General Overhauling Engineering: A Family's Request for a Streamlined Upgrade System

[Northpin]

As a player with thousands more hours in the game who doesn’t use FA off for anything other than planetary landings I disagree with your proposal and your right to speak for new players in this matter.

This

I have more than 8500h spread over 3 accounts. I fly FA ON most of the time.
I really rarely fly FA OFF, usually if/when i do old school 1-on-1 with thargoid interceptors or when leaving the station i find that my hyperjump destination is behind the station i just left - in which case as i exit the mailslot i FA OFF, boost straight, wait till i clear the station mass lock, then engage hyperdrive, turn 180, turn FA ON and boost - then the timer is up and i get into hyperspace... Much faster than flying around the station to clear its Mass lock


I do remember when i started on XB - the first session was a real mess with me trying to figure out how to leave the station in the starting Sidewinder.
However, i dont think i would have ever got into it if it was FA OFF from the get go.

At that point you have to question the intent of the design - if the intent of front loading the downsides is to get players to commit to filling it up (even though they don't know how many materials it will take because of the RNG based rolls system and how long those materials will take to gather because of the RNG based drop system) then encouraging players to not fill up the bar or not engineer everything to G5 means the design isn't quite doing it and could be improved.

I take this as something for the OCD completionists - which i am when i have materials, and i usually always have materials.
And i like it's there as an option.

 

[Northpin]

Also it obviously just because someone can do it doesn't mean everyone can/should progress through the game without engineering.

No, ofc not, but it shows it's possible - even tho a pirate threat 8 signal source is as close as endgame content / boss raid as it can get in ED

I wont go there anyway, there are plenty of combat scenarios that will be enjoyable for me when i feel the need to take out my non-engineered Eagle.

 

[aRJay]

At that point you have to question the intent of the design - if the intent of front loading the downsides is to get players to commit to filling it up (even though they don't know how many materials it will take because of the RNG based rolls system and how long those materials will take to gather because of the RNG based drop system) then encouraging players to not fill up the bar or not engineer everything to G5 means the design isn't quite doing it and could be improved.

The simple way to improve it here is to remove the rolls system entirely and have a fixed cost for each tier.

The problem with this is it makes ships even more cookie cutter than they are, there needs to be some mechanism that promotes variation or PvP would become even more boring uninteresting than it is now.

If the intent of the design is to get players to consider the downsides of the engineering more and not go all in on it then the downsides should be increased so that you give up more of one stat in return for another - ideally making mid tier engineering more meta. This wouldn't necessarily lead to a better system and would just introduce more trap choices than there already have unless it's executed really well.

Of course the current design is just something patched together from the corpse of the old, even more random, engineering system with different issues and it assuming there's some sort of deep design intent beyond it is maybe giving it too much credit and it might be better to look at it as many emergent, unintended effects that don't come together to form a cohesive, fun system.

One of the improvements the current system brought was the removal of the emergent God Rolled module where people obsessive enough could eventually create a super module at the cost of just a few hundreds of hours playing roulette using mats.

So any suggestions/improvements have to decide not only how to nudge players to make the right decisions but also what the right decision is. This makes reaching a consensus nigh-impossible.

Even worse as the right decision is particular to a player and their intended build.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Because of how random it can be the fact that there was no noticeable progress on a roll could just be bad luck.


I missed that, what was the video?

Also it obviously just because someone can do it doesn't mean everyone can/should progress through the game without engineering.

But if that was the takeaway then should the game be made harder across the board so that engineering becomes more relevant to everyone and is forced on players more?

There's a link in a previous post.

Given that these missions scale with combat rank, I imagine when a new player comes to face that kind of opponent they would have a better grip of ship building anyway. Early in the game for this type of mission I only remember coming up against low level Cobras.

Admittedly the build wouldn't be my choice, but overcharged incendiary multicannons are available at tier 1 and is probably all anyone would ever need against the elite opponent if engineering looks overwhelming initially.

 

[aRJay]

This

I have more than 8500h spread over 3 accounts. I fly FA ON most of the time.
I really rarely fly FA OFF, usually if/when i do old school 1-on-1 with thargoid interceptors or when leaving the station i find that my hyperjump destination is behind the station i just left - in which case as i exit the mailslot i FA OFF, boost straight, wait till i clear the station mass lock, then engage hyperdrive, turn 180, turn FA ON and boost - then the timer is up and i get into hyperspace... Much faster than flying around the station to clear its Mass lock


...

