I dont get why everyone thinks Ellite is such a grind

Well, I had never "bashed" Icefrog on dota. All I ever did on his forums were bug reporting. And placed a couple of suggestions when they lost their way with Phoenix which is the one of my favourite heroes. At some point his concept was completely changing each patch.

"Bashing" devs have reasons in the first place. And it is the consequence.

So go play that then.
 
I do not know why it is that way. It is either developers are infantile or they simply do not care what comes after you buy the game, whether because of laziness or a cold calculation. Probably by an inconcious mixture of both.
But fact that given all potential, ED does not try to become something more than Solitare or fails horribly at that, is unquestionable.

I think an answer to this is currently there's little point for FD to make more traditional gameplay for ED. The die has already been set. ED is a massive game sim universe where it would look incongruous imo, if they added Everspace type gameplay to a few systems. FD are committed to a galaxy wide simulation and in a sense the gameplay is more or less an upgrade of FE2 and FFE with generated missions in each system, and where in the thargoid storyline case, it's run by FD and instead of the tasks in FFE, now it's optional for the player to gradually "grind" for the materials and visit the hand crafted gameplay(guardian ruins, thargoid materials) to eventually reach the special new modules.

In fact all game development is still limited by what they can do with a big scope. StarTrek online gets to the same point after its hand crafted missions run out. And the playerbase don't return until they install a new set of missions and content and their universe is much smaller, less than a hundred star systems. The X games may look busier, but they are in fact like a confined sim-ant-farm masquerading as a space universe when the entire gamespace is a 2D scrabble connection of locations with compass direction doors. SC is still stuck in one system and a very buggy mishmash of different cryengine levels. I'm already "bored" with FarCry5 after making it past the first sub-boss. The routines of the enemy npc attacks are now repetitive, the mayhem possible which was loads of fun for several hours now seems predictable. The weapons are arcady with a limited number and nowhere at the sophistication of the ARMA weaponry. (interestingly I've found myself having stopped playing Farcry5 (at 20% done), and am now back to ED)

An old example is the first Elder Scrolls game, Arena. You could go across the whole world of Tamriel, but in the end it was all procedurally generated, the shops were all the same, the buildings, the rng of possibly finding ebony weapons in a chest at level 1 etc. The dungeons besides the major quest ones were randomized within the same four level borders.

Eventually ED may have the resources to put a handscripted storyline which may work better with spacelegs and atmospherics or if it can manage more involved fleet actions. But at this point they probably can't. But no other game in the genre has reached ED's level of scope nor done better if somewhat closer. (NMS)
 
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Well, I have been quiet on this thread because it is, unfortunately, just another tennis match about 'grind.' The ball goes back and forth .... and occasionally someone scores a point. Then the ball's in your court, and so on. But at least the thread has remained courteous, despite the differences in opinion.

I've also been quiet because I am out exploring. To many, that is the ultimate grind. Jump, scoop, scan, jump etc. but at least it is punctuated with rewards: a pretty planet, a remarkable mountain, a crater with gas, a water world, ELW, and so on. Yet even this can become overwhelming and many have stopped even this kind of grind.

The point is, one man's grind is another man's pleasurable experience if he can see a reward for his experience in a relatively short time frame. The problem has, unfortunately, been aggravated by introduction of a lot of repetitive actions before a reward is given. Like dogs, we appreciate treats to keep us learning new tricks.

Sorry about all the metaphors. Must go now, the grass needs cutting ...... I keep telling myself it's not a grind, one day I will believe it :p
 
No there is no positive step that can ever be made in any direction to reduce grind. It really doesn't matter what FDEV do, because you will find a way.

The game isn't boring, you are.

Ouch. That's hurtful :)

Well, I'll try to use my imagination more when I'm out looking for HGE's next time. It's not boring. It's not boring. It's me. Got it.
 
Ouch. That's hurtful :)

Well, I'll try to use my imagination more when I'm out looking for HGE's next time. It's not boring. It's not boring. It's me. Got it.

