Fire away when you're ready... I've been making consider point after considered point IMHO...
Feel free do the same if you really want to
The suggestion on spending an hour or so scanning wakes was because, I assume, OP wanted to speed up the process of getting upgrades. Anything outside of that context is either pure ranting or an attempt to deviate the conversation to the -bad approach/gamers dont want- mantra.
I understand you don't like it. I do. You say FD has no idea or a wrong idea of what have to do (at the expense of the pile of more interesting gameplay/mechanics) while I don't.
When you start reasoning about why is good or bad without judging, I'll start doing the same, in the mean time you opinion is as good as mine, and therefore we wont advance at all, and before you say you dont judge, let me post your own words: FD is seemingly in love with developing projects based on "that sounds cool," and the notion that just adding more and more mini-grind mechanics is propelling the game forwards.
Ah, the infamous '10-year plan' excuse for poor game play today. So by saying this you agree the game is incomplete. Others would call it shallow so I guess you can agree with them on this since, as you stated, the game is not done yet. But do you really believe people bought this game and expected to reach goals only after 10 years of playing - really? Do you really believe the majority of players are looking for a PC game that will take 10 years to reach a goal like finally getting a top rank, a top ship or one fully kitted with Engineered goodies? Honestly, that's an insane thought, totally insane. But a 10-year plan reply doesn't make up for a bad gameplay mechanic today.
To the OPs point, the core feature of Engineers is a big fail for a number of players. It's a time sink activity with a low reward and this is how many see and are not afraid to call it like it is. It's intended to add the illusion of added gameplay content by making the player use the same existing mechanics (same content) differently, and taking a lot of gameplay time in the process. Call it another minigame of sorts but in this case the results also upset PvP balance as well! Great, well played FDev.
Regarding your vision of upcoming capabilities I see you have a very strong imagination! Hang on to it as you'll likely need it even before this season is up.
If we're looking at wake related materials, many CMDRs don't have wake scanners, so it's not surprising when they need these sorts of material to craft, they won't have them. In order to get them, they need to utilise the new mechanics (to obtain them), which will be undoubtably then mean sitting outside a station or NAV beavon, scanning wake after wake after wake. In short, point, fire, point, fire, repeat... Personally I find the suggestion of this as new gameplay, 18 months into the game, as concerning!
And this of course is not a exception, but seemingly a rule to the the new gameplay. Consider those individuals who do not enjoy planetary surface related game play. Unless I'm mistaken, many of these individuals - confronted by a list of materials they do not have - will now have to get into an SRV and... point, fire, point, fire... repeat... To get the materials they required.
I can't speak for others, but for me personally:-
1) If crafting really was deeming necessary (I'm not sold on it in preference to other areas personally), I would have simplified it such that it was a simple "Outfitting" option, without all the need to create whole new RNG-mini-games such as discussed above and all the new Engineers themselves (think of the amount of work just to facilitate them).
2) With all that saved development time, I would have at the least "invested" it in some of the core areas of the game that still need attention. eg: NPC pirates (making them act like pirates rather than ISIS jihadis), exploration content, mining mechanics, new CG tasks. etc. Or actual new mechanics. eg: NPC crew, NPC wingmen (even just within individual missions? - attack this, defend that), fighter craft flying missions at platforms/stations (capital ships)? etc...
If you think yet more RND-mini-games to earn crafting capability is a step forwards... That's fine... We clearly disagree
Personally, (as regards Engineers and the "earning crafting" gameplay) I see a huge amount of design/development giving a strange confused side-step in gameplay, rather than anything actually moving it forwards. I don't therefore find it surprising that the community seems a little split over what they're witnessing.
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You people, you are funny.
Most of people totally missed to point of this thread. There is no problem with upgrades taking a long time to obtain, but the problem is that the long time it takes to get them is spend doing mundane things over and over and over with 0.001% variation, and that is being generous.
I have no problem sinking 40-80 hours into upgrading my ship, if the gameplay behind it is solid and enjoyable. Which Engineers meta certainly is not.
