The grind is killing me.

[Jingez]

First off, there is a choice in all of this. You can play the game with bought components and never touch engineers and do fine in many aspects. However if you wish to get more serious about the quality of your ship builds then you can choose to pursue unlocking engineers. This should not be easy. Nor should be the acquisition of materials needed by those engineers be easy.

You are talking about killing Thargoids, it absolutely should not be easy to build a ship worthy of this task.

Still the grind for materials seems to be blown way out of proportion by many people.

Starting with raw materials. It takes 15-20 minutes to get out to a planet where every crystal you collect is the exact material you desire. Doesn't seem that bad to me.
Every time I have gone for raw materials I try to get better and more efficient at shooting and collection as well, which for me brings fun to the grind.

Do you ever see a little bump while farming crystals and boost off it and do a front flip to a perfect landing on a nearby down slope? Or boost to catch crystals mid air?
There are plenty of ways to have fun and enjoy the game while grinding materials.

Obviously that one place we shall not name is silly but for now I'm glad it's there.

Manufactured seems fine to me as well. You can hunt high grades and trade over for the more rare pieces, or scoop tons while easily slaughtering in a haz res while gaining combat xp (if not elite yet) and credits. Or planetary sites are an option.

I highly doubt you just need 15-20 minutes to get every material you need or want. Especially not if you´re on a filling run where it is not about just one or two missing materials. I did this myself a couple of days ago and i can tell you it took me like 4-6 hours maybe even more as i wasn´t tracking the time needed. Not to mention the 3 hours i wasted searching for those military super conducters which i haven´t seen dropping in systems they should be and ended up back and forth trading at the trader. So i´ve been there done that and saw what it´s like...

Of course it is a choice do it without and you´re not as effective as with it experiencing the flawed gameplay. You can go on an exploration journey with engineered fsd or non engineered but the downsides without are significant and that counts for almost everything therefore this isn´t a basis for discussion. Of course things has to be difficult but the question is at what point it is simply exaggerated. And to be precise what exactly is difficult on time consuming farming loops to get the tasks done for engineers? And on the other side why has it to be difficult, can´t it be like difficult and fun?

Yeah i used the booster of my srv to collect selenium yttrium and what not but to be honest nope the fun disappears after a while because i know when i´am finished here i have to farm the other things and do this and that and what not of things that isn´t fun the majority of time. You know it is easy as an old stager to come here and tell me something about how it is fun to do this and that well i guess demands on computergames these days are different and some are happy with less...

 

[CMDR Flavius Funk]

I just meant 15-20 minutes of flight time to get to possibly the best location in the game for raw mats. That's not a long trip.
Yeah it takes a few hours to knock out all 6 but then you don't need to go back for a while.

As for the military super conductors I max out what I get naturally, and trade over for pharmaceutical isolators and the other rares. I personally don't ever do outbreak loops or anything like that for pi's

 

[Jingez]

I just meant 15-20 minutes of flight time to get to possibly the best location in the game for raw mats. That's not a long trip.
Yeah it takes a few hours to knock out all 6 but then you don't need to go back for a while.

As for the military super conductors I max out what I get naturally, and trade over for pharmaceutical isolators and the other rares. I personally don't ever do outbreak loops or anything like that for pi's

Well look the way i see it is nobody will loose anything when those kind of things become less time consuming and maybe enjoyable too. So it´ll be a real win win situatrion for everyone. As of now i found something that offers me what i´am searching for and that is learning to fly with flight assist off. Just started a 2 1/2 hours ago and did some drills i found on youtube so that´ll keep me quite busy for a while. I even managed to land in a station with it off, well it was kind of an shaky attempt but i did it and felt well rewarded with achieving this within 2 1/2 hours of practicing different maneuvering drills.

 

[Xevaster]

I personally enjoy some of the grind. I enjoy the surface mining for Raw mats. Throw a podcast on, drive around and PEW PEW the stuff. The same with core/laser mining. I find it very zen.

The part of the grind that I dislike is the re-logging for mats. That to me removes the enjoyment from that part of the game, it "breaks the immersion".
I'm not saying that I want to be able to go to Jameson site and in one visit get all my data.
Instead of logging out and back in for 15 minutes I'd suggest maybe have sites where you find a hidden cache of data and you find a note in one of the logs that leads you to look for another site and that leads you to another and after some adventures you now have bunch of data. (sure it is another grind, but I think it would be more fun. Maybe have a random series of locations to visit so it is not he same run every time?)
Or farming HGE's. Same re-logging issue.
I've dropped into signal sources and it is obvious that the junk floating around if from a massive ship. I've seen full sidewinders just floating in the debris field. I would think that there would be more that just a few items in all that wreckage. I have HGE's where I only get three cannisters. Let me find 40-60 mats. That seems to be more realistic amount of harvestable parts for a 200 - 400 ton ship.

