Stuff that makes us come back

[V'larr]

Well, I am still playing the game, the grind haven’t killed my willingness. Sometimes I run out of personal narratives and take a hike for a few months only to come back with a reset mind. I don’t enjoy all types of grind, Cutter grind is the one I didn’t find attractive, but most types of these things I can tolerate, just a little snag on the way to my personal goals.

But people are different, and that’s the specific point I was making. Some of the people I played with complained heavily about grind, then went on to do galactic amounts of grind, then burned out and blamed the grind for it. I hope I did convey the irony, as no one is forcing to be super-grindy in order to be competitive or in order to enjoy exploration, canyon racing or whatever else you really enjoy in Elite.

Heavy grinders tend to self destruct.

It took me a few days to make a good fer-de-lance, then I went to fight in it for at least a year, with different people, making small adjustments to the ship along the way. Few days of grind led to a year of narrative. If, one the other hand, I had finished my ferdie and then immediately went on to do the next grind, then the next grind, eventually, I’d self destruct too, no doubt about it.


I am not entirely convinced the shortfalls stem from inflation. Case in hand: lowly Viper kills 4 high level NPCs in 10 minutes. That’s 2 minutes 30 seconds for every target, on average. How often should these ferdies and pythons pop according to your inflation theory?

Spoiler: Cytoviper

Source: https://youtu.be/wtKCf0r3xHM

Heavy grinders self-destruct when the rewards turn out to not be worth the investment.

Being competitive in the post-Engineers environment does, in fact, require you to endure the Engineering grind. Which also includes a (relatively minor) bit of 5k lightyear exploration that, for many, is seen as a nauseating chore because it's not the thing they decided they want to do.

Just imagine if other people and friends could make a good ship and join that narrative of yours, without the Engineering barrier to entry.

My perspective regarding the 2:30 kills? Do the math: multiply that amount of time by a dozen thousand, which is about the average mount needed to reach Elite. Are you comfortable with opponents taking that long to kill when you're meant to reach that vast of a quantity?
(And that's disregarding the long-term combat endurance of that Viper build. In that video, 3/4ths of the ammunition was used up in the spam of of that 10 minutes. You'd be needing to re-arm the railguns quite a lot per-kill, so that's a lot of extra time on top of your quoted figure.)

 

[V'larr]

Battles that go on way too long can certainly be not much fun. Its all balance.

Players often love to one-shot enemies, but when the tables are reversed it doesn't seem much fun anymore. Even losing after 10-15 seconds seems "unfair" to many players. So games give armor & shields to slow down the fight. Some players still die in 10-15 seconds.

Edit: I'm not a great combat player. But I learned pretty quick I need engineered weapons speed up the fight otherwise it takes too long and the enemy just runs away. For someone to refuse to engineer weapons and also complain about bullet sponge ships is silly.

This is true, and exactly why I can't stand War Thunder. It's so incredibly inconsistent.

 

[V'larr]

Basically, this. Everyone loves the idea of quickly and efficiently obliterating stuff, but if the balancing is equal, and they get obliterated, they get very angry, very fast.

Honestly I don't mind the combat taking a little longer in a one-on-one scenario, because I like to picture my foe doing the same thing I'm doing during that fight: juggling their systems around, jockeying for dominant positioning, and scrambling to mitigate when it goes badly. Ships not blowing up instantly gives me a better sense that they are space ships designed for combat and therefore were built to get hit by weapons fire and survive it for a bit.

It's the same reason why people like to play games like Monster Hunter. Because sometimes it's more fun to work on one big, challenging enemy and bring it down after a protracted fight than obliterating 30+ bits of cannon fodder with a flick of the wrist.

Well, Monster Hunter I don't believe requires you to slay those enemies ten thousand times to reach the endgame....

 

[V'larr]

There’s also a case for catering to wing fights. Deflate the defences and 4 people/npc focused on a target will obliterate it in seconds. Which, I guess, would be spectacular but not very cool to be on a receiving end. There should be at least time to hyperjump. Maybe even stage a long range chip damage resistance.

I feel the defensive/offensive ratio is sort of in the right place. Perhaps few more offensive options would be suitable, given how some ships became beefy. Such as alternatives to torpedoes and mines that can strip off vast amounts of HP, but demand great skill.

Wing fights are asymmetrical by their very nature. Balancing the game around that will always be a mistake.

 

[DNA-Decay]

The question I ask myself is this - will I play for another 10 years without any major mechanical/storytelling updates, is Elite enough of a simulation at this stage? The answer is a reserved “Yeah”. Yeah, I’ll login once in a while for the latest thargoid brawl. Or, more often, if Frontier deems worthy to revive mining to the levels where it becomes interesting again. pvp with a capable opponent? I could lose myself in that for a couple evenings. Or, just gliding in SLF in VR in some godforsaken canyon for a couple hours, or tinkering under the hood of some unfinished ship. In the end of the day, I’ve accumulated presence in the game to keep coming back for small stuffs that make me happy.