Drop into all the other signals. Do a bit of fighting/bounties scoop some random bonus mats/data, every time you do it the RNG resets and you'll get the HGE you want faster having had fun and without staring at the screen chewing your keyboard in fury.
 
it sounds like you had a very hard time with Elite and for that I am sorry. If you go through my logs on Inara you will see all of this was done in a random system and although I did repeat some missions 10-20 times I never once went to an exploit. The knowledge and understanding that I received playing my Xbox account turned into 240 million in a week and that’s without rank bonus’ that I’m use to on my Xbox account. The money is there. I still just think everyone that has a “grinding” problem in Elite didn’t take enough time to figure that knowledge out. Worst yet we got a whole groups of these people congregating together and channting “THE GRIND IS TOO HARD”. Then comes the little bonus. People who haven’t even tried the game because they here the players of the game saying this stuff. These types of thoughts are acidic to our community and to Elite as a whole. The sooner we work together to erase untrue thoughts like this the better for all of us.



Because I just started with a loaned sidey and will be buying a Imperial Cutter in the first month.

Edit: that’s a month in game playing time and not real time.

When you already have 6800h playing on Xbox and come here to gloat about having your Cutter on your first month on your PC, then I wouldn't really call this an example of someone who finds things grindy if he has the time to spend 6800h on a game and then start it again on another system.

- You already have experience (LOTS OF IT)
- Grind wont feel the same since you are so use to it.
- YOU KNOW where to go what to do and how to get it, because of 6800h


NOTHING WILL BE TOO HARD OR TOO GRINDY if you have 6800h to spend on a game...


Would you call yourself, exception to the rule?!!! I would!

Certainly very respectable having spent those amount of hours CMDR


07
 
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Drop into all the other signals. Do a bit of fighting/bounties scoop some random bonus mats/data, every time you do it the RNG resets and you'll get the HGE you want faster having had fun and without staring at the screen chewing your keyboard in fury.

This is not the case and you know it. And is in human nature to do the most efficient activity when their time is limited.
 
Gotta say, I don't really get all the "well, just don't do the stuff you don't enjoy" rhetoric.

It's kinda like asking somebody if they enjoy playing football and, when they say "Yeah, but it's exhausting", telling them to avoid the energetic parts.

This is a little different then your football example. This forum is like a huge football stadium. Now you just came up to a bunch of people sitting in that stati and they all love football and tried telling them it’s too hard to watch. Not only is it too hard but your friends came over to enforce how football is. Now when those football lovers put you in your place you want to pull the victim card because we treated you so wrong. Grow up and be real. If you dislike something so much and want to complain to people that love the game you should prepare to be shot down. Hope this helps you understand a little better. Playing a game and complaining about it is already dumb but to complain to others who spend the time and enjoy every second of it. I don’t think there’s a word that describes that.
 
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I think an answer to this is currently there's little point for FD to make more traditional gameplay for ED. The die has already been set. ED is a massive game sim universe where it would look incongruous imo, if they added Everspace type gameplay to a few systems. FD are committed to a galaxy wide simulation and in a sense the gameplay is more or less an upgrade of FE2 and FFE with generated missions in each system, and where in the thargoid storyline case, it's run by FD and instead of the tasks in FFE, now it's optional for the player to gradually "grind" for the materials and visit the hand crafted gameplay(guardian ruins, thargoid materials) to eventually reach the special new modules.

In fact all game development is still limited by what they can do with a big scope. StarTrek online gets to the same point after its hand crafted missions run out. And the playerbase don't return until they install a new set of missions and content and their universe is much smaller, less than a hundred star systems. The X games may look busier, but they are in fact like a confined sim-ant-farm masquerading as a space universe when the entire gamespace is a 2D scrabble connection of locations with compass direction doors. SC is still stuck in one system and a very buggy mishmash of different cryengine levels. I'm already "bored" with FarCry5 after making it past the first sub-boss. The routines of the enemy npc attacks are now repetitive, the mayhem possible which was loads of fun for several hours now seems predictable. The weapons are arcady with a limited number and nowhere at the sophistication of the ARMA weaponry. (interestingly I've found myself having stopped playing Farcry5 (at 20% done), and am now back to ED)

An old example is the first Elder Scrolls game, Arena. You could go across the whole world of Tamriel, but in the end it was all procedurally generated, the shops were all the same, the buildings, the rng of possibly finding ebony weapons in a chest at level 1 etc. The dungeons besides the major quest ones were randomized within the same four level borders.

Eventually ED may have the resources to put a handscripted storyline which may work better with spacelegs and atmospherics or if it can manage more involved fleet actions. But at this point they probably can't. But no other game in the genre has reached ED's level of scope nor done better if somewhat closer. (NMS)

I had to google "incogruous" word =).
And ED suffers heavily in that regard. 1:1 milky way, logical technical design-wise ship models (exept FDL...), and graphics set a some sort of plank in realism. And then it never come close to it. I had posted on it before, so I won't go into that too deep.

