Horizons Why the Engineers introduction is brilliant

[Hooplah]

Greetings,

Remember all the civil wars? I'm not talking about the ones in the game but the ones on the Forum! Balance, fairness, PvE versus PVP. Balance for PvP and it takes away features for PvE and vice versa. It was a mess and like two political parties trying to win the election will never be resolved. The best we can do is compromise.

Remember the Python Nerf? It was an awesome ship and PvE loved it. PvP complained that Sidewinders and other small ships had no chance against it. They won a lot but not without a very loud cry from many who opposed it.

Enter the Engineers and the initial results:

1. No engineering. Thanks to FD taking the engineering out of NPCs one can fly in Solo and expect competitive but no overrated NPCs for now...ED is always changing. All other rules apply as a player advances in combat skills so will the NPCs.

2. Yes Engineering. PVP can now design their ships as desired for live combat. That moved the "balance" partially away from the devs and into the hands of the players. You can now control your fate a little.

3. PvE can also engineer and if/when desired could join PvP. I do wonder if a PvE engineers then is the restriction for NPCs removed?

4. Acquiring the commodities requires that the player try all the different ways of playing the game. Maybe the idea of bounty hunting isn't your cup of tea but opinions can change after trying it. Thus a more knowledgeable and well versed player. The devs are sneaky getting us to play!

5. Of course engineering is impossible without Horizons. Well a friend could dump the items in space for you to pickup but where is the sense of accomplishment?

Meanwhile with engineering the Python is back! I'm getting emotional seeing what it can accomplish and isn't it convenient that the wing kit came out this week! FD is going to sell a million of them.

The Engineers are the bridge between two different styles of gameplay. It is two political parties coming together for a moment with a positive result. Brilliant.

Regards

 

[Zeeman]

Agreed in one sense, but... That final level of RNG... Kinda ruins it.


But, please, let us keep that for other threads, it certainly has it's positives, and my Python will be out of Mothballs as soon as I finish gathering all the materials...


Z...

 

[Lokus Midgard]

I would have been very intersted in experimenting with the feature, were it not for the nonsensical casino-like aspect to it. With that being compulsory, I choose to avoid it like the plague.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Couldn't disagree more. PvP and PvE are still fire and water. If anything the engineers even widened the gap. PvP ships can now be made to overpower any ship in seconds, but with little care for prolonged combat. PvE is the opposite. You want to be able to carry on for hours in a res or combat zone, burst damage is irrelevant.

 

[lokvette]

Nope couldn't disagree more all they have done is make a huge gulf between the players here and in game. The amount of threads/posts on this matter have been numerous. Great concept, very bad implementation. The only good thing to come with engineers is the removal of commodities. At least now more people might get around to doing something with them.

 

[Mikey2305]

Oh well, we agree to differ. Im pretty much with the OP on this...

 

[Flimley]

A polite and happy overview there....nice! But some will disagree bitterly with this assessment.

However regarding point 3, The timing is good for reintroducing engineered NPC's for dangerous and above Cmdr's. So new players are not overwhelmed but more experienced pilots can be challenged.

Flimley

 

[_Iceman_]

2.2.03 is brilliant in various aspect, [yesnod] !!


Maybe a little too easy but that compensate some previous losses.

I confirm that IA pythons are really more strong than before ! more time to destroy them now ...

That was my favorite ship in 2.1 and sell it for a FDL in 2.2 just because it has a better maneuverability for combat and more faster .
For explo and missions instead of python I use a anaconda (6 prismatic + 128 cargo ) it's a rock after engineering

a FDL with engineering (bi-weave shield + HRP) is a beast in CZ & RES ( solo mode ) it is really a pure fun now.

And finally , Alleluia ! rewards are pretty decent now !

so, yes good job FD [up]

 

[Iskariot]

The timing is good for reintroducing engineered NPC's for dangerous and above Cmdr's. So new players are not overwhelmed but more experienced pilots can be challenged.

Flimley

Problem is that a high combat rank doesn't mean that someone is actually good at combat and it certainly doesn't mean that he is flying engineered combat ships.

If all high ranked players get high ranked + engineered npc ships after them then ED might become a lot less fun for many of them.

 

[rp198419]

A polite and happy overview there....nice! But some will disagree bitterly with this assessment.

However regarding point 3, The timing is good for reintroducing engineered NPC's for dangerous and above Cmdr's. So new players are not overwhelmed but more experienced pilots can be challenged.

