Grinding isn't the player's fault

[CariadocThorne]

Yes, there are goals like missions/ships/and just about anything in the game. Not sure what you are talking about. I don’t mind “sandbox “ but if to do anything in that sandbox means repeating something for hour on end ... then it becomes a grind which is quite an achievement to make a SANDBOX A grind. If it is such a sandbox, just give everything for free!!!!

But it's only a grind if you set those big ships or maxed engineering as your target. And even then you will eventually get them without grinding if you just play the game. Well, engineering will probably require a little grind, but even then not much.

I unlocked nearly all engineers to G5 and engineered my first 2 ships to mostly G3 or G4 with almost no grind, simply because I didn't rush to engineer everything the second engineers came out, just kept playing the game, and I soon had far more of most materials than I needed. Only had to grind when I wanted to build my Krait up to full G5, and by then I'd had years of gathering materials along the way, so it's taken me less than 4 hours of grinding to have everything G5 except my SCB, because I'm only Master combat rank. Selene Jean and Marco Qwent were the only unlocks which felt like grinding, the rest I mostly did a bit at a time, while doing other stuff in the area.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GRIND. If you really want to get big ships or G5 engineering as early as possible, that's entirely up to you. No-one is making you do it, except yourself.

You can deny that all you want, but when you find the game boring, and people like me who choose not to grind (mostly at least), still don't find the game boring, the proof is right there.

 

[House0fDerp]

Just because you can grind in a really boring way doesn't mean you have to.

You can level up as a blacksmith in Skyrim by buying iron and leather and making stuff then honing it and selling it back and buying more stuff and so on to 100. That's a job simulator and it's a terrible way to approach a video game, it's no wonder people get bored if they do things like that.

Ignore the grind and as you do something else drop into random USS's/scoop while your shields come up/take missions for mats you'll accumulate all kinds of gubbins and when it comes to engineering you'll already have it, anything you are missing you can trade for.

Spreading out a grind doesn't make it not a grind. If you're not dropping into USSs or scouring planets regularly in the normal course of your gameplay you have to go out of your way to do so which makes it a grind, a time inflation on top of whatever you were already doing.

 

[Stigbob]

Spreading out a grind doesn't make it not a grind. If you're not dropping into USSs or scouring planets regularly in the normal course of your gameplay you have to go out of your way to do so which makes it a grind, a time inflation on top of whatever you were already doing.

I don't scour planets and I drop into random USS's on my way to and from stations and while waiting for assassination targets. I also scoop mats when my shields are recharging.

 

[Darkfyre99]

This is what I hear quoted most. But is it really? If the player is so obsessed with what they are doing, they will simply not think about the grind. But I think the repetitiveness and the lack of skills needed to do certain things such as travelling makes it boring after a while, as evident of the number of people I always see complaining about the game being boring. If gameplay, like some games which are not sims, was more interesting, then before you know it you would have unlocked everything - but without thinking about grinding at all.

As far as I can tell, not thinking, or more accurately not being willing to think about what they're doing, is the primary cause of grinding in this game.

Take travel, for example. Near as I can tell, the predominant wisdom of the forum is to set your throttle to 70%, aim at your destination, and watch Netflix until you arrive. You may want to make a sacrifice to the RNG before departure, so you won't get interdicted by an NPC. Very little thinking required, and frelling boring. And to add insult to their self-inflicted injury, if they want to engineer their ship, they'll then have to spend hours flying through supercruise at 30 km/s, until an HGE spawns in front of them.

I've been flying contrary to the forum recommended method since the Alpha, and I have a lot more fun doing it. I can sometimes cut my travel times in half by flying actively and smart. In the process, I keep my eyes out for any USSs that spawn along my path, and take a few seconds to see if they're worth my while. It does a pretty good job keeping me in materials, and in the process I'm also making credits, ranking up with the Empire, and having fun doing it.

 

[Avago Earo]

Well. the Krait looks like fun to 'fly'
But I can't, because I can't put the hours in.
When I say hours, I mean staring at the Jump screen, then keeping my speed down to 7 seconds so as not to overshoot the station I've targeted to hand in a mission and get another one to.... you get the picture.

I could spend a lot of time searching for bits to hand into an engineer so my ship is capable of fighting other commanders that 'spend a lot of time searching for bits to hand into an engineer'. I copy/pasted hat last bit...,, reminds me of a game...

Hearing the words 'Frameshift Drive Charging' over and over again, and 'Docking Access Granted'Denied' over and over again, gets a bit samey, when all that happens in between, is inderdictions that you can outrun, NPC's you can outfight and then a sudden jump to God NPC's that blow you up in seconds with no skill required to fight back, because BLAM! DEAD. USS's that after one day of play you can taste are random computer code...

