Focused Feedback - Balancing Ship Engineering & Material Gathering

[Rat Catcher]

I think you are confunsing acessible with easly achieavable / effortless.

Apparently the last time that poster played the engineers had just been introduced, mats were picked up 1 at a time and thousands of rolls might be used to get something useful from an engineer.

Anyone who has played in the last 5 years will know that this conception of engineering is incorrect.

 

[V'larr]

Just wanted to add that this is a massive disincentive fir returning players also. I have an engineered to the nines combat ship, exploration ship and multi-role. The thought of having to go throught all that mcguffin fetching nonsense AGAIN to get up to snuff... ugh...

A few simple ways to imporve FPS: Add revives to FPS(make medivac missions, etcetera) so dying in FPS is not so big a deal and doesn't always cost you everything(have ship auto depart for orbit if all crew go down in FPS outside).

MASSIVLY reduce the time to kill in FPS... right now it's like a water-pistol fight. Add skill shots(headshots, reduced damage on limbs). Add a prone state. Add breath hold and stamina mechanics.
Making a good entry level FPS should be really simple... i'm gobsmacked at how poor a job was done initially.

The Odyssey engineering thing is a whole other topic and issue of its own...and I agree it is flabbergasting how it repeated all of the worst mistakes made by Engineering's introduction for ships.

 

[V'larr]

I think you are confunsing acessible with easly achieavable / effortless.

I could engineer ships since the Cobra 3, as soon as I bough an ASPX I went and engineered its thursters and FSD to G3, the best I could.
This was weeks before I could even buy an Anaconda. But I was exploring all aspects of the game, doing diferent missions, testing more than just the combat and trading I wanted to do.

An Anaconda is also not acessible, you have to do lots of jobs before the point you can just pick one up and fit as you like.
You can do a single thing since the sidewinder and see how log it takes to achieve that Anaconda.
But most players will ''have a lot of jobs to do even to get to thw point when they can really start wasting their time clicking" to do their space combat or exploration, whatever on that ship.

Many new players will watch a tutorial about doing X Y Z process on how to speed run the whole credits progression of the game as fast as you can.

The goal of the game is to enjoy what you are doing. Some might enjoy a certain activity loop, want to buy the best ship for it, then fine tune that ship.
If all those things were just given, than you would be always on your confort zone, without means to improve.

I think the problems with engineering are clearly pointed out for a long time, on the mainly on the original post. We should focus on those.
Others might be just our own personal view.

Literally taking weeks to get on-board with a game and get around to being prepared to doing the actual thing you want to be doing in the first place is not accessible. It's the antithesis of it.

You said it yourself. The goal of the game is to enjoy what you are doing. Everything about Engineering deliberately gets in the way of that. That's fundamentally self-defeating as a game experience.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I think you are confunsing acessible with easly achieavable / effortless.

I could engineer ships since the Cobra 3, as soon as I bough an ASPX I went and engineered its thursters and FSD to G3, the best I could.
This was weeks before I could even buy an Anaconda. But I was exploring all aspects of the game, doing diferent missions, testing more than just the combat and trading I wanted to do.

An Anaconda is also not acessible, you have to do lots of jobs before the point you can just pick one up and fit as you like.
You can do a single thing since the sidewinder and see how log it takes to achieve that Anaconda.
But most players will ''have a lot of jobs to do even to get to thw point when they can really start wasting their time clicking" to do their space combat or exploration, whatever on that ship.

Many new players will watch a tutorial about doing X Y Z process on how to speed run the whole credits progression of the game as fast as you can.

The goal of the game is to enjoy what you are doing. Some might enjoy a certain activity loop, want to buy the best ship for it, then fine tune that ship.
If all those things were just given, than you would be always on your confort zone, without means to improve.

I think the problems with engineering are clearly pointed out for a long time, on the mainly on the original post. We should focus on those.
Others might be just our own personal view.

