Totally agree. The changes made are a very positive step forward, but more player agency would make it even better. One small thing would be to allow players to choose the actual material rewards they receive from missions. So if a mission reward is 3 mats of grade 4 quality, let us select between raw, encoded, manufactured..etc.
Something I'd like to say to those complaining about the new engineer system.
Totally agree. The changes made are a very positive step forward, but more player agency would make it even better. One small thing would be to allow players to choose the actual material rewards they receive from missions. So if a mission reward is 3 mats of grade 4 quality, let us select between raw, encoded, manufactured..etc.
This whole "I want it now" mentality should never have place in Elite.
I spent a week doing missions, mining and driving around in SRV (because those are the things I enjoy). Now I have at least 20 of EVERY material, even the rarest ones (except the specials and the guardian crap - I'm not interested it that)
Yes, if I decided I want this mod right now nad started to look for that one particular material, I would get frustrated. But just in a week of playing the game, I can basicaly G5 one whole ship without ANY grind or frustration.
Like I said in my first posts - it's much more comfortable, now, and with ensured results.
Exactly!
1-4 G5 rolls and basically done!
Then why even bother with it then? It's almost like you're suggesting maybe people should just be able to G5 roll stuff if they're already at that level
Feels a bit more grindy/ time consuming to get mats. If it wasn't for davs...
Gives better results, random g5 really hurt.
I still need to learn more about the new mission rewards.
I swear srv is giving less high quality mats.
Pin blueprint, always bring mats for experimental they level with component.
Mat trader doesn't work for g5, trading down is good
I think I'm all engineered out
Gives better results, random g5 really hurt.
I still need to learn more about the new mission rewards.
I swear srv is giving less high quality mats.
Pin blueprint, always bring mats for experimental they level with component.
Mat trader doesn't work for g5, trading down is good
I think I'm all engineered out
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.Then why even bother with it then? It's almost like you're suggesting maybe people should just be able to G5 roll stuff if they're already at that level
It might be hard to comprehend, but i try:
- Before 3.0 people vented all the G1-G4 materials, as there was no use for them.
- Now there's a different storage system and the material traders.
- The G1-G4 materials surprisingly still exist and are really easy to get.
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All in all, this adds up to one thing: inflation. If something which formerly was easy to get but also basically worthless suddenly can be traded for something of value, everything of higher value would loose some value. Options to solve this:
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1. Remove the lower grade materials completely from the game. Yea, we all know how "happy" the community would've been if something was removed. So, we have a laugh and forget it, oki?
2. Add a drain for the lower grade materials to the game. And that's exactly what we got.
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I mean, i dare to quote one of the strongest critics of the new system here:
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What more can i add? If even somebody who critisizes the new system at any chance has to write that the G1-G4 materials come in "for free" for him, i see little to add there.
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Oh, I agree with both those things.
I just don't appreciate "busy work", for the sake of it.
I'd rather they'd just got rid of the RNG from the actual engineering process and left everything else as it was.
And (this probably won't be popular), if they decided that made engineering too easy, I'd have preferred it if they'd just lowered the drop-rates for mat's to make the process as difficult as it was intended to be, instead of just adding in a heap of extra dull stuff to do.
Course, ideally I'd have preferred it if they'd come up with something a whole lot more entertaining and challenging such as, for example, leaving high-tier mat's lying around near to (or inside) illegal installations so you'd have to collect them while being attacked.
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I actually would've very much prefered a very old concept, which according to Michael Brookes even was in development at some time. We never got the details of that concept, but the rough idea was that materials were not the core and center of engineering, but instead it would've been reputation and (apparently rather large) missions. (How good or bad that would've been we can't tell, based on the little info we got. But for sure it wouldn't have been a pure "grind material, spin the wheel" system. )
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Unfortunately they found that they couldn't finish it on time, so they switched to what we got in 2.1. It wasn't "best design", but rather what they were able to implement quickly. But alas, the ship has sailed, switching the Engineers over to a mission based system never was an option. The uproar would've been massive. So 3.0 might be the best way of fixing the problems they still had available. So yea, 3.0 sure is not perfect, but i consider it a huge improvement.
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Chris, I'm trying so hard to be polite here because I have a fair amount of respect for you but the first bold line? Seriously, if you can interpret what I wrote, or what Stealthie wrote, as being an 'I want it now' mentality, you really need to step back and get some perspective. It's particularly irritating because stealthie's reply was to my post. Read the post in question and take note of the last paragraph.
