Play more - Grind less! If you feel to need to grind you are doing something wrong.

[deMangler]

The thing is, I dont think even the best can come up with something that wouldnt be "abused" by compulsive grinders. No matter what kind of activity you can think of, one will always be the majority's favorite. They will do only those one or two things because its the most effective way - and call it a grind. Then if it get changed/balanced something else will be the favorite activity.

I have found this to be true right back to the days of my pen and paper gaming in the '80s. No matter the system, from AD&D to CyberPunk to Rolemaster, From MUDs to MMO's. There are always people who enjoy the spirit of the game and those who pick a number (metaphorically) and grind towards it. It is a mindset.
As a GM part of the challenge is to make the game fun for grinders and RPers alike - this is possible and even the mix of types makes a gaming group well balanced. However it is a skill that depends on very hands-on GM work. There is no way that FD can or should do this. It is up to them to provide options for different types of gamers, which they are doing excellently. You can pretty much chose your playstyle in ED already although it is broad strokes at the moment.
Choosing a playstyle that isn't fun just doesn't work. I know I have tried a few and personally I avoid PP - Some people really like it so for them it is not broken. I find it grindy. Luckily I have yet to run out of different ways to play and enjoy the game.
My only complaint is the lack of detail and depth from the DDA.

 

[Kayweg]

It's getting ridiculous man, if someone wants something in the game, he has to do what's needed for it. If it's grind, he will grind! I glad for you to be happy with nothing but some of us want to achieve some goals and we have to pass through grinding. We actually want to play the game and what it's offering!

What about some people wanting rank 5? Nah don't play like that cause it's not fun?

You are basically saying that we don't have to play the game to have fun!

How about questioning the non fun game mechanics instead of not playing it?

Agreed.

It's not like "fun" is something you just DECIDE to have.

Either the various game activities provide it or they don't, highly subjective of course.

Why trying to achieve goals within the game (any game) is perceived "doing it wrong" is beyond me.

Every game has repetitive tasks, i accept that, but ED takes the crown in linear, pure number-stacking progression without variation.

Oddly enough, i still have fun "grinding" in games like WT, PoE or ESO for example.

Completely different genres, of course, but they prove that playing for long term goals can be entertaining.

 

[BumbleDee128]

I think the idea of the PP is for many people to work on these objectives, in stead of one person moving 100 units I think they designed it so that ten people each carry 100. Its to stimulate more players not more grind, if your having trouble then get out there and recruit more pilots.
As for me ive always played casually, but if your a trader or an explorer, or even a bouty hunter then "gringing" is doing your job c: I think many players do let the repatitive nature get to them espicall when people try to min/max.
However it would be nice for more flavor, anything that adds details or encourages the imagination is better then moving tokens from one system to the other. The community goals do this better then the PP I think.

 

[Schlack]

I think the idea of the PP is for many people to work on these objectives, in stead of one person moving 100 units I think they designed it so that ten people each carry 100. Its to stimulate more players not more grind, if your having trouble then get out there and recruit more pilots.
As for me ive always played casually, but if your a trader or an explorer, or even a bouty hunter then "gringing" is doing your job c: I think many players do let the repatitive nature get to them espicall when people try to min/max.
However it would be nice for more flavor, anything that adds details or encourages the imagination is better then moving tokens from one system to the other. The community goals do this better then the PP I think.

So in order to play pp, if I understand correctly I should recruit more CMDrs. As there is limited means of doing so in game and there is a lack of tools for comms or strategy I must do so out of the game
In order to play the game I should not play the game?

Also it doesn't work. More numbers leads to the mad situation in arrissa territory of 15000% fortification. This is a direct result of casual players interested only in theinor rewards. What a waste.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Well, I DO want a pair of modules locked behind a PP wall that no other scientist or arms manufacturer has managed to reverse engineer or build so...

 

[Macgyver]

All hail the glorious IMAGINATION!

lol
Flyboy says the dreadful grind is not grind.
oh sorry please forgive my tremendous yawning face.
Please be having fun because I can have fun so it's not grind?

You see dear sir, for my mind is very complicated , I get bored easily with trivial boring tasks repeated over and over.
I am glad you find it fun, perhaps your mind is better suited to such tasks?

 

[Werppa]

lol
Flyboy says the dreadful grind is not grind.
oh sorry please forgive my tremendous yawning face.
Please be having fun because I can have fun so it's not grind?

You see dear sir, for my mind is very complicated , I get bored easily with trivial boring tasks repeated over and over.
I am glad you find it fun, perhaps your mind is better suited to such tasks?

