The video critiques Star Citizen’s crafting and resource gathering systems for being excessively grind-heavy, reliant on frustrating RNG, and lacking user-friendly tools despite the game’s extensive funding and development time. While the author enjoys similar mechanics in other games, they find Star Citizen’s slow, tedious processes and manual cargo handling detract from the fun, urging for improvements and inviting player feedback.
The video discusses the author’s passion for resource gathering, mining, and crafting in games like 7 Days to Die, Windrose, and Valheim, where the process is enjoyable and straightforward with minimal randomness. The author contrasts this with their experience in Star Citizen, where crafting involves excessive grind and multiple layers of random number generation (RNG), making the process tedious and frustrating. They describe the complex and time-consuming steps required to obtain high-quality materials, such as scanning and mining rocks one by one with the mole ship, which often leads to wasted time and effort.
The author highlights a popular Reddit thread where players express similar frustrations about the crafting system in Star Citizen. The thread details how players must repeatedly complete monotonous missions and painstakingly search for rare materials, often dealing with bugs and RNG that negatively impact their experience. Despite acknowledging that this is the first iteration of crafting in the game, the author argues that with over a billion dollars in funding and more than a decade of development, the system should be more polished and less grind-heavy.
Further discussion touches on the manual and slow process of loading and unloading cargo, which players find unrewarding and reminiscent of a second job rather than enjoyable gameplay. The video references comments and responses from developers about potential future improvements, such as automated cargo handling services in larger spaceports and specialized ships for manual loading. However, these features are still in development, and the current state remains frustrating for many players.
The video also addresses the reliance on third-party tools to manage complex game data, criticizing Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) for not providing adequate in-game tools despite the game’s substantial funding. Some defenders argue that Star Citizen is an MMO designed for player interaction, trading, and cooperation, which could alleviate some grind issues. However, the author counters that the grind is excessive even with group play and likens the game’s design to free-to-play models that use grinding to encourage real-money purchases, making the core gameplay feel like a chore.
In conclusion, the author expresses disappointment with the current crafting and resource gathering systems in Star Citizen, emphasizing that while they enjoy these activities in other games, the excessive RNG and slow mechanics in Star Citizen detract from the fun. They invite viewers to share their own experiences with crafting and resource gathering in the game and encourage further discussion on how to improve these systems for a better player experience.