Elite Dangerous: The Engineers just went live a short time ago and brings with it some much needed changes, enhancements and, well other stuff.
I unfortunately did not get enough time with the Engineers BETA as my X-55 was still en route however I did spend a few hours with 2.1 last night and my impressions (and the impressions of my Twitch viewers) are very much mixed.
First off, Bookmarking in the Galaxy map, hal o fucking loula; it's about bl00dy time!
(pardon my French)
Now you can not only Bookmark places you've been but you can edit the Bookmark title so it holds some relevance to you in your travels.
As great an addition as that is it would have been nice if they could address the never ending popup issue in both Galaxy and System Maps. This is where you hover over something long enough for the info window to popup. Sadly it's still nearly impossible to get rid of it half the time without accidentally clicking on some far away system and having your Map zoom in on it.
Similar issues remain in the System Map my favorite being where info is actually over top the Station, Planet or what have you unless you zoom all the way in/out.
I also experienced an issue with the comms/chat panel never fading which had to be adjusted in my game settings. To not do so means chat history is always displayed and is very intrusive on the HUD in general.
As for the Engineers, you need a degree and a lot of patience to understand what the hell you need to do in order to advance. It appears as if it got far more convoluted since the BETA, now I literally have to go down on someone just to get my Cannons slightly modified.
I do understand this mechanic though because if you make it easy, everyone will be OP instantly so that needs to be moderated.
Having said that, Engineers is not all that interesting really. The missions you have to perform to find the crap they need for upgrading are so vague you end up being sent off on a giant turd hunt.
I can see the average player being turned off by it as I myself am wavering.
Also, the enemy AI has been 00bercharged.
Enemy AI is an area I'm glad they're finally addressing as it's been horribly inconsistent but somebody cranked the slider to nightmare in testing and forgot to dial it back before release.
Last night for 30 Merits I took 250,000 credits of damage, was interdicted every single time I got into Supercruise and barely escaped with my life. All told I was interdicted in one 2 hour play session more than I've been in over 50 hours of gameplay.
Some of my Twitch viewers were ranting about this as well and with good reason, it's just too imbalanced currently.
To be clear though this is only in regards to Merit hunting in Enemy space where one is Hostile. In Hazardous RES' it's another story and although it still may require some tweaking it's far more dangerous to be in a Hazardous RES alone.
Last night I got into it a few times and held my own but definitely took some damage along the way. It was not the easy mode I was used to so combat came across more satisfying.
At one point I decided to take on very competent Vulture (my biggest weakness in the Python) and his maneuverability got the best of me. I took him down to near death but his constant quick shield regeneration and chaff launchers held me at bay until I finally withdrew and went to affect repairs.
Some may not like this change but I welcome it, AI has always been too easy even in higher ranks.
Comms chatter is also truly amazing and immersive. Now you hear radio chatter when near Space Stations both in Space and on Planetary Stations. The one thing I really love about it is they give you an idea of how far you have to go before docking.
This in itself is a Godsend as I never know if I'm going to speed past my dock in the Python as it's often located right next snuggling up to the letter box. Now there's no question as to where my dock is so I can always approach prepared.
It's such a little thing but once you have it it just ads so much that you can't believe you lived without it before.
There's a lot more to this update, much of which I've not flushed out at this time as I'm still relatively new to this latest expansion.
Once I've put more time into it I'll put up a full review on our Gaming Blog.
I unfortunately did not get enough time with the Engineers BETA as my X-55 was still en route however I did spend a few hours with 2.1 last night and my impressions (and the impressions of my Twitch viewers) are very much mixed.
First off, Bookmarking in the Galaxy map, hal o fucking loula; it's about bl00dy time!
(pardon my French)
Now you can not only Bookmark places you've been but you can edit the Bookmark title so it holds some relevance to you in your travels.
As great an addition as that is it would have been nice if they could address the never ending popup issue in both Galaxy and System Maps. This is where you hover over something long enough for the info window to popup. Sadly it's still nearly impossible to get rid of it half the time without accidentally clicking on some far away system and having your Map zoom in on it.
Similar issues remain in the System Map my favorite being where info is actually over top the Station, Planet or what have you unless you zoom all the way in/out.
I also experienced an issue with the comms/chat panel never fading which had to be adjusted in my game settings. To not do so means chat history is always displayed and is very intrusive on the HUD in general.
As for the Engineers, you need a degree and a lot of patience to understand what the hell you need to do in order to advance. It appears as if it got far more convoluted since the BETA, now I literally have to go down on someone just to get my Cannons slightly modified.
I do understand this mechanic though because if you make it easy, everyone will be OP instantly so that needs to be moderated.
Having said that, Engineers is not all that interesting really. The missions you have to perform to find the crap they need for upgrading are so vague you end up being sent off on a giant turd hunt.
I can see the average player being turned off by it as I myself am wavering.
Also, the enemy AI has been 00bercharged.
Enemy AI is an area I'm glad they're finally addressing as it's been horribly inconsistent but somebody cranked the slider to nightmare in testing and forgot to dial it back before release.
Last night for 30 Merits I took 250,000 credits of damage, was interdicted every single time I got into Supercruise and barely escaped with my life. All told I was interdicted in one 2 hour play session more than I've been in over 50 hours of gameplay.
Some of my Twitch viewers were ranting about this as well and with good reason, it's just too imbalanced currently.
To be clear though this is only in regards to Merit hunting in Enemy space where one is Hostile. In Hazardous RES' it's another story and although it still may require some tweaking it's far more dangerous to be in a Hazardous RES alone.
Last night I got into it a few times and held my own but definitely took some damage along the way. It was not the easy mode I was used to so combat came across more satisfying.
At one point I decided to take on very competent Vulture (my biggest weakness in the Python) and his maneuverability got the best of me. I took him down to near death but his constant quick shield regeneration and chaff launchers held me at bay until I finally withdrew and went to affect repairs.
Some may not like this change but I welcome it, AI has always been too easy even in higher ranks.
Comms chatter is also truly amazing and immersive. Now you hear radio chatter when near Space Stations both in Space and on Planetary Stations. The one thing I really love about it is they give you an idea of how far you have to go before docking.
This in itself is a Godsend as I never know if I'm going to speed past my dock in the Python as it's often located right next snuggling up to the letter box. Now there's no question as to where my dock is so I can always approach prepared.
It's such a little thing but once you have it it just ads so much that you can't believe you lived without it before.
There's a lot more to this update, much of which I've not flushed out at this time as I'm still relatively new to this latest expansion.
Once I've put more time into it I'll put up a full review on our Gaming Blog.
