As I'm slowly working my way along obtaining the engineers I spotted a potential flaw in the design of how the levelling works. In terms of game mechanics it makes sense, but could well be a serious flaw in the design.
This is going to be a long post, something which I don't apologise for as too often we don't actually take the time to fully read or consider what people are saying. But if reading something for more than about 10 minutes offends, then
to you
As you know, you need to craft(or in a few cases) do other stuff to gain rep and here's the rub. Each time you find a new engineer who will craft a higher grade mod you need to start again from scratch.
E.g To get access to level 5 thrusters I need to
With Elivira
Craft ~4 lots of Lv1 mods
Craft ~4 lots of Lv2 mods
Craft 2-3 lots of Lvl 3 mods(I never got the access until I was 50% of the way past lvl 3)
With Marco
Craft ~4 lots of Lv1 mods
Craft ~4 lots of Lv2 mods
Craft 2-3 lots of Lvl 3 mods(I never got the access until I was 50% of the way past lvl 3)
With Palin
Craft ~4 lots of Lv1 mods
Craft ~4 lots of Lv2 mods
Craft 2-3 lots of Lvl 3 mods(I never got the access until I was 50% of the way past lvl 3)
Craft ~4 lots of Lv4 mods
Finally Craft Lvl 5 mod.
So that's a total of about 37 mods to get to palin.
With me so far?
Ok. Now.. In each of those 37 times I am faced with a choice. Do I overwrite what I did before just to upgrade a level? The only way around this is to buy or use a spare ship and risk the module swap roulette in swapping it out with all the messing about that entails
Now this thread isn't about the time it will take to get those 37 mods, but about the logical absurdity of the levelling and total necessity for storage. Without storage the levelling system starts to break down, and eventually collapses unless the player is willing to risk wasting their time by wiping out a previous mod in favour of supposedly a better one.
If you look at the stats for say a level 3 to a level 4 you'll notice it is entirely possible to end up with a worse level 4 than you had as a level 3. In terms of people thinking "was this time well spent" I question how many would say "sure it is, I might have got a worse module to fly around in, but at least I have 32 more to go.."
And now for a video break
[video=youtube_share;0V5eq4IQ6Go]https://youtu.be/0V5eq4IQ6Go?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5DZUWTC25vSZbJ6OCk1XB1p[/video]
By using RNG to determine crafting, you don't solve balance issues you make them more complex as quite simply you have the delta of randomness to contend with rather than absolutes.
(TLDR)
Without module storage, the levelling system necessitates either the play risking what they had in the hope they get something better, or juggle ships around to act as a safety net.
The route causes of this issue are mainly two fold. First different levels of module have stats overlap and secondly the whole way the RNG works
Now, much has been written about the RNG and I think most of it is based on a misunderstanding of what the crafting RNG system is and say the random nature of NPC appearances. Random NPC appearances are transitory, they come and go with very little impact to the player in the long term. The Crafting system has permanence. it affects the player for so long as they wish it.
Quite simply, they are two different things.
The engineers RNG mechanic is known as operant conditioning and is widely seen to be a bad thing in game design. Not only does it ultimately prove to be uninvolving and unrewarding it also manipulates the player into continuing to perform an action they would other wise get bored of? Do you want to be manipulated like that? I don't
To further explain what I mean please take a few minutes to watch the video, put together by professional game designers.
[video=youtube_share;tWtvrPTbQ_c]https://youtu.be/tWtvrPTbQ_c[/video]
I've also seen the term 'minmax' thrown around like it's some sort of criminal act. We all minmax in our play. be it from choosing the fastest route over economical, using pips in combat all the way to planning our ship builds to achieve what we want it to.
There is nothing wrong with minmaxing in itself. It's often the attitudes that go along with it that is. Baby. bathwater.. everywhere..
There is also fear of 'the meta' well what we have seen is a delaying of the inevitable for perhaps 3 months. Meta's exist in very game no matter what. So is the sacrifice in game design worth delaying the inevitable meta for?
One of the ways I've seen the current implementation justified is by "Elite is on a 10 year plan, it's not done yet"
And you know what? That's amazing, that's wonderful the developers have a long term plan.. BUT should'nt each step on the way to that 10 year play be compelling, well thought out and well good enough to stand on it's own two feet without relying on 'jam tomorrow?'
Now another reason I've seen defending the use of RNG on RNG is that engineering is not an exact, replicable science and that examples have been cited from car tuning to over clocking CPU's. Now in real life this is totally true.
However. this being a game we need to see how the game treats this real life fact.
We are told engineers are these on the fringes of tech geeks who's work cannot be replicated or predicted and that the RNG mechanic mimics real life.
Except... When you lose your ship the insurance companies engineers will replace your supposedly unpredictable or unable to copy module exactly as it was.. The only way to explain this contradiction is to give the reason "Well game play"
TLDR
The way the crafting system works necessitates use of storage(either by buying a spare ship or by having it in game ) OR forcing the player to risk what they have for what they might get.
If we can use gameplay to justify RNG, we can also use gameplay as a reason to provide the player with alternate more compelling methods of obtaining what they want
In my experience the crafting mechanic is uninvolving. my ability as a player has no bearing on the result... I feel disconnected from the whole process and that the game has taken over. Surely not a good thing
Getting a little philosophical for a moment. Our spare time is precious, we never get it back and surely the point of a game is to allow us to use that precious time as pleasurably as possible
I'm no games designer, but I would ask you to watch the below and ask yourself what sort of progression system would you wanted to have had. What we have now or something outlined below
[video=youtube_share;S5camMoNw-o]https://youtu.be/S5camMoNw-o[/video]
Thanks for talking the time to read and watch
This is going to be a long post, something which I don't apologise for as too often we don't actually take the time to fully read or consider what people are saying. But if reading something for more than about 10 minutes offends, then
to you As you know, you need to craft(or in a few cases) do other stuff to gain rep and here's the rub. Each time you find a new engineer who will craft a higher grade mod you need to start again from scratch.
