The player plays the game provided. It is the rational approach.
Trying to play a game using methods that you don't enjoy is not the rational approach.
Make the engineering grind remotely palatable
- Thread starter sprecdaddy
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Trying to play a game using methods that you don't enjoy is not the rational approach.
Nerf it to it become more coquetry. Problem solved =)
I don't feel it's accurate to describe any of the changes to Engineering between release and now as a 'large scale rewrite'. It is largely the same, but with some healthier QOL changes. If anything, it's more like we have version 0.6 than a 'version 6' - the product has still not passed the scrutiny of consumer quality standards, and nothing about its fundamental flaws has been truely corrected.
I agree that many other features of the game could do with a large scale overhaul. There's been a lot of fundamentally mistaken design choices that have been left uncorrected for significantly extended periods of time. The things you list could all do with improvement. However, none carry so heavy an impact on the game experience as Engineering does.
The differences between Engineering 2.1 and Engineering 3.3 are like they're completely different things
No, it's absolutely not.
A QOL change is increasing the Carrier Bartender storage to 1000 units
Your lack of understanding of the way other players approach a game does not mean they are irrational in their attempts to play it in a different way than how you play it. I don't know what sophistry you are attempting to grasp here.
Large scale in terms of the amount of development time committed, even if you don't feel the results were worthwhile.
And realistically it's never going to get what you want even if they throw a lot more time at it:
- is it a major problem that Engineering added huge power creep? Yes.
- is it fixable now? No. That'd attract more complaints than simply never touching it again would.
- given that it does give major power boosts, it's always going to require some significant effort to do it, so the fundamentals really aren't going to change.
- and Frontier seem to like exponential costs for (sub)linear improvement as a mechanic throughout the entire game not just engineering, so that's not changing either.
For me ... actually it's basically fine nowadays. If I buy a new ship, I can engineer it to somewhere between G3/G4 just with materials I have in vast quantities and without taking it out of the dock. That's 90%+ of the possible performance instantly and basically cost-free. Sure, if I want to G5 it I'll probably need to get more materials and some of that process will be boring and time-consuming (HGEs are a terrible idea) ... but there's a very good chance I won't need to because I'll never notice that final 10% of performance in practice on most modules.
Compared with other things - or the state pre-3.3 where I had basically two ships engineered ever - there are much more urgent topics for Frontier to spend their time on.
Completely different how? They are fundamentally exactly the same as they have been since release. You gather heaps of magic space dust stored in your commander's suit-mounted Bags of Holding, through enduring egregious levels of repetitive activity, you then hand the arbitrarily varified forms of magic space dust over to the space wizards, and if they're feeling lenient you might get a favorable result towards the thing you want (which, when fully completed, will offer you an exponential increase in capability over what you would be stuck with otherwise).The differences between Engineering 2.1 and Engineering 3.3 are like they're completely different things
No, it's absolutely not.
A QOL change is increasing the Carrier Bartender storage to 1000 units
Show me the overhaul to Engineering that took place that addressed the issues of that game loop, because apparently it has entirely slipped my notice despite paying close attention to official posts and numerous threads on the topic of Engineering and balance thereof over the years.
This statement just makes absolutely no sense at all.
You are complaining that you don't like certain game mechanics because you choose to play a certain way. There is a really easy solution to your problem.
I would attribute any largeness of scale in terms of development time committed, to flaws in management and design approach. The widespread and consistent feedback on the results speaks for itself. I believe they could have avoided a lot of the problems encountered by relying more upon player feedback and testing, and by having better fundamental design choices.
The only way it "never" gets improved from its current state is if attention is continually drawn away from it. I don't believe that it's not fixable. Nothing is perfect - which is why everything can always be improved upon. A balance overhaul would indeed need to be made carefully and intelligently, but it is not outside the realm of possibility, and many player proposals have been initiated over the years. I think the "power boost <=> significant effort" situation is one of the fundamentally flawed aspects of Engineering that does needs correcting, and it perhaps is a serious case of having gotten the cart before the horse.
