There are a lot of criticisms I have for this. Put bluntly, it's just poor game design. When you release an update, the last thing you do is put a gigantic barrier of entry against new content. Nothing makes people look away from a game faster then that. Not only that, but then why are there so many NPCs with badass weaponry and shielding and engines? Did all of them dig up meta alloys or Soontill relics? It's both bad design and stupidly unimmersive. FDev really never fails to blow my mind with how little sense or thought goes into creating the actual world from the gameplay. I mean RES is bad enough as a thinly-veiled farming location against wanted NPCs, but damn. One of the biggest updates in the game and they just tell you to get arbitrary rare item? Powerplay was bad enough but I'm somewhat disappointed with my first impressions of Engineers.
If this is just level 1 modifications, what the hell would even be level 3 or 4? This is just flat out dumb design. Combined with the fact that we can't (at least last since I played) transfer cargo between ships, I really don't want to go around looking for meta alloys in my already kitted out Cobra then being forced to rekit it just to get the proper upgrades. I mean talk about grind being fun and all but being asked to get incredibly rare items without any other introduction or context or extraneous information just says how maliciously and poorly designed this was. It's not fun. It's dumb. Sure, I guess it inspires the community to "work together" to get items but at the same time, there's literally nothing to work with, more so just hundreds of players throwing baloney at the wall and seeing what sticks. Which pretty much sums up the player interaction in Elite Dangerous when they're not arguing about Open play ganking and private group safety.