Most of people totally missed to point of this thread. There is no problem with upgrades taking a long time to obtain, but the problem is that the long time it takes to get them is spend doing mundane things over and over and over with 0.001% variation, and that is being generous.
I have no problem sinking 40-80 hours into upgrading my ship, if the gameplay behind it is solid and enjoyable. Which Engineers meta certainly is not.
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Sole Hunter
Banned
that's a lot of smiley.
Exactly... Why go to the effort if what's ultimately being offered is "questionably grindy" or seemingly almost just there for its own existence/worth? Maybe re-evaluate it? Choose to go a simpler design route not spending development time introducing said gameplay/mechanics? Or worse case, spend the time developing something else that will add more interesting/challenging aspects to the game?
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I have a problem with the way materials are obtained, some seems counter intuitive, and others force you to do things you either dont want to do or have to be obtained with a ship or outfit that you don't want to use. For instance earlier today I was trying to get class 3 shield modifications and apparently the only way to obtain the materials for it is by killing type 9's and type 7's they are the ONLY 2 ships that drop what I need to modify my shields. This is a problem for me because type 9's and type 7's are only ever "Wanted" or used in combat 1% of the time by NPC's in the game so instead I have to go to a resource sight and kill innocent ships to get the materials I want and get a huge bounty on my head because apparently Type 9's and Type 7's will not travel to resource sites in anarchy systems. I dont want to have to get a bounty on my head in order to obtain a simple crafting material. ON TOP OF ALL THIS the material is listed as "Common" when it actually drops at a rate less than a "Very rare" ranked crafting material that the type 9 apparently ALSO only drops.
I can relate, the materials required upgrading weapons require scanning on planets, the upgrades for exploring require killing things in res sites, who thought up this stuff?
I don't want to sound too negative, I think everything in engineers is great except material limit, rng, and material collection being a little too vague, it should be a scaveger hunt, but I would like more clues then in a signal source. What type? Are there better ways to get it? What kind of system, state, allegiance, economy, do those even matter? what am I looking for I don't want to just blindly jump. You don't have to say all of those but at least give me some clues to go on so I don't drop into every signal source / poi I see.
Talk about a roll of the dice. I've been to 2 different Engineers to increase my 5A Thrusters. Paid the requirments and rolled the dice. On my first roll the boost speed moved from 368 m/s to 373 m/s and the 5B regular thrusters are 368 m/s boost. 2 Rolls and countless hours hunting for stuff and I only got a 5 m/s boost in speed over the stock 5B thrusters?
Where is the justice in this? I thought "Engineers" were supposed to help, not just take my goods. I think they are conspiring with the Pirates to keep us down.
Where is the justice in this? I thought "Engineers" were supposed to help, not just take my goods. I think they are conspiring with the Pirates to keep us down.
A friend of mine wanted to try FSD injection crafting as he's planning on going out exploring...
He's thus far:-
1) Spent about an hour pointing and scanning wakes - Clearly new game play, but not one he's enjoyed or found challenging/rewarding.
2) Last night I talked him through finding materials on planetary surfaces (eg: arsenic) - He doesn't enjoy this aspect of the game either (SRV mining as he calls it). Worse still it was bugged out with two of us in the same instance. eg: If I blew up a rock, its materials would end up stuck high in the air in his instance. A number of times in fact they just disappeared for both of us. In the end we gave up working in a Wing and he went off alone...
I believe, he's just given up with it now... Deflated how the headline features are for some reason blocked behind a myriad of fairly unchallenging, unimaginative new mechanics. So as I've said above, surely at some point, when designing all this, there must have been the question, are these new game elements introducing interesting/rewarding/challenging new gameplay? If not, why implement them at the expense of other developments that could?
And indeed, it seems early on in beta FD realised this was an issue by allowing these mechanics to be sidestepped and leveling up to be done using existing mechanics (eg: handing in exploration data at an Engineer). So I'll repeat again, when designing all this, there must have been the question, are these new game elements introducing interesting/rewarding/challenging new gameplay? If not, why implement them at the expense of other developments that could?
