Pay2Win made it to Elite

[ubermick]

Disgusting move from Frontier. The company's standpoint under Braben was that Elite would NEVER be monetized like this. In the wake of the PR mess and the way Frontier treated their employees during their layoffs, they squeeze the playerbase.

Hopefully the community backlash will be suitably loud and we'll see them change tack on this.

 

[alexzk]

I love early access. It gives me an opportunity to learn how good or bad something is, long before I make a buying decision.
If you don't like the idea, don't participate. It's that simple.

Hmm ..don't you see problem with your sentence ?

long before I make a buying decision.

And their "early access" is buy only.

 

[Unknown Zombie]

So you buy a pre built ship for real money, it get's destroyed, but you're a noob who doesn't have credits for a rebuy... so you just get your ship back for free? If so, sounds like P2W to me. (Obviously more details needed)

Interesting point of view that I hadn't considered.

How would this really actually work? Ship insurance is calculated off how many credits you spent when you bought it. Buying ships on sale, and modules at discounted prices, reduces your rebuy. Since you paid ARX for this thing, and it just appears in your hanger, you essentially paid 0 credits for it. So are rebuys free?

I'm not gonna lie. I'd buy a ship with ARX to get free rebuys. I always play in open unless I'm going to an engineer base. But if I had no rebuys? Honestly, I'd never leave open (even for CGs) at that point.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

The worst case scenario here is if the pre-built ships have unique parts and whatever lemon FDev builds can be taken apart to build an OP ship.

I'm imagining something with the phasing CG multis that lets you get a few more of those mediums that do huge hardpoint damage for arx.

 

[IstvaanDCIV]

I'm going to wait for more details about these pre-built ships, and the potential engineering rebalance, before I start bemoaning them as a cynical cash-grab that will herald the death of Elite. Because there's a range of ways that this could shake out, and the details matter.

 

[alexzk]

I'd never leave open (even for CGs) at that point.

For the same reason I would never enter open Because is somebody enforces me to fight and I win, I lost my time to do what I don't like and he lose 0 in rebuy even.

 

[sinkarma]

I'm going to say this:
Been playing the game since before horizons, and resetted my save, and... if they let us buy a corvette with real money I will.
Cause to hell with that rank grind. I did it once... and I'm looking at it again like: "na its just not worth the time. I prefer to play the game"
And 'early access' to a new ship via ARX isn't all that bad... I think its a good idea, brings in cash for the developers.

Least its not world of tanks where the hot new vehicle you have to GAMBLE for.
I'll run when they start advertising blatantly OP ships that can only be chanced for in lootboxes.

So where do I pre order the python mkII?

 

[rootsrat]

"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."

There you got it more specific. Happy now?

The English language is not my native tongue, but I'm pretty sure I know how to spell "pre-enginereed".

Look, I am not saying they will NOT be pre-engineered. But the article doesn't say they will be pre-engineered either. Ergo - you are assuming things that nobody confirmed yet.

 

[Morbad]

I already paid out of game money to have access to the game early, and to start the game with an advantage.

Starting the game with an advantage (some of which persist to this day) was an inadvertent side-effect of my beta account and later LEP as well. It still amounts to P2W, and I wish no in-game advantages were conferred, but that wasn't even an option. Ideally, if allowing early access is required, the only advantage should be the experience the player obtains. I should not have reduced rebuy costs, the leg up from the free Eagle, nor the head start on assets from gamma. Allowing any of that was a failure of policy that individual action on my part cannot undo.

If there was a ship that, on paper, could trounce a plasma FDL murderboat, I STILL would get walked all over by an accomplished PVP player. NO CONTEST. NONE. Anyboy believing that is only kidding themselves.

That's not the sort of PvP scenario most are thinking about when they claim P2W in that particular context (which is itself far from the only context in which one's ship can provide advantages in this game).

Someone that will beat me more than half the time in a one-on-one engagement with current medium ships may very well lose to me two-thirds of the time, for example, if I have access to the Python Mk II (based on what is known about it and my conservative estimates of the rest) and they do not. No one expects the ship to do most of the work, but it can hugely skew the outcomes featuring otherwise roughly equivalent pilots. My CMDR has won or lost fights by a single shot, a 3m/s velocity advantage, the last thirty seconds of life support, half a ton a fuel, or a single mistake in module power priorities, more times than I can count. Whole groups of players have had their inventories expunged over attempts to shortcut the last few percent of performance of their ships.

Any advantage will eventually be the difference between a win or a loss and any advantage can skew the outcome of less binary contests. Some advantages (player age, free time, the controls they can afford, a good chair, room service, etc) cannot be accounted for nor limited through reasonable means, but access to in game assets absolutely can.

