Engineers How long do you think the upgrade paths for the engineers should take?

[eqinox]

Just answer for yourself - we sorta know the average number of hours people play and frontier absolutely do.

The problem applies both ways - if someone only plays 80 hours in the year but thinks they should finish it in 6 months they'd answer 40 hours and it might appear they want to smash it all out in days after launch. Just vote for how you play and the statistics sort that bit out enough so we can get a distribution of how long after launch people think they should have 'completed' the content

Sure, did not mean to be disrespectful. Frankly, I answered NOW, because in my opinion one month of game time is too much.

Personally, I would expect to gain at least multiple ranks for an engineer for each day of game time, at least 1 rank per hour of play.

 

[frostypaw]

sorry if it sounded like i thought you were being - i didn't think you were at all

Frontier haven't released any numbers have they so are you using steam as a representation ?

What is the average hours people play btw ?

I can't remember - I'm happy to go with steam's numbers. Whatever we can say for the size of their sample vs. game ownership I see no reason whatsoever to conclude they play it differently so I reckon their numbers are probably just fine...... with no snark meant if you've got a reason why not chuck it in, it'll only be helpful

 

[Killing Joke]

TBH I think the implementation of the Engineers and their upgrades has been very poor and not all of this is a result of the update itself, instead it has simply illustrated more holes in the immersion side of the game and weaknesses in current in-game systems.

I love Elite and have more hours racked up than I care to count. I was excited for engineers as I was hoping it would allow greater ship customisation and in-turn specialisation, instead it's resulted in unwanted forced gameplay styles in order to obtain access. I wasn't expecting a free ride as that simply wouldn't be right but the acquisition methodology is absurd in many cases, especially when base elements cannot be bought, sold or traded on the open market and furthermore when you factor in lack of equipment storage.

Issues are highlighted when obtaining something becomes widely recognised by the community as a grind and this is further exacerbated when the outcome of all the effort to get these modifications is dictated by RNG on almost every level, from material acquisition to the end product itself.

/KJ

 

[Notwyn]

Depends, I have to wait for them to sort out the permits bug. Until that happens i'm stuck on the outside looking in for a few of them.

 

[Zenith]

I've achieved all I want out of Engineers for now.

Got the Soontill Relics to Elvira.
Got to G3 and then the invite for Qwent.
Got the 25 Modular Terminals for Qwent (already had the Sirius permit).
Got to G3 and then the invite for Palin.
Got the 25 Unknown Fragments for Palin.
Got to G4 with Palin so far, but I've got my Corrosion Resistant Cargo Racks for UA research.

In the meantime in the background I've been courting favour with Felicity. I hit G5 with her this morning, and have enough goes at G5 Increased FSD range to put top end FSDs on each of my principle ships.

Everything else with Engineers is of no real interest to me as I'm generally non-combatant.

 

[DaggerSnake]

I went with I don't care. A month, a week, a year. It's just fun to play.

If I had to commit, I feel a person playing 5 hours per week should be able to fully upgrade a ship with all their module class and a first pass role of tier 5 upgrades in a year of playing. I think that's playing about an hour before or after work per week. Pretty casual.

I think it should take some time, effort and a little luck to get everything just right. I think of my ship as Han did the Falcon. Constantly tweaking and re-rolling upgrades, as I find material during my adventures. Right now, I've upgraded some pulse lasers, missiles and my drives. I got OK roles in the ranges that I knew were being tweaked. They're like control limits in a manufacturing process. The worst is to get a great roll on the extremes of the sliders with no secondaries or experimental, or then get the unfavorable ends of the control limits but a sweet experimental and have to decide. I like that kind of choice in a game that makes you dig down into your own greed

I like the SLOOOW burn of Elite. I love the slow release schedule of updates with all the excitement and build up for each one. I see way too many triple Elite billionaires complaining about nothing to do...well, uh yea. slow down and smell the roses.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

I picked 3 months as thats how long it seems it'll take me to unlock them all and upgrade my fleet of ships. As I've stated in other threads I'm not pushing hard at it just playing the game and gathering up stuff as I go. I unlocked one today and had enough mats available already to rank her up to lvl 4 with only a quick detour to pick up a few commodities. Overall it's not been painful at all with my varied play style. I understand I'm at an advantage here though as I like to do a bit of everything.

Given that the lower level upgrades are completely useless, I don't mind that you can access grade 5 pretty easily. Otherwise I might be ok for a little longer time.

I disagree. The lower level mods can be surprisingly powerful concidering thier extermly low material requirements. Getting an extra 5% power output in a tight fit for next to no materials at all or another 50% more ammo in your clip is pretty amazing. Especially for new players who may not have the cash to get all A rated.

But the timing question is important. I think FD timed Engineer progress to work best for new starting players coming into the game in a Sidewinder. As they become wealthier and upgrade to better ships, they gradually accrue the various materials at an appropriate pace. But many of the people here on the forums are veterans already flying in tricked out top range ships, so they focus exclusively on engineers, and then progress becomes a "grind".

This does seem to be true from my own simple experiment. I reset my alt with 2.1 and went to see my first engineer after a few days played. I'd found quite a lot of materials already by then and was able to get myself some nice little upgrades. I can imagine if I'd been a total newbie I'd probably have had even more collected before getting to the point where I even looked up what the engineers were.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

6 months i think, maybe longer.

Looking at the poll - it is sad how many people want iWin button.

