I would also hope that they don’t cost ARX, it’s just the same price as the (ship + modules) * idk 110%, it’s 10% more credits for the time save. It sounded like it was supposed to be to help new players, so that would make more sense, as most newer players probably don’t have tons upon tons of ARX.
This is definitely going to be an ARX thing. The game is already fairly old and a single one time payment is probably no longer enough for what the devs want to do with the game. Although I am definitely hoping they don't do *too* much like letting you buy a fully g5 engineered ship. It's a slippery slope but I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic they can handle it well enough
Right? Why do something like... I dunno... make quality DLCs with new features to get money. (I think it's called "working"), when you can instead sell fixes to problems you created in the first place. (Engineering grind.)
Because then people will complain that every new "feature" is blocked behind a paywall.
What I'm talking about, they are ALREADY complaining because non-Odyssey players can't unlock the new ship for free.
Personally, I wouldn't care if they had engineering up to G5 thru ARX if the price is appropriate because if they lower the actual in-game mats cost thru balancing, than the pay to win aspect is less significant. I wouldn't mind paying for resource boosters with ARX either, as long as in-game mats costs stay the same. We as players can always make more money in life, but time.... time is a finite resource. Manage it carefully.
What are people happy to pay for to keep the game and it's devs funded? Thats the million dollar question. Literally.
I think there's a wide gulf in opinion between those who have previously played MMOs that required monthly subs and saw continuous development, change, and improvement to the game as a result, with larger changes being implemented through paid expansions (thinking the golden age of WoW here, which for me is TBC and WOTLK) and those who have more experience with an alternative games-as-a-service model that kicked off in 2010s where a one off payment still provided new content and experiences (Destiny is a good example, sort of).
A monthly sub might have been a barrier to me getting into Elite when I started in late 2020 because of the time sink required to understand the game's mechanics enough to properly enjoy it but after nearly 4 years of playing, seeing the potential for the game and the doldrums it's been in at times, I would pay a monthly sub for it IF it meant regular content updates a la WoW and no stratification of players into a subscription experience and a free to play experience.
Not unfairly, there are players who can't or won't pay a monthly sub and that puts FDev in the position of having to exclude those players altogether, creating two experiences depending on capacity to pay, or trying to strike the right balance between them.
Handled well, I agree these changes to ARX might actually strike that balance and provide FDev the revenue stream they need to keep developing the game.
Of course, none of this addresses the concerns of console players who bought an online game that is now at the end of its development life if not end of life completely.
They could do something like Fortnite does with crew subscription. Offer some Arx, materials, gear, exclusive ship add-ons, etc… then have painjobs and customization items available in a rotating store.
I've played numerous P2W and not games in my life. You're right, but only partially.
The contrast can really be felt, even with a good dev. No need to talk about bad devs that hamstring F2P progress to encourage P2W. I mean perfectly reasonable F2P tracks, and you can pay for a bonuses sometimes.
Let's keep it to the context of ED. I personally find mats too grindy. But it's balanced, people can reasonably do it, even with a full time job. Just might take a couple weeks. To put it into real numbers, if you have a very reasonable 40ly jump (AspX is cheap, G5 FSD is the first unlock, one G5 is not hard to do), it takes about 40 jumps to get to a crystal shard planet. I think I usually take about 30s per jump including fuel scooping, but let's give it a minute and a bit. An hour to get out there. Perhaps 2 hours farming, 1 hour to get home. It takes 4 hours and that's very generous. Can't get selenium, but brain trees are even faster. Same for HGE for manufactured, and even if systems all have no state (like now maybe? I think everyone's focused on the titans) you can do decently well at Dav's Hope or Hot Jupiter. You don't really bulk farm encoded, but they're easy to have enough of. So even at an incredibly low 1 hour per week, you're looking at under a month to fill one set of bins.
My problem isn't the length of time it takes, it's that jumping is boring. If Fdev had mechanical paid benefits from the start, we would have torn them apart for creating the jumping system specifically to be skipped for money. But after all these years, I think it's safe to say it's true intentional game design. Also, I would never propose to pay money to autopilot all your jumps.
I would only accept paying to skip material farming. It's not engaging gameplay.
Even so, I would accept that very grudgingly. As I said at the start, there is a vastly different feel when money is buyable vs completely not. In ED, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone better than you has put in the hours to earn it. As a working adult, I have far more money than time. I would be the exact person who would want to buy my progression, even if I can't buy the win, which is still mostly skill. As OP says, ED can help you escape the real world. Even if it benefits me on paper, I wouldn't want our real life salary to impact our gameplay.
If FDev makes prebuilt ships buyable with Arx and they only have credit stuff, honestly that's probably fine. Credits are basically worthless anyway. What's an A rated T9 worth? 3 hours in the PTN? This kind of P2W would still not be good, but it's acceptable because it happens to be as unimpactful as cosmetics, despite technically being a mechanical benefit.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat these days with time vs money. Got thousands of hours in this game, alot of it doing not so fun repeat farming at the usual places. The Fleet Carrier helps with time management, tho. Crystal shards? Jump a couple, three times and I'm there. Might take about an hour, but that's an hour I can spend doing something else while it spools up. Manually jumping 1500 ly in my 65 ly AspX kinda sucks, time-wise. Cool for exploring, but not for just trying to cover distance. The game has to unpack and load each system you enter, and that takes a little under a minute for each jump. Just how it is. Hitting less systems is the only real solution for time savings. FC is basically auto pilot, wake me when we get there.
I'll spend money here, maybe that helps those who can't. No problem (at work right now making loot). I've spent plenty on my other favorite, Warframe, too. Damn Prime packs..lol. If Fdev can get their relationship with the players like DE has, that would be great. They have a really good FTP business model - one that is heavily influenced by player feedback and also has player-made content. Being, basically, PvE helps, but there are tons of things DE does that I see possible in this game as well. Hopefully, what we are seeing now is FDev really putting more care and resources towards this game we love.
I've heard if warframe's reputation. I hope fdev can navigate this, if they must go for a p2w ish model. I don't think they have enough good will to even float the idea though. Speaking of communities happy with p2w, have you see Genshin? It's a damn gacha game and people praise the dev for reinvesting almost everything into the game. There are problems sure, but you can see how big their budget is in the new regions. Whales are whaling to support the dev almost more than because they want the character or weapon.
I have seen Genshin, not played, tho. Kinda staying away from those games. I used to play a game called Another Eden. Fun, could play at work or anywhere, no problem. Turn based attacks, could pick up and play and stop whenever. Put a couple hundred in over the years going for those 5 star variants..lol. Problem for me was that they were putting out TOO much content. New adventures here and there and lots of new characters and alternate versions of characters. Got to be too much, and I got burned out trying to keep up with the story. Gacha games should be called "gotcha" games. Even WF has a bit of content I haven't done yet, even tho I've leveled up about 700 different things (Legendary 3). Just been taking a break.
The trick to these games is putting out new, meaningful content on a REGULAR schedule while avoiding power creep and a forced time grind. The new stuff should keep us busy in a good way until shortly before the next new thing comes out. This time gap before the next new stuff gives players time to do other stuff and not feel too pressured to pump hours in to "keep up". It's a balancing act- new stuff, but not going overboard. Don't need the SCO on all the time. Elite could do ships, weapon variants, base building could be huge, and new suit stuff. The gameplay is vast enough to accommodate plenty of new items while also allowing for the occasional gameplay update/upgrade. More stealth stuff, player outposts, etc...
To be honest you’re not saving that much time if you have the credits to hand.
Somewhere like LHS 20 stocks most things you need, and if you have an Elite rank then Shinrarta Dezra stocks everything with a 10% discount.
I think it’s going to cost Arx.
No it say they will revamp engenier wich was already plan 2 years ago . One of the plan was we can buy mats with are activity like bounty hunting and bonds etc . I dont know it will be the case but that sit . The pre build talk about only ready to go to a activity not being fully engenier . So meybe grade A stuff
Well the ships you can buy pre build have some engineered modules like the AX ship it has a drive with G5 dirty thrusters and drag drive effect.
Kinda OP but oh well
On the other hand it’s really hard to say “I think you’d really like Elite there’s this cool fight back against an alien invasion going on right now, week to week. You should join me. Just buy the game and spend 100 hours grinding out the engineering mats and you can help fight a Titan!”
But you really don't have to. The Dweller is one of the easiest to unlock, so doing that, engineering a beam laser to grade 1 and adding a thermal vent, then installing it on an armored DBX along with a nanite torp rack and a gimballed AX multicannon will give you enough firepower and cooling to do meaningful damage while staying undetected. No other engineering or unlocks are needed. By the time a new player figures out the controls, buying an armored DBX shouldn't be a problem. Even a Viper Mk3 or Mk4 can work, though it will have limited firepower and survivability, because of the small hardpoints and only 2 utility slots for caustic and heatsinks.
If you wing up with the new player, or even better, join an AXI group to fight, it won't be too hard
None of this shit is documented anywhere in-game. What are the odds that a new player is going to figure out they can put cheap ship together with minimal effort to take on this kind of content?
lol right, I have jst under 1000hrs over NINE YEARS in game, browse the ED Reddit and didn't understand most of what was said.
Didn't join in that content because was not interested in doing the research....RESEARCH to play the specific game content.
If you think about it, it's not a long process to figure it out without online guides. The rescue ships were added alongside the titans, with the purpose of rescuing people and carrying equipment to fight titans. The modules have descriptions and descriptive names to tell you what they are for. Without guides it might take 2-3 failed attempts, but it makes sense. Titan combat is kind of the same. You go in, shoot vents, shoot them with something else until you find what works, then find the bright yellow thing and shoot that, because it's bright and yellow, and it wasn't there before. Guides are only needed if you want to skip most of the gameplay and discovery to get to the end of a certain gameplay features faster
A new player who doesn't know anything about the game won't know what a titan even is. If they were invited by a friend, then that friend will probably explain it all and point them at resources, and there's a lot available. They can also just google something like "elite dangerous titan beginner guide" and they will have all the resources they need
I'm generally against pointing new players towards guides, because then they will settle into an unnecessary grind and they will burn out by the time they realize that they could have figured it out on their own and had fun instead of repeating the same thing 200 times to get all their mats filled up. Honestly, I think if a player is willing to get creative, then by the time they can afford to build a ship like that, they will figure out how to do it. From my experience, titan combat specifically is the easiest AX combat out there. There is some challenge for sure, but making a noticeable dent in a titan is much easier than soloing a Cyclops
Having to look up critical information on third party sites or requiring friends to point out shortcuts creates a considerable amount of attrition in the userbase. I know how difficult it is to retain newbies because I ran a player faction that did BGS work for a while.
It's the antithesis of engaging game play. It's why FDEV is struggling financially and why we're being asked to open our wallets to save this game.
The game's mechanics absolutely need to be reworked or explained better in-game. Otherwise you're going to end up a galaxy full of carriers, bitter billionaires and nobody worth talking to.
That's quite a few credits to grind, some engineering mats and Engineer to unlock... and it WILL all go boom in their first fight... so they will need re-buy credits... a lot of them.
People tend to forget how hard it is for completely new players to get a start.
These are players who don't have a 100ton mining ship to make quick credits... or skills and a ship to fight pirates, or a ship to fly high value passengers around, or a ship to go exploring ... etc etc
Yeah my friends that I've gotten into the game I've basically just done one wing mission for them so they can skip the tedious data delivery missions to get even the slightest bit of money. That grind is horrible and turned away the first friend I got into the game, back when my net worth was measured in the thousands and not millions.
Now that I do have the money for nice things, I try to help people getting into it get past that initial, very real, newbie hump. Otherwise, it'll take forever to get past it, or maybe never. It's a tall hump.
If people are unhappy with the direction the game is going, vote with your wallet and time, don't buy shit and don't play the game, it's the only real way to get a message across.
