Some ideas to improve the grindy time sinks

[hedleyn]

Hello!

Im going to try to avoid any negative narrative about game design and mechanics, i think they have been communicated well enough that i dont need to go over them again.

There are a couple of things I would like to discus that I think might work in ED, and I am basing this from many years gaming. And trust me, I have put Months of my life into the grind of online games.

Firstly, I would like to address the gathering or materials for Engineers and Tech Brokers.

Personally, I have not problem with the hours it takes to get everything you would ever need. I also like the idea of the material traders. I think they work very well. However, there are still some that hate the grind to gather everything they need to be able to engineer their modules. So, and I know this is going to attract some great responses....but here goes, how about a Galaxy wide player trading house?

OK OK OK! before you go off on one, calm down and listen to my proposal first, I know all of the arguments against this, but i think i have an idea, using existing mechanics to avoid the...shall we call them..."Farmers".

The prices set for sales of materials are determined by the galaxy wide supply and demand, the more people buy the higher the price goes...and so on. Players put materials in for sale, players can buy them, but the market sets the prices. The materials could also include blueprints for guardian tech. There would also be a delivery period...maybe. If you think about it, this could also create another profession. Material rat! someone, like me, who is happy gathering and then being able to sell on a market.


Second, I would really like to see some kind of player hanger. Something that could be outfitted the same as any ship could. The hanger could have storage modules, where cargo can be stored. The hanger location could be assigned in the players choice of "home station" but is limited to one location (free) or could even have multiple locations if the player is willing to rent them. If the cargo is required at any time it can be picked up at the home system or requested to be transported to the player where ever he may be at that time.

Another idea, when you replace a module, you have the option to store it, but only at that station. If I have cargo space, maybe I could keep it stored in my ship and then off load it in my hanger when i get there.

thoughts?

 

[hedleyn]

Oh...one more thing. I spend a great deal of my time using 3rd party apps to be able to get the best experience in this game. EDEngineer, EDDB and INARA etc etc. I think Frontier would do well to look at these apps with a view to bringing them into the game. Save me running multiple screens. If you think about it, 1000 years from now, I am sure they would have the computer capability to provide pilots with the information they need to survive in the galaxy. Why not bring it into the game.

 

[Teh Smoo]

You and many others before you have come to these conclusions.

FD, apparently, either have not, or have decided that making players take longer to do stuff is in their favor. Because the more time you spend in a cockpit, the more you want to decorate it with bobbleheads and string lights? The more time you spend waiting for stuff, the longer it takes for you to stop playing completely?

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Sorry, but a player-run trading house is just a recipe for rank exploitation if you ask me. I think that the traders in the game are an excellent middle-ground, & only wish they had brought it in sooner. I personally don't find the obtaining of materials in the game remotely grindy since 3.0 dropped. Would be nice to see material discovery & collection integrated into the Exploration & Mining systems, though.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Sorry, but a player-run trading house is just a recipe for rank exploitation if you ask me. I think that the traders in the game are an excellent middle-ground, & only wish they had brought it in sooner. I personally don't find the obtaining of materials in the game remotely grindy since 3.0 dropped. Would be nice to see material discovery & collection integrated into the Exploration & Mining systems, though.

I agree, I would like to see better ingame resources to help me and everyone else to better find stuff we need. Consider it a personal databank etc, that the more places you find stuff, it will give you more information on possible locations both true and false, so that it eliminates, until you basically have a pretty good prediction in your databank of where certain stuff are found.


Also some galnet wikipedia would be great for stuff like this.



And after seeing the crazy pirate WiggyB's vidoe about Fast & Furious in an SRV, you have lots of new stuff to do while driving/jumping/flying/falling around in an SRV...





And on the suggestion, a player market, even if the game sets the prices, what would be the use? Credits have never been as easy to come by just doing missions etc, etc, without resorting to the latest trend in get rich fast... You have have to be open to "opportunities" in the mission board. We have spotted many of the trending missions in our home system and noticed that these missions pays very well, perhaps should do a few of those... So getting paid in credits would not be very useful to begin with. as I would expect that you would never get close to 100 million/hour.... not even 50 million/hour, and what would happen then? People would complain that it is useless and not many would sell stuff there.... so there would be a short supply of goods to buy, and we have yet another "useless" game mechanic. And then cue the nerfing of stuff like the lootable anancondas, etc, etc as these would now greatly impact a system like this, as you would gather material that are rare at a way to fast pace than it was intended, so now we would encounter nerfing to popular material grindspots aswell, as we see today with the nerfing of missions that pay "to much".

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The problem with player-to-player material trading is that it won't solve the problem that most people want it to solve, which is that it takes them a long time to get certain G5 materials - it'll just displace it.

High-end cash earnings are in the 50-100 million/hour range, more if there's a big gold-rush on. So if you want an hour's worth of G5 materials, you're probably going to have to pay about that much for them ... which will require spending that long to get the money.

There may be a few people who like drifting about looking for HGEs so much that they're willing to take less pay for the byproducts of it than someone just in it to make money - but very likely to be too few to meet the demand.

Meanwhile, people with understandings of game mechanics, economics, and how to manipulate an unregulated market will have great opportunities to get rich at the expense of the average player - good fun, and I don't disapprove, but likely to get complaints afterwards when the average players later realise just how much they were conned for those EFCs.