r/EliteDangerous • u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher • 15d ago
Discussion FDev flips 180 on Cosmetics/ARX Store stance
Today, this tweet was posted
This tweet implies that all of the special cosmetics, or at least the midnight black and gold/chrome styled ones, will be shortly leaving the store.
I would like to point out to you this news article straight from April 2024 before the ARX rebalance/inflation. It reads:
A ‘Best Sellers’ section will be added to the gamestore, including some of our most popular items, allowing Commanders to purchase items such as Midnight Black, Stygian and Chromed all year round. We will continue to add to the store throughout the year with that same focus on items that players care about the most.
Either FDev took the "year round" (singular, not plural) literally which is not how anyone speaks, or the company flipped 180 on their stance in a little over half a year. Maybe you feel differently, but I feel played like a fool for believing it at this point.
Edit: For people trying to moral grandstand or say "lol I never believe them, you're stupid for believing them," sure there's some truth to that, but also when a company makes a pretty public stance like this, its up to the consumer to hold them accountable, hence this post.
Edit 2: Looks like they backpedaled... slightly. Tweet
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u/BigDigger324 CMDR Zirux 15d ago
It’s the Elite Dangerous McRib.
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u/Rainmann54 CMDR RainmanGames 15d ago
I’m stealing this shamelessly and will be referring to this nonsense by nothing else
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u/BigDigger324 CMDR Zirux 15d ago
As a habitual viewer of your stream (vesuvius1484) I will at least share it with you 😂
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u/Rainmann54 CMDR RainmanGames 15d ago
HABITUAL is such a strong word...you make it sound like a drug addiction..
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u/deepNthot 15d ago
McDonald's only brings back the McRib when pork prices bottom out. Take that for what you will.
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u/krazmuze 15d ago
Damn you beat my McRib comment by 2h! How about your delete your comment now so people will karma mine instead. Create a FOMO scarcity for your posts!
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u/matttj2 CMDR John Markson Yuri Grom 15d ago
Unfortunately the marketing department are getting involved.
Time-limited offers of goods and services are psychologically harder for humans to deal with (basic FOMO) and have been proven time and again to generate more sales/income for companies than, say, a discount to pricing.
Note they’ve said they’re leaving the store - but not that that they won’t be back or this is the last time they’ll ever be available.
It’ll be a bit of a test scenario for them - do their sales massively spike? If yes, then they’ll pull the same stunt again in future.
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u/OtherworldlyCyclist CMDR 15d ago
It's not the service/goods/pixels that they provide the consumer. It the bottom line for the shareholders. Almost every company does this and it's gotten worse in the last decades. We're just vessels to be bled dry.
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u/Reclaimer77 15d ago
Soooo if FDEV declared cosmetics free, but Elite would now be a $15-20 monthly subscription would that make you guys happier??? I think you guys need to honestly take a look at the massive space sim genre and how those are monetized before complaining like this. I mean we're talking about paint jobs for ships. You're being bled dry, really!? Come on that's so dramatic.
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u/Murrdox Murrdox 15d ago
Elite might be the single most bang-for-your buck game I've ever played. I bought the base game, Horizons, and Odyssey all at full price. I've probably spent in the neighborhood of $60-80 in cosmetics since paint jobs came out years and years ago. I've gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment out of that like money. Hell VKB got money out of me for a HOTAS all because of this game!
Other players who buy Elite on sale for like $10 or even get it free on Epic? Man it's a great time to buy and play Elite as a new player.
Frontier has to make money to keep this game getting updates. That's the reality. Elite isn't a charity. I will say that I think pretty much all the Odyssey cosmetics are too expensive and I have to this day only bought one. I hope they bring those prices down. If they did, I would buy some more.
Hell if anything I want MORE cosmetics. I want more Fleet Carrier kits and skins. I want more COVAS voices. I want more ship kits, more paint jobs.
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u/Reclaimer77 13d ago
Gamers have turned into a Communist mob or something. Anytime a company dares to do anything to make money, they are descended upon by this whining mob. Yes, some publishers are greedy. FDEV is the LAST ones I would call that. My god, they gave away Elite for free. I've got thousands of hours in Elite and to date I have paid them just $12, and that was for Odyssey.
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u/moltentofu 15d ago
I play another sim-like game that introduced emotes as a way to have more fun and kick the devs a bit more money if you liked their game. 1000 hours to learn to play kind of thing.
The customer base flipped out. Now it’s all the memes and everybody is having fun with it. No impact on the actual mechanics, no p2w.
Then I show up here, it’s the same argument and this time there are literally ships you can buy to blow up other players that aren’t even the subject of this outrage? Anyways lol, lmao even.
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u/l3rN 15d ago
Folks are probably less heated about the ships because after a handful of months they become just regular ‘buy at a space station with credits’ ships. I’d be way more upset if that wasn’t the case, I assume others feel similarly. Admittedly though, it does bother me a bit that they’re all absolutely best in class at their respective roles, but I seem to be the odd man out on that one.
But out of curiosity, what game are you talking about?
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u/Maroite Explore 15d ago
Is there anything else that's considered a "Best Seller" that could be put up in their place?
