jUSt PLaY tHe GaMe and You'LL get MaTS!11

[deckroid]

Really? This seems to be the #1 response from non-casual players. Ok, let me play the game. When I read about Elite before I bought it, combat was my main desire. Big space battles are awesome.

Yet another dissatisfied customer. This time, said customer claims to have read about the game prior to purchasing. In doing so, it must have become apparent that this game has a steep time curve. Yes, yes, I know about the Road to Riches and other things that get you bazillions in a day. Congratulations, you found a way to game the game and get all the nifty toys and skipped a whole heck of a lot of stuff.

I am not here to defend FD or criticize the OP or those who spend a weekend getting their hearts desire ... rather a public service announcement to all potential buyers of the game.

This game is a time sink. If you are not able and willing to put in the time to play the game, then you are 1.) not going to enjoy it 2.) get bored with it and complain non stop about it and 3.) should really be playing something else.

There is no end game here. There is no real story. And for an old fuddy duddy who enjoyed the original like me... it's enough. As I have stated many many times... I like to fly ships in space. That's it. That's why I play.

 

[Darty]

The question shouldn't be about whether there should be a grind, more of a question about how much grind and what form that grind should take in order to achieve a certain thing.

We're working under 2 different definitions of grinding here.

To me, grinding refers to having to do the same thing over and over again to the point where it stops being fun. In that sense an ideal game would have very little if any grind. Everything in a game is a repetition of a certain task to get a reward, but it becomes grind when the repetition of the task increases to the point where it exhausts all potential fun that can be gained from doing the task. Now there is an element of subjectivity to this, which is why progress shouldn't be locked behind just 1 activity in a game like E. Material traders were a great step in the right direction, but their potential was neutered by the atrocious 6:1 cross trade penalty.

I'll give you an example of what I currently view as a non-grindy way to get mats. Megaship data piracy. Its a relatively complicated process, and involves building a ship exclusively for it. It does involve a lot of repetition, but the speed at which you earn materials is so great you can get everything you need for 1 ship in about 15-20 minutes. This means that it takes many trips before the novelty wears off, and even then the activity is engaging enough to not become boring. Overall, its a great mechanic and I really do applaud fdev for implementing it. If only there was a version of it for g5 manufactured materials.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

We're working under 2 different definitions of grinding here.

To me, grinding refers to having to do the same thing over and over again to the point where it stops being fun. In that sense an ideal game would have very little if any grind. Everything in a game is a repetition of a certain task to get a reward, but it becomes grind when the repetition of the task increases to the point where it exhausts all potential fun that can be gained from doing the task. Now there is an element of subjectivity to this, which is why progress shouldn't be locked behind just 1 activity in a game like E. Material traders were a great step in the right direction, but their potential was neutered by the atrocious 6:1 cross trade penalty.

I'll give you an example of what I currently view as a non-grindy way to get mats. Megaship data piracy. Its a relatively complicated process, and involves building a ship exclusively for it. It does involve a lot of repetition, but the speed at which you earn materials is so great you can get everything you need for 1 ship in about 15-20 minutes. This means that it takes many trips before the novelty wears off, and even then the activity is engaging enough to not become boring. Overall, its a great mechanic and I really do applaud fdev for implementing it. If only there was a version of it for g5 manufactured materials.

Right, the fun aspect is important.

The good thing is there are often various way to get the materials you need: Base runs, killing, missions, SRVs, etc. And when none of those tickle your fancy, go do something else and use the traders to get what you want.

Seriously, the traders were a godsend.

 

[sollisb]

All you have to do is pick your targets. If you are in an A-rated vulture without engineering, don't try to take on an Elite Anaconda and 2 gunships, thats called suicide.

It can take a long time to do a full G5 ships, but for NPC's you don't need more then a G2 or 3. No need to fully engineer a ship for NPC play (unless you are taking on anaconda's in your sidewinder/eagle/cobra/viper. A vulture (only two weapons to engineer which helps) with G2-G3 upgrades should do you fine in most NPC combat situations.

