best argument i have read on the forum for ages,you are both right in youre own way,now meet in the middle and play on cmdrs,lol.
Latest CG, the clearest example of P2W in ED to date?
- Thread starter Agony_Aunt
- Start date
It would seem a reasonably solid bet that FD have considered funding tactics quite thoroughly prior to the introduction of Arx purchased EA ships.
Increasing funding (which according to @Ian Doncaster the funding from Arx sales is not a major contributor to the game's financing, but probably pays for their production with a little excess) for new toys by selling them off for Arx before credits appears to be successful enough to continue with a further 4 ships to the originally announced 4, and, who knows, may even bring more in the next years.
Currently the cost appears palatable to many, and, for those who are not able to 'pay up front' the ships will become available to all in a short time, so nobody is actually excluded from owning any of them in due course.
I only bothered with the just ended hauling CG after buying my 'working' Kitten for over a billion credits and needing to replace 600 mill into my FC upkeep fund, getting 2 of the enginered PD units was just fortunate! (I was in the top 25% with only 10k hauled in that one, I could have done much more, but elected to do other things)
The current CG handing out engineered cargo racks, following the release of the PC II, might be considered underhand, it is true, but if it does bring in more revenue because folk are convinced they can't get in the top 75% without spending money, it can only be good for the continuing development of new assets, which benefits everyone who playus the game.
Honestly, I wondered if these new cargo racks might be intended to mitigate the arrival of the PC2.
"You might not own a PC2 but here's some magical cargo racks for your peasant-ship so you don't feel totally left behind".
Course, the irony is that the people flying the PC2 (with it's own magical cargo racks) are going to have a slightly easier time collecting some extra magical cargo racks in the CG.
I'm not sure they will but I do hope FDev make these racks generally available (in all sizes) so other ships can regain some of the ground lost to the PC2.
Obviously, people will also be able to fit them to their PC2, thus making it even better, but if it was sufficient that a T9 could get somewhere around 1000t then it'd quell the feeling that you "need" a PC2 to do bulk-hauling.
And? Seriously, this matter has sailed long time ago with first ARX ship release. Nothing new in that regard happened since that. There are some advantages coming with each ARX ship, this is just a plain fact. PC2 as is offers me use my spare gaming time more efficiently ... and this is all, what is for me personally important.
As I read things, the issue was raised as the PC2 is currently on advanced access and will become available for credits down the line, but two(?) days after release a hauling CG started. As far as I am aware, I am old and do forget things, apart from AX stuff, we may not have seen an advance access ship followed closely by an activity that having such a ship gives an advantage. A cunning plan to some, the thin end of the wedge to others. I can go along with the decisions taken so far.
So you like to invest your own money and time to be someone else's game content?
Will everyone on this CG’s top 10 list have done it in a PC? Probably.
Does it matter for the overall rewards of this CG? Not in the least.
The only bonus they’ll get is extra credits, which is meaningless to anyone that’s even approaching 10% or probably even 50%.
FDEV have been generous in maximizing the rewards at 75%, and at that bar, whether or not you own the PC is completely irrelevant. That’s why it’s not really “P2W” in the context of this CG.
there's nothing in this game that could be considered "pay to win"....this cg or otherwise. What is winning in elite? There's nothing special that the richest player in the game can do that some newbie 1 month in can't. The activities available in the game that you start playing with are the exact same activities that very literally all players are doing. There's no special thing anyone else is doing that you can't. The bar to making credits meaningless is extremely low and everything else is just a matter of spending time to grind. Once you have whatever items that grinding provides, then what? What are you going to do with all of it? Create more npc stations ? There's no end-game in this game. It's just keep playing on the neverending merry go round ...the same one you have been playing since you started.
I really dont see what advantage to doing the same grind loops and same activities any player has regardless of whatever they have acquired is. An advantage in what? space trucking ? swapping which meaningless faction is in power in which meaningless system ? An advantage in pew pew'ing dead simple npcs ? What? Nothing that you can do in the game really impacts the gameplay for anyone else, or even yourself really. So...where is the win? If i could pay some amount of money to get to this mythical non-grindy win gameplay I would. Cuz i've been playing the same grindy game loops since launch. But that doesn't exist, so until then, the idea that there's a "Win" state for someone to cheat their way to by paying or otherwise is just ridiculous. You can't win in elite. You just get to the realization that nothing you do matters and there's no actual point to doing anything faster.
