Buying ships/fleet etc with real world money?

[Misty_Dark]

I expected her to enjoy the content to the extent that she had already expressed interest in it. And she did. Alot. At the time I think she may have had maybe eight hours into the game - basically enough time to be comfortable with the flight controls. We've done some multi-crew, and I've let her fly my fleet, but she prefers the agency of having her own ship. Once I bought her her own Virpil FCS she basically lost interest in any form of using my account.

Am I supposed to feel bad for putting her in a challenging situation, or bad for giving her the tools to make a go of it, or is that I'm supposed to regret not making her grind it all out herself? Seriously, you don't get that much time where your kids have the time and inclination to share your hobbies. Spending that time grinding out Guardian Sites is not what I would call a wise choice.

You are not giving her the tools, or challenges, you presenting the game on a silver platter.. and if you bought an entire set of Virpil gear just for your daughter to play Elite, who have only done a couple of hours in the game, that is just showing off that you appears to have more money than sense. Just that entitlement that I have cash, I should be able to buy myself past any obstacles...

And my experience tells me that your daughter have most likely already lost interest in the game.. because she have not achieved anything in the game, you did that for her. This is no difference from what I have already written about, players skipping the game, and then what?

 

[Greasetrap42]

Perhaps @Trividar is trolling. Obviously the "grind" didn't prevent from accumulating 14.5B in assets, a fleet of 22 ships including 5 Imperial Cutters, Corvette, and a Fleet Carrier. Accumulated since 2019. This isn't meant as a criticism, it is seriously awesome you got this much enjoyment out of the game. (not sarcasm, seriously that's fantastic).

If you want friends and family to play they don't need Cutters & Corvettes to have a great time and experience flying a ship. Arguably an Eagle or Cobra are the most fun ships to fly. If the desire is to throw an inexperienced player that doesn't really want to put forth some effort into highly hazardous activities... well that's silly. And insta-purchasing ships isn't going to help at all.

 

[Tividar]

Perhaps @Trividar is trolling. Obviously the "grind" didn't prevent from accumulating 14.5B in assets, a fleet of 22 ships including 5 Imperial Cutters, Corvette, and a Fleet Carrier. Accumulated since 2019. This isn't meant as a criticism, it is seriously awesome you got this much enjoyment out of the game. (not sarcasm, seriously that's fantastic).

If you want friends and family to play they don't need Cutters & Corvettes to have a great time and experience flying a ship. Arguably an Eagle or Cobra are the most fun ships to fly. If the desire is to throw an inexperienced player that doesn't really want to put forth some effort into highly hazardous activities... well that's silly. And insta-purchasing ships isn't going to help at all.

Someone bothered to look before making assumptions...
Not trolling, just amazed at how far people can take their own prejudices down some pretty ugly rabbits holes. If one formed an opinion about me or my daughter strictly from the responses in this threat, it'd be a pretty ugly sight. The Virpil kit is kinda funny: I bought the Thrustmaster FCS and the yaw died. Did that three times and said, well maybe the Logitech is better (it wasn't). Then I saw a post on this forum about VKB and thought :this is stupid I could have bought a VKB for that much," (so did). The kids got the hand-me-downs because as I switched from VKB to Virpil I ended up with a several extra sticks.

Two of three kids have Cutters at this point because after they went Thargoid hunting they got interested in other aspects of the game (mining god help them...) and so decided to put the time in to grind Imperial Rank. I guess my point is people come at this game with lots of different goals and motivations, and lots of different priorities. I don't see why one group of people should be threatened by another group of people who might enjoy the game a different way. Since you looked, obviously I don't have an insurmountable problem with the grindy aspects of the game, but some of the people I play with do. I'd rather they had an option to skip the parts of the game they don't like rather than not get to play with them at all.

 

[Tividar]

You are not giving her the tools, or challenges, you presenting the game on a silver platter.. and if you bought an entire set of Virpil gear just for your daughter to play Elite, who have only done a couple of hours in the game, that is just showing off that you appears to have more money than sense. Just that entitlement that I have cash, I should be able to buy myself past any obstacles...

And my experience tells me that your daughter have most likely already lost interest in the game.. because she have not achieved anything in the game, you did that for her. This is no difference from what I have already written about, players skipping the game, and then what?

Your experience is misleading you, mostly because you're projecting your ideology on to a situation you know little about and regarding a person you now even less.