In my experience, the NPC were buffed to very high bullet sponge making vanilla weapons peashooters, in turn neccessitating engineering.
So yes, in order to access combat gameplay I'd rather see the whole crappy engineer "progression" made easily achievable. In fact I'd rather see it completely done away with, since it adds nothing good to the game at all.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Fatshark's recent release of WH40arktide is an analogue example. They made progression elements with random loot generator in in-game shop whose items cycle every 60 mins.
They failed to implement "crafting" (wgatever that entails) at launch.
So people idle to reroll every hour at the store to get a chance for gear they desire.
The people clamour for for crafting to have their gear wishes.
And most of them fail to realise that there neednt be any loot grind in a coop shooter when the gameplay is good.
Deep Rock Galactic did it well. It is more like a quest to acquire gear. All gear is capable doing the job. New gear opens new ways to play rather than being super powerful. Maps are semiprocedural. Terrain destructible. Rewards are satisfying. Difficulty is challenging.
ED engineer is nothing but frustrating. If you want to see how not to do it: ED is the place. Could have been optional but they chose to make it the cancer of the game by going full power creep.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I can’t believe I forgot to finish my reply to this topic. Oh, well… better late than never.

Greetings Commanders

Now that Update 8 for Odyssey is live, we'd like to reignite the series of balancing changes that started before Odyssey's release. Now, it's time to turn our attention to ship Engineering. We recognise there has been significant feedback for on-foot Engineering too, but we'd like to approach these one at a time due to the number of aspects involved. Specifically, we'd like to look at the balancing of the Engineering grind, which largely relates to...

This is kind of a difficult topic for me to address, because the bulk of my current engineering materials was gathered before Engineering 2.0, and all the changes that made getting specific materials easier, and I had no complaints at that time. In my opinion, the main complaint gathering engineering materials stems from following the plethora of “This one easy trick” videos about this game, an attitude that one must G5 to 100% to be effective, and hyper focusing on one goal at a time, not a problem in material gathering itself.

Material Gathering

Availability and Time Required​

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

These two questions are mutually exclusive IMO, unless you intend to dial up material drops to 11, like you did with credits. If you don't increase the rate of which materials drop overall, then if you increase how frequently grades 1-3 drop, you're effectively decreasing the rate at which grades 4-5 drop. And if you increase the rate grade 4 drops, you'll effectively be decreasing the rate at which grade 5 drops.

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

The biggest problem with engineering materials in my opinion is that it's too complex. You've got materials tied to BGS states, government types, and faction types. You also have three categories of engineering materials, an average of eight classes of engineering materials per category, and five grades of materials per class... many of which are of limited use. And then you've got all the various ways modules can be engineered, frequently five different types of modifications, combined with five different types of experimental effects... again many of which are of limited use. This is a lot of information for a player to keep track of in their head, and a lot of materials to clutter up the game's drop tables.

Simplifying things, while retaining the current system's depth, would go a long way towards a better engineering experience for everyone.

Any estimates regarding how long it took to earn a given Engineered module by gathering materials will also be helpful in addressing this aspect of balancing.

What I wanted to do most in this game was play a struggling commander who makes interesting decisions about how to accomplish her goals, while waging a personal, one person war against the Evil Galactic Federation. Thanks to how absurdly easy it is to make credits these days, I’m playing a wealthy dilettante who is willing to manipulate the fate of millions to cure her ennui.

Engineering her personal collection of ships isn’t much of a challenge these days, but at least it’s engaging enough to lead to interesting decisions. Engineering a single ship enough to beat all but the most difficult NPCs is IMO a fairly trivial task, as long as you pursue your personal goals in parallel, and gather materials as you come across them during your normal activities. The fairly common advice of “Today you should grind credits, tomorrow you should grind reputation, and the next day grind gathering material X” is really the worst advice out there as far as I'm concerned. Materials A through Z are readily found while gathering credits or reputation... if you keep your eyes open.

Regardless of what the actual rate of drops is, I've found the rate that materials drops is sufficient for me to casually engineer my ships to easily defeat most NPCs in 1-1 combat, while still leaving me more than enough of the "good stuff" left over to "play with." This, to me, feels right. YMMV.

Alternate Gathering Methods​

We appreciate that the repetitive nature of material gathering may not be for everyone. Some have called for ways to earn materials while engaging in the specific types of content they already enjoy.

Variety of is the spice of life. Having more ways to accomplish the same goals is always a good thing. But remember: "Water will find a crack." The "easiest" way of accomplishing something will always be attractive to a certain type of player, no matter how dull, repetitive, and time consuming it may be.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

More mission types are always good in my book. More missions that offer high-grade engineering materials as alternative rewards throughout the galaxy would be even better.

