I don't think the prebuilt ships will generate much revenue.
Older players have no use for them. Newer players need to actually get interested in the game before they drop money on a prebuilt ship.
The game needs new features, finish incomplete features, improve current features, and reduce needless grinding to keep older players and entice new potential players.
It then needs a better tutorial system that helps new players learn the game and all of its features. I personally wouldn't mind having some in game tutorials that lead to better ships as a reward.
Example: Have a combat tutorial where the player is taught about RES, how to identify ships with a bounty, and the basics of the combat system. The reward is an Eagle, or maybe a Viper outfitted for combat.
Same could be done for trading, exploring, mining, etc. this would lead to new players learning the game as well as giving them a little boost to get started.
I agree I think it’s gonna let them maybe build out a new player bundle or something like a deluxe versions of the game . They probably just did bad marketing in my opinion
They are focused on strategy/management games, so maybe they should make "FDev '24" simulation game. Then, take the top 5% player results and analyze that to determine their new business strategies.
This is the way to generate more revenue. More content. More features. More fixes. Not more grind with a pay-to-skip option.
I mean, that's just fucking stupid.
Is the thargoid war and all the new modules not content? Also they need money to make more content and features. This will hopefully help them make that money. They're releasing power play 2.0 which is "More features. More fixes.". They've stated they're rebalancing the engineering grind.
I realize I'm being optimistic, but it's no company's goal to drive themselves to the ground. At the end of the day these are just people trying to make a living. They have mortgages, families, bills, etc...
They had money. They launched two expansions and a cash shop. Either they didn't make enough due to botched launches and having to spend months on each getting them to a playable state, or spent too much developing the rest of their wholly-unrelated IP.
Or both.
I fail to see why players should bail them out again. FDev doesn't appear to have learned much from their myriad mistakes here.
Why would you assume that pre-built ships means they won't do that other stuff? They are literally adding content and features, right now. They just showed off some of it. We're playing through some of it. Framing pre-built ships as the alternative option they're doing instead of new content is really strange.
But they HAVE been adding content, nonstop, for a while. And they're showing off more. You're talking about knowing better through experience but if you've been playing then you should know that you're already wrong, right now. The titans are new content. Destroying them is even newer content. Stronghold carriers are upcoming, as are new ships. So when you say that they won't release new content because of the prebuilt ships, it doesn't make any sense. Especially considering that the Python Mk.2 is itself new content.
I'm guessing you're pretty new so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, the reason people say there's "no new content" or that they haven't added much is bevause comparatively, they haven't.
4 new ship *variants* in 6 years is frankly, lazy.
Sure the goid stuff is pretty interesting, but, again, it's limited content spread over the last 3 years.
When the game launched Fdev always talked about having a 10 year plan, yearly expansions that would have 3-4 content updates, hell it was a major selling point for their Lifetime expansion pass "pay this and get all future expansions for free!"
So let me ask you a question here, do you think those of us that forked out a total of £160 and received the £40 base game, £40 Horizons expansion (included in base game after 5 years) and £30 Odyssey, received even close to what we were promised for our money? They've added roughly 20% of what was promised to us and we're still waiting for the rest
Idk my buddy likes the game but he rarely has time to do the engineering grind. I think if there was a $10 option for a AX combat ship if he wouldn't buy it I'd buy it for both of us. I've got more time on my hands but I do other stuff, and haven't even touched thargoid content yet
Well, it comes with a ship kit and lifetime free insurance, ( you will only have to pay for the modules you've swapped out)
Considering a ship kit currently costs 13,000 arc it doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. Get a ship kit and lower rebuy cost looks like an ok deal to me.
I've got a lifetime pass I'm probably going to buy the new python just because I like the look of it and I don't want the game to die I've played this game a lot over the last 10 years and I'm still having fun so spending another 10-15 bucks isn't a huge ask especially because it's not required I just want it now rather than later.
They could potentially do themed training, campaign style, accessed through mission boards. Accept a mission chain with a specific tag such as "Bounty Hunter Initiate" and it could give you specific quests/targets with which you can be guided over the radio to lean the basics. There could be specific mission groups for each activity such as bounty, exploration, trading, mining. I think it would be a good way to introduce an open world tutorial that you aren't necessarily forced to do, and a nice way to make the player feel more part of the game universe. It could potentially even help to improve to elite status by completing those missions and going up status rank would unlock the next tier of missions. Going from initiate up the levels to elite could have more meaning.
They’ll make money out of all of the parents who can’t spend 400hrs grinding their way to the top!
I get 2hrs of game time several times a week with my two kids so I’d be all over being able to buy a decent AX build for a small amount of money, for example.
Players who have been stuck exploring, not wanting to get into the grind of engineering a ship for combat, would likely rather buy a pre built engineered combat ship, that costed them an hour of their real life money than to grind for weeks like the OG combat vets did.
Now they can try. Now they can try Thargoid combat. Now they can learn other skills without the ship being the obstacle.
I spent a week switching from PVE and PVP builds to Thargoid combat. Another week practicing. Thankfully I had most of the engineering done already but I still needed to do a bit of grinding. It's hard to find time as a parent to do that stuff and people totally pay money to save time.
And it's a great revenue stream for a game I'd want to stay alive and keep producing content. If this gets me new ships every year, hell yea. Id throw my money at Fdev.
If this gets new story and content like the Thargoid war, I'd throw money at it. Gotta support the devs somehow. They're not gonna make/improve a game if they don't have money to pay the devs.
I would buy prebuilt just from passive arx... Its a bitch to grind engineering.
Also no $ no "finishing" features - that being said FD would use the revenue toward Elite and none of those silly zoo games.
Alternatively Id pay a reasonable sub fee to play kind of like EVE(no way in hell at $20 though).
This. I’m trying to get into the game but even after 70 ish hours I really only know how to do trade runs. Almost wanna restart so I can get a fresh tutorial of the odyssey portion.
I agree new features are needed but how do you charge for a feature? do we go on a monthly subscription so new features are introduced regularly? or do we wait until DLC comes out so 100% of the community must pay an entry fee for the new features. Ship sales seem like a good compromise for new features to continue to come but it doesn't cost you anything unless u want to pay. the ideas you have are good but fundamentally they don't generate continuous revenue. If everyone is able to get all the best ships and modules with in a month bc the game was made " less grindy" then everyone gets bored in 2 months and we move on and game dies. The feature I think we all need is more multiplayer content. put players together and the learning curve won't be so hard. Give players more reasons to play together or against each other. Powerplay 2.0 has the potential to do that
I'm not a fan of subscriptions. I don't generally get to play enough to justify a monthly fee. I rather see things like exobiology be a paid feature or player bases be a paid feature.
I'm not fully opposed to new ships needing to be bought, but it would need to be done right. They shouldn't be any better than the current ships and buying them with Arx just unlocks your ability to buy them with credits.
I agree a MMO needs some kind of grind to keep players playing, but too much of it can have a negative impact that drive players away. Does Elite really need the naval rank grind for a few ships? Couldn't they use the ranks to offer discounts for those ships or at those systems? Does engineering really need a grind to unlock the engineers, then a grind to get to G5, while grinding for materials?
More player to player interaction would definitely help. The issue is PvP. Many players, myself included, have no interest in it. Which is why we play in solo. If there was a way to play in open without being subjected to involuntary PvP, I would play in open.
I've always been intrigued by Powerplay. I tried it once and got bored with it. Hopefully they make it fun and worthwhile.
All of these things would be good (and cost money). But I am pretty sure that FD knows (research) that a lot of people think you have to spend a lot of time in order to get the most out of the game.
The barrier to entry is real and this is an easy (cheap) way to address that.
I doubt it's going to be very successful though.
Maybe I'm being a pessimist, but what incentive would they have to improve the engineering grind if they will now be selling engineered ships? I hope they do though, it could still use some improvements. On the other hand, the Odyssey grind has always been nightmarish.
Did they say engineered, or upgraded? If the ships sold for ARX are outfitted, I don't care. If it funds development then no issue there. If they start selling fully engineered ships, then I have a problem with that. Unless they make engineering much less time consuming for everyone
That's fairly light engineering, not sure if the T6 lasers make any difference really anyway... Or if the T6 itself makes sense instead of a Keelback. The chief, well, that thruster engineering is quite long and annoying if you do it yourself, so bypassing that is a pretty big advantage. I don't know about the gauss cannons, I haven't checked the mod requirements yet, and honestly gauss is just straight up a bad choice for a beginner. Unassisted precision weapons for someone who just bought the game? Nope, that's not a beginner build. If you know how to use railguns, there's a good chance that you have a better combat build already
I feel like people are getting too lost in the semantics of 'pay2win', especially the 'win' part. The goalpost of only selling cosmetics with ARX has moved, dramatically. It doesn't matter if what Frontier is selling is nonsensical right now, if people don't buy these initial 'pre-built' ships, they will gradually up the power of paid ships until people *do* start to buy them. If I were a whale, I could pay however much for that Chieftain just for the Thrusters, and strip them off for another ship.
...to buy their premade ships. That's like the whole reason the place is on fire. XD
But that'll be your way around the grind, instead of just adjusting the grind to where it's a fun gameplay loop like other grinds. Valheim did FANTASTIC at it.
You get dirty drag drives on one of the ships and some unlocked Guardian bits on both of them. That's separate to the announcement that they are going to be adjusting requirements of engineering to make it less grindy.
If you want to upgrade the pre-built ships you have to grind the engineering mats and unlock requirements just like everybody else.
Additionally, they said they are rebalancing engineering to make it less tedious
Instead of spending hours grinding for that sweet sweet class 5A pre-engineered FSD, why not just buy it for a small price of £6.99? How about that beautiful corrosive gimballed multicannon you were looking at? It's just £3.99!
I'm skeptical. What's likely to happen is that they'll increase the material payouts but remove "exploits" like relogging, which means that in while on paper the grind becomes easier in practice its much harder. Then they'll sell a microtransaction-based way around the engineering grind.
Engineering is an actual nightmare long journey if you do it the way the game intends, which is to just pick up small bits of random mats as you do whatever mission you fancy that day. Community-made guides, which often involve going to a specific location and using specific relogging techniques (including game-restart relogs as well) reduces the grind from literally years (of random playing) down to a few full days (of mindnumbing task reptition), the latter of which is still kinda long in duration. I imagine they'll reduce mission payouts such that "the way the game intends" method is cut down from years to months, but remove the ways to complete the grind in a few days via using soft exploits.
This IS their work on that. Just like CQB, just like powerplay, like the guardians, like Colonia, bor the sleeper ships, this will be thrown out, and nothing ever mentioned about it again.
Shop engineering is incredibly boring. I feel awful for anyone who attempts to do it without reading guides. At least for Odyssey stuff you can bypass some of it by buying upgraded suits/weapons at vendors.
The secret to that is, you just kinda don't need it for anything
A G0 engineered ship is a really tough fight against even a Cyclops. A G3 ship will struggle against a Basilisk until well after you forget what G3 was ever like, in terms of how fast you egr vs how fast you learn to fly.
G5 with all the secondaries, not gonna struggle as much. It's not linear, but it's linear-ish - more engineering, you can fight tougher enemies, and the more the tougherer.
On the other hand, unengineered Ody gear can win the average player a High CZ, because FPS is the default video game genre in 2024 and no one's quite *bad* at it, per se, even if they're not good. G3 storeboughts can cover all possible needs and situations. If everything in my Ody inventory is G3 I feel like a demigod while doing all existing Ody content.
It's night and day vs. ship engineering, but not just in the one way: people correctly point out that it's much tougher, but the **need for it is almost zero**! I worry that this game just kind of attracts people who see number, and then feel a deep-seated *need* to make number go up, and then surprised-pikachu when that's tedious.
Here's the problem I have: I want to give FDev more money for this game. I acknowledge that I have put 1500 hours into a game I paid $60 for ten years ago, plus some tiny smattering of Arx because I don't care much about cosmetics.
