Is Elite: Dangerous too difficult?

[Ganogati]

The reality is it can take months (or even years) for developers to write code for what a dedicated player can chew through in an hour or 2. The only way the can stop this is to either time gate it (which i personally hate) or make it so you need 100 mats (or 5mil credits) to aquire, hence grind if you want everything quickly. The other option is of course to allow players to purchase credits/mats (p2w imo) like some games do.

There's a bit of a third option here that I would more expect from a game like ED: Sandboxed gameplay.

In the ooooold MMO days there was a genre that contrasted the theme park genre of Everquest and it's descendents: proper Sandbox games. Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, etc. These games didn't have nearly as much grind as many modern games, but players would stay engrossed for years and years (some still playing Ultima to this day). I personally played Shadowbane for 6 years, logging thousands of hours, and you could max level a character in 2 days and get competitive gear from vendors using gold you picked up leveling. If I made a character on Monday, I'd be competitive PvPing with it by Wednesday.

Ultimately, those games came down to "make your own fun", and set the system up that players could alter the world in different ways. The goal of this was that if each player was doing their own thing, they'd each play a game of "tug of war" with the game system and constantly be pulling stuff back forth, creating a never-ending battle that kept everyone entertained and engaged.

ED doesn't really do that. Nothing you do over course of your gameplay really matters in the context of the universe. This is a space "sandbox" in terms of the game not being on rails, but by way of you having many toys with which to modify the sandbox? You don't have a lot to work with. Powerplay doesn't affect much at all; BGs affects some prices and that's about it; Thargoid incursion is more like "Thargoid event happening in x solar system, come play if you want but otherwise don't worry about it!"; The "war" between factions is just for GalNet story and conflict zone farming purposes. Etc etc.


For ED, I had kind of expected entering the game that this would have more sandbox elements to it than it does. I don't dislike ED, but I feel like it has so much lost potential in the fact that players are constantly online, but not for any real purpose. It would be really cool to see that purpose expanded, so that players can start to entertain themselves beyond just farming for cash and mats.

 

[Darth Ender]

So pick one: Either it's "Just play the game." or "Just play the optimal decathalon for mat pickups". You can't have both without being fundamentally dishonest. Because "Just playing the game" I don't get raw mats. But I could just not do the parts that I like even more often and do more of the things I'm not fond of, as you suggest. At that point I'm not just playing the game though am I? At that point I'm consciously, intentionally engaging in behaviors I'd otherwise not do to obtain what I lack. Behaviors I don't really enjoy for a specific reward. Almost like some sort of grind...

this is a nonsense argument. All games will direct you to do something you may not enjoy doing to acquire something you need in the game. There is no game rule that says everything you do in the game must be enjoyed by you. There will almost always be something that punishes you that you wish you could skip but can't. That's GOOD. It makes your achievements afterward when you need to use that thing you were forced to get, all the better.

Now that's taken out of context of ED ...where you dont really need anything but credits and a few basic ship modules to do anything in the game. But that's not the point. Arguing that you shouldn't be forced to do something that you dont find enjoyable == bad game grind is dumb. You should be forced to do things you dont want in games, but everything you are forced to do should be for a good reason. Even if you as a player dont appreciate it at the time.

 

[House0fDerp]

this is a nonsense argument. All games will direct you to do something you may not enjoy doing to acquire something you need in the game. There is no game rule that says everything you do in the game must be enjoyed by you. There will almost always be something that punishes you that you wish you could skip but can't. That's GOOD. It makes your achievements afterward when you need to use that thing you were forced to get, all the better.

Ok, but then you're contradicting the person I was responding to as their position was "just playing the game" yielded all the need without any undesirable effort. Which is cool with me as I was disagreeing with them anyways.

Arguing that you shouldn't be forced to do something that you dont find enjoyable == bad game grind is dumb.

Ok, but that wasn't the argument. The argument was that when confronted with a grind, the advice to amplify it with another grind is bad.

You should be forced to do things you dont want in games, but everything you are forced to do should be for a good reason. Even if you as a player dont appreciate it at the time.

On this point I'd like to know what you think having so many materials and such lossy exchange rates is intended for. What reason do you think this exists here?

 

[Faded Glory]

Well yes, or you can focus on how to do it better. How to maximize your efforts so you don't have to do so many repetitive gameplay loops. You can keep doing it the same way 500 times, or you can find better methods to achieve the same thing.

