CMDRs now playing for ARX

[alexzk]

OK, I see what you're saying and I basically agree. I kinda covered myself by saying ".. but, if it's not enormous fun, then .." to mean that if you're happy doing the thing that earns you ARX then fine. But people complain about "grind" all the time so if it's "grind" to you then it seems worth remembering that its "value" is miniscule and you probably ought to consider not doing it (not to mention that this numeric endorphin reward you're trying to make bigger isn't even visible to anyone else so there's no bragging rights - and even if there were - someone else can just "pay to win" in the "who has the most ARX" game).

Anyhoo ... mostly tho' I just thought the 19 pence thing was interesting and wanted to share it.

Well ..."grind" is "alot of work, low reward per time unit". That's why ppl complain. They want "cats movies" infinite (big reward per low time unit). Also they may like grind itself (for example I do sometimes, in fact I want it so much so I download old LA2 once a year and play 2-3 weeks just for insane grind) but if they have greater aim with greater reward (for example be best in pvp) and they have to grind 6 mo for that - people will get angry.

Basicaly same with ARX. I want new suit for my CMDR, will take 6mo or so hitting weekly limits ....okey... but if i will keep exploring that will take 1.5 year then - this fact makes me insane. I want explore, but can't because it will tripple time for suit

So I just try to avoid such a thoughts about ARX tthose days Ye I know i can buy it, but ..that will be "gift" then not "reward".

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Well, it does seem the design philosophy is to make the little hamsters run in their wheels. And it is indeed accepted it seems. Cant beat the general desire of the playerbase, tho I dont find much joy in it. I can imagine much better gameplay but I doubt it will really manifest in ED.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

This has probably already been pointed out but our weekly cap of 400 ARX is equivalent to about 19 pence worth of ARX a week!

I'm not sure what people are doing to "grind" their weekly allocation but, if it's not enormous fun, then you really need to arx yourselves (sorry), is this worth 19 pence. Put another way, if you were walking along a road and you saw a 20 pence piece on the other side, would you even bother crossing the road to get it?

Yes. If it's a US quarter.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Yes. If it's a US quarter.

"He who doesn't honour the penny isn't worth the dollar."

Loose translation from German saying.

 

[Kelster87]

It amuses me somewhat to see the endorphin argument being used when a number of people have made it clear that it isn't coming in to play for them - and yet the broad, concrete statements persist..

@alexzk, many of us are able to see and acknowledge the real value of ARX (essentially zero) and so, for us, there is no real reward in it. You can continue the claims you have been making, but understand they do not work fot all people - especially not the way you seem to think it does. I'm not a prisoner of my subconcious.

 

[Kelster87]

Well ..."grind" is "alot of work, low reward per time unit". That's why ppl complain. They want "cats movies" infinite (big reward per low time unit). Also they may like grind itself (for example I do sometimes, in fact I want it so much so I download old LA2 once a year and play 2-3 weeks just for insane grind) but if they have greater aim with greater reward (for example be best in pvp) and they have to grind 6 mo for that - people will get angry.

Basicaly same with ARX. I want new suit for my CMDR, will take 6mo or so hitting weekly limits ....okey... but if i will keep exploring that will take 1.5 year then - this fact makes me insane. I want explore, but can't because it will tripple time for suit

So I just try to avoid such a thoughts about ARX tthose days Ye I know i can buy it, but ..that will be "gift" then not "reward".

The new system is clearly set up to encourage ARX purchases, not for you to hoard your 400 free a week until you can 'afford' something. That said, it's also intended to create for each user a 'spare change' jar for ARX, so you always have some extra to cover small shortfalls between the amounts of purchased ARX and the items you buy in store. I suspect that 400 was also chosen as an amount to discourage the exact situation you describe.

A lot of people these days seem to think that paying for a game once (or never) gives them the right to make demands of the developers and get angry when they are ignored. Guess what? They are wrong. I find their sense of entitlement to be staggering and it's people like these who make the gaming community toxic - apart from the 12yo potty mouth internet (z)heros.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

It amuses me somewhat to see the endorphin argument being used when a number of people have made it clear that it isn't coming in to play for them - and yet the broad, concrete statements persist..

@alexzk, many of us are able to see and acknowledge the real value of ARX (essentially zero) and so, for us, there is no real reward in it. You can continue the claims you have been making, but understand they do not work fot all people - especially not the way you seem to think it does. I'm not a prisoner of my subconcious.

I am. I have dentures coming.

 

[alexzk]

The new system is clearly set up to encourage ARX purchases, not for you to hoard your 400 free a week until you can 'afford' something. That said, it's also intended to create for each user a 'spare change' jar for ARX, so you always have some extra to cover small shortfalls between the amounts of purchased ARX and the items you buy in store. I suspect that 400 was also chosen as an amount to discourage the exact situation you describe.

A lot of people these days seem to think that paying for a game once (or never) gives them the right to make demands of the developers and get angry when they are ignored. Guess what? They are wrong. I find their sense of entitlement to be staggering and it's people like these who make the gaming community toxic - apart from the 12yo potty mouth internet (z)heros.

So lets recap. 1/N of peoples, like you don't care and other 1/M of peoples demand and want to collect alot, where M+N = 1. As 1/N don't care, we can ignore'em. Then what devs have to do?
1. Make 1/M happy and fix or
2. why it was added to game at all ? - just remove.
...but well, maybe it's somehow deeper. For example, best reward is for PP now, so people started do & stream PP finally, first time during years. Maybe that was intentional push in that direction.

