how to bring players back

I know I can earn money faster through trading/passenger hauling but the game DEMANDS that I reach ELITE rank for exploration, if I want 10% off ALL ships, okay?
I thought Elite in combat, trading, exploration, or CQC gave you access to Shinrarta Dezhra and the 10% discount. FWIW, you can also normally get 15% from stations affiliated with Li Yong-Rui.
 
When I travel, I surface-scan every unexplored planet because in the end, the data that I sell can give me great profit (250.000 - 1 million credits!) The game's rules demand that I do this, although I can choose not to, but it feels like a waste of time: 30 minutes, sometimes almost an hour to deepscan ONE system! I know I can earn money faster through trading/passenger hauling but the game DEMANDS that I reach ELITE rank for exploration, if I want 10% off ALL ships, okay?
I suggest to get your priorities straight. And maybe read the "rules" correctly.

If you're in it for the exploring, rank progression shouldn't be the driving factor. It should be out of passion for exploration. There are people out there tens of thousands of LY away from the bubble, happily deepscanning every system they come across no matter how insignificant. Because they enjoy doing it, not because of some kind of rank progression or access to a discount.

If you're in it for the money, the rank and the access to ShinDez, you're doing it wrong. Deepscanning systems gets you nowhere, and you just blow your time out of the window. Learn what is interesting and valuable, and focus on that - Elite in exploration can be gained very quickly if you choose the right scanning strategy. It might not be in the spirit of true exploration, but to me it seems you're more after that sweet, sweet discount than for the thrill of exploration.

Also: See below. Nothing in the game "demands" you become Elite in exploration to get the founder's world permit, you got that wrong. Any Elite rank will do.

I thought Elite in combat, trading, exploration, or CQC gave you access to Shinrarta Dezhra and the 10% discount. FWIW, you can also normally get 15% from stations affiliated with Li Yong-Rui.
Correct. Any kind of Elite rank gets you access to ShinDez. And yes, I think it's overrated. The only real benefit is convenience, as it stocks every ship and module (almost). I prefer to shop in LYR space as well.
 
Reduce the grind! Example, When I travel, I surface-scan every unexplored planet because in the end, the data that I sell can give me great profit (250.000 - 1 million credits!) The game's rules demand that I do this, although I can choose not to, but it feels like a waste of time: 30 minutes, sometimes almost an hour to deepscan ONE system! I know I can earn money faster through trading/passenger hauling but the game DEMANDS that I reach ELITE rank for exploration, if I want 10% off ALL ships, okay?
When did they change the access rule?
When I got to Shinrarta Dezhra it just needed one Elite ranking out of the 3(4) available mine was combat which I got years before the others.

Almost everything in this beautiful game is aimed for grinding! Developers: "Hours spent in the game means, players are having fun, right?" Wrong!
Well Devs are simple souls and don't understand that people will do stuff they don't enjoy for hundreds of hours.

Go bounty-hunting for some pirate in a system far, far away and try to find him! Go kill 80 pirates....in that other system, far, far away! And like I said, if I simply choose not to surface-scan vevery unknown system, it's means no credits for carthographic maps and no rank progression for exploration.
Same goes for trading for a faction; "we need 2400 foodcartidges in that system way over there!"
Note I wasn't charging all over the place doing missions but I did scan and FSS pretty much every system I passed through while going hunting or hauling stuff, the only time I mapped worlds was if I was actually exploring or I was going to land on them.

One less critical aspect - using ARX, allow users to customize the colors on their ships they bought...with ARX!
Yes: introduce (limited) customizable ships. Maybe just adjusting/changinmg the colors...using ARX per livery..?
You are talking about HUD and cockpit colours here which is something people where asking for when I started 7 years ago.
 
There are many times where players have been years ahead of FD regards the game. C+P & Powerplay being two very painful examples.
This is true.

Interstellar Factors is one such time, but I feel like that has changed. I never have issues turning in bounties now, regardless where I am in the bubble. In the past I had to travel back to the systems where the kill was made in order to cash in. I thought Interstellar Factors was that service. I don't even use them except to clear warrants against me. Not sure how all that transpired.
 
You're wrong. If I want to progress to Explorer Rank ELITE, the game rules DEMAND that I explore and deepscan every unexplored system.
The fact that you don't care about ranking up in combat, even "after playing for 8 years," doesn't change the RULES that I have to explore for hours to rank up in exploration!
Reminder that rank progress is based on payout. So if you scan 100 rocky worlds I will likely gain more rank by scanning 2 terraformable ones.

It feels like it's taking ages precisely because you're choosing the long way.
 
I suppose that we are not to mention all those "how to get Elite rank in XXXX field fast" videos then.

After all, it's the journey, not the destination.

Or can we mention "Road to Riches"?

Steve
The issue is the 'journey' is uneven. Fast money should come from crime that complicates life later on, while steady graft is slow but ultimately easier. You also have a very one speed game- if you are goal oriented its a chore since there is no 'second way' that is high risk / reward.

As an example- I really wanted the Corvette when it was introduced, I had a cumulative Fed rank from X years of play but dearly wanted some sort of fast track hyper focused set of missions for the rest. This in itself would give massive opportunities for lore building, provide extra hard challenges and give players moral choices to deal with (as in, sell yourself out to the Feds doing nasty things).
 
I suppose that we are not to mention all those "how to get Elite rank in XXXX field fast" videos then.

After all, it's the journey, not the destination.

Or can we mention "Road to Riches"?

