Engineers An even simpler streamline for Engineers! Cutting a whole level of faff out, with very minor changes.

[NE1]

It's a far far saner idea than many that have come about, but I don't think it'll stop the whiners or people managing to make it feel like a full time job.

They will still helplessly hoard easily available mission rewards, they'll still do nothing else until they're grade 5 on all their kit as soon as is reasonably practical, they'll still complain about how long it takes, how boring it is and how there's nothing to do when it's done.

There'd just be fewer specific "where do i find this?" threads and more "this is the most efficient item to farm to rank up with Felicity" threads telling users how to spend a few hours in the right place and get it all, and we're back to a situation where any newbie faces an unconditional grind to compete at all as nigh on everyone will be grade 5'd on every component

More and more I'm *liking* how awkward and unpopular it is for long-term players as I consider the newbies. They've been put on levelish footing for once, with billions of grinded credits virtually worthless. With the play to solely improve your kit dull on it's own there's a chance newbies will pop out and not be facing an endless ocean of fully modified ships and they themselves will casually rank up and get mods as they just play and explore the game as newbies would - and they'll get to try everything in the process with no "just go do this -> elite and an annie!" shortcut.

So yeah, while I think it's a fairly nice idea I don't think it'd fix things and maybe I now see good reasons for it staying the way it is.

I feel the reason there are so many of those "where do i find this?" threads is because engineers as it is does require you to do things in the game that you otherwise are not interested in, if however ALL the items required for engineers were eventually gathered by your chosen play-style then those players would be in the game having fun and not on the forum looking for help in the first place.

 

[Viking84]

More and more I'm *liking* how awkward and unpopular it is for long-term players as I consider the newbies.

This is certainly an interesting view point I can see this as an upside to the current system, however I am not sure that the problem for new players is all that great given that Elite is a mostly PvE game, with a few P with P elements thrown in, and a very rare bit of non-consensual PvP if you are very unlucky.

PvP players will destroy any non-PvP player in a battle, regardless of how many mods the PvE player has, as their ships are simply not set up for the same tasks. I don't think any amount of grind-delayed mods will ever change this fact.

So what we have been given is a system designed to solve a non-existent problem, which creates new issues because it turns out players quite enjoy tinkering with their ships. The Engineers mod looked to give a great opportunity for more tinkering, but because each mod is random, and requires a very hefty amount of time to acquire, people won't be tinkering more than necessary, they will just stick with whatever they get. I think that is a shame as most of the new gameplay possibilities in 2.1 come from the mods themselves, not from the grind required to obtain them.

 

[frostypaw]

So what we have been given is a system designed to solve a non-existent problem

Or one that's working perfectly - is giving new players in lower ships and spec kit credit-free ways to upgrade and compete better with NPCs and players AND at the same time introducing them to a range of activities they might not have touched following "CMDR EnDGamENoWPleasE's 20 hr guide to getting an annaconda and Elite status"

For them it's all gravy and bonus sidedishes.

people won't be tinkering more than necessary, they will just stick with whatever they get

As, I suspect, intended. It's why I started the "how long?" poll - the way this is built it's clearly meant to be a long-term system but a large portion of the player base just want to smash through it and then.... do.... idk?

 

[Sylow]

I feel the reason there are so many of those "where do i find this?" threads is because engineers as it is does require you to do things in the game that you otherwise are not interested in, if however ALL the items required for engineers were eventually gathered by your chosen play-style then those players would be in the game having fun and not on the forum looking for help in the first place.

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Only partially. A big part of the "where to ACTUALLY find" is based on people doing exactly what they are told to do to get the materials, but the randomizer just working against them.
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The premium examples are the components dropped by certain ships. Some pilots report to have killed a few of those ships at a nav beacon and having found plenty of those materials. Other people reported doing the same thing, in the same system and at the same nav point, but have not gotten the materials they wanted after farming (yes, we are at this kind of game now) the same type of ships for hours. This is not a bug. It's a logical result of how random numbers work with low drop chances.
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So not a bug, bad game design, which should be fixed in some way. I still consider the fix suggested in this thread to be weak and cheap, but since every other suggestion made to solve the problem requires much more work, this one might unfortunately be the best we can hope to actually get.