But it is not even the point. Fdev does not apply any difficulty vector but "time involved" for everything concerning progress.
How about Goid body parts made necessary for G5s? How about guardian ruins being guarded by boss of some sorts?
And I'm not even touching on economical gameplay. Aphotheosis of a trader gameplay here is to haul biowaste on a T9.

Let's take previous money exploits. Would backlash caused by them be as severe as it was, if getting to 300mil/hour mark would involve killing 25 modded Anacondas and a couple of Farraguts in a single instance by yourself or in a wing of four?

Do they fear of backlash of people which do not want to use their brain/spinal cord/social qualities for progress in this game?
Or do they fear that same people would cry too much if people which would use those qualities will progress faster?
Or they simply view their target auditory as people which won't bother with difficult stuff?

Either way, all outcomes of developement with such concerns in mind would be a progression consisting of repetitive dumb actions. With "time involved" as only difficulty measure. And which we have currently.

Failure of CqC only proves them in that regard, despite it being completely torn away from in-game progress. It does not affect it nor is affected by it. And PvP templating is what killed PvP in WoW.
And I fear that they would abandon all Goid-level stuff of difficulty because there are not too much people who involves themselves in it. The fact that is simply because killing them gives you nothing might elude Fdev again. Not to mention that even roleplay-wise motivation to bother with them is quite vague.
 
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When you already have 6800h playing on Xbox and come here to gloat about having your Cutter on your first month on your PC, then I wouldn't really call this an example of someone who finds things grindy if he has the time to spend 6800h on a game and then start it again on another system.

- You already have experience (LOTS OF IT)
- Grind wont feel the same since you are so use to it.
- YOU KNOW where to go what to do and how to get it, because of 6800h


NOTHING WILL BE TOO HARD OR TOO GRINDY if you have 6800h to spend on a game...


Would you call yourself, exception to the rule?!!! I would!

Certainly very respectable having spent those amount of hours CMDR


07

ok but I think you missing the point of why I started this post. I am not gloating. I’m showing to people that it’s possible to make good amounts of money and level up in Elite. I have seen too many people quit or not even play the game because people saw that it’s too grindy from a friend. I mean come on. People won’t even play because others said that. I’m here to try to prove that you can do it too. I’m helping others learn how easy it is. My only intention.

Edit: FYI the Cutter in a month is an example oh just how easy it could be if people took a little bit of time to figure out how. I didn’t say it to offended anyone. It’s just a fact that represents what I am explaining here. Elite is not that hard and you only make it grindy on yourself because it’s just so hard to do everything.
 
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People should probably do something else than wasting their time with gaming when their time is limited. Or playing more casual games that respect the limited time of their player. I'm just glad not every game has to be a casual game, there's already way too much of this sort of games around and I'm glad not every game has to be wrapped around your special needs. There are others as well...

Btw, you *can* play ED in a very casual way. Your problem is something entirely else: You don't want to (can) spend time and want to be 'competitive'. I'm afraid that's a bit too much for one single game to provide.

I think you completely misunderstand my position on it. Scroll up for a couple of my posts in this thread to see my point.
What about really hard but faster ways to get what you want? There are none in ED. Only measure of difficulty is time involved. All activities you do in this time are dumb. Or you do not even have to do anything for a month then spend 7 millions, for PP case.
 
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GRind your life OP. Will be more useful,

My life has been grinded out. No need to make assumptions on stuff you couldnt possibly have any understanding of. I have a job in real life and still I am able to make money on 2 Elite accounts at once. But yet, its still to hard for many of the complainers on this forum post.
 
Drop into all the other signals. Do a bit of fighting/bounties scoop some random bonus mats/data, every time you do it the RNG resets and you'll get the HGE you want faster having had fun and without staring at the screen chewing your keyboard in fury.

Fear not, my keyboard remains unchewed and my fury levels are low. My adrenaline levels remain unraised by my exploits in supercruise. I did persevere for another 40 mins or so, had a threat 2 fight with some pirates, dropped into a few degraded emissions and a couple of encoded. The HGEs all had military grade alloys, and I now have 71 of those...

I appreciate that you have actually offered some advice, rather than just insulting me, so cheers for that. It didn't pan out for me, but then not everything does every time.

