Um, well, okay, hi and welcome to the forums! Look! You wrote your first post here. Excellent
But in writing an entire post critiquing someone else's response to the OP, you are, yourself projecting yourself onto others and judging because someone didn't see things the way you do. Know what I mean?
By the way, Xebeth is one of the most respected, even-handed, fair-minded, lack of bullshittery members of these boards, just in case you hadn't bothered to look up anything else he's said. And he's easily far too nice to slap you about a bit for your weird half-troll response to his response.
I'm not as nice as him.
People can play however they want. And if you
don't want to endure the boring repetition of your everyday life seeping into what little downtime you have available to chill out and play games then, sure, take a shortcut. I cheat the fuck out of my solo Ark games, for sure. That's cool. That's your choice. But here's some words that you probably won't read, but I'll write anyway.
Consider:
1. Shortcuts undermine any sense of achievement when you take the long way round, effectively executing a plan that requires commitment to achieve your goal. And that, in turn, diminishes your overall game experience and sense of commitment and satisfaction.
2. When you then say "I got Fed Rear Admiral in 4 days using a shortcut!" the people who took the long way round will be so thrilled with you and they'll heartily want to welcome you and your corner-cutting ways into their wing: some people won't care. Some people
like taking the long way round. And some people respect folks who played the game according to the spirit it was intended. Again, personal choice plays a huge part in this, and this is how some people feel about the people they want to play the game with.
3. Shortcuts don't give you stories to bond over. There's literally no game-play excitement or interesting outcomes to "I ran the same 4 stations for 4 days solid. It was so exciting that one time I landed and my promotion mission was right at the top of the first mission giver list I checked". Again, some people don't want war stories to bond over or interesting things to share in common with people they meet. That's up to you, dude.
4. "ANACONDA IN THREE DAYS!" videos and the like do nothing to teach people HOW to fly it, how to maintain it, how to outfit or engineer it, in fact, it only teaches you how to get an anaconda in three days. All the other shit that people who take the longer route will learn along the way is utterly missing: there is merit in having to learn this shit as you rank up and
earn your stripes, knowledge and money on the way to buying that ship of your dreams.
5. The shortcuts players are, typically, the ones who then (and only very rarely politely) go onto forums and into discord to demand everyone else patch up the missing holes in their understanding and ability to deal with the whatever gameplay destination they've arrived at. For example: not understanding the importance of a fuel scoop. Not knowing how to outfit for combat vs exploration. Not understanding how engineering works, much less how to actually do it. And this is fine: ED players are, by and large, happy to help.
But a community becomes stronger the more people there are on the "Helping out" side of the line instead of the "Needing Help" side. And shortcuts do not, generally speaking, equip people with what they need to be on the right side of the line. Yes, I'm saying that shit weakens communities: when the most active and newest players are all taking shortcuts, the active knowledge base and ability to positively engage with each other diminishes.
I'm not known for my over-arching friendliness and willingness to jump in and smile at everyone here. But I
do believe that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing
well. And that Xebeth is a nicer person than I am and deserved a better review: he said relatively little and you devoted your first post here to bitching at him. I wonder whether you'd like to give your "Hello! Nice to meet you!" entry to these forums another go?
This community in general is one of the greatest things Elite: Dangerous has to offer and, as such, if I can stick my oar in from time to time and try to make things a little more positive then, at the very least, I can drink my rum knowing I earned it for once.
Take shortcuts or don't take shortcuts. Genuinely, I don't give a fuck what your choice is. But respect the fact that when a senior member with 4k+ posts to his name says "Might not be the greatest plan you ever had" it's not just because he has his man-period and is about to go howl at the moon: people who have played a long time have a fundamental understanding of the game and its complexities in a way that is - by definition - wholly lacking in shortcut takers.
And, just sometimes, we old timers might be worth fucking listening to, eh?