Gamer term, from back when Dragon Magazine still existed, and D&D was still being published by TSR. What it derives from:
Monte Hall, host of "Let's make a Deal", a gameshow that saw popularity in the decades before cable Teevee, much less the internet. (The sixties and seventies).
What it means:
A GM (games master) who rewards players for showing up. Not for playing well, or for roleplaying well, or for being creative, but for showing up. Rewards them richly for showing up. Piles upon piles of Epic lootz, unique artifacts by the catalogue entry, vast sums of in-game currency-for doing the most trivial of things. "Killed a lone Kobold? here's an Epic Sword of Everythingslaying plus twenty-five!!" (makes more sense when you recognize that to-hit was calculated with a 20 sided dice and the base damage for a sword was 1D8, while most low level monsters had around 1D6 hitpoints.)
killed a goblin? Well look there! in its pockets you find an epic bag of holding filled with 1 Million Gold!!! (where the conversion rates 10 copper to 10 silver to 10 gold and most things cost around 5 silver or less.)
The Monty Haul DM is usually either inexperienced, or does this because nobody would tolerate his campaign style if he didn't dump vast amounts of suite Lootz every session to try and curry favor with his players. Notably, as players get more experienced in those games, they would tend to leave the Monty Haul DM/GM entirely seeking more immersive, challenging or interesting fare from DM's and GM's that didn't dump massive kingly rewards on their character merely for showing up in an effort to pathetically buy their loyalty.
Note that back in tabletop days, everyone who ever took on the job of DM/GM goes through this phase, and the ones who claim not to?
are lying either to themselves or everyone else.
Usage: what it means, is a Game master (or in the case of online and computer games, developer) who dumps rewards on the players just for showing up, then can't figure out how to fix their in-setting economy in the presence of so much gold it would sink the continent if not for the vast array of extraordinarily powerful artifacts also left gathering dust in the same stronghold basement.
one of the worst traits of the Monty Haul, is that their campaigns are unrestricted powercreep. To the point that they have to create gods for their players to fight in order to present any challenge whatsoever, and the vast array of stuff they've given their players over past sessions means that effort is insanely difficult. I mean, what're you going to do when the wizard's rocking a ring of unlimited wishes at god-level or the theif's got so many luck enhancers that he literally doesn't have a challenge rating he can't meet? (or the Fighter who's also casting both cleric and wizard spells at max level with no handicap thanks to the pile of enchanted gear you mistakenly gave him last session?)
what happens? Nerfs. If the GM lasts long enough to see his players leaving out of boredom, his first move is to nerf the TRIBBLE out everything-losing many players in the process, but if he's a true monty haul type, he'll end up nerfing to give them something even MORE overpowered later on.
does any of this sound familiar?
Not really. STO does reward players just for showing up, but simply as an extension of Easy Mode To The Max. A policy of "everyone must be able to win everything every time," which necessarily translates to the game winning itself no player action required.
STO doesn't give millions of gold or epic loot for everything you do, but rather bags of peanuts and a once-per-day token you can exchange for a item after collecting them for weeks. An item that's usually so mediocre the most interesting bit is the "exclusivity" of it going away after the event. And it is once per day. You want to play more? Well tough, it's peanuts for rewards or come back tomorrow.
STO doesn't try to create "gods" for us to fight to present any challenge, just the opposite. It puts a timer on the quest that makes the bad guys give up on their own, in case the players are too lazy or weak to fight even the same old HP sack mooks.
Nor does STO have all that much actual power creep. Players are simply overpowered to begin with because all the content is designed to be winnable by newbies. And the thing is, it doesn't even matter. The majority of content is timed, so often the biggest difference between an clueless newbie and a DPS-god is the number of endlessly-respawning optional rubber ducks they manage to shoot before the "You Win!" timer hits zero.
And on topic, STO doesn't actually create that much EC either. The problem is there's almost nothing to actually sink it at all. All the gear sold for EC is generic low-level junk, consumables are unnecessary, boff training manuals are dirt cheap and only needed once, rep projects drop free gear that vendors for more EC than the project consumed, etc, etc.
They need to sell something for EC that people actually want.
I support the idea of an exchange tax provided the removed EC has a direct, visible and positive effect on players. How about some kind of point system? Every EC that is taxed out of the game through the exchange will be added to this pool of points which is then distributed evenly among all players. These points could then be traded for some trinkets in a store dedicated to them, like the event token buyback store. The more the players use the exchange to tax EC out of the system the more points will be generated which will give us a motivation to actually help getting the EC out of the game. It would add a level of player control, like the server wide objectives during the original recruitment events, and remove the feeling that hard earned EC isn't simply robbed from us.
2% service tax on every item sold via the exchange. *drops mic*
I think you dropped your mic prematurely. One of the criteria is that the solution must be desirable, a sales tax is definitely not desirable by much of the player base. Plus as others have pointed out such an idea would shift a lot of high value trades off the exchange.
I support the idea of an exchange tax provided the removed EC has a direct, visible and positive effect on players. How about some kind of point system? Every EC that is taxed out of the game through the exchange will be added to this pool of points which is then distributed evenly among all players. These points could then be traded for some trinkets in a store dedicated to them, like the event token buyback store. The more the players use the exchange to tax EC out of the system the more points will be generated which will give us a motivation to actually help getting the EC out of the game. It would add a level of player control, like the server wide objectives during the original recruitment events, and remove the feeling that hard earned EC isn't simply robbed from us.
Don't know... I don't see how that would actually work. Especially since it requires them to make new items that might not actually turn out to be desirable by the community, and thus ignored, which in turn would just turn this "incentive program" into a straight up tax with everyone ignoring the Incentive part.
