The ARX conundrum (How it's rewarded)

[Schmack]

I’ve had terrific luck so far by facing south when wearing green socks.

This reminds me of all the (obviously highly scientific) observations made about the disappearing mats on biological POIs. Angle of attack, how many times you've visited, regrowth, falling through planet, floating into space, how many times you shot it...

It goes on and on.

 

[Speedcuffs]

This reminds me of all the (obviously highly scientific) observations made about the disappearing mats on biological POIs. Angle of attack, how many times you've visited, regrowth, falling through planet, floating into space, how many times you shot it...

It goes on and on.

My thoughts on that never gained any traction:

Speedcuffs' special theory of working as intended.

 

[Lightspeed]

If it's anything like real life then I predict that the most efficient process for maximising weekly earnings will be to repetitively do something utterly fricking soul destroying.

I strongly recommend that people don't bother.

Destruction of ship = 6 ARX.
So, if each week you buy 150 Sidewinders and destroy them, you will maximize your ARX to 400. If you do this all year, such as by using a Suicidewinder, you will need to do this about 7,500 times

 

[Speedcuffs]

Destruction of ship = 6 ARX.
So, if each week you buy 150 Sidewinders and destroy them, you will maximize your ARX to 400. If you do this all year, such as by using a Suicidewinder, you will need to do this about 75,000 times

SCIENCE! \o/

 

[DNA-Decay]

I will forget that its there by not obsessing over it and maybe one day i will look up and there's 3000 Arx sitting there.

S T O R E

 

[Speedcuffs]

One of my darkest, most depressing visions: people start on 'farming' ARX, with guaranteed pointless and unconnected gameplay.
But what did I think? That's people.

Oh yeah. Tubers gonna be all over this with their 'factual' presentations. As per.

 

[Jmanis]

I've just been playing the game, doing nothing new beyond my usual meta. 330-odd ARX so far.

 

[Factabulous]

I've just been playing the game, doing nothing new beyond my usual meta. 330-odd ARX so far.

Finally fdev are rewarding your playstyle with the ARX for Bounties, Bonds, Fines

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

Personally I've got the five ships I want and have bought all the paint and ship kits along with some signage for all. Thus if I play forever, I'll not need any free or other ARX's.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Personally I've got the five ships I want and have bought all the paint and ship kits along with some signage for all. Thus if I play forever, I'll not need any free or other ARX's.

Yeh, I bought the midnight black for everything last year... On PS4.

 

[Kamiyoda]

If it's anything like real life then I predict that the most efficient process for maximising weekly earnings will be to repetitively do something utterly fricking soul destroying.

I strongly recommend that people don't bother.

5 minutes of buying and reselling reactive armor isnt all that bad.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

This isn't necessarily true, though. Yes, sure, I'll get somewhere between £2 and £10 of "free" cosmetics a year - depending on how much I can be bothered to max out the weekly limit in the weeks I wouldn't get there anyway - that I'd previously either have paid for or not obtained at all. On the other hand, if it encourages people to play the game more, that could end up making them more money overall in the long run. Even if the people playing more don't buy more cosmetics to top up the free Arx, the larger community is itself valuable.

Or put another way: semi-active player count is probably around 200k, and the proportion of those active enough to regularly max out free Arx is going to be much lower - maybe 10k or so. So it's maybe costing them £100k in "sales" ... not all of which would actually be realised in the first place because not every active player buys that many cosmetics. It doesn't take a lot of people

• buying alt accounts
• buying more cosmetics than they previously would have
• encouraging other people to start playing

...all possible consequences of people playing more than they previously did...
to clear that nominal £100k - and it's not a massive risk for them if it doesn't work out, either.

Yeh of course. ARX are there to encourage people to play and to spend. The free ARX are tasters.
Ultimately ARX and Cosmetics are something for nothing, Frontier have some overheads where they are concerned but potential profit from a popular item in game is virtually printing real money.

Any value given away by the free ARX comes out of potential profit, not actual profit. So giving away some potential profit in order to encourage more actual profit is a no brainer.

So any loss that i suggested above is really just from potential profits. But that is still value worth maximising and im sure Frontier kept that in mind when designing the free ARX seed bin.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Yeh of course. ARX are there to encourage people to play and to spend. The free ARX are tasters.
Ultimately ARX and Cosmetics are something for nothing, Frontier have some overheads where they are concerned but potential profit from a popular item in game is virtually printing real money.

Any value given away by the free ARX comes out of potential profit, not actual profit. So giving away some potential profit in order to encourage more actual profit is a no brainer.

So any loss that i suggested above is really just from potential profits. But that is still value worth maximising and im sure Frontier kept that in mind when designing the free ARX seed bin.

Hm. Sounds like Ferengi logic, or possibly (something the Mods won't like).

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I think ive personally called it. For the little you get its not worth putting in the effort for the cap. DOA for me.

For people who have never supported frontier via cosmetics this is probably a great new progression system though, if cruel in its generosity.

You won't get it from just natural play and all you're going to get is a weapon color in 5 weeks. Lol.

The only other dumbness is passing personal checks on why i have to pay more and have change instead of paying less and just having what i want next time something hits the store. Knowing you got chumped and that was the complete intention by the maker puts up some pretty strong barriers.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I've made 136 Arxe this week by just doing what I want to do and thats probably only 2-3 hours gameplay.

I'd call that natural play.

Some people can do it sure. I havent found a reason to do conflict zones in the bubble and my main play is exploring out near the witch head nebula atm....

So its not going to happen for me.

 

[Six6VI]

Another set of counters we don't get to see, creating a load of play time to record what they are, forum posts speculating on and confirming the results, plus giving the creator community plenty to film talking to themselves about. FDev gains free "press" while only 'losing' some tax deductible marketing budget.

When the novelty wears off, we may yet see an official ARX farming table on the main menu.

[Or more likely, elitedangerousarxfarmer.dubioushax.com/weeklycalc will suddenly be a thing.]

 

[Babellon]

If it's anything like real life then I predict that the most efficient process for maximising weekly earnings will be to repetitively do something utterly fricking soul destroying.

I strongly recommend that people don't bother.

So play the game like normal... gotcha.

 

[Trotsky2112]

If I remember correctly, you can recieve Arx from performing any of the three major disciplines, and you get a log in bonus. There is however a weekly cap of 400 Arx.

 

[Nevada]

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

it puts the harmless sidewinder in the basket