Frontier: I figured out why people keep saying the game is a grind...please read.

[bamber]

Hi it finally dawned on me why there seems to be a endless amount of things to do in Elite, yet none of them feel satisfactory, its bugged me for a while that there is a lot to do in Elite but why does everyone complain it being grindy?

The reason is simple. Elite never gives the player a "win".

No matter what you do you never get a "thank you" from the game.

No matter how many ships you kill in a conflict zone, you cannot end the conflict, the conflict just goes on even if you brought a wing of 4 friends to defeat the other side.

You cannot win saving miners from pirates at RES points, no matter how many pirates you kill the only thing you get is money, nobody says thanks, you can't "clear out" a RES point. There is no ultimate reward like other games, where you are told you have achieved certain things.

No matter how many times you donate to systems, or how many luxuries or food you give to "seeking food, luxuries, the fleets stay there forever and ever.

If you beat another power's players in a opposing system you cannot affect or win the system over, there is no reward for fighting in what you believe in. You cannot win again.

No matter how many merits you win or grind, nothing is permanent and things just decay. You do not get a title for doing 1000 merits in the game.

The journey is its own reward maybe, but after a while the mind just figures out that nothing in the end changes. All players want for the end of a days work is a pat on the back, a well done kind of feeling - that what they did mattered. Now I don't mean that players need to feel special. I just mean players need to feel like they can "achieve" something in the game other than just get more credits.

This isn't hard to implement, the mechanics for the game are all already there. All players need to feel is that they can win everynow and then and get rewarded by the game in some manner for completing a LARGER BIG PICTURE OBJECTIVE, whether in the form of change, money, items, achievements, titles.

Bump or comment if you can get behind this change in design direction.

in elite the player is a needle in a haystack in a field of haystacks on a farm of fields with haystacks in - in a county of farms with fields in a country of counties
.
You are likely to win anything as a grain of sand is likely to stop the tide coming in
.
That's how its meant to be - you are insignificant

 

[Hurricane Moon]

you cant put gta into the same bracket....gta is a masterpiece all round,thats a game worth taking the time to see the sights as it were.....
Elite has a few nice nebulas,but essentially it does all look the same,well its space isn't it....

black painted backdrop with stars.......floating "ball" planets.....same looking types of stations.....not exactly a technological masterpiece is it?


but however,I do love it still....but I see it for what it is.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

you cant put gta into the same bracket....gta is a masterpiece all round,thats a game worth taking the time to see the sights as it were.....
Elite has a few nice nebulas,but essentially it does all look the same,well its space isn't it....

black painted backdrop with stars.......floating "ball" planets.....same looking types of stations.....not exactly a technological masterpiece is it?


but however,I do love it still....but I see it for what it is.

I was pointing out how gameplay mechanics can be broken down to appear to just be simple tasks no matter what the game. Despite GTA being a masterpiece it still can be broken down to the run(travel)/gun mechanic of CoD/BF games. BF looks great, stuff blows up, but you still just move and shoot when you take all the glitz away.

 

[Cradle2Grave]

I was pointing out how gameplay mechanics can be broken down to appear to just be simple tasks no matter what the game. Despite GTA being a masterpiece it still can be broken down to the run(travel)/gun mechanic of CoD/BF games. BF looks great, stuff blows up, but you still just move and shoot when you take all the glitz away.

Oddly enough, it's still way better than ED.

 

[Kitiara]

Has anyone ever bought an Anaconda purely trading in Biowaste? That would certainly be an accomplishment for those so inclined.

THat's a crappy idea

 

[Magic Man]

Those of us who played the originals may go on about immersion and making your own paths and stories etc. but that was a large part of the game and added tremendously to the feeling you got when playing.

I think one of ED's most touted attributes may actually be a major thorn in its side to giving a Commander the same sort of experience this time around.

That thorn? Multi-player. Rather than adding to the ED galaxy, it strips it of value in most cases.

Don't get me wrong, it could be great and, no doubt in certain private groups it is. The truth is though that multi-player in Elite needs role play to be of value. Trouble is, a lot of players these days seem to fall into the console/quick action crowd who couldn't care less about immersion and just want to shoot things to advance to the next ship as quickly as possible, they are not interested in building any sort of rich game galaxy that multi-player could and probably was hoped would bring.