If you are content with noncompletionist approaches to optimizing new ships you buy...that's grand, but that's a band-aid on the situation at best. And I think you can very much notice the performance impact of fully engineering core modules on a ship, whether it's the power plant, the thrusters, the jump range, let alone any weaponry and damage output.
At least, I can agree there are some more urgent things to address...like the glaring aliasing issue that's been at the top of the tracker for the past year or so now...but I don't think that list of 'more urgent' things is long at all.
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Yes, and I've taken that solution in the form of largely not playing the game for much of the past 4-5 years, as have many others besides me. Would you really still make the claim that the game is in a state that is satisfactory, when players that try engaging fully with it wind up burnt out, turned off, or otherwise dissatisfied?
My wife doesn't like the game at all. She came to that conclusion in less than 30 min. It didn't take her 4-5 years.
Meanwhile, take a look at some of the other players. Have you noticed that they are having lots of fun playing the game? How can this be? What is different? There are other players with huge fleets of fully engineered ships, swimming in materials they can't use. How is this possible? What's going on? Impossible!
I have about 60 fully engineered ships spread over 3 accounts (something like 33 + 15 + 12) or so
And i had great fun planning engineering for them and then doing the actual engineering for each of them.
Enjoying different things to someone else is a common experience; I've seen that many times and I feel I understand it. But in your leisure time, doing something you don't enjoy is irrational.
I take it that what you call "grind" isn't something you enjoy (otherwise surely you wonldn't call it that).
Therefore, grinding in a game is irrational.
not everyone is good at planning
irl
I used to own a convenience store and it is amazing how many people walk in with not enough money.
They know they are going to the store and they know what they want, yet a very large portion of the public will get there and not have the money.
then there are people like me.
I go with more than I need, I never go until I am 100% certain I have the list of stuff and I have the ability to get it all, preferably in a well timed trip to each place to get each item, wasting as little time as possible.
I usually have to drive for an hour just to get to where I can shop. turning back because I am 12 cents short is a move I cannot accept.
Time is important
in this game time is a bigger concern than anything else. It is the most valuable thing you have.
To waste it by not planning or by poor planning or by having zero foresight is on each person.
Shop like a guy with 4 cents and lots of hope, or make an actual plan.
Only one method is pain free.
But the time is each cmdr's own to do with as he/she sees fit.
Complaining about what you did with it makes sense.
irl
I used to own a convenience store and it is amazing how many people walk in with not enough money.
They know they are going to the store and they know what they want, yet a very large portion of the public will get there and not have the money.
then there are people like me.
I go with more than I need, I never go until I am 100% certain I have the list of stuff and I have the ability to get it all, preferably in a well timed trip to each place to get each item, wasting as little time as possible.
I usually have to drive for an hour just to get to where I can shop. turning back because I am 12 cents short is a move I cannot accept.
Time is important
in this game time is a bigger concern than anything else. It is the most valuable thing you have.
To waste it by not planning or by poor planning or by having zero foresight is on each person.
Shop like a guy with 4 cents and lots of hope, or make an actual plan.
Only one method is pain free.
But the time is each cmdr's own to do with as he/she sees fit.
Complaining about what you did with it makes sense.
And since Engineering V6 would also be produced and incorporated into the game by Frontier Developments, and not by some mythical competent developer of Elite-like space games, the same is likely to happen again.
Could it be better? Yes. So could the entire rest of the game and I'd rather that they put their effort - however mismanaged and badly designed compared to MythiSoft - into something that has been ignored since initial release.
On the contrary I think this is basically the key to the whole dispute. The underlying question is "should players have any meaningful constraints on their ability to upgrade their ship to its maximum?".
If the answer is "no" then the correct approach is just to abolish engineering, and sell G5 modules (no point in offering lower, the downsides are basically irrelevant) as AA-rated in the Outfitting, with some local "engineering" service to pick experimentals at a nominal cost.
