Seriously, you need to slow down and read posts without any a priori bias against specific posters. Sure, Bob loves ED, rarely complains about it, and often shares that he does enjoy what others may complain about. But even when the tone of his posts seem a bit abrupt, you've got to do a fair bit of the interpretive literature dance to reach the conclusion that he (not meaning to speak for Bob, but as you've lumped me in with him...) are frowning upon people, saying you shouldn't be complaining, or need to alter your playstyle. Go back and read my posts in this thread, slowly.
Actually in the years I've seen him post he does say "you're doing it wrong" in multiple ways, multiple times about pretty much every aspect of anything he's ever commented on - or he simply says "that doesn't affect me".
I can honestly say I've NEVER seen any form of indepth analysis post from stigbob in the entire time he's been posting - either he just doesn't look at things that way and is happy to go with whatever gets put in front of him - or just doesn't care enough - either way, honestly his opinion has little weight.
Almost all of the "main players" in the forum, on BOTH sides of the fence (and you Sleutelbos - sitting ON the fence all coy like the proverbial Cheshire Cat) have posted at one time or another an indepth
"this is why" post about some aspect of the game, new or old.
Not even when stigbob says "you're doing it wrong" - does he EVER go on to explain WHY he thinks you're doing it wrong, based on evidence from other players experiences, or helpfully points to information a person has overlooked, or ANYTHING even remotely resembling GETTING INVOLVED.
Everyone else is just an uninvolved rubbernecking onlooker, and stigbob is most definitely one of those - so please try not to point at him and claim his playstyle is better, because it really isn't, it just suits HIM, and nothing more.
I agreed that Bob's approach to ED engineering was better than yours, because his approach allows him to have fun, whereas yours doesn't allow you to have fun. That's a pretty simple metric. I apply that to all aspects of ED. Your approach to combat, trade, mining, exploration, BGS, PP, whatever may be better than mine, or someone else's, if it is more fun for you than my approach is for me.
FDev opened an indian restaurant where the ONLY THING available is a bland chicken korma and boiled rice - and annoyingly it's the ONLY curry house in the city. Stigbob loves bland chicken Korma - others, not so much.
Stigbobs approach is that of an unambitious stoner who's happy to drift through life and it'll happen or it won't, and really doesn't care one way or the other - other peoples approach is one of "
I'd like to have the benefits of X, SOONER, rather than at some point in the future at an indeterminate time, by which time I might not even NEED it, or it's become superceded by something else and I have to START ALL OVER AGAIN."
While you may applaud the relaxed nature of the former, the world we live in was based on the latter, and will CONTINUE to be based on the latter for as long as humans exist - we are programmed that way by evolution.
As I said in another post FDev designed Engineering to match ONLY ONE playstyle, (the "relaxed stoner" method) instead of building in the flexibility for ALL PLAYSTYLES to have an equal experience.
PVP combat is a decent example, and there's loads of complaining about that too. Some love it, some hate it. Some approach it from an engineering min/max direction, some approach it from the menu mode option, each to their own. I play in Open (and part of me wishes everyone did) and the state of PvP pretty much forced me to seriously alter aspects of my playstyle - because I wasn't willing to compromise playing in Open. So I learned more about the game, combat, escape, engineering, and adapted to the game environment.
PvP is VERY different aspect and in no way can be compared to engineering, because the driving force behind the evolution of PvP is THE PLAYERS. As players learn more about the possibilities of engineering and come up with new and more ingenious ways to kill each other, so everyone else around them has to ADAPT OR DIE.
The PROCESS of engineering however, is STATIC. As fixed as a mountain to the earth - immutable, it DOES NOT EVOLVE according to player interaction, just as PvP does - because if it did the topic of "engineering sucks" would NEVER have happened, now or in the past with the previous version because everyone's experience of enginnering would be wholly personal and subjective to them.
So leave the PvP combat and engineering aspect out - it's wholly irrelevant to the question "do you like engineering".
PP is a good example too (and brought up in this thread). My approach to PP for over a year was flawed, I wasn't really enjoying it, didn’t like the timed merit hauling system one bit - but I did it, just to serve a specific end - Prismatics. Then I had to do it over multiple times when I kept forgetting to buy & store enough for future ship purchases. Eventually, I changed my approach to PP and am enjoying it far more, probably not as much as some others, but the way they are playing really doesn't suit me or what I want to spend my time doing. So ya, again, I did change how I approach that aspect of ED, in order to try and increase my fun at the expense of taking a quicker easier route. And I did that after reading a post by some god awful forum rat who wrote a positive post in a thread complaining about PP.
PP is a non starter for most people and the answer to the question "do you like... Powerplay" would be a resounding and overwhelming "no, because I don't do it and the fact I don't do it has ZERO affect on my ability to kill NPC's, PvP, kill Thargoids, Explore, Mine, Bounty Hunt, Piracy - or anything else in the game, other than how much it costs to buy stuff with my squillions of credits".
Powerplay could vanish from the game and only a handful of players by percentage would care.
Remove Engineering, rebuild and balance the ships modules basic stats more in line with well engineered versions and I think everyone would be the happier for it. The playfield so to speak gets "reset and re-levelled" - PLAYER SKILL becomes the defining factor for success and the whole system becomes more organic and emergent.
And people can spend less time worrying they have "got the right upgrade" and spend more time ENJOYING the game - when you add a second job and a source of unecessary worry into a game, you've made a VERY BAD DESIGN CHOICE.
Was it Stealthie who said he spends hours and DAYS pouring over coriolis.io checking and rechecking his builds before he even undocks? He does that because he knows if he doesn't, a mistaken calculation could mean the ship WILL NOT EVEN FLY (which I didn't even know was possible) and might take dozens more hours to get the mats to put it right if he were doing it ingame without the help of a 3rd party tool.
Now please - sit there with a straight face and tell me you think that's a good situation FOR A GAME THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A JOB.
But hey ho, rant, rage, and complain all you want, but be wary... other people may enjoy something you don't, they may approach it differently (to ensure they enjoy it), and in a thread specifically asking if anyone enjoys it, they may well share their enjoyment and how/why they enjoy it. As much as that may wind you up, your complaint is no more relevant or valid than their enjoyment, and who knows, maybe someone (not you) might read through and think, ya, maybe that's not a bad way to approach this.
Enjoyment is subjective - granted and accepted no arguments there - the fundamental mistake YOU are making Ethaiden, is that you think people are /ranting because they want other people to play the way they do (stigbob doesn't rant).
They are /ranting because THEY HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO PLAY THE GAME IN A WAY FDEV HAVE DESIGNATED - IN A GAME WHERE "BLAZE YOUR OWN TRAIL" is the motto of the game.
They CANNOT "blaze thier own trail" when there is ONLY ONE BLOODY OPTION AVAILABLE.
And THAT is why they (and I) /rant.
Until FDev change engineering to allow ALL ENGINEERING MATS / BLUEPRINTS TO BE OBTAINED IN MULTIPLE WAYS FOR ALL PLAYSTYLES (except exploring obviously), without forcing players to buy / engineer modules to do a specific activity they don't normally do - then this issue isn't going to go away.
But that would require a third overhaul and just won't happen.
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