digitalscream
Banned
Yep, that's a clickbait title. However, bear with me here...
Until a couple of months ago, I was getting more and more frustrated with the game - it honestly felt like a grind (not to mention the heat effects which destroyed PvP), and it got to the point where I couldn't face playing any more...so I reset my save, came up with a backstory for my new CMDR, and set about getting his life back on track.
In two months, playing an average of slightly less than half an hour a day, I've gone from an Eagle (Imperial Bounty Hunter pack, courtesy of Kickstarter) to a fully-modded Vulture. Here's the thing - it didn't feel like a grind, and I was surprisingly surprised by that.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that a tooled-up, fished-out Vulture isn't quite such a lofty goal as a lot of you folk on here - there's always going to be a lot more legwork in getting a Cutter up to spec, for example. It is, however, the goal which gives me the best fun:time ratio in the game (YMMV).
It just seems to me that a lot of what people talk about as "the grind" can be avoided with intelligent use of the tools available - Inara, Coriolis.io, EDDB, this forum and the like. I set myself a goal, and I used those tools to focus my activities such that getting everything I needed (both money and resources) was reasonably simple. I know there are those of you out there who say we shouldn't need external tools and everything should be available in the game, but...seriously? You think there wouldn't be a galactic version of the Internet in 3302? Of course there would be, and people would talk rubbish, tell others where they found useful stuff, keep track of the markets and shout when they found a bargain just as much as they do in real life now. These tools are all part of the game, even though they weren't written by Frontier.
Sure, there have been irritations and annoyances (Exquisite Focus Crystals being the main one), but there are less in the game than there are in real life. Since I reset my save, I've concentrated on playing the game that's there instead of the game that I thought it should be, and I've been a lot happier because of it (my blood pressure thanked me too).
From that perspective, 2.2 is brilliant. I don't use fighters, and I don't ferry irritating passengers around, but everything else just seems to have made the game nicer to play. Even PvP has become a bit more interesting again, albeit not quite as much so as 2.0.
Anyway, that's my take on it. Chill, play the game that's in front of you, and be happy.
Of course, I know that ain't gonna happen, so I'm here in my flame-retardant suit waiting for the inevitable...
Until a couple of months ago, I was getting more and more frustrated with the game - it honestly felt like a grind (not to mention the heat effects which destroyed PvP), and it got to the point where I couldn't face playing any more...so I reset my save, came up with a backstory for my new CMDR, and set about getting his life back on track.
In two months, playing an average of slightly less than half an hour a day, I've gone from an Eagle (Imperial Bounty Hunter pack, courtesy of Kickstarter) to a fully-modded Vulture. Here's the thing - it didn't feel like a grind, and I was surprisingly surprised by that.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that a tooled-up, fished-out Vulture isn't quite such a lofty goal as a lot of you folk on here - there's always going to be a lot more legwork in getting a Cutter up to spec, for example. It is, however, the goal which gives me the best fun:time ratio in the game (YMMV).
It just seems to me that a lot of what people talk about as "the grind" can be avoided with intelligent use of the tools available - Inara, Coriolis.io, EDDB, this forum and the like. I set myself a goal, and I used those tools to focus my activities such that getting everything I needed (both money and resources) was reasonably simple. I know there are those of you out there who say we shouldn't need external tools and everything should be available in the game, but...seriously? You think there wouldn't be a galactic version of the Internet in 3302? Of course there would be, and people would talk rubbish, tell others where they found useful stuff, keep track of the markets and shout when they found a bargain just as much as they do in real life now. These tools are all part of the game, even though they weren't written by Frontier.
Sure, there have been irritations and annoyances (Exquisite Focus Crystals being the main one), but there are less in the game than there are in real life. Since I reset my save, I've concentrated on playing the game that's there instead of the game that I thought it should be, and I've been a lot happier because of it (my blood pressure thanked me too).
From that perspective, 2.2 is brilliant. I don't use fighters, and I don't ferry irritating passengers around, but everything else just seems to have made the game nicer to play. Even PvP has become a bit more interesting again, albeit not quite as much so as 2.0.
Anyway, that's my take on it. Chill, play the game that's in front of you, and be happy.
Of course, I know that ain't gonna happen, so I'm here in my flame-retardant suit waiting for the inevitable...
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