Pretty much this... I think I have good enough imagination for reading books and immersing myself in them, but clearly not good enough for this game. It doesn't really matter if I think I'm the the head of some imaginary guild in Lave when I'm doing 4h long trade runs over and over again. Elite is actually a decent game for what it is, but it's still just way too bare boned at the moment.

 

[deMangler]

Agreed.

It's not like "fun" is something you just DECIDE to have.

Fun is definitely something we can just decide to have. What we cannot do is magically turn something that is fun for others but not fun for us into something that is fun for us.
When we decide to play a game then we choose to do something that is fun. Sometimes something we thought would be fun because others seem to enjoy it turns out not to be fun for us, so we can make another choice. This is how we make our decision to have fun a practical one. Unless you want to play a game in order to be miserable...

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

lol
Flyboy says the dreadful grind is not grind.
oh sorry please forgive my tremendous yawning face.
Please be having fun because I can have fun so it's not grind?

You see dear sir, for my mind is very complicated , I get bored easily with trivial boring tasks repeated over and over.
I am glad you find it fun, perhaps your mind is better suited to such tasks?

What the "flyboy" is saying is that if you do something you find as being a grind - then STOP doing it and do something thats fun for you.

Nobody is forcing you. The expansion/undermining target numbers are too large for any man to reach single handedly anyway.

I spend only a couple of hours every week powerplaying. This keeps me above 1500 merits = 5.000.000 almost free credits.
I dont care about the 5th rank where the only thing you are getting is more credits for an crazy amount of merits.

So, how do I powerplay?

I take kill missions in hostile control systems, so I make money while undermining. I stick to the places where I know a lot of hostile players to come by and challenge them for a fight.
I also do smuggling missions but not too many as they get boring - but its good and easy money WHILE you wait for the next load of PP goods.

 

[Kulin]

I think you are getting it wrong. People complain because the fastest way is grind. You say: take the slow way then. I say: why? Just make the fast way also as entertaining as the slow way. And that is the core of the complaints.

Easy.

 

[Ozimandeus]

There are lots of fun to be had, but you need to stop forcing yourself into the grind. Because its not needed to succeed in the game.
Try NOT to treat the game as work and have some fun with it. The better gear, ship or credit balance is not a guarantee for succes.

Fun is a parameter for succes that most people seem to forget.

Well said Commander! I agree 100%

 

[deMangler]

I think you are getting it wrong. People complain because the fastest way is grind. You say: take the slow way then. I say: why? Just make the fast way also as entertaining as the slow way. And that is the core of the complaints.

Easy.

True. Another thing to consider is that ED provides short, medium and long term goals. Many grind experiences seem to come from players trying to attain long term goals in the short term.

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

I think you are getting it wrong. People complain because the fastest way is grind. You say: take the slow way then. I say: why? Just make the fast way also as entertaining as the slow way. And that is the core of the complaints.

Easy.

The fastest way will always be a grind There is NO WAY you can make anything like ranking up or gaining money a non grind. It will always be a matter of repeating tasks. The game developer can try to mask it - but it will always boil down to a rinse and repeat mentality. Just because its "the fastest way".

So go ahead and do it how ever you like, but dont come back here crying because of burn out. You do that to your self.

So - I think Im getting it right

 

[Shaamaan]

This thread is... sad.

Not because the OP is having fun. No, that's great! What is sad is that he cannot seem to fathom why people do find the game a grind, and as such puts the blame on the players, rather than FDevs.

Can I still have fun in ED? Well, I like combat, so I can probably find ways to enjoy it (albeit I combat NPCs, and shield regen present in 1.2, while "cheap" made sure there was almost no down-time, making things exciting). But even I can see the game is choke full of grind elements - and that, generally, IS NOT A GOOD THING!

Grind elements exist in all games, even the ones with a ton of content. But you can have occasional grindy elements which are furthermore obscured by complex gameplay and you can have easy, obvious grind elements all the time. Guess which kind is ED full of?

 

[darthyank]

Thanks Op for the message.

Nice video.

I didnt know you could attack an enemy near base with only the non-shooting penalty.

Fly dangerously

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

This thread is... sad.

Not because the OP is having fun. No, that's great! What is sad is that he cannot seem to fathom why people do find the game a grind, and as such puts the blame on the players, rather than FDevs.

Can I still have fun in ED? Well, I like combat, so I can probably find ways to enjoy it (albeit I combat NPCs, and shield regen present in 1.2, while "cheap" made sure there was almost no down-time, making things exciting). But even I can see the game is choke full of grind elements - and that, generally, IS NOT A GOOD THING!

