I wish we could tag modules to certain ships and use filters on the list like type, class, etc.
Part of the reason people create separate builds is because managing the module list is pretty hard.
Your least enjoyable Elite activity?
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I wish we could tag modules to certain ships and use filters on the list like type, class, etc.
Part of the reason people create separate builds is because managing the module list is pretty hard.
Man if ice planets looked anything like that gif, I would be one happy camper.
Currently whenever I land on most planets it's like I've stepped into a late 90s game.
Infiltrating settlements. I tried it a few times but it just remains a conundrum. There are a few generators and stuff that you can disable to open barriers, but I usually just drive around aimlessly, get lost and killed by turrets and NPC sniper ships. There probably is a guide how to use exploits in oder to succeed but I guess the rewards aren't worth it and I don't want to do it anyway because the gameplay loop just isn't satisfying.
Drive (or fly) about and identify all the locations of things you might need to interact with before you make your run.
I think it's how impactful the changes were with engineers and HP rebalance, FSS replacing existing gameplay - it screws over established playthroughs and causes a bad experience. And salt over the feeling hundreds of hours are now down the drain.
And in a MP game ppl also invest into social bonds - it really sucks to see that investment get turned into paste.
And in a MP game ppl also invest into social bonds - it really sucks to see that investment get turned into paste.
This would probably work but I guess I still wouldn't enjoy it. Luckily it's entirely optional.
It's probably not good from time/reward point, but it was something I enjoyed for it's atmosphere and had a couple layouts memorised. Quick and dirty missions are actually possible depending onbase size and security. Did it mostly for the fun of it and BGS missions. Barely looked at the stuff I collected - seemed kinda pointless before engineers. And after I never really felt they yielded something meaningful - the tech-garble was all the same to me. Influence was what I wanted, when it wasn't about muffled "wheels crunching rocks" atmospheric intake.
The least enjoyable thing I've done in Elite would have to be Fed Rank grinding, I did this directly after grinding a 99 in Runescape and it Killed me mentally, I had to stop playing games for a few days after that.
Though regarding a consistent thing, I'd have to say trying to land a 1.7kT Ship on anything over 1g of Gravity, despite landing being somewhat fun for me, this most certainly isn't, especially at HR1185, I was forced to fit my FAS with a Docking Computer as it was impossible for me to land there, couldn't imagine taking my Corvette there even with one.
Second to that? having to travel more than 5kLs to go to a station, I find it quite annoying, last night I had the joy of landing my ship with 100t of cargo on a 1.4g planet 32kLs from the Star.
But funnily enough, contrary to how most people feel, I quite enjoy Engineer grinding, it fills the hours in and lets me think about things without really paying attention to the game, but I also have a high tolerance for grinding, so good music or a friend to chat with usually takes my mind off it.
Though regarding a consistent thing, I'd have to say trying to land a 1.7kT Ship on anything over 1g of Gravity, despite landing being somewhat fun for me, this most certainly isn't, especially at HR1185, I was forced to fit my FAS with a Docking Computer as it was impossible for me to land there, couldn't imagine taking my Corvette there even with one.
Second to that? having to travel more than 5kLs to go to a station, I find it quite annoying, last night I had the joy of landing my ship with 100t of cargo on a 1.4g planet 32kLs from the Star.
But funnily enough, contrary to how most people feel, I quite enjoy Engineer grinding, it fills the hours in and lets me think about things without really paying attention to the game, but I also have a high tolerance for grinding, so good music or a friend to chat with usually takes my mind off it.
What's the difference between engineer grind and fed rank grind? The little rewards in between?
Material Grinding gives me more things to look at, it's more engaging and I can always change my scenery at any time, when I did my Fed Rank grinding I used the old hot spots, Data Delivery between the two same systems for several hours a day and all that, it was mind numbing, even with friends and Music, took about 2 or 4 weeks, as I had other things to do outside the game, it was driving me crazy, but I was determined to get my Corvette.
This was long before they changed how mission generating worked, so it was common to find a system with several of the same missions to the same place. but sometimes you'd find two systems that synergized with each other like this. and no, I didn't board flip, I took the time between ticks to do house work, brush up on my studies and so on, didn't like the idea of using that method.
I have more fun driving around the same orange rock for 3 hours than I do doing data delivery over and over again. Besides, with Engineers I'm actually getting something out of it and it's worth my time in the long run.
Might just be a me thing though, I find joy in small things and annoyances in others that one typically wouldn't.
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I played in a time when normal gameplay yielded as good as no progress. 1 month of frequent mission running -> 1 digit increase in rank progress. For some rank that unlocks FGS, not really that high.
All the time spent planet side picking up rocks and maybe the odd data thing: enough to craft 3 items for engineers.
Literally every content is designed with a grind. Want to fly a ship? Grind this. Want to have a really fast Viper? Grind that. I swear the creative lead must've been acolyte of Asian MMO games and mobile phone designer in the past. They even announced the fleet carriers with credit gate. There is nothing you can play in ED without grinding it out anymore. I fully expect next release content will be grind masteries just as well. Beats me why people would pay for that but that's hungry for content I guess.
ED went wrong on multiple fronts but the grindgeddon was what finally tossed it over. It simply isn't worth the time spent in the game when all the game does is nickel and dime you for playtime for each little progress you might hope to achieve.
Ditto. Imp rank a close second.
Combat is my favourite. I love the adrenaline rush, even after 5 years.
