Engineers It's not the destination, it's the journey

[Yodafone]

A well constructed post OP, and I wholeheartedly agree with your opinions, suggestions and sentiments. The problem I'd expect is predominantly from "seasoned" players let's say, that want something new to do and are trying to play the game just to get this extra content. Engineers simply adds some of that extra depth players are always demanding in gaming titles and of course it seems there's been no shortage of that particular desire in regards to Elite. Taking this latest patch and trying to concentrate one's gameplay in regards to achieving and unlocking all that's been added is surely not Frontier's intention on how to play the game now. I expect for a new player fresh to the game and hasn't been caught up in any of the hype will play the game with much less stress.

Go about your business in the normal way for the most part (after your Engineer introduction) and perhaps this new content will add much needed depth when you least expect it!

 

[Eden von Ragnarok]

Most things are available as part of missions. Materials, Commodities, Data... you could keep an eye out for them there as you go about playing the way you want. Eventually, it will come.

Yeah, because I really want to sit around scanning every single ship/USS/FSW/Whatever I see. Sitting around, doing nothing for 10 seconds every half-minute or so on the off-chance I'll acquire something that might be useful later on is how I maximise my fun. Who needs the thrill of combat, or the joys of exploration? Mindless RNG busywork, that's where true happiness dwells.

 

[DaggerSnake]

Engineers made some big changes. I feel that they are more in line with how I envisioned this experience should be. People are still playing 2.1 in the style of PRE-2.1 and it's not working. It'll all die down and then 2.2 will give more things to complain about.

 

[Dbrn47]

Or you could, you know, not rush it.

Most things are available as part of missions. Materials, Commodities, Data... you could keep an eye out for them there as you go about playing the way you want. Eventually, it will come. Or you can treat getting them early as a quest.

I'm not going to add "and get some satisfaction out of having earned it" or anything like that because clearly some people don't enjoy waiting, or grinding. Not everyone is going to be happy regardless of what FD do - make upgrades easy to max out and you'll have people complain about that too (to which I'm sure the counter-argument would be "then handicap yourselves, don't punish the rest of us," which is just the reverse argument to my original post).

Not rush what? There's something I want and it's not within my play style, so I have to play away from my norm. These are things that you can't get by doing mission or combat. Frankly I don't care about waiting or earning anything, people keep arguing that and it's beside the point. I'm arguing only against your premise that you pick things up from "normal" play. It's completely wrong because you don't get to decide what someone's normal play is. Mine is mostly combat and I can't get the upgrades I want, purely from combat. Simple, it's part of the design, you have to do other things, period.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Depends if you're happy playing the game as you are. If you are happy, no you're not.

But what he's saying is that regardless of how you play, the game has a definitive ideology as to how it wants to be played, thanks to its developers, obviously. If "you" are finding that the RNG is frustrating because you can't get that hot top mod you wanted and have to spend 20 hours getting multiple materials to stack the RNG, you are probably playing against the game intent. That's the point. The game's intent is to try and get you to explore and craft slowly. Little tweaks here and there, unpredictable tweaks given you are using unpredictable, eccentric engineers who are talented enough to ensure you don't explode, but aren't really sure what happens when you wedge that drive plate in there with those grid resistors, but they're sure it'll do something!

So no, no one is telling you you're playing it wrong. Only person who can say that is you. But I agree with the OP if one gets fixated on trying to make the game into what they want it to be (with Engineers as a guaranteed and fairly straightforward grind to massively powerful ship stats) then they are missing the point of what the Engineers are trying to inspire. You may feel that's a stupid idea, or an idea that doesn't interest you, but the idea is pretty clear. If you resist that ideology you will probably find yourself frustrated by what is there. Probably is the word - you might have a whale of a time. Who knows. No one is saying how you ought to play Elite, they're offering suggestions to accept what the game is trying to do rather than get angry that its not doing what you want it to do.

Well you could say that about any video game in the end. The point being that if you don;t like doing something in ED then don't do it. The beauty of the game is there is always something else to do.