Another idea is to allow materials to be "bought" with items that are not obtainable at Commodities Markets. This could include things such as Exploration Data, Bounty Vouchers, Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts and would allow players to earn materials while playing within their chosen disciplines.

This is one step removed from buying engineering materials for credits outright. At least with missions, you don't have a choice for what materials you'll receive. You also failed to account for traders in that list.

Rolling for Engineering Improvements​

Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

This is one change that should've been done right from the start.

Other Feedback and Suggestions​

Feel free to respond with other ship Engineering balancing feedback and suggestions that go beyond the ideas mentioned above. To keep the conversation on-topic and help us collect the feedback, this thread will be closely moderated. Please only reply with responses to the topics mentioned and keep feedback constructive. Unrelated or unhelpful posts may be removed during clean-up. If you find this has happened to your post, consider raising your points in another thread within the Dangerous Discussion section.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

O7

 

[Maidor]

Literally taking weeks to get on-board with a game and get around to being prepared to doing the actual thing you want to be doing in the first place is not accessible. It's the antithesis of it.

You said it yourself. The goal of the game is to enjoy what you are doing. Everything about Engineering deliberately gets in the way of that. That's fundamentally self-defeating as a game experience.

Unlocks are far from that. I see what you mean.
Just don't think [ engineering unlocks ] and the rest of [ engineering farm and upgrading ] are on the same level of problem.

People can't even decide what they want for breakfast. So we made the Menu.

You can go do any activity, within a lot of options, if you want to achieve that experience you need to go through steps.
Unlocks is just a simple way to offer a goal to most players game experience. A direction to progress. A reason to do something in the game, to play.

I think it's healthy

Spoiler: Super-Long Elaboration for those who are interested.

What I said is that you can ''desire'' to do something the best way possible.
If you could do it right away, you would be out of obvious goals and progression. Most players need goals to easly find enjoyment.

Players are in the game to enjoy it in a variaty of ways. Some are just trying something new, a very big space game.

Even if one's view of enjoyement just come's at an specific point. Very sure of what they like and want.
If you just reach that point without the process, you will become goaless quickly in the game. And have a very strick way of improving.
''Getting good'' at an activity becomes the only progression, and obvious goal.

Such a vast game, without mechanics to incentivise you to explore and learn it.
Sounds way less acessible than placing a few unlocks and progression.

I did some tests to see if It was really a problem how the unlocks were currently.
So from now one is more game design principles. Here are the conclusions.

Every engineer unlock besides Colonia is very straight foward and fast. Easly achiavable by anyone.
Clearly demonstrated where and how on the game menu, during regular gameplay.
Unecessary to achieve enjoyement or progression in many aspects of the game.
Acessible

-Is unlocking specific techbroker modules part of this opinion: No
-Is farming engineering materials for the unlocked engineers to upgrade your ship part of this opinion: No

Exemples of tests I did:

I didn't have an engineer unlocked before this conversation. Bill Turner
I didn't have the invitation. So I did 2 random engineer unlock until I got it. Took me around 30 min because I had everything done organically. Just deliver some goods.

Bill though, I had nothing.
It required me to get frendly with a faction, to unlock a permit. Get frendly with the faction on the permit system. And then deliver 50 bromelite.

I like combat, I did all those things with combat. I did massacre missions for 2 diferent stations.
And switched to a medium ship with cargo to deliver the bromelite I bought in 3 minutes.

There, engineer unlocked in 1 hour only doing what I wanted.
I did'nt need that engineer before, I just did to check how long it takes.

Like the ones in Colonia, there are many engineers that with so many ours of game, I never needed or wanted. A player can choose what to improve.

Even the G5 Plasma, and I do PVP, I don't like it so I use G3 when I do.
Now I want G5 plasma for a build and got it using a Viper 4. In an Hour...
Using only the menu to find who was the engineer, what it unlocked, where to find him, and how to unlock him. And doing the slowest way possible in terms ''grind''.
Looks ok to me for new players.

Then there are those engineers that require specific activity. Like be RANGER in exploration. And you have not recieved an Invite from another one.
You just want X model G5. You know it exists, you just don't have the engineer even mentioned. If you want to skip unlocking everything organically.

-open youtube guide. After 5 min you know every step.
-Find the who you need to get frendly with.
-Use a site to calculate jump, farm cartography credits in like 20 min.
-Get ranger in an hour of gameplay I dont really like. Could be any other requirement, combat bonds, SRV or whatever else. Try something else.
-Go back to that station some cargo you bought for the donation, or whatever else you did.
-Engineer unlocked.