I always get confused by the rank grind comments. I have the ranks necessary to buy the Cutter and Corvette. But I never went for the grind. I merely played missions here and there and once while a promotion mission turned up. Even more fascinating: I never did the Empire promotion mission to get the rank "King". I just liked the title "Duke" too much to get myself promoted any further. Despite (as far as I know) I never did the promotion mission, my rank changed to "King" during one of the patches last spring/summer. It guess something there just updated the ranks, corresponding to your faction rating.
So yes, I do understand that those who go the "big ship in a day" route then realize that while they have the credits, they don't have the rank. And if grind was the answer to the problem of credits, then of course it's also seen as the answer to the problem of faction rank. Of course I might just have been lucky and my style of playing just matched neatly to how progression was designed to be. Maybe I am just more patient, for sure I never felt the need to artificially progress my faction rank. This is all based on my personal experience, but at least for me faction rank came easily and naturally, with no grind required.
For me the real grind were old-time engineers and, to some degree, the guardian unlocks. The first I mostly ignored due to how terrible it was. Luckily it is much better now. Still not good or enjoyable, but at least not as disgustingly bad as it formerly was. (Most of my ships engineering was done after the rework of engineers. ) The second was the only thing I ever grinded myself through in this game. The experience of collecting guardian materials actually was great the first few times. But the number of items you need to unlock tech broker items is just too high. You have to repeat the very same thing for so many times, it becomes a chore. And unlike other content, it also doesn't really have any noticeable variation to keep it at least somewhat interesting.
What I mean is: when you really want to grind faction rank, you can of course run the same mission a dozen times. But you can also pick up a variety of missions and run those. You can do different things and still reach your goal in the end, you can naturally integrate that into your normal gameplay. Guardian ruins on the other hand are exactly the same, time after time, and there's no alternative of getting the corresponding materials. And the trip there is so long, you also don't just hop there, do it once and leave again. Just traveling there and back is some serious time investment, so you better make sure you get everything you want and need before leaving again. Which really turns them into an unpleasant experience.
So yes, I do understand that those who go the "big ship in a day" route then realize that while they have the credits, they don't have the rank. And if grind was the answer to the problem of credits, then of course it's also seen as the answer to the problem of faction rank. Of course I might just have been lucky and my style of playing just matched neatly to how progression was designed to be. Maybe I am just more patient, for sure I never felt the need to artificially progress my faction rank. This is all based on my personal experience, but at least for me faction rank came easily and naturally, with no grind required.
For me the real grind were old-time engineers and, to some degree, the guardian unlocks. The first I mostly ignored due to how terrible it was. Luckily it is much better now. Still not good or enjoyable, but at least not as disgustingly bad as it formerly was. (Most of my ships engineering was done after the rework of engineers. ) The second was the only thing I ever grinded myself through in this game. The experience of collecting guardian materials actually was great the first few times. But the number of items you need to unlock tech broker items is just too high. You have to repeat the very same thing for so many times, it becomes a chore. And unlike other content, it also doesn't really have any noticeable variation to keep it at least somewhat interesting.
What I mean is: when you really want to grind faction rank, you can of course run the same mission a dozen times. But you can also pick up a variety of missions and run those. You can do different things and still reach your goal in the end, you can naturally integrate that into your normal gameplay. Guardian ruins on the other hand are exactly the same, time after time, and there's no alternative of getting the corresponding materials. And the trip there is so long, you also don't just hop there, do it once and leave again. Just traveling there and back is some serious time investment, so you better make sure you get everything you want and need before leaving again. Which really turns them into an unpleasant experience.
Yeah, I had quite the opposite experience, I started my Elite career with interest in exploration and did some lengthy tours that grinded me plenty of credits - but neither engineering materials nor faction rank.
Luckily some aspects of exploration trained for mindnumbingly boring mission stacking grind. It's funny tho, when you hit duke/rear admiral, you are basically released from "mandatory" mission playing which is lucky I guess because I don't really like the cookie-cutter missions that much.
I do see your point. But I think that the mission system is underrated here. Purely from the technical side of things the mission system is one of those parts of the game which are rather well done and work perfectly fine. We have a variety of missions, we have the ability to branch and chain them. They just fall somewhat short on flair and atmosphere. I do believe that allowing a skilled writer / storyteller to use the given mechanics and add some stories and background would be a very valuable addition to the game.
It used to be different. Sure ppl shortcutted by doing donation missions spending all the millions they cheesed off the game god knows how. But the standard average player experience was rather "stagnation". It didn't help much that constant reworking left players clueless what were efficient ways to "level". 500 hours played. My ranking was almost entitrely done for the feds. Still couldn't buy a bloody FGS after all that time (I had the money, but only because I cheesed smuggling missions. Which were pretty fun, btw, but FD doesn't really understand what fun is, imo, else they might have kept them.)
I think all the exploits popping up all the time - they are symptoms of the game design goiing wrong. Players seek to shortcut excessive repetition while FD designs its game around that repetition. It's two mindsets colliding and I find it is close to a miracle ED did so well with all that.
I don't disagree as such, though some things seem a bit arbitrary ("With the 1mil credits you donated, we managed to produce this 2 tons of water, which you can now deliver in the name of democracy.") and others poorly rewarded outside BGS ("Massacre 94 Potato Purple Crew Gang ships for the war effort.").
I never accepted those missions. Just extrapolating 10min - 15 min combat rounds nets me a total time required of 15 to 23 hours of purely dedicating to that one mission. That is insane.