Latest CG, the clearest example of P2W in ED to date?

WillFrog

W
Morbad said:
The core facet of the informal fallacy is unintended consequences leading to an undesirable result. There is nothing unintentional about the social aspects of market engineering. There is nothing undesirable about pay-to-win from Frontier's perspective, other than the term itself, which carries negative connotations for some people. The clearly intended and desired outcome is to get the community to buy ships with Arx by incentivizing the use of ships of ships bought with Arx.

Some people might call it a slippery slope, but the overarching trajectory of the Arx store has been more of a 'foot-in-the-door' tactic, which is known to be broadly effective.
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Of course. Frontier like earning money. They would be foolish not to encourage sales. But that does not mean that they're suddenly going to start paywalling ships indefinitely or whatever because they have functioning brains and know that their playerbase would revolt.
25% of participants are going to fail.
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Yes, mostly the people who've only bothered to turn in a single ton of cargo. Look, according to Inara, the total number of current participants is 17,261. This means 4,315 people have delivered less than 2,212 tons. Those people are not likely to be back for more. The 75% threshold will climb, but it's simply not going to climb very far or very fast. There is no reason to think you're going to be outcompeted by those with larger hauling capability.
 

St0rmFury

St0rmFury
As I was typing this post in response to WillFrog on the slippery slope, I realised that it doesn't really answered his question. It turned more into how FOMO is being introduced to us and not about progression. But since I went through the trouble, I decided that I don't want my effort to go to waste 😜

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The slippery slope already happening, but it's done gradually over time so you won't feel it. I'll even list it down for reference (not in any specific order):
  1. Increasing the ARX costs for cosmetics instead of increasing ARX prices
  2. No more Christmas bonus ARX
  3. Omission of ARX rewards in PP leaderboards after showing it in trailers (I'll give FDev a pass on this since it was a work in progress)
  4. Removal of cheaper paintjobs from the store (vibrant & tactical). Some tactical PJs were later included in ship kit bundles as a result.
  5. Jumpstart ships. With a limited edition Cobra MK3 jumpstart that is gone for good.
  6. Early access for new ships which outclasses old ships. Stellar version includes an exclusive paintjob that can't be bought separately.
  7. Not giving a specific date of new ships leaving early access (Cobra MK5 anyone?)
  8. Removal of special paintjobs (chrome, golden, etc) after saying it will be available "all year round" (vague enough to be ambiguous)
  9. Limited edition cosmetics (ruby red pj & lantern light cockpit accessory)
  10. Increasing the ARX cost for large new ships
  11. Holding a hauling CG right after introducing a superior hauler to early access (where we are now)
All this is done to milk as much money from us as possible, and the playerbase is slowly but surely coming to accept it as the norm going forward.

tl;dr - Frog in boiling water syndrome
 

Nidoboros

N
WillFrog said:
Yeah, it's called a slippery slop fallacy for a reason.
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Yeah, but there is also the fallacy fallacy: the assumption that just because the argument contains a fallacy, the conclusions must be false.
WillFrog said:
If such a progression were to happen, I would be right there protesting against it alongside you. But since there is no evidence at all of it actually happening, I see no cause for alarm.
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Hyperbolic example that is hyperbolic: kitchen is on fire, but there is no cause for alarm... you're waiting for the whole building to be burning before you call the fire department.
Doctor Dread said:
What about people who haven't made the Imperial grade, so no Cutter?
Or haven't made enough money even for Type-9?
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I am comfortable with the Cutter losing some cargo space, or the Type-9 gaining some. Type-9 is a specialist ship and  should out-perform a Multi-role. More importantly, nobody spent cash money for these (aside from hauler-quickstart... of course, all the arx ships have also been called Pay-to-Win to varying degrees, and dismissed by the same crowd who are cool with the Plipper).

Additionally, consider: when Cutter dropped, the Type-9 gained more cargo space to come closer to the Cutter's capacity. FDev should consider a return to retconning old ships when new ones drop with zany capabilities.
angusmadmac1 said:
I find it a bit amusing so many people are paying for ships just to keep the lights on in Fdev.
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This is a bad-faith argument. FDev just spent £10 million on stock buybacks. They did not need arx sales to keep the lights on before now, and if they need arx sales to keep the lights on now, perhaps they can sell some of those shares.
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Highlightning said:
You don't have to pay a monthly subscription to play the game. They have to make money on this somehow to keep it running and to develop new content. It isn't run on unicorn giggles and kitten squeeches. My apologies if that comes off snarky, but personally I'm not sure that people who whinge ever on and on about "pay to win" in a game that is free to play ever stop to consider that it doesn't run on magic. Please stop to consider this. Maybe look at it this way: the people who are willing to fork over actual money to get early access to a ship in a game that you apparently enjoy are helping to fuel further development of that game so that you can continue to enjoy it.

Incidentally, "Pay to Win" is actually a PvP term where some strictly PvP games do charge exorbitant prices for items that can only be purchased with actual money that give players a decidedly lopsided advantage against players who cannot afford it or who refuse to pay absurd prices for the gear. It does not apply to games like ED where you pay a reasonable amount for early access to a ship that gives no actual advantage over other players.
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Yes we know, but FD had a choice of how to monetize the game. They chose selling ships and putting EA on new ships. They had other options open to them, but they chose this route. We all know FD need money, but they messed up by neglecting ED for too many years, so now they go the Store Citizen route, unfortunately.

