On the flipside if it gives you pause looking at the prices, there just isn't so much to choose from anymore. Quite a few designs have been discontinued. Maybe they want to protect us from overspending. </sarc>
Cosmetics Sale is about to end
- Thread starter GraXXoR
- Start date
You know full well, that these prices don‘t just pay for the pixels of the paintjobs but also for the running of the game itself and the introduction of new features. Would you prefer to pay a monthly subscription fee or having to purchase Ascension or Trailblazers as some kind of mini DLC?
Of course I’m not crazy about price increases, either. But in the end we‘re talking about very optional cosmetics here. And if one thinks the price is too high for the provided item then there is nothing lost in just not buying it.
No, I have strait up quit games that moved to subscription model.
Yes.
The sale is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now 'istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket! It’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-SALE!
PP colors are much more saturated and in my opinion pp ships have more colored surfaces.
Vibrant paintjobs are often mentioned of course, along with tactical ones and military were most popular, affordable and good looking visual enhancements of any ship, people liked those paints, but they randomly removed paints from any pack that was available; let's take some of these and some of those
What we got left is totally random for example you can have yellow aspE but you no longer can have yellow Adder paint. Paintjob removal was totally nonsensical decision beyond any explanation.
No, I wouldn't buy either of those DLCs because they are terrible empty grinds that are not interesting at all. Making rubbish like that is why they are scratching for money when this game could easily be making Star Citizen money or level NMS sales.
Friendly reminder that Frontier (last time I checked) still sell both the base game and the Odyssey DLC via the various channels.
And if I remember @Ian Doncaster correctly, the cosmetics portion of revenue is on a much smaller scale vs base game sales. So Frontier increasing cosmetics store prices as they did last year seems rather peculiar as a business decision. Maybe whales are the main focus now.
Yes - for which releasing things like Ascendancy and Trailblazers as free updates makes a lot of sense.
1) It increases the value of the base game and did have a significant upwards effect on base game sales and therefore income
2) Both of those features specifically (and also the coming Vanguards) gain value from having as many other players doing them as possible. Solo Powerplay would be a bizarre experience. Solo Colonisation sort of works but you'd have to do a lot of personal chaining to get to systems which are readily accessible now. Solo Vanguards is obviously not good for actual multiplayer use of the feature. So having to have everyone else buy in to it reduces the chances that anyone will.
The new ships, on the other hand, don't care if anyone else is flying them too. Python 2 pilots weren't affected in the slightest by me looking at it, decided I'd already got a FDL and didn't need another shieldtank combat specialist ship when I barely flew the first one, and ignoring it. So that's something where selling it separately makes sense - especially on an early access basis where after the initial "must have now" rush has worn off it then starts giving Odyssey some more value for people who aren't into walking around.
I think it made sense as a decision to try to get more out of the cosmetics store given how little it was making (especially by making the free ARX insufficient for the "one new paint every few months" players), but it doesn't from what they published to investors seem to have made much eventual difference in itself in either direction. It may have been necessary to make the ship sales at the price point they wanted fit in better with the cosmetics, though - having the Deluxe Python 2 cost twice as much as the Normal one can't really be justified to established players on the improved core internals, so the ship kit / paint price has to go up to make that price "still cheaper than buying them all separately"
Diversifying into other areas also helps, of course, but has limits. e.g. it's 5000 ARX (£3 or less) to rename a station, and there's about 50,000 colonised systems so far, so if on average they each have one renamed station [1] that's about £150,000. Which is nice for Frontier to have, certainly, but it's only about 2% of the game's reported annual income, so compared with the boost in interest that Colonisation gave, not the big thing here.
[1] Wild guess loosely based on the ones near me. There's probably enough station naming data on Spansh that anyone who cares can get a more accurate number, though.
At the very beginning paintjob prices were actually similar to today. My store history goes back to Nov. 11th 2014. In August 2015 I've bought the Chrome Vulture paintjob for 11€, that is what the 16800 ARX package costs, so paintjobs right now actually cost less than back then. The Gold Anaconda paintjob was 12,50€. And then, roughly 2/3 into 2016, there was a massive price cut. Corvette and Cutter paintjobs were 4€ each, that's roughly 5000 ARX today. Big 16 piece shipkits were 10€ each, so a little less than the 16800 ARX they cost today. And on the newer ships you have 6-piece and 3-piece shipkits for the same price.
Do you honestly in your heart of hearts believe for a moment that the money from these paintjobs goes to directly fund projects in this game?
FDEV is a big company and a lot of their franchises are bleeding money.
It's more likely that any money from this game is going to cover their mistakes over the last few years and only 7% (the share this game generates) is actually used for E
Problem is I looked back at my purchasing history and remembered how much I enjoyed buying paint jobs.. I have often multiple paints per ship (15 or 16 paints, IIRC, for the Federal Corgette two sets: Tactical and Predator... Also some independent colours such as midnight + chrome + chromed + iridescent + azure + possibly a few others)...