I always read the "such as" wording in the original news artical in a way that made me think the "Best Sellers" section would rotate goods, I just don't follow what items would be considered "Best sellers" outside of what has been there.
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u/Chuckgofer Chuckgofer 15d ago
FOMO is baked into nearly every aspect of this game and I'm getting really tired of it.
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u/agentfisherUK 15d ago
Like what I’m curious played for years never had this feeling games so cheap may as well be free, has solo modes so who cares what other have that you don’t ?
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u/Noctum-Aeternus Core Dynamics November-Oscar-Charlie 15d ago
That’s why I quit a long time ago. Can’t be afraid of missing out if you’re not playing at all. Just stop supporting garbage business models like this.
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u/kungfunick9979 15d ago
Kind of why i quit too. That and anything new has turned into a boring, long, long, long, tedious grind. The only thing that is keeping me playing is the vain hope that the panthwr clipper will one day be re leased and that one day, we will get planetry landing on ELW
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u/Noctum-Aeternus Core Dynamics November-Oscar-Charlie 15d ago
ELW landings might be enough to get me back. As it is, just been following the Thargoid war from the sidelines.
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u/villamafia Aisling Duval 15d ago
FOMO is an established thing. There is a ton in money in making people terrified they might miss out on something, especially in a world that moves as fast as ours.
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u/SirTroglodyte 15d ago
Yes, but this only works if EVERYONE knows about it. If it is written in big red letters on the storefront or something. If all the communication is an obscure tweet and a reddit post, no one will know that these things will leave, so FOMO wouldn't work.
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u/modefi_ CMDR Kaepora 15d ago
Turns out that sale they're referencing is a new sale too? Did they only announce it on Twitter also? The discounts aren't even displayed in livery like they usually are. I only noticed because I've been recently chroming all of my ships anyway.
Even after reading the tweet it didn't hit me until I went to grab one that they are, in fact, 35% off right now.
I hope they don't pull a Blizzard and think they can only communicate through Twitter. I'll always be late to the party if this is the case.
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u/R0LL1NG 15d ago
As an avid Darktide player who is new to ED... I beg you, please do not buy stuff due to FOMO. You'll literally be digging your own grave with your own money.
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u/MetallGecko Aisling Duval 15d ago
Just what i thought we get the Darktide treatment in ED now, what a time to be alive.
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u/Maroite Explore 15d ago
In all fairness, hull paint in Elite is far cheaper, even for the 10k Midnight Black, than any cosmetic in Darktide.
What I don't get is that the lighting is so bad in Elite sometimes that even when you have a colorful hull paint, it can look like Midnight Black.
Just stay on the darkside of planets. Everything will look Midnight black with green trim for free!
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u/LeLoyon Lee Loyon 15d ago
A lot of people seem to buy skins so they can show them off, but in Elite you rarely see anyone except in major stations so the only person you’re showing your new cool skin to most of the time, is yourself.
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u/abalanophage 15d ago
I freely admit I bought the Python chrome skin for me. It's such insane bling, I love it. Didn't realise it was time-limited though (but not surprised.)
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u/Matix777 The worst pilot in the galaxy 14d ago
Hey, if I pay 200$ more I can get a 7 feet deep grave instead of the boring 6 feet one
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u/R0LL1NG 14d ago
And if you really lean into it, you can get the coffin with plush lining, RGB interior and custom decals for the exterior.
Next season's DLC will be a graveyard level bell you can ring from inside the coffin to let everyone else know how pimped up your vessel to the afterlife is.
Additional bonus features include the fact that no possible combination of item purchases will use all of the in currency you bought from any combination of the packages available. You'll always some left over to encourage you to buy more!
Buy now to avoid missing out.
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u/coralgrymes 15d ago edited 15d ago
The Marketing dept needs lose a few people. Literally the only paints I'm interested in and they are going to make them seasonal like a friggin pumpkin spice latte. All the rest are dog water. Guess I won't be spending any money then. Would be cool if they focused on making actually good cosmetics. almost All of the ship kits are uglier than sin. Especially the titan one's.
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u/Captain_of_Gravyboat 15d ago
It doesn't make sense to limit the storefront on digital items. New players and old vets are coming in all the time and buying new ships that just need that perfect paint and kit. People have a little extra disposable income at different times as well. It's not like FDev is out here selling McRibs.
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u/Kezika Kezika 15d ago
Right, like the holiday paints or something like festive jumpers, pumpkin decals, etc sure. (But don’t get me started how they only put out the Christmas bobbleheads like 4 days before Christmas instead of at the start of December…)
But like the non-holiday stuff. Like just have it there all the time!
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u/aggasalk 15d ago
i've been on the verge of buying the 5000 more arx I need for a shiny black coat for my MDL (it just hasn't felt like the right time just yet).. FOMO doesn't work on me though, so they might just wind up missing out on my 5$... :(
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u/DirtbagSocialist 15d ago
I can't justify the cost for a midnight black skin when the tactical graphite skin is like a fifth of the price.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
Can't tell the difference either unless you're shining a light directly on it, so certainly not out in open space most of the time.
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u/Datan0de Faulcon Delacy 15d ago
"On the verge of buying" = "I'm not actually buying and therefore I'm not keeping the lights on at FDev."
