We all remember what he did to HSL synthesis.
Anyone else trying to G5 everything before the change?
- Thread starter Viking84
- Start date
We all remember what he did to HSL synthesis.
Fully plan to make some $ and outfit a G5 exploration Annie.
If they go ahead with their silly idea I will likely not bother again with engineers. I have already a nice selection off modes modules and I could just live with those.
Beyond adding an extra dose of grind in a game that suffer from too much off it is OMGWTFBBQ level of game design.
If they go ahead with their silly idea I will likely not bother again with engineers. I have already a nice selection off modes modules and I could just live with those.
Beyond adding an extra dose of grind in a game that suffer from too much off it is OMGWTFBBQ level of game design.
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Naah, current engineering is PITA so I don't bother. I still have some left overs for few FSD rolls and all my ships already have some decent results rolled. I don't mind new system being progress based as long as materials required are easy to find and in abundance.
Otherwise I will stay away from engineers like I stayed away in current iteration.
Otherwise I will stay away from engineers like I stayed away in current iteration.
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grades 1 through 3 however are pretty trivial and (forgetting PvP for a moment) imo there is nothing wrong with having very long term goals....
imo so what if it takes 12 months to fully G 5 your 9 hardpoints on a T10...... it will only take a short time to G3 them and the rest gives me something as a pure PvE / PwP player something to work for.
my biggest worry with elite was running out of "stuff" to improve... so for me this is a big improvement.
I can understand why some feel different but i think it is important to put out there that not everyone hates the new proposed system. i am ALL for making more predictable outcomes at the expense of increased time to get to those predicted outcomes.
its still not how i would have done it personally.... (i would have had far more quality grades of materials with the exquisite ones being very rare , but with a skill put into finding them rather than pure RNG and then said equisite giving you a certain top grade outcome.
but even so, for me i think the changes is a positive.
now.. .lets remember PvP again..... yeah.......... i agree... it pretty much bones fair PvP, those who have specced out in the current system will take a long time to catch up on for those doing it in the new system from scratch. but then that ship sailed the moment engineers came online and FD allowed some people to use crack train mechanics to farm.. at that point any notion of FAIR PvP went out of the window for anyone who despises cheap tricks to exploit holes in the game.
FD need to figure out if ED is primarily a PvP game, or not, because them trying to be all things to all people is actually just annoying everyone, PvPers and non PvPers alike. Arguably looking at htese changes they already have. they just wont come out and say it.
Ehh that's lame, so we will have to g1 to g5 each damn module we plan to eng...wonder whos "bright idea" that was....
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So what? Well, there's probably not many people that would be okay with it taking that long, while the rest, not so much. No game takes that long unless you are someone that can only play an hour a week. Engineering shouldn't be a very long term goal (12 months for one ship). Charting big chunks of the galaxy, sure... Spreading the influence of a faction over a block of systems, sure... Buying, outfitting and engineering every ship in the game, sure... Equipping one ship to meet its best performance, nope, never. Even 1 month might be stretching something like that too far, depending on play hours. Taking a single goal, that is already purely based on grind, and stretching it so it takes 1 year of play time would be bad game design. The performance increases would need to pretty much be unlimited if that were going to be the case. It just wouldn't work and you'd likely be the only person left playing the game after that 12 months, at least the only player that engineers ships to their limit.
Don't lose sight of the fact that this is a video game that people play in their leisure time, not a second job and not a hobby based on physically constructing or collecting things. Games no longer work when they become the latter. Even games that are based on real life and real life professions compress the amount of time it takes to get things done. You want sense of accomplishment, to feel like you've worked especially hard for something, get a job/second/third. Get all the jobs, in fact, until you feel that reward for grueling effort, but let's keep that sort of thing out of our video games, please.
well a few things
1) 12 months was over egging.. its not going to take 12 months.... and ok IF it took 12 months i see your point but........
2) ts not going to be 12 months... I just dont believe that. it may take 20 or 30 hrs tho at the start............. which I *am* fine with... but ......
3) it isnt me you need to convince, i am just another punter like you are, so you do not need to convince me, I am just putting it out there that not everyone has a problem with it............... but that leads to my final point...........
4) historically FD have shown if you complain enough they will backtrack, which is why the (perfectly reasonable) costs of the vulture were ripped out, along with wear and tear and the (admittedly harshly stingy) mission payouts were replaced with the mess of an economy we have now with everyone a millionaire in under an hr.
therefore, you can be fairly sure IF it does take 30 hrs of pure grinding to max out your T10, then a pound to a penny FD WILL streamline it going forward by hugely accelerating the progression, either by increasing spawn rates OR by reducing the number of rolls needed to go up a grade.
