FD, I implore you, do not bulldoze over our existing gear and upgrades

@Morlock. I do agree with the sentiment that pvp is less about who has better skills. And more about who has better equipment. Take SDC for example. Not to say they aren't good fighters because clearly they are. But without engineering I don't feel that half of these player groups would be a fraction of the threat they are now. So I see your point and agree to a certain degree.
 
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Not entirely, they reward planning, strategy and scheming rather than simply testing twitch reflexes in the heat of the moment.

There's even a very applicable quote from Sun Tzu (if you haven't read the Art of War, I'd strongly recommend it) regarding this point: "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

I also like his wisdom on doing hundreds of rolls on a specific module to get a specific effect :)
I beleive he was reincarnated as RNGesus and many ED players pray to him every day.

If dumb luck is good enough for you, great, i would rather play pvp games decided by skill and if you think ED is twitchy, i wonder about your game experience. If i wanted twitchy id be playing quake 3.
 
Edit: There have been some misunderstandings where I am aiming with this thread. To clarify: I do not want to have to repeat the RNGineer grind. I have no issues with an item reset that also gets rid of RNGineers in the process. But right now the most likely prospect is that new gear will either come in the form of new mods, new items that we have to reapply the the mods we already use on existing gear, or both.
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[video=youtube;tL_bCwiUKNE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_bCwiUKNE[/video]

We are all doomed by acretion... that's FD moto right now.
 
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Frontier should watch that Extra Credits channel and take notes. They have covered almost every sin a developer could commit in their videos. They even had a great episode on RNG that nailed everything Fdev did wrong.
 
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I also like his wisdom on doing hundreds of rolls on a specific module to get a specific effect :)
I beleive he was reincarnated as RNGesus and many ED players pray to him every day.

If dumb luck is good enough for you, great, i would rather play pvp games decided by skill and if you think ED is twitchy, i wonder about your game experience. If i wanted twitchy id be playing quake 3.

Personally, if I wanted twitchy I'd go UT2K4, but that's beside the point.

The point is that, if you want to engage in apex PvP, not simply picking a fight with a random dude you found off the beaten trail, then you need to prepare. It's no different than engaging in apex PvP in Diablo II without a full loadout of god-rolled rares, set items and unique items, backed up with a couple of key runewords and with all applicable items socketed with additional god-rolled jewels all on a level 99 character - having anything less than that is voluntarily handicapping yourself as you haven't prepared adequately for what you are getting into. That's how apex gameplay works, the "level" field assumes that everyone has done everything they possibly can to improve their performance. Sure, not everyone can afford to dedicate so much of their life towards reaching this level, but there's nothing wrong with that.

It's no difference to professional sports. Obviously, performing well on the day is very important, however the training regimens to make sure that every individual component (whether organic, mechanical or electrical) is operating at peak performance is also very important. You'd never hear a commentator at the Olympics comment on a 100m sprinter saying "he's got his running form down right, but that bacon and beer regimen has really not paid off and is really hampering his otherwise perfect running technique"; no, they would just make a humourous offhand comment about how some team brought an unfit slob to the Olympics rather than the more effective athlete at peak performance - or more likely, a team would just bring an athlete at peak performance in the first place.

Now, I'm all for some kind of pseudo-CQC being implemented into the game where people can take on missions in select locations go into special PvP matches around CQC assets in stock ships. But that's not apex PvP, and it should not be confused as such.
 
I'm out of the loop a bit, what are we mad about today?

It's some cryptic comments from FD about the addition of military weaponry, which has in turn sparked the worries that it will be a metaphorical table flip and effectively reset player progress as the new uber-powerful military equipment render everything else in the game completely redundant by comparison.
 
Yes, I agree with Ziljan.

Unless Frontier will publicly and categorically guarantee the permanent removal of every single sploit god roll from the game, the sooner the current gear is superseded by higher level gear, the better.

Never thought I'd want more grind and power creep, but it's the only way now. Unforseen circumstances.

In the meantime, making all blueprints available by one single g1 mat would at least spread the god rolls.
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The question here really is, does FD actually have problems determining who used the exploit? I mean, it's over 20 years now since our university group set up an online multiplayer game. (A MUD, i guess the older ones here still now what that is. :) ) And even we were easily able to track any exploit of the kind described here.
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It's really that simple. You log every transaction, item acquired, item spend, into your database. That's just a few bytes per transaction, even 20 years ago this didn't put stress on harddisc space, so it shouldn't be an issue now, either. When such an exploit happens, you simply let a small script run over all accounts. It adds up all transactions done, material acquired and material spent and crosschecks against all modifications (and the materials they needed) on the account.
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On all accounts where the result is not a zero-sum, you know something fishy was done. You simply ban that those accounts, which removes all exploited components from the game.
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If FD actually is not able to do that, and their recent letter of "please report to us if you see somebody with exploited equipment" indicates that, they still have a lot of homework to do. Apparently they are not on par to the abilities of a handful of students running a game on a non-professional and non-commercial basis.
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So if this is true, then indeed we might need a kind of gear inflation to devalue the exploited equipment, then wait till the next exploit comes around. After all, if FD is not able to identify exploited gear, how are we players supposed to tell if somebody else rolled his upgrades in a legit way of if he used an exploit? On the other hand, in the (seemingly ulikely) case that FD actually has the competence to identify and handle the offenders, this new gear inflation is unnecessary and might be very contraproductive for the game.
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Frontier should watch that Extra Credits channel and take notes. They have covered almost every sin a developer could commit in their videos. They even had a great episode on RNG that nailed everything Fdev did wrong.