This specific one, Palin:
-Gave me a reason to buy a Krait Phantom, I'd probably never buy. Used credits for something I didnt really need. Saw the Alien Structure, that was fun.
-Refit the krait for piracy because I liked it. So I used credits for something new that now is there for me whenever I want.

There, an engineer unlocked forever.

I think that a short deviation from your favorite thing is an ok.
It is a fair barrier for a large amount of players with many definitions of fun, to coexist in the same game.

As I said:
"If all those things were just given, than you would be always on your confort zone, without means to improve."

If a player only wanted to get a ship, and explore the galaxy, there is a game for that.
If a player wants only battle, there is a game for that too.
This is a sandbox game, it has a little of everything.

Without a sence of progression, it would just become a drop in and off game.
You enter, do one exact activity with the pure goal of doing it, and them leave. Like Counter Strike, or League of legends, Call of duty.
Games that even on single player. It's about doing what the games sets you to do.

This one is about doing what you want within so many possibilities. So having unlocks is a way to offer a vast amount of players with goals.
There are many people that light straight foward missions, or hard tasks, or are completionist. Some are miners, some are bounty hunters or explores.

And having goals is infinitly more acessible than asking every single player to find an objective on this massive game. Full of possibilities.
That is why I don't see unlocks as a problem. Everything that comes after though...

 

[Rat Catcher]

If a player only wishes to do combat in the game, the majority of the unlocks for engineers are unavailable is one point being made.

But, in truth, ED was never marketed as just a combat game - the problem is the player, not the game.

The same "problem" will exist for any player who wished to follow only a single style of play - no point in blaming the game for their own narrow playstyle.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

If a player only wishes to do combat in the game, the majority of the unlocks for engineers are unavailable is one point being made.

But, in truth, ED was never marketed as just a combat game - the problem is the player, not the game.

The same "problem" will exist for any player who wished to follow only a single style of play - no point in blaming the game for their own narrow playstyle.

ED was marketed to blaze one's own trail. If that is combat, why would they have to collect green daisies on planets 5 kly out?

 

[happimeal]

@sallymorganmoore or @Bruce G
this thread is well over a year old now, is the topic of this post still something that is being considered?

 

[V'larr]

Unlocks are far from that. I see what you mean.
Just don't think [ engineering unlocks ] and the rest of [ engineering farm and upgrading ] are on the same level of problem.

People can't even decide what they want for breakfast. So we made the Menu.

You can go do any activity, within a lot of options, if you want to achieve that experience you need to go through steps.
Unlocks is just a simple way to offer a goal to most players game experience. A direction to progress. A reason to do something in the game, to play.

I think it's healthy

Spoiler: Super-Long Elaboration for those who are interested.

What I said is that you can ''desire'' to do something the best way possible.
If you could do it right away, you would be out of obvious goals and progression. Most players need goals to easly find enjoyment.

Players are in the game to enjoy it in a variaty of ways. Some are just trying something new, a very big space game.

Even if one's view of enjoyement just come's at an specific point. Very sure of what they like and want.
If you just reach that point without the process, you will become goaless quickly in the game. And have a very strick way of improving.
''Getting good'' at an activity becomes the only progression, and obvious goal.

Such a vast game, without mechanics to incentivise you to explore and learn it.
Sounds way less acessible than placing a few unlocks and progression.

I did some tests to see if It was really a problem how the unlocks were currently.
So from now one is more game design principles. Here are the conclusions.

Every engineer unlock besides Colonia is very straight foward and fast. Easly achiavable by anyone.
Clearly demonstrated where and how on the game menu, during regular gameplay.
Unecessary to achieve enjoyement or progression in many aspects of the game.
Acessible

-Is unlocking specific techbroker modules part of this opinion: No
-Is farming engineering materials for the unlocked engineers to upgrade your ship part of this opinion: No

Exemples of tests I did:

I didn't have an engineer unlocked before this conversation. Bill Turner
I didn't have the invitation. So I did 2 random engineer unlock until I got it. Took me around 30 min because I had everything done organically. Just deliver some goods.

