Reduce the grind

[DeletedUser191218]

I only had the core game for the 1st 6 months, loved it but was a bit annoyed that the elite npc's could kick my butt so easily, and I was not sure why that was. Finally got Horizons a few months back. I have enjoyed pimping my ships, they are so much better when they have been engineered. Now I can kick any npc's butt and finally feel confident to play in open. So I'm enjoying the engineering thing, but when you say "...makes it less enjoyable...", you do realise that that is just your opinion, and that there are those of us who don't agree with you? Because the way you state that, it sounds like you think everyone agrees with you, and if you read this thread around 50% of forumites don't agree with you. Then again about 50% do so it looks like an even split.

Yes, I realise it's my opinion. I don't feel it's necessary to caveat every expression of my opinion with that fact. However, what you have said you enjoy is the result of being able to compete in the game, not the process of engineering. Of course the game is more enjoyable when you can actually play it without being destroyed by NPCs. Do you actually enjoy driving around shooting rocks or flying around aimlessly searching for an RNG high grade emission signal source? I think it's safe to assume the majority feel the game has not been improved by having that requirement acting as a barrier to you engaging in more interesting content.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

The grind is there because there's no game in Elite, its still a framework.

That's the problem. If you had more engaging game content and mechanics then it wouldn't be such a grind.

 

[DeletedUser191218]

New to the forums but been playing Elite for over a year now.

Imo, it's not necessarily the grind that's the problem. Everyone can find an activity they enjoy, and every game is a grind if you think about it. If you play CoD you grind team deathmatch over and over and over to unlock better weapons.

The problem is that ED is sparse on NPC interaction and rpg elements to make the grind more enjoyable when you are doing an activity you DON'T necessarily enjoy.

If FDev would only add some NPC dialogue trees and rpg elements to Power Play for example, it could make PP great. Imagine working your way up the ranks and it actually feeling like you are working for a faction, instead of a mundane activity like doing taxes. As you rise through the ranks, you could meet more influential npcs and they would compliment you on your dedication and performance. They could even offer you occasional unique missions for better rewards. Like if you were working for Aisling, you would get a specail mission where you snuck into Hudson space, assassinated a target or acquired data, then you were rewarded with merits, some credits and maybe even some decent mats. Maybe, when you reach King rank for the Empire and manage to get to rank 5 in PP under Aisling, youy get a special mission from Aisling herself where you have to escort an imperial convoy and fend off dirty fed raiders.

The rewards should increase slightly for your investment in your Power, and the NPCs should recognize you as a major player, and you should FEEL like you actually matter.

I'm just using PP as an example. More NPC interaction and dialogue would help all areas of the game come alive and be more satisfying, and it would feel like far less of a grind.

Every game has grind and repitition. It's an important mechanic to have those loops. The issue is the extent of it in ED and the fact it's such a big element in the game. My own view, formed by the fact they haven't offered any evidence to the contrary, is that it's all the developers seem to know how to do.

 

[Amanojaku]

Every game has grind and repitition. It's an important mechanic to have those loops. The issue is the extent of it in ED and the fact it's such a big element in the game. My own view, formed by the fact they haven't offered any evidence to the contrary, is that it's all the developers seem to know how to do.

I'll admit the grind got a bit too much when it came to Engineering, but I still got sucked in. However, when Guardian tech dropped and I saw it was just another grind, I got the FSD Booster and gave up on anything else. Imo, that was the grind that went too far, because it's the tropey "only da special, MAGICAL weapons that can hurt da Aliens" thing I absolutely HATE in anything sci-fi or fantasy. It's basically the same implication that a vampire can shrug off a 120mm round from a tank cannon, but a stick can pierce it's heart and kill it. In a game that is supposed to be more or less a "sim" and stresses realism in most circumstances, magical guardian weapons is a revolting insult to my intelligence.

 

[AgentGB]

Yeah but as you said before it's only grindy for PvPers. The rest of us are fine so heralding the game as grind being the core of the game is meaningless to those who play the whole game rather than just PvP.

yeah well, you never know, the pendulum may swing too far in your favour & then you'll reap what you sow.

 

[Ian Skippy]

No, it isn't, and you're contradicting yourself by saying it is. If the only reason to grind is needing things, and people are grinding, they must inherently need those things and you're wrong in saying they're optional. Conversely, if they're optional and people are still grinding for them then there must be reasons to grind things without needing them. That or the whole train of thought you constructed is based on faulty thinking disproven by the very existence of the conversation we're having.

Grinding is always for something, by definition. Max claims those somethings are optional, hence the grinding is optional. Others disagree, and feel the things they grind for are important to have fun.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Sure, Hello Games have repeatedly said they still have a small team working on the NMS... FDev said they have over 100... do the math. Either HG devs are so amazing, they can do the work of 10 devs in a fraction of the time, or the 100 FDev devs working on ED are fresh out of code camp and are learning with each new work assignment. I don't know.

