Grinding isn't the player's fault

[TheMegaTurnip]

I'll leave you alone with this question (a good one btw). I guess you'll need some time for contemplation...
And now stop making my day (before I start to feel like a voyeur).

Lol. My good lord. I don't instantly take a dislike to people often. But your Ego is soooo out of whack mate.

EDIT: If you're trying to insinuate something. Grow a pair and say it. I don't have time for vauge sh*t distributed by w*nkers.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

OP here. For the record, I haven't started or participated in any 'grind' posts prior to this (check my thread history) - for the people saying that it's always the same group of people starting these threads.

I don't agree with the posts that say that only a small minority of players feel the grind. It's about 60/40. (Someone said 1%, which is definitely off).

There's an objective way of determining this. Just check the Steam reviews. (I myself didn't get ED on Steam). If you sort the overall reviews by most helpful, it's about 50/50. Many of the positive reviews do talk about it being grindy, and most negative reviews are commenting about gamelay being too shallow, and the grind of course. Most positive reviews come from players who spent over 100 hrs, while most negative reviews come from players who spent under 100 hrs.

I haven't seen that many reviews remarking about the grind on any game I've played before (I'm an avid fan of simulator / management games). Both truck sims (by SCS) has a rating of 10/10, despite being what some might call the epitome of repetitiveness, whereas ED only has a rating of 6/10. Grind structured games by heart such as Factorio has a rating of 10/10, and the grind is really not noticeable, as there is just too much stuff to do (although some people have commented about grind towards the very end). Forgive me lol, those are the only relatable games I know.

I'm sure someone has listed the main contributing factors which causes this. (possibly RNG, etc.) That's why I feel it's wrong to blame almost half of the player base for feeling the grind. If more depth was added to gameplay to mask the grind, I'm sure that the other half that already seem to be enjoying the game wouldn't complain, and be delighted.

 

[Devari]

Ultimately, the problem here is not that there is a grind. The problem is how uninteresting and bland most of the grind is.

That is one of the major problems in Elite, that the grind involves mind-numbingly dull activities and gameplay. The other issue is that you need to grind some very specific activities to get certain materials or to make certain progression in the game. Almost all games I've played have some sort of grind but if it's done in a manner that is indistinguishable from playing the game itself then players don't really mind it. The other games I've played that involve a significant "grind" attached to certain types of progression have generally done a good job of incorporating it into regular gameplay, including Star Trek Online (marks/rep/starbase grind), MechWarrior Online (C-bill and mech mastery grind), World of Warships (currency and XP grind) and even Battlefield 4 (weapon unlock grind). You naturally progressed towards these goals simply from playing the game. You also had various ways to shorten the grinds, whether it was with currency/XP-boosters, increased progression during special events, and so on in order to help give "casual" players a boost to help them achieve certain goals that would otherwise not be attainable. Elite does none of this, you need to do very specific activities in a very specific manner and even then you are going to be dealing with some sort of RNG that gets in the way of what you are trying to achieve. The materials trader is certainly a step in the right direction as it helps players substitute one type of grind for another but there needs to be more thought put into whether the gameplay we are doing in the game is worth doing at all, much less repeating over and over for hours on end.

I for one, would be strongly opposed to making the grind a lot quicker or easier, such as by simply increasing the drop rates of stuff. FDev didn't make ED to be a progression based game, and increasing drop rates and so on would simply encourage new players to follow that path.

The issue here is that FD sets up ridiculous grinds taking hundreds of hours, based on a buggy 1% or less RNG drop rate that sometimes doesn't work at all and gives you 0% drops. That's why so many of their "fixes" have been to increase drop rates, i.e., having one mat or data drop count 3X in your inventory, or being allowed to choose a +++ rep reward from a mission instead of credits.

However, I don't think anyone would object if FDev put some more effort into making the existing "grind" activities more varied and more engaging. The upcoming mining changes are a good example, this same level of attention needs to be given to more of the normal activities in the game.

I think it would also help if they make more changes like the recent change to HGE spawns, as this makes it possible to gather even some of the rarer materials while flying around doing other things. This would mean players wouldn't have to go out and grind mats every time they want to change out a single weapon on their ship and engineer it, as they would gather enough materials to cover occasional engineering during the course of their normal game-play. If you suddenly decided to buy a new ship and engineer everything on it from scratch, you might stll have to go out and grind a little though.

