Hey Cmdr! Why don't you have a cool paint job?
To be honest with You I, myself quite respect the business model of ED. As a game that is not subscription based it seems fair that they want to support its existence through microtransactions (paintjobs, decals etc.) and bigger, paid expansions(optional mind You) such as Horizons.
To me it's a good deal. I get to pay for the game once and enjoy my money's worth and even beyond. Then, once a bigger update drops i am happy to pay for it, should it be a compelling expansion that i know am going to have time of my life with it. As someone who rarely buys any games i can spare the change to support game i play the most.
I somewhat understand the points You are trying to raise but let me tell You this, it could have been much worse. Besides, nobody forces You to even spend Your arx / money for microstransactions. Most of them(paintjobs, decals) You don't get to see very often. Game is based in cockpit all of the time anyway.
To sum up, I believe it's better to buy optional expansions (Horizons, New Era(?)) once every few years and get Your money's worth of fun than having to pay, say every month for subscription, not guaranteeing You would have the time to play given month or if the game was free to play, consequences of which, i don't think i should explain.
And you can continue to complain, whine and cry about every aspect of the game
Whine about the lack of design and delivery failures, yup, I do. Cry? Hardly..
Were you trying to sound all grown up there?
The can for sure disable it in mine
I have subscriptions with games and I buy their DLC and expansions. They're worth it. Elite is not. Frontier couldn't deliver a pizza intact.
Alrighty. Don't buy expansions and/or microtransactions. Then again, if "FD can't deliver a pizza intact" i still preffer to pay for this pizza once than all over again every month.
So we used to have people who complain about the lack of paid expansions and now we have people who complain about paid expansions?
Awesome.
Awesome.
To buy, or not to buy, that is the question. Wait, who said this...?
Actually, Frontier has a very sophisticated pizza delivery system.
that greasy triangle is not even "pizza" but ... ah, those good times!
27 weeks of game time, all for about 30 bucks. I may have 30(completely optional dollars)invested in cosmetics, bringing it to about the price of a standard title.
If anything, I’ve saved money by not buying many other games since 2016 lol.
If anything, I’ve saved money by not buying many other games since 2016 lol.
Ermm ... what is an ARX ?
Come on babel, we have people complaining about everything.
So, if we assume that ARX earnings in-game are balanced the way Frontier wants them to be (which . . . I dunno), here's what I've observed:Disclaimers:
Ahem! So, I've never posted on this forum before, but I've been around since the week Elite: Dangerous was released. I paid the full, AAA-game MSRP price tag for it. And I'm ok with that. It was a very pretty game, with a very enjoyable flight mechanic, one whole galaxy wide, even if it was only an inch deep. It seemed a little lacking in mechanics at the time, but it had promise, and there was plenty a promise made about the good things to come. And hey, there's some pretty paint jobs in the webstore! But let's hang around a while and see what this game grows into...
- This is a rant. If you aren't interested in hearing a rant, feel free to click the back button on your browser now.
- This rant is kind of long winded and loaded with sarcasm. If you're still reading, you should go and get a drink, and maybe lean your chair back.
- I am not an industry professional. I don't know the inner workings of Frontier or the details of their accounting and business models.
- I am, however, a gainfully employed adult. I can afford things, I just find some of them to be not worth the price tag.
- This is an account of my personal experiences and the resulting perspective of such. Also, I'm kind of a jerk.
Oh, I see. It's grown a DLC. A DLC that costs near as much as the game itself. A DLC that "unlocks" all the neat, exciting features one would expect to be a part of the core mechanics of the game. A DLC that is required to access engineers, irrefutably a huge advantage over any CMDR with stock parts for just about any play type. And Multi-Crew, which is a cute gimmick, if a little buggy still, but nobody really uses it because it's just a disadvantage all around. There's no real point in doing it.