What about you? In a hypothetical, which reads No new content in next 1000 years!! will you likely be checking back? And if Yes, for what?

 

[Moriarte]

Are you comfortable with opponents taking that long to kill when you're meant to reach that vast of a quantity?

You’re meant to have fun, not reach quantity some guy/gal set up during their coffee break. If you go for 12k kills in a row, you’re going to die of grind and then write messages full of pain to the forums and the UN. Tell you more, the quantity to reach ‘Elite’ is designed to be mostly unreachable, but, of course, this is not enough to stop the kings among grinders, who reach it in one sitting and then criticise the length of the journey. The point is not to kill 12k ships. The point is to have fun so you don’t even realise the exact moment when you killed 12k ships.

To answer your question, 2:30 is laughable for a ship that small. It means a proper fortress will kill high level NPC’s in seconds, like fish in a barrel. You’re obviously comfortable with killing opponents in seconds, I am not. I think that sort of TTK turns certain activities in Elite into arcade. (pirate farming) I prefer simulation. I think a 15 minute fight with Medusa interceptor is a good combat simulation.

Wing fights are asymmetrical by their very nature. Balancing the game around that will always be a mistake.

Every fight is asymmetrical by it’s nature. The asymmetry lies in skill differential.

Just imagine if other people and friends could make a good ship and join that narrative of yours, without the Engineering barrier to entry.

In this hypothetical scenario of yours I’d prefer friends who actually went through the engineering grind. That way I know they definitely understand how the ships work, what the meta is, they are not afraid of difficulties and we’d most likely have fun fighting duels in some of our engineered creations. I’m suspicious of friends who are afraid of high barriers.

 

[Old Duck]

View attachment 314563

I want those blueprints!! (For Space Engineers)

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Dumb blind hope. One of the perks (and disadvantages) of rolling a human.

 

[zeta]

The question I ask myself is this - will I play for another 10 years without any major mechanical/storytelling updates, is Elite enough of a simulation at this stage? The answer is a reserved “Yeah”. Yeah, I’ll login once in a while for the latest thargoid brawl. Or, more often, if Frontier deems worthy to revive mining to the levels where it becomes interesting again. pvp with a capable opponent? I could lose myself in that for a couple evenings. Or, just gliding in SLF in VR in some godforsaken canyon for a couple hours, or tinkering under the hood of some unfinished ship. In the end of the day, I’ve accumulated presence in the game to keep coming back for small stuffs that make me happy.

What about you? In a hypothetical, which reads No new content in next 1000 years!! will you likely be checking back? And if Yes, for what?

Freedom when flying faoff.

 

[Old Duck]

Weird how I agree with both @Moriarte and @V'larr despite that they completely disagree with each other.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Well, Monster Hunter I don't believe requires you to slay those enemies ten thousand times to reach the endgame....

Out of morbid curiosity, what exactly is the “End Game” of Elite Dangerous? PowerPlay? BGS manipulation? Thargoid hunting? PvP?

 

[TiberiusDuval]

To OP, for now reason is to make my goal of circling galaxy's central bulge...

 

[myothershipisacobraiv]

I'm taking a break. Was gonna start playing X4 but I thought I better try to play Rebirth first. It was a surprise when I read on the Steam forums that Rebirth is, or at least was, actually better than X4 in some ways; stations and environmental graphics are better, the game feels more alive, less about the TFBT empire build in a good way. So I've been playing that. Then I'm gonna play some AAA thing and I means to come back to Elite before U13 drops.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Out of morbid curiosity, what exactly is the “End Game” of Elite Dangerous? PowerPlay? BGS manipulation? Thargoid hunting? PvP?

IMO it depends on the player and the goals they set for themselves. In ED players can reach their "End Game" fairly quickly if they have very specific narrow goals.

Players like myself play in a more open-ended manner. I don't think I will ever reach an "End Game" because the activities I'm doing are too open ended. One goal leads into another and opens up two more. And I am still regularly learning new stuff. Playing only since 2018, which is a long time to say I'm not at any well defined "End Game" yet.


Edit: Instead of referring to "End Game" I prefer the term "established player". An established player has adequate resources, skills, and knowledge to pursue the longer term goals they wish. Its still a fluffy term, but IMO its more applicable description for an open-ended game.


Edit: Relating Kill Count to "End Game"

Well, Monster Hunter I don't believe requires you to slay those enemies ten thousand times to reach the endgame....

ED definitely does not require any combat kill count to reach any "End Game". A player gets better through experience. Not slaughtering thousands of low-life grunts. Combat rank means nothing, and gives you nothing. Kill count doesn't level up a player.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Edit: Instead of referring to "End Game" I prefer the term "established player". An established player has adequate resources, skills, and knowledge to pursue the longer term goals they wish. Its still a fluffy term, but IMO its more applicable description for an open-ended game.

I like that term. It pretty much sums up my impression of what others call “End game” in Elite Dangerous. Aside from hunting Thargoids, it didn’t take me all that long after feeling comfortable in a Cobra Mark III to do everything I listed above. And the only reason why Thargoid hunting is an exception, is because they were added to the game afterwards.

