck]

So what's the verdict?

 

[Morbad]

So what's the verdict?

Guilty, by reason of mental defect or insanity.

 

[Rat Catcher]

And it is fun, in those contexts. However, you're also not starting most encounters with an enemy behind you and well within optimal weapons range...there is more gameplay leading up to one's ability to line up that burst of fire....

Thank you That I could also understand clearly!

 

[Tikanderoga]

Thats called open and solo/pg

Not really - even in a PG, you can still get killed by a commander. Just because everyone in the PG is saying they won't attack you, they still have the option to pull the trigger. With the flag solution, we wouldn't need open/pg/solo modes, just one space.

 

[lenna]

They only person I'm aware of them taking action on was player who was protesting because they don't take action.

You would not necessarily know if they did take action, besides which there is the point that what some are referring to combat logging is not actual combat logging by FD's accepted definition but rather menu logging instead.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

You would not necessarily know if they did take action, besides which there is the point that what some are referring to combat logging is not actual combat logging by FD's accepted definition but rather menu logging instead.

Look at the forums. Can you honestly come to the logical conclusion someone banned from the game would let it happen quietly?

 

[UFO Reality]

Not what I paid for..

That said, Engineering doesn't really need any work.. C&P needs to work properly.

There was no engineering when I bought this game.

When it did get added, I thought it was a great addition, although the balancing became askew further down the track.

The random rolls for upgrades were also good and I personally preferred it.

If they added a decay to engineered modules then min-maxers would still be penalised for the overuse of max rolled items hence mitigating the balancing complaints.

The decay mechanic only has to be that common mats that need to be farmed and consumed, so to not penalize the initial grind and feel of progression that game design require.

If you don't deal with the engineering decay of a module then all you will have is the base class/grade module values, losing the buffs until you gather more materials.

So this in turn will shut the people up who whinge about engineering ruining the game and balancing.

The changes in C&P, especially notoriety decay is an absolute fail, it destroyed the fun of doing crime and only pleased CMDRs that wanted Elite not-Dangerous.

A better bounty hunting system for wanted CMDRs would have made the game brilliant but the devs did not seem to be motivated to make the game live up to its Dangerous title and it would have made more sense because they keep adding new weapon modules to ships.

I think they would have been better just adding super shielded hulls or cloaking capable ships that cannot have weapons due to power requirements of these defensive modules. This way all whinge bag non combatants have to do is cloak or fly away when there is a hollow square on radar.

ED needs a creative lead tech/designer that passionately plays and loves the game that knows how to integrate fun game dynamics into the main game without just adding assets that do not improve or solve the major issues surrounding this game.

At the minimum they could look at what makes other PvP games brilliant and use those concepts to add to ED.

Borderlands has a brilliant weapons system and GTA has the side missions as well as a main narrative, and racing games have high replay value, etc.

What ED excels in, is its spaceship flight physics and its simulated universe in which there are no large complaints.

 

[Riverside]

I don't agree with all of that but I thought it was a well thought out post. I particularly like the idea of having to do maintenance on engineered modules, although it might be a problem if jump range were reduced.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

I'm not a fan of too much grind. I feel what was described up there as too much. I only have time to be on a few hours a week. Always doing conflict zones, my engineered modules would decay rapidly but the decay upkeep grind would probably cause me to not use engineers anymore. Or to stop playing knowing what I once had and would no longer have. When did the world stop leaving well enough alone?

Just kidding well enough has never been left alone

 

[[VR] DDM_Reaper20]

The problem is the circumstances that can result in a disconnect are not JUST because of active player action but also external forces outside of their control. Despite the claims of some, the underlying causes are not infrequent nor unexpected.

Like I said anyone that supports the idea you are proposing is being entirely unreasonable and I would probably put you all in the wannabe-ganker/pixel-bandit group. Ultimately such an automated response is too extreme to be justifiable.

Yep. I'll provide an example. After having received a new router to go along with improved internet services, I encountered constant connection errors in ED. I'd get a "connection lost" VERY frequently, both in and outside of combat. The problem was NOT c-logging, but rather, the piece-of-crab router, a W921V. Had there been a fee of 500 million credits per lost connection (a sum I could pay right now exactly ONCE -- thanks to the CMDR who came up with this for thinking of the super-rich PVPers, instead of making a percentage of one's funds, btw), I would have simply uninstalled the game and voted with my wallet.

As to the rest: It's a game, and I don't have the hand-to-eye coordination, nor the reflexes, and certainly not the spatial awareness (confirmed by doctors, long story), to compete with PVPers (one reason why I avoid PVP shooting games).

Stacking is bad? Okay, what am I supposed to put into a corvette, a dedicated warship, then? Cargo racks? Collectors? On a WARSHIP? Which costs close to a billion to outfit properly in the first place?

AFAIR, it was PVPers who were the first to min-max, throwing in tiny FSDs to gain a bit more speed and acceleration rate, PVPers who stacked HRPs and MRPs, who invented missile boats, Plasma boats etc. I never did that. These days, I do it, but I was put up to that by those crying "git gud" when less experienced folks tell their tales of misery.

My first "PVP" encounter was being blasted to smithereens by a CMDR in a (undoubtedly severely engineered) Clipper. TWO volleys, and that's all they wrote for me. I was flying an Asp Scout, next to no engineering, no armour, and therefore, p-poor defences. I got flustered after the first volley (shields gone, hull down to 50%), and before I could do anything else, I saw the rebuy screen.

Does anybody seriously think this would change? No. PVPers would again start creating metas, to the detriment of folks who cannot keep up with them. I know why I prefer solo, and no, I'm not "hiding," as I've read more than one PVPer putting it so childishly, I simply don't WANT to interact with other people. I have to put up with people all day long during work. I'm an introvert, so that puts an enormous strain on me. When I play games, I wish to relax and not have to deal with other people's idea of having fun, certainly not at my, admittedly only virtual, expense.

As to hull tanking, as it is, without something being done about missiles (pack hounds come to mind), I don't think those would be entirely viable.

That said, I will NOT stop playing Elite simply because changes are made. I'll try to adapt, but I'll still not come to Open, no matter what.

(I might be more daft than I admit I am, but in my book, a billion-credit-warships SHOULD be quite a bit superior to a ship that, say, costs one per cent (1%) to outfit. Also, historically speaking, some designs were vastly superior to others. For example, the German medium tank PzKW V (Panther) outclassed the M4 Sherman so badly that Allied Forces calculated it took them, on the average, five lost Shermans to take down a single Panther. There are more examples. The first T-34 medium tank (Russian) destroyed FORTY German tanks before retreating (out of ammo). It took numerous hits, but NONE penetrated. Two Tiger tanks (PzKW VI Ausf. E) held up the advance of an entire British armoured battalion, killing numerous tanks before making good their escape. Now, this is real life, not a game, but ED strives to be, at least partially, a simulation, so there . . .)

As long as ED offers solo, I'll use that. Should that change, which I seriously doubt, as Frontier will hardly close down PG and Solo modes, I'd simply stop giving Frontier my money.

Edit: The Saviour himself on a pogo stick, I had to go back in and correct some typing mistakes. This "natural" keyboard takes some getting used to.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Pixel bandit actually sounds cool. I wouldn't recommend using that as a term for being a ganker. That should be reserved for fun RP pirates or something.