I've just had one of "those" moments...

[Rafe Zetter]

Sorry for the clickbait, but as I said I've just one of "those" moments, while cooking my evening meal, literally 10 minutes ago.

Moments that when an idea or realisation occurs, it stops you in your tracks - literally.

For the entire time ED has been live, the amount of "grind" built into things just seems to be getting longer - you know what I'm talking about - those activites that could be made shorter (and more logical, usually) but FDev have decided "coz reasons" that they are not.

Here's the thoughts that gave me that "moment".

"What if FDev are doing this for reasons other than gameplay? What if the grind has another purpose apart from immersion?"

Of all the places that people leave reviews for this game, which one stands out above all others?

Steam.

Question: When players of the ED post reviews of the game - what is one of the things that you can see about that player?

How many HOURS he or she (Hello Ladies *wave*) has spent in the game.

Now, Humans being human you all associate "number of hours spent on a LEISURE activity" with "how much they MUST LIKE DOING IT".

If a person on Steam leaves a mostly negative review, but his "time played" is over say 100 hours, - most people will have the AUTOMATIC ASSUMPTION, "can't be that bad - he played it for over 100 hours" - and part of this goes alongside the fact that most games now are completed in less than 50 hours - 20 for some.

Anyone who reads a negative review on Steam that indicates that person played the game for more than 100 hours will simply dismiss it as "sour grapes lacking in any real merit" - because the converse of this is anyone who posts a negative review on a game when they have only played it less than 10 hours ALSO gets dismissed.

It's human nature; the - "he has no idea what he is talking about" syndrome for the low playtimes with the converse of "he must have liked the game otherwise he wouldn't have played it for over 100 hours" and so BOTH reviews get ignored and they buy the game.

Now, call me crazy or cynical - believe me you won't be the first by quite some margin - but what if part of the grind is to manipulate those figures?

Just how long does it take for a new player to get to a point in the game whereby they actually feel they are achieving something?

The latest crime and punishment grind stupidity for 200cr fines is the latest case in point.

Just a (fairly mindblowing) thought.

(It's a nice chicken Korma curry with pilau rice and poppadums, just in case you were wondering)

 

[Cervantes01]

I can understand the logic, but I think that you are in tin foil hat territory with this.

 

[S~P]

Sadly You are probably wrong with Steam, most people (including me) will just look at how many negative reviews there are and make their decision there and then, they won't even bother to read the reviews. I won't even bother to look at the game unless it have a positive number of reviews, then I actually look at the negatives to see if there is any repeat problems people are having before making a purchase.

 

[Mysturji]

Interesting thought, but I think you might be over-psychologising?
ED is a bit of a niche game. Either you get it or you don't, or you enjoy being a random psychopath in a new game for A while then move on.
ED is for people who want something like ED. Not WoW or GTA or whatever. Even a negative review (by someone who doesn't get it) tells them something about the game. That will either get their attention or not.
IMHO

 

[Ian Skippy]

Now, call me crazy or cynical - believe me you won't be the first by quite some margin - but what if part of the grind is to manipulate those figures?
Just a (fairly mindblowing) thought.

You are crazy and/or cynical. It is also not a mindblowing thought. Why do conspiracy theorists always think their nonsense is mindblowing btw?

 

[zombieapocalypse]

To quote Dan Ashcroft: "the idiots are winning".

You are crazy and/or cynical. It is also not a mindblowing thought. Why do conspiracy theorists always think their nonsense is mindblowing btw?

People, we're through the looking glass here.

 

[Troy_McClure]

Hmmm, even David Icke would think twice about advocating this conspiracy theory!

Elite has a very 'special:|' player-base...the usual review 'rules' don't really apply because this isn't a game that is likely to appeal to the masses!

& also, thanks to your felicitous phrasing, I now imagine you like this....

