I dont see this as pay-2-win, it's just pay-to-avoid-the-grind... and helps the players who dont have all the time in the world to play the game. Creating an Anti-Xeno build for sale with Arx doesnt mean anyone has won Elite Dangerous
pay 2 win or pay to skip, same thing. Are you gaining "any" kind of advantage by paying real money? If so it's pay to win. The rot has started. And by paying to avoid the grind and time to achieve the same thing, de-incentivises them from doing any sort of re-balancing.
I've sort of made my peace with what where Frontier is going and what Elite/Odyssey is. I stopped playing a few years ago because of the whole "Odyssey doesn't work in VR" thing. Now that the urge hit me to play again, I decided to go with head tracking again (which is almost as immersive in its own way :) ) Anyway, by stepping away for so long I was able to appreciate Elite for what it is on its terms, and remember that most of the fun in the game (much like the original 1984 version) comes from what's going on in your head when you play. So no grinding for credits or maxing out my ship or wanting a fleet carrier or anything like that. Just me in my Keelback, working in an Anarchy system as I do my bit to help the "good" factions in the system. Hell, I haven't even been in a ship-to-ship fight yet (though unavoidably had to fight pirates on some ground locations... what a bunch of lemmings. DUDE, I'M in an SRV. YOU are on foot. Call your taxi and bail already! ;) ) In short, nothing Frontier is proposing to do will affect how I personally play. Whether it's good for the community as a whole? That's a whole other question.
It's pay to win if the pre-built/premium ships would be 0 cr rebuy. That effectively takes the risk out of the game other than inconvenience of respawn. It saddens me that every game seems to eventually knuckle under and become easy and simple.
Paid ships might be testing the waters for moving away from the pay-once live service model. Which probably won't bother most people IF it results in noticeable improvements and more additions to the game. I suspect paid ships will not be the end of monetization. If I could jump in with a fully kitted out ship what motivation would I have to do cargo runs, asteroid mining or bounty hunting, etc? Time will tell. Good luck with the house move!
Sorry for bumping into you, that was beyond my control. Enjoy life up there! There can be only one and always will be, he's T h e N a r r a t o r ! (of lore). Can't wait to listen to you again, keep cooking (up)!
Regarding potential locations, I moved to the Isle of Skye a couple of years ago. Pros - Fiber internet (where available), endless scenery, having a bridge rather than a ferry, essential shops, no speed cameras and a nice community. Cons - Tourists, rain (better that than the snow the east coast gets), midges, relatively high house prices, grim winters and again tourists. I travel south twice a year and it's around 12hrs however you do it. Inverness is about 2.5 hours drive with the option of a bus or scenic train. Good luck with house hunting!
If they want to make some money, why don't they make buying a second commander frictionless. Ie click a button in game and pay some arks. I don't know how many times I wanted to have a second commander over the years but didn't want to deal with the hassle of trying to set it up. Also, they really have a knack of devaluing players achievements. All that hard work to engineer ships put in by players over the years reduced to a tenner. Just like it took me 40 years to reach the top rank of Elite. I had the top rank for like 3 months and then they introduced Elite I,II etc. I mean I don't know how a company can make so many boneheaded decisions.
One reason a veteran player would like to buy a pre engineered ship, could be on a second account say an exploration account where you may not want to do the engineering gameplay again.
You have no chance vs them... you can actually build a parcour for em... with swinging rotating things.... search for squirrel parcour and just give up.
Pay to win or not, I really question the logic of allowing new players with zero ingame experience to skip right to fairly challenging and complicated gameplay such as AX titan runs and core mining. Maybe they're planning on releasing a new set of tutorials to go along with these builds?
even though I play a few weeks, I like this game, spending a bit for a new ship is ok for a dying company to me, managment do stupid things and greedy is common