Certainly going to a bio site to stock up on the valuable raw mats is the most effective way to do that. But focusing on how to do something 'better' isn't necessarily the point. For sure, there's a way to do everything well and efficiently in the game, the problem is that after a while that gets dull. And repetitive.

I acknowledged in my post (the one that the person you are responding to quoted) that for sure, you can set yourself challenges, and I do that all the time now. The problem is that destroying a pirate lord is always exactly the same whether I use a Viper or a FDL. Delivering mission cargo is always the same, and if you are attacked the gameplay including the targets and how they arrive is always the same. This dependent on mission ranks.

So the gameplay becomes very shallow and repetitive, and also very easy, because once you figure out how to do it, it never changes, there is very little challenge involved, very little reason to think about what you are doing.

As I said, I have no problem with choosing different ships to complete the same mission type, but it would for sure be better if FD could have introduced different mission scenarios to mix things up a bit, after all variety is the spice of life. Right now, I've been doing almost exactly the same mission template for many tpes of missions for getting on for two or three years. If FD had introduced a couple of new scenarios for each mission type each of those years, there'd be a wealth of different experiences we could be having today.

That's what I at least mean by repetitive.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I dont know what your beef is house of derp - I go fly spaceships, mostly shooting things, I made combat elite in three months between 2.0 & 2.1, unless you see yourself as some apex PvPer who haz2 havz de bestest engineered everyfinx you are only going to need so many mats to roll this weeks meta de lance load out?

In any other usage case with even just the mildest bit of PvE will get you a tonne of mat, sure you might need to trade up at a broker, or face up to some more gathering, but a couple of sightseeing missions to different geo whats its banks a few million to cover rebuys and a butt load of mats for engineering and or premium ammo, whcih AFIK was frowned on by PvP comunity?

But "whatevz"... your dislike of material gathreing doesn't answer the question the op asked, is the game difficult, no it is not difficult, but certain elements of it are subjectively tedious.

 

[Darth Ender]

Ok, but then you're contradicting the person I was responding to as their position was "just playing the game" yielded all the need without any undesirable effort. Which is cool with me as I was disagreeing with them anyways.

No, what I said is only an issue if you believe that grind is defined as repetitive behaviors you dont like. Grind has nothing to do with whether you enjoy doing it or not. It's just complained about when it is something you dont like. Grind is any repetitive action that you can do in the game and it has no effect on the overall game while allowing you to acquire rewards with usually no risk. It's supposed to be small reward with small risk. But in ED, it can be huge rewards for small risk.

You were trying to define grind as existing because it was an activity you would have been forced to do that you didn't want. everything you do is grind. The "playing the game and not grinding argument" is another nonsense argument that wants us to believe it's our responsibility for imagining in our minds a fun MMO game and not the developers in providing one.

Ok, but that wasn't the argument. The argument was that when confronted with a grind, the advice to amplify it with another grind is bad.

I was keying in on this idea that grind only exists for the activities you particularly may find unfun but somehow the activities you find fun aren't also grind.. That's not how it works and any debate that is based around that kind of definition is not going to make good sense.

On this point I'd like to know what you think having so many materials and such lossy exchange rates is intended for. What reason do you think this exists here?

somewhat related, lets first look at commodities. Why are there so many different commodities and materials when none of them intrinsically matter more than any other in the game? It's all stupid nostalgia-. Commodity boards dont make sense in a game where the economy is totally fake and nothing that matters in the game is actually impacted by them.

There only needs to be 3 commodities in the game. 1 that's easy to acquire so poor players can profit. 1 that is a bit harder to acquire, so casual players can profit, and one that is really hard to acquire so that really skilled players can profit. That's it. In the current economic model of the game, everything else is a stupid waste of space on the screen. Really I would argue that commodities shouldn't exist at all in a game where nothing depends on that commodity. We're not traders in this game. We're truck drivers. The missions and sandbox should revolve around how truck drivers make money, not the stock market.

Materials are used by engineers to make things and they're organized in a way that would have you play all kinds of various aspects of the game, going to certain types of places and doing certain types of things that you may or may not want to do and so you may or may not ever be able to craft whatever needs those materials. But then they mucked that up with material traders.

They were actually used fairly smartly but unfortunately, since everything you do to get them is a grind, people were sick of picking 1 grind over another if they liked certain grinds and fdev has a hard time justifying why players should participate in one pointless activity vs another pointless activity.


