Redesign the Engineering Grind

[Hooplah]

For all the advancement in computer technology with amazing graphics playing games no one has figured out how to advance the basic math of a Random Number Generator. They have tried to add subroutines to make a difference but the numbers still come out the same whatewver game you play. Our humman brains know this and with the math can predict what is going to happen mext in the game we play.

But it is OK. Have fun playing a game and enjoying it. It is all about a recreational activity one never leaves the houss versus getting away from that computer and interfacing with real people. Might I suggest the computer talking to others versus real life people in your life going for a Thanksgiving dinner is more important.

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

1. Once again, no examples about how much more is required...or put in other words, how many modules can you upgrade for the "increased" costs of reserach? Because that is the thing here... I do not expect you to say iut would be 50, 25, or even 10 times... or in other words, a way to get cheaper upgrades leater.

Because, as I clearly stated at the beginning, specific balancing changes are beyond the scope of this suggestion. Why? Because it's highly subjective and what looks good on paper can play out very differently in practice. Players don't have the final say in balancing decisions either, so bickering over the specifics is an exercise in futility. And yes, the idea is that players would be able to get cheaper upgrades after unlocking them. The proposed system front-loads the grind; the unlocking/development grind should be roughly equivalent but I don't see the value in holding players' noses to the grindstone AFTER the fact.

2. not practical, expecially when you decided to NOT give an example on how much in credits you expected a my 1 bullion would cost to upgrade... as the silence speaks volume on the real goal here...

It's not about practical, it's about what you find fun. If you ENJOY jumping around between HGE signal sources, droning through wake scans, and SRV prospecting I've left mechanisms in place for you to get value out of it. It wouldn't be the fastest, most convenient method... but that's kind of the POINT of the QOL changes. If you need the standard farming methods to be the BEST to consider them worth doing, I have to question how much fun you actually have while doing them.

Frontloading stuff like you suggestion is BAD, as that is the basic for Grinding... you would make things worse, and you would PUINISH players that only do a few upgrades, and rewarding players with massive fleets....

Nonsense.

1. The grind to UNLOCK engineers would be shorter (discover > invitation instead of discover > invitation > unlock) and players would have instant access to G1 upgrades.
2. A core principle of my restructured grind is that players can make progress doing the exact same activities they would normally be doing: combat, exploration, mining, trading, etc. This would alleviate the most irritating aspects of the "grind" - needing to do menial side activities (HGE farming, wake scanning, SRV prospecting) INSTEAD of the mainstream gameplay.

1. You are missing the point why they have that part... becuase it is not the 10 T of paininte you are actually after here, it is the rare goods you want to get rid off.

No, I'm pretty sure I clearly stated that I want to get rid of EVERYTHING in that category. So that would be the bounty vouchers, combat bonds, 10T of Painite, Rare Commodities, the whole collection. I want them ALL gone. Not sure why you're trying to suggest that I'm hiding the purposes of my proposal when I have been nothing if not direct and unambiguous about it.

And the rare goods are there to simulate going back and forth for a trading run... how do you do that without punishinig players in small ships? select a cargo that is available in small quanties, and thus ship size becomes irrelevant...

Which is already simulated multiple times over across several different Engineers. Simply getting an INVITATION to Lei Cheung requires 50 trading runs. How many times do you expect a player to "try" something before they know they dislike it? Your point about not punishing "small ships" is also complete when you factor in requirements like 200T of gold, 200 Landmines, or even 50T of Bromellite.

2. What does it disprove? it changes nothing, the mining are essential the same as it always was to unlock Selene, the only thing that really changed is the reward for doing mining... and ofcourse the possibility to blow up asteroids, but a terrible way to unlock Selene with... I know serveral players that avoided mining like a plague uintill they unlocked Selene Jean, before the changes... and got pleasntly suprised over that mining wasn't that terrible as they had thought, for us the increased payout for doing mining was a real bonus to a relaxed activity.

It disproves the idea that Engineers are needed to get players involved in specific game activities. Simply making mining profitable was enough to get more players involved in it regardless of whether they had already unlocked Selene or not. By all means let's have introductory tasks that encourage players to try every aspect of the game. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to have. However, there is no reason why that has to be assigned to Engineering. Instead, incorporate introductions to combat, exploration, mining, and trading in the beginner star systems. Y'know, the tutorial area where players are supposed to be learning the game.