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I think that is a shame as most of the new gameplay possibilities in 2.1 come from the mods themselves, not from the grind required to obtain them.

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/sign
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I don't mind if the way to get my upgrades is long. For higher grade upgrades it can also be hard. That's perfectly fine for me. It just should not be boring and tedious, but rather should be interesting and provide some fun on the way to get there.

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

... engineers as it is does require you to do things in the game that you otherwise are not interested in...

Well... I mined yesterday for 30 minutes. Didn't kill me. Does not make me love mining, but ... I got what I needed and left after 30 minutes.
So whats the problem?

If you dont like the game then ... the door is right there.
But stop pretending you speak for others than yourself.

 

[Viking84]

As, I suspect, intended. It's why I started the "how long?" poll - the way this is built it's clearly meant to be a long-term system but a large portion of the player base just want to smash through it and then.... do.... idk?

That seems to be the reason the Engineers are so divisive. If you don't really care all that much about your ship, and tinkering with the loadouts and mods, then you won't be bothered by it and can keep on playing like you have done. If you did get a major portion of your entertainment in Elite from exactly that, then the update is incredibly frustrating.

I fear the biggest issue with the update is not the mechanic itself, but the time at which it was introduced. If Elite was full of deep and challenging things to do, and those were tied to progression with the Engineers, then much fewer people would complain as we would be happily going on with whatever we were doing before 2.1. However this update was introduced now, when we have precious little challenging tasks available to us, and most of the methods for obtaining materials are the simplest possible tasks Elite have to offer.

So that leaves us with an update with the only new content for experienced players is locked behind a grind wall consisting of the simplest and most tedious mechanics Elite has to offer. I suspect this is the cause for all the outcry.

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Well... I mined yesterday for 30 minutes. Didn't kill me. Does not make me love mining, but ... I got what I needed and left after 30 minutes.

So you are saying you don't like the game, but did it anyway?

If you dont like the game then ... the door is right there.

Indeed...

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I don't mind if the way to get my upgrades is long. For higher grade upgrades it can also be hard. That's perfectly fine for me. It just should not be boring and tedious, but rather should be interesting and provide some fun on the way to get there.

I totally agree The problem is that 2.1 didn't introduce anything new that is fun and interesting, instead it introduced new progression for the ships that is locked behind something that is the exact opposite of fun and interesting. It should hardly be a surprise that this causes disappointment.

 

[NE1]

Well... I mined yesterday for 30 minutes. Didn't kill me. Does not make me love mining, but ... I got what I needed and left after 30 minutes.
So whats the problem?

If you dont like the game then ... the door is right there.
But stop pretending you speak for others than yourself.

just because your willing to do something you don't like doesn't mean everyone will, and I never claimed to be speaking for others you only have to look on the forums to find many players with the same view.

Where in any of my post did I say i don't like the game? sure there are bits I don't like just like you don't like mining, so what your still willing to do it good for you.

mabye you should exit the door labeled paradise.

 

[frostypaw]

If you don't really care all that much about your ship.

Excuse me bud but who put you in charge of determining how much people care about their ship? What a ridiculous statement.

Then to follow it up with

[loadouts / mods...] If you did get a major portion of your entertainment in Elite from exactly that, then the update is incredibly frustrating.

Fella you've never had the option to tinker with mods before, and your ability to tinker with loadouts is unaffected. How on EARTH was mod functionality that you didn't have in the game the major portion of your entertainment in Elite?

I love my ship, I tinker with it loads - I totally disagree with your judgements about me based on your obsession with a particular style of crafting.

Once you've got those mods there no "new content" or "end game" - you'll be in exactly the position you were before, just more miserable.

 

[Viking84]

Excuse me bud but who put you in charge of determining how much people care about their ship? What a ridiculous statement.

I love my ship, I tinker with it loads - I totally disagree with your judgements about me based on your obsession with a particular style of crafting.