I also noticed that I spent more in total due to the sheer number of casual purchases of $2 here $5 there.
But with this system, there's the extra barrier of having to make a bulk Arx purchase that feels expensive ($29 ?) and then seeing how few paints you get for the price makes me disinclined to bother purchasing more.
I remember the gold anaconda paintjob was a premium paint job and many people were laughing at the price I think it was 10 pounds...
For me there's an added problem that the yen has lost a third in value against the $ since 2016 so that will also be sitting unhappily with me, tho it's not FDEVs fault.
Personally, I'd like to spend (more) money on paint jobs but there aren't many for e.g. the Mandalay which I find attractive. Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but beyond my personal opinion, the whole selection is pretty limited. Probably, FDev is thinking that we explorers don't want to sport anything looking good. So, no matter if paint jobs are on sale, if they are cheap or expensive - there are none which I'd buy momentarily.
Same is true for decals. Mostly, they're horizon's era and second, their placement on the ships is looking odd (ignoring hull panel gaps, ignoring slanted shapes of the ship's body, etc.)
Same is true for decals. Mostly, they're horizon's era and second, their placement on the ships is looking odd (ignoring hull panel gaps, ignoring slanted shapes of the ship's body, etc.)
I find it weird that they've removed dozens of paintjobs from the shop. There are a whole bunch of paints I purchased for my ships over the years that no longer exist at all.
Not even sure why... can't be server capacity, that makes no sense because they still have to render my ships' paintjobs in other players' clients.
FOMO. I've seen some of the tactical/military paints come back for some ships, but only as part of a larger package. Pretty lame if you ask me (because those skins were always on the lowest end of the scale for me, and priced accordingly initially) but it's their game and store.
I do not understand the lack of choice for the newer ships though - it's been over half a year since the Cobra 5 was released, and the number of skins available is still a joke. Maybe the thinking is that lack of choice will make people buy what's available now, and then pull the wallet out later when they release more?
Yep used to be 3 quid for a six pack during the sale... 50p each basically.
that's why in total I've spent nearly 200 quid on cosmetics before I took my hiatus... they were cheap enough to impulse purchase.
Now with the crazy price hikes and the crap Yen to Pound ratio (lost half its value since 2015) i hardly spend anything... though I did buy some post-wine ARX in preparation for the Panther Clipper.... O_O
Even after the Arx introduction it was perfectly possible to unlock those low-tier skins just by playing for a week or two. That was pretty fair I thought.
Now though? Weekly Arx is a drop in the ocean (vs store prices) and I ignore it now as I'd have to save up for months to afford a single item, but I also don't buy anything anymore (the Cobra 5 + MNB skin I bought in January was an exception). My total spend is closer to 600 Euros and while I don't regret it per se, I wouldn't do it again. At least that habit has been extinguished thanks to 4.0 visuals and of course the Great 2024 Inflation Event (tm).
About being at the receiving end of currency fluctuation though... used to live in the UK and bailed just after the Brexit referendum... all my savings were in Sterlos... suffice to say I lost a lot of money at the time. Still sour about it today.
The Corsair is way better on my opinion for general day to day use. The PMKII is much better in combat though.
Bit spooky this as I recently stumbled over a vaguely relevant email archive.
What does it prove?
Absolutely nothing beyond my pathetic need to show off that I own these PJs
Imperial Cutter Iridescent Twilight | FORC_FDEV_V_IMPERIAL_CUTTER_1067 | 1 | £3.00 |
Anaconda Iridescent Twilight | FORC_FDEV_V_ANACONDA_1106 | 1 | £3.00 |
Python Iridescent Twilight | FORC_FDEV_V_PYTHON_1096 | 1 | £3.00 |
What does it prove?
Absolutely nothing beyond my pathetic need to show off that I own these PJs
I'm still running Iridescent on my Corvette. Pearl Abyss, the studio behind Black Desert Online made exactly the opposite decision a while ago. They used to have seasonal and timed FOMO skins, but they've chosen to make everything available all the time. Seems to work for them, there's no sign of going back to the old model.Bit spooky this as I recently stumbled over a vaguely relevant email archive.
What does it prove?
Absolutely nothing beyond my pathetic need to show off that I own these PJs
Yep I have pearl iridescent on my corvette for some reason... don't remember buying it but who knows... Still, it fits my CMDRs latest incarnation as female.
Actually tempted to get the pink skin for my new panther...
OMG, I just realised... it's the Pink Panther.... How slow am I??? I feel like a frkkn idiot!!!
Aaaanyway, where was I oh yes.... 6000 ARX is a bit pricy for such a novelty IMO..
Pink Panther.... smh... lol