 

[krylite]

Some good thoughtful analysis, but probably mistakenly slanted into your bias that FDev is doing this to manipulate some review numbers or some other metric. I think it's more indicative of FDev's attempt to bring back more balance and difficulty into the game since the credit has been too devalued from previous runaway xploits, since the beginning days of ED which was closer in line with the rewards payout for missions in E2:Frontier & E3:FFE

 

[ilo]

The latest crime and punishment grind stupidity for 200cr fines is the latest case in point.

That summarises all. Everything is slow turning into a grind.

1 year till we see a post: FD, stop with the grind of creating your own character!

 

[GraXXoR]

Spent one day with Rick sanchez day before yesterday. He had a Cobra MK4 and had used it to gather up enough money over the past week to buy and A rate a vulture.

Joined the two Grom CGs on a whim. They were already last tier

Flew the Cobra out and got into the 75% band delivering Palladium. Added a few more tonnes of beryllium for safety and stopped. Mega profits but dull.

Next get the vulture into the High Res near the station. Only engineering was a G1 overcharge on the PP. everything else was vanilla. Fixed beam and gimballed pulse.

Got 20M or something in about 6 hours. So an Avg. of over 3M / hour. Admittedly this cash came in the latter half and since I haven’t bounty hunted for nearly two years and I now have a new dual joystick to contend with, the first half was a total of budged PIP handling and forgetting there’s such a thing as FA-off. Anyway, that’s got me to 10% and really sharpened my flying up several notches.

Then the CGs ended and I raked in 7M for the deliveries and 23M or something for the BH. Total earned in one session using almost unengineered small ships.

Credits earned: >60M.

Fun had? Priceless.

This game is both fun and easy.

Too easy to make credits IMO. 60M in one day with a vanilla A-ranked Cobra MK4 and Vulture?

One more CG and I could skip to a python. I won’t because Rick only flys small ships with exceptions for the Keelback SLF wrapper and the epically powerful Type 7.

That’s two game sessions to get a python with no exploits, no engineers. Just having a bit of fun dodging gankers at stations and annoying commanders at High RESs with multiple wing requests.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

I've no doubt that FDev designed core game play strategies that everything else is built upon, purely to manipulate steam numbers.

Seems legit...


*edit*

Nevermind. After reading that out loud it sounds totally bonkers.

 

[Red Anders]

To quote Dan Ashcroft: "the idiots are winning".

People, we're through the looking glass here.

Very difficult to argue with someone who quotes Dan Ashcroft and has a Hunter Thompson avatar. Well, technically a Ralph Steadman avatar but you know what I mean.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Sorry for the clickbait, but as I said I've just one of "those" moments, while cooking my evening meal, literally 10 minutes ago.

Moments that when an idea or realisation occurs, it stops you in your tracks - literally.

For the entire time ED has been live, the amount of "grind" built into things just seems to be getting longer - you know what I'm talking about - those activites that could be made shorter (and more logical, usually) but FDev have decided "coz reasons" that they are not.

Here's the thoughts that gave me that "moment".

"What if FDev are doing this for reasons other than gameplay? What if the grind has another purpose apart from immersion?"

Of all the places that people leave reviews for this game, which one stands out above all others?

Steam.

Question: When players of the ED post reviews of the game - what is one of the things that you can see about that player?

How many HOURS he or she (Hello Ladies *wave*) has spent in the game.

Now, Humans being human you all associate "number of hours spent on a LEISURE activity" with "how much they MUST LIKE DOING IT".

If a person on Steam leaves a mostly negative review, but his "time played" is over say 100 hours, - most people will have the AUTOMATIC ASSUMPTION, "can't be that bad - he played it for over 100 hours" - and part of this goes alongside the fact that most games now are completed in less than 50 hours - 20 for some.

Anyone who reads a negative review on Steam that indicates that person played the game for more than 100 hours will simply dismiss it as "sour grapes lacking in any real merit" - because the converse of this is anyone who posts a negative review on a game when they have only played it less than 10 hours ALSO gets dismissed.

It's human nature; the - "he has no idea what he is talking about" syndrome for the low playtimes with the converse of "he must have liked the game otherwise he wouldn't have played it for over 100 hours" and so BOTH reviews get ignored and they buy the game.

