I've provided feedback elsewhere about engineering 3.0, and I know FDEV have their hands full with all the bugs. But i'm thoroughly disheartened with engineering 3.0.
Despite all of the cynicism this is posted with - the intention of being helpful/constructive and for the better...
If we don't speak up - what do we expect? Elite is a great game, and offers so much potential it's actually inconceivable. We play it, love it, and invest in it. Yes, playing elite is actually investing in something. It's hard not to care about it as a game.
But engineering 3.0 is crap....
1) Engineering 3.0 has removed unique variation from the results. Why?
All ship engineering ends up in the same end result. Every explorer conda is going to be far more similar, and the same goes for pvp/combat ships etc. This is a horrible change imo.
1.1) Results being streamlined (as above) is probably seen as a positive by those that didn't really get into engineering but felt they simply had to (speculatively the many). Fair enough. Secondary rolls in 2.4 engineering were either a random blessing or a horrible curse. Remove the secondaries and wouldn't have had an entirely horrible system.
2) Engineering modules from 1 to 5 grades is a time sink and material sink.
Now every single material is very important and the rarest materials are wasted in a 'process'.
With 100% of the 5th grade requiring 'more' than previously, it's just soul destroying getting to a 10th or 12th roll of a 5th grade mod as your rare materials run out. You used to be able to achieve at least something with 1 of each rare grade 5 material. It's now around 10 x 3 (= 30). This is lacking creativity game design-wise and a deliberate hand-brake on engineering as a part of game play (something I used to pre 3.0 spend more than 70% of my time doing to experiment with all the various glorious/cool/ things FDEV gave us via engineers). There are infinite better ways to make players do something to achieve a grade 5 100% roll than just materials and clicking .
3) Material traders are not a fun / enjoyable / reasonable solution.
Thanks for adding a middle man for some time-sink. Why?
I think they should exist for a multitude of reasons. They should even produce their own missions for material rewards. They clearly need somethings and we need somethings etc. But as a counter or excuse for materials-sink 'engineering' they are just an inconvenience / busy work / time sink to get a result.
At this juncture I have to:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/7smzb3/elite_dangerous_beyond_live_stream_engineering/
...Sorry but you did and you have. Badly. And you know it. You designed it.
4) I'm going to say time-sink again.
I don't believe for a second that any engineering should be instantaneous or immediate. Nothing in Elite should be. Hard work should pay off in dividends. But this isn't hard work. It's busy work, and ultimately so everyone can get the same streamlined engineering results. What a horribly boring, uninspiring thought. You used to be able to get something done with at least 1 of each grade 5 material. I'm not suggesting that's how it should be now, although some of my best rolls where with less materials than I now require to get 100% (urrrrhg!) ...Now WAY too much time is expected to be spent vacuuming space/planets for materials.
5) The RNG generation of materials.
FDEV, move on. It's horrible, and RNG is an obvious, lazy failure in logic.
Someone who recommends smart rounds as a very good engineering mod (some livestream during focused feedback) isn't really into engineering the way many of us players actually are. So a fresh set of eyes, please. Some creativity, some logic, less time-sink, less material sink if materials is going to be RNG horrible, and yay! we can all (no, not you, but everyone else) be happy with engineering.
Looking forward to your amazing comments.
EDIT: Tidied this up a little bit. I wasn't sober when I originally wrote this dribble, and would prefer to be a jerk on more of a part-time basis. Looks like it's spawned some good debate/discussion.
EDIT: and TheYamiks says it better than me: https://youtu.be/1iDAdSy6xgY
Despite all of the cynicism this is posted with - the intention of being helpful/constructive and for the better...
If we don't speak up - what do we expect? Elite is a great game, and offers so much potential it's actually inconceivable. We play it, love it, and invest in it. Yes, playing elite is actually investing in something. It's hard not to care about it as a game.
But engineering 3.0 is crap....
1) Engineering 3.0 has removed unique variation from the results. Why?
All ship engineering ends up in the same end result. Every explorer conda is going to be far more similar, and the same goes for pvp/combat ships etc. This is a horrible change imo.
1.1) Results being streamlined (as above) is probably seen as a positive by those that didn't really get into engineering but felt they simply had to (speculatively the many). Fair enough. Secondary rolls in 2.4 engineering were either a random blessing or a horrible curse. Remove the secondaries and wouldn't have had an entirely horrible system.
2) Engineering modules from 1 to 5 grades is a time sink and material sink.
Now every single material is very important and the rarest materials are wasted in a 'process'.
With 100% of the 5th grade requiring 'more' than previously, it's just soul destroying getting to a 10th or 12th roll of a 5th grade mod as your rare materials run out. You used to be able to achieve at least something with 1 of each rare grade 5 material. It's now around 10 x 3 (= 30). This is lacking creativity game design-wise and a deliberate hand-brake on engineering as a part of game play (something I used to pre 3.0 spend more than 70% of my time doing to experiment with all the various glorious/cool/ things FDEV gave us via engineers). There are infinite better ways to make players do something to achieve a grade 5 100% roll than just materials and clicking .
3) Material traders are not a fun / enjoyable / reasonable solution.
Thanks for adding a middle man for some time-sink. Why?
I think they should exist for a multitude of reasons. They should even produce their own missions for material rewards. They clearly need somethings and we need somethings etc. But as a counter or excuse for materials-sink 'engineering' they are just an inconvenience / busy work / time sink to get a result.
At this juncture I have to:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/7smzb3/elite_dangerous_beyond_live_stream_engineering/

...Sorry but you did and you have. Badly. And you know it. You designed it.
4) I'm going to say time-sink again.
I don't believe for a second that any engineering should be instantaneous or immediate. Nothing in Elite should be. Hard work should pay off in dividends. But this isn't hard work. It's busy work, and ultimately so everyone can get the same streamlined engineering results. What a horribly boring, uninspiring thought. You used to be able to get something done with at least 1 of each grade 5 material. I'm not suggesting that's how it should be now, although some of my best rolls where with less materials than I now require to get 100% (urrrrhg!) ...Now WAY too much time is expected to be spent vacuuming space/planets for materials.
5) The RNG generation of materials.
FDEV, move on. It's horrible, and RNG is an obvious, lazy failure in logic.
Someone who recommends smart rounds as a very good engineering mod (some livestream during focused feedback) isn't really into engineering the way many of us players actually are. So a fresh set of eyes, please. Some creativity, some logic, less time-sink, less material sink if materials is going to be RNG horrible, and yay! we can all (no, not you, but everyone else) be happy with engineering.
Looking forward to your amazing comments.
EDIT: Tidied this up a little bit. I wasn't sober when I originally wrote this dribble, and would prefer to be a jerk on more of a part-time basis. Looks like it's spawned some good debate/discussion.
EDIT: and TheYamiks says it better than me: https://youtu.be/1iDAdSy6xgY
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