Maybe I should give them to you instead, it seems you have some pent up issues they could help you with.
Cosmetics: Why they need a change
- Thread starter SaliVader
- Start date
Maybe I should give them to you instead, it seems you have some pent up issues they could help you with.
Big post.
But on that previous poll : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/10029-Exclusive-Cosmetics-Poll
Really interesting.
The concept of paying for *some* cosmetics was floated.
The consensus (if you read the comments) seemed to be yeah that's cool, but with a reasonably strong desire for them (or some) being earnable in game too.
Which somewhere seemed to have fell by the wayside.
And now it's looking like we are at a point where you're not even able to use a new feature without buying cosmetics.
I feel Frontier need to take a step back and reassess their approach.
And really, that old poll thread is worth reading : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/10029-Exclusive-Cosmetics-Poll
Have a look at the comments, see how it was.
And understand people are not just wanting stuff for free, they never have, they are happy to support, just be fair about it.
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Except Elite easily steps above all those?
Also remember that you can't equate, "Well I paid 100+ over 2 years to fully own this game, so it should have free cosmetics in it" to f2p.
Because you are comparing over time, so the best way to compare it would be "Elite dangerous has cost me 100+ over 2 years" <insert f2p game> "Cost me xxx over the same time"
Also remember that this is an online game, mmo if you will without subscription, so if you want to compare it with something the best thing you can compare it to, in my book is guild wars 2, which is also buy to play, or Elder scrolls online, which is also buy to play.
Cosmetic rewards in game, would be nice, this i agree on, but again, given the nature of the game, people would just grind those things to infinite, and they'd become pointless, so when it comes to 'reward' cosmetics aren't any better then payout.
That said, we have gotten scenario's with 2.3, and maybe a long chain scenario could end up giving a reward of cosmetic, we don't know. As for your example, those kits wouldn't really be cosmetics if they affected game play and as such, wouldn't be sold on the store? and those kinds of things, since they are game play related, and not cosmetic (though yes they could also look cosmetically different) could easily be made an in game reward for something.
Ok so.
Paint jobs look horrible - don't buy them, I'm sure someone likes them, just not you? there's a lot of things that look horrible irl that people buy and strut proudly around with, so when it comes to cosmetics, its very subjective?
parts of the ship invisible - elaborate? give link to example of this happening?
broken animations - which? again, give example, don't just say 'this is wrong' without providing proof.
buggy/broken missions/npc's - yes, this happens, but it happens in near all games, no matter the quality level, heck we have triple A games that are a horrible broken mess, by those standards Elite is quite the quality in my book.
powerplay - powerplay seems a fine mechanic in my book, 'mechanic' why people don't enjoy it or such, I see a lot of reasons for, but what I don't see is a solid agreement on what would fix it, create a power play that everyone would enjoy that would make sense? personally I'd love it if people sat down made a thread and just collated idea's.
dead cqc - Tricky, I enjoy CQC, but I enjoy main game more, I can't cqc and main game at the same time, so I main game when I play. does that mean cqc is bad? not in my book. Many have suggested being able to queue up from in game, but what would that solve? that still drags me away from the main game? So yeah, I don't know what the solution is, other then adding AI's to it so people 'can' play.
broken wings/networking - This is a really tricky subject, mostly because many people dismiss out right that it can be their internet connection that is at fault, but often it is, best thing frontier can do in my book, is make a comprehensive in game guide on how to set up networking properly, maybe a one time setup for networking?
See above please regarding how much you've actually paid over time, and please inform me of what you've paid for f2p titles or other buy to play titles? so we can actually compare it against something.
I'd agree the F2P cosmetics should have more of some sort of player choice. Perhaps RGB sliders for both the background and "detail" colors. Detail meaning the stripes or patterns or certain shipkit elements that come with the store bought cosmetics. That way Frontier could still sell ship kits and paint patterns and specials (like reflectivity, brightness, opaqueness etc.) while players can change the base colors.
