Engineers Thanks FDev for 2.1 - I know understand how to have fun (honestly!)

[The Tick]

Thanks FDev for 2.1 - I now understand how to have fun (honestly!)

I'd like to post something positive, because last night I finally understood how I can enjoy the Engineers update.
Well, admittedly, it took me 30 hours with 2.1 to get it, but I hope that I can help all you fellow CMDRs with my little insights.
Because during the first 25 hours, I found it very frustrating and grindy. But now it's fun again. Why?

Insight #1: I stopped pursuing specific ENG upgrades. There are literally hundreds of blueprints. For some of those, collecting the materials is very easy. For some, it's really difficult. And it makes sense! From a gameplay perspective, why should everyone run around with only the best upgrades within the first week already?

Insight #2: There is some sense to how specific materials can be found, depending on activity, circumstances, system and system status. We are just learning the rules, so bear with us! This has been a common feature of this game. Frontier has never told us the rules outright, we always had to learn it as a team effort. Kudos to this thread .

Insight #3: Missions are the way to go! Besides the current bugs, they have become really varied now! Many are little stories in themselves, influenced by your reputation, rank, and the current faction status. Even with surprising twists and branches. I think this is what FDev want us to do: explore the Galaxy through those missions. This has always been the key concept of Elite: a lone CMDR roaming the Galaxy. As a nice side effect, they give you the rarer materials for engineering. And I suspect there might be some unique missions which will reveal the major storylines.

TL;DR: Do missions, do your other activities, and after some time, you will be rewarded with the ability to get upgrades with all the materials you have collected along the way. Thank you FDev! This is the most amazing update for me since Dec 2014.

 

[okmerflow]

Agree with all points! I'm enjoying this update very much as well. The trick indeed is not to pursuit one special thing. It will get frustrating in the end.

 

[Kizbot]

So if I treat it like PP and CQC and completely ignore it, its good.

I'm glad that some people have found a way to enjoy it.

 

[Bigskill]

Blaze your own trail..... braben sais.... So far is only farming.... and even if you are a trader you have to modify your ship to be efficient, so is not viable....

 

[Retrograde]

Good points.

The engineers do provide some nice little tweaks, but if you make getting them your main gameplay goal, then playing becomes a horrible grind, and you're likely to be disappointed by the engineer results at the end. It's better not to focus on them too much.

The beauty of Elite is that it's a game where there is no clear endgame goal. The "Elite" ranks are not like RPG levels where you become more powerful. And my experience from beta is that Anacondas are no more fun to fly than smaller ships, so I don't feel the need to get enough credits to afford one. So I just fly around doing various stuff a bit randomly and that is far more enjoyable.

So having thus renounced my worldly ambitions, it strikes me that this game, complete with an endless cycle of deaths and rebirths, is rather Buddhist.

 

[Henri]

Blaze your own trail..... braben sais.... So far is only farming.... and even if you are a trader you have to modify your ship to be efficient, so is not viable....

.....in a cut throat galaxy

It is in the context of the universe from Elite lore. Your logic is flawed.

 

[starman]

Good points.

The engineers do provide some nice little tweaks, but if you make getting them your main gameplay goal, then playing becomes a horrible grind, and you're likely to be disappointed by the engineer results at the end. It's better not to focus on them too much.

The beauty of Elite is that it's a game where there is no clear endgame goal. The "Elite" ranks are not like RPG levels where you become more powerful. And my experience from beta is that Anacondas are no more fun to fly than smaller ships, so I don't feel the need to get enough credits to afford one. So I just fly around doing various stuff a bit randomly and that is far more enjoyable.

So having thus renounced my worldly ambitions, it strikes me that this game, complete with an endless cycle of deaths and rebirths, is rather Buddhist.

Its seems you have achieved Nirvana with this insight. Im not sure how the the grind towards bigger and better is 'Buddhist'.

 

[Retrograde]

Its seems you have achieved Nirvana with this insight.

Nah, nirvana is escaping the endless cycle by closing the game and uninstalling it. I'm nowhere near being ready to do that.

 

[Devlin-Darkside]

Snip
Insight #3: Missions are the way to go!

If you like missions.... and I do not

 

[Beans]

This makes a lot of sense to me.

I've enjoyed the update immensely and I think that's because I've always done missions alongside other activities such as trading, exploring and pew pew. Most other people seem to be desperate to grind things until they hate them and have always prioritised the highest paying activities, whilst I keep using missions to show me new activities/places and direct me when I'm not sure what I fancy doing at the time.

Engineers are a good example of how people are the problem, instead of dipping in/out of modding gradually and mixing it up with other things they have obsessively made it into a grind for themselves, just like they have made everything else into a grind. Everybody is whinging about material availability now, if they'd been doing the surface missions which came with 2.0 instead of exclusively grinding Robigo since last year they'd already have plenty of materials, instead of billions of credits and the biggest ships which are now a liability because they can't grind combat in them with the new AI.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

To OP: I am really happy for you, and that you enjoy the game it is nice reading positive things on the web and also on the forums. It does give a little light in a dull and grey day.
I try to spice up my day be reading positive things. Else I would just be another grumpy old man. So your post was also joyful to me, and I will share it with the very few grumpy friends that I do have...
I the meantime I will still state that I hate the this expansions mechanics, I despise RNG mechanics, I would find it more rewarding moving the lawn or digging ditches than randomly serching for random stuff spawning randomly.
There said it. RANDOMLY.
The next thing will be doing " dailies", I just know it... We have to do daily stuff in order to keep up, just like fragging decaying reputation or merits!! I hate so intensely, that I will rip to pieces my golf doll one more time!!!!
( its a doll/troll where arms legs and head is velcroed on, so you can tear it apart without ruining it)
I have used that more in E: D than in golf!

