Beat the Engineer Dead Horse

[Spacegamejunkie]

My opinion, is like beating a dead horse over engineering.
Why can't it be like most games, just pay for what you want, get it, and play the Game in the style you want to.
There is no need to chase your tail in endless loops, then chase more items in endless loops, to then chase a mod for your ship.
I mean think about it, getting a mod to outfit your ship, should be straight forward and easy, with only access, and credits being the basic needs.
No need to add so many hoops, jumps, and grind, just to outfit your ship in order to play the game how you want.

Good example of unnecessary penalty after going through all the hoops, is the Guardian Frame Shift Booster.
It should not take away a slot from the limited space you have, it should be added like most other mods, to the drive itself.
Or like a Buggy hanger, provide its own slot under the FSD, without a penalty.

The entire reason for mods or better equipment in games, is to make for a easier or enhanced play style,
not beat you over the head, for trying to play the game in a more efficient manner.

Come on Devs, let us have the tools to enjoy the Game, REDO Engineers to favor Players not Grind.

 

[varonica]

My opinion, is like beating a dead horse over engineering.
Why can't it be like most games, just pay for what you want, get it, and play the Game in the style you want to.

You mean like buying LVL 5 Raid Gear for LOTRO? Oh no that's not how it works is it, you have to work your way up through the different levels of the dungeons with a party of 12 other players, then at the end when you kill the boss you roll with other members of the party to decide who gets what loot, then you get 5 minutes to trade your useless Minstrel drop with with one of the other party members before it becomes character or account locked.

Not sure what games you are playing but most MMO's don't just give away top tier equipment for virtually nothing, which in the end is all that game money is. The grind to get even ordinary top level gear for a region in LOTRO is mind bogglingly difficult. One youtuber calculated it would take him 70 hours of continuous play collecting stuff to be able to equip his character in all flower gear, and that gear would then be useless when he ventured into the next area.

People complain about grind, but in reality there is almost none in ED compared to most other MMO's.

Not saying engineers can't be improved, but just giving away everything isn't an improvement, never has been for any game I have played, that usually happens at the end of the games lifetime when they are trying to suck every possible penny out of fly by players and it's obvious the game has very little life left in it.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Do you have any examples of other games that let you buy whatever want without any other requirements other than the main game currency? And not any micro-transcation currencies that free-to-play games has...

 

[Florenus]

I think there's one problem - people look at Elite and expect it to be a game of a ganere it's not.
It is sandbox game in certain sense, but not like Space Engine, yet some people expect to be able to travel instantly to the other side of the galaxy, because that's what they would enjoy, or have everything at their disposal without having to play the game, bacause they're interested only in one aspect of the game.
It's space shooting game, but it's not PvP arena, where everyone fights on equal terms, yet people complain that they need to upgrade their equipment.

Elite is more MMORPG than anything else. Complaining that you must play to upgrade your equipment is... I really don't know how to call it.

It sounds like OP doesn't want any penalties, while that's important part of the gameplay - you must make decisions what to equip and what to leave behind. You can improve you jump range considerably using engineering - it doesn't take up additional space. You want even bigger jump range? You must make space on your ship for that FSD booster.

Biggest problem with engineering is that it's overpowered and negative effects are, for the most part, negligible - so it's unbalanced.

 

[Spacegamejunkie]

My bad, I play single player PC games, where you go to a shop
and buy what you need.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

Why can't it be like most games, just pay for what you want, get it, and play the Game in the style you want to.
There is no need to chase your tail in endless loops, then chase more items in endless loops, to then chase a mod for your ship.

Most other games also introduce new forms of currency with every expansion because economics is too hard of a problem in general.

In other games this is usually also tied to new content to force players to engage with it to make their numbers go up, but engineering in elite doesn't really have that because it ties everything into existing systems. So beyond the initial unlocking of engineers which forces you to do a bunch of different stuff and gathering raw materials in a SRV it's all the same game play.

That actually sort of lets you get materials in any playstyle, except usually really inefficiently. Upping material rewards from missions and the rarity of what destroyed ships drop (to the point where instance resetting isn't the best way to gather materials) might somewhat help here because I think the original idea of the design was that you gather materials passively while doing other stuff.

 

[RamirezKurita]

My bad, I play single player PC games, where you go to a shop
and buy what you need.

Hmm, let me see...

Dwarf Fortress requires you to dig around the horrible hidden depths to get the best metals to equip your dwarves.
The X-series requires you to work for various factions for reputation, and even then the best ships are generally locked behind capturing them as they can't be bought.
Space Rangers 2 has the micromodules hidden behind mission rewards and dominator combat.
The X-com reboots have the best kit locked behind special missions and valuable battlefield loot, rather than using basic currency.
Practically every JRPG ever has the top-tier gear hidden away as rares in random encounters that most players will never even find.

It's not unusual to have some specialist equipment in a game locked behind nonstandard ways to obtain it, even if the game is single-player. Not being able to buy engineered modules also fits well within Elite's lore as A-rated is literally the best money can buy while engineering involves one-in-a-trillion megageniuses handcrafting masterpieces as personal favours to us.

To make a real-life comparison for engineers; anyone with enough money can go out and buy a Bugatti Chiron (your stock A-rated ship), but if you want the engine hand-tuned by the best F-1 teams in the world then that requires some work beyond money.

 

[varonica]

Most other games also introduce new forms of currency with every expansion because economics is too hard of a problem in general.

Currency? There must be a hundred different types of currency in LOTRO minimum!

Now there are indeed games, MMO's that let you buy everything, if it's available on the market and sold by other players, but the cost of top level gear is so enormous that the only way to actually afford it is by buying stuff from the cash shop and selling it in the market to raise the money, so it's essentially a driver for giving money to the game makers. Examples of these I would suggest would be Black Desert Online and Atlantica Online. I have played Black Desert Online for a couple of years on and off and the entire time I have been playing I haven't managed to save enough gold for 1 top level piece of gear, and for some gear I am so far away from the actual price it's not funny.

So if an MMO does actually let you buy the top tier stuff with game money it's purely as a driver for cash shop sales and nothing else!

 

[Old Duck]

Beat the Engineer Dead Horse

Well if you insist...

SPACE ENGINEERS IS AWESOME!

 

[Phongsalt]

Addendum:

 

[Brrokk]

Currency? There must be a hundred different types of currency in LOTRO minimum!

Now there are indeed games, MMO's that let you buy everything, if it's available on the market and sold by other players, but the cost of top level gear is so enormous that the only way to actually afford it is by buying stuff from the cash shop and selling it in the market to raise the money, so it's essentially a driver for giving money to the game makers. Examples of these I would suggest would be Black Desert Online and Atlantica Online. I have played Black Desert Online for a couple of years on and off and the entire time I have been playing I haven't managed to save enough gold for 1 top level piece of gear, and for some gear I am so far away from the actual price it's not funny.

So if an MMO does actually let you buy the top tier stuff with game money it's purely as a driver for cash shop sales and nothing else!

I've actually stopped playing LOTRO ATM because all the currencies and ways of leveling things up got too confusing.

 

[EUS]

...

The loops is the game.