Fixing the Material Grind with Zero extra Coding

Tryohazard

Tryohazard
(Skip to next paragraph for actual proposal) I don't think I've met a single person who likes the material grind mechanic, but it's not a horrible mechanic--It's just far too exhausting because the loop is hardly a loop at all. Spending hours on end to grind for the elite ranks or the faction ranks is doable because it's essentially a passive result of just playing the game, which is as fun as you make it. To get materials, however, it's best to go to the hotspots and relog for hours, trade, relog etc. You can try to collect them passively, which means you could have your ship engineered maybe in... 500 hours. Maybe that's not even a joke. I'm pretty much complete with the progression: I'm elite in almost everything, I've got my fleet carrier and one of every ship. I still play the game because I love finding new things to do with other players, but I would be much more willing to play in open if I knew that getting into a PvP conflict wouldn't be decided SOLELY by who wasted the most time engineering their ship to filthy cheese god level. I'm OKAY with filthy cheese god level but d****t I have a life and I'd rather lose knowing I made a bad choice in ship logistics and combat skill rather than lose knowing it was because I have other things in my life preventing me from having fun. Skill issue? I wouldn't know because I don't bother trying, and I don't want to just look up the meta builds I'd rather experiment myself and that just takes way too much time, so I'd rather just do other things.


Double the player's Material Capacity and change material amount per pickup from 3 to 25.


And that's it. No extra lines of code just change the ones already there. With trade penalties still in effect it will now be more effective and engaging to collect the actual material rather than, say, grind at Jameson crash site trade to collect one type of G4 and G5 mats then trade them into everything else, meaning you can go out and seek the material the intended way and it could arguably be faster and definitely more fun. I doubt anyone could reasonably argue against something like this. Now, if you still wanted to grind to fill up your inventories, you could do it quicker by just seeking them out specifically. I don't think it's necessary, but we could also see if increasing the cross-category trading penalty will help but I bet with this change alone trading will be way more optional than required.

Edit: After the news of the update's details I feel pretty vindicated against the dissent. Was shocked to hear so many people don't like making the game more fun 🤷‍♂️
 
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Doctor Dread

Doctor Dread
Tryohazard said:
it will now be more effective and engaging to collect the actual material rather than, say, grind at Jameson crash site trade to collect one type of G4 and G5 mats then trade them into everything else, meaning you can go out and seek the material the intended way and it could arguably be faster and definitely more fun.
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This is true.

Let's be fair, we are all cheating with Jameson Crash Site type of relogging, so your suggestion would make it sleeker and more fun. Without the need to trade.
Time-vise it might be the same, but yes it would be more engaging. True playing, not gaming the play.
 

Tryohazard

Tryohazard
SlickPBW said:
So, make the game easier.
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I'm sorry, do you find grinding mats particularly difficult? Nothing about this suggestion makes the game easier or harder. It's like watching a YouTube ad before the video: It's not difficult, it's just incredibly boring and requires minimal attention. I wouldn't be making this if getting materials was fun or challenging. Don't get difficult and tedious confused. If at any point you're playing a game and find yourself saying, "Work is more stimulating than this," for longer than 10 minutes, then It's a game thing and can stand to be changed. I'm curious as to what your reaction was when they added SCO to the universe. I personally never had too much of an issue with Super Cruise but it's not difficult to sit there and wait to accelerate so people have been complaining about that for a long time. Now you can purchase a module that requires more thought and skill to use. And guess what happened when they release the SCO? Everyone had to go reengineer their FSDs!
 

Darth Ender

D
the purpose of materials and engineers is to make players play longer or more sessions in the absence of actual new content.

inflating the income (materials) to reduce the need to repeat grind loops defeats the purpose. players will get what reward they were aiming for, have nothing else to get, become bored then stop playing. this was the issue the game had before engineers. it's why fdev created engineers the way it is.

any solution to the grind of the game that circumvents the game loops without creating new game loops is a poorly thought out idea. you are optimizing out what fdev is selling as 'the game'.
 

yianniv

yianniv
HRDiagram said:
Let's see what FDev will have to say next Wednesday on FU, when they will start talking about the upcoming changes to engineering.
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This is the second post I see regarding engineering changes to be announced in the upcoming FU. Was this mentioned in the previous FU or from another source? I can't remember anything relevant.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
I'll throw in my 0.02.

We don't know what FD are thinking for the rework, but based on past experience i'm not hopeful.

However:

1) Odyssey mats. They aren't actually too bad, but the trade rate could be better and all types of things need to be tradable. That would remove one of the biggest annoyances. Also, if you could choose the type of material rewards from mission givers, (not bulletin board), then that might make going to them more interesting.

2) Have a slider when choosing rewards from mission for ships. You can choose how much of the reward is credits and how much is materials. So rather than, for example, getting 75% pay and 3 materials, you can instead opt for 0% pay and 12 materials.
 

aRJay

aRJay
Agony_Aunt said:
I'll throw in my 0.02.

We don't know what FD are thinking for the rework, but based on past experience i'm not hopeful.
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The previous rework of engineering and increased mats spawn was fine so I am not worried.

