Just when you thought grinding couldn't get any lower...

ozrix84

ozrix84
Stealthie said:
That's faulty thinking too, IMO.

You should pretty-much always be carrying out the least modifications to a PP as possible.
I don't think I've ever needed a G5 engineered PP and the vast majority of my ships run with G1 or G2 engineered PPs.

Equally, with the PDist, you can "overcook" them by modding them to G5 and end up with a PDist with a quick recharge but a tiny capacity, or the opposite.
That being the case, a G3 engineered PDist is usually as much as I want.

All that being the case, Qwent is a perfectly adequate engineer to make use of.
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NOO!!! I WANT EVERYTHING NAUW!!! GRIND GRIND I HATE THIS GAME BUT LOVE IT

Those entitled scrubs don't even realise how difficult it was to acquire another ship in the past, let alone an engineered module
 

Naskoni

Naskoni
Stealthie said:
That's faulty thinking too, IMO.

You should pretty-much always be carrying out the least modifications to a PP as possible.
I don't think I've ever needed a G5 engineered PP and the vast majority of my ships run with G1 or G2 engineered PPs.

Equally, with the PDist, you can "overcook" them by modding them to G5 and end up with a PDist with a quick recharge but a tiny capacity, or the opposite.
That being the case, a G3 engineered PDist is usually as much as I want.

All that being the case, Qwent is a perfectly adequate engineer to make use of.
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Yeah, that g5 Charge Enhanced mod that reduces your capacitors by 5%, FIVE PERCENT, practically renders them useless, I mean you can't even boost anymore. USELESS I tell you!

https://inara.cz/galaxy-blueprint/67/

Maybe when you one day actually engineer something you might understand what you are actually talking about...
 

Brrokk

Brrokk
Hmm, what's so terrible about getting allied with a faction? It's more or less the basis of the BGS and essential for getting the best paying missions anywhere.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Naskoni said:
Insulting post that was removed
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Well, if you're going to ignore what somebody's written in favour of complaining about something that only happened in your head, there's not much I can help you with.
 
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Wyaston Hypatia

Wyaston Hypatia
I've said it before (including in the focused feedback forum) that the unlock is the worst part of the whole engineers experience.
Given nothing was changed then I don't expect it to ever change now.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
NeilF said:
I just look at the Engineers full stop and say that... Shallow mechanics imposing a needless upper performance tier which just unbalances the game.
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I'm genuinely not sure what to think about that.

On the one hand, sure. If you buy yourself a Cutter, turn it into a tank and then use it all the time, the game probably is going to seem a bit unbalanced.
Personally, I don't have a problem finding enjoyment in tuning-up ships to be especially good at things and also building "average" ships to use as daily-drivers and, thus, retain the balance of the game.
Course, it might be argued that's me self-nerfing in a bid to retain some balance in the game.

OTOH, if you're deliberately avoiding engineers just to prevent yourself from gaining an extra advantage, surely that's also a self-nerf too?
 

Brrokk

Brrokk
Wyaston Hypatia said:
I've said it before (including in the focused feedback forum) that the unlock is the worst part of the whole engineers experience.
Given nothing was changed then I don't expect it to ever change now.
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Well obviously getting good stuff is the best part, but are you really saying that everyone should have it without any unlocking requirements? That would be a weird kind of game.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Naskoni said:
So you got allied with Sirius, found the terminals and the permit mission, ALL in about an hour. And that back in the day, eh? Please excuse me while I fart in the general direction of the apologist crap you just posted...
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People have been known to unlock permits for reasons beyond grinding for an engineer, I've got loads of random permits.
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
J
FalconFly said:
It's been a long time... But I still remember unlocking and gaining Grade 5 with all "Las Vegas" RNGneers.

Just Grind-wall gated by Grind-wall gated by artificial limitations and restrictions.

By now, IMHO the original Engineers Design could have come only from three possible types of Designers :
- someone who clearly wanted Engineered Equipment to be a very rare thing and a fully Engineered Ship to be an Alpha-Rare encounter
- someone who had absolutely no clue - whatsoever - what he or she was doing
- someone with a very deep nested hatred for Frontier Customers and a medically indicative degree of sadism

How else could you explain a Feature originally designed to :
- fully and intentionally waste and destroy time like there is no tomorrow
- create the maximum possible degree of frustration
- around every corner clearly display to the Customer that he/she is an unwanted and deeply hated entity who is to be treated with the highest possible disrespect
- invite those very Customers to engage in a Major Feature which requires to engage horrid placeholder minigames full of RNG and sadistic design philosophy

------------------

Now we've come a long way, but alot of the original "let us show you how much we hate you" design remains in place.

In my books, this is how things would run with Engineers :

Unlocking
1) Requirements allow for any needed Unlock Items to be attained by a single event
- need to buy or earn Cargo or Rares? Your Invite carries a Multiplier which will cause any Station or Mission w/ appropriate Rewards to issue you the full batch. No boring repetitive trips "just because we can make you do so"
- have an NPC Crew? Great - you can assign the NPC a suitable Ship and task that very NPC to acquire any required Cargo; depending on rarity, such a Tasking will come at a price (Credits) though

Reputation / Invitations
1) instead of following a fixed path, getting Invitations for new Engineers is changed after passing the threshold
- after qualifying to attain knowledge of a new Engineer, 3 possible new Engineers are offered instead; Player can choose their own path then and avoid Engineers that are fundamentally useless to their own preferences

2) Player has basic knowledge of every single Engineer right off the bet
- faces, names and locations are blanked out, but their fundamental Invite Requirements are posted (just so Players know what they need to do to get an Invite in the 1st place - AFAIK that currently remains entirely undocumented in-game)

Engineering process
- besides the RNG-to-the-upside method, a new method is introduced : actual Engineering, no RNG
- Player can set all sliders manually as desired and then gets an appropriate list of Materials needed which will complete the desired Mod in a single Engineer application. Requirements are in line with average standard method to attain a similar Mod Quality.