Bill though, I had nothing.
It required me to get frendly with a faction, to unlock a permit. Get frendly with the faction on the permit system. And then deliver 50 bromelite.

I like combat, I did all those things with combat. I did massacre missions for 2 diferent stations.
And switched to a medium ship with cargo to deliver the bromelite I bought in 3 minutes.

There, engineer unlocked in 1 hour only doing what I wanted.
I did'nt need that engineer before, I just did to check how long it takes.

Like the ones in Colonia, there are many engineers that with so many ours of game, I never needed or wanted. A player can choose what to improve.

Even the G5 Plasma, and I do PVP, I don't like it so I use G3 when I do.
Now I want G5 plasma for a build and got it using a Viper 4. In an Hour...
Using only the menu to find who was the engineer, what it unlocked, where to find him, and how to unlock him. And doing the slowest way possible in terms ''grind''.
Looks ok to me for new players.

Then there are those engineers that require specific activity. Like be RANGER in exploration. And you have not recieved an Invite from another one.
You just want X model G5. You know it exists, you just don't have the engineer even mentioned. If you want to skip unlocking everything organically.

-open youtube guide. After 5 min you know every step.
-Find the who you need to get frendly with.
-Use a site to calculate jump, farm cartography credits in like 20 min.
-Get ranger in an hour of gameplay I dont really like. Could be any other requirement, combat bonds, SRV or whatever else. Try something else.
-Go back to that station some cargo you bought for the donation, or whatever else you did.
-Engineer unlocked.


This specific one, Palin:
-Gave me a reason to buy a Krait Phantom, I'd probably never buy. Used credits for something I didnt really need. Saw the Alien Structure, that was fun.
-Refit the krait for piracy because I liked it. So I used credits for something new that now is there for me whenever I want.

There, an engineer unlocked forever.

I think that a short deviation from your favorite thing is an ok.
It is a fair barrier for a large amount of players with many definitions of fun, to coexist in the same game.

As I said:
"If all those things were just given, than you would be always on your confort zone, without means to improve."

If a player only wanted to get a ship, and explore the galaxy, there is a game for that.
If a player wants only battle, there is a game for that too.
This is a sandbox game, it has a little of everything.

Without a sence of progression, it would just become a drop in and off game.
You enter, do one exact activity with the pure goal of doing it, and them leave. Like Counter Strike, or League of legends, Call of duty.
Games that even on single player. It's about doing what the games sets you to do.

This one is about doing what you want within so many possibilities. So having unlocks is a way to offer a vast amount of players with goals.
There are many people that light straight foward missions, or hard tasks, or are completionist. Some are miners, some are bounty hunters or explores.

And having goals is infinitly more acessible than asking every single player to find an objective on this massive game. Full of possibilities.
That is why I don't see unlocks as a problem. Everything that comes after though...

Engineering as-established is a very poor way of goal-setting for players. The unlocks are not as painful as the task of gathering, sure, but it remains a fact that to upgrade your ships appropriately you have to spend such a quantity of materials that you are forced to go out of your way to do things that have nothing to do with what you want to be doing and take up a significant quantity of time you could be spending doing the things you want to be doing.

If you want to introduce goals and story-type progression to the game, then it should NOT be tied to upgrading one's ship or on-foot tools, as that's completely got the cart before the horse.

I think your lengthy example only goes to show how this process is not user-friendly and is not intuitive for newer players who lack the knowledge necessary to achieve all of those things. Like I've mentioned I see it very regularly from day to day on discord, I've seen it many more times throughout the years since Engineer's introduction, I've voiced concerns about this since it's release along with the majority of players since its release, and we can see the evidence of it strewn throughout this very thread.

It's a problem. And it ought to be remedied.

 

[V'larr]

If a player only wishes to do combat in the game, the majority of the unlocks for engineers are unavailable is one point being made.

But, in truth, ED was never marketed as just a combat game - the problem is the player, not the game.

The same "problem" will exist for any player who wished to follow only a single style of play - no point in blaming the game for their own narrow playstyle.

As far as I'm concerned there is no greater fallacy in game development than to blame the player, not the game.

There is not a single tabletop group experience that will go well when the DM blames the players rather than adapts the game to what their players would like to be doing.

 

[Rat Catcher]

There is not a single tabletop group experience that will go well when the DM blames the players rather than adapts the game to what their players would like to be doing.