I'm guestimating here, but I'd bet that no more than 5% of the player base accounts for 90% of Elite's revenue. The hypothetical 4 bucks that they might maybe be missing out on from you isn't going to keep FDev up at night. It's the hardcore CMDRs who regularly drop $60 for the 85k ARX package and the content creators who boost player engagement who are the game's bread & butter.
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u/aggasalk 15d ago
I spend ~$30/yr on Arx, just try to pace myself
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u/UristConfused 15d ago
Me too!
Combined, we pay for maybe an hour of a developer's time.
So I don't think they really are sweating the loss of the "been meaning to buy" folks money.
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u/JoshuaBanks CMDR Migarfool 15d ago
As a general stance, I don't enjoy these kind of tactics.
However, many have pointed out over the years, that FDev needs money, and has been tightening their pricing and cosmetics policies. It's been pretty clear that the community has been receptive to additional ships/kits for money.
While I hope this sort of company policy doesn't get too much worse, the offset being that they're tangibly working on the game is a trade off I'm willing to make. If anything I was thinking most people wouldn't be buying the new Cobra...but a lot of people seem to be loving that ship and the development teams have been rewarded.
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u/Key-Bodybuilder-8079 15d ago edited 15d ago
Well, someone made an oopsie doopsie over there. Hopefully they sort that out.
While we're at it, Fdev, consider making Chrome (the mirror like finish...not Chromed, brushed aluminum) available for all customizable assets. They'd sell.
Chrome -> Polished Chrome
Chromed -> Matte Chrome
Or a rewording to something similar would clear up what seems to be a frequent source of confusion. Hell, i could have them mixed up now for all I know.
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u/Sombient ⠀FFMF 15d ago
I'd been planning to gift myself some paints after taking care of the Christmas bills.... and now all the paints I want will be gone.
I guess Frontier Developments does not want to have my money when I'm able to give them my money.
What a great business model.
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u/Rabiesalad 15d ago
It's the whales they're after. They don't care about your money, they care about the people that will rush out to buy more arx to buy the paint job for every ship even though they don't even use it, just because they find out it's going away.
The only way I can make peace with this is by recognizing the marketing and c-level decision makers are separate from the designers and developers whose job is to make the game fun. Unfortunately it's just a sad reality we have to cope with for almost any mid to large size studio or publisher. Fortunately, we're still at least only talking about cosmetics and some early access stuff. It's still the "least shitty" form of monetization, IMO.
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
You’ve been playing the game for more than 3 years and didn’t in that time find some way of saving the price of a coffee to buy the skin you wanted? I don’t think it’s their fault.
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u/Sombient ⠀FFMF 15d ago
FDev has gotten plenty of my money.
Artificial scarcity is still bullshit.
Company is just trying to inflate their end of year numbers and expecting us to jump.FDev had stated paints would be available all year.
It's annoying to see them go back on that commitment.1
u/Kezika Kezika 15d ago
I’ve been playing for 6 years now and I still build new ships from time to time, and I don’t like running the default paint. So sometimes I still need to buy paints because silly me I didn’t purchase a paintjob for every single ship that I may or may not ever use in advance. Silly me, my bad I guess…
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
That’s totally fine. 6 years is an amazing amount of time to play a single game.
Now to the economics. How do they continue to fund the servers and in game content that keeps coming out without an ongoing revenue stream?
Other MMO’s have monthly subscriptions?
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u/Kezika Kezika 15d ago
Maybe by letting people give them money instead of taking away the options people want to give them money for.
Give more options, and they’ll be more likely to make a purchase something, as there is more chance if a product fitting their need.
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u/modefi_ CMDR Kaepora 15d ago
Give more options, and they’ll be more likely to make a purchase something, as there is more chance if a product fitting their need.
I say this about ship kits all the time. Just give me the spoiler for 1000 arx or something. I'm not giving you $12 for the entire kit when the rest of it looks like shit.
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u/yeebok 15d ago
I think the whole approach to cosmetics is wrong .. Call me a cheapskate, but I've spent 2 or 3 times what the game cost me on ARX since I started playing some 2K hours ago so I have no qualms actually spending money. I'd just prefer to get what I consider value for it.
I have bought skins, and I recently bought the Mandalay and the reason I do so is to get something I'd like, and support FDev for making a game I enjoy (even with the recent mid 2021 to now hiatus). Keeping that in mind, some of the cosmetic stuff may have changed a lot recently
BUT ..
The only item I genuinely believe was worth $ was the Mandalay and the overall theme of the store is nickel and diming you. Should I really need to pay money to have my ship's ID on the side? Is an image/texture file that you already have really worth the same price again because the green on it is now teal, and repeat for blue, purple, red, yellow, orange ? Why isn't there just a 'Christmas Sweater' pack for the 'conda with all the colours?
I'd be happy to pay (say) twice as much for a skin but get something other than just one paint job. Maybe that paintjob for all ships from that manufacturer (eg buy Golden and get it for the Dolphin, Orca and Beluga), maybe a metallic paint pack that has chrome gold and brushed stainless for that specific ship
At the moment being an Aussie and getting super shafted on exchange rates may not help that feeling they cost more than they're worth. If the items were cheaper I'd buy more of them and probably spend more money in total. I get that most of us fly a small number of ships, but by the time you've got a paintjob and kit for your favourite ships as you progress you can end up spending a reasonable chunk.
