We are sick of so many issues in Elite. People are sick of getting molten by a wing of four engineered FDLs in less than a second and these FDLs are bored as they can't leave their FDL.
People are sick of the utterly annoying RNG. Hard work is put into gathering the materials to upgarde their G4 FSD to a G5 just to reaise it is an actual downgarde.
It is incredibly annoying to farm modular terminals as missions do also work with RNG. Best regards from Marco 'You shall not pass!' .
And then when we finally engineered our ships we realize that everyone is immortal.
Build diversity? Gone. Balance? Gone. Reward? Gone. Risk? Gone. Point of playing? Gone.
Take it as a rant, a suggestion, or as an essay I don't really care but my goal here is to list everything that is an issue in 2.1 (and 2.2) to hopefully get Frontier to touch these before Star Citizen is launched.
But before I begin! I'd like to point out that Frontier is indeed capable of balancing stuff ... it just takes them years to achieve balance and a month to screw it again.
2.0 was, in my opinion ofcourse, a really balanced game. We had long range smuggle missions which were rewarding and a little challenging as of not being scanned. These income sources were a little high but just little tweaks were enough to balance it.
Combat was incredible fun, especially PvP as alot of builds were viable from the shield tanker FDL to the hybrid FAS and the hull tank Clipper. Nearly every weapon was used. Railguns, Plasmas, Pulse Lasers, Multicannons, Frag Cannons, and sometimes even missiles and cannons and mine launchers.
Then the engineeres arrived to introduce the doomsday of Elite: Dangerous. They basically screwed everything starting with the grind nature of Elite and ending in the total immortality of ships.
Why 2.1 "The Engineers" screwed Elite: Dangerous
Heal beams, shield breaker railguns, flamethrower missiles and magicka multicannons. What is this, an RPG game where I play warrior, support, mage or archer? Literally every mage was overpowered as their flame spells made their opponents unable to fight as they lost their heavy duty chest plates and multiswords of fire ... by simply some flames. Their multiswords of fire went up in flames. Okay.
When I first saw a video of the feedback railgun instantly breaking shields of a banking ships I immediately thought that large ships could just as well be deleted form the game as there was no point in using them.
Then after the beta dropped I have seen the video of an Anaconda being heated up to 1300% heat. What a surprise that its modules were all at 0%.
Usually I tell myself that developers have their reasons to do stuff but I don't have to be a developer to realize that a shield breaking feedback cascade railgun is overpowered by [insert quantum number data of doom here].
Frontier, yes we all are aware that from the point of a customer/player developement looks easy but personally I consider this. And no level of challenge or design idea madness would justify that a single shot of a C1F Railgun would instantly break an Imperial Cutter's shields when banking a C1 SCB ... Some may dream of super weapons but this railgun, I swear, is something mad scientist don't even dare to dream of as even them are scared by that.
However, now we have a 90% MJ restore reduction so your common sense is not completely gone.
Buuuuut then we have thermal cascade and I really do not have to talk about that much. Check out Rinzler's SpicyBoiz press release which is feature on multiple gaming magazines laughing about the lack of balancing in Elite: Dangerous. Time to jordle now.
Okay breakdown, stop! Crimson, you can't go on like that. You know the day only has 24 hours and you can't list and explain all the broken parts of the engineers in that time. Ugh fine.
"Why screwed the engineers Elite now?"
They made literally everything overpowered. And on top of that they made some modules even more overpowered than they currently are.
Stage one is everyone being forced to engineer their ships and step two is that everyone has to engineer a specific build in order to be competetive.
Sidefact: The engineers only focus on combat blueprints with exception of FSDs and the like for exploration. But it is mainly abotu combat, keep that in mind.
Not only has a vanilla ship no chance, let the pilot be the best of Elite and the engineered shiop be a NPC, to destroy/win/run. An engineered ship has the power of atleast three vanilla ships. And I assume that is already fairly generous.
Then again, the differences of modules and weapons are so incredibly high that the game turned into a RPS (Rock-Paper-Scissors) game. It is purely a question of the loadouts which determine the outcome of the encounter. Skill is the last factor to consider when attacking someone.
And sometimes the differences of modules are so extremely huge that everyone is using a specific type of loadout.
No, not the thermal cascade. I come to that one later. I am talking about the multicannon FDL.
Everyone has atleast three multicannons on their FDL and everyone who doesn't loses. Multicannons are in every way overpowered and benefit the most from the engineers as their tardeoffs work multiplicative. You can't really multiply something that doesn't exist. 1.25*0=0. And the distributor draw of a multicannon is nearly 0. So is the heat output and the power draw itself. Hence the name magicka multicannons. They generate alot of black magic damage coming from Baba-Ji (Greetings all my Hawken players) at the cost of nearly nothing.
Their cost/risk vs reward is extremely high, higher than anything else in the game and hence EVERYONE is using multi-damn-cannons. A low skill beginner weapon that is extremely cheap and basically negates the tardeoffs of engineer blueprints.
