Since 2.1 it just seems like a lot of time is being wasted on the balancing issues caused by engineers and base game players were put at such a disadvantage at such an early stage adds to the balance nightmare. Engineers should of been a season all into itself not some rushed thrown together time sink. I just want to see an update that is fleshed out I guess not some misguided half done time sinks and gimmicks. All the little quality of life stuff has been better than the main features IMHO. What else could they of got done without the engineers?
2.1 holding the game back?
- Thread starter CmdMarty
- Start date
Long hair.
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One of things I liked about ED was that skill was everything. I hated the complexities of EvE and found the simplicity of ED so refreshing. If you're trader you fit out one way, if your a Pirate you fit out in another way, etc. You chose your ship based on its attributes for the role. There was enough variety to tinker without it being too complicated. This meant that any encounter was largely decided by skill, not some complex combination of modules, mods and ammunition.
All that is out the window now and you feel compelled to go an grind quest for the wizard of your choice. They should just make any mod available in the yard so you can pay for it with credits you earned "playing the game way you want to!!!!"
All that is out the window now and you feel compelled to go an grind quest for the wizard of your choice. They should just make any mod available in the yard so you can pay for it with credits you earned "playing the game way you want to!!!!"
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Im not spending any more money on ED until something is done about the engineers. Preferably complete removal. Play the basic game, once had horizons and a few engineers mods. Saw what the game might be without the engineers and I wont spend another penny on ED until the engineers is dealt with.
if u dont play in open u can choose not use them
Its the principle of the thing more than anything else, i still enjoy the basic game quite a bit and consider it one of the better games i have ever played. Where the engineers is concerned, i choose to not just complain, but to vote with my dollars and actively boycott.
The engineers broke what could have been a superb game and i refuse to give money to that kind of game development.
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How Engineered mods affect gameplay 101:
Consider three playstyles: Solo, Co-op & PvP.
Playing alone (PvE), if you are good at combat, you can ignore Engineers, if you are less good you can use mods to improve your survivability & DPS.
Playing Co-op, you have a similar situation, and with special effects like healing it gives choices & allows each player in a wing to potentially specialise.
For PvP it is still viable to either agree certain rules on allowable mods or simply agree to not use any mods, the issue is more one of trust than anything else. For non-consensual, or free-form PvP there is an issue of escalation & the apparent desire to keep up with whatever the current meta is. This is where the Engineers creates issues, for any other play style one can either ignore mods altogether or they can be used to increase your options & variety of choice.
For any playstyle mods like lightweight components, or increased jump range can make a multi-role loadout more viable, or a specialised loadout even more optimised. It's a great addition to the game in many ways, only non-consensual, or freeform PvP has any downside at all really.
The way the Engineers have been implemented means that it 'encourages' you to explore aspects of the game that you might not have tried (eg mining, or travelling long distances), which is both a pro and a con, and the dice throw mechanism allows min-maxers to endlessly optimise to their hearts content while the regular player can simply have, more often than not, a straight upgrade in the direction they want.
My personal feeling is that if you are wanting to min-max your meta loadout for freeform PvP you should be prepared to put the effort in, just as you do with practising your skills, and if you just want to play the game, you can.
This imbalance of freeform PvP all started with SCBs, not Engineers. For all other play styles you simply have options to cover your particular short-comings as a Cmdr with extra equipment.
Consider three playstyles: Solo, Co-op & PvP.
Playing alone (PvE), if you are good at combat, you can ignore Engineers, if you are less good you can use mods to improve your survivability & DPS.
Playing Co-op, you have a similar situation, and with special effects like healing it gives choices & allows each player in a wing to potentially specialise.
For PvP it is still viable to either agree certain rules on allowable mods or simply agree to not use any mods, the issue is more one of trust than anything else. For non-consensual, or free-form PvP there is an issue of escalation & the apparent desire to keep up with whatever the current meta is. This is where the Engineers creates issues, for any other play style one can either ignore mods altogether or they can be used to increase your options & variety of choice.
For any playstyle mods like lightweight components, or increased jump range can make a multi-role loadout more viable, or a specialised loadout even more optimised. It's a great addition to the game in many ways, only non-consensual, or freeform PvP has any downside at all really.
