Message to Frontier - ITS SO DAMN OBVIOUS!!

[crushdepth]

PS2 and Elite: obviously a glutton for punishment

(Interesting to see that PS2 still lives.).

BTW I agree, FD seem to design everything behind a grind-wall. Including the new anti-thargoid-gaurdian weapons, which is sad because that is 'the' new content. Guess, however players may dislike it, it seems to be their fundamental design approach.

PS2 has much better bugs than Elite. Who could forget the vehicle exit "ejection seat" bug? That just had to be dev trolling.

 

[Jex =TE=]

I agree.

I'd add to this further by saying that you're both right in a sense in that every game HAS repetition but not every game feels like a grind.
Repetition is unavoidable, it's absolutely the only way any game can be designed in the first place.
The devil is in how good and intricate the interactions of various gameplay mechanics are within those repetitions.

Elite has a lot of depth on paper which is why I was so hyped for it - from BGS to Powerplay to sandbox design.
But the design decisions and direction has been such, that its gameplay feels very shallow and repetitive soon and that perception soon formulates in a word 'grind'.
Then grind becomes synonymous with the gameplay itself and social rifts such as FD forums unfold where people accuse each other of many funny things, usually lack of imagination, and it all boils down to personal expectations, personal understanding and inherent problems of spoken language

PUBG (as different a game as it is of course) is extremely repetitive yet it doesn't feel like it. It's ruling foundations have been extremely well thought out and the repetition is pure joy.


Is ED largely grind?
It totally is and developers design it in such a way that it's becoming more and more, sadly.

Is ED largely grind?
It totally isn't if you play it the right way (check isinona for instance), but it will still feel repetitive and extremely limited in scope very soon unless you continuously use your imagination to weave make-believe depth around those repetitions.

I'm not sure I agree that Flight sims, racing sims, Arma 3 or pubg even are repetitive. You might drive the same circuit but each lap is never the same as any other lap. Add in a MP aspect and a race and it's never the same experience. A mission in Arma 3 is never the same, especially if you add Zeus into the mix - same for a mission like in Falcon 4 BMS. PUBG is about winning against other human players and so that never plays the same either (unless moving tactically, making decisions, weapon skill, observational skill are now considered "grindy").

In grindy games we typically refer to "grind" to mean uninteresting, repetitive gameplay of doing the same thing hundreds of times. Even just doing random missions a lot share the exact same mechanic (press J, go there then come back) with passenger missions being about the worst. I'm not sure what kind of gameplay FDev were going for there other than to force you to watch a loading screen?

 

[Jex =TE=]

Flight Sim (in so far as FS9 or FSX is concerned) generally consists of a few minutes of concentration while you taxi and take off, follow ATC to your altitude. Hit 4x speed until TOD then a few more minutes of following ATC round to the active, punch in the ILS land and taxi to the gate.

And GTA... well what about those 100 graffiti tags in San Andreas, especially the ones hidden away or that the Brady Guide noted in the wrong place. That *was* a grind. Or having CJ doing mindless peddling or reps in the gym just to buff his strength. The rest of the game was excellent if challenging in some places (catching a jet with a Cessna!) but there was still grind if you wanted money, good weapons and a 90%+ completion rating.

That's true to an extent (been a while since I played the old ones so don't remember that much) but 90% of players probably don't want to complete that much - I haven't bothered with GTA V completion because after the story, I don't want to hunt the map for alien ship parts or whatever they are because it's pointless unless you're really going for 100% completion.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

That would be you it seems.

I know exactly what it means, but using the way you are using those words makes it sound like you have no idea what you are talking about. That is why I am asking the question.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

If you're asking these questions (again) it just demonstrates you don't have the experience or knowledge to answer the questions yourself.

And here comes the straw man. Lets turn it around shall we. The reason why you cannot answer the question is because you do not have the experience or knowledge.

If you want to make a case for which game mechanics are challenging, please go ahead. Let's start with trading? How about passengers missions - pressing J a bunch of times sure is difficult? Can't you see the lack of gameplay here?

I am not making a case for what gameplay is challanging at all. Again I will ask the question, why are those games not a grind with pretty basic mechanics and ED is. Why can't you answer the question, why do you always deflect the question. Is it possible that you do not know yourself?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Every game HAS repetition but not every game feels like a grind.

True, at last.

Repetition is unavoidable, it's absolutely the only way any game can be designed in the first place.