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I was pretty sure you were, but there was an argument to be made against it just in case.
After all, there are some, a small group, that would be happy to see every part of the game take 100x longer.I was pretty sure you were, but there was an argument to be made against it just in case.
truth is my biggest fear is what i will do if i ever fill all my skinner boxes. This may be a poor reflection on me but there you go. I need to be working towards something in my game, be it elite rank, a new ship or module, or new eng upgrade.
///Unpopular Opinion Incoming!///
Engineers are a terrible mess. Fixing them, at least the way FDev is proposing to, looks like it's going to make Engineers an even bigger mess.
At this point, I'm not sure it's fixable at all. If you erase god-rolls, it's not fair to old players. If you don't, and newly engineered modules can't get as high as god-rolls, it's not fair to new players.
Going up through the various grades for every new module indvidually increases the grind for players who just do a few G5 rolls and take what they get, while being better for min/maxers. But the current system sucks for the min/maxers.
How do you fix this?
The other thing - to me, it's not the rolling that is the annoying grindy part. It's gathering the materials, particularly for G5 mods. I'm not sure the Material Market thing is going to help much in that regard. Make it easier to get the materials (or let me buy them with Cr someplace) and I won't complain about re-rolling every module from G1-G5.
Honestly, I think the game was better off before the Engineers were released. If they scrapped the whole thing, I wouldn't miss it at all. At least the game would be better balanced...
Engineers are a terrible mess. Fixing them, at least the way FDev is proposing to, looks like it's going to make Engineers an even bigger mess.
At this point, I'm not sure it's fixable at all. If you erase god-rolls, it's not fair to old players. If you don't, and newly engineered modules can't get as high as god-rolls, it's not fair to new players.
Going up through the various grades for every new module indvidually increases the grind for players who just do a few G5 rolls and take what they get, while being better for min/maxers. But the current system sucks for the min/maxers.
How do you fix this?
The other thing - to me, it's not the rolling that is the annoying grindy part. It's gathering the materials, particularly for G5 mods. I'm not sure the Material Market thing is going to help much in that regard. Make it easier to get the materials (or let me buy them with Cr someplace) and I won't complain about re-rolling every module from G1-G5.
Honestly, I think the game was better off before the Engineers were released. If they scrapped the whole thing, I wouldn't miss it at all. At least the game would be better balanced...
There are a million things in elite that could and should be long-term goals. Feeding engineers endless materials because they all have a shared and untreated mental-illness that precludes them from remembering the last module upgrade, and having to "do it all again" for every module, because this is "improving the value of 1-3" should not be a "very long term goal".
I've spent at least a year, on and off, engineering ships. And Frontier is going to throw away all of that effort on a set of petulant changes. Because they aren't happy people are naturally gravitating to grade 5; despite this being the intended outcome. Don't say "it won't take a year.." because it has taken over a year. Of endless rolling. Because the developer thinks my time is best spent, feeding a slot machine.
The entire thing is a garbage bin fire. It's not redeemable as it stands. And so people can spend as much time as they like; but I am not going to tolerate this wasteful attitude the developer has embraced. Nor should anyone, frankly.
Getting the last of the modules I use done, then I am moving on; even if the developer cannot or will not. Sorry, Sandy, it's not a good change; I think we all understand that, at this point.
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There are a couple of big problems with the "mat' broker" idea.
Firstly, it damages the game by, effectively, making all mat's generic.
You won't need to find, say, Chemical Manipulators to mod' your FSD.
Instead, you'll just be able to farm any G4 mat', trade them for Chemical Manipulators and then go and get your FSD mod'.
The whole thing will become yet another study in establishing a "meta" for each grade of mat' and then ignoring every other method of obtaining a comparable item.
Instead of finding CM's, for example, it'll be far easier to just fit a big combat ship with collector limpets and farm a RES for Refined Focus Crystals then trade them for CM's.
So, if you're going to do that, why bother having unique mat's at all?
Just create a generic "Grade 4 engineering material" instead.
And then give yourself a pat on the back for dumbing-down the game.
Secondly, and with reference to the previous issue, it creates a much greater potential for people to max-out their ships.
Very few mat's take much actual "skill" to obtain but players do, at least, have to have a bit of tenacity and a high threshold for boredom to obtain certain mat's, which limits the number of mod's that can be produced.
