Living, breathing universe vs. immersion ruining grind... Plea to overhaul the entire "materials" mechanic

Sup3rfluiD

Sup3rfluiD
There seems to be a common perception that those wanting to purchase mats are looking for g5 rated ships five minutes into the game.

I've played since launch and would love this option just to save me from doing things i dont enjoy like dune buggy scavenger hunts.

If players could stockpile any commodity then sell them on thier carriers it would open up game loops and economy cycles.

I mean how immersive is a galctic economy of trillions of people and tens of thousands of stations/installations and yet you cannot even purchase something as basic as iron!

Imo get rid of these rediculous and arbitrary restrictions that add absolutely zero realism, immersion or functionality to the game.
 
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Gully Foyle

Gully Foyle
csbeau1969 said:
Wow... I just followed d2ea's guide to purchasing the engineered FSD from a technology broker. All I can say is, what is FDev thinking? We should be able to earn credits however we choose and be able to upgrade our ships accordingly. Grind, for the sake of grind, is really old and truly hurts the game's potential. The grind ruins immersion. Log in and out to farm materials because it is more effective, rather than let us trade, bounty hunt, explore, or whatever we choose to do; earn credits and then upgrade our ships by following the game's economy. Not some random must-have grind materials. And yes, I know it is "better" now due to material traders, but the traded materials still require grind.

The game could be soooo much better without the continual grind mechanics. The framework is clearly here; however, it is time to get a more modern game design.

A true fix would be to make all materials purchasable with credits—one economy, not multiple "currencies" requiring grind. Let supply and demand drive the prices. And yes, some people have billions of credits; so what? They earned them in-game. We are your customers; let us decide how we want to play. Forcing grind mechanics is why many of us, myself included, leave the game after only coming back a few weeks. You do not respect our time or how we choose to play.

PS: I am not one of those with billions of credits. However, I have earned 100s of millions because I left the bubble before Horizons and only recently arrived in Colonia, exploring (discovery, fss, dss) along the way. Of course, I had to return to the bubble because to unlock engineers in Colonia, engineers must first be unlocked in the Bubble. Yet, another example of poor game design. Unlocks are simply lazy programming, do not make it interesting for the player, and do not respect our time.
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You followed a you tube guide for something you had to have instead of discovering it. No immersion there.

I think a reasonable ask would being able to trade between materials.
 

khalismur

K
The "follow an YT guide to get materials because you want g5 ships too early" argument is a fallacy.

At well over 100h of game-time I found out engineers existed back in 2019; Then I tried getting materials by playing the game normally... I didn't find a fraction of what was needed to upgrade my ships. It was so frustrating having no chance at all of surviving in a CZ if a strong ship locked onto me. Had to take the red pill and follow those guides because "getting materials while playing the game" works fine only after you have a fully engineered large ship to kill other large ships and scoop what they drop. To do high rank missions to get G5 rewards, etc. Good luck fighting in a CZ without engineering as a newer player without well matured piloting skills.

How do you expect people to find max grade materials without following a guide? After months of playing I had almost nothing. Those guides are necessary for new players.

Now that I have a corvette mat farmer sure, it's easy to lure and kill elite anacondas every couple minutes for easy easy mats. As for new players on an unengineered medium ship? Good luck :ROFLMAO:
 
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csbeau1969

csbeau1969
khalismur said:
The "follow an YT guide to get materials because you want g5 ships too early" argument is a fallacy.

At well over 100h of game-time I found out engineers existed back in 2019; Then I tried getting materials by playing the game normally... I didn't find a fraction of what was needed to upgrade my ships. It was so frustrating having no chance at all of surviving in a CZ if a strong ship locked onto me. Had to take the red pill and follow those guides because "getting materials while playing the game" works fine only after you have a fully engineered large ship to kill other large ships and scoop what they drop. To do high rank missions to get G5 rewards, etc. Good luck fighting in a CZ without engineering as a newer player without well matured piloting skills.

How do you expect people to find max grade materials without following a guide? After months of playing I had almost nothing. Those guides are necessary for new players.

Now that I have a corvette mat farmer sure, it's easy to lure and kill elite anacondas every couple minutes for easy easy mats. As for new players on an unengineered medium ship? Good luck :ROFLMAO:
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Full circle :)
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In my case, moving from explorer to trader to bounty hunter in Colonia; Asp Explorer (to Type 7 to Type 9) to Mamba to Krait mk2. Realized I needed to return to the bubble to unlock engineers; started the "journey" and this post.
 
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Starshot_Jigawatts

Starshot_Jigawatts
khalismur said:
The "follow an YT guide to get materials because you want g5 ships too early" argument is a fallacy.

At well over 100h of game-time I found out engineers existed back in 2019; Then I tried getting materials by playing the game normally... I didn't find a fraction of what was needed to upgrade my ships.
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Yup, the whole "you get this stuff just playing the game" is what's the fallacy here.

I've been in Sirius for like two weeks now farming Elite ranked ships to the point where I literally can't loot any more manufactured materials as they don't drop the good stuff. I go to Engineer something? I still need manufactured materials. There are things you don't just get "playing the game", you have to trade for them or go farm them specifically for an Engineering task.
 
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InvisibleShadow

I
khalismur said:
The "follow an YT guide to get materials because you want g5 ships too early" argument is a fallacy.

