Engineers The misunderstanding

[Slone]

People keep saying just play the game passively and you'll magically be able to get upgrades....you do realize that you need commodities in a cargo hold for most upgrades right? Unless you are cruising around with a massive cargohold or are extremely lucky...then have fun with that. At the end of the day you will need to focus specifically on an upgrade.

And if some of us enjoy ship customization and want to actively pursue the new content, what is wrong with that? I'm not supposed to? Are you kidding?

The update brings a lot of positive changes overall but it also has massive flaws.

To be totally fair, I'm not sure how the game would feel it I was starting today. I currently fly a Federal Assault Ship, I can potentially store 600 of those materials in my hold, so I don't feel any stress about it. Also maybe because I fly a FAS which is known to be a very advantageous ship in combat, I haven't yet met an NPC that felt so overpowered... But I've been thinking of fitting one of the first ships to see how I'd fare with a cheaper and less robust setup... Could be a totally different experience.

"Passively" is definitely not the terms I would use. I would say enjoy the galaxy and be what you want to be. Don't let marketing dictate your needs. It's not because Frontier Newsletters made such a hype of the engineers that you should be obsessed with them !

Again, I don't want to put aside the point being made about NPCs being overequipped, but I haven't had that experience, so I'm not sure how to comment about this aspect.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I was going to reply with quote and select some of my favorite lines from the very eloquent and well put together opening post, however... It struck me that cutting up and rehashing an abridged version of the opening post would be a waste of a nice piece of literature; so I had to start from scratch.

For me the opening posts second paragraph surmised the situation very eloquently by stating that it was player frustration arising from a multifaceted confusion. Players were confused about the overall importance, or lack of it, of the engineers in the simulations pecking order arising from the hype, and also by the annoyance of the buffed to the point of being overpowered NPC's. I honestly feel that there was a third element to the confusion of players being frustrated by the "new gameplay" - that being that many players couldn't differentiate between getting beaten by the NPC's upgraded ships and weapons or beaten by the upgraded pilots AI or were the beaten by the bugs such as rapid firing rail guns? IMHO they were beaten by a combination of all three but blamed the engineers update mods/pilot AI but not the bugs for it.

 

[Slone]

Engineers is not even a layer, it's an add-on like PowerPlay, which can be safely ignored if a Commander enjoys the core game.

Personally, I do feel it was over-hyped, especially with the beta testing slanted heavily towards equipping with mods by the Mayhem phase.

The core game has improved enormously and this tends to get ignored amongst all the (understandable) fuss about Engineers' mods and gathering of materials.

I kinda see it as a "layer", in the sense that for me, it makes me think about how I would like to improve my ship, and what tradeoff I can accept. It seems you can meet NPCs with such equipments, and I think one of the python I fought had a modded shield. So that means you get to fight more "special" npcs, not the same old eagle, or same old Cobra you fought 10 times the last 24h. So to me it's quite more than an addon.

But overall I agree with you, about how the engineers overshadowed all the small improvements. In all fairness, I can say the added radio chatters has excited me way more than the idea of thermal rounds for multicannons !

 

[Lightspeed]

Plus the imperative to upgrade is less urgent now the NPCs have been dialed back with upgrades:

"The first change is that we will be removing almost all Engineers upgrades from the NPCs in game. There are a very few select upgrades that will remain for coding reasons but they will be low level and not combat specific upgrades. On the whole you should notice that the vast majority of upgrades are gone from NPCs which will mean that players will be greater equipped to deal with NPC threats and should be able to last longer in a combat situation, should they need to make a hasty exit. It will also mean that players who gather their own upgrades will have a technical advantage on the NPC combatants too. The good part about this is that these are all server side, which means we are able to make those changes today! Commanders will be able to see the changes taking effect shortly."

(from Zac in Updates earlier today) [up]

 

[Slone]

OP is correct. You can still become triple elite by playing ED without horizons no problem. To get the icing on the cake like a perfect ship you have to WORK at it.

The best nuclear physicists worked to learn everything about their discipline.
The best sportsmen and women worked hard to be as close to perfection as possible in their discipline.

What makes people think they deserve a ticket straight to the top?

Sorry to spoil it for you but this is how life is. Get on with it.

Of course if you can't accept that then please feel free to quit the game and never have to endure this pain again. It's a choice.

Well although I agree that the game is more interesting with an increased challenge, I can totally empathize with people claiming this is not RL, it's a game, and they don't have enough time to become pro in it. I'm almost 43, have two kids and jobs... So I was very much worried about the game becoming too "elite" for me when I gave a try to engineers beta 1. I had then bought myself an anaconda and with the hope of feeling overpowered and breaking every npcs ships flying in front of me... Quite a big mistake !! NPCs were unexpectedly more agile and they all escape as soon as theirs shields was down ! The AI didn't feel so artificial ; it cared for its life !

But now the update is live, and I find the AI improvement quite enjoyable. The ramming Corvette was quite scary and kinda made sense. Of course, if I ever meet a sidewinder's npc pilot doing the same, I might feel a bit disappointed.

