400 ARX per week max - How Come?

[Chaparral]

I've see quite a few people raise this point, but I am looking for some clarification from anyone that has insight on the design philosophy here.

Many mmo's have what are called Daily's.

These are unique activities you perform on a daily basis to earn a modest in-game reward. It's a check - in model that consumes about 20 minutes of time, and the rewards are valuable enough to grind toward a skin or achievement title that many players will complete them.

Daily's are pretty well known as a last gasp of an mmo trying to secure player log ins, and provide the player with in-game events communications.

Capping ARX to 400/week feels very much like a Daily structure to me.

There is an active core player base that might grind more than 400 ARX in a week, but my hypothesis is that is not a huge number - and many of those folks probably already dropped cash to get the skins they want.

So what is the upside on the cap?

 

[Factabulous]

Stops them being pulled into Parliament with other companies and being asked why they try to get children to play excessive hours on the game? Is the responsible thing to do when you know there are people with addiction issues in the community? That kind of thing. Being a responsible company.

 

[myothershipisacobraiv]

Stops them being pulled into Parliament with other companies and being asked why they try to get children to play excessive hours on the game? Is the responsible thing to do when you know there are people with addiction issues in the community? That kind of thing. Being a responsible company.

I find it ironic that this would be what would cause parliament to pull Elite: Dangerous in to answer questions about enticing excessive hours.

It's like something out of parody skit or something

 

[nosleepdemon]

It's Dailies for crying out loud.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Stops them being pulled into Parliament with other companies and being asked why they try to get children to play excessive hours on the game? Is the responsible thing to do when you know there are people with addiction issues in the community? That kind of thing. Being a responsible company.

It's a very good point but I don't think FDEV did it for this reason since they have a good income from skins. Did they say that during the live stream?

 

[Watcher]

I've see quite a few people raise this point, but I am looking for some clarification from anyone that has insight on the design philosophy here.

Many mmo's have what are called Daily's.

These are unique activities you perform on a daily basis to earn a modest in-game reward. It's a check - in model that consumes about 20 minutes of time, and the rewards are valuable enough to grind toward a skin or achievement title that many players will complete them.

Daily's are pretty well known as a last gasp of an mmo trying to secure player log ins, and provide the player with in-game events communications.

Capping ARX to 400/week feels very much like a Daily structure to me.

There is an active core player base that might grind more than 400 ARX in a week, but my hypothesis is that is not a huge number - and many of those folks probably already dropped cash to get the skins they want.

So what is the upside on the cap?

Would it have been better if we couldn't gain ARX in game at all? Frontier didn't have to do this & it seems to have got a fair few annoyed.. So, hmm. Personally I think it's a nice gesture that lets you gets skins and so on eventually that wasn't possible before. So however annoying ARX might be as a thing this is nice.

As to why 400? I imagine all sorts of competing things there. FD would obviously still like us to buy them to get stuff, they do want that income, so they can't cap too high or make getting them too easy or it could badly impact that. They probably also don't want to be accused of 'forcing' people to play for extended periods. What is excessive? Hard to say but let's say 400 ARX is 10-20 hours of play depending on what you're doing, that's probably defendable, more or less. It's probably also more than the average player normally plays - it'll take longer for them to save up or they'll have to pay. Don't want to have the cap too low or what's the point. I guess we'll see some adjustment of earning rate, caps and prices as FD feel their way here. I wonder if a little bit of retroactive ARX would have been nice here and softened this for people a little, cap it at 2k ARX or so such that people can grab a couple of skins if they want. Anyway, they didn't so, hey ho.

Curious how this plays out.

 

[Florenus]

Some paint/kits should be harder to get than others.

This.
If you realize that to get your favourite ship kit for free you need to play for more than half a year, you're more likely to cough up some cash.

 

[Caramel Clown]

Idea of dailies is repulsive to me. Encouraging you to do something you may not want to do. If you just get currency for doing basic gameplay things you can keep doing your own thing and still get something.

 

[Schmack]

Whatever the limit, it will still be "how come?"

I'd say it's because it's free and they want a return on investment. If they are giving away otherwise DLC, they don't want to do so all at once.

I don't care about Arx at all. If I want a kit or paint job, I'll do what I'd do anyhow, just buy it.

 

[Morbad]

I think it's would feel more like a "daily" if it were uncapped. A low, weekly, cap would seem to make it so few people feel compelled to log in for just the ARX.

So what is the upside on the cap?

The cap is so FDev doesn't give away too much of something they can sell.

 

[Chaparral]

I guess we really need to know if it is timer based, or activity based. It will be interesting to see what FDEV thinks is an appropriate amount of time to play to earn 400 ARX per week. My prediction is it will be no incentive at all if it exceeds 5 hours...

