"Don't rush into an Anaconda, do Engineering first...."

[Agony_Aunt]

"Don't rush into an Anaconda, do Engineering first...."

The thing you are missing from this quote is do engineering organically, don't grind it.

Look at what the engineers require (information in game, no third party tools required) and when you have a hankering to do a specific activity, check to see if that activity coincides with any of the engineers.

Of course, there may be some activities you don't enjoy, for example, minining, or exploration, or combat, so some things might be annoying, but then break it up. The only one that really requires you do everything in one go is flying 5000 LY from your starting position. Even then, get an Asp, kit it for exploration, you can have it done in a few hours.

Mining for Selene is a pain if you don't like mining. Protip though, you don't need to sell what you mine, so you can kit yourself out for max speed mining if you don't mind dumping stuff you have mined. Since it doesn't matter what you mine for the meeting requirement, you can also get this done in a few hours, and you can break it up if you want.

Most of the stuff is quite straightfoward and grind can be avoided, as long as you combine it with doing stuff you enjoy.

If you don't enjoy most of it, then, welp, wrong game i'm afraid.

On a personal note, while i've benefited from engineering, i think it was a mistake for FD to have spent time adding it. It caused problems with combat balance (both PvP and PvE) and other issues.

But people kept asking for crafting, because every MMO out there has crafting. And i'm not sure what they expected, because if you look at crafting in other games its the same. Go collect X number of Y to make Z. Which then involved farming enemies until the right drops spawn, or grinding out raids against specific bosses.

And so we got your typical MMO style crafting, along with the associated baggage.

 

[Brrokk]

The thing you are missing from this quote is do engineering organically, don't grind it.

Look at what the engineers require (information in game, no third party tools required) and when you have a hankering to do a specific activity, check to see if that activity coincides with any of the engineers.

Of course, there may be some activities you don't enjoy, for example, minining, or exploration, or combat, so some things might be annoying, but then break it up. The only one that really requires you do everything in one go is flying 5000 LY from your starting position. Even then, get an Asp, kit it for exploration, you can have it done in a few hours.

Mining for Selene is a pain if you don't like mining. Protip though, you don't need to sell what you mine, so you can kit yourself out for max speed mining if you don't mind dumping stuff you have mined. Since it doesn't matter what you mine for the meeting requirement, you can also get this done in a few hours, and you can break it up if you want.

Most of the stuff is quite straightfoward and grind can be avoided, as long as you combine it with doing stuff you enjoy.

If you don't enjoy most of it, then, welp, wrong game i'm afraid.

On a personal note, while i've benefited from engineering, i think it was a mistake for FD to have spent time adding it. It caused problems with combat balance (both PvP and PvE) and other issues.

But people kept asking for crafting, because every MMO out there has crafting. And i'm not sure what they expected, because if you look at crafting in other games its the same. Go collect X number of Y to make Z. Which then involved farming enemies until the right drops spawn, or grinding out raids against specific bosses.

And so we got your typical MMO style crafting, along with the associated baggage.

Actually that's interesting. I think all the features people complain about in ED originate from "must have" MMO features.

Crafting ... Engineering
Fellowship quest ... Multicrew
Guild ... Squadron
House ... Fleet carrier

Maybe FD really need to develop confidence and say "This game is unique and doesn't need to copy others".

 

[FlyingBrickyard]

The point is picking up mats, other than mission mats obviously, is breaking the flow of the game.

I can see what you're getting at, especially as I often disregard opportunities myself simply because it's not really convenient at the time. But overall, I think it mainly goes to mindset.

To me, Elite feels like a quasi-frontier situation. Civilization is relatively close at hand, but you can quickly find yourself off in remote areas with little prospect of coming across anyone else, maybe for months.* In that context it makes sense to gather as you find things, because resources can be scarce, and you may not know when you'll come across them again.

If I'm out in deep space exploring and I come across a signal source, I'm probably going to check it out anyway because it's unusual or unexpected. If it turns out there are materials to be gathered there, I might as well take a moment to see if there's anything worth picking up while I'm there.

If I'm making one of my rare forays into RES/CZ combat, no, I'm not going to stop mid-fight to gather, but once I've dealt with the ships in my immediate area, I'll probably zip over to the largest or most valuable collection of debris and pop out a limpet or two while I'm reloading/repairing/letting my shields top off a bit before looking for my next series of targets.

Mining? Not even a question. The limpets will take care of anything that turns up automatically. Completely free bonus, IMO.

