Living, breathing universe vs. immersion ruining grind... Plea to overhaul the entire "materials" mechanic

Windscreen Smudge

W
I still hold firm belief in that the only way to get a game this large to have an economy and crafting system that conforms to player needs and fun gameplay is a fully player driven economy.

It effectively solves every problem players have with systems like the mat grinding and honey pots, it makes the entire game more accessible and it gives an otherwise unachievable level of player agency which makes the game more interesting.
 

Wrecked

Wrecked
Factabulous said:
They were thinking "How can we get people to engage with lots of different parts of the game and give a little extra reward when they do?"

What they weren't thinking was "Maybe a Youtuber will encourage people to not see the game as a holistic galaxy sim and will encourage people to focus down on specific parts and burn them out".

Probably that.
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When what they should have been thinking is "How can we add new dynamics to the game that are achievable through diverse, engaging, and rewarding gameplay mechanics that aren't simply monotonous barriers to making the game more enjoyable".
 

TheChosen

TheChosen
Engineers and Materials can be a horrible experience if you rush them .. or you want that G5 Corvette next week because you want to 'finish the game'.. I don't see any faults with the game mechanics to be honest. I've unlocked all the engineers in the bubble and fully engineered 6 ships without too much of a struggle.. I just played one piece of the game at a time.. they were actually like a nice tutorial that gave me some extra motivation to try everything.

Now that I have my ultimate G5 Cutter, what do I do? I fly my Cobra MK3 of course... There is no secret, rich, story driven end game to be unlocked once you get all the engineers. There is a reason why you meet so many Elite ranked (meaning people with thousands of hours in the game) flying small ships.. This game is not about 'unlocking everything'

Raw materials - They are literally everywhere. You go mining - you get a lot of them, you go SRVing on a planet - you get a lot of them, you visit the HIP sites just once - you are pretty much set for life as a single G4 can net you tons of G1s

Data - Just flying around, scanning stuff will get you tons of mats. I visited the James' crashed Cobra once.. in 30 minutes I had more encoded than I will ever need. Missions also provide a big variety. Put a hyperspace scanner and scan some wakes around a busy station.. again in 30 minutes you will be drowning in mats. Or get a stealth ship and go hack some megaships.

Manufactured - They are also quite literally everywhere. Put up a collector limpet next time you go to a Res site to hunt some pirates.. In an hour you will be drowning in manufactured materials. Worst case, you can always spend an hour farming HGEs using the exit game/re-log .. this will net you enough materials to engineer 10 ships.

I've done this so far and I haven't felt 'grinding' at all

CRAFTING​

NUMBER OF ENGINEERS USED
15
NUMBER OF UPGRADES GENERATED
1,050
GRADE 1 UPGRADES GENERATED
163
GRADE 2 UPGRADES GENERATED
179
GRADE 3 UPGRADES GENERATED
219
GRADE 4 UPGRADES GENERATED
210
GRADE 5 UPGRADES GENERATED
279
 

Bigmaec

Bigmaec
TheChosen said:
Engineers and Materials can be a horrible experience if you rush them .. or you want that G5 Corvette next week because you want to 'finish the game'.. I don't see any faults with the game mechanics to be honest. I've unlocked all the engineers in the bubble and fully engineered 6 ships without too much of a struggle.. I just played one piece of the game at a time.. they were actually like a nice tutorial that gave me some extra motivation to try everything.

Now that I have my ultimate G5 Cutter, what do I do? I fly my Cobra MK3 of course... There is no secret, rich, story driven end game to be unlocked once you get all the engineers. There is a reason why you meet so many Elite ranked (meaning people with thousands of hours in the game) flying small ships.. This game is not about 'unlocking everything'

Raw materials - They are literally everywhere. You go mining - you get a lot of them, you go SRVing on a planet - you get a lot of them, you visit the HIP sites just once - you are pretty much set for life as a single G4 can net you tons of G1s

Data - Just flying around, scanning stuff will get you tons of mats. I visited the James' crashed Cobra once.. in 30 minutes I had more encoded than I will ever need. Missions also provide a big variety. Put a hyperspace scanner and scan some wakes around a busy station.. again in 30 minutes you will be drowning in mats. Or get a stealth ship and go hack some megaships.

Manufactured - They are also quite literally everywhere. Put up a collector limpet next time you go to a Res site to hunt some pirates.. In an hour you will be drowning in manufactured materials. Worst case, you can always spend an hour farming HGEs using the exit game/re-log .. this will net you enough materials to engineer 10 ships.