I'm not a Dev bashers, but I think that they need to fix "gameplay" that forces you to log out of a game as part of the play style.

Since people chime in with comments of "Why don't you offer some suggestions?" here are a few suggestions.
Manufactured mats. - see above about farming HGE's
Or in a places like Dav's Hope make a manufacturing building where you need to power up the building and while it uses up the power source you receive mats. Maybe have it be like using the FDS boots, the higher the quality the longer it runs? Different sites give different mats.
Maybe have some signal sources that you drop in and rescue a someone they give you some high grade mats.
Data mats - see above
Raw mats - I think they are ok right now.

 

[bitstorm]

It´s not that i don´t want to grind to achieve something or be able to afford something but at an certain point to much is to much and it is obviously so far from being fun and enticing gameplay.

I feel it's a combination of factors :

1. The people designing the gameplay struggle to create something fun
2. Adding more grind is really easy, requires little thought/creativity
3. What ED is, it's broad and it leans to realism, which limits what you can do
4. Not enough time/resources to evolve/polish/finish a mechanism, I feel once they have a design down and have started working on it, it's very difficult for Frontier to justify writing it off
5. And lastly, since nothing persists in ED, you're designing into a flawed system

 

[Bantha]

I love this game.
And I am very much in the camp of “Don’t grind. Just play”
You’ll get everything you want anyway - mats, data, rank, credits. It will all come naturally. Just enjoy playing how you want to and these things will come.

But, I do feel for the Op.

If you want to go out and try something new, let’s say AX Combat as per the thread, then you do actually have to grind.

And as others have said, it’s fun once, but logging out and logging back in again is not good gameplay design, it’s just not. What were the Devs expecting us to do in this situation?

Example, I want 2 different Class Gauss Cannons. So I need two different blueprints. I get one. Now what? What does FDev want me to do to get the other?

Once is fun, but doing the same thing over and over in order to get the weapons you need, well that’s just lazy design.

Like I say, I love this game. I’m not a fanboy nor a hater, I’m just someone who really enjoys playing in this amazing galaxy.

But I can see the many flaws as well.

As others have said... missed opportunity - but that kind of sums up this game in its entirety

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

If you want to go out and try something new, let’s say AX Combat as per the thread, then you do actually have to grind.

But do you though? I dabbled in some AX combat a couple of years ago. I saw a post on here, thought that it looked like fun. If that had become my be all and end all, then yes, all my ED gameplay would have been spent gearing up for it. But I just paid more attention to what I was doing, tried to adapt my current activities to include things that helped achieve what I wanted. If a player decides they want one thing, not interested in anything else, they they have made the grind.

 

[Bantha]

But do you though? I dabbled in some AX combat a couple of years ago. I saw a post on here, thought that it looked like fun. If that had become my be all and end all, then yes, all my ED gameplay would have been spent gearing up for it. But I just paid more attention to what I was doing, tried to adapt my current activities to include things that helped achieve what I wanted. If a player decides they want one thing, not interested in anything else, they they have made the grind.

I think you do have to grind yes. How else do you get the means to fight Thargoids without visiting a Guardian site or two, and repeating the same activity again?

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

I think you do have to grind yes. How else do you get the means to fight Thargoids without visiting a Guardian site or two, and repeating the same activity again?

I visited a Guardian site for 2 reasons. Yes, I wanted the goodies but also, to visit the site, having not seen one before. That done, I could have switched my activities to get something else I needed that didn't require visiting a Guardian site, IDK, run a couple of trade missions to get some cash to buy a module, put towards my savings to buy a dedicated ship. Then, I could have popped out to another Guardian site to collect more goodies. I did do all of these things but in between them, I did other things that were not connected with building a ship that could kill Thargoids because I didn't focus the whole of my gameplay on that one narrow ambition of getting a ship to fight Thargoids, I did bits and pieces of it, from time to time, whilst at the same time doing bits and pieces from time to time to work towards other ambitions I had in the game such as raking up with the Feds and Imps, getting PP modules, building a better explorer, building a better trader. You determine how much focus you put on one ambition and you determine how limited your gameplay is if you only work on one ambition at a time.