So while I'd agree, it can break the flow of the game, it only does so if you let it. Even if you only pick up 10% of what you come across because that's all that conveniently fits into a gap in your current flow - it's 10% more than you'd have if you just ignored it all on principle.

Spoiler: *

Distant Worlds 2 unexpectedly did wonders for my material supplies. I had almost 6 months of being out in the black just incidentally collecting stuff with no real opportunities to use any of it. To the point it was over a year later before I started finding myself running low on certain things again. And I never, ever, at any point during the expedition set aside time to go farm materials. Everything I gathered was stuff I picked up in the normal flow of what I was doing at the time.

 

[Rietz]

Why acknowledge something that is created by the individual?
(Particularly if one does not participate in the self-abuse themselves?)

If the most efficient playstyle is a grind, then the grind should be acknowledged.

Because if we go by your logic, no game ever has a grind since everything, the entire game, is quite literally optional. And yet certain games are still acknowledged as a grinding game.
Even if we follow the "gather while you play" approach. Is the 1-2 minutes you spent after each enemy killed to pick up some loot not considered a grind? Is the 5 minutes you sometimes spent doing a HGE not a grind? Just because you separate the grind into smaller bits doesn't mean it magically stop being a grind.

Any game that has a progression system will have a grind. The only different is how big of a grind it is.

It quite clear that ED also has a grind. And just like every other grinding games, you either take your time doing a tiny bit of grind at a time while relaxing, which is gonna take a long time, or you rush the grind to reach the end for high level gameplays (CZ, AX, PVP, etc).

In the end, it's up to a person's personality. A person playing the game just to wander around aimlessly to relax and enjoy the game might pick the first method. And a person with clear goal who value efficiency might choose the second. Regardless, the grind is there, and the only different between two ways is how long it takes to reach your goals, a scenic route vs a highway.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Why acknowledge something that is created by the individual?
(Particularly if one does not participate in the self-abuse themselves?)

I wish you would stop being cutsey with the terminology. Nobody is "choosing" the process to be a grind, it just is. And while, yes, one could just pretend Engineering doesn't exist - we all know the upgrades are just too good to pass up.

I am not "self-abusing" myself sir. Full stop.

 

[Ian Skippy]

If the most efficient playstyle is a grind, then the grind should be acknowledged.

There is always something that is the most efficient way, and if you do whatever that is over and over it is a grind. The only thing FD can do is literally prevent people from repeating an activity without spending a certain amount of time on other stuff in between.

Talk about babysitting.

 

[Rat Catcher]

If the most efficient playstyle is a grind, then the grind should be acknowledged.

Because if we go by your logic, no game ever has a grind since everything, the entire game, is quite literally optional. And yet certain games are still acknowledged as a grinding game.
Even if we follow the "gather while you play" approach. Is the 1-2 minutes you spent after each enemy killed to pick up some loot not considered a grind? Is the 5 minutes you sometimes spent doing a HGE not a grind? Just because you separate the grind into smaller bits doesn't mean it magically stop being a grind.

Any game that has a progression system will have a grind. The only different is how big of a grind it is.

It quite clear that ED also has a grind. And just like every other grinding games, you either take your time doing a tiny bit of grind at a time while relaxing, which is gonna take a long time, or you rush the grind to reach the end for high level gameplays (CZ, AX, PVP, etc).

In the end, it's up to a person's personality. A person playing the game just to wander around aimlessly to relax and enjoy the game might pick the first method. And a person with clear goal who value efficiency might choose the second. Regardless, the grind is there, and the only different between two ways is how long it takes to reach your goals, a scenic route vs a highway.

The grind is only there for the player who creates it, regardless of how you are trying to package it...

But, as always, we will differ in what constitutes 'grind' as it is completely to do with approach and mindset... I don't consider doing something I enjoy as 'grind', which includes the 'couple of minutes' collecting materials, or visiting a HGE or other USS type...

High level gameplay... CZ's - piece of cake even with moderate engineering, AX combat, similar, PvP - I guess you got me there, you have to fly a 'cookie cutter' FDL there... perhaps that is why I don't bother wasting my time with it...

But, as long as the way you play your game pleases you, that is fine - and if you feel you are grinding to get there, who is actually to blame?

 

[Rat Catcher]

I wish you would stop being cutsey with the terminology. Nobody is "choosing" the process to be a grind, it just is. And while, yes, one could just pretend Engineering doesn't exist - we all know the upgrades are just too good to pass up.

