Modules-ARX-Materials exchange pipeline

[Stellar Shepherd]

I played 1000 hours grinding mats (I admit, I enjoyed some of it).

Than rather advocate for better and more entertaining ways of gathering materials, it makes a lot more sense than introducing a pay to win.

Are we “supposed” to go through THAT amount of grind, which Elite demands to enjoy various end game activities? Let me just say I doubt we’re supposed to.

If you don't believe we're suppose to go through THAT amount of grind, advocate for it to change and not to degrade the game further. CSGO tournament or not, pay to win is absolutely horrible. Been there, done that and no thank you.

and I can see people making small payments to avoid it

As well as big wallet having overwhelming advantage over others, regardless of their parental status.
Infinite premiums, infinite jumponium, infinite rearms on the fly, etc.
Meta shifts? No problem, can have a meta build right away.

Pay to win should never be the solution, especially not in video games.

I am all for improving engineering and methods of gaining materials, I hate the current system as much as the next person. But please, lets rather wish for improvement than easy ways out.

 

[Moriarte]

Lets not turn elite into pay to win

This is a solid argument, no sarcasm. And the one often encountered. I’d say, in response, that we’re not winning or losing anything in Elite, we are writing our story. And why, in our story, in 3306 can’t we buy iron or niobium from a starport dealer? Or exchange it for arx, which is principally the same.. What can you win if you fly your federal corvette to my doorstep with a freshly bought corvette of your own, materials for which you bought with arx and no experience? You’re getting spanked, that’s what is going to happen. Because grinding for a corvette is 10 hours. Mastering it is 300 hours or more. Where is the “win” in your pay to win scheme?

EDiT: I argue that “win” is in 300 hours as per above example, not in 10 hours you spend or didn’t spend grinding.

 

[Moriarte]

I'll not bother trying to point you to the answer then lol! Try Wikipedia instead if you want to be this argumentative with anyone who tries to help - or you probably interpret any reply you get as combative!

I thought toddlers were difficult to reason with, but at least they listen when told something repeatedly. Anyway, if you can't figure this out for yourself, perhaps wiki will be too difficult? They do tend to have somewhat profligate written explanations.

I recommend a dictionary to help interpret (understand) the wiki for this.

Toodle-pip.


PS - irony being that the original Moriarty was a genius.....!

Alright, alright, bottom’s up, you know what a gold trader is, I know what the gold trader is. Jeff Lebowski doesn’t know what it is. So if you wanna make a bold entrance, be a good sport, write more than a witty two#worder. Thanks

 

[Bottom Hat]

Alright, alright, bottom’s up, you know what a gold trader is, I know what the gold trader is. Jeff Lebowski doesn’t know what it is. So if you wanna make a bold entrance, be a good sport, write more than a witty two#worder. Thanks

I would, but I don't understand you.



PS I have a lovely entrance

 

[Morbad]

This would be more overtly pay-to-win than anything they've done before and wouldn't expect any overlap between credits, material, and arx acquisition, in either direction.

Player can sell fruits of their labor to another player for real world money, passing on an login, password, e-mail account.

Not without violating the EULA/ToS. Enforcement is pretty lax, but accounts are supposed to be non-transferable and for exclusive use; Frontier is well within their rights to ban or expunge accounts caught being sold, or habitually used by multiple players.

My proposition somewhat removes the necessity for players to trade accounts to each other, and opens a possibility to get a quick boost to account from official store. People only trade accounts, because they are forced to grind. They are paying to remove the grind from their lives. I argue that they should be paying FD for that

Just because some people are inclined to cheat to bypass certain progression mechanism doesn't mean progression should be removed, or worse, allowed to be bypassed by throwing more money at the game.

While I'm not terribly keen on the Engineering system and thing the psudoeconomies the game has are laughable, you've identified what is the worst conceivable solution, which improves none of the underlying gameplay.

There is also no incentive for Frontier to implement such a system, because if they aren't stopping players from swapping accounts now, they'd certainly have to expend the resources to do so if Engineered components could be exchanged for Arx. It would reduce their potential revenue streams by creating an Arx farming market and simultaneously increase the workload required to police against such activities, not to mention further damaging their reputation.

