Back in 2015, I was really blown away by the game. The graphics. The ships. The…HUGE FUCKING MAP of pretty much every known (and unknown) system in the Milky Way. 400 billion systems out there. But if you told me, that the game was unfair to new players, and that you would do nothing but grind your ass off to get anywhere in the game…I would had been turned off and not wasted $60 on it (plus $50 on a brand new Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X in hopes to be a better pilot).
However, I really like my HOTAS. It was a good investment. I just wish my arms would, instead of getting sore. :/
See, bounty missions are quite fun and challenging. Sometimes, risks are fun. And other times…they’re too much. Because the price of failure, is HUGE!!! As big as the Milky Way! It doesn’t matter how many bounties you collect. One single death, and you lose. them. ALL. That, is fucking ridiculous! Absolutely fucking ridiculous!! You have absolutely NO room for error. You might as well just uninstall my save if you’re going to do that! Because, THAT is what death feels like in this game.
Death is nothing but the game saying ‘get gud’ to you. I’m not fucking playing Dark Souls, here (which is rumored to be one of the most punishing games to exist)!!
Sure, I could do trading. But that’s as risky if not more, especially hauling illegit cargo (slaves) in and around the Robigo system. It’s more risky, as the police ships (if they scan you), will open fire and likely kill you before you make it to the station entrance. You got to have nerves of steel to deal with that.
I’ve been told that it’s “freaking easy” to get away from enemies. I love how the person thinks they speak for everyone. Maybe he can be calm under pressure, but me?…when my shields go down, and my cargo hold is full of pricey bounty turn-ins, I fucking panic. “NO!! I don’t want to lose my bounties!! GOTTA GET AWAY!!!” is what pops up in my mind. It leaves me no room to think of using my Chaff Launcher, or picking a system to jump to.
THIS is what grinding has done to me. THIS…is what the punishing death system, has done to me. And you know their answer to this? If it’s “then stop playing”, you would not be incorrect.
Yet, “just stop playing” doesn’t fix the situation. Putting the game down, doesn’t make me a better player…but it certainly doesn’t help me concentrate any better. And spare me of the “the game isn’t for you” shit. There are absolutely NO games out there for me, that I don’t find one fucking thing wrong with (that makes me rage)! Not. one. damn. game…
But to look at this game from a “the game doesn’t change” perspective, no matter what ship you have? I find that unlikely. And they seem to refuse to see it from my perspective. Or maybe I refuse to see it from theirs.
The way I see it, each ship can only do so much. To me, that encourages upgrading. But upgrading comes with a cost, sometimes the cost is your soul of grinding your ass off to get it. And I really wish I could see it from their perspective. Maybe then I would really understand why this game exists, and why it’s so popular.
And actually, maybe I do. But I just don’t get why the only way to get what you want, is grinding. No matter how big your FSD is, how many shields you have, how many guns you have…the core game is the same. This is what they base it off of. It all has to do with preference.
Sure, the ships are different, but the main core of the game remains unchanged. And the only way to get what you want, is patience. Pure patience, and understanding that things take time. Something I’ve always lacked in life. That childish ‘now’ factor is still a part of me. Because, even if I get what I want, the “now what?” feeling hits like a brick.
So I decided to take a break from the grinding, and actually…go somewhere. With the assistance of one of my friends, I traded in my Adder for a Viper MK3. A lot of people say I should had gone with a Cobra instead. Though the Cobra looks too much like the Sidewinder (even though they were made by the same company).
I’m currently far, far away from where I was. Far away from the mess that is Power Play. Far away from human civilization. 100Ly away, in the ‘Pleiades Nebula’. The system I’m in is very interesting. Several gas giants that turned into stars, with a huge B-Class star in the middle. There’s also a station here…of all the places to actually have human civilization.
My destination is the California Nebula. Ever since I saw it, I really wanted to go there. I don’t expect to find any civilization there. The only reason the station is here, is from an expansion project of a player to help their respected Power. Though this is causing the system to lose money left and right from the upkeep, due to having no real value.
Though I’m also going to be sidetracking from reaching the Cali Nebula, and joining a guy I met on Steam to get to another Nebula (the North America Nebula).
Exploring may not pay much in credits (unless you do a lot of scanning), but it pays of your eyes seeing all of this..coolness. And it’s better than grinding for credits.
Infact, I don’t really care for a Vulture anymore. Bigger ships move slower, and are also bigger targets in combat. Though I may just settle with an ASP Explorer, fuck ever doing bounties again, and not go any further.
But there’s something I don’t seem to get. Every system I go to(that’s really far from human civilization), has already been discovered…yet why am I discovering it? All I can assume is, the system map data was never found. Yet…yet the data of who originally discovered the system, remains intact. How..in the FUCK does that make sense?!?!
If I discover the system, I expect to see “discovered by Benie”! Why..why does the original system discover-er, even matter? For fame? So, why not also have the fucking system map?! They found the system, so let’s see the system map FFS!!!
It’s nothing more than another poorly thought of gimmick to get credits(that shouldn’t even exist). The person that found the system, the system map data should be shared server-wide..not just for the client. So even if I scan several systems, and turn in the scan data for profit, only I will see it. Anyone else will not see what I’ve seen. It rips the immersion right out of me.
This isn’t a Single Player game. If it was, then I would understand why this is a thing.