Enjoying this awesome game without grinding

Sorry, I can't give any suggestions for how to survive PvP, grinding or not, as I simply don't do PvP in this game - when FD introduced RNGINEERS I left open, never to return, now I only play solo, or in private groups that disallow PvP.

I'd never be able to keep up with the latest "G5 engineered meta god ship" so I simply don't even try and staying out of open means I never have to see them. I just do a little bit of "quality of life" engineering, things like FSD boosts from materials I get from missions. Very rarely do I do anything I'd call grinding - grinding suggests something isn't fun, this is a game, not a job and if I don't find something fun I simply don't do it, would rather take a break and go play something else instead.

My thoughts exactly :). Spent two hours the other day, made zero credits.. but just took a lot of screenshots driving on a red planet in a close orbit to one of its stars in HR 8526. No grinding yet.. been enjoying doing some trading (Boom delivery missions) lately so I got an Asp Explorer & Python with the money. Saw a guide the other day on how to get the stuff for the Engineers. It sounds like fun finding CMDR Jameson's crashed Cobra 3 .. so I might be killing two birds with one stone as my Cobra MK3 could use faster thrusters :D. The other two, mining crystals or chasing HGEs don't seem as fun. Still haven't tried mining at all but that Python seems like the ideal ship to try it. At some point I also need to get that Asp at least 1000 Ly away and find my first earth like planet.

If I wanted to PvP I'd just install Quake, Doom or whatever goes these days. This is the only game I know of that provides a 100% realistic background with real stars from the Milkyway as well as containing the entire human database of known stars. You really have to be an astronomy geek (as I am) to properly appreciate and enjoy this fact. The first time I saw this was in Celestia back in 2001.. and even then I spent few days exploring the stars. Having a game on top of that with modern awesome renders of the stars & planets... priceless... couldn't care less about PvP in this game, I just want to enjoy the universe in peace.
 
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It all comes down to attitude. I'm now doing little bounty hunting, over the time it will add on my combat rank, but thats just added bonus. But if I had a goal of getting that Elite in combat rank, it would soon become grind. Likewise engineering, I collect materials from this and that, and over the time get enough to unlock some nice gadgets, no grind involved. But if I take idea of get that gadget ASAP, it leads to grind.
 
A game is a leisure activity and whatever you do in it is your own choice:

"Do, or do not. There is no grind."
Curious, isn't it?

This game is for recreation and should be enjoyable, yet we regularly read of players who consider it to be wrong in X and that should be changed to Y for them to enjoy it. (or wrong on so many levels that what they really want is an entirely different game than this one!)

Yet, said players continue to play and be discontented in thier play, and often will deride other players who enjoy playing... Who is right in this situation: The ones who are happy or the ones despising the time they give to the game?
 
Curious, isn't it?

This game is for recreation and should be enjoyable, yet we regularly read of players who consider it to be wrong in X and that should be changed to Y for them to enjoy it. (or wrong on so many levels that what they really want is an entirely different game than this one!)

Yet, said players continue to play and be discontented in thier play, and often will deride other players who enjoy playing... Who is right in this situation: The ones who are happy or the ones despising the time they give to the game?

Yeah a game is recreation. It’s not a cult either.
 
Just giving alternate ways to farm mats would solve my main gripe I think
I get most of my manufactured from Haz Res kills & those lovely 'hired gun' Anacondas produced by many elite ranked missions. Data from scanning every ship I see, and Raws from the Crystal Spire sites.

Of course, any mission offering mats that is convenient gets taken too... I'll also visit any USS / HGE that is on my way to wherever I'm going...

Lasty, obviously, I'm not in any hurry to get anything, so it all works in to normal play - without specifically going out of my way (apart from Raws) to get stuff.

With your interest in PvP you have differing priorities for high grade mats, which may push to into doing things just because you need them quickly.
 
I get most of my manufactured from Haz Res kills & those lovely 'hired gun' Anacondas produced by many elite ranked missions. Data from scanning every ship I see, and Raws from the Crystal Spire sites.

Of course, any mission offering mats that is convenient gets taken too... I'll also visit any USS / HGE that is on my way to wherever I'm going...

Lasty, obviously, I'm not in any hurry to get anything, so it all works in to normal play - without specifically going out of my way (apart from Raws) to get stuff.

With your interest in PvP you have differing priorities for high grade mats, which may push to into doing things just because you need them quickly.

The main culprit here is the crystal spires. I feell no joy gathering mats there. Manufactured I get those from targets so that one is natural andenjoyable. Scans are more or less automaticso no gripe there.

it’s the raw mats really...
 
The main culprit here is the crystal spires. I feell no joy gathering mats there. Manufactured I get those from targets so that one is natural andenjoyable. Scans are more or less automaticso no gripe there.

it’s the raw mats really...