 

[Winterwalker]

I'll run when they start advertising blatantly OP ships that can only be chanced for in lootboxes.

+1. If times are hard then well, I'll take ships for Arx over a monthly subscription any day of the week.

There is also the concept of "all the gear and no idea" and - if you like - your pure pilot will have developed flight experience no Arx noob will ever have. So go ahead, let them try.

 

[Jack McMad]

Just posting to say these changes are very positive on the whole. I have friends I’ve wanted to get into ED for ages. We’re all professionals with young families and limited time to game. They are thinking of actually trying the game out with the implementation of pre-built ships.

Streamlining Engineering is also a positive. So long as they don’t end up selling ‘End Game Complete’ ships - i.e. ships fully upgraded with the best of everything, I have no problem with allowing those who are time poor the chance to purchase pre-built ships with real money.

Not everyone has the time to endlessly grind. I’m not in favour of gatekeeping the game to those who would love to play but presently lack the opportunity (due to being unable to make the time investment necessary).

I may not personally be interested in purchasing pre-built ships or early access to new ships, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the advantage of allowing others to do so (for everyone, as it allows Frontier to continue supporting the game).

 

[Funslinger]

It keeps the lights on and I can easily not pay money if I exercise a little patience. Also, no RNG. If it truly gets annoying, you can play solo or in a PG. This is about the most benign monetization possible.

 

[Xenogenics]

So my lifetime expansion pass nets me the Python Mk2 for free, right? right!?

They did promise 10 years of content lol

 

[Exeider]

What makes you think so?

I think its because most people would conclude that if they weren't or have some otherwise improve stats, it would be a ripoff. basically paying money for something you can get for free in game.

 

[Kissamies]

Pay2Skip at this point, but the slope is getting awfully slippery.

 

[Flimley]

Frontier absolutely needs to monetise this game. And as a previous cmdr said, 'it's pay to skip', and that is fine.
Further Details required however. If I paid RL currency for this ship, is it instantly replaceable upon destruction? I've never lost a paint job yet.

Flimley

 

[epicbubble]

this is absolutely unreal. If im being honest i was warming up to fdev, they seemed to be doing all the right things lately. It has not become painfully obvious that it was all a front for this absolute farce.
im all for monetization, but this is not the way to do it. Why not a monthly sub? id happily throw 30 or so euros fdevs way...

 

[Hopix]

Sheesh. They make a relatively minor announcement and people are treating it like it's the end of the world as we know it.

Relax, people. Take it easy. Take a deep breath.

The forum in a nutshell. Also, when there's no announcement whatsoever, there is also a meltdown.

 

[HRDiagram]

I am in two minds about this, and I'll wait to see how it pans out before deciding how I feel about it all.

On the one hand, I despise micro transactions and pay-to-win games, but at the same time I don't necessarily see these pre-built ships as a way to cheat one's way through the game.

ED is first of all a game of skill, and if you put a big, powerful or fully equipped ship in the hands of someone who does not know how to fly it, it's going to be a poor show anyway.
Posts of people who have rushed through an Anaconda, only to fail at getting out of the shipyard are very frequent.
A prebuilt AX Chieftain? I wonder how many attempts, (free) rebuys and trips back to the fighting area will take for someone who just jumps into it because they now can.
If anything, it might have the opposite effect, of people complaining of having spent real money to be a sitting duck and ragequitting.

In a game like NMS, where the normal difficulty involves keeping one key pressed until you win, or having to press two keys at the same time when it becomes really hard, a P2W scheme could be perhaps more detrimental, but in ED I am not so sure (not yet, at least), you can't buy skills.

I keep thinking of the friend of mine who introduced me to ED: he's so passionate about it but, due to family commitments, he's never able to log on for long, and sometimes has to be away for months. When we manage to play together, there's not much he can do, even though he knows what needs to be done (and I have helped him a lot).
This thing about pre-built ships is something that could help him have more enjoyable sessions with me, when he has the chance to log on.

 

[Rory12]

They're hoping to attract new players with the new content coming, for a ten year old game it would be a boost for all of us who play the game if they can do that.

This is not attracting the right players, but attracting gambling addictive gamers, similar to fans of the world of tanks.

As a result, this is what will happen: a bunch of newcomers on freshly purchased top ships will break into an open game, destroying everyone in a row.

For example they will attack players even in areas with Thargoids. As a result, many old players will go solo. Conventions will appear in the form of a ban on firing at allies as in War Thunder. The game will begin to die.