Dilithium Exchange Why going up so High

starmanj

Dilithium Exchange Why is it going up so High, LOL it going to be as high as it was 6 years ago at this rate. I think it is time for a Dilithium drain projects to be made.

alcyoneserene

Drain projects don't work for all that long. I'd guess those who have the resources finish them up quickly, while those that don't won't even touch them anyways.

The only solution I could think of is to reduce Dil payout drastically across the board.

Having piles of ore isn't fun, and feels like punishment to even play those toons knowing how long it would take to refine any of that by the time the market hits the ceiling.

Now, the average casual player with one or very few toons probably maxes out refining cap daily with little trouble, which on the whole means a ton of Dil eager to acquire their 1st 2nd or 3rd ship, ship bundle, other expensive c-store item no matter how long it takes.

I've heard so much speculation that 'it'll go down, just wait until after x or y is over' and by now they should have figured out the balance is way offset and the trends only show a steady increase, the most drastic of which was when they added Dil rewards to patrols.

desertjets

I'd have figured we would hit some equilibrium at this point, with research lab being out long enough and no new shinies in the C-store for a bit. BUT there is just so much dil out there.

I really think the admiralty system has just poured it on. I've been barely playing much these days, just doffing and admiralty and I am sitting on a boat load of unrefined dil. If you are somewhat purposeful with how you play admiralty you can cycle the Klingon tour of duty in 10-15 days and get that sweet lump sum of dil. Now imagine somebody that actually has time to do more than DOFF/admiralty and they have even more dil sitting around. Now with the anniversary event coming up and anticipation of a new ship release the dilex will continue to climb.

lordsteve1

It's so easy to acquire dil these days there's so much of it around. It's almost hyperinflation where the stuff is actually becoming worthless to buy zen with. Good for sellers, not anyone else.
But even considering all that the jump last night was 10pts in less than 24hrs, that some extreme inflation with no clearly visible cause.

Best things to do would be either:

• Reduce the rewards, this might upset some players who are not farming the stuff though or those who lack access to a full suite of admiralty ships & doffs.
• Add in a massive constant dilithium sink. No idea what, maybe some massive fleet holding that needs a tonne of the stuff.
• Add a new exchange whereby any currency can swap to any other type, with certain limits on prices & volumes to avoid exploits. Let us swap dil direct for EC etc.
• Allow dil ore to be used but at a much reduced value and with a daily limit on how much can be used.

szerontzur

I.. don't think the issue is particularly the quantity of dilithium sinks(we have plenty), but rather the quality/value of them.

Reputation Stores(not projects) are probably a good example of something that needs to be re-evaluated. How many people actually think those items are worth the sticker price? What kind of dilithium price would make you consider buying things from them?

I seriously don't see the average player burning most of a week's worth of dilithium on a single rep store item. However, having stores that bleed a few thousand dilithium from players each day.. could be a huge improvement to the overall economy.

samt1996

We have way too many ways to spend Dilithium. As I pointed out in a previous thread some sinks don't have enough reward Incentive and so are filled by a few such as fleet projects which reward TRIBBLE for your dilithium.

The massive amounts of unrefined dilithium could be dealt with better I suppose. All in all I'm not concerned, markets always fluctuate and this is no exception.

sisteric

I disagree with the fact that there is too much dilithium. I play almost every day. Mostly I just DOff and Admiralty. I don't get enough Dil to use my max daily conversion rate every day on most of the characters. I also don't make any effort to search out and collect Dil. So, to me, the payouts are fine. If the exchange is going up, then we need to look at why the value of Dil is going down.
Why is there no demand for the Dil at this time? I think that's because most people have used their dil to get what they want. SO they have nothing they feel the need to spend it on. Change that and the market will reverse. Just my opinion at this time.

aliguana

?? it takes me four days worth of dil refining to get 1 rep store piece. x4 (shield, engine, core, deflector) is two weeks. x 8 (ground shield, weapon, armour etc) is a month. per rep. that's like a year to get all the pieces of every rep set. A year in which i can't convert dil to zen, upgrade my weapons, etc etc. I simply don't have spare refined dil to donate to fleet, let alone do anything else with. And you want to "bleed a few thousand dil from players every day?" jeez. There would be no point playing because anything you have to buy with dil would be an impossible grind to get.

Punish the players who are buying Zen and selling it for obscene amounts of dil, not the average Jane who's struggling to get enough dil to simply play the game.