 

[CMDR DragonHorn]

The only thing I'd like to be done about it, and soon - is balancing ARX incomes across activities, just like they promised, because it's brutally out of proprtion. You can earn half of weekly cap with Exploration and Combat under 2-3 hours, but Missions or Mining don't net anything afaik. It's not about hoarding ARX, it's about making players feel like they get rewarded with something relatively useful for the activities they participate in. This will actually even slow down ARX generation, but feel more balanced and fair, what's more important IMO.

ARX generation currently makes no sense in a slightest. Why would you earn ARX for SELLING Explo data instead of exploration itself? On selling you already get rewarded by heaps of credits. Why you get rewarded for trading Mats at engineers? Where's the logic here? It's not even an activity, rather conveniece tool. Why do you earn more ARX by selling bounties/bonds instead of kills themselves? Absurd...

Everything can't be quickly cobbled with no thought put into it with utterly wrong interpretation and advertisement, right?...

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

With the introduction of ARXs it seems that people now play to get ARX.
The new incentive to play is ARX. Before ARX it was materials and before that it was credits.
Maybe this is a wrong perception, it is just based on the complains here in the forum about getting not enough ARX, where people feel that there efforts are not rewarded enough (with ARX).

It seems to be wrong to play for ARX or credits as it cumulates into the well known grind.

But what is the difference to other long running games like EVE, WoW or others (never played them long enough, so I don't know). What do other games different (or equal) to hold their players. Is there more or better playing content? "Deeper" content? "Emerging" content? (more, better, deeper, emerging = not well defined, maybe we get better understing about these qualifiers while discussing)

Well since there is nothing in Elite currently that I haven't done thousands of times before, even earning arx can't get me back into the game right now. I'm guessing there are many people just playing to earn those arx, but I can't be bothered playing for weeks/months just to earn in game cosmetics that I can earn the real life monetary equivalent in just minutes. Anyone grinding for arx " hey, you do you".

 

[Red Anders]

"He who doesn't honour the penny isn't worth the dollar."

Loose translation from German saying.

If I dropped 20p I'd pick it up. I wouldn't spent a couple of hours walking to a location where I knew someone else had dropped 20p in order to collect it though. Because I'm not a tramp.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

If I dropped 20p I'd pick it up. I wouldn't spent a copule of hours walking to a location where I knew someone else had dropped 20p in order to collect it though. Because I'm not a tramp.

I remember that coin as an oddly shaped one...

 

[Red Anders]

I remember that coin as an oddly shaped one...

Awkward when you drop one because they bounce randomly

 

[Deareim]

IF you are playing for your weekly ARKS, you won't play long...

 

[Spectralfx]

I am just here to say it:

ARX[Read any form of virtual currency in games here] are just a monetization tactic that make it so that people can't just directly buy what they want.

The way it works is that companies make it so you can't get what you want and end up at 0 [currency] flush (By making packs of currency mismatch the cost of individual items on purpose), so this way, you always have left over currency that bothers you and in turn, that makes you buy more currency in the future [In theory at least].

The fact that you can "earn" them in game (read in very little and insignificant amounts) is just a way to white wash their reputation in the form of: They now have an argument to throw at people that criticizes that business model, now they get to say something along the lines of << That's not us being greedy, we let players earn them for FREE by playing our game!>>

This is what the gaming industry has devolved into lately, since it seems our governments are unwilling to deal with companies that tries to exploit those with gambling addictions or other kinds of mental disorder that makes them vulnerable to these sorts of monetary schemes.

Disclaimer
Please, if you work at Fdev and read this... don't take this as me attacking your company in particular.

This post is me, pointing out at what the entire gaming industry is doing, not just FDev.

 

[Rat Catcher]

My main account usually maxxes out the Arx limit by Friday (Saturday this week!) just by playing normally.
My alt has maxxed out only 1 week, playing normally - but not so long (or he'd be my main...)

I do chuckle at the xx earned for y breakdown, but do know that selling around 40 million in exploration data maxxes out immediately

 

[Kelster87]

So lets recap. 1/N of peoples, like you don't care and other 1/M of peoples demand and want to collect alot, where M+N = 1. As 1/N don't care, we can ignore'em. Then what devs have to do?
1. Make 1/M happy and fix or
2. why it was added to game at all ? - just remove.
...but well, maybe it's somehow deeper. For example, best reward is for PP now, so people started do & stream PP finally, first time during years. Maybe that was intentional push in that direction.

See, there's that entitlement.. I wish I could find the FDev reference where the dev states that ARX is pretty much as I described it in my previous posts.. What makes you, clearly one of the 1/M, think that your needs and wants are any more or less important that any one elses?

So FDev have added something you don't like and don't seem to want to change back to what you want.. Seems you have 2 choices here, put up with it or leave.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I've never understood trophies, achievements, virtual credit earnt for playing and stuff like that.

Looks like people need incentives for PLAYING A GAME.

I can understand needing incentives for going to work, in some cases... but playing a game ? You are the master of your free time. You can do what you want with it. Why not doing something else, something that you find fun without needing an incentive ?

Yes. The only incentive is the envy.

However a material incentive can sustain the envy.

 

[RexKraemer]

I have learned something new (to me):
E: D seems to evolve into a game where motivation to play is strongly based on "Operant conditioning with Intermittent or partial reinforcement"

Operant conditioning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So, the conclusion would be: we are subjects in a Skinner box?

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

I have learned something new (to me):
E: D seems to evolve into a game where motivation to play is strongly based on "Operant conditioning with Intermittent or partial reinforcement"

Operant conditioning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So, the conclusion would be: we are subjects in a Skinner box?

Well Fdev must be doing negative reinforcement on me because anytime I log in and look at the ship sitting in the hanger on the login page, I just say to myself. No. I just can't go through this anymore. Then log out and do something else. Lately its been learning stock and precious metal charts. Who would have thought earning real money is more fun than play money.