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Grind-Blindness: The Characteristic Elite: Dangerous Disease
- Thread starter Anthemeia
- Start date
My pet peeve is folk insisting that the game is shallow and I'm not really having fun, because THEY spent all their time grinding and can't take it anymore.
It is a strange and somewhat recent phenomenon, to associate variety with fun (in gaming). Some folk clearly aren't interested in repeating something, despite associated rewards.
Brought FF1 NES cartridge to a friend's house as a kid. Friend said, "Look, I can win just by pushing 'A.'" Clearly no concept of the broader picture, incremental progress (to be fair he was like 8).
I went that route during my 20s, playing Halo and WoW with a ferocious intensity. I never went CoD, and I calmed to my norm, returned to playing empire management, building, economy simulation, and yes, cockpit simulator games.
Of course, we see this in life, as well. Gaining age and wisdom often leads to long term planning and follow through, grinning all the while.
Your Hutton Syndrome is known, perhaps in yesterday's parlance, as maturity.
Brought FF1 NES cartridge to a friend's house as a kid. Friend said, "Look, I can win just by pushing 'A.'" Clearly no concept of the broader picture, incremental progress (to be fair he was like 8).
I went that route during my 20s, playing Halo and WoW with a ferocious intensity. I never went CoD, and I calmed to my norm, returned to playing empire management, building, economy simulation, and yes, cockpit simulator games.
Of course, we see this in life, as well. Gaining age and wisdom often leads to long term planning and follow through, grinning all the while.
Your Hutton Syndrome is known, perhaps in yesterday's parlance, as maturity.
I know this is meant as satire but you're incredibly bang on with the causes, the symptons and the cure for grind blindness but also for focusing too much on all the negatives about the game. I know that I enjoyed the game the most when I was a first time player working my way up from the starter Sidey and I was not even looking at the forums - that was the happiest I have ever been with ED.
And every time I take a break from not engaging in any Elite Dangerous related activities outside of playing I find I have more fun just playing the game. The official forums here in particular can make you feel tired and burnt out on ED without even playing ED. Deranged Discussions in particular seems to have this fatiguing and enthusiasm draining aura about it. Could be all those samey threads lately about a subscription model of course, they'd test even Gandhi's patience
Well, good post OP! It's quite the eye opener about ED burnout/fatigue [up]
Funny, my pet peeve is people telling other people they're either a) playing it wrong, b) not good enough, or my personal favourite, c) stop hating the game, it's perfect.
Good to see this thread carries on this proud tradition.
Well I'll will take a swing at this and I am aware that I might just fit the bill of this satire....
I will agree on some points, and putting on "horse blinders" by focusing hard on achieving a single goal/task doesn't help. You can reach a point where booting up the game seems to be a chore.However that does not negate the fact that a lot of the activities are repetitive in nature due to the current design of the game.
A good example I can give was one of my favorite activities: RES Bounty Hunting. I have spent hundreds of hours in these rings over the past two years. I can say with full confidence that once you have been to one RES you have been to them all. No matter which corner of the galaxy your in or what flavor of RES you picked they generally play out the same. Different skybox/background sure, police/no-police, but the npcs are stupidly predictable, they have no unique behavior just the same repeated 4 or 5 lines of chat repeated over and over.
The same could be said of minor factions. Sol Green Liberation Party will not act or behave and differently than LHS 545 Blue Freedom Party. The only real difference between some minor factions in the pool from which the pull missions from.
I release that much of this stems from the nature and scale of having a galaxy sized sandbox but would it hurt to throw in random scenarios based on the current state of a system or controlling power? FD seem to be focused on adding more gimmicks for doing the same things rather than making the current content more interesting.
I will agree on some points, and putting on "horse blinders" by focusing hard on achieving a single goal/task doesn't help. You can reach a point where booting up the game seems to be a chore.However that does not negate the fact that a lot of the activities are repetitive in nature due to the current design of the game.
A good example I can give was one of my favorite activities: RES Bounty Hunting. I have spent hundreds of hours in these rings over the past two years. I can say with full confidence that once you have been to one RES you have been to them all. No matter which corner of the galaxy your in or what flavor of RES you picked they generally play out the same. Different skybox/background sure, police/no-police, but the npcs are stupidly predictable, they have no unique behavior just the same repeated 4 or 5 lines of chat repeated over and over.
The same could be said of minor factions. Sol Green Liberation Party will not act or behave and differently than LHS 545 Blue Freedom Party. The only real difference between some minor factions in the pool from which the pull missions from.
I release that much of this stems from the nature and scale of having a galaxy sized sandbox but would it hurt to throw in random scenarios based on the current state of a system or controlling power? FD seem to be focused on adding more gimmicks for doing the same things rather than making the current content more interesting.
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Hey. No need to grind to do engineers. I have opened up five or six and found it great fun and it hasn't felt repetitive in any shape or form.
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Maybe add.
- Forgetting that games played over longer times, all end up being repetitive when you play 100+ hours.
Sometimes it sounds as if people are expecting to be able to play over hundreds of hours and not feeling things repeat, I don't think anyone is disagreeing that when you play 100+ hours things get repetitive, and easily feel grind, how you approach it is another thing.
I mean people have been playing thousands upon thousands of hours of various mmo's and I've yet to meet any that doesn't feel repetitive, only question is when this feeling arrives.