Flimley

Why can't you people understand that not all of us want to be 'challenged'? If we wanted 'challenge' we would all buy EVE Valkyrie. Instead, we just want to have an enjoyable experience, whether that be trading, exploration or whatever. If we want 'challenge' we just go into Open Play where we are sure to come up against someone like you!

ED is not just for PvP, nor is it for P v RNgineered NPCs either; especially as the NPCs already cheat in any number of ways.

You want challenge? Fine. Keep it to yourself.

 

[Grandad Druce]

Why can't you people understand that not all of us want to be 'challenged'? If we wanted 'challenge' we would all buy EVE Valkyrie. Instead, we just want to have an enjoyable experience, whether that be trading, exploration or whatever. If we want 'challenge' we just go into Open Play where we are sure to come up against someone like you!

ED is not just for PvP, nor is it for P v RNgineered NPCs either; especially as the NPCs already cheat in any number of ways.

You want challenge? Fine. Keep it to yourself.

I totally agree. Well said.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

...

1. No engineering. Thanks to FD taking the engineering out of NPCs one can fly in Solo and expect competitive but no overrated NPCs for now...ED is always changing. All other rules apply as a player advances in combat skills so will the NPCs.

...

Citation needed. I didn't see anything in the latest patch notes about that.

 

[Krieger]

Sorry OP I totally disagree. For me The Engineers introduced questions on the direction that the development of the game is taking. The concept of being able to tweak the performance of a ship is nice. Not brilliant but it's nice to have. Especially for techies since they like tinkering.

Unfortunately the implementation can be summed up in four words: "too much of everything".

- too powerful (especially a problem with weapons)
- too many blueprints (I completely lost overview)
- too much variance in results (can waste your efforts)
- too much materials/commodities/data types (storage issues)
- too much RNG-driven grind to get stuff (boring)
- too many (unforeseen?) synergistic effects (hence balancing problems)

But for all its technical complexity The Engineers adds nothing new to the game in terms of gameplay. The game still offers the same set of activities, but now you can do them with "bigger balls of fire" or someting like that.

For me this raises questions for the future. The Engineers take a technical design feature of the code (parameterised performance models) and tries to make gameplay out of it by bolting on a convoluted interface that lets players tweak performance parameters [1] (if they're lucky). It all seems driven by a very technical view of gameplay design. I miss the creativity that set apart the original Elite games (and the Rollercoaster games). ED needs some fresh ideas. These forums are full of good suggestions by many people.

[1] We already had this but in the form of modules rated from E to A.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Why can't you people understand that not all of us want to be 'challenged'? If we wanted 'challenge' we would all buy EVE Valkyrie. Instead, we just want to have an enjoyable experience, whether that be trading, exploration or whatever. If we want 'challenge' we just go into Open Play where we are sure to come up against someone like you!

ED is not just for PvP, nor is it for P v RNgineered NPCs either; especially as the NPCs already cheat in any number of ways.

You want challenge? Fine. Keep it to yourself.

So what do you expect if you are doing Pirate hunting (Resource sites) or Military stuff (Conflict zones), and gain combat rank, that the opposition stays the same? So you spent many hours killing NPCs in those sites and then you advance in combat rank, but you should not have to learn or adapt to smarter and tougher enemies?



If you do not care about combat and instead only want to do some trading, exploration etc, then what impact does this (Dangerous or higher NPC having engineered modules) have on you? If you do not care about combat and doing the combat stuff, then you will obviously not rank up in combat rank and then there would be no problem with NPC pirates having engineered upgrades, since you are not ranked high enough to encounter these in the first place...



And what give you the right to tell someone to keep their oppinions to themselves? Should you not in that case, follow your own advice and keep your oppinion to yourself aswell?

PvE kills - many thousands of ships
PvP kills - Zero, nada, zilch

 

[Tomx]

I honestly don't see why things should scale - if everything scales what's the point in trying to improve things.

I do think there should be places where if you make yourself unpopular you encounter some seriously tough ships - eg. Achenar, Sol, Sirius etc.

But having every pirate in the back of beyond flying a engineered Anaconda/fdl was ridiculous - frontier systems are remote "wild west"/"Afghanistan/Pakistan borderlands" type areas - where everyone has an AK47 but nobody's in a JSF (well only those from the federation)

The other problem is that the beauty of elite is that there's so many different roles that you can play - I get it that some people just want to do missioins/mining/pvp etc. but I quite liked playing a rogue trader type role - doing a bit of everything. (currently I'm exploring) Basically many other roles will find it difficult to escape froma pvp or engineered npc attack.