This is a solid argument, no sarcasm. And the one often encountered. I’d say, in response, that we’re not winning or losing anything in Elite, we are writing our story.

Our CMDR's stories need to be bound by the same overarching constraints as every other CMDR because we share a persistent setting. It's not reasonable for Frontier to limit how much players can play, but it is reasonable for them to do everything else in their power to minimize the agency that non-gameplay based disparities can provide. They are already falling well short of this ideal, and adding further pay-to-win elements would be going backwards.

 

[Moriarte]

Just because some people are inclined to cheat to bypass certain progression mechanism doesn't mean progression should be removed, or worse, allowed to be bypassed by throwing more money at the game.

Note, we’re not talking about whole progression. A tiny element of progression to be precise. I am not proposing this to stop people from cheating, it’s just a secondary afterthought, the primary focus is to bring more commanders up to speed quicker so they can reach endgame somewhat faster and enjoy it with us. I’ve met so many people over the years who got eaten by grind. They wanted to enjoy flying a fully kitted ferdie, but never got around to it. Why? Got eaten by grind, believe it or not

What’s wrong with throwing money at the game? Helps development team..

 

[MarkAusten]

...the primary focus is to bring more commanders up to speed quicker so they can reach endgame somewhat faster and enjoy it with us.

So why not just give every new commander any ship they want free, any engineering and modules and a billion credits in their account. Then they can join you in the end game immediately. No waiting, no grind.

 

[Bottom Hat]

I totally get where you're coming from OP, I really do. I just know it won't work out the way you're seeing it unfortunately, and it goes against the whole way they have the tos and that set up. Plus, people will always find a way to usurp, pervert, or abuse things for their own gains, and games companies know this - hence its always just a flat no.

 

[Moriarte]

Our CMDR's stories need to be bound by the same overarching constraints as every other CMDR because we share a persistent setting. It's not reasonable for Frontier to limit how much players can play, but it is reasonable for them to do everything else in their power to minimize the agency that non-gameplay based disparities can provide. They are already falling well short of this ideal, and adding further pay-to-win elements would be going backwards.

On the contrary, adding pay-to-not-grind elements will bring more players closer to each other, simply because we’ll have more players occupying the same space-time continuum, when it comes to having minimal amount of disparities.

So why not just give every new commander any ship they want free, any engineering and modules and a billion credits in their account. Then they can join you in the end game immediately. No waiting, no grind.

Why would Frontier do anything for free? They are a public limited company, they have shareholders. Nah, a good solution needs to satisfy both FD and players, not just the players. And I’m clearly going down with the vortex when it comes to the latter.

So, Cheers, all, thanks for being honest.

 

[MarkAusten]

On the contrary, adding pay-to-not-grind elements will bring more players closer to each other, simply because we’ll have more players occupying the same space-time continuum, when it comes to having minimal amount of disparities.



Why would Frontier do anything for free? They are a public limited company, they have shareholders. Nah, a good solution needs to satisfy both FD and players, not just the players. And I’m clearly going down with the vortex when it comes to the latter.

So, Cheers, all, thanks for being honest.

Sigh!

Once a player has bought Elite FDev get no further income from that player unless they buy stuff from the store. So a commander buys Elite and gets everything in-game for free as I mentioned before and as I said you get your wish. All the newbies get whatever they want immediately and cam join you in the end game. No wait, no grind.

 

[Morbad]

Note, we’re not talking about whole progression. A tiny element of progression to be precise. I am not proposing this to stop people from cheating, it’s just a secondary afterthought, the primary focus is to bring more commanders up to speed quicker so they can reach endgame somewhat faster and enjoy it with us. I’ve met so many people over the years who got eaten by grind. They wanted to enjoy flying a fully kitted ferdie, but never got around to it. Why? Got eaten by grind, believe it or not

I'm ok with some things not being easily accessible. I liked the game a whole lot more when the time it took my CMDR to afford the credits for that first FDL completely dwarfed the time it would take me to Engineer one in the current system. Enforcing some sort of progression system would be worth it, from my perspective, for no other reason than to get CMDR demographics to look plausible (of course it's not plausible at all, cause there is no way to suffer a real setback). It's not like there wasn't stuff to do in the meantime, and even for players with natural talent, overall skill progression has generally been slower than CMDR asset progression.