... Nah, that'd be silly and illogical. /s

1. Now we getting close r to the issue... All your "frontload" grind, is going to be WORSE, but then again, you do not really want to increase the "research" phase, because that would be an even bigger grind and the way it is proposed to be, would basically be that players would treat that as a GRIND, meaniing they woukld try to get it over as fast as possible, and that would suck big time, so there would be calls to lower the requirements to do the "research"... so no grind at all... btw it is only grindy if you decide it is..

... Except that they can complete it by doing their normal game activities, which would make the GRIND less FRUSTRATING. You're also straying into a slippery-slope fallacy, which isn't even worth engaging with.

This is an obvious lie, because the amount require to upgrade 4 ships vs 40 ships would be WASTLY different in your system... you would punish the 4 ship person and rewqard the 40 ship person...

No, it underlines your fundamental misunderstanding of my proposal. The grind to UNLOCK + DEVELOP Engineering should remain mostly the same. And here, let's try spinning my idea with the same sort of nonsense double-standards you're applying to design philosophy:

I'm not punishing players with 4 ships... I'm encouraging them to buy more ships to make the most of Engineering investments. Which is totally okay because it gets them to try new things they might otherwise have ignored. Right? Right.

and simply have the material as an "option"...

What is the problem with giving players an "option?"

What leaping conclusion you have more or less already validated my concerns. you want to reduce the engineering effort, into nothing more than a credit grind.... and you hide it behind talks about "research" should cost more, etc, but it is nothing more than you ijn the end do never want to visit an engineer again, and only using credits to upgrade stuff, as all the material is an "option" for those who like to gather them...

You're the one being disingenuous here.

1. The research grind is not a credit grind, so clearly my proposal is not "nothing more than a credit grind."
2. You still haven't answered why players should need to revisit Engineers. Why is revisiting Engineers a good thing? What does it add to the gameplay experience? What does it matter if a player never visits an Engineer again?
3. Why is it bad for players who LIKE gathering materials to have that option and players who DON'T like gathering materials to have an alternate option? What changes for the worse?

Simply repeating details about my proposal while assuming that they are self-evidently harmful isn't truthful OR constructive. You're just whining, as though I should have some reason to care. Spoiler alert: I don't. Especially not when you repeatedly accuse me of lying or concealing truths without any evidence, while simultaneously making objectively false statements yourself. Your paranoia is not my problem.

What is so terrible to fly to engineers in the first place?

Nothing, which is why my proposal still requires players to fly to Engineers "in the first place." It just doesn't force them to go back every time they want to change pinned BPs or experimental effects afterward, because I don't see the point.

Because you seems to be missing a huge point of game that is all about you flying your space ship.... and now flying your ship is grindy?

What a crock... First, I never claimed that simply flying a ship was "grindy." Second, you can't effectively play the game without flying your ship. Implying that I'm trying to avoid flying my ship is incredibly dishonest.

My proposal has nothing to do with not wanting to fly my ship and everything to do with not wanting to fly my ship to the exact same places, repeatedly, for purely arbitrary reasons.

You entire talk about forcing players to repeatedly fly there, tells me you are after to make it EASIER for those who already spent ALOT of time on the game... at the expense of those who plays less...

If you spent less time fantasizing about the sinister conspiracy theories I am working to implement behind the scenes and more time actually offering concrete responses to my counter-points this conversation might actually go somewhere.

But you are creating MORE concentrated GRIND, and will punish the regular players in favours of those who can spend LOTS of time on the game.... as the "research" cost will always be unfair towards those players who does it the least. So basically you punishing the the regular player in favour of the players who can spend ALOT of time on the game.


So your "clarifications" makes it even worse...

I mean, you can repeat yourself as much as you want but that won't magically make your assertions objective truth. You need to properly back them up. My proposal is specifically designed to benefit BOTH players who have lots of time and those who don't (especially because between work and domestic duties I have about 10-15 hrs. per week on average to spend on Elite):

1. Grind progress is cumulative, meaning all players can easily make consistent progress toward their end goal.
2. Players now have many more gameplay OPTIONS for completing the grind. Instead of needing to spend my 60-minute session on a weeknight farming HGEs or Jameson (which I don't find fun) I can spend it running missions (which I do find fun).
3. Once I have unlocked blueprints, I can easily apply them to new ships as they interest me. For example, I would be much more likely to buy a dedicated cargo hauler for helping one of my newer-player friends run Wing deliveries for cash if I didn't need to slog through an unpleasant grind to upgrade its FSD, thrusters, and shield defenses. My time is fairly limited, so I would much rather spend it doing things I enjoy.

