What motivates an Elite V explorer to keep exploring?

CMDRQuainMarln

CMDRQuainMarln
I am 8% away from Elite V in exploration. I feel like wherever I go in the galaxy I am seeing more of the same. Sure I have a long way to go on Exobiology, but this is a pleasing addition to exploration rather than a reason to do it for me.

So what motivates the Elite V rank explorers out there to explore more?
 

HRDiagram

HRDiagram
I've been Elite V since shortly after the release if Odyssey. I've never aimed at it: I just achieved it by doing something I enjoy.
Rank is not what motivates me, it's the enjoyment. There are times I don't fancy it: I stop.

I engage in every activity in the game, exploration being my favourite, and the one I've spent the largest amount of time upon.

That works in my favour because when I am tired of activity A, I move to activity B, then C and so forth until I feel like going back to A (or anything else) again.
And if I don't want to do any, I just don't play ED.
Nothing has to be a chore, in my view.

If you are bored with exploration, move onto something else, within or without ED.
Perhaps you'll get the exploration itch again, in future, but don't make yourself miserable, if that's what concerns you.
 

CMDRQuainMarln

CMDRQuainMarln
DjVortex said:
Have you considered doing other things in the game besides exploring, such as combat? A change of pace could be refreshing.
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I do loads of other stuff including player faction BGS game play. I just like to take a break and go exploring to build the rank a bit more. Now I need new motivation or simply abandon the exploration part of the game.
I plan to finish getting Elite in combat next.
 

Codger

Codger
I'm not Elite V, so I don't know.

But I've never done anything in the game to get a rank except for unlocking ships.

The ranks don't motivate me much. They don't reflect skill level so they don't have a lot of meaning to me.

I just do what I find enjoyable.
 

GroG79

G
If you like to collect medals.. Do collect medals

I never tried obtaining Elite for exploration.. But I did. With over a million LY travelled and 29000 hyperspace jumps (most of my exploration is on my ALT account now) and still not made it to Elite II. I can not even imaging what it takes to reach Elite V in exploration
 

marx

marx
You know, for years, what was the "classic" Elite in exploration would be almost Elite X now. There were of course a good number of people who have done that, and have gone on to do it many times over, so my point is that there was obviously enough to motivate them at least. With that in mind, have you really seen everything there is? Take a look through the most popular entries on the GEC (here is a handy link for a search sorted by explorer rating), perhaps you'll find some things there which you'd like to find one of your own too.

Now, on a galactic level, much of the galaxy is the same. There are four areas of the galaxy in terms of generation: the galactic core, the galactic arms, the inter-arm voids (the sparse spaces between the arms) and the rim. These have their distinct "characteristics" if you will. Otherwise, the direction you're in in the galaxy (North, South, West etc) doesn't matter much.
For the purposes of the hand-crafted content, which are NSPs in space and Odyssey (+ legacy Horizons) flora on the ground, which named region (Inner Orion Spur and so on) you're in does matter. You can find plants along the regions of various galactic arms that you can't find elsewhere. But these regions came years after the game launched, and they only matter for these kinds of content, not for the systems themselves.


Minor update in a later edit: I forgot that Odyssey brought a payout buff for mapping, so I adjusted the first sentence accordingly.
 
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Fixitman

F
CMDRQuainMarln said:
I am 8% away from Elite V in exploration. I feel like wherever I go in the galaxy I am seeing more of the same. Sure I have a long way to go on Exobiology, but this is a pleasing addition to exploration rather than a reason to do it for me.

So what motivates the Elite V rank explorers out there to explore more?
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Alternative viewpoint:

I'm wondering what motivates an explorer to be concerned about rank. Other than a few cosmetics, there's nothing gained by ranking up.
 

Darrack

Darrack
CMDRQuainMarln said:
I am 8% away from Elite V in exploration. I feel like wherever I go in the galaxy I am seeing more of the same. Sure I have a long way to go on Exobiology, but this is a pleasing addition to exploration rather than a reason to do it for me.

So what motivates the Elite V rank explorers out there to explore more?
Click to expand...
Ive been Elite V for a long time, exploration is my main time sink, i have a list of things i want to find alongside our quests to find new guardian sites and the elusive Raxxla.
I am 3 beacons away from completing all the known tourist spots which has been my main drive this year.
Other than that my motivation is going where others have not been before, discovering new worlds and taking some amazing pictures.
Its relaxing and some things i come across still give me that 'Wow' feeling.
There is no game out there this good.