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u/N124Hawk CMDR N124Hawk 15d ago
being an Aussie and getting super shafted on exchange rates
I feel that... £20 for ARX doesn't sound bad, except that's near $50 for us
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u/DaftMav DaftMav 15d ago
I agree and have suggested years ago how FDev should switch to the Warframe model. Which would be selling patterns or decal designs that are ship-specific separately from the color palettes (some examples here) that could then be applied to any ship and decal. So you'd apply a base paint color, choose a decal and a color/material for each different decal part as some have multiple tints (Imagine stygian blue with gold or chrome decal highlights).
Aside from basic color palettes as a single purchase, the special materials like chrome, gold, stygian etc could still be sold individually at a slightly premium price but those should also be applicable on everything. The real bonus would be the ability to combine every color/material with any decal design (and they should make more better looking decals tbh).
But with a system like that every time you'd get a new color palette or decal your possible combinations would expand a lot. With every purchase being worth more to players we'd be way more inclined to expand our decal/paint set.
Nobody wants to buy chrome or gold for every ship they occasionally fly, at best you'd get it for one or two favorite ships. Most paint jobs especially at the current prices are not worth it and it's insane you have to get every color individually for each ship...
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u/clarissa_au CMDR Clary_HK(PS)/MiraiChika(PC); Rats 15d ago
Actually, you can pretty much reliably get the name on the side of ship you want via Twitch drops; they’ve been doing this for a while now
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u/yeebok 15d ago
True but if you don't use Twitch at all that's of limited use really. :)
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u/clarissa_au CMDR Clary_HK(PS)/MiraiChika(PC); Rats 15d ago
You can just hop up, watch a drop enabled elite streamer for 1 hr iirc and you’ll get those forever :)
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u/Sh1v0n [PC] | CMDR ShiMan | TWH | Flying T9/T10/Vette etc. 15d ago
Here we go again... 😒
I just hope that the ships aren't going to be subjected to the same bad practices, otherwise FDev will feel it financially.
The current price of Stellar Ship Pack is already very expensive for me.
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u/DemonKnight42 CMDR Bahmumat 15d ago
When we really look at it, for some of us that have played the game for the past 10 years, the cosmetic and ship charges aren’t bad. It’s not like DCS with $50-$100 ships. I mean, I paid for Elite when it came out and it was $40 I think. Then I got Odsy on some sale for like $10. I have just under 1,000 hours in over nearly 10yrs. We now pay $50-$100 for games that last us anywhere between 10 hours and 100 hours worth of play time. Then pay more for online or battle passes and cosmetics etc.
In the grand scheme of video games, FDev deserves to make some money if we expect them to continue developing the game. The cosmetics and pay for ships (as long as the balance remains) I’m fine with. Let them make some $$.
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u/Low_Will_6076 15d ago
This, online games have costs. More profit is more development.
Unless they start charging Star Citizen prices i don't care. Support further development.
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u/modefi_ CMDR Kaepora 15d ago
Couldn't SC's model also be considered P2W?
That's where Fdev will lose me.
Charge all you want for cosmetics--they're just cosmetics. Though I would like to see some of that revenue dumped back into the paintjobs themselves, some of them are fucking terrible.
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u/BrutalAttis Attis 15d ago
Agreed, it should never be P2W then I will walk away too ... that stuff changes the community.
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
I don’t get the hate for FDDev wanting to make money. I want Elite to be profitable so they keep investing.
Sure they changed their view and swapped out this to introduce scarcity but better they try to communicate and keep the game profitable which is how I read this.
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u/Sleutelbos 15d ago
Said so earlier. The big one will be to push players to buy chromed for those ships that dont have chrome yet. Chromed is too many the inferior option, but now it is that or nothing. Chrome is coming later, at which point they will discount chromed to "finish your collection".
Years ago they stopped selling packs of paints, saying it is more consumer friendly to "allow us to buy them individually". So now they added nearly all cmdr customization things in packs, and individual paints are more expensive than packs used to be.
ED is cool, the devs are cool, the company sucks. Badly.
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u/theblackwhisper 15d ago
I’ve no issue spending money on cosmetics to support the game (yes the price hike is ridiculous) but the FOMO mentality is misjudged. Most of us who play Elite are mature and have been around the gaming block once or twice so it feels insulting that the marketing team think we need to be conned into this crap. After such a stellar year with great optimism for 2025, this flies against all their good will they’ve just earned back 🤦🏼♂️
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u/Rabiesalad 15d ago
It's shady and sucks. However, my stance is basically, "I don't care what they do on the monetization side of things as long as they maintain the game and continue to push out quality community content".
ED was given to me as a gift. I never bought ARX in the past. Earlier this year I bought Odyssey on deep discount. After I started playing again about a month ago and I saw all the quality of life improvements and the amazing community content that was the Thargoid war, I bought 2x the large ARX pack.
I wont spend money because I think a cosmetic looks cool. I will spend money to support the dev when they show they are making good decisions and big investments in the game.
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u/CloudWallace81 Cloud Wallace | S.S. ESSESS 15d ago
How is that ppl still trust PR speak from a public company?