You only need to scan these forums to see the number of requests to buff this, buff that, give me more ammo, the ability to mount more guns, larger shields, automatically do this etc. etc. to see that the majority seem to concentrate only on the space combat side of things. They'll be happy with the close quarters stuff coming up, that's all they want from Elite really, a glorified COD in space.

Conversely, the number of requests for deeper story driven missions, greater feeling of worth and importance, more personalisation of you in the galaxy etc. are minimal. Most it seems don't want Elite to be much more than it is.

If there was just solo then we could be running missions to rescue the princess, we could be getting thank you's from mercy missions, we could be made to feel that we are actually important in our galaxy and are achieving great things.

You can't have that immersion though with multiplayer because that other guy in the same instance as you spends hours every day stat gaming, his ship is far better than yours, he has loads of credits to waste away but acts like a kid playing a space game. And there are hundreds of others like him throughout your galaxy...

You were Shepard in Mass Effect, you went through what he/she did. Imagine a multi player Mass Effect with hundreds of Shepard's doing the same thing - story impact is destroyed. It just becomes another game.

Not much can be done though other than to find a good private group or play solo and hope that the story and immersion building events and actions eventually come and are more personally related.

 

[smokingrabit]

You can break anything down to its most basic parts and say the same: CoD - Run and shoot, same with all FPS games. Driving games - Go forward, backward, left and right in various combinations. Even GTA can be broken down to be just - Go hear, do something (either shoot or press a key) etc. The real point is how you then complete the task at hand, do you see it as a chore or something you enjoy?

It seems to me the players who have been here a while are all suffering from the age old MMO problem of so called end game content or lack of as is the case with almost all MMO's. Which then lead to the calls for stuff they want in the game and to hell with the development time line.

I've been playing the game for a little over a week now and as a new player I'm finding the game a blast (pun intended) but coming here to the forums is the biggest mistake I have made, why?

Because every day there is a wall of threads 'Why the game is doomed', 'Space is empty!', 'Let me discover a cross between a koala and a frog on a planet and never find anything like it ever again', 'Power Play is naff'...

Do you see how these posts, while justified in the minds of the posters are in fact a huge part of the problem. I try to stick to looking just at the Explorer pages but I want to know what's going on with the game so I come to the Dangerous Discussions area... Seems it is dangerous for newbies to look inside for fear of being put off playing the game.

some people are having a great time and despite me being one of them I know im getting more game for my money and I knew the game wasn't finished.

people are esoecially cynical since powerplay just look at the comments about the big secret coming out during gamescon, no where near enough excitement, ask yourself what this could mean for sales and future development, doesnt matter your happy or not its the unhappy customers who matter and they are being neglected at the cost of people who are happy.

 

[Winterwalker]

For me, any perception of grind is much to do with the fact that there's no perma-death (yet!! FD?? ironman?? DDF?? ).

The game will probably never reset you to first base, except perhaps when you noob, so progression seems like a given and if that progression isn't fast enough, it's grind.

While I don't disagree with the OP that messages from your power (we won) or unlocks towards taking resources to new exploration bases would be great additions to the game .. and I hope things like this are implemented .. these are of course only ever going to be interim wins. At the end of the day you don't want "game over, you completed Elite: Dangerous."

On the other hand you DO want, "game over because your commander is dead (may he rest in pieces)" because then the next ship up or the next elite ranking, doesn't feel like a given, if you wait long enough, but as something you rightly earned. This for me would add a whole new perception and would deal with (what is ultimately, despite being a horrible word, a sense of) entitlement.

I don't disagree with the OP though. Adding "Commander, you receive a commendation for helping your Power to win the battle of x" .. could also be good.