My apologies, but it seemed a logical conclusion to me. If you get the main part of your entertainment from tinkering with ships in Elite then this new element (Engineers) should naturally be rather frustrating as the new tinkering possibilities are mainly hidden from you.

If as you say you love your ship, and tinkering with it, then why do you think this is a good way to introduce a crafting/tuning mechanic to the game?

Edit: Note that "you" in the context of my earlier post was not aimed at you, but at a generic player not really interested in ship progression for its own sake.

Fella you've never had the option to tinker with mods before, and your ability to tinker with loadouts is unaffected. How on EARTH was mod functionality that you didn't have in the game the major portion of your entertainment in Elite?

I have spent a LOT of time trying out different builds and ships in Elite, but I was pretty done with it after years with basically the same stuff. Then we had the promise of Engineers and crafting that was demonstrated in newsletters and videos, and I was rather excited at the prospect of radically changing my ship builds in new and exciting ways. The possibilities seemed near endless, as each module had at least 3 different types of mods to do to it.

Finding out that this was all hidden behind a rather off-putting grind wall, requiring repetition of dull game play and the potential of an RNG fail at the end certainly didn't live up to my hopes.

Once you've got those mods there no "new content" or "end game" - you'll be in exactly the position you were before, just more miserable.

Now you are making judgements about my enjoyment of the game The amount of different mods and combinations allowed by the Engineers appeared to be pretty vast, and would have kept me entertained for a LONG time. As you rightly say there is nothing new outside of this added yet, but I certainly wouldn't have been more miserable, I would have been entertained by the Engineers content, and familiar with my new ship capabilities and their modding potential by the time 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 dropped which would hopefully add new gameplay challenges

 

[electricmayhem]

The problem with this is it gets easier to get the best upgraded modules, and everyone will have it in no time. Might as well suggest we return back to beta, where it's fun to upgrade at the cost of fishes.

So what's wrong with everyone being able to access the content they paid for? Why shouldn't some one be able to get these module upgrades? All this fuss over how long it takes to get a pixelated object is ridiculous. It's a game made to be entertaining. Not a job, or an obsession. I find it quite irritating that I have to use a third party program to play a video game. The changes OP posted are very good ideas.

 

[frostypaw]

If as you say you love your ship, and tinkering with it, then why do you think this is a good way to introduce a crafting/tuning mechanic to the game?

Edit: Note that "you" in the context of my earlier post was not aimed at you, but at a generic player not really interested in ship progression for its own sake.

The people playing it as intended seem to be enjoying it plenty, so I'd say yes.

I have spent a LOT of time trying out different builds and ships in Elite, but I was pretty done with it after years with basically the same stuff. Then we had the promise of Engineers and crafting that was demonstrated in newsletters and videos, and I was rather excited at the prospect of radically changing my ship builds in new and exciting ways. The possibilities seemed near endless, as each module had at least 3 different types of mods to do to it.

Finding out that this was all hidden behind a rather off-putting grind wall, requiring repetition of dull game play and the potential of an RNG fail at the end certainly didn't live up to my hopes.

Now you are making judgements about my enjoyment of the game The amount of different mods and combinations allowed by the Engineers appeared to be pretty vast, and would have kept me entertained for a LONG time. As you rightly say there is nothing new outside of this added yet, but I certainly wouldn't have been more miserable, I would have been entertained by the Engineers content, and familiar with my new ship capabilities and their modding potential by the time 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4 dropped which would hopefully add new gameplay challenges

See I thought they were pretty clear about how it worked from the very first demonstrations (give or take the apparent ease of getting matched pairs) so I've always been rather confused where people got the idea it would be different

Similarly the "loot" mechanic is clearly something that goes alongside normal play to me, not missions and story in and of itself. So people's surprise at that completely bemuses me.

Still OK sorry about saying you'd be more miserable - but your last bit does sound like you're kinda done with the whole of the rest of the game, just waiting for a new mission/thing. Maybe the way for you to really get the best kicks is to leave it for a year and reset your save and get to enjoy all of it afresh?