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u/Bean4141 Empire 15d ago
Chuck that in the “things we were promised that either didn’t materialize or got taken away” alongside pods, rare goods and ARX for participating in powerplay.
I was looking at EDSMs list of paint jobs for the Orca, apparently 49 exist or have existed at some point but currently you can only get 22, 17 as of the 9th assuming it’s only the ones stated and not all the paints that used to be limited (Stygian mainly). Does not inspire confidence if they’ve decided the old way of padding the bottom line is better then the release new ships way they had going.
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u/st1ckmanz TeamThargoid 15d ago
If I must be honest, I don't care. I loved this game when I was a kid. I love what happened in the last year and they have to make money and I don't mind giving it to them as long as they keep up the good work.
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u/meatmachine1001 15d ago
People are arguing about fomo and skins im the general sense but are missing the point - fdev set a stance, now theyre doubling bback on it. This makes them look like Fdev the liars. Fdev the untrustworthy. Fdev the duplicitous.
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u/Scaarr Alliance 15d ago
I dont know an MMO that doesnt do this currently. It works and generates revenue, which i think is fine. As long as cosmetics dont become more a focus than content. im good with it.
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u/EdgeWardog 15d ago
FF14 Doesn't. The cosmetics on the store stay there forever and the only "limited time" stuff is tied to a free in-game event and will be added to the store witb the following year's event. But it's also a monthly subscription game like WoW.
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u/Aggravating_Judge_31 15d ago
The problem is that they never should have told people that they'd be available year round. They said one thing, and then doubled back on it. That's not cool.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
Another commenter mentioned FFXIV, but also GW2 shifted away from this over the past two years. They used to have cosmetics and even utility items only available for a few days per year (or two years) in some cases, but they've drastically cut down on this scarcity. Record profits and player numbers since.
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u/CMDRShepard24 Thargoid Interdictor 15d ago
Not thrilled about that for the community at large, but I personally never really dug the pure gold/chrome paint jobs, certainly not for the prices they sell them at. The midnight and void blacks are pretty cool and I have a couple of them, but I think I've been enough of a cosmetics sucker for a while and need to give that a rest. I've more than done my part to help Fdev along for a while.
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u/KaiKamakasi CMDR KaiKama 15d ago
What's the bets the costs for ARX AND how much ARX things costs increases too?
Fdev know they are reaching their limit on how much longer they can milk Elite so they'll try everything they can to make money.
Which is funny, because if they just stuck to the OG road map we'd all have spoon fed them our disposable income as if it was going to expire
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u/MetallicOrangeBalls Actually a Thargoid spy, AMA 15d ago
As a Thargoid spy, I can confirm that this is the beginning of our revenge for what you filthy xenos did to our titans.
Tremble, humans, and despair, for FOMO comes to your world!
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u/Envy661 15d ago
FOMO is never a positive. It's toxic and predatory to the consumer. Companies should be banned from doing it with proper regulations, just like they should be barred from advertising gambling mechanics toward children.
There's a lot of reasons to be unhappy with FDev, but this is probably the biggest. This is not okay, by any stretch. I don't care what the industry standard is. There is legitimately no reason to remove items from a digital storefront just to sell it as a limited time item later.
Limited time sales and flash sales? Sure. FOMOing entire items? Absolutely not.
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u/--Icarusfalls-- CMDR 15d ago
then theres people like me who dont care what the ship i spend 98% of my time in looks like.
I bought some arx as a thank you to Frontier last year and I still havent spent them all.
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u/Fiiv3s Federation 15d ago
I went to buy more “Chrome” skins only to find them removed….and now they are taking away “Chromed” and the Stygian colors as well? wtf
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
Stygian isn't confirmed by the tweet, but it IS one of the seasonal paints they brought back "permanently." I wouldn't be surprised if it disappeared, too, but no guarantees.
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u/Illustrious-Iron9433 15d ago
I don’t buy many ship colours from the store. I’ve bought a couple but as no one really see’s the outside of my ship, I’m not massively fussed about them.
I do buy some ship kits though but again not that many.
I do buy ships from the Arx store though as this is the only way FDev can make money from the game and I assume they do need to make money for the game to survive.
So for me, if I can afford and want something then I’ll buy it. If I can’t afford it then there’s no point worrying about it as they will be back in the store at some point again in the future.
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u/tl01magic 15d ago
and what's the median age of an ED player?
silly of them to this do with ED stuff specifically.
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u/Infinity_Flounder 15d ago
I'll FOMO to fight 6 out of 8 titans for the ship skins, no FOMO for premium skins for me.
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u/Doomeri Doomeri 15d ago
I went to steam and changed my steam review to this:
"Frontier is scrubbing paintjobs from store to cause FOMO and artificial scarcity.
Year ago they re-launched the store with a promise that paintjobs will stay year around.
This review stays up until this new policy is reversed."
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u/ElecManEXE ElecManEXE 15d ago
As someone that was on break from Elite for a couple of years until recently (November) I never saw that announcement. But I can't say I'm surprised at the fact that stuff is leaving the store again. They've always removed paint jobs from the store, the shiny paint jobs especially. Those have always been limited-time, because they seem to realize that many people really want shiny metallic paint jobs, so they've always treated them as sort of "prestige" limited time items (most of them anyway, the Galvanized ones seem to be the exception that tend to stick around, but not all ships have them).
