Hi Frontier devs. Like you, I am a software engineer. I love your game and I appreciate how much hard work and creativity has gone into this. I think the Engineers was a solid upgrade but I have some suggestions.
I came to this game from Star Trek Online, which I gave up on because it did not put the science and exploration aspects in. The fact that you guys did, is awesome, and it's why I play this.
Also, STO just became a burdensome pain to play. Over the years they added way too many little things you have to micromanage for meaningless quests. I have been afraid of ED going in that direction, and to a degree. the way Engineers is set up kinda feels like that. You have all these new kinds of inventory items to accumulate that are required for various quests that you must repeatedly do in order to make your ship more über.
The problem is, though, what should be done instead? The current Engineers content is serviceable and it's pretty fun, if grindy, but how could it be improved without totally redoing it, which we all know ain't gonna happen, because you are gonna move on to your next new feature and not redo the one you just made?
Well, for one, I would take out the random generator thing and, instead, have a "tune level" like all the car racing games do. Take a page from Gran Turismo 5 (etc.) regarding how upgrading and tuning up a ship's components ought to work. It's dumb for it to be random; no one in their right mind would ever trust an "engineer" who did not know what effect their work would have. I would only pay someone to modify my car or boat or spaceship if they had done it before and could guarantee me exact results.
That is antithetical to what engineering fundamentally is. That's a game mechanic that makes it seem like magic, not engineering. I first saw the "random upgrade success" thing in the old MMORPG, Lineage 1. It cheapens the game experience in a game like this. This is a game for serious players. It shouldn't feel like Diablo 3.
Another thing is that the materials to upgrade a ship ought to be available on a market, and should not have to be scoured for. If you want to scour for them, fine, but it should not be a requirement. It makes no sense at all that there are mining operations on all these moons but no market to sell the stuff in. Especially in a game like Elite which is based on trading.
It really bothered me that to get my Chemical Manipulators I had to resort to abject piracy. I am a nonviolent CMDR. I still feel dirty. Where did this guy get them? Why can't I buy them from wherever he did? The fact you cannot buy materials at all is just weird. It makes it seem like they are a carrot on a stick to make players do a bunch of different things, rather than just being something that you get as a bonus in the course of normal gameplay.
Like, it feels like farming mats is the only real reason for SRVs right now, aside from the raid missions. What I'd rather do in an SRV is to gather exploration data to sell. Like some scientists would pay me for rock samples from various moons, and such. Getting mats while doing that would be a side bonus, but not the point.
In that vein, I really think FD is missing the boat by not having more ways for Explorer profession players to gather data. There should be a way to export JSON of your findings. There should be a planetary map that you can stick down waypoints and drop beacons on, then share (or sell!) those with other CMDRs. Make exploration data a real commodity, and not just something that goes into a black hole after an NPC buy it from you.
As always, I am sure many of you already had these ideas, and I know FD has its own list a mile long. Time and dev resources are the great limiting factor. Too bad there's no way to make mods and no API for third party apps; I would love to make an exploration companion app that gets data from the game as you explore. But XBOX is a black box.
Just some ideas. Overall really solid upgrade tho.
I came to this game from Star Trek Online, which I gave up on because it did not put the science and exploration aspects in. The fact that you guys did, is awesome, and it's why I play this.
Also, STO just became a burdensome pain to play. Over the years they added way too many little things you have to micromanage for meaningless quests. I have been afraid of ED going in that direction, and to a degree. the way Engineers is set up kinda feels like that. You have all these new kinds of inventory items to accumulate that are required for various quests that you must repeatedly do in order to make your ship more über.
The problem is, though, what should be done instead? The current Engineers content is serviceable and it's pretty fun, if grindy, but how could it be improved without totally redoing it, which we all know ain't gonna happen, because you are gonna move on to your next new feature and not redo the one you just made?
Well, for one, I would take out the random generator thing and, instead, have a "tune level" like all the car racing games do. Take a page from Gran Turismo 5 (etc.) regarding how upgrading and tuning up a ship's components ought to work. It's dumb for it to be random; no one in their right mind would ever trust an "engineer" who did not know what effect their work would have. I would only pay someone to modify my car or boat or spaceship if they had done it before and could guarantee me exact results.
That is antithetical to what engineering fundamentally is. That's a game mechanic that makes it seem like magic, not engineering. I first saw the "random upgrade success" thing in the old MMORPG, Lineage 1. It cheapens the game experience in a game like this. This is a game for serious players. It shouldn't feel like Diablo 3.
Another thing is that the materials to upgrade a ship ought to be available on a market, and should not have to be scoured for. If you want to scour for them, fine, but it should not be a requirement. It makes no sense at all that there are mining operations on all these moons but no market to sell the stuff in. Especially in a game like Elite which is based on trading.
It really bothered me that to get my Chemical Manipulators I had to resort to abject piracy. I am a nonviolent CMDR. I still feel dirty. Where did this guy get them? Why can't I buy them from wherever he did? The fact you cannot buy materials at all is just weird. It makes it seem like they are a carrot on a stick to make players do a bunch of different things, rather than just being something that you get as a bonus in the course of normal gameplay.
Like, it feels like farming mats is the only real reason for SRVs right now, aside from the raid missions. What I'd rather do in an SRV is to gather exploration data to sell. Like some scientists would pay me for rock samples from various moons, and such. Getting mats while doing that would be a side bonus, but not the point.
In that vein, I really think FD is missing the boat by not having more ways for Explorer profession players to gather data. There should be a way to export JSON of your findings. There should be a planetary map that you can stick down waypoints and drop beacons on, then share (or sell!) those with other CMDRs. Make exploration data a real commodity, and not just something that goes into a black hole after an NPC buy it from you.
As always, I am sure many of you already had these ideas, and I know FD has its own list a mile long. Time and dev resources are the great limiting factor. Too bad there's no way to make mods and no API for third party apps; I would love to make an exploration companion app that gets data from the game as you explore. But XBOX is a black box.
Just some ideas. Overall really solid upgrade tho.
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