Again, true.

The devil is in how good and intricate the interactions of various gameplay mechanics are within those repetitions.

Yes, this is true. As most of the games mechanics interact with each other through the BGS, do we not have that to some degree?

 

[Puppie]

I must be a bit odd, i enjoy the game as it is, if i get bored i go and do something else, though my imagination tends to keep the grind/boredom away.

Theres no quick win, no end game, which is fine with me, as i just enjoy playing.

 

[operant]

The game-loops are exactly that - the game. No problem with this, you either like it or not.
Hiding new toys behind specific new grind-walls is another issue, in my view.

 

[Ranualf]

Care for a biscuit?

I think he wants some more cheese to go with his drink

 

[Jex =TE=]

And here comes the straw man. Lets turn it around shall we. The reason why you cannot answer the question is because you do not have the experience or knowledge.


I am not making a case for what gameplay is challanging at all. Again I will ask the question, why are those games not a grind with pretty basic mechanics and ED is. Why can't you answer the question, why do you always deflect the question. Is it possible that you do not know yourself?

You mean answer the question again? That's been done quite a few times in the passed and there's no indication another answer won't have you asking again the next time the topic comes around.

The game mechanics are evidently simple and repetitive - if you cannot recognise that then you either don't play a lot of games or simply can't recognise what they are so no, you cannot turn the question around - simple fetch quest is just that, simple, unengaging, short and requires either little or no skill.

 

[EdzUp]

TLDR

OP grind is only grind if it's monotonous for example:
1) doing the same thing over and over to achieve a simple task
2) waiting around for something to happen

The best way to sort it out is to increase the types of things available this could be a simple thing like:
1) Scavenger missions for crashed wrecks giving us a reason to get to the surfaces.
2) Proper surveying of planets a scan reveals anomalies which we can investigate for more creds.
3) More mission variety from superpowers like the old NUKE missions imagine those for Barnacle sites,the players at the site get a evacuation warning before its nuked.
4) Maybe some experimental tech from the military to test and other players maybe sent to steal it.

Mix up the missions send one player to scavenge or steal and send other's to stop it. Match up the times so they are all in the same instance for more meaningful PvP action.

 

[bootsam]

Theres nothing wrong with the grind per se. Life is full of grind if you want something and werent fortunate to be born into relative comfort and plenty. Its variability, options and diverse methods of achieveing goals that needs some work. Some consistency wouldnt hurt either. But grind is needed, otherwise once you has all the things, whats next?

 

[Jex =TE=]

I'm not sure you realise that you're saying the same thing I'm saying, essentially, and I know what grindy means.
Point remains, repetition is in the very nature of any game design, it's unavoidable. Grind is what results if the repetition has not been made interesting enough or otherwise from a lack of other game objectives - where only sense of advancement comes from boring repetition in order to achieve some ephemeral thing at the end, be it a name, stat, item or whatever else.

Take any game, and no matter what words you dress it in, you'll find never ending repetition loops and within those you have a various degree of space for interlocking of various mechanics.

In pubg you always drop form the sky, pick up a weapon and go towards the centre zone.
In racing, you always race a lap.
In Deus Ex you're always infiltrating a limited space filled with patrolling AI, in search of a button to press.

That's deconstruction of game mechanics at the core.

And so: repetition itself is not the problem, problem is always and only with depth and wealth of interaction space within repetitions

LOL yes I know we're arguing the same point and agree with each othere but I was trying to deliberately make examples of games that I consider non-repetitive.

In PUBG for example, the game isn't the parachute and you only do that once in a given game. So no - I don't see repetition there because the "game" is to loot gear and then engage in PVP combat which is never repetitive as there's always differences when humans play against humans.

Falcon 4 with it's dynamic campaign and weather pretty much means differences all the time from the planning stage to actually getting into the pit to do the fun part (though the planning part is part of the fun for my friends and I).

Which is worlds away from fly from A to B and see the same space station and the same star.

I don't think we should use the word repetitive to describe pressing a mouse button over and over because that doesn't address the argument and really only goes to strawman it.

Take the player inputs in a pubg game for example. How many inputs is the player making as they play the game both physically and mentally (to running, strafing, scoping, duckinging, crawling, thinking strategy, aware of the circle, looking for other players, using things like defilade for advantages. If you add them all up there would be a lot I'm guessing which also have to be practiced, right? There's a difference in getting the game and knowing what all the keys do to the actual experience of of using them (like when and how).