IMHO, I'm confused how we've ended up where we are if that question was asked during design, and if the answer was along the lines of what I believe it should have been?
ps: I apologise if this sounds harsh/cutting. It's not intended to be. I'm just trying to be to the point about the matter.
He's thus far:-
1) Spent about an hour pointing and scanning wakes - Clearly new game play, but not one he's enjoyed or found challenging/rewarding.
2) Last night I talked him through finding materials on planetary surfaces (eg: arsenic) - He doesn't enjoy this aspect of the game either (SRV mining as he calls it). Worse still it was bugged out with two of us in the same instance. eg: If I blew up a rock, its materials would end up stuck high in the air in his instance. A number of times in fact they just disappeared for both of us. In the end we gave up working in a Wing and he went off alone...
I believe, he's just given up with it now... Deflated how the headline features are for some reason blocked behind a myriad of fairly unchallenging, unimaginative new mechanics. So as I've said above, surely at some point, when designing all this, there must have been the question, are these new game elements introducing interesting/rewarding/challenging new gameplay? If not, why implement them at the expense of other developments that could?
And indeed, it seems early on in beta FD realised this was an issue by allowing these mechanics to be sidestepped and leveling up to be done using existing mechanics (eg: handing in exploration data at an Engineer). So I'll repeat again, when designing all this, there must have been the question, are these new game elements introducing interesting/rewarding/challenging new gameplay? If not, why implement them at the expense of other developments that could?
IMHO, I'm confused how we've ended up where we are if that question was asked during design, and if the answer was along the lines of what I believe it should have been?
ps: I apologise if this sounds harsh/cutting. It's not intended to be. I'm just trying to be to the point about the matter.
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Exactly. No storage also makes it hugely tedious and annoying.
i cant mod. right now im sitting out the game. but the mods i have seen at the four engineers i have invites from dont show any sign of being able to defeat the autopacs and machinerailguns anyways. its not just that i dont want to do mining or driving around planets mining with an srv because thats what it is; i cant risk it. what do i drop (im maxed on power) from my asp to get a mining laser? and do i NEED limpets or can i just use the cargo scoop? if i need limpets too thats two other module which losing will reduce my survival chances even more. i cant dump anything. do i lose cargo space for the srv hangar? if so whats the point of mining anyway? do i dump the repair module? the shield? the scanners which are my only hope of recovery the repair costs from all the interdictions since i now need to flee more, and even if i win the bounties only cover damage from that encounter - not the others.
no the engineer mods are worthless to me unless they add to my internals so i can keep what i need to keep playing and let me add an srv where i currentl have no room, or let me get more power from powerplant WITH NO DOWNSIDES AT ALL. so i cn fit mining laser without losing a laser or multicannon that may be all that keeps my ship from becoming dust in the next interdiction. or that stops all the extra interdictions you get when you have gotten anything from mining in your hold...
i have 2 rebuys. engineer mods look worthless to me compared to what npcs seem to have they are nothing. and they have downsides which make them less useful than stock modules. plus the dull grind and i cant risk combat anymore, and none of this is fun so im sitting this out at least until they tell us if those superweapons are here to stay or bugs, and if they are bugs they fix them.
no the engineer mods are worthless to me unless they add to my internals so i can keep what i need to keep playing and let me add an srv where i currentl have no room, or let me get more power from powerplant WITH NO DOWNSIDES AT ALL. so i cn fit mining laser without losing a laser or multicannon that may be all that keeps my ship from becoming dust in the next interdiction. or that stops all the extra interdictions you get when you have gotten anything from mining in your hold...
i have 2 rebuys. engineer mods look worthless to me compared to what npcs seem to have they are nothing. and they have downsides which make them less useful than stock modules. plus the dull grind and i cant risk combat anymore, and none of this is fun so im sitting this out at least until they tell us if those superweapons are here to stay or bugs, and if they are bugs they fix them.
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THIS ^^
Funny you should say that because when I play Elite, I both have fun and make money, and don't grind...It all really boils down to a matter of perspective, doesn't it