2) have an NPC Crew? Great - issue that NPC a Ship equipped as desired, hand over Materials as required and have it fly it to any Engineer and have any Engineering performed
- such remote services come at a Premium by the Engineers (higher Materials costs) due to having to deal indirectly with the Player
- the NPC Tasking will cost Credits based on distance; both NPC and Ship will be unavailable until they return except for the Engineering

Engineer Facilities
- every single Engineer stops being artificially barred from selling A-Grade Equipment; instead anything an Engineer can mod will be on sale for all Classes and Grades
- every single Engineer has a Shipyard to facilitate chain-modding of multiple Ships

Remote WorkShops
- every remote WorkShop is capable of converting legacy mods

Legacy Module Conversion
- instead of simply converting any G5 Mod into a top-end G4, the quality of the Legacy Mod is assessed and used instead for the conversion process
- if any is present, the most distinct positive secondary effect will be automatically applied as a Special Effect
- after a conversion, most of all legacy Modules will have nearly identical quality (i.e. a converted Module might end up being a 94.4% G5 Mod by the current standards; god-rolls will be 100.0% G5 Mods w/ appropriate Special Effect applied)

Attaining Elements/Materials/Data
- NPC Crews can be assigned Ships and be sent into specific System (Player needs to choose properly to ensure i.e. correct Faction States and/or Population) to gather a limited amount of Mats for the Player
- Ship type, Mat rarity and time needed will dictate the Payment the NPC will demand for the Tasking; Time needed will be the result of the System choice, distance and amount of Mats desired
- both Ship and NPC will be unavailable until the NPC has completed the Tasking or is recalled early

-> this avoids Players having to engage with boring, frustrating or RNG-based/poorly designed Game Elements they already know they don't like, hence providing a premium alternative Option with a limited by guaranteed outcome per NPC
-> having multiple NPCs hired

NPC Crew payments
- payments for any of above Tasking is to be paid in advance to prevent hire&fire exploits
---------------------------

This is how I would have done it. No artificial grind-walls for the sake of building access restrictions, no intentional frustrating elements and alternative paths whenever those are desired or preferred.
Plus, finally an Option of "Engineering" that actually represents Engineering, no RNG, all while retaining the existing level-up System that is already in place.
Additionally, it allows NPC Crews to make themselves useful beyond the current, harsh and shallow limitations. They're on your payroll, so they're supposed to work for the Player. So let them do just that if the Player makes that choice.
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It's the laziest and easiest way to make gameplay for FDev. They designed it and thought it was "AAA" quality whilst requiring the least amount of effort.

If you look at the mechanic all it is is numbers. Either you increase a number or decrease a number - you really can't get much easier than that.

Hard work would be coming up with some actual challenging gameplay - you know, something where you can fail. You could add in some actual missions that have some thought and design gone into it (rather than RNG a mission then RNG the enemy then RNG the location). The problem with thought and design is that it takes a lot longer to make (The guardians stuff was really good but look what they did with it). What we have now didn't take long at all and gives the illusion of content whilst they took £30 quid from everyone and charged a fiver for the BETA so everyone could test out fish (nobody btw mentioed Elite Dangerous during Brexit because then the UK would have no Fish issue....js..)
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
J
ozrix84 said:
NOO!!! I WANT EVERYTHING NAUW!!! GRIND GRIND I HATE THIS GAME BUT LOVE IT

Those entitled scrubs don't even realise how difficult it was to acquire another ship in the past, let alone an engineered module
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It was never difficult unless you think that things that take an donkey amount of time = difficulty. One thing ED has never been is "difficult" - time wasting in spades though.
 

ozrix84

ozrix84
Jex =TE= said:
It was never difficult unless you think that things that take an amount of time = difficulty. One thing ED has never been is "difficult" - time wasting in spades though.
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ED has never been difficult? Wow, okay. Maybe you should just downgrade from an Anaconda to a Cobra and see how difficult things will get.
 

Naskoni

Naskoni
ozrix84 said:
Why would I have anything pinned if I have everything engineered? Next failed assumption please, keyboard veteran
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Well, it might come as a pretty big surprise to someone like you that while you were away, seemingly for years, engineers got a tad changed... [smile] The new "respect-your-time" engineering process is so much less of a grind too that even the old Quent grind pales in comparison. [haha] Which is probably why the apologist has no idea what g5 mods even do...
 

lenna

lenna
Graelock said:
No, not grinding. This is a whole other thing. To say that somebody can't put more than 23 of [X] item in their cargo hold until they've dropped off the 23 they have...down right dirty. What's the point of anything over a Cobra then?
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It is about game trading balance where certain specific goods are concerned - in this specific case, the goods are Rare Items where the flow of trade is tightly controlled in order to prevent/inhibit over exploitation by ANY individual.

There are (or have been) comparable examples of these kinds of controls in the real world.

There are plenty of other goods in the ED universe that do not carry trading quantity restrictions.
 
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