In ED the inputs get so low you don't even play the game - you read a book or watch netflix.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think we most certainly do.
My only beef with many various sub-elements of Elite - and that is strictly an end result on a personal level, which may be different for anyone - is that a great majority of those mechanics are way too simplistic, un-responsive and shallow, which makes the repetitiveness factor stand out.

To some degree, I agree.

I think overall that is one singular point I keep making time and again within the forum, let me dress it in italics so that it stands boldly for all to see

I have no issue with doing same things over and over in ED and i'm NOT looking for FD to keep adding new 'content' and new flavours of the same (passangers vs cargo for example)
I believe every single problem with elite would have been solved if the existing core mechanics on every level, be it BGS, Powerplay, rules of low/high waking, USS spawning, stealth, depth and permutations of NPC behaviour, smuggling, pirating, mining, exploring and all the other things were all made smarter, with deeper permutations of interlocking mechanics and more creative, unpredictable emergence. Will that be done, repetition will never again be a problem because it becomes pure joy rather than an extremely predictable, 'grindy' experience

Yep again I agree with this, but there is still one thing missions for me.

Let me give you a single example that sort of encapsulates a lot of the other points: I go on a mission to steal some trinket from some npc. Before I even go there I can tell you exactly what will happen.
- I will have to fly around and wait until a spawn point appears.
- There will be a cargo ship there, flying around aimlessly in normal space and for no apparent reason, and there will be another npc bodyguard.
- I will appear and there will be no reaction of any kind, regardless of my reputation or anything else. To the npc's - I don't exist.
- From the moment I initialise hatch breakers on him, a simple timer initiates regardless of whether I was stealthy or not and the target will carry on flying around aimlessly which makes no more sense than him being there in the first place, giving me a fixed amount of time to collect the cargo before he suddenly decides to highwake.
- Within that timer another fixed timer is set and police appears when it runs out, with only variation being - how fast, how many or any at all if it's anarchy, admitedly.

Every single time, no exception.

Yep again agreed.

It's a game of 'collect coins before timer runs out', dressed in good graphics. It's hard to think of a more simplistic framework than that, which is why some people, myself included, are dissapointed with the level of design ability FD seems capable of.

To be fair though, nearly all games are like this. So I can't really complain about that.

To me, all the make-believe in the world will not cover up the fact that I know exactly what will happen. There's hardly any sense of emergence or variation and 90% of Elite feels that way: things are either entirely random or completely predictable across the entire gamespace.

Yep. Agreed.

I will also add this:

A lot of people think that complex gameplay will make the game deep. It won't. All you will be doing is the same tasks as before, they will be more complex and more time consuming but for the same purpose as before. I have no issues with that as long as the outcome and the gameplay is rewarding enough. My biggest issue with Elite Dangerous is that I struggle to get emotionally tied into what I am doing. Probably because when there is a war, a famine, a plague the systems pretty much act in exactly the same way as if there is a boom state.

What made the evacuate/repair stations gameplay popular is that it gave you a purpose, it made you care about what you are doing. You can see the visible damage, and even though the mechanics were pretty much the same as before, they felt an awful lot more.

For me depth is all about the emotional feeling it stirs inside of me. I can live with basic mechanics as long as I get an emotional response from them. A lot of the mechanics in ED lacks that for a number of reasons.

Its probably one of the reasons I am very picky in what I do when playing ED. I would really like to see variations of the Repair/Evacuate type of gameplay added to the BGS for Famine, plagues, wars, civil wars, the aftermath of wars (a rebuilding time) etc. Give these BGS states a sense of meaning. Have the missions and USS's tie into these states. Give more meaning to the USS's. A USS should be a mini mission in of itself. Have reasons why these ships are there instead of just waiting to die.

The same goes for Res sites and Combat zones. We have these nice megaship pirate interactions. Expand them to Combat zones around installations and so on. I want to defend something, not just sit in space attacking endless waves of ships.

 

[Scotsman84]

Weird rant but I don’t even disagree with you. The grinding shows a real lack of development talent. I know this game is complex under the hood but grind cannot be the answer to everything. I hope we see different styles of gameplay in the years to come.

GRIND??? Are you fooking serious? It used to be a grind.. In its current state its anything but a grind you guys want spoon fed? My buddy new to the game jumped up about 6 fed ranks yesterday in less than 4hrs... They have significantly reduced the grind for you cry babies and your still crying.. Unreal.