Ummm... You do know that ED is not a tabletop game, so why compare it to a RPG with a GM?

My point stands, and I'm not going to waste more words in debate over the minute details of "blaming players" as it gets incredibly tedious to have the same lame arguments spouted ad nauseum.

 

[Charger]

I can't figure out how I'm running multiple accounts and opening engineers? Okay the account with 12053.5 hours. It's all good there. And what I need has been open for a long time. But there are other accounts where everything is not as good, and I do not develop other accounts with the transfer of resources. But at the same time, the account with 400 hours opened FSD in the range of five. Can we change the approach, without getting bogged down in wish fulfillment? I can do it, and probably not only me

 

[Maidor]

Engineering as-established is a very poor way of goal-setting for players. The unlocks are not as painful as the task of gathering, sure, but it remains a fact that to upgrade your ships appropriately you have to spend such a quantity of materials that you are forced to go out of your way to do things that have nothing to do with what you want to be doing and take up a significant quantity of time you could be spending doing the things you want to be doing.

If you want to introduce goals and story-type progression to the game, then it should NOT be tied to upgrading one's ship or on-foot tools, as that's completely got the cart before the horse.

I think your lengthy example only goes to show how this process is not user-friendly and is not intuitive for newer players who lack the knowledge necessary to achieve all of those things. Like I've mentioned I see it very regularly from day to day on discord, I've seen it many more times throughout the years since Engineer's introduction, I've voiced concerns about this since it's release along with the majority of players since its release, and we can see the evidence of it strewn throughout this very thread.

It's a problem. And it ought to be remedied.

I do belive the validity of all you said. I just think it's more as @Ratcatcher said.

Not that the problem is the player, but the game is made to be a thing, and peoples expectations are another thing.
A good product in any sector will deliver a clear message and also manage expectations.

This is a huge project, has many aspects and many expectations around the experience with it. This was the way they found.
Agreeing with you, it's not perfect. But it does manage to work for a game with many players enjoying completely unique activities, and views on entretainment.
I myself think it makes sence and is -acceptable-

Spoiler: I write too much and long posts are boring.

But I do agree that since it is not made from a point of ''story telling'' or restrict progression, to enable a player to only do a single activity. It is less acessible to some. And you are corrent in seeing this as a problem.

As all the other things that annoy some players and slow down progression:
-Like 1 month for unlocking power play modules.
-Unlocking each separate Size and Mount for Techbroker Hardpoints.
-Navy Ranks for some Ships.

And possibly more, things....

There could be a revision to finding and unlocking engineers. One that keeps how some people currently enjoy it and stil allows a new aproach.
I think as reputation with donations. It could be done through Credits alone so you don't deviate from your favorite activity. But it would take more time.
Wouldn't this just become a new form of long repetitive grind for people to complain about? Probably. But more options would be better.

 

[V'larr]

Ummm... You do know that ED is not a tabletop game, so why compare it to a RPG with a GM?

My point stands, and I'm not going to waste more words in debate over the minute details of "blaming players" as it gets incredibly tedious to have the same lame arguments spouted ad nauseum.

I hope your back doesn't hurt when you bend it that far backwards to avoid acknowledging a rather direct point. Your point - that players ought to be blamed for the game's flaws rather than the game itself - has nothing to stand on, from where I sit. It is of no merit. No game whose designers follow your manner of thinking succeeds at improving.

If you're so uninterested in debate, you could very well have not posted anything at all and retained the same amount of constructive contribution.

 

[V'larr]

I do belive the validity of all you said. I just think it's more as @Ratcatcher said.

Not that the problem is the player, but the game is made to be a thing, and peoples expectations are another thing.
A good product in any sector will deliver a clear message and also manage expectations.

This is a huge project, has many aspects and many expectations around the experience with it. This was the way they found.
Agreeing with you, it's not perfect. But it does manage to work for a game with many players enjoying completely unique activities, and views on entretainment.
I myself think it makes sence and is -acceptable-

Spoiler: I write too much and long posts are boring.

But I do agree that since it is not made from a point of ''story telling'' or restrict progression, to enable a player to only do a single activity. It is less acessible to some. And you are corrent in seeing this as a problem.

As all the other things that annoy some players and slow down progression:
-Like 1 month for unlocking power play modules.
-Unlocking each separate Size and Mount for Techbroker Hardpoints.
-Navy Ranks for some Ships.

