That was my point.
Any grind, is in your mind.
- Thread starter shadragon
- Start date
That was my point.
The problem with every single post on the front page of this thread - except Cmdr Deadspin's - is that they do not acknowledge (not once, not anywhere) that some Cmdrs have in-game objectives that they are passionate about, the pursuit of which is delayed by the patch point imposition of major time-walls.
When the time-wall seems unreasonably high, the feeling of 'grind' sets in.
It may be difficult for those who play as a sort of wandering lone wolf PvE Cmdr to imagine, but for some of us 2.1 prevented us from playing the parts of ED we most enjoy for months.
For many in player groups, the ships and modules are in part a means to an end (and I include some non-PvPers in that). Sadly many groups have lost valued members to 2.1.
My own choice was simple: mod up, or uninstall. I chose to mod up, because I decided that it would be worth performing PvE tasks, most of which I personally find boring, for months, in return for the reward at the end of it - returning to apex PvP, in my case, but for others it might (for example) be enabling their group to act most effectively against another group via the BGS.
So as ever we come back to the fact that for some the fun is in climbing the time-wall but for others of us the fun lies in what is on the other side.
When the time-wall seems unreasonably high, the feeling of 'grind' sets in.
It may be difficult for those who play as a sort of wandering lone wolf PvE Cmdr to imagine, but for some of us 2.1 prevented us from playing the parts of ED we most enjoy for months.
For many in player groups, the ships and modules are in part a means to an end (and I include some non-PvPers in that). Sadly many groups have lost valued members to 2.1.
My own choice was simple: mod up, or uninstall. I chose to mod up, because I decided that it would be worth performing PvE tasks, most of which I personally find boring, for months, in return for the reward at the end of it - returning to apex PvP, in my case, but for others it might (for example) be enabling their group to act most effectively against another group via the BGS.
So as ever we come back to the fact that for some the fun is in climbing the time-wall but for others of us the fun lies in what is on the other side.
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I was just agreeing with the original post. Do you even know what grind is? From your post it looks like you have no idea.
Where did I say that trading wasn't simplistic. Infact i specifically said the all aspects of the game need improving. Trading isn't a grindy mechanic. It is only a grind in the way you go about it.
Do you even know what a grind mechanic is as it seems you don't. I will spell it out. A grind mechanic is something put into the game that you have to do repeatedly to get to the next step of the game.
Legendary weapons/items in LOTRO was a grind mechanic (looks like they have changed that now but it has been a while since I played).
Elite doesn't have any of that. There are various different ways to get rep/credits/influence/ranks. You can make it a grind if you want, it is totally feasable in the game, but there is nothing in the game that forces you to grind the same thing again and again and again to get what you want, therefore no grind mechanic.
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I really love how you always manage to contradict your own posts. Let's say the next step for me is a Corvette. What do I need to do to get to it? Oh, run the same mission types for Fed-aligned factions in the same system, over and over again, for hours on end.
Minor correction - ED is based largely off 1984's Elite that did not have newtonian physics. That was planes in space.
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As for the topic at hand - all games have some degree of grind in them whereby repetitive tasks are required in order to advance, however as to whether you feel it's a grind is subjective. I have put in over 4K hours into Diablo 3 smashing monsters over and over and over - to most that's a grind; to me that's mind relaxing ...
I find ED extremely repetitive (and therefore grindy) but others do not .. who is right ?
EDIT:
I agree with the premise that "it's all in the mind" but to deny someone else's opinion that ED is grindy is rather ignorant.
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Max:
I've got 3,000+ hours in on this game. I've concentrated on Federation rank continuously, and exclusively. I'm allied with just about every Fed Faction for 30 light years.
I've just made Captain. That is called grind.
I can only comment on exploration, and you did not describe how I'm playing it. So you are wrong, and this didn't deserve a new thread.
Reason why people complain about the grind is quite simply because there is a lack of compelling content and the shortfall is picked up by creating a glacial pacing which requires us to perform the same tasks over and over again, hashing out generic mission templates and so on.. This sort of thing is used throughout the game, particuarly with gaining access to the engineers and collecting the stuff to mod our ships.
So an example of a grind in ED is raising ones Fed or Empire rank. Rather than some sort of in depth military/science career, missions, storyline and engaging characters or variation of high feature experiences we instead have to repeat the same actions over and over, stacking missions, repeating mundane tasks, using mode switching. The only indication anything changes is a little up or down arrow and filling up xp bars. Upon getting your rank up mission its no different to any of the other missions and its no sense of irony that to get to Marquis I delievered some fruit and vegtables.
You could argue no one needs to do any of this, or play the game either (I'm sure Frontier would be suitably impressed if everyone did decide the game wasn't for them and buggered off, and left a scathing review), leaving only the white knights to fund and play the game. Nevertheless, the reason folks do this is for the reward at the end, i.e. the ships, and thats game content and I don't think its unreasonable to want access to that.
So with little variety and a shortage of game content, encounters and mechanics we are indeed required to grind for certain things. I think its fair to say that all MMOs have a grind to a certain extent, and its almost a requirement when we consider the technical challenge and scope of the game.