I would also like to see "better" content but I am extremely skeptical of FD's planned changes given what we've seen from them so far with the past 6 months of Beyond. They made Engineering progression more complicated but it isn't actually any "better", the only reason players "like" it is because the blueprint ranges are ludicrous for the effort that is now required. They essentially gave everyone a new, longer Engineering grind and considered it a "level cap increase" without adding any new content to the game. Anyone who invested in the old Engineering system was thrown under the bus and has been left with second-tier legacy mods and is somehow expected to repeat all of that effort. I haven't used the new Engineering system except for some G1 power plant mods and the occasional replacement module because I refuse to repeat the same activities I've already done just to max-out my ships again. FD started to achieve a reasonable gameplay balance with Engineering and then completely devalued everyone's work that was obtained with the old system when they pushed the new blueprints to ludicrous ranges. I'm not grinding several hundred more units of MEF to upgrade all of my multicannons to the new G5 range, or grinding more Pharmaceutical Isolators or Datamined Wake Exceptions or whatever else I already spent hundreds and hundreds of hours collecting.

FD's attempts to "fix" the C&P system were also terrible, now you get "Anonymous Access" for a trivial fine and clearing bounties requires finding an Interstellar Factors broker or "turning yourself in" which is nonsense. The worst part is that griefing and trolling are just as bad, if not worse, under the new system because if you have enough credits you simply pay to clear your ships or fly another ship while the notoriety decays. It's done nothing to actually provide proper consequences for griefing and has just been a massive inconvenience and annoyance for regular gameplay. I don't really believe that FD can improve the core game mechanics at this stage because they don't seem to properly understand them. They don't play their own game, and it shows, which is why the game has been getting progressively worse with Beyond and not better.

 

[Krezan]

TBH, grinding is the most thing you can actually put in a game. Most people (myself included) grind their lives away at work. Grind, grind, grind. I know I will now go home and have some fun. Oh look, more grind. stop the god damded grind. Koreons don't care. I've met them. They don't give a damn about WESTERN things, they have their own grind-a-thons. REMOVE THE GRIND.

 

[vbarcou]

It's a pity so much game content is behind some boring grinding. For instance to unlock one of the engineers I had to fly 7 times over 200 ly to fly 4 tons from point A to B till I had the needed cargo together. And this isn't even the worst... It is just annoying.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Then it's an entirely self inflicted and counter productive limitation you've imposed on yourself. Your fault your problem.

No, it's called playing the game the way I like. If I go to a Haz Res that's because I'm in the mood to do combat, not to discover where did an irrelevant ship went to.

By drop in the others I mean precisely that , drop into distress calls and weapon fire detected interdict pirates. Don't over focus on one thing limiting yourself and your opportunities to have fun and gain things.

I want a citation on your claim about "resseting the RNG" by dropping into other types of POI, by the way, pretty much all materials found in other kinds of POIs are findable in other places which I enjoy more to do.

Fly your spaceship over there. It's not a complicated issue.

It is if I generally play in an area which isn't and you are actually suggesting me to grind since the collection of Imperial Shielding in this example is the pure reason to travel there.

You do not find such materials casually, even less so in usable quantities particularly if you have multiple ships.

They can be, but that's why there are alternatives. You can also gather all sorts of other stuff whilst looking for them.

So tell me, where else can I find Imperial Shielding or Pharmeceutical Isolators?

I make money without trying, it happens as a side effect of everything else I do.

I don't see how the objective of FD is related to the way you get money.

I prefer wooden floors and nice rugs.

So that's a yes.

You are a walking advert for not grinding, you don't like it and you moan continually. Your approach seems to be making you very unhappy. Maybe people who enjoy themselves are doing it better.

Probably they just so happen to play the game such that they don't need HGE materials which is the case with you as you already told us you like to use G4 rolls tops. Once more, I should not follow your playstile just because of a mechanic that's bad enough such that there's no role behind it nor is it used for community events.

Bad is subjective, I just do what I enjoy.

I also do what I enjoy, it just so happens that a bad mechanic is in the way from my enjoyment.

Also, I'd like you to explain me what do you find amusing about HGEs.

