Spansh to GGG/Beagle, get the blueprint, and self destruct to teleport back to the bubble
What do you think of "cheesing" in ED?
- Thread starter DjVortex
- Start date
Spansh to GGG/Beagle, get the blueprint, and self destruct to teleport back to the bubble
I would love to see one of the ED community managers start a livestream series that plays through from starting a new CMDR to buying and outfitting/engineering a Chieftain that matches the spec of their pre-built ax ship, gather the ammo synth materials required, and completing a low axcz solo. Obviously using their intended material collection methods.
I limit myself to cheeses that have not had stuff added that I won't eat at any other time.You should just eat the cheese and enjoy it. It’s how the cheese maker designed it.
The problem, such as it is, is that you actually get more fun if you grind it.
Consider, for example, stopping after you blow up an enemy ship to collect the scattered materials. First you have to navigate to the scattered materials, which have likely sprayed out in the direction the ship was moving when it died. Then you need to deploy collector limpets, which takes a not insignificant amount of time. Then, you need to wait for them to do their job. All in all, you are probably looking at maybe 60 seconds.
All for a fairly paltry collection of mediocre materials. No, this might not sound like very much, but if you add up all the time you spend collecting these materials, you will actually end up spending hours and hours collecting at a relatively slow speed. It's just disguised by the fact it's spread out between different activities.
But the smart player will just ignore them, instead focus on killing enemy ships which they actually enjoy, and then later grind hge for an hour or so, get far more materials, and spend less time doing it.
In the end, they have more fun playing that way.
The funny thing is, the answer is actually really simple. You just need to let players collect these materials without all the annoying waste of time. If you could scoop up those materials in 5 seconds, rather than 60 seconds, then suddenly doing so actually makes sense. Sure, you aren't going to be getting materials as fast as if you were farming hge, but the actual time spent specifically collecting materials would be substantially lower. Which means players spend more time doing the things they actually enjoy, which means they actually have a good time, which means they stop complaining.
Last edited:
I first heard about the relog thing from a Youtuber (possibly Yammicks) who specifically stated that they were using the method so they could spend more time making videos for revenue and accepted that it was dull and repetitive.
It was only somewhat later that they changed to actually recommend doing these particular loops and later still that they realised players were concentrating on the specific locations they showed in the videos with all the consequences for Anarchies.
It was only somewhat later that they changed to actually recommend doing these particular loops and later still that they realised players were concentrating on the specific locations they showed in the videos with all the consequences for Anarchies.
A glorious combination. The truffle marmite you can get in Sainsbury’s is amazing!
Really?
Adorable
Is there a better term for it?
I don't doubt that there is a certain subset of players who don't really think about what they are doing, or whether they are actually enjoying themselves in a given moment. But given they are going to have the same time regardless, since they clearly don't think about it anyway, the only ones that really matter are the ones who do think about it.
I can see why you’d consider it a waste of time if that’s how you’re going about it. That strategy barely made any sense before material trading, and afterwards? Far more effective to trade down with G5s.
Personally, I never bother collecting G1-3 materials, and only collect G4 materials if I have any limpets left over after directly targeting the G5 stuff, so I can synthesize more, since limpets are cheap in credits or mats. Directly targeting mats is much quicker than passive limpet collection, after all.
Here’s the thing, at least from my point of view. When you’re en route to your destination? Unless you stick to the slow, NPC-pirate infested “Shipping Lanes,” you’re likely to pass an HGE. Why not make a quick drop in and lick the stuff up? Accomplish two two tasks with one trip?
Hmm… on the one hand I’m having fun all the time, aside from the few seconds it takes it collect mats via directly targeted limpets.. On the other hand, I gave to interrupt my fun with activities described as a grind.
Does not compute!
Why, you’re quite right! How did we not think of that? Oh, right, quite a few of us did!
That's definitely the ideal way to do it if you choose to play that way, but it's still substantially slower than the alternative. But can you honestly say it's a good thing that the best advice you can suggest is to ignore about 90% of the materials to come across?
A significant portion of players trick themselves into thinking they are having fun by spreading out the unfun aspects of material collection.