Accepted.. if the pilot is better than most. I've Combat ELite on 3 accounts and still meet wings that will put a dent or 2 in me if I'm not careful. Any Vulture going against an engineered wing is on the losing side. To say other wise is farcical. The SLFs alone will ream you a new hole in your bottom.

 

[sollisb]

There has to be some form of "grind". Otherwise you might as well simply remove the whole need for mats and let people engineer how they want (which i'm sure some people would like).

The question shouldn't be about whether there should be a grind, more of a question about how much grind and what form that grind should take in order to achieve a certain thing.

+Lots !!

Exactly. Knowing what the grind is and how long it's going to take, is then a decision for the player make based on the knowns.

However Frontier have made it so it's entirely random. So I might find my HGEs with included materials in one night, where-as you might require weeks of flying around like a wheelchair on slow-mo just to find one.

That is the frontier design philosophy. Frontier don't do MMOs and if they did, they mess that up too !

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Accepted.. if the pilot is better than most. I've Combat ELite on 3 accounts and still meet wings that will put a dent or 2 in me if I'm not careful. Any Vulture going against an engineered wing is on the losing side. To say other wise is farcical. The SLFs alone will ream you a new hole in your bottom.

I wouldn't go against wings anyway as I am not that great a combat pilot. One on one combat is more my style.

 

[Globusdiablo]

...In summary: why isn't there an "easy/medium/hard" difficulty slider for Solo mode? That way, all the hardcore elite players who play the game 40 hours a week will feel special, and people who have video games as a hobby with only a few hours a week will get satisfaction and progression? Then you can create a subforum specifically for easy mode, that way we don't get condescending elitist responses from someone who has 1000 hours into the game and loves everything about it.

It's definitely an acquired taste, and not meant to be accessible at all. Go figure.

 

[Jukelo]

Right, the fun aspect is important.

The good thing is there are often various way to get the materials you need: Base runs, killing, missions, SRVs, etc. And when none of those tickle your fancy, go do something else and use the traders to get what you want.

Seriously, the traders were a godsend.

Agreed. The first implementation of the Engineers actually went against the "just play and you'll progress" philosophy that is so integral to the game. The materials traders entirely fixed this.

Not that engineering is actually required to engage in most activities, and certainly not required to engage in the core activities of trading, bounty hunting, piracy and exploration.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Ah yes, the good old 'I need the absolute best combat ship with the most expensive outfitting, and it needs to be top-end modded, and I need it now. Why is this game so unfair to casuals?!?!?!'.

If you think you need the above the issue isn't what you possess. For the first two years I was nearly exclusively a combat pilot, and at no point did I need any of the above.

 

[PaxtonNewt]

Really? This seems to be the #1 response from non-casual players. Ok, let me play the game. When I read about Elite before I bought it, combat was my main desire. Big space battles are awesome.

1. Decide I want to do some combat
2. Sell my ship and trade for something combat focused
3. Spend whatever left on parts
4. Grab some combat missions that - from their very gently caressing vague description - sound fun
5. Die a bunch of times on the combat missions, quickly realize that because the mission pays low, doesn't mean it will be easy
6. Through trial and error, figure out exactly which combat missions are possible to complete
7. After completing some missions, the soul-crushing realization of how long it will take to progress to conflict zones sets in as I'll need a 150m FDL
8. Decide I need to make more money faster
9. Switch to trading ship
10. Not bad, make about 10m credits, but get very sick of jumping and cruising, miss the thrill of combat. The best hauler is still verrrrry far away from being purchased. Need money even faster.
11. Pick up a Dolphin as I heard passenger missions are nice, can't do anything just yet because you'll want to blow your brains out without an engineered FSD
12. Lookup felicity, need meta alloys
13. Fly a mind-numbing amount of jumps in a non-engineered mid grade FSD to Darnielle's progress, none for sale despite it being "so easy, just buy them!" online
14. Find a spreadsheet containing known locations of them on planets
15. Buy an SRV
16. More ungodly jumps to a planet with barnicles
17. Land, wrestle with glitchy rubbish SRV controls
18. Find barnacle, finally get a meta alloy
19. Yet more netflix and jumping to Felicity
20. Engineer my FSD, get a piddly increase in jumping
21. Rage-sell my dolphin and try mining
22. Time spent vs credit income is utterly ridiculous compared to trading or passenger missions
23. Rage crash my mining ship into the sun
24. Buy an ASP, honk around sytems, quickly get bored of supercruising to planets
25. Go back to Bubble to sell my data, get a laughable amount of credits, not going to jump 5000 lys away doing that ad nauseum to get a higher amount of credits
21. Quit the game because after doing ALLLLLL that over WEEKS of playing and I haven't even made a dent in FSD progress. I've literally been playing the game trying to progress and have poopoo for mats.