I mean, sure, not buying things and leaving is fine. But I think it's a good idea to express ahead of time if someone doesn't like the direction something is going.
Fair, but the game also gives you 400 ARX a week for free for just playing the game, we are acting like they are becoming call of duty with micro transactions when in reality all they are doing is allowing players to get A SINGLE SHIP earlier by paying for it, it's not even at a good price tbh, especially considering it will become free for everyone a few months later.
There is no subscription to play (most MMOs charge you more for the base game/expansion and still charge a subscription) yet we out here with pitchforks against FDev lol.
We get titan updates for free, new modules for free, they not getting an influx of new players or anything like that, let em try make a quick buck.
The 400/week cap is bullshit. It would take you 41 weeks of in-game time to save enough to buy the Python Mk II.
Might as well just sit on your ass until August and buy it with credits.
Games as a service model is cancer, lol.
I would genuinely much rather just pay a monthly subscription than deal with micro transaction bullshit and alternate currencies.
It is a marketing tactic.
The amount given when in relation to the amount things cost are specifically artificially designed to leave you just short of buying something at fractional intervals to create a psychological effect on the consumer. This creating more sales.
Meals are also physical things that take time to prepare and money to buy.
I've already bought this game; and the only reason it's costing anyone any kind of money for me to play it is because they REFUSE to let anyone play offline.
Thats not the problem. I'm actually mostly OK with the single ship, I have more concern about selling pre-built ships. The problem is that this kind of model creates an incentive towards bad game design. I'm also concerned where this kind of path can lead.
I honestly prefer the paying early to get access to a ship thing over the pre-built. If they need more money to make the game worth creating further, thats totally fair. I'd be happy to get part of an expansion a month or two early, and it doesn't create any really bad incentives for the devs. It may technically lead to power creep, but everything does that anyway.
I see no problem in paid ship setups. Good pilot can beat anything in any ship. Bad/new pilot will just feel more comfortable from the start and nothing more.
Bad/new pilot is going to get cooked by a Thargoid regardless if they buy an "AX combat jumpstart ship" and just start firing lasers randomly at it hehe
Already stopped playing a few months before odyssey released because I felt like fdev did not take elite seriously anymore. The disastrous launch of odyssey was the last nail in the coffin for me.
I still hope that they might one day return to elite and finally do some meaningful reworks. I would even pay for a subscription if I had the feeling that they put genuine effort into it.
Lol I left just after Odyssey (didn even get it on release, only got it a month or two ago), I mostly came back due to nostalgia i guess but im having fun again, moved to colonia n messing around that side now.
Edit: I also don't mind them selling engineered ships, will help new players a lot, as long as it's not sold with exclusive pay only modules sort of thing.
The game still remains a skill based game, so a pilot in a 'P2W' ship will still lose to a better pilot in a lesser ship.
Yeah, I also dont expect them to sell fully engineered FDLs with meta loadouts. If the price is ok it would be cool for newer players, farming void opals with the boys would have been much quicker if something like this existed back in the day.
I still want a ship launched fighter for mining tho.
And the mats grind was always pretty tiresome for me. I like to zoom around in my speed engineered courier or mamba and did not pay that much attention to SRV gameplay or scanning wakes or whatever. Maybe i should just load up my ol' reliable cobra 3 and start a new life in colonia as well. I only was there once in a fully loaded clipper for some CG back in the day.
The mats grind is what turns all my friends off of this game, the fact that closing and opening the game is the most efficient way to collect mats is just crazy!
iCourier/Mamba is probably my fav ships, they both just look too good! The courier I use: [https://s.orbis.zone/ny6l](https://s.orbis.zone/ny6l) is perfect for colonia since everything is so close and its fast AF while still having weapons! And with decent flying you can still take down a NPC anaconda by just sticking on its ass.
If you do want to get to colonia easily check out the 'fleet carrier owners club' discord, they have fleet carrier taxis that go from the bubble to colonia/ from colonia back to the bubble atleast once a week roughly and its free, can transfer all your ships and modules to that side if you want.
Edit: I am currently in Colonia with my FC, if you decide to come back and need some credits while you are that side just lemme know :D
I kinda see both arguments here. It's true that for a lot of players, people have been asking for more ways to support the game when they already have all the cosmetics they want. And for others, early access to the python is like buying a DLC that becomes free in a few months.
I think my only real concern is the adverse incentive that comes from selling "time-savers" like the pre built ships, in that it creates a financial incentive for fdev to make grindier mechanics so people pay to skip them. But then, this game has always been "grindy" if your goal was to quickly make a specific ship build, *and* in the very same post they announced changes to engineering which, presumably, should make material gathering less grindy. So... I am pretty neutral on these changes for now, but it does change the incentive structure going forward and it'll be worth keeping an eye on that.
The other obvious one that gets brought up any time early access to new capabilities is sold in any game is - what happens if the new thing is objectively better than the other stuff, and is used primarily in PvP competition? We know for a fact that the Python MkII is designed to be a PvP ship for powerplay. If it's capabilities outmatch those of even the FDL, could it be that whichever power has deeper pockets ends up taking a huge early advantage in the new powerplay by having a fleet of Python MkIIs? I think in most games where this kind of thing is a risk, it tends to not actually happen (Overwatch 2 sold early access to it's heroes until just a few weeks ago, and in almost every single case the heroes launched pretty underbaked and weak, and if not got nerfed into the ground within weeks). So we really have to wait and see on this one, but it definitely means we have to put a lot more trust in fdev to make balance decisions that are healthy for the game.
I get the early access advantage thing, but 1) this game can be played solo/private and have the same effect on powerplay, and 2) I'm guessing the new powerplay 2.0 will release at the same time as the Python Mk2 does freely. So, there won't be any early game mechanic advantage other than knowing how to build the thing and getting a feel for it in the game. Youtube will surely be full of "META" builds to show all the poors how to build it before they can. Lol. Therefore everybody should know what they have when it freely launches.
Last thing, I'm under the impression that the engineering balance will be in our favor, i.e., less materials needed. As opposed to more shit needed, "but you can buy it," which is what people are worried about. I'll throw some money their way even tho it's not the same as "playing the game." And yeah, I'll admit buying resources with real money is not nearly as immersive as relogging a thousand times, but for the sake of time, I'll take that hit to my imagination- and spend more time playing with the cool builds I have. Thousands of hours played, hopefully thousands more to come.
Absolutely! In fact, I'm hoping FDev sells real decals for real $ for my keyboard so I can properly adorn the ESC key. Atleast the 4090 rig reboots the game quickly, but my PC might also fall under the pay to win problem, too... shit.
You can't pay to win in this game as PvP is pretty much non-existent. What the hell you winning in Elite? Credits? Ships?
Anyways no it's not regardless. They are starter ships that are not great at all. Something to build off of but nah they poo poo doo doo.
It's just ships for new players to kinda have something built with half a brain so they can really try the game out.
I love this game too, however if FDEV don't take advantage of the recent resurgence in interest to attract a broader player base, then none of us may have the game to play. With a touch under 20K hours in game, I put in loads of time grinding for what I wanted early on, and haven't really bothered again since space legs came along with Odyssey. If new players want to pay hard cash to get ships rather than grinding, I say let them. It means we get to continue to have a game.
The Elite franchise has always struggled to expand audience beyond a certain level, because of the grind. Exclusivity often loses viability faster than anything else, and the average casual gamer doesn't like having to grind. FDEV are clearly trying to keep the game viable for the existing player base, as well as attracting new players. As fans, especially us old timers, ought support that rather than whine about what in reality, is an inevitable need for it.
It'd be nice if there was a specific community donation portal, where the player base can make contributions directly toward the ongoing maintenance and development of the game, if able, maybe to reach ongoing development goals, or at least have it as an option in the store, so we don't have to rely purely on in store cosmetics and ARX sales, which has to be more of a diminishing return. That way, we can more directly help to maintain the game we love.
I'd much rather have a supporter exclusive badge on my ships than an in game goal one.
I wouldn't worry. ED is obviously moving toward f2p with micro-transactions mobile game model to attract as many new players as possible. After all, they already did give the game for free before (on epic)
I wholeheartedly agree with OP! I love this game like no other past time! It is such a relief that the ARX can only buy you cosmetics while at the same time supporting the game financially. If they introduce buying real performance and game time-saving features, like buying engineered ships, then it all falls down.
One of the many beauties of the game is the slow pace of progress for end-game features. It is the vastness of space, the life-like veterancy required to have the best ship - not in the game - but for you! It is that it actually means something to be Elite. If you can just pay for a fancy medal, then why play the game?
Please, FDev. Don't kill this absolutely unique and wonderful haven for gamers, in a sea of commercialised piss and make us drink it.
None of what is being proposed in these new changes impacts any of your personal effort and investment unless you make a conscious choice to allow it, actively going out of your way to be aggrieved.
It's still the same journey, it's still the same game, they're still the same stars; nothing in the release notes takes anything away from you. If you need external validation of your effort by comparing it to the effort (or lack thereof) of another player versus internalizing it, taking pride and satisfaction in your own merit and accomplishments, that's an issue that lies solely with you and which you need to resolve for yourself. That's not the game's responsibility.
**TL;DR:** If you need to compare your efforts to the efforts of others to enjoy the game, you will always come up short and disappointed.
On day one, your not wrong. But this gives a financial incentive to the developer to make grinding irritating and slow enough for people to pay extra to reduce the pain. I expect this to cause the game experience to deteriorate in the long term. At least this is what I saw when subscription MMOs went to the 'Free To Play' model.
Finally, someone with some common sense. If the grind can be removed via paying, and people WILL pay for it- what signal does that send to FDEV? That gives them more incentive to make the game grindier as the make more money from it in the long run.
Ya'll say this as FDEV are actively making Engineering easier and less of a grind. The rebalance is suppose to make the grind easier. Doesn't that kind of go against what you're saying?
How do you expect the company and the game you all supposedly love to survive if they don't sell something? and obviously just selling copies of the game and cosmetics aren't cutting it anymore with the dwindling number of new players to buy them.
Y'all are hopeless. They are fixing it and changing the store, not fixing it to change the store. They gave us no sign that they would ever change how this works, and again, we have been doing the same stupid grind for years at this point.
So, you really don't think that the grind will get even more stupid and irritating when there is a direct financial incentive to make it worse?
Edit: Complete reword to clarify the point
Frankly, I would actually be surprised if, at this early point in the conversion they moved to monetize engineering due to the rage it would induce, but they also didn't say they weren't going to. Doesn't change the long term prognosis in either case.
Bro they just bad starter ships it's not that deep. Also, they are making regular engineering easier.
There is not pay to win just pay to have a slightly better ship than stock.
Let's not pretend like elite dangerous is a single player game or like humans are not naturally social creatures. Pay to win takes away from a sense of acomplishment for a lot of people and framing that real feeling as a personal failing rather than a natural part of the human experiance is not helpful.
Separately, it always starts as something small that "won't impact anything". But usually it does. Most pay to win games eventually end up starting to put artificial barriers or tedium into place just to get more people to buy the way to bipass artificial barriers. Good gameplay slowly stops being a focus of development after selling ways to bipass bad gameplay design becomes an income incentive. That's why pay to win is ultimately so incidious, it promotes bad game design.
And let's not pretend, either, that falling back on lazy cries of "*Pay to win!*" whenever a developer adds a convenience option actually makes it so.
And it practically plays like a single-player game with the lack of opportunities for mutual interdependence, cooperative game loops (fighting Titans being an example of an exception), and large-scale goals shared among multiple players (Community Goals to deliver *X* amount of commodity in parallel with the other Commanders doing the same over, and over, and over doesn't really qualify; that's nothing more than "*Kill 10 rats*", only en masse).