I really dont see what advantage to doing the same grind loops and same activities any player has regardless of whatever they have acquired is. An advantage in what? space trucking ? swapping which meaningless faction is in power in which meaningless system ? An advantage in pew pew'ing dead simple npcs ? What? Nothing that you can do in the game really impacts the gameplay for anyone else, or even yourself really. So...where is the win? If i could pay some amount of money to get to this mythical non-grindy win gameplay I would. Cuz i've been playing the same grindy game loops since launch. But that doesn't exist, so until then, the idea that there's a "Win" state for someone to cheat their way to by paying or otherwise is just ridiculous. You can't win in elite. You just get to the realization that nothing you do matters and there's no actual point to doing anything faster.
Or leave those who are happy to cough up twice for the ships to do so, and carry on playing at no extra cost.
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You're right, I haven't played in 2 years (just can't be bothered to do the bindings again) and my position is just the same. Maybe Frontier will entice me back, but it seems unlikely.
The main problem with the game, as a game, is it's continued viability, as a product. I haven't wanted the game funded, at all, by anyone, since I stopped funding it myself (I didn't run out of money, FDev stopped offering what I wanted). Paying for the continued degradation of a game I enjoy is not something that appeals to me and watching it happen is frustrating, especially since there is nothing else quite like it out there. The sooner the game becomes abandonware, the sooner I'm likely to be able to run the version of the game I want to run. It would still be a long shot, of course, but much better odds than FDev doing a complete 180 and rolling back the bulk of the last decade of changes, then going in a direction more in line with the original development plan/vision.
I don't think the game would survive a mandatory subscription model, but I don't think it would kill the company either. So, it's potential upside is limited to making room in Elite: Dangerous' tiny MMO space simulator niche, which would surely be filled by something worse, or something mandating the use of a platform I will not patronize, under any circumstances (e.g. Steam).
Anyway, I think a more realistic model that could bypass any any all accusations of P2W is keeping the game in a permanent state of crowd funding. Frontier makes an honest effort to be transparent about the game's costs, and opens up rounds of wholly anonymous funding, offering nothing more than the continued operation of the game and a best effort attempt at meeting feature deadlines. There are no reward tiers. No names on any backer list or plastered across stations and systems in-game. No CMDR benefits of any kind. Paying in doesn't give anyone anything more than those who play for free (or the nominal cost of a license to the game itself).
If this were the funding model and the game was going in a direction I didn't find offensive, I would be happy to fund it. One of the big reasons I didn't back a higher tier earlier was because the rewards were too blatant. I paid as little as would allow me to play as I do not want my CMDR placed above any other CMDR. I want absolute equality of opportunity, as far as is possible for Frontier to enforce.
Now I don't think this would have changed the trajectory of the game much and I probably would have stopped funding it around the same time, but I absolutely do think there are enough people willing to throw their money at what we've got/are supposedly getting, with no personal reward, to keep the game running and in an active state of development. Having the contributions be open-ended might even increase revenue. Of course, I'm not a business accountant and I'm sure FDev's consider such an approach too risky, or otherwise problematic, or they'd have already attempted it. Selling paint and gameplay advantages seems to work well enough for them.
That is one of the aforementioned pay-to-win aspects.
I don't think anyone seriously doubts there are advantages to buying ships with Arx, unless they are impossibly naive, unimaginative, in delusional denial about P2W aspects existing, or uselessly pedantic when it comes to defining the word 'win'.
In any multiplayer game all players are implicitly everyone else's content.
I would be entirely content to fund a game for freeloaders, as it were, no matter their character's disposition to my character, or even my personal feelings about their players, because the presence of anyone able to follow the game's rules can only improve a multiplayer game, technical limitations not withstanding.
Completely and vehemently disagree.
Progressing towards one's goals, whatever those goals may be.
There doesn't need to be an objective end-game for there to be goals to be attained. Indeed, I probably wouldn't have ever picked up the game had it been one where my character's goals (beyond the basics of survival) were predefined, immutable, or had an end. That doesn't mean there are no win/loss conditions, it means there are an unlimited number of them.
All those things you describe as meaningless are the game for a great many people. I certainly feel Frontier has been diluting the game through context violations and a general lack of consequence, but those who have come to your conclusion, who don't believe what they do matters, have generally left, or don't engage with the game enough for anything they buy to skew the setting much for those who do. For everyone else, who have in-game goals that require one overcome in-game obstacles to get in-game feedback (even if the mechanisms are often dubious), there are going to be win states. These goals and win states are often in opposition to others, so how efficiently they can be achieved, mitigated, or forestalled, will matter, to them.
I understood it. But its not really important. At the end of the day, there is no winner elite dangerous, its a game that you could play for the rest of your life. Someone get more than you at a CG because he has a bigger ship then you. So what, it shouldn't matter. I do my trade CGs in a T8 and there are platers with much bigger ships then mine. They don't win.
