Goonhub
05-21-2022, 06:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-21-2022, 06:42 AM by Jazzy Blues. Edited 3 times in total.)
It wasn't until kind of recently that I found out about this change so unfortunately I am late to the party here.
In any case I still wanted to give my opinion on this one PR since it affects me a lot. I play Engineer almost every round, it's the one thing I do in goon and the one thing I am really good at. I enjoy it a ton and want nothing more than for it to be as enjoyable as possible for everybody who wants to try their hand at the engineering department.
Now, engineering does involve more than just the TEG of course, that being mainly, repairs, construction, and the other generators.
To a beginning for any new engineer there's a lot to do and new things to learn making for a pretty damn steep learning curve but still an enjoyable experience for those not intimidated by it all.
However as you keep doing engineering and start reaching the point where you have done and experienced everything a dozen times and understand how it all works many tasks and duties of engineering become very repetitive and quickly you start feeling like a mindless robot. I believe this is where a lot of players drop engineering and why it's one of the less popular jobs on Goon. The TEG and it's depth is what allowed the really dedicated and experienced engineers to still enjoy engineering even after having sunken hundreds of hours into the department. Unlike anything else in engineering it allowed for setups (currently pipeburns) where absolutely insane values of power, pressure, and temperature, could be achieved without much time-consuming repetitive work but still with some difficulty making it more exclusive for the most dedicated engineers.
Unlike the other setups this was the only current setup which allowed for so many possibilities as a result from the outright extreme values, like as mentioned, PTL Gibbing, hotwiring the station as antag and actually having it be dangerous, using the powergloves and actually doing damage, unlocking the 1mil achievement, making entire station-wide canister bombs, the list goes on.
As far as I have seen so far after the merge is that it's just a nerf adding the repetitive gameplay aspect now also into the pipeburns with the having to weld pipes constantly which takes up valuable time when attempting to perfect a burn, experiment, or running antag and trying to incinerate people with zaps.
It's a huge limitation to previous incredibly enjoyable and rewarding possibilities in engineering.
Now don't get me wrong here, I value change a ton (the new burst pipe sprite is great!), change make the game so much more interesting to me, but when the change implies adding tedious elements to the only method we have in engineering of doing what we enjoy the most and possibly even preventing us from doing it, then I really start to question what the purpose of a change like this is. Who does it benefit? Who will have a more enjoyable experience because of this change?
Hopefully we will find a way to adapt and work around the new mechanic and figure out a way to reach the values we want differently. But as it stands right now a lot of gameplay we usually enjoy and have a blast with is now literally not possible to do at this time as far as we know, after the merge, and if we really can't figure out a way to do this without having to weld pipes for 60 minutes then if it's possible to unmerge or have it come under review my vote stands strong to revert the changes. I am sure there is a different way to go about this if we want TEG mechanics changed that will make it more FUN! Not more tedious.
As a disclaimer I am not speaking for every single engineer player out there, obviously everybody has different opinions and this is me and a few other engineering mains who dislike this addition and didn't feel like we got much say at all in the matter before the addition was just, here.
In any case I still wanted to give my opinion on this one PR since it affects me a lot. I play Engineer almost every round, it's the one thing I do in goon and the one thing I am really good at. I enjoy it a ton and want nothing more than for it to be as enjoyable as possible for everybody who wants to try their hand at the engineering department.
Now, engineering does involve more than just the TEG of course, that being mainly, repairs, construction, and the other generators.
To a beginning for any new engineer there's a lot to do and new things to learn making for a pretty damn steep learning curve but still an enjoyable experience for those not intimidated by it all.
However as you keep doing engineering and start reaching the point where you have done and experienced everything a dozen times and understand how it all works many tasks and duties of engineering become very repetitive and quickly you start feeling like a mindless robot. I believe this is where a lot of players drop engineering and why it's one of the less popular jobs on Goon. The TEG and it's depth is what allowed the really dedicated and experienced engineers to still enjoy engineering even after having sunken hundreds of hours into the department. Unlike anything else in engineering it allowed for setups (currently pipeburns) where absolutely insane values of power, pressure, and temperature, could be achieved without much time-consuming repetitive work but still with some difficulty making it more exclusive for the most dedicated engineers.
Unlike the other setups this was the only current setup which allowed for so many possibilities as a result from the outright extreme values, like as mentioned, PTL Gibbing, hotwiring the station as antag and actually having it be dangerous, using the powergloves and actually doing damage, unlocking the 1mil achievement, making entire station-wide canister bombs, the list goes on.
As far as I have seen so far after the merge is that it's just a nerf adding the repetitive gameplay aspect now also into the pipeburns with the having to weld pipes constantly which takes up valuable time when attempting to perfect a burn, experiment, or running antag and trying to incinerate people with zaps.
It's a huge limitation to previous incredibly enjoyable and rewarding possibilities in engineering.
Now don't get me wrong here, I value change a ton (the new burst pipe sprite is great!), change make the game so much more interesting to me, but when the change implies adding tedious elements to the only method we have in engineering of doing what we enjoy the most and possibly even preventing us from doing it, then I really start to question what the purpose of a change like this is. Who does it benefit? Who will have a more enjoyable experience because of this change?
Hopefully we will find a way to adapt and work around the new mechanic and figure out a way to reach the values we want differently. But as it stands right now a lot of gameplay we usually enjoy and have a blast with is now literally not possible to do at this time as far as we know, after the merge, and if we really can't figure out a way to do this without having to weld pipes for 60 minutes then if it's possible to unmerge or have it come under review my vote stands strong to revert the changes. I am sure there is a different way to go about this if we want TEG mechanics changed that will make it more FUN! Not more tedious.
As a disclaimer I am not speaking for every single engineer player out there, obviously everybody has different opinions and this is me and a few other engineering mains who dislike this addition and didn't feel like we got much say at all in the matter before the addition was just, here.