[video] Money GRINDING problem 2

[N3rd Murd3r3r]

Ah, the Reagan Suite at Hotel California; grinding.

The game is basically a hot chick who’s a psycho, but great in bed. You know it’s bad for you, but you keep going back.

Until the day you don’t.

Of all the grind, the rank grind is the most mentally exhausting. I’m sitting at just above FGS/Clipper with both sides and absolutely no concept of how people can Cutter or ‘Vette without a completely alien brain chemistry.

One or at the very most two ranks at a time leaves me dead inside, but it would take YEARS to do it on a casual basis and so you have to dip into it on occasion.

I honestly can’t imagine more than 1% of the player base looked at their rank and went ‘oh I can get this ship now, what a complete surprise!’. It’s just not set out that way.

After two years I still have no idea how so many of you have BOTH of these ships.

It’s an awful dynamic. Awful. If I didn’t love the game so much, it would be a complete deal breaker. Arguably the worst dynamic I’ve experienced in over 30 years of gaming, in fact.

Money on the other hand, that’s easy these days, with a slight proviso on buying and full equipping the Big 3.

 

[Gully Foyle]

There's alot to be said for just progressing naturally in the game, collecting whatever mats, ranks and credits doing whatever you like, be it chasing every last detail to the highest G5 roll like our PvP meta rocket surgeons or just being random BKing trading, taxi, hunter what have you.
No one forces anyone to grind every Pokemon either.

 

[sollisb]

Example of "not a grind".
Time played: 29 weeks. 6 days, 5 hours and 20 mins.

I just hit Rear Admiral the other day just by doing all kinds of different "stuff" and never focusing on one specific goal.
I still have most of my Empire rank to do but again, no hurry. There'll probably be Alliance rank to do which would probably be more interesting to me personally.
It's just more fun to vary your gameplay and not do the same thing repeatedly, at least for me.

Just seems people want things yesterday and just expect games to feed them when I'm from an Era where you when you bought a game, you had to engage with it to work out what to do.
Elite Dangerous is more of an old school game where there value is in working out how all the things work and the rewards come the more you understand the game.

No, No, and No. Just because you are happy to cater to this absurdness, does not in any way infer it is good design. I don't want things yesterday. What I want is a game where I put in the effort, and I get a reward. Not a game where I put in the time, jump through hoops,

and for my reward, I get a chance to dive into the lucky dip of moronic random pool of FDev Game design.

The location of the items are random, the items in the random location are random. The result of using the item is random. There is no understanding to this. For you to imply different is showing how much you don't understand the game.

 

[sollisb]

There's alot to be said for just progressing naturally in the game, collecting whatever mats, ranks and credits doing whatever you like, be it chasing every last detail to the highest G5 roll like our PvP meta rocket surgeons or just being random BKing trading, taxi, hunter what have you.
No one forces anyone to grind every Pokemon either.

No, there is absolutely nothing to be said for 'progressing naturally', whatever that means.

For any game to be successful, it must give the players a reason to play. Aspirations to strive to complete. A level to attain.

We can forgive the 'level to attain' because of the nature of the game.

The rest must be there unless you want a player-base of people who login and play like brain dead zombies, with no goals or aims, but to sit in there chair night after night eventually succeeding at something because, well, it just happened.

If I ever reach the stage where I'm playing a game with no goals or reason, just throw me in a home for the bewildered.

 

[Yamiks]

There's alot to be said for just progressing naturally in the game, collecting whatever mats, ranks and credits doing whatever you like, be it chasing every last detail to the highest G5 roll like our PvP meta rocket surgeons or just being random BKing trading, taxi, hunter what have you.
No one forces anyone to grind every Pokemon either.

...yeah not really the point of what I said : see IF you want to get ANYTHING in this game, you are not asked to do something challenging... YOU ARE ASKED TO GO AND REPEAT THE SAME BORING ACTIONS OVER AND OVER (it doesnt matter if you switch up the type of action, bottom line is that all the things you do are just constantly repeated with little to no variation)

 

[Xae]

So after watching the video and reading the thread what I'm picking up is that most people skipped the "watch the video part".