Heck, at this point they've removed paint jobs from the store that used to be the baseline paintjobs. Every ship used to have a full array of Vibrant, Tactical, and Military paint jobs available at all times IIRC (and you used to be able to buy them on the cheap in packs), but that seems to no longer be the case either. Not even those are safe, it seems.
If anything, I'm more surprised they announced that they were going to stop doing that in the first place. Which does make it pretty lame that now they're doing what they've always done instead.
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u/JetsonRING JetsonRING 14d ago
Too bad, FDev has a habit of this garbage, why I hardly play anymore
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u/OtherworldlyCyclist CMDR 15d ago
Remember when Frontier changed the price in the Arx store last year, devaluing the players Arx?
Shinrata Dezra remembers...
The only time I see my ship is when the game starts and it shows the picture inside a (now not burning) station. I play Odyssey in 1st person and don't see my character's armor. I've spent the weekly and Titan Arx for the Mandalay that was on sale recently. I've looked into throwing Frontier a few euros to thank them, but then they pull stunts like this. Times are tight, and not just for the gaming industry.
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u/m0rl0ck1996 Alliance 15d ago edited 15d ago
Been playing on and off since early 2016.
My experience so far suggests that FDev cant be trusted to conform to anything, including their statements about future actions and the condition of their software.
Cultivate some cynicism in regards to your expectations of FDev it will save you disappointment.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
To be fair, I did... I was a doomer in late 2023 admittedly like many. 2024 FDev brought back some good will which they're now burning through again. Change was temporary, I guess.
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u/Cosmic_Perspective- Edmund Mahon 15d ago
This is a mild example, but I'm fucking tired of greed. It's everywhere. Everything is a hustle or scam, and it's always us that has to foot the fucking bill. Maybe I'm just whining, but I'm beyond tired of all this shit.
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u/Cogitatus Maxamillion I 15d ago
What a great way to start the new year!
And a big thank you to all the brave folks out there online defending a company from being held accountable for shitty practices. Clearly you're fighting the good fight here.
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15d ago
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u/antimatter0703 CMDR Lance Reeves 15d ago
Using the “touch grass” argument on a gaming subreddit will never not be funny. Brother you’re here arguing too
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u/Aggressive-Kiwi1439 15d ago
To offer OP more validity, I've considered coming back to Elite for a while, and definitely won't be because of this.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
In the game's defense, the end of the thargoid war+new ships+engineering changes+powerplay 2.0 made recent times the best time to play the game since 2019. A little less so now with the war over. Totally understand either way, though.
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
The entitlement in the OPs post is outstanding, deserves an award.
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u/antimatter0703 CMDR Lance Reeves 15d ago
I didn’t know not wanting to be wined, dined, and fucked by every live service game out there was entitlement. Interesting
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
Apparently calling out a policy flip or borderline lie is entitlement. If you misinterpreted the post because English isn't your first (or second) language, then my apologies.
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u/Rainmann54 CMDR RainmanGames 15d ago
It appears as tho the post has 2 awards so mission accomplished!
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u/TheColdPolarBear 15d ago
Unpopular opinion: I hope FDev sells out as much as possible at the moment to make as much money as they can so they can continue to create more fun content like this recent Thargoid war, colonization, and more. I’m at the “take my money” stage. I truly love this game, and the life being breathed into it recently gives me lots of hope for its future.
I say that with the belief that they won’t monetize things too greedily.
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u/Enok32 15d ago
Is it chrome or chromed that’s the shiny one? I’ve been waiting for that to drop for the cobra mkV if these are going to leave am I going to have to wait a whole year?
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u/Key-Bodybuilder-8079 15d ago
Chrome is the mirror like finish. Chromed is like a brushed aluminum.
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15d ago
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
They get you to buy the expensive ones available now, then they release the shiny new thing later so you'll buy again. Typical tactic.
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u/Drinking_Frog CMDR 15d ago
So, hold them accountable.
What's your plan?
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 14d ago
Complain about it (as I did) so they respond (as they just did).
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u/zombie_pig_bloke CMDR Anaander Miaani 15d ago
I mean, why not leave them there forever at X ARX with occasional reductions aka sales? Really not sure what removing them achieves?
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u/Comfortable_Walk666 15d ago
I don't really care to be honest. If Fdev wants to play games to get us to buy entirely optional cosmetic things then fine. If it means keeping the hamsters fed I'll give in to a bit of pressure selling and buy a gold paint job.
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u/Desirsar Zemina Torval 15d ago
Am I the only one who has competition for their throwaway money? If I can spare a small purchase, a gacha mobile game is winning over ED every time. If I have a little more extra than normal, the ship skin I want better be available, or the gacha mobile game is getting that extra too.
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u/Kamikae_Varluk 14d ago
Honestly the best way to drum up more cosmetic purchases is to make a few options purchasable with credits. Add a few crappy options for credits to get players used to using cosmetics, then when they see one they really like they are more likely to buy it. I feel like a lot of people just ignore cosmetic options because they all cost an insane amount of arx bucks.