 

[Tweakz]

in elite the player is a needle in a haystack in a field of haystacks on a farm of fields with haystacks in - in a county of farms with fields in a country of counties
.
You are likely to win anything as a grain of sand is likely to stop the tide coming in
.
That's how its meant to be - you are insignificant

Dont you think this could get a problem sooner or later? I mean a Online Game needs to make the player feel important in a way and needs to be rewarding. Otherwise people will get bored. Im mean being insignificant isn´t really a motivation boost to play a game. :3

 

[Triple88a]

I was pointing out how gameplay mechanics can be broken down to appear to just be simple tasks no matter what the game. Despite GTA being a masterpiece it still can be broken down to the run(travel)/gun mechanic of CoD/BF games. BF looks great, stuff blows up, but you still just move and shoot when you take all the glitz away.

lol you're way off dude. Sure it may appear simple when broken down but thats the thing, when everything is put together the game is complete and fun. The missions are well done, the story line is well done, the gameplay is exciting, the pvp is pretty fun as well. Here in ED, we have broken missions, badly implemented multiplayer mechanics, badly implemented progression.. when i say that trading is the best done mechanic of game (and trading is boring).. this should tell you about the rest of the game.

 

[nexxo]

You can't win Elite.

This guy can:

 

[Raidiant]

Those of us who played the originals may go on about immersion and making your own paths and stories etc. but that was a large part of the game and added tremendously to the feeling you got when playing.

I think one of ED's most touted attributes may actually be a major thorn in its side to giving a Commander the same sort of experience this time around.

That thorn? Multi-player. Rather than adding to the ED galaxy, it strips it of value in most cases.

Don't get me wrong, it could be great and, no doubt in certain private groups it is. The truth is though that multi-player in Elite needs role play to be of value. Trouble is, a lot of players these days seem to fall into the console/quick action crowd who couldn't care less about immersion and just want to shoot things to advance to the next ship as quickly as possible, they are not interested in building any sort of rich game galaxy that multi-player could and probably was hoped would bring.

You only need to scan these forums to see the number of requests to buff this, buff that, give me more ammo, the ability to mount more guns, larger shields, automatically do this etc. etc. to see that the majority seem to concentrate only on the space combat side of things. They'll be happy with the close quarters stuff coming up, that's all they want from Elite really, a glorified COD in space.

Conversely, the number of requests for deeper story driven missions, greater feeling of worth and importance, more personalisation of you in the galaxy etc. are minimal. Most it seems don't want Elite to be much more than it is.

If there was just solo then we could be running missions to rescue the princess, we could be getting thank you's from mercy missions, we could be made to feel that we are actually important in our galaxy and are achieving great things.

You can't have that immersion though with multiplayer because that other guy in the same instance as you spends hours every day stat gaming, his ship is far better than yours, he has loads of credits to waste away but acts like a kid playing a space game. And there are hundreds of others like him throughout your galaxy...

You were Shepard in Mass Effect, you went through what he/she did. Imagine a multi player Mass Effect with hundreds of Shepard's doing the same thing - story impact is destroyed. It just becomes another game.

Not much can be done though other than to find a good private group or play solo and hope that the story and immersion building events and actions eventually come and are more personally related.

I disagree - a lot of players care about lore and roleplay, otherwise we wouldn't team up and do things like races and pvps with no rewards, or bother delivering Aisling to systems so they can get prepped and expanded, or explore for next to no credits a lot of the stuff players do has no combat interest, its just after a while people start asking themselves why are they doing what they are doing if can't see results from their actions, whats the point of gathering all that exploration data?

The majority of people who play and stay around with a game like Elite are not Cod style achievement unlocked type players, nor point and click mmorpg players, thats the reason we are here. We are simulation fans, who want to be immersed.

As for the you are meant to be a needle in a haystack argument, I don't agree - there can be a butterfly effect and if 4 players are helping a faction they should be able to create some kind of result. If I wanted to just be another person doing a repetitive job i'd apply for a factory job in China where my work has no meaning.

Its kind of saying you can have a job you care about and a job you don't care about, both can be repetitive , one just has meaning and some kind of payoff.

Also some other person made a good point, if elite was had no goals, then why does an anaconda cost 120 mill and the maximum you can gain per trade is about 3000k per ton . So its setting players up to grind. Money shouldn't be the only goal in Elite is what I am trying to say, and if it wasn't then it would feel less grindy.