Why is it that games like Evolve, or Titanfall, are seen as intrinsically more fun than a game like Elite: Dangerous? Of course, the first thing that I will hear is "Prometheus, these are two completely different games! You can’t compare them!" Oh, honey, of course you can. And I’m gonna do it.
Now, starting off, let me explain why I’m comparing these two games side by side. First, I own all three. Second, at their core, they are all rather repetitive, colloquially "grindy" games with no real goal given save a short term goal alongside the promise of more powerful gear. Third, they’re all attempts to do something just a bit different from the stream of first and third person shooters, peppered with the annual sports games. For those unlikely few who haven’t played Evolve or Titanfall (as this post is geared towards the Elite crowd) the premise of both is similar, but separate. If you know the games, and don’t wish to read my own synopsis, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.
In Titanfall, you are thrown into multiplayer match after multiplayer match, given weapons, a smattering of dropped in AIs to back you up, and up to 7 other team members to help you score more points in your chosen game mode. Almost no storyline is given as to why this is happening, save some spice provided by the pre-drop rant from your CO, and some basic lore points. You play match after match on a small number of maps, expanded by paid DLC, doing the same action (shoot, run, score, or some variation thereupon) and occasionally dropping a massive death machine to run around in feeling like a 6[SIZE=2]th[/SIZE] grader stepping on an ant hill, laughing maniacally until a few of the ants crawl up your leg and bite you in the no no parts. Fun game, still has a small following, and a decent core design.
In Evolve, you are thrown into multiplayer match after multiplayer match, given weapons, a smattering of AI monsters to hunt/eat (depending on your role as either a hunter or monster) and either hunt alone, or with up to three other members. You hunt down a monster, scoring points based on how well you did, or survive and destroy an objective point (usually a power plant) or kill each hunter three times. Almost no storyline is given as to why this is happening, save some spice provided by the pre-drop banter, or a quick line of text ("Survive") as the monster, and a general idea of which direction not to run in. You play match after match on a small number of maps, expanded by paid DLC, doing the same action (shoot, run, kill, eat, or some variation thereupon) and occasionally end up in a deathcage to duke it out, monster to hunters, either running in fear from the massive beast that is tearing your team apart, or pumping him full of lead feeling like a triumphant Ahab incarnate. Extremely fun game, large initial following (although I’m curious to see if it goes the way of Titanfall), and a solid core design.
So why are these repetitive actions seen as more fun than Elite’s repetitive actions by their communities? My first thought was "This is a shooter, so of course shooters are more action packed. Maybe people just don’t like the lulls in between the action?" But then I played Titanfall again. And yes, for a few matches, they were back to back with about a minute in between, similar with Evolve (closer to the 5-6 minute range there). However, in between changing a loadout after a level-up, or getting my burn cards sorted, or after wanting to tweak my hunter or Kraken loadouts, it could be upwards of 15-20 minutes to my next match, depending on several variables. Titanfall was the worst culprit here, with the lower population leading to more waiting between matches.
This doesn’t sell me though. I see posts occasionally about how micro-jumps should be implemented, but those usually refer to areas like Hutton Orbital which takes 30-45 minutes to fly to upon jumping in, not trying to get from action point to action point within seconds (though this argument does exist). Furthermore, I know story isn’t the only issue, as I know for a fact that both Titanfall and Evolve give you very little narrative as well. So why is it that the repetitive actions in Evolve and Titanfall are somehow more fun than Elite. Elite has combat, and interdictions have increased a bit since 1.1 dropped allowing for less time in between periods of action, (for proof just look at the threads complaining about this on the forums). Although, it seems this is a split camp, with some people loving the additional tension this adds, and some feeling it’s a "waste of time" getting in the way of building their mountain of credits via trading or SL grinding(I say this with zero judgement on you, if this is what drives you to play, more power to you, seriously, I ended up doing similar in the Original Elite, trading just to see that number jump, sometimes getting annoyed at combat).
The complaints about this combined with a lack of players rising to the defense of the interdictions solidifies, in my mind, my hypothesis that the issue isn’t so much about the lull between action points either. So let’s take a look at the goals of the games. Evolve and Titan fall are both purely PvP games, meant to throw you in to an intense period of violent action. How well you do during these bouts directly influences how much upgrade currency you receive, allowing you to purchase bigger guns, new hunters, new monsters, etc. during the lulls. Some of these are unlocked automatically as you progress; some are purchased, forcing you to choose how to spend your limited upgrade currency. This isn’t that far removed from the way Elite allows you to unlock weapons and ships, using Credits as your primary upgrade currency. I even find myself (and other players) playing for weeks or more to unlock that M93R, or the Big Freaking Gun, seldom complaining about how long it takes. Heck, the Co. So it’s not that upgrades are slow... Or maybe it is.