I enjoyed my first visit to the group of bodies collecting raws, just because they are entirely different, but these days will 'top-up' raws chasing around in a SRV whenever possible.
So not disagreeing with you - but I'm 'lucky' that I'll take friends out to the sites and at least play silly-billy along the way :)
 
I was flying around these days in a certain system in order to unlock one of the engineers, the one with the FSD drive improvement, when I noticed one of those new carriers sitting around the system, next to 30 other exactly same carriers. It's name was 'The reason we grind'.. Hmm.. I thought to myself, what a shame so many people are lost chasing 'the next unlock & accomplishment' and once they achieve the ultimate one, they just leave it standing there doing nothing. This was after chatting a bit in the system chats with various people and noticing a prevailing trend. Lots of people seem to complain about 'long travels' & 'grinding'. Hmm.

Now don't get me wrong. I've been there done that. Back in 1999 when I played my first MMORPG - Ultima Online, I made sure to meticulously study every nook & cranny on online forums such as these before even entering the game, until I got the most high end stuff possible. Then I just went PvPing day & night until I perfected my skills as well. Then one day, I just quit because there was nothing else to do. Looking back, I wish I had spent more time just enjoying the scenery and just enjoying the game at the lower levels. Once you have a high end character, it is not easy to go back and enjoy the lower level stuff. I also spent few years designing an MMORPG UO shard, so I know all the mechanics of gameplay that try to keep people busy for the sake of keeping them busy. Don't fall for those traps, take it slow and enjoy the journey.

Before I played Ultima Online, I had played another game with a huge world. That game was Elite 3 - The First Encounters. The release I had was buggy as hell but I played it day and night. Always looking forward about coming from school and reading the last edition of the galactic newspapers while cruising in super speed to the next planet. I finished the game again in 2006, then 2015 and lastly 2 years ago.

Two weeks ago, when I heard that Elite Dangerous was going for free on Epic I couldn't wait to give it a try. I had hesitated in the past because I had put my MMORPG days behind me. Being married with a full time job and a toddler daughter, the days are long gone of power gaming 12 hours a day and pwning noobs. These days I am lucky to get maybe 2 or 3 hours per day for gaming during the week. So with Epic giving it for free.. I said to myself I've got nothing to lose.

I have to say I am extremely positively surprised this game is very much playable and enjoyable with no grinding or MMORPG chasing for the 'next unlock'. I don't mean to criticize players who go for the power gaming. To be honest, If I had the time to game 8-12 hours a day.. sure.. I would've probably went to become an end game PvP player but here I want to offer a different perspective a different way of approaching the game and maybe inspire few other fathers of just stopping and smelling the roses instead of feeling bad for not having enough time to get an Anaconda.

First and foremost, get your motivations for playing this game right. Is this the right game for you? As a big fan of Elite 3, for me there was no doubt. The only thing I hoped for is that the game would not be too 'modernized' with lots of cut scenes and few mini games in between. Luckily, the core gameplay of Elite is still here. I am missing a bit of a story layer, something like Freelancer would've been nice but then again, storytelling was never what made Elite the best game ever (based on some people that include me)

In my case, I love this game for two reasons. First, I just love space. I've always been an astronomy buff so having 1:1 scale & Newtonian physics (most of the time) is just such a big blast. Circling that planet and feeling its gravity is more than enough for me. I don't care if I am in a sidewinder or in an Anaconda, the experience is mostly the same.

The second reason is I just love blowing other ships up. Ideally I would love to do it in PvP but I don't have the time for that. So Resource Extraction zones and bounties have so far provided more than enough of that with over 40 ships shot down.

What I discovered real fast is that the level of grinding to achieve these two goals were absolutely minimal. Basically zero. I spent few hours in my sidewinder learning the controls, doing some Boom delivery missions and in no time I had the opportunity to buy my all time favourite ship (from Elite 3). But of course, the legendary Cobra MK3. I used to fly it there with a class 3 Military Drive which offered a record 27 Ly of jump.


Several Boom delivery missions later, with some planet landings and recoveries in between, which I enjoyed a lot as it allowed me to jump across 20 different systems I slowly but surely maxed out all the upgrades of my favorite ship. Then I got really lucky with having a Boom delivery of 54 Tritium for about 6.5 million which at this level is a LOT of money. I had to store my shield in storage and just take the risk. Got interdicted TWICE doing this run and I almost didn't make it but the experience was awesome. The lack of saving in this game meant an adrenaline rush that I haven't felt since the days of Ultima Online.