Oh but GOD FORBID I try to "farm" any mats or lookup clever ways to get mats. No no no, you should just be playing the same missions over and over and over and over again until you get enough for the next level of engineering. You went to Dav's hope to try and get mats faster to save time? LOL, if you had just played the game for 100 more hours you would've had the mats anyways!!!

In summary: why isn't there an "easy/medium/hard" difficulty slider for Solo mode? That way, all the hardcore elite players who play the game 40 hours a week will feel special, and people who have video games as a hobby with only a few hours a week will get satisfaction and progression? Then you can create a subforum specifically for easy mode, that way we don't get condescending elitist responses from someone who has 1000 hours into the game and loves everything about it.

This sounds very much like my first couple of weeks playing the game, I couldn't get anywhere as I was accumulating at such a slow pace. I spent weeks grinding courier missions in a loop. I did this over and over until I had enough credits and rank to buy a python. I hadn't even used a cargo scoop at this point. I had no materials at all. I then discovered the joy of the cargo scoop and collector limpets. while in supercruise heading to a planet, look for unidentified signal sources and head for those, when you drop out drop to zero and open cargo hatch and deploy collector limpets. switch to the list of items on your left panel and watch as they disappear into your cargo hold. I started doing this over and over again..the joy of not knowing what your going to find is what I like about salvaging.. but I realised that I couldn't get half of what I needed, so I learnt how to go looking for technetium and trading that for what I wanted. before long I had an engineered FSD in my Cutter that I bought from doing Void Opal mining.. ranking to duke takes a couple of days.

its only recently due to a buddy on here adding me and taking me under his wing to show me the marvels of elite dangerous that im now really enjoying the game.. I just got my first guardian blue print which is better if you have a team mate to help. my inventory is filling up quick.

what I learnt: Technetium - SRV mining... find a planet with technetium and scan it and get the locations of the geological sites.. drive around and shoot the crystal structures which release the goodies. technetium is the best to get.

Void opal mining - a relaxing way to make an incredible amount of money - what I learnt.. don't relog back in if you have any void opals in your ship, you will get attacked and if like me your no good at combat you will loose your load. once you have your void opals use inara to find the best station to sell at highest price.

team up with someone who doesn't mind letting you collect all the goodies until you are good enough yourself to go alone.. but im having too much fun with my buddy to want to go alone in this game.. its much better with a friend.

o7

 

[KarmaCop]

Ah yes, the good old 'I need the absolute best combat ship with the most expensive outfitting, and it needs to be top-end modded, and I need it now. Why is this game so unfair to casuals?!?!?!'.

If you think you need the above the issue isn't what you possess. For the first two years I was nearly exclusively a combat pilot, and at no point did I need any of the above.

You mean "the first two years" when NPCs were absolute #### rather than just fairly #### & had zero engineering giving them the shield sponges we experience today.

For example, I recently used up ALL of my rail gun ammo on an assassination mission target without a kill as it spammed SCBs like you spam passive-aggressive, condescending bollox.

Your ability to empathise with us noobs & be objective is seriously impeded, it would appear. Now 'back in your box!

Source: https://youtu.be/VAFnbkEwqjI

 

[Ian Skippy]

You mean "the first two years" when NPCs were absolute #### rather than just fairly #### & had zero engineering giving them the shield sponges we experience today.

