Enlighten me... How is drifting about space for High Grades considered fun?

Miko

M
I've participated in doing this many many times across both the Xbox and PS4 as it has become a necessary part of engineering and sourcing the rare materials, but when I factor in that the game can be very random, sometimes never spawning the USS that you seek, or the specific materials you're after, you then ask yourself what alternative activities are available. Then it occurs to you that the mission board is equally tedious and random and the traders have a 6/1 ratio on G5's. So if I want to max G5 engineer something I could be looking at needing 10+ mats and data per grade 5 completion.

Personally I just want to see FD either sort out the trader ratios or at least incorporate more enjoyable alternatives to obtaining the stuff you need in the game. More consistency with missions and a broader choice of rewards would also be appreciated because when I think about how devoted to this game I am and the sheer amount of time invested, it suddenly makes me wonder how on Earth the players who have much less time to play this can even remotely immerse themselves in it if they find themselves needing to waste the little time they have drifting aimlessly about to source a material!

Sure, have a grind of a game. Throw in some times sinks, FD, if you insist... Just add more enjoyment to the activities involved, and if not... Reduce the trader ratios. Lol.
 
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BlackSpaceCowboy

BlackSpaceCowboy
Miko said:
I've participated in doing this many many times across both the Xbox and PS4 as it has become a necessary part of engineering and sourcing the rare materials, but when I factor in that the game can be very random, sometimes never spawning the USS that you seek, or the specific materials you're after, you then ask yourself what alternative actives are available. Then it occurs to you that the mission board is equally tedious and random and the traders have a 6/1 ration on G5's. So if I want to max G5 engineer something I could be looking at needing 10+ mats and data per grade 5 completion.

Personally I just want to see FD either sort out the trader ratios or at least incorporate more enjoyable alternatives to obtaining the stuff you need in the game. More consistency with missions and a broader choice of rewards would also be appreciated because when I think about how devoted to this game I am and the sheer amount of time invested, it suddenly makes me wonder how on Earth the players who have much less time to play this can even remotely immerse themselves in it if they find themselves needing to waste the little time they have drifting aimlessly about to source a material!

Sure, have a grind of a game. Throw in some times sinks, FD, if you insist... Just add more enjoyment to the activities involved, and if not... Reduce the trader ratios. Lol.
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I'm someone who really loves space sims and loves certain aspects of this game but hate the gameplay.

Ideally, the missions and USS should be fun in and of themselves. The rewards from these fun activities should allow you to upgrade in a reasonable amount of time. I think FD struggle with creating fun content. They're better at creating busy work to unlock content.

I play a lot of simulators. I love racing simulators and flight / combat simulators. With simulators there's no grind at all. The fun is in the activity. I don't upgrade anything when I play IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad. I just learn to fly different planes and accomplish different goals which require a lot of skill and practice. And that's the fun--sharpening your skills flying different planes. And the level of mastery is infinite. I can pick it up and play for 30 minutes or a few hours or the whole day.

I'll add that they really improved the engineer system significantly. You should focus on doing missions and allow the materials to gather over time. The problem is the missions themselves are not a lot of fun and the USS variety is very limited. This game could use more emergent gameplay opportunities in the Black.
 
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Dbrn47

Dbrn47
I've been told that you aren't supposed to drift, you're supposed to find these things while piddling about doing other things. Embrace the slow burn, you have the rest of your life friend.

Cheeky++m8+but+i+will+give+you+my+thumb+_80651392d244d0d4f6edd6cedb1306e8.jpg
 
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Metal Angel

Metal Angel
Elite is fun regardless of what ship or modules or engineering you have. The grind burnout comes when people obsess over getting the most expensive ship with the best modules all engineered to G5. I love engineering and I have fun with it, but If I'm lacking some materials I don't fret over it. I'll just engineer it next time I have more materials. Also, be thankful you are playing on console so you don't have to rely on the luck of the roll so much. Sure, it can take more materials on console, but at least you have fixed results once you max them out.
 