And possibly more, things....

There could be a revision to finding and unlocking engineers. One that keeps how some people currently enjoy it and stil allows a new aproach.
I think as reputation with donations. It could be done through Credits alone so you don't deviate from your favorite activity. But it would take more time.
Wouldn't this just become a new form of long repetitive grind for people to complain about? Probably. But more options would be better.

As an experience it's held together with tape and prayers, and those that have stuck around have done so out of stubbornness as much as sincere feelings for the game. How many big streamers of the game have moved on never to return? How many of those that do return continually put the game on hiatus again and again? How many untold thousands more players have treated the game in similar fashion, myself included? The existence of Engineers in its current form is a primary contributor to why this occurs.

They completely misled expectations when this was introduced, you know. We were all told we'd be given an interesting system of ways to customize and tweak our ships. What we got was an RNG grindwheel hotglued to excessive power creep, and the most fixes we've gotten over 7 years down the line is a reduction of the RNG element (and only a reduction). It still remains as an exponential increase to everything ships can do that therefore cannot be ignored or treated casually by players wanting to master the game. Massive balance outliers and problems continue to remain unchecked (hello, healy beams anyone?) or unchanged, year after year after year after year now.

It is flawed. For huge projects to work, flaws need to be acted upon and corrected. If they are not, the foundations will rot and decay and the entire effort will eventually collapse under the weight of its own hubris of proceeding as though everything is fine and normal.

To the points in the spoiler bit:

• I agree totally about Powerplay module timegating, very bizarre design choice to make players queue up and wait as though in a DMV office in order to use special modules or weapons, one of many issues to do with Powerplay which deserve a Focused Feedback thread of its own
• Tech broker unlocks could very well be simplified but haven't been too bad in my experience, especially compared to Engineers (really, a tech broker is about the level Engineering should have always been in terms of grind and progression-walling)
• Navy ranks I'm fine with for navy-specific ships, but the process of achieving said ranks really deserves a rework to be more imaginative, narrative-rich, and exciting, and not a soulless paper-pushing numbers-quantity-grind
• I see less of a problem with how Engineers contact the player and are upgraded, and more the fact that Engineers are somehow the only technical wizards in the galaxy able to apply bleeding-edge military-grade arms-race-inducing-level of improvements to players' ships, their presence and their bases would make all the sense in the universe if they actually provided interesting tweaks and adjustments to player ships instead of massive amounts of power creep.

 

[BetaToaster]

The issue with engineering is the (lack of) proper balancing:

A) Engineering is stupidly powerful. You never even compare the performance of an unengineered ship with a a fully-engineered one, it's just no contest.

B) With the laudable exception of weapons, you're not customizing a ship to your liking by engineering, you're just picking the numerically-superior blueprint: When was the last time anyone engineered an FSD for something other than Long Range, thrusters for something other than Dirty/Drag, bulkheads for something other than Heavy Duty/Deep Plated, or had more than one single-resist HRP or shield booster? (Probably not too long ago, but was it because that was actually the superior choice, or because they didn't do the research to know better? )

Those two issues combine to make (non-weapon) engineering a chore: you feel you must do it, and you have no creative freedom in the process. That's why people complain about material gathering: it stands in the way between them and the enjoyable (non-engineering) gameplay. If engineering was truly optional, or involved meaningful choices, people would have far higher tolerance for the attached grind.

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

As long as Material Traders stay in their current form, it doesn't matter too much. Players will do whatever is most efficient. Tweaking drop tables will shift the pattern of which materials to scoop and which to ignore, but not meaningfully affect the gameplay.
But indeed, having lower-grade material chunks contain more units could make scooping them viable, hence would be an improvement. (Dropping more chunks of low-grade materials would be completely pointless, however, because the limiting factor is time spent scoping, not availability, for low-grade mats.)

Any estimates regarding how long it took to earn a given Engineered module by gathering materials will also be helpful in addressing this aspect of balancing.

That's another issue: engineering one single module takes too many (seemingly random) different materials, due to each engineering stage, plus EE, needing their own set of mats. Either you start a spreadsheet, or you pay no attention to the materials required and instead collect/trade to ~20 units of each material, then start crafting and hope that was enough.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

If you design new unique missions, it would be a shame to attach them only to engineering. The game could use more generally-available mission types.