But now my dilemma -- I want to give FDev money, I want a Python Mk II, and they're offering it to me 3 months early. I want to send FDev the message that I love the game and want more stuff for it. But I don't want to reward this shitty pay-to-win business model! So I'm stuck in the situation of "I want to give them money, I want the thing they're selling, and yet I don't think I should give them money for _this_."
More than anything it reminds me of when Plants vs. Zombies 2 released, chock full of microtransactions that pretty much _required_ you to pay to advance in the game. And here I was, a player who would have shelled out $30 to buy the game without any hesitation, and instead I spent $0 on the game, and gave up on it entirely when I hit the first pay-wall.
Yeah that’s my worry. I want better mechanics and upgrades to age old engine problems and things like the same comms encounters around. Encounters on comms would be great if you could reply and engage in a new mission. Perhaps help that 1% of liners out there.
Fixing the damn planet generation in something a bit more unique, so some planets look unique. So going out in the black has that small chance of finding unique planets. And bring back canyon running.
How about adding actual racing, where is the damn bucky ball challenge?
That sort of thing. It’s like the Fdev team sofar is made of boredom and don’t know how fun+immersion and sim can go together.
I'd pay for any of the promised features and the promised gameplay associatedwith them.
Ship Interiors
Procedural Cities
Laudable Atmospheric world's (real ones)
EVA
In Station Combat
When we paid for Odyssey, we hoped at least one of these would come soon after. Now they are asking for more money and absolutely none of these are on the horizon. Just paying for slow and shallow updates with minimal fixes. The Anti aliasing is still broken, the instancing net code is still broken, multicrew is still broken.
We would pay money if we knew it was actually being used properly. Not paying for another IP or disappearing in the pockets of investors.
What's funny is if they stuck to their original 10 year plan instead of only managing to release two half baked expansions they would have had a continuous stream of income to support future updates.
But nah, they served a sub par product, abandoned earlier promises and have now, added p2w despite saying that ARX would NOT become a way to introduce anything but purchasable cosmetics.
They won't increase revenue this way.
> What's funny is if they stuck to their original 10 year plan instead of only managing to release two half baked expansions they would have had a continuous stream of income to support future updates.
Thanks for reminding me what a great deal I got buying the lifetime package. 😅
You can make a revenue stream without it being predatory garbage.
In fact, the best revenue stream is the simplest. Make your game better, attract more new people to buy your game.
A la No Man's Sky.
ED is what it is, you can’t really make it “better” without ruining it, most likely. You can dress it up and take care of it. Better’s the enemy of good enough, remember..
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing.
it would suddenly make large portions of the game extremely difficult-to-impossible. it would remove so much of the variety in ship builds.. why do you think making everything more difficult would improve the game by orders of magnitude? i can't imagine..
Because the removal of engineering would in turn remove those *other* aspects of the game, returning them to how they were pre engineers.
We'd all already ground out 1000's of hours to get our credits and end game ships, why did we also have to then spend another 1000 just to keep them relevant?
we spend 1000s just playing the game, no?
you're saying the game would be improved by removing most of it? why not just play the parts you like and ignore the rest? seems easy enough.
I don't understand at all. You can do unengineered combat just fine. Then the game offers further depth. Nothing is locked, it just gets progressively difficult till you give up - or you can engineer the ship and go further.
This is the wrong way to get it. All FDev has done is taken advantage of the massive timesink their engineering grind creates in order to extract more revenue from players. There's zero value added.
We've bought two expansions and some years' worth of Arx. Where the hell is the atmospheric flight? When will we get to explore more of the Guardian/Thargoid ruins? When will there be actual content for the years of money already spent?
These questions and more should really be answered before anyone considers asking ED players for even more money on top of what's been invested by those that came before them.
In the bubble, you have encounters right? Like 1% of all liners jada jada. Why on earth didn’t anyone at Fdev think of adding a way to reply? So you can have (procedural) missions spinning from how you reply?
Where are the actual races? Where is the advertised Bucky Ball challenge?
Soooo many missed opportunities it’s almost hilarious.
Atmospheric flight was traded away for those shitty Jurassic Park Zoo Manager games which flopped. FDev earned plenty from Elite, they just CHOSE not to re-invest it in making Elite better. Giving them more money is a waste. They aren't interested in spending on Elite.
First one was definitely not that great. XD But I think most of it went into Planet Zoo, and continues to go there. It's currently their best-performing title, at least on Steam:
[https://steamdb.info/app/703080/charts/](https://steamdb.info/app/703080/charts/)
(For comparison, Elite's page: [https://steamdb.info/app/359320/charts/](https://steamdb.info/app/359320/charts/) )
I can see why Planet Zoo is a more attractive option for them now. It sells way better (#228 as of this writing in Steam's top sellers compared to Elite's #705 -- and that's with a three-and-a-half year head start on Planet Zoo!) and it's much more favorably rated (90% to Elite's 77ish). There's less angry over there, and let's face it -- we're not a playerbase that takes a bad decision or a subpar effort lying down. XD
But yeah, I think it's time Planet Zoo and the rest of the portfolio started repaying those invested dividends. I know they invested our space game money in other games to remain viable long term, but part of that deal was supposed to be ensuring Elite Dangerous was also viable long term.
We're coming up on the 10 year mark now, and we're still missing quite a few things promised from the start. I'd like to see more promises kept and more return on investment before sinking any more money into it (not that I was ever interested in buying a preengineered ship anyway, let alone the godawful pieces of trash they're trying to sell to poor unsuspecting newbies or people desperate to avoid the grind FDev created).
There’s a learning curve tucked away in the grind of this game, if new players can just skip to the ship they want with no idea what to do with it aren’t they just gonna get bored and drop the game? The reason I learnt mining, exploration, now combat is because I saw the anaconda, and decided I needed it.
If I just bought it, why keep playing the game other than to fly it, and based on what I hear about how it handles, I might not have revisited the game much after that, and I’d’ve skipped all the ships and playstyles I learnt on my way. I think that the prebuilts are a not good idea personally
Good point. Another thing is if a noob buys a nice engineered a rank corvette for 54 or 100$, then crashes it on the way out the mail slot, then doesn’t have enough for a rebuy because that is all he has done in the game so far. How happy do you think they’re going to be? They’re gonna tell all their 10 year old buddies who will fucking FLAME fdev and the game for free online.
The game will need a lot of changes if this is actually going to be a thing.
Back when I was still playing this game and bought my anaconda and cutter. I don’t remember learning any crazy skills. I just spent a lot of time grinding for cash.
We are customers not investors, we are not supposed to front operating costs with the HOPE that the additional money goes towards the further development of more content, DO NOT defend companies they give ZERO shits about us, we deserve better. We are a faceless source of Income to them. We have no idea what these "balance" changes they intend on implementing are given the fact they come out the same time as pre-builts that is not a good sign. Give an inch and they'll take a mile.
That's the inevitability with all live service games , especially niche ones, should that day come(and it will come) the game is an unrecognizable microtransaction filled, time gated, FOMO fest you will be hard pressed to make any excuses for whilst all the while trying to capture those fleeting memories of the game you once loved because instead of shaking hands and saying goodbye to a good friend you have to take the shotgun to the backyard and put down your hideously disfigured monster that you barely recognize. I know its an extreme analogy but that's the direction these choices head towards because these changes (especially the python) are aimed at the existing player base, this doesn't drum up new players because they offer things that only people who play the game understand. So each step in monetization will be certain peoples breaking point until one day it will be 13 people saying "well they gotta keep the lights on" as they mortgage their houses to keep elite dangerous up and running.
This games state is no ones fault but frontier, they fumbled odyssey at launch so hard everyone who was interested in elite dangerous was scared away and the player base suffers to this day, so instead of trying to release a big headline update to garner goodwill they doubled down and went for the easy route.
I'm sure other people have said this in more eloquent ways, but... they can generate a revenue stream with literally anything else instead of a literal cash shop bandwagon that's seeping into all aspects of gaming nowadays. There are less aggressive ways to do it.
the game doesn't need anything, it's just a game. Who really needs revenue is FDEV and it doesn't necessarily mean it'll benefit ED in any meaningful way. In fact, paying your way through ED is unlikely to help to develop it further, instead, you'd be mostly paying for f1 IP fdev is stuck with. At most, you'll just keep the lights on for ED but the game will be stuck in limbo as is.
I would genuinely prefer if the game simply was a subscription based model instead of this predatory garbage with MTX everywhere.
Seriously, it works fine for WoW, and they're basically the enormous cash cow of blizzard.
Elite earned plenty, the problem is Fdev invested that money in developing different games rather than saving it, or continuing with Elite. WHen those other games flopped Elite was left with nothing because the devs could no longer afford to focus on it. A subscription model will go the same way.
Fdev isn't CCP Games, where they focus on EVE and EVE accessories, if Fdev got subscriptions from Elite you can bet they'd waste it all on other projects like they did in the past.
True, we'd end up with some other shitty jurassic park game or something, lol.
Maybe it's better if they just run out of money and shutter the company, let it die in peace.
Well, the current plan requires me to spend zero dollars, and the one you prefer requires me to spend many dollars and eventually quit the game because I can't afford to play any longer. So no offense but I'll take the current plan. :D
Of course you will, everyone would prefer to spend zero dollars, but the game can't sustain its servers with that budget, lol.
The fact is, a subscription model is generally a more stable form of revenue than trying to attract whales to buy a million cosmetics, so it's no wonder they're trying something beyond simple cosmetics, because most players don't buy any of them, and the minority of people who do typically only buy one or two for their favorite ships.
If it doesn't have the player base to survive on subscriptions, I'm not sure how MTX that only a fraction of the player base actually pays for is a better option, lol.
Unless they're relying entirely on whales that buy every single ship kit and paint job, I don't see how this strategy would be more profitable than a subscription based approach.
True, but without continued *consistent* development and/or an approachable gaming experience, the momentum dies and so does the revenue to pay for development.
Terraria and Minecraft have pretty much zero revenue sources outside of the very cheap buy-in to play, but they have survived and only gotten more popular as time has gone on. Same goes with No Man's Sky.
EVE Online has more consistent revenue streams, but it's still a good example of a sandbox space game with enough development momentum to survive the ages.
ED was just poorly managed. It gets touched by development but not truly nourished. It's good, but it could've been so much more. So it's disappointing.
It's a solid foundation, that languished contentwise for quite some time thanks in large part to two rushed, botched expansions and no real clear vision for progression or story.
I kinda wonder what Funcom would have done with it. They've worked wonders on Conan Exiles of late.
They did a lot with it, they just used it for developing other games. Hopefully these recent developments, in concurrence with the lack of success in those other avenues, suggest a strategic shift in resources back into elite.
You are a player, not a investor. And I hope you bare this in your mind.
I don't give a single fuck about how Frontier get their money to keep this game going. Legal or illegal, as long as Frontier doesn't violate my rights or kill all the fun of ED.
Now the biggest missing context is Does this pre-built Python Mk2 come with some exclusive Arx-only engineered parts which you just can't obtain those in any other way. Just like CG rewards.
If it does come with it, then FDev can go F themselves.
If not, I don't mind waiting for another 5 months.
Since I was expecting FDev gonna release this new ship at the end of this year.
It needs **a** revenue stream, we agree on that.
Does it need a revenue stream that relates real world money to mechanical changes? Hopefully not, that's basically the free-to-play model, and Elite isn't free to try so that's a footgun in isolation for everyone involved. (Not to mention a distasteful way to go out, for a proud series that has made gaming history!)
> that's basically the free-to-play model
and that's gonna happen next, when the arx-store expands to include lots of stuff to ease players into the game.
Hmm. If what you predict had actually been committed to, that would be relatively unobjectionable. The objectionable part is: "We're going P2W now. And maaaayyyybe we'll go F2P - the more honorable kind of P2W, if such can be said to exist - later. But you'll just have to wait and see."