Grinding has it's place and it should exist as an option for everything, it should be simple and it should be fairly lame and most importantly, it should offer very little reward across the board. The game lacks a mechanic that isn't a grind that is very difficult and very rewarding and impactful to the game in a way that no two times you do it is going to be the same nor have the same result for the game overall. That lack of a second option is why this discussion exists.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I arrived late to the party - Jan 2019, at the age of 53

I don't find it too difficult at all.

Admittedly there are aspects that take a lot of practice to achieve a degree of competence at, but that's life.

You get out what you put in.

I like you attitude o7

Certainly going to a bio site to stock up on the valuable raw mats is the most effective way to do that. But focusing on how to do something 'better' isn't necessarily the point. For sure, there's a way to do everything well and efficiently in the game, the problem is that after a while that gets dull. And repetitive.

I acknowledged in my post (the one that the person you are responding to quoted) that for sure, you can set yourself challenges, and I do that all the time now. The problem is that destroying a pirate lord is always exactly the same whether I use a Viper or a FDL. Delivering mission cargo is always the same, and if you are attacked the gameplay including the targets and how they arrive is always the same. This dependent on mission ranks.

So the gameplay becomes very shallow and repetitive, and also very easy, because once you figure out how to do it, it never changes, there is very little challenge involved, very little reason to think about what you are doing.

As I said, I have no problem with choosing different ships to complete the same mission type, but it would for sure be better if FD could have introduced different mission scenarios to mix things up a bit, after all variety is the spice of life. Right now, I've been doing almost exactly the same mission template for many tpes of missions for getting on for two or three years. If FD had introduced a couple of new scenarios for each mission type each of those years, there'd be a wealth of different experiences we could be having today.

That's what I at least mean by repetitive.

Some of it does get repetitive, I fly FAoff, and last week I was running a lot of delivery to outposts as I was in the mood for flying my python to land on outposts, so I was getting interdicted with the usual 4 elite anaconda's for each mission. It got to the point that I just knew they spawn behind me, I submit to interdiction, gather the ship, no matter what way I point the ship the npc would drop in behind me, and open with a plasma accelerator shot.

I was only running a class 4 prismatic shield with thermal resisance mod and resistance modded boosters, but as the plasma accelerator is absolute damage I'd want to keep out of the road of the PA. So it got to the stage where I'd drop from the interdiction, stabalise the ship, and before I'd even targetted the NPC, I'd give the ship a compound vector with some combination of sraff left/right/up/down.

 

[Greasetrap42]

So pick one: Either it's "Just play the game." or "Just play the optimal decathalon for mat pickups". You can't have both without being fundamentally dishonest

Incorrect. The most efficient method is to do multiple things together. If you are exploring, you also scan systems, you find interesting planets, the ones with organics you can land on to scan the organics, take cool pics, and fill your bins with raw mats. All while taking a break from jumping from star-to-star-to-star. Completing many things at the same time while having an enjoyable time.

It is always more efficient to direct any single activity for multiple results. Example: collecting raw materials... far less efficient to drop what you are doing to go find a planet where you can collect some pollonium. Or filling your bins.. system hoping trying to find the right planets. Very inefficient to do this and not very enjoyable -> this is grinding.

Edit
My point many posts ago was just using the gathering of raw materials as an example. The point was rather than just accepting the boring repetition of a task you can focus on methods of doing it better. Trade runs is a really great example. You can do the same crumby trade runs over-and-over, or you can find a better method. Hopefully that achieves other purposes too. That's the challenge. And there are better methods.

 

[Darth Ender]

Incorrect. The most efficient method is to do multiple things together. If you are exploring, you also scan systems, you find interesting planets, the ones with organics you can land on to scan the organics, take cool pics, and fill your bins with raw mats. All while taking a break from jumping from star-to-star-to-star. Completing many things at the same time while having an enjoyable time.

It is always more efficient to direct any single activity for multiple results. Example: collecting raw materials... far less efficient to drop what you are doing to go find a planet where you can collect some pollonium. Or filling your bins.. system hoping trying to find the right planets. Very inefficient to do this and not very enjoyable -> this is grinding.

if something you want to have required a lot of pollonium and didn't require much of anything else, then just randomnly doing something hoping to come across polonium while you do it is very inefficient.

What you suggest is only efficient if you have no direction or goal. And even then, why pick up anything in that case? It works for starting out and getting a good collection going, but at some point, you'll need to specialize.

