Should materials be buyable with cr

[Danieros]

Materials will not be buyable with credits because the current methods for obtaining them are precisely the reason they even exist. They are a way of forcing you to engage with gameplay features that you would otherwise ignore.

The issue, obviously, is that you would otherwise ignore those features because they're boring tedious trash, which is why people instead instance-flip on Dav's Hope/Jameson's Cobra/Crashed Condas rather than get that stuff "properly". To allow you to buy the materials would mean giving up on forcing your face against features that you would much rather skip altogether. It would mean accepting that a lot of the things they designed just plainly do not work and people don't want to do them. And so far they're stubbornly opposed to doing that bit of soul searching, which is why you still need to occasionally go fetch the Wake Scanner and go on sniffing ship butts so that FDev can continue to pretend that whole mechanic isn't a complete waste of time.

The problem for me is how we get pressured into doing it. If I'm landing into a planet or searching random USS because I want to do it as an exploration thing, instead of because I need a specific material right now, it is not as much of a chore.

I have never mined and I would like to continue that way. Some tech broker stuff can be acquired through a FC market. I would have no problem going into material farming to supply a demand, and if the supply is purely player-driven, it would mean the indended gameplay loop was achieved for every material out there.

This is the opportunity that is being lost here. It is fine to not enjoy some parts of the game, but if they are connected together, you can simply not have to go through the gameplay you do not like.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

so, it's confirmed: the only gameplay is collecting mats. exciting!
but, hey, it's ok, you can now also trade mats! new! new!

Credits for the credit god, should they so decree. Can't see it tbh.
If this happens, the old ways will become irrelevant, less to do and just more credit grind, less fun but functional for pvp. FD always try to cater for all though...time will tell.
Yet, I sometimes wonder how much fun pvp will be if everyone has only the bestest of stuff.
Less probably, but will come eventually regardless i think.

They could also change things up a bit with the mats though...better solution than credits, i feel.
Plenty to do in this game, if players choose to engage with it, rather than expect the game to change to suit their own agenda.
Maybe where this thread fails?
I do not know.
Just thoughts...

 

[gorankar]

The mechanics behind gathering mats/dats can suck pretty hard if they don't occur inside the game play loops you like. Outside of laser mining you simply will never get raws unless you specifically go hunting for those raws. Outside of mission rewards and dropping collectors after combat, the methods used to obtain mats/data tend to fall outside of my normal game play loops. Grinding Dav's/Jameson Crash/Anaconda crash, hitting up the crystalline shard sites, or sitting outside a busy station scanning ships and wakes is pretty ridiculous, but it's either perform those meta methods to gather those mats/data quickly, or engage in hours of gameplay I am uninterested in, wasting even more of my time.

Even with traders, were it not for premium ammo synth, I would not mind being able to buy mats from stations in extremely limited quantities. Make them really expensive and constrain the availability per commander to just a handful a week.
However, because of premium ammo, I am currently against being able to buy mats/data/raws at all.

 

[znôrt]

Credits for the credit god, should they so decree. Can't see it tbh.
If this happens, the old ways will become irrelevant, less to do and just more credit grind, less fun but functional for pvp. FD always try to cater for all though...time will tell.
Yet, I sometimes wonder how much fun pvp will be if everyone has only the bestest of stuff.
Less probably, but will come eventually regardless i think.

They could also change things up a bit with the mats though...better solution than credits, i feel.
Plenty to do in this game, if players choose to engage with it, rather than expect the game to change to suit their own agenda.
Maybe where this thread fails?
I do not know.
Just thoughts...

this thread is just us commenting, it won't go anywhere and we all know it.

what's sad for me is that the game already has a good variety of activities to pursue by their own merits, considering just the mechanics of the sandbox alone but also missions, the 'narrative' (when there was/is one), player created events, etc. there was no need to lock all those behind a wall of grind. maybe a discovery grind, done once to initially reveal the engineers, or maybe even individual blueprints, that could be seen as a progression/discovery path or the unraveling of a story. but the huge requirements of mats for every single module roll was just an asinine idea because it just prompts for excessive repetition of those. frontier has since backed down considerably on this, but the more they do that the more evident it becomes that introducing the whole constellation of collectives was a cheap idea from the start, not very original nor enriching in is inception and very poorly implemented.

add to that the level power creep introduced and ... yeah, considering the current state of things it would be a good idea to get rid of them, and failing that resorting to credits would be a convenient fix. even if credits are actually meaningless, or considering the power creep issue in particular precisely because of that.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Because you act as though you miss out on gameplay by using credits to get something instead of grinding materials, when people are 'missing out' on gameplay all the time.....

