Who would be willing to PAY for ships?
- Thread starter Colonel Kenney
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Grinding is good... wow. A game should be a GAME not a grind. It should be challenging, fun and rewarding. "An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games. "
If grinding is amusement or a pastime... I'm flabbergasted
In case he thinks you're the one who reported him for that, let me clear that up. It was me.
On the topic of the big three F2P games out there, War Thunder, World of Warships and World of Tanks are openly P2W. Their design and economic model relies heavily on player progression, progression made faster by premium vehicles (which in all three games give you more credits/experience), premium ammo, premium consummables, reinforcements, etc... faster progression meaning higher win ratio since you spend less time in a stock sub-optimal vehicle.
This doesn't translate 1:1 to ED obviously, but as there are more than enough areas of the game where enemies don't scale with your ship (and that's a good thing really), surely being able to outright buy a bigger better ship lets you reduce the amount of danger you're facing from the game. From there, how long is it until Frontier realizes they have an incentive to up the difficulty of the game across the board and mess with the pace of progression to make you more likely to grab the wallet and avoid those rebuys, to lessen the grind? And of course, why stop at ships? It's not like there's not plenty of examples across the whole video game industry of companies trying to one-up one another at being the scummiest of the lot with micro-transactions.
No, totally against it:
1. It destroys the meaning of the game. There is no "endgame" in ED and the nearest thing is acquiring the most expensive ships. If this can be undermined by people just buying them then it destroys the whole premise of the game. How would you feel if you won a gold medal through years of training and then found out your neighbours had all bought them (and no one could tell the difference)? It destroys the egalitarian nature of the experience and diminishes the effort people put in "honestly".
2. Thin end of the wedge. I've already paid for the ships buy buying the game. What next? Buy planets? Buy stations? Buy an "Elite" ranking? Where would it end once we went down this road? I'm fine with non game-changing things like cosmetics, but not stuff that is integral to the game.
1. It destroys the meaning of the game. There is no "endgame" in ED and the nearest thing is acquiring the most expensive ships. If this can be undermined by people just buying them then it destroys the whole premise of the game. How would you feel if you won a gold medal through years of training and then found out your neighbours had all bought them (and no one could tell the difference)? It destroys the egalitarian nature of the experience and diminishes the effort people put in "honestly".
2. Thin end of the wedge. I've already paid for the ships buy buying the game. What next? Buy planets? Buy stations? Buy an "Elite" ranking? Where would it end once we went down this road? I'm fine with non game-changing things like cosmetics, but not stuff that is integral to the game.
yeah i would buy them.
Indeed.
A game is a game... its supposed to be entertaining to the player. You work towards your goals and the journey is half the fun. Danger, Struggle, Risk and then reward. The Journey!
When a game offers you the use of Psuedo gambling to 'buy' content locked within Loot boxes or to unlock the rewards that would normally become available to you through actually playing the game, then we have no game.
What we have is a gambling simulator or a fantacy experiance simulator like second life, where immediate gratification is offered at the end of a Dollar transaction.
Players (and i use that term in this context loosely) Will just spend money, Unlock content, Get the dopamine jolt, Get bored, Game over.
Over the years its easy to see the plague of money making, greed farming methods slowly leak from the mobile gaming market into Tripple A gaming, on to consoles and PC's and i personally will not support the practice. If ED goes this way, for what its worth, I would be done with this title.
So far the player base of ED have sunk thousands of hours into this game... Those hours would be thrown under the bus, by an adaption of the game model where Players with access to daddies credit card can over take your progress in the game in an instant. A move like this would Show that Fdev do not care about you, your time or its player base but instead is more interested in joining the glut of sell out gold rush game development which is slowing eroding the industry and its integrity.
I personally do not feel that Fdev are this classless, This title is their flag ship game and to degrade it with pay 2 win design changes would turn a flag ship into a fishing boat.
Remember the Argumeent online once upon a time.... Are video games Art?
If trends continue, Video games will be nothing more than online casino's taking money and returning virtual garbage to people looking for a dopamine high.
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Old men tends to be less likely to do silly impulse buys. Pay to win relies on impulse buys to make it work. Pay to win also seems to be more common in extremely casual games, the pick the game up while waiting for something type. Elite isn't for casual gaming, no matter how much the loud minority tries to sell that idea.