I don't particularly want to do mining for example, so I don't do it. Thats not because mining is broken in the the game, it just doesn't interest me.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

My biggest gripe with it is how much time has been spent on something that is apparently meant to be used so infrequently. The journey analogy is fine if the Engineers had been designed and implemented as a fleeting glance mechanism but it hasn't. The complexity, the integration, the impact the rewards have on the base game, the artwork, the concept and the volume of engineers created suggest something that is focal and something that should get the player heavily involved in.

On the surface engineers suggests its not part of a journey but the destination of a journey. But when you get involved with it you quickly see that only the very hardcore masochists will ever get that involved in it. Its suffering a huge identity crisis of what it was conceived to be, what it actually is and what the players think its meant to be.

 

[Moonax IRL]

Sorry to gate crash gents but I am trying to upload a few screenshots for a thread and I am using jpg files but it say invalid file on upload any tips.I have done it once before but its a while ago.
Thanks in advance.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

Sorry to gate crash gents but I am trying to upload a few screenshots for a thread and I am using jpg files but it say invalid file on upload any tips.I have done it once before but its a while ago.
Thanks in advance.

Use imgur, forum uploads are disabled

 

[Marc_Hicks]

My biggest gripe with it is how much time has been spent on something that is apparently meant to be used so infrequently. The journey analogy is fine if the Engineers had been designed and implemented as a fleeting glance mechanism but it hasn't. The complexity, the integration, the impact the rewards have on the base game, the artwork, the concept and the volume of engineers created suggest something that is focal and something that should get the player heavily involved in.

On the surface engineers suggests its not part of a journey but the destination of a journey. But when you get involved with it you quickly see that only the very hardcore masochists will ever get that involved in it. Its suffering a huge identity crisis of what it was conceived to be, what it actually is and what the players think its meant to be.

Except that, as we have already seen with missions, Engineers will probably undergo many iterative improvements over the next 12-18 months. What irks me is the willingness of some people to utterly dismiss a feature based on little more than 48 hours of play time.

All my experiences with Engineers were entirely positive......though now I am a newbie again, I will probably have to wait a long time before any of them will invite me to hang with them!

 

[Moonax IRL]

Use imgur, forum uploads are disabled

Sorted thanks.

 

[hunvagy]

Except that, as we have already seen with missions, Engineers will probably undergo many iterative improvements over the next 12-18 months. What irks me is the willingness of some people to utterly dismiss a feature based on little more than 48 hours of play time.

All my experiences with Engineers were entirely positive......though now I am a newbie again, I will probably have to wait a long time before any of them will invite me to hang with them!

The more of the responses in threads I see about the engineers, the more I wonder if I should be starting to feel like an idiot for actually enjoying the process of trying to find out how to get the things I need for my upgrades without using the engineers mega list or google. I actually felt clever when I figured out I can snag FSD upgrade materials with a wake scanner

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

The more of the responses in threads I see about the engineers, the more I wonder if I should be starting to feel like an idiot for actually enjoying the process of trying to find out how to get the things I need for my upgrades without using the engineers mega list or google. I actually felt clever when I figured out I can snag FSD upgrade materials with a wake scanner

There are some that would say that in that case, you are doing it wrong

 

[d8veh]

For people who haven't been playing the game long, there's no need to worry about searching for stuff for upgrades. What the engineers need will be found during the activities they've always done to get money and upgrade their ships. The problem is more for those that have been playing for thousands of hours to already have every previous upgrade available. They now have to go back and repeat all the things they did in the beginning to get the stuff for the upgrades, only now it's a lot more boring because after the excitement of a difficult kill, you have spend a lot of time scanning and hoovering up the debris left behind in the false hope that you might find something that you need. Add to that, hours of mindless scanning of USSs in the hope that there'll be something useful there, only to find that there isn't, further adds to frustration and disappointment.

I think the game has now developed into a giant Easter egg hunt instead of a game where you can practice and hone your skills and use your experience to deal with difficult circumstances. The fact that all the hard work you did before to get what you have has been wasted because you're now levelled to the same as a new starter, where AI can wipe you out at a moments notice using their magic weapons and shields, added to the fact that there's no clear way forward in how to progress, I think that this will also cause a lot of frustration.