So yes, while the front-loaded grind would be significant it would ultimately have a more convenient payoff for players in the end and be less arduous to actually finish:

• The grind can be done in a variety of ways, and players are free to choose the methods they find most appealing.
• Once unlocked, obtaining copies of upgrades is much faster and more convenient... making it more worthwhile to experiment with new ships and builds.

If you care to actually start making viable rebuttals or counter-proposals instead of wildly unsupported and insulting accusations, I'm all ears. Otherwise you're welcome to continue squawking, though this particular conversation will be over.

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

Uncertainty should be packed in everywhere, yes.

RNG for RNGs sake is not good.

These two statements appear to be at odds with one another.

And balanced. Ideally, too much engineering should also come with a chance of integrity loss each time an attempt at improving is made.

All this does is irritate players with failure rolls and seriously imbalance lightweight modifications. I'm all for adding some risk/danger into the game, but I don't think upgrade dice rolls are where it belongs. Think about it - all the player has to do is keep 1 reasonably upgraded module and push all further upgrades onto extra copies of that module. BAM, we're right back at practically zero risk. They can keep any "better" rolls and simply discard "bad" ones while having the first module as a safety net.

Or at least the players should be given opportunity to improve on the odds in some form.

If you're going to give the players control over the uncertainty, why add the uncertainty to begin with? Relying on a gambling mechanic to keep players engaged with your game is a pretty good indicator of shoddy design. Unless you're trying to profit off of microtransactions, at which point becomes a great design while simultaneously stumbling into "unethical" territory.

Prospecting for mats, for example, could be done so that driving or flying around randomly and shooting at stuff would have pretty rubbish odds. But targeting the right parts of the right planets or belts could improve the odds tremendously. Just never to 100 %. Nothing is rare if it is certain to be found.

This is already the case. You can test it:

1. Fly around randomly and shooting at stuff for an hour. Record how many materials you found.
2. Now, try farming materials at geological sites or in compatible rings for an hour. Record how many materials you found.
3. Compare your results. Bonus points for examining if the materials you found were actually those you needed.

Nothing has a 100% drop chance, either.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Because, as I clearly stated at the beginning, specific balancing changes are beyond the scope of this suggestion. Why? Because it's highly subjective and what looks good on paper can play out very differently in practice. Players don't have the final say in balancing decisions either, so bickering over the specifics is an exercise in futility. And yes, the idea is that players would be able to get cheaper upgrades after unlocking them. The proposed system front-loads the grind; the unlocking/development grind should be roughly equivalent but I don't see the value in holding players' noses to the grindstone AFTER the fact.



It's not about practical, it's about what you find fun. If you ENJOY jumping around between HGE signal sources, droning through wake scans, and SRV prospecting I've left mechanisms in place for you to get value out of it. It wouldn't be the fastest, most convenient method... but that's kind of the POINT of the QOL changes. If you need the standard farming methods to be the BEST to consider them worth doing, I have to question how much fun you actually have while doing them.



Nonsense.

1. The grind to UNLOCK engineers would be shorter (discover > invitation instead of discover > invitation > unlock) and players would have instant access to G1 upgrades.
2. A core principle of my restructured grind is that players can make progress doing the exact same activities they would normally be doing: combat, exploration, mining, trading, etc. This would alleviate the most irritating aspects of the "grind" - needing to do menial side activities (HGE farming, wake scanning, SRV prospecting) INSTEAD of the mainstream gameplay.

No, I'm pretty sure I clearly stated that I want to get rid of EVERYTHING in that category. So that would be the bounty vouchers, combat bonds, 10T of Painite, Rare Commodities, the whole collection. I want them ALL gone. Not sure why you're trying to suggest that I'm hiding the purposes of my proposal when I have been nothing if not direct and unambiguous about it.



Which is already simulated multiple times over across several different Engineers. Simply getting an INVITATION to Lei Cheung requires 50 trading runs. How many times do you expect a player to "try" something before they know they dislike it? Your point about not punishing "small ships" is also complete when you factor in requirements like 200T of gold, 200 Landmines, or even 50T of Bromellite.



It disproves the idea that Engineers are needed to get players involved in specific game activities. Simply making mining profitable was enough to get more players involved in it regardless of whether they had already unlocked Selene or not. By all means let's have introductory tasks that encourage players to try every aspect of the game. I'm not saying


that's a bad thing to have. However, there is no reason why that has to be assigned to Engineering. Instead, incorporate introductions to combat, exploration, mining, and trading in the beginner star systems. Y'know, the tutorial area where players are supposed to be learning the game.

... Nah, that'd be silly and illogical. /s



... Except that they can complete it by doing their normal game activities, which would make the GRIND less FRUSTRATING. You're also straying into a slippery-slope fallacy, which isn't even worth engaging with.



