Have your buying behaviours changed since Arx?

[Einar Donarsson]

I know mine have.

At the end of every year i bought a ton of paintjobs. May it be the Black ones from black Friday or Golden ones in the Weeks of December.
This Year i didnt buy any of those simply because of how expensive everything got. If i reach enough free ARX with the daily logins i will probably buy one with those but otherwise ill pass.
Overall i spend only a tiny fraction of the Money i usually spend on Elite per Year even though there was no shortage of stuff i would have liked to have.

Is it the Same for you or did you buy even more since Arx?
I know that, at least in my case, ARX were a shot in their own foot for Frontier.

Have a pleasant day.

Einar.

 

[Bryan K]

I buy less now because the store page is terrible and I now have to go through an additional step (buying Arx) to buy the cosmetics I want.

 

[Lightspeed]

Yes, having to buy Arx is an impulse restraint. I've been surprised at how it has changed my approach to the paint shop.

Now if they would just make us buy Amazon stuff in Arx, the delivery companies would go bust overnight

 

[M00ka]

I will put my hand up and admit I have purchased a few paint job and a decal or two since the introduction of Arx. Can't state categorically that I wouldn't have done the same if Arx didn't' exist but I can say I didn't pay for most of them

 

[Backelaer]

Nope.
And an equally pleasant day to yourself.

 

[B.Roberts]

Nothing changed for me. I only have 8 ships to maintain and if I really want to buy something for one of them once in a blue moon I just go and buy it and I don't really care what that currency is.

 

[Rick6549]

Nope. It was only a matter of time before i bought Celeste anyway.



Though with arx now i dont have to pay to paint every ship i like

 

[wrmiller]

Yes.

 

[Codger]

I haven't bought a single thing since they implemented ARX.

I dislike the obfuscation of prices, and since I get a few Arx for free I have no plans to actually purchase any. Plus the prices now seem very high, because the numbers are large. It's just psychological, but everything on the store now appears very expensive to me.

So in my case, at least, it's reduced my desire to purchase.

 

[Riverside]

Good question OP

I wasn't buying stuff before, since ARX was introduced I've 'bought' two skins, one for a Python and an SRV one with the ARX I have earned from playing the game so from a personal perspective I'm happy with it.

 

[WingNuts]

Well I must admit I spent 12.99 on Arx last week as I had a balance in the Steam wallet. Generally though I'd just save up the weekly stipend. Wish they had something Holiday for the Vette.........

 

[rrobes]

No, don’t desire any of the current store offerings and only bought Black Friday paint for my half-dozen ships.

Now if they offered some cockpit options other than lights and bobbleheads, like color for the dash and instruments I could be intrigued.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

There's a valid reason to see arx as anti player because its so obviously trying to obfuscate the true cost... but im not angry anymore because everything is actually cheaper.

Frontier have made so much less money out of me compared to previous years in normal sales and this holiday sale its honestly hilarious. Why? Because arx lets me be cheap.

• The cheap options are a genuinely free option now where previously you would have to pay. You can easily earn a base set of cosmetics for completely free now.. at a pleasing progression rate.
• The huge pricing numbers put you off because you think its expensive. I have to do think twice and really hard to see that 5000 arx units is actually quite cheap, its not as expensive as it looks. Every time. I haven't adjusted yet. I think 600-1X00 are cheap / afforable.. reinforced by other items in the store. Thats what does it.. 5k is expensive...
• The 3 digits of non zero pricing are deliberate design to make adding them up in your head more difficult and this i take with mild offense. What value is there in making the totals more difficult to add up?

Yeah its only funny because obviously frontier was "out to get us" but its clearly backfired in so many ways.

But anyway. I absolutely sound like an idiot in this post because its so much better for us as players if you can get over the social offence of poorly implemented bamboozling.

EDIT: In terms of overall spend, for me that's detatched to arx and completely related to how well i score frontiers support / patches of the game, the quality of the cm communication etc. Don't need to say any more there.

 

[M00ka]

There's a valid reason to see arx as anti player because its so obviously trying to obfuscate the true cost... but im not angry anymore because everything is actually cheaper.

Frontier have made so much less money out of me compared to previous years in normal sales and this holiday sale its honestly hilarious. Why? Because arx lets me be cheap.

• The cheap options are a genuinely free option now where previously you would have to pay. You can easily earn a base set of cosmetics for completely free now.. at a pleasing progression rate.
• The huge pricing numbers put you off because you think its expensive. I have to do think twice and really hard to see that 5000 arx units is actually quite cheap, its not as expensive as it looks. Every time. I haven't adjusted yet. I think 600-1X00 are cheap / afforable.. reinforced by other items in the store. Thats what does it.. 5k is expensive...
• The 3 digits of non zero pricing are deliberate design to make adding them up in your head more difficult and this i take with mild offense. What value is there in making the totals more difficult to add up?

Yeah its only funny because obviously frontier was "out to get us" but its clearly backfired in so many ways.