I've done this so far and I haven't felt 'grinding' at all

CRAFTING​

NUMBER OF ENGINEERS USED
15
NUMBER OF UPGRADES GENERATED
1,050
GRADE 1 UPGRADES GENERATED
163
GRADE 2 UPGRADES GENERATED
179
GRADE 3 UPGRADES GENERATED
219
GRADE 4 UPGRADES GENERATED
210
GRADE 5 UPGRADES GENERATED
279
Click to expand...
Those are rookie numbers 🤪

NUMBER OF ENGINEERS USED
24
NUMBER OF UPGRADES GENERATED
15,570
GRADE 1 UPGRADES GENERATED
2,535
GRADE 2 UPGRADES GENERATED
2,347
GRADE 3 UPGRADES GENERATED
3,194
GRADE 4 UPGRADES GENERATED
3,529
GRADE 5 UPGRADES GENERATED
3,965
 

Achtung-Goomba

Achtung-Goomba
Sup3rfluiD said:
Have you ever tried high level competative pvp without a g5 build?
Not sarcasm, genuine question.
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I don’t PvP and often won’t be seen in Open, so I’m usually content with at least G3 where it counts and anything I can mod beyond that is a nice luxury. That suits my playstyle perfectly so far, but of course what works for my game might well not work for your game, so I offer my thoughts simply to give my perspective on the mechanics, hoping someone might find them helpful perhaps.

I don’t believe dramatic changes are required with regards to materials, perhaps tweaking the quantities and types of materials offered as mission rewards and maybe offering a choice to better suit the player’s needs at that time; this would go some way towards allowing you to gather a sufficient amount of the materials you need whilst ‘just playing the game’.
 

fu9ar

fu9ar
I don't PvP and I definitely don't go out in Open picking fights with strangers. I'm sorry that you can't keep up with the older kids. No. Wait. I'm not sorry at all. I don't care.
 

Sup3rfluiD

Sup3rfluiD
fu9ar said:
I don't PvP and I definitely don't go out in Open picking fights with strangers. I'm sorry that you can't keep up with the older kids. No. Wait. I'm not sorry at all. I don't care.
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I dont pick fights with strangers either, I'm talking about organized pvp tounaments and organic/arranged squad wing fights.

Its more like f1 than commuting and unless you are completely prepared you lose, plain and simple.

How would you know what the needs of the open community are playing solo pve?

Also would be nice if you could make a post without being sarcastic and insulting.
 
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fu9ar

fu9ar
Isn't the argument that Engineering already undermined the whole point of competitive play? Especially when considering legacy godrolls...

Not to mention the outright cheats.
 

Sup3rfluiD

Sup3rfluiD
Engineering was a mixed bag tbh.
On one hand it made a lot of ships much more fun to fly.
On the other it added to powercreep andd introduced multiple economy commodities.

What many pvp guys want is a single unified economy for all comodities so we can just buy materials.
After all we already earnt the credits in game currency.
Instead of flying we spend our time dune buggying and collecting
 

Sup3rfluiD

Sup3rfluiD
Maybe I just really dont understand the gold farming thing.
My beef is having an arbitrary divide betwwen commodities.
Surely in a galaxy of billions someone would sell iron, vanadium, selenium etc
 

csbeau1969

csbeau1969
The gold farmer complaints have been around since the original days of MMOs and are an elitist thing. The basic premise, which is common amongst forum trolls who believe any change is bad (because they are already 'leet), is based on (typically) neckbeards, with nothing but time on their hands, that get jealous that someone may have an opportunity to keep up with the Joneses. They believe that the game is "fine" because they already have done the grind, and therefore it protects their most elite status. Ironically, against all their arguments on the forum, they are not arguing for 'play the game as you would like, you don't need to be G5 rated' and instead, they are really saying, "I want to protect my status because if you 'catch me' then I somehow now lose enjoyment for how I chose to play"
 
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Sup3rfluiD

Sup3rfluiD
Hmmm. Interesting.
Don't know where I fit in.

Played since launch, 5000ish hrs, E3 for years, billions in the kitty, done beagle, Sag and Goids, fully engineerd g5 fleet and yet I still want a realistic economy model.

Dont care which activities/style others play, whatever blows their hair back is fine by me.

Every time its mentioned though i get labled a gold miner or a juvenile.
Strange really, my kids are late teens.
Go figure
 
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