The majority of what you do in Elite: Dangerous in 1 picture
- Thread starter AluminumAlloy
- Start date
How long does it take you to get from the penultimate level in WoW to the level cap (never played it so I don't know what the level cap is)?
Both of your examples are much faster paced games and ranking up should not be quick or it makes the ranks meaningless.
I would agree if we didn't have grind on top of grind here.
If ranking up took forever and a day but, by the time you hit whatever rank you were looking for, you had the cash reserves to fully exploit it, I wouldn't care.
At this rate, stacking all available missions (without mode switching), I'm bringing in between 900k and 1.2 million per run, which usually last about 45 minutes. This isn't horrible, mind you, but the cost of a fully combat fit Corvette or Cutter echos well past 900 million credits. At this rate we're talking 675 hours to hit that kind of cash pot doing what I'm currently doing.
That's 28 days of game time. I haven't even racked up a 14 days on the in-game counter yet and I've been playing since pre-launch Gamma. Making it so you have to work for things is one thing and I fully appreciate and accept that method of approach. Making it so that it's like a second job and there's no enjoyment had in repeating the same few missions over and over again wherever you go simply to scrounge together a few percent points in rank increase is ridiculous.
I've pushed engineers to rank 4 by spamming tier 1 upgrades from excess mats that I've just picked up over time as a part of my natural progression in the game, but I do missions, check USS/POI as a part of my normal gameplay, so when I decided to hit up the engineers, it was a simple matter of spending what I had already collected. If it took you three days... I don't know what you were doing, but you were doing it wrong. I haven't pushed any to rank 5, but I'm sure that I could, since getting to rank 4 wasn't even a noticeable hassle. The only engi thing that I've done with the express purpose of doing an engi thing was spending 20 minutes wake scanning, one time, and that was actually interesting.
Last edited:
Why do you want a Corvette or a Cutter? What can do with them, that you can't do with a ship that costs less and does not require rank?
It's a serious question. I don't see whats good with them. I see lots of Cutters flying, so there must be something good about that one. Corvettes I don't see often.
You see Cutters so often because they are pretty much the best ship in the game with regards to mining/trading/any type of hauling. They out-class even the Type 9 in terms of sheer capacity. Therefore they are among the best CG ships.
On the flip side, they can also be over-engineered into shield behemoths given their already beefy regular shield allotment.
Vettes you don't see as much of because of their poor jump range, poor cargo space and just the general fact that, as a PvP ship, they are generally worthless without a wing to back them up. For me, driving the Vette is a bit of some self-made RP because I intend to over engineer the living hell out of it until it has a decent jump range and then take it out into the black nothingness of the galaxy.
Overall I view them as a bit of an e-peen type thing when seen around the bubble but that also probably stems from the fact that I used to do a lot of PvP and seeing one in a PvP situation meant an easy kill with a lot salt from a pilot who thought he was going to wreck face in his shiny new Corvette. Especially after being destroyed in a 1-2 punch by a pair of FAS. Now, with 2.1, the Cutter can actually be made into something quite formidable.
All of that aside. The grind is very real in ED and stacked heavily on top of more grind. It needs to be balanced so that players aren't finishing one grind and having to move on to the next.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
Yeah, because actively hitting up all USS indicated to "possibly" contain the mats I'm looking for and finding nothing while also doing all missions that offered mats as I rewards when I came across them was doing "something wrong". Sure. The only thing I've been able to reliably find is arsenic and sulfur.
Like you, I too had a lot of mats, a metric ton of them, from just flying around and doing random things, hitting up USS' as I came across them and just scavenging whatever I could. When it came down to actively searching out the mats I needed though, this being after I'd pushed Farseer to Rank 2 doing Rank 1 upgrades until I ran out of mats, I couldn't find anything.
(Go figure that the missions I'm spamming now are dropping the mats I need, a month later)
On the flip side, they can also be over-engineered into shield behemoths given their already beefy regular shield allotment.
Vettes you don't see as much of because of their poor jump range, poor cargo space and just the general fact that, as a PvP ship, they are generally worthless without a wing to back them up. For me, driving the Vette is a bit of some self-made RP because I intend to over engineer the living hell out of it until it has a decent jump range and then take it out into the black nothingness of the galaxy.
Overall I view them as a bit of an e-peen type thing when seen around the bubble but that also probably stems from the fact that I used to do a lot of PvP and seeing one in a PvP situation meant an easy kill with a lot salt from a pilot who thought he was going to wreck face in his shiny new Corvette. Especially after being destroyed in a 1-2 punch by a pair of FAS. Now, with 2.1, the Cutter can actually be made into something quite formidable.
All of that aside. The grind is very real in ED and stacked heavily on top of more grind. It needs to be balanced so that players aren't finishing one grind and having to move on to the next.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
Yeah, because actively hitting up all USS indicated to "possibly" contain the mats I'm looking for and finding nothing while also doing all missions that offered mats as I rewards when I came across them was doing "something wrong". Sure. The only thing I've been able to reliably find is arsenic and sulfur.
Like you, I too had a lot of mats, a metric ton of them, from just flying around and doing random things, hitting up USS' as I came across them and just scavenging whatever I could. When it came down to actively searching out the mats I needed though, this being after I'd pushed Farseer to Rank 2 doing Rank 1 upgrades until I ran out of mats, I couldn't find anything.
(Go figure that the missions I'm spamming now are dropping the mats I need, a month later)
But for me the big ships aren't the endgame. I've tried the big ships during the betas, and they hold absolutely no interest to me. It's not why I play at all.
The ships are, to some extent, just different backpack on your hike across the Galaxy. Yeah, you could bring sherpas and extra luggage, but to what end?
Fair enough. I was explaining my point of view and trying to get you to relate. If you like it where you are, more power to you.
The problem remains that big ships don't earn enough compared to their costs.
Guys these walls of text are not pictures! I came here for laughs...
But posting Adderall-fueled walls of text IS the majority of what they do in Elite Dangerous!
Nah, that is entirely too modern and has more in common with a Destiny or Halo Req grind than the kind of old testament fun-free grind we have going on here.
I'd suggest this is more representative:
Last edited:
Grind, no grind, whatever. I would just like to see less esoteric, grossly obfuscated, text driven mysteries and more in-game, player interactive, layered puzzles and stories to solve and experience. The former I can get in better quality and quantity from any sci-fi novel. The later is sorely missing from this game IMO.
2c
2c