Agony_Aunt said:
However:

1) Odyssey mats. They aren't actually too bad, but the trade rate could be better and all types of things need to be tradable. That would remove one of the biggest annoyances. Also, if you could choose the type of material rewards from mission givers, (not bulletin board), then that might make going to them more interesting.
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Currently the shops provide all the enhancement I need for what Iam interested in in Odyssey.

Agony_Aunt said:
2) Have a slider when choosing rewards from mission for ships. You can choose how much of the reward is credits and how much is materials. So rather than, for example, getting 75% pay and 3 materials, you can instead opt for 0% pay and 12 materials.
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This sounds great and might tempt me to bother looking at missions sometime.
 

Darth Ender

D
get rid of credits (they're a pointless currency anyway given the reverse inflation that exists).
Put everything in the game in terms of costs of materials.
Allow players to fund guild/wing/squadron (whatever we're calling it) banks. These banks track deposits of all materials per player and withdraws. Squad leaders can set material ratios however they see fit. Only squadron members can use that squad's bank. Players cannot directly trade materials with each other.

Keep npc material traders, but enforce persistent fixed assets. In other words, they only can trade what they have been given. They start out with a certain stock of everything and if they sell out, they remain sold out until some real player deposits new materials. They are never artificially restocked again. Their stock amounts and demand dictate trade ratios.

And as always, there's the option for fdev to spice up the game loops with some variety. Maybe add in ai communication text or better more specific npc archetypes instead of re-using the same 3 for all roles. Something to make the repetition of the game loops less repetitive.
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Tryohazard said:
It's just far too exhausting because the loop is hardly a loop at all.
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There are so many other possibilities for making material farming much more interesting without going to "let's just increase the amount of materials per source ten-fold". Although they do require a bit of coding.

One that has been suggested several times, which I would like if they did, was to make mission rewards more developed. For example, you could be given a much more varied set of rewards to choose from (rather than the 2 or 3 current rewards). Maybe you could even "negotiate" with the mission giver on what rewards you want (similarly to how you can "negotiate" in a minor manner with on-foot mission givers about the reward money). For example you could haggle with "I'll do the mission for polonium, how many will you give me?", or something along those lines. Or, alternatively, the mission screen would just list all material rewards and their amounts, and you could choose from them, perhaps even get a combination of materials. Something similar to how the material trader screen looks and works.

It would certainly be more fun to do a mission for 10 Datamined Wake Exceptions than go cheese Jameson's crash site for 60 Adapative Encryptors Capture + going to a material trader.
 

Brrokk

Brrokk
Tryohazard said:
(Skip to next paragraph for actual proposal) I don't think I've met a single person who likes the material grind mechanic, but it's not a horrible mechanic--It's just far too exhausting because the loop is hardly a loop at all. Spending hours on end to grind for the elite ranks or the faction ranks is doable because it's essentially a passive result of just playing the game, which is as fun as you make it. To get materials, however, it's best to go to the hotspots and relog for hours, trade, relog etc. You can try to collect them passively, which means you could have your ship engineered maybe in... 500 hours. Maybe that's not even a joke. I'm pretty much complete with the progression: I'm elite in almost everything, I've got my fleet carrier and one of every ship. I still play the game because I love finding new things to do with other players, but I would be much more willing to play in open if I knew that getting into a PvP conflict wouldn't be decided SOLELY by who wasted the most time engineering their ship to filthy cheese god level. I'm OKAY with filthy cheese god level but d****t I have a life and I'd rather lose knowing I made a bad choice in ship logistics and combat skill rather than lose knowing it was because I have other things in my life preventing me from having fun. Skill issue? I wouldn't know because I don't bother trying, and I don't want to just look up the meta builds I'd rather experiment myself and that just takes way too much time, so I'd rather just do other things.


Double the player's Material Capacity and change material amount per pickup from 3 to 25.


And that's it. No extra lines of code just change the ones already there. With trade penalties still in effect it will now be more effective and engaging to collect the actual material rather than, say, grind at Jameson crash site trade to collect one type of G4 and G5 mats then trade them into everything else, meaning you can go out and seek the material the intended way and it could arguably be faster and definitely more fun. I doubt anyone could reasonably argue against something like this. Now, if you still wanted to grind to fill up your inventories, you could do it quicker by just seeking them out specifically. I don't think it's necessary, but we could also see if increasing the cross-category trading penalty will help but I bet with this change alone trading will be way more optional than required.
Click to expand...
You've just met another one. I think material gathering is fine as it is.

Of course, that doesn't mean I think grindy methods from YouTube are fine.
 

Greasetrap42

Greasetrap42
Yes, to reduce the grind:
  • 10x mats of each pickup.
  • Reduce mats req'd for engineering.
  • Double the XP when defeating enemy (faster combat rank).
  • Double mission payouts, so players can rank up Imperial and Federal ranks quicker.
  • Double mission payouts again so players can afford lots of cutters and vettes.
  • Double the mission payouts again, just 'cause its good to have excess billions.
  • Double FSD jump range.
  • Make Tritium scoopable. Or limpets that auto-mine it while logged off.
  • Make all the ship modules available at every station, so I don't have go to Shinrarta Dehzra.
  • Engineering available on fleet carriers. Obviously including special effects.
  • Double fleet carrier jump range.

Did I miss anything?

/s
 
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