So here I am with over 17 hours played in the game, not being bored at all. I refuse to grind even if it means I will likely be playing the next 50-100 hours in the Cobra MK3. Having some bounty sessions in between, unlocking some engineers and slowly improving the ship to its maxed out state. I hate mining though so quite likely I will never gather all the required materials. Perhaps I will unlock the Guardians stuff as well. I try not to read too many guides or watch too many videos. What is the point of reading a book or watching a movie if you check all the spoilers on the internet first? I try to explore and discover most of the stuff alone and rely on a guide only when I get stuck. Then there is the whole discovery path. I look forward with visiting some far away star systems and just enjoying the astronomical background of the game. Playing some of the lore in the Codex seems also like a nice thing I should do. Then also visiting Sol and landing on the moon might be fun.. so there is a motivation for blowing a lot of ships up to get my Elite status. All of this is going to ensure lots and lots of fun... with no grinding.

Some people say the game is not very suited for casual players. I disagree. It is all about having a certain attitude towards the game. In some ways it is actually perfect for casual players. I can jump in for couple of hours at a time in Solo mode, do few missions, dock and go to sleep.

You may say .. oh but wait until you get to 1000 hours, you will get bored. Well.. this is a video game after all. Very few video games should be interesting past 200 hours played. If I get bored after 200 hours I would just say... Amazing job David Braben, you have managed to keep me at a game for longer that 99% of the rest of video games I've ever played.
I like alot of things in this post as it took me back a little.

Try mining 'Not just for the dough' you have to core split a rock at least one, anyone will do if your not interested in credits.

The sound and visuals are very, very good with the sound just winning it in my opinion. You have to try this at least once.

You will have to use 3rd party tools eventually if only for your sanity, they do open the game up a little more, again I'm not talking about credits.
Pug
 
I like alot of things in this post as it took me back a little.

Try mining 'Not just for the dough' you have to core split a rock at least one, anyone will do if your not interested in credits.

The sound and visuals are very, very good with the sound just winning it in my opinion. You have to try this at least once.

You will have to use 3rd party tools eventually if only for your sanity, they do open the game up a little more, again I'm not talking about credits.
Pug
Yeah .. I spent few hours yesterday learning how to mine at all levels :). It was pretty good and better than I imagined it would be. The sound mixing in this game is amazing. Now I have enough materials to upgrade some of my stuff with engineering.
 
Status update:

Over 170 hours played now, which is quite a lot by my standards. The last game that I spent 164 hours was XCom - Enemy Within which I finished several times over the years.
The original intent was to just play the game with no grind and see where it takes me one step at a time. Mission accomplished! So how did I manage to avoid it?

  • Used my Cobra MK3 to do some combat and delivery missions until I bought a Python
  • Used the Python doing some delivery boom missions until I had enough money to get and FDL
  • Spent a couple of days digging into the numbers on EDSY. It was like a mini-puzzle, trying to figure out the most optimal configuration for hunting pirates on the FDL.
  • Around this time Combat got boosted so I just started doing what I love most, combat with a bit of engineered multi-cannons.
  • Relaxed a bit among the combat sessions by doing some mining, exploration, engineering tasks, unlocking Sirius, trying out the neutron highway for the 5000ly jump.. each 'break session' gave me more engineering power for my killer-FDL. I have to say I quite enjoy unlocking the engineers.. it is like a single player campaign that you can go back to once in a while.
  • Did the guardian unlock of the FSD booster. Once was enough.. didn't see much fun in unlocking more modules
  • Mats started to become a problem so I took a single trip to the crashed Cobra MK3, one trip to the crystalline shards and did some HGEs with my python. This was more than enough to have enough Mats to get the FDL to grade 5
  • Combat was becoming even more fun the more engineers I unlocked. So just played the heck out of it until I got to a billion credits with the added benefit of getting up to an imperial rank of Count (I had decided some time back that I would get the Imperial Cutter eventually.. sure the numbers are in favor of the Anaconda or the Corvette and mining is the last thing I want to do again but the Cutter is just a beautiful Oasis in space)
  • After about 2000+ bounties claimed (G3 engineered A-rated warrant scanner is just awesome) I was starting to get bored and feeling like I am in danger of grinding.. so I decided to see what the fuss is all about Ngalinn - Mainani for getting Imperial rank. I can see how someone may pull their hair grinding 12 Imperial ranks by delivering post office back and forth but this is why in Elite you shouldn't rush things before they come naturally. I transferred my FDL to a nearby shipyard and three jumps later I was making some deliveries but also killing tons of pirates for +++++ Rep. Before I knew it I was a Duke and a Master in Combat.
  • Finally yesterday I got myself the Cutter, unlocked a couple of more engineers to take full advantage of the engineering discount. Man , that ship is even more beautiful and a joy to fly than on the photos I had seen, especially with the stock thrusters I was feeling the 1100 ton weight.

Where do I go from here?