 

[Kubicide]

I've see quite a few people raise this point, but I am looking for some clarification from anyone that has insight on the design philosophy here.

Many mmo's have what are called Daily's.

These are unique activities you perform on a daily basis to earn a modest in-game reward. It's a check - in model that consumes about 20 minutes of time, and the rewards are valuable enough to grind toward a skin or achievement title that many players will complete them.

Daily's are pretty well known as a last gasp of an mmo trying to secure player log ins, and provide the player with in-game events communications.

Capping ARX to 400/week feels very much like a Daily structure to me.

There is an active core player base that might grind more than 400 ARX in a week, but my hypothesis is that is not a huge number - and many of those folks probably already dropped cash to get the skins they want.

So what is the upside on the cap?

FDev makes more money as players buy ARX maybe? Yep, that's the reason - that's the upside for FDev. Really hope you didn't think they spent all this time developing currency for your benefit, did you?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Stops them being pulled into Parliament with other companies and being asked why they try to get children to play excessive hours on the game? Is the responsible thing to do when you know there are people with addiction issues in the community? That kind of thing. Being a responsible company.

Parliament my a.. ahh.. you know. It's the job of the parents to regulate what their kids are doing. If they can't do that, they shouldn't be parents. Plain and simple.

</nannystate forever>

---

As for why 400... give me a dollar. Give me another dollar tomorrow. At what point are you going to get tired of giving me a dollar.

The Arx cap exists to keep people from freeloading for free stuff.

 

[Chaparral]

FDev makes more money as players buy ARX maybe? Yep, that's the reason - that's the upside for FDev. Really hope you didn't think they spent all this time developing currency for your benefit, did you?

Sigh. It's not the concept of ARX I'm asking about. It is the weekly cap. No other mmo caps in game currency for in game grinds. It is a weird design - it takes the "daily" model and stretches it over a week.

 

[Caramel Clown]

In my mind primary reason for free ARX is to ultimately negate the type of situation where item costs let's say 1100 currency, but closest currency pack is 1000. So you end up buying more and never using those points, effectively paying more for the item. Many games do this, and it's a nasty stinking practice. With ability to get some free ARX you can always make some change to the next item.

 

[insanephoton]

Sigh. It's not the concept of ARX I'm asking about. It is the weekly cap. No other mmo caps in game currency for in game grinds. It is a weird design - it takes the "daily" model and stretches it over a week.

But is it an 'in-game' currency? Will we get Arx rewards for completing missions for example? Would you consider the current Frontier points on consoles as an 'in game' currency.

Essentially the whole Arx thing is revamping Frontier Points and rolling them out to PC players. The freebies are a sweetener and also an answer to those players that wanted to be able to earn cosmetic items in game (though I don't think it was quite what the players meant), I think most people hoped that it might be something like doing 10 rescue missions to earn a snazzy rescue paintjob)

 

[IndigoWyrd]

But is it an 'in-game' currency? Will we get Arx rewards for completing missions for example? Would you consider the current Frontier points on consoles as an 'in game' currency.

Essentially the whole Arx thing is revamping Frontier Points and rolling them out to PC players. The freebies are a sweetener and also an answer to those players that wanted to be able to earn cosmetic items in game (though I don't think it was quite what the players meant), I think most people hoped that it might be something like doing 10 rescue missions to earn a snazzy rescue paintjob)

Only if they could stack all 10 and turn them in at one time, otherwise, they have to "grind" for it.

 

[Jmanis]

Because voipal mining.

Reading between the lines... because in any system FD implement there will undoubtedly be a meta way to earn arx fast, and FD don't want everyone to empty the store on day 1

 

[Tikanderoga]

Some paint/kits should be harder to get than others.

They are. Some you can grind for 23 weeks, for other you could just grab your credit card and dump some cash.

It's Dailies for crying out loud.

Actually... you could do all of it in a single day... depends on how many hours are required to play to cap your ARX. Current estimates are 16 - 32 hours. Which could mean you log in on Monday morning, go to work,come back, play a bit and you have your 400 Arx. Else repeat for another day.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I guess we really need to know if it is timer based, or activity based. It will be interesting to see what FDEV thinks is an appropriate amount of time to play to earn 400 ARX per week. My prediction is it will be no incentive at all if it exceeds 5 hours...

It's activity based.

• Being in-game but inactive will not reward you with ARX. It isn’t based on time spent in-game, but on the actions you take.

As for how long it'll take to earn 400 ARX... nobody knows. IIRC, Adam earned 12 ARX in about 34 minutes of mostly faffing about. Needless to say, I expect normal gameplay to produce a lot more than that.