No, it underlines your fundamental misunderstanding of my proposal. The grind to UNLOCK + DEVELOP Engineering should remain mostly the same. And here, let's try spinning my idea with the same sort of nonsense double-standards you're applying to design philosophy:

I'm not punishing players with 4 ships... I'm encouraging them to buy more ships to make the most of Engineering investments. Which is totally okay because it gets them to try new things they might otherwise have ignored. Right? Right.



What is the problem with giving players an "option?"



You're the one being disingenuous here.

1. The research grind is not a credit grind, so clearly my proposal is not "nothing more than a credit grind."
2. You still haven't answered why players should need to revisit Engineers. Why is revisiting Engineers a good thing? What does it add to the gameplay experience? What does it matter if a player never visits an Engineer again?
3. Why is it bad for players who LIKE gathering materials to have that option and players who DON'T like gathering materials to have an alternate option? What changes for the worse?

Simply repeating details about my proposal while assuming that they are self-evidently harmful isn't truthful OR constructive. You're just whining, as though I should have some reason to care. Spoiler alert: I don't. Especially not when you repeatedly accuse me of lying or concealing truths without any evidence, while simultaneously making objectively false statements yourself. Your paranoia is not my problem.



Nothing, which is why my proposal still requires players to fly to Engineers "in the first place." It just doesn't force them to go back every time they want to change pinned BPs or experimental effects afterward, because I don't see the point.



What a crock... First, I never claimed that simply flying a ship was "grindy." Second, you can't effectively play the game without flying your ship. Implying that I'm trying to avoid flying my ship is incredibly dishonest.

My proposal has nothing to do with not wanting to fly my ship and everything to do with not wanting to fly my ship to the exact same places, repeatedly, for purely arbitrary reasons.



If you spent less time fantasizing about the sinister conspiracy theories I am working to implement behind the scenes and more time actually offering concrete responses to my counter-points this conversation might actually go somewhere.



I mean, you can repeat yourself as much as you want but that won't magically make your assertions objective truth. You need to properly back them up. My proposal is specifically designed to benefit BOTH players who have lots of time and those who don't (especially because between work and domestic duties I have about 10-15 hrs. per week on average to spend on Elite):

1. Grind progress is cumulative, meaning all players can easily make consistent progress toward their end goal.
2. Players now have many more gameplay OPTIONS for completing the grind. Instead of needing to spend my 60-minute session on a weeknight farming HGEs or Jameson (which I don't find fun) I can spend it running missions (which I do find fun).
3. Once I have unlocked blueprints, I can easily apply them to new ships as they interest me. For example, I would be much more likely to buy a dedicated cargo hauler for helping one of my newer-player friends run Wing deliveries for cash if I didn't need to slog through an unpleasant grind to upgrade its FSD, thrusters, and shield defenses. My time is fairly limited, so I would much rather spend it doing things I enjoy.

So yes, while the front-loaded grind would be significant it would ultimately have a more convenient payoff for players in the end and be less arduous to actually finish:

• The grind can be done in a variety of ways, and players are free to choose the methods they find most appealing.
• Once unlocked, obtaining copies of upgrades is much faster and more convenient... making it more worthwhile to experiment with new ships and builds.

If you care to actually start making viable rebuttals or counter-proposals instead of wildly unsupported and insulting accusations, I'm all ears. Otherwise you're welcome to continue squawking, though this particular conversation will be over.

You have once more validated my concerns about your idea... this is mainly for the players with massive fleets... as these are the ones that will benefit most from.



about your last points...