But it's like, imagine that you could play a video game but every hour you get Zapped by an electrical shock five times. Some players prefer to spread out the electrical shocks. Others prefer to get them all out of the way at once. I don't think either way is inherently better or worse than the other. But if one side told the other side that it really wasn't that bad because you only had to get electrically shocked every once in awhile, they'd probably think they were crazy.
Ultimately, there shouldn't be any electrical shocks in the first place.
We've had this debate before, but collection by limpets is actually one of the proper hard-SF activities in the game. Limpets use actual physics and bring back visible chunks. This kind of "looting" is vastly more immersive than what happens in most multi-player games, and IMO it should never be dumbed down.
Materials are gained by destroying enemies and collecting the fragments, not destroying enemies and leaving valuable stuff floating in space. It makes no sense to separate the two steps and then regard the time spent on one of the steps as "wasted".
You can yell about 'realism' all you like, it won't change the fact that players do get annoyed, and do leave bad reviews and quit as a direct result.
Frankly, the realism argument is pretty tired and worn out at this point. We have real ingame examples that could solve this problem perfectly well. Thargoids have tractor beams, for example. Hatchbreaker Limpets travel at 500m/s. SRVs have cargo capacity that can be transferred to your ship. There are any number of perfectly realistic options that don't involve stopping the fun for 60 seconds a few dozen times per hour and ignoring 90% of materials as a waste of time.
Last edited:
I think it's a good thing that players have a choice.
I don't have to trick myself into thinking I'm having fun. I am having fun, because there's still a meaningful choice of whether or not to collect materials, and how to do so, and because some skill is required to collect them quickly. That's why I play games in the first place: to make meaningful choices that I'd never have to make in real life, and to develop skills I'd never be able to use.
Of course, most of that choice exists because I never bothered "cheesing" my combat ranking, nor have I used combat to "cheese" my credits back in the day.
the need to be family friendly prevents me from commenting on this...
Well, I wasn't yelling.
Sure, you have a choice. If you don't want to do the immersive looting method, well-known shortcuts are available. But then I find another thing that makes no sense: choosing to play in a shortcut way and then getting annoyed about it and posting bad reviews.
I like to say that ED implements cause-and-effect:-
If you leave valuable materials floating in space, they don't appear in your inventory.
If you choose to play in a boring way, you get bored.
...etc.
Is the immersive looting method actually immersive? I've never found the material gathering process anywhere near convincing. I can go blow up ships for cash Venmo'd into my checking account, but I can't buy iron in bulk? The best stuff only appears randomly or from missions, but doesn't drop like candy from elite level military vessels? etc.
This would be like opening the fuselage of a super high tech drone, but it's just an old desktop running DOS inside. That isn't immersive imo.
edited so i dont get in trouble for my hypothetical not serious comment
This would be like opening the fuselage of a super high tech drone, but it's just an old desktop running DOS inside. That isn't immersive imo.
edited so i dont get in trouble for my hypothetical not serious comment
Forcing players to choose between two bad things is not a good choice, or good gameplay.
Here's the basic fundamental problem; materials are meant to be a reward. Forcing players to go through unnecessary extra steps to collect a reward doesn't make the game any better, or the reward anymore satisfying. The best case is that a highly skilled player does not get annoyed. But what point is there in content that, at best, causes no enjoyment?
It's like they say, if something causes you no joy, throw it out. Material collection causes No joy. It should be thrown out.
I'm sorry, perhaps I was unclear, but I think you missed my point. My point is, the grindy way is the most enjoyable way for them. Or, to put it differently, the least annoying.
There is no enjoyable way to collect materials. There is only the way that causes the least annoyance. That's why so many people want to be able to just buy materials, because no aspect of the material collection process brings joy. And why do something that doesn't bring you any joy?
Or you sacrifice a little space and collect one unit of cargo and all of a sudden the targets come to you.
I look at collecting lower grade materials as saving having to trade down so much of the higher rated ones which means they go further when you do find them.
Exactly. There is no joy, only less annoyance. Why have features where the only point is being less annoying? Why have annoying features at all?