I've yet to see mission/quest systems that can last over so much time, and not feel boiled down to their basics, which you know, any and all quests/missions have basic concepts, you can't simply pluck a new concept out of the air.
Riiiight, stopped reading there [rolleyes]
Oh, feel welcome to do as you please. But if you insist on playing the game in a way you dont enjoy, then complain you dont enjoy it and equally insist on carrying on... well, its not the best use of a frontal lobe I have seen.
Btw, people hating a game need a shrink more than anything else.
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verminstar
Banned
Cool beans m8...I spent half a day unlocking just one and found I had to farm some material fer just one modification. Spent the other half of the day trying to find said material and failed. Started on the road back to colonia that night...aint looking back at what might have been.
I dont gamble in real life...I take my car to have the engine remapped, then I know the exact specifications before the job is even started, and if the results are not exactly as promised, Ill have my money back. Seems precision engineering took an evolutionary step backwards when we started flying spaceships, and they rely on random luck in the future?
I can live without them, too much hassle and non guaranteed results means I have no hesitation in ignoring them entirely. Also...I hate playing this game in the bubble...being there fer any amount of time makes me wanna play something else. Stick some engineers in colonia with the ability to gather the materials there and Im as happy as a pig in the brown stuff ^
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I'd love to know how to get to Colonia without it being a grind.
The best way I've found to combat the inherent tedium that is a lot of ED's content is to play other games, while the ED launcher sits gathering dust on my desktop.
The best way I've found to combat the inherent tedium that is a lot of ED's content is to play other games, while the ED launcher sits gathering dust on my desktop.
Here is the thing: if you say 'I want to do x ASAP' then yes, it'll be a grind. Going to Colonia is grindy as heck if you wan to do it in 24 hours. If you take the time and just explore you'll eventually get there and have way more fun. Same with engineers. You get mats and data for basically everything you do, and pretty much everything can gained from doing whatever missions you like. There is a middle road between grinding your eyes out and ignoring something completely...
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verminstar
Banned
The grindy way...unengineered can still make it in under 24 hours...jump honk jump honk jump honk scoop jump honk etc etc until target destination reached.
The non grindy way...cya in a couple months.
The grind is a choice...when one is forced to grind to continue playing, one will cease to play and move on...as gamers always do in the end. My refusal to entertain engineers seems to trouble others more than it troubles me...Im almost intrigued as to why but I suspect I already know the answer.
Whatever the case might be...Ive spent 1600 hours without a single engineer modification...if Im still happy and still playing, then whats the issue? I dont see the issue, so by all means enlighten me ^
This is true ... howeverHere is the thing: if you say 'I want to do x ASAP' then yes, it'll be a grind. Going to Colonia is grindy as heck if you wan to do it in 24 hours. If you take the time and just explore you'll eventually get there and have way more fun. Same with engineers. You get mats and data for basically everything you do, and pretty much everything can gained from doing whatever missions you like. There is a middle road between grinding your eyes out and ignoring something completely...
As an explorer I am hardly ever in the bubble, and save for tearing around on planet surfaces collecting the odd material or two, it doesn't yield any significant engineering materials. For engineers there are some materials where you just have to be in the bubble. So when I need an upgrade, I have no choice but to want it ASAP, since I want to get back out in deep space ASAP. I'm getting restless after 1 day in the bubble. Case in point: wake scans. When am I going to encounter wake scans 10.000+ LYs from the bubble? I won't. So the only way for me to collect them for an FSD increase is to hang around a station for extended periods of time hunting high wakes. For a trader these could be collected during normal play, for an explorer, not so much.
verminstar
Banned
Here is the thing: if you say 'I want to do x ASAP' then yes, it'll be a grind. Going to Colonia is grindy as heck if you wan to do it in 24 hours. If you take the time and just explore you'll eventually get there and have way more fun. Same with engineers. You get mats and data for basically everything you do, and pretty much everything can gained from doing whatever missions you like. There is a middle road between grinding your eyes out and ignoring something completely...
I gave them a fair chance...24 hours and nothing to show fer it apart from a bad taste in my mouth and not even a basic single modification. If Id gotten just a taste of the good stuff, then I might have gotten hooked, but 24 hours effort fer nothing just confirmed what I already suspect...it wouldnt get any better than that.
Even dealers give ye a taste of the good stuff to get ye hooked at the start before doing mediocre. With rngeers, they dont start mediocre, they start abysmal and then get mediocre and besides...thread after countless salty thread on the subject dont exactly inspire confidence that they are all wrong. Where theres smoke, theres fire.
Also...the bubble? I dont like spending any time there...some the most unpleasent experiences Ive had in this game have all been in that place, ergo engineers becomes a problem if I set my sights on them...there is no way around that. To my logic, thats being forced to play a different game than the one I choose...and I choose exploration which means not being in the bubble ^
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Brilliant post
Though I seen you used the word "game" quite a bit through there, I don't see enough enjoyment provided from this Application to ever call it a game....So by spreading the grind out over a couple of months it no longer becomes a grind? You are still going to have to watch the same number of loading screens, scoop the same amount of fuel and honk, honk, honk away in total isolation.
Of course this can be interspersed with scanning beige planets and driving around featurless terrain in the glass SRV, but that too becomes very dull very quickly.