 

[He$$eeTant]

I follow obsidian ant on YouTube. Recently he posted about the uproar with eve online where a third party was selling ships. I don’t play eve but it’s got a part - if not the whole - where players build ships. The player base actually got this 3rd party to stop / banned them. (https://massivelyop.com/2022/03/19/...-ship-packs-made-for-new-players-by-veterans/)

I think if you can build what’s sold then it’s a choice. For flight sim titles you can pay quite large sums for aircraft xplanes most expensive is around $110 so approx £90 with ED there are 40ish ships so fully engineered I would say £30-£150 each would be about right (30-50 for suits) and would go to making EDO more profitable

 

[Greasetrap42]

Your experience is misleading you, mostly because you're projecting your ideology on to a situation you know little about and regarding a person you now even less.

Your specific situation in this discussion is irrelevant, as we don't know you. And the game isn't being designed for your specific situation.

The current gaming payment model matches the game. Changing it to a microtransaction game for ingame items would alter the fundamental design of the game. Game loops would have no purpose or meaning. Credits would be useless. Most forms of ingame accomplishments rendered trivial. Applying the Pay-For-Ship concept to suits in Odyseyy woud have same result. PvP using ultimate builds is the only thing that would remain for both Horizons & Odyseyy.

With a complete redesign of gaming activities the microtransaction model could work. But that would be a different game.

 

[Tividar]

The current gaming payment model matches the game. Changing it to a microtransaction game for ingame items would alter the fundamental design of the game. Game loops would have no purpose or meaning. Credits would be useless. Most forms of ingame accomplishments rendered trivial. Applying the Pay-For-Ship concept to suits in Odyseyy woud have same result. PvP using ultimate builds is the only thing that would remain for both Horizons & Odyseyy.

With a complete redesign of gaming activities the microtransaction model could work. But that would be a different game.

The specific example of Pay-For-Ship would only be a problem if the ships were unbalanced. As much as I'd like to see more ships, I'd be disappointed if Paid-For-Ships were unbalanced. Diablo 3's experiment with a real money auction house is a great cautionary tale on how badly even well-intentioned RMT can go as far as corrupting game-play is concerned.

 

[Fizzatron]

One simple example I’ve posted about before: my daughter saw me watching a YouTube video of a certain female AXI pilot and got inspired to go hunt Thargoids. Father/daughter Thargoid hunter. Very cool. Not cool: The grind to get a basic AX ship put together. So I did it for her; mostly while she was doing homework. I’m familiar with the holistic arguments against, but they all basically come down to telling someone else how they should be playing the game. Would have happily spent ARX to skip that grind and get straight to business. Good times and no downside.

There's another path to achieve this and that is to find someone who is capable of taking out Thargoids, and multi-crewing with them. I'm sure that would work just as well.

 

[Tividar]

There's another path to achieve this and that is to find someone who is capable of taking out Thargoids, and multi-crewing with them. I'm sure that would work just as well.

From experience, its not the same thing. Guardian fighters have a very constrained roll in a Thargoid engagement. Their relative immunity to the interceptor combined with their excessive vulnerability to the swarm gives a really distorted view of the fight. Assuming you go the co-pilot/gunner route, the multi-crew available turreted AX weaponry is basically useless. Unfortunately for AX multi-player, its pretty much go Wing or go home.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Arguably an Eagle or Cobra are the most fun ships to fly.

sad Adder noises

 

[Fizzatron]

From experience, its not the same thing. Guardian fighters have a very constrained roll in a Thargoid engagement. Their relative immunity to the interceptor combined with their excessive vulnerability to the swarm gives a really distorted view of the fight. Assuming you go the co-pilot/gunner route, the multi-crew available turreted AX weaponry is basically useless. Unfortunately for AX multi-player, its pretty much go Wing or go home.

Fair enough. While I disagree with the idea of real world money for ships, as a father I am sympathetic to your situation, though mine's now a teenager, back when he was little I played Lego Star Wars till I unlocked all the characters so he could play them when he wanted to, same for Mario Kart Wii.

 

[Suitret]

Tldr.
Sure, it could be a viable option imho.
Some fellow gamers do not have the luxury of grinding for credits or the time to do it, so, not only would it facilitate the reach of game assets to those players, aswel it would bring some more funds to Fdevs to invest Exclusively on the Game.
Buy with 5bi credits, or buy with x amount of arx's or buy with x money.

