Nerf Engineers - A Suggestion

[Six6VI]

Seems they ruined their chances of a well balanced engineering system with the initial space-roulette or bust model encouraging the min-maxers to keep rolling for the god-mods which set a lower limit they were stuck with improving on for the current version and now we have the massive power creep issue.

Having said that, my FDL is fully G5+A-Rated and I still don't want to fly in OPEN.

Why? I'm busy playing my own way and I really don't want my fun ruined by jerks.

 

[metatheurgist]

And yet most people(many of whom had those jackpot rolls) were happy to have their mods nerfed. The players recognised how badly broken it was. Of course, no one complained too loudly when they just cranked it up to 11 15, the ridiculous jump ranges, engine speed and firepower was too much fun.

 

[dxm55]

And yet most people(many of whom had those jackpot rolls) were happy to have their mods nerfed. The players recognised how badly broken it was. Of course, no one complained too loudly when they just cranked it up to 11 15, the ridiculous jump ranges, engine speed and firepower was too much fun.

I think most agree that the jump range, speed thing was fun.
It was the firepower bit that might have ruffled more than a few feathers, because other than PVP, it affected them when being attacked by NPCs while doing mining or missions.

Speed and range boosts affect only the player him/herself.
Firepower / Armor / Shield boosts affect other players.

 

[Six6VI]

And yet most people(many of whom had those jackpot rolls) were happy to have their mods nerfed. The players recognised how badly broken it was. Of course, no one complained too loudly when they just cranked it up to 11 15, the ridiculous jump ranges, engine speed and firepower was too much fun.

Yeah, it didn't take long in the beta to realise how dangerous the new system was.

 

[sandkid]

I think most agree that the jump range, speed thing was fun.
It was the firepower bit that might have ruffled more than a few feathers, because other than PVP, it affected them when being attacked by NPCs while doing mining or missions.

Speed and range boosts affect only the player him/herself.
Firepower / Armor / Shield boosts affect other players.

This is actually a really good point - the last bit. As I've already said several times, I think the TTK is off for PvP-built ships over a normal PvE ships when engineering is involved. Perhaps the solution is to primarily focus on the engineering effects for weapons and shields, but leave the supporting modules (and core internals) alone?

At first glance, you'd end up with longer fights but not lose the 'dancing' effect. Then again, reverski is a common complaint - though that's space combat in a nutshell for most games - and leaving speed unchanged could further exacerbate the issue.

I never said it would easy...I'm still amazed the OP garnered a second page, lol.

 

[Bloodsign]

I don't think the balance issues of this game can be fixed without alienating a large percentage of the player base who put in hundreds of hours or more to make their ships perform just the way they wanted. Having put G5 dirty drives on several of my favorite ships, I can never go back. If FDev nerfs anything, I'll forever be comparing the nerfed version with how it was when my ship builds were perfect. I have worked incredibly hard, for example, to set up my PvP Mamba; when it's done, all the resistances will be maxed and already it handles like a dream. I will be greatly displeased if that is taken from me.

The only way to balance an imbalanced system like the current ED is to add new, imbalanced mechanics that players can use to circumvent the old meta. Let us engineer experimental weapons. Give us supercruise weapons that can potentially circumvent realspace combat entirely. Add new weapons that completely bypass shields. Give us real stealth/silent running mechanics which are actually viable. Build layers on top of what we already have, instead of taking what we have away.

 

[Morbad]

TTK would dramatically increase across the board for all PvP encounters

This is completely backwards, because Engineering has inflated defense far more than offense.

TTKs were, in general, significantly lower pre-Engineering.

Which would defeat the purpose in using a T9 in itself.
Imagine loading it up with top shields, and then M/HRPs and tanking it up and then leaving so little cargo space left after.

You can have a class 7 shield, two MRPs and four HRPs in a 606 ton cargo capacity T-9.

Of course, no one complained too loudly when they just cranked it up to 11 15, the ridiculous jump ranges, engine speed and firepower was too much fun.

Plenty of us complained quite loudly, it's just that most people want ever more, and sooner, irrespective of the consequences.

I don't think the balance issues of this game can be fixed without alienating a large percentage of the player base who put in hundreds of hours or more to make their ships perform just the way they wanted.

Any change means alienating someone, probably a lot of someones.

Having put G5 dirty drives on several of my favorite ships, I can never go back. If FDev nerfs anything, I'll forever be comparing the nerfed version with how it was when my ship builds were perfect. I have worked incredibly hard, for example, to set up my PvP Mamba; when it's done, all the resistances will be maxed and already it handles like a dream. I will be greatly displeased if that is taken from me.

My CMDR has almost 5500 G5 rolls and if I could click a button to revert the entire game to the state it was in, say, 1.3, I would, without hesitation. The ships I have now are freakish monstrosities that I have because they need to be competitive with other freakish monstrosities in a broad variety of tasks. The work I've put into Engineers doesn't make the end result more enjoyable than what I had long before Engineers, it's just required to be on the same footing.

 

[Lestat]

Here the thing. Before Frontier Nerf Engineering. They need to add something to the game to replace that Grind. Or we have a game where people leave too fast because of the Grind to too easy.

They did this in LOTRO. When the game was new, it was 45 Levels. Doing the grind was great. But when they added 5 to 20 extra levels. That grind was too high. So they shorten the grind for the early levels. So it uses to take a few weeks to get to level 20