2.1 holding the game back?

Since 2.1 it just seems like a lot of time is being wasted on the balancing issues caused by engineers

Since PvP isn't the (only) core of the game, who gives a damn?

I think the OP's point is that it affects us all, including those who don't PvP, because of the sheer amount of Developer resource that keeps being poured into attempting to balance 2.1.

In my case, I'm just heartily bored with the toxic attitudes of competitive multiplayer gaming in general. I like the social side, prefer coop play, but game developers (including FDev) are determined to just keep piling on the adversarial nonsense

Could not agree more. So sick of gaming feeding a culture so toxic, that people are made fun of and looked down on for sharing to get along with others. To see a sim with as much potential as Elite in any way encourage the disgusting Survival Game PVP crowd utterly disgusted me.

The colossal irony is that if Frontier hoped to please the PvP crowd with 2.1, they could not have failed harder. Not only did a considerable number of PvP-ers leave the game as a result of 2.1 (including several of my best in-game friends, sadly) even amongst those of us who remained and put hundreds if not thousands of hours into the RNG, I am quite confident that, if a PvP community vote was held on reddit tonight, 2.1 would be deleted tomorrow morning.

Even if they just removed the ability to "purchase" the special effects.

The problem is that this would just cause (or widen) an outfitting gap between the 15-20 hours/week PvP-ers and the 50+ hours/week guys. The latter will get their special effects whatever it takes.
 
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Engineers should of been a season all into itself not some rushed thrown together time sink.

That could have been interesting. First improved and varied missions and gameplay for all careers throughout 2.1 and 2.4 (with some focus on planets / horizons obviously).

Then 3.0 with engineers whose reputation is earned by doing progressively harder missions. Piracy, combat, exploration, prospecting/mining, smuggling, trade/convoy missions. No grind except for reputation/missions and money. No materials.

Possibly proper loot and a scavenger career. Engineers might be able to use scavenged items including alien technology.

/dreaming
 
Even if they just removed the ability to "purchase" the special effects.

I built this ship before that was possible:
[video=youtube;4tI5prDuvZw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tI5prDuvZw[/video]

Five thermals shock, one corrosive, and one autoloader. Just what I was looking for.

The problem is that this would just cause (or widen) an outfitting gap between the 15-20 hours/week PvP-ers and the 50+ hours/week guys. The latter will get their special effects whatever it takes.

Indeed.
 
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I think the OP's point is that it affects us all, including those who don't PvP, because of the sheer amount of Developer resource that keeps being poured into attempting to balance 2.1.





The colossal irony is that if Frontier hoped to please the PvP crowd with 2.1, they could not have failed harder. Not only did a considerable number of PvP-ers leave the game as a result of 2.1 (including several of my best in-game friends, sadly) even amongst those of us who remained and put hundreds if not thousands of hours into the RNG, I am quite confident that, if a PvP community vote was held on reddit tonight, 2.1 would be deleted tomorrow morning.



The problem is that this would just cause (or widen) an outfitting gap between the 15-20 hours/week PvP-ers and the 50+ hours/week guys. The latter will get their special effects whatever it takes.

I built this ship before that was possible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tI5prDuvZw

Five thermals shock, one corrosive, and one autoloader. Just what I was looking for.



Indeed.

Maybe I should have said "Even if they just removed special Effects." :)
 
I have very much enjoyed the engies. Love tinkering w my ships. I want to see npcs unleashed with mods at some point, just for variety/difficulty, but it isnt for everyone i suppose.
Perhaps special "ultra elite" missions for those who want more bite in their npc's i dunno.
 
Some proposals to balance pass Engineers.

1. Access gates to be reviewed - why 50 kamitra cigars? That is saying we expect you to sit at a station and wait until you have collected the max allowance of rare you can get and then travel to me and then repeat that 4-5 times. A more Challenging scenario is that you must supply me with 4 types of rare, collect from stations at least 150ly from my base and return whilst a gamut of pirates who have "heard the rumours" chase you all the way here. Why 200 tonnes of gold, why not 5 tons of each rare metal collected from a specific station which again is a distance away and you are then hounded by pirates. The task is difficult and challenging but not bloody boring!

2. Eliminate special effects. These take calculable benefits and add in a range of side effects that really mean balancing has little or no chance. You selected large magazine, you get a large magazine, not a large magazine with corrosive shots. I would move these special effects to become specific modifications and maybe lock the higher tier grades behind 2 or 3 engineers or if they can't be graded then they do not belong in the game.