But anyway. I absolutely sound like an idiot in this post because its so much better for us as players if you can get over the social offence of poorly implemented bamboozling.

Mate, I don't think FD was 'out to get us', hell if they wanted to do that there are far better ways. For example, if they want to really hurt us in the hip pocket all they have to do is decide that the upcoming DLC isn't a DLC but a new game and make it incompatible with the current one. Everyone will have to buy it (new game isn't covered by the LEP), all the skins, bobbleheads and decals will have be bought again, FD would make a proverbial bucket load. And we know that even with all the gnashing of teeth, threats of 'everything and anything' enough of us would buy the new game without too much hesitation. Secondly, if FD were only out for dollars you wouldn't see anything go down in price with the introduction of Arx, everything would be more expensive.

Nope, I personally think FD just tried to streamline their purchasing system, after all one of the consoles already only could pay in funny money so why not everyone. To be honest, due to exchange rate variances I never quite knew how much I was spending under the old system, with the new one I have a much better idea since most of it is free!

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Mate, I don't think FD was 'out to get us', hell if they wanted to do that there are far better ways. For example, if they want to really hurt us in the hip pocket all they have to do is decide that the upcoming DLC isn't a DLC but a new game and make it incompatible with the current one. Everyone will have to buy it (new game isn't covered by the LEP), all the skins, bobbleheads and decals will have be bought again, FD would make a proverbial bucket load. And we know that even with all the gnashing of teeth, threats of 'everything and anything' enough of us would buy the new game without too much hesitation. Secondly, if FD were only out for dollars you wouldn't see anything go down in price with the introduction of Arx, everything would be more expensive.

Nope, I personally think FD just tried to streamline their purchasing system, after all one of the consoles already only could pay in funny money so why not everyone. To be honest, due to exchange rate variances I never quite knew how much I was spending under the old system, with the new one I have a much better idea since most of it is free!

Do you know how many items i've already "bought again" over multiple accounts? I don't want to think about that because it was actually a hurdle i had to cross the first time (it was frontiers goodwill at the time that allowed it). Its embarassing actually

I can see what you're saying as a valid point of view, the only thing that doesn't fit somehow.. is noone would consciously do something to earn less money than they previously were. If you apply that to all the differences between arx and what it was before, its interesting.

Regarding the lep.. well this is rubbish speculation.. there's still a part of my guessing that wont be quiet is that space legs will be a new game. I can't imagine at all that lep users won't get a copy, but there's so many things that might be impossible to merge.. vr support.. ties to old less powerful consoles... it would be a waste to not use the stellar forge, but given even the ships are starting from scratch pretty much i wouldn't be surprised if it was elite 2. Given for free to leppers.

 

[Kelster87]

I've bought a small Arx pack and blown it all on assorted paints.. By my calculation, I only actually paid for about 50% of those Arx. And most of the 3003 Arx I currently have were also free. I have a purchase planned, but I'm waiting to see how many freebies I can collect between now and the 25th.

But anyway. I absolutely sound like an idiot in this post because its so much better for us as players if you can get over the social offence of poorly implemented bamboozling.

To those of us who regularly work in currencies other than our own, there is zero attempt at a bamboozle.. I could make the same claim about the old store "But the prices are all in GBP, I don't know how to work out how much they are going to cost me.."

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

To those of us who regularly work in currencies other than our own, there is zero attempt at a bamboozle.. I could make the same claim about the old store "But the prices are all in GBP, I don't know how to work out how much they are going to cost me.."

Well there was only one calculation to do instead of 2. You just jump on xe or similar and you're done.

 

[Dagwit]

In past years I've spent freely on cosmetics - much more than I spent on the game itself - because I wanted to support Frontier and ensure the continued existence of the game. Also, I thought there was an unspoken covenant whereby Frontier would give us content that was "free" and we would buy cosmetics that were "worth what we paid for them".

But there hasn't been much in the way of additional content this year. What there has been is ARX. Regarding which, all I can say is, whatever ARX are, they're certainly not the ARX of the covenant.

Still, I haven't cut Frontier off completely. There has been at least some minimal work on the game, and there are servers to ruin - sorry, I mean run - and so I have bought, and spent, some ARX, though much less than I might have.

Two further points: I have the paintjobs I want for the ships I own. I can't buy paintjobs for new ships if Frontier don't introduce them.

Also, ARX don't just obfuscate prices for the players. I might have bought Black Friday paintjobs for fighters but balked because they were priced (in ARX) the same as paintjobs for full-sized ships. I don't think this was excessive greed on Frontier's part so much as a simple misjudgement, which they might not have made if they'd been setting the price in money rather than ARX.

 

[Cerisse]

Absolutely agree with the above.

For the first time I have bought nothing this Christmas

 

[Kelster87]

Well there was only one calculation to do instead of 2. You just jump on xe or similar and you're done.

Nope. The only sale that requires a mental calculation is the original Arx purchase.. After that, the actual cash is spent and I no longer care all that much. And I've got more free than I've paid for, lowers the care factor even more.