Ooooow, that is an interesting idea! There is a very interesting story-line going on at the thragoid border, having a military career attached to participation on the border would be interesting. Both combat participation and support missions. You should put that in the "Suggestions" sub-forum.
Rank Grinding might be the worst part of Elite Dangerous imo, but it doesn't have to be if FDev just made a few changes
- Thread starter CoyoteXStarrk
- Start date
Certainly can't argue with that. Uhhhh... on second thought - yes - yes one can - argue with that.
Well said...
On the other hand: you complain that all you get for ranking up is more words - agreed. A reward in a game that is just words as the only recomsense for a lot of one's time has little worth IMO and obviously yours too.
Getting on with it: You then go on to make the point that you get access to more ships - that's not more words and is a very tangible asset if a player is in to that type of thing (and probably most are).
Then comes a lengthy and detailed list of rewards suggested that would make the ranking system more enjoyable. But here's the rub; with but one single exception (the one about mats) every single reward suggested entails - well - just more words. HUH? I thought you didn't want more words; that you desire rewards for ranking up that are a bit more tangible than just words.
Rewards that aren't just words would be great and would probably make the grind worth it. Otherwise - just words - SUCK.
Now - some will make the point that those extra ships one gets access to really is the whole point of the ranking system (has to be because no other perks come with ranks). And that is a great point but it isn't for everyone (like me and you OP). USING my self as an example I put up with the money, money, money grind so I could buy and outfit an Anaconda. That was well worth the time and effort for me. Then the Corvette was introduced to ED and I wanted that - really, really wanted one. Major rank grind entailed because prior to that I could have cared less about anything but the ships that even us peasants could buy. I wanted that Corvette - grind grind and more grind and finally I achieved Rear Admiral rank. YEY!!! And then after much playing around on Coriolis and trying to come up with a build that suited my play style and failing I had a W.T.F. moment and this was it: "DAMN! I'm not spending all that money to get that thing - IMO - and it was my fault for not doing a full blown investigation prior to involving myself in the rank grind - I - got - snookered. Corvette - not for me and at risk of starting a fecal tornado - the Corvette is highly over rated and I wasted months on the rank grind that I could have spent doing more fun things with ED than trying to get access to the Corvette - again - that's just me - lots of players love the thing - not me.
Point being - the grind really isn't a grind when you reach your goal and reap the reward you seek. Just be sure the goal set is what you really want. (that works in real life too by the way).
So:
1) don't complain about word only rewards and then suggest a bunch of word only rewards as a fix
2) The grind is all in one's head. It's only grind if the goal you're trying to achieve isn't a well thought out and is something you really want.
I am suggesting to use words that actually have meaning to keep the player engaged and motivated to keep going. And you can do that without overhauling the system and it is by comparison easier to do while still being able to get the job done in my opinion. This way it makes it as easy as possible on the Devs while still at least addressing the problem in some way.
Also you are completely ignore the idea of unique missions for ranking up that I put forward. What I am suggesting is that the Devs make it at least slightly more interesting by providing more lore and appreciation to the player along the way and provide a more involved rank up process in the form of revamped Naval missions.
I have never and will never subscribe to the "Its not the destination thats important. Its the journey!" mentality when it comes to rank grinding in games. Especially when there is no perceivable journey to be had like there is in Elite at the moment. There is no journey. Its just doing random missions while being within the confines of the faction you are leveling. Thats it. If there was storyline and cool stuff along the way then I would concede that you might have a point, but it doesn't. So I don't think that you do. The Imperial and Federal rank grinds as they stand now serve as nothing more than a time wall between the player and 2 of the best ships in the game and the process of getting them is time consuming, relatively unrewarding, and uninteresting. I feel like that can be fixed relatively easily if the Devs decided to put their minds to it. That's all I am saying.
Still just words as a reward - completely meaningless in any tangible way.
You do realize, don't you, that what you have just written is 100% about changing the Journey...
So - Are you sure that you "...will never subscribe to the "Its not the destination thats important. Its the journey!", because it appears based on what you said that you are indeed all about the journey.
Last edited:
In your opinion*
Some people actually care about lore and world building.
Wanting the journey to be better is not me saying the journey is more important.
I can want the journey to be more interesting while still finding the destination itself to be the endgoal. One does not necessarily exclude the other.
"The grind is all is one's head"
For the love of Mike, everything is 'all in ones head'. The OP wasn't refering to all of the things in his head, he was noting his own impressions about the brain-numbing ( my words) rank grind, and for reasons he clearly stated. YMMV
The points he raises are defensible, his suggestions to address those points interesting and within the bounds of ED and his assessment of this particular game element( rank grinding) is as valid as any other.