E.g To get access to level 5 thrusters I need to
With Elivira
Craft ~4 lots of Lv1 mods
Craft ~4 lots of Lv2 mods
Craft 2-3 lots of Lvl 3 mods(I never got the access until I was 50% of the way past lvl 3)
With Marco
Craft ~4 lots of Lv1 mods
Craft ~4 lots of Lv2 mods
Craft 2-3 lots of Lvl 3 mods(I never got the access until I was 50% of the way past lvl 3)
With Palin
Craft ~4 lots of Lv1 mods
Craft ~4 lots of Lv2 mods
Craft 2-3 lots of Lvl 3 mods(I never got the access until I was 50% of the way past lvl 3)
Craft ~4 lots of Lv4 mods
Finally Craft Lvl 5 mod.
So that's a total of about 37 mods to get to palin.
With me so far?
Ok. Now.. In each of those 37 times I am faced with a choice. Do I overwrite what I did before just to upgrade a level? The only way around this is to buy or use a spare ship and risk the module swap roulette in swapping it out with all the messing about that entails
Now this thread isn't about the time it will take to get those 37 mods, but about the logical absurdity of the levelling and total necessity for storage. Without storage the levelling system starts to break down, and eventually collapses unless the player is willing to risk wasting their time by wiping out a previous mod in favour of supposedly a better one.
If you look at the stats for say a level 3 to a level 4 you'll notice it is entirely possible to end up with a worse level 4 than you had as a level 3. In terms of people thinking "was this time well spent" I question how many would say "sure it is, I might have got a worse module to fly around in, but at least I have 32 more to go.."
And now for a video break
[video=youtube_share;0V5eq4IQ6Go]https://youtu.be/0V5eq4IQ6Go?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5DZUWTC25vSZbJ6OCk1XB1p[/video]
By using RNG to determine crafting, you don't solve balance issues you make them more complex as quite simply you have the delta of randomness to contend with rather than absolutes.
(TLDR)
Without module storage, the levelling system necessitates either the play risking what they had in the hope they get something better, or juggle ships around to act as a safety net.
The route causes of this issue are mainly two fold. First different levels of module have stats overlap and secondly the whole way the RNG works
Now, much has been written about the RNG and I think most of it is based on a misunderstanding of what the crafting RNG system is and say the random nature of NPC appearances. Random NPC appearances are transitory, they come and go with very little impact to the player in the long term. The Crafting system has permanence. it affects the player for so long as they wish it.
Quite simply, they are two different things.
The engineers RNG mechanic is known as operant conditioning and is widely seen to be a bad thing in game design. Not only does it ultimately prove to be uninvolving and unrewarding it also manipulates the player into continuing to perform an action they would other wise get bored of? Do you want to be manipulated like that? I don't
To further explain what I mean please take a few minutes to watch the video, put together by professional game designers.
[video=youtube_share;tWtvrPTbQ_c]https://youtu.be/tWtvrPTbQ_c[/video]
I've also seen the term 'minmax' thrown around like it's some sort of criminal act. We all minmax in our play. be it from choosing the fastest route over economical, using pips in combat all the way to planning our ship builds to achieve what we want it to.
There is nothing wrong with minmaxing in itself. It's often the attitudes that go along with it that is. Baby. bathwater.. everywhere..
There is also fear of 'the meta' well what we have seen is a delaying of the inevitable for perhaps 3 months. Meta's exist in very game no matter what. So is the sacrifice in game design worth delaying the inevitable meta for?
One of the ways I've seen the current implementation justified is by "Elite is on a 10 year plan, it's not done yet"
And you know what? That's amazing, that's wonderful the developers have a long term plan.. BUT should'nt each step on the way to that 10 year play be compelling, well thought out and well good enough to stand on it's own two feet without relying on 'jam tomorrow?'
Now another reason I've seen defending the use of RNG on RNG is that engineering is not an exact, replicable science and that examples have been cited from car tuning to over clocking CPU's. Now in real life this is totally true.
However. this being a game we need to see how the game treats this real life fact.
We are told engineers are these on the fringes of tech geeks who's work cannot be replicated or predicted and that the RNG mechanic mimics real life.
Except... When you lose your ship the insurance companies engineers will replace your supposedly unpredictable or unable to copy module exactly as it was.. The only way to explain this contradiction is to give the reason "Well game play"
TLDR
The way the crafting system works necessitates use of storage(either by buying a spare ship or by having it in game ) OR forcing the player to risk what they have for what they might get.
If we can use gameplay to justify RNG, we can also use gameplay as a reason to provide the player with alternate more compelling methods of obtaining what they want
In my experience the crafting mechanic is uninvolving. my ability as a player has no bearing on the result... I feel disconnected from the whole process and that the game has taken over. Surely not a good thing
Getting a little philosophical for a moment. Our spare time is precious, we never get it back and surely the point of a game is to allow us to use that precious time as pleasurably as possible
I'm no games designer, but I would ask you to watch the below and ask yourself what sort of progression system would you wanted to have had. What we have now or something outlined below
[video=youtube_share;S5camMoNw-o]https://youtu.be/S5camMoNw-o[/video]
Thanks for talking the time to read and watch
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