Hitting the 1000 cap (or whatever it was) and having to decide what mats to delete so you could acquire more of what you needed at the moment was nearly the proverbial straw for me.
Pay2Win made it to Elite
- Thread starter Einar Donarsson
- Start date
The problem was more than lack of material storage.
The enormous spread of possible outcomes and the importance of drive performance in certain niches meant that to be competitive one needed a one in a hundred, if not a one in a thousand, roll for certain ships (the difference a good and top G5 roll could be ~5% in velocity, acceleration, and rotational rates for a heavily loaded FDL fit--we were all chasing top optimal multipliers combined with rare increased optimal mass secondaries--which is huge when the typical spread of skill among those you're fighting may be less than that). Getting the materials without resorting to questionable or outright illicit exploits was tedious in the extreme, even after they increased drop rates, and dumped the cargo components. It setup perverse incentives that had serious repercussion for the PvP community at the time, and knock on effects for almost everyone else.
Haven't they already stated that they're doing engineering rebalancing, looking at material costs and looking at focusing engineering on the ships rather than the material collection, doesn't that address your concern regarding the grind. Admittedly we're still waiting on details. I still think in general though that they're has been a massive over reaction considering the ships in store are going to be a type 6 and a chieftan not a fully engineered Cutter or Vette. As with everything it's a choice for you and everybody else to make as to whether you continue, but I personally wouldn't take everything written on the forums as fact and would check it out first before making an informed decision.
Excuse the grammar am on lots of drugs (Legal), good for immersion bad for my cognitive skills
. O7 and fly safe Cmdr
FWIW, I find your post more lucid than many others! 
Why thank you kind sirFWIW, I find your post more lucid than many others!
Hmm, you think it's just going to stop at those 2 ships? There's all levels of slippery slope justification they can make for "beginner" ships.Haven't they already stated that they're doing engineering rebalancing, looking at material costs and looking at focusing engineering on the ships rather than the material collection, doesn't that address your concern regarding the grind. Admittedly we're still waiting on details. I still think in general though that they're has been a massive over reaction considering the ships in store are going to be a type 6 and a chieftan not a fully engineered Cutter or Vette. As with everything it's a choice for you and everybody else to make as to whether you continue, but I personally wouldn't take everything written on the forums as fact and would check it out first before making an informed decision.
Excuse the grammar am on lots of drugs (Legal), good for immersion bad for my cognitive skills
I think the biggest takeaway is they are admitting, the "gameloop" they produced for people to engage in the "Great Goid Narrative" is so bad, they want to let people pay to skip it. Crazy idea, produce better gameloops?
The other offering is invalid. You can mine perfectly well in a sidey (I had a fun time coming up with a kickass core mining Adder build as a joke, but it turned out great), and given they've already destroyed the economy I'm not sure why they think someone can't get up to a decent miner in short time. Trust me, we've guided plenty to a better mining ship than that one in short order in the Galactic Academy. Was probably more fun than opening their wallet too I bet.
I suppose what irq's me the most from the announcement is this grammar...
<<<...
However, if you cannot wait until then you can get 3-month early access to this ship on 7 May from the store for 16250 ARX.
Non-Odyssey owners will be able access ship variants from the store for ARX.>>>
Specifically "...owners will be able access ship..."! It's "...will be able to...", ! Isnt this a british company?
Anyways, I have played the game around 5000 hours, and I dont do any of the grind stuff, and I'm not so great at combat, so me seeing a Titan is a bit of a miracle. Until now. Maybe I can save up some ARX and bypass that ridiculous system. If any of you love that grind stuff, it sounds like you can keep at it too.
