Commander Thrust from Bradford has hit hard times after having to remortgage his house for the 25 billion ARX needed for the Panther Clipper XL pre-built.
Pay2Win made it to Elite
- Thread starter Einar Donarsson
- Start date
Noob. It took me 4 seconds. Gut gud!
Stating the obvious, Pay2Win is not a true/false aspect of a game. It is a sliding scale. Some games score very low on the Pay2Win spectrum, whereas others score very high.
For people that like to play a game with standard "rules and conditions" for all players, introducing elements of Pay2Win is frustrating. And in many cases a complete turnoff. Who wants to play a game of chess against an opponent that payed $10 to have an extra queen? Even single player games... some like to "self cheat" in games of solitare but paying $5 to get 3 extra bonus cards that can be played or removed at any time would make the game silly for many people. And an obvious cash grab.
I have gone down the route of playing a couple games that ended up being Pay2Win. It was introduced to the player gradually until it becomes realized a player just can't progress or get the best items without paying extra money. Which is extremely frustrating if the player has already invested lots of time in the game. Especially if it suddenly becomes realized you spent large time & effort to achieve something that others can now pay $5 for. The sense of achievement is lost and replaced with a feeling a bunch of time was wasted. The only good solution is to quit. The question with Elite Dangerous introducing Pay2Win elements is... how far are they going to go and when should players like myself walk away?
It is too early to tell, and Frontier is obviously not giving away the 5-year master plan. Which makes me think this is just the beginning of the trip towards the other end of the spectrum.
For people that like to play a game with standard "rules and conditions" for all players, introducing elements of Pay2Win is frustrating. And in many cases a complete turnoff. Who wants to play a game of chess against an opponent that payed $10 to have an extra queen? Even single player games... some like to "self cheat" in games of solitare but paying $5 to get 3 extra bonus cards that can be played or removed at any time would make the game silly for many people. And an obvious cash grab.
I have gone down the route of playing a couple games that ended up being Pay2Win. It was introduced to the player gradually until it becomes realized a player just can't progress or get the best items without paying extra money. Which is extremely frustrating if the player has already invested lots of time in the game. Especially if it suddenly becomes realized you spent large time & effort to achieve something that others can now pay $5 for. The sense of achievement is lost and replaced with a feeling a bunch of time was wasted. The only good solution is to quit. The question with Elite Dangerous introducing Pay2Win elements is... how far are they going to go and when should players like myself walk away?
It is too early to tell, and Frontier is obviously not giving away the 5-year master plan. Which makes me think this is just the beginning of the trip towards the other end of the spectrum.
Well poo, and here I thought I had won for sure! I mean I bought a pre-built Python Mk2 and all.
I guess I better just go back to playing then.
That is correct. In fact, there’s six tiers that I know of:
- LEP Holders - We get all the benefits listed below, plus a few extra perks.
- Kickstarters with the Expansion - Gets everything listed below.
- Odyssey Owners - We have access to more worlds, more content, more capabilities, and more opportunities.
- Kickstarters Without the expansion - Without the expansions, we have a lower rebuy cost than others, non-Elite access to Shinrarta Dezhra, and a few other benefits not available to others.
- Horizons purchasers - Congratulations, you have, at best, a six year head start over players like you
- Everyone else
Indeed the future is uncertain, but I think it will be one hell of a ride. Everything but boring.
Pay for assets, pay a subscription, pay for cosmetics, pay for whatever, it is just a method a business uses to make some revenue from customers (and if they spend and go away quickly, all the better with an online game)
I'll enjoy the advantage of spending Arx (mostly earned in-game, and with the leftovers from the PJ's I didn't buy at Christmas) and the outrage it brings here, just because I can. Contrary to suggestions made here, I am neither morally bankrupt, a simpleton, or unable to control my impulses. Although admit concern for those making such belittling comments, neatly bundled in rhetoric...
Edit:spellung errers
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Yeah, well... I'd like to point out that maybe what you admitted in the first sentence might contradict the second part in the second sentence for some of those making such suggestions. For the record: I'm not one of them, I see moral as a very subjective thing that can vary with time, space, and age. And we are talking about a game, anyway.
And my concern has always been about how the desire to monetize gameplay has had an increasingly perverse effect on game developers, and how that affects gameplay in general. For most of my gaming history, developers have sought to minimize the outsized effect that money brings to games in general, and online games in particular. But that’s always been about the gap between equipment, which will always been out if the control of developers.
Those with the wealth to afford high-end equipment, myself included, will always enjoy an advantage over the base game. VR+HOTAS affords me a considerable advantage over most aspects of the game compared to flat screen+KB/Mouse. The same goes for single-player cockpit games that support VR.
But with the direct monetization of gameplay by developers? There will always be the suspicion the reason something is the way it is in the game isn’t due to worldbuilding, nor to be a challenge to be overcome by skill, but to make the gameplay just unpleasant enough to tempt me to open my wallet.
And that makes me sad.
I am going to concede to P2W in Elite, by the most picayune of definitions. Let the naysayers have their Pyrrhic victory over semantics. Anyone lacking a sore spot will allow that after 10 yrs, a game may need to make some concessions to 'ease of entry'. I for one, don't feel the need to see everyone face the same struggles I faced.
I've played since release, the way credits are sprayed around these days, I could make a case for all you Odyssey babies having everything just handed to you. All you guys using those 'Material Traders' to get your Engineering done. All of that Engineering I had to do without that benefit, who's gonna cover me for that?
The point is, things change. The Pre-Made ship have nothing to do with pay to winning, but more to do with pay to competing. Some of us have a ten year head start, I can let a couple of starter ships into the universe without feeling put upon.