If, for example, a player currently wants to overcharge the weapons of their flying death-machine they're going to need MEF, which takes some effort.
Under the new system, they'll be able to obtain any G5 data and then trade it for MEF so getting your G5 overcharged weapons will just require you to hang around outside a station, scanning ships, until you've got a huge heap of any G5 data which can then be traded for MEF.
The result of this change is likely to be that you'll encounter more ships fitted with "god-roll" mod's because it'll be possible for any yahoo to obtain them as long as they're patient enough to farm suitable mat's - in which they'll be assisted by the emergence of a "meta" method for obtaining every grade of mat'.
They should all be generic, with a defined drop rate based on rarity; except they're not. It's a giant mess of RNG drop rates vs distribution and having almost zero relevance to rarity. This ship sailed day one, friend; you're arguing against the reality of what we have, already.
No, one still needs to obtain CMs, however the time spent finding eleventy million of something you don't need, because Frontier hasn't been consistent with drop rate vs rarity is no-longer wasted effort because of distribution chance vs drop rate.
Whether you spend 10 hours finding something you can trade for CM, or spent 10 hours getting CM, is the same time spent. RNG defines what you get anyway; if drops were consistent I'd agree. But they are not so you're arguing an invalid concern because RNG and distribution isn't 100% guaranteed.
Perhaps this is more a problem with distribution of materials in the first place? No, you're right, it's not the games fault that it spawns more of one grade 4, than a different grade 4, because Frontier has no concept of consistency or didn't think rarity should define drop rate.
It's our fault for not collecting the right thing at the right time because we're entirely in control of what material drops where and when.
Actually, materials aren't the meta, and won't be. The secondaries are. Engineering is purely secondary meta. And what's utterly amazing, is secondaries will continue to exist post changes.
What if the problem isn't the mats; but the distribution and availability being entirely ignorant of rarity?
What?
Welcome to the conversation from like a month ago when it became apparent secondaries weren't actually going away and specials were being added to everything.
What if I told you, this was all intentional development designed to increase the pressure on everyone to spend more time min/maxing? What if I told you this is happening on purpose.
Actually, the only reason people spend any time at all is due to the disgusting degree in which secondaries distort outcomes; and now, they will stay (to a lesser extent) and Frontier is doubling down on specials.
I love how min/ maxing is now considered an amazing thing and should be protected. About two paragraphs ago, it was evil incarnate. Come on man, you can't play both sides and be taken seriously.
Translation: it's bad if the disparity between ships is reduced somewhat, despite this being the single strongest reason for the changes, because ships will then be closer and this makes it worse.
Dude, are you okay?
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@Stealthie, I'm not sure I understand why these things you mention are bad. Removing gameplay loops that are tedious instead of challenging should be a positive thing, flying around hoping for the right USS spawn is the opposite of engaging and rewarding gameplay.
Allowing more players to max out their ships is also a positive thing, it promotes experimentation with different builds, it promotes a more level playing field for PvP encounters, and again it replaces tedium/grind with intelligent configuration of your ship (presuming the mods are decently balanced to allow for more than one "optimal" build).
Allowing more players to max out their ships is also a positive thing, it promotes experimentation with different builds, it promotes a more level playing field for PvP encounters, and again it replaces tedium/grind with intelligent configuration of your ship (presuming the mods are decently balanced to allow for more than one "optimal" build).
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But they're not removing (or reducing) a tedious operation.
All they're doing is rendering the diversity of material sources redundant.
Maybe you consider it tedious to collect, say, DWEs from a famine distribution hub.
Is it going to be any less tedious to sit outside a station scanning ships until you've got (hypothetically) twice as many of any G5 data so you can take them to the broker and swap them for DWEs at a 2 for 1 rate?
At least the current system creates some level of interest/challenge as a result of the diverse sources of mat's.
When you're upgrading a ship you have to organise a trolley-dash around the bubble to locate sources of the mat's you need.
With the new system that'll be reduced to going for whatever the "meta" task is to obtain the grade of mat's you need.
Need G1/G2 mat's? Go surface prospecting in your SRV.
Need G3/G4 mat's? Shoot stuff in a RES.
Need G5 mat's? Not sure about this one. HGE USSs, perhaps?
As for making it easier to max-out a ship, the problem is that most people probably don't bother because it's a lot of effort and the rewards aren't guaranteed.
The new system means the rewards WILL be guaranteed and, as a result of the extra ability to farm mat's, it'll mean that it takes less tenacity and understanding of the engineering process to achieve.