 

[Greasetrap42]

I take it you guys don't play chess. The idea is you want to accomplish multiple things with each move.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

So if you are looking for lots of jumponium you must be going exploring, and the farming of that jumponium would be part of the preparations for your expedition. But you are not forced to go to the most efficient site and run those mineral features and relog 20x over. Sure, go to Polonia 1a farm the mats, jump to the icering ha res in the next system, go splt some crims and rack up some sweet manufacturer mats and decent amount of credits, go do a passenger mission to visit another material site, gather some mats there, not necessarily polonium but something you can trade at a broker. If the passenger is worth their salt they will most likely have an NPC or two come after you, wipe out te ubiquitous anaconda/corvette assassin, scoop up some more mats hand then passenger mission in, hit the mat broker, trade in / up down round about for polonium, scout the mission baord in the mat broker's system for missions offering raw mats, take one, go strike a powerplant yada yada....

Why do I need to tell you all this when you are obviously so authorative figure heads of the game and thus you are absolutely everything is ring, in RNGrindus we trust?

 

[Darth Ender]

I take it you guys don't play chess. The idea is you want to accomplish multiple things with each move.

Only if you want to waste your time is the point everyone playing is making.

If you want to make TONS of credits, it's most efficient to mine diamonds and only mine diamonds whenever you play.

If you want to get a certain engineer mod, it's most efficient to goto the places that spawn those materials and get them ...or a place that spawns a lot of materials you can trade for them and not do anything else.

This is true for everything in the game. It's not the most efficient way to acquire any given thing to just do a bunch of different things. This game isn't like chess.. and the rewards you get aren't greater because you did multiple things at once, You just end up with less of what you wanted and more of a bunch of stuff you dont care about and may never have a use for.

edit: doing multiple things is good for reducing burnout and anger over doing the same things over and over. Barely. But you're trading efficiency for that. Dont fool yourself into thinking you're not.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Yeeah.... no. You don't get it. And that's ok. Keep playing the way you do. And keep complaining about the grind. Meanwhile, players like me don't grind and have all the stuff we want with lots of fun! Cheers!

 

[House0fDerp]

I dont know what your beef is house of derp - I go fly spaceships, mostly shooting things, I made combat elite in three months between 2.0 & 2.1, unless you see yourself as some apex PvPer who haz2 havz de bestest engineered everyfinx you are only going to need so many mats to roll this weeks meta de lance load out?

I don't have a beef. I just came to say that you really don't get many if any raw mats when you primarily shoot things. And that's true outside of spending time to specifically go out and do that. But I do that a lot. Like, 15 different ships worth of a lot. 1 of whih I just re-bought to try a new fit. Has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with that being the part of the game I enjoy the most. I don't PvP at all. I don't care to. I don't even know what this scenario you created is, but it's possible to actually like shooting things and burn mats doing it in different ways without whatever that is.

In any other usage case with even just the mildest bit of PvE will get you a tonne of mat, sure you might need to trade up at a broker, or face up to some more gathering, but a couple of sightseeing missions to different geo whats its banks a few million to cover rebuys and a butt load of mats for engineering and or premium ammo, whcih AFIK was frowned on by PvP comunity?

Eff synthesis. I've got 4 hulls and I'm not sure how many HRPs to redo. No mats for synthesis. Might upgrade some more hulls if the wallet holds out. Maybe not since mats assuredly won't right now. And yes, I'll get back to gathering. I dont really like it but I do it often enough to outfit the ships I have.

But "whatevz"... your dislike of material gathreing doesn't answer the question the op asked, is the game difficult, no it is not difficult, but certain elements of it are subjectively tedious.

This whole thread of conversation started due to the ops dismissal of the concept of grind.

 

[House0fDerp]

Incorrect. The most efficient method is to do multiple things together...

I wasn't arguing for or against the efficiency of it. I was saying that going to nebulas didn't make sense for a non explorer to pick up mats. Yes if you are exploring that's great. Most of what I do is best done in the bubble, and may involve frequent task switching, and almost never involves exploration into the black because there just isn't much for me out there. Of the things that I am regularly doing, none of them really yield raws so either way we're going to be "grinding." I'd just rather that if I have to I have my next activity 60ly away rather than 6000.

So yes, when you love the whole elite decathlon, or at least the more rewarding parts of it, things work fine. If not, you may as well grind one method or another.