Grind elements exist in all games, even the ones with a ton of content. But you can have occasional grindy elements which are furthermore obscured by complex gameplay and you can have easy, obvious grind elements all the time. Guess which kind is ED full of?

Its sad you cant seem to understand the point of the thread.

If you read my posts you will see that I "fathom" very well why people think its a grind. But I just say - stop doing it or take breaks.

NOTHING IS FORCING YOU.

People are clearly saying they are not having fun so... why the fork (an instrument of eating) are they doing it?

 

[Zanten]

Ironically, for me the grinding actually started BECAUSE I'd lost much in the way of worthwhile things to do. (I haven't played in quite awhile, nostalgia brought me back here because I did quite enjoy chatting with the community on these forums.) I'd blown up so many pirates my body count would make hardened war criminals blush, flown around scanning planets, tried my hand at mining, even just sat in my ship and stared googly-eyed at some planets, etc, etc, all while I was running around in my Viper; it reached the point where it was all a grind, because it ultimately felt like I was still just doing the same thing over and over. The only difference between it and the grinding you speak of is what I was doing didn't even HAVE an end goal, some purpose to stride towards, and was simply repetition without point. Which is ultimately why I began running trade routes; it was a grind, but it was a low-key, quiet, comfortable grind, the kind you could manage while simultaneously watching something significantly more engaging in the background, and in the end it netted me a really big, really shiny ship. And funny enough, sniffing out trade routes actually engaged me more than nearly ANYTHING else, because it felt like I had some level of agency in it; trying to second-guess supply and demand, work out the best places to visit, compare prices, etc... it beat sitting in an asteroid belt and waiting for the game to randomly feed me pirate to shoot.

Of course, after I had the shiny ship, I tired of the grind because there was no big, shiny goal to pursue and instead I could try to make twelve million credits to incrementally upgrade my hull plating, but like I said, everything I had been doing before then eventually felt like a purposeless grind, a repetition of the same handful of actions. Went back to bounty hunting; quickly lost interest. Went to visit some spots like Sol and other notable systems; again, quickly lost interest. Went out to see about meeting some players for a friendly chat, but the lack of a 'space pub' equivalent meant I was really just better off closing the game and coming to these forums if I wanted to talk shop with members of the community, because most people in-game are too busy flying around and pew-pewing to really chat with you. Didn't even BOTHER trying to mine again. xD

While I understand the prospect of making your own goals, and forging your own adventures, at the end of the day any goal I came up with involved some form of grind-yness, including exploration. Wanna go to the center of the galaxy? Prepare to fuel scoop and angle your hyperjump window a LOT. x_x (Although if they've tweaked exploration to be a bit more, well, eventful, I'd be interested in hearing about it.)

In any case, it's fantastic you've found a way to play the game and enjoy it, more power to ya. =D

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

Ironically, for me the grinding actually started BECAUSE I'd lost much in the way of worthwhile things to do. (I haven't played in quite awhile, nostalgia brought me back here because I did quite enjoy chatting with the community on these forums.) I'd blown up so many pirates my body count would make hardened war criminals blush, flown around scanning planets, tried my hand at mining, even just sat in my ship and stared googly-eyed at some planets, etc, etc, all while I was running around in my Viper; it reached the point where it was all a grind, because it ultimately felt like I was still just doing the same thing over and over. The only difference between it and the grinding you speak of is what I was doing didn't even HAVE an end goal, some purpose to stride towards, and was simply repetition without point. Which is ultimately why I began running trade routes; it was a grind, but it was a low-key, quiet, comfortable grind, the kind you could manage while simultaneously watching something significantly more engaging in the background, and in the end it netted me a really big, really shiny ship. And funny enough, sniffing out trade routes actually engaged me more than nearly ANYTHING else, because it felt like I had some level of agency in it; trying to second-guess supply and demand, work out the best places to visit, compare prices, etc... it beat sitting in an asteroid belt and waiting for the game to randomly feed me pirate to shoot.

Of course, after I had the shiny ship, I tired of the grind because there was no big, shiny goal to pursue and instead I could try to make twelve million credits to incrementally upgrade my hull plating, but like I said, everything I had been doing before then eventually felt like a purposeless grind, a repetition of the same handful of actions. Went back to bounty hunting; quickly lost interest. Went to visit some spots like Sol and other notable systems; again, quickly lost interest. Went out to see about meeting some players for a friendly chat, but the lack of a 'space pub' equivalent meant I was really just better off closing the game and coming to these forums if I wanted to talk shop with members of the community, because most people in-game are too busy flying around and pew-pewing to really chat with you. Didn't even BOTHER trying to mine again. xD

While I understand the prospect of making your own goals, and forging your own adventures, at the end of the day any goal I came up with involved some form of grind-yness, including exploration. Wanna go to the center of the galaxy? Prepare to fuel scoop and angle your hyperjump window a LOT. x_x (Although if they've tweaked exploration to be a bit more, well, eventful, I'd be interested in hearing about it.)

