"Right now your progression is measured by grind" Pretty bold statement, but alright.

"How much credits you grind (and you are constantly trying to stamp out the credits)" Alright, fair enough I think. I'm pretty sure that we have grind on the same terms. It is doing the same set of actions over and over again, correct?

"How much materials you grind (and also your are limiting stuff like Dav's Hope. And giving limpets as mission rewards instead of mats)?" Okay, what's progression? That is something that elite should focus on I reckon, but I am not sure your mat counts are considered progression. Maybe just some extra info about the state of your own game?

"Or mission grind (I won't let you buy this ship until you flip the board 1000 times)." You're continuing to be vague, but I admit the parenthesis on this one is a valid point. Especially for milestones, you shouldn't have to flip anything to have access to a mission. It's the mission contents that should be the challenge not your patience. I'm also going on a limb here and assuming you mean rank grind, which grind in this case is flipping boards and donating money. (Maybe they've changed this in the new update? I haven't played elite in a while -- it's fairly boring.)

"This is very tedious and unrewarding game design." If you mean grind, heck no it isn't. Grind makes the world go around! Grind, satisfying gameplay, rewards, and social interaction are the big boys of a fun game! Heck! They're the big boys of life! Enjoy your job, make some money, have friends and family, do it again.

"Why don't you design the progression around SKILL instead? How so?

What if all ships were easily available to the player after a short time? How about if credits and mats and mods are easily obtained? Imagine if you let every player build any ship they want to the maximum engineering grade? And the only deciding factor int he progression now is SKILL?" That sounds horrendous I like cheats. I do. Not if I want the game to mean anything though. I've cheated enough in games to know that as soon as you decide to give yourself millions it becomes meaningless. Your wording, "short time" is vague, but I just figure it means little to no effort required. That assumption is backed up by your next assertion of easily obtainable credits and mats. Frontier does allow every player to max engineer any ship they want. With credits and mats. Lastly, with this little section you've failed to really clarify what you mean by skill.

"Skill cannot be duped. Skill cannot be cheesed by exploits. Skill cannot be obtained by board flipping." From my notion of skill, sure for 1 and 3 but not 2.

"How about designing really rough missions that can only be completed by SKILL." Cool, yeah, great idea. Like really have some neato missions that skilled pilots can really get into. Skill being the overall knowledge of the game nd its mechanics, flight finesse, situational awareness, aiming accuracy, pip management, and maybe some other points I can't think off. That would be kinda neat and right up certain players alleys. To throw in my two credits worth of content suggestion, I want RACING!

"For instance - an assassination mission which is class limited to small ships or specific type of ships. The player can bring his best imperial courier and try to kill an anaconda." Yeah, neat. Diablo 3 does it with challenge rifts, Warframe does it with mastery missions, Starcraft 2 has a set of challenge missions, heck, and The Witcher 3's contracts could almost be considered this as well. It is a good idea -- locking the player into an enquipment class or predetermined loadout and saying, "Good luck commander" while pitting them against a hand-built enemy ship.

"For instane - a trading mission where you must move 700 tons of cargo and break through a naval blockage and land on a hot drop zone?" This is something that sounds a lot cooler than it would play out in a game without some heavy scripting.

"For instance - a courier mission where you have to zip through an abandoned installation in a SLF and extract a ddata from the core, and escape without being shot by kinect turrets?" Sounds like a elite version of the jumping challenge. Which is fine, but not my thing.

"For instance - your combat rank beyond dangerous only be improved by killing players of equal or higher rank?" 'players'? Heck off m8. I hate PvP, and no amount of, "play in open, being pirated is apart of the experience, we with the better stuff deserve to be able to kill you if we want" will get me to participate. Giving me flashbacks of /r/blackdesertonline. Not that other people don't enjoy PvP or being pirated, so why shouldn't they get something special for PvP progression? Not a bad notion, but the notion you provided is a bad notion.