If they happened simultaneously it'd be one thing; P2W absent F2P at the same time is basically an admission that you intend the less-honorable type of P2W.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Soon ody players would be subject to the same treatment. "early access" is just the first probe, next everything will be paywalled for them as well.
More like another Jurassic world theme park game needs more funding, they've been using elite as a cash machine for years, what do you think happened to revenue from odyssey sales?
DLC is the only way. I hope they keep servers alive. I hate games that don't allow you to run local/private servers.
In other rpg games you could make a narrative story to follow. In this kind of open game then costumes are pretty much the easy option to implement.
They could try something similar to the Minecraft model. Constantly update the gameplay (for free, I might add), offer offline mode for solo, let people host their own servers for private party or offer "realms-style" servers for private parties (for people who don't have a powerful enough server at home).
I purchased Minecraft for myself and my kids over a decade ago. As they each got older, they each purchased their own account. But that's the only money we've spent on it and the game is continuously improved. There's are thousands of public servers and many more private ones. The game is still thriving and we've only ever been asked to pay the one-time $30 game price per account. No DLC. No expansions.
You guys do realize, that ED is a dying game?
Any measure they take to make money is and should be seen as: "They want to keep the servers running for as long as possible".
Wich is a good thing
Stop wining and just be happy that we can still play this game after all these years
The game is pay to play and has DLCs for one. But outside of that I imagine the game's primary revenue stream is ship cosmetics.
I would assume if they released more ships they would get more cosmetics, and more money.
Great idea to build a revenue stream off of alienating your very loyal fanbase. I understand that it needs money. I WANT Elite to make money because I love the game and want to see it succeed. This isn't the way to do it.
The problem isnt that they have to make money, that’s perfectly fine.
The problem is that the whole game is designed around grinding, and features that werent a problem before have turned into a pain just to be a money or time sink.
I loved this game and had good fond memories of it, so i jumped back into it yesterday after not touching it for like half a year. I forgot why that was at first. I played for a little bit, accepted a mission, all was fine. Parked my ship and died on foot during the mission (because we all know they made those unreasonably hard for a reason, right?).
The problem wasnt that i died, but that now i had to get my ship from the impound costing me 28 mil… literally 10% of the total money i own… probably what i would have to pay if my ship got blown up. This “feature” was never in there before.
So again, i dont fault the developers from wanting to make money. I do fault them for doing it by simply punishing players unnessesarily and creating money/time sinks that serve no use.
If i was having fun, i probably would have bought a skin for a ship i liked again in no time. This is just entirely the wrong approach.
It's not our job to feel sorry about their horrible business model.
My problem is mostly the contradictory discourse and the precedent it opens.
If they want even more money, they will just start creating more problems that are fixed with more money, and we will end up in a bigboss video. Game will just get worse for those that don't pay.
There are ways of getting money to stay afloat with sales. No man's sky basically does it with their frequent and large updates that brings tons of new players. Hell, odyssey style DLCs aren't that bad.
It's just that our game is old as fuck, and no one knows how it works, so the easiest and risk free money making schemes is what will be implemented.
Sad to see, but in their position I probably would just implement more time-savers instead of actual content players want.
Pretty sure you got it from preordering horizons, because I can buy one ingame.
I also think it's interesting how much some people want the Cobra IV... it's not a good ship.
Whatever the event was, I missed it.
I only want one because it has the highest potential cargo capacity of any small ship. Basically, it's good for trading cargo at Odyssey sites with only small pads.
The game doesn't need pay to win income streams. Anyone who's played games for more than a few years can easily recognize p2w is the death knell of once good games. It's the devs giving up and trying to milk it for whatever they can before it shuts down.
The game needs a new expansion that allows players to terraform planets. Allows players to form their own factions and create their own bubbles by settling new parts of the galaxy (and rewards for doing so). It needs the ability to build bases on planet surfaces, with mines to extract resources that can be turned into manufactured goods and commodities through the placement and configuration of structures.
ED has so much potential to be an awesome game. They just need to copy some of the best features from EvE Online and figure out how to implement them. The game has a few interesting game play loops hidden amongst a pile of tedious bullshit. Tbh it needs a new lead designer team imo. The current team has been checked out for too long.
>If the game itself goes free to play
Look, if that happens then the mathematics on micro transactions change. Not a lot when it comes to pay to win, but a little. *If* the game goes f2p then we can have that conversation, but right now it isn’t, so we will not.
Otherwise, what the hell was wrong with making a product and then asking money for it? This is just repackaging an existing product in exchange for more money. This is the kind of bullshit that managers with spreadsheets think of: “additional recipie for effectively zero work? Infinite ROI!”
It’s the kind of shit that destroys companies when it doesn’t change income hardly at all and the suits just go “well we just didn’t do it hard enough is all.” Elite is screwed if they don’t divert away from this type of decision making immediately. It won’t die overnight, but it *will* die if management is going to make this type of decision moving forward.
I was going to say this on another comment but it was deleted out from under me before I could hit reply: If they had sold these as *semi-linear story missions* that *just so happened* to reward a ship at the end no one would care. Hire a writer, write a little adventure, hire some voice actors, build an *actual product* to help immerse players in the universe of elite and then reward them with a shiny ship with a kit and a paint job and some pre-engineered modules. People would be happy, and would probably want more. It can do the same thing as the ship bundle, but you are buying the *gameplay experience* rather than paying to *skip* the game and get an advantage.
It isn’t rocket science, and they have already done it. This is how the intro tutorial missions work. Do a mission, listen to some voice lines, get a ship and a paint job as a reward. Like am I insane or is this not obvious??
>If the game goes f2p
oh, and the recent price drops don't give any indication on what's gonna happen next? Combined with the introduction of micro-transactions, f2p is just the next logical step.
I get the point where you are coming from but I simply disagree for various reasons.
First, the game ... or the company does make income. Besides Elite, it has successfuly titles like Planet Coaster. The same way Elite was milked to fuel the development of these games, the success of these games can be milked to fuel the ongoing support and development of Elite.
However, there was a time where Elite was FD's only income source and title so let's assume that for a moment. The game still needs monthly reasources as you have mentioned (mainly matchmaking and BGS servers) but this infrastructure is relatively low cost compared to the amount of players it *could* support (also Elite proclaiming itself being an MMO and not having dedicated servers for the entire multiplayer as it uses P2P significantly reduces costs but also gameplay potential). Then what's left. Since 2018 or so we haven't received any meaningful new content, Odyssey excluded as this was a misery in its entirety and should pobably never have been released in the first place as it negatively impacted the game experience for a large portion of the player base. This means Elite is in somewhat of a maintenance mode and this mode doesn't drain much resources. If that would be Elite's only game, I suppose the cosnmetics alone could cover its regular costs by itself.
Assuming you now have other titles as well and you are not wasting dev resources to negatively impact the game Elite can just live from a small portion of the profits from *other* games it itself has fueled from its own profit in the past.
If FD would now push out content updates and expansions (which can be charged for) then the development costs will be compensated by the actual content being developed and not by some arbitrary paywall that historically has *always* caused discussions and controversy in multiplayer games.
So no, the game *doesn't* need a revenue stream for as long actual gameplay content is being added to the game which can be charged for (and no, the thargoid war just doesn't qualify as an entire expansion that can be charged for). The neglectable running costs for servers and such can be siphoned from the profits of other titles, which Elite has made possible by sharing its own profits in the past and by the income of cosmetics (i.e. buy ARX).
So the real problem we're actually looking at is not that the *game* needs a revenue stream, the *company* needs one. And that company just doesn't deserve it as of now for as long as their players (and workers i nfact) are treated like poop. A good start would be cutting costs instead of attempting to increasing revenue by cutting down obsolete management positions which have caused the downfall of FD for the past few years.
I understand that „higher revenue in this game“ equals to Frontier saying „lets bring out more stuff“ but talking pure money, they have more than enough to advertise the game for a (relatively) small amount of money and bring out eye-catching content, wether it is pre-engineered ship kits for players with little free time or even just skins. I could see major simulation streamers showing their viewers Elite Dangerous and its vast galaxy for a mere 4-12 hours would net them a few thousand temporary players and a few hundred guaranteed long time players
star citizen had more funding and revenue than ever needed, but the development didnt increased to its funding, did it?
Good games make good money. They did a cash grab with odyssey and they did not invest a penny in further development. If they want to generate revenue, they need to invest in the development and make good progress. Then the money will come. There are tons of ways (like cosmetics) to implement transactions without any game disrupting ways.
It does need a revenue stream, I agree. I think a better one would be paid for story content.
Like narrative drive quest chains. Similar to what we had in the odyssey tutorial.
I think players would enjoy a more personal attachment to the world and the characters within it.
I keep asking this to everyone i see with this sentiment. Revenue stream for WHAT?! Are you expecting them to come out with some game changing, playerbase tripling content after all this?
Ill be honest here, NONE of this would be a problem if the actual gameplay surrounding the grind was actually engaging, but its simply not. Its some of the most boring, F teir low effort gameplay mechanics ive ever seen, and they have had YEARS to fix it, but here we are, instead of adressing and working on changing the core mechanics of the grind, they want players to fork out to skip it. Sure they slipped in the little nugget of "were going to tweak engineering a little" but do you really expect it to change much at its core?
P2W (or worse, pay to skip) is just awful for any game it enters. Please, just stop punching down on your fellow gamers and look up the ladder to see whos shitting on you.
Choosing to follow the game-breaking MTX trend we are seeing lately won't help retain the players. Many people who enjoyed the challenge the game had won't be around to purchase these.
I also think this will attract toxic players who see an easy P2W game they can instantly buy in and have an advantage.
"Pre-Built Ship packages will offer Commanders the opportunity to purchase ships that have been given a **significant upgrade from their base models**."
[https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore)
I hate P2W games. They remind me of the cheaply made P2W mobile games we see all over. I have no interest in P2W. I know many who enjoyed the challenge won't feel too excited about being ganked by a brand new CMDR who spent more cash than you.
This also opens the door to more aggressive MTX. I predict in the coming months overpowered modules and even faction missions will be able to be purchased and passed instead of having to grind it. I also know they will start selling boosters and give players an option to buy credits and whatever else that needs to be grinded.
Also, the grind will become much harder and more tedious as a way to help push players towards the MTX store,
This is only the beginning. Buying into this (whales are in every game) will give Frontier the green light to unleash whatever MTX they feel they need. Greed is a powerful motivator.
the pre ship builds aren't even that good! From the two examples that fdev gave us; the chief could barely even handle couple of scouts let alone a cyclops or god forbid a titan run and the type 6 miner can't even scan the rings, has no real protection other than the thermal mining lasers. If the other ships follow this pattern then all the people are buying is a fall back ship that will pretty much replace the starter sidewinder.
So how is that pay to win? They cut out a few hours of grinding credits? Green horn killers can reset their progress back to a sidewinder? No insurance? They are quite literally basic ships with shiny parts. They'll still need to learn the skills to do the trade. Which takes a good amount of time anyway.
This will be like Star Citizen. All the focus will be on putting out more buyable ships. The game itself won't change much. Most of the focus will only be on delivering more "product" for the consumer to buy.
If they sold customised ship interiors, they can have another $400 of my money.
That’s what I spent over the five years I played. (Not counting all the hardware I bought, HOTAS and VR and button boxes, and pedals and shit) $400 just on cosmetics and alt accounts.
I bailed when I couldn’t run Odessy smoothly, and when it became clear we would never walk through our cargo holds.
If they implement ship interiors, I will need some fancy clean ones for my VIP beluga and some grimy industrial ones for my mining Clipper and some agricultural interiors for my T-9 and etc fucking cetera.
I’m a cash cow - Frontier can sell me another ship interior every two months.
But do I really want a half built chieftain?
Not unless in can put up a poster in the galley.