I am not "self-abusing" myself sir. Full stop.

If you are grinding, you certainly are... It is self-imposed...
"cutesy", how sweet

 

[Fenwe]

Are your ships all so focused and inflexible that you couldn't manage to squeeze a collector into them without ruining the usefulness of the ship?

To me, half the fun of ED is building different ships with different levels of versatility and then picking the right ship for the right job so that I can take advantage of opportunities that arise.
All my multirole and scout ships have a collector controller, as well as my big combat ships.

Funny how things work. When I first started the game, I had severe troubles dropping the cargo hatch and scooping up stuff in my sidewinder. Now, I'm doing it in my Armed Trader, because I'm not willing to spend a limpet to pick up the one Pharmaceutical Isolator that dropped out of the NPC Anaconda that tried to 'pirate' my load.

Those things are always a pain in the butt to farm for on purpose. Picking up certain mission types and stacking them though guarantees deadly anacondas, every other one or so drops the PI.

Goal oriented gaming at it's best.

Credits and\or mats from the missions, bounties for killing pirates(thanks for the payout boost FDev!), hard to find engineering mats dropping into your lap, discovering 'new' systems, low intensity combat, and flying my Cutter.

It may not be everyone's idea of fun, but it ticks all the columns for me.

 

[Rietz]

The grind is only there for the player who creates it, regardless of how you are trying to package it...

But, as always, we will differ in what constitutes 'grind' as it is completely to do with approach and mindset... I don't consider doing something I enjoy as 'grind', which includes the 'couple of minutes' collecting materials, or visiting a HGE or other USS type...

High level gameplay... CZ's - piece of cake even with moderate engineering, AX combat, similar, PvP - I guess you got me there, you have to fly a 'cookie cutter' FDL there... perhaps that is why I don't bother wasting my time with it...

But, as long as the way you play your game pleases you, that is fine - and if you feel you are grinding to get there, who is actually to blame?

We obvious have different definition of 'grinding'.

To me, anything that you can do repetitively for gameplay advantage is a grind. You kill 1 ship, pause to pick up material, then kill another ship, rinse and repeat. That is a grind. No matter if you enjoy doing it or not, it's still a grind. Why? Because maybe you enjoy it, but others don't. So it's a grind for others even if it's not for you.

The grind I'm talking about is an objective concept, not so much subjective. Who's to say that there's no masochist out there who literally just love grinding? Does that means the grinding game he's playing isn't a grinding game at all? Not really. So even if you don't think the game has a grind, it probably does for others, and it should be acknowledged.
The only way for a game to not have a grind is by have no progression.

But I agree that as long as you enjoy it, everything is fine. Yet on the off chance that you're forced to do something you don't like, it's in my personal opinion that it's best to just grit your teeth get it over with so you can spend more time doing things you actually enjoy doing.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Yet on the off chance that you're forced to do something you don't like,

But you are not forced to do something you don't like, sorry.... There is a deliberate decision to do so...

You kill 1 ship,
..then kill another ship, rinse and repeat. That is a grind.

Indeed, the gameplay 'loop' is standard fare...

But, as you so eloquently stated, (slightly paraphrased) one should really only do things one finds pleasant...

 

[Rietz]

But you are not forced to do something you don't like, sorry.... There is a deliberate decision to do so...


Indeed, the gameplay 'loop' is standard fare...

But, as you so eloquently stated, (slightly paraphrased) one should really only do things one finds pleasant...

You're thinking of the word forced too literally. By your standard, you're not forced to do anything because it's a game and you can just quit.

When I say forced, I don't mean literally forced like someone holding a knife to your throat. Well, you'd probably say you're not forced either because you can just choose to die.

My definition of forced is limited to your goal. For example, if your goal is to engineer a ship, you're forced to gather materials. That's what I meant when I say forced. Or you can even think in a broader sense, if you want to PvP, you're forced to engineer. Ofc you don't literally have to, because you can just choose to die, but think more on the line of requirement.

And yes, the gameplay 'loop' is also a grind. Be it for credit or for material, it's a grind regardless of if you think of it as a grind or not, since it's and objective concept and not a subjective one. An explorer will find doing combat a grind, and vice versa, despite both of them being the standard gameplay loop.

 

[Brrokk]

We obvious have different definition of 'grinding'.

To me, anything that you can do repetitively for gameplay advantage is a grind. You kill 1 ship, pause to pick up material, then kill another ship, rinse and repeat. That is a grind. No matter if you enjoy doing it or not, it's still a grind. Why? Because maybe you enjoy it, but others don't. So it's a grind for others even if it's not for you.
...

