FDevs does everything have to be a grind?

worsin

W
First off i do love this game. I would love it more though, if everything wasn't a grind.

Getting Faction Rep = Grind
Getting to Elite = Grind
Finding Engineer Resources = Grind
Getting Good Stats on Modules = Grind
Power Play = Grind
Getting Synth Resources = Grind

Literally every activity in this game results in a massive time sink.

Now don't get me wrong, a game needs longevity and end game goals that take a while to accomplish, like i do believe that you should not be able to get to Elite and King in a month.

Other parts of the game however should not be a massive grind. Right now you can literally spend an entire day just looking for Iron. You shouldn't have to say to yourself, "hmm what should i do today, i think ill go get some iron but that's all i will be able to do in my few hours to play"

Right now i'm on hunt for Sulfur, been on this planet for several hours now and i've only found 4 spots that have materials 1 rock at a time.

Making everything a grind is not the answer to keeping people playing longer, good content, gameplay and community are what do this, not more grinding.

Now the first thing people are going to say is "You don't have to grind for anything if you don't want to" to me this is not a good answer, for some people having a Cutter or Experimenting with ship builds is what makes them happy and interested in the game. It should not take months and months of playing to accomplish some of these things.

In my experience games that do not have anything to offer are the ones that make everything a grind, ED is better than that, we don't need it to be a grind in order to stay interested.
 

withnail

withnail
You are about to encounter comments like "use your imagination", "if you're grinding for something you really want then you're doing it wrong", "kids these days don't know how to work for something" and my all time favourite; the person wielding the sidewinder with a placard picture.
 

Ayn Otori

A
worsin said:
Sorry but games should always be fun, not tons of hard work resulting in a little fun. Its a game not a job.
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Actually, it is a simulation, which is playable as a game. It tries to simulate space. So working for stuff, looking for stuff, finding stuff is all in real time. You want a game, play NMS.
 

Valorin

Valorin
There really is no grind. There is only the idea of players to have everything as fast as possible, as good as possible and best yesterday. If you want a Cutter, or a Corvette for example, you have to part of the Imperial/Federal navy, which doesn't mean you do a few jobs for them but dedicate a part of your career to the service. Being an Elite pilot means you're... well, Elite. Not that you "grinded" your way up in a few days. Getting your ship engineered doesn't mean you have to get the best of best results, but at some point you should be satisfied with what you get, because that's how life works.

If you find yourself grinding in Elite it's either a matter of impatience or perhaps OCD. Both are on your end. mmorpgs might work that way, but in a space sim game (and Elite already compromised a lot here) you have to invest some time and get used to the thought that there's no such thing as an "end game" and also that it's not about "leveling up" as fast as possible. Yeah, there are things you can achieve in Elite, and you can try to force that, and the well established rules of nowaday's gaming culture might have lead you to the conclusion that anything in a game should be achievable in a certain time frame, but that's exactly how it _not_ works in a game that's even a little bit a sim. This game will not satisfy your instant gratification monkey.
 
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withnail

withnail
Aashenfox said:
Yes, yes, it does. Because without the hardship, how would you recognise the fun when it happens? That may sound sarcastic, but it's not.
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I've just completed the new Zelda game. Very different type of game, but you can do the main quest at your own pace and the whole thing was a joy from start to finish.

Grinding to get a reward at the end of it is poor gameplay. I would rather enjoy the whole of the time I'm playing a game.
 

M00ka

M00ka
But isn't every considered to be a grind? To be honest here, some would call any action you have to repeat more than once a grind - right! But in reality (well ED reality) all you are doing is working, doing the job you signed up for. You want one of the big ships, you have to put in the effort, and a consistent effort at that. And the sad fact is most of the complaints are what could be called self-inflicted, oh deary me, I have to grind to get the Corvette. Well you, and you alone, made the decision you wanted the Corvette. Oh noes, I have to fly around to find some obscure mats - you are only doing that so you can get an Engineering upgrade. Can you play the game without the Corvette or the upgrade - hell yes. If getting hard to obtain items was easy, everyone would have them and then there would be more complaints about how everyone has the same things.

It's not like the 'grind' is required gameplay that you must do. I would envisage the vast majority do the 'grind' without knowing it or at least with the knowledge that they are preforming these tasks for a reward they set themselves.
 

worsin

W
I never said that everything should be easy. My point is that EVERYTHING should not entail a massive amount of time required to do it.

Some things should take a long time and others should not.

In this game EVERYTHING is a grind.
 

M00ka

M00ka
worsin said:
I never said that everything should be easy. My point is that EVERYTHING should not entail a massive amount of time required to do it.

Some things should take a long time and others should not.

In this game EVERYTHING is a grind.
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There are things you can get immediately - want a sidewinder, lose your ship - bang, one free, brand new Sidewinder, just for you. Seriously, there are a lot of things you can get relatively quickly, it is just most here already have the cheaper ships and the common mats etc. I think the problem is people expect to have to do the same amount of effort to get an Anaconda as they did to get a Hauler.
 
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Aashenfox

Aashenfox
worsin said:
Sorry but games should always be fun, not tons of hard work resulting in a little fun. Its a game not a job.
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Sorry, but that's simply not the case. Look at any other MMO. You like mining in WoW?