Dbrn47

Dbrn47
Metal Angel said:
Elite is fun regardless of what ship or modules or engineering you have. The grind burnout comes when people obsess over getting the most expensive ship with the best modules all engineered to G5. I love engineering and I have fun with it, but If I'm lacking some materials I don't fret over it. I'll just engineer it next time I have more materials. Also, be thankful you are playing on console so you don't have to rely on the luck of the roll so much. Sure, it can take more materials on console, but at least you have fixed results once you max them out.
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You're skipping the issue though by just 'put it aside until later'. Sure, it helps to space it out, but it doesn't lessen the amount of stuff you need, just the concentration of immediate psychosis. Sometimes driving myself crazy with the grind is well worth having an upgraded ship in a week instead of 3 months. The blame can be placed at both sides, I don't need to have it in a week, but it doesn't need to take 3 months to get it otherwise either. It's a problem since much of it doesn't really involve having fun, much of it involves driving around on a planet for hours trying to listen to a wave scanner with arbitrarily stifled audio. That's not fun man. If I was having fun for the '3 months', the amount needed wouldn't be much of an issue. To each their own though, because I know that some will always have fun, even if it's peeling their nails back from the nail bed for the lack of anything better to do at the moment.
 
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Deleted member 38366

D
DrewCarnegie said:
Breaking News!

Rare item in 'hard to find' shock!
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Well, apart from traveling into the {$##correct_System{##faction_state}} , there is currently no such thing or mechanic like "finding them".

Players don't and can't find. HGEs find the Player instead - based mainly on an RNG_Timer and in-System location multipliers to that RNG.
Then once you have the sheer luck of the RNG to spawn a HGE, its content may or may not be what you need. RNG.
And even if it contains something you need, the Quantity you'll get is RNG.

All the "Gameplay" , the time in-between spotting a HGE is just brain-destroying boredom. Waiting for the RNG to trigger a spawn. Waiting. And more waiting. And then some more. All while viewing many other not_useful_now types of USS spawn after another.
As a mechanic, it barely registers as "Placeholder mechanics to test Client/Server communication and ensure basic functionality of the spawn System".
That isn't Gameplay or "Searching rare things", that's just plain offensive in my books.
The common consensus is that this is just extremely poor, a completely pointless and non-enjoyable, passive-but-massive waste of time in the current implementation. Horrid.
I could come up with 5 ways that'd be way better than this in less than 50ms, not rocket science.

Luckily though, at least there's a semi-efficient Combat alternative now, ever since big NPCs in HazRES or Civil Unrest-triggered "Pirate Activity Detected - Threat x" persistent Signal Sources drop at least a single HGE Material.
Still, one would have to blast through >alot< of Anacondas there in order to get i.e. 15 Pharmaceutical Isolators. Alot.

For added "challenge", every Minute you play "ELITE : Idle Games Edition" while waiting for a HGE to spawn, loudly speak out the FDev Quote : "We respect your time". One shot if you laugh.
(Warning : serious health issues can ensue from attempting this, so this is not recommended xD)

Disclaimer : I got very lucky buzzing around Muang. Didn't need them, but found me some 50+ Imperial Shielding as the System was throwing HGEs at me for some reason.
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Miko said:
has become a necessary part of engineering and sourcing the rare materials
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It's not strictly necessary, as of 3.0 - all materials obtained from High Grades can also be obtained from destroying NPC Anacondas (and probably other big ships, but I mainly see Anacondas)

Disadvantages of doing it this way:
- you get an average of one high-grade manufactured material (so 3 bits) per Anaconda
- you don't get to choose which

Advantages of doing it this way:
- you can find Anacondas to fight much quicker than HGE signal sources
- blowing up Anacondas is far more fun than crawling through supercruise looking for signals
- the bounty payout on a pirate Anaconda is pretty decent
 

Dbrn47

Dbrn47
FalconFly said:
Well, apart from traveling into the {#correct_System{##faction_state}} , there is currently no such thing or mechanic like "finding them".

Players don't and can't find. HGEs find the Player instead - based mainly on an RNG_Timer and in-System location multipliers to that RNG.
Then once you have the sheer luck of the RNG to spawn a HGE, its content may or may not be what you need. RNG.
And even if it contains something you need, the Quantity you'll get is RNG.

