Reduce the grind
- Thread starter VR SenseiMatty
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Never done any of these things. Have enjoyed the game for many years now without even visiting Dav's Hope, and I only went to guardian sites out of curiosity, only went to the Jameson site because I'm an old player.
That's what is meant, when people say that grinding is optional. It's not that logging in and out at a guardian site is fun. It's that it is, quite literally, optional. You don't have to do it.
True. Grind used to mean something, now it unfortunately has devolved to a synonym for "I dont like these game loops". It has made the term absolutely pointless. NMS, for example, is as grind-centric as it could possibly be: the core gameplay concept is that you farm resources to get fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel to find new planets to farm more resources to get more more fuel.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
Over time they added more stuff, most notably base building, but at its heart it is still a mellow and chill game where you bumble about, look at the sights, grind resources and repeat. And if you dont like it, well, you can play another game.
The thing is that a game should have a consistent progress curve. You start with next-to-nothing, and at the end of the session you should have some progress. And this curve should continue for a very long time for an online game. We had this, once. You started with a sidey, and after every session you could upgrade it a bit. Choices matter, you carefully considered what to upgrade, and if A-rating something really was worth the investment. After a week or so you could buy an Adder (one of the first new ships added post-launch, and I loved it), a massive improvement and progress was constant and fun.
But people kept complaining that the only meaningful progress is the biggest and most expensive thing, pronto. Now everyone A-rates everything unless to save some weight, because why not? Operating costs are meaningless. The peak is reached in no-time, and after that there is nothing to aspire to. Complaining about 'grind' because you dont like the (only) way to obtain something is a legit complaint. Complaining about grind because you want a corvette withing a week is actually complaining about the existence of a progress curve. And that is a very different discussion.
Frontier seem to be providing many ways around "grindy" activities already.
Credits: formerly a grind, now multiple ways to earn 100m/hr.
Raw materials: formerly a lot of shooting rocks, then the crash sites such as Bug Killer, then Crystalline Shards.
Encoded: formerly a lot of wake scanning, then Jameson's Cobra.
Manufactured: selectable as mission rewards.
Reputation/rank: selectable Rep++++ mission rewards.
Credits: formerly a grind, now multiple ways to earn 100m/hr.
Raw materials: formerly a lot of shooting rocks, then the crash sites such as Bug Killer, then Crystalline Shards.
Encoded: formerly a lot of wake scanning, then Jameson's Cobra.
Manufactured: selectable as mission rewards.
Reputation/rank: selectable Rep++++ mission rewards.
In a game with no content, character progression becomes the gameplay and progression without content is grind.
1) tech broker weapons have to be unlocked PER SIZE and PER FIXED/TURRETED. 1 Weapon = 6 unlocks.
2) due to new BGS some G5 materials are nearly impossible to find so others must be gathered and traded 6:1
3) pretty much every CG ever
4) rank progressions
5) flying anywhere of any distance is either a grind or a waste of time staring at a screensaver or both. flying to the other side of the galaxy where there is absolutely nothing to do should not in amdnof itself be an accomplishment simply because of the grind involved
6) engineer levels are now not just a personal grind buy a community grind
7) building specific ships for specific tasks is fun but results in grind because they're only good for 1 task and awful at everything else.
8) uncontrolled PVP/ganking especially early in the game for open mode results in grind until players quit because they never get to play the actual game.
9) ship maintenance. not a big deal in know but it costs money every time your ship takes off. it demonstrates the devs' mindset
devs add more progress bars to fill but no content around filling them.
1) tech broker weapons have to be unlocked PER SIZE and PER FIXED/TURRETED. 1 Weapon = 6 unlocks.
2) due to new BGS some G5 materials are nearly impossible to find so others must be gathered and traded 6:1
3) pretty much every CG ever
4) rank progressions
5) flying anywhere of any distance is either a grind or a waste of time staring at a screensaver or both. flying to the other side of the galaxy where there is absolutely nothing to do should not in amdnof itself be an accomplishment simply because of the grind involved
6) engineer levels are now not just a personal grind buy a community grind
7) building specific ships for specific tasks is fun but results in grind because they're only good for 1 task and awful at everything else.