 

[andrak]

But that's how some people choose to engage with game. In real life some people would grind for money to get Lamborghini or Ferrari too. And that's fine. That's their choice. No one really forced them to do so, they choose their path themselves (and yes, I wouldn't mind to drive Lamborghini at least once in my life too).

I could grind for Anaconda, but frankly it is a huge ship which I will be too nervous to fly. I am really surprised it is sort of go to ship for many players despite it clearly not being best for anything.

You clearly don't understand the Anaconda in that case. In nearly all cases it is "the best" at everything.

 

[sollisb]

You clearly don't understand the Anaconda in that case. In nearly all cases it is "the best" at everything.

Yep I couldn't believe he posted that either.

 

[[VR] Enexemander]

From my viewpoint, acquiring ships is kind of how a new player sees progression. They think "bigger ship = better!" Okay, so they do that. Then what?

That's the issue. People grind to "beat the game" but they don't. They barely understand the game at that point. For me, this game is about being a better space pilot. Different ships are just different flight models to master, new flavors to discover. But I've never been able to convince a newer player of this. The beautiful thing about this game is how you yourself develop in skill. That's the core to me.

Buying new ships and outfitting them is fun. Playing with friends is fun. Manipulating the BGS is at times fun (sometimes just frustrating). etc. But the core of the game is unquestionably ascending to a higher level of ability. Remember how hard it was to dock your first time?

 

[andrak]

Yep I couldn't believe he posted that either.

Seems the biggest fanboi of them all hasn't ever even owned an Anaconda. Questionable credibility when it comes to any other topics of discussion.

 

[Delilah]

https://youtu.be/Wv7WLEtmJNY

Remember : if you are fine with small ships and so on, it's all fine, you do you, but don't come to me saying there is no such thing as "the grind" for the big3...

Great work Yamiks.

 

[[VR] Enexemander]

...yeah not really the point of what I said : see IF you want to get ANYTHING in this game, you are not asked to do something challenging... YOU ARE ASKED TO GO AND REPEAT THE SAME BORING ACTIONS OVER AND OVER (it doesnt matter if you switch up the type of action, bottom line is that all the things you do are just constantly repeated with little to no variation)

That's what you're choosing to do, Yamiks. It's not required for credits. Rank grinding, you have a point. Credits? No. There are too many ways to do it. Practically everything in this game will give you credits. And to address your video, the game will give you more credits for doing things with more skill. Exploration pays extremely well if you pay attention to the goldilocks zone and hunt for terraformables, water worlds, and earthlikes. If you don't want to do that, bounty hunting is right there. Bored of killing lots of ships? Assassination missions right there throwing millions at you for killing ONE DUDE. I did one mission last night for 8 million. Skimmer kill base assault.

There's trading, mining, and pirating. Mining and pirating in particular greatly reward skill over straight repetition. TBH, I don't think the game is really at all punishing in terms of cost to credit ratio. I took a trip to Sag A and came back with almost 200 million, and I was learning on the way- not doing it correctly from the start. The "Big 3" are really not that expensive in those terms.

 

[Andovar]

Why not both?
You could have increasingly difficult missions to unlock ships. I'm thinking an exceedingly difficult chain of missions for any of the big 3.
But if you can't, or don't want to go that route, there's still the option of saving your pennies for a shiny new toy some day.

 

[Stealthie]

I think Yamiks raised one interesting idea in that video...

So, we have "the grind" and it allows you to achieve things eventually.
That's okay(ish). It's sort of like playing Farmville and waiting for everything to happen because you won't/can't pay to "fast-track" things.

Why should that be the only way of doing stuff though?
Surely it couldn't be too hard to come up with alternative ways to achieve things as well?

For example...
You go to visit an engineer.
You pick an upgrade, as you currently do.
If you have the mat's the upgrade proceeds as normal.
If you don't have the mat's, you're presented with a small choice of missions which, if you complete one of them, will grant you, say, 3 rolls for your desired upgrade.
Maybe one of the missions will be to travel a long distance and recover something for the engineer.
Perhaps you''d have to go and meet a ship somewhere and escort it safely to it's destination.
You might have to mine minerals or ore for the engineer.
Maybe there's some faction the engineer wants you to help by doing missions for them, to reach a certain status with them.