All the "Gameplay" , the time in-between spotting a HGE is just brain-destroying boredom. Waiting for the RNG to trigger a spawn. Waiting. And more waiting. And then some more. All while viewing many other not_useful_now types of USS spawn after another.
As a mechnanic, iIt barely registers as "Placeholder mechanics to test Client/Server communication and ensure basic functionality of the spawn System".
That isn't Gameplay or "Searching rare things", that's just plain offensive in my books.
The common consensus is that this is just extremely poor, a completely pointless and non-enjoyable, passive-but-massive waste of time in the current implementation. Horrid.
I could come up with 5 ways that'd be way better than this in less than 50ms, not rocket science.

Luckily though, at least there's a semi-efficient Combat alternative now, ever since big NPCs in HazRES or Civil Unrest-triggered "Pirate Activity Detected - Threat x" persistent Signal Sources drop at least a single HGE Material.
Still, one would have to blast through >alot< of Anacondas there in order to get i.e. 15 Pharmaceutical Isolators. Alot.

For added "challenge", every Minute you play "ELITE : Idle Games Edition" while waiting for a HGE to spawn, loudly speak out the FDev Quote : "We respect your time". One shot if you laugh.
(Warning : serious health issues can ensue from attempting this, so this is not recommended xD)
Click to expand...

Pretty much works like a slot machine in a casino, with so many lines and matches to be had, it can take quite a while before you get a worthwhile win, possibly never since 1745 ways to win also means there's more ways than that to lose.
 

Dbrn47

Dbrn47
Ian Doncaster said:
It's not strictly necessary, as of 3.0 - all materials obtained from High Grades can also be obtained from destroying NPC Anacondas (and probably other big ships, but I mainly see Anacondas)

Disadvantages of doing it this way:
- you get an average of one high-grade manufactured material (so 3 bits) per Anaconda
- you don't get to choose which

Advantages of doing it this way:
- you can find Anacondas to fight much quicker than HGE signal sources
- blowing up Anacondas is far more fun than crawling through supercruise looking for signals
- the bounty payout on a pirate Anaconda is pretty decent
Click to expand...

Have you nailed down a sure method of finding those Anacondas or is that still subject to 'pull the lever' too?
 

Funny

F
Metal Angel said:
Elite is fun regardless of what ship or modules or engineering you have. The grind burnout comes when people obsess over getting the most expensive ship with the best modules all engineered to G5. I love engineering and I have fun with it, but If I'm lacking some materials I don't fret over it. I'll just engineer it next time I have more materials. Also, be thankful you are playing on console so you don't have to rely on the luck of the roll so much. Sure, it can take more materials on console, but at least you have fixed results once you max them out.
Click to expand...
Which is totally not how most people wish to play this game, nononono. Well, I actually don't (or didn't) play the game that way. But a few thousand hours in and I think I should be able to get the good stuff now while still having fun, right? Apparently the game (and you) think otherwise though, so it's obviously just me and the majority of players who feel the process is incredibly unrewarding /s
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Miko said:
I've participated in doing this many many times across both the Xbox and PS4 as it has become a necessary part of engineering and sourcing the rare materials, but when I factor in that the game can be very random, sometimes never spawning the USS that you seek, or the specific materials you're after, you then ask yourself what alternative actives are available. Then it occurs to you that the mission board is equally tedious and random and the traders have a 6/1 ration on G5's. So if I want to max G5 engineer something I could be looking at needing 10+ mats and data per grade 5 completion.

Personally I just want to see FD either sort out the trader ratios or at least incorporate more enjoyable alternatives to obtaining the stuff you need in the game. More consistency with missions and a broader choice of rewards would also be appreciated because when I think about how devoted to this game I am and the sheer amount of time invested, it suddenly makes me wonder how on Earth the players who have much less time to play this can even remotely immerse themselves in it if they find themselves needing to waste the little time they have drifting aimlessly about to source a material!

Sure, have a grind of a game. Throw in some times sinks, FD, if you insist... Just add more enjoyment to the activities involved, and if not... Reduce the trader ratios. Lol.
Click to expand...

You have to love flying the ship so much you'll do any grind for the kicks, bored already?
 
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