What would be your proposal of a better way to unlock engineers?
Despite Enginner 'improvements', unlocking engineers is still a pain...
- Thread starter rp198419
- Start date
What would be your proposal of a better way to unlock engineers?
If the game is just an infinite treadmill of grind, what is the point of increasing speed?
If I may answer: custom missions. We have custom engineers, with custom faces, on custom bases providing custom mods. Lets make two dozen custom missions for them. You can use custom PG chained-mission templates. Eg: infiltrate base to find location of ship X, find and kill it, take the blackbox, deliver it someplace, get data from it and deliver it somewhere else while being chased by a wing of angry whatever. Invoke Thargoids with Palin and Ram Tah.
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Bottom line...Its all on how YOU want to play the game... Some options are there for others to enjoy THEIR way of playing the game.... Its just a preference
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Nice ideas, something that makes the process unique to the player would be good. As of now everyone has done exactly the same thing as everyone else to unlock them.
No, the unlocks still are awful. For starters, they make no thematic sense. Well, thematic for the engineers, yes, but not for the blueprints they offer. Palin is probably the prime example: you have to fly 5k ly to gain access to him. Now, for explorers that’s not a big deal in the slightest since they’d do that regardless, but everyone else is likely to just do a meaningless 10k ly total round trip. If Palin offered only stuff relevant to exploration, his unlock requirement wouldn’t be an issue. But since he offers something that is meh for exploration, and incredible for everyone else, we have a ton of people complaining about him.
So, the unlocks really do a need a rework. They don’t need to be easy, they just mustn’t be boring and make sense. So no rare goods etc. artificially increasing your time spent unless you have friends, and blueprints that are useful for the task you used to unlock them.
So, the unlocks really do a need a rework. They don’t need to be easy, they just mustn’t be boring and make sense. So no rare goods etc. artificially increasing your time spent unless you have friends, and blueprints that are useful for the task you used to unlock them.
Hey, I am a game designer, and a dev! I designed and programmed two games, plus made the graphics, when I was eight years old. In Superlogo.
Both were terrible in every way. [haha]
Well, you seem to have a decent grasp on what would still require work, yet be vastly more interesting than what we have now. It wouldn't necessarily create a more challenging situation than we have now either, it would just feel better to play through. I feel that all too often the design is being defended by the idea of working toward something when the complaints really aren't about that. Sure, the complaints can always be articulated better, but you obviously understood enough to see a solution to the problem rather than dolling out easy buttons to people. The grind, the work, the whatever you want to call it doesn't need to go away, it just needs to feel better and make a bit more sense.
Good point, I'll amend my post to say "tedious" rather than "difficult". My point remains the same, I don't think unlocking the engineers is particularly tedious. As I said, it took me about two hours of evacuations to earn more than enough modular terminals, and that is widely regarded to be the most tedious unlock.
To those of you who believe the process is generally too tedious, what would you propose be done to improve it?
Personally, I like the concept of actually having to do things to unlock certain rewards. This game would be a bit more monotonous if everyone could just grind the latest credit exploit and have immediate access to everything in the game immediately.
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Excellent Rep+
Taking on the "custom missions" suggestion from Sleut, it would be rather easy to "fix" the feeling of pointlessness of Palin's unlock.
I would have Palin request the player to bring data from a handful of systems, all of them major POIs in the "vicinity" of the bubble, and bring the data back. Player would still be doing exploration for Palin, but instead of random direction 5K ly jumping marathon, the route would guide the player across some of the coolest locations in the vicinity. Like Betelgeuse, VY Canis Majoris, Witch Head, Horsehad, Barnard's Loop, NGC 7822, Veil Nebula East, etc. All of these places are less than 2K ly away, and some of them are outstanding locations that would allow a player to see Black Holes, Hypergiants, exotic nebulas, planetary nebulas, etc.
This would keep Palin's "theme", but would give some purpose to the trip. And the game already supports this type of mission, it would mostly be a longer sightseeing mission with carefully hand-picked destinations.
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Man kids these days. Soon they will be demanding the game plays itself because they can’t be bothered and stuff...
One does not "explore faster".
LOL (he said, sardonically).
Seriously though, there are a whole bunch of us traipsing around the very rim of the galaxy. It's a nine month trip. Nothing fast about it. What the increased jump range does is allow us to reach places we'd never be able to get to without it. All that scanning and stuff for the money isn't exploring, it's just what we do along the way.
Not playing games you don't enjoy is the basis for happy gaming.
There is tedium built into every gaming achievement. The only commodity a gamer has to offer is time. The fact that it does take time/effort is part of what separates an average player, from the more dedicated one. Getting "Raid Gear" in other games = tedium.
Now, that unlocking Engineers involves a time wall is not inherently a bad thing. Acknowledging that the effort for each engineer is not Hard, certainly is a rebut to the OP's issues. It may take time, as it should, but it isn't hard to do, sounds like a reasonable recipe for a game mechanic.
Now, that unlocking Engineers involves a time wall is not inherently a bad thing. Acknowledging that the effort for each engineer is not Hard, certainly is a rebut to the OP's issues. It may take time, as it should, but it isn't hard to do, sounds like a reasonable recipe for a game mechanic.
Or, you just don't account for human nature.
Ya, no. The OP (and others) may feel the whole process is tedious, and they are welcome to their OPINION (my caps locks works too!)
Others have said they didn't find it tedious, or *gasp* actually enjoyed it! And they are also welcome to their OPINION.
Personally, I havn't found them too tedious at all. Sure, I sighed at first when I couldn't fill my hold with masses of rares, but meh, I learned loads about rare trade routes, always have had multiple engineer unlocks ongoing at the same time, combined different collection routes, upped my rep with loads of local factions, and have enjoyed the whole process so far - especially knowing what new things I can experiment with as each unlock finishes. I imagine if one approaches it with MUST UNLOCK eng1 NOW, MUST UNLOCK eng2 NOW attitude... things might seem too slow for some people.
My wife gets up and goes running 3-4 times a week - holy murder spree do I find running tedious! W henever someone asks me if we run together... my politest response is hell no, I run if I'm being chased, chasing someone, or there's a ball, net, opponet(s), and score keeping, otherwise what's the point... yogging is a weird cult. But that's just my opinion, and in no way 'correct'.
/refuted