Absolutely imaginary gameplay is what you speak of. Head cannon goals and head cannon consequences. They only matter in your head because you imagine them to matter. That's not winning in elite. Your percieved disadvantage to people cheating (buying) is indistinguishable from players who spend way too much time min-max grinding...it's the same experience players have had since launch.....well before arx. Paying in this case doesn't skip some skilled gameplay you have mastered...it just skips a temporary and small time barrier of grind mechanics that do not require any skill to do....just time.
If you're argument is that you want your time to mean something for what you've invested in the game, then your argument has nothing to do with paying to win, and everything to do with the game mechanics of this game.
I see no value in protecting time sinks and boring repitition...that's not an achievement by having endured it and so it's not worth ensuring everyone else has to as well to get to the same destination. Fix the mechanics if those rewards matter to you in your imaginary role game state. I think you're indirectly protecting bad gameplay for the sake of imagined head cannon.
Let me know when there are skilled activities being circumvented by paying cash. Or activities that objectively change the game for others such that i'd actually have to care. I really could not care less about how hurt someone is about their pretend game role since it doesn't impact the actual game in any meaningful way. Nothing is stopping you from pretending your opposition is just much stronger than you at the moment. the argument against sounds like what newbies complain about pvp cambat with someone much better, (they must be cheating, no way could they fly like that and take no damage). Instead of maybe knowing your opponent skipped the boredom of a time sink to do something, just pretend there are more of them. Being dedicated grinders. Same outcome for you. And such skipping ahead is not more than a temporary percieved advantage in any case.
Tldr: if i have to care about the argument you're making about imagined game play, then i'd have to care about the solo vs open debate because it's the exact same argument. And after a decade, i do not.
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Well, everything's faster than a T9 lol. It's slower than my Cutter though.
nope, i just go to solo however if and when it happens in open, i really dont care that much
Imagination plays a significant role in literally any game where one is playing something other than what they are. That applies, perforce, to a title about taking on the role of a Pilots' Federation Commander in a far future fantasy setting.
It's not wholly imaginary, because the game offers numerous feedback mechanisms to facilitate the depiction of this fantasy and immerse one's self in the roles available. If it were absolutely imaginary, there would be no need for a BGS, or a graphics engine, or a UI, or any game at all.
Min-max grinding is something that can be done entirely within the internal context of the game itself. The distinction between in game and out of game should be clear.
Being able to do more in less time is a big deal.
My argument is that if one can pay Frontier to get any kind of mechanical advantage that is acknowledged by any in-game mechanism, it's pay-to-win.
Nor do I, which is one of the reasons I'm against pay-to-win mechanisms.
Pay-to-win mechanisms monetize the existence of grind by offering an out-of-context workaround to it. This incentivizes the inclusion of more time sinks, more busywork, and more grind walls. It sets up a feedback loop of perverse incentives that will only stop when maximal extractable revenue is reached.
Profitable solutions to problems that shouldn't exist doesn't make those problems go away, it makes those problems worse.
I have no idea how you define skill (that's what a game's reward/consequence mechanisms are for...over the long run those who are more successful are perforce more skilled at the game, if the game makes any sense) and certainly don't I expect anyone to care about other players, beyond how it affects their own experience, but neither thing is particularly relevant here.
Your assertion that the the game is wholly imaginary is false and objectively so. The outcomes of contests aren't subjective; they are reflected in the changes to the setting that we all experience. If I've failed to achieve my CMDR's objectives, I know the opposition is stronger, what matters is how and why (numbers is a strength, patience is a strength, endurance/tolerace of boredom is a strength, superior coordination and tactics are strengths, the willingness to expend Arx is a strength...though I consider the latter to be unlike the others in a uniquely negative way, as it has no in-setting context). Imagining none of my foes are using the tools they've been encouraged to use does not inform my counter-gameplay skills, it would just be wishful thinking or outright delusion. If I'm going to achieve my CMDR's goals, I'm going to need my eyes open, not blind myself to game actually being depicted. As long as I'm playing with others, it cannot be completely subjective, because I'll be confronted with contradictory viewpoints. Indeed, that is the purpose of playing a multiplayer game for me; the consensus of those involved creates a baseline of objectivity allowing biased outlier narratives to be rejected. We can all see who's name is on a system, or what the outfitting and commodities are available and for what prices...it would be nice if consequences were strong enough that victories didn't need to be so abstract (sending someone to that rebuy screen when you know they can't afford it and will be financially/mechanically unable to annoy one for a while is definitely something that I see less of than I used to in the early game), but what we have is still enough for a game. It provides the framework to build shared imaginings upon.
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Dear CMDRS, I apologize, English is not my native, but isn't "winning" means "gaining, resulting in, or relating to victory in a contest or competition.". To my understanding, keywords are: victory, contest, competition. Typical CG* with some sort of pulling could be considered as contest and/or competition, but in term of prize it is not, since number of those prizes are usually not limited anyhow. Sorry, but if there are no losers then there are no winners, right?