 

[rp198419]

Citation needed. I didn't see anything in the latest patch notes about that.

I asked FD support "Do NPCs have engineered weapons etc, yes or no?" Here is their answer:

"Master rank and above all have a chance of having a small number of mods, Deadly and Elite as guaranteed to have at least one. So yes, NPCs do have engineered modules. "

So, NPCs - or at least some of them - can have engineered weapons.

 

[Lokus Midgard]

I wonder whether NPCs typically have everything A-rated or not.

 

[rp198419]

So what do you expect if you are doing Pirate hunting (Resource sites) or Military stuff (Conflict zones), and gain combat rank, that the opposition stays the same? So you spent many hours killing NPCs in those sites and then you advance in combat rank, but you should not have to learn or adapt to smarter and tougher enemies?



If you do not care about combat and instead only want to do some trading, exploration etc, then what impact does this (Dangerous or higher NPC having engineered modules) have on you? If you do not care about combat and doing the combat stuff, then you will obviously not rank up in combat rank and then there would be no problem with NPC pirates having engineered upgrades, since you are not ranked high enough to encounter these in the first place...



And what give you the right to tell someone to keep their oppinions to themselves? Should you not in that case, follow your own advice and keep your oppinion to yourself aswell?

PvE kills - many thousands of ships
PvP kills - Zero, nada, zilch

For the record, I wasn't suggesting that anyone keeps their opinions to themselves, only the unwanted 'challenge' that they seem intent on imposing on everyone else.

 

[Mundo54]

Greetings,

[....] Remember the Python Nerf? It was an awesome ship and PvE loved it. PvP complained that Sidewinders and other small ships had no chance against it. They won a lot but not without a very loud cry from many who opposed it. [....]

Meanwhile with engineering the Python is back! I'm getting emotional seeing what it can accomplish and isn't it convenient that the wing kit came out this week! FD is going to sell a million of them.

The Engineers are the bridge between two different styles of gameplay. It is two political parties coming together for a moment with a positive result. Brilliant.

Regards

I'm a more casual non-combat player, traditionally just a missions man, and I'm fairly senior in years. -- "I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.."

Dropping the commodities finally got me into the Engineers game. Although I still moaned and complained, at first, but mainly to my Squad Lead from PlanetSide-2. But now the two of us are pretty well through the loop with what we need from Ms. Farseer. Squad Lead still has a little more catching up to do; he works, I'm retired, he has a better haircut.

Here's a quick snapshot of my path to glory and some degree of success, which aught to be a hoot for the Engineer traditionalists, and for the more dyed-in-the-wool combat players in particular.

I first built a Dropship Hunter-Collector to try my luck at farming T9's in the HazRes sites for Chemical Manipulators, even though I was feeling a little manipulated into trying this.

Exit stage right on that, fairly quickly. I can handle basic combat but that was the deep end of the pool pour moi. But given the relative impunity of any untoward behaviour in Anarchy systems, I then built a Python-Interdictor, although this build has since been updated to reflect some of Felicia's work. The idea being that I would just hunt ships out in the open, in Anarchy systems.

Now that was a hoot for me, my first time ever interdicting other ships, blowing them out of the water and farming them for mats. But I didn't have any luck with finding CM's after one sortie. So to get a few more of them, I dialed it down a few notches and I just used my Asp-X to find a Combat Aftermath USS in a High-Security system.

So now, like I said, I'm done. My Python 12-First-Class is now setup for tourist missions, similar to my Conda 12-First-Class.

And my Dropship, my Vulture and the Cobra Mk3 all have a mix of Eng mods too, but these ships are less used. Me and Squad Lead aren't too big on the whole Wing-Walker thang. We probably have more fun mixing it up in PlanetSide-2 with our Magriders. So in this arm of the Western Galaxy, I'm ready to get back to passenger missions, or so I keep trying to tell myself anyway.

But the denouement is a killer, big time. Now that I've tasted blood, namely with my Python-Interdictor, I want more. Does that make me a bad person. I think there was a thread recently, where dude was talking about not wanting to farm ships for mats. He didn't want to kill and he stuck to his convictions, throughout the thread.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I asked FD support "Do NPCs have engineered weapons etc, yes or no?" Here is their answer:

"Master rank and above all have a chance of having a small number of mods, Deadly and Elite as guaranteed to have at least one. So yes, NPCs do have engineered modules. "

So, NPCs - or at least some of them - can have engineered weapons.

Yes, I eneded up in your thread, too.