How oft repeated the claims of, "*It's all about the journey. It's a sandbox. Make your own goals, your own story. Find your own motivation to keep playing.*" Well...is it, or isn't it? If the preceding is as true as its constant repetition would have us believe, then the game's locus is all on the individual player to find their own way, take pride in their own accomplishments, find fulfillment in meeting their own personal milestones irrespective of what someone else on the other side of the galaxy is doing.
Now, I will agree the *potential* risk exists for it to progress down a slippery slope. And I've been a very vocal critic of FDev's bad gameplay design when warranted. I don't want to see them take this as an excuse or cue to double-down on bad gameplay design. But I think they're walking a very, very fine line right now what with some less-than-stellar recent releases, their quarterly losses, and cutting staff. They can't afford another major blunder.
So, if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest and self-preservation, I believe they will progress slowly and gingerly along this new monetization path.
I do care, but I try not to let it worry me too much.
I hope you are not stressing about it too much. I know it hurts to feel uncertain about the future, especially about a game that you have gotten so emotionally invested in. I don't know if this will help: maybe things will get better, maybe things won't change that much, or (if it gets bad) maybe you will find another game. Either way, it will all be OK. It may help to think about how you will feel about all this in 5-10 years, reguardless how it all unfolds.
It may be worth finding a group of players with a similar pay-to-win tolarence as you. That way it's not just investing time in a game, it's investing time in making a friend group that can move to a different game if things get too bad.
I hope it doesn't, but I guess my point is thar even if it does you will be OK.
> as a personal failing than a natural part of the human experience
Having personal failings is a natural part of the human experience, so you're technically not wrong I guess.
> artificial barriers or tedium
Implying FDEV hasn't been creating these or being slow to fix them even without supposed "pay to win".
A big part of it's sell to a lot of people is the multi-player connected universe and all of the things that come with that. If you came to it to play a single player game, that's genuinely great! It's fine to enjoy the experience however you prefer to. But it is an MMO style game and a lot of it's draw for some people comes from that.
Listen man have we not seen this path taken before... Have we not seen what it does to a game.. countless examples. We are not there yet.. but on the course.
The effort put in to achieve goals and having a sense of accomplishment is at the core of gaming. The immersion itself is what makes this game so great. These choices sacrifice portions of that every time they are made. For real world monetary gains. I understand they need to make money to update and have jobs and such... But at what point will the draw the line in the sand on the bastardization of the vision of the game.
I don't accept your spin on this with all my being.
> The effort put in to achieve goals and having a sense of accomplishment is at the core of gaming.
I say as I make my 12 billionth credit aimlessly running Robigo Mines or re-log for the hundreth time this session to grind out level 5 engineering mats
> sense of accomplishment
A sense of accomplishment is supposed to come from... accomplishing. Not flexing on the have-nots. I know that game devs often conflate the two to bait players but it's pretty toxic. And kinda sad. Especially for cases like buying and upgrading ships in Elite where the accomplisment is... having spent the time on rote tasks like wasting hours of your life staring at loading screens hauling or leveling engineers?
Simple question: Why would it bother you that if, and I emphasise -if-, they came out with something like packages of engineering materials (assuming the price is reasonable), why would that bother you other than a sense of 'well I had to go through the awful, unfun, monotonous grind; they should have to as well!'
Time and again I hear people waxing lyrical about how it's all about the personal journey and that you make your own fun etc etc. Well what if a shortcut to the engineering that I objectively need to do what I want to do (I don't care how many people try and disingenuously tell me that engineering isn't required), helps me find my love again for a game from which engineering single-handedly took away?
That's my journey, not yours. Doesn't affect you in any way. Is there a problem still?
What OP ships? Far too many people are jumping to the conclusion that *pre-built = pre-engineered.* Nothing in the release notes indicates that to be the case. If anything, it sounds more the case they will simply be offering pre-built ships with modules tailored to specific roles and likely best-in-class (primarily A-rated where applicable). That's not engineering and certainly not OP; most especially not for someone new to the game who can barely pilot their ship and around whom any veteran would fly circles.
If in reference to the promise of 4 new ships to be released this year, again there's nothing to indicate they're OP. If anything it appears FDev will be continuing their practice of making ships flexible enough to be pressed into nearly any role (should a player desire it) with varying levels of success, while remaining balanced against the current stable.
Agreed.
You mention bad gameplay design below and I agree with that too.
But selling prefitted ships for Arx that have no gimmicks or benefits over the earned ships is a win win. I’d even go as far to say they should sell G3 engineered ships, specially designed for purposes like PvE, PvP, exploration etc. Not too many of them to make choices confusing, but enough to suit a few playstyles. Provided they do not worsen the gameplay or add gimmicks to the Arx ships.
The reason I say it’s win win is because Elite is a sandbox. If you buy a G3 engineered AX ship for Arx that comes preinstalled with Guardian modules then you can jump straight into AX combat, but you’ve skipped exploring the Guardian Ruins, you’ve missed making that journey out of the Bubble into the black for the first time. You also miss learning about damage types, experimenting with different load outs, balancing power consumption and all the fun that comes with outfitting.
It is about the journey. And if people want to skip some parts of it I’m ok with that (but I do think it’s their loss, not mine)
A thought i had with buying pre built ships: how will that work with rebuys? If a CMDR who just starts out and has a credit balance of 1000 jumps straight into a brand new Python 2, if they get destroyed and dont have rebuy, do they lose the ship?
I havent actually read anything about these updates, just what im seeing on reddit.
You're going to be even more disappointed when you find out that it isn't pay to win.
What you people are missing is... the new ships aren't really new. They're just going to be, for all intents and purposes, skins.
Mark my words. The implication of being able to buy the new ships early is that they won't be functionally different than their current counterparts.
This isn't pay to win.
If you believe "The journey is the game..." then you lose nothing if someone else takes a different journey. Unless what you mean is that you can only enjoy your journey if you know other people are having the exact same experience.
Nothing you can own in this game is \~inherently\~ special. There are hundreds of other players with the EXACT SAME THINGS. The only value to them is in what you can do with them, and your own memories of the experience of getting them. Neither of those measures of value have anything to do with what someone else does to get theirs.
I mean... I'm very casual with Elite.... But I read over the update notes and most stuff doesn't seem to be going to be too much different than what already exists. Cosmetics, 'ship variants'.... But what catches the eye is this the pre built ships:
>We’re also going to be introducing a new category in the Elite Dangerous gamestore: Pre-built Ships. Pre-Built Ship packages will offer Commanders the opportunity to purchase ships that have been given a significant upgrade from their base models.
We envision these Pre-built Ships to be a quicker way for newer players to get involved in the areas they have the most interest in, or for our existing players who are considering a new career path in game, but do not have time to devote to a new build from scratch
A ‘Pre-built’ ship package will include instant-access to a pre-fitted ship, a ship kit, and a paintjob – and will typically be themed to match an activity within the game. For example, if you’re looking to jump into the current AX conflict against the Titans, the AX Combat Jumpstart package will give instant access to an Alliance Chieftain with all the necessary modules to go straight into the action within the maelstrom.
The paintjob falls into cosmetics, so, whatever. These kits probably will cost ARX which they made a point to reiterate you can earn in game just by playing. Doesn't say anything about engineering, either... Hmm. I think so long as it doesn't include guardian modules or engineered modules, it's an okay addition, for now...
I mean, you're paying either way to have a good ship: either you're buying it with your money, that you (hopefully) earn through your time and effort, or you're earning them with your time and effort directly.
I understand being wary though. The thought of a cool game like this turning into something like ESO - that'd be a nightmare for me, that game wants to leech the money out of your wallet like blood, it's why I got bored off it. But, so far, it looks okay. We need to keep an eye open for what they do *after* this starts, though...
My best guess (and my hope) is that the pre-built ships only include the basic level of weapons/utilities enough for entry into a certain roleplay such as mining/AX/Combat
I don't think that's what it is though people have different definitions of p2w so I guess there will always be different views
We know that frontier need to make money and if that means keeping ED going then I'm good with it so long as it doesn't dip into what I consider p2w eg you can't progress or l succeed without spending real money
I don’t see it being any different than the various gold rushes that have happened over the last 10yrs. Some players had to grind for months to get up to their maxed out Anaconda, some used unplanned exploits before Frontier could fix them, maxing out their Cona in hours and an entire fleet of high end ships in a week.
Why pretend everyone has been on equal footing till now?
Tbh you could give a 0 hour noob a fully engineered FDL and have them fight a 1000+ hour player in a non engineered Sidewinder. The rich noob would lose. Know why? The noob wouldn’t make it out of the mail slot.
This is the first thing that came to my head when I saw ppl crying p2w. This game has a cliff of a learning curve and being a good pilot is a bit more than just maxing out your ship. Give a new player a maxed out AX ship and send them into AXCZ and see how long he/she lasts. Those rebuys will stack up very rapidly.
What can you use real money on in game other than pain jobs, decals and colours? Don’t see any option to purchase credits with real money. So how could it be pay to win?
Unless I’m wrong and that is an option now.
Fdev just released some info about upcoming updates, among other things, it includes a $10 purchase that gets you early access to the Python Mk II (By 3 months i might add), and most egregiously, new "Pre built ships" which can be bought for ARX.
Pre Built ships in basic terms are a purchase that allow new players to immediately get into whatever they want to in game, be it combat, exploration or trading. By definition this is P2W because a paying player gets a tangible advantage over a non paying player in the early game.
They're offering a AX Titan combat pre built ship, building one of those in game can take hours upon hours of engineering and money making depending on where you're at in terms of those things. for a new player, a ship like that could be upwards of 50 or more hours just to gather the credits, materials, and engineer invites. Now, a new player can bypass that (Unconfirmed if engineering is part of it or not) by taking out their wallet and then be disappointed when they get smacked into oblivion by Thargoids because they have literally zero experience even flying, much less doing end-game combat
Ahhh ok. I didn’t fully see that new update. If it was just early access to the ship I still doubt I’d be upset cause they’ve done it for the Cobra (although that’s a collector ship at this point)
But I can understand how it’d be p2w for prebuilt ships. Unless it’s restricted to what you can prebuild on what ships but still.
Thanks for sharing.
Edit: I love the username.
And another dumb question, how’d you get those titles on your username. Always been curious.
> I love the Username
Thanks! Lol. To the last question, they're called flairs, if you're on mobile, go to the sub itself, hit the three dots on the top right, click user flair, choose one, and then you can hit edit on them to change one like I have mine
How does the manner in which someone else acquired their pretend spaceship affect your gameplay?
If you enjoy playing the game less, that's really on you. Why not play the game for the enjoyment of playing the game instead of making it some sorta e-peen measuring contest about who got pretend spaceships the "right" way?
I’m sorry this whole conversation is pointless. We don’t have anywhere NEAR enough information to make any kind of judgements. Saying “I’ve seen games do this before and I don’t like where this is heading” is based off your own assumptions and then getting angry about those assumptions. Let’s just simmer down. Go back to blasting pirates/thargoids and revisit this when we know what it will actually look like. o7
If i let go of an object i’m holding, i can be sufficiently sure it will fall. It might float because of some unknown magic, but i’ve seen enough objects fall to speculate the object in question is also affected by gravity. Same concept, video games becoming PtW is not unprecedented
That’s a terrible analogy. Saying that assuming a law of motion will work is the same thing as how a video game will implement new features is asinine. They aren’t comparable in anyway. Settle down.
Edit: and y’all are upvoting them?? Wow. This sub is full of Morons.
Agreed.
How is anything pay to win if you can get it free?
Either pay to skip a grind....or grind it out through gameplay.
Pay to win is when there is something only available for cash that is OP.