Then why are you the one complaining if your approach is so superior ?.

I don't care if it takes time to achieve something, grinding is the way to make that time shorter. I don't mind some grinding as long as it is somewhat challenging or engaging. HGEs and wake scanning have none of those.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Then it's an entirely self inflicted and counter productive limitation you've imposed on yourself. Your fault your problem.



By drop in the others I mean precisely that , drop into distress calls and weapon fire detected interdict pirates. Don't over focus on one thing limiting yourself and your opportunities to have fun and gain things.



Fly your spaceship over there. It's not a complicated issue.



They can be, but that's why there are alternatives. You can also gather all sorts of other stuff whilst looking for them.



I make money without trying, it happens as a side effect of everything else I do.



I prefer wooden floors and nice rugs.



You are a walking advert for not grinding, you don't like it and you moan continually. Your approach seems to be making you very unhappy. Maybe people who enjoy themselves are doing it better.



Bad is subjective, I just do what I enjoy.



Then why are you the one complaining if your approach is so superior ?.

The abrevitation of this post is You should play the way I do because it just so happens to not involve a boring mechanic, if the game has a boring mechanic, don't use it instead of raising a complain.

 

[trigun539]

Grind in itself is okish - that's not too big a problem but what makes it absolutely bad is the gameplay that the grind makes you do. Example:
Select mission = 1 sec
Launch ship = 1 min
Fly in super cruise / hyper jump = 5-30+ minutes (During this time the player does absolutely NOTHING)
Park the ship = 1min

You perform this exact same thing 100s/1000s of times and IS 60-70% of ALL the gameplay in the game. This is extremely bad gameplay and VERY insulting to players.

Specially when there are SO many EASY fixes (shouldn't take a dev months to implement), some down below:
- Faster super cruise speed? Longest should be maximum 5 minutes = longest distance in super cruise. THIS IS BECAUSE YOU DO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND CAN'T DO ANYTHING during this time (It's like watching a loading screen, ask yourself how long you would wait for a loading screen).
- More rewards or better more decent paying rewards, some of the rewards are extremely insulting. Hours of gameplay = 2mil or less. (To the "Experts", fine you'll just make more money... New players and players that don't dedicate their life to this game should still have fun with the game and make decent money.)
- Fast travel points. Oh no, it will break "immersion". Better break immersion than waste HOURS doing NOTHING. The game forces you to do this. This doesn't mean you fast travel everywhere, you can still jump system to system.

 

[crushdepth]

If all you've ever played is grindy games you may be perfectly content with Elite.

 

[Devari]

- Fast travel points. Oh no, it will break "immersion". Better break immersion than waste HOURS doing NOTHING. The game forces you to do this. This doesn't mean you fast travel everywhere, you can still jump system to system.

This suggestion isn't really possible to implement at this stage in the game. The game will generally always have long travel times in SC and there is really nothing they can do about that without completely redesigning the gameplay mechanics. FD have certainly done everything they can to reduce the total FSD travel times with FSD engineering, mat synthesis, neturon star boosts and recently the Guardian FSD booster. Travel times are much shorter than they used to be in terms of requiring a much smaller number of jumps than they did when the game launched. With supercruise however too many game mechanics rely on the existing travel times and if these weren't in the game they would have to completely change many other core game mechanics. The payouts would drop back down to low levels and instead of 3 mins docking, 10 mins spent jumping or in SC and 3 mins docking you will have 3 mins docking, 3 mins of jumping/SC and 3 mins docking and it will be even worse because you will now spend most of your time docking instead of flying your ship.

I'm not completely against the idea of some "fast travel" options such as using "jump gates" instead of neutron star boosts to shorten the distance between pre-determined travel points. They would have to do this very carefully however to avoid making exploration trivial. We are basically at the point now where travel within the bubble is currently rather trivial given how long the FSD jump ranges have gotten for most ships, you can easily have 50+ ly ranges on multirole ships and even higher on dedicated explorers which is basically less than a half-dozen jumps to get anywhere in the bubble. What FD could consider would be speeding up the travel to Colonia to encourage more players to travel there but it should still take several hours of travel to get there even with a system of "jump gates".