What’s wrong with throwing money at the game? Helps development team..

If they get rewarded no matter the quality of their product, what's the incentive for them to maintain or improve that product?

I don't regret the money I've spent, but it's been more than two years since my last purchase from Frontier, and I have no intentions of putting more into this game until I feel it's improving.

Anyway, I don't think your suggestion would increase revenue, because I think people would be more inclinded to sell modules for ARX than to buy ARX to short cut progression. Sure some people would just throw money at the game, but if selling modules could bring in ARX, that would become the main source of ARX, because a G5 module's worth of materials is ~10 minutes of deliberate effort in the current system, less with exploits, and comes fast enough without even trying to radically outpace the current ARX cap.

On the contrary, adding pay-to-not-grind elements will bring more players closer to each other, simply because we’ll have more players occupying the same space-time continuum, when it comes to having minimal amount of disparities.

There is nothing wrong with disparities, it's the nature of those disparities that matter.

 

[Dragsham]

A total detraction from Ops post but the principal is good. Namely redundant engineered modules/weps being recycled.
I propose a simple right click option. You right click the module up pops a box with option to disassemble for mats & or arx.

 

[Bottom Hat]

I seem to remember there being calls to sell engineered modules for credits a very long time ago, but I guess the De Beers monopoly took care of that!!

But the premise was kinda the same, just not as you have suggested OP. I think this will be a very marmite subject though amongst the community as you said earlier.

 

[aRJay]

A total detraction from Ops post but the principal is good. Namely redundant engineered modules/weps being recycled.
I propose a simple right click option. You right click the module up pops a box with option to disassemble for mats & or arx.

Recycling is fine and earning arx from recycling just as you can from materials trading is fine just as long as we can't gain any advantage in game just because we have more real world money than someone else buy being able to buy functional items with arx.

 

[thistle]

The modules and weapons attained real world value in the year 2014, when the game came out. Player can sell fruits of their labor to another player for real world money, passing on an login, password, e-mail account.

No, from 2014 we could buy only cosmetics. There is no official link between currency real or in-game and ships/modules, and that's how it should stay. Cosmetics, and only cosmetics.

 

[Dragsham]

Agreed no way that can be allowed to happen.
Just wanna clear my redundant stuff down and offsetting the loss.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Agreed no way that can be allowed to happen.
Just wanna clear my redundant stuff down and offsetting the loss.

The only loss is mats, and they are easy enough to get again, at least modules sell at the price paid for them, unlike the markdown for ships

 

[RiotRabit]

Note, we’re not talking about whole progression. A tiny element of progression to be precise. I am not proposing this to stop people from cheating, it’s just a secondary afterthought, the primary focus is to bring more commanders up to speed quicker so they can reach endgame somewhat faster and enjoy it with us. I’ve met so many people over the years who got eaten by grind. They wanted to enjoy flying a fully kitted ferdie, but never got around to it. Why? Got eaten by grind, believe it or not

What’s wrong with throwing money at the game? Helps development team..

The grind provides the new player with both built-up experience of the game and intrinsic value in the ship they've chosen. Both of these things are important to a player, though they run directly counter to the "instant gratification is good" line of thinking.

Secondly, if they just have to play around with that FDL right now, you could always invite them to a multicrew session to give them some experience with it before they get their own.

 

[Dragsham]

My FDL is secret. Can't let anyone know hehe...
Id be happy to show anyone in multi how much fun a fas or fdl or cobra 3 is. To me these ships and their kin ARE elite.
Big ships plateau.. yawn..
Little ones don't.. always a few frags away from certain death. Except the fdl hehe.
Great idea to allow noobs to experience a high cz in a fdl railer or fas PA.
I learned flying by...flying.

o7 cmdrs

 

[Drelthar]

Nope