ED definitely does not require any combat kill count to reach any "End Game". A player gets better through experience. Not slaughtering thousands of low-life grunts. Combat rank means nothing, and gives you nothing. Kill count doesn't level up a player.

That’s one of the things I like about ED, despite its faults. There’s usually multiple paths to achieve most goals. There used to be even more, but the low effort “solution” Frontier generally takes to quiet player complaints is to guarantee results along the path commonly taken, no matter how grindy and unfun it may be, while closing off the better, more fun paths completely.

 

[Old Duck]

I'm taking a break. Was gonna start playing X4 but I thought I better try to play Rebirth first. It was a surprise when I read on the Steam forums that Rebirth is, or at least was, actually better than X4 in some ways; stations and environmental graphics are better, the game feels more alive, less about the TFBT empire build in a good way. So I've been playing that. Then I'm gonna play some AAA thing and I means to come back to Elite before U13 drops.

I grabbed Rebirth VR on sale, along with Overload. I figure I'd better have some backup VR space games in case I'm forced to switch to Odyssey Lite someday and it kills VR in Elite on my machine.

Though I'm not playing any VR games right now thanks to the heatwave. Space games in general tend to be more suited to winter when it gets dark at lunch time rather than midnight, so my summer flying fix is MSFS (appropriate since summer is the only season this sim has).

 

[myothershipisacobraiv]

I grabbed Rebirth VR on sale, along with Overload. I figure I'd better have some backup VR space games in case I'm forced to switch to Odyssey Lite someday and it kills VR in Elite on my machine.

Though I'm not playing any VR games right now thanks to the heatwave. Space games in general tend to be more suited to winter when it gets dark at lunch time rather than midnight, so my summer flying fix is MSFS (appropriate since summer is the only season this sim has).

Yeah the summer can can make quite a difference but there are two good points for this for me. One, my case has excellent airflow (but it is noisy as a result). Two, gets pretty cool here in the evenings summer or otherwise.

 

[V'larr]

You’re meant to have fun, not reach quantity some guy/gal set up during their coffee break. If you go for 12k kills in a row, you’re going to die of grind and then write messages full of pain to the forums and the UN. Tell you more, the quantity to reach ‘Elite’ is designed to be mostly unreachable, but, of course, this is not enough to stop the kings among grinders, who reach it in one sitting and then criticise the length of the journey. The point is not to kill 12k ships. The point is to have fun so you don’t even realise the exact moment when you killed 12k ships.

I agree arbitrarily high-quantity goals are not ideal. But that's the game we have been given. That's the goalpost Fdev have established. Whether you willfully ignore the goalpost along the way doesn't enter into the equation here.

To answer your question, 2:30 is laughable for a ship that small. It means a proper fortress will kill high level NPC’s in seconds, like fish in a barrel. You’re obviously comfortable with killing opponents in seconds, I am not. I think that sort of TTK turns certain activities in Elite into arcade. (pirate farming) I prefer simulation. I think a 15 minute fight with Medusa interceptor is a good combat simulation.

You're not answering my question. "Proper fortress" builds in the game don't offer any significant increase in TTK, due to the hitpoint inflation; mostly they offer longer endurance in the current attrition warfare. I haven't argued for kills being obtainable in mere seconds. And I'm not discussing thargoid combat.

Every fight is asymmetrical by it’s nature. The asymmetry lies in skill differential.

You're conflating concepts here. Symmetrical, or 'balanced', fights are interesting precisely because it means that skill makes the difference. That doesn't hold weight in wing fights where strict numerical advantages hold the most sway (presuming one follows the basic concept of focused fire), as has been the case in any form of team vs team PvP combat gaming for decades. Attempting to balance individual ships around that will always result in failure.

In this hypothetical scenario of yours I’d prefer friends who actually went through the engineering grind. That way I know they definitely understand how the ships work, what the meta is, they are not afraid of difficulties and we’d most likely have fun fighting duels in some of our engineered creations. I’m suspicious of friends who are afraid of high barriers.

So you're content with driving away any potential friends who would like to join you in playing the game but are not willing to be content-gated, rather than having an experience where both kinds of friends can enjoy the game with you?

 

[V'larr]

Out of morbid curiosity, what exactly is the “End Game” of Elite Dangerous? PowerPlay? BGS manipulation? Thargoid hunting? PvP?

There are those activities, and there is plenty room for time investment and intrigue there. There is also exploration & discovery, racing, community goals, and roleplay - how often do we see players write posts describing how they enjoy believing they are humble space truckers, for example? If the game would get out of the way of itself, there is more than enough for players to find and enjoy.

 

[V'larr]

Edit: Relating Kill Count to "End Game"[/I]

ED definitely does not require any combat kill count to reach any "End Game". A player gets better through experience. Not slaughtering thousands of low-life grunts. Combat rank means nothing, and gives you nothing. Kill count doesn't level up a player.

Unfortunately, that sentiment is not reflected by the game in its current state.