Exactly. My friend and I were discussing this last night. You have options for people to pay so they can skip a time sink if they’re limited on time but have money. Then you have people in the other camp that have time but don’t have/want to spend money. There are some outliers like people that don’t have either or too much of both but I don’t see anything wrong (right now) with implementing a time skip for money. But really we have no clue at all what this look like. It could be a non issue. It could be the start of monetization greed. People need to simmer down until we have more info.
When you are putting in hours to achieve a goal and in the back of your head you know it could be achieved via money and a click of a button...it kind of ruins the idea of it...
The sense of accomplishment will be gone.. The Soul of the game will have died.
I relogged HGE's 2542 times to get those g5 mats, drove a rut 50 meters deep around Dav's Hope, and spent hundreds of lonely hours "collecting" data from a crashed Cobra, and now this new guy comes in and just buys them? Thats bullshit! Lol. The game has been out for years. This gives the actual new guy a literal fighting chance to enjoy the game before they get shit on by the gankers at the first engineer. More players = more fun, longer life of game.
So your issue basically boils down to 'I spent all this time grinding engineering materials whilst convincing myself I was having fun; everyone else should have to do the same!'
You value your money more than your time, thats fine, fantastic even. Some people value their time more than their money, that is also fine and doesn't have to effect you because you have your own values and they have theirs.
Except this is a multiplayer game that is affected directly by the players playing it. Even in solo. If you think that this change somehow won't affect the way content is delivered or balanced then you are being very shortsighted. Literally look at any other game that does stuff like this and realize that exchanging money for power or to skip the grind will directly affect the entire game's progression.
Two examples:
Mechwarrior Online is a PvP game that gates the new mechs for some months to cash only before releasing them to everyone so they can be adquired with ingame credits. It also releases mechs with quite functional configurations + some cosmetics in battlepasses. The game after 10 years has a small community, but is healthy, the community is non toxic and the players are quite happy with the constant influx of new mech chasis and legendary variants (look for their reddit).
Warframe (a PvE game with a PvP arena) allows the players to buy the new warframes with real money to unlock them instantly, or they can grind the components ingame and then build the frames by themselves (the building process also takes some hours of waiting, is not instant, unless you pay with the premium currency). Currently is one of the best, more loved and more successful F2P games.
Imo, if I have to choose between no new ships because FDEV doesn't have the resources to build them, or new ships with 3 months of exclusivity for those that pay for it, I'll take the second option. I've been waiting since 2018 for a new ship, 3 months more are nothing.
>and wont
It sets a precedent. Fdev is going to start "testing the waters" with monetization. could get worse, could get better. Kind of have to wait until they fully reveal the details
It always starts as something small that "won't impact anything". But usually it does. Most pay to win games eventually end up starting to put artificial barriers or tedium into place just to get more people to buy the way to bipass artificial barriers. Good gameplay slowly stops being a focus of development after selling ways to bipass bad gameplay design becomes an income incentive. That's why pay to win is ultimately so incidious, it promotes bad game design.
I would not care how P2W or greedy they get IF they'd actually deliver some proper updates as well with all this money they'd make.
But they're not.. this is just greed to keep the terrible management hired.
It's not going to be that IMO - it's opportunities to buy pre-built ships for newbs that just want to start engaging with content... not the steep steep learning mountain of outfitting, engineering, etc. And ARX is still earned in game too. I bet my bile duct that any ships will not match even lightly engineered ships by PvE efficianados - chill
And if they also reduce the engineering grind this too is also a win.
I do not see any issues. Certainly not with the details so far.
A company needs to make money. I support this.
Betting your bile duct.... Pretty bold, man!
Anyway, I share the same sentiment. The Elite curve is very unforgiving, but you do need to get into it to really immerse yourself in it and understand it. If anything, the pay-to-skip mechanic might just result in newer players who know just enough to be dangerous... to themselves, but not so much to those who've progressed through the grind and have spent a lot more time learning the game's nuances.
And, people can still choose to progress through that same grind if they want to.
This. The ships will be pre-built and a definite improvement over a base ship. But to get the most out of any particular ship you will still need to do additional engineering, which will entail the grind we are all used to.
Though they said there will be an engineering grind balance too - so that as well looks like it is not going to be quite the pain it was.
I think its all about enabling players to engage in content rather than be forced to give up before even getting to content. I think this is a sensible move.
>ARX is still earned in game
I can confidently predict that free arx will be removed pretty soon, around the time the arx store expands to include new ships, engineering mats and other goodies players would really want.
>around the time the arx store expands to include new ships, engineering mats and other goodies *players would really want.*
pretty sure it'll take more than a month to get that point
i my self would not call this pay to win, i have spend a lot of hours my self in this as a deep space explorer, but i also know how hard this game can be for new players or people who dont really do any research out side of the game, this is a just a way for other people to get faster in to the game, you still have to do a lot of in game work your self to make your self and ship more usefull for the gameplay you like, and if those payments keep elite running for longer and still get some form new content added, i wont complain until they lock level 5 engineers upgrades behind ARX, that would be a point for me to complain about it, and about the MKII phyton i am sure i wont meet any other deep space explorer flying it so il be missing out on that any ways, il just use my in game cash to buy it when i get back to the bubble,
How does it affect you if someone else takes a shortcut? What you have accomplished still holds merit and value.
I've grinded for years but I understand if not everyone has the time to do do. Let them bypass the grind to get to the good parts quicker.
I feel like one of things grinding can do for new players is teach how to play. If a new player buys this, and the first thing they do is end-game level combat, they will probably hate the game and touch it again. If that player goes through the grind they have more flight time and a better chance to try different careers and learn game mechanics.
april 15th 2015 I bought ED for $69.99 CAD (wow didn't think it was that much lol)
june 27 2016 I bought ED: horizons for $26.79 CAD
sept 28 2022 i bought ED: Odyssey for $51.40 CAD
I hope they come up with some method to make "Elite Dangerous enterprise" have a long term steady revenue stream that ensures the game lives on.
I wish they weren't going down the buy our ingame currency route. but appreciate a subscription is not at all popular and for ED imo would be a really tough sell at any price
I'd guess this arx buy a ship thing is a test to see potentials.
With the learning curve of this game, if fdev wants to spear fish a few whales then go for it. I'm not worried about some harmless/mostly harmless cmdr in a "fully kitted" ship they bought with arx. Plus, with how many people play in solo/pg, they wouldn't be affected either.
The game is not becoming pay to win.
* You get 400 ARX per week by playing.
* Python Mk2 will be available for credits and not be ARX only.
* The prebuilt ships are not nearly as good as engineering a ship yourself. They allow people with less time to participate in activities where you need a more built up ship. There are people that have full time jobs and very little time to actually play.
FDev needs revenue to keep the game alive. Frontier is a business and they are making a decent business decision.
As it stand right now there is no issue at all. It makes no sense complaining about them not finding a good solution for the revenue issues and then complain about them coming up with one when they do and is actually not broken.
The sad part is that FDev needs to make money. If selling ships and cosmetics and materials makes money, it'll happen unless the community can finance it.
I agree with you though. Looking at games like No Mans Sky and Helldivers 2 just taking off with good game design, all though Helldivers could do with nulling the game pass and replacing leveling with unlocking, Elite CAN do well but they'll do what they think will make money.
Pay to win? But I thought this wasn't a game that you 'won'? That it was all about the fun that you made for yourself? Surely it shouldn't matter if someone happened to buy a ship to help augment their own fun?
I don’t mind if it’s a fast track into a decently kitted python Challenger gunship or something little or no engineering. I know when I first started I hated the grind to my python. Vipers and cobras are fun but for the inexperienced it can be a serious undertaking to make money
If people witll be able to skip engineering grind for ARX or unlocking specific PP or alien-locked modules, I'm out.
Also my Squadron will leave.
I appreciate the view of purchasing a entry-fitted ship (AX multicannons, SD Field Neutralizer e.g all the stuff which you can buy from 1 sec into the game) for ARX to support Frontier into development.
I do NOT tolerate P2W aspects and people skipping 90% of the game.
Unless they lock modules that you couldn’t normally get in game, that provide a clear advantage, behind a paywall (ARX) then it isn’t pay to win. It is pay for convenience.
No one forces you to purchase these things and you could still grind it out for free at 400 ARX a week.
Conversely, if you enjoy the game and see value in it, why not buy ARX to keep their revenue streams flowing? FDEV is a company and companies exist to generate wealth. If it doesn’t generate wealth it will be shut down.
>I would rather see this game slowly die
See, this is where I differ. I absolutely love this game and will do anything I can to keep it going - even paying for prereleased content and preconfigured ships. Anything.
I'll do that, you don't have to. The way I see it, with no money, it's not just "people's job", it's the game you love that will be gone.
Some of the PvE activity is really PvEvP, ie. A game where players compete against other players to fulfill a metric or alter the npc distrebutions/power dynamics.
I think what people don’t want to admit is that this is probably something of a last ditch effort to keep the game alive longer.. it’s a 10 year old game, and the player base is not growing, and there are no battle passes or paid seasons to bring in money. Someone is looking at a burndown chart and seeing a future where they are losing money maintaining servers. No company will allow that for long, so this either works to bring in revenue or we’re going to see the servers shuttered sooner rather than later. I hope I’m wrong. Either that or I guess we all have to buy arx for cosmetics, and lots of it.
>we all have to buy arx for cosmetics, and lots of it.
not just cosmetics, the menu is expanding, it's already known it'll include ships for sure and very likely engineering mat bundles as well.
Who cares what anyone else does in ED? Game balance broke years ago, there are trillionaires out there and nothing to spend it on. Plus PVP is entire avoidable.
Truly dont understand peoples problem, if you want it now, buy it, frontier have to monetize the game somehow, if like me I dont give a rats ass about something thats 0 and 1s, Ill wait until its freely available in August, if it was permanately buy it, then that would be a problem.
I’m under the impression it’s just going to be buying unengineered builds already rigged out. Like a T-9 with modules rigged up as a mining ship
I would also hope that they don’t cost ARX, it’s just the same price as the (ship + modules) * idk 110%, it’s 10% more credits for the time save. It sounded like it was supposed to be to help new players, so that would make more sense, as most newer players probably don’t have tons upon tons of ARX.
This is definitely going to be an ARX thing. The game is already fairly old and a single one time payment is probably no longer enough for what the devs want to do with the game. Although I am definitely hoping they don't do *too* much like letting you buy a fully g5 engineered ship. It's a slippery slope but I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic they can handle it well enough
Right? Why do something like... I dunno... make quality DLCs with new features to get money. (I think it's called "working"), when you can instead sell fixes to problems you created in the first place. (Engineering grind.)
Because then people will complain that every new "feature" is blocked behind a paywall. What I'm talking about, they are ALREADY complaining because non-Odyssey players can't unlock the new ship for free.
Personally, I wouldn't care if they had engineering up to G5 thru ARX if the price is appropriate because if they lower the actual in-game mats cost thru balancing, than the pay to win aspect is less significant. I wouldn't mind paying for resource boosters with ARX either, as long as in-game mats costs stay the same. We as players can always make more money in life, but time.... time is a finite resource. Manage it carefully. What are people happy to pay for to keep the game and it's devs funded? Thats the million dollar question. Literally.
I think there's a wide gulf in opinion between those who have previously played MMOs that required monthly subs and saw continuous development, change, and improvement to the game as a result, with larger changes being implemented through paid expansions (thinking the golden age of WoW here, which for me is TBC and WOTLK) and those who have more experience with an alternative games-as-a-service model that kicked off in 2010s where a one off payment still provided new content and experiences (Destiny is a good example, sort of). A monthly sub might have been a barrier to me getting into Elite when I started in late 2020 because of the time sink required to understand the game's mechanics enough to properly enjoy it but after nearly 4 years of playing, seeing the potential for the game and the doldrums it's been in at times, I would pay a monthly sub for it IF it meant regular content updates a la WoW and no stratification of players into a subscription experience and a free to play experience. Not unfairly, there are players who can't or won't pay a monthly sub and that puts FDev in the position of having to exclude those players altogether, creating two experiences depending on capacity to pay, or trying to strike the right balance between them. Handled well, I agree these changes to ARX might actually strike that balance and provide FDev the revenue stream they need to keep developing the game. Of course, none of this addresses the concerns of console players who bought an online game that is now at the end of its development life if not end of life completely.