In general, no dev team should try to exist in a vacuum. Iterative design is at least as important as innovative, and that means following developments in the wider game industry.

Time and again, Frontier gives the impression that the designers and producers do not actually play the sort of games they are producing. There are so many things they could be doing to make Elite more engaging, more fun and less grindy. It's not rocket science either. It's just a matter of following how others have done things, picking up good ideas, and if possible improving on them.
 
The point is that, if you want to engage in apex PvP, not simply picking a fight with a random dude you found off the beaten trail, then you need to prepare. It's no different than engaging in apex PvP in Diablo II without a full loadout of god-rolled rares, set items and unique items, backed up with a couple of key runewords and with all applicable items socketed with additional god-rolled jewels all on a level 99 character - having anything less than that is voluntarily handicapping yourself as you haven't prepared adequately for what you are getting into. That's how apex gameplay works, the "level" field assumes that everyone has done everything they possibly can to improve their performance. Sure, not everyone can afford to dedicate so much of their life towards reaching this level, but there's nothing wrong with that.

It's very telling (about ED, not about you) that you bring up Diablo 2 as an analogy. Because if this game had been announced at "Diablo In Space", I'd never have Alpha-backed it in the first place.
 
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Frontier should watch that Extra Credits channel and take notes. They have covered almost every sin a developer could commit in their videos. They even had a great episode on RNG that nailed everything Fdev did wrong.

Why do people always assume that devs haven't read/watched X?

They are in the actual business, more so than most of the armchair devs around here, and are 10x more likely to be aware of various trends, ideologies, methods, etc when it comes to developing games. Whether they choose to follow that "wisdom" is their business. They might simply disagree with their asssessment and your approval of it. Or who knows, maybe they agree and are kicking themselves. I've done it myself when devving. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If FD continue doing the same things, then you have to assume they disagree and think their way is the right way. That could lead them to sucess or failure, but that will be determined by time, not by your or anyone elses individual opinions on the matter.

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Mephane - interesting post. I also hope that FD won't make our existing gear obselete, but i doubt that a lot. My guess is though, by farming mats from Thargoids we might be able to create weapons that are more effective at defeating them. So our first encounters will be very tough, but once we have some mats, perhaps a few CGs to unlock tech and stuff, and we will be able to create weapons that make our lives easier. What we could possibly find is that those anti-thargoid weapons are not so useful against human ships though, so when kitting out, we need to decide whether we are wanting to attack human ships and be vunerable to thargoids or vice versa, or a hybrid loadout.

Anyway, its one possibility. Not sure its the one FD will go for, there are plenty of other options as well.
 
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Yes but in 2017 you don't have to deliver arbitrary materials to obscure people for them to provide you an object with random properties. You go into a store and buy the stuff.

That said, I would be all for an item reset that eradicates engineers for good and reinstates the pre-2.1 status quo where you just bought your gear with credits. But as it stands there is no reason to assume engineers will go away, and thus any near gear that replaces an existing item means you also have to repeat the engineering on that new item.

Very true, but I am not opposed to RNGineers as a concept, but the implemention of multiple layers of RNG with no way of weighting the outcome with extra/special mats and the rather extreme power curve that makes G5 God rolls a requirement to be competitive in PVP... Yeah that is some bad game design, unless your whole goal is to have the galaxy ruled by terrorists and tyrants.
 
It's some cryptic comments from FD about the addition of military weaponry, which has in turn sparked the worries that it will be a metaphorical table flip and effectively reset player progress as the new uber-powerful military equipment render everything else in the game completely redundant by comparison.

Ah people theory crafting with little information at hand.

Just another day in the elite world.
 
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The point is that, if you want to engage in apex PvP, not simply picking a fight with a random dude you found off the beaten trail, then you need to prepare. It's no different than engaging in apex PvP in Diablo II without a full loadout of god-rolled rares, set items and unique items, backed up with a couple of key runewords and with all applicable items socketed with additional god-rolled jewels all on a level 99 character - having anything less than that is voluntarily handicapping yourself as you haven't prepared adequately for what you are getting into. That's how apex gameplay works, the "level" field assumes that everyone has done everything they possibly can to improve their performance. Sure, not everyone can afford to dedicate so much of their life towards reaching this level, but there's nothing wrong with that.

I think you may be confusing an easter egg hunt concluding in a dice roll with actual skill. There is no skill in grinding away collecting mystical items to hopefully be blessed by the rng wizard at the end of it.
Actual skill consists in learning how to pilot ones ship and use ones weapons, through practice. Practice with opponents who have the same tools available that you do, so that the contest is decided by actual skill, talent and experience, rather than dumb luck and tolerance for boredom. You cant really be blamed for this misperception, ED encourages it.
 
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