The way the Engineers have been implemented means that it 'encourages' you to explore aspects of the game that you might not have tried (eg mining, or travelling long distances), which is both a pro and a con, and the dice throw mechanism allows min-maxers to endlessly optimise to their hearts content while the regular player can simply have, more often than not, a straight upgrade in the direction they want.
My personal feeling is that if you are wanting to min-max your meta loadout for freeform PvP you should be prepared to put the effort in, just as you do with practising your skills, and if you just want to play the game, you can.
This imbalance of freeform PvP all started with SCBs, not Engineers. For all other play styles you simply have options to cover your particular short-comings as a Cmdr with extra equipment.
Engineering adds a ton of value to the game for people who enjoy tinkering with their ships. Anybody who doesn't enjoy it is free to ignore it without penalty. It's a complete system that doesn't require any more dev attention paid to it. Everybody wins.
The only problem is Frontier having been convinced that it's a good idea to chase the mythical unicorn that is competitive balance in an MMO with a progression system. Once they go back to thinking like people developing an immersive space sim MMO (for suitably small values of "sim") rather than Quake Duel it will be fine.
The only problem is Frontier having been convinced that it's a good idea to chase the mythical unicorn that is competitive balance in an MMO with a progression system. Once they go back to thinking like people developing an immersive space sim MMO (for suitably small values of "sim") rather than Quake Duel it will be fine.
As a general idea, engineers are not bad at all.
They give the chance to tinker your ship beyond its original possibilities, and that's a good thing.
It's the implementation that it's questionable.
(For the records i had my first mod a few days ago, because it just happened to miss just a few wakes to give the fsd mod a few rng tries. I hate grinding, expecially for rng drops, so i've never bothered before)
They give the chance to tinker your ship beyond its original possibilities, and that's a good thing.
It's the implementation that it's questionable.
(For the records i had my first mod a few days ago, because it just happened to miss just a few wakes to give the fsd mod a few rng tries. I hate grinding, expecially for rng drops, so i've never bothered before)
So not true.
Sorry I have to 100% disagree here. When 1.1 came out I could easily ignore it. No consequences, same for 1.2, same for 1.3, 1.4, 1.5/2.0.
2.1? This was the 1st time a game update had so much impact on gameplay I could not simply just ignore it. 1st month Engineers were out and my insurance claims soared to 15mil. Before Engineers it was barely 4-5 mil (and that due to my sheer stupidity 90% of the time). The following months I tried to adapt but was mainly flying the poor T-9 so another 10 mil quickly added to the previous amount.
Now that I am flying a viper and trying to engineer it, I started 1st from Ms Hera cause the poor viper has a 3 size slot for power plant so this is where you must start to build a good foundation. It took me 2 weeks to travel the ~250 LYs from Shintara to Ms Hera, with the vipers pathetic ~13-13.6 LYs jump range. I thought OK I am going to use the ship transfer feature to bring all my other ships to Hera.. Oups no shipyard in Hera! Surprise - surprise! Ok Lets take a look at nearby systems. Oups most systems around Heras system have outposts or are uninhabited.
Ok Frontier. Very funny.. I am going to sleep once again immersed in disappointment..
So I highly agree with OP. For people with limited time, Engineers were the final blow for their joy..
PvE players can't last anywhere near as long in CZs as they could pre-Engineers. I don't bother with Rez sites, as I don't like farming suicidal NPCs, but I'd imagine that the more lucrative targets, while still relatively easy, deliver more damage before exploding, making Rez less lucrative since 2.1. It's not necessary to upgrade here, but players have certainly been negatively affected.
That is only true up to a point. At some point people start thinking: "Why do I pay money for stuff that I need to ignore if I want to enjoy the game?". While at the same time much needed improvements are still not in the game (both QoL and fundamental game play) .
For myself the answer to that question is that I have stopped paying for the game (no more paint jobs, no new seasons). In the mean time I'll see for how long I can still find things I enjoy in the game.
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The problem with engineers is that their buffs are so high that any player who plays in open is forced to engineer or make combat oriented builds just to survive a PvP situation.