  • I am not much of a 'collector' so it looks like I am more than happy with my Cobra , FDL , Cutter & Asp for exploration. I'll be doing some 'relaxation meditative hauling' in my Cutter to get me from Tycoon to Elite in trading. With some interdictions in between turning wannabe pirates to dust with my 5x G5 multi-cannons and 2x Seeker Missiles engineered for Multi-Fire (because every big ship needs missiles, no matter what the DPS numbers say)
  • Do some sight-seeing outside of the bubble in my Asp and put my name on worlds never discovered before, discover few earth like planets etc. Sure it may not have the jump range of a Conda but the view from the cockpit is just awesome, especially with high FOV.
  • Do some power play. The Empire looks like a place I would like to help out.

I rate this game a strong 95 out of 100. I am taking 5 points off because the story aspect is severely lacking. I just feel that adding a 'story mode' in the game would not take anything away from the sandbox while adding another layer for those that want to progress in a more organic way. Look no further than Freelancer for inspiration as to how you can slowly introduce the player to the entire galaxy with the help of a sexy woman! :cool:
 
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Status update:

Over 170 hours played now, which is quite a lot by my standards. The last game that I spent 164 hours was XCom - Enemy Within which I finished several times over the years.
The original intent was to just play the game with no grind and see where it takes me one step at a time. Mission accomplished! So how did I manage to avoid it?

  • Used my Cobra MK3 to do some combat and delivery missions until I bought a Python
  • Used the Python doing some delivery boom missions until I had enough money to get and FDL
  • Spent a couple of days digging into the numbers on EDSY. It was like a mini-puzzle, trying to figure out the most optimal configuration for hunting pirates on the FDL.
  • Around this time Combat got boosted so I just started doing what I love most, combat with a bit of engineered multi-cannons.
  • Relaxed a bit among the combat sessions by doing some mining, exploration, engineering tasks, unlocking Sirius, trying out the neutron highway for the 5000ly jump.. each 'break session' gave me more engineering power for my killer-FDL. I have to say I quite enjoy unlocking the engineers.. it is like a single player campaign that you can go back to once in a while.
  • Did the guardian unlock of the FSD booster. Once was enough.. didn't see much fun in unlocking more modules
  • Mats started to become a problem so I took a single trip to the crashed Cobra MK3, one trip to the crystalline shards and did some HGEs with my python. This was more than enough to have enough Mats to get the FDL to grade 5
  • Combat was becoming even more fun the more engineers I unlocked. So just played the heck out of it until I got to a billion credits with the added benefit of getting up to an imperial rank of Count (I had decided some time back that I would get the Imperial Cutter eventually.. sure the numbers are in favor of the Anaconda or the Corvette and mining is the last thing I want to do again but the Cutter is just a beautiful Oasis in space)
  • After about 2000+ bounties claimed (G3 engineered A-rated warrant scanner is just awesome) I was starting to get bored and feeling like I am in danger of grinding.. so I decided to see what the fuss is all about Ngalinn - Mainani for getting Imperial rank. I can see how someone may pull their hair grinding 12 Imperial ranks by delivering post office back and forth but this is why in Elite you shouldn't rush things before they come naturally. I transferred my FDL to a nearby shipyard and three jumps later I was making some deliveries but also killing tons of pirates for +++++ Rep. Before I knew it I was a Duke and a Master in Combat.
  • Finally yesterday I got myself the Cutter, unlocked a couple of more engineers to take full advantage of the engineering discount. Man , that ship is even more beautiful and a joy to fly than on the photos I had seen, especially with the stock thrusters I was feeling the 1100 ton weight.

Where do I go from here?

  • I am not much of a 'collector' so it looks like I am more than happy with my Cobra , FDL , Cutter & Asp for exploration. I'll be doing some 'relaxation meditative hauling' in my Cutter to get me from Tycoon to Elite in trading. With some interdictions in between turning wannabe pirates to dust with my 5x G5 multi-cannons and 2x Seeker Missiles engineered for Multi-Fire (because every big ship needs missiles, no matter what the numbers say)
  • Do some sight-seeing outside of the bubble in my Asp and put my name on worlds never discovered before, discover few earth like planets etc. Sure it may not have the jump range of a Conda but the view from the cockpit is just awesome, especially with high FOV.
  • Do some power play. The Empire looks like a place I would like to help out.

I rate this game a strong 95 out of 100. I am taking 5 points off because the story aspect is severely lacking. I just feel that adding a 'story mode' in the game would not take anything away from the sandbox while adding another layer for those that want to progress in a more organic way. Look no further than Freelancer for inspiration as to how you can slowly introduce the player to the entire galaxy with the help of a sexy woman! :cool:
In before "Back in my day it took me so and so"

Uh Idk Do AX I guess.
 
Look no further than Freelancer for inspiration as to how you can slowly introduce the player to the entire galaxy with the help of a sexy woman!
Or Lone Echo if you are a VR player.... I digress, the entire galaxy isn't actually available for exploration, but I could listen to Liv all day, every day... and she has a nice Remlok too... :love:
 
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