 

[Stigbob]

No, it's called playing the game the way I like. If I go to a Haz Res that's because I'm in the mood to do combat, not to discover where did an irrelevant ship went to.

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Like I said you limit yourself, that's the min-maxers way.

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I want a citation on your claim about "resseting the RNG" by dropping into other types of POI, by the way, pretty much all materials found in other kinds of POIs are findable in other places which I enjoy more to do.

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That's how RNG works.

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It is if I generally play in an area which isn't and you are actually suggesting me to grind since the collection of Imperial Shielding in this example is the pure reason to travel there.

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It's a spaceship flying game, sometimes you have to fly your spaceship to other places.

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You do not find such materials casually, even less so in usable quantities particularly if you have multiple ships.

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Then trade for them, or get them as mission rewards, or don't try to engineer an entire fleet at once.

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So tell me, where else can I find Imperial Shielding or Pharmeceutical Isolators?

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Traders and mission rewards, if you gather random pirate mats you'll soon find you have maxed out storage on a lot of things you don't need. Yesterday I blew 36-1 phase alloys and compound shielding on some heat vanes. Sounds like a bad trade but I have no use for them have been ignoring them whilst scooping and kept 40 or so in reserve so I'm covered for any engineering needs and will soon top them up again.

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I don't see how the objective of FD is related to the way you get money.

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You are the one who said the game intends us to collect money.

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So that's a yes.

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No I clearly said I prefer wooden floors and rugs, this means in direct answer to your random and offtopic floor covering preference question I'm not that into carpet.

Sort of the opposite of a yes as you've incorrectly assumed.

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Probably they just so happen to play the game such that they don't need HGE materials which is the case with you as you already told us you like to use G4 rolls tops. Once more, I should not follow your playstile just because of a mechanic that's bad enough such that there's no role behind it nor is it used for community events.

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Rubbish, you've made all that up.

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I also do what I enjoy, it just so happens that a bad mechanic is in the way from my enjoyment.

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If you enjoy it why all the moaning ?.

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Also, I'd like you to explain me what do you find amusing about HGEs.

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I enjoy flying about in SC dropping into random signals, HGE's are just part of that and can be ambushes which are loads of fun.

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I don't care if it takes time to achieve something, grinding is the way to make that time shorter. I don't mind some grinding as long as it is somewhat challenging or engaging. HGEs and wake scanning have none of those.

It doesn't make the time shorter, it makes the game boring and mat gathering far less productive (that's longer) as you skip all the random stuff you could be collecting as well by concentrating on just the one thing.

The abrevitation of this post is You should play the way I do because it just so happens to not involve a boring mechanic, if the game has a boring mechanic, don't use it instead of raising a complain.

You already replied to that post.

Anyway the abbreviation of the post is you take a very boring limited approach to video games and I look at it and think no wonder he's not having fun, poor little fella.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Grind in itself is okish - that's not too big a problem but what makes it absolutely bad is the gameplay that the grind makes you do. Example:
Select mission = 1 sec

True... though given everything else you mentioned below, I'm surprised you didn't lead with "Flip boards for 20 minutes looking for enough missions worth doing," which isn't my particular definition of "fun," so I don't do it.

Launch ship = 1 min

There's this option called "boost." It makes your ship go faster. If you develop some skill at the game, you can even start boosting seconds after leaving the pad. In my opinion, it's also a lot more fun, though traffic control may disagree.

Fly in super cruise / hyper jump = 5-30+ minutes (During this time the player does absolutely NOTHING)

You can complete an entire cycle in under four minutes: take off, Supercruise, land, do your business, and take off again. And that's for anywhere under 1000 light seconds. If you take any longer than that, you're either not paying attention to the destination's distance from its primary, which is right there in its mission description, or you're choosing to fly in a horribly inefficient manner. Probably both.

You see, there's this thing called "active flying." That's where you use the controls of your ship and navigate through the system, avoiding the mass lock effect to go faster, and using the mass lock effect to stop quickly. You can cut your Supercruise times by at least half, at least within 1000 ls, by flying smart, rather than setting your throttle to 70% and pointing straight at your destination, which is fairly common (and horrible) forum advice.

Finally, you have the option to hunt for USSs while in Supercruise, including those coveted HGEs, and you really should pay attention to your scanner. It can warn you of someone moving to interdict you. There's plenty to do in Supercruise, if you choose to do so.