So, what actual gameplay are you looking for?

Also where is this grind that people keep talking about?

Couldn't agree more one of the lesser grindy games I have played.. End game is basically handed on a plate now.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

TC;CR
(Too CAPS, Can't Read)

It sounds though, like the OP doesn't like doing the same thing over and over to do the same thing over and over.

aka "I hate engineering, because I have to gather all these materials, and then do all this other stuff, and all I want to do is sit and blow up ships" (I don't want to do something over and over to do something over and over).

aka "I hate having to run all these missions over and over, when all I want to do is Jump-Scoop-Honk over and over." (I don't want to do something over and over so I can do something over and over).

Am I the ONLY one who sees what the problem really is here?

 

[crushdepth]

GRIND??? Are you fooking serious? It used to be a grind.. In its current state its anything but a grind you guys want spoon fed? My buddy new to the game jumped up about 6 fed ranks yesterday in less than 4hrs... They have significantly reduced the grind for you cry babies and your still crying.. Unreal.



Couldn't agree more one of the lesser grindy games I have played.. End game is basically handed on a plate now.

No we don't want to grind, we want the activities to be FUN, and then its not a grind is it? Noone would give a pair of dingo's kidneys how long things take if they were enjoyable. Making progression short and boring instead of long and boring does not address the actual issue, which is the boring.

It does not have to be boring. It could be stunningly interesting with so little effort. So why do the devs keep implementing new layers of grind that people want to 'get out of the way' rather than experience?

They're stuck in 1984 in my opinion.

 

[CMDR Minion Blob]

So many interesting opinions that skirt the issues or miss the point entirely. OP's writing style or wording could have been improved upon but that doesn't change the fact that the mission rewards system and game economics in general had never been more off-balance than it is now. It may not affect those players who had already built up a significant credit balance but it will in time, as those credits slowly evaporate as a result of losses or lack of new earnings.

FDev had never defined (or if they did never publicly shared) any metrics or threshold--nor will they ever in my opinion--to what they consider "acceptable income levels" for any career paths, activity or goals. As long as that threshold remains arbitrary--and seemingly decided on a case-by-case basis in a knee-jerk response to "gold rushes" there will not be any design blueprint for the mission planner group to adhere to and for the players to set expectations. It seems to me--and I can be wrong--that the team either lacks the guidance and/or lacks the tools to properly calibrate the mission-systems engine.

The concept of "Grind" does not always refer to undesired, repeatable activities the player is compelled to undertake by itself, but the fact is that those activities are not in balance for the time/effort spent in terms of progression of any kind (superpower ranking, credit balance, CGs, or anything else). This is what I consider the "bad" Grind.

Good Grind would be a progressively laid out framework with a progressively growing risk/reward structure that is both enjoyable and rewarding at the same time. I don't think most players who purchase Elite: Dangerous would object to "good Grind" style gameplay. Elite is a grind game, pure and simple. Instant gratification, p2win or credit fountains are definitely off the table and Frontier did have to yank them off the table. That, however, should not have been followed by the the unjustifiable "purge" that affected unrelated missions that provided a reasonable level of income for the level of effort/risk/investment necessary to execute them.

Now we have mostly "Bad" Grind can be also interpreted as a minimum wage job would; just enough to survive but insufficient for any kind of measurable progression towards chosen goals. I may "grind" for materials for a specific upgrade--therefore forego credit earnings in favor of obtaining an upgraded module--and as long as the player can obtain that within a reasonable level of effort, it would still be considered an achievement or reward that allows sustainable operations and a reasonable profit. Missions designed for starter pilots that can be executed in inexpensive small ships vs. "wing"-level delivery missions of 2K+ Tons of cargo in a war zone or unrealistically nerfed but 288 ship kill order CZ massacre missions against improved AI ships that require $B Cr engineered combat ships with 40 M Cr insurance risks should be rewarded on a progressive scale, inline with the risk and effort involved. This has nothing to do with "big ship vs. small ship" preference; each ship has a specific mission profile, like a tool for a specific job. A Diamondback Explorer is an awesome ship for discovery and small scale mission runner purposes, but it is not a reasonable choice to solo a Thargoid Interceptor--at least not for most players certainly not with my meager combat skills (36% Deadly).