Where ED excels is in the flight experience, immersion, and the environments, stunning vistas, and a sense that we are cruising through the galaxy in command of our own destiny and starship. Where it is weak, perhaps because of what an excellent job has been done elsewhere, are many of tasks the game asks us to do and more often than not its a case of getting it over with so we can focus on what is enjoyable about the game.
I'm not going to give Frontier a trashing over this because there are quite clearly restrictions on what is possible, based upon current tech, their ability, time and resources. However, majority of the cool or interesting things that go on (call it the gameplay meta for the want of a better term) are what players do outside this framework. So examples are the Fuel Rats and the DW trip, canyon racing, and the player created PvP league that went on some time back; all player emergent gameplay. You have to ask yourself why folks are doing that if the PvE game driven experience from Frontier is so exceptional.
Some people enjoy playing teh BGS, some PP, and I can see why but I suspect they enjoy the result rather than the process. ED was obviously ridiculously ambitious, and perhaps nothing wrong with that, and has clearly got a long way to go to be what it can. I do think its getting there, just had a rather enjotyable passenger trip and saw a new place I'd never been to, and there are moments I have in game that are truly awesome, but lets not kid ourselves about where the game is weak. There are elements of grind, some to be expected for a game like this, some aren't bad at all (i.e. working towards Elite rank), but others are a frustrating and unrewarding experience. I just mined 50 tons of Bromellite, don't tell me there is no grind.
edit: having said all of this, and despite all my many critical comments over the years, I do actually love playing ED. Its great to have a new Elite game, a day I thought would never come, and I am so very pleased with its progress of late. I just hope it continues to improve in the fashion it has this year. See you round the galaxy commanders o7
Both well stated and fantastic responses that, unlike the OP, tell the honest truth without seeking to dehumanise or tell someone else how to play the 'correct way'.
Thank you gentlemen.
...in your opinion.
In my opinion I am not playing the way he described exploration?
Can't get a better source right?
That wasn't the part of the quote I was talking about.
Do you run exactly the same mission every time? No you don't or you don't need to. Handling in exploration data helps, just general trading without even touching the misison system can help rank you up. Bounty hunting helps. Pretty much everything in the game helps.
Yes you need to do the rank up missions but that could be the only missions you do on the way to rank up, and then most of those missions are different.
You don't even need to do stuff in the same system.
I ranked up in my Imperial Empire rank doing loads of different activites. The only time I did the missions sepcifically for my rank were the rank up missions, but they were all different. One I had to smuggle, one was an assisnation mission.
They were all different. That is not grinding.
Also why do you need that Corvette ASAP. It aint going anywhere. Again self imposed grind to try to get that corevette in the quickest and most efficiant time possible. The game isn't a race.
Where does the game force you into having a corvette to get to the next stage of the game? Oh thats right there isn't any next stage as you can do pretty much everything in a sidewinder as you can do in a corvette. In my sidewinder I can explore, do missions, go to res sites, go to combat zones, yes there is no level gating.
Nothing I have said has been a contradiction.
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I agree. But you have imposed that on yourself. The game hasn't done that has it. That was purely your own choice.
In my opinion, it's not the gameplay that is the problem, as all games have pretty much exactly the same gameplay. It is the reason why we do the gameplay that is important. At the moment most of the gamplay is centred around credits, rep and influence (im not including exploration in this).
If we had more compelling reasons to do these things then I bet there would be less people going on about grind.
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Grind is purely subjective term. What ED objectively have is lineup of activities, which have certain gameplay loops attached to them. You can mix them up, vary between them, but they are certain, and they repeat themselves - as any games have it.
Now what is SUBJECTIVE is your attitude towards it. I discussed this with my friend yesterday and we got into very heated argument. His argument is that there are group of players who can't help it, they threat games as competition, with anything really, and for them having goals in such games as ED is bound to make them see gameplay loops as grind - because they see them as BARRIER between them and goal. They don't see combat, trading, mining, doing missions, etc. as gameplay or content really. It is that something they have to do over and over again to reach their goal. This is how mostly players complaining about grind in games in general sees this.
My point was that it is their choice to engage in it after all. Way friend described it as it was almost evil for developers to make games like ED in nutshell. We dropped subject because we just don't like to argue like that, but overall I got impression that this is something more of emotional state and some reactions regarding Engineers, PP or anything that repeats itself really are better understood by me. I just don't see ED that way and I guess that's fine. It is not me who have to deal with this, it is them.
Now what is SUBJECTIVE is your attitude towards it. I discussed this with my friend yesterday and we got into very heated argument. His argument is that there are group of players who can't help it, they threat games as competition, with anything really, and for them having goals in such games as ED is bound to make them see gameplay loops as grind - because they see them as BARRIER between them and goal. They don't see combat, trading, mining, doing missions, etc. as gameplay or content really. It is that something they have to do over and over again to reach their goal. This is how mostly players complaining about grind in games in general sees this.