There's no skill involved, just button routines. The ships that are fun to fly, weaving about and getting on a nine, will get melted in seconds by Billy Big Balls and his engineered Ana Jane Fonda. 'I earned ma wangs ba handin' in explaraaashun data, and now aa've buyed ma a great bid annie. Gonna fit it wit turrets and blow ya Vulture ta hell 'n' back.' Y'all hear ma, I can't fly ma way outa a coryooooolis space port, but ah gut 'em big guns and am gonna beat y'all to hell'

Fitting out a ship. Getting a bigger one. Engineering it. It's just a numbers game. No skill required.

 

[trigun539]

Just because you can grind in a really boring way doesn't mean you have to.

You can level up as a blacksmith in Skyrim by buying iron and leather and making stuff then honing it and selling it back and buying more stuff and so on to 100. That's a job simulator and it's a terrible way to approach a video game, it's no wonder people get bored if they do things like that.

Ignore the grind and as you do something else drop into random USS's/scoop while your shields come up/take missions for mats you'll accumulate all kinds of gubbins and when it comes to engineering you'll already have it, anything you are missing you can trade for.

How long would that take... months may be worse on depending how many hours you put into the game. Also trading is absolutely broken, ratios of like 36-216 for ONE other material is ridiculous. If you go the other way around is probably like 1-3/6. So yeah, you would have to be going into USS for like months before you could do anything. This is a gameplay problem not a player problem!

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Yep, this thread is exactly the same as all the other 'grind' threads.

I'll be over here, if anyone wants to argue about the exclusive Cobra IV.

 

[IVAN__V]

The game needs a creative offline mode with free ships and decent mission and npc generator where everyone can just play the game at their own pace.

 

[Avago Earo]

Yep, this thread is exactly the same as all the other 'grind' threads.

I'll be over here, if anyone wants to argue about the exclusive Cobra IV.

I sold mine

 

[Stigbob]

How long would that take... months may be worse on depending how many hours you put into the game. Also trading is absolutely broken, ratios of like 36-216 for ONE other material is ridiculous. If you go the other way around is probably like 1-3/6. So yeah, you would have to be going into USS for like months before you could do anything. This is a gameplay problem not a player problem!

It doesn't take months. As a rule I only ever trade up, but I'll go one for three when getting rare stuff usually I do it via missions. Just pin the blueprint and then you can finish it off as and when you get the bits, there isn't a rush and you can G4 most things just with what's in storage from random USS's and scooping while your shield recharge.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I sold mine

Philistine!

 

[House0fDerp]

I don't scour planets and I drop into random USS's on my way to and from stations and while waiting for assassination targets. I also scoop mats when my shields are recharging.

And these are still out of the way activities. I've actually done scooping between combat actions, though mostly in res sites. Personally I find it murders pacing and slows things down incredibly on top of making some of the smaller ships in my fleet near unusable. Larger ones mitigate it through limpets so those aren't an issue in terms of usability, but they still drag.

Regarding USSs, maybe you're just more tolerant of supercruise times in general but USSs feel like such a timesink as well.

My biggest thing about this game is that it feels like it's designed for anyone who would ever ask "Why am I doing this instead of playing something else?" Which is what I often end up doing. Basic tasks feel so dragged out here that when they need to be extended further it can feel truly excruciating. I spent 1.5 hours outfitting a new ship last night due to blindness regarding ship locations and then modules not being available in places that in theory should have had them per EDDB. Now I'm supposed to expand that by dropping into USSs and consider that "natural progression." The game feeling like a grind should be rather self apparent when you look at basic tasks like that.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

As far as I can tell, not thinking, or more accurately not being willing to think about what they're doing, is the primary cause of grinding in this game.

Take travel, for example. Near as I can tell, the predominant wisdom of the forum is to set your throttle to 70%, aim at your destination, and watch Netflix until you arrive. You may want to make a sacrifice to the RNG before departure, so you won't get interdicted by an NPC. Very little thinking required, and frelling boring. And to add insult to their self-inflicted injury, if they want to engineer their ship, they'll then have to spend hours flying through supercruise at 30 km/s, until an HGE spawns in front of them.

I've been flying contrary to the forum recommended method since the Alpha, and I have a lot more fun doing it. I can sometimes cut my travel times in half by flying actively and smart. In the process, I keep my eyes out for any USSs that spawn along my path, and take a few seconds to see if they're worth my while. It does a pretty good job keeping me in materials, and in the process I'm also making credits, ranking up with the Empire, and having fun doing it.