Rolling for Engineering Improvements
Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

Might help the "spreadsheet" faction mentioned above. Since I'm in the other camp, I personally prefer it as-is: the variance is fairly low, and clicking through the crafting process is dull enough already without making it completely predictable.

 

[Maidor]

As an experience it's held together with tape and prayers, and those that have stuck around have done so out of stubbornness as much as sincere feelings for the game. How many big streamers of the game have moved on never to return? How many of those that do return continually put the game on hiatus again and again? How many untold thousands more players have treated the game in similar fashion, myself included? The existence of Engineers in its current form is a primary contributor to why this occurs.

They completely misled expectations when this was introduced, you know. We were all told we'd be given an interesting system of ways to customize and tweak our ships. What we got was an RNG grindwheel hotglued to excessive power creep, and the most fixes we've gotten over 7 years down the line is a reduction of the RNG element (and only a reduction). It still remains as an exponential increase to everything ships can do that therefore cannot be ignored or treated casually by players wanting to master the game. Massive balance outliers and problems continue to remain unchecked (hello, healy beams anyone?) or unchanged, year after year after year after year now.

It is flawed. For huge projects to work, flaws need to be acted upon and corrected. If they are not, the foundations will rot and decay and the entire effort will eventually collapse under the weight of its own hubris of proceeding as though everything is fine and normal.

To the points in the spoiler bit:

• I agree totally about Powerplay module timegating, very bizarre design choice to make players queue up and wait as though in a DMV office in order to use special modules or weapons, one of many issues to do with Powerplay which deserve a Focused Feedback thread of its own
• Tech broker unlocks could very well be simplified but haven't been too bad in my experience, especially compared to Engineers (really, a tech broker is about the level Engineering should have always been in terms of grind and progression-walling)
• Navy ranks I'm fine with for navy-specific ships, but the process of achieving said ranks really deserves a rework to be more imaginative, narrative-rich, and exciting, and not a soulless paper-pushing numbers-quantity-grind
• I see less of a problem with how Engineers contact the player and are upgraded, and more the fact that Engineers are somehow the only technical wizards in the galaxy able to apply bleeding-edge military-grade arms-race-inducing-level of improvements to players' ships, their presence and their bases would make all the sense in the universe if they actually provided interesting tweaks and adjustments to player ships instead of massive amounts of power creep.

To the point you commented at the end.

I like how the pre engineered FSD V1 and Enhanced Thrusters are a thing. They are way more interesting Ideas. Like that CG only Multicannon with fasing.
Those should be the grind exclusive engineering things. But I lean more to mission chains related. Reputation increasing and unlock are more open.

Engineers being the only tech able people is limiting.
I once imagined Fleet carriers having engineers. So any new player could have acess to Engineering through heavy credits buyup.
The carreir owner would have unlocked the engineers and level up modules. And would sell at very high prices [because the game obligates and takes a huge fee]
This would make sence for explorers, scientists, traders, to eventually become masters of ''producing'' something. Learning with engineers to offer better services.

This would be very acessible as anybody could hunt around some player carriers to find gear, as you do in regular stations for suits.
And those who want to be able to offer these services would be the only ones grinding. Maybe become gathering players.
To trade with the FC, when they cant improve on their own like currnetly.

But player economy does not seem like a thing being revamped any time soon.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

if it were me balancing engineering i would make the best way to get the bits to improve an item to do a thing.......... would be to do the thing.
ie, if hypothetically i wanted to get a better mining laser then most of the engineering parts would be done by mining or mining associated activities.

if i wanted to improve my DSS, then the DSS would actually pick up areas on a planet or in orbit around the planet which i should investigate to find stuff to improve the DSS

(a bit gamey maybe but no more so than making iron and sulphur etc unicorn items that money cant buy, or making wreckage of specific ships a material super rare, and yet said parts are in the very ship i fly and can get replaced on a whim via insurance.

That way you do not have a scenario where someone who wanted to be an explorer hypothetically has to do combat activities to improve their ship for exploration.

One of the complaints i often see (and it does not really effect me too much as i like to do a bit of most stuff) is that players have to do stuff they dont want to do, to get to the upgraded gear for the stuff they do want to do.

if something similar to my suggestion were implemented this would be fixed..... also, as an addendum, missions from the engineers which either takes us to places with a lot of the materials in question OR payment in said materials would also help.