[2021] Ok so.

Eco is first and foremost a multiplayer game. If the default setting of No Collaboration is not towards your playstyle (they work for most people and we unfortunately can't provide defaults that work for everyone, as those don't exist), you can adjust those. When creating a world ingame, by choosing custom (later via file edits, we plan to make this better) you can set multiplicators for resource costs, crafting time, time needed to get a new star, time to level up a specialty and a few other options which should allow you to make the game as much or little of grind you want it.

Also: I see lots of collaboration (which does include competition in captialistic society systems, though) on the official servers. More so on Tiger of course, but that's pretty much what its for.

Well, that reduces crafting costs by 90% and giving you all skills nearly instantly and hence is pretty much just cheat-mode with no challenge at all, but if that works for you I'm happy you can play Eco as you like :)

Originally posted by ardbeg74:

Originally posted by SLG-Dennis: Well, that reduces crafting costs by 90% and giving you all skills nearly instantly and hence is pretty much just cheat-mode with no challenge at all, but if that works for you I'm happy you can play Eco as you like :)

I prefer to call it "Creative Mode" :D
But yea, i tweaked them too extreme, I agree not much challenge but good way to quickly see how the professions fit together.

Point is, there is a sweet spot in there for everybody, just got to experiment a bit to find it.

Well, I obviously answer from a developer point - so whatever makes you feel good with Eco. In the end the only important thing is that YOU are having fun, how you do that is totally your choice. I'm personally more a hardcore player, though :D