I do much the same except I don't bother with the FA OFF, head straight out, when the mass lock clears press jump, throttle zero and spin ship 180 then when timer is nearly complete hit boost while pointed at the jump marker. In ships with marginal heat performance I will skip the boost and just go full throttle as an overheat alarm mid jump is annoying.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Because of how random it can be the fact that there was no noticeable progress on a roll could just be bad luck.

The probability of which increases as the circle fills. And this we return to the point of personal choice; How much time/mats is the player willing to use for 0.001% improvement?

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

No, ofc not, but it shows it's possible - even tho a pirate threat 8 signal source is as close as endgame content / boss raid as it can get in ED

I took a look at the mentioned video and while it's impressive it's not the hardest content in the game - that build might struggle more against a Elite mission stalker conda with a fighter and I'm not sure and if it wasn't using cannons I'd argue that the "pirate activity detected" ships are tankier due to having hulltank alliance ships (they still might be tankier due to faster shield regen and more engineering). If you didn't watch the video he also only aggros the main mission target and not the supporting vulture ships.

The lack of non-AX endgame content that can provide a worthy challenge to fully engineered ships is a different problem elite also has.

Overall it's too much of an outlier, like critiquing a game for being too short because the speedrun world record is only 10 minutes. Speaking of speedruns, getting around the galaxy in an unengineered ship sure is possible and it sure would suck for people who just want to go sightseeing.

Playing with unengineered ships is not really a popular playstyle - if Elite had some sort of optional built-in challenge mode around it that you could do for prestige would a significant number of people play it (something like, get from harmless to elite combat rank without engineering with 8x XP progression)? It could be a valid solution to the complaints about engineering (for combat), but I think it's too much of a niche thing in addition to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Again, if it was a popular playstyle that would mean an even deeper failure on part of the engineering system if it failed to engage players at all.

The problem with this is it makes ships even more cookie cutter than they are, there needs to be some mechanism that promotes variation or PvP would become even more boring uninteresting than it is now.

How is this bad for PvP other than leveling the playing field a bit? The lack of build variety is a different problem that engineering also obviously has that's probably best tackled separately.

The probability of which increases as the circle fills. And this we return to the point of personal choice; How much time/mats is the player willing to use for 0.001% improvement?

All of it. Good game design should protect players from themselves instead of binding eject all cargo to a key by default.

Another way to force it would be some per-ship engineering limit like the AX weapons, limiting the total number of G5 modules you can have per ship, but much like the AX module limit that would be perceived as arbitrary and too restrictive even if it'd encourage build variety more than the current system.

Framing it like that - suddenly you can't engineer all your modules to G5 because the game hard caps your progress and how that feels might be an useful tool in thinking about why people want to max out their progression. It's not a hard cap in elite currently and it's not the same cap for everyone, but there is indeed a limit to how much crap people are willing to tolerate and if that's lower than what it takes to max out the ship that part of the game (engineering progression) will feel less satisfying.

 

[Jack Winter]

Of course it is - I learned it here.

ETA: But, I still stick with the idea that every bit of engineering should be able to be bought with credits - at least then the new player can engineer their ships to be equal to the veteran player's ones...
Of course, this could lead to the "my murder boat was blown up" posts as their flying / combat skills may be far behind said veterans, but at least there would be no complaints about 'engineering grind', would there?

In that case I think that the supply of credits need to be severely reduced..

Maybe Thargoids burning the bubble would be enough explanation to devaluate credits without some players going ballistic and allowing FD to reset the economy.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

All of it. Good game design should protect players from themselves instead of binding eject all cargo to a key by default.

Another way to force it would be some per-ship engineering limit like the AX weapons, limiting the total number of G5 modules you can have per ship, but much like the AX module limit that would be perceived as arbitrary and too restrictive even if it'd encourage build variety more than the current system.

Framing it like that - suddenly you can't engineer all your modules to G5 because the game hard caps your progress and how that feels might be an useful tool in thinking about why people want to max out their progression. It's not a hard cap in elite currently and it's not the same cap for everyone, but there is indeed a limit to how much crap people are willing to tolerate and if that's lower than what it takes to max out the ship that part of the game (engineering progression) will feel less satisfying.