1. There is no need to grind for any materials. I have plenty of upgrades without one bit of grind.

2. I never said missing out on gameplay, I said reasons to do gameplay.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think it would be a bit mad if you could directly buy materials, yeah.

I don't think it's a problem if people can buy materials from other players though - this means those parts of the game get engaged in by those who like it, and want t convert that gameplay over to other kinds, and vice versa.

Nah, then the game will attract people that will sell materials for real money. I don't want that crap in the game.

 

[varonica]

A lot of the hate is probably people who have grinded engineers 24/7, and would feel ripped off if you could access things the 'easy' way (whatever that means, lol).

There's no hate here, maybe you are projecting!

I've seen and played games that go that way, what you end up with is a small core of regular players and immense numbers of players who stay for a few weeks or a month and leave because they have "achieved" everything, the only way those games survive is by extreme monetising, everything is buyable with real money and the idea is to get as much money off the transient players as possible before they stop playing.

A lot of Korean games use that model, but ED has a longer playtime, and that's not an accident, the entire way the game is designed to retain players rather than turn them over. Of course it's not perfect and it has been changed a lot to make it far easier to get stuff, I mean why on earth are you driving around planet surfaces for days to collect raw mats when you can just drop into a crystal spike site, fill up on grade 5 materials in 10 minutes and trade down for what you need?

 

[Jmanis]

The mechanics behind gathering mats/dats can suck pretty hard if they don't occur inside the game play loops you like. Outside of laser mining you simply will never get raws unless you specifically go hunting for those raws. Outside of mission rewards and dropping collectors after combat, the methods used to obtain mats/data tend to fall outside of my normal game play loops. Grinding Dav's/Jameson Crash/Anaconda crash, hitting up the crystalline shard sites, or sitting outside a busy station scanning ships and wakes is pretty ridiculous, but it's either perform those meta methods to gather those mats/data quickly, or engage in hours of gameplay I am uninterested in, wasting even more of my time.

Even with traders, were it not for premium ammo synth, I would not mind being able to buy mats from stations in extremely limited quantities. Make them really expensive and constrain the availability per commander to just a handful a week.
However, because of premium ammo, I am currently against being able to buy mats/data/raws at all.

I've been tossing about whether to actually whip up "Uncle J's guide to material collecting for those who respect themselves", since i might have a hernia the next time someone suggests Dav's hope, HGSS grinding or whatever the current meta is.

Truth is though, "the kids really are wrong" when it comes to most opinions on this topic, and my advice isn't much more than "how to do your favourite activity and earn mats at the same time", so it's nothing groundbreaking anyway.

I'd fully expect it to just get drowned out by a chorus of "WAAHMAHGOD BUT I CAN'T KILL A CORVETTE WITHOUT G5 POWER WORD: KILL AND ELEVENTYJIGGLIONS OF DPS" because of this inane idea you can't do anything until you have that.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Delete pls.

 

[Thepirateorc]

1. There is no need to grind for any materials. I have plenty of upgrades without one bit of grind.

2. I never said missing out on gameplay, I said reasons to do gameplay.

I argue that someone would still do gameplay if they got their materials with cr, i dont see why some people here are soo against something that everyone wins from.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

I argue that someone would still do gameplay if they got their materials with cr, i dont see why some people here are soo against something that everyone wins from.

Credits are inconsequential in Elite. You can easily get more than you will ever spend. As a corollary, making mats buyable for credits would make mats inconsequential and at that point you might just as well remove them from the game. The real solution is not giving people free engineered modules, it is making the material grind less painful with more varied options.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I argue that someone would still do gameplay if they got their materials with cr, i dont see why some people here are soo against something that everyone wins from.