Incidentally, "Pay to Win" is actually a PvP term
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No it isn't. Have you never heard of single player games being P2W? P2W covers quite the range of questionable monetization practices engaged in by game developers.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
WillFrog said:
Yeah, it's called a slippery slop fallacy for a reason. If such a progression were to happen, I would be right there protesting against it alongside you. But since there is no evidence at all of it actually happening, I see no cause for alarm.

What I mostly see is a bunch of people being mad that some folks are having a (very) slightly easier time getting a cool reward than they are.
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Ah, this reminds me of the poem First They Came by Martin Niemöller.

"I see nothing wrong with the current practice, it doesn't hurt me, so i won't speak out about it". And by the time it reaches a point where you don't like what they are doing, its already too late.

FD are a corporation, with shareholders, who want profit. You really trust them to stop at EA ships and CGs directly rewarding people for opening their wallets if the feedback they get is "This is fine"?

That's a green light to upper management they can go further.
 

bryth65

bryth65
I have read only 8 pages of the (currently) 16 on this thread, so someone else may have made these comments ...

I paid for the PC2 before the latest CG was announced. I got it to use for colonisation as I figured that the 400+ extra units per load would make things a little easier/quicker. For example, a large ground-based port - the circular ones with towers in the centre, like Prof. Palin's gaff. 220,000 commodities. 10 carrier loads and 280+ Cutter runs. Actually that's 1120 Cutter runs - FC to supplier, supplier to FC, FC to construction site, CS to FC. About 205,000 commodities are required for an Orbis station. You will lose the will to live, but these ports are really shiny and ultimately worth the effort IMHO, in terms of the satisfaction you get from completing them and the benefits they have to your star system.

This is the first CG I have taken part in after several years of playing ED. I wasn't interested in anything prior to this one. What I found amusing was that the Trailblazer mega ships were the first places to run out of supplies for the CG. When the Trailbazer ships were first deployed, the resupply rate was woefully low, then there was a period when you could pretty much guarantee to get everything you needed for your latest build (even a large port or Orbis). Now the stock levels and resupply rates have plummeted again. Is this as a result of players grabbing everything for the CG? Ironic really, if so. Tralblazers low on stock because of the CG, CG is to supply to Minerva to restock the Trailblazers.

Did FDev lower the restock rates just for the CG? If so, I hope they put them back to reasonable levels after the CG is done, or it will crucify colonisation efforts.

Oh, and the CG will probably not run for 28 days, based on current progress. As I type this, it currently stands at about one third of the way there - 166,794,855 / 500,000,000 - so the CG may run for 9 days or less.
 

lysan

lysan
Morbad said:
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.
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100% agree, good or bad it's here and as i don't have time to grind for hours to get where I want to be, I choose to pay so that my quality to hour ration in game is as high as possible.
 

Martind Forlon

Martind Forlon
Agony_Aunt said:
But we are where we are... could FD avoid the P2W stuff... well, definitely, but i doubt it would generate as much income, because while perhaps most of us say we oppose P2W in principle, wave a shiny new spaceship under someone's nose who has some disposable income and any principles tend to dissipate quickly, perhaps justified with "Well, its not that bad, i'm not hurting anyone else" and they aren't, directly, but they are enabling the devs to continue such practices, and potentially, encouraging them to engage in even worse practices.
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Thing is, they found a way which is it seems decently working for make this game (business) running and further evolve. If they did not find it, we all, at this time, would have not ability to play ED (my best guess). I know that this is very simple explanation with many shadows in the corners, but imo it fits quite well. So, for the question: is in ED P2W content?, the correct answer is: Yes, it is. Now it comes to personal players views how this thing is implemented, and it seems that numerous players do not see it as issue (which seems upsets some). But, there is also question: is OK to have fun for free for more as 10 years in a game which is still evolved? My personal answer is: NO, bcs such charity can't last too long. This are some of reasons why I do not see Frontier decisions as bad ones. Could be it done better? Probably, but this is much easier to say as do it. Not to mention a fact, that no one of us players here can see the whole picture. And it is all from me to this thread, time to drink coffe and have some fun with few cargo runs in open ... then have some RL work to do :) o7

Latest CG, the clearest example of P2W in ED to date?
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Could be seen this way. However, it is also good occassion to test new ship aginst other players in natural environment (and so far I had lots of fun with that, last time 5 minutes ago). Everyone can pick his view here :)
 
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WillFrog

W
Agony_Aunt said:
Ah, this reminds me of the poem First They Came by Martin Niemöller.

"I see nothing wrong with the current practice, it doesn't hurt me, so i won't speak out about it". And by the time it reaches a point where you don't like what they are doing, its already too late.
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Well, I take your point, but that's a little bit strong, don't you think?
FD are a corporation, with shareholders, who want profit. You really trust them to stop at EA ships and CGs directly rewarding people for opening their wallets if the feedback they get is "This is fine"?

That's a green light to upper management they can go further.
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I never underestimate the ability of corporations to do really stupid things and cannibalise their own business. It happens distressingly often. Frontier may do something of that sort in the future, but they haven't done it yet. If the alternative is that we simply get no new content because they're not prepared to invest enough to make full new expansions, then I say better to take the chance.

I'm sure they are getting constant pressure to gouge us further, but so far they seem to be going about things in a sensible manner. Ultimately, Fdev gonna Fdev, and there's not much we as players can do about it. If they screw it up and everything implodes, we'll all just have to move on with our lives and play something else. I hope it won't come to that, and I don't believe it will, but yes, it might. Such is life in the capitalist hell dimension we're all trapped in.
 
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