I wouldn't define grind like that.

In your example, does the activity stop being a grind if you don't pause to pick up materials? If so, why? If not, why are you grinding combat?

Are there any activities in Elite which you don't consider grind? I can't think of anything I can do in the game which I can't repeat.

 

[WR3ND]

Yeah, it'd be an awesome game it it weren't for the intended meta progression game-play. I have very fond memories of this game in 2015.

I mean, the game is still here, for the most part, and I still enjoy it, but it's kind of gotten in its way a bit since then. Don't get me started on "exploration."

Cheers.

 

[Rietz]

I wouldn't define grind like that.

In your example, does the activity stop being a grind if you don't pause to pick up materials? If so, why? If not, why are you grinding combat?

Are there any activities in Elite which you don't consider grind? I can't think of anything I can do in the game which I can't repeat.

Anything that doesn't progress your account isn't a grind. It's not about just repeating, it's a combination of repeating and progressing.
Even if I enjoy doing combat, I might not FEEL like it's a grind, but it might be a grind for others, depends on what their goals might be.
So for your question, if I don't pick up material, it switch from a mat grind to a credit grind. But since I have the credit, I don't care for the grind. And I would just be grinding combat because I find it fun. Just like how many people love grinding games.

Again, the grind I'm talking about is an objective concept that can be acknowledged. The problem isn't whether there's a grind or not, it's where you draw the line as an acceptable level of grinding.
For example, credit grinding is a thing, but since they made it so easy to earn credit, even though it's technically a grind, no one really cares. When someone says "this abc is such a grind", I understand it as the grind of abc is too much. To put it even simpler, to me it's almost never 'is there' or 'is there not', but more along the line of 'how much'?

 

[WR3ND]

The thing you are missing from this quote is do engineering organically, don't grind it.

...

Sorry, no such thing, I'm afraid, but to each their own. And on the other hand, the meta is the game to some people.

But either way, I don't think anyone could feasibly get any Engineering done "organically," as it's very much contrived and arbitrary busy work. At least that's very much the case for me. It's standard MMO time sink stuff, and that's fine to an extent, but it's a whole lot of nothing I would care to reasonably do in the game if it weren't for the carrot at the end of the stick.

 

[Schmack]

I wouldn't define grind like that.

In your example, does the activity stop being a grind if you don't pause to pick up materials? If so, why? If not, why are you grinding combat?

Are there any activities in Elite which you don't consider grind? I can't think of anything I can do in the game which I can't repeat.

To me, a grind is how you approach something. With my other account, I wanted to get from Sidewinder to Anaconda with elite in 24 hours or less. I did, but it was a grind (thanks Smeaton runs!). It was fun but I had a goal and anything standing in the way of it was what I had to grind through to get there. Same when I wanted to get the iCutter and the Corvette, those ranks were a grind of running messages back and forth between two stations that only had missions for each other, and all were courier missions. It was probably the max efficiency but still I would rather be flying the ships I wanted.

With gathering materials, I actually like making that a goal. I go out with a large ship and kill and collect stuff I might not even need, just because I have some empty slots I can fill. In that case it's not a grind because I don't have an end goal that I am trying to get through.

 

[Stigbob]

Actually that's interesting. I think all the features people complain about in ED originate from "must have" MMO features.

Crafting ... Engineering
Fellowship quest ... Multicrew
Guild ... Squadron
House ... Fleet carrier

Maybe FD really need to develop confidence and say "This game is unique and doesn't need to copy others".

You forgot one :

CQC : Exactly what all the PVP'ers claimed they wanted but didn't really.

 

[Ydiss]

How many times has the op been told to "just don't do it then?"

The best answer is always "this part of the game's so flawless, the option I'm suggesting is to not do that part of the game"

Really drives the point home.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Sorry, no such thing, I'm afraid, but to each their own. And on the other hand, the meta is the game to some people.

But either way, I don't think anyone could feasibly get any Engineering done "organically," as it's very much contrived and arbitrary busy work. At least that's very much the case for me. It's standard MMO time sink stuff, and that's fine to an extent, but it's a whole lot of nothing I would care to reasonably do in the game if it weren't for the carrot at the end of the stick.

I love the one guy who said he doesn't grind, he just loads his ship full of gold and sits at a beacon so he can repetitively farm NPC pirates for Engineering mats.

Because that's totally NOT grinding/farming guys....