Mats gathering for ship engineering is empirically disliked by many. It is a known fact about Elite.
With on-foot engineering, it was a great opportunity to design something better from scratch.
Unfortunately, the current state is not good. Below is feedback and suggestions.
These are all low-hanging fruits, not major redesign.
** Mats limit **
The current common 1000 limit for assets and goods (and to a lesser extent data) is much too low.
Why it doesn't work
One of the following:
** Loot table (data) **
Why it doesn't work
** Download time (data) **
While download time adds an element of risk and is a good concept, the wait is immersion breaking and boring.
Why it doesn't work
** Eng mats as mission reward **
Why it DOES work
--
Finally, to the CMs reading this.
If the never-to-be-admitted reason for the eng design decisions is because grind keeps people longer in the game, I urge you to consider and share with the powers-that-be the following.
When anyone thinks about the great adventures and experiences in Elite, it will never be about the grind. No one tells their friends about the time the big locker gave them 4 weapons schematics.
You have in Elite a passionate community that keeps on coming back and they even create their own gameplay (events, racing, etc..). Don't punish your player base.
Good design decision will bring (and keep) more people in.
With on-foot engineering, it was a great opportunity to design something better from scratch.
Unfortunately, the current state is not good. Below is feedback and suggestions.
These are all low-hanging fruits, not major redesign.
** Mats limit **
The current common 1000 limit for assets and goods (and to a lesser extent data) is much too low.
Why it doesn't work
- It hurts the player who organically collects mats as they will hit the wall pretty easily. Forcing them to consider quickly what to do with the stuff.
- It hurts everyone (casual or min-maxer) by forcing them to focus on few upgrades at a time because a longer shopping list is not really possible.
- The large amount of types creates bottlenecks. So you have trade, sell or ignore loot and then later on have to recollect.
One of the following:
- Increase the limit by 3x to 5x.
- Switch to individual item limit (from 100 to 300 based on rarity if needed).
** Loot table (data) **
Why it doesn't work
- The very large loot tables lead to high RNG, extremely low drop rates. This either leads to frustration or giving up entirely.
- It also encourages relog-farming, which is something FDev is trying to avoid.
- Although this applies to all, Opinion Polls are particularly silly and lock actual content from the players. The 'most efficient' way (Down 2 Earth Astronomy's guide) indicates unlocking an engineer is 2-3 Opinion Polls per hour, that's 13-20 hours of frustrating gameplay.
- Refocus the loot table: severely reduce the type of data that can spawn based on specific criteria.
Settlements have fixed types (tourism, etc..) and fluctuating states (faction/system and other criteria). Keep the filler data but organise the loot in groups of 4-5 only, based on the criteria selected. - By spreading the loot to specific places, the player base will be encouraged to visit more places, consuming the created content, rather than all flock to the same settlement.
** Download time (data) **
While download time adds an element of risk and is a good concept, the wait is immersion breaking and boring.
Why it doesn't work
- You are stuck to a small radius around the data point, so all you can do is Nothing! This is not gameplay.
- Cap the total download time to 30 sec max.
** Eng mats as mission reward **
Why it DOES work
- It encourages players to do missions.
- The more rare items are extremely rare or non-existent.
- The quantities don't match the effort. Power regulator are much faster to acquire by abandoning the mission and paying the fine.
- Add rare mats to rewards.
- Make the quantities meaningful, for example: reward 5 Power Regulator not 1.
--
Finally, to the CMs reading this.
If the never-to-be-admitted reason for the eng design decisions is because grind keeps people longer in the game, I urge you to consider and share with the powers-that-be the following.
When anyone thinks about the great adventures and experiences in Elite, it will never be about the grind. No one tells their friends about the time the big locker gave them 4 weapons schematics.
You have in Elite a passionate community that keeps on coming back and they even create their own gameplay (events, racing, etc..). Don't punish your player base.
Good design decision will bring (and keep) more people in.