Again YMMV.
For the love of Mike, everything is 'all in ones head'. The OP wasn't refering to all of the things in his head, he was noting his own impressions about the brain-numbing ( my words) rank grind, and for reasons he clearly stated. YMMV
The points he raises are defensible, his suggestions to address those points interesting and within the bounds of ED and his assessment of this particular game element( rank grinding) is as valid as any other.
Again YMMV.
Basically back to the game being 75K LY wide and one mile deep!
I enjoyed my exploration grind as the reward is getting all those first discoveries, the knowledge you've been to systems no other Cmdr will probably ever see. However back in the Bubble I'm finding myself becoming very bored - to the point where I'm thinking about a re-run of Terran Conflict or even god forbid Reunions. That's what's missing - a sense of achievement. I already did the Sothis/Ceos grind a year ago to fund my AspX and the thought of having to repeat that several times over to rank up and get my Trade Elite plus enough materials to engineer a decent combat ship is very baleful indeed. There needs to be more in the way of hand crafted missions not just the radiant stuff which RNG's on the Bulletin Board. And, as being discussed in another thread, most of those are carp - massacre or kill missions of no interest to a trader, or massive shipping orders totally unsuited to a Solo PvE player. And don't get me started about the lack of rewards which include materials as one of the options. At least that would be something...
I enjoyed my exploration grind as the reward is getting all those first discoveries, the knowledge you've been to systems no other Cmdr will probably ever see. However back in the Bubble I'm finding myself becoming very bored - to the point where I'm thinking about a re-run of Terran Conflict or even god forbid Reunions. That's what's missing - a sense of achievement. I already did the Sothis/Ceos grind a year ago to fund my AspX and the thought of having to repeat that several times over to rank up and get my Trade Elite plus enough materials to engineer a decent combat ship is very baleful indeed. There needs to be more in the way of hand crafted missions not just the radiant stuff which RNG's on the Bulletin Board. And, as being discussed in another thread, most of those are carp - massacre or kill missions of no interest to a trader, or massive shipping orders totally unsuited to a Solo PvE player. And don't get me started about the lack of rewards which include materials as one of the options. At least that would be something...
The engineer grind is the worst part IMO
^^This.
If you just choose a faction and grab missions that you want to do and you'll gain rank. This way you can play like you want (mining, combat, exploring, etc.). I play this way and, like Valorin, I had enough money to buy and outfit my Federal Corvette by the time I had the rank needed to get it.
If you try and get rank as fast as possible, well I suppose that would feel grindy to me too.
If playing this way feels like a grind to you, ED may not be a good fit.
ED is a perfect fit. I have nearly a thousand hours in it. I just find the rank up process tedious and uninteresting.
I only 'grinded' the fed ranks a week or two ago, and I didn't really mean to. I'd happened to notice I was very close to being able to buy an Imperial Cutter due to Empire ranks (I didn't even realise I'd gotten so high with them), and then I decided that I wanted a Corvette instead.
I ignored ranks while I was playing, so when I got access to new ships and whatnot it was always just a nice little bonus rather then the end of a long, repetitive b.s. experience. I was only ensign with Fed though.
What I did to get the Fed ranks quickly was... play the game.
I've only just come back after a 2 year break and saw that Thargoids had invaded. Some stations were damaged and rebuilding, and others were ON FIRE!
That was a little startling.
However, one of my old time favourite stations was damaged and needed supplies, so I went off to Aulin with supplies for the Aulin Enterprise station. When I got there, I saw a bunch of missions for the supplies that I had on hand (superconductors, semiconductors, ceramic composites, etc). taking those missions and then immediately handing them in for the highest influence reward.
Once I ran out of stuff in my cargo hold, I noticed that there was a planetary base that had most of what those missions were asking for, so I loaded up on those missions, skipped over to the planetary base, and loaded up. I picked up way more cargo then I needed for the missions I had so that I could immediately complete any new missions that came up once I was back on station.
My rank improved by up to 20% each time I did a run (depending on what missions I managed to accept and if I had to make a run to the planet again). Even the last rank before Vice Admiral I'd get 10%+ just by logging in, picking up missions that asked for cargo I had on hand, and then immediately handing them in.
I think in about 5-6 hours of casual playing over a weekend I went from ensign to Vice Admiral. AND I did it by helping out my old contacts in Aulin Enterprise. Made me feel rather virtuous.
After that I bought my Corvette, kitted it out and engineered it, and promptly abandoned it on some station somewhere and went off Thargoid hunting in a Krait II instead. The corvette was a little... underwhelming. I'll try it again later, but learning how to use AX railguns in a Krait II has been a LOT more fun.