Ye did that "intelligent" flying too. Until I repeatedly experienced unexplicable slow downs. Was it me? Was it sinister mechanic because I cruised too fast? No, they say it is objects affecting the path that are simply not rendered. And that's why you're just as good sticking to the "stupid" way, cos for every "intelligent" path you take, there'll be that stupid invisible gravity source wasting your time just because it can.

And those hotspots in space they can stick where they like. They made such a great effort in filling it with AI gank squads to make sure it's gonna be a real challenge getting the stupid 5 gold canister that aren't really worth anything anyway. And why would I waste my time in stupid RNG spawns anyway?

 

[Surprised Brony]

As far as I can tell, not thinking, or more accurately not being willing to think about what they're doing, is the primary cause of grinding in this game.

Take travel, for example. Near as I can tell, the predominant wisdom of the forum is to set your throttle to 70%, aim at your destination, and watch Netflix until you arrive. You may want to make a sacrifice to the RNG before departure, so you won't get interdicted by an NPC. Very little thinking required, and frelling boring. And to add insult to their self-inflicted injury, if they want to engineer their ship, they'll then have to spend hours flying through supercruise at 30 km/s, until an HGE spawns in front of them.

I've been flying contrary to the forum recommended method since the Alpha, and I have a lot more fun doing it. I can sometimes cut my travel times in half by flying actively and smart. In the process, I keep my eyes out for any USSs that spawn along my path, and take a few seconds to see if they're worth my while. It does a pretty good job keeping me in materials, and in the process I'm also making credits, ranking up with the Empire, and having fun doing it.

Best way to fly. You'll find more HGE sources that way too, won't you? Pretty sure going 30km/s makes USS beacons almost never spawn.

At any rate, due to the fact that people can have fun and choose not to grind out one thing at a time, I'm gonna say it's the player's fault every time if they feel a grind. Problem is, people want to achieve a lofty goal too often.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Yep, this thread is exactly the same as all the other 'grind' threads.

I'll be over here, if anyone wants to argue about the exclusive Cobra IV.

*joins Drew*

I haven't actually bought a Cobra IV yet, despite the sheer number of internals it has. It always seemed like it would be a step down from the Cobra III, both in real space speed and maneuverability, and in Supercruise agility. OTOH, these days I'm flying a Python, and the Cobra IV has a slight advantage when it comes to Supercruise agility, which IMO is always a plus. Given that the IV takes the exact core internals as the III, I'm thinking I should give it a spin.

Any thoughts?

 

[Bacalao]

It doesn't take months. As a rule I only ever trade up, but I'll go one for three when getting rare stuff usually I do it via missions. Just pin the blueprint and then you can finish it off as and when you get the bits, there isn't a rush and you can G4 most things just with what's in storage from random USS's and scooping while your shield recharge.

You're describing 10-20hrs for one grade 4 upgrade, depending on how much time I have to play games at that time of year, that's my entire gameplay budget for a month. God, supercruise is long and boring enough just getting to and from actual gameplay, I couldn't bring myself to watch 0:06 at every USS that spawns.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

I feel sorry for people who chose to grind away at their big fleets.

Try it my way - one medium ship (pick the one you like the most), engineer it and kit it out for the tasks you enjoy, and you'll have a great time.

Just because the game allows you to own multiple ships, does not make it mandatory.

Lead the simple Elite life, and stop your fleet grinding. Relax! Have fun.

 

[House0fDerp]

I feel sorry for people who chose to grind away at their big fleets.

Try it my way - one medium ship (pick the one you like the most), engineer it and kit it out for the tasks you enjoy, and you'll have a great time.

Just because the game allows you to own multiple ships, does not make it mandatory.

Lead the simple Elite life, and stop your fleet grinding. Relax! Have fun.

If having various ships and kits is how you get your kicks what then?

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

If having various ships and kits is how you get your kicks what then?

Then I guess you're in for the long haul - but it would be your choice when all's said and done.

 

[h347h]

The grind is all in the mind. If I log on to go to go take my Pre 3.0 modded Eagle that I grinded for and go spend a few hours in a HICZ just crushing ships it doesn't feel grindy to me. If I'm hauling cargo in open with people trying to kill me it doesn't feel grindy. If I'm in a HICZ in my Corvette going for a top 5 commanders spot during a CG it feels grindy to me because of how easy it is. Same if I'm hauling cargo in solo because I want the credits per hour.

If the game feels grindy it could be how you are playing the game. If you are playing because you are playing the game as goal oriented instead of fun oriented it will probably be grindy.