So Im mostly fine with this, but I do think they could have handled it a bit different. Just change it so you cant buy ships of any sort, but only rent them. I'd pay $10 to rent an awesome ship so I dont have to worry so much about being destroyed by Thargoids or, worse yet, those idiot gankers. This rented ship doesn't even have to last long, maybe it could last a week or so. This rented ship wouldn't be able to mount any interdicting equipment...i.e. I couldn't use it to gank someone unless they pulled me out of supercruise. This rented ship could have enough bells and whistles that I want to spend ARX to rent it, full well knowing after the weeks done, it goes right back to being prepped for another Commander. This rented ship could develop a history of it's own. You rent it, it's a token, but maybe the ships name is constant with that token so whomever randomly rents it, becomes part of its legacy. I just made the last bit up about a legacy rentable ship up, but that'd be fanatastic. But I digress, point being I dont want a ship that I can buy with ARX to make a permanent impact/pay2something, but I would love it if it would allow me to see these fantastic things FDev wants us all to see. The example, currently, would be these imazingly huge aliens, and maybe in future, some other awesome stuffs.
Speaking of renting, can I rent a fleet carrier for a month, too? $40 depending on the even. See? Easy money.
If they did this right, I think they'd get way more people interested in shelling a few ARX out for that, instead of the many, Im sure, who wont go near pay2win, with a 40,000 Ly pole.
That being said, there's no way Im not getting that new bird on May 7th. But I'd be happier only being able to rent such a thing.
<<<...
However, if you cannot wait until then you can get 3-month early access to this ship on 7 May from the store for 16250 ARX.
Non-Odyssey owners will be able access ship variants from the store for ARX.>>>
Specifically "...owners will be able access ship..."! It's "...will be able to...", ! Isnt this a british company?
Anyways, I have played the game around 5000 hours, and I dont do any of the grind stuff, and I'm not so great at combat, so me seeing a Titan is a bit of a miracle. Until now. Maybe I can save up some ARX and bypass that ridiculous system. If any of you love that grind stuff, it sounds like you can keep at it too.
So Im mostly fine with this, but I do think they could have handled it a bit different. Just change it so you cant buy ships of any sort, but only rent them. I'd pay $10 to rent an awesome ship so I dont have to worry so much about being destroyed by Thargoids or, worse yet, those idiot gankers. This rented ship doesn't even have to last long, maybe it could last a week or so. This rented ship wouldn't be able to mount any interdicting equipment...i.e. I couldn't use it to gank someone unless they pulled me out of supercruise. This rented ship could have enough bells and whistles that I want to spend ARX to rent it, full well knowing after the weeks done, it goes right back to being prepped for another Commander. This rented ship could develop a history of it's own. You rent it, it's a token, but maybe the ships name is constant with that token so whomever randomly rents it, becomes part of its legacy. I just made the last bit up about a legacy rentable ship up, but that'd be fanatastic. But I digress, point being I dont want a ship that I can buy with ARX to make a permanent impact/pay2something, but I would love it if it would allow me to see these fantastic things FDev wants us all to see. The example, currently, would be these imazingly huge aliens, and maybe in future, some other awesome stuffs.
Speaking of renting, can I rent a fleet carrier for a month, too? $40 depending on the even. See? Easy money.
If they did this right, I think they'd get way more people interested in shelling a few ARX out for that, instead of the many, Im sure, who wont go near pay2win, with a 40,000 Ly pole.
That being said, there's no way Im not getting that new bird on May 7th. But I'd be happier only being able to rent such a thing.
"I'm fine with this"
"I don't see a problem"
"At least it isn't ..."
WRONG. It is the erosion of the integrity of the game and the erosion of trust in the developer THAT is the problem. Frontier do not see you as a player of their game. Frontier do not see you as a fan. Frontier do not see you as a community.
Frontier see you as someone to give them money. Frontier are doing the bare minimum for their games. If Frontier could get away with forcing you to give them money for not doing anything in return, they would.
(I removed the last line of this post as it was incorrect. I referred to a video I thought was by Frontier. It wasn't and I even got the title wrong.)
"I don't see a problem"
"At least it isn't ..."
WRONG. It is the erosion of the integrity of the game and the erosion of trust in the developer THAT is the problem. Frontier do not see you as a player of their game. Frontier do not see you as a fan. Frontier do not see you as a community.
Frontier see you as someone to give them money. Frontier are doing the bare minimum for their games. If Frontier could get away with forcing you to give them money for not doing anything in return, they would.