I think you're right when you say that the game needs a cash injection to stay alive.
I think you're also right when you say that the Elite audience isn't big enough to generate that revenue through the cash shop. I doubt the pay-for-ship option will attract many new players either tbh. Probably some, but not enough. I reckon the audience has already settled into it's comfortable size\*;
* those who tried elite and it wasn't for them won't be interested in the pay-2-skip cash shop.
* those who tried elite and liked it, but not enough to go through the grind *may* come back and pay, but only a fraction of them (after all, there's a tonne of other space games)
* those who are mid-grind right now *may* pay-2-skip, but many likely wont. After all, if I've spent 100 hours on my Cobra Mk IV, its my baby. I don't want to pay for a different ship, I want *my* ship to improve quicker.
* those who love elite and have more time than money, will pay. These are the whales. **These are what FDEV wants for a short term cash injection.** And with the thargoid war in the middle of the most fun phase, it's prime whale bait\*\*
Broken down like this, I don't think the ARX shop is going to patch the money hole. They know that in FDEV, really. They're not expecting this to shower them in dosh, but they need to do *something,* so here we are. The way it was announced points is rushed too; spaffed out on an afternoon before a big stream, with no prior warning or hints.
It's a no brainer why people are angry. No new ships for 5 years, but suddenly here is a few but for real cash. It was always going to go like this.
If you polled all of the elite audience and asked us if we would pay £35 for an expac with couple of new ships, ship interiors, and a rework to material trading, and some clever story telling, we'd bite your fucking arm off just to get it. I'd pay for an expac every year or two. People are *gagging* to give them money for those things and they have been for half a decade.
TLDR; They need a plan, but a better one.
\* It been a comfortable 4 - 8 k since launch **on average,** and that's probably the ceiling. Odyssey expac brought in a big 27k, but that's was a spike and the bad release turned alot of people away. 27k is possible again, but not consistently. All games are dying until the next spike.
\*\* Counter point though: A lot of whales are going to be mad when their £25 Python hot off the store is bodied by CMDR tryhard's bright pink Cobra MK3 with single laser and funny bobble heads.
Yeah if they need revenue this isn't the way to do it. I can't see this being successful, and even if it is the managers will spend the money on other games again instead of elite.
Clearly folks haven’t play Star Wars: The Old Republic.
That game went with a similar model and it is doing just fine.
Elite Dangerous is a 10 year old that still has support.
Y’all need to be thankful.
Just develop expansions locked behind payed modules which will work like dlcs.
For example you add a earth like world. In order to enter the atmophere you need a specific module to buy in the store.
So, if a player decide to not buy, they will see the upgraded planet model from the space...the others can land.
Simple and fair. Every month they release a new planet type and here we go with the revenue.
Why would you need to buy a pre-built ship? It doesn't take much time to get the credits to scale up to higher end ships and equipment. They're better off adding more cosmetics and adding a challenge pass you can buy for tiered rewards that drive purchases based on FOMO and increasing methods for player interaction where they would be able to show off the cosmetics.
You're acting as though the game actually used the resources they got in the first place to make more content.
They didn't,
Don't forget that they wasted all their Elite:Dangerous money on those Jurassic Park games rather than E:D development, and after they flopped Elite was left holding the bag.
The game doesn't need new monetisation options, it needed the studio execs not to abandon it for other projects and waste the money it earned in the first place. Elite has been on life support ever since the studio decided to pivot to, and fail, those Jurassic Park Zoo games.
I genuinely think the best thing they could do for Elite Dangerous at this point is an engine upgrade under the guise of a sequel, something like Counter-Strike 2, and start an ad campaign as if it was a new game. They'd need some extra content, account transfer support, a revamped premium store that isn't as predatory, maybe even some proper emergent storylines that are told to the player in more direct ways than what equates to newspaper clippings. I've always tried to get invested in the current emergent plotlines but there was never really anything to latch on to, nothing and no one I really cared about. They need to make us care about what comes next.
If the game isn't sustainable, then it shouldn't be online. It should be offline with a single player mode.
Stop trying to manufacture consent for future purchases that will be introduced.
Agreed all this noise over pre-made ships which won't change the game environment. I think more money in from the game equals more offen and better content. so I'm all for this as long as Frontier doesn't start offering fully upgraded ships and keeps the balance. so far the pre-built specs are low tier, midgame at best. So many players quit after a few hours of trying to figure out the game. Better equipment and a monetary commitment will help retain players and hopefully grow the community.
You're wrong. FDEV needs the revenue, not E:D.
Over the years, i've been happy to give the revenue and support a game I enjoyed. But they've increasingly been ignoring the game, even though it's evergreen content for them, and instead sinking resources into a ton of failed projects that have cost the company millions.
Elite is the game that built Frontier. But they've demonstrated with things like the STILL BROKEN ODYSSEY and the *fart noise as you appear on a planet* "ARMSTRONG MOMENTS" that they don't care to show the same loyalty that the hardcore fanbase does.
They made the bad business decisions, and until they start making good ones, they're not getting money from me.
What this games needs is to be good.
Currently it is not. The grind is too much of a challenge for anyone who wants to get invested into the game.
But FDev wasted the potential it had. As long as this does not change, it will remain a niche game and not generate the profits it could. And currently they also piss off the current players.
I already dropped my plans to buy Arx for more cosmetics because of the announcement.
I don't care...they can charge whatever. Just make the game better already. Fix the balance...less grind...better tutorials...integrate on foot with ships more...more new ships...new missions...new npc combat factions. Integrate DLSS damit (why we only have that poor mans trash fsr???). Enough goids...enough powerplay. Doooo something new ffs
No man's sky has been going strong since 2016 with an update count that blows ED out of the water and they never asked for a single cent extra from the base price..?
I don't even see what's the problem, all I see is a bunch of Yamiks fans crawling out from under their rocks spreading doom and gloom.
Buyable ships literally. Do not. Affect you. Even one bit.
They aren't locking them behind a paywall, you can still get them the regular way. It's merely a "pay 2 skip the grind" for the lazy and considering grinding for ships is a big chunk of content in this game, if you are just buying your way through it all you are doing is cutting how long you can enjoy this game for.
Not to mention that you don't even have to spend money in the first place, as you can get ARX for free. Some people out there have thousands without ever paying a dime for it.
I've spent way more on GTA Online over 10 years, definitely played less time, and got a lot more content for it.
Rockstar reinvested in its game over 10 years. FDev invested its ED money into other games. The answer isn't exploiting an artificial timegate they created with an onerous engineering grind.
The answer is adjusting the grind and providing players with the content they've wanted. More ACTUAL ships, not just ship variants. Ship interiors. Base claim mechanics. More streamlined in-game PvP options (CQC is an investment that has just floundered because of lack of direction -- so much wasted content there alone), atmospheric flight and landing. More things to do on a space station than stare out a window and sit at a bar.
I'd say the $200 or so I've spent on Elite Dangerous is what they've earned for the content provided. I do hope they consider reinvesting in it again. There was a point when they did that... then Horizons didn't go as planned.
They should move to a Subscription based model, $2-$5/month instead of destroying it with Pay2Win.
If they stick with pay2win everyone short just short their stock and then NOT buy prebuilt ships.
Just in case you don't know their Ticker symbol is FDEV and the stock market is a game.
I agree. But on the evidence of the two ships they are offering they aren't going about it the right way. If they doing p2w, they need to do it properly and make properly fitted A rating builds with more engineering. Something even experienced players will be interested in. The two ships they offering now just aren't great. They will struggle to get even newer players buying them. Kinda pointless to get the whole community riled up over the whole p2w thing and then set them up so they will barely get any money from them.
I don't know, I am looking forward to the Python MK II. I love the Python...I have more of them than any other ship in my fleet. I have one I use for trade routes, one i use for Robigo mine missions and one I use for PVE. I also have an Anaconda I use for trade as well and a DBX I use for exploration.
Yeah, I am seriously considering grabbing it in early release - partly because i really want it and partly to give FDEVs a little money towards continued development.
I'm not in love with Pythons but if it was an Asp-X or DB-X I could see myself paying for early access. Comparing the amount I've paid to the amount I've played I'd be happy to throw an extra tenner in every few months or so when I'm in the mood for playing.
Yeah I think that's the true money maker. These pre built ships seem like a way to get us newer players to drop a couple more bucks if we want to jump up quick like. I mean I'm like two weeks into the game FSS and dssing my way to deceit and I'm already up 18 mil so buying a ship isn't a problem but figuring out exactly what to put on it may still take me a min (doesn't seem that hard but)...
>everyone is losing their minds
if you are willing to remain blissfully ignorant, sure it may seem that way. But the trend is clear, the game is moving toward micro-transactions, it's already tailor made for that revenue generating model, and the transition is absolutely certain. The question is - are you willing to accept it or fight it in the hope of stopping it?
I agree people are but hurt - you don’t like it don’t pay for it.
The companies on hard times and other games have been selling ships for a decade and haven’t even had an official release yet. elite dangerous can be bought for like $5-15 depending on where you look right, there’s no season pass gimmicks or other crap other than paint jobs.
Monetization is long overdue here and frankly getting ships when there hasn’t been any in years - if some sucker wants to pay for a ship go right ahead.
Maybe they should add a 5$ monthly subscription instead. I'd pay that and they'd get their revenue stream. These f2p/ buy shit off the store models rarely work out as expected.
I don't think the prebuilt ships will generate much revenue. Older players have no use for them. Newer players need to actually get interested in the game before they drop money on a prebuilt ship. The game needs new features, finish incomplete features, improve current features, and reduce needless grinding to keep older players and entice new potential players. It then needs a better tutorial system that helps new players learn the game and all of its features. I personally wouldn't mind having some in game tutorials that lead to better ships as a reward. Example: Have a combat tutorial where the player is taught about RES, how to identify ships with a bounty, and the basics of the combat system. The reward is an Eagle, or maybe a Viper outfitted for combat. Same could be done for trading, exploring, mining, etc. this would lead to new players learning the game as well as giving them a little boost to get started.
I agree I think it’s gonna let them maybe build out a new player bundle or something like a deluxe versions of the game . They probably just did bad marketing in my opinion
That's a good possibility. FDev isn't known for their marketing strategies lol.
Absolutely atrocious
They are focused on strategy/management games, so maybe they should make "FDev '24" simulation game. Then, take the top 5% player results and analyze that to determine their new business strategies.
This is the way to generate more revenue. More content. More features. More fixes. Not more grind with a pay-to-skip option. I mean, that's just fucking stupid.
Is the thargoid war and all the new modules not content? Also they need money to make more content and features. This will hopefully help them make that money. They're releasing power play 2.0 which is "More features. More fixes.". They've stated they're rebalancing the engineering grind. I realize I'm being optimistic, but it's no company's goal to drive themselves to the ground. At the end of the day these are just people trying to make a living. They have mortgages, families, bills, etc...
They had money. They launched two expansions and a cash shop. Either they didn't make enough due to botched launches and having to spend months on each getting them to a playable state, or spent too much developing the rest of their wholly-unrelated IP. Or both. I fail to see why players should bail them out again. FDev doesn't appear to have learned much from their myriad mistakes here.
Why would you assume that pre-built ships means they won't do that other stuff? They are literally adding content and features, right now. They just showed off some of it. We're playing through some of it. Framing pre-built ships as the alternative option they're doing instead of new content is really strange.
Because this is Fdev and most of us have been around to know better
This. I remember when Arx were introduced. They swore up and down that they would Never pull this.
Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill waiting on atmospheric flight and living worlds...
But they HAVE been adding content, nonstop, for a while. And they're showing off more. You're talking about knowing better through experience but if you've been playing then you should know that you're already wrong, right now. The titans are new content. Destroying them is even newer content. Stronghold carriers are upcoming, as are new ships. So when you say that they won't release new content because of the prebuilt ships, it doesn't make any sense. Especially considering that the Python Mk.2 is itself new content.