The introduction of the materials traders is some help with this issue but my personal opinion is that the game would be improved if they either provided a more interesting way to get these materials, or increased the drop rate. You may like it the way it is, but FDev have relaxed certain 'grindy' aspects in the past and I hope they do so here.

I've now given up the hunt and am off to see Broo via a mats trader; at least he doesn't think I'm boring - he calls me a good friend so, :p.
 
Maybe, I absolutely agree on much better balance between risk/difficulty and reward would be desirable. What we have now is a bad joke at best. But all I want to say is that you're still not *forced* to grind, only if you want to be "efficient". And yes, the game is pretty much against the grain of human nature here. Something I find quite amusing by times... :D

Exactly my point. And some set of goals present in this game would disallow you to make yourself play it slowly. Along with some immersion problems which become visible rather fast.
 
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I think the point that most are making is that it certainly is a grind, and if you don't devote a significant portion of your life to it, you'll get nowhere fast. Good on you for enjoying what you're doing, but the grind is real. I'd love to just be able to PvP every time I log in, but CQC is terrible, so that's out, and engineers do require a lot of grind. I might have missed it, but do you PvP on any of your accounts? Have you min/maxxed a few ships for 3.0? Have you unlocked all of the Guardian items? Enquiring minds want to know.

...it certainly is a grind... get nowhere fast......the grind is real...PvP...engineers do require a lot of grind...do you PvP ...min/maxxed...unlocked...

If it REALLY is that tedious...and you have to go through SO much just to do a bit of PVP...couldn't you just play a PVP focused game (EG: no unlocks at all on say an IL2 BOS Server...you're on equal footing with everyone else from minute one..and lots of far more evenly matched opponents and lots more than half a dozen on a server...and WITHOUT the Toxic atmosphere PvP in Elite generates) and enjoy yourself rather than get continually frustrated at finding out that in an open world spaceflight/exploration/combat game with a mix of Player vs NPC and Player vs Player activities designed to be enjoyed at all levels from stock sidewinder to fully engineered Corvetteisn't solely tailored for G5 engineered Big 3 vs G5 Engineered Big 3 PvP Combat that doesn't interact with the wider universe???
 
...it certainly is a grind... get nowhere fast......the grind is real...PvP...engineers do require a lot of grind...do you PvP ...min/maxxed...unlocked...

If it REALLY is that tedious...and you have to go through SO much just to do a bit of PVP...couldn't you just play a PVP focused game (EG: no unlocks at all on say an IL2 BOS Server...you're on equal footing with everyone else from minute one..and lots of far more evenly matched opponents and lots more than half a dozen on a server...and WITHOUT the Toxic atmosphere PvP in Elite generates) and enjoy yourself rather than get continually frustrated at finding out that in an open world spaceflight/exploration/combat game with a mix of Player vs NPC and Player vs Player activities designed to be enjoyed at all levels from stock sidewinder to fully engineered Corvetteisn't solely tailored for G5 engineered Big 3 vs G5 Engineered Big 3 PvP Combat that doesn't interact with the wider universe???

Your PvE efforts application to PvP and back and forth is a valid drive for an MMO. And is used in quite a lot of them.

Moreover, Blizzard tearing PvP apart from PvE achievements in order to make WoW arena some sort of a valid cybersport discipline brought PvP activities in WoW to all-time minimum.

And please do remember the fact that ED have a monopoly in it's genre.
 
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Your PvE efforts application to PvP and back and forth is a valid drive for an MMO. And is used in quite a lot of them.

I will be the first to admit I have little/no knowledge and or experience of MMOs but it DOES seem obvious that Elite Dangerous is a very broad game offering a variety of content for a variety of different players...
Trade? Exploration? Surface Activities? Mining? PvE Combat? PvP Combat? Sidewinder? Python? Engineered Corvette...they're ALL valid choices in the game...so if YOU'VE voluntarily decided the ONLY part you're interested in/enjoy is PvP Combat between max Engineered big 3 Ships...does it seem sensible that the entire game Universe is balanced around/geared towards enabling you to obtain them quickly/max-Engineer Multiple examples of them quickly ??? Which is where the "grind" comes in...
If YOU"VE chosen to focus on such a tiny, narrow aspect of the game to the exclusion of ALL others...does it seem unreasonable that the Universe ISN'T specifically orientated in a way that facilitates THAT...rather than in a way that offers something to all players of all levels?
 
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