1.
As they can already today... it more or less takes the same effort to engineer your first cutter, as your 10th cutter. consistent progress, engineer more ships = more effort, your suggestion is to remove it, for what purpose? as per your own suggestion, once you have unlocked it, all you then need is credits and if you fail to understand why that is a bad idea, then you do not understand the problem with games economics and their problem with the inflation, and why basically EVERY MMO have had to add more currencies, Elite added materials. that is why I go on and on about the how much should i cost in credits according to you to do the engineering. because if we put the price tag to match the effort you do to gather the materials into earning credits, you would NOT like the credit cost of engineering... and we do not do that, then your so called option to use materials, is basically worthless, as it would most likely be far more effective to do the credit gathering instead of material gathering.
Then we have the up front grind you suggests about the "research", now how what grind do you expect this be? because if you start to think about, as you use this as an excuse to remove the engineering effort, so this need to be a noticeably bigger effort than to engineer a single module, so how much effort? 5 times? 10 times? 20 times? 40 times? but since you are talking about buying and testing ships, so we are now talking about a fleet of ships, and we have what now? 38?, so lets do the "research" costs 38 times more than it takes to max out a single module at G5, so 8-10 rolls worth of materials (and of course the same for G4, G3 and G2 levels, but here ther are fewer rolls needed to max out at each lower levesls, so comparably much cheaper.), now we are talking about some serious grind up front...
This would not affect you (or any other player who have already unlocked most of the engineers) , as you expect that this change should auto unlock all your blueprints as you have already done the unlocking once... But for new players or players who reset, this would now be a massive grind...
This then lead to the discussion about 38 times is way to... and I would agree it is by comparison for players who only do a few ships, this is a much worse system... for players that have 40+ ships and most of them are engineered, this will be a win... so the lower you make the requirements to unlock the blueprint, the more would benefit from that, and until we get down to somewhere around 1 time the costs, where everyone would be winners of this, but those who would win the most would be the players with many ships they want to engineer. And this will now create a new set of problems, "I have nothing todo" and thus players complain and stops playing... What content do you expect will fill this void? Because the actual task with engineering your ships to their fullest potential is something todo, collecting/trading materials, visiting engineers, etc, everything you want to remove.
And then we get to the how much credit should you pay apply a G5 upgrade to a module? because your so called option to use materials gives us a notion about how much it should cost in credits...
Then we have the cost of the actual upgrades after you have unlocked them...
Assume it takes an "efficient" player, 2 hours grind the the stuff needed to upgrade one FSD module to GF5.. So in the same 2 hours time, you can make 400 million credits... so to keep the material as an viable option, then the G5 upgrade on your FSD should cost 400 million... Does not sound to bad on a 1+ billion Cutter, but on an 13 million credits explorer DBX then this is makes no sense... what about rebuys? should the follow this cost too? that would make sense from the point that we get all the engineering too from the rebuy, but adding something like 400 million to a 13 million ship would inflate the rebuy beyond sanity.. And reducing the credit costs for this would simply make your "option" to use materials to be a worthless gesture, so what would be suitable costs for this? the cost of the module we engineer? so the DBS A-rated FSD costs 5.1 million, so if go to say G5 costs 5.1 million apply, so that means that roughly 1 hours of money collecting, 200 million) would allow you do do almost 40 of these FSD upgrades... now there is no reason whatsoever to spend 2 hours getting the materials needed, as just about ANY other activity that credits pays will give you more credits than needed in a shorter amount of time than to actually go collecting the needed material. No wonder why you avoid this specific topic, as we all know that if FDev even hinted at you can buy engineering upgrades with credits and here is the price list and people saw, G5 FSD uppgrade 400 million credits, FDev would never see then end of the complaints... and if they made the cost of G5 to match the cost of the module, it would be way to cheap compared to even thinking about the materials... that now would relegated to just unlocking blueprints, and as I have already covered, even than one is quite a hard sell do aswell...





2. many more options? That is stretching it, the only difference is that you added missions...


3. Now here we get to the meat... the real reason, just require credits... nothing else nothing more... helping a new player running transport wing missions, so why do you need to run a fully engineered ship for that? to show off? if it is a new player, then it is very likely they have not unlocked the engineers/blueprints so then?? and besides most of the engineering can already be done remotely... you can do your FSD, thrusters, etc via remote engineering. but you need some materials for that...but if it is just a temporary ship, then why do you need to max it out in the first place? besides the materials needed can be had by multiple activities and not as any single action that you have implied, as the material gave us options to alternative materials from activities so we can choose the one we prefer over the other alternatives.




So my initial understanding of your suggestion is still valid... it is a suggestion aimed at players that have huge fleets, and spend alot of time playing the game. Not the casual gamesrs, as these would in almost all scenarios be loosing out on this change. So a huge change aimed at minority of the players...that also punishes the regular players. Without actually adding anything todo in the game. except grinding credits....which is not hard to do...

 

[Drelthar]

Should have been hand crafted multi stage missions with unique content, which took you to interesting places, related to the engineers speciality, and resulting in getting a free G5 item upon unlocking the engineer.

Not "bring me 500 McGuffins"

 

[Misty_Dark]

Should have been hand crafted multi stage missions with unique content, which took you to interesting places, related to the engineers speciality, and resulting in getting a free G5 item upon unlocking the engineer.

