What do you mean? Virtually every engineering blueprint HAS negative side effects. (1)
Minor upgrades take "weeks long" grind? It might take weeks to twink your entire ship (or fleet for that matter), but one minor upgrade taking weeks? I'm not sure I can agree with that whatsoever. I don't know what game you're playing, but it isn't this one. (2)
You aren't required to use out of game resources, they just make it a lot easier. This is true for almost every game I've ever played; especially sandbox type ones. Depends if you value personal discovery over doing it once and correctly the first go around. Up to you, really. Most go for the convenience, because yeah, we don't have all that much leisure time and need to optimize it when we do play. At least I do. (3)
It's not bad design, per se, the game is sort of leaning on discovery. Some players enjoy being the first ones to find guardian sites and do all the mapping and figuring of it. The rest of us appreciate their guides so we can just get it over with. Not saying Elite doesn't need some work on UI to make some of this stuff easier to spot or consume... but it definitely is not required (4)
Uh.... nope. If everyone can engineer and one person is too much of a crybaby lazy to do it, and another just hunkers down and does it... that's not called cheating. One of these guys is playing the game and doing the activity required for the reward. The other is on the forums whining. (5)
It is meant to be significantly better than non-engineered ships. Duh, it's basically this game's version of end game. And here you contradict yourself from earlier. "It's too hard to be engineered!" followed up with "engineering is soooo good it's just unfair." Well, which is it? (6)
I mean, do you think you should just get full engineering for free in a day? If it's a bunch of work and then it pays off, you're actually complaining about that? =) (7)
1. The side effects are so minor they're just a straight upgrade. When I said consequences I meant actual, game changing ones. Not a few percent extra heat or a few tons of extra weight for an enormous and disproportionate increase, but a penalty equal to the advantage being bought. Traders and miners might forgo offensive firepower to gain a massive improvement in armour and shields, most combat orientated players wouldn't. Forcing real compromises to be made for each improvement would make engineering about customising your build. The system we have now is purely about upgrading it. There's a gulf between the two- one encourages creative choices in build and play, the other stifles it. And you're all about customisation Alaric, aren't you?
2. Each material you gather increases your counter by one or three- depends where you gather. Each upgrade takes about eight rolls. Traders mark up is between two to two hundred and sixteen (actually seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy six if you were trading grade five to grade one of a different material, you just can't stockpile that many mats). If you aren't inclined to keep logging out of and back into the game, don't know where Dav's Hope is, or realise you can combat log when you finally stumble upon the good stuff in a HGE, it can take a very long time gathering or trading those eight rolls. If a player only logs in a couple of times a week and isn't aware of out of game assets, just how long do you imagine it'll take? 'Weeks' might be conservative... It's worth pointing out that most players don't visit game forums; the more time constrained they are, the less likely they are to geek it up with argumentative forum regulars.
3/4. If you don't use out of game assets and you're time constrained, you're not going to figure Elite Dangerous out. There just isn't enough information provided in game to give you even a basic idea of what's available or going on. To use your example, flash up the game, tell me where
the game gives you any idea that there are Guardian Sites, or that there's a way to upgrade your ship by visiting them?
5. Ouch! Did I strike a nerve there, Alaric? '
Crybaby lazy -redacted-'?
Look, you were the one boasting about how
engineering makes you better. Not skill, not game knowledge, not better tactics, just engineering. When I was younger the guys using cheat codes always brought up how easy and often they won games- cheat codes made them 'better' than us. I disagreed then and I still do now. Mileage varies, cheat codes
were very popular... *
6. Nice Aunt Sally, 7/10. Lost marks for paraphrasing in an exaggerated manner where cherry picked quotes would have been more effective.
Engineering isn't hard, but it's dull, boring and time consuming. Engineering isn't unfair, but it's so unbalanced it's become compulsory for players who want to enjoy all the game activities and modes available.
7. Given that 'full engineering' basically gets us back to the advantages A classed ships had prior to engineering, but without the massive grind wall, then yes, I suppose I do want 'full engineering for free'.
Or rather, I want the carefully designed builds I've accrued over the last four years to be as effective as when I originally put them together, I want the carefully considered ship balance Frontier used to employ to be a thing again, I want small ships to be relevant, I don't want ships the size of guided missile cruisers bopping around like stunt 'planes, I want players to have to choose how to build and fly their ship, rather than just select a cool looking skin for their generic, agile as all Hell, overgunned, massively armoured and almost impenetrably shielded murderwagon.
None of that's going to happen, engineering is here to stay. So I'm hoping for another balance pass to reduce the grind element. If it comes at the cost of additional difficulty- more complex missions, having to cultivate relationships with NPCs or some other gameplay, then so much the better. One part of engineering I do actually enjoy is unlocking them in the first place. We'll see if it's one of FDs QOL improvements. Fingers crossed!
* Alaric, I'm not trying to hack you off here, mate. Hopefully you were grinning when you sent up that last post, it gave me a wee chuckle reading it. I'd hate to think I've genuinely upset you!