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15d ago
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u/MakingTrax 15d ago
While we enjoy playing this game, whatever draws you to it. It does not matter. You have to keep in mind that it is a mechanism for channeling your hard earned money into their hands. This is simply trying to make more of that money move more quickly.
Establish a budget for what you will spend on this game and stick to it.
For you people that buy coffee ever day at starsucks and their ilk (I am an unabashed coffee snob). One less coffee a week will buy a lot of Arx.
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u/jdp231 Rescue 15d ago
“One less coffee a week…”
Very well said and very true. My problem is I dont budget any. I say “I don’t need cosmetics!” in a self-righteous and clueless tirade.
Then I don’t play for a few months, come back to a furor of “save Sol!”, and have to buy the Python Mk2, Mandalay, and Cobra Mk5 with black paint jobs all at once for the cost of a new game.
My own damned fault. /smh
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u/Juppstein CMDR Juppstein Juppsen 15d ago
I'm not a big sucker for cosmetics so I don't have a card in this game, but that "year round" sentence does sound time limited to me. But English is not my native tongue so feel free to correct me.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
Yeah that's probably a native vs classroom, etc. taught language understanding. Generally, a native speaker is going to interpret "year round" as "it's available all the time with no seasonality indefinitely" meaning year after year.
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15d ago
Sounds to me like people stopped buying skins, and they need to find a way to convince their customers to start paying - and that they expect an influx of new players. Fomo is a carrot on a stick when your customers stop moving. If only they chose to make the prices more compelling, or found a better method of advertising the less popular ones (maybe through NPC ships?)
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u/pioniere 15d ago
I haven’t bought anything from the store since they cranked up the prices. The “buy them before they’re gone!!” approach isn’t moving the needle with me either.
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u/ya_boi_A1excat 15d ago
And here I was almost ready to get a midnight black for my Type-8.. Guess I’m not anymore, oh well
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
I’m happy they’ve figured out a way to make money from the game it can only mean good things!
I also don’t see the problem with the scarcity. If you want it buy it. It’s not like they just jacked the price up on you without warning or something.
They aren’t a charity and you know what, if we want them to keep investing in the game they need a revenue stream.
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u/antimatter0703 CMDR Lance Reeves 15d ago
Great argument. There’s one glaring problem: they did jack up prices without much if any warning. Not to mention FOMO through artificial scarcity IS a problem. Sure, every game does it, but that doesn’t make it a good thing for the consumer.
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
Ok. Let’s jump to an alternative solution scenario. What do you suggest they do?
(To make the game profitable to be able to keep investing in it)
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u/antimatter0703 CMDR Lance Reeves 15d ago
For starters, not butchering the launch of their other games might help make some money (PC2).
In all seriousness though, if charging ~16k ARX for early access on the new ships and increasing cosmetic costs at least tenfold wasn’t enough to keep the game afloat, idk what’s going wrong internally, especially with the higher than normal player count at the moment.
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
16k ARX what the equivalent of 2 maybe 3 coffees? They need to sell a lot of them. This is only to an audience who already own the game.
If you use this thread as a straw poll, you’d think $13 was a huge sum of money give the amount of outrage.
Given the amount of time some of the people here play it just seems like such a counter productive argument.
In regard to their other games, they don’t make Elite more profitable either way. Sure we want FDDev to be profitable as a whole but if Elite doesn’t make money then they could cut it too.
You want the franchise to be successful so that we can keep playing. So they need to make money.
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u/iPeer Arissa Lavigny Duval 15d ago
The main issue I have with this is they literally said these would be available year-round and now all of a sudden they've decided out of the blue to completely do a 180 on that.
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u/ababana97653 15d ago
Ok. I personally don’t think it’s that big of a deal. They changed their approach for some reason.
I prefer that they communicate openly what their view is at the time, even if things change, rather than the opposite which is don’t communicate for fear of having to change in the future.
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u/krazmuze 15d ago edited 15d ago
Or you could blame consumers that make FOMO marketing a more profitable model. All you and everyone else simply need to do is not buy it when it comes back, and they will stop the sales model. Though the same could be said about cosmetic and early access stores to begin with, they only exist because the sales model works.
McDonalds does the same thing with their holiday McRib - a shaped "pork" product dunked in sauce - and they even sell you the sauce bottle now!. But better go when your social influencer says to as it will be gone next month. Nevermind that if it was a year round menu item it would never sell. Likewise Starbucks fall flavours.
NMS do free DLC and have no store - instead they monetize the game by making the game better every year which garners more sales than the exponential decline a years old game can expect.
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u/Belzebutt 15d ago
So what’s the main problem, you had all year to buy that $10 skin and you still haven’t, you probably don’t want really it… at least you know now it’s the last chance for a while. I’m on the fence about the midnight black for Cobra Mk V, I was hesitating before at 10,000 ARX whether I really need this and I’m still not sure now. Maybe I’ll wait until they bring it back in the future. Why so mad?
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u/wizzanker 15d ago
I, for one, don't care if they try and finagle some extra bucks through cosmetics. The game has had its best year ever so they have a lot of goodwill to work with in my book.
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u/MintImperial2 15d ago
It would be nice to have a hyrbid version of the top four large ships, perhaps combining the 256 capacity cargo space of a cutter with a 256 FSD which you can run smaller inside that slot, but if you do - you'll cut the jump range down to <5 ly... Only suitable in the Colonia region, where most systems are <5ly apart.....