Not "bring me 500 McGuffins"

Yeah, can't argue about that approach for stuff like this. I think having a more story driven chain of missions as unlocks would make it more interesting as now we can get a narrative about why we do something etc. and as I have repeated before, for those players who do not care about the "story" they can simply space out (past) the "story" part keep doing the mission. Then we place the story in the codex, so that we read the story later, as there could be clues to other places to visit etc.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

Rolling research to 100% permanently unlocks the upgrade for purchase with credits and unlocks the next upgrade tier

stopped reading and +1’d here because that is all I needed. This would be the single best improvement. A lot of other good stuff in the op as well

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

You have once more validated my concerns about your idea... this is mainly for the players with massive fleets... as these are the ones that will benefit most from

... So what? FYI I own 5 ships. An iCourier, DBX, Vulture, Krait MKII, and recently-acquired Chieftain. Why should I care if someone who owns 3 of every ship in the game gets more value out of this system than I do? If that bothers me, I can always buy more ships. I don't understand why that should bother me though.

because if we put the price tag to match the effort you do to gather the materials into earning credits, you would NOT like the credit cost of engineering... snip and as I have already covered, even than one is quite a hard sell do aswell...

"Blah blah blah, we HAVE to talk about balance even though we're not talking about balance because otherwise my argument doesn't sound scary enough." Give me a break. The reason I avoid this subject is because how things look on paper and how things work in practice is almost always different. Here, let's sink your cost argument once and for all:

1. High credit costs for upgrades would actually be a good thing. They are partially intended to be a credit sink for players, so they actually need to be a sink. This wouldn't negatively impact newer players either, because they can still pay materials or simply buy lower-tier upgrades. The best part is, they can choose between farming for materials or running Engineer missions explicitly rewarding materials they need, as outlined in the OP. By the time they finish unlocking all the Engineering upgrades, they should have the earning potential needed to support the credit costs if that's what they prefer.
   
   
2. Why are you assuming that material yields from material farming have to stay the same? If needed, they could also be increased. This wouldn't even shorten the unlock grind significantly, because Engineer reputation is a separate limiter.
   
   
3. How could players possibly ever have "nothing to do?" After all, the game is fun because you can always fly your space ship. As long as you have fun flying your space ship, you can always have fun. Right?
   
   In all seriousness though, that would point to bigger problems with the core gameplay loops (combat, exploration, mining, trade) than problems with Engineering in particular. If players have "nothing to do," then the major activities need to offer longer-lasting entertainment. And that's a bit beyond the scope of this thread.

3. Now here we get to the meat... the real reason, just require credits... nothing else nothing more...

No, here we get to another of your embarrassing attempts to create and tear down a straw-man argument that has nothing to do with the content of my proposal. I have made no secret whatsoever of why I want the ability to purchase unlocked upgrades with credits from the beginning: I don't find grinding for materials to be fun, so I would prefer methods of doing that grind tied to the main gameplay loops.

so why do you need to run a fully engineered ship for that? to show off?

-facepalm- Can you please stick to what I actually said? Who said anything about running a fully Engineered ship? All I would want to do is upgrade the FSD to not have trash jump range, the thrusters because I want better maneuverability, and the shields to help protect my investment.

if it is a new player, then it is very likely they have not unlocked the engineers/blueprints so then??

So then what? Why is this important?

and besides most of the engineering can already be done remotely... you can do your FSD, thrusters, etc via remote engineering. but you need some materials for that

Yes, that would be one of the problems my proposal is meant to address. I don't like farming materials, so I would prefer to put in more work to unlock the upgrades in the first place in exchange for more convenience using them in the future. I am SO GLAD you managed to figure it out through your clever deductive reasoning and post-sleuthing when I've been telling you that openly from the start of this conversation.

but if it is just a temporary ship, then why do you need to max it out in the first place?

Who said anything about it just being a temporary ship? Once I buy the ship I'm keeping the ship.

besides the materials needed can be had by multiple activities and not as any single action that you have implied, as the material gave us options to alternative materials from activities so we can choose the one we prefer over the other alternatives.

I haven't implied anything of the sort. I'm well aware that we have "options" when it comes to farming materials but I don't LIKE the options we have. That's kind of the whole point of making a suggestion asking for better options.

So my initial understanding of your suggestion is still valid... it is a suggestion aimed at players that have huge fleets, and spend alot of time playing the game. Not the casual gamesrs, as these would in almost all scenarios be loosing out on this change. So a huge change aimed at minority of the players...that also punishes the regular players. Without actually adding anything todo in the game. except grinding credits....which is not hard to do...