Well, interesting. Guess it's time to shell out some more cash for all of this new content that is definitely above and beyond the expectations of the base, AAA-priced game. Personally, I took a break from Elite and waited for it to go on sale. And this is fine. I, myself, am not going to shell out more money still for aesthetics at this point. For it's credit, Elite has grown quite a bit in its depth of gameplay over the years. Fighting aliens is cool, even though I think most of us are still at a big net Cr loss there. Still no sign of these "space legs" I keep hearing about-
Oh, they might be in the next paid DLC? I mean, ok. I guess Frontier has to make some fresh income somehow-hey-wait-a-second. What's this ARX thing now? A new way to earn pew pew colors and bobble heads in the game!? Oh happy day! I'm so excited! Let's go! How long will it take me, at the weekly cap of 400, to slap some of those pointy spikes and a mean looking piratey paint job on my ship? About... nine months? Wow uh.... ok I guess. Well, um, I guess I'll go grind out that weekly cap then.
Off to the asteroid ring I go. Still no word on how much these upcoming fleet carriers will cost, so I guess I'll blow up some big, gray space rocks for little, shiny space rocks. That pays well, and it's genuinely enjoyable to do, being one of the newer mechanics and all. A few hours one day, a few hours the next, and what a haul! Let's just find a nice, high-demand station and cash out... 210 Million Cr! Nice! Now for that cherry on top, let's log out and see how many ARX all this lucrative mining earns. Wait for it... Yeah buddy! A whole... wait, six?
SIX?
...
...
...
What ?
* It's at this point that I expect the white knights among you to be panting heavily over your keyboards, fingers flying in a flurry of Cheetos dust: "Well! But! Actually! Frontier doesn't have to give you any ARX for free! You should be grateful! If you're so upset about not having a paint job like mine, why don't you open your wallet-"
Ok ok, that's enough. I've gotten that part out of the way for you, so you don't need to.
See, I'm ok with the pretty aesthetics being in the webstore. I'm not personally inclined to shell out for them myself, but if that's what you want to do, more power to you. But Frontier has chosen to dangle the prospect of "earning your aesthetics in game," while structuring it such that making actual, tangible use of it requires several hours of grindy play per day, several days a week, every week for months.
Or! You could spend a few bucks to supplement your pitiful in-game earnings! There, look at that pretty paint job you've totally earned with your hard work! Want another one? Just loosen those purse strings a little more!
"Free ARX" is a gateway drug.
"Free ARX" is a distraction from the real purpose of ARX: obscuring the real world price of in-game purchases.
"Free ARX" is Frontier jumping the bandwagon of manipulative, predatory game industry practices, and it is intended entirely to exploit you.
Keep an eye out for special lootboxes on alien homeworlds in the next season! Keys purchasable in the ARX store!
Anyway, back to blowing up rocks.
Fly safe, cmdrs o7,
Erro
It seems like ARX awards are counterbalanced against in-game currency earning and losses. So activities which irretrievably "spend" other currencies (like engineer materials or hey just getting blown up) are weighted towards awarding more ARX, while activities which reliably bring in a lot of money and/or materials, or don't cost anything like buying/selling modules, and like mission completion, award a disproportionately diminished amount of ARX, I guess because the credits are such that there's already sufficiently incentive.
Everyone I know of that has been humble bragging about how they consistently reach their cap in "a few sessions" is usually doing a lot of stuff with Mats, or blowing up ships, or they just got back with a ton of exploration data to dump.
Mining, trading, salvage, and mission running won't do much because they already provide substantial in-game rewards. That's my best guess as to the "logic" underlying everything, but it seems equally plausible that the game is a big ole mess, with ARX payouts both poorly thought out and in other cases bugged.
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I don't have a cool paintjob because I fly an Asp Scout.
FTFYI don't have a cool ship because I fly an Asp Scout.
People complained about getting free paint jobs, and people have complained that new paint jobs are too nice and are just there to try and get you to buy them.
People complain all the time, especially on game forums.
If they removed the "buy ARX" button from the title screen and menu, and they removed the shop button and all references to ARX (current ARX, amount earned last session, etc), from in-game and from the start screen; in short if they GOT IT OUT OF MY FACE, I would be delighted in exchange to have my amazing free ARX cap set to 0/0.
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