Those are just examples off the top of my head.
I'm sure if FDev spent an hour brainstorming they could come up with a couple of dozen basic mission types, and hundreds of iterations of them.

Basically, it's all about giving people choices.
The current way to get stuff would be the "slow & steady" route, which anybody could do as long as they are willing to grind.
Then there'd be alternatives (at least one but ideally 2 or 3) which would be quicker and more certain but would require more skill and involve more risk.

 

[House0fDerp]

Example of "not a grind".
Time played: 29 weeks. 6 days, 5 hours and 20 mins.

I just hit Rear Admiral the other day just by doing all kinds of different "stuff" and never focusing on one specific goal.
I still have most of my Empire rank to do but again, no hurry. There'll probably be Alliance rank to do which would probably be more interesting to me personally.
It's just more fun to vary your gameplay and not do the same thing repeatedly, at least for me.

Just seems people want things yesterday and just expect games to feed them when I'm from an Era where you when you bought a game, you had to engage with it to work out what to do.
Elite Dangerous is more of an old school game where the value is in working out how all the things work and the rewards come the more you understand the game.

Honest question, what era was this? What era was it that we played games without the intent to push the features to their limits and just waffled around aimlessly then heralded that as the pinnacle of gaming? The gaming I'm used to all that work figuring out how things worked wasn't used to ignore content, but actually use that knowledge of mechanics to get the most out of the time spent in games.

From my viewpoint, acquiring ships is kind of how a new player sees progression. They think "bigger ship = better!" Okay, so they do that. Then what?

That's the issue. People grind to "beat the game" but they don't. They barely understand the game at that point. For me, this game is about being a better space pilot. Different ships are just different flight models to master, new flavors to discover. But I've never been able to convince a newer player of this. The beautiful thing about this game is how you yourself develop in skill. That's the core to me.

Buying new ships and outfitting them is fun. Playing with friends is fun. Manipulating the BGS is at times fun (sometimes just frustrating). etc. But the core of the game is unquestionably ascending to a higher level of ability. Remember how hard it was to dock your first time?

Yet there are plenty of players who think progression is terrible yet view the rewards as merely a means, not an end. You don't grind a conda or rank 12 ship without intent to use it, so why everyone keeps trying to suggest that's a common mindset is baffling to me. It's like expecting most of the people who buy the game to never launch it after installing.

Also, funny enough, the python left me not entirely ready for the conda. The 2 are very different beasts. Another month or another 6 wouldn't have prepared me more. Piloting a conda taught me how to fly a conda though.

 

[Pumabear8]

I could grind for Anaconda, but frankly it is a huge ship which I will be too nervous to fly. I am really surprised it is sort of go to ship for many players despite it clearly not being best for anything.

It's a piece of cake to handle, just watch that belly as you slide through the slots, the only real limitation I've found with the Conda is the large pad requirement, other than that, it's a good all rounder, trade, exploration, and combat, although keep the belly away from enemies, it's where the power plant is located, the easiest way to kill a Conda.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

The whole "grind" thing is kind of silly. Any game can be reduced down to "point and click" but that wouldn't be a logical assessment of a game's content. People who go on and on about being forced to do the same thing over and over again might as well being complaining about how they are being forced to point and click on things.

Not to mention that these arguments are usually based on false premises, where we are being told things like "the only way to earn an Anaconda is to do the same A-B-A passenger mission 1,000 times" and what an outrage that is. If this were true, there may be a valid criticism somewhere in there, but nowhere is this actually true. If a player employs such a strategy for income, it is for no reason other than that is what they chose to do. In fact, such a player is actively choosing to NOT do a wide variety of other things (which of course involve a lot of pointing and clicking, so naturally there is still room for outrage....)