Basically, there's currently a lot of wannabe gankers around who don't have a lot of success because they aren't willing to put the effort into engineering their flying death-machines.
Under the new system, they'll be able to farm any suitable mat's, trade them for the mat's they need and then binge-roll mod's until they've got a god-rolled ship.
Said it before but I think FDev need to sit down and re-think the entire process of obtaining mat's.
Firstly, I'd suggest that almost all (if not all) mat's should be easy to locate.
That is to say, there should be places where everybody can go and be assured that the required mat's WILL be there.
Secondly, actually obtaining mat's should be both entertaining AND challenging, depending on the grade of the mat'.
Anything that involves simply hoping for a mat' to spawn and then scooping it up should (perhaps with the exception of G1 mat's) be discarded.
For example, let's say you want Core Dynamics Composites.
First we bung some kind of "space factory" in orbit in various Federation systems and then we add a heap of System Defence ships.
If you want CDCs, you go to a system with an orbital factory in it, whereupon you'll be attacked by the defence ships for trespassing.
You fly around inside the orbital factory and can scoop CDCs in the process.
Maybe you want some kind of ore?
You find a planet of the appropriate type, head down to the surface and find a mining outpost.
It'll be defended by turrets, skimmers and maybe even ships.
You get in, attack the mining rigs and collect whatever mat that outpost is mining.
Perhaps mat's could also be tied into missions more strongly too?
In a refinery system, maybe you could agree to take on a series of missions and get paid in some specific mat'?
In a high-tech system, maybe you could get specific data for completing specific tasks?
I'm just spitballing here but, with a bit of thought it should easily be possible to come up with a dozen or so completely different ways of obtaining mat's which are both entertaining AND challenging.
Each of those basic methods can then be iterated on to create distinct ways to get a whole heap of stuff.
Sure, if all you're interested in is upgrading your ship in the most effortless way, I'm sure you'll be thrilled at the prospect of the new system.
If, OTOH, you were hoping to be entertained the the game you're playing, maybe not so much.
*EDIT*
Blimey! Didn't realise I'd written so much.
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[up]
Lot's of good stuff in that post, and I absolutely agree with most of it
If the collection of materials was entertaining and challenging, I would agree that a material trader represented a dumbing down of the game. Sadly it isn't entertaining at all for the most part, and forces me to partake in tedious, time consuming and potentially unrewarding gameplay (thanks to the random nature of the spawns).Sadly I haven't got a single shred of hope to see the devs do anything about this. They have proved time and time again that they are great at graphics, sound, space and whatnot, but terrible at gameplay. Progress bars and grind is what most of the game consists of outside of combat. Given this, I hope they simply reduce the grind as much as possible and let us play with the interesting part of the Engineers - equipping ships for different roles and trying out different builds.
If they did this, we might even be lucky enough to get missions that REQUIRE a modded ship to complete. I don't hold out much hope for this either, although the Thargoid fights and high heat rescue efforts in burning stations are a good start.
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Engineers as it is currently makes me sigh... Engineers how it will be a few months just makes me sigh even harder...
So in a few months, people will be forced to faff about with - as you put it - 4 x 3 rolls, each requiring one or more specific materials. You'll need to know all the materials you require, go and farm them, or go and faff about with the Material Broker to swap ones you don't want for ones you do want.
It's all just - in my mind - contrived unnecessary faff, desperately trying to force materials into the game to have some purpose/worth, at the expense of creating contrived payment for Engineering.
Just imagine for one second that you could hand in any/all materials an Engineer is interested in (for any of their blue prints) and this simply builds up reputation with them (common materials a little, rare materials a lot). So in effect you simply build up a balance with the Engineer. You can then use that reputation to craft modules, G1 rolls using up a little of your reputation, G5 rolls using up a lot of your reputation. DONE!
^ This is doing little more I believe that streamlining where the Material Broker is taking us anyway!
It takes all the faff out of having to micro-manage a myriad of shopping lists. It takes out the faff of even having to introduce the Material Broker which is only being done to take the edge of this very issue!
You simply have a reputation balance with the Engineer, which is improved by giving them any material they're interested in, and you spend this reputation rolling. If you realise you have a huge amount of materials built up, rather than throwing them away, you could go to an Engineer and give them to them thus freeing up storage space, and improving your reputation (balance) at the Engineer.
note: I'd suggest there would be a max limit of reputation (positive balance) you could achieve with an Engineer. So you couldn't build up a huge huge +ve reputation so you could roll X hundred G5 rolls. Maybe your max reputation would allow for a few dozen for example.
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