HG reported 65 millions last year alone. The only reason they are a poor little tiny indie studio is that they dont invest their income in their studio but instead just have a select few individuals pocket the money. Keep that in mind next time someone argues the hot mess of NMS Beyond is because they dont have the manpower to properly test it.

As for their amazing achievements: outside of the central hub networking is limited to less than 25% of what FD has managed as a regular playercount, and less than 4% of the peak performance FD provided half a decade ago. That is not me attacking HG, just offering some perspective.

 

[WinterKing2112]

I think that there are a lot of good mechanic in Elite, but they get scaled to a point that becomes grindy.

A great example is the Guardian weapons and modules. The puzzles are fun and the designs are really cool. It makes sense to go on a quest of sorts to obtain more powerful weapons.

The issue lies in the implementation. Why do I need 45 epsilon data packets? Why couldn't it be 1? I would guess that to obtain all of the weapons and modules, you have to visit close to 50-60 guardian sites, and there are ~10 unique layouts to them. This is where grind is perceived. Also, one needs to unlock each different size individually. Its a bit annoying, even for a part of the game that I think is designed well.

Then there is the infamous engineering. The fun part of it is pushing a ship to the limit, and playing around with the different effects and experimentals. the grind comes in when there are ~100 different materials/data that can be found at 5 different degrees of rarity throughout the galaxy. Also the fact that once these are gathered, they improve the ship at varying degrees. ANNNDDD you can only pin one blueprint per engineer, but still have to visit them for the experimental effects.

The grind in ED comes from the mechanic being sound, but then being needlessly scaled up too much (guardian); or being obfuscated too much (engineers).

Yeah with the requirements for guardian weapons I am glad I am not interested in shooting bugs. Only went to 1 site to unlock the fsd booster, that was enough for me!

 

[Sunyavadin]

Yeah with the requirements for guardian weapons I am glad I am not interested in shooting bugs. Only went to 1 site to unlock the fsd booster, that was enough for me!

I got the distributor as well. Mostly the Guardian sites are worth visiting for how cool an experience it is, anything else is a bonus, repeating it ad nauseam is creating a grind for yourself.

 

[House0fDerp]

Grinding is always for something, by definition. Max claims those somethings are optional, hence the grinding is optional. Others disagree, and feel the things they grind for are important to have fun.

There is some context to that post which you might be missing, but to be brief we've never disagreed on the elements most complain about being optional in a factual sense. We've simply disagreed on if and if so why being optional mattered as a response to criticism of optional mechanics.

As for their amazing achievements: outside of the central hub networking is limited to less than 25% of what FD has managed as a regular playercount, and less than 4% of the peak performance FD provided half a decade ago. That is not me attacking HG, just offering some perspective.

Comments on HG aside as we can't actually understand where their money is going accurately in the same way we don't fully know how FD's funds get distributed, their scope isn't player count. Instead it's focused on areas where ED has yet to tread in many ways.

And if/when ED should chose to do so we might be able to better compare the designs of each.

I got the distributor as well. Mostly the Guardian sites are worth visiting for how cool an experience it is, anything else is a bonus, repeating it ad nauseam is creating a grind for yourself.

And yet the design of the sites and unlock requirements ask you to do what you just described as grind if you want several different modules. So how does a player not "create grind" short of denying themselves useful content?

 

[Tikanderoga]

Thought the forums were for feedback. Truth be told, i find the forums more engaging than the current grind of engineering, at least i get a good laugh. Thought at its core FD still operates as a business. Not sure how a game heralded as "grind being the core of the game" will entice more players into it outside some of the screenshot bait & retain them. Asking that the grind be sensible is not a big ask imo

Well, Elite isn't subscription based, so it doesn't matter once the game is purchased if you play it or not. FD has your money. But a player who ditches the game after a couple of hours because of the grind is not what FD is after. They want paintjobs to be sold, bobbleheads etc. A player who doesn't play won't buy any of that.
I know this is about to change with ARX coming, still, a non-playing player will not buy any of it.
So it is a detrimental business model, if players aren't playing your game. Other than paintjobs, they won't buy any expansion packs either, because the game model of grind is not their cup of tea.
Last year, i bought a fair bit of paint jobs while I was playing the game. I got the chome ones, all the gold ones and most of the Xmas ones too. Because I like them. Now that I'm not playing, what are the odds of me buying any of it? Big EL ZILCHO!

Sensible grind is a safe approach. People can deal with sensible grind. Or engaging grind (then it's not really a grind, because it's actually fun).

 

[Garbarrage]

Sure, because:

• It's a videogame. Everything is optional
• Being a videogame and being optional has never been an immunity from criticism anywhere but here
• Optional content is still content that is designed to be played. It's still content in the game
• Even optional content should aspire to be good and requirements for it to make sense
• The fact that people are grinding for the content means the content is clearly desirable and gameplay affecting...
• ...Which means it's probably worth getting right and providing criticism where it may fall short...
• ...And it should be painfully obvious why people do the content in the first place despite it being optional and undesirable, the aforementioned desirability of what rewards the content gives.