Not everyone wins. People will always go for the easy option. If there is a choice in a game of climbing up a cliff face or getting an elevator, they will get the elevator because it's easier and quicker.

 

[Jmanis]

Credits are inconsequential in Elite. You can easily get more than you will ever spend.

A fatal, recurrent flaw in ED's design that should have been addressed urgently every time it occurred.

Not everyone wins. People will always go for the easy option. If there is a choice in a game of climbing up a cliff face or getting an elevator, they will get the elevator because it's easier and quicker.

I'd even suggest nobody wins.

 

[Factabulous]

Players "This game is a mile wide and an inch deep!"
Also Players: "Please make the game shallower!"

 

[kalniel]

No.

It would reduce gameplay incentives to just 'do whatever is fastest for gaining credits'. Whereas now we have an incentive to do different things and go different places for different types of materials. Also it gives a journey for acquisition for people who already have billions of credits - if they could buy materials they'd just click a button and then complain there's nothing else do to.

 

[Drelthar]

The real solution is not giving people free engineered modules, it is making the material grind less painful with more varied options.

I think the variety is truly key.

Make it possible to gain every material in at least six different ways.

 

[Eraden]

I'd be ecstatic if they would even allow for a 2 for 1 trade from one type to another but at the same tier. This 6 for 1 nonsense is just a way to make engineering a bit more of a grind.

 

[LumberTubs]

I quite enjoy searching for materials with the exception of the few G5 manufactured mats that should appear in HGE's in certain systems but never do.

I enjoy taking a spin in my SRV looking for selenium. I actually prefer that style of raw mat gathering to the geo/bio sites. There aren't any crystal shard sites near Colonia AFAIK and the geo sites always seem to be halfway up a canyon wall.

In my view, they need to correct the HGE spawn rates and the circumstances in which they spawn before considering allowing players to buy mats. They also need to improve the exchange rate between G5 mats. 6 to 1 is too high (unless they fix the HGE thing I mention above, in which case that exchange rate won't matter so much).

 

[Amanojaku]

No. For one big reason:

The mining meta that made everyone and their slf pilot a billionaire. There have been other gold rush periods in ED, but none even came close to the Painite/LTD/Void Opal mining rush, which lasted for months upon months before FCs arrived.

Getting a ship maxed to grade 5 should take time and perseverance. It's the effort that makes many builds unique, and gives CMDRs a sense of accomplishment when their ship is finally done and polished. There isn't a CMDR out there nowadays (except new players) that couldn't afford to grade 5 engineer every module they have, and make all the hard work veteran players had to go through invalid.
It would be a slap in the face to EVERYONE who has ACTUALLY kept this game alive since 2015. Screw giving handouts to people who won't even be playing in three months. All of the veteran players watch people who want an EZ button in Elite come and go by the hundreds. People like that never stick around. We don't want people like that breaking the game before they move on to Cyberpunk or something else, never to play ED again.

Enough is enough with these Monty Haulers.

Should engineering and material traders be more balanced/accessible? Probably.

Should we be able to buy our way to top tier ship builds after a very convenient mining rush? HELL NO

 

[Maymo]

I quite enjoy searching for materials with the exception of the few G5 manufactured mats that should appear in HGE's in certain systems but never do.

I enjoy taking a spin in my SRV looking for selenium. I actually prefer that style of raw mat gathering to the geo/bio sites. There aren't any crystal shard sites near Colonia AFAIK and the geo sites always seem to be halfway up a canyon wall.

In my view, they need to correct the HGE spawn rates and the circumstances in which they spawn before considering allowing players to buy mats. They also need to improve the exchange rate between G5 mats. 6 to 1 is too high (unless they fix the HGE thing I mention above, in which case that exchange rate won't matter so much).

I noted last week that virtually all manufactured materials to G4 can be farmed conveniently from an anarchy nav beacon, this includes electrochemical arrays, thermic alloys and conductive polymers (authority ships) which I used to think were pretty much cz only. Still a bit low on refined focus crystals so maybe the drop rate isn't as good for those...
You also get 'conda and t10's dropping in for the odd G5 grab...

It does involve a fair bit of murder though.