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* Combat CG as latest one could be possibly considered as contest, but does ARX ships bringing any advantage to it? since any ARX-ship can't have a single chance against properly engineered comparable one.
Purchasing ARX-ships definitely provides some time saving. It cancels few months of waiting for fun of flying a brand new ship. In case with PCII during those few months in addition such purchase saves some time from hauling routine for other things more enjoyable to do in ED.
For example, in current CG over a Cutter I can haul only 2 runs instead of 3 to be in "top" 75%. Or 11 instead of 16 for top 25%. Do I care? No... Does it brings me additional .3-.5blns? Probably... Do I care? No... It seems like this win also missed me...
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* Combat CG as latest one could be possibly considered as contest, but does ARX ships bringing any advantage to it? since any ARX-ship can't have a single chance against properly engineered comparable one.
Purchasing ARX-ships definitely provides some time saving. It cancels few months of waiting for fun of flying a brand new ship. In case with PCII during those few months in addition such purchase saves some time from hauling routine for other things more enjoyable to do in ED.
For example, in current CG over a Cutter I can haul only 2 runs instead of 3 to be in "top" 75%. Or 11 instead of 16 for top 25%. Do I care? No... Does it brings me additional .3-.5blns? Probably... Do I care? No... It seems like this win also missed me...
Imagining a role is not what this is about, it's imagining that the activities you do in the game actually mean anything to the game. They do not.
The bgs is pointless. There are so many systems and factions so close together that nothing you do in any part has any meaningful consequence 1 jump away.
I'm not saying gameplay or the game is imaginary, i'm saying your perception that what you are doing in the game matters to the game is.
It's irrelevant if it's in the game's context or not because, as i mentioned, there is no distinction from any player's perspective between a group of grinders or a smaller group of people skipping some of the grind...in or out of game context. Again, this is the same argument open vs solo has been having for over a decade. Game modes are also just as 'external' to the game context as buying something with arx and the exact same arguments are made around that. This is the same debate with the names changed.
Yeah, especially when the only game mechanic relies on your time to scale reward. That's a crap game limitation, not something worth defending.
You should have options to get your rewards with less time but in more difficult ways. This would eliminate any advantage a paid option would have. Since they would still be doing that tier 1 activity that is boring but easy.
In elite all paid options do is cut a line of acquiring something anyone with time can get. A temporary barrier for anyone inclined to get the same thing. It really doesn't matter.
And open vs solo's argument in if i can avoid the difficulty of opposing human players by using a mode or blocking them so i only have dirt easy npcs to contend with, then that's a lower difficulty game that shouldn't be rewarded the same as players who partcipate against other humans.
Fdev believes it's not appreciably different in difficulty. If that's true then an even less impactful 'skip to acquiring a ship' is most definitely not an way to win anything.
I'd be inclined to believe pay to win occurs by buying ships when fdev makes changes that nerf all activity that occurs in solo and bans players that try blocking players, remove the block player feature and /or give bonuses to activities done in open.
Fdev monitized grind when they introduced engineers and stopped game mechanics at a single tier. Paying is just them recognizing this. It existed long before arx. So i dont see how your cause and effect are meshing with reality. The game is grind mechanics and only grind mechanics. Paying to skip some isn't creating more nor was the lack of buying ships leading to a decrease or change in direction.
You assume there is a chance they would resolve those 'problems'. I dont. Nobody should, there is no evidence to back that assumption up. Fdev made the game this way and kept it this way long before buying ships and there is zero reason to think that would have ever changed.
Credits are not a barrier for very long in this game. Nothing really is and no advantage can't be opposed by just time and continued grind, the same gameplay avail even if the opposition had less of an advantage.
Enduring grind is not a skill a gamer should be proud of, nor should a game be proud to utilize as their main way to control 'progression'. That's all paying for ships affords players.
This isn't a multiplayer game where you oppose humans. You are playing a game where you interact with a shared npc environment optionally with other humans around. What any other player happens to be doing only matters to you if you opt into imagining that it does...and that's where we really diverge. Because caring about that means also believing in the wrongness of open and solo modes. You cant believe one without the other and we know modes aren't being changed, so there is no point in having your imagined gameplay impacted by paid players, unless you exist in a constant state of feeling cheated by game modes or are hypocritical by exploiting game modes.
I bought the Panther Clipper Stellar, but did my contribution to this CG in the Imperial Cutter because it was faster this way. Outfitting and engineering the Panther would have taken me as long as hauling several thousand tons with the Imp.
Now I can take all the time in the world to tinker with the Panther and enjoy the new ship, no P2W in mind
Now I can take all the time in the world to tinker with the Panther and enjoy the new ship, no P2W in mind