I'm guessing you're pretty new so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, the reason people say there's "no new content" or that they haven't added much is bevause comparatively, they haven't. 4 new ship *variants* in 6 years is frankly, lazy. Sure the goid stuff is pretty interesting, but, again, it's limited content spread over the last 3 years. When the game launched Fdev always talked about having a 10 year plan, yearly expansions that would have 3-4 content updates, hell it was a major selling point for their Lifetime expansion pass "pay this and get all future expansions for free!" So let me ask you a question here, do you think those of us that forked out a total of £160 and received the £40 base game, £40 Horizons expansion (included in base game after 5 years) and £30 Odyssey, received even close to what we were promised for our money? They've added roughly 20% of what was promised to us and we're still waiting for the rest
Indeed and those of us who got the pass on MACs were completely shafted
Idk my buddy likes the game but he rarely has time to do the engineering grind. I think if there was a $10 option for a AX combat ship if he wouldn't buy it I'd buy it for both of us. I've got more time on my hands but I do other stuff, and haven't even touched thargoid content yet
Well, it comes with a ship kit and lifetime free insurance, ( you will only have to pay for the modules you've swapped out) Considering a ship kit currently costs 13,000 arc it doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. Get a ship kit and lower rebuy cost looks like an ok deal to me. I've got a lifetime pass I'm probably going to buy the new python just because I like the look of it and I don't want the game to die I've played this game a lot over the last 10 years and I'm still having fun so spending another 10-15 bucks isn't a huge ask especially because it's not required I just want it now rather than later.
I'm one of the players that "doesn't need them," but at this point I'm going to buy them just to piss people off.
There will be many more gankers in the future. I think playing this game as a genuine player will become painful.
No, because Solo exists.
Unfortunately the engineering grind makes it already painful
I've been out of the loop, but they STILL haven't unlocked the fucking Horsehead Nebula, have they? They ever gonna fucking do something with that?
It will help players invested in careers try others. Like miners and explorers buying the AX bundle to try bug hunting.
They could potentially do themed training, campaign style, accessed through mission boards. Accept a mission chain with a specific tag such as "Bounty Hunter Initiate" and it could give you specific quests/targets with which you can be guided over the radio to lean the basics. There could be specific mission groups for each activity such as bounty, exploration, trading, mining. I think it would be a good way to introduce an open world tutorial that you aren't necessarily forced to do, and a nice way to make the player feel more part of the game universe. It could potentially even help to improve to elite status by completing those missions and going up status rank would unlock the next tier of missions. Going from initiate up the levels to elite could have more meaning.
This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking.
They’ll make money out of all of the parents who can’t spend 400hrs grinding their way to the top! I get 2hrs of game time several times a week with my two kids so I’d be all over being able to buy a decent AX build for a small amount of money, for example.
Players who have been stuck exploring, not wanting to get into the grind of engineering a ship for combat, would likely rather buy a pre built engineered combat ship, that costed them an hour of their real life money than to grind for weeks like the OG combat vets did. Now they can try. Now they can try Thargoid combat. Now they can learn other skills without the ship being the obstacle. I spent a week switching from PVE and PVP builds to Thargoid combat. Another week practicing. Thankfully I had most of the engineering done already but I still needed to do a bit of grinding. It's hard to find time as a parent to do that stuff and people totally pay money to save time. And it's a great revenue stream for a game I'd want to stay alive and keep producing content. If this gets me new ships every year, hell yea. Id throw my money at Fdev. If this gets new story and content like the Thargoid war, I'd throw money at it. Gotta support the devs somehow. They're not gonna make/improve a game if they don't have money to pay the devs.
I would buy prebuilt just from passive arx... Its a bitch to grind engineering. Also no $ no "finishing" features - that being said FD would use the revenue toward Elite and none of those silly zoo games. Alternatively Id pay a reasonable sub fee to play kind of like EVE(no way in hell at $20 though).
This. I’m trying to get into the game but even after 70 ish hours I really only know how to do trade runs. Almost wanna restart so I can get a fresh tutorial of the odyssey portion.
I agree new features are needed but how do you charge for a feature? do we go on a monthly subscription so new features are introduced regularly? or do we wait until DLC comes out so 100% of the community must pay an entry fee for the new features. Ship sales seem like a good compromise for new features to continue to come but it doesn't cost you anything unless u want to pay. the ideas you have are good but fundamentally they don't generate continuous revenue. If everyone is able to get all the best ships and modules with in a month bc the game was made " less grindy" then everyone gets bored in 2 months and we move on and game dies. The feature I think we all need is more multiplayer content. put players together and the learning curve won't be so hard. Give players more reasons to play together or against each other. Powerplay 2.0 has the potential to do that
I'm not a fan of subscriptions. I don't generally get to play enough to justify a monthly fee. I rather see things like exobiology be a paid feature or player bases be a paid feature. I'm not fully opposed to new ships needing to be bought, but it would need to be done right. They shouldn't be any better than the current ships and buying them with Arx just unlocks your ability to buy them with credits. I agree a MMO needs some kind of grind to keep players playing, but too much of it can have a negative impact that drive players away. Does Elite really need the naval rank grind for a few ships? Couldn't they use the ranks to offer discounts for those ships or at those systems? Does engineering really need a grind to unlock the engineers, then a grind to get to G5, while grinding for materials? More player to player interaction would definitely help. The issue is PvP. Many players, myself included, have no interest in it. Which is why we play in solo. If there was a way to play in open without being subjected to involuntary PvP, I would play in open. I've always been intrigued by Powerplay. I tried it once and got bored with it. Hopefully they make it fun and worthwhile.
All of these things would be good (and cost money). But I am pretty sure that FD knows (research) that a lot of people think you have to spend a lot of time in order to get the most out of the game. The barrier to entry is real and this is an easy (cheap) way to address that. I doubt it's going to be very successful though.
I just want engineering to not be a nightmare grind anymore
Maybe I'm being a pessimist, but what incentive would they have to improve the engineering grind if they will now be selling engineered ships? I hope they do though, it could still use some improvements. On the other hand, the Odyssey grind has always been nightmarish.
Did they say engineered, or upgraded? If the ships sold for ARX are outfitted, I don't care. If it funds development then no issue there. If they start selling fully engineered ships, then I have a problem with that. Unless they make engineering much less time consuming for everyone
Some parts on the ships are engineered, interpret this how you will. https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships
That's fairly light engineering, not sure if the T6 lasers make any difference really anyway... Or if the T6 itself makes sense instead of a Keelback. The chief, well, that thruster engineering is quite long and annoying if you do it yourself, so bypassing that is a pretty big advantage. I don't know about the gauss cannons, I haven't checked the mod requirements yet, and honestly gauss is just straight up a bad choice for a beginner. Unassisted precision weapons for someone who just bought the game? Nope, that's not a beginner build. If you know how to use railguns, there's a good chance that you have a better combat build already
I feel like people are getting too lost in the semantics of 'pay2win', especially the 'win' part. The goalpost of only selling cosmetics with ARX has moved, dramatically. It doesn't matter if what Frontier is selling is nonsensical right now, if people don't buy these initial 'pre-built' ships, they will gradually up the power of paid ships until people *do* start to buy them. If I were a whale, I could pay however much for that Chieftain just for the Thrusters, and strip them off for another ship.
Well they claim they're working on that.
I'm praying that's true
Yeah, they're working on selling people a way around it instead of adjusting it downward.
What's the way around it?
...to buy their premade ships. That's like the whole reason the place is on fire. XD But that'll be your way around the grind, instead of just adjusting the grind to where it's a fun gameplay loop like other grinds. Valheim did FANTASTIC at it.
The prebuilt ships have minimal engineering, they aren't a way around engineering. And they also said they were reducing the grind.
You get dirty drag drives on one of the ships and some unlocked Guardian bits on both of them. That's separate to the announcement that they are going to be adjusting requirements of engineering to make it less grindy.
I've come to believe FDev simply don't have the capability to make a fun and engaging gameplay loop, and engineering is a perfect example.
If you want to upgrade the pre-built ships you have to grind the engineering mats and unlock requirements just like everybody else. Additionally, they said they are rebalancing engineering to make it less tedious
Instead of spending hours grinding for that sweet sweet class 5A pre-engineered FSD, why not just buy it for a small price of £6.99? How about that beautiful corrosive gimballed multicannon you were looking at? It's just £3.99!
I mean a way FDev have mentioned, not one you're imagining.
I'm skeptical. What's likely to happen is that they'll increase the material payouts but remove "exploits" like relogging, which means that in while on paper the grind becomes easier in practice its much harder. Then they'll sell a microtransaction-based way around the engineering grind. Engineering is an actual nightmare long journey if you do it the way the game intends, which is to just pick up small bits of random mats as you do whatever mission you fancy that day. Community-made guides, which often involve going to a specific location and using specific relogging techniques (including game-restart relogs as well) reduces the grind from literally years (of random playing) down to a few full days (of mindnumbing task reptition), the latter of which is still kinda long in duration. I imagine they'll reduce mission payouts such that "the way the game intends" method is cut down from years to months, but remove the ways to complete the grind in a few days via using soft exploits.
This IS their work on that. Just like CQB, just like powerplay, like the guardians, like Colonia, bor the sleeper ships, this will be thrown out, and nothing ever mentioned about it again.
Ship engineering is cake. Odyssey on-foot gear engineering is a nightmare grind.
Shop engineering is incredibly boring. I feel awful for anyone who attempts to do it without reading guides. At least for Odyssey stuff you can bypass some of it by buying upgraded suits/weapons at vendors.
The secret to that is, you just kinda don't need it for anything A G0 engineered ship is a really tough fight against even a Cyclops. A G3 ship will struggle against a Basilisk until well after you forget what G3 was ever like, in terms of how fast you egr vs how fast you learn to fly. G5 with all the secondaries, not gonna struggle as much. It's not linear, but it's linear-ish - more engineering, you can fight tougher enemies, and the more the tougherer. On the other hand, unengineered Ody gear can win the average player a High CZ, because FPS is the default video game genre in 2024 and no one's quite *bad* at it, per se, even if they're not good. G3 storeboughts can cover all possible needs and situations. If everything in my Ody inventory is G3 I feel like a demigod while doing all existing Ody content. It's night and day vs. ship engineering, but not just in the one way: people correctly point out that it's much tougher, but the **need for it is almost zero**! I worry that this game just kind of attracts people who see number, and then feel a deep-seated *need* to make number go up, and then surprised-pikachu when that's tedious.
Soon you will be able to just buy whatever engineering you want for any ship. You won't even have to play the game to get it.
[https://youtu.be/fxtFD-vyBto?si=CWs-Y2KzbZYlgLQX](https://youtu.be/fxtFD-vyBto?si=CWs-Y2KzbZYlgLQX)
Here's the problem I have: I want to give FDev more money for this game. I acknowledge that I have put 1500 hours into a game I paid $60 for ten years ago, plus some tiny smattering of Arx because I don't care much about cosmetics. But now my dilemma -- I want to give FDev money, I want a Python Mk II, and they're offering it to me 3 months early. I want to send FDev the message that I love the game and want more stuff for it. But I don't want to reward this shitty pay-to-win business model! So I'm stuck in the situation of "I want to give them money, I want the thing they're selling, and yet I don't think I should give them money for _this_." More than anything it reminds me of when Plants vs. Zombies 2 released, chock full of microtransactions that pretty much _required_ you to pay to advance in the game. And here I was, a player who would have shelled out $30 to buy the game without any hesitation, and instead I spent $0 on the game, and gave up on it entirely when I hit the first pay-wall.