Now, call me crazy or cynical - believe me you won't be the first by quite some margin - but what if part of the grind is to manipulate those figures?

Just how long does it take for a new player to get to a point in the game whereby they actually feel they are achieving something?

The latest crime and punishment grind stupidity for 200cr fines is the latest case in point.

Just a (fairly mindblowing) thought.

(It's a nice chicken Korma curry with pilau rice and poppadums, just in case you were wondering)

Well Crazy or Cynical, I'd like to agree, but somehow I think such social engineering is outside of the scope of the folks at Frontier. Besides, they couldn't gather enough materials for Grade 1 Social Engineering even with console commands.

I suspect they don't see anything as "grindy" because they're not developing Elite with the mindset that people are going to try to play it like every other game out there, with a super-luminal rush to reach non-existent "end game" status, with maxed out everything in every space port out there.

I think their concept is a more laid-back, relaxed, it-happens-when-it-happens sort of approach to game play. 1 or 2 missions a day, maybe 1 Engineering upgrade a week if you're lucky, 30-45 minutes of play time per session, and completely ok with it.

I just don't think they can conceptualize the 80+ hour a week "dedicated gamer" mindset, who should be able to accomplish everything there is to do within the first hour or two of playing and then devote themselves to non-stop PvP because they're already the greatest at everything, with every accolade to pin on their chests.

But that's just my rational thoughts speaking. Only someone on the inside could really tell us what their thought process is.

And tonight: Cumin-crusted Chilian Sea-bass with lemon-glazed orzo and peppers.

 

[Dural]

Ice cream causes shark attacks. Because...

Most shark attacks happen at beaches where ice cream is sold therefore... see above.

...

I'd imagine there is a fairly specific vision for what Elite is and how it all works in the minds of the creators. That vision dictates that some of the gameplay can be considered grind, especially by those used to cookie cutter quick reward instant gratification type games or those who do not enjoy the experience and see the rewards and progression as somewhat secondary. Instant gratification kill increasingly more dangerous things with increasingly larger guns are fun, I play them too, this just isn't one of them.

Nothing more complicated or contrived than that IMO.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

"What if FDev are doing this for reasons other than gameplay? What if the grind has another purpose apart from immersion?"

I thought everyone knew that the grind was intentional. Grind is engaging for some people. They become obsessed with an objective and they grind away. For an MMO you need to get as many people playing your game as often as possible. Such people are more likely to buy customizations and other microtransactions.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Hmmm, even David Icke would think twice about advocating this conspiracy theory!

Elite has a very 'special:|' player-base...the usual review 'rules' don't really apply because this isn't a game that is likely to appeal to the masses!

& also, thanks to your felicitous phrasing, I now imagine you like this....

https://i.imgur.com/if6nHFoh.jpg

That made me laugh - but me being worse than David Icke? Cmon man - have a little mercy!

Sleut - mind blown is a subjective thing, I meant mind blowing for ME, I did say I considered it a bit of a "MOMENT" right? Maybe you aren't the kind of person who has occasional personal ephiphanies (I wish I'd remembered that word yesterday) but being a reflective sort of guy, I have them all the time, at the oddest times, for no reason at all - my brain just sort of goes "hey bud, CATCH!"

It's interesting being me, and by interesting I mean "really quite strange sometimes".

I had one last night - I was playing X-Rebirth and just mooching about waiting for my cargo ships to do thier thing and my brain went "hey - isn't it just ODD how stuff just hangs there in space? I mean, I know, that you know, that because there's no discernable gravity affecting it, it's not falling or flying about or whatever, but still.... isn't it a amazing how all these stars and planets and stuff are just sort of "there", most people don't even give it a second thought, like "Planets? Sure, space, yeah man, whatever - what's on netflix?"

It did that all on it's own.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

And tonight: Cumin-crusted Chilian Sea-bass with lemon-glazed orzo and peppers.

OK you win, what's for tommorrow and do I have time to get there?