 

[Ddraig]

Agree with the OP.
But I still have issues with the RNG because it is something I am totally against. That been said, without grind and just playing I was able after 3 days to get a couple mods in my FDL, basic ones but with some improvements.
The missions are a welcomed change for me at least, because now I kind of care and you can do a living with them if you have a high reputation. Some missions are bugged or like seemingly impossible to do in solo, but is something that will be addressed in time I guess.

The AI is harder now, which is great, but I do understand that for people that does not do combat often can and will be nightmarish.

Overall the patch had a lots of positives and some negatives, the core of the game is the same and I never expected the game to change in a radical way, and yes, the advertisement feels like a huge misunderstanding in retrospect.

All I want now is an storage system. Please? Pretty please with a sugar on top?

 

[Wylie28]

I agree. I haven't done any material hunting but ive gotten five rank 2 upgrades and 1 rank 3 upgrades already. All ive don't to get mats is what I did pre 2.1

 

[Slone]

I honestly feel that there was a third element to the confusion of players being frustrated by the "new gameplay" - that being that many players couldn't differentiate between getting beaten by the NPC's upgraded ships and weapons or beaten by the upgraded pilots AI or were the beaten by the bugs such as rapid firing rail guns? IMHO they were beaten by a combination of all three but blamed the engineers update mods/pilot AI but not the bugs for it.

Yes you're absolutely right in your analysis. I didn't go as far in my reasoning of that particular aspect because the game had spared me the most frustrating bugs, so it was still a bit vague at the time of writing.

And thank your for the kind words.

 

[Marcus Machiavelli]

Plus the imperative to upgrade is less urgent now the NPCs have been dialed back with upgrades:

"The first change is that we will be removing almost all Engineers upgrades from the NPCs in game. There are a very few select upgrades that will remain for coding reasons but they will be low level and not combat specific upgrades. On the whole you should notice that the vast majority of upgrades are gone from NPCs which will mean that players will be greater equipped to deal with NPC threats and should be able to last longer in a combat situation, should they need to make a hasty exit. It will also mean that players who gather their own upgrades will have a technical advantage on the NPC combatants too. The good part about this is that these are all server side, which means we are able to make those changes today! Commanders will be able to see the changes taking effect shortly."

(from Zac in Updates earlier today) [up]

the update sounds great!

 

[Bostlabs]

With you 100% on this. Well said.

Shame you posted it during the graveyard shift and it will be lost and unread by morning!

not if we keep bumping it.

 

[Andragon]

I feel the same as the OP but I have to disagree. Sounds weird but let me explain.

I spend a couple of days now and those were so much fun. I lacked the fun for a long time. I take the planned apporach to engineers but I think ignoring them is not an option.

However only the community makes this fun. Some game mechanics can only be compensated by the community but some flaws make some of engineers not so fun.

Main reason: Lack of storage. When I do missions I like to save those cargo rewards for when I need them. Cargo storage has to be a priority for FD now!

Without proper storage you cannot even think to do the casual approach.

If you fly with cargo even 1 fish you get stalked by NPC? Really? 'The rumours where right about your big haul' 1 Fish? Don't harrass me go hunt the one who told you this rumor .... Those NPC interdictions need to be seriously overthought.

Besides that I am having fun ... and I fly a 25LY A-class Python and a near 50 LY Asp both flying way faster than normal. You cannot go back once going that way.

 

[Han Brannigan]

Right.

 

[Slone]

I feel the same as the OP but I have to disagree. Sounds weird but let me explain.

I spend a couple of days now and those were so much fun. I lacked the fun for a long time. I take the planned apporach to engineers but I think ignoring them is not an option.

However only the community makes this fun. Some game mechanics can only be compensated by the community but some flaws make some of engineers not so fun.

Main reason: Lack of storage. When I do missions I like to save those cargo rewards for when I need them. Cargo storage has to be a priority for FD now!

Without proper storage you cannot even think to do the casual approach.

If you fly with cargo even 1 fish you get stalked by NPC? Really? 'The rumours where right about your big haul' 1 Fish? Don't harrass me go hunt the one who told you this rumor .... Those NPC interdictions need to be seriously overthought.

Besides that I am having fun ... and I fly a 25LY A-class Python and a near 50 LY Asp both flying way faster than normal. You cannot go back once going that way.

We don't exactly disagree ; I'd say you're onto another subject. If you ask me if the game is lacking in some ways, I would give a firm yes to that question. But I also feel that this game, by nature, will always be lacking, because its scope makes it impossible to be perfect with our current technology. There are many many details that annoy me. This game needs quite a lot of polish. As of today I feel like wearing an unfinished watch with its cogs exposed. Fortunately, I like this watch and love the promise of the watch it's going to evolve into.

My post was more about the confusion about how Engineers had been perceived as a primary objective of the game, mixed with some bugs involving overpowered NPCs, mixed with actual improvements of the AI, all of this overshadowing the progress the game is making so far.

So yes the game is still lacking and will probably be lacking for a long, long time. But after reading some comments, feeling the rage and empathizing will the frustrations expressed around here, I had feared that the game had been broken. But actually, as the Beatles would have put it, it's getting better all the time.