As I understand (I havent tried FSS) you cannot reveal the system map in one go anymore and have to identify all bodies one by one, implying an increase in busy work for no improvement. The finer analysis with FSS appears fine but I cak see people not happy about the map reveal.
Your least enjoyable Elite activity?
- Thread starter Navigare Necesse Est
- Start date
Yes, but in this case (reaching superpower rank) there is no designed "grind" as far as I understand it. It's rather equivalent of RPG level you need to reach - but you can achieve it by doing all sort of things: mission spectrum is rather wide. And you probably wouldn't call reaching level 50 in some RPG a "grind" unless you would set out to do it by standing in one spot and killing rats until your fingers bled.
If you would say f.ex, that you don't like the grind associated with gathering Guardian obelisk data - that's something I would not argue too strongly - I might say that you don't need to overextend yourself and gather everything at once (making it more bearable) - but basically you are forced to do (and repeat multitude of times) that one thing to achieve your goal and I guess it might be described as designed Grind.
I know I didn't enjoy it too much. First few times - sure. But then it became something of a drag.
I'm doing my least enjoyable task at the moment. Leveling up the combat rank of my NPC crew member. Just another 11% to go until she is Elite.
great minds think alike im doing the same although i am a bit behind you making credits and ranking up as well its a grind but fun
right now I'm working toward rear admiral to get the corvette, to keep it less of a grind I chose an independent system to try and flip while I'm at it. I've ben working it for months participating in wars and during the peace taking visitor beacon missions. when those are on a planets surface ill gather mats and hill climb as if that's what my passengers want. keeps it varied. anyway attitude determines if its a grind or not.
No, it's grind. It's grind, because when I do decide to do the repetitive crap I still barely make progress. It's grind because the requirements are just beyond reasonable.
In games like this - MMO's that are supposed to provide players with goals and keep them interested for long time - the path to "level up" your "character" will always be long(ish). It wouldn't make any sense if new player would be able to get the same equipment as veterans in one evening. And that's what achiving ranks represents - a reward for playing the game - a sense of pregression - but instead of locking content behind time wall for example (although Powerplay does something like this I believe), it is based on amount of things you do in game (just like getting XP points in RPG). For reaching next "level" in Elite you don't get +5 to Agility and ability to use the Sword of Doom, restricted to Level 15 - Instead you must gather materials to engineer your ship (to increase that Agility or whatever) and work with Superpower to rise your rank there and unlock that Federal Sword of Doom. That's just another way to measure your progress.
When you "grind" that Federal/Imperial rank, you're just trying to level up ASAP, without actually playing the game. That's on you.
But when you're told that in order to get some Guardian equipment, you need to scan alien obelisks at least 500 times - that's grind. You have no other way of getting there - you can only do that one thing over and over again.
MMOs usually have a story to follow, so players have something to do while they "level" whereas gear progression is the only thing in ED. I personally didn't mind so much and played BGS, which is kinda susbtitute to the story - however just playing didn't yield much in progress. That was not so bad, what was really bad was when they amped up the AI and put the combat behind engineer grindwall - looking at the initial progress rates I knew I wouldn't get anywhere in reasonable time and would be stuck in bullletsponge combat hell for the foreseeable future.
Yes, you've said so. The thing is, though, you're out of date. Original engineers may have needed hundreds of rolls using hard-to-find stuff, but this is no longer the case. We now have defined upgrade effects for reasonable rolls, materials available in normal gameplay and traders. There is no longer a "grindwall".
You've obviously liked some parts of the game in the past. Why not give it a brief try and see if it's now more fun?
1) I quit frustrated.
2) Not keen on catching up to match AI bulletsponge.
3) Gigabytes to download
4) Lost access to mail account registered with Frontier account.
5) Setting up all the fricken keybinds again.
The odd time I've played with the idea to download again, but usually I dont want to deal with additional red tape or find out that account is gone for good or have another bulletsponge spawn on me to remind me that I better grind the stupid engineers out.
And ye, it pretty much is still a grindwall, cos I have to gather all the mats, rank up all the items, collect more credits to A-rate stuff, unlock more engineers. It's probably gonna take at least two weeks to get into it again. It's not really a compelling outlook.