Think philosophically about what I said. You spend time to prepare to have the 'real' fun. As it should be, time should equal reward. I realise that for the way YOU want to play, you see that as boring, but some of us like to need to show our dedication in order to be the best. If you gave every noob everything good within 20 hours, I would be out of this game so fast you wouldn't see my wake trail. A game that requires nothing in order to master, has no draw whatsoever for me.

withnail said:
I've just completed the new Zelda game. Very different type of game, but you can do the main quest at your own pace and the whole thing was a joy from start to finish.

Grinding to get a reward at the end of it is poor gameplay. I would rather enjoy the whole of the time I'm playing a game.
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A 40 hour adventure is not comparable to a 3000 hour plus MMO.
 
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withnail

withnail
I've played this game since Alpha. I'm not trying to rank up (I'm still not elite in combat or trade yet have over 12 weeks play time). I've been to Sag A in a type 6, I've been heavily involved in Powerplay, I've engineered ships and participated in CG's. I've UA bombed stations (frontier ones, not pmf ones), worked the BGS.

I'm at the point where I have realised that the whole thing is paper thin. I just want fun and engaging gameplay and can't see where it is coming from. The thargoid thing still looks to be a series of placeholders storylines for someone else's story.

The sheer amount of time it takes to move ships, obtain money for rebuys etc is preventing me from doing the things I want when I log in. I'm not using exploits either, so everything is incredibly slow.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Hold on, don't confuse grind with time sink.

Yes, there must be time sinks. Without time sinks, everyone can be Elite with max ranks and a stable of the biggest ships really quickly. That is not desirable from a game design perspective if you want players to keep playing. You might not like it, but its needed. Whether those time sinks are big enough, or perhaps not big enough, is a matter of debate and subjective opinion.

Grind is also to some extent necessary, if by grind you mean performing repetitive tasks. Simply because there is no way in a game like this FD can create enough custom and engaging content to keep giving people new experiences all the time. Once you are a few hundred hours in you will have had the chance to experience already 99% of the game multiple times over. Basically its a complaint largely about how many hours you have spent in the game vs available content.

So, (for example) FD add a new way to get ranks, new content, and then, within a few hours, people have already consumed that, done whatever it is a dozen times over, and are now saying its just more grind. Well, yeah, no doo-doo Sherlock. :p

Basically, it comes down to you and how you approach it. If you say you want X within Y time, then you push yourself to grind. If you instead say, well, i'd like X at some point, but i refuse to grind for it, instead ill just play the game, then the grind simply disappears.

Give it a try. Trust me, destroying your enjoyment of the game because of an imagined need to get a Cutter/Corvette ASAP is just going to lead to disappointment. Yeah, you might enjoy the ship once you have it, but you might destroy your enjoyment of the game in the process. And owning the biggest ships take a lot of the challenge from the game. Combat becomes stupidly easy in a Corvette. Trade becomes too easy to make money in a Cutter (pirates are a joke, you can just low wake away easily).

Play the game, don't play the grind.
 

withnail

withnail
Aashenfox said:
Sorry, but that's simply not the case. Look at any other MMO. You like mining in WoW?

Think philosophically about what I said.



A 40 hour adventure is not comparable to a 3000 hour plus MMO.
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It is an example of engaging gameplay though. I spent over 100 hours on it too.
 

Bomba Luigi

Bomba Luigi
If everythign is a grind why bother with the game at all? Even if you grind to get those things, all you can do with it is more grind.

Everything becomes grind if you don't enjoy what your doing, if you don't enjoy anything in the game you really shouldn't waste your time with it. Like serisously, its okay if thats how the game feels to you I'm not here do blame you. But do yourself a favour and don't play it. There gotta be games out there you enjoy playing.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
withnail said:
It is an example of engaging gameplay though. I spent over 100 hours on it too.
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I don't deny linear games provide more 'fun' per hour than Elite. However, when I see the result of all that grind (how powerful I am in Elite), it is more than worth it.
 

Moritasgus

Moritasgus
I think some of the materials collection stuff needs a look at, it should be skill based not RnG.
Let me go prospecting for an iron node on a planet but when i find one let me fill my boots with the stuff.
Need mechanical components, let me use a mining laser on an old shipwreck and cut them out 20 at a time etc etc.
Finding the stuff should be a skill, not an rng exercise.

Also the problem with being an Elite pilot is that you don't have to be elite... i mean it should probably be renamed Persistence: Dangerous because all 3 elite ranks are volume over quality. Not that i want them to turn ranks into some kind of weekly tournament system.

I love the game, i think credits are earnt too fast but some other things are arbitrarily slow so there is definitely some balancing still to do with the Beyond 'season'.
 

tagos

tagos
worsin said:
I never said that everything should be easy. My point is that EVERYTHING should not entail a massive amount of time required to do it.

Some things should take a long time and others should not.

In this game EVERYTHING is a grind.
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Quite.

There’s Grind and there’s Massive Grind.

There are fun grind loops and no fun grind loops.

Spending eight hours hunting HG USS in Civil Unrest systems to get just one with Improvised Components is the latter.

I normally enjoy the game journey but some of the Engineering grind is just absurd. Especially as nothing useful appears as Mission Rewards any more.
 
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