 

[mephisto9466]

I'm deadly serious here - for me grinding for fleet is clearly out of space. Instead of spending my time and life to do so - I willing to pay in real money for it.
And automatically - I believe that we should be able to but stuff - you can grind and is fine by me - but if someone wants to skip this part - frontier should give him this option
Let's also be real about amount here...

no

 

[Crystal Monopole]

I follow obsidian ant on YouTube. Recently he posted about the uproar with eve online where a third party was selling ships. I don’t play eve but it’s got a part - if not the whole - where players build ships. The player base actually got this 3rd party to stop / banned them.

Not a third party. It's the studio that develops EVE Online, CCP. While they withdrew that pack they are still hellbent on trying to sell ships for cash along with all sorts of other slimy monetization tricks.

Virtually all ships and most modules are player crafted and sold on the in-game marketboard for game currency (isk). EVE's had legitimatized RMT for years now. Players can buy a cash shop currency called PLEX and sell it on the in game market for in game currency (isk). So if a wallet warrior really wanted a ship they could just buy PLEX, resell for isk, then buy the ship and fittings.

The problem is that CCP choked off most isk faucets and made ship building prohibitively expensive. People can't make enough to afford ships at the old prices and now they're 2-3x more expensive (or worse). Same thing applies to PLEX. Can't just raise the isk price because nobody can afford it. And your isk no longer goes as far as it once did.

Since subs are falling and PLEX sales are faltering CCP is starting to panic. While this attempt got withdrawn they will try again "once the program is reworked". And they'll probably repeat the cycle until enough of the protesters quit in disgust. Remains to be seen if the game will remain commercially viable at that point.

 

[Screemonster]

The problem is that CCP choked off most isk faucets and made ship building prohibitively expensive.

And there's the rub. If you can just buy ships/materials/upgrades for cash, there's a very real incentive for the devs to make the grind even worse than it already is.
You thought the mining nerf a couple of years ago was bad? It's still in a better state than it was before the mining buff a few years before that - you know, the update that gave us core mining and hotspots and all that good stuff.

Or let's take the bountyhunting buff that came in around the same time as the mining nerf that allowed people to make a decent amount of credits stacking massacre missions.

Does anyone seriously believe that if the game had dollars-for-credits transactions, "let's make it easier for the players to earn credits in-game by doing the activities they want to do" updates would have been given the green light? Do you think the devs would have put up that focused feedback thread about fixing the material grind?
People paying you to alleviate a problem that's within your power to solve outright if you really wanted to is the most horrible kind of perverse incentive.

 

[Gordon Freeman IV]

There is a game called star citizen. Go play it if u like pay to win

 

[gorankar]

There is a game called star citizen. Go play it if u like pay to win

You can spend thousands on ships, gear, and credits there if you like. That's for sure.
Be advised there are some rabid fans that will claim buying an Idris is not pay to win because you have to crew it or other nonsense.

I can understand why some people would rather buy than grind ships in Elite Dangerous, I would still prefer they actually work for them. The most expensive ship in the game, the Cutter, fully outfit comes in around 1B Cr. That is not really all that much time. That said, as long as Fdev does not change the game to require buying ships or Cr. by increasing the current levels of grind, I can't realistically have an issue with it. Someone else buying a CobraIV, or Cutter, or Corvette has almost no effect on my game play. Like as not I will never even run into that player.

 

[varonica]

And there's the rub. If you can just buy ships/materials/upgrades for cash, there's a very real incentive for the devs to make the grind even worse than it already is.
You thought the mining nerf a couple of years ago was bad? It's still in a better state than it was before the mining buff a few years before that - you know, the update that gave us core mining and hotspots and all that good stuff.

That's the thing right? If you are making money from people buying ships and upgrades then the obvious think to do is to make those ships and upgrades much harder to get for free in game to encourage players to give you real money for the same thing. This is the SC way, can't get ships in game at all, must buy them from the store....profit!

 

[rootsrat]

This is the SC way, can't get ships in game at all, must buy them from the store....profit!

Not true, actually. You can get the ships in game for in-game money.
They will however disappear after the server reset and only the ones you bought for actual $$$ will remain in your account. (I think they are working on changing that too, but that's a topic for another thread).

 

[Screemonster]

Not true, actually. You can get the ships in game for in-game money.
They will however disappear after the server reset and only the ones you bought for actual $$$ will remain in your account. (I think they are working on changing that too, but that's a topic for another thread).

the constant server resets are why I find the salt over there even funnier than it is in Elite.

A guy I know tried out piracy and people in the discord server reacted like he'd driven to the guy's house IRL and shot his dog or something.
Like bruh the stuff's getting wiped on the next reset anyway it literally doesn't matter