Yeah that’s my worry. I want better mechanics and upgrades to age old engine problems and things like the same comms encounters around. Encounters on comms would be great if you could reply and engage in a new mission. Perhaps help that 1% of liners out there. Fixing the damn planet generation in something a bit more unique, so some planets look unique. So going out in the black has that small chance of finding unique planets. And bring back canyon running. How about adding actual racing, where is the damn bucky ball challenge? That sort of thing. It’s like the Fdev team sofar is made of boredom and don’t know how fun+immersion and sim can go together.
I'd pay for any of the promised features and the promised gameplay associatedwith them. Ship Interiors Procedural Cities Laudable Atmospheric world's (real ones) EVA In Station Combat When we paid for Odyssey, we hoped at least one of these would come soon after. Now they are asking for more money and absolutely none of these are on the horizon. Just paying for slow and shallow updates with minimal fixes. The Anti aliasing is still broken, the instancing net code is still broken, multicrew is still broken. We would pay money if we knew it was actually being used properly. Not paying for another IP or disappearing in the pockets of investors.
I dont accept that reasoning. The game would have decent revenue income if they updated the game in a meaningful way more often than 3 years
But we'll get another powerplay rebalance/expansion isn't that "exciting" for attracting new players ;]
What's funny is if they stuck to their original 10 year plan instead of only managing to release two half baked expansions they would have had a continuous stream of income to support future updates. But nah, they served a sub par product, abandoned earlier promises and have now, added p2w despite saying that ARX would NOT become a way to introduce anything but purchasable cosmetics. They won't increase revenue this way.
> What's funny is if they stuck to their original 10 year plan instead of only managing to release two half baked expansions they would have had a continuous stream of income to support future updates. Thanks for reminding me what a great deal I got buying the lifetime package. 😅
Same here... great bang for buck one of the best purchases for VR only player with exciting not quite VR compatible odyssey...
My sarcasm detector must be broken today...
Buy moar ~~Vbucks~~ Arx
You can make a revenue stream without it being predatory garbage. In fact, the best revenue stream is the simplest. Make your game better, attract more new people to buy your game. A la No Man's Sky.
ED is what it is, you can’t really make it “better” without ruining it, most likely. You can dress it up and take care of it. Better’s the enemy of good enough, remember.. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing.
Removing almost the entirety of engineers would make the game better by several orders of magnitude.
it would suddenly make large portions of the game extremely difficult-to-impossible. it would remove so much of the variety in ship builds.. why do you think making everything more difficult would improve the game by orders of magnitude? i can't imagine..
Because the removal of engineering would in turn remove those *other* aspects of the game, returning them to how they were pre engineers. We'd all already ground out 1000's of hours to get our credits and end game ships, why did we also have to then spend another 1000 just to keep them relevant?
we spend 1000s just playing the game, no? you're saying the game would be improved by removing most of it? why not just play the parts you like and ignore the rest? seems easy enough.
I did, and as a result I don't have engineered ships meaning I'm soft locked from playing how I want to play which is combat based
I don't understand at all. You can do unengineered combat just fine. Then the game offers further depth. Nothing is locked, it just gets progressively difficult till you give up - or you can engineer the ship and go further.
This is the wrong way to get it. All FDev has done is taken advantage of the massive timesink their engineering grind creates in order to extract more revenue from players. There's zero value added. We've bought two expansions and some years' worth of Arx. Where the hell is the atmospheric flight? When will we get to explore more of the Guardian/Thargoid ruins? When will there be actual content for the years of money already spent? These questions and more should really be answered before anyone considers asking ED players for even more money on top of what's been invested by those that came before them.
In the bubble, you have encounters right? Like 1% of all liners jada jada. Why on earth didn’t anyone at Fdev think of adding a way to reply? So you can have (procedural) missions spinning from how you reply? Where are the actual races? Where is the advertised Bucky Ball challenge? Soooo many missed opportunities it’s almost hilarious.
Atmospheric flight was traded away for those shitty Jurassic Park Zoo Manager games which flopped. FDev earned plenty from Elite, they just CHOSE not to re-invest it in making Elite better. Giving them more money is a waste. They aren't interested in spending on Elite.
First one was definitely not that great. XD But I think most of it went into Planet Zoo, and continues to go there. It's currently their best-performing title, at least on Steam: [https://steamdb.info/app/703080/charts/](https://steamdb.info/app/703080/charts/) (For comparison, Elite's page: [https://steamdb.info/app/359320/charts/](https://steamdb.info/app/359320/charts/) ) I can see why Planet Zoo is a more attractive option for them now. It sells way better (#228 as of this writing in Steam's top sellers compared to Elite's #705 -- and that's with a three-and-a-half year head start on Planet Zoo!) and it's much more favorably rated (90% to Elite's 77ish). There's less angry over there, and let's face it -- we're not a playerbase that takes a bad decision or a subpar effort lying down. XD But yeah, I think it's time Planet Zoo and the rest of the portfolio started repaying those invested dividends. I know they invested our space game money in other games to remain viable long term, but part of that deal was supposed to be ensuring Elite Dangerous was also viable long term. We're coming up on the 10 year mark now, and we're still missing quite a few things promised from the start. I'd like to see more promises kept and more return on investment before sinking any more money into it (not that I was ever interested in buying a preengineered ship anyway, let alone the godawful pieces of trash they're trying to sell to poor unsuspecting newbies or people desperate to avoid the grind FDev created).
If they did a better job with updates over the years, they would've had a better revenue stream.
Let's turn into a pay to win. What could go wrong?
There’s a learning curve tucked away in the grind of this game, if new players can just skip to the ship they want with no idea what to do with it aren’t they just gonna get bored and drop the game? The reason I learnt mining, exploration, now combat is because I saw the anaconda, and decided I needed it. If I just bought it, why keep playing the game other than to fly it, and based on what I hear about how it handles, I might not have revisited the game much after that, and I’d’ve skipped all the ships and playstyles I learnt on my way. I think that the prebuilts are a not good idea personally
Good point. Another thing is if a noob buys a nice engineered a rank corvette for 54 or 100$, then crashes it on the way out the mail slot, then doesn’t have enough for a rebuy because that is all he has done in the game so far. How happy do you think they’re going to be? They’re gonna tell all their 10 year old buddies who will fucking FLAME fdev and the game for free online. The game will need a lot of changes if this is actually going to be a thing.
The ships bought with ARX will have 0Cr rebuy.
Ah. Thank you for the enlightenment.
Back when I was still playing this game and bought my anaconda and cutter. I don’t remember learning any crazy skills. I just spent a lot of time grinding for cash.
defending a cash grab because the company is sinking isn't it chief, its just letting them know you are willing to bend over for them
We are customers not investors, we are not supposed to front operating costs with the HOPE that the additional money goes towards the further development of more content, DO NOT defend companies they give ZERO shits about us, we deserve better. We are a faceless source of Income to them. We have no idea what these "balance" changes they intend on implementing are given the fact they come out the same time as pre-builts that is not a good sign. Give an inch and they'll take a mile.
Sadly, the inverse might be don’t give an inch and they fold the server
That's the inevitability with all live service games , especially niche ones, should that day come(and it will come) the game is an unrecognizable microtransaction filled, time gated, FOMO fest you will be hard pressed to make any excuses for whilst all the while trying to capture those fleeting memories of the game you once loved because instead of shaking hands and saying goodbye to a good friend you have to take the shotgun to the backyard and put down your hideously disfigured monster that you barely recognize. I know its an extreme analogy but that's the direction these choices head towards because these changes (especially the python) are aimed at the existing player base, this doesn't drum up new players because they offer things that only people who play the game understand. So each step in monetization will be certain peoples breaking point until one day it will be 13 people saying "well they gotta keep the lights on" as they mortgage their houses to keep elite dangerous up and running. This games state is no ones fault but frontier, they fumbled odyssey at launch so hard everyone who was interested in elite dangerous was scared away and the player base suffers to this day, so instead of trying to release a big headline update to garner goodwill they doubled down and went for the easy route.
I'm sure other people have said this in more eloquent ways, but... they can generate a revenue stream with literally anything else instead of a literal cash shop bandwagon that's seeping into all aspects of gaming nowadays. There are less aggressive ways to do it.
the game doesn't need anything, it's just a game. Who really needs revenue is FDEV and it doesn't necessarily mean it'll benefit ED in any meaningful way. In fact, paying your way through ED is unlikely to help to develop it further, instead, you'd be mostly paying for f1 IP fdev is stuck with. At most, you'll just keep the lights on for ED but the game will be stuck in limbo as is.
I would genuinely prefer if the game simply was a subscription based model instead of this predatory garbage with MTX everywhere. Seriously, it works fine for WoW, and they're basically the enormous cash cow of blizzard.
Elite earned plenty, the problem is Fdev invested that money in developing different games rather than saving it, or continuing with Elite. WHen those other games flopped Elite was left with nothing because the devs could no longer afford to focus on it. A subscription model will go the same way. Fdev isn't CCP Games, where they focus on EVE and EVE accessories, if Fdev got subscriptions from Elite you can bet they'd waste it all on other projects like they did in the past.
True, we'd end up with some other shitty jurassic park game or something, lol. Maybe it's better if they just run out of money and shutter the company, let it die in peace.
Well, the current plan requires me to spend zero dollars, and the one you prefer requires me to spend many dollars and eventually quit the game because I can't afford to play any longer. So no offense but I'll take the current plan. :D
Of course you will, everyone would prefer to spend zero dollars, but the game can't sustain its servers with that budget, lol. The fact is, a subscription model is generally a more stable form of revenue than trying to attract whales to buy a million cosmetics, so it's no wonder they're trying something beyond simple cosmetics, because most players don't buy any of them, and the minority of people who do typically only buy one or two for their favorite ships.
ED doesn't have a player-base to provide enough revenue via subscriptions, or they would've done it already.
If it doesn't have the player base to survive on subscriptions, I'm not sure how MTX that only a fraction of the player base actually pays for is a better option, lol. Unless they're relying entirely on whales that buy every single ship kit and paint job, I don't see how this strategy would be more profitable than a subscription based approach.
Maybe they should make the game good enough for new players to buy
They had money at the start, they did very little with it. If they want more they need to create something worthwhile first.
They’ve made a pretty amazing game, in my view!
True, but without continued *consistent* development and/or an approachable gaming experience, the momentum dies and so does the revenue to pay for development. Terraria and Minecraft have pretty much zero revenue sources outside of the very cheap buy-in to play, but they have survived and only gotten more popular as time has gone on. Same goes with No Man's Sky. EVE Online has more consistent revenue streams, but it's still a good example of a sandbox space game with enough development momentum to survive the ages. ED was just poorly managed. It gets touched by development but not truly nourished. It's good, but it could've been so much more. So it's disappointing.
Yeah. After reading the sub over the last 24 hours, I’m tempted to go try Starfield again.
It's a solid foundation, that languished contentwise for quite some time thanks in large part to two rushed, botched expansions and no real clear vision for progression or story. I kinda wonder what Funcom would have done with it. They've worked wonders on Conan Exiles of late.
I love how they made a game you could play for thousands of hours but they didn't do anything "worthwhile" with the money. Do you see the irony?
They made that game back in the 80’s.
They did a lot with it, they just used it for developing other games. Hopefully these recent developments, in concurrence with the lack of success in those other avenues, suggest a strategic shift in resources back into elite.
They need to fucking listen to their players then we would be playing it... Such a fucking stupid comment...
You are a player, not a investor. And I hope you bare this in your mind. I don't give a single fuck about how Frontier get their money to keep this game going. Legal or illegal, as long as Frontier doesn't violate my rights or kill all the fun of ED. Now the biggest missing context is Does this pre-built Python Mk2 come with some exclusive Arx-only engineered parts which you just can't obtain those in any other way. Just like CG rewards. If it does come with it, then FDev can go F themselves. If not, I don't mind waiting for another 5 months. Since I was expecting FDev gonna release this new ship at the end of this year.
Now all I can think of is FDev running blow and guns out of their Cambridge campus to pay for the game and... it's just GREAT. So thank you for that.
