Too often, the players who are complaining that the game is boring and grindy are the ones who are deliberately choosing the most boring and grindy gameplay because it's the latest exploit.
That's your opinion. Many people have another view - that many aspects of the game are pathetically and needlessly boring, and could be improved without a lot of effort.
3 stars and "mixed" reviews on Steam says it all.
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They're complaining about 'grind' because the activities are tedious, rather than fun.
Fun mechanics = no grinding complaints. Boring mechanics, your forums look like this one.
This is not a problem that denial can solve. It will not stop until it is addressed.
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We the players can't alleviate the grind in Elite, only Frontier can. It is an issue which could be addressed, but it has to be done at the feature design level.
For example, take the new tech brokers. To unlock all of their items you need to perform the Guardian Orb event a few dozen times. It's extremely repetitive, uninteresting, and mundane. A better way to design this would have been to have eight different Guardian blueprints, and every ruins can only grant you one type. Now to unlock one tech broker item could require three blueprints, another item would require three other blueprints, and so on, with a few blueprints overlapping items but not a lot. Now instead of doing the orb event 24 times at one ruin, you instead need to travel between eight or more different ruins but only perform the orb event at each one or two times. Now not only are you performing the orb event fewer times overall, but the tasks are broken up with a lot of other gameplay in the form of flying the ship, traveling to other star systems, locating other Guardian ruins, and so on. It's still a grind but a much more varied and engaging one, MUCH more.
It's all about game design and how mechanics are created. Grind itself isn't a bad thing, as long as you break up the grinding with other tasks and keep it varied. Currently Elite fails at this in many regards.
The problem here is that Elite is incompatible with that idea. It is a game that basically consists of flying the ship through space, shooting stuff, hauling stuff and looking at stuff. So it all boils down to the question of whether you enjoy doing those four things (=fun gameplay) or not (=grind)
I really don't see any way of making flying through space more fun for people who don't enjoy flying through space. Do you?
There have been countless threads about this, but until people come with concrete ideas, simply stating that "mechanics are boring" (however it may be true) doesn't solve anything.
Can 'grind' be eliminated from the game, short answer is no, long answer is NNNNNOOOOOOOO
In my humble opinion it is because there is not definite explanation of what grind is. To one person, the mere thought of SC is defined grind, to someone else it is a vital and enjoyable aspect of the game. Some players enjoy hooning around a planet looking for rocks, others will consider it just north of a root canal with a cross-eyed dentist.
Can something be done to mitigate the overall sense of grind in the game: of course it can. A better mechanism for finding USS (as mentioned above, scanners etc.), no more silly 'scan this thing 24 times to get one item in return' type of missions. Better missions, especially the chained follow-up missions based on the players mission history. I seem to always yet an assassination mission as a followup, but I have never once taken an assassination mission - it doesn't make sense! Make the universe more dangerous, even in Solo. For example, a High Sec system should be a very safe place if you abide by the law, insta-death if you don't. And work that down to Anarchy where anything goes and everyone is open game.
The other problem is that Elite is totally open ended with no real reward. As a player progresses up they are awarded more credits to buy better or more ships. The player even gets to call themselves different titles as they progress through the Pilot Federation and Fed/Emp ranks - but they don't mean anything except access to a few things that every player can get if they play long enough. But for so many players who have been raised on lineal games with instant rewards for every minor action, the way Elite plays is totally alien - they just don't know what they are playing for. So anything they are doing for, in their mind, no reward is automatically considered GRIND.
In my humble opinion it is because there is not definite explanation of what grind is. To one person, the mere thought of SC is defined grind, to someone else it is a vital and enjoyable aspect of the game. Some players enjoy hooning around a planet looking for rocks, others will consider it just north of a root canal with a cross-eyed dentist.
Can something be done to mitigate the overall sense of grind in the game: of course it can. A better mechanism for finding USS (as mentioned above, scanners etc.), no more silly 'scan this thing 24 times to get one item in return' type of missions. Better missions, especially the chained follow-up missions based on the players mission history. I seem to always yet an assassination mission as a followup, but I have never once taken an assassination mission - it doesn't make sense! Make the universe more dangerous, even in Solo. For example, a High Sec system should be a very safe place if you abide by the law, insta-death if you don't. And work that down to Anarchy where anything goes and everyone is open game.
The other problem is that Elite is totally open ended with no real reward. As a player progresses up they are awarded more credits to buy better or more ships. The player even gets to call themselves different titles as they progress through the Pilot Federation and Fed/Emp ranks - but they don't mean anything except access to a few things that every player can get if they play long enough. But for so many players who have been raised on lineal games with instant rewards for every minor action, the way Elite plays is totally alien - they just don't know what they are playing for. So anything they are doing for, in their mind, no reward is automatically considered GRIND.