No, this suggestion is aimed at players who don't enjoy the gameplay loops for farming materials. Before we continue, please answer:

1. Why is it a problem for players with large fleets to benefit more from this system? As a player with a relatively small fleet who isn't really motivated to expand it, I am confused as to why I should be upset by that.
2. What is a "casual" gamer? How little time do they have to spend playing?
3. Can you show me any objective evidence that this change would only benefit a minority of players? If not, that's just an unsupported claim on your part.
4. ... Why am I required to add new things to do? This proposal is aimed at revising existing content, not adding new content.
5. Grinding materials is not "hard" either, so who cares if grinding credits is easy?

The more I read your posts accusing me of lying or hiding my true motives, the more I think you're projecting your own biases. All your counter-arguments are steeped in vague buzzwords that readers are supposed to take at face-value. I mean, look at this:

you do not understand the problem with games economics and their problem with the inflation, and why basically EVERY MMO have had to add more currencies, Elite added materials.

This is an empty counter-argument on your part. Even a small amount of critical thought yields several questions:

• Why is inflation a problem in Elite? How do player credit balances negatively affect the game economy? Inflation is typically a problem because it drives prices higher, which makes things difficult for new players. Except in Elite, cumulative player wealth has no influence on ship, module, or commodity costs.
  
  
• Why does inflation occur? A big part of why players accumulate so many credits it that there is relatively little to spend credits on. Rebuy costs are insignificant next to potential income, and ships/modules are a one time cost with incredibly generous refunds. If inflation is really an issue, then the game needs more credit sinks, and player earning potential (e.g., mining) needs to be nerfed.

But no, let's reject this Engineering proposal because Misty_Dark made a dubious claim about it damaging the game economy! We want to protect the game economy, right? Yeah! Never mind actually examining problems with the economy and trying to fix them.

 

[Misty_Dark]

... So what? FYI I own 5 ships. An iCourier, DBX, Vulture, Krait MKII, and recently-acquired Chieftain. Why should I care if someone who owns 3 of every ship in the game gets more value out of this system than I do? If that bothers me, I can always buy more ships. I don't understand why that should bother me though.

that is some great, you do not care...

"Blah blah blah, we HAVE to talk about balance even though we're not talking about balance because otherwise my argument doesn't sound scary enough." Give me a break. The reason I avoid this subject is because how things look on paper and how things work in practice is almost always different. Here, let's sink your cost argument once and for all:

1. High credit costs for upgrades would actually be a good thing. They are partially intended to be a credit sink for players, so they actually need to be a sink. This wouldn't negatively impact newer players either, because they can still pay materials or simply buy lower-tier upgrades. The best part is, they can choose between farming for materials or running Engineer missions explicitly rewarding materials they need, as outlined in the OP. By the time they finish unlocking all the Engineering upgrades, they should have the earning potential needed to support the credit costs if that's what they prefer.
   
   
2. Why are you assuming that material yields from material farming have to stay the same? If needed, they could also be increased. This wouldn't even shorten the unlock grind significantly, because Engineer reputation is a separate limiter.
   
   
3. How could players possibly ever have "nothing to do?" After all, the game is fun because you can always fly your space ship. As long as you have fun flying your space ship, you can always have fun. Right?
   
   In all seriousness though, that would point to bigger problems with the core gameplay loops (combat, exploration, mining, trade) than problems with Engineering in
4. particular. If players have "nothing to do," then the major activities need to offer longer-lasting entertainment. And that's a bit beyond the scope of this thread.

1. if you say so... but I doubt this, you know, blah, blah, blah, just empty words...

2. Since you did not add to change the droprate of matetrial, another blah, blah, blah

3. That does not make sense at, another blah, blah, blah witrh empty words

4. like let see, like how they added engineering, with lots of activities todo stuff... yeah, seems like good idea to remove things todo from the game... you hasve though tthis one through, or is it just another blah, blah, blah argument here?

No, here we get to another of your embarrassing attempts to create and tear down a straw-man argument that has nothing to do with the content of my proposal. I have made no secret whatsoever of why I want the ability to purchase unlocked upgrades with credits from the beginning: I don't find grinding for materials to be fun, so I would prefer methods of doing that grind tied to the main gameplay loops.

So you do not find it fun to do stuff in the game, there are already multiple ways for you do achieve this, and one of these ways are doing missions. And you have also hinted at that you do not fancy flying around... atleast not to engineers... but other flying is OK?

-facepalm- Can you please stick to what I actually said? Who said anything about running a fully Engineered ship? All I would want to do is upgrade the FSD to not have trash jump range, the thrusters because I want better maneuverability, and the shields to help protect my investment.

It was your argument, you need to upgrade the ship to help the new player... and since the actual options to do that alreeady ALLOWS you do achieve pretty good upgrade witthout having to visit the engineers, then the the experimental effects is missing.

