Shadow banned - not banned - there is a difference and do you honestly think anyone with any common sense would brag about being shadow banned.
Engineering Under Threat - Open Letter etc
- Thread starter Gavin786
- Start date
Hang on, what exactly are some people proposing here?
If I lose my connection in PvP combat, my ship blows up? But as there's no way that the game can determine who broke the connection, BOTH SHIPS blow up?
So if I engage your Cutter in my Sidewinder, then pull the plug... your Cutter blows up?
And you don't have a problem with that? This won't be abused at all?
If I lose my connection in PvP combat, my ship blows up? But as there's no way that the game can determine who broke the connection, BOTH SHIPS blow up?
So if I engage your Cutter in my Sidewinder, then pull the plug... your Cutter blows up?
And you don't have a problem with that? This won't be abused at all?
METAs are unavoidable, and can actually good for the game. The key is to make things balanced well enough that the META, while technically the best, isn't -that- much better than the other options. If the difference is small, this leads to a healthy cycle of:
1) META discovered
2) Everyone flocks to new META, diluting its efficacy.
3) A build is discovered that is strong against META opponents, even if it's not quite as efficient in the general case
4) People flock to this new build, since it gives you an edge vs the most common opponents.
5) New counter is discovered, etc.
It's not easy to balance a game well enough to get to this point, but it's what FDev would ideally be working towards. What's popular would continually change over time. Even if you're not in the new hotness META build, your opponent might have an edge but it would still be a very doable fight. People who don't want to think can just follow the flavor of the month setup, and people who want to think aren't overly punished for doing things differently. Experimentation is how the next best thing will be discovered after all and thus progress the cycle, so it's important for people to feel like they're not shooting themselves in the foot for breaking the mold. It also means that playstyle can be enough of a factor to encourage variety. Sure the META might technically be the best, but if you're more comfortable with a different fighting system or weapon type, the difference is small enough that you'd do better with that than forcing yourself to use the META.
As for the original topic, engineering NEEDS to get redesigned ("nerfed to hell" some might say) for there to ever be any semblance of balance in this game, and if experimentation and variety are ever to be encouraged. Engineering needs to be about customization and specialization, rather than enormous raw power increases. Side grades, if you will. The factory-spec A-rated ship would be the jack of all trades sort of approach, and still be a viable combatant. You'd still want to engineer your ships to play to your strengths and preferences, but flying an A-rated version would at least give you a decent feel for it. The gigantic difference between A-rated and fully engineered is hugely detrimental to PvP, PvE, and the general sense of progression in the game. "Oh cool, I got a new ship, and fully A-rated it. Too bad it absolutely sucks compared to my old ship, and will continue to suck until I've spent a considerable amount of time and resources engineering it." Getting a new ship is more like getting a chore list than a new toy.
I agree but disagree, the horse has long since bolted to change things like you seem to be proposing... the only reasonable thing for FD to do now is to introduce trade-offs that help to redress the combat aspects with end-goal being an effective nerfing of defences and attack power in a combat setting while retaining the absolute effects outside of combat.
It would have been ideal if FD had made engineering effectively a side-grade system from day one but ultimately they did not and during the engineering rework as part of Beyond they effectively retained the same fundamental principles but made engineering more predictable and consistent.
WRT your old ship v. new ship comparison - I disagree that an arbitrary engineered v. non-engineered ship comparison means the engineered ship wins, a lot depends on the ships being compared and the individual's goals. It may be true in some cases but arguably not all.
I disagree on both counts
WRT being good for the game - the concept of METAs overall has been one of the most damaging elements of multi-player game-play to emerge over the past 20 years. It is especially damaging in cases such as GW and GW2 and tends to result in toxic attitudes to players who do not use or like to use certain METAs in the given context. Variety and ingenuity are the spice of life, the concept of METAs runs contrary to that and introduces toxic interactions in the process.
WRT METAs being unavoidable - yes and no, any set of choices regarding builds and/or tactics can be considered a form of META at a most basic level but creating circumstances where given METAs are superior to other METAs is entirely avoidable. The latter case (META superiority) is what people usually refer to as actual METAs though and are both avoidable and detrimental to any game with a multiplayer element.
I think for that to really happen, a few things would need to change:
1) Shields would need to be way smaller, in general. Shields would need to be collapsing and recharging several times throughout a fight, giving a good mix of modules being vulnerable and periods of safety. Without this, the expectation remains that your shield should stay up (and modules 100% safe) for the whole fight, and this you've lost (and should run) as soon as your shield fails.
2) Repairing modules would be to be a lot faster, again to have periods of them being taken out, but still recoverable. Having a weapon destroyed should not functionally mean that weapon is gone for the rest of the fight- just temporarily disabled.
3) There need to be no obvious "headshot" modules that either end the fight when they're destroyed, or start an unrecoverable snowball. If any modules are that obviously critical, then targeting anything BUT those modules is a waste.
Hull and module health values would need to be adjusted to be more in-line with the expectation that shields are auxillary temporary health, not your main source of health. Breach changes and depths would need to be reevaluated, too, since right now they're stupidly normalized. Rail guns would probably need tweaks.
Believe me, I've been championing for changes like this and others for many years. I used to play the game so the time, and was very active on the forums. I just got tired of watching FDev not only not address this issues, but actually exacerbate them patch after patch. I'll be watching this "season of big fixes and improvements to existing stuff" closely, with just the faintest glimmer of hope.
Engineering should have been about specialization from the get-go.
Stock is factory optimized.
A tinkerer might squeeze 50% extra damage out of a weapon but at the cost to 75% of some other system, giving them not only diminishing returns but an overall diminished weapon improved only in the particular specialization desired. Random failures and unless the mod is specifically for sturdiness, guaranteed fragility.
You mean to tell me that these greedy, reclusive drug addicts are more competent than teams of scientists that actually designed and built the things? Donatello the Ninja Turtle and McGuyver must have been getting busy.
Power creep sucks.
Stock is factory optimized.
A tinkerer might squeeze 50% extra damage out of a weapon but at the cost to 75% of some other system, giving them not only diminishing returns but an overall diminished weapon improved only in the particular specialization desired. Random failures and unless the mod is specifically for sturdiness, guaranteed fragility.
You mean to tell me that these greedy, reclusive drug addicts are more competent than teams of scientists that actually designed and built the things? Donatello the Ninja Turtle and McGuyver must have been getting busy.
Power creep sucks.