Steve
Even typing "Elite Dangerous exploration rank" into your favourite search engine and clicking on the first link you see would do it in this case.

Although by skipping the rubbish and focusing on the valuable systems means I've only managed a highest payout of 14.5 million for a single system, so I'm no expert either. ;)
 
Reduce the grind!
The game needs more to do, not less. You don't make the game more appealing by reducing the amount of work to reach the end goal.

With this I don't mean that they should increase the amount of grind. What I am saying is that reducing the amount of grind is unlikely to bring in new players and/or keep existing players from leaving.

The "let's make the game easier / let's make it easier to gather resources and earn all the cool stuff" is your archetypal dying-MMORPG tactic. Many an MMORPG started strong, then players started leaving in droves over the years and, in order to try to combat this, the developers decreased the difficulty levels and requirements of most things in a misguided and vain attempt at stopping people from leaving and/or allure new players to join. It never works.

You don't save a dying game by making it easier. You save it by adding new exciting stuff for people to do.
 
Almost everything in this beautiful game is aimed for grinding! Developers: "Hours spent in the game means, players are having fun, right?" Wrong!
Actually, only wrong thing is your mind.
Usually people gather ranks as byproduct of stuff, which they do.
Not do everything in the name of god grind.
Shoot to things, if you prefer it.
Or trade if you prefer it.
Or, if you want all modules, but dont care about price go to Brestla. They have all modules, but at +20% price, not with -10% :)
 
You're wrong. If I want to progress to Explorer Rank ELITE, the game rules DEMAND that I explore and deepscan every unexplored system.
Whatever your point, this is a terrible example.

  • You can get can Explorer Rank Elite from basic travel. Going to Beagle point-and-back. Just zipping around the galaxy.
  • When Odessey released I automatically got elevated to Exploration Elite IV. I reached Elite V from searching for specific things I was interested in. It had nothing to do with trying to rank up.
  • When Odessey released I automatically got elevated to Trade Rank V. I'm not sure why. I don't focus on trade. I'm mostly in deep space. I didn't think I was particularly wealthy at the time. I didn't even have a fleet carrier. 🤷‍♂️

Edit: If you are in a rush to get Exploration Elite Rank scanning every planet of ever unexplored system you come across would definitely be a slow painful path. There are obviously much better methods.
 
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You're wrong. If I want to progress to Explorer Rank ELITE, the game rules DEMAND that I explore and deepscan every unexplored system.
The fact that you don't care about ranking up in combat, even "after playing for 8 years," doesn't change the RULES that I have to explore for hours to rank up in exploration!
I haven't tested this lately (or in odyssey) but for squadron leaderboards doing passenger missions also gives points (at 1/20 of the mission credit reward) but I found the actual most efficient way to get those points was doing the Ram Tah guardian ruins quest on loop - the credits 1/1 (or some other high value) and it's even faster now that you can store 4 things in your SRV at once. What I did was go for the lowest hanging fruit where I could visit 3 sites for almost 50 logs in 1h. I did this to win exploration squadron leaderboards in legacy one season not for exploration ranks which I already had from saving up stuff for exploration reward boosting CGs.

I had it mapped out and all (for legacy):

GR49-PATH.pngGR293-PATH.pngGR52-PATH.png

Imo it's a running joke that if you want to progress in something then the intended way is basically almost never the most effective way to do things and there's always some way to entirely cheese the system. The intended way usually also just gets boring and grindy because there's really not enough done to make you think about what you're doing since there's not enough variation in the basic tasks you're doing.
 
Actually, I just turned off brownies, M and K from my filter, usually I hit 20/30m per hour of scanning, with FSS of everything, and mapping TF planets. Of course not counting exobio, or aimless driving around planet on srv.
So if elite exploration require slighty more than 300m I'm even not sure, what problematic can be in elite rank. Perhabs Tzeff scan systems in bubble? 🤔
 
My suggestion in one word: Quests.

Make questlines that players can follow, for exploration / discovery, for political involvement / powerplay, for certain organizations.
And not those stupid procedurally generated meaningless missions, but actual scripted stuff with NPCs you can meet and talk to.

Boy, that would be HUGE!
 
The game needs more to do, not less. You don't make the game more appealing by reducing the amount of work to reach the end goal.

With this I don't mean that they should increase the amount of grind. What I am saying is that reducing the amount of grind is unlikely to bring in new players and/or keep existing players from leaving.

The "let's make the game easier / let's make it easier to gather resources and earn all the cool stuff" is your archetypal dying-MMORPG tactic. Many an MMORPG started strong, then players started leaving in droves over the years and, in order to try to combat this, the developers decreased the difficulty levels and requirements of most things in a misguided and vain attempt at stopping people from leaving and/or allure new players to join. It never works.

You don't save a dying game by making it easier. You save it by adding new exciting stuff for people to do.
I'm for sure not coming back to do the engineer runs and without the game is a straining peashooter fest.
 
I'm for sure not coming back to do the engineer runs and without the game is a straining peashooter fest.
Actually "grinding" is very common in all kinds of shooters, including the "arena" type first-person shooters.

Of course in those you aren't grinding for in-game loot. You are grinding your own skills. And with the most popular shooters we are talking about one or more probably two orders of magnitude of more grinding that you'll ever need to do in ED in order to merely not end up at the bottom of the list every round.

There's a reason why I never play those games. They make absolutely no sense. You literally need to play for thousands of hours in order to hone the skills necessary to stand against the average player and not get immediately killed.

In that sense having to spend a couple of hours grinding for materials for better weapons and armor is a walk in the park.
 
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