I'd make it so you can convert dil to Zen, but the end supplier is Cryptic/PW, not users, and at a set rate. Remove the option to sell Zen for dil completely.

misterferengi

err maybe players shouldn't sell it at such high prices, if its a player driven economy ?. As even if dil was as scarce as a lockbox ship the price is decided by players. So i don't ness put it down to the amount of dil one has, but the decision of the individual of how much they sell it for. Pretty much like the exchange. Free market that is decided by the few that have that make the have nots pay more than something is worth.

samt1996

Heh, and as usual all the economically inept start blaming the so called 1% for all of society's problems never stopping to realize that said people are the force driving the entire economy forward... typical.

aliguana

we don't want to drive the economy forward though, we want to reel it back, halt the ***** thing

szerontzur

@aliguana

I think you missed my point, so I will paraphrase:

The only thing I personally spend dilithium on these days is either zen or fleet projects that are moving slowly. If I could spend a couple thousand dilithium per item to gear alts instead of dozens of thousand per item, I would use my dilithium for that instead. (There will always be new ships and reputations to fit, so there is a constant need for gear. The current prices are just prohibiting the value of reputation stores as a dilithium sink - atleast for me.)

By spending it on reptuation stores and whatnot, it lessens the supply of dilithium(by taking it out of the economy directly), which in turn increases the value of dilithium itself.

lordsteve1

I think the reputation system at the moment is a bit of an overloaded monster to be quite frank. 8 different reps each with a space set, weapons set and ground set, but with the problem being that once you get to Lvl. 60 most of that stuff is inadequate without upgrades. Plus by the time you are top level you probably have no need of most of it because it won't fit your build.
Used to be fairly generic helpful items that most builds can use, now it's getting really specialized and that means most of it gets ignored.
I bought all the bits from Omega, Nukara, Romulan but I haven't touched on the Iconian or Terran rep besides the Terran torp & console. It's just not that interesting of worth the cost.

dareau

Here's a question for some of the posters here:

If Zen is "too expensive" for your dil-budgets, why are you buying? And why aren't you "organizing" the other Dil buyers into not "wasting" that much zen on each dil they get?

That's the thing with this "free market" economy junk that people don't truly get. The "sellers" don't drive the economy - all they can do is put their stuff on the market and attempt to sell it.

The other half are the buyers. If they don't like the price, they have the equally valid choice of not buying until the offered price is where they'd want it to be.

sisteric

dareau wrote: »

Here's a question for some of the posters here:

If Zen is "too expensive" for your dil-budgets, why are you buying? And why aren't you "organizing" the other Dil buyers into not "wasting" that much zen on each dil they get?

That's the thing with this "free market" economy junk that people don't truly get. The "sellers" don't drive the economy - all they can do is put their stuff on the market and attempt to sell it.

The other half are the buyers. If they don't like the price, they have the equally valid choice of not buying until the offered price is where they'd want it to be.

I am not buying. As for organizing others, well, I think this is really a personal issue. It's more of how much value do you place on that Dil? Once you have that point, you shouldn't buy any more. But it would be hard to get every single buyer to agree on that exact point. And so I don't even try.

danielhunter1991

I noticed this, I just guessed it was because of the aniversary. Plus I think a few people out there are half expecting t6 flag ships to be coming out some when soon. Those where the days when two days worth of dilithium was enough for a hundred zen.

tom61sto

Two big things happened recently, the 'Last Chance Lockbox Event' and the announcement that Q's mini-game to get parts to make Omega Tech Upgrades is returning this year.

Some people are now buying keys to open up lockboxes they missed previously or wanted more parts from, but weren't willing to buy those boxes off the exchange. Some are buying keys in preparation for the new lockbox that'll drop after this 'Last Chance', too. Usually a jump in Dil prices whenever this happens.

The Omega Tech Upgrades require no Dil, on top of giving more Tech Points and higher upgrade chance, so Dil being held back for upgrades is now freed up.

A smaller thing is that there might be a C-Store pack that has a set bonus with the Krenim Sci ship's console, like the Command BCs and the Samsar, so some are going for that too.

thegrandnagus1

Pretty simple: there are not enough sinks (that people care about). Whether they have already gotten whatever items they wanted or just don't care about getting them, the dilithium is not flowing out of the economy, making it less valuable.

rezking

dareau wrote: »

Here's a question for some of the posters here:

If Zen is "too expensive" for your dil-budgets, why are you buying? And why aren't you "organizing" the other Dil buyers into not "wasting" that much zen on each dil they get?

That's the thing with this "free market" economy junk that people don't truly get. The "sellers" don't drive the economy - all they can do is put their stuff on the market and attempt to sell it.

The other half are the buyers. If they don't like the price, they have the equally valid choice of not buying until the offered price is where they'd want it to be.

+1

I only wish there was a direct Dil-EC conversion.

syrilian

Personally I think it's just a simple case of decreased population. Both fewer people buying and selling through the exchange will increase the rate.
Can't say I see a way of really reversing this unless you can increase the population.
The daily cap could be increased to compensate and possible increase the player base, but I don't think this would be a decent solution unless the cash costs were also lowered.