Case in point; the past two months had lost several AX-configured Anacondas@38M a pop in learning to solo Interceptors--not a complaint just a statement of fact-- and I was also involved in several loss-generating evacuation missions in the Pleiades. Once, however, my credit balance fell to the 100M Cr reserve, I had no choice but to disengage and currently "grinding" a few short-range VIP passenger missions + data delivery missions between Ceos and Sothis until I build up my war chest at 15-18 M per hour or so but without risking a 38M Cr rebuy, as I can do that with a Beluga that cost 8.5 M Cr to replace.

So it may be "bad grind", meaning repetitive and boring, but from a practical purpose it is certainly preferable than trying to go up against nearly 300 ships in a Massacre missions for $4 M Cr reward which would take several hours in solo and minus cost of repairs and the risk of losing a ship if something goes wrong.

At least I get to watch YT ED videos of other players who can afford to "play the game" due to their finances. Kinda like real life, doesn't it? And some people call it a game...[noob]

 

[Jukelo]

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I hate the 'you want it to be easy' response. No. I want it to be enjoyable. It's a game. If they can't make it engaging and challenging then they have a lack of development talent. Other games manage it pretty well. Other elements of the game are great. But engineering is utterly awful and in 2018 is not an acceptable game mechanic. Perhaps 25 years ago you could get away with it but there's no excuse now. It ruins the game for me.

The OP is literally about 'reducing the grind', aka making it easier/faster. You want the core of the game to be more interesting and that's of course very valid, but that's clearly not what a lot of people want: they want it faster.

 

[Valorin]

So - you make the massive grind in your game... because you think its the way to keep people playin for longer/coming back to play your game.

Lets look at the facts:

You have around 12,000 active players online at a time (might be wrong here but dont think its far off being next to nothing.. compared to some 'highly successful games' out there.. talking 70k active players; up to 500k active players.. you all know of the games im talkin about).

You have Steam review of 'MIXED' (says it all)

Your forums are FULL of people disgruntled with the current state of the game.

ITS SO DAMN OBVIOUS. REDUCE THE GRIND. MORE PLAYERS WILL PLAY YOUR GAME. YOU WILL MAKE MORE MONEY. YOU CAN USE TO THE MONEY DEVELOP THE GAME FROM:
"ITS GOT SO MUCH POTENTIAL BUT BASICALLY NOT VERY GOOD"

TO:
"OMG THIS GAME NOW BLOWS MY MIND BECAUSE I DONT HAVE TO SPEND 3 HOURS DOING THE SAME TASK OVER AND OVER TO EARN 2 MILLION CREDITS AND I CAN DO MORE VARIETY AND NOT GET SO BORED THAT MY EYELIDS GET STUCK OPEN FROM STARING AT THE SAME STUPID MISSION SCREEN FOR 32 HOURS A WEEK"

Sorry... but starting to lose my patience with these braindead and unempathetic devs.

p.s. One thing that I absolutely love about this game.. is the way the ship handles and flies. The way the engines and weapons sound and look. The combat in rez sites is amazing (for example). CAPITALIZE ON THIS. MAKE IT EXCITING/ENJOYABLE/A BUZZ TO PLAY!! (All the things that Elite currently isn't).
p.p.s. SORRY but I dont enjoy flying close to the ground on a planet for more than 30 minutes, or taking a screenshot of a distant planet (dont mind doin it once.. but that isnt gameplay, or going on a 20,000LY trip with some other individuals where I just hit the 'j' key 2,000 times and watch the screen load over and over and over. THATS NOT FUN! its FLUFF!), I DONT WANT FLUFF I WANT A GAME!

Oh ye - and p.s. I personally dont care whether a planet looks 'redder/greener/more beige than it did before'. How many hours did you spend creating those 'new graphics' when you coulda been working on ACTUAL GODAMN GAMEPLAY? GET REAL.

Ok i feel better now

Grind happens only if you want something fast that is supposed to take time. Engineering for example is supposed to take months, not weeks if you plan on modding a few ships to G5 state of the art. Of course your gameplay is only collecting material and doing chores ingame.
If you try to build a house in one week instead of a month or two you will have a pretty full week, no sleep and will most likely not finish as well. That's just the nature of it.
The funny thing is, that everybody gets it if it's about houses. When it's about progress in a game people start whining and raging that things don't move faster.

Engineering is an optional part of the game which is supposed to be done over time to be proud to have some really good ship in the end. It's not a mandatory everything-has-to-be-done-in-one-go-and-within-a-week thing.