For example, I recently used up ALL of my rail gun ammo on an assassination mission target without a kill as it spammed SCBs like you spam passive-aggressive, condescending bollox.

Your ability to empathise with us noobs & be objective is seriously impeded, it would appear. Now 'back in your box!

Source: https://youtu.be/VAFnbkEwqjI

Ah, it seems you think these forums are for 'winning fights'. Okay. Just so you know, plenty of us who do know what we talking about prefer flying in small ships. Not just back then, but now as well. My CZ ship is a shield-tanking Eagle. I dont have an issue empathizing with new players, for what it is worth, only with people who always blame everyone and everything else.

But congratulations, it seems you have learned nothing. Why that is a 'win' in your book is beyond my comprehension, but enjoy the 'internet victory'. I'll be be in my box if you need me.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

If the game loops for gathering materials were fun I think we'd see less of these threads.
Material gathering is a PITA.

FDEV need to make the material gathering loop more satisfying. I hope that's worked on in some way.

Personally I'd love a mining machine, dunk it on a planet set it to mine ore or materials come back later say after doing a few missions and collect the stuff.

 

[Vetinari]

OK so I'm weird, I knew that already.

I started the game, hadn't really considered the 'Galaxy Model' and fully expected to have a 7LY Range....forever! OK that doesn't work with the distances which I hadn't thought of but hey, that's a bonus to me.

I bought my 2 tons of cargo with my 1000 CR and looked at the mission board, picked up a mission worth 15K to deliver some data....almost exploded...how can a game that starts you with 1K and expects you to proceed give you on day 1 minute 1 a mission worth 15 times that! This game has sold out! Ill be bored within a month...just like very other single game ever apart from Elite (which I just couldn't return to coz the graphics to me made it unplayable for me.) I've pined ever since and played other games to fill the gap but.....they just aren't Elite.

Spoiler: Text

Couple days later having been killed numerous times, not least by the stations for various infringements and once for having the bright idea of heading to the nearest station to pay that bounty off and clear my name asap I now believe the game hasn't sold out and it I am not the hero (like every other game ever), thank the universe for that! That realisation came when I slammed the controller onto the couch and said 'This game is impossible!' Then 5 seconds later I'm giddy as a schoolboy - THATS what I want from a game, not a buy to win (SC), not a combat / PVP focussed game (Eve) where I am am the hero and the universe does revolve around me, but a game that frustrates me that challenges me, that hopefully (and probably very sadly in most of your eyes) a game I will play for the next 30 years and more. I haven't bought a single game since ED, I'm seriously considering a HOTAS and VR just for Elite instead

Combat - failed all the time for ages. Worked up to approx. 10m then started looking at YT for combat advice, found a goldmine of stuff I'm so glad I didn't know about and instead 'discovered' for myself in game. Learned basic combat, enough for Pirate Attacks / Nav Beacons / High Res. Lost every interdiction v NPC until a point where I haven't lost 1 since, all just practice.

During that time I got collectors and a wake scanner, investigated USS (What are they I think?) get some mats, investigate most stuff I see get some mats, get blown up a lot, have immense fun, land on planets, shoot some stuff get some mats, get attacked by NPC and blow them up get some mats, target every ship I see in SC or docking/undocking get some data, fly backwards out of Mass Lock at stations scanning all the ships get some mats, fly forwards out of mass lock and use Wake Scanner get some data. On my travels, keep an eye out for High Grade Emissions and gather those mats on the way to where I'm going. Fly aimlessly around the bubble just exploring having fun and gathering a LOT of mats and data before I knew what they were for.

The Grind - I was in the PS, they announced BTG2, I thought Ill go next week on the ferry, realised too late the mistake and jumped in a 20LY FDL. I turned thegame into a grind by making myself achive an objective instead of playingthe game. I HAD to get to the CG before it ran out. On the way I played the game, scanned and mapped, discovered 3 biological life (my first), 'discovered' the secret on how to get Polonium and Antimony easily. Left the bubble with none and hadnt even discovered them yet, arrived with 50 of each. During that trip I got side-tracked so many times and yet always this pressure, I MUST get to ABC by XYZ, what a way to take all the fun and gameplay out of the game, by putting stupid targets on my own game!