So then what? Why is this important?



Yes, that would be one of the problems my proposal is meant to address. I don't like farming materials, so I would prefer to put in more work to unlock the upgrades in the first place in exchange for more convenience using them in the future. I am SO GLAD you managed to figure it out through your clever deductive reasoning and post-sleuthing when I've been telling you that openly from the start of this conversation.

Who said anything about it just being a temporary ship? Once I buy the ship I'm keeping the ship.

Well since you mentioned that you wanted more options to experiemnt etc, so what is the difference then? if it is temporary ship or permanent ship?

I haven't implied anything of the sort. I'm well aware that we have "options" when it comes to farming materials but I don't LIKE the options we have. That's kind of the whole point of making a suggestion asking for better options.

so if you dislike miission running, then why do you suggest that then? I do not really follow your logic... I do not like this thing, so I propose to add it to more places... so I can dislike it even more?

No, this suggestion is aimed at players who don't enjoy the gameplay loops for farming materials. Before we continue, please answer:

1. Why is it a problem for players with large fleets to benefit more from this system? As a player with a relatively small fleet who isn't really motivated to expand it, I am confused as to why I should be upset by that.
2. What is a "casual" gamer? How little time do they have to spend playing?
3. Can you show me any objective evidence that this change would only benefit a minority of players? If not, that's just an unsupported claim on your part.
4. ... Why am I required to add new things to do? This proposal is aimed at revising existing content, not adding new content.
5. Grinding materials is not "hard" either, so who cares if grinding credits is easy?

The more I read your posts accusing me of lying or hiding my true motives, the more I think you're projecting your own biases. All your counter-arguments are steeped in vague buzzwords that readers are supposed to take at face-value. I mean, look at this:



This is an empty counter-argument on your part. Even a small amount of critical thought yields several questions:

• Why is inflation a problem in Elite? How do player credit balances negatively affect the game economy? Inflation is typically a problem because it drives prices higher, which makes things difficult for new players. Except in Elite, cumulative player wealth has no influence on ship, module, or commodity costs.
  
  
• Why does inflation occur? A big part of why players accumulate so many credits it that there is relatively little to spend credits on. Rebuy costs are insignificant next to potential income, and ships/modules are a one time cost with incredibly generous refunds. If inflation is really an issue, then the game needs more credit sinks, and player earning potential (e.g., mining) needs to be nerfed.

But no, let's reject this Engineering proposal because Misty_Dark made a dubious claim about it damaging the game economy! We want to protect the game economy, right? Yeah! Never mind actually examining problems with the economy and trying to fix them.

1. What should they do? now many of them spend alot of time tinkering with theiri fleet, and engineering that fleet, that is alot of things todo... if you remove, without adding anthing else todo, then what should they spend their time one then? obviously not flying to to engineers anymore...

2. how little time.. that is an interesting measurement.. a would put them on a few hours per week.. as compared to the ones who spend serveral hours a day.

3. wow. it is your suggestion, and wsofar you ahve made very little to show it will not be good.

4. If you remove things todo, then that leaves a void... and the existing stuff todo will not be able to fill that void...

5. I see that you deliberately do not want to understand why games get more "currencies"...


So just another blah, blah, blah word spew with very little substance... Not uncommong for ideas that have not been thought hrough, but hey, lets implement everything idea that get posted and see what happens... theyu must be good because they are posted here? or what is youyr point?

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

that is some great, you do not care...

Oh, you dodged my question. What a surprise.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

blah, blah, blah

blah, blah, blah

blah, blah, blah

If you're gonna be this salty when I call you out for insisting on long-winded irrelevant rants, you should try not going on long-winded irrelevant rants. I'm done wasting time on you when you have shown zero willingness to argue in good faith and a baffling fondness for attacking my character. Buh-bye.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Oh, you dodged my question. What a surprise.

How can I dodge a question regarding what YOU thinks, and what gives tyou the right to demand me to answer all your questions, when you obviuously did not care to respond to my quesations? I mean if you started to ignore mine, then why should I in a good faith argument answer all of yours?

If you're gonna be this salty when I call you out for insisting on long-winded irrelevant rants, you should try not going on long-winded irrelevant rants. I'm done wasting time on you when you have shown zero willingness to argue in good faith and a baffling fondness for attacking my character. Buh-bye.

Wow that is impressive, you complain about being salty, and it was you WHO started the blah, blah thing, and now you obviously cannot handle getting it back... and now you project your own frustration at me, that is really, really sad...