3. Limit maximum benefit of engineer mod to 25% This is what you can get with rechargeable synthesis, the benefit is that you get this buff permanently but after some more data and material collection than what the one shot in ship synthesis will bring. This I think is also key to balancing, as a 25% buff assists a pilot, but doesn't necessarily engage god mode. Coupled with no longer having special effects means FDev have the ability to be able to balance mods without finding out that whatever they do the Frankenstein collection that players are able to roll up will not break gameplay experience.

4. Have all benefits attract a drawback, the further you push power the higher you push heat, or the further you push DPS the further you push power draw. You shouldn't have to contend with twerps sitting at Engineers rolling 59 times to get the sweet roll of max good and minimum drawbacks. The penalties for having a great enhancement should always mean players should have to consider the impact of their decision. This makes balancing attempts pointless as you have to take into account these extremes. Change the extremes to manageable ranges and a majority of OP god play will dry up.

5. Shield boosters, have them only affect resistance and limit to x per ship (maybe dedicated shield slots) this way you have known max shield values and known max shield resistances that you can cater the DPS of known weapons against these, it should also mean you can say buff cannons base damage by a figure and know the outcome of change across all permutations of engineering.

6. This is more a behind the scenes point. Use the 'Big Data' you have on players ships and load outs - as it's all stored against the player and look for extremes in DPS, shield etc and then model against that. More importantly, look at the average engineered FDL, Anaconda etc and then review changes on these builds, copy the configs and get Q&A to blast each other with these builds pre and post proposed change.

7. Review consequence of actions by player, if they get all cosy with Felicity Fraser then they get locked out of Selene, or Palin or whatever, so the route to maxing out all items on a ship will never happen, so you don't have to try and cater for God mode ships built by twerps who live at engineer bases rolling for the next mod.

8. Never ever, ever return commodities that cannot be bought to engineer recipes/blueprints. Players have a chance from using in game data on best places to get technetium or datamined wake exceptions through diligence, hard work or grind. Having a random mission reward be a critical part of a modification is just poking your players in the eye for the fun of it. If they return they are purchasable at stations and cost the values shown currently, ie. not items only the uber rich players can afford.

9. Do a mini interim Beta with the above just let players see it's not all doom and gloom. Engineered ships can still be feared, but 45 min battles between them are a thing of the past as well as Eng vs non Eng encounters can be more survivable.

TL;DR hack and slash at its fundamentals and don't introduce extremes.
 
I have mixed emotions about Engineers. The RNG sucks and the mat grind sucks because PVP is less of a level playing field than before. It's all about the grind and how many players are behind you. Much like the rest of the MMORPGS out there. The tinkering with ships is strangely absorbing though. I'm for the forseeable future stuck with G1 hull mods because I simply refuse to mine 500 units of whatever it is you need to unlock whatshername. Being forced to mine to have a nicer hull isn't exactly exciting.
 
Some proposals to balance pass Engineers.

1. Access gates to be reviewed - why 50 kamitra cigars? That is saying we expect you to sit at a station and wait until you have collected the max allowance of rare you can get and then travel to me and then repeat that 4-5 times. A more Challenging scenario is that you must supply me with 4 types of rare, collect from stations at least 150ly from my base and return whilst a gamut of pirates who have "heard the rumours" chase you all the way here. Why 200 tonnes of gold, why not 5 tons of each rare metal collected from a specific station which again is a distance away and you are then hounded by pirates. The task is difficult and challenging but not bloody boring!

2. Eliminate special effects. These take calculable benefits and add in a range of side effects that really mean balancing has little or no chance. You selected large magazine, you get a large magazine, not a large magazine with corrosive shots. I would move these special effects to become specific modifications and maybe lock the higher tier grades behind 2 or 3 engineers or if they can't be graded then they do not belong in the game.

3. Limit maximum benefit of engineer mod to 25% This is what you can get with rechargeable synthesis, the benefit is that you get this buff permanently but after some more data and material collection than what the one shot in ship synthesis will bring. This I think is also key to balancing, as a 25% buff assists a pilot, but doesn't necessarily engage god mode. Coupled with no longer having special effects means FDev have the ability to be able to balance mods without finding out that whatever they do the Frankenstein collection that players are able to roll up will not break gameplay experience.