Couple jumps away from CG 'discovered' a Guardian Beacon (I deliberately avoid YT that will give me any 'advance' knowledge and try and experience the game instead, the way it was meant to be played, not rushing to the so called end-game which does seem to be 'making up memes and complaining on the forums'. (Spatula007 -Elite Dangus)

Got me 1 Guardian Key to play with, got blown up, went back to the Beacon got another key and handed in a total of 1 Guardian Tech for 600K I think it was. Community you're welcome that was the best I could do. Had taken the FDL for week 2 as was still not average at combat and wanted to get 50 CZ kills for another purpose anyway so here was a chance to learn. What a grind! Again turned a game into a MUST DO chore. Did learn a lot, got blown up a lot, (really really terrible loadout, I was thinking i was worse than I was as my loadout was so pants). Got my 50 kills, got 75 total but blown up before handing in 25 of them)Earned 15m exporation data, plus the CG payout plus the bounties, left the CG 70m lighter, as in it cost me 70m but I learned a lot, mainly don't turn the game into a grind, just play it! The loss of money was just funny.

And that's when I visited the engineers...when gameplay as intended meant it was time. If I skip the game to get to the end-point I only have myself to blame when theres 'nothing' to do or its a 'grind'.

TLDR: if you don't like the game, play another one instead of trying to change this one, its unique, if you don't like that buy a non-unique game, there's plenty of them. Don't buy GTA - too much driving 'grind' getting to missions, don't buy AC - too much grind free-running or sailing or horse riding to get to destination and NEITHER allow you to buy your way to victory on day 1 (Mat Traders sell materials for cash, just no.) SC allows you to buy your ship for cash so that may be the one for you, EVE has cleverly made the PVP controlled areas burn without affecting the other areas so have cleverly convinced players they are 'making the bubble burn', its very very clever marketing but most have bought it and love it so try that one. it seems to offer what PVP players want. Just leave this one alone please, if its not for you, move on you haven't missed anything and there will be a game out there that has what you need, some of us have been waiting 30 years for this one I doubt you'll have to wait that long.

 

[Stealthie]

If the game loops for gathering materials were fun I think we'd see less of these threads.
Material gathering is a PITA.

FDEV need to make the material gathering loop more satisfying. I hope that's worked on in some way.

That's the thing.

No point in debating whether or not there is a grind, or whether people have to do it.

Really, the only important question is whether there's scope to make the activity more interesting and/or diverse?
I'd suggest the answe is a big, fat, "YES!"

 

[PaxtonNewt]

As others have mentioned, there are various ways of "fast-tracking" if you get stuck in the grind (so you don't really need an "easy mode"). Not being heavily into pew-pew myself, when I recently bought a couple of new accounts, I chose a route that didn't involve combat.

I decided to equip each of my (female and rather attractive) assistants with a Courier and a Clipper. That meant fast-tracking Imperial ranks, which I did with data runs from Ngalinn, I soom got them up to Baron with a Courier and a few million each.

Then I unlocked Felicity Farseer on one account and Elvira Martuuk on the other, and went to get some mats. Dav's Hope for manufactured, the Jameson crashed Cobra for encoded, Bug Killer crashed Anaconda for raw. The amount you need is dependent on the size of the FSD you're upgrading, and the Courier is a little ship. So I soon had a G5 long-range FSD on each.

Then off to Guardian space for the FSD Booster. Nowadays you don't even have to jump there, you can take the Thursday ferry and come back the following Thursday.

I still had only a few million credits, but that was enough to buy and outfit a T6 each (didn't bother to engineer it, but I could still A-rate the FSD and add a small Guardian FSD Booster). Then off to Robigo for passenger runs to Sirius Atmospherics (they flew out in their Couriers and transferred the T6's to Hauser's Reach, then hopped over to Robigo Mines). Took Rep rewards to get allied with the local factions, then cash. Pretty soon they had 100m each, and bought their Clippers.