While the gun I want usually takes time to unlock, along the way, we also unlock attachments, camo, and other little bits for the weapons I’m currently using. This improves the weapons (either functionally or aesthetically), but also fulfills my skinner-box need to have a constant little bar I can fill up by pressing my buttons. Elite doesn’t do this. With Elite, you have certain items locked under a credit requirement, but as you play, past about an A-fit Cobra, the rate of "unlocks" slows immensely. You don’t get consistent little dings (especially if you’ve already found yourself allied with one or more major factions) feeding your desire for the next ding.Now I’m not a fan of skinner-box techniques, but I understand their power to make sales and keep attention. And they have created in us, over the years, an expectation of these techniques. Games that don’t abuse this mechanic of the mind seem out of place, or "off" to us. They don’t fit in with our expectations, and we aren’t quite sure why, so we cling to what we think it must be. There’s no story. There’s too many interdictions. There’s not enough missions. There’s not enough to do. These all have a modicum of truth to them, and yes, seeing more fleshed out missions, or seeing a perfection in the interdiction frequency (seriously, Frontier, can we give more meaning to the government types, like in the prequels?), or even seeing more of the galactic storyline unfold would be fantastic; but this isn’t the primary issue here. The issue is that Elite is breaking a mold we’ve all fell into comfortably. It is going to take time to reach the larger ships, (I’m ignoring for now the issues with the three largest ships taking an almost unsupportable amount of credits to maintain) and we don’t see a lot of little dings along the way.
This is what, in my opinion, has caused a lot of the complaints of "grinding" along the way, despite other games, with similar experiences (by the broadest definition of the term), being hailed as incredibly fun. Now, that’s not to say this will always be an issue. We have a grand total of 30 ships on the horizon, which should help flesh out our various "dings" and I have no doubt more modules, weapons, utilities, doo-hickeys, and weeblewobbles will be added over time, and normally, were a typical skinner curve provided in the base game, this would not have been an issue, but Frontier’s gap on release, I feel, is what feels so off to many of us playing; and is the cause of a lot of the "Grindy" feelings, despite many popular modern games also having an intrinsically "grindy" gameplay mechanic. We’ve hit the uncanny valley of Skinner’s Box, just enough to get you started, then a dropoff in dings until you hit the Python.
For the rest of us, this is an interesting experiment. A chance to attempt to help shape a game that is fun by its own merit, and not the use of constant "dings" to make us feel accomplished. Let’s see if we can’t find what makes the game engaging, make our voices heard to the developers in a positive manner, tell them what you like, and equally, what you don’t like, but (and this is the important part) truly stop and try to analyze why you don’t like it. You’ll be surprised how often it’s not for the initial reason you assumed. These kinds of complain posts usually end with "but don’t get me wrong I love the game," so let’s prove it. Let’s do what we can, as a community to stop waving torches and pitchforks and really look at what it is we aren’t happy with, why we aren’t happy with it, and give frontier honest ideas as to what they can do to fix it. They may not use them all, but at a minimum, we can be a better community, a community that Frontier would want to listen to.
Now, starting off, let me explain why I’m comparing these two games side by side. First, I own all three. Second, at their core, they are all rather repetitive, colloquially "grindy" games with no real goal given save a short term goal alongside the promise of more powerful gear. Third, they’re all attempts to do something just a bit different from the stream of first and third person shooters, peppered with the annual sports games. For those unlikely few who haven’t played Evolve or Titanfall (as this post is geared towards the Elite crowd) the premise of both is similar, but separate. If you know the games, and don’t wish to read my own synopsis, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.
In Titanfall, you are thrown into multiplayer match after multiplayer match, given weapons, a smattering of dropped in AIs to back you up, and up to 7 other team members to help you score more points in your chosen game mode. Almost no storyline is given as to why this is happening, save some spice provided by the pre-drop rant from your CO, and some basic lore points. You play match after match on a small number of maps, expanded by paid DLC, doing the same action (shoot, run, score, or some variation thereupon) and occasionally dropping a massive death machine to run around in feeling like a 6[SIZE=2]th[/SIZE] grader stepping on an ant hill, laughing maniacally until a few of the ants crawl up your leg and bite you in the no no parts. Fun game, still has a small following, and a decent core design.
In Evolve, you are thrown into multiplayer match after multiplayer match, given weapons, a smattering of AI monsters to hunt/eat (depending on your role as either a hunter or monster) and either hunt alone, or with up to three other members. You hunt down a monster, scoring points based on how well you did, or survive and destroy an objective point (usually a power plant) or kill each hunter three times. Almost no storyline is given as to why this is happening, save some spice provided by the pre-drop banter, or a quick line of text ("Survive") as the monster, and a general idea of which direction not to run in. You play match after match on a small number of maps, expanded by paid DLC, doing the same action (shoot, run, kill, eat, or some variation thereupon) and occasionally end up in a deathcage to duke it out, monster to hunters, either running in fear from the massive beast that is tearing your team apart, or pumping him full of lead feeling like a triumphant Ahab incarnate. Extremely fun game, large initial following (although I’m curious to see if it goes the way of Titanfall), and a solid core design.
So why are these repetitive actions seen as more fun than Elite’s repetitive actions by their communities? My first thought was "This is a shooter, so of course shooters are more action packed. Maybe people just don’t like the lulls in between the action?" But then I played Titanfall again. And yes, for a few matches, they were back to back with about a minute in between, similar with Evolve (closer to the 5-6 minute range there). However, in between changing a loadout after a level-up, or getting my burn cards sorted, or after wanting to tweak my hunter or Kraken loadouts, it could be upwards of 15-20 minutes to my next match, depending on several variables. Titanfall was the worst culprit here, with the lower population leading to more waiting between matches.