 

[Viking84]

So what's wrong with everyone being able to access the content they paid for? Why shouldn't some one be able to get these module upgrades? All this fuss over how long it takes to get a pixelated object is ridiculous. It's a game made to be entertaining. Not a job, or an obsession. I find it quite irritating that I have to use a third party program to play a video game. The changes OP posted are very good ideas.

Hear hear Challenge should come from game play that is difficult and deep, not endless grinds of easy tasks. I was hoping that the modded components would be a step towards a more meaningful outfitting and modding experience, and an associated amount of cool new challenging things to do. Sadly that is not what we got!

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Still OK sorry about saying you'd be more miserable - but your last bit does sound like you're kinda done with the whole of the rest of the game, just waiting for a new mission/thing. Maybe the way for you to really get the best kicks is to leave it for a year and reset your save and get to enjoy all of it afresh?

The thought has occurred to me, although then I would just be repeating the same stuff over again and end up back where I am, which wouldn't really help much. I know I can seem a bit down on Elite, but I do really like a lot of aspects of it, and it is by far the most promising of the space games out there It needs more depth and challenge, and I thought that was coming with this update, but it might come with the next ones so I'm still holding on to the hope.

We will just have to agree to disagree on the looting and crafting mechanics, we obviously want very different things from our game play and this game in particular For me the RNG aspects are a jarring departure from what Elite has been about up until now, and don't appear to add anything of value to the game. All they do is frustrate those players who view ship progression and outfitting as a goal in itself, and judging by the forums there are a lot of players like that around.

Edit: Just a final word relevant to the OP - if some changes like the OP suggested, or similar, aren't added to the game I will likely never bother with the Engineers due to the required grind for level 4 or 5 components, and the specific tasks that these levels require you to do (specifically hunting traders, wake scan farming, SRV rock hunting and mining). I hope it is understandable to most that for someone who enjoys the ship progression and was looking forward to the crafting mechanic this is a very disappointing turn of events.

 

[NeilF]

So what's wrong with everyone being able to access the content they paid for? Why shouldn't some one be able to get these module upgrades? All this fuss over how long it takes to get a pixelated object is ridiculous. It's a game made to be entertaining. Not a job, or an obsession. I find it quite irritating that I have to use a third party program to play a video game. The changes OP posted are very good ideas.

And it's actually not so much how long (it takes to get crafted modules), but, just how... For me at least...

I don't want to faff about with material management, and farming specific materials when the mechanics offered is not what I enjoy, and far from anything more challenging than rolling a dice repeatedly (at times)...

Ultimately I wouldn't care if it even took me more time to level up and craft, if I was at least to do it utilising gameplay I prefer, and doing it more under my preferred timescales.

With the suggestion in the OP, I could achieve that wish. Do the kind of things I enjoy doing, and contribute to The Engineers as/when I want to, at what ever pace that might be.

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

just because your willing to do something you don't like doesn't mean everyone will, and I never claimed to be speaking for others you only have to look on the forums to find many players with the same view.

Where in any of my post did I say i don't like the game? sure there are bits I don't like just like you don't like mining, so what your still willing to do it good for you.

mabye you should exit the door labeled paradise.

I am willing to play the game. Are you ?

You dont sound like you are willing to much else than forum complaints.

I perfectly understand that it is not approved on these forums to actually like the latest update. But I do like it very much.
Sure, there are things that COULD have been better, but no forum suggestion has yet tried to better things - only make them easier/dumber. And THAT I dont like.

Also, the new buzz word around here is apparently "grinding". Anything people dont like is now a grind.

As I said in the post you replied to: I dont like mining that much, but its not like I have to do a career change to mine a few tonnes of stuff in an asteroid belt.

But dont worry, your crying will be heard and things dumbed down soon enough.

 

[NeilF]

I am willing to play the game. Are you ?

You dont sound like you are willing to much else than forum complaints.

I perfectly understand that it is not approved on these forums to actually like the latest update. But I do like it very much.
Sure, there are things that COULD have been better, but no forum suggestion has yet tried to better things - only make them easier/dumber. And THAT I dont like.