You, dear Sir, want to turn this game into a F2P-Plattform!
I'm glad that so far FD doesn't even dare to think of that option, as they want to be all involving rather than setting up a 2-class-society in a leisure occupation in which - so far - it's all about the experience of a universe and not about finishing your consumers checklist as fast as possible and/or beating the system.
If, slowly or instantly, Brabens Gang get all commerce-focused and E : D turns into Free to Play with Premium Items offered, I and probably 2/3s of the resident (non-vocal) players'd be out. Even, when (for my part) I'd been - up to that point - a devoted fan of the franchise.
And I wouldn't shed a tear leaving.
No, it's a ridiculous idea.
Problem is that he opened up the conversation by essentially saying "hey Star Citizen does it, and it doesn't seem to have been disruptive to that game at all," which is (A) Premature, because Star Citizen as a coherent game isn't even playable so there's no way to evaluate how ship sales impact the (currently nonexistent) play balance, and (B) Incorrect anyway, because ship sales have been one of the most contentious issues surrounding Star Citizen and a huge ongoing source of drama, frustration, and confusion amongst backers and *certainly* amongst potential backers trying to decide whether or not to get involved.
As a result the whole argument starts to look a little disingenuous and bad-faith; which is why there's a strong temptation to say "well if you like paying for ships so much, go play Star Citizen then."
If you need it explained to you then its pointless even trying.
You obviously never went to the arcades in your teens and left without your pocket money..
I will never be for 'pay to win' type stuff in Elite Dangerous. And don't make some ignorant comment about Horizons being pay to win, or I will call you a dolt. Or a peasant.** You get access to the expansion, not free ships that are modded to high heaven.
I will gladly pay for DLC that gives access to new ships (Because they're usually included in a bigger update anyways), but I expect to purchase/modify them with in game credits and materials.
What I would like to see is some way to trade engineer materials, either for other materials, or credits. That way people who don't want to put forth a whole lot of effort can maybe get some things they want, while people with excess materials can make some bread as well.
** I will purchase Horizons for one whiner that doesn't have it, simply to prove my point that it isn't pay to win content.
I will gladly pay for DLC that gives access to new ships (Because they're usually included in a bigger update anyways), but I expect to purchase/modify them with in game credits and materials.
What I would like to see is some way to trade engineer materials, either for other materials, or credits. That way people who don't want to put forth a whole lot of effort can maybe get some things they want, while people with excess materials can make some bread as well.
** I will purchase Horizons for one whiner that doesn't have it, simply to prove my point that it isn't pay to win content.
How loud do I have to whine? Then again, all 4 of my accounts have Horizons. Gimme a 5th?
Jenner
I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Quite well said. Have some rep.
Maybe it's also the fact that I just watched some of YouTuber Jim Sterling's musings on this subject and that's why I've changed my mind. It's hard not to be discouraged when publishers go down this route.
I can't see FD doing so, though.
The game is already grindy and time consuming enough. If they start selling ships or credits in the shop, they will never have any incentive to fix the grind, on the contrary. Because then more grind and less enjoyable gameplay will translate into more sales of microtransactions that help avoid the grind. So the game itself will suck more and more while some addicted people will spend all their money on microtransactions. That's not my kinda game.
If we are talking about spending real-world money for in-game assets - then a hard line should be drawn between vanity and advantage.
I would not let Players use this to circumvent gameplay. If the game store sold "permits", which allowed the player to buy a special ship or item they would still have to earn the credits through game-play before they could make the acquisition.
Vanity ships are fine - variations which don't offer any particular advantage over existing (unrestricted) in game vessels. Although, as I might have said before - these may come with a "kick-me" sign in open...
There may be a case for permit-restricting "super expensive" ships - mega ships. But if were many players able to afford such vessels in-game, then somethings already gone wrong...
I would not let Players use this to circumvent gameplay. If the game store sold "permits", which allowed the player to buy a special ship or item they would still have to earn the credits through game-play before they could make the acquisition.
Vanity ships are fine - variations which don't offer any particular advantage over existing (unrestricted) in game vessels. Although, as I might have said before - these may come with a "kick-me" sign in open...
There may be a case for permit-restricting "super expensive" ships - mega ships. But if were many players able to afford such vessels in-game, then somethings already gone wrong...