Edit
My point many posts ago was just using the gathering of raw materials as an example. The point was rather than just accepting the boring repetition of a task you can focus on methods of doing it better. Trade runs is a really great example. You can do the same crumby trade runs over-and-over, or you can find a better method. Hopefully that achieves other purposes too. That's the challenge. And there are better methods.

Problem is you use my post as a counterexample when mixing tasks wasn't the issue. The issue was that none of the tasks I engage in yield those rewards and as such can't be mixed for it. Only interrupted.

 

[House0fDerp]

No, what I said is only an issue if you believe that grind is defined as repetitive behaviors you dont like. Grind has nothing to do with whether you enjoy doing it or not. It's just complained about when it is something you dont like. Grind is any repetitive action that you can do in the game and it has no effect on the overall game while allowing you to acquire rewards with usually no risk. It's supposed to be small reward with small risk. But in ED, it can be huge rewards for small risk.

You were trying to define grind as existing because it was an activity you would have been forced to do that you didn't want. everything you do is grind. The "playing the game and not grinding argument" is another nonsense argument that wants us to believe it's our responsibility for imagining in our minds a fun MMO game and not the developers in providing one.

No, in this case I was describing grind as being behavioral. Specifically the things you do specifically for the reward that you would otherwise just not and, to expand that, the way you do them that evidences you're minimizing time on task and maximizing return on time.

It's more likely to be something you don't like, but that's not really defining it or even necessary.

I was keying in on this idea that grind only exists for the activities you particularly may find unfun but somehow the activities you find fun aren't also grind.. That's not how it works and any debate that is based around that kind of definition is not going to make good sense.

That's not an idea I really agree with or would argue. I could have just done massacres for rank, I enjoy those but they do feel a bit nerfed given how fast CZs can be won, especially low intensities. But the prize at the end changed my behaviors because I wanted to try the ships they unlock. So for a time I switched to a task that while still repetitive was incomparably fast. 1-2% rank at the time for a massacre vs 1% for a data courier but the data couriers could be completed in 1 jump, stacked to 20 and completed simultaneously. This was after kills were changed to only apply to 1 massacre mission rather than all you held.

Continuing to do the former would be behaving as normal and while repetitive might not be considered grinding as the goal wasn't the behavioral motivation. The latter method unquestionably was despite being arguably less repetitive due to the sheer difference in activity and time needed.

 

[Werewolf13]

Likewise, for mats, I harvest them by playing the game, I make a point of doing passenger sightseeing tours to geologic features, guyesers, fumeroles, etc, all provide good sources for raw mats. For manufacturered mats I keep my eyes on signal sources, and go bounty hunting or into conflict zones. I also do a lot of missions just for mats. Don't have what you need, grab everything and swap them out at the brokers. No grind, and not difficult.

To get a hundred of the same thing, you don't have to do the same activities one hundered times in a row...

Passenger missions for collecting Mats. 1st thing I thought of back when PsX missions became available. 1st planet I landed on with a load of passengers - game wouldn't let me land.

Has that changed? Can one land on a planet with a load of passengers and disembark with your SRV? When did it change?

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I've been doing it since the start of passenger missions. You were looking at a passenger mission that took you to one of he surface features like "ice geysers" or "fumeroles" or some such? What did it say as to why you couldn't land? Was it just unsuitable terrain when you put the gear down? It can be gnarly terrain and some ships are easier to find a landing spot for than others, like a clipper is a cow to find a landing spot for in comparison to a dolphin for example.

 

[h347h]

So many threads needing to reduce the costs of something or make credits more easier to obtain.. or (seen couple) that materials/engineering stuff should be more easy.
Is the game really that hard?

And for those who are going to say "no, but it's just too much grinding": Stop that! Don't grind! You can play without grinding.. unless you actually enjoy it and enjoy complaining about it... then go ahead

No, if I have to do CZs and the like in an Eagle for a challenge its a bit too easy.

 

[Alien]

Well, 140 posts in, and a thought just came to me, has anyone tried playing They Are Billions? THAT game IS difficult. Even on easiest options I still can't do the first level.
Yeah I know, nothing to do with Elite, but we're talking about whether Elite Dangerous is difficult. Also, in '85 when I had Elite on a C64, I literally couldn't dock. It really was difficult. I had to get a save from a friend (I don't know if he did this himself, or got it from a friend) that already had the docking computer. Then I was able to play the game.