But now to thermal cascade and shock. I tell you my opinion in one setence: It is a testimony of failure that 50% of the PvP community refuses to use that as it is more overpowered than over-overpowered.
Answer 1: 2.1 "The Engineers" screwed Elite: Dangerous because they imbalance nearly everything they touch.
What else do they screw? The way we play Elite. Who cares about the Sirius Corp? Be honest. Who really does give a damn about the Sirius Corp (and no, not mister chinese pack-hound guy)? I bet only a few do. Yet I have to be friendly with them in order to face the most insulting engineer of all. Marco . I really don't remember his real name, I seriously don't. I would write his name if I would know what his second name is but I don't.
So Mr. is in the opinion that he won't tell me where the experienced daddy Mr. Palin is hiding until I gave him some rocks. But before he accepts some rocks he requires 25 modular terminals. Despite them being produced by some hidden company which is protected by Baba-Ji's black magic so we can't raid this company, these are only offered by missions which are generated by the RNG.
Staying in station and checking every hour or two via MODE SWITCHING* and stacking these, usually delivery missions. But wait! I already had alot of modular terminals before! Where are they now? Oh, right. I can't store commodities in my ships. There is no logical reason on why we can't do that. Even if I would be ready to remove a shield cell bank from my ship I want to hop into and equip a cargo rack, I can#t as I have to first HOP INTO MY DAN SHIP and THEREFORE eject every commodity in my cargo hold.
Back to grinding. So after I am finally allied with the Sirius Corp (I hunt you down until my last breath), pretending to like Mr. (If you would exist in real life some assassin would have already murdered you) I am finally at Palin who's great idea it was to build a base 500 LY out of the bubble. Can we please let him starve?
Now, with my Nyan Cat thrusters which accelerate basically everything I can turn as fast as a Viper MK III vanilla in my Corvette. Doesn't this ship has to fall apart after so much mass is turned and ac-/decelerated in such a tiny timeframe? The funniest thing, tho, is the FDL once again. Permaboosting in FAoff seems like 20G or 30G. Let's see. I can accelerate from 0 to max boost speed (~500m/s) in a second. 1G being 9.81m/s. So let's say 10m/s. more than 50G for acceleration. It's a miracle that our pilots never pass out.
So I finally, FINALLY have achieved G5 Dirty Drives after scanning 100 USSs, passing Sirius and Marco and collecting thse 25 Modular Terminals.
I am fini- nope. There are still 14 more modules to engineer. And wait! My G5 DD has only 125%? It could go up to 130%! It's worse than my lucky G4 roll which has 127%! AAAAAH! Not again!
-Cut.
Answer 2: 2.1 "The Engineers" screwed Elite: Dangerous because (since we are focred to engineer our ships to stay competetive as they are strict upgrades) we have to grind and grind and grind in order to EVENTUALLY get a good roll on a G5.
*Somewhere 2 months later*
A fully engineered Multicannon FDL ... no other wepaons viable.
Okay, finding targets ... anyone wanted here?
Oh I see ... another 13 FDLs in supercruise and a Cutter.
Let's see. Wing of 4. Damn! I am getting interdicted by these!
But wait, no problem at all. my mega shields will simply do the job. Do they have shield cascade torps or mines? No. I simply wait for my FSD to charge while standing still and being a sitting duck as I know that no amount of OP multicannons can break my shields durign the time my FSD is charging. High wake out, reload shields and try again.
*Later*
Oh, a silent running FDL with 5 multicannons. Easy.
My emissive seekers simply will do the job.
Stop spinning, damn you! Ah, perfect. Lock on. Fire. Hit. Now I gonna cripple your wepaons in less than 6 missile shots.
Wait! Where are you going? You are still on 90% hull! I know you don't have weapons left but who needs weapons anyways?! Come back!
Aaaaand he's gone at 82% hull.
*The same day*
Oh? You want a duel without emissive munitions? Sure thing!
Okay I simply gonna fly backwards and hit him with my multicannons.
Damn his hull is strong.
Can you stop circling me?
I need gimbal multicannons like him but I have chaff!
Damn, no chaff left. Can't hit him, area of possible manouvers until impact too large.
Need to retreat, didn't even bank. Shields at 50%.
Just gonna low wake, he can't break my shields anyways. Too fast, too strong, even though I am mass locked. GG EZ.
*The next day*
A Cutter interdicts me! That might be a challenge. He can't back since my Feedbackrail always hits (hitscan easy mode).
Misisles? Is he stupid? My shields are online ...
"Warning, taking heat damage."
Pop a heatsink, high wake out, abandong fight! Abandon fight!
1% heat when highwaking, easy. Missiles can't catch me. G5 DD OP.
And back into the systen, maybe I can arrange some duels.
Oh no, not this guy again. I am getting interdicted.
Submit, boost, low wake. He can't catch me anways, nor can his thermal cascade missiles.