My point was that it is their choice to engage in it after all. Way friend described it as it was almost evil for developers to make games like ED in nutshell. We dropped subject because we just don't like to argue like that, but overall I got impression that this is something more of emotional state and some reactions regarding Engineers, PP or anything that repeats itself really are better understood by me. I just don't see ED that way and I guess that's fine. It is not me who have to deal with this, it is them.
You mean not the argument part of the quote? I'm sorry, I took you for a guy who'd focus on that.
You're focusing on the needing of the other thread, because that's the meat and bones of the discussion. Fair enough.
edit: I will now continue to sod off.
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the definition of exploring given in the post he is commenting on is:
'Exploration: Plot a path out of the bubble, press the jump button 1000+ times (no exaggeration), occasionally stopping for fuel every 6-10 jumps.'
i would say this is objectively inaccurate, Ziggy was actually polite enough to only state an opinion.
I agree with OP but deadspins post was very well put.
re assumtion 1 I don't think its unfair to say that ED IS designed as a continuation of the earlier games (i.e. a sequal!) I would even offer the 'grinding' as evidence of this. even though the travel and graphics of FE2 had increased in scope over the first game it was still the same core gameplay: have ship, travel from place to place. forever! I think E
still has this at its core.A good example but isn't the point of OP that in this scenario focusing on that one goal and doing tasks to further that goal only is a self inflicted grind?
the alternative being to be doing these along with a bunch of other stuff and to just take the upgrades as they come. Would this be more or less fun than grinding for the corvette?
Binary thought detected in this post.
Yes, certainly there are people who want Sidey to Annie in a weekend. It is kinda ridiculous. There's also those who can play shallow content continuously for 4000+ hours and never get tired of it (nothing wrong with that)... That's the black and the white...but what about those in between. The gray area. I only have 600+ hours in ED and I've never been in an Annie. I would like to, but not at the expense of doing the same old stuff (A to B, BH, CZ, USS) over and over and over.
Now if getting an Annie or a Corvette would not improve your gaming experience then why did FD even make them? But yes, I have to agree. You are correct, the gaming experience is exactly the same whether you are flying a Sidey or an Anaconda. The game content is exactly the same. And that's kinda sad. Why is there no perk or 'reason' to get the Anaconda besides credit acquisition?
I'm not really looking to do Sidey to Annie in a weekend but I have been playing for a year (a mere 600 hours, mind you) and I'm rank Deadly with an FDL, Clipper, FAS and other lesser assets. That's it. 'Career' progression could stand to be a little faster. It's part of why I play. To progress. And because progression is so darn slow in this game I get bored. The simulation is amazing the first few hundred hours. But 'for me' the simulation gets commonplace and dull.
FD has done a good job with 2.2. I like the passenger missions. But when you look behind the window dressing, they are just A to B. I like the SLF ... but really it's just a new wrinkle on the same old combat in the same old places.
No major change in gameplay to see here.
I'm not saying ED is bad. I enjoy playing it. But after a while, for some people the 'new shiny' wears off and so ...
Continuous enjoyment of the same old same old...is in your mind.
the definition of exploring given in the post he is commenting on is:
'Exploration: Plot a path out of the bubble, press the jump button 1000+ times (no exaggeration), occasionally stopping for fuel every 6-10 jumps.'
i would say this is objectively inaccurate, Ziggy was actually polite enough to only state an opinion.
I agree with OP but deadspins post was very well put.
re assumtion 1 I don't think its unfair to say that ED IS designed as a continuation of the earlier games (i.e. a sequal!) I would even offer the 'grinding' as evidence of this. even though the travel and graphics of FE2 had increased in scope over the first game it was still the same core gameplay: have ship, travel from place to place. forever! I think E
A good example but isn't the point of OP that in this scenario focusing on that one goal and doing tasks to further that goal only is a self inflicted grind?
the alternative being to be doing these along with a bunch of other stuff and to just take the upgrades as they come. Would this be more or less fun than grinding for the corvette?
The main source of enjoyment from video games is the completion of arbitrary goals, whether said goals are set by the player or the game. Since Elite offers extremely limited goals in terms of missions, players set their own goals. Many feel that the game just doesn't return anything of value for the time investment.
No, it isn't. That isn't grind (or the only form of grind).
You already confessed you find it grindy anyway when you said you can't do trading for that long. Well, now we can prove you find the game grindy.
Take away all the game mechanics and leave in trading. There is no way you'd play ED if it was. You hit your "grind wall" when you trade and move onto something else. If the game play is so good, you could do trading.
You don't need to be forced into something for it to be a grind. Grind is possible in any game that has bad game mechanics between you and what you want to get. All ED's game mechanics get boring after a while, most likely an hour or 2, this is why everyone switches around. If you're switching because you got bored, that's grind.
OK so now we've realised the game does have grind - my point being we've established that, we're moving on. Do you have anything to add about how we imrpove the game from here? We need to move onto removing the bad game mechanics don't we?
Additional: Further proof of grind - the only games I know where you watch netflix is an MMO or ED
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Well, that pretty much sums it up. Have some rep.