I've played since release, the way credits are sprayed around these days, I could make a case for all you Odyssey babies having everything just handed to you. All you guys using those 'Material Traders' to get your Engineering done. All of that Engineering I had to do without that benefit, who's gonna cover me for that?
The point is, things change. The Pre-Made ship have nothing to do with pay to winning, but more to do with pay to competing. Some of us have a ten year head start, I can let a couple of starter ships into the universe without feeling put upon.
Back when I were a lad, we did not have computers, just board games. Then we started to get games via tape and floppy. Then download. In those days it was a case of publish a game, make money and publish a new game. With the live service type game, it continues as long as it is profitable. One day a switch will be flipped and it will be no more. At least with a physical copy, that did not matter.
Steve
Steve
i'm just a recent EliteD ( Odyssey ) newbie here myself , so please excuse the naive question but... When you say "head start" , does that matter all that much considering i've been reading how the community still has only explored something around 0.06 % of entire galaxy?
In other words, despite starting so late , isn't there still plenty of space ( sorry for the pun lol ) for newbies to thrive now anyway?
Again, sorry for newb-ish ( oblivious ) type question but considering there isn't really any PLAYER Crafting ( nor player generated Economy? ) , what exactly is everyone new & old "competing" for? Or do u guys just mean like having 10-year head start of massive amounts of credits & resources? --But even still, how does that "hurt" say a newbie player like me who just began a week ago with Odyssey?
*THANKS in advance for any replies & insight btw. /salute PILOTS
It's always been pay to whine. You pay for the game then you whine about
Ship Interiors
Can't get a 'conda in 2 hours (fixed)
Game isn't EvE
Engineering is a grind
Cowards in Solo are cheating
Too hard to get into game (fixed! mit Arx!)
Ship Interiors
Gankers
Anarchies are dying
Base building
Player economy
CM4
LEP
Too many 'goids
Not enough 'goids
Did I mention Ship Interiors?
...
i'm just a recent EliteD ( Odyssey ) newbie here myself , so please excuse the naive question but... When you say "head start" , does that matter all that much considering i've been reading how the community still has only explored something around 0.06 % of entire galaxy?
In other words, despite starting so late , isn't there still plenty of space ( sorry for the pun lol ) for newbies to thrive now anyway?
Again, sorry for newb-ish ( oblivious ) type question but considering there isn't really any PLAYER Crafting ( nor player generated Economy? ) , what exactly is everyone new & old "competing" for? Or do u guys just mean like having 10-year head start of massive amounts of credits & resources? --But even still, how does that "hurt" say a newbie player like me who just began a week ago with Odyssey?
*THANKS in advance for any replies & insight btw. /salute PILOTS
Mostly the ability to blow one and another out of the sky.
I have played away from the gold rushes that have come and gone over the years, and I have wandered out of ED to other diversions form time to time as well. Still, I have over 2 billion credits and growing. I have 9 or 10 ships. Four of which are fully kitted/engineered for their intended purposes. I feel no intrusion from the pre-made ship sales at all.
I guess the closest thing to crafting we have is Engineering. You must gain recognition and rank from the Engineers and you have to compensate them for their insights. And they can make an enormous impact of your game. For the longest of time, credits, and ranks were the only measure of success, now we have engineers, fleet carriers, decals and credits to measure our selves by.
o7 (now that's a salute) Cmdr Neestar
On the exploration side, there was a significant period between the introduction of Horizons in late 2015 and the introduction of Fleet Carriers in mid-2020 where a player with Horizons would have a much longer jump range available to them, and therefore could access stars which other players simply couldn't. In in-game terms, this is largely irrelevant as one star system is worth as much as another regardless of how hard it was to reach; in terms of out-of-game prestige of discovering hard-to-get places there's perhaps more of a difference. Obviously if you want to discover life on planets most of that requires the Odyssey expansion whether or not someone else has already discovered the system.
On the non-exploration side, inhabited space is a lot smaller and that's where most of the players and most of the competitive elements are.
There is certainly relatively little in terms of formal direct competition, but there are and have been various types:
- community goals give out larger rewards (and occasionally significantly larger rewards) to people who provide a higher proportion of the total delivered
- some community goals are also competing with each other and supporters of the winning side may get additional benefits (either personally or in terms of their preferred NPC side winning something)
- Powerplay is formally and directly competitive, though admittedly the current version is also so tangled up that exactly what is being competed for and what is an effective way to achieve it is exceptionally unclear; the rewrite of it coming later this year will from what we've seen in previews include both external competition between powers to capture systems, and internal competition within powers for extra rewards
- a lot of groups have developed an emergent game where they try to get their chosen minor faction controlling more systems (or occasionally try to do something more interesting, but the competitive aspects tend to be around "more systems")
- there are the various squadron leaderboards, with in-game trophies available
- you can of course just fight another player directly, either because you've ended up on different sides of a conflict zone or just because you want to fight them. There have been various player-organised formal competitions in this area, too.
How much any of that matters is really up to the individual player, of course, with attitudes between "competition X is my sole Elite Dangerous goal and nothing else in the game matters" and "not only do I not play Elite Dangerous competitively, I cannot comprehend how anyone else could either" (which are not necessarily correlated with what if any forms of cash-for-advantage they find acceptable)
Fundamentally, buying functional ingame items from a gamestore for cash regardless of the believed "ingame benefit" is a method for circumventing gameplay for cash.
This should not be confused with paying money to allow a person to play the game. Or a game expansion with new regions and new rewards. This is very different from purchasing ingame items. Or purchasing ingame rewards previously achieved through ingame activities.
Pay2Play is very different from Pay2Win (Or Pay2HaveStufff)