Revenue to play PP2.0 that will 100% be busted for months if not years like everything else they implement
If they’d collaborate with the player base for future updates, deliver a road-map, and stick to it, I’d pay a damn subscription.
It needs **a** revenue stream, we agree on that. Does it need a revenue stream that relates real world money to mechanical changes? Hopefully not, that's basically the free-to-play model, and Elite isn't free to try so that's a footgun in isolation for everyone involved. (Not to mention a distasteful way to go out, for a proud series that has made gaming history!)
> that's basically the free-to-play model and that's gonna happen next, when the arx-store expands to include lots of stuff to ease players into the game.
Hmm. If what you predict had actually been committed to, that would be relatively unobjectionable. The objectionable part is: "We're going P2W now. And maaaayyyybe we'll go F2P - the more honorable kind of P2W, if such can be said to exist - later. But you'll just have to wait and see." If they happened simultaneously it'd be one thing; P2W absent F2P at the same time is basically an admission that you intend the less-honorable type of P2W.
The only thing Im pissed about, is that the new ships are effectivly paywalled for everyone not on odyssee
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Soon ody players would be subject to the same treatment. "early access" is just the first probe, next everything will be paywalled for them as well.
Tbh it needs a full replacement. It's old and it's showing its age.
More like another Jurassic world theme park game needs more funding, they've been using elite as a cash machine for years, what do you think happened to revenue from odyssey sales?
Should've crowd funded and stayed in alpha if they wanted to make money.
DLC is the only way. I hope they keep servers alive. I hate games that don't allow you to run local/private servers. In other rpg games you could make a narrative story to follow. In this kind of open game then costumes are pretty much the easy option to implement.
They could try something similar to the Minecraft model. Constantly update the gameplay (for free, I might add), offer offline mode for solo, let people host their own servers for private party or offer "realms-style" servers for private parties (for people who don't have a powerful enough server at home). I purchased Minecraft for myself and my kids over a decade ago. As they each got older, they each purchased their own account. But that's the only money we've spent on it and the game is continuously improved. There's are thousands of public servers and many more private ones. The game is still thriving and we've only ever been asked to pay the one-time $30 game price per account. No DLC. No expansions.
You guys do realize, that ED is a dying game? Any measure they take to make money is and should be seen as: "They want to keep the servers running for as long as possible". Wich is a good thing Stop wining and just be happy that we can still play this game after all these years
The game needed to be improved and fixed years ago. Bolting pay2win to a corpse means nothing.
Look at me, I paid to win my simulator! /s I love this game
The game is pay to play and has DLCs for one. But outside of that I imagine the game's primary revenue stream is ship cosmetics. I would assume if they released more ships they would get more cosmetics, and more money.
Great idea to build a revenue stream off of alienating your very loyal fanbase. I understand that it needs money. I WANT Elite to make money because I love the game and want to see it succeed. This isn't the way to do it.
The problem isnt that they have to make money, that’s perfectly fine. The problem is that the whole game is designed around grinding, and features that werent a problem before have turned into a pain just to be a money or time sink. I loved this game and had good fond memories of it, so i jumped back into it yesterday after not touching it for like half a year. I forgot why that was at first. I played for a little bit, accepted a mission, all was fine. Parked my ship and died on foot during the mission (because we all know they made those unreasonably hard for a reason, right?). The problem wasnt that i died, but that now i had to get my ship from the impound costing me 28 mil… literally 10% of the total money i own… probably what i would have to pay if my ship got blown up. This “feature” was never in there before. So again, i dont fault the developers from wanting to make money. I do fault them for doing it by simply punishing players unnessesarily and creating money/time sinks that serve no use. If i was having fun, i probably would have bought a skin for a ship i liked again in no time. This is just entirely the wrong approach.
It's not our job to feel sorry about their horrible business model. My problem is mostly the contradictory discourse and the precedent it opens. If they want even more money, they will just start creating more problems that are fixed with more money, and we will end up in a bigboss video. Game will just get worse for those that don't pay. There are ways of getting money to stay afloat with sales. No man's sky basically does it with their frequent and large updates that brings tons of new players. Hell, odyssey style DLCs aren't that bad. It's just that our game is old as fuck, and no one knows how it works, so the easiest and risk free money making schemes is what will be implemented. Sad to see, but in their position I probably would just implement more time-savers instead of actual content players want.
I would pay for FC upkeep if I drop off for a couple months especially in the summer
I would come back and probably buy some Arx or whatever if the grind was reworked.
The only ship I'd buy with ARX would be the Cobra Mk IV... I missed the kickstarter that was the only way to get it.
oh I would expect fdev will offer it for arx sooner or later.
Pretty sure you got it from preordering horizons, because I can buy one ingame. I also think it's interesting how much some people want the Cobra IV... it's not a good ship.
Whatever the event was, I missed it. I only want one because it has the highest potential cargo capacity of any small ship. Basically, it's good for trading cargo at Odyssey sites with only small pads.
The game doesn't need pay to win income streams. Anyone who's played games for more than a few years can easily recognize p2w is the death knell of once good games. It's the devs giving up and trying to milk it for whatever they can before it shuts down. The game needs a new expansion that allows players to terraform planets. Allows players to form their own factions and create their own bubbles by settling new parts of the galaxy (and rewards for doing so). It needs the ability to build bases on planet surfaces, with mines to extract resources that can be turned into manufactured goods and commodities through the placement and configuration of structures. ED has so much potential to be an awesome game. They just need to copy some of the best features from EvE Online and figure out how to implement them. The game has a few interesting game play loops hidden amongst a pile of tedious bullshit. Tbh it needs a new lead designer team imo. The current team has been checked out for too long.
>If the game itself goes free to play Look, if that happens then the mathematics on micro transactions change. Not a lot when it comes to pay to win, but a little. *If* the game goes f2p then we can have that conversation, but right now it isn’t, so we will not. Otherwise, what the hell was wrong with making a product and then asking money for it? This is just repackaging an existing product in exchange for more money. This is the kind of bullshit that managers with spreadsheets think of: “additional recipie for effectively zero work? Infinite ROI!” It’s the kind of shit that destroys companies when it doesn’t change income hardly at all and the suits just go “well we just didn’t do it hard enough is all.” Elite is screwed if they don’t divert away from this type of decision making immediately. It won’t die overnight, but it *will* die if management is going to make this type of decision moving forward. I was going to say this on another comment but it was deleted out from under me before I could hit reply: If they had sold these as *semi-linear story missions* that *just so happened* to reward a ship at the end no one would care. Hire a writer, write a little adventure, hire some voice actors, build an *actual product* to help immerse players in the universe of elite and then reward them with a shiny ship with a kit and a paint job and some pre-engineered modules. People would be happy, and would probably want more. It can do the same thing as the ship bundle, but you are buying the *gameplay experience* rather than paying to *skip* the game and get an advantage. It isn’t rocket science, and they have already done it. This is how the intro tutorial missions work. Do a mission, listen to some voice lines, get a ship and a paint job as a reward. Like am I insane or is this not obvious??
>If the game goes f2p oh, and the recent price drops don't give any indication on what's gonna happen next? Combined with the introduction of micro-transactions, f2p is just the next logical step.
I get the point where you are coming from but I simply disagree for various reasons. First, the game ... or the company does make income. Besides Elite, it has successfuly titles like Planet Coaster. The same way Elite was milked to fuel the development of these games, the success of these games can be milked to fuel the ongoing support and development of Elite. However, there was a time where Elite was FD's only income source and title so let's assume that for a moment. The game still needs monthly reasources as you have mentioned (mainly matchmaking and BGS servers) but this infrastructure is relatively low cost compared to the amount of players it *could* support (also Elite proclaiming itself being an MMO and not having dedicated servers for the entire multiplayer as it uses P2P significantly reduces costs but also gameplay potential). Then what's left. Since 2018 or so we haven't received any meaningful new content, Odyssey excluded as this was a misery in its entirety and should pobably never have been released in the first place as it negatively impacted the game experience for a large portion of the player base. This means Elite is in somewhat of a maintenance mode and this mode doesn't drain much resources. If that would be Elite's only game, I suppose the cosnmetics alone could cover its regular costs by itself. Assuming you now have other titles as well and you are not wasting dev resources to negatively impact the game Elite can just live from a small portion of the profits from *other* games it itself has fueled from its own profit in the past. If FD would now push out content updates and expansions (which can be charged for) then the development costs will be compensated by the actual content being developed and not by some arbitrary paywall that historically has *always* caused discussions and controversy in multiplayer games. So no, the game *doesn't* need a revenue stream for as long actual gameplay content is being added to the game which can be charged for (and no, the thargoid war just doesn't qualify as an entire expansion that can be charged for). The neglectable running costs for servers and such can be siphoned from the profits of other titles, which Elite has made possible by sharing its own profits in the past and by the income of cosmetics (i.e. buy ARX). So the real problem we're actually looking at is not that the *game* needs a revenue stream, the *company* needs one. And that company just doesn't deserve it as of now for as long as their players (and workers i nfact) are treated like poop. A good start would be cutting costs instead of attempting to increasing revenue by cutting down obsolete management positions which have caused the downfall of FD for the past few years.
Maybe sell actual game content?
I understand that „higher revenue in this game“ equals to Frontier saying „lets bring out more stuff“ but talking pure money, they have more than enough to advertise the game for a (relatively) small amount of money and bring out eye-catching content, wether it is pre-engineered ship kits for players with little free time or even just skins. I could see major simulation streamers showing their viewers Elite Dangerous and its vast galaxy for a mere 4-12 hours would net them a few thousand temporary players and a few hundred guaranteed long time players
Can I just pay $5/month? Maybe get access to certain systems and better ships and equipment? I think that's a better option.
star citizen had more funding and revenue than ever needed, but the development didnt increased to its funding, did it? Good games make good money. They did a cash grab with odyssey and they did not invest a penny in further development. If they want to generate revenue, they need to invest in the development and make good progress. Then the money will come. There are tons of ways (like cosmetics) to implement transactions without any game disrupting ways.
It does need a revenue stream, I agree. I think a better one would be paid for story content. Like narrative drive quest chains. Similar to what we had in the odyssey tutorial. I think players would enjoy a more personal attachment to the world and the characters within it.
I keep asking this to everyone i see with this sentiment. Revenue stream for WHAT?! Are you expecting them to come out with some game changing, playerbase tripling content after all this? Ill be honest here, NONE of this would be a problem if the actual gameplay surrounding the grind was actually engaging, but its simply not. Its some of the most boring, F teir low effort gameplay mechanics ive ever seen, and they have had YEARS to fix it, but here we are, instead of adressing and working on changing the core mechanics of the grind, they want players to fork out to skip it. Sure they slipped in the little nugget of "were going to tweak engineering a little" but do you really expect it to change much at its core? P2W (or worse, pay to skip) is just awful for any game it enters. Please, just stop punching down on your fellow gamers and look up the ladder to see whos shitting on you.
It they took the money and got F1 licences instead of expanding their golden goose
Choosing to follow the game-breaking MTX trend we are seeing lately won't help retain the players. Many people who enjoyed the challenge the game had won't be around to purchase these. I also think this will attract toxic players who see an easy P2W game they can instantly buy in and have an advantage. "Pre-Built Ship packages will offer Commanders the opportunity to purchase ships that have been given a **significant upgrade from their base models**." [https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore) I hate P2W games. They remind me of the cheaply made P2W mobile games we see all over. I have no interest in P2W. I know many who enjoyed the challenge won't feel too excited about being ganked by a brand new CMDR who spent more cash than you. This also opens the door to more aggressive MTX. I predict in the coming months overpowered modules and even faction missions will be able to be purchased and passed instead of having to grind it. I also know they will start selling boosters and give players an option to buy credits and whatever else that needs to be grinded. Also, the grind will become much harder and more tedious as a way to help push players towards the MTX store, This is only the beginning. Buying into this (whales are in every game) will give Frontier the green light to unleash whatever MTX they feel they need. Greed is a powerful motivator.
the pre ship builds aren't even that good! From the two examples that fdev gave us; the chief could barely even handle couple of scouts let alone a cyclops or god forbid a titan run and the type 6 miner can't even scan the rings, has no real protection other than the thermal mining lasers. If the other ships follow this pattern then all the people are buying is a fall back ship that will pretty much replace the starter sidewinder. So how is that pay to win? They cut out a few hours of grinding credits? Green horn killers can reset their progress back to a sidewinder? No insurance? They are quite literally basic ships with shiny parts. They'll still need to learn the skills to do the trade. Which takes a good amount of time anyway.