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I 100% agree with the op, furthermore I think that they missed a great opportunity for in game customization with the engineers and ship kits. What I mean by that is for example, you get dirty drives G1-5 your thrusters could actually LOOK different. You could apply that to the rest of the ship kits aswell where having different parts on your ship actually make it handle differently. Yea I know a spoiler on your ship isn't actually going to make it go faster and this is all just an opinion of mine. But in other games (dare I say simulator games) your vehicle's profile usually correlates with how it handles. In this case wider wings would give you better stability in atmosphere flight (when they get around to adding that) or a wider body could displace the maneuvering thrusters to allow a faster roll at cost of yaw or something. And no this isn't a case of someone wanting something for free as I bought the original idea back when it was still a kickstarter and have already have a life time expansion pass. Heck I even bought a couple paint jobs because there was literally no way to get them otherwise. They did a couple good moves with giving everyone a black Friday paint job and some decals but that was like 2 years later. Again, I agree with the OP in that more complex and special paint jobs, etc SHOULD be bought with irl money but not the base line cosmetics that are available in literally EVERY OTHER 60$ game.
You need Duke for a Cutter.
What's pointless about providing special Cutter skins for Prince and King ranks?
2.5 years in being a King is still meaningless, earnable cosmetics would be great.
Why don't I as a King have the right to wear some special Empire ship colours?
Where's the tacky overdone Empire flourish?
I honestly don't see that as pointless, it would be great.
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They could just add store credit to your account so that's not an issue.
They could retroactively give store credit for those who bought the most basic color packs based on their account order history.
Those who bought more elaborate patterns such as "wing" and "medusa" sets could still adjust their basic background and detail hues with RGB sliders for more variation.
Those who bought more elaborate patterns such as "wing" and "medusa" sets could still adjust their basic background and detail hues with RGB sliders for more variation.
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Why would they when people are still buying them. People on here act as if frontier are a charity.
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People aren't acting as if Frontier are a charity, people don't want to be nickle and dimed in a game they purchased for AAA money.
Frontier is a company and instead of using the most basic sales principles (give people a taste and they will swarm for more) they lock away a whole aspect of the game behind a paywall.
Also, the fact that Frontier is a company cuts both ways, I can't fathom why people here are so aggressively opposed to this. Let Frontier react. Let them give the facts on why and why not. Instead we have a ton of people who think they owe Frontier something, attack anyone with a different mindset. Frontier got your money, you are owed by them to provide the best possible product. You don't owe them anything.
We're not asking them to be a charity. We're saying something like
"If you decide to make the vibrant paint pack the default one, give people in store credit for the vibrant packs they purchased."
We're not saying literally every paint pack should be refunded, and a sign of good will would probably make sure they keep a broad customer base for their store.
Fashionframe works in Warframe because of two reasons: 1) the huge variety of cosmetic options available, and 2) the vibrant player interactions the game is designed to facilitate. The first one is important because the "free" cosmetics are only a small fraction of the total range of options, that makes it easier to have a small free tier and a larger premium tier. We don't have enough cosmetic options in ED right now to support two separate tiers like that. Also, the ones we do have are totally unibody - there's no mix-and-match, select-your-own with colors like in WF. The second is important because most players simply don't see other players, so there's less incentive to make your ship look good. Maybe that changes with 2.3 and the external camera, so at least *you'll* see your ship more often...but without an external HUD, you're still going to spend most of your time in first-person. Also, Warframe has plat (premium tradable currency) you can use to buy cosmetics, so there's still a monetization stream, even if its slightly decoupled.
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ED could have fashionframe too, but they'd need a concerted effort to get there. There'd have to be a massive expansion of the cosmetics catalog for all ships, and then you can start to look at what you want to release as freebies to get people into fashionframe. There would also need to be an expansion of the Livery system so that you could actually customize your ship, part by part (again like Warframe), instead of just selecting a pre-crafted color kit that applies to the whole ship. Something like you buy a paint pattern for the ship (solid comes free, but you can buy racing stripes, chevrons, Imp/Fed Regalia, pirate markings, etc.) with A/B/C channels or color/accent/trim channels, and then fill it in with your own color scheme from the colors you've earned or purchased.