(I removed the last line of this post as it was incorrect. I referred to a video I thought was by Frontier. It wasn't and I even got the title wrong.)
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As terrible of a trade as that would be…
This right here. I am currently sitting on around 50K ARX with nothing to spend it on because that vast majority of what is in the store is embarrassingly bad. Or stuff I do like I can't get such as the Chevron skin for the Manticore weapons just not being available for the Executioner for some bizarre reason when it is available for all the others.
It's stuff like this that makes it very hard to feel sympathy for Frontier's current situation as it is pretty clear it is very much their own fault; they have completely squandered the potential of Elite Dangerous. When I say potential I mean both the potential for it to be a very lucrative product for the company across the last ten years and the potential as a game for their consumers. This game should have been all that was good about EVE plus actual proper space-sim game play. If I were to sum up how Frontier's approach to ED feels as a consumer, from my point of view, it would be "meh, that'll do". PP2.0 "sounds" like it could be pushing toward something more EVE-like but the cynic in me is willing to bet it's just another "meh, that'll do" effort.
As in planned all along? I imagine it's more the exact opposite. They know the community, and themselves as gamers, know that noone would really be happy buying ships at all. It's one of the things fans of ED are proud of. Knowing that, this becomes a trial. If the community ends up buying ships, its only because the way engineering is set up, stinks. If we end up doing that, proving the alternative, engineering needs to go figure itself out. Why such a big deal about it? Even if they know it needs to be redone, maybe they need numbers to justify it. Redoing all that stuff may actually be a big expensive undertaking. Everyone go buy the ships, so they know they have to turf or fix engineering.
Anyways, if this somehow helps develop a new engine/Elite game, fine.
We're way too light on details to know if the changes will be significant or inconsequential. While I hope that cautious optimism is warranted, we can't say anything for sure.
We don't yet actually know the full offerings. We've simply received 2 planned exanples while not expicitely ruling out anything else.
Given the timeframes involved and the content introduced since engineering began, I feel like the answer is no, that wasn't the original plan. That's just my take on it though.
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Maybe we could add bug bounties for fixing some of the game's many persistent cosmetic issues. Throw bounties up there for several of the highest-voted issues that have been languishing for years with some ridiculously high ARX price and treat it like a sort of 'community goal'. Hell, I'd probably pay for more ARX to kick into such a thing if it increased the chance of issues lie Broken Stellar Lighting getting some attention in this half of the decade. Yes, of course this is an awful idea, but I personally would prefer this kind of off-the-wall insanity to the creeping pay-to-win nonsense under discussion.
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So how they get more money does not bother you? Is there a line for you that is unacceptable? What behaviour (by a developer) would you consider too far?On the other hand if they get more money they can do more
O7
Some of us have standards and expect better from other people and companies. Yes I understand Frontier as a company have to make a profit, but is this really the morally right way to go about it? Blur the line between fair and unfair and not give a damn if people don't like it? Are you ok with that? Because I am not.
The jumpstart ships aren't exactly end game ships though are they? If they were selling Triple Elite for a dollar, fair point. But they're not, they're just taking out some early game grind, in a game that's developed a bad rep for it, as well as raising some money/player numbers with any luck. The fact that the T6 is a specialised titch and the Chieftain a specialised way to get most people killed anywhere near a Titan is probably more amusing than anything. Watch this space, sure, but giving a few players a leg up once isn't a habit, yet?
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
Well there you go, you learn something every day. I stand corrected, said the man in the Orthapaedic shoes.
I'm afraid as a kickstarter backer I didn't think much of it at the time because I was getting it all anyway.
Resurrected my old forum account just to comment that it is once again PAINFUL seeing the usual Frontier worshippers try and defend this. Seeing people defend this god awful decision is honestly so disappointing. This community is not what it once was.
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If the ’grind’ is a bad design, Frontier are offering you a solution to buy your way out of that bad design. Making money from what is perceived as faulty game design sounds like a second best solution to me as a consumer. Still I’m no worse off than before, but also no better off.