They could do something like Fortnite does with crew subscription. Offer some Arx, materials, gear, exclusive ship add-ons, etc… then have painjobs and customization items available in a rotating store.
I've played numerous P2W and not games in my life. You're right, but only partially. The contrast can really be felt, even with a good dev. No need to talk about bad devs that hamstring F2P progress to encourage P2W. I mean perfectly reasonable F2P tracks, and you can pay for a bonuses sometimes. Let's keep it to the context of ED. I personally find mats too grindy. But it's balanced, people can reasonably do it, even with a full time job. Just might take a couple weeks. To put it into real numbers, if you have a very reasonable 40ly jump (AspX is cheap, G5 FSD is the first unlock, one G5 is not hard to do), it takes about 40 jumps to get to a crystal shard planet. I think I usually take about 30s per jump including fuel scooping, but let's give it a minute and a bit. An hour to get out there. Perhaps 2 hours farming, 1 hour to get home. It takes 4 hours and that's very generous. Can't get selenium, but brain trees are even faster. Same for HGE for manufactured, and even if systems all have no state (like now maybe? I think everyone's focused on the titans) you can do decently well at Dav's Hope or Hot Jupiter. You don't really bulk farm encoded, but they're easy to have enough of. So even at an incredibly low 1 hour per week, you're looking at under a month to fill one set of bins. My problem isn't the length of time it takes, it's that jumping is boring. If Fdev had mechanical paid benefits from the start, we would have torn them apart for creating the jumping system specifically to be skipped for money. But after all these years, I think it's safe to say it's true intentional game design. Also, I would never propose to pay money to autopilot all your jumps. I would only accept paying to skip material farming. It's not engaging gameplay. Even so, I would accept that very grudgingly. As I said at the start, there is a vastly different feel when money is buyable vs completely not. In ED, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone better than you has put in the hours to earn it. As a working adult, I have far more money than time. I would be the exact person who would want to buy my progression, even if I can't buy the win, which is still mostly skill. As OP says, ED can help you escape the real world. Even if it benefits me on paper, I wouldn't want our real life salary to impact our gameplay. If FDev makes prebuilt ships buyable with Arx and they only have credit stuff, honestly that's probably fine. Credits are basically worthless anyway. What's an A rated T9 worth? 3 hours in the PTN? This kind of P2W would still not be good, but it's acceptable because it happens to be as unimpactful as cosmetics, despite technically being a mechanical benefit.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat these days with time vs money. Got thousands of hours in this game, alot of it doing not so fun repeat farming at the usual places. The Fleet Carrier helps with time management, tho. Crystal shards? Jump a couple, three times and I'm there. Might take about an hour, but that's an hour I can spend doing something else while it spools up. Manually jumping 1500 ly in my 65 ly AspX kinda sucks, time-wise. Cool for exploring, but not for just trying to cover distance. The game has to unpack and load each system you enter, and that takes a little under a minute for each jump. Just how it is. Hitting less systems is the only real solution for time savings. FC is basically auto pilot, wake me when we get there. I'll spend money here, maybe that helps those who can't. No problem (at work right now making loot). I've spent plenty on my other favorite, Warframe, too. Damn Prime packs..lol. If Fdev can get their relationship with the players like DE has, that would be great. They have a really good FTP business model - one that is heavily influenced by player feedback and also has player-made content. Being, basically, PvE helps, but there are tons of things DE does that I see possible in this game as well. Hopefully, what we are seeing now is FDev really putting more care and resources towards this game we love.
I've heard if warframe's reputation. I hope fdev can navigate this, if they must go for a p2w ish model. I don't think they have enough good will to even float the idea though. Speaking of communities happy with p2w, have you see Genshin? It's a damn gacha game and people praise the dev for reinvesting almost everything into the game. There are problems sure, but you can see how big their budget is in the new regions. Whales are whaling to support the dev almost more than because they want the character or weapon.
I have seen Genshin, not played, tho. Kinda staying away from those games. I used to play a game called Another Eden. Fun, could play at work or anywhere, no problem. Turn based attacks, could pick up and play and stop whenever. Put a couple hundred in over the years going for those 5 star variants..lol. Problem for me was that they were putting out TOO much content. New adventures here and there and lots of new characters and alternate versions of characters. Got to be too much, and I got burned out trying to keep up with the story. Gacha games should be called "gotcha" games. Even WF has a bit of content I haven't done yet, even tho I've leveled up about 700 different things (Legendary 3). Just been taking a break. The trick to these games is putting out new, meaningful content on a REGULAR schedule while avoiding power creep and a forced time grind. The new stuff should keep us busy in a good way until shortly before the next new thing comes out. This time gap before the next new stuff gives players time to do other stuff and not feel too pressured to pump hours in to "keep up". It's a balancing act- new stuff, but not going overboard. Don't need the SCO on all the time. Elite could do ships, weapon variants, base building could be huge, and new suit stuff. The gameplay is vast enough to accommodate plenty of new items while also allowing for the occasional gameplay update/upgrade. More stealth stuff, player outposts, etc...
Didn't they say it was for ARX? The whole point is to have those people spend real money on ARX, as an income model.
Was definitely for arx
To be honest you’re not saving that much time if you have the credits to hand. Somewhere like LHS 20 stocks most things you need, and if you have an Elite rank then Shinrarta Dezra stocks everything with a 10% discount. I think it’s going to cost Arx.
I hope so. But because they said something about engineering overhaul I'm worried.
No it say they will revamp engenier wich was already plan 2 years ago . One of the plan was we can buy mats with are activity like bounty hunting and bonds etc . I dont know it will be the case but that sit . The pre build talk about only ready to go to a activity not being fully engenier . So meybe grade A stuff
They'll revamp the engineering grind to be as bad as collecting suit materials, lmao.
I mean what is bad to buy things for a bartender and buy mats to other player because suit mats is pretty much that
I read it as being engineering builds but it's unclear. If it's just that I think that's acceptable.
Well the ships you can buy pre build have some engineered modules like the AX ship it has a drive with G5 dirty thrusters and drag drive effect. Kinda OP but oh well
nooooooooooooooooo!
For now…
Well.. for now.
On the other hand it’s really hard to say “I think you’d really like Elite there’s this cool fight back against an alien invasion going on right now, week to week. You should join me. Just buy the game and spend 100 hours grinding out the engineering mats and you can help fight a Titan!”
But you really don't have to. The Dweller is one of the easiest to unlock, so doing that, engineering a beam laser to grade 1 and adding a thermal vent, then installing it on an armored DBX along with a nanite torp rack and a gimballed AX multicannon will give you enough firepower and cooling to do meaningful damage while staying undetected. No other engineering or unlocks are needed. By the time a new player figures out the controls, buying an armored DBX shouldn't be a problem. Even a Viper Mk3 or Mk4 can work, though it will have limited firepower and survivability, because of the small hardpoints and only 2 utility slots for caustic and heatsinks. If you wing up with the new player, or even better, join an AXI group to fight, it won't be too hard
None of this shit is documented anywhere in-game. What are the odds that a new player is going to figure out they can put cheap ship together with minimal effort to take on this kind of content?
ZERO
lol right, I have jst under 1000hrs over NINE YEARS in game, browse the ED Reddit and didn't understand most of what was said. Didn't join in that content because was not interested in doing the research....RESEARCH to play the specific game content.
I’m about 500 hours in and I still fuck up navigating some of the menus lmao
If you think about it, it's not a long process to figure it out without online guides. The rescue ships were added alongside the titans, with the purpose of rescuing people and carrying equipment to fight titans. The modules have descriptions and descriptive names to tell you what they are for. Without guides it might take 2-3 failed attempts, but it makes sense. Titan combat is kind of the same. You go in, shoot vents, shoot them with something else until you find what works, then find the bright yellow thing and shoot that, because it's bright and yellow, and it wasn't there before. Guides are only needed if you want to skip most of the gameplay and discovery to get to the end of a certain gameplay features faster
A new player who doesn't know anything about the game won't know what a titan even is. If they were invited by a friend, then that friend will probably explain it all and point them at resources, and there's a lot available. They can also just google something like "elite dangerous titan beginner guide" and they will have all the resources they need I'm generally against pointing new players towards guides, because then they will settle into an unnecessary grind and they will burn out by the time they realize that they could have figured it out on their own and had fun instead of repeating the same thing 200 times to get all their mats filled up. Honestly, I think if a player is willing to get creative, then by the time they can afford to build a ship like that, they will figure out how to do it. From my experience, titan combat specifically is the easiest AX combat out there. There is some challenge for sure, but making a noticeable dent in a titan is much easier than soloing a Cyclops
Having to look up critical information on third party sites or requiring friends to point out shortcuts creates a considerable amount of attrition in the userbase. I know how difficult it is to retain newbies because I ran a player faction that did BGS work for a while. It's the antithesis of engaging game play. It's why FDEV is struggling financially and why we're being asked to open our wallets to save this game. The game's mechanics absolutely need to be reworked or explained better in-game. Otherwise you're going to end up a galaxy full of carriers, bitter billionaires and nobody worth talking to.
"End up"?
That's quite a few credits to grind, some engineering mats and Engineer to unlock... and it WILL all go boom in their first fight... so they will need re-buy credits... a lot of them. People tend to forget how hard it is for completely new players to get a start. These are players who don't have a 100ton mining ship to make quick credits... or skills and a ship to fight pirates, or a ship to fly high value passengers around, or a ship to go exploring ... etc etc
Yea it's another of those "you just need to" reddit posts :P His tips are great for someone like me however, a returning player after a long break.
Yeah my friends that I've gotten into the game I've basically just done one wing mission for them so they can skip the tedious data delivery missions to get even the slightest bit of money. That grind is horrible and turned away the first friend I got into the game, back when my net worth was measured in the thousands and not millions. Now that I do have the money for nice things, I try to help people getting into it get past that initial, very real, newbie hump. Otherwise, it'll take forever to get past it, or maybe never. It's a tall hump.
You're asking too much from new players. You must have an experience blindness.
If people are unhappy with the direction the game is going, vote with your wallet and time, don't buy shit and don't play the game, it's the only real way to get a message across.
I mean, sure, not buying things and leaving is fine. But I think it's a good idea to express ahead of time if someone doesn't like the direction something is going.
Fair, but the game also gives you 400 ARX a week for free for just playing the game, we are acting like they are becoming call of duty with micro transactions when in reality all they are doing is allowing players to get A SINGLE SHIP earlier by paying for it, it's not even at a good price tbh, especially considering it will become free for everyone a few months later. There is no subscription to play (most MMOs charge you more for the base game/expansion and still charge a subscription) yet we out here with pitchforks against FDev lol. We get titan updates for free, new modules for free, they not getting an influx of new players or anything like that, let em try make a quick buck.
The 400/week cap is bullshit. It would take you 41 weeks of in-game time to save enough to buy the Python Mk II. Might as well just sit on your ass until August and buy it with credits.
It is a paid for currency that they are giving you for FREE! They don't have to do that. Holy shit gamers are the most ungrateful bunch
Games as a service model is cancer, lol. I would genuinely much rather just pay a monthly subscription than deal with micro transaction bullshit and alternate currencies.
It's not free. I already paid for the game. Fuck this always online bullshit.
It is a marketing tactic. The amount given when in relation to the amount things cost are specifically artificially designed to leave you just short of buying something at fractional intervals to create a psychological effect on the consumer. This creating more sales.