You mean like the wave scanner on the SRV?
Might point out that rock prospecting is pretty dull stuff. I rather cruise the USS dice roll myself, even though the wave scanner is brilliantly implemented, except we can't hear it well.
It doesn't have to be 100% procedural. They could easily lay military campaigns with actual objectives to contest and flash calls for action (for example) over the top and it would be scaleable and repeatable (low time investment) and add a lot of interest.
I think they eventually will, because the demand is clearly there. If you look back it is clearly the non-procedural content that has generated the most interest, for example the unknown probe mystery.
The terrible attraction of RNG, if course, is that its cheap.
I was thinking more like the scanning system in Eve online's scanning system.
Well, pretty much what this guy said..
But aside from that OP; how many games can you name where you can do pretty much whatever you want with the limited real life time you -and many of us- have available?
And I am trying to be constructive here. You can do anything you want in this game without engineers aside from full-blown pvp.
I really don't get your point to be honest.
I'm not saying there's not a lot to be improved mind you, like a bubble that feels more alive, or a realistic economy, for exemple. But again, there are very few games I know were you can go straight out and do whatever the hell you feel like. This is it.
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So I've observed a decent portion of this forum is taken up with people complaining about the relentless grind. So what's the solution? Since engineers was introduced it feels the community of this game is polarised between people who like the grind (or at least defend it) and those who don't. I personally don't object to a bit of grind but I do really feel it's just too much in ED now. If I was 16 and could spend 5 hours a night flying around waiting for USS to spawn I would do that, but I'm 33 with a family and a job so can only spare a few hours each week. I want to be able to enjoy the game. Where I think (and It's just my opinion) FDev have made a big error is thinking engineers would be an optional process for players. In reality it has become a necessity to endure before you can do what you really want to.
Anyway, we all know there are differing opinions but in the aim of being reconciliary is there a solution that would suit all of us? Please don't one side tell the other it's their fault for not understanding the game and to stop playing. At the end of the day It's a product and FDev are a business. To tell paying customers it's their fault they aren't happy so they should go away is a suicidal business approach. If FDev change the product after I've paid for it and it materially alters it I'm legally entitled to a refund. Let's not encourage that kind of situation.
So - ideas to make the game more engaging to the broader player base? Let's keep it constructive if we can please.
Cheers.
The so called "solution" is that grind is the only gameplay you have in this game. There´s nothing to do after the "grind". And that´s why I don´t call it grind.
This sums it up quite well.
There is no immersion in power up 6 towers, shoot down a few sentinels, scan the last one, get one fragment, log off, repeat.
I've done it 12 times already, need 10 more. Not really something I'm excited to do, just want to unlock those weapons in case I decide that I want to go 'Goid hunting.
Repeating the same pattern for 22 times is not really immersive. Especially not if it involves a log off/log in.
Same thing with Skimmer massacre missions. Kill what's there, log off, log in, repeat. Not very immersive.
Yes, instant travel anywhere in the game with no hyperspace tunnel, no supercruise, no gliding down to planet surfaces, and no "loading screens". That would make them happy (until they start complaining about the menu grind) and would make me miserable.
That's why I posted a suggestion for "Elite Arcade", for the players who just want to turn ED into another PvP shoot'em up.
Sad thing is to many that would be an increase in grind, what they want is the mat drop or whatever.
The usual suspects would see all that extra game play as wasting their time in getting x, y and z to engineer/unlock/whatever their uberpvp-ship (for exapmple).
Basically I don't think it is possible for FDEV to win.
People can't help themselves. Even if there were a plethora of different ways to get something, loads of variation, great and deep gameplay, people will still grind out the easiest and fastest method to get something and then complain about the grind after they have done so.
There is nothing that can be done for these people.
There is nothing that can be done for these people.
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We players can't solve the grind, we are not the developers. And the developers don't want to, because, in the end, when you're done with the grind, there's nothing more to do, there is no game. So to keep us players playing, the developers need to constantly throw new carrots at us to chase after. Exclude the few special snowflakes that just enjoy to be. There was a time where FD had to see that most players had assembled their fleets and lost interest. Cue in engineers. Now those fleets were large invalidated and had to be engineered. But eventually that was achieved, the fleets fully engineered. Cue in the engineer revamp. This is to date the worst grind ever. Upgrading a whole fleet to 3.0 engineering standards is spirit breakingly terrible for the stupendous amounts of material required. I already fear the next thing FD come up with that nudges us to revamp our fleets yet a fourth time.
This.
Imagine if they increase the availability of the mats tenfold, hundredfold. HG USS popping up all the time and in there you'll find 50 grade 5's. We'll all be maxing out our fleets in a couple of days - and then what? "Give us content, space legs..." etc etc. This way at least we have something to do.