Last edited:
OK, fair enough. I guess that you've got another game you like better as well, so it's fine to move on. I just have one request: please believe me as someone who still plays (a lot), that the "grind wall" is no longer there. It doesn't exist now, even if it did in the past. It's possible to get the good stuff in ED and at the same time enjoy playing it. I know this because I've done it and I continue to do it. FD have largely "fixed" the engineers, making them convenient and accessible.
How can you say it's not a grind wall there when I still have to do the bloody busywork of
1) unlocking engineer
2) gather mats
3) rank gear item (G3 maybe)
in addition to:
a) find gear and buy and equip it.
Yeah, that's right, I used to just buy stuff I wanted and got going. Now I need all the additional stuff to get myself up to par again. How is this not a grindwall? It's the very definition of a grindwall. I recognise they lessened the time to do it all - but it still is bloody, fricken time I would have spent already playing the bloody game before engineers and the hitpoint inflation.
OK, I give up. But I don't think you'll ever find a computer game where you don't unlock things and gather things.
And what do you want to do in Elite once you get and engineer all this stuff?
I'll tell you - the same thing you can do without it. It's only the tools that change with progress.
Without Engineering you might have problems fighting in Conflict Zones, but there's plenty of easier combat available - CZ are for challenge.
You seem to not enjoy playing the game and want it to be less of a grind for you to do what? not play it?
Last edited:
Read my OP. It wasn't a rant about engineers. I wrote that combat isn't fun anymore. In essence I'm stuck now with unfun gameplay, unless I do the engineers and get it back maybe. I don't feel motivated by that. It's the opposite - it's a disincentive to play.
Recent games I have enjoyed that went about gathering and even RNG loot: The Long Dark. Interloper mode is quite brutal. But it's more fun losing to a moment to moment decision than being choked by bulletsponged AI.
Ye, it's just that CZ were bread and butter gameplay for the BGS, so thanks for that.
Moon dog
Banned
I agree entirely the combat is way to difficult
Yea. I guess you also go around and tell people that the BMW M3 is a terrible car, as the first production run, when it was released in 1986, had a number of problems?
Also my point of view. Engineers by now are not that bad grind any more. The old system of being able to pour an unlimited number of resources into it, always hoping for a better roll of random-on-random was a terrible grind. By now it's more manageable and you can succeed without grinding.
Guardian stuff on the other hand, by design, is grind. Only one activity can get you the stuff, there is no alternative to it and the activity has no real variation to it, too. The first few times it's actually fun and a challenge. Once you have figured things out, it becomes very boring. The very definition of grind.
Hmm. How to answer that? Let's start from the botton, of "needing" all the things: I know i have written the same thing seveal times already. Sometimes as reply to your postings. I don't know if you have ever read it, if you choose to ignore it, if i am on your ignore list or whatever. But i try one more time:
Whenever a new ship comes around in the game, i buy and equip it, do not engineer one single piece but rather take it directly to a HAZRes site. I then fight enemies of all sizes and combat ranks, to see what the new ship can do. Due to not having engineered defenses, i don't attack wings of enemies. That's where the lack of engineering would actually put me at a problematic spot. But i fared well enough against any non-winged target.
Based on that i dare to say that combat still is very much possible and enjoyable without any engineering at all. Of course that's just my personal experience, but as i am a mediocre pilot at best, i would guess that most other players are able to do the same.
And now to the harder part: You repeatedly give feedback based on outdated information. You refuse to experience the newer status quo, despite knowing that things were changed. You have no intention to actually return to the game. What is your agenda? Why do you still stick around here, if you dislike the game?
Mind you, i also think that the current power of engineering blueprints is bad for the game. I keep saying that. (Getting them nerfed would be part of my agenda, but I also am aware that this is unlikely to happen.) But my statements are based on the actual status of the game, not on how things were in a distant past.
So really, what are you trying to achieve by complaining about things which already were changed?
Last edited:
replace 'have to' with 'want to' and you'll see why its not a grind, its a self-imposed grindwall.
Doesn't matter why you want to, PVP balance, min-max. Whatever, doesn't matter, its still 'want to'. If you don't believe me try stopping and see what happens, nothing? That's coz you don't have to. Whether you like it or not, its your choice and you choose to achieve it by grinding it.
And all your info is out of date, so far out of date its untrue.
As has been said to you numerous times, you only need grade 2 upgrade to catch up with engineered NPCs and those materials are readily available. You're making excuses.