If the answer is "yes" then absolutely the engineering system should be encouraging players to think about questions like "which modules are the priority to push to G5" and "how little can I engineer this new ship and still have it fit for purpose" and "having obtained these new materials, what's the priority to spend them" ... which means players shouldn't have the materials they need to just routinely G5 everything - at least not until they've been playing for quite some time.
For the same reason, the dispute between "Frontier need to buff credit earning - 500M/hour is too low" and "Frontier need to nerf credit earning - 1M/hour is too high" player beliefs is never resolvable (though Frontier have certainly picked a side in practice) because they're looking for fundamentally different game experiences.
(The obvious compromise is to have a button in an out-of-the-way place [1] which if pressed gives you full material reserves and 100B credits. There is no penalty for pressing the button as often as you want to, but equally no requirement to press it even once. You can press it, I won't bother, now we're both happy enough with engineering apart from the excessive power gain it's too late to fix.)
[1] Not like "Beagle Point" - just some obscure moon near the bubble where you're not going to accidentally press the button without knowing what it does.
you sir.... have issues.... hahaha
I like engineering in the game, however dont like things like the need to relog for it not to be frustrating. I loved the runs I made to stock up on raw materials. No relogging, exploring the planet to find deposits and farm them. However..... When someone defends the changes or corrections made to the horrifying initial state of engineering I cannot stop thinking in analogies like this:
"Hey players, we at Frontier will start to smack your hands every 5 minutes while you play the game." (Initial state of engineering)
Then as players complain the company "fixes" a few issues and the solution is:
"Hey! We heard your feedback and now we are only going to smack only your right hand and only every 10 minutes! enjoy!" (Trading at a steep cost, 3x1 materials collection, only 1 pinned blueprint and no experimental pin, etc.)
NO NO NO.... The correct answer is STOP SMACKING OUR HANDS!
And as if it was not clear what is going on, some players actually think that the company is good for "easing" a burden they solely brought on us...
Ok... This is just an analogy. I am being overly critical just to exacerbate the issue and to express the point clearly. As I said at the beginning I like Engineering overall, however there are some very stupid decisions around them that are artificial nonsensical roadblocks that need to go away like the lack of pinning of the experimental mods. Some are very radical differences (like Thermal vents) that change the entire behavior of an aspect of the module or weapon and not just a 3% damage increase for completionists and therefore a target for build experimentation. But the idea that I need to physically bring the module to the guy is annoying after the first few times just to check if a crazy build will hold up as expected.
I LOVE the general idea of the engineering. The way you have to know of the engineer from a rumor and wait for them to contact you because you cougth his/her attention and the indulge with a simple task is awesome as a mechanic. and afterwards.... He/she recommends another expert... simply AWESOME.
I think Frontier made engineering that way to make it a secondary game-play path. So the idea is that people would not invest right away all their time in this activity and rather do exploration/PowerPlay/etc.. and OP ships would be the exception not the norm. The ships would be engineered "as you go".
Similarly the credit fountain seems intentional to me so money issues gets out of the way rapidly.
It turns out it do not work as intended. I don't know why people wants to get rich quickly in Elite, to be honest or have as soon as possible the deadliest ship. Neither should be possible except on the rarest luck struck.
Maybe
However, i play Elite as my main game for 4 years already (with very little time allocated to some very very few other titles - like about 2 months for Mechwarrior 5 for example, in which time i played much much less ED), and i do tend to play in a focused way - putting my time to good use.
That's how i actually played both my alts (my xb "main" account has more engineered ship than both my pc alts together)
For months i played with no engineering at all (but with engineering in mind, picking materials when they came my way), then i gradually unlocked the engineers and gradually engineered my ships
My second alt took more than an year to unlock Palin - all this time happily using G3 drives. Also on this alt i've did a lot of combat in a G3/G4 Krait mk2, still not having the Corvette unlocked
So slow paced engineering is perfectly feasible
No grind engineering? perfectly feasible...
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