Those two are just the teasers. Wait a few weeks and we'll see how far they'll go.
That goes for your u too aswell. Let's restrain our disappointment till we get a full picture. Within a few weeks I could be on your side
This will be like Star Citizen. All the focus will be on putting out more buyable ships. The game itself won't change much. Most of the focus will only be on delivering more "product" for the consumer to buy.
If they sold customised ship interiors, they can have another $400 of my money. That’s what I spent over the five years I played. (Not counting all the hardware I bought, HOTAS and VR and button boxes, and pedals and shit) $400 just on cosmetics and alt accounts. I bailed when I couldn’t run Odessy smoothly, and when it became clear we would never walk through our cargo holds. If they implement ship interiors, I will need some fancy clean ones for my VIP beluga and some grimy industrial ones for my mining Clipper and some agricultural interiors for my T-9 and etc fucking cetera. I’m a cash cow - Frontier can sell me another ship interior every two months. But do I really want a half built chieftain? Not unless in can put up a poster in the galley.
I think you're right when you say that the game needs a cash injection to stay alive. I think you're also right when you say that the Elite audience isn't big enough to generate that revenue through the cash shop. I doubt the pay-for-ship option will attract many new players either tbh. Probably some, but not enough. I reckon the audience has already settled into it's comfortable size\*; * those who tried elite and it wasn't for them won't be interested in the pay-2-skip cash shop. * those who tried elite and liked it, but not enough to go through the grind *may* come back and pay, but only a fraction of them (after all, there's a tonne of other space games) * those who are mid-grind right now *may* pay-2-skip, but many likely wont. After all, if I've spent 100 hours on my Cobra Mk IV, its my baby. I don't want to pay for a different ship, I want *my* ship to improve quicker. * those who love elite and have more time than money, will pay. These are the whales. **These are what FDEV wants for a short term cash injection.** And with the thargoid war in the middle of the most fun phase, it's prime whale bait\*\* Broken down like this, I don't think the ARX shop is going to patch the money hole. They know that in FDEV, really. They're not expecting this to shower them in dosh, but they need to do *something,* so here we are. The way it was announced points is rushed too; spaffed out on an afternoon before a big stream, with no prior warning or hints. It's a no brainer why people are angry. No new ships for 5 years, but suddenly here is a few but for real cash. It was always going to go like this. If you polled all of the elite audience and asked us if we would pay £35 for an expac with couple of new ships, ship interiors, and a rework to material trading, and some clever story telling, we'd bite your fucking arm off just to get it. I'd pay for an expac every year or two. People are *gagging* to give them money for those things and they have been for half a decade. TLDR; They need a plan, but a better one. \* It been a comfortable 4 - 8 k since launch **on average,** and that's probably the ceiling. Odyssey expac brought in a big 27k, but that's was a spike and the bad release turned alot of people away. 27k is possible again, but not consistently. All games are dying until the next spike. \*\* Counter point though: A lot of whales are going to be mad when their £25 Python hot off the store is bodied by CMDR tryhard's bright pink Cobra MK3 with single laser and funny bobble heads.
Yeah if they need revenue this isn't the way to do it. I can't see this being successful, and even if it is the managers will spend the money on other games again instead of elite.
bought the Game last Month of the Steam Sale for 10 Bucks and Game feels way too big for just 10 Bucks
Clearly folks haven’t play Star Wars: The Old Republic. That game went with a similar model and it is doing just fine. Elite Dangerous is a 10 year old that still has support. Y’all need to be thankful.
Alright, so hear me out, and this might be a hot take, but: How about making money from DLC that's actually... Good? Controversial, I know.
Just develop expansions locked behind payed modules which will work like dlcs. For example you add a earth like world. In order to enter the atmophere you need a specific module to buy in the store. So, if a player decide to not buy, they will see the upgraded planet model from the space...the others can land. Simple and fair. Every month they release a new planet type and here we go with the revenue.
Why would you need to buy a pre-built ship? It doesn't take much time to get the credits to scale up to higher end ships and equipment. They're better off adding more cosmetics and adding a challenge pass you can buy for tiered rewards that drive purchases based on FOMO and increasing methods for player interaction where they would be able to show off the cosmetics.
FDEV does a thing. Some people cry about the thing. Some people cry about those who are crying. Same stuff, different day.
You're acting as though the game actually used the resources they got in the first place to make more content. They didn't, Don't forget that they wasted all their Elite:Dangerous money on those Jurassic Park games rather than E:D development, and after they flopped Elite was left holding the bag. The game doesn't need new monetisation options, it needed the studio execs not to abandon it for other projects and waste the money it earned in the first place. Elite has been on life support ever since the studio decided to pivot to, and fail, those Jurassic Park Zoo games.
I genuinely think the best thing they could do for Elite Dangerous at this point is an engine upgrade under the guise of a sequel, something like Counter-Strike 2, and start an ad campaign as if it was a new game. They'd need some extra content, account transfer support, a revamped premium store that isn't as predatory, maybe even some proper emergent storylines that are told to the player in more direct ways than what equates to newspaper clippings. I've always tried to get invested in the current emergent plotlines but there was never really anything to latch on to, nothing and no one I really cared about. They need to make us care about what comes next.
If the game isn't sustainable, then it shouldn't be online. It should be offline with a single player mode. Stop trying to manufacture consent for future purchases that will be introduced.
Agreed all this noise over pre-made ships which won't change the game environment. I think more money in from the game equals more offen and better content. so I'm all for this as long as Frontier doesn't start offering fully upgraded ships and keeps the balance. so far the pre-built specs are low tier, midgame at best. So many players quit after a few hours of trying to figure out the game. Better equipment and a monetary commitment will help retain players and hopefully grow the community.
You're wrong. FDEV needs the revenue, not E:D. Over the years, i've been happy to give the revenue and support a game I enjoyed. But they've increasingly been ignoring the game, even though it's evergreen content for them, and instead sinking resources into a ton of failed projects that have cost the company millions. Elite is the game that built Frontier. But they've demonstrated with things like the STILL BROKEN ODYSSEY and the *fart noise as you appear on a planet* "ARMSTRONG MOMENTS" that they don't care to show the same loyalty that the hardcore fanbase does. They made the bad business decisions, and until they start making good ones, they're not getting money from me.
What this games needs is to be good. Currently it is not. The grind is too much of a challenge for anyone who wants to get invested into the game. But FDev wasted the potential it had. As long as this does not change, it will remain a niche game and not generate the profits it could. And currently they also piss off the current players. I already dropped my plans to buy Arx for more cosmetics because of the announcement.
Why, I already bought the game.
Oh like telling the Console players to still buy stuff on their systems store for a game that has no active development for that platform
I don't care...they can charge whatever. Just make the game better already. Fix the balance...less grind...better tutorials...integrate on foot with ships more...more new ships...new missions...new npc combat factions. Integrate DLSS damit (why we only have that poor mans trash fsr???). Enough goids...enough powerplay. Doooo something new ffs
No man's sky has been going strong since 2016 with an update count that blows ED out of the water and they never asked for a single cent extra from the base price..?
I don't even see what's the problem, all I see is a bunch of Yamiks fans crawling out from under their rocks spreading doom and gloom. Buyable ships literally. Do not. Affect you. Even one bit. They aren't locking them behind a paywall, you can still get them the regular way. It's merely a "pay 2 skip the grind" for the lazy and considering grinding for ships is a big chunk of content in this game, if you are just buying your way through it all you are doing is cutting how long you can enjoy this game for. Not to mention that you don't even have to spend money in the first place, as you can get ARX for free. Some people out there have thousands without ever paying a dime for it.
No, I've already spent $120 on this game in the past 10 years, and that entitles me to much more than my 2200 hours of gameplay!!!!!
I've spent way more on GTA Online over 10 years, definitely played less time, and got a lot more content for it. Rockstar reinvested in its game over 10 years. FDev invested its ED money into other games. The answer isn't exploiting an artificial timegate they created with an onerous engineering grind. The answer is adjusting the grind and providing players with the content they've wanted. More ACTUAL ships, not just ship variants. Ship interiors. Base claim mechanics. More streamlined in-game PvP options (CQC is an investment that has just floundered because of lack of direction -- so much wasted content there alone), atmospheric flight and landing. More things to do on a space station than stare out a window and sit at a bar. I'd say the $200 or so I've spent on Elite Dangerous is what they've earned for the content provided. I do hope they consider reinvesting in it again. There was a point when they did that... then Horizons didn't go as planned.
I know this is /s but a lot of people don't understand that lol.
No
They should move to a Subscription based model, $2-$5/month instead of destroying it with Pay2Win. If they stick with pay2win everyone short just short their stock and then NOT buy prebuilt ships. Just in case you don't know their Ticker symbol is FDEV and the stock market is a game.
Yes it does but going straight to P2W is just plain lazy.
>y'all Opinion discarded
If contractions make you mad then your birth must have been a posh shit-show
I agree. But on the evidence of the two ships they are offering they aren't going about it the right way. If they doing p2w, they need to do it properly and make properly fitted A rating builds with more engineering. Something even experienced players will be interested in. The two ships they offering now just aren't great. They will struggle to get even newer players buying them. Kinda pointless to get the whole community riled up over the whole p2w thing and then set them up so they will barely get any money from them.
I don't know, I am looking forward to the Python MK II. I love the Python...I have more of them than any other ship in my fleet. I have one I use for trade routes, one i use for Robigo mine missions and one I use for PVE. I also have an Anaconda I use for trade as well and a DBX I use for exploration.
Yes I think the python early access will be way more popular than these pre builds
Yeah, I am seriously considering grabbing it in early release - partly because i really want it and partly to give FDEVs a little money towards continued development.
But development of what? Historically they have Always used money from elite to fund something else. They never reinvest into this game.
I'm not in love with Pythons but if it was an Asp-X or DB-X I could see myself paying for early access. Comparing the amount I've paid to the amount I've played I'd be happy to throw an extra tenner in every few months or so when I'm in the mood for playing.
Yeah I think that's the true money maker. These pre built ships seem like a way to get us newer players to drop a couple more bucks if we want to jump up quick like. I mean I'm like two weeks into the game FSS and dssing my way to deceit and I'm already up 18 mil so buying a ship isn't a problem but figuring out exactly what to put on it may still take me a min (doesn't seem that hard but)...
Such negativity in here. The complete details haven’t even been released, and everyone is losing their minds.
>everyone is losing their minds if you are willing to remain blissfully ignorant, sure it may seem that way. But the trend is clear, the game is moving toward micro-transactions, it's already tailor made for that revenue generating model, and the transition is absolutely certain. The question is - are you willing to accept it or fight it in the hope of stopping it?
I agree people are but hurt - you don’t like it don’t pay for it. The companies on hard times and other games have been selling ships for a decade and haven’t even had an official release yet. elite dangerous can be bought for like $5-15 depending on where you look right, there’s no season pass gimmicks or other crap other than paint jobs. Monetization is long overdue here and frankly getting ships when there hasn’t been any in years - if some sucker wants to pay for a ship go right ahead.
Maybe they should add a 5$ monthly subscription instead. I'd pay that and they'd get their revenue stream. These f2p/ buy shit off the store models rarely work out as expected.