'Yes' to all three of these ... ROFL!
You expect this mechanic to actually work? Like - HGEs to actually spawn so that you can gather mats?
You have played this game before - right?
It 'works' in the sense that it does what it describes. The issue is that since the
faction state became the determinant of a HGE's contents rather than the general system state, the
way it 'works' gives a poor experience due to a) the number of different gates that a player has to get through and b) the
proportion of those gates that a player can use their skills and experience to exert any direct influence over compared to the proportion that are just luck of the dice.
The number of posts I see that just say
'hurr durr go to outbreak systems' for pharma isolators are a case in point. Anybody who thinks that's all is needed, just
'go to outbreak systems' doesn't seem to have much grasp of how it actually works if you're trying to avoid having to collect 6 x as much random crap as you actually need and use a mat trader.
First, you need to go to an outbreak system, sure. That's stage 1 right there. Totally agree with that.
Then you need to hope that the RNG has spawned any HGEs at all in that system, which is a gate and one which you can do nothing to influence, so that's pot luck #1
Then you need to hope that if it has, the HGE is within a distance that will let you reach it before the timer runs out, which is a gate and one which you can do nothing to influence, so that's pot luck #2
Then you need to hope that the HGE belongs to the faction that is actually in outbreak since faction state, not system state, now determines the contents of the HGE. If you're in a system with 7 factions, of which one is in outbreak, then even if the other six factions are providing HGEs, and they're in time for you to reach them, their state will not be outbreak and so you won't have pharma isolators in the HGE. That's a gate and one which you can do nothing to influence (you get what faction's HGEs are rolled by the RNG) so that's pot luck #3.
Someone made a great post a while back, which unfortunately I won't be able to find, that broke down the chance of actually getting a particular faction's in-time, in-distance HGE of a particuar type in order to collect a particular type of material from an HGE and it is not high.
As a gamer, I like to use my skills and experience in a game to achieve my goals. So for example I might expect that using knowledge I have acquired over five years of playing a game might add some value when trying to perform what is (as people have noted) a task intended to provide a significant benefit. Or perhaps I might expect to employ my skills at performing tasks in the game acquired over the same five years to make me more efficient at achieving those benefits.
The RNG gates remove those aspects and make by far the most significant aspect a player's willingness to simply spend time shooting craps, or alternately to just play Supermarket Sweep for 30 minutes picking up anything except what they actually want and then run off to a mat trader to cash those in for something else. It's poor design and it is not a satisfying experience, at least not compared to the skill and knowledge based gameplay that you might expect to be employed by a complicated and nuanced game in allowing the player to achieve the same goal.
That's what's wrong with it.
