That translates to:
10.8 Trillion isk for a frigate
18 trillion isk for a cruiser
28.8 trillion for a battleship
I quite certain you can buy a ship from the winners with these kind of offers.
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At what cost to the game?
Money isn’t the only consideration and the negatives of doing this far outweigh the potential increased revenue, to the point that overall revenue isn’t guaranteed to be positive.
The power creep, move to pay-to-win, erosion of value of the ships, dilution of their rarity, etc. are also considerations.
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Yeah no.
We need at least 100k PLEX for frigs, 200k PLEX for cruisers and 500k PLEX for battleships. Why should AT ships in the NES cost less? So you can afford it?
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Everyone already has a fair chance of getting AT ships, there’s almost always people selling AT ships on forums
AT co-captain for Frat. here.
Though I’d never had a chance of getting an AT Hull, I’d say no to this.
Here are the reasons:
- EVE is known for it sandbox play style, and almost all of the previous change in the universe is to remove the system’s involvement in the economic system. Before even talking about what ship to sell, directly selling ships with PLEX is a no go for me. As I read through your replies about direct micro-transaction to purchase in game materials, you seem to be fine with that. If that is the case then there is no need to continue reading the other reasons, because we won’t come to an agreement anyway.
- AT hulls are promised to be unique and limited in quantity. Before we even talk about how Overpowered they are, they are the reward for being the best of that particular year. People invested trillions in ISK and hundreds of hours of practice. Even if they are just skins, not real OP ships, selling these rewards in store is a simple bad idea because it just show disrespect for player effort.
- Then we’d talk about the performance. No matter if you are selling the original OP version of the ship, or less OP but better than average version, it will influence the whole balance of PVP and PVE. On PVP side, massive fight is less affected because they are usually just a “+1” game, the more players you have the better you get. For smaller scale PVP where two sides got similar numbers, it will become pay to win: you’d need to use these ships otherwise you are simple in disadvantage. This is especially true for Abyssal PVP, which is limited to 1 vs 1 with cruiser hull. On PVE side, all of the current PVE content are designed around regular ships. With better ships available through real currency, these content will either lose the challenge, or too hard for regular ships. Both of them are not good result.
- Lost players are not going to be replaced by the new players. The retention rate of EVE online is so low that less than 10 percent of new player actually continue playing after a week (or something similar to that). This poor retention rate is due to hard to learn mechanisms, high death punish, boring PVE, poor new player guide and etc, etc. It is not going to be solved with making OP ships available in the store. Even you make a new character and boost it with Skill injector and a fancy AT hull, it won’t keep you playing as you would just suddenly got poped somewhere. Only experienced PVP players are going to best utilize those ships, but how many of them would invest that real life currency into getting one? How many of them will actually agree this as a good idea?
On the Serenity server (the Chinese server), some of these AT ship were actually handed out as a reward for a 12 month subscription. What we see is endless 10 ab Gold Magnet roaming around, and you have to counter them with Gold Magnet.
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they would still be pay to win though that is the problem
OP, here you go, a Raven State Issue for sale.
You raise a fair point about skill injectors and the state of “Pay to Win” in EvE, but there are substantial differences between injecting your way maximum skills and being able to buy overpowered ships directly from CCP for real world currency.
To put it in terms of skillpoints to make the comparison easier, consider this: what you’re proposing is less like injecting skillpoints that players can use across any existing skill and more like offering up a new skill that makes existing skills obsolete thus forcing everyone to buy it in order to remain competitive. Oh, and they can buy that skill from CCP directly for real world currency, whereas with skillpoints they have to buy injectors from the player-driven market.
See the difference? That’s power creep.
(And yes, injectors are a form of power creep as well, but that in no way justifies even worse power creep.)
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OP can’t afford it
They countered it by removing local, adding drifter fleets, and perhaps additional things in the future. However the revenue for ccp through buying extractors was worth the new changes that the injectors brought, more people can fly ships faster now, and ccp makes more money.
I disagree, strong yes, but you can easily kill an AT frigate with a t1 destroyer if the AT frig is kitey fit and you are in say an algos or catalyst at close range.
Remember plex was divided into 500 units a few years back, I mean the individual units not the 1 month plex.
Yes, having the items be that much would mean no one buys it. You want it high enough that it is not competitive with a faction frigate, but not so high that purchases are rare and thus ccp does not get revenue.
But CCP does not get revenue from those purchases. And the items are limited, so the more that they die, the more expensive and out of reach of players they become.
Wow are you still arguing this? At some point you gotta realize you’ve made your argument, you have defended your argument.
You haven’t added anything new, just regurgitated the same points over the last XX replies.
It’s beating a dead horse at this point. CCP will read this and either think its a worthwhile idea or not.
Great arguments made, I certainly would not be in favor of giving them out as a subscription reward, but rather as a ship or BPC purchase. Attaching them to other packages will only make them more common and they should be a rare and fun fight if you face a pilot with one.
The sandbox is already influenced with real world currency. Many players in nullsec inject directly into supercarriers, titans, FAX, and other ships to both help their alliance, and to try out new things. Another poster mentioned the effect on the economy, but CCP is doing a good job at balancing out the effects of injectors with the age of chaos.
They should be rare. The only free ships should be the reward for the tournament, which is effectively paid for with free publicity for CCP in the form of the special tournament variant of the AT ships. The generic hulls should only be available for purchase with plex, thus the introduction in the game be limited only by paying ccp.
PVE is already influenced by high end ships. Even if the PVE content is buffed and more wealth introduced in the economy, CCP can easily add more isk and wealth sinks into the game to counter them.
Finally, many new players are playing as alpha and switching to omega. The alpha to omega path works really well in getting people interested in the game and later paying for it. So long as eve continues to provide content for the newer players, and even helps add to highsec missions and other activities, the game will grow.
EVE is already ‘pay to win’. If I buy omega and inject into all level 5 skills including support and auxiliary for a frigate, and duel your 3 day old alpha alt, there is a very good chance that I will be the victor, assuming equal skill in game mechanics and pvp.
Very nice. The issue is the price tag for the majority of players. If however it was 50-100B in plex in the plex store, more people could possibly buy it and ccp could make money off of their purchase.
The difference here is that anyone can skill up the skills normally as well, without buying skill injectors. Your idea would be selling power. Look at current supers and titans
BALANCING THROUGH PRICE DOES NOT WORK IN EVE.
Your idea sucks. Accept it and move on.
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The thing is the ships themselves are not that much more powerful than other ships. I would say the chremoras for example is around double as powerful as the dramiel, since it can warp cloaked and has additional buffs vs the dramiel. However the reason why AT ships tend to be so powerful is because the cost is so high, people fit it with abyssaled officer mods and the absolute highest end of the line equipment, implants, and boosters. Get a t2 fit chremoras and fight a dramiel and while it likely would win, it may not vs 2 or 3 dramiels. You however have an argument about power creep, I counter by saying all games have power creep, the veteran with many years is going to be light years ahead of the newer player.