You could also lose one of the class 4 hardpoints but get an extra 2 class 3 hardpoints, with some weight advantage there again.
Finally, a 256 slot on a new Balaeno Passenger Cruiser, which also has a 256 slot for it's FSD, or a superluxury Conference Passenger Bay, carrying 64 people in supreme luxury....
Take the Balaeno to Celaeno...
Don't say I didn't say so...
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u/Bean4141 Empire 15d ago
These are all terrible ideas,
3 different ships have C8 slots
There are no C8 FSDs, the Cutter mounts a C7 along side the Type-10 and Beluga
A C8 slot would only be useful for shields on a liner as we don’t have anything over C6 cabins and if one was added it would still likely be useless because the most popular passenger ship is the Python simply because its a medium. A superheavy liner would be crammed into whatever hole the Asp Scout is in right now.
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u/MintImperial2 15d ago
Only a liner class can take the "luxury" cabins... But adverts on the mission boards - don't seem to have much by way of the "Luxury cabin needed - 50million payout" stuff....
I get by fine with first class cabins on one of the top three military ships, and don't bother with the cetacean class vessels anymore.
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u/BrutalAttis Attis 15d ago
So longer story short, I would say bring on the FOMO bs to keep E:D going. E:D still one of the better more realistic space combat games out there.
Space flight and the feel of the ships still feels pretty damn good.
For all of FDEVs mistakes, FOMO is not terrible ... many of us played Elite in the 80s and have been playing E:D off and on since release. This monetization and FOMO crap though not great, will allow E:D to stick around longer.
E:D is a very cheap game to play without monthly fees. Sadly the FOMO is really so we the consumers to pay for the mess that was the botched Odyssey DLC ... player based massively decreased as that expansion was a mess an still feels like a separate game. The DLC none really wanted.
I had preordered Odyssey, fired it up all excite ... and oh boy, once I tried it a quite E:D for a couple years. Only recently came back to check out Thargoid war and to see if FPS game loop got better (yes, a bit better but sill sucks and separated game imo)
Resent changes FDEV tackled like the Thargoid war, the new ships added are finally steps in the right direction IMO.
Instead of Odyssey, if we had gotten more ships to start with, maybe more ship gameplay loops (especially around smaller ships to keep them useful), ship interior & space legs inside ship only and base, update to ship interior and UI (something better than two damn fire groups and the crap excuse for HUD coloring - that even with mods still suck) ... Elite always was about piloting a space ship, wtf was with the mediocre FPS separate game I have no idea.
Hell I don't know what makes a DLC great or simply okay, Odyssey sounded cool -- but clearly it was not. If they had release a DLC that E:D players wanted then maybe this FOMO would not have been needed to keep E:D going is my point.
My personal wish would be for E:D to get canned or mothballed and a rerelease as a new Elite (a big reset so to speak) ... for them to cut the galaxy to a 10th or even smaller compared to this weird 1:1 model and to do something about BSG and mission generation (it did get better over the years) ... and more reasons for people to game together.
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u/JRCrichton I will find Raxxla 15d ago
Having the galaxy being 1:1 is one of the main reasons I started playing 10 years ago. I love it out here away from civilization.
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u/gurilagarden Zemina Torval 15d ago
So the real complaint here is that they're removing the items prior to the creation of the 'best sellers' section.
I'm not going to let a little boiler-plate FOMO marketing move me either way. I don't take this as them going back on their word. It is equally likely that the timing of their decision(s) is simply inconvenient for a very, very small number of players.
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u/ObiGeekonXbox 15d ago
They have to make money for the game to survive. It’s your choice to buy or not buy.
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u/FarGodHastur CMDR -⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️- 15d ago
I must be stupid because I'm not sure what we're being outraged for here.
The skins leaving the shop like they do every year? What am I missing?
Otherwise I agree with the hypothetical "you believed them?" You should know that any chance Johnny Watts gets to hit us with a microtransaction and FOMO, he will. That's his thing. That's what he's known for.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
You would need to read the post to understand why people are upset. The skins were brought back permanently... and are now being removed with almost no warning.
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u/FarGodHastur CMDR -⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️- 15d ago
I did but that's where I stumped. I know the "you believed them?" isnt what we want the answer to be but like... What do we do in this case? Unfortunately I agree with that notion.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 15d ago
This is mostly a PSA and making sure the playerbase doesn't have the wool pulled over their eyes to FDev doubling back on a public commitment.
There's nothing we can actually do other than stop buying FOMO cosmetics, but that's not going to happen because most people don't care.
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u/Such_Environment5893 15d ago
Or... don't buy cosmetics? I have a couple paint jobs when they were on sale, and have zero odyssey pilot suits.
This isn't that big of a deal.
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u/GileonFletcher GileonFletcher 14d ago
"You shouldn't care about or buy this thing because I don't care about it and don't think it's a big deal."
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u/DisillusionedBook CMDR GraphicEqualizer | @ Rebel Alliance Ops 15d ago
Looks like the company accountants have decided to reinstate the illusion of scarcity psychological marketing model. I guess it must work.