Park the ship = 1min

Again, there's this option called "boost." It makes your ship go faster. If you develop some skill at the game, you can boost through the mail slot, and come to a stop at your pad. In my opinion, it's also a lot more fun, though traffic control may disagree.

You perform this exact same thing 100s/1000s of times and IS 60-70% of ALL the gameplay in the game. This is extremely bad gameplay and VERY insulting to players.

You do realize that you're complaining about flying your space ship in a space ship flying game, don't you?

Specially when there are SO many EASY fixes (shouldn't take a dev months to implement), some down below:


- Faster super cruise speed? Longest should be maximum 5 minutes = longest distance in super cruise. THIS IS BECAUSE YOU DO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND CAN'T DO ANYTHING during this time (It's like watching a loading screen, ask yourself how long you would wait for a loading screen).

Wrong: there is stuff to do in Supercruise. You simply choose not to do it, despite knowing that if you don't, you'll need to "mow the rows" looking for USSs anyways, just in a way that is unproductive for anything else.


And personally I think Supercruise speeds are too fast as it is... or more accurately, the mass lock effect is too weak. The window of opportunity to be interdicted or interdict is too narrow, and the advantages you can get from clever use of the mass lock effect have been too heavily nerfed as it is. I'd rather not see a second one, because it would reduce what I consider to be the best part of this game to meaninglessness.

- More rewards or better more decent paying rewards, some of the rewards are extremely insulting. Hours of gameplay = 2mil or less. (To the "Experts", fine you'll just make more money... New players and players that don't dedicate their life to this game should still have fun with the game and make decent money.)

Personally, I think the rewards in this game are excessive as it is. It's turned the game into a Monty Haul campaign, to the detriment of the early game. This is doubly true of new players, who quickly pass through the small ships without learning the skills they need for larger ships, and end up making their newbie mistakes with rebuys in the millions, rather than the thousands.

- Fast travel points. Oh no, it will break "immersion". Better break immersion than waste HOURS doing NOTHING. The game forces you to do this. This doesn't mean you fast travel everywhere, you can still jump system to system.

No, the game doesn't force you to do this. It's completely your choice to so.

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

You know what the grind isnt even the worst bit man.


Its the bleddy istability that rears its ugly head EVERY DAY.

NINE times I got DC'd and bluescreened last night. 9!!!!

I have'nt played a game with such lack of care put into its design and such a level of broken gameplay. It might as well be a second rate steam asset flip for all the good it does.

More over the cheeky swines have the cheek to lie outright to us about "Bug fixes" LOL. You guys don't even know what bug fixes are. Case and point is that the last patch notes had NO infomation in it whatsoever. Just "a few minor bug fixes" > Dyou not think they players should kinda know what you've done so they either test it (yeah right) or more likely, just avoid that aspect of the game alltogether, because we know, they'll have screwed it up.

Sorry to keep ranting folks but this is really beyond and sort of reasonable play now They've had YEARS to make the game stable. And haven't, It's actualy worse now than i ever ever experienced in all the time i've played. Constant bluescreens and DC's says a hell of a lot FDev.

I would like to draw your attention to BGS' Fallout 4 as a prime example. (Another not very stable game). My fallout save file has a list of about 150 different mods effecting the majority f ingame mechanics and many of them are script based mods. I experience a bluescreen from that, maybe one a month, if im unlucky. And thats a combination of a BGS game AND third party code jockies. And thats somehow consistently more stable than ED, a game with no external code from other devs added, and no third party mods.

Un-acceptable. It's no small wonder they are starting to struggle. People paid for you game. Start respecting that maybe FDev. It was not a Free to Play game. Why does it have all the clout and instability of one then?.

 

[trigun539]

You can complete an entire cycle in under four minutes: take off, Supercruise, land, do your business, and take off again. And that's for anywhere under 1000 light seconds. If you take any longer than that, you're either not paying attention to the destination's distance from its primary, which is right there in its mission description, or you're choosing to fly in a horribly inefficient manner. Probably both.