I am so sick of posting specific comments about one specific aspect of the game that I feel could use improvement and having it categorised by people as if I'm expecting to pick up everything that I need to engineer my entire fleet of ships in an afternoon. I'm not going to defend that stance because it's not an opinion I hold to begin with and it's quite profoundly disrespectful to keep suggesting that it is.
Regarding the second bold line, deciding that you want to engineer a particular module on a particular ship isn't some odd thing that only a handful of players would want to do. It's pretty simple target-focused gameplay. I get that some players are happy ambling round taking whatever the game throws at them, it's a perfectly valid way to play the game and if you're happy with it, that's great.
My way is also a perfectly valid way to play the game and it's not one rooted in some huge sense of entitlement either. The frustration you say that you can recognise would occur is exactly the aspect of the current engineers implementation that I'm suggesting should be addressed.
Also I would love to know just how many missions you ran in order to obtain the 60 grade 5 materials you would need to cross-trade for the 10 units of each of the G5 HGE materials that can't be obtained from mining, driving around in the SRV and doing missions because there are a hell of a lot of those materials and both mining and SRV mining won't even gain you materials that can be exchanged for them since they yield only raw materials and occasional G1 and G2 manufactured materials from wrecks etc. Perhaps it's the case that the specific mods you're looking to do simply don't use them.
Engineers was the final nail in the coffin for me. I got so fed up of yet more paper-thin grind gameplay being added (in place of actual interesting mechanics) - spend time collecting stuff using the same old gameplay, to upgrade, so you can return to doing the same old gameplay but now with needlessly bigger and better unbalanced pew pews - that it made me basically give up...
I pop back into the game every now and then, but that said, I've not even run 3.0 yet...
Agreed 100%.
Even paying the engineers credits for their mods isn't 'I want it now'. What it does is allow people to get back to playing the game and having fun quicker.
It solves a lot problems. Those who want to gather their materials by hand, and take their time doing it can still do so.
Then why even bother with it then? It's almost like you're suggesting maybe people should just be able to G5 roll stuff if they're already at that level
Indeed, as I keep saying, the problem is not that g1-g4 is onerous, it's that it adds nothing. It's just completely pointless.
My gameplay is not harmed by the g1-g4 thing. Any extra time incurred by it is probably measured in minutes, not hours. I just downtrade as I work through my lists at the three Mats Traders. It might mean I lose an extra Top-of-Row Mat here and there but bearing in mind that I can, every 10 minutes approx, have guaranteed acquisition of 5 items of a Top-of-Row element, data or manufactured mat, that's nothing.
Neither is my gameplay enhanced by the g1-g4 thing. It's irrelevant and empty (except for the musical accompaniment of constant mouse-clicking).
Show me where you can get guaranteed HGE's and DWE's once every ten minutes, ad infinitum? Please?
Oh, there are a couple of places. I could show you, but you decided I wasn't noobish enough to share your wealth with, so...
For you maybe but not for many others. I will be using G1 - G5 mods as I don't grind for materials. It will mean that putting a G1-4 mod on my ship now has a purpose instead of it feeling like a waste of time.
You missed the thread where anyone could come claim it, then?
I decided against boosting a noob, and just said anyone who gets to the place where I was docked first gets the money. Luckily two people turned up at the same time so they both got 80 million each.
You missed the thread where anyone could come claim it, then?
I decided against boosting a noob, and just said anyone who gets to the place where I was docked first gets the money. Luckily two people turned up at the same time so they both got 80 million each.
I was probably still sitting in the dark crying after the initial rejection.
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It might be mean, but i dare to say "and it shows".
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Sure i have to agree that Engineers, at release, could've been something more interesting, e.g. using long chain missions to get an upgrade, instead of material gathering. But the decission for material gathering was made. Undoing it now would result in a massive uproar and way more problems than anything else. So bemoaning that won't help things at all.
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At the same time i dare to say that things have gotten better. As many people here also say, materials for G1-G4 don't really slow you down. You get those on the way, without having to bother. And a good G5 can now be achieved with reasonable effort, instead of having to roll "between 5, 20, 100 or an infinite number of times".
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So yes, the "grind" of material gathering still exists. But between missions with selectable rewards, material traders and guaranteed progress, it really was disarmed a lot. It's now bearable.
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I advise to give it at least a try, work on it for at least a short while. Once you actually have some experience with the new system, your feedback on will have some weight.
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I try not to be overly critical of the new system.
I think the actual act of engineering is quite a bit better, although it could have been streamlined significantly.
My main criticism is that most of the peripheral activities either don't make much of a difference (traders) or they could have been made much, much, more engaging (mat' collection).