O7
 

angusmadmac1

angusmadmac1
Being only in legacy what motivated me after I hit Elite in exploration (2018)was the exploring not the rank .
I didn't stop exploring once I hit Elite .
I have enough over the years to hit Elite V twice over.
The Elite ranking system has been broken for a while , trade was mining and the additional payouts when the new wave of exploration tools were brought in lessened the "Eliteness" of those ranks .
The prestige ranks were never really required but were an easy add for Fdev to give folk something else to aim for in the lean years .
 

marx

marx
CMDRQuainMarln said:
I do loads of other stuff including player faction BGS game play. I just like to take a break and go exploring to build the rank a bit more. Now I need new motivation or simply abandon the exploration part of the game.
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Well, it's entirely fine to take any break, including a permanent one. I suppose that new motivation would be finding out about something that you didn't even know would be possible to find: again, see entries on the GEC, you might see stuff (like the Carousel) that you didn't know you could look for.

To go back to the beginning then: what motivates the Elite V rank explorers out there to explore more? The same things that might motivate an Elite XXXIII rank explorer, or an Elite LXIX rank explorer, or a Surveyor rank explorer. Sometimes, it's to make a number go higher, but that will only last so long: displayed rank is capped, for credits it's better to do stuff in the bubble, and for systems visited or any other statistic, eh...
What other motivations might there be? Well, the obvious answer would be exploring, to look for new finds. Or quite often, it's to visit known finds out there and look through undiscovered systems on your way to your destination(s). Then there are people who like exploring in groups. Or seeing the sights and making lots of screenshots. Maybe just needing a break and a change of scenery from the bubble. One might not even have to leave the bubble anyway: there are things to discover not just around, but also inside it. For example, visit Fuca Point in LHS 200, look around the domes close up, try climbing the tower to the top. (It's not trivially easy.) Speaking of climbing, some people enjoy climbing high mountains instead - speaking of groups before, you could join a club and climb with others too. For some people, it's about the journey: they circumnavigate the galaxy, others a planet (moon), or go on a tour to visit all NSPs / tourist beacons / DSSA carriers / etc.
I probably forgot some other things too.

If none of those sound interesting for you to try though and you don't enjoy exploration gameplay, then yeah, it's better to do what you said, to "simply abandon the exploration part of the game." It's a game, what matters most should be to have fun.
 

CMDRQuainMarln

CMDRQuainMarln
GroG79 said:
If you like to collect medals.. Do collect medals

I never tried obtaining Elite for exploration.. But I did. With over a million LY travelled and 29000 hyperspace jumps (most of my exploration is on my ALT account now) and still not made it to Elite II. I can not even imaging what it takes to reach Elite V in exploration
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If a system has high metal content worlds I FSS scan it usually. I DSS WWs, ELWs and AWs. That's all I do as I travel and the ranks mount up.
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
GroG79 said:
With over a million LY travelled and 29000 hyperspace jumps (most of my exploration is on my ALT account now) and still not made it to Elite II. I can not even imaging what it takes to reach Elite V in exploration
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Probably scanning systems (and surface-scanning the most valuable planets) and reporting them.
 

Hellrider

H
Answering on question:
I explore for experience, not for ranks or credits.
That's why sometimes I trade (by trade I mean looking for various gooddies in different places without inara), and I still explore.
 

Joe Cool

Joe Cool
Proud Elite V explorer. One can become jaded by the day to day politicking of the bubble. The glory of bug bashing becomes tiresome.
Once you've visited it, felt the utter isolation of it, bathed in the knowledge that you are the first and possibly only human to take steps on this body, in this system even.
The calling of the black is there, it's always there - the only space you can truly be yourself.
The only place you can truly hear the ghosts in your machine!
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
GroG79 said:
Are you suggesting that I am dumb?
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I have traveled 281k ly and done 8100 hyperspace jumps, and I'm at exploration rank Elite III.

If you have traveled over 1 million ly and done 29000 hyperspace jumps, and are only at Elite I, there must be an explanation of how that's possible. And the only explanation I can think of is that you have not scanned and reported enough systems.

I gave my suggestion in earnest, and I get this kind of rude answer from you. Well, if my ideas are not good enough for you, then you can go and... well, I can't say it because I'll just get a forum infraction.
 

ORANGEORANGE

ORANGEORANGE
You may find interest in expeditions or scientific surveys done by other explorers. Distant Ruins is one such expedition, where explorers are basically trying to find more guardian ruins.

You can also take part in boxel surveys or find H-mass systems. If you're tech savvy and know how to code you can comb through the EDAstro data dumps for interesting systems that people visited but neglected to tell anyone about, either because they didn't know how special it was or simply didn't notice!

Here is one such system: https://edastro.com/gec/view/333
Binary ringed white dwarfs. Who knows what else is out there that people have missed!
 
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