At well over 100h of game-time I found out engineers existed back in 2019; Then I tried getting materials by playing the game normally... I didn't find a fraction of what was needed to upgrade my ships. It was so frustrating having no chance at all of surviving in a CZ if a strong ship locked onto me. Had to take the red pill and follow those guides because "getting materials while playing the game" works fine only after you have a fully engineered large ship to kill other large ships and scoop what they drop. To do high rank missions to get G5 rewards, etc. Good luck fighting in a CZ without engineering as a newer player without well matured piloting skills.
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I kept out of CZs until I'd gained enough combat experience through RES sites (working up from Low). First one I did was the recent Jupiter CG. In an unengineered Viper MkIV. Yes, I had to run away a few times and I did some winged with a friend (also in an unengineered Viper Mk IV), but we still did OK.

It is entirely possible to progress through the game without engineering. But it exactly that: a progression. Engineering is a later part of that progression.

khalismur said:
How do you expect people to find max grade materials without following a guide? After months of playing I had almost nothing. Those guides are necessary for new players.
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My approach? Look up the material on the fandom wiki to find out where it comes from and try doing that for a bit. Perhaps do an internet search, looking at results from here, reddit or Steam Community. No benefit to wasting time watching videos (but that's a different thread).

khalismur said:
Now that I have a corvette mat farmer sure, it's easy to lure and kill elite anacondas every couple minutes for easy easy mats. As for new players on an unengineered medium ship? Good luck :ROFLMAO:
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Picked up lots of manufactured in RES and occasional sweeps through HGEs. Enough to do some engineering, anyway. I'll need to play the game some more to be able to do some more engineering. I just need to remember to occasionally go a little bit out of my way to pick up something.

Starshot_Jigawatts said:
Yup, the whole "you get this stuff just playing the game" is what's the fallacy here.

I've been in Sirius for like two weeks now farming Elite ranked ships to the point where I literally can't loot any more manufactured materials as they don't drop the good stuff. I go to Engineer something? I still need manufactured materials. There are things you don't just get "playing the game", you have to trade for them or go farm them specifically for an Engineering task.
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Perhaps a better way of putting it is "you get this stuff by playing the whole game". You've done one thing in one place for some time. So you need to trade for the other materials. Or do something different for a bit.

Or maybe I'm just way more patient than other people. But then the primary skill I have at computer games is persistance.
 

Zeeks

Z
The grind Elite is well known for is why I can't get anybody from my gaming guild to play more than a few weeks. Just last night while playing Valheim I was asked if Elite was still a massive grind after brining up Odyssey to gauge interest. I mentioned it was better, but still required a massive amount of time. They'll play buggy SC, but have zero interest in restarting the Elite grind.
 

skananote

S
Zeeks said:
The grind Elite is well known for is why I can't get anybody from my gaming guild to play more than a few weeks. Just last night while playing Valheim I was asked if Elite was still a massive grind after brining up Odyssey to gauge interest. I mentioned it was better, but still required a massive amount of time. They'll play buggy SC, but have zero interest in restarting the Elite grind.
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Uuuuu, wait for the grind deniers to shred you into pieces :) But yeah, ED is a grindfest no doubt about it...
 

Zeeks

Z
skananote said:
Uuuuu, wait for the grind deniers to shred you into pieces :) But yeah, ED is a grindfest no doubt about it...
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Yeah, I know. "I got every engi unlocked and every mat just playing the game, never had to look up where to find mats." Which we know is not true.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Zeeks said:
Over

Overgeneralize much?

Because you and I know it isn't true not matter how many times one says it.
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Actually, I know I gather mats in everday play and have never needed to look up where I might find anything in particular - but I do play the game in a slightly more relaxed manner than others...

So are you prepared to call me a liar as I play differently to you, get different results, and am able to recall the sources for materials as I find them? It is what I do, it works very well for me.

Of course, the key to my never having any issues or problems is the time it took me to find them in the first place - and possibly because I didn't take any notice of engineering for around 6-8 months from starting playing, but still picking up stuff I had no idea what it was used for.

Some need guidance for different things, I came here because I had no idea where to find the meta-alloy Flis asked for, no CODEX in those days... (not that it is exactly great today)
 

Achtung-Goomba

Achtung-Goomba
Zeeks said:
never had to look up where to find mats
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I mean, it’s right there? I suppose you’re right, looking stuff up really doesn’t have anything to do with any perceived grind.

I’ve made my opinion, for what it’s worth which is as little as everyone else’s here, quite clear in the second post on this thread. I’ve probably got about a third of the engineers unlocked, maybe more, I’ve never visited any of the often mentioned farming sites, I’ve never relogged for mat gathering; and yet I’ve got a modest fleet engineered to at least G3 where it counts, some modules up to G5 on each ship, with appropriate experimental effects where desired, and I’ve still got ample mats to begin engineering a new build that I’m working on. That works fine for my PvE slow-n-steady gameplay, unless of course I’m actually lying 🤥
 

InvisibleShadow

I
Zeeks said:
Yeah, I know. "I got every engi unlocked and every mat just playing the game, never had to look up where to find mats." Which we know is not true.
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I can't say if your quoted statement is true or false in some or all cases or not. But it does not reflect my experience of the game.

Yes, I did gain access to the first couple of engineers entirely by accident. No I haven't unlocked all of them. Yes, I do need to look things up on a regular basis. Yes I do need to do something specific for a short time in order to achieve a particular goal (most recently: gaining and trading for the particular set of materials for the double engineered FSD because I didn't do the CG). No, I've never needed to re-log just to achieve a goal.

Perhaps as I progress, things will become more tedious; but not so far.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
InvisibleShadow said:
Perhaps as I progress, things will become more tedious; but not so far.
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If I may be so bold...

By not being in any particular rush to 'achieve' anything, nothing has became tedious - but I must qualify that by making the point that I will have 4 years play behind me at the end of next month - and only got my triple elite in November of last year... And still have 2 engineers invitation only.

I've had a thoroughly enjoyable time to date, I don't see it changing any time soon.
 
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