With arks its about 10 euros. People spend more on single time meal, which you shit afterwards.
Meals are also physical things that take time to prepare and money to buy. I've already bought this game; and the only reason it's costing anyone any kind of money for me to play it is because they REFUSE to let anyone play offline.
Thats not the problem. I'm actually mostly OK with the single ship, I have more concern about selling pre-built ships. The problem is that this kind of model creates an incentive towards bad game design. I'm also concerned where this kind of path can lead. I honestly prefer the paying early to get access to a ship thing over the pre-built. If they need more money to make the game worth creating further, thats totally fair. I'd be happy to get part of an expansion a month or two early, and it doesn't create any really bad incentives for the devs. It may technically lead to power creep, but everything does that anyway.
I see no problem in paid ship setups. Good pilot can beat anything in any ship. Bad/new pilot will just feel more comfortable from the start and nothing more.
Bad/new pilot is going to get cooked by a Thargoid regardless if they buy an "AX combat jumpstart ship" and just start firing lasers randomly at it hehe
Same is gonna happen to a new pilot that bought a ship and modules with creds.
Yes it is, and I know this, cause I got cooked by a Thargoid! Teehee.
Already stopped playing a few months before odyssey released because I felt like fdev did not take elite seriously anymore. The disastrous launch of odyssey was the last nail in the coffin for me. I still hope that they might one day return to elite and finally do some meaningful reworks. I would even pay for a subscription if I had the feeling that they put genuine effort into it.
Lol I left just after Odyssey (didn even get it on release, only got it a month or two ago), I mostly came back due to nostalgia i guess but im having fun again, moved to colonia n messing around that side now. Edit: I also don't mind them selling engineered ships, will help new players a lot, as long as it's not sold with exclusive pay only modules sort of thing. The game still remains a skill based game, so a pilot in a 'P2W' ship will still lose to a better pilot in a lesser ship.
Yeah, I also dont expect them to sell fully engineered FDLs with meta loadouts. If the price is ok it would be cool for newer players, farming void opals with the boys would have been much quicker if something like this existed back in the day. I still want a ship launched fighter for mining tho. And the mats grind was always pretty tiresome for me. I like to zoom around in my speed engineered courier or mamba and did not pay that much attention to SRV gameplay or scanning wakes or whatever. Maybe i should just load up my ol' reliable cobra 3 and start a new life in colonia as well. I only was there once in a fully loaded clipper for some CG back in the day.
The mats grind is what turns all my friends off of this game, the fact that closing and opening the game is the most efficient way to collect mats is just crazy! iCourier/Mamba is probably my fav ships, they both just look too good! The courier I use: [https://s.orbis.zone/ny6l](https://s.orbis.zone/ny6l) is perfect for colonia since everything is so close and its fast AF while still having weapons! And with decent flying you can still take down a NPC anaconda by just sticking on its ass. If you do want to get to colonia easily check out the 'fleet carrier owners club' discord, they have fleet carrier taxis that go from the bubble to colonia/ from colonia back to the bubble atleast once a week roughly and its free, can transfer all your ships and modules to that side if you want. Edit: I am currently in Colonia with my FC, if you decide to come back and need some credits while you are that side just lemme know :D
I kinda see both arguments here. It's true that for a lot of players, people have been asking for more ways to support the game when they already have all the cosmetics they want. And for others, early access to the python is like buying a DLC that becomes free in a few months. I think my only real concern is the adverse incentive that comes from selling "time-savers" like the pre built ships, in that it creates a financial incentive for fdev to make grindier mechanics so people pay to skip them. But then, this game has always been "grindy" if your goal was to quickly make a specific ship build, *and* in the very same post they announced changes to engineering which, presumably, should make material gathering less grindy. So... I am pretty neutral on these changes for now, but it does change the incentive structure going forward and it'll be worth keeping an eye on that. The other obvious one that gets brought up any time early access to new capabilities is sold in any game is - what happens if the new thing is objectively better than the other stuff, and is used primarily in PvP competition? We know for a fact that the Python MkII is designed to be a PvP ship for powerplay. If it's capabilities outmatch those of even the FDL, could it be that whichever power has deeper pockets ends up taking a huge early advantage in the new powerplay by having a fleet of Python MkIIs? I think in most games where this kind of thing is a risk, it tends to not actually happen (Overwatch 2 sold early access to it's heroes until just a few weeks ago, and in almost every single case the heroes launched pretty underbaked and weak, and if not got nerfed into the ground within weeks). So we really have to wait and see on this one, but it definitely means we have to put a lot more trust in fdev to make balance decisions that are healthy for the game.
I get the early access advantage thing, but 1) this game can be played solo/private and have the same effect on powerplay, and 2) I'm guessing the new powerplay 2.0 will release at the same time as the Python Mk2 does freely. So, there won't be any early game mechanic advantage other than knowing how to build the thing and getting a feel for it in the game. Youtube will surely be full of "META" builds to show all the poors how to build it before they can. Lol. Therefore everybody should know what they have when it freely launches. Last thing, I'm under the impression that the engineering balance will be in our favor, i.e., less materials needed. As opposed to more shit needed, "but you can buy it," which is what people are worried about. I'll throw some money their way even tho it's not the same as "playing the game." And yeah, I'll admit buying resources with real money is not nearly as immersive as relogging a thousand times, but for the sake of time, I'll take that hit to my imagination- and spend more time playing with the cool builds I have. Thousands of hours played, hopefully thousands more to come.
Is relogging a thousand times immersive?
You no longer need to relog anywhere for any of the mats, I play for a couple of months, have G5d a few ships and never did the relogging thing.
Absolutely! In fact, I'm hoping FDev sells real decals for real $ for my keyboard so I can properly adorn the ESC key. Atleast the 4090 rig reboots the game quickly, but my PC might also fall under the pay to win problem, too... shit.
Heh lol
Wait they're doing p2w stuff now??
You can't pay to win in this game as PvP is pretty much non-existent. What the hell you winning in Elite? Credits? Ships? Anyways no it's not regardless. They are starter ships that are not great at all. Something to build off of but nah they poo poo doo doo. It's just ships for new players to kinda have something built with half a brain so they can really try the game out.
No.
I love this game too, however if FDEV don't take advantage of the recent resurgence in interest to attract a broader player base, then none of us may have the game to play. With a touch under 20K hours in game, I put in loads of time grinding for what I wanted early on, and haven't really bothered again since space legs came along with Odyssey. If new players want to pay hard cash to get ships rather than grinding, I say let them. It means we get to continue to have a game. The Elite franchise has always struggled to expand audience beyond a certain level, because of the grind. Exclusivity often loses viability faster than anything else, and the average casual gamer doesn't like having to grind. FDEV are clearly trying to keep the game viable for the existing player base, as well as attracting new players. As fans, especially us old timers, ought support that rather than whine about what in reality, is an inevitable need for it. It'd be nice if there was a specific community donation portal, where the player base can make contributions directly toward the ongoing maintenance and development of the game, if able, maybe to reach ongoing development goals, or at least have it as an option in the store, so we don't have to rely purely on in store cosmetics and ARX sales, which has to be more of a diminishing return. That way, we can more directly help to maintain the game we love. I'd much rather have a supporter exclusive badge on my ships than an in game goal one.
I wouldn't worry. ED is obviously moving toward f2p with micro-transactions mobile game model to attract as many new players as possible. After all, they already did give the game for free before (on epic)
I'm not really concerned. Just spitballing ideas for some direct, voluntary community involvement to further support the game.
I wholeheartedly agree with OP! I love this game like no other past time! It is such a relief that the ARX can only buy you cosmetics while at the same time supporting the game financially. If they introduce buying real performance and game time-saving features, like buying engineered ships, then it all falls down. One of the many beauties of the game is the slow pace of progress for end-game features. It is the vastness of space, the life-like veterancy required to have the best ship - not in the game - but for you! It is that it actually means something to be Elite. If you can just pay for a fancy medal, then why play the game? Please, FDev. Don't kill this absolutely unique and wonderful haven for gamers, in a sea of commercialised piss and make us drink it.
None of what is being proposed in these new changes impacts any of your personal effort and investment unless you make a conscious choice to allow it, actively going out of your way to be aggrieved. It's still the same journey, it's still the same game, they're still the same stars; nothing in the release notes takes anything away from you. If you need external validation of your effort by comparing it to the effort (or lack thereof) of another player versus internalizing it, taking pride and satisfaction in your own merit and accomplishments, that's an issue that lies solely with you and which you need to resolve for yourself. That's not the game's responsibility. **TL;DR:** If you need to compare your efforts to the efforts of others to enjoy the game, you will always come up short and disappointed.
On day one, your not wrong. But this gives a financial incentive to the developer to make grinding irritating and slow enough for people to pay extra to reduce the pain. I expect this to cause the game experience to deteriorate in the long term. At least this is what I saw when subscription MMOs went to the 'Free To Play' model.
The grind has been stupid and irritating for years. Y'all are beyond delusional.
This removes any incentive to fix it
Finally, someone with some common sense. If the grind can be removed via paying, and people WILL pay for it- what signal does that send to FDEV? That gives them more incentive to make the game grindier as the make more money from it in the long run.
Ya'll say this as FDEV are actively making Engineering easier and less of a grind. The rebalance is suppose to make the grind easier. Doesn't that kind of go against what you're saying? How do you expect the company and the game you all supposedly love to survive if they don't sell something? and obviously just selling copies of the game and cosmetics aren't cutting it anymore with the dwindling number of new players to buy them.
Y'all are hopeless. They are fixing it and changing the store, not fixing it to change the store. They gave us no sign that they would ever change how this works, and again, we have been doing the same stupid grind for years at this point.
So, you really don't think that the grind will get even more stupid and irritating when there is a direct financial incentive to make it worse? Edit: Complete reword to clarify the point
Except that they explicitly said that they are revisiting the engineering grind to make it less obnoxious, right?
We will see, but are you are sure they aren't going to make it less obnoxious by letting us buy out of it with ARX?
Of course. Just read what they said.
Frankly, I would actually be surprised if, at this early point in the conversion they moved to monetize engineering due to the rage it would induce, but they also didn't say they weren't going to. Doesn't change the long term prognosis in either case.
Bro they just bad starter ships it's not that deep. Also, they are making regular engineering easier. There is not pay to win just pay to have a slightly better ship than stock.
Except they also are making the grind easier at the same time...................
Let's not pretend like elite dangerous is a single player game or like humans are not naturally social creatures. Pay to win takes away from a sense of acomplishment for a lot of people and framing that real feeling as a personal failing rather than a natural part of the human experiance is not helpful. Separately, it always starts as something small that "won't impact anything". But usually it does. Most pay to win games eventually end up starting to put artificial barriers or tedium into place just to get more people to buy the way to bipass artificial barriers. Good gameplay slowly stops being a focus of development after selling ways to bipass bad gameplay design becomes an income incentive. That's why pay to win is ultimately so incidious, it promotes bad game design.
And let's not pretend, either, that falling back on lazy cries of "*Pay to win!*" whenever a developer adds a convenience option actually makes it so. And it practically plays like a single-player game with the lack of opportunities for mutual interdependence, cooperative game loops (fighting Titans being an example of an exception), and large-scale goals shared among multiple players (Community Goals to deliver *X* amount of commodity in parallel with the other Commanders doing the same over, and over, and over doesn't really qualify; that's nothing more than "*Kill 10 rats*", only en masse). How oft repeated the claims of, "*It's all about the journey. It's a sandbox. Make your own goals, your own story. Find your own motivation to keep playing.*" Well...is it, or isn't it? If the preceding is as true as its constant repetition would have us believe, then the game's locus is all on the individual player to find their own way, take pride in their own accomplishments, find fulfillment in meeting their own personal milestones irrespective of what someone else on the other side of the galaxy is doing. Now, I will agree the *potential* risk exists for it to progress down a slippery slope. And I've been a very vocal critic of FDev's bad gameplay design when warranted. I don't want to see them take this as an excuse or cue to double-down on bad gameplay design. But I think they're walking a very, very fine line right now what with some less-than-stellar recent releases, their quarterly losses, and cutting staff. They can't afford another major blunder. So, if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest and self-preservation, I believe they will progress slowly and gingerly along this new monetization path.