I can summarise to say that for those that have played a lot, it's turned into a game of hope and chance, not one where you can set your own targets and use skill, intelligence, cunning and hard work to reach them. I think that's ruined the game for many. It's a bit like your job, where you worked from 8 AM to 9 PM every day and studied at the weekend to get gradually promoted to department manager, then the big boss tells you that you have to go back to being a shop floor worker. When you ask what you have to do to get back to where you were, he tells you that it might happen if you work hard and hope. You ask him if there's anything specific you can concentrate on to get promoted again. You get the answer, no. Then you look around at your colleagues and see some of them getting promoted without reason. That's how I feel with the game now. I don't think I'm the only one.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

The more of the responses in threads I see about the engineers, the more I wonder if I should be starting to feel like an idiot for actually enjoying the process of trying to find out how to get the things I need for my upgrades without using the engineers mega list or google. I actually felt clever when I figured out I can snag FSD upgrade materials with a wake scanner

oh great another module i 'need' to get mods i 'need' to marginally increase my chances to 'survive' another 3 seconds in combat, and my ship maxed on power already... so to get these mods which arent as useful as the module you are changing as stock because for any minor benefit you get 4 minor downsides, i have to drop something and reduce my survival chances to get a mod which 'might' increase my survival chance by less than i lost dropping something...

and same situation with the srv. i need one for engineer materials so i drop soemthing that reduces the chances of me surviving or in case of cargo rack negates the point of another activity i dont want to do but have to to get materials... mining. which also requires me to drop a weapon and vastly reduce my odds of survival to do some mining which results in and even higher rate of interdictions than before... wheres the logic?

 

[hunvagy]

oh great another module i 'need' to get mods i 'need' to marginally increase my chances to 'survive' another 3 seconds in combat, and my ship maxed on power already... so to get these mods which arent as useful as the module you are changing as stock because for any minor benefit you get 4 minor downsides, i have to drop something and reduce my survival chances to get a mod which 'might' increase my survival chance by less than i lost dropping something...

What the hell are you on about? It is not required, but one way to get them. If you are so attached to survival for another 3 seconds then don't. I'm really getting tired of you grumpy sour individuals. Just because you don't like how the engineer upgrades work doesn't mean others can't enjoy the process of figuring things out. Go         play solitaire or something then.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

What the hell are you on about? It is not required, but one way to get them. If you are so attached to survival for another 3 seconds then don't. I'm really getting tired of you grumpy sour individuals. Just because you don't like how the engineer upgrades work doesn't mean others can't enjoy the process of figuring things out. Go play solitaire or something then.

you seem to lack understanding of how the game is progressing and i use that term very loosely.

have you encountered any npcs? have you? really? and you didnt notice they ALL have mods? and that anyone without mods is disadvantages unless they luckily have the right benefit from the mod they have to counter the advantage the npcs mod gives them? where is the choice? where are the unmodded npcs (leaving instakill weapons out of it) for me? the ones i can have a fair fight with? there is no choice. you can choose to play unmodded and die a lot until you have nothing left but contempt for the game design and wind up in the same plight as new players currently are in. or you can waste all this time and effort of dull tedious mind numbingly boring mining and driving a toy car around on a planet which you DIDNT ask to be forced to do just to compete on a nearer level (but not actually level) playing field with the npcs. i play solo and i wont play gank mode so please dont offer to wing up. i appreciate offers of help but solo is solo and i dont have to deal with idiot players there like you do.

or ehy did they say that some materials must be gained from planets or from mining only? if i can get germanium or arsenic from combat i cant risk well then i take it back, at least if im in such a desperate situation that i couldnt avoid combat i might get some metals i need?