Diablo died in the same way what Elite is going to. Easier, easier and easier because people want everything just right now.

http://i.imgur.com/TQNLcUe.jpg

The argument you are bringing up is valid, but slightly wrong. Elite isn't getting easier - quite the contrary - it is getting harder due to enhanced weapons and modules for PvP and better AI for PvE.
But it should go faster. Difficulty and amount of time needed are two seperate things. You can grind your way up to an Anaconda claiming it was hard work but in the end you just invested some time. It isn't difficult to repeat a basic task twohundred times. Elite would be difficult if (for example) would test you in terms of "Destroy 5 Elite Anacondas at this location without escaping once). So you can either do it at the first time if you are good enough or you have to try ober and over again because it is too difficult.
The result, however, is thaz the possibility of unlocking Engineers (or anything) very fast exist but this requiers alot of skill. Ao this would be difficult
But as it stands now I can complete every task in Elite with ease. I just have to repeat the same task too many times. It shouldn't take long, it should be a challenge.

 

[Gedemon]

I can't really answer for 3 reasons.

First, as stated by everyone else, we don't play at the same pace, so I'd say, as a general answer to new gameplay, 1 month for "hardcore" players and one year for "casual" players like myself.

2nd, I didn't mind that I had to play more than one year to get an Anaconda, as long as I could escape almost any encounter (player or NPC) alive with my smaller ship during the progress. The range of type of upgrades offered by the engineers change that, they are too powerful to be ignored, you need to rush them a bit if you want to survive once NPC will be armed with them (for players there are other way to avoid them, but I'd prefer to stay in open)

So with the current balance, I'd say a few months top for casual players.

Third, I play for fun, not to work, I got my Anaconda by playing my way, slowly getting credits. With the actual engineers gameplay, I would need to grind, which I've not done since alpha and won't do again, so as long as we can't store or trade the materials I won't progress with the engineers, and I think that "never" is not what was intended.

 

[NeilF]

1) I don't care as long as it's done in a friendly accessible way. Not having to micro-manage and be forced to do things at times, just because I have a passing interest in The Engineers. It's too onerous at the moment. So suggested more laid back change(s).

2) The whole premise of The Engineers is so what you can do what you were doing before, but with 25% more powerful beam lasers, or better jump range. It's a whole load of work for not a lot of improvement in what you can do in the game. And when what it introduces makes the game less playable/friendly, you have to ask what was the point of all that development time?


So in summary, as it stands at the moment, I don't care how long it takes to level up with an Engineer, because it's actually made me stop playing the game.

ps: And this doesn't even raise the balancing issues it risks introducing.

 

[Thebadmf]

It would be much better if what the engineer was offering was pre-determined, then you get sent to do activities for him, like completing missions, getting exploration data, goods or bounty vouchers instead of going on some random easter egg hunt with no hope or direction to find the stuff. For me, so far 167 hours for about three firmwares, despite following every advice on the internet.

Well said.

 

[Ian Phillips]

I..snip.... For me, so far 167 hours for about three firmwares, despite following every advice on the internet. I'm going to give it one more day, then I'm out, like the rest of them.

WOW. Thats an average of about 7 hours PER DAY since 2.1 was released!

 

[frostypaw]

WOW. Thats an average of about 7 hours PER DAY since 2.1 was released!

Sounds like a perfectly average gamer and the kind of person things should be designed around to me

 

[Sylow]

Sounds like a perfectly average gamer and the kind of person things should be designed around to me

.
Work on your perception. 7 hours a day, every weekday, that's a bigger time investment than a full time job. Sorry to break this to you, but I consider myself a very active gamer, but I am unable to invest that much time into gaming. (7 hours a day was about what i spent in games during my university time, but that made me an excessive gamer, far outside of the "average" league. )

 

[frostypaw]

.
Work on your perception. 7 hours a day, every weekday, that's a bigger time investment than a full time job. Sorry to break this to you, but I consider myself a very active gamer, but I am unable to invest that much time into gaming. (7 hours a day was about what i spent in games during my university time, but that made me an excessive gamer, far outside of the "average" league. )

Sorry fella - I was wondering if it was too sarcastic..... but apparently not enough. I totally agree

 

[Sylow]

Sorry fella - I was wondering if it was too sarcastic..... but apparently not enough. I totally agree

.
Sorry for not spotting sarcasm. I usually fail to do so in text form, if not explicitely marked.

 

[Memnoch]

6 months i think, maybe longer.

Looking at the poll - it is sad how many people want iWin button.

Diablo died in the same way what Elite is going to. Easier, easier and easier because people want everything just right now.

If Elite does die it won't be because they made the game easier but because they made people stop playing the game altogether.

 

[Ikari]

Gate your content too heavily and people will stop playing out of boredom and lack of progression.

Make it too easy people burn out too quick and stop playing.

This poll is silly because there is no right answer at all and no real opinion to judge.

 

[frostypaw]

You're silly

I'm not sure it's intended as full on content which is where i think a lot of confusion has arisen. approached like missions and something to get through at pace it's a long boring multi part treasure hunt, and that's upset a lot of people off, but how do you stop them from doing that? :/

 

[ilo]

So I hear someone's unlocked Grade 5 with all the Engineers - which seems pretty quick to me.

How long do you think the upgrade path - for you personally - should take? Do you want this now, or do you prefer it as a journey of months - are you not aiming to reach top ranks at all?

Please to avoid too much agonising over how the process is done now, we've lots of threads for that, it'd be interesting to know just how quickly people think this content should be consumed, and why so really.
For me it's a long term thing, but I'm more into survival than the heat of battle

I guess this is totally ignoring the time it gets to get into permit locked engineers systems, am im right? the current permit system is bugged and the only way someone could have all engineers is because he spent quite sometime in the past to get into them.