Aside from long range exploration trips, I've never stayed in the same role or system for more than a session or two. I suppose that my approach to selecting activities for income is similar to managing little trade routes. I pop into some random system, and before heading to the nearest orbital I will pick up some bounties to hand in for a head start on building rep with the controlling faction. I then look at the missions being offered and will usually start with one that has the highest reward to time ratio. I will then select most any other missions that are similar in objective and/or system (i.e. if the top mission is to find some supplies or mine some ore, I will look for any other missions requiring the same resources, and if a mission has me going to a particular system, I will select all missions being offered in the same system, regardless of trade/career). So when I depart a station, I am usually setting out to to massacre some faction's pirates, deliver some data, find some goods, take out some surface skimmers, assassinate someone and haul some goods to a station, all in the same system. For those missions that require me to dock for deliveries, I will go through those boards and fill up on missions following the same process. I end up doing a lot of A-B-C-A-D-B-C-E-D-F-D-G-E-H-I... type "routes."

The point is, I have a lot of money (modest amount anyway) and a few ships, one of which is my $480 mil Anaconda (I can't believe he posted that either), and aside from exploration (doing the same activity for more than a few days is kind of inherent to the task in this case), I've never done anything that can be described as "A-B-A" over and over, be it by destinations or activity.

I never thought about it, or made a conscious decision to play this way. I suppose I just assumed that since the "ranks" are in Trading, Exploration, and Combat, and that path to unlock engineers often has some requirement from a completely different trade (engineer specializes in modules related to exploration, wants combat vouchers to unlock...making this up for an example, so don't correct me on the specifics) , that the intent is for the top tier CMDRs of the Pilot's Federation are exceptional at everything, and not confined to any one skill or career.

At the end of the day, the "grind" is subjective and is usually used as a term to describe some aspect of the game that someone doesn't like or understand, or just doesn't really like the game and hasn't quite figured that out yet.


Oh, and somewhere in this thread someone made a statement about all of the big ships or so many ships (or just ships?) being rank locked, which is obviously silly. There is nothing in the game that requires any of the few rank locked ships, and that can be done better by a rank locked ship (I'm sure many could prove this last one to be true and false...)

 

[Morbad]

If I ever reach the stage where I'm playing a game with no goals or reason, just throw me in a home for the bewildered.

Lack of direction is more a failing of the player than the game.

In nearly all cases it is "the best" at everything.

It's almost the worst at turning in supercruise.

It's not required for credits. Rank grinding, you have a point.

The only thing required for rank is doing missions. Since missions are useful for many other things, and I generally do them anyway, even if I don't need rank, the ranks come anyway.

I took a trip to Sag A and came back with almost 200 million, and I was learning on the way- not doing it correctly from the start.

I took a 39 day, 5700 jump, trip to Sag A* and back in a combat fit FDL during 1.2 (way before engineering or FSD injection) and all I got was 60 million CR and a case of space dementia!

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

Lack of direction is more a failing of the player than the game.



It's almost the worst at turning in supercruise.



The only thing required for rank is doing missions. Since missions are useful for many other things, and I generally do them anyway, even if I don't need rank, the ranks come anyway.



I took a 39 day, 5700 jump, trip to Sag A* and back in a combat fit FDL during 1.2 (way before engineering or FSD injection) and all I got was 60 million CR and a case of space dementia!

I'd say the dementia had set in well before you left the dock...

 

[NecoMachina]

I think currently "the grind" is being substituted for "the content" at this stage of the game. Once you have all the ships you want, the only other progression "content" in the game is the 3 ranks, which you could argue is another grind.

There are people who will remain and play the game after they have all the ships and are triple-elite. But there is some percentage of the player-base that once they get all the ships will feel like there's nothing left to do in the game and wander off to play something else. There is no "end-game" content in Elite in the same way that there is end-game content in other MMO's. There are no raids, etc. Unless you're heavy into PvP, there's not really anything left to challenge you once you have all the ships.

TLDR I think the devs are using "the grind" to get the Cutter and/or Corvette as the majority of "content" to keep the type of player who wants some kind of progression-based gameplay entertained for as long as possible, because they've got nothing else to offer that type of player.

Edit: Imagine if World of Warcraft had the same problem. The endgame was gearing up. Then once you get gear...no raids to do. I hate that I just compared this game to WoW - I can't stand that game. But it serves to illustrate my point. Elite is a very odd animal when it comes to "content", pacing, etc.