Also, the new buzz word around here is apparently "grinding". Anything people dont like is now a grind.

As I said in the post you replied to: I dont like mining that much, but its not like I have to do a career change to mine a few tonnes of stuff in an asteroid belt.

But dont worry, your crying will be heard and things dumbed down soon enough.

I'd maybe suggest if you have a point, it's probably better made by simply stating your view and case, rather than risking making things (more) personal...


As regards "grind," yes that's a personal term. One man's grind may well be another's game mechanic from heaven

Personally all I can say is from my POV most of the mechanics is ED were already faily paper thin & simplistic prior to The Engineers. And rather than investing that effort in making them deeper and more involved, all it's done is to weave itself through said gameplay, in attempt to seemingly add more worth/reason to them. Personally, given most of them were already highly "thin" in nature, I'd have to say all it's done is magnify this issue rather than help.

So when I'm face with having to go out of my way to get X, Y and/or Z, just to meet some questionable mechanic that is not testing my skill or intelligence, but generally only my ability to throw a dice enough times over X hours, I don't find that enjoyable, worthwhile or a good investment of development time into the game. Hence me personally wanting "The Engineers" to back off a bit, and take itself a little less seriously with the proposed kind of alteration (in the OP).

And as I've said, the suggestion isn't an attempt to make crafting quicker to achieve, simply to do so in a less onerous way. Such that I can take The Engineers less seriously while continuing to the play game how I want to...

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

I like the OPs OP. It's simple and effective, easy enough to tweak and add layers to if needed.

Agreed. It adds flexibility, removes material bottlenecks, and frees up the player to drop off mats as and when he comes across them during his travels instead of having to hoard stuff and thus restrict his gameplay.

I like the way rep would fluctuate too, depending on how many and what type of upgrades you demand, and how well you can increase it again with more material donations.

A really interesting alternative NeilF. +1

Although if the actual material gathering process wasn't at the mercy of randomness, and actually had some innovative gameplay mechanics involved in locating and retrieving them, that rewarded skill, with risk v reward thrown in, was fun and engaging, then I don't think engineers would have got half the flak it has so far... but that's for another debate

 

[NE1]

with the introduction of engineers this game can no-longer be advertised as a open world sandbox "blase your own trail" as it now requires you follow a path,
at the very least FD must now change the way the game is advertised. I only wish they had done it before I bought in at Pre-beta

 

[frostypaw]

with the introduction of engineers this game can no-longer be advertised as a open world sandbox "blase your own trail" as it now requires you follow a path,
at the very least FD must now change the way the game is advertised. I only wish they had done it before I bought in at Pre-beta

Oh god - am I going to get kicked out of the game if I don't do all the engineers stuff right away?

What if I find different ways of getting the parts? Should I report it as a bug if I am meant to now be required to follow a path? I've been doing Elite wrong

 

[NE1]

...

You can't play Engineers as you like, the way that engineers has been implemented the game forces you to play a certain way (No more freedom no more play your own way definatly no more 'blaze your own trail') how can you not see that?

insted of trying to be unfunny and sarcastic why not suggest a way to allow engineers to be adjusted to allow all players to get fun from the game? why not allow all activities? why do you feel they should be forced activities?

the best fix would be one that allows every play style (like suggested in the OP) to find the mats for the blueprints allowing all players to continue playing the way they want. or are you against ALL players playing the way the game was advertised?

 

[frostypaw]

You can't play Engineers as you like, the way that engineers has been implemented the game forces you to play a certain way (No more freedom no more play your own way definatly no more 'blaze your own trail') how can you not see that?

I'm still playing my way and blazing my own trail.

So I call catship. I've not been forced to do anything I don't want to

When I needed parts from ships I thought about it and went to weapons fire detecteds in high-sec and helped out the system security take out pirates. Others go read INARA and think "OH RIGHT i have to shoot traders i see" and go do that and complain

*shrug* you can either accept that playing your way is going to require more effort, thought and patience or come here and complain it's just not easy enough I guess.