Ooookaay, that's a you problem.
You want Fdev to implement some sort of limiter for compulsive engineering, perhaps they should throw in a twelve step programme...

 

[Jack Winter]

Ooookaay, that's a you problem.
You want Fdev to implement some sort of limiter for compulsive engineering, perhaps they should throw in a twelve step programme...

Lol, good one!

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

Ooookaay, that's a you problem.
You want Fdev to implement some sort of limiter for compulsive engineering, perhaps they should throw in a twelve step programme...

It's more of a don't hate the player hate the game thing for me.

I'm fine with engineering everything to the max, but other people have brought up the idea that maybe it's the wrong way to play the game and this is where exploring how that idea could be used to make engineering better leads me.

I don't want to try to get another sick burn in here like you because I already got warned for the post I accused people of lying about passive material gathering.

 

[Rat Catcher]

In that case I think that the supply of credits need to be severely reduced..

Why?

Quite seriously - if others here are convinced that 97.2% of people who buy the game leave within a few hours because of engineering, it is the only answer.

Of course, a new player will need to accrue credits in the first place.

 

[Jack Winter]

Why?

Quite seriously - if others here are convinced that 97.2% of people who buy the game leave within a few hours because of engineering, it is the only answer.

Of course, a new player will need to accrue credits in the first place.

If I was FD, I'd design the game as I thought best, and not according to how a few forum posters think would be better.. Do we really want Elite Arcade? I thought FD already tried that with CQC..

 

[Rat Catcher]

If I was FD, I'd design the game as I thought best, and not according to how a few forum posters think would be better..

But, it isn't just a few - they speak for all newcomers by their own admission...

Do we really want Elite Arcade?

It is just too hard for newbies, allegedly, and should be able to be completed in 10-20 hours so the next game can be played, supposedly...

I thought FD already tried that with CQC..

CQC was too hard for most - the ships weren't engineered...

 

[Jack Winter]

You are forgetting that there are some forum members that are uniquely qualified to speak for current, past, and prospective players. They don't speak just for themselves, but for all those that don't have a voice on the forums. They speak for the silent majority, and those that can't speak for themselves. Imagine what could be done when harnessing the power of this knowledge to game design.

Are the rest of us somehow disqualified?

I'd like to think that I'm speaking for the unwashed plebs too!

 

[metatheurgist]

Well, we are due a major feature overhaul. Removing engineering would to that.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

If you want 10 of something to finish a recepie you're probably going to spend 3-5h looking for and doing missions only to get those materials on the average and you might be forced into longer play sessions than you'd like because of the short mission expiry timers. It'll be hit or miss if you find quick assassination missions or missions where you have to wait 3min or whatever for a power regulator to pop out after flying 100kLs to a secondary star.

 

[metatheurgist]

Mine is better

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

I knew this argument would be applied... It was the only one left!

Perhaps just make engineering free from any effort, so a new player can be on an equal footing with every other player in the game - or just remove it entirely - which might upset more than a few players when everyone would be forced to play in vanilla ships so that a player who joined today doesn't feel disadvantaged?

The issue here is not that it's a bad idea but if engineering is done with just credits then the problem shifts to the credit economy being also utterly unbalanced and we'd be talking about how much that sucks instead of material gathering. Complaining about boring robigo runs instead of HGE relogging.

View attachment 379715

Mine is better
View attachment 379727

Both of you still need one more mission to hit the 10 goal I set and maybe you just got lucky? Also I think(?) the max amount of a material that can be offered in the mission reward depends on the arbitrary sell value of the material so some materials seemingly have a max of 3 pre-negotiation. The recepies are just rounded off to 10 for those things still so they don't take that into account.

You can get nonlethal-no-alarms missions that just give you 10 of a material but I don't expect many people will want (or are able) to do those.

 

[Jack Winter]

I do loads of assassinations for 5 MIs, doesn't really matter if they are legal, illegal, covert, and/or clean. Most of them can be done very quickly and without turning off alarms and won't even give notoriety, you just have to figure out how it's done. Yes they're not all that common, but also not very rare. I'll normally pick those up, and otherwise I'll do missions giving 5x some mat.