So by your standards, 1min launching/docking. Then spending 4mins cruising (which again, I hate to repeat myself... You CANT do anything not exactly sure if you get this. The fact that you go for USS/HGEs means that now you have changed course and are not anymore actively going to your destination) If I could send a drone/limpet while continuing my navigation, but maneuver the limpet to go to USS/HGEs then that would be different (Look, another way to fix this issue).

Also, this is 4 minutes of NOTHING. How long do you wait for a loading screen before you get upset? 30 secs... 1min... This is just really, really bad gameplay. People can be AFK and NOTHING would happen.
I think you missed the point here, the percentage of "doing" vs just "waiting" in the game is absolutely horrible. This is not excusable for a game!

You see, there's this thing called "active flying." That's where you use the controls of your ship and navigate through the system, avoiding the mass lock effect to go faster, and using the mass lock effect to stop quickly. You can cut your Supercruise times by at least half, at least within 1000 ls, by flying smart, rather than setting your throttle to 70% and pointing straight at your destination, which is fairly common (and horrible) forum advice.

You still do nothing during this time... Again another fix, you could just let players just adjust their speed to what they want instead of limiting their speeds.

You do realize that you're complaining about flying your space ship in a space ship flying game, don't you?

You can roll your eyes as much as you want here... the real thing here is that FD managed to make SHIP FLYING boring, that's quite an achievement.

And personally I think Supercruise speeds are too fast as it is... or more accurately, the mass lock effect is too weak. The window of opportunity to be interdicted or interdict is too narrow, and the advantages you can get from clever use of the mass lock effect have been too heavily nerfed as it is. I'd rather not see a second one, because it would reduce what I consider to be the best part of this game to meaninglessness.

Again... fix INTERDICTIONS not slow the stupid game for everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW people just don't understand... [where is it]

Personally, I think the rewards in this game are excessive as it is. It's turned the game into a Monty Haul campaign, to the detriment of the early game. This is doubly true of new players, who quickly pass through the small ships without learning the skills they need for larger ships, and end up making their newbie mistakes with rebuys in the millions, rather than the thousands.

Rewards are absolute crap, why do you think people do gold rushes? Because making money sucks in this game. EASY FIX: updated missions so they pay more... not hard rocket science, no complicated programming. Fixes all of the stupid nerfing that they do and makes their game better...

No, the game doesn't force you to do this. It's completely your choice to so.

Yes the game forces all of these things... it is called playing the game. You HAVE to do all of these things to PLAY the game. I choose not to play the game until they fix most of this crap, I value my time too much even for games to just sit around doing nothing WHILE playing a game!

It is really/really crazy to me that I feel like my time is WASTED playing a game. Even more that you somehow find excuses for such bad gameplay :S

 

[Stigbob]

You know what the grind isnt even the worst bit man.


Its the bleddy istability that rears its ugly head EVERY DAY.

NINE times I got DC'd and bluescreened last night. 9!!!!

I have'nt played a game with such lack of care put into its design and such a level of broken gameplay. It might as well be a second rate steam asset flip for all the good it does.

More over the cheeky swines have the cheek to lie outright to us about "Bug fixes" LOL. You guys don't even know what bug fixes are. Case and point is that the last patch notes had NO infomation in it whatsoever. Just "a few minor bug fixes" > Dyou not think they players should kinda know what you've done so they either test it (yeah right) or more likely, just avoid that aspect of the game alltogether, because we know, they'll have screwed it up.

Sorry to keep ranting folks but this is really beyond and sort of reasonable play now They've had YEARS to make the game stable. And haven't, It's actualy worse now than i ever ever experienced in all the time i've played. Constant bluescreens and DC's says a hell of a lot FDev.

I would like to draw your attention to BGS' Fallout 4 as a prime example. (Another not very stable game). My fallout save file has a list of about 150 different mods effecting the majority f ingame mechanics and many of them are script based mods. I experience a bluescreen from that, maybe one a month, if im unlucky. And thats a combination of a BGS game AND third party code jockies. And thats somehow consistently more stable than ED, a game with no external code from other devs added, and no third party mods.

Un-acceptable. It's no small wonder they are starting to struggle. People paid for you game. Start respecting that maybe FDev. It was not a Free to Play game. Why does it have all the clout and instability of one then?.