4. Have all benefits attract a drawback, the further you push power the higher you push heat, or the further you push DPS the further you push power draw. You shouldn't have to contend with twerps sitting at Engineers rolling 59 times to get the sweet roll of max good and minimum drawbacks. The penalties for having a great enhancement should always mean players should have to consider the impact of their decision. This makes balancing attempts pointless as you have to take into account these extremes. Change the extremes to manageable ranges and a majority of OP god play will dry up.

5. Shield boosters, have them only affect resistance and limit to x per ship (maybe dedicated shield slots) this way you have known max shield values and known max shield resistances that you can cater the DPS of known weapons against these, it should also mean you can say buff cannons base damage by a figure and know the outcome of change across all permutations of engineering.

6. This is more a behind the scenes point. Use the 'Big Data' you have on players ships and load outs - as it's all stored against the player and look for extremes in DPS, shield etc and then model against that. More importantly, look at the average engineered FDL, Anaconda etc and then review changes on these builds, copy the configs and get Q&A to blast each other with these builds pre and post proposed change.

7. Review consequence of actions by player, if they get all cosy with Felicity Fraser then they get locked out of Selene, or Palin or whatever, so the route to maxing out all items on a ship will never happen, so you don't have to try and cater for God mode ships built by twerps who live at engineer bases rolling for the next mod.

8. Never ever, ever return commodities that cannot be bought to engineer recipes/blueprints. Players have a chance from using in game data on best places to get technetium or datamined wake exceptions through diligence, hard work or grind. Having a random mission reward be a critical part of a modification is just poking your players in the eye for the fun of it. If they return they are purchasable at stations and cost the values shown currently, ie. not items only the uber rich players can afford.

9. Do a mini interim Beta with the above just let players see it's not all doom and gloom. Engineered ships can still be feared, but 45 min battles between them are a thing of the past as well as Eng vs non Eng encounters can be more survivable.

TL;DR hack and slash at its fundamentals and don't introduce extremes.

This is a nice post. Don't really know whether I agree or not but it's a nice, well thought-out post.

What worries me, though, is this ...

I remember when people used to make posts like this about Powerplay.

And nothing happened.

Absolutely.

Nothing.
 
Maybe I should have said "Even if they just removed special Effects." :)

This is closer to a solution.

The issue comes down to the disparity between a PvE and a PvP optimised loadout. A PvE loadout has stuff like cargo racks & scanners, a PvP loadout doesn't need this, so can use those slots for SBs, SCBs, hull & module reinforcements.

These hitpoint increasing modules are, to my mind, the root cause of the complaints. All were added for variety & all further extend the gap between that dedicated PvP build & the more PvE oriented ship. Engineers is just another hit-point buffing tool, and far from the worst IMO.

If there is no use for a module slot or mount that is beneficial to increasing survivability, even a PvPer may as well fit some massless cargo racks or afmus on the offchance that some PvE opportunity comes up during the session.
 
This is a nice post. Don't really know whether I agree or not but it's a nice, well thought-out post.

What worries me, though, is this ...

I remember when people used to make posts like this about Powerplay.

And nothing happened.

Absolutely.

Nothing.

Maybe that's why there are less well thought-out posts around here. *shrug*
 
And nothing happened.

Absolutely.

Nothing.

Agree, I don't think any post on this forum, either here or in the suggestions actually changed the game in any way.

But, I have thought about this and want to put my thoughts out there as I think the biggest rod that FDev are being beaten with us the extremes that Engineers are making them have to contend with.

The tail is still firmly wagging the dog at the mo.

Your considered but impassioned posts in the beta forum will also result in absolutely nothing happening, yet you still do it, cos like me you think this game is great but you really want it to be awesome!

I think if they just eliminated special effects completely, it would go a long way of tempering the extremes of engineering.

Although I am sure there would be lots of loud hooting and flinging of virtual dung by some players too wrapped up in being god like to worry about the imbalances their monstrous configurations demonstrate in the game.
 
Your considered but impassioned posts in the beta forum will also result in absolutely nothing happening, yet you still do it, cos like me you think this game is great but you really want it to be awesome!

Ha ha, thank you. In fairness, the Devs do listen, I think, and I do believe that they want to make the right changes. I don't envy their task.

I don't know the economics of the game industry but I suspect a part of the problem may be that they continually have to work on new content, not old content, for commercial reasons.
 