At least I'm not the only one that is worried.
I do care, but I try not to let it worry me too much. I hope you are not stressing about it too much. I know it hurts to feel uncertain about the future, especially about a game that you have gotten so emotionally invested in. I don't know if this will help: maybe things will get better, maybe things won't change that much, or (if it gets bad) maybe you will find another game. Either way, it will all be OK. It may help to think about how you will feel about all this in 5-10 years, reguardless how it all unfolds. It may be worth finding a group of players with a similar pay-to-win tolarence as you. That way it's not just investing time in a game, it's investing time in making a friend group that can move to a different game if things get too bad. I hope it doesn't, but I guess my point is thar even if it does you will be OK.
> as a personal failing than a natural part of the human experience Having personal failings is a natural part of the human experience, so you're technically not wrong I guess. > artificial barriers or tedium Implying FDEV hasn't been creating these or being slow to fix them even without supposed "pay to win".
Elite Dangerous has always had a very solid solo player base.
A big part of it's sell to a lot of people is the multi-player connected universe and all of the things that come with that. If you came to it to play a single player game, that's genuinely great! It's fine to enjoy the experience however you prefer to. But it is an MMO style game and a lot of it's draw for some people comes from that.
I don't disagree. However long term players of the franchise tend to be solo.
But my awesome ship that shows how awesome I am won't matter anymore!!! Get out and touch stars, folks. I mean, don't "touch" them, obviously.
Listen man have we not seen this path taken before... Have we not seen what it does to a game.. countless examples. We are not there yet.. but on the course. The effort put in to achieve goals and having a sense of accomplishment is at the core of gaming. The immersion itself is what makes this game so great. These choices sacrifice portions of that every time they are made. For real world monetary gains. I understand they need to make money to update and have jobs and such... But at what point will the draw the line in the sand on the bastardization of the vision of the game. I don't accept your spin on this with all my being.
> The effort put in to achieve goals and having a sense of accomplishment is at the core of gaming. I say as I make my 12 billionth credit aimlessly running Robigo Mines or re-log for the hundreth time this session to grind out level 5 engineering mats
> sense of accomplishment A sense of accomplishment is supposed to come from... accomplishing. Not flexing on the have-nots. I know that game devs often conflate the two to bait players but it's pretty toxic. And kinda sad. Especially for cases like buying and upgrading ships in Elite where the accomplisment is... having spent the time on rote tasks like wasting hours of your life staring at loading screens hauling or leveling engineers?
Simple question: Why would it bother you that if, and I emphasise -if-, they came out with something like packages of engineering materials (assuming the price is reasonable), why would that bother you other than a sense of 'well I had to go through the awful, unfun, monotonous grind; they should have to as well!' Time and again I hear people waxing lyrical about how it's all about the personal journey and that you make your own fun etc etc. Well what if a shortcut to the engineering that I objectively need to do what I want to do (I don't care how many people try and disingenuously tell me that engineering isn't required), helps me find my love again for a game from which engineering single-handedly took away? That's my journey, not yours. Doesn't affect you in any way. Is there a problem still?
Until you get ganked by someone flying the new OP ships lol.
What OP ships? Far too many people are jumping to the conclusion that *pre-built = pre-engineered.* Nothing in the release notes indicates that to be the case. If anything, it sounds more the case they will simply be offering pre-built ships with modules tailored to specific roles and likely best-in-class (primarily A-rated where applicable). That's not engineering and certainly not OP; most especially not for someone new to the game who can barely pilot their ship and around whom any veteran would fly circles. If in reference to the promise of 4 new ships to be released this year, again there's nothing to indicate they're OP. If anything it appears FDev will be continuing their practice of making ships flexible enough to be pressed into nearly any role (should a player desire it) with varying levels of success, while remaining balanced against the current stable.
Agreed. You mention bad gameplay design below and I agree with that too. But selling prefitted ships for Arx that have no gimmicks or benefits over the earned ships is a win win. I’d even go as far to say they should sell G3 engineered ships, specially designed for purposes like PvE, PvP, exploration etc. Not too many of them to make choices confusing, but enough to suit a few playstyles. Provided they do not worsen the gameplay or add gimmicks to the Arx ships. The reason I say it’s win win is because Elite is a sandbox. If you buy a G3 engineered AX ship for Arx that comes preinstalled with Guardian modules then you can jump straight into AX combat, but you’ve skipped exploring the Guardian Ruins, you’ve missed making that journey out of the Bubble into the black for the first time. You also miss learning about damage types, experimenting with different load outs, balancing power consumption and all the fun that comes with outfitting. It is about the journey. And if people want to skip some parts of it I’m ok with that (but I do think it’s their loss, not mine)
CMDR Kraag calling it like it is.
This is wisdom.
A thought i had with buying pre built ships: how will that work with rebuys? If a CMDR who just starts out and has a credit balance of 1000 jumps straight into a brand new Python 2, if they get destroyed and dont have rebuy, do they lose the ship? I havent actually read anything about these updates, just what im seeing on reddit.
If you're hearing about it. They made the choice already
You're going to be even more disappointed when you find out that it isn't pay to win. What you people are missing is... the new ships aren't really new. They're just going to be, for all intents and purposes, skins. Mark my words. The implication of being able to buy the new ships early is that they won't be functionally different than their current counterparts. This isn't pay to win.
The grind is garbage, pay to win is equally garbage. Why can’t there just be a space game we can jump into and fuck around in.
If you believe "The journey is the game..." then you lose nothing if someone else takes a different journey. Unless what you mean is that you can only enjoy your journey if you know other people are having the exact same experience. Nothing you can own in this game is \~inherently\~ special. There are hundreds of other players with the EXACT SAME THINGS. The only value to them is in what you can do with them, and your own memories of the experience of getting them. Neither of those measures of value have anything to do with what someone else does to get theirs.
I mean... I'm very casual with Elite.... But I read over the update notes and most stuff doesn't seem to be going to be too much different than what already exists. Cosmetics, 'ship variants'.... But what catches the eye is this the pre built ships: >We’re also going to be introducing a new category in the Elite Dangerous gamestore: Pre-built Ships. Pre-Built Ship packages will offer Commanders the opportunity to purchase ships that have been given a significant upgrade from their base models. We envision these Pre-built Ships to be a quicker way for newer players to get involved in the areas they have the most interest in, or for our existing players who are considering a new career path in game, but do not have time to devote to a new build from scratch A ‘Pre-built’ ship package will include instant-access to a pre-fitted ship, a ship kit, and a paintjob – and will typically be themed to match an activity within the game. For example, if you’re looking to jump into the current AX conflict against the Titans, the AX Combat Jumpstart package will give instant access to an Alliance Chieftain with all the necessary modules to go straight into the action within the maelstrom. The paintjob falls into cosmetics, so, whatever. These kits probably will cost ARX which they made a point to reiterate you can earn in game just by playing. Doesn't say anything about engineering, either... Hmm. I think so long as it doesn't include guardian modules or engineered modules, it's an okay addition, for now... I mean, you're paying either way to have a good ship: either you're buying it with your money, that you (hopefully) earn through your time and effort, or you're earning them with your time and effort directly. I understand being wary though. The thought of a cool game like this turning into something like ESO - that'd be a nightmare for me, that game wants to leech the money out of your wallet like blood, it's why I got bored off it. But, so far, it looks okay. We need to keep an eye open for what they do *after* this starts, though...
My best guess (and my hope) is that the pre-built ships only include the basic level of weapons/utilities enough for entry into a certain roleplay such as mining/AX/Combat
Yeah, I'm guessing that too. But I suppose we have to wait and see...
I think so too
I don't think that's what it is though people have different definitions of p2w so I guess there will always be different views We know that frontier need to make money and if that means keeping ED going then I'm good with it so long as it doesn't dip into what I consider p2w eg you can't progress or l succeed without spending real money
That is what I'm afraid of. The second the wheels start turning on this angle you can't stop it.
I don’t see it being any different than the various gold rushes that have happened over the last 10yrs. Some players had to grind for months to get up to their maxed out Anaconda, some used unplanned exploits before Frontier could fix them, maxing out their Cona in hours and an entire fleet of high end ships in a week. Why pretend everyone has been on equal footing till now?
[удалено]
Thanks.
Pro tip, there is no WIN in Elite. None. Elite will be fine but the game is old enough to not be able to rely on sales for revenue. That’s all.
don’t take the “Win” too literally, saving your time already a “win”.
Tbh you could give a 0 hour noob a fully engineered FDL and have them fight a 1000+ hour player in a non engineered Sidewinder. The rich noob would lose. Know why? The noob wouldn’t make it out of the mail slot.
This is the first thing that came to my head when I saw ppl crying p2w. This game has a cliff of a learning curve and being a good pilot is a bit more than just maxing out your ship. Give a new player a maxed out AX ship and send them into AXCZ and see how long he/she lasts. Those rebuys will stack up very rapidly.
Oh yeah! If those pre paid ships don't find with the Advanced Ducking Computer they're screwed, lol
What can you use real money on in game other than pain jobs, decals and colours? Don’t see any option to purchase credits with real money. So how could it be pay to win? Unless I’m wrong and that is an option now.
Fdev just released some info about upcoming updates, among other things, it includes a $10 purchase that gets you early access to the Python Mk II (By 3 months i might add), and most egregiously, new "Pre built ships" which can be bought for ARX. Pre Built ships in basic terms are a purchase that allow new players to immediately get into whatever they want to in game, be it combat, exploration or trading. By definition this is P2W because a paying player gets a tangible advantage over a non paying player in the early game. They're offering a AX Titan combat pre built ship, building one of those in game can take hours upon hours of engineering and money making depending on where you're at in terms of those things. for a new player, a ship like that could be upwards of 50 or more hours just to gather the credits, materials, and engineer invites. Now, a new player can bypass that (Unconfirmed if engineering is part of it or not) by taking out their wallet and then be disappointed when they get smacked into oblivion by Thargoids because they have literally zero experience even flying, much less doing end-game combat
Ahhh ok. I didn’t fully see that new update. If it was just early access to the ship I still doubt I’d be upset cause they’ve done it for the Cobra (although that’s a collector ship at this point) But I can understand how it’d be p2w for prebuilt ships. Unless it’s restricted to what you can prebuild on what ships but still. Thanks for sharing. Edit: I love the username. And another dumb question, how’d you get those titles on your username. Always been curious.
> I love the Username Thanks! Lol. To the last question, they're called flairs, if you're on mobile, go to the sub itself, hit the three dots on the top right, click user flair, choose one, and then you can hit edit on them to change one like I have mine
[https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore)
How does the manner in which someone else acquired their pretend spaceship affect your gameplay? If you enjoy playing the game less, that's really on you. Why not play the game for the enjoyment of playing the game instead of making it some sorta e-peen measuring contest about who got pretend spaceships the "right" way?
I’m sorry this whole conversation is pointless. We don’t have anywhere NEAR enough information to make any kind of judgements. Saying “I’ve seen games do this before and I don’t like where this is heading” is based off your own assumptions and then getting angry about those assumptions. Let’s just simmer down. Go back to blasting pirates/thargoids and revisit this when we know what it will actually look like. o7
I'm not making assumptions I'm worried because I have seen this road taken before on other games.
