2.1 holding the game back?

[m0rl0ck]

It was to force everybody to upgrade to Horizons or be at a marked disadvantage.

Yeah i think that was it Upgrade or quit, unfortunately for FD some of us quit and will likely not be spending anymore money on ED. It really is a pity, i would buy horizons just for the planetary landings, but not as long as it means paying for engineers content.

 

[CMDR Percivus Keenblade]

2.1 had many good points but they've been submerged by the RNGineers; (station ATC, improved surface graphics on land-able planets, etc.) The concept of Engineers is excellent but the implementation is awful. The are not Engineers they are fantasy magicians. There is no place in an SF game such as Elite for this sort of crafting fantasy mechanic, which has introduced enormous dissension and balance / rebalance issues. Even though it is a game, I can imagine no scenario in a future extrapolated from the present where such a silly process could occur. How they will fit in to the lore and roleplay is barely imaginable. A brief check of most of the role-players stories seem to indicate most are ignoring them. A barter system using materials is just not believable. I look forward to how Drew Wagar's new book will deal with them.

A brief analysis of the forums seems to indicate they have introduced more contention, balance issues than any other update; and there has been very little comment or justification from FD for this implausible mechanic. The sub forum Engineers has (as of writing) 104 pages, 3.6 k threads, 60 k posts and there are just 12 FD posts that I could find, all dealing with minor issues.

There seems to be a faction within FD which has pushed through this fantasy crafting system despite DB’s statements on science and the original launch statement of “play your way” with very little, if any, justification. And they seem intent on hanging on to it despite the balance and dissension issues it has introduced since there has been very little comment from FD on it.

In DB’s recent interview at PAX when he mentioned one of the Engineers (Palin), I thought he sounded a bit embarrassed, but It may be just wishful thinking on my part.

Gotto say, this is some excellent evaluation sir.

 

[Bladefeather]

Engineers really needs to be less about improving a module or weapon and be more about trade-offs. Perhaps a weapon that will deal more damage to a target, but, from say, recoil or heat, has a chance to damage your ship, or shields that, while stronger, perhaps have a huge resistance drop off or vice-versa. Right now, most mods have minimal negative side effects and if that was the case, why not just have these mods applied from the factory. Engineering should be less about making your ship a huge shield tanking killing machine and be more about slight tweaks to optimize a ship for a certain use case while making it worse at others, and make these cases not super obscure. I'm sure someone else has a much better idea though that is not either remove it or leave it the way it is.

EDIT, forgot the last sentence... lol...
Upgrades should not be vital, or even optimal for many situations, and should not be a deciding factor in an engagement, like it somewhat is now.

 

[Ano]

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..

Unfortunately, engineering takes throwing things at things that are not just meat hammers.

Most of us are meat hammers under your description, as I was also. If you have limited amount of time it is even more imperative to have a plan in place to grow your toon or you will just meat hammer away at things working the engineers.

There are guides. The best tools for me engineering were fsd first and a DBX to tool around in. If you hate engineers, I hear yea, I did too forever, SRV work as work as well.

Never wanterd to drive a buggy to make weps for spaceships. So be it tho. I had a 3-4 month break last year, from it, was a refreshment.

-o7

 

[fademist]

Unfortunately, engineering takes throwing things at things that are not just meat hammers.

Most of us are meat hammers under your description, as I was also. If you have limited amount of time it is even more imperative to have a plan in place to grow your toon or you will just meat hammer away at things working the engineers.

There are guides. The best tools for me engineering were fsd first and a DBX to tool around in. If you hate engineers, I hear yea, I did too forever, SRV work as work as well.

Never wanterd to drive a buggy to make weps for spaceships. So be it tho. I had a 3-4 month break last year, from it, was a refreshment.

-o7

funny thing is u can hold ur ground without engineers if u rnt at open

 

[CmdMarty]

funny thing is u can hold ur ground without engineers if u rnt at open

Isn't that a problem in and of itself? So an update tells certain players don't go open if you didn't pay for horizons and grind. Fdev basically took away options cause of one update so early into the dev cycle. The game should be sold/labeled as early access with p2w dlc. Anyone that pays anything towards this game is a kickstarter imo.

 

[NMS]

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?

A better game.

if u dont play in open u can choose not use them

No. NPCs cheat and use enginneers mods.

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.

I hope a lot more people do it.

 

[d8veh]

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!!!!"

That's exactly how I feel. Instead of a game of skill and cunning, it's now a game of rock, paper and scissors. In open, they scan you, and if their load-out can't beat yours, you get a friendly "hello". If they see that they've got the rock and you have the scissors, you get bashed.