8) uncontrolled PVP/ganking especially early in the game for open mode results in grind until players quit because they never get to play the actual game.
9) ship maintenance. not a big deal in know but it costs money every time your ship takes off. it demonstrates the devs' mindset
devs add more progress bars to fill but no content around filling them.
Sorry but no. Grind is shorthand for "the need to repeat time and again a gameplay loop (often not particularly rewarding in itself) in order to progress in game, or to obtain progress-making items, so that new gameplay loops might become available".
There are many such loops in Elite that are textbook grind. Shooting Cacodemons in Doom is not a grind, it's core gameplay (because it's fun in and of itself) and level progression is simply a way to keep this core mechanics fresh and engaging.
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Shoot one thing in doom to progress to shoot another thing in doom. Fun for some. Repetitive for others.
So you said you agree on the first sentence, then immediately disagree.
The grind is a problem because it has no endgame of any kind. You grind your ass off for engineering...and you beat the game, there's nothing left to do. I mean, there's no new actual gameplay that you couldn't do without engineering.
That's true, but that's not because it was difficult to get up the progress curve in the old days, but because we didn't have a clue what we were doing in the old days.
The first triple Elite was achieved within a month, and I think they were in the Anaconda after about a week. (Meanwhile, at the end of my first month, I was hanging around near Alioth in an Adder, slowly working on getting Allied for the permit and saving up for a Cobra III)
Meanwhile, Dav confirmed - again - on the recent livestream that the majority of player activity is still small ships doing small tasks. Most new players - those who don't seek out the "how do I get X as fast as possible" walkthroughs - are having much the same experience of gradual progression that we had. Perhaps more so, since the game is much bigger now than it was in 1.0 and there are more areas to progress in before you get to the end.
Once again: repetitive gameplay is not necessarily grindy gameplay. There is no grind in Tetris, there is no grind in Doom.
There is plenty to grind in Elite.
If you dont see the issue with including your subjective opinion about fun in a faux-objective definition of 'grind' you are missing, again, perspective.
Is Elite more of a hobby than a game? In a game you aim to win, or at least finish. A hobby is repeating over and over something you enjoy doing. If you don't enjoy it then it isn't a hobby and you find something else to do instead.
Yes there is. The sole aim is to slot in falling shapes to make lines. Over and over again. That's it. I found it "grindy" so I gave up playing it years ago.
I have to wonder about you, you complain bitterly about the grind in a game, by your own admission, you haven’t played in 6 months (iirc).
Your gripe is that what you call grind (that which I call playing the game) leads to little or no progress.
So here you are, on a forum for that game (presumably made for people who do enjoy it), talking about the endless grind and no reward. For 6 months at least you have been doing that and nothing has changed. Aren’t you just grinding?
You may not see the grind in Doom, I do.
Finally, I look at the games market like an imaginary buffet. One table has 100 sandwiches on it. Right at the end is a pickle and marmite sandwich on black bread. Not everyone’s taste but different to the rest. Then you get people gathering around the sandwich complaining they don’t like it. Why can’t it be more like the other sandwiches? Why cant it have cheese like the other one? Why can’t it have white bread? Oh, I hate marmite, can we change it? Yeah, lets do that. Lets make it like all the other sandwiches because there is only 99 others like it.
Elite is my pickle and marmite on black bread. Sure, the plate could do with a wipe and the garnish needs refreshing but I like it. Stop trying to make my sandwich like all the others, forget my sandwich and go eat another one.
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See, you can't take apart your personal wishes from objective criteria of game design. Elite is like YOU want it, therefore it's perfect. No, it's not. It's like you want it, and I'm happy for you.
Me, I still hang out here out of curiosity about the the game's progress and plain interest in videogames. I can criticize the game based on my experience with dozens of others, not just what I like or dislike. I have really no investment in Elite, but I like to "talk Elite" just like I talk about many other games in other places. I'm not motivated by resentment, but simply point out what I think are pretty commonplace facts about contemporary videogames.
Says the dude who claimed Doom has no grind 'because it is fun'.