 

[hunvagy]

you seem to lack understanding of how the game is progressing and i use that term very loosely.

have you encountered any npcs? have you? really? and you didnt notice they ALL have mods? and that anyone without mods is disadvantages unless they luckily have the right benefit from the mod they have to counter the advantage the npcs mod gives them? where is the choice? where are the unmodded npcs (leaving instakill weapons out of it) for me? the ones i can have a fair fight with? there is no choice. you can choose to play unmodded and die a lot until you have nothing left but contempt for the game design and wind up in the same plight as new players currently are in. or you can waste all this time and effort of dull tedious mind numbingly boring mining and driving a toy car around on a planet which you DIDNT ask to be forced to do just to compete on a nearer level (but not actually level) playing field with the npcs. i play solo and i wont play gank mode so please dont offer to wing up. i appreciate offers of help but solo is solo and i dont have to deal with idiot players there like you do.

I met plenty of NPCs thank you. Both in the beta, and in live. And oh god, they have mods. So what? You seem to have a problem with most of the activities that Horizons offers judging by your post, and consider everything required to get the materials as mind numbing boring. I don't. I had to run to Maia on friday so I can get Meta-Alloys and surprise surprise, my Asp came back in one piece. I have been running missions all weekend, and the only time I heard of an insta kill npc was when a friend of mine got shot up by a dangerous courier. Every other ship could be either defeated, or evaded.

I like my toy car and I like driving around on planets. Just because you don't, doesn't mean that I'm an idiot. It just means that instead of frothing from the mouth and throwing my toys out the window, I actually give the update a chance. And FYI just because I play in Mobius, doesn't mean I don't fly my ships alone, so I have no idea what you want with that gank mode ramble.

 

[faluc]

... I can summarise to say that for those that have played a lot, it's turned into a game of hope and chance, not one where you can set your own targets and use skill, intelligence, cunning and hard work to reach them ...

Took the words right from my mouth. I am craving so badly any kind of new gameplay where skill is rewarded instead of time invested. Instead I have to scan high wakes for the FSD upgrade, I mean who in their right mind does that for fun, seriously?

 

[Hilight]

I agree OP. R+ for posting. One of the things I noticed about Elite with this update is that there is such a great variety of different things available for the player to do. You can wander about pretty aimlessly just seeing what comes your way and still make progressing on multiple paths, such as amassing credit for a better ship, working towards Fed or Empire rank, or gathering exploration data to rank up tiers for a mod with an engineer. Or, if you like you can concentrate on a single goal, such as getting a big ship, or getting the best of a certain kind of mod. In fact, there are almost too many ways to go and too many things to be doing with the advent of 2.1. I used to point out to people who complained of repetition and grinding in Elite, that there were so many different things to be doing in the game, that you could do something different every day for at least two weeks straight and never do the same thing twice. With 2.1, that fact is only more-so. For example, I'm currently working to gain rep with an engineer and so I've spent the last two days exploring in a DBX to hand in exploration data to her. Today, I think I'll do some trading in my Conda, as I'm also working towards Elite rank in that profession. Tomorrow, perhaps I'll do some missions in my Python for awhile. I'm in no particular hurry to accomplish something I consider to be some sort of holy grail. I'm just wandering about doing this and that each day and enjoying the ride

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I met plenty of NPCs thank you. Both in the beta, and in live. And oh god, they have mods. So what? You seem to have a problem with most of the activities that Horizons offers judging by your post, and consider everything required to get the materials as mind numbing boring. I don't. I had to run to Maia on friday so I can get Meta-Alloys and surprise surprise, my Asp came back in one piece. I have been running missions all weekend, and the only time I heard of an insta kill npc was when a friend of mine got shot up by a dangerous courier. Every other ship could be either defeated, or evaded.

I like my toy car and I like driving around on planets. Just because you don't, doesn't mean that I'm an idiot. It just means that instead of frothing from the mouth and throwing my toys out the window, I actually give the update a chance. And FYI just because I play in Mobius, doesn't mean I don't fly my ships alone, so I have no idea what you want with that gank mode ramble.

Don't bother with "Yoda", I have seen enough of his posts to know him for the whiny grinder that he clearly is. Just a peripheral player, at best, who thinks RES farming is the be-all & end-all of the game.....and so is upset that this particular exploit has been shut down. The way he arrogantly dismisses the views of others-especially those who helped to beta test the game-is particularly telling.