Also i have to say it's only seems to be 'easier' to get dilithium to those already sitting on a stockpile. There are certainly more ways to get the stuff but, imo, the cap means it's basically the same. Used to be able to do the pvp dailys to get that cap in aprox 15min, now it takes about 45min in one of the rep playgrounds. But the rep playgrounds + event weekend will get u a decent stockpile of unrefined for a few hours, so they balance out.

sheldonlcooper

The answer is that there is plenty of dil and a new group of players that are happy to get 1 zen for 100,000 dilithium. ie. players that think 200 or 250 is a 'good' or 'balanced' exchange rate.

As I've said many times, today is the best day to buy zen. Why? Because tomorrow it will be higher - until we hit the cap.

The current spurt is caused by people wanting to buy keys both for the lockbox replay and the upcoming lockbox.

and p.s. the 1% do not drive the economy.

seaofsorrows

I love how people are proposing ways that Cryptic could 'fix this,' even though there is absolutely no reason why they would.

Why would Cryptic want to do anything to fix this 'problem?' The more expensive Zen is through use of Dilithium, the more likely players are to buy Zen with cash instead. There is one reason that the price is so high, people are paying it.. it's that simple.

You want it fixed? The power is the players hands. Don't buy.

The only way Zen exchange prices will go down is if people quit paying the current price and that won't happen. People like to blame game design and say there is too much dilithium or that something should be done to regulate the 'problem,' when the situation is 100% created by the players. It's a player driven economy, if you think the price is unfair, don't pay it. If enough people agree and take the same action, then the price comes down.

There is absolutely no reason for Cryptic to see this as a problem or take any action to 'fix' it. You have the power, use it.

a3001

And there are those who want to increase the refining cap....

rattler2

I have to agree with what's causing the spike. So many events that have made ZEN more desirable back to back with no relief in sight. We had the Mirror Invasion and release of the Jupiter, the holiday sale, the Hestia sale, the current Lockbox Event...

NOTHING has been done to counterbalance the spike. And so prices go up. When we don't get a sale or DL event for an extended period, we drop back down to a balance point. What we need is a high quality DL sink to help balance to economy and make Dilithium desirable again. Something that will be worthwhile.

sheldonlcooper

The thing is it would have to be so worthwhile that the majority wouldn't just skip it. Let's face it, without the upgrade system we would be sitting at 500 right now. But now that has lost it's sinking punch. So there's nowhere to go but up.

There would have to be something equally as desirable as upgrading your weapons. That kept us from the climb for over a year. MK 15? hmm I think too many would skip it. Maybe by September they would accept it. Anything with fleet people will skip. I have no ideas for worthwhile sinks because I don't think there are any anymore. Now it is all about lockbox - which is mostly Cryptic's fault. So all anyone wants to do with dil is buy keys. Before you would spend dil to buy rep gear, small fleets, etc.

angrybobh

szerontzur wrote: »

I.. don't think the issue is particularly the quantity of dilithium sinks(we have plenty), but rather the quality/value of them.

Reputation Stores(not projects) are probably a good example of something that needs to be re-evaluated. How many people actually think those items are worth the sticker price? What kind of dilithium price would make you consider buying things from them?

I seriously don't see the average player burning most of a week's worth of dilithium on a single rep store item. However, having stores that bleed a few thousand dilithium from players each day.. could be a huge improvement to the overall economy.

I completely agree with this. Rep stores and EQ upgrades are not worth the price. If they were, they would probably cause a massive swing in the price of zen. I have over 1.3 mil refined dil hanging around but I only have MK XII equipment. Like whats being said about dil/zen exchange (to which I agree) If you don't like the price, don't buy. I have only upgraded a handful of items and have determined that the cost is too high for me to upgrade, so I won't. My dil is not being sunk and it will end up as zen eventually.

of other ideas presented, I like the idea of a dil/ec exchange and if unrefined could be used for certain things at a max per day. Combine these with better rep store and upgrades and I believe any problems with the market will calm down. That middle may be like it was not so long ago stable around 250 which is fine with me.

ltminns

You want a Dilithium Sink, craft Epic Equipment. Fleet Dilithium Projects are mere child's play in comparison.

cidjack

Come on 500!!!!

starmanj

desertjets wrote: »

I'd have figured we would hit some equilibrium at this point, with research lab being out long enough and no new shinies in the C-store for a bit. BUT there is just so much dil out there.

I really think the admiralty system has just poured it on. I've been barely playing much these days, just doffing and admiralty and I am sitting on a boat load of unrefined dil. If you are somewhat purposeful with how you play admiralty you can cycle the Klingon tour of duty in 10-15 days and get that sweet lump sum of dil. Now imagine somebody that actually has time to do more than DOFF/admiralty and they have even more dil sitting around. Now with the anniversary event coming up and anticipation of a new ship release the dilex will continue to climb.

I here you I am Cap out on 10 mil un-refined DIL ore everyday now for the past 3 years

thegrandnagus1

cidjack wrote: »

Come on 500!!!!

Yeah, bring it on. Once we get to 500, there is nowhere to go but down.