@Telnets: "Really?!?". Really though, I'm sort of willing to say "Really, bro?" at your post...
Why should a videogame - something one plays in the spare few hours of everyday life - require tons of "work"? And, yes, the mission rewards for the most part really are giving next to nothing. Especially later on, when you're looking at moving up from a 3-mil specced Cobra onto, say, an Asp. Still think those 1000-credit courier missions, or those 5-10`000-credit trade missions are worthwhile "work"? Especially when fuel costs, damage costs, repairs all cut into the profits in a significant way, when you're looking at mission payouts.
And he's not wrong about that in any way. Missions so far are generally "dock, Bulletin-board, undock, jump, dock, bulletin-board (optionally undock, jump back, bulletin-board)". That IS boring. Especially when mission payouts make you do hundreds of them to earn anything notable. Why are you snarking about this?
Mining IS tedious. Well, unless you enjoy being constantly jumped on by pirates n the 'official' mining instances. Must be fun for the people who decide to do mining and not, you know, a pvp combat game...
Talk about unforgiving, eh... One stray shot (or even other players DELIBERATELY flying into the already-fired projectile stream to get a free warrant kill) and you're insta-wanted and hostile.
Oh god forbid that things would actually happen at a reasonable pace in a videogame! No no can't have that. Let's instead tune everything so that there's 90% of downtime and 10% of docking. Good 'game' for listening to podcasts/radio!
Riight, yes, that's exploration. Seeing the exact same 3 stations in 30 systems, with the exact same general wares and same price ranges (medium/low demand only, all the time), that's "exploration". yep. Gotcha.
I bet all the great real-world explorers spent a lot of time "exploring" their local hometowns' market stalls. Going round and round to the same market, finding the same wares. "Exploring" yep gotcha.
The problem is, the game does NOT give an indication that you've achieved anything.
Take this example - yesterday I spent 4-5 hours doing missions for an Empire faction in an independent system, trying to boost their influence. 4 hours (let's round this down so you're happy). Must have been near 20 missions, all successful. What do you think the result was? Faction's influence didn't budge one bit. Not at all. Not even a blue arrow at their influence bar in the system factions list.
Like - I was not expecting to singlehandedly make them 55%. I WAS, however, expecting to SEE at least SOME indication that I made a difference. AT LEAST show me "yeah, your work helped by 0.9%". The game doesn't say this, and I'm left wondering if I did anything at all, or if all my 4 hours of (largely not very profitable, because mission rewards are low) work amounted to 0.000% change.
This problem extends to all aspects of the game - it doesn't make you feel like you've managed to achieve something, even with a HUGE investment of time.
Go out, explore 10 unexplored systems. Might take a couple of hours. Go back, sell the data, and.. what changes in the galaxy? Nothing. What changes in the sectors you gave the data to? Nothing. What changes in the sectors you explored? Is there now more NPC activity? Is there any expansion going on? Nope. Nothing.
Fly around and jump into USS hunting pirates. Or at the resource extraction sites. Spend like 5 hours doing that. Kill hundreds of baddies. What changes? Nothing. Is the system safer for traders? Nope. Are there less pirates eventually? Nope. Do pirates start responding to your sustained attack campaign? Nope. What impact have your actions achieved on the game state? Budger all.
Spend a couple of hours raising your reputation with a minor faction. Say, from neutral to allied. Might take a couple of hours. Okay, at the end, their stations and ships have gone from orange to dark green. What changes because of that? Nothing. Do you get better prices in their stations? Nope. Do they jump into combat instances to help you? Nope. Do their ships in FSD cruising mode comm you, have a quick chat to an ally? Nope. Do they give you access to a "friends-only" private stock of modules, wares, weapons, sensors? Nope. What's the sum total of your work? Different colour scheme on the target hologram.
But apparently it's okay, because it's "working towards something".. So what is it that you're working towards? What is this big, grand, huge achievement that requires tens of hours to even SEE the SLIGHTEST indication of change? It better be something huge, mind, because during this time, you could have read a ton of new books, watched several (good) movies, or gone out and spent a jolly good day with friends. So, again, what is this thing that you're working towards that offsets all this?
No, YOU still have to show where PvP / space-battle centrism was meant. All of his points are about the PACING and FEEDBACK of the game mechanics (which, surprise surprise, are not set in stone and CAN be improved to be more fun), how does that in any way imply a necessity for more combat?
So.. In summary, "Really?!?"
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