You should check your system and drivers if you're getting multiple disconnects, I live in the middle of nowhere my bandwidth is dialup sort of speeds sometimes worse and even the electricity supply can be patchy to the point where I use actual clockwork clocks as they are less hassle.

Last time I had an ED disconnect was Mrs Stigbob downloading gardeners question time in HD and stealing the whole internet, I've never had a bluescreen even through my systems old and needs replacing.

The game is still really stable.

 

[Devari]

The game is still really stable.

In general, I find this is true, but multicrew is a major exception and still has severe stability issues. I have an average of 1-2 multicrew disconnects per hour despite having a second account connected to the same household internet connection. I know that when multicrew disconnects (which is always the second account and usually involves a crash to desktop) it's due to the game stability and not the internet as my main account continues on without any problems.

There are some known bugs that can crash the game as well, it used to happen regularly if you were doing massacre missions and reached a certain kill count, but outside of specific behavior like that I've found the main game to be generally stable as long as multicrew isn't connected.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

It is really/really crazy to me that I feel like my time is WASTED playing a game. Even more that you somehow find excuses for such bad gameplay :S

Those are your feelings and there's nothing crazy about that. However it seems to try to objectivize your feelings. Don't. You don't like game and that's short and long of it. No need try to pad it and call everyone disagreeing in names.

 

[Old Duck]

You know what the grind isnt even the worst bit man. Its the bleddy istability that rears its ugly head EVERY DAY.

.....

I have'nt played a game with such lack of care put into its design and such a level of broken gameplay. It might as well be a second rate steam asset flip for all the good it does.

More over the cheeky swines have the cheek to lie outright to us about "Bug fixes" LOL. You guys don't even know what bug fixes are. Case and point is that the last patch notes had NO infomation in it whatsoever. Just "a few minor bug fixes" > Dyou not think they players should kinda know what you've done so they either test it (yeah right) or more likely, just avoid that aspect of the game alltogether, because we know, they'll have screwed it up

........

Un-acceptable. It's no small wonder they are starting to struggle. People paid for you game. Start respecting that maybe FDev. It was not a Free to Play game. Why does it have all the clout and instability of one then?.

I don't regret buying the game, because when it first came out, it was pretty good on my platform. I feel I got my money's worth before it started going downhill. What I DO regret is supporting Frontier by spending extra money on cosmetics, because the game has gotten progressively worse on my PS4 with each update (see my sig for just one example), and I'm at the point where I've lost all faith in the company. I didn't even know the PS4 had a "blue screen of death" until I installed Elite Dangerous on it, COL.

I'm really hoping Bethesda can take the best parts of ED and give us a working game that will scratch the itch that currently only ED comes close to scratching, because after almost a year of suffering through broken update after broken update, I don't think ED will ever be fixed.

 

[WeavingBird1917]

His point however is quite valid that much of the Elite playerbase has come to accept such a low quality standard for gameplay from FD. That is rather sad to be honest and this is from someone who now has 2500 hours into the game so far.

Half of the Steam player base don't seem to be having it, according to the reviews. 40% of players are leaving a 'not recommended' review, with the most cited reasons being 'shallow gameplay mechanics' and 'the grind'. Even many positive reviews reference the grind, a few people actually said they love the grind, lol. Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/Elite_Dangerous/

Honestly, if there is such a huge amount of reviews saying the same thing, I don't think to say it is their fault - 1 in 3 players are saying the same thing. Meh, it bothers me that pay to win games such as WOT, etc. have a higher rating, ED has so much more potential. It's really imm, it's the core gameplay that seems to be lacking for many.

PC version of ED is pretty stable for me (update installation problems and occasional server disconnecting, which happens rarely).

 

[Agony_Aunt]

My point is, if players feel the need to grind, they shouldn't be blamed. It just means that the gameplay isn't interesting enough or has nothing new to it to keep their attention, and as a result players only feel excitement when working up to that next ship or item. But if they hate the game instantly, then it probably isn't for them

My counter to that would be, they shouldn't play the game if they don't enjoy the content there is.

I know i certainly wouldn't play a game i wasn't enjoying, and if i don't enjoy the grind, i don't do it.

Therefore i would say yes, it is the players fault for doing something they don't enjoy. Kind of like your last part of the quoted text.

Meanwhile, i'm having a blast in Fortnite: Save the World, grinding away like a madman