- Flying Monkeys
I ignored ranks while I was playing, so when I got access to new ships and whatnot it was always just a nice little bonus rather then the end of a long, repetitive b.s. experience. I was only ensign with Fed though.
What I did to get the Fed ranks quickly was... play the game.
I've only just come back after a 2 year break and saw that Thargoids had invaded. Some stations were damaged and rebuilding, and others were ON FIRE!
That was a little startling.
However, one of my old time favourite stations was damaged and needed supplies, so I went off to Aulin with supplies for the Aulin Enterprise station. When I got there, I saw a bunch of missions for the supplies that I had on hand (superconductors, semiconductors, ceramic composites, etc). taking those missions and then immediately handing them in for the highest influence reward.
Once I ran out of stuff in my cargo hold, I noticed that there was a planetary base that had most of what those missions were asking for, so I loaded up on those missions, skipped over to the planetary base, and loaded up. I picked up way more cargo then I needed for the missions I had so that I could immediately complete any new missions that came up once I was back on station.
My rank improved by up to 20% each time I did a run (depending on what missions I managed to accept and if I had to make a run to the planet again). Even the last rank before Vice Admiral I'd get 10%+ just by logging in, picking up missions that asked for cargo I had on hand, and then immediately handing them in.
I think in about 5-6 hours of casual playing over a weekend I went from ensign to Vice Admiral. AND I did it by helping out my old contacts in Aulin Enterprise. Made me feel rather virtuous.
After that I bought my Corvette, kitted it out and engineered it, and promptly abandoned it on some station somewhere and went off Thargoid hunting in a Krait II instead. The corvette was a little... underwhelming. I'll try it again later, but learning how to use AX railguns in a Krait II has been a LOT more fun.
- Flying Monkeys
I am currently in Sothis doing 19 missions at a time by combining data missions and the highest rep biowaste delivery missions available in my Conda and the best I can manage is roughly 10-15% a trip. And I have been doing it 2-3 hours nightly for nearly a week now. I have gained a grand total of 5 ranks during that time while doing literally the most that its possible to do at a time. So I don't really get how some people are saying they have nearly maxed out their ranks in 7 hours or less. Unless they are just able to do rescue missions at the speed of light.
Luckily I am a Post Commander now. Just one more rank to go and then I never have to care about ranks again lol
Last edited:
It would be nice if the unlocked systems contained something useful e.g. a station that sells all modules or contains all 3 types of material trader.
It would be nice if when reaching say Admiral, you were greeted by that name at fed stations and were always granted docking and never scanned, etc.
Yes, I agree OP that attaining rank should mean something and have some tangible benefits.
It would be nice if when reaching say Admiral, you were greeted by that name at fed stations and were always granted docking and never scanned, etc.
Yes, I agree OP that attaining rank should mean something and have some tangible benefits.
I tried rescue missions, but they were a bit limited for me - and they also didn't really seem to give me much of a bump in rep.
If you look at my last post, I was doing missions in a station that was under repair after a thargoid attack. With my anaconda fitted out with lots of cargo holds, I was carrying close to 400T of the materials that the missions always asked for.
Since the missions (on the damaged station) were asking for between 3t and 9t of goods, I could usually complete every mission available at the station several times over while just sitting on the landing pad. The only thing that ever slowed me down was waiting for the missions to respawn after I'd cleared 'em out.
Or to put it another way, I could complete (on average) 70 missions before I had to resupply. If I recall, each mission gave me around 1% rank (roughly - it probably averaged this over the course of the weekend). So I could often get 20 missions and complete them instantly with the materials I had in my cargo hold. Wait for missions to respawn and do it again and again until I was out of goods. Then do a quick resupply run and back to the station to do it all over again.
So yeah, aside from mission respawn times I was kinda completing them 'at the speed of light'.
To those people on Aulin Enterprise I was their Space Santa, and they LOVED me for it.
Dont like grinding huh?
Oh I see what you mean now. I might need to try that with my Cutter...
I agree with you, though I'd like it if it were for all ranks. It would be a nice little bonus if Federal stations referred to you by your Fed rank and Empire station the same... heck, it might even push people to run more missions for the Federation just to stop being called 'cadet' all the time!
I agree with you, though I'd like it if it were for all ranks. It would be a nice little bonus if Federal stations referred to you by your Fed rank and Empire station the same... heck, it might even push people to run more missions for the Federation just to stop being called 'cadet' all the time!
Also let the opposing faction have its own greeting for you if you are pledged to the opposite faction.
Empire: "Greetings Federal Lackey"
Federation: "Greetings Imperial Scum"