 

[Factabulous]

I think you do have to grind yes. How else do you get the means to fight Thargoids without visiting a Guardian site or two, and repeating the same activity again?

Probably best if you don't bother: if you only plan to ever fight one Thargoid (two would be a grind, right?) then it's not worth the time.

 

[Bantha]

Look I’m with you guys I am.
(although telling me not to fight more than one Thargoid because two would be a grind is unnecessarily provocative and just plain silly)

Like I said in my post:-
I am very much in the camp of “Don’t grind. Just play”. You’ll get everything you want anyway - mats, data, rank, credits. It will all come naturally. Just enjoy playing how you want to and these things will come.

But... if you’re visiting a Guardian site 2, 3, 4 times, I think the Devs could have at least mixed it up a bit. Not the same thing over and over again.

Once was great. Twice ok. Third time, bored...

Even if you do something else in between, when you do decide to go back, it’s just the same thing.

And I think that is lazy design

 

[bitstorm]

Look I’m with you guys I am.

Like I said in my post:-
I am very much in the camp of “Don’t grind. Just play”
You’ll get everything you want anyway - mats, data, rank, credits. It will all come naturally. Just enjoy playing how you want to and these things will come.

But... if you’re visiting a Guardian site 2, 3, 4 times, I think the Devs could have at least mixed it up a bit. Not the same thing over and over again.

Even if you do something else in between, when you do decide to go back, it’s just the same thing.

And I think that is lazy design

I feel it's at least partially due to adhering too much to procgen mentality.

In that they feel they can build one thing then replicate it with minor variations, and that equates to "infinite" gameplay. When in reality it becomes tiresome very quickly.

 

[sinisalo]

How else do you get the means to fight Thargoids without visiting a Guardian site or two, and repeating the same activity again?

My AX ship has nothing on it that requires visiting Guardian sites. What specifically are you referring to? I'm not being critical, just curious what you feel is necessary? I know that if you want Guardian HRPs or fighters or whatever you'll need to hit Guardian sites beforehand.

But for me the only "essential" Thargoid equipment is AX weapons and a decontamination limpet controller. And those can be bought without any Guardian blueprints or other bits and bobs. Mount those two things, beef up the hull integrity with whatever you want and have at it.

Even Xeno scanners and that sort of thing aren't essential, although I carry one because it helps sort the enemies. Just saying that you can go fight scouts without having been to a Guardian site ever and do very well.

 

[Bantha]

My AX ship has nothing on it that requires visiting Guardian sites. What specifically are you referring to? I'm not being critical, just curious what you feel is necessary? I know that if you want Guardian HRPs or fighters or whatever you'll need to hit Guardian sites beforehand.

But for me the only "essential" Thargoid equipment is AX weapons and a decontamination limpet controller. And those can be bought without any Guardian blueprints or other bits and bobs. Mount those two things, beef up the hull integrity with whatever you want and have at it.

Even Xeno scanners and that sort of thing aren't essential, although I carry one because it helps sort the enemies. Just saying that you can go fight scouts without having been to a Guardian site ever and do very well.

It’s fine I’m not taking your question the wrong way, happy to discuss

AX multis are good against scouts, but not much else.

Come up against anything tougher and they aren’t really going to do much damage.
For interceptors you really need Gauss Cannons, available only through Guardian technology. If you want C1 and C2 cannons, it’s one module blueprint (and various other materials) each.

Here’s the Anti Xeno Initiative weapons guide. These guys are on the money when it comes to all things insectoid:-

The Anti-Xeno Initiative

The Anti-Xeno Initiative, an Elite:Dangerous player group dedicated to the defense of humanity.

www.antixenoinitiative.com

 

[sinisalo]

Yes. I took it as Thargoid combat, including and maybe limited to scouts. Bigger game needs bigger guns

 

[Neilski]

Then you need to get obelisk data, which is even more degenerated. Go in front of an obelisk, scan, relog. I made a script for this because this is not playing a game. Came back some hours later and was full.

I didn't know it was possible to script anything in ED - are you using an external tool of some kind? Without wanting to derail the thread I'd be grateful for a link to tips on this front
(Edit: One of the stupidly simple things I was hoping to do was just have a single-button press for certain kinds of synthesis - basically a macro, I guess. If there's a scripting language, that would be trivial I expect.)
(Edit2: for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not trying to learn about if/how to make a bot. There may of course be no clear dividing line between clever macros and bots.)