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So because someone posts a good well thought out post, something is supposed to happen? The devs stay up all night and rewrite the game? Or stick to their original game strategy...
 
Although I am sure there would be lots of loud hooting and flinging of virtual dung by some players too wrapped up in being god like to worry about the imbalances their monstrous configurations demonstrate in the game.

There are going to be people that don't like a change regardless of what it is. Developing a game with community involvement can be tricky.

- - - Updated - - -

Ha ha, thank you. In fairness, the Devs do listen, I think, and I do believe that they want to make the right changes. I don't envy their task.

I don't know the economics of the game industry but I suspect a part of the problem may be that they continually have to work on new content, not old content, for commercial reasons.

That seems to be how it is and they just don't seem to have enough time to make the new content as deep as we'd like it. It can really be a shame.
 
So because someone posts a good well thought out post, something is supposed to happen? The devs stay up all night and rewrite the game? Or stick to their original game strategy...

No. If someone posts something well thought out, they post something well thought out.

It may contain something that other forums members agree with, but this game is not designed or coded by forum members.

I don't think posts by me, Truesilver, ToCoSo etc etc will suddenly make FDev go "Stop with the Thargoid stuff we have to introduce pilot chair cup holders asap!"

It may validate discussions designers are having about tweaks they could afford to introduce, but I don't think it will ever promote a change of direction.

I think the issue of commercial viability is key as this isn't a AAA funded game, it's a released game where player retention coupled with ongoing micro transactions fund development, so rejigging Engineers is not a 5 min job. I would love that season 3.0 or whatever post Horizons is hasa. Mixture of new enticing gameplay as well as ironing out the things that turn players off and stop them from playing the game and more importantly buying ship skins.

I post cos I want to and sometimes it's considered by others as adding to the sum total of good stuff in the interwebs, the rest of the time it's just bits on the wire....
 
IMO the RNGineers were the moment where the game stopped being compelling.

No more was I doing as I pleased, now the game is almost entirely grind in order to keep ships competitive. Want to fly something else? Hope you're ready for a huge, senseless grind!


I haven't bought a new ship aside from haulers since before 2.1. It is easily the worst update I've seen to a game like this, it really borked all the combat, balance, game flow and immersion. When the bulk of the game (open play with other commanders, doing missions, bounty hunting, pirating etc) is locked behind a big singleplayer grind, know what I do? I play games that don't penalise me for wanting to have fun. The RNGineers mats are NOT fun to gather, and they are even LESS fun to gamble away, which in itself makes no damn sense and just pads out peoples' game time. Those 1000+ hour people who list the game as "not recommended"? They probably just got dirty drives for a Cobra. 2.1 is the ravioli pieces where the filling slipped out during cooking, except with tasteless and odourless poison in its place. Poisonous filler.


This is of course just my opinion, but it seems to be shared by a large amount of people.
 
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IMO the RNGineers were the moment where the game stopped being compelling.

No more was I doing as I pleased, now the game is almost entirely grind in order to keep ships competitive. Want to fly something else? Hope you're ready for a huge, senseless grind!


I haven't bought a new ship aside from haulers since before 2.1. It is easily the worst update I've seen to a game like this, it really borked all the combat, balance, game flow and immersion. When the bulk of the game (open play with other commanders, doing missions, bounty hunting, pirating etc) is locked behind a big singleplayer grind, know what I do? I play games that don't penalise me for wanting to have fun. The RNGineers mats are NOT fun to gather, and they are even LESS fun to gamble away, which in itself makes no damn sense and just pads out peoples' game time. Those 1000+ hour people who list the game as "not recommended"? They probably just got dirty drives for a Cobra. 2.1 is the ravioli pieces where the filling slipped out during cooking, except with tasteless and odourless poison in its place. Poisonous filler.


This is of course just my opinion, but it seems to be shared by a large amount of people.

+rep

My guess is that they have got more money than is good for them so they dont have to care what players think. Someone at FD is probably stuck on the engineers concept as a vanity thing and refuses to back down.
I suppose they dont have to get the message or any more of our money.
 
Frankly I rather enjoy experiencing extra power in solo mode. I just hated and continue to, how I had to obtain all those juicy eng buffs via mats and RNG.

Jumping like an old rabbit around a base for MEF...bloody hell.

And for the record I could not care less if I tried how ENG mods effects PVP and id bet there are many likewise.
 
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