Multiroles, traders and explorers ships will never stand a chance against a combat build and if you get interdicted your only option is to high wake out. Not even a multirole A'ed Anaconda can put up a fight against a heavy combat medium ship build. There's no flight or fight response anymore, you better flight or face they rebuy screen.
Multiroles, traders and explorers ships will never stand a chance against a combat build and if you get interdicted your only option is to high wake out. Not even a multirole A'ed Anaconda can put up a fight against a heavy combat medium ship build. There's no flight or fight response anymore, you better flight or face they rebuy screen.
Balancing is always difficult. There are so many things at play here, even without the engineers.
In my mind it is the multiplayer that makes it harder too. As I am not a fan of multiplayer at all I would have rather seen a single player Elite myself.
I think developing a sp game with the current features would have been so much easier that it isn't even funny.
But... and that is a big but... the game is not build for me personally and I understand that many people apparently love multiplayer.
So it is what it is.
I think that those who are really into Elite will not stick with only the base game.
Having access to planets is really adding an important new dimension to game play.
I don't worry too much about base game players.
They will buy the new seasons at a certain point, or they will move on anyway because they don't like the game enough.
Why do you think it is rushed?. I don't believe that at all, although I do think FD made a big mistake by not adding engineer commodity storage from the start.
All the tweaking and info gathering FD is currently doing is only possible because of the fact that this is a game with a long term development plan anyway and because FD is taking our opinions and feedback seriously and is willing to do something with that.
If this was a more traditionally developed game they would have simply released Horizons and moved on to the next thing.
I think we should be glad that we are all in this together and that we are being listened to.
Personally I love the addition of the engineers (although I am critical about certain stuff) and the fact that it is a time sink is not a negative thing to me at all.
Elite is not a casual game, so being a time sink is in her very nature.
I play games like this to sink my time in. So ED is doing fine in my book.
All the second guessing is so pointless and negative.
Whatever FD do, there will always be people second guessing and saying "they should have done this and that".
That is completely pointless and useless.
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Well, weapons and shields engineering is keeping me away from open.
Gap between stock and engineered is too big making it God mod, removing skills factor from the game.
It turned elite in pure RPG game. I see sense only in fsd engineering.
So yes i think 2.1 did ruin the game, at least open!
I don't think i'll ever play open cos i don't want to grind for those mods and that feeling of being undestructable and fighting for 20+min is repeling.
Gap between stock and engineered is too big making it God mod, removing skills factor from the game.
It turned elite in pure RPG game. I see sense only in fsd engineering.
So yes i think 2.1 did ruin the game, at least open!
I don't think i'll ever play open cos i don't want to grind for those mods and that feeling of being undestructable and fighting for 20+min is repeling.
Generally not how it works with development, especially the long term ones, there's likely different teams/groups working on different updates, and as such aren't involved with balancing, balancing itself, is generally just sitting down and agreeing on numbers and changing those numbers, it should not really require much in the way of 'new' code and such.
So yeah, I doubt it has been 'held back'
This is kinda how I feel too. I don't PvP so it doesn't matter whether other players are stacking SCBs or not. With that being said I see why this is such a great option for players. I guess FD just don't want it to be the ONLY option.
Initially engineers was to provide sidegrades. Customize your ship to make it more unique, not overpowered. At the same time AI was buffed and given stronger loadouts.
The community went berserk and started wailing. Blueprintd were buffed, rolls were loaded in our favor, mods became three times easier to obtain, AI was nerfed, loadouts were gimped.
Thank, guys.
Its really cool FD tries to 'work with us'. But at somevpoint Sandro just has to grow a pair and tell us when we are way off. Engineers still provides me with tons of fun, its one of the main reasons I still log in. But the community seriously damaged it, and its impact on balance.
The community went berserk and started wailing. Blueprintd were buffed, rolls were loaded in our favor, mods became three times easier to obtain, AI was nerfed, loadouts were gimped.
Thank, guys.
Its really cool FD tries to 'work with us'. But at somevpoint Sandro just has to grow a pair and tell us when we are way off. Engineers still provides me with tons of fun, its one of the main reasons I still log in. But the community seriously damaged it, and its impact on balance.
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