When you start needing bullet points to explain your position, after several pages of a thread, it's probably time to end the dialogue, as verbal/written communication is clearly not going to work.

A common theme on this forum, is that some posts contain opinions, while other posts are criticisms of opinions. If you don't agree after the first exchange, you likely never will. If more people understood this, 90% of the posts on this forum wouldn't exist.

 

[House0fDerp]

When you start needing bullet points to explain your position, after several pages of a thread, it's probably time to end the dialogue, as verbal/written communication is clearly not going to work.

A common theme on this forum, is that some posts contain opinions, while other posts are criticisms of opinions. If you don't agree after the first exchange, you likely never will. If more people understood this, 90% of the posts on this forum wouldn't exist.

But:

• That was my first response to that poster and...
• ...it was mainly to help me organize my thoughts into specific points...
• ...and try to preserve readability.

But a big thing for me is that I am interested in the response. I'm curious how/why that poster thinks being optional should weigh into the criticism. Something something journeys, destinations and killing time.

 

[Clanky Munge]

Getting stuff for free, dumbing down difficulty is typical of society today and the wrong direction IMO - if you don't have the attention span, don't play.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

Getting stuff for free, dumbing down difficulty is typical of society today and the wrong direction IMO - if you don't have the attention span, don't play.

There’s plenty of room in elite for them to cut requirements without “dumbing down”. As I mentioned before with the guardian stuff, what is gained by running the same 10 maps 15-20 times each vs running them 1-3 times each. Nothing is dumbed down, just repetition is removed.

For engineers, the complex part is fitting different effects together to try and perfect a build. They could cut the number of mats in half and keep that nuanced gameplay while removing the fluff. Or simply change the conversation ratio at mat traders to be a little reasonable

 

[Clanky Munge]

And in 5 mins everybody has the meta build for each ship. Great. That's why ED is good, it requires dedication and concentration.

If you want quicker or easier play NMS or something else

 

[House0fDerp]

And in 5 mins everybody has the meta build for each ship. Great. That's why ED is good, it requires dedication and concentration.

If you want quicker or easier play NMS or something else

I like how we have such a binary setting for this. 5 min or what we have now.

And a complete loss of player agency because meta.

Also we've somehow ignored all the desire to make the processes mechanically better as opposed to just shorter.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

And in 5 mins everybody has the meta build for each ship. Great. That's why ED is good, it requires dedication and concentration.

If you want quicker or easier play NMS or something else

Straw man is made of straw. I didn’t say it should take 5 minutes, just as you did not say more materials to gather makes elite better than NMS.

They could make changes that keep the nuance of the current mechanics, but ease up on the repetition. If you see no grind or need / room for improvement, then go post somewhere else like the NMS subreddit

 

[WinterKing2112]

Yes, I realise it's my opinion. I don't feel it's necessary to caveat every expression of my opinion with that fact. However, what you have said you enjoy is the result of being able to compete in the game, not the process of engineering. Of course the game is more enjoyable when you can actually play it without being destroyed by NPCs. Do you actually enjoy driving around shooting rocks or flying around aimlessly searching for an RNG high grade emission signal source? I think it's safe to assume the majority feel the game has not been improved by having that requirement acting as a barrier to you engaging in more interesting content.

I do like driving around on planets shooting at rocks. The view is often gorgeous with millions of stars and occasionally a vast ringed gas giant in the background, and that slightly creepy almost Resident Evil-esque piano music playing away quietly. It's very relaxing, like a mindfulness exercise. And no, I don't fly around aimlessly: USS's are found on my way to mission objectives, or on the way out of the bubble when I'm heading out to do exploring or mining. If one if them turns out to be a HGE, great, I'll stop and scoop. If not I will carry on to my objective. Whatever I'm doing in ED, whether it's driving a SRV on an alien planet or flying my ship thru the depths of space, I'm enjoying it 'cos it's a grand adventure in space, guess I always wanted to fly a space ship or drive a buggy on an alien planet! Not really surprising considering the amount of sci fi books and comics I read when I was a kid....

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Really? that seems an odd thing to say because I was told:

As I said the only reason to grind is to get something you need. Of course you can choose to grind to get something you want. But thats your choice. It's not rocket science.

But clearly for people to choose to grind there must be an underlying reason...

I really do not know.

...like say:

Again you do need to grind for that. That is your choice. You choose to grind for it and then blame the game.

There are mechanics in the game I don't like t get something, so what I do is do them once in a while and I hardly notice it. It's so good that I don't even need to moan about it on the forums, you know why, because I am not grinding out that mechanic I don't like. The reason why I don't grind it out, because the bit I want on the other side I do not need to still enjoy playing the game.

For me, enjoyment in my time is paramount. If you want to have a crap time and continue to grind to get something you don't need, Knock yourself out. But coming in here and blaming the game, blaming the Devs for something you choose to do is not on. If you don't like it, don't play the game that way. Again it is not rocket science.