*A dozen interdictions later*
Hey, wanna form a wing of 4 and gank him? He is using thermal cascade. Sure thing!
Oh, he is running. Get him.
His shields are too thick, no point.
And he low waked. Sorry guys gotta go.
TL;DR: After just 2% of the TTK it is clear who would win and who would lose. Hence everyone can low wake before they are close to being endangered. Noone dies unless completely unexperienced or in a vanill ship.
Answer 3: 2.1 "The Engineers" screwed Elite: Dangerous because everyone is immortal and the outcome of a battle is clear after several seconds.
So with all that said I think we can come to the conclusio nthat the RNGineers caused a grindfest to participate in unbalanced gameplay in order to achieve basically nothing.
Even if the rare case happened that someone is destroyed, what do 5 million credits mean today? Previously I would get around 300k-400k credits for destroying a pirate Anaconda NPC. Now I get 23m credits by destroying a power generator on a surface settlement. Those who still complain about credit income in this game either refuse to make use of these gold mines or simply don't know about them.
I know where this is going to go: A long time, several months of boring gameplay with unablanced content as Frontier takes ages to create a balanced game. They are indeed capable of balancing but they don't do it. And if they do it they screw it all over again.
It shouldn't be possible for me to be a sitting duck and charge my FSD while under fire from two Cutters and two FDLs. It also shouldn't be possible to melt a vanilla ship in less than a second.
There should be a must-have weapon or a must-have ship. We shouldn't be forced to grind all our stuff, let us buy these or even tarde with other players. Trading is a common feature in every game and just because of gold digging not adding trading between players is just another way to say "We have no idea what we are actually doing.".
Gold digging can be done without trading between players. Especially when it comes to 25 modular terminals.
Everything that the engineers did is wrong, broken, screwed or simply content that shouldn't be in Elite: Dangerous.
And before I end.
A letter to the Lead Designer, Sandy:
You have stated it several times, I can see it in your face on the live streams and the youtube interviews: You have indeed feelings. From my point of view too many of them. I highly encourage you to seperate your feeligns with your job because the following will probably hurt you if you don't have this ability.
First off: You and/or your team (I don't know) failed. Whoever is responsible for the engineers has clearly no sense for a balanced multiplayer world. I don't question what you have thought about adding a railgun effect that breaks shields when hitting upon banking. A sidewinder would be a very significant threat to a Cutter. I question if you still think or do anythign at all. I know that you are ignoring combat logging, not watching the videos we send you, no word about the combat logging update and claiming to take it 'very seriously'. Your words mean nothing. Generally words are meaningless. I and I assume many others are watching what Frontier is doing instead of saying. Even after requesting dev updates (the last one was from the 03.03.2015) ... and even getting a dev response that this request is passed on to the team, nothing happened.
Ofcourse there will always be people who don't like certain decisions. Not everyone can be pleased but look at the heat meta. What have you done there? Thinking apparently not.
I am not sure if you are suited for this job. What I and others are expecting now is some professional work. Yes, we are questioning the ability of the design team or whoever is resposible for the engineers if they are capable of creating a multiplayer game that is balanced.
Personally, all the limitations and QoL missing features which are excluded 'by design' are a huge downside of the game overtime. I really don't know why there shouldn't be an autopilot to jump in the bubble or why we can't trade between palyers or why there is no group support apart from wings. Even wings can't wing up with other wings. It is a pain to remember all the names and guess wheather or not they are friend or foe.
Your (not you Sandy, I mean Frontier in this case) refusal of implementing community requested features (and dev updates) is getting insane. Your lack of common sense to balance combat, trading and epxloration proves failure. Your everyday slow process of developement is evidence of why Elite: Dangerous has been patched to obvlivion. And most importantly your preference to consider friendly and less 'heated' threads is highly unprofessional. The actual content is not worth more or less just because of the tone of the post(s).
Call me a doomsayer but once Star Citizen is released you should better be prepared so you don't end up like No Man's Sky. The only reason why we are playing Elite over EVE is because EVE is monthly pay to play and not first person based. But design wise, EVE is the mother of all online space games.
Screw the 10 year plan for a while and look what you can do now.
My expectations won't be met. I know that as you already stated that you will look into all the other balancing stuff on a later date. For now yo uare focusing on the heat meta and a little bit on multicannons but that is only a fraction of what you have to do. You have the community to help you and the community (or what I have read, may not be the opinion of the whole community) says for example that Plasma Accelerators need a damage buff ... in the statement of the plasma buff is writte that you are buffing it WITHOUT buffing its burst damage. The problem is not the amount of hits we can make, the problem is that even at a 100% hit rate this thing is useless. Same for railguns. Railgun lovers stopped playing because they are useless.
Please play your own game. And become more than just average in all parts before adding content that screws up the game.
Thank you for your attention. As usualy: Sorry for typos, may fixing it later.
TL;DR: Read the red answers.