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ED could have fashionframe too, but they'd need a concerted effort to get there. There'd have to be a massive expansion of the cosmetics catalog for all ships, and then you can start to look at what you want to release as freebies to get people into fashionframe. There would also need to be an expansion of the Livery system so that you could actually customize your ship, part by part (again like Warframe), instead of just selecting a pre-crafted color kit that applies to the whole ship. Something like you buy a paint pattern for the ship (solid comes free, but you can buy racing stripes, chevrons, Imp/Fed Regalia, pirate markings, etc.) with A/B/C channels or color/accent/trim channels, and then fill it in with your own color scheme from the colors you've earned or purchased.
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I'll copy and paste what I said in the reddit thread. This is how I would like to see the game handle cosmetics. With this idea they would not need to change their current model. They would just add this model into the game.
I would love cosmetics to have both an in game value and a store value. Allow us to buy it with in game currency or real money.
A way to give the items value both on the store and in game would be to have the in game variety be single use while the external variety would be as it is now.
If your ship gets destroyed you loose it. Let the paint jobs degrade just like they do and change the cost to repair your paint job depending on how much it degraded.
You could even make more complex paint jobs cost more in game currency, but remember do not make them too expensive.
Base the paint job price upon how much the ship it is painted on costs and the paint job complexity. Say 5-10% of the vehicle cost. Really elaborate paint jobs may be even worth 50% of the price of the vehicle.
You will pay to repair the paint job based upon how much it has degraded and the cost of the paint job. Say you have a 10,000 credit paint job and it is 50% degraded. You will pay 5,000 credits to repair the paint job.
That is just an idea. This would be more realistic in universe and allow them to continue with their current model.
I would love cosmetics to have both an in game value and a store value. Allow us to buy it with in game currency or real money.
A way to give the items value both on the store and in game would be to have the in game variety be single use while the external variety would be as it is now.
If your ship gets destroyed you loose it. Let the paint jobs degrade just like they do and change the cost to repair your paint job depending on how much it degraded.
You could even make more complex paint jobs cost more in game currency, but remember do not make them too expensive.
Base the paint job price upon how much the ship it is painted on costs and the paint job complexity. Say 5-10% of the vehicle cost. Really elaborate paint jobs may be even worth 50% of the price of the vehicle.
You will pay to repair the paint job based upon how much it has degraded and the cost of the paint job. Say you have a 10,000 credit paint job and it is 50% degraded. You will pay 5,000 credits to repair the paint job.
That is just an idea. This would be more realistic in universe and allow them to continue with their current model.
Frontier chose to go down this buisness model you don't have to buy them and they make no difference to the game play. OP is just whiniing because they want to have them but doesn't want to pay for them. The reality is sometimes you just don't get what you want. Frontier will carry on charging for vanity items while people are still willing to pay for them and I highly doubt they want to refund people in either cash or store credits to the people who have already bought them.
Did you read the OP? Or did you just see it was a thread about cosmetics and started making assumptions?
YEA ED dose that
I did and the concept falls apart in your fisrt paragraph as frontier will have to reinburse alot of money to people, making it a non starter.
I have to agree with OP. Frontier uses F2P model in a premium game. This HAS to change.
And I have to say, it's so sad to see cult-like behavior from so many people here. Blind faith and uncritical defence of the developers in question, combined with aggressive dismissal of any other opinions is why I ran away from Star Citizen. Reading through this thread, seeing people uncoditionally defending everything FD does and attacking anyone and everyone who thinks differently is... disheartening. I guess I won't be spending much time here either. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
And I have to say, it's so sad to see cult-like behavior from so many people here. Blind faith and uncritical defence of the developers in question, combined with aggressive dismissal of any other opinions is why I ran away from Star Citizen. Reading through this thread, seeing people uncoditionally defending everything FD does and attacking anyone and everyone who thinks differently is... disheartening. I guess I won't be spending much time here either. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Oh, how I wish people weren't so invested in fake concepts like this... especially when backed with no data.
Someone hasn't been playing anything other than Elite for the past 10 years, I see.
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I think we're moving in circles here. They can offer store credits, as others have suggested, or they could be gasp different skins altogether! What a wild concept, right?