This doesn’t sell me though. I see posts occasionally about how micro-jumps should be implemented, but those usually refer to areas like Hutton Orbital which takes 30-45 minutes to fly to upon jumping in, not trying to get from action point to action point within seconds (though this argument does exist). Furthermore, I know story isn’t the only issue, as I know for a fact that both Titanfall and Evolve give you very little narrative as well. So why is it that the repetitive actions in Evolve and Titanfall are somehow more fun than Elite. Elite has combat, and interdictions have increased a bit since 1.1 dropped allowing for less time in between periods of action, (for proof just look at the threads complaining about this on the forums). Although, it seems this is a split camp, with some people loving the additional tension this adds, and some feeling it’s a "waste of time" getting in the way of building their mountain of credits via trading or SL grinding(I say this with zero judgement on you, if this is what drives you to play, more power to you, seriously, I ended up doing similar in the Original Elite, trading just to see that number jump, sometimes getting annoyed at combat).
The complaints about this combined with a lack of players rising to the defense of the interdictions solidifies, in my mind, my hypothesis that the issue isn’t so much about the lull between action points either. So let’s take a look at the goals of the games. Evolve and Titan fall are both purely PvP games, meant to throw you in to an intense period of violent action. How well you do during these bouts directly influences how much upgrade currency you receive, allowing you to purchase bigger guns, new hunters, new monsters, etc. during the lulls. Some of these are unlocked automatically as you progress; some are purchased, forcing you to choose how to spend your limited upgrade currency. This isn’t that far removed from the way Elite allows you to unlock weapons and ships, using Credits as your primary upgrade currency. I even find myself (and other players) playing for weeks or more to unlock that M93R, or the Big Freaking Gun, seldom complaining about how long it takes. Heck, the Co. So it’s not that upgrades are slow... Or maybe it is.
While the gun I want usually takes time to unlock, along the way, we also unlock attachments, camo, and other little bits for the weapons I’m currently using. This improves the weapons (either functionally or aesthetically), but also fulfills my skinner-box need to have a constant little bar I can fill up by pressing my buttons. Elite doesn’t do this. With Elite, you have certain items locked under a credit requirement, but as you play, past about an A-fit Cobra, the rate of "unlocks" slows immensely. You don’t get consistent little dings (especially if you’ve already found yourself allied with one or more major factions) feeding your desire for the next ding.Now I’m not a fan of skinner-box techniques, but I understand their power to make sales and keep attention. And they have created in us, over the years, an expectation of these techniques. Games that don’t abuse this mechanic of the mind seem out of place, or "off" to us. They don’t fit in with our expectations, and we aren’t quite sure why, so we cling to what we think it must be. There’s no story. There’s too many interdictions. There’s not enough missions. There’s not enough to do. These all have a modicum of truth to them, and yes, seeing more fleshed out missions, or seeing a perfection in the interdiction frequency (seriously, Frontier, can we give more meaning to the government types, like in the prequels?), or even seeing more of the galactic storyline unfold would be fantastic; but this isn’t the primary issue here. The issue is that Elite is breaking a mold we’ve all fell into comfortably. It is going to take time to reach the larger ships, (I’m ignoring for now the issues with the three largest ships taking an almost unsupportable amount of credits to maintain) and we don’t see a lot of little dings along the way.
This is what, in my opinion, has caused a lot of the complaints of "grinding" along the way, despite other games, with similar experiences (by the broadest definition of the term), being hailed as incredibly fun. Now, that’s not to say this will always be an issue. We have a grand total of 30 ships on the horizon, which should help flesh out our various "dings" and I have no doubt more modules, weapons, utilities, doo-hickeys, and weeblewobbles will be added over time, and normally, were a typical skinner curve provided in the base game, this would not have been an issue, but Frontier’s gap on release, I feel, is what feels so off to many of us playing; and is the cause of a lot of the "Grindy" feelings, despite many popular modern games also having an intrinsically "grindy" gameplay mechanic. We’ve hit the uncanny valley of Skinner’s Box, just enough to get you started, then a dropoff in dings until you hit the Python.
For the rest of us, this is an interesting experiment. A chance to attempt to help shape a game that is fun by its own merit, and not the use of constant "dings" to make us feel accomplished. Let’s see if we can’t find what makes the game engaging, make our voices heard to the developers in a positive manner, tell them what you like, and equally, what you don’t like, but (and this is the important part) truly stop and try to analyze why you don’t like it. You’ll be surprised how often it’s not for the initial reason you assumed. These kinds of complain posts usually end with "but don’t get me wrong I love the game," so let’s prove it. Let’s do what we can, as a community to stop waving torches and pitchforks and really look at what it is we aren’t happy with, why we aren’t happy with it, and give frontier honest ideas as to what they can do to fix it. They may not use them all, but at a minimum, we can be a better community, a community that Frontier would want to listen to.