In any case, it's fantastic you've found a way to play the game and enjoy it, more power to ya. =D

Correct me if im wrong, but you sound like you pursue goals.
I pursue events/excitement. I interdict people in wings for fun... because its fun to tease them. And thats just one thing.

The thing about goals is the fact that there will always be a more effective way of getting there. And some people do that ONE thing compulsively and then burn out... its your own fault in a way.

Edit: Forgot one thing - if you catch yourself waiting in a asteroid belt... why didnt you go somewhere else? Find a strong signal source... now theres action for the money.

 

[Zanten]

Correct me if im wrong, but you sound like you pursue goals.
I pursue events/excitement. I interdict people in wings for fun... because its fun to tease them. And thats just one thing.

The thing about goals is the fact that there will always be a more effective way of getting there. And some people do that ONE thing compulsively and then burn out... its your own fault in a way.

Aye, but it does come down to different strokes. When it comes to interaction, for example, I prefer a friendly, constructive encounter- a conversation, comparing experiences or loadout, etc, even to a certain extent collaboration- to an aggressive encounter, i.e. interdicting or attacking another player. For reasons I already listed, the game itself isn't so much a haven for non-aggressive social activity; although I would often find a heavily populated system and drop out near a Nav Beacon- in a heavily armed Anaconda, to discourage anyone from pew-pewing at me- I would only very rarely find an enjoyable conversation with another player. Most of the time it was just 'Nice ship.' 'Thanks!' 'Well, bye' and they'd go off to shoot pirates. The only real exception was when Leonard Nimoy passed away and I, along with others, made a pilgrimage to a system as a sort of memorial, and chatted a bit in the process. For the most part, though, if I want to have a friendly encounter, share and learn amongst players, the forum always felt like the better place to do it by far, which was a definite shame; much of what kept me playing MMOs like WoW or City of Heroes was that, in between hack-en-slashems, I could have awesome social activities with people I'd met, without PvP or sometimes any combat whatsoever.

I already mentioned that PvP isn't really my thing, (beyond very occasional forays,) and because even pure social play is (or, at least, was while I was playing) very, very shallow here, it largely left me relying on the game's own content, which was... well, not exactly fleshy.

It isn't the fault of the game for not catering to my tastes, certainly, I'm just pointing out that some people who aren't 'clicking' with the game just ultimately might just be looking for something the game can't offer them. I'm well aware of all the stuff you can do involving other players, I'm just not interested in a majority of them. E is one of the main 'big space sims' out there right now, along with Eve Online of course, so it's inevitable people who are interested in a big space game will flock to it in order to get their sci-fi fix; it will ultimately appeal to many people, but there are also many who just won't be engaged by what it has to offer when all is said and done, because like any other game, there are areas in which it falls short. Some who choose to grind probably do so because they're already bored with what the game currently offers, and hopes a bigger ship will 'make things better.' (Which, spoiler for anyone in the mindset, it proooobably won't.)

As other space games come out, though, and other niches are filled- Star Citizen presumably filling the absurdly complicated niche, NMS the 'explore like a happy space butterfly with lasers' niche- there'll probably be less dismay, because there'll be other options, and other flavors of space game to keep everyone happy. :3

 

[Kulin]

The fastest way will always be a grind There is NO WAY you can make anything like ranking up or gaining money a non grind. It will always be a matter of repeating tasks. The game developer can try to mask it - but it will always boil down to a rinse and repeat mentality. Just because its "the fastest way".

So go ahead and do it how ever you like, but dont come back here crying because of burn out. You do that to your self.

So - I think Im getting it right

Your whole chain of arguments is build on the idea that repetition means grind. But that in fact is not true. Only if you add in the word "boring" it will become a grind. And making a part of your game boring is bad and/or cheap game design. And that by all means is never the players fault. There are countless repetitive games out there that are nonetheless entertaining for millions of players.

So: the fastest ways is not always a grind. The game designers alone decide which is the fastest/easiest way to earn something. If they reward grind than it's THEIR decision.

Players are like electricity. They always take the way of least resistance. Its the challenge of game design to decide which is the way of least resistance and to make it as entertaining, challenging and rewarding(in many ways) as possible.