Engineering those was pretty straightforward with Robigo runs to get manufactured materials (plus some more visits to Dav's Hope for miscellaneous lower-rated stuff), plus the crashed ships for the other stuff. Haven't yet unlocked Palin with either of those accounts, but Farseer offers level 3 thrusters, and the other account got level 2 from Martuuk and will be emigrating to Colonia soon to meet Mel Brandon (she now has the four Bubble Engineers she needs to unlock the Colonia Engineers, that did involve some pretty easy combat for Todd McQuinn: by then she had The Dweller's lasers and Martuuk's shields on her Clipper, plus some Guardian Shield Reinforcements after another trip to Guardian space).

And all without mining a single void opal. Haven't got into that yet (I've heard Colonia is a good place for that). As i said, many different shortcuts available.

can you explain how the ferry works.. is it a particular time on the Thursday. Give me the process from start to finish.. will it be a week without being able to play the game. I just don't know anything about this ferry.. tell me everything

 

[Morbad]

And there is the happy medium of being able to buy engineering upgrades with credits

That's not a happy medium.

The only positive thing about Engineering, from my perspective, is that the system to gain mods has at least a modicum of scarcity behind it.

The "it should be like real life" argument falls apart because in real life you can always find someone to pay to do something you don't want to do

You have to pay them with something they value though.

Who in their right mind, in the Elite setting, would value credits at this point? That's like me working for Monopoly money, or Venuzuelan Bolivars.

The problem is that you are equating credits with money.

 

[The Nephilim]

Screw combat missions. Get over to your nearest High-Res and get stuck in!

That's how I got to Triple Elite on 2 different accounts. I only did assassination missions early on for combat ranks. I've never done them since.

 

[Vetinari]

And why has nobody pointed out that the Explorer Engineers want you to explore, the Trade Engineers want you to trade and the Combat Engineers want you to do combat - why is this absurd or 'forcing' you to grind game play you don't like?

Totally agree with the 'paid in something they value' argument. Engineers by definition have reached their end game, most are backed by a crime syndicate or a group or a Corporation, they don't need more credits, they have their own moon-base for crying out loud! Mat Traders have potentially the most valuable items in game, why would they sell them for cash when they can get people to trade up at awesome for the Mat Trader rates - this is how RL works, people with exclusivity will rip off other people. Pokémon cards trade the same way if you don't have the cash to pay with. You are not 'the hero' in ED, its that simple.

People with money will pay others to do what they don't want to do - They Are! The Engineers and Mat Traders are getting you to do the jobs they don't want to do, like hauling cargo or making repetitive trips for limited rares! You are not the hero of ED.

can you explain how the ferry works.. is it a particular time on the Thursday. Give me the process from start to finish.. will it be a week without being able to play the game. I just don't know anything about this ferry.. tell me everything

Theres a 'Server Tick' every Wednesday night/ Thursday morning (depends on time zone when it hits you) where 'events' happen. Thargoids attack stations, CG stations are moved 800LY, the next phase of a storyline is usually updated at this time, CG goals end before this tick to allow the tick to change events in-game. You get on the ferry on Wednesday before the tick and on Thursday when you log in it has jumped (no journey scenery or time) to the new system. 2 ferries alternate, one each way, both jump on that tick. Someone can narrow down the exact time of the tick I'm sure.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

There has to be some form of "grind". Otherwise you might as well simply remove the whole need for mats and let people engineer how they want (which i'm sure some people would like).

The question shouldn't be about whether there should be a grind, more of a question about how much grind and what form that grind should take in order to achieve a certain thing.

Too general. There should have never been powercreep indiscriminately disseminated into the gameplay in the first place. When you devalue player past investments in the game by hitting them with a power creep nerfbat, how willing do you think are they gonna grind for that crap? And once they do, when will they have to grind again just to play core gameplay when another round of power creep goal posting gets introduced?

"Value my time" for rears. 500 hours played down the drain. Keeps me nice and salty.