Yes, they should spread the love around a little to the other members of the pack so all the ships can have more than just a few generic packs. And again, I would like to suggest a New Yorkish Yellow Checkered Taxi Cab paintjob and a Police / Squad car paintjob.
I think my
ideal addition to liveries would be a free---
*FDev's money-men and women suddenly cry out in psychic pain* ---FNA (and maybe some for those pro-monarchical/imperialist slavers if they're good... ) skins which actually have perhaps three variations of a decent digital camo pattern that unlock as you rank up.
Camo patterns in space aren't very 'military', but then neither are any of the Military skins in the game. Camo would at least
look military. Which seems to be a fairly obvious requirement for a pack named Military. Just sayin', FDev, radical as it seems.
...and yes, I am a tad bitter about how the packs are being designed and released. I love the game and I've bought a fair bit of content (I'd say I've literally paid my dues), but overall the creative and commercial plan seems suspiciously exploitative and low-maintanence (I mean, jeese, they didn't even try to ensure the nameplates actually comfortably fit where they're restrictively assigned. can't the engine cope with allowing the player to place the nameplate manually? but nope, 'here's content you paid for weirdly and unrealistically overlapping hull plating', because reasons).
We can pay £3 to make a Corvette hot pink, daub a low-level Cobra III in a selection of garish neons, but proper navy auxiliary packs to go with the only formal ranking gameplay worth a damn (i.e. genuine rewards for time and effort in the form of great ship unlocks) in the entire game? No chance.
Then there's the Contender and Challenger suit packs. They're palette swaps, nothing more, so shouldn't they be in the same damn pack? I mean, there's only one measly character model asset at this point - it can't take much more 'effort' than recolouring each element. Not to mention that some premium content is left incomplete or substandard, e.g. the gold suit's helm element remains an ugly matte yellow as opposed to, y'know,
gold, which is what the customer's paying for.
Eh, I suppose that's my rant done for this week... I generally defend FDev's gameplay decisions to the hilt, but the microtransactions side of things is a very different matter. This isn't, after all, a fee-to-play/free-to-pay business model. We all paid for the base game
and Horizons, and FDev are apparently doing quite well, financially. So why essentially screw over the consumers so much with endless palette swaps, senseless/contexless skins, and nameplates (and ID's) that don't fit neatly onto a ship?
I gather 2.4 may introduce more layers of character customisation that come with price tags.
Cynical triple-A publishers on larger games get a lot of attention and criticism, and I'm not sure why FDev haven't at least cameo'd in the limelight yet.