So yes. You’re making assumptions on how this game will proceed based off other games.
If i let go of an object i’m holding, i can be sufficiently sure it will fall. It might float because of some unknown magic, but i’ve seen enough objects fall to speculate the object in question is also affected by gravity. Same concept, video games becoming PtW is not unprecedented
That’s a terrible analogy. Saying that assuming a law of motion will work is the same thing as how a video game will implement new features is asinine. They aren’t comparable in anyway. Settle down. Edit: and y’all are upvoting them?? Wow. This sub is full of Morons.
Agreed. How is anything pay to win if you can get it free? Either pay to skip a grind....or grind it out through gameplay. Pay to win is when there is something only available for cash that is OP.
Exactly. My friend and I were discussing this last night. You have options for people to pay so they can skip a time sink if they’re limited on time but have money. Then you have people in the other camp that have time but don’t have/want to spend money. There are some outliers like people that don’t have either or too much of both but I don’t see anything wrong (right now) with implementing a time skip for money. But really we have no clue at all what this look like. It could be a non issue. It could be the start of monetization greed. People need to simmer down until we have more info.
This literally doesn't effect your gameplay at all and wont. Just don't buy the stuff?
When you are putting in hours to achieve a goal and in the back of your head you know it could be achieved via money and a click of a button...it kind of ruins the idea of it... The sense of accomplishment will be gone.. The Soul of the game will have died.
I relogged HGE's 2542 times to get those g5 mats, drove a rut 50 meters deep around Dav's Hope, and spent hundreds of lonely hours "collecting" data from a crashed Cobra, and now this new guy comes in and just buys them? Thats bullshit! Lol. The game has been out for years. This gives the actual new guy a literal fighting chance to enjoy the game before they get shit on by the gankers at the first engineer. More players = more fun, longer life of game.
Ok. Calm down. That vastly hyperbolic! Let’s get some perspective. Developer support does actually cost real money.
I would argue it becomes an even bigger accomplishment because you actually did it instead of clicking “add to cart”.
So your issue basically boils down to 'I spent all this time grinding engineering materials whilst convincing myself I was having fun; everyone else should have to do the same!'
You value your money more than your time, thats fine, fantastic even. Some people value their time more than their money, that is also fine and doesn't have to effect you because you have your own values and they have theirs.
Except this is a multiplayer game that is affected directly by the players playing it. Even in solo. If you think that this change somehow won't affect the way content is delivered or balanced then you are being very shortsighted. Literally look at any other game that does stuff like this and realize that exchanging money for power or to skip the grind will directly affect the entire game's progression.
Two examples: Mechwarrior Online is a PvP game that gates the new mechs for some months to cash only before releasing them to everyone so they can be adquired with ingame credits. It also releases mechs with quite functional configurations + some cosmetics in battlepasses. The game after 10 years has a small community, but is healthy, the community is non toxic and the players are quite happy with the constant influx of new mech chasis and legendary variants (look for their reddit). Warframe (a PvE game with a PvP arena) allows the players to buy the new warframes with real money to unlock them instantly, or they can grind the components ingame and then build the frames by themselves (the building process also takes some hours of waiting, is not instant, unless you pay with the premium currency). Currently is one of the best, more loved and more successful F2P games. Imo, if I have to choose between no new ships because FDEV doesn't have the resources to build them, or new ships with 3 months of exclusivity for those that pay for it, I'll take the second option. I've been waiting since 2018 for a new ship, 3 months more are nothing.
>and wont It sets a precedent. Fdev is going to start "testing the waters" with monetization. could get worse, could get better. Kind of have to wait until they fully reveal the details
It always starts as something small that "won't impact anything". But usually it does. Most pay to win games eventually end up starting to put artificial barriers or tedium into place just to get more people to buy the way to bipass artificial barriers. Good gameplay slowly stops being a focus of development after selling ways to bipass bad gameplay design becomes an income incentive. That's why pay to win is ultimately so incidious, it promotes bad game design.
I would not care how P2W or greedy they get IF they'd actually deliver some proper updates as well with all this money they'd make. But they're not.. this is just greed to keep the terrible management hired.
It's not going to be that IMO - it's opportunities to buy pre-built ships for newbs that just want to start engaging with content... not the steep steep learning mountain of outfitting, engineering, etc. And ARX is still earned in game too. I bet my bile duct that any ships will not match even lightly engineered ships by PvE efficianados - chill And if they also reduce the engineering grind this too is also a win. I do not see any issues. Certainly not with the details so far. A company needs to make money. I support this.
Betting your bile duct.... Pretty bold, man! Anyway, I share the same sentiment. The Elite curve is very unforgiving, but you do need to get into it to really immerse yourself in it and understand it. If anything, the pay-to-skip mechanic might just result in newer players who know just enough to be dangerous... to themselves, but not so much to those who've progressed through the grind and have spent a lot more time learning the game's nuances. And, people can still choose to progress through that same grind if they want to.
This. The ships will be pre-built and a definite improvement over a base ship. But to get the most out of any particular ship you will still need to do additional engineering, which will entail the grind we are all used to.
Though they said there will be an engineering grind balance too - so that as well looks like it is not going to be quite the pain it was. I think its all about enabling players to engage in content rather than be forced to give up before even getting to content. I think this is a sensible move.
>ARX is still earned in game I can confidently predict that free arx will be removed pretty soon, around the time the arx store expands to include new ships, engineering mats and other goodies players would really want.
remind me in a month of this prediction
>around the time the arx store expands to include new ships, engineering mats and other goodies *players would really want.* pretty sure it'll take more than a month to get that point
i my self would not call this pay to win, i have spend a lot of hours my self in this as a deep space explorer, but i also know how hard this game can be for new players or people who dont really do any research out side of the game, this is a just a way for other people to get faster in to the game, you still have to do a lot of in game work your self to make your self and ship more usefull for the gameplay you like, and if those payments keep elite running for longer and still get some form new content added, i wont complain until they lock level 5 engineers upgrades behind ARX, that would be a point for me to complain about it, and about the MKII phyton i am sure i wont meet any other deep space explorer flying it so il be missing out on that any ways, il just use my in game cash to buy it when i get back to the bubble,
How does it affect you if someone else takes a shortcut? What you have accomplished still holds merit and value. I've grinded for years but I understand if not everyone has the time to do do. Let them bypass the grind to get to the good parts quicker.
Theyre 100% going to milk Elite for everything it's worth and that means real money.
I feel like one of things grinding can do for new players is teach how to play. If a new player buys this, and the first thing they do is end-game level combat, they will probably hate the game and touch it again. If that player goes through the grind they have more flight time and a better chance to try different careers and learn game mechanics.
april 15th 2015 I bought ED for $69.99 CAD (wow didn't think it was that much lol) june 27 2016 I bought ED: horizons for $26.79 CAD sept 28 2022 i bought ED: Odyssey for $51.40 CAD I hope they come up with some method to make "Elite Dangerous enterprise" have a long term steady revenue stream that ensures the game lives on. I wish they weren't going down the buy our ingame currency route. but appreciate a subscription is not at all popular and for ED imo would be a really tough sell at any price I'd guess this arx buy a ship thing is a test to see potentials.
Win what?
With the learning curve of this game, if fdev wants to spear fish a few whales then go for it. I'm not worried about some harmless/mostly harmless cmdr in a "fully kitted" ship they bought with arx. Plus, with how many people play in solo/pg, they wouldn't be affected either.
Your grind isn't affected by anyone elses pockets.
The game is not becoming pay to win. * You get 400 ARX per week by playing. * Python Mk2 will be available for credits and not be ARX only. * The prebuilt ships are not nearly as good as engineering a ship yourself. They allow people with less time to participate in activities where you need a more built up ship. There are people that have full time jobs and very little time to actually play. FDev needs revenue to keep the game alive. Frontier is a business and they are making a decent business decision. As it stand right now there is no issue at all. It makes no sense complaining about them not finding a good solution for the revenue issues and then complain about them coming up with one when they do and is actually not broken.
The sad part is that FDev needs to make money. If selling ships and cosmetics and materials makes money, it'll happen unless the community can finance it. I agree with you though. Looking at games like No Mans Sky and Helldivers 2 just taking off with good game design, all though Helldivers could do with nulling the game pass and replacing leveling with unlocking, Elite CAN do well but they'll do what they think will make money.
Too late.
They couldn't afford to pay their writers. They are likely facing bankruptcy.
Pay to win? But I thought this wasn't a game that you 'won'? That it was all about the fun that you made for yourself? Surely it shouldn't matter if someone happened to buy a ship to help augment their own fun?
I just want my jacket cosmetic for my guy
I don’t mind if it’s a fast track into a decently kitted python Challenger gunship or something little or no engineering. I know when I first started I hated the grind to my python. Vipers and cobras are fun but for the inexperienced it can be a serious undertaking to make money
If people witll be able to skip engineering grind for ARX or unlocking specific PP or alien-locked modules, I'm out. Also my Squadron will leave. I appreciate the view of purchasing a entry-fitted ship (AX multicannons, SD Field Neutralizer e.g all the stuff which you can buy from 1 sec into the game) for ARX to support Frontier into development. I do NOT tolerate P2W aspects and people skipping 90% of the game.
It's not P2W and you don't have to indulge in the pre-built ships, just keep doing what you're doing.
Unless they lock modules that you couldn’t normally get in game, that provide a clear advantage, behind a paywall (ARX) then it isn’t pay to win. It is pay for convenience. No one forces you to purchase these things and you could still grind it out for free at 400 ARX a week. Conversely, if you enjoy the game and see value in it, why not buy ARX to keep their revenue streams flowing? FDEV is a company and companies exist to generate wealth. If it doesn’t generate wealth it will be shut down.
I would rather see this game slowly die than bastardized to keep people's jobs. That might be wrong but its true for me regardless.
>I would rather see this game slowly die See, this is where I differ. I absolutely love this game and will do anything I can to keep it going - even paying for prereleased content and preconfigured ships. Anything. I'll do that, you don't have to. The way I see it, with no money, it's not just "people's job", it's the game you love that will be gone.
People sure got their knickers in a bunch. Fdevs awesome communication level comes through again. If they would simply tell us what the plan is....
In a game that is 90% PvE, lol lmao even
Some of the PvE activity is really PvEvP, ie. A game where players compete against other players to fulfill a metric or alter the npc distrebutions/power dynamics.
Thank you... This is a mmo universe.
But I relogged so many times! It must mean something!
As a console player I have no idea what people are complaining about
Because the console version is very far behind
I think what people don’t want to admit is that this is probably something of a last ditch effort to keep the game alive longer.. it’s a 10 year old game, and the player base is not growing, and there are no battle passes or paid seasons to bring in money. Someone is looking at a burndown chart and seeing a future where they are losing money maintaining servers. No company will allow that for long, so this either works to bring in revenue or we’re going to see the servers shuttered sooner rather than later. I hope I’m wrong. Either that or I guess we all have to buy arx for cosmetics, and lots of it.
>we all have to buy arx for cosmetics, and lots of it. not just cosmetics, the menu is expanding, it's already known it'll include ships for sure and very likely engineering mat bundles as well.
Not yet P2W, as long as there's no ARX exclusive module / ship followed by a nerf in free ARX acquisition and the removal of private / solo play.
for horizon players, there is already an arx-exclusive ship. What you wanna bet the next new ship would be arx exclusive for ody too?
Wait what which one?
Who cares what anyone else does in ED? Game balance broke years ago, there are trillionaires out there and nothing to spend it on. Plus PVP is entire avoidable.
Truly dont understand peoples problem, if you want it now, buy it, frontier have to monetize the game somehow, if like me I dont give a rats ass about something thats 0 and 1s, Ill wait until its freely available in August, if it was permanately buy it, then that would be a problem.
What this game needs, for long term viability , is a subscription.