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Good post, OP. I absolutely agree!
Relax, learn and enjoy.

Sadly, the desire for instant benefits, premature conclusions and lack of knowledge turned the tides (and this forum) heavily against 2.1.
I really hope, your insights will come to more and more commanders while time passes.
This great patch, the awesome game and all the hard working and engaged people of FD really deserve it! [up]

By the way... the concept of 'let go' helped me to overcome my despair regarding this forum as well. I just abstain from defending 'The Engineers' in every negative thread I come across. I did overcome my desire to jump in and convince people about the beauty of it. It is just too exhausting - just like chasing each engineer upgrades by brute force.

The unfortunate part of it is, that there is one voice less in the chorus of proponents. I really hope, FD knows that people actually enjoy their work even if not all of us have the energy left to fight against the flood...

 

[kwik]

the only thing that is counter to this - currently - is commodities that you need for upgrades.

 

[The Tick]

the only thing that is counter to this - currently - is commodities that you need for upgrades.

AFAIK, of the 26 commodities that are needed for engineers, 17 can be bought, and 5 can be mined, see here. The others can be gotten through ... missions!

 

[Altair8800]

Blaze your own trail..... braben sais.... So far is only farming.... and even if you are a trader you have to modify your ship to be efficient, so is not viable....

No, you can trade with a crappy ship, even one not good for trading at all. Of course your Cr/h compared with others will suck then, and it seems that most can't stand this. I have not a single ship optimized for trading, I never had, but still got Elite tade rank after 16 month playing as I like it.

 

[DragoonKnight]

I'd like to post something positive, because last night I finally understood how I can enjoy the Engineers update.
Well, admittedly, it took me 30 hours with 2.1 to get it, but I hope that I can help all you fellow CMDRs with my little insights.
Because during the first 25 hours, I found it very frustrating and grindy. But now it's fun again. Why?

Insight #1: I stopped pursuing specific ENG upgrades. There are literally hundreds of blueprints. For some of those, collecting the materials is very easy. For some, it's really difficult. And it makes sense! From a gameplay perspective, why should everyone run around with only the best upgrades within the first week already?

Insight #2: There is some sense to how specific materials can be found, depending on activity, circumstances, system and system status. We are just learning the rules, so bear with us! This has been a common feature of this game. Frontier has never told us the rules outright, we always had to learn it as a team effort. Kudos to this thread .

Insight #3: Missions are the way to go! Besides the current bugs, they have become really varied now! Many are little stories in themselves, influenced by your reputation, rank, and the current faction status. Even with surprising twists and branches. I think this is what FDev want us to do: explore the Galaxy through those missions. This has always been the key concept of Elite: a lone CMDR roaming the Galaxy. As a nice side effect, they give you the rarer materials for engineering. And I suspect there might be some unique missions which will reveal the major storylines.

TL;DR: Do missions, do your other activities, and after some time, you will be rewarded with the ability to get upgrades with all the materials you have collected along the way. Thank you FDev! This is the most amazing update for me since Dec 2014.

The whole point of 2.1 is Engineers. This update is called The Engineers. It is not called The Missions. If most of the content of the update is gated behind a massive wall then it defeats the entire point of buying Engineers in the first place. Might as well have stayed with Elite 1.6.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

The whole point of 2.1 is Engineers. This update is called The Engineers. It is not called The Missions. If most of the content of the update is gated behind a massive wall then it defeats the entire point of buying Engineers in the first place. Might as well have stayed with Elite 1.6.

Yep. but pass here, so...

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Viking84]

I hate to be the voice of discontent again, but as I am discontent, and have a voice, then here we go:

Insight #1: I stopped pursuing specific ENG upgrades.

Just because something can be ignored doesn't make it good. I have ignored Power Play, it is still rubbish.

Insight #2: There is some sense to how specific materials can be found, depending on activity, circumstances, system and system status.

The best you can hope for is to increase you odds in the RNG loot game. If you get the right type of rock on the right type of planet (which you must either find by luck or browsing the forums) you can still get any number of different items dropping purely from luck. Same goes for mining, wake scanning, ship scanning, ship salvage. Random luck within a set of possible drops.

Insight #3: Missions are the way to go! Besides the current bugs, they have become really varied now! Many are little stories in themselves, influenced by your reputation, rank, and the current faction status. Even with surprising twists and branches. I think this is what FDev want us to do: explore the Galaxy through those missions.

I thought this too, and tried it for a few days. The problem is that the reputation system gives you the exact opposite incentive - stay in your home system, where you are allied with everyone, and mode-switch until you get the missions you want. If you want specific materials you can triple the amount of mode-switching needed as there are a pitiful amount of missions on each refresh and hundreds of potential materials for RNGesus to choose from.

I am glad you enjoy it, but you must have the patience of a saint and the ability to play entirely without goals of wealth or ship progression. For the rest of us this is the most frustrating update since we were told the Cutter and Corvette would be locked behind an enormous grind wall....

 

[Hexcaliber]

The whole point of 2.1 is Engineers. This update is called The Engineers. It is not called The Missions. If most of the content of the update is gated behind a massive wall then it defeats the entire point of buying Engineers in the first place. Might as well have stayed with Elite 1.6.

The addition of engineers was a single step in a 10 development plan; they are not intended to be the entire focus of the game.

 

[Jockari]

The addition of engineers was a single step in a 10 development plan; they are not intended to be the entire focus of the game.

Don't want to be blunt ( English is not my mother tongue) but this is hardly an argument. In fact, this is not at all. No matter the vision of the producer/creator of the game. The Engineer content is barely reachable at the moment and not in a fun way. I am a customer and i buy the game for this advertised part too.