Engineers A way to approach complaints about RNG, grind, etc

[lefty1117]

A player-trade market.

Allow those with good fortune and excess to sell their unneeded and unused materials to others. Let a dynamic marketplace unfold for those who want to engage in it. Bring life and more player interaction to the galaxy. Let those with the persistence to gather those very rare materials profit from their ventures. Add value to exploration, scavenging, and planet trawling.

By doing this you not only create a way for players to deal with the engineers grind, but you create a metagame that many players have been asking for, you make certain activities in the game more valuable, and you create another credit sink (by charging a transaction fee for every sale, of course). What's not to like?

 

[Flavourless]

What's not to like?

Player to player trading.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Oh sorry, I was expecting "ignore them."

*Chuckles in the background*

 

[Ironwolf]

Why not just make materials tradable commodities like everything else?
If players could buy and sell materials in a station it would be better.
Just pay Engineers credits and give then the materials they need to craft the special effect part of it.
Anything is better than RNG.

Tradable materials / commodities.
If we keep talking about this we will get the crazy idea of a player influenced market.

 

[lefty1117]

Player to player trading.

and the issue is?

 

[bitstorm]

Because one of the reasons for using materials is specifically to move away from credits.

Suggesting having materials be purchasable totally misses the point.

 

[Insomnia]

We should already have a market for things like used ships, used modules, materials, commodities, etc.
But...
We wouldn't have to grind then...

 

[Ironwolf]

We already buy ship modules with credits, we do not require materials for them.

 

[Ironwolf]

We should already have a market for things like used ships, used modules, materials, commodities, etc.
But...
We wouldn't have to grind then...

Damn, you reminded me of the idea of secondhand ships.

 

[Runis]

Player marketplaces is what can be the end of a game. For example, Diablo 3 auction house, when they realized what was happening, they closed it.

Yes please, marketplace. I wanna sell my ingame stuff for real money.

 

[lefty1117]

Because one of the reasons for using materials is specifically to move away from credits.

Suggesting having materials be purchasable totally misses the point.

I'm not following the logic here ... why move away from credits and where was that stated? What problem does that solve? The problem of how to force players to log on for extended time?

 

[Insomnia]

Player marketplaces is what can be the end of a game. For example, Diablo 3 auction house, when they realized what was happening, they closed it.

Yes please, marketplace. I wanna sell my ingame stuff for real money.

Never ever mix real money with game money. That's a great recipe for scamming.

 

[lefty1117]

I should add that by no means am I suggesting a real-money marketplace. It would be your typical MMO auctionhouse, galactic market, whatever you want to call it, where players post items for purchase with credits.

 

[Gedemon]

Because one of the reasons for using materials is specifically to move away from credits.

Suggesting having materials be purchasable totally misses the point.

Having to move completely away from credits is the core problem.

I mean why are the engineers working for free ?

We work for them just once to unlock the access to their service then we bring them materials and they craft modules for us without being paid ?

 

[Tony.W]

After 'doing the grind' for a couple of low level upgrades I am feeling 'grinded out'
I don't enjoy SRV driving but have spent several hours doing the things I don't enjoy to find materials that RNG wont give me

I feel a better method would be a drop down menu on the Missions so we can choose which materials are given as a reward. Obviously make the rare materials not appear on the list as often, this would at least reduce some of 'the grind' and allow players to target the stuff they want/need. Just my thoughts Thanks for reading

 

[bitstorm]

I'm not following the logic here ... why move away from credits and where was that stated? What problem does that solve? The problem of how to force players to log on for extended time?

There's a huge discrepancy in the amount of credits some players have.

if you make everything in the game purchasable the game becomes really difficult to balance.

"Oh this amazing item we'll charge a large amount of credits for it" But "large amount" has no meaning when some players have 10 million and others 10 billion.

Making everything purchasable means playerswith loads of credits just bypass gameplay with credits, almost in-game pay2win. It's not only a problem from a game imbalance point of view it's also bad from a gameplay point of view. ie Engineers comes out, if all materials are purchasable then folk just buy their way to all level 5 upgrades in a few days and a week later they're complaining about lack of content.

Materials puts everyone on a level playing field, you can't bypass the system, you can't just buy your way to getting all the best stuff, and "auto-completing" all the content in a few clicks.

 

[lefty1117]

There's a huge discrepancy in the amount of credits some players have.

if you make everything in the game purchasable the game becomes really difficult to balance.

"Oh this amazing item we'll charge a large amount of credits for it" But "large amount" has no meaning when some players have 10 million and others 10 billion.

Making everything purchasable means playerswith loads of credits just bypass gameplay with credits, almost in-game pay2win. It's not only a problem from a game imbalance point of view it's also bad from a gameplay point of view. ie Engineers comes out, if all materials are purchasable then folk just buy their way to all level 5 upgrades in a few days and a week later they're complaining about lack of content.

Materials puts everyone on a level playing field, you can't bypass the system, you can't just buy your way to getting all the best stuff, and "auto-completing" all the content in a few clicks.

Leveling the playing field - is this a competition?

If so then I don't know how you will ever level the playing field when some people have more time to play than others. By putting such a grind on achievements the time discrepancy is made worse.

The richest players are inevitably going to get the rare stuff first, or reach tier 5 first ... they are more likely to have the time (as evidenced by the wealth they've achieved) and can afford the best gear to help them in their efforts. You're trying to justify the grind as a gate for the richest players, but it's not going to stop them from being the first to achieve level 5. In reality what they're doing is punishing more casual players and putting this kind of content out of their reach.

 

[Ironwolf]

We should be able to buy and sell materials, just like commodities.
Pay Engineers in credits, optionally give them materials just for a specific special effect.
Makes better sense to me.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

We should already have a market for things like used ships, used modules, materials, commodities, etc.
But...
We wouldn't have to grind then...

Yes, it is almost like this game deliberately has no end, so they are giving us ways to grind our time away.
unfortunately this is not one game anymore, it is many separate games, many ways to grind our time.

 

[h347h]

There's a huge discrepancy in the amount of credits some players have.

if you make everything in the game purchasable the game becomes really difficult to balance.

"Oh this amazing item we'll charge a large amount of credits for it" But "large amount" has no meaning when some players have 10 million and others 10 billion.

Making everything purchasable means playerswith loads of credits just bypass gameplay with credits, almost in-game pay2win. It's not only a problem from a game imbalance point of view it's also bad from a gameplay point of view. ie Engineers comes out, if all materials are purchasable then folk just buy their way to all level 5 upgrades in a few days and a week later they're complaining about lack of content.

Materials puts everyone on a level playing field, you can't bypass the system, you can't just buy your way to getting all the best stuff, and "auto-completing" all the content in a few clicks.

The best thing about engineers is you don't have to be filthy rich like some of us to take advantage of what it has to offer.

 

[Straker]

I don't think this is a solution to the 'problem'. I think the problem is miss-defined if we say that getting the materials is the problem. Getting the prerequiisites should be difficult (or more skill based), however I believe the real problem is defined as the RNG at the Blueprint stage. It doesn't matter whether the materials are easy to get or difficult to get, you are still faced with the same RNG at the Blueprint application, and the same frustration. Yes, making it easier to get the prerequisites will take away some of the constant gathering-and-roll-loop frustration but it is not dealing with the key element of the frustration in Engineers.