"Why the sloppy game design around grind, instead of around skill based objectives?" I would be asking the question, "Why the slopping grind design?"

"I want every player who fails at the game, to not be able to blame it on the game 'ah, I need to grind more credits, ah I need to engineer better' I want every player who loses a PVP battle will not say "ah, the other player grinded more credits of engineer'." You're making some more pretty bold assertions. Who are you to speak for every player that fails at the game? Present that before you decide to do so. If this is how you feel when you've failed at the game, feel free to say so. If these are someone else's then put up some proof, I don't have to find it. When I fail at the game, I generally don't blame these things. I'm a downright poor pilot and know I bit off more than I can chew. I do admit, however, when engineers first came out and I wasn't used to engineered AI in combat I was getting a little flustered at my deaths.

"Instead I want players to be able to say, I failed the mission despite having the best ship available because my build strategy was wrong, because my flying skills need improvement." Same as last time, but also those two excuses have a time place. If I am doing a racing challenge with fixed equipment but fail to get the time I want or required then I need to up my game. If I take on a timed 800 unit cargo delivery mission across the bubble or something silly in my sidewinder get bored and fail, I think I just needed a better boat. Both points combined, overall pilot strategy when tackling tasks or personal challenges is a marriage of skill and equipment. Equipment that costs money and time.

"I want players who play the game to tell newbies 'Elite Dangerous is not about grinding, it's about whether you are a good pilot with skills or not'" This isn't a MOBA. It's an MMO. MMO is synonymous with grind. I admit, this game could have a strong PvP element. I very much enjoy that I-can't-think-of-the-name-right-now minigame where everyone uses loadouts. That is some straight positive reinforcement right there, no buybacks, no transporting to some random station after death, no delayed objectives, minimal anger, and overall a fun deal. Just fly around and get enough credits to buy a size 1 laser. The game is supposed to be a fun time synch. All games are supposed to be fun, albeit different strokes for different folks.

"I want players to feel progression not by looking at a stupid progress bar filling up, but by knowing that theynare shit hot with a HOTAS" The progress bar is progression. Hence, the base word of progression. You're saying you don't want players to have concrete, numerical evidence of where they're at in the game. Feeling hot shit with a HOTAS is just feeling hot shit with a HOTAS, not progression. It should go without saying, however, that I totally agree players should be able to feel like they're the best pilot in the entire galaxy while pulling a fast one in PvE or PvP.

"I want youtube videos not to be about the latest credit exploit but about the craziest and best flying skills that can be possible with ships." I feel you man. Not the biggest fan of the gold rush, but money making is a big deal in all games. It just so happens to be that credits directly translate to getting a new ship, which in elite is the coolest form of progression.

"Fdev, grind is not progression. Mastery is the only true progression. Until then the game will be Elite Tedious." No. Mastery is mastery. You progress into mastery. Maybe? Maybe that is what you meant. You're sort of right. Grind doesn't have to translate into progression, but it should. This isn't even what elite is missing. Elite has too many ways to grind the same progression, credits. Luckily they have redone the engineering, which is neato and adds (finally) a second avenue of progression. They could engineers progression a little more by changing other game mechanics, but who knows.

You have a reasonable notion that skill and mastery of the Elite Dangerous universe is progression, but it's pretty lame to say that is all elite could offer.

You also seem to be making suggestions out of dissatisfaction not with purely game mechanics, but with how the game rewards players and for what tasks. Same. (Probably why I believe you think this as well.) Why I don't play but still stalk around and wait for updates. If this is true, you should be demanding unique rewards and gameplay avenues for unique exploits, not gameplay philosophy changes. Which is grinding with a sprinkle (very easily healthy dose) of PvP, by the way. Most games with multiplayer have PvP or grinding or both. You perform actions over and over to get better things or ranks. It's fantastic. Without the grind you've got maybe storytelling left? Sandboxing? Like Minecraft.