I support the idea of an exchange tax provided the removed EC has a direct, visible and positive effect on players. How about some kind of point system? Every EC that is taxed out of the game through the exchange will be added to this pool of points which is then distributed evenly among all players. These points could then be traded for some trinkets in a store dedicated to them, like the event token buyback store. The more the players use the exchange to tax EC out of the system the more points will be generated which will give us a motivation to actually help getting the EC out of the game. It would add a level of player control, like the server wide objectives during the original recruitment events, and remove the feeling that hard earned EC isn't simply robbed from us.
Don't know... I don't see how that would actually work. Especially since it requires them to make new items that might not actually turn out to be desirable by the community, and thus ignored, which in turn would just turn this "incentive program" into a straight up tax with everyone ignoring the Incentive part.
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
And others have mentioned that as far as they have noticed, there hasn't been all that much EC inflation.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that is really experiencing EC inflation is lockbox and lobi ships (ANyone else remember when you could pick up an end game ship for 50mil?). Which makes sense. To get a lockbox/lobi ship so many boxes have to be opened that all the less desirable rewards are generated in far greater abundance than a single player could want.
But what would happen if lockboxes were removed from STO? without lockbox and lobi ships to save for EC earners would turn to spending their EC on other things. Assuming they still have an impetus to play at that point.
We are all working on the assumption that Borticus is looking for ways to counter the current EC inflation. I am not sure that's the case. What if he is looking for ways to keep the game economy going in the event that cryptic is forced to give up lockboxes?
I am not saying its going to happen. But lets credit Borticus with some foresight hear. Maybe he is preparing for the worst case scenario, which is only smart.
Umm, no. We're not going to start "doom and gloom" about Lockboxes. This has nothing to do with Lockboxes. So, I'm going to stop that right there before this thread derails into a lockbox debate.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
Your idea falls flat due to it's space socialism aspect. Ideological preferences aside, I think it's safe to say most players of STO are motivated by self gains for their character(s), with a few, but likely still a minority also for their fleet. So the idea that taxes are pooled and the rewards divided evenly among players would only enthuse a few space bums and ultra casuals, and add nothing to the desirability or rather lack there of for a taxation system.
Now if STO were transformed into more of an RvR or Fleet vs Fleet game then you could motivate players around this concept of shared gain for their faction/fleet. But so long as it's a PvE centric game where most players treat it as a single player RPG ideas like yours are a non starter.. and we can all be fairly confident STO isn't going to strongly deviate from that model.
And others have mentioned that as far as they have noticed, there hasn't been all that much EC inflation.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that is really experiencing EC inflation is lockbox and lobi ships (ANyone else remember when you could pick up an end game ship for 50mil?). Which makes sense. To get a lockbox/lobi ship so many boxes have to be opened that all the less desirable rewards are generated in far greater abundance than a single player could want.
But what would happen if lockboxes were removed from STO? without lockbox and lobi ships to save for EC earners would turn to spending their EC on other things. Assuming they still have an impetus to play at that point.
We are all working on the assumption that Borticus is looking for ways to counter the current EC inflation. I am not sure that's the case. What if he is looking for ways to keep the game economy going in the event that cryptic is forced to give up lockboxes?
I am not saying its going to happen. But lets credit Borticus with some foresight hear. Maybe he is preparing for the worst case scenario, which is only smart.
Well Cryptic do seem to like to live up to their name. But from Borticus's Twitter post it was plain he wanted to find new EC sinks, and generally in games such as this it's to counter inflation as the result of increased money supply. But yeah the real motivations remain cryptic, and I agree with you and others that I've not noticed a clear inflationary trend. Even on Lobi ships that you mentioned they have gone down not up in the last few years, as they used to sit around 300mil and now are more like 200mil. Those along with Lockbox ships which have increased in cost I think is more a matter of supply and demand than too much EC in the game.
I think at this point it's still a longshot in seeing gamble boxes banned here in the US where Cryptic is based.. at least in the near term. But even if that happened Cryptic could just add the promo and lockbox ships to the Zen store at exorbitant costs. After all every Zen that exists has been paid for with real (well more real) money. The amount EC in circulation doesn't really impact Cryptic's profits from Zen, only how much it's valued by players in player to player exchanges.
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
No, you haven't. It's the peeps obstinately keeping up this tax nonsense who have missed Borticus clearly asking for "Desirable" things to spend EC with. Despite several people repeatedly pointing it out.
Taxes are desirable things. Then everyone can go to the Academy for free, repair health damage without cost, even in the field, and get a steady income of 1,500,000 EC a month.
Warp and Singularity Cores will be replaced by Risian Solar Sail Drives.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
You have not missed any comment from Cryptic as far as I know. The prediction was simply based on empirical observations from how other MMOs deal with inflation.
Your idea falls flat due to it's space socialism aspect. Ideological preferences aside, I think it's safe to say most players of STO are motivated by self gains for their character(s), with a few, but likely still a minority also for their fleet. So the idea that taxes are pooled and the rewards divided evenly among players would only enthuse a few space bums and ultra casuals, and add nothing to the desirability or rather lack there of for a taxation system.
Experience from this game itself actually tells another story. The server wide goals, that benefited all players equally during the recruitment events, had a noticeable impact on player participation in game activities. You are of course entitled to your own opinion and I will not be tricked by you to turn this into a discussion about socialism.
Ask this question when you are able to post something on the exchange for an infinite amount of EC.
No...the question was based on the taxation of the exchange, not an individual item. It doesn't matter how many items you have you could tax it at 50% and it wouldn't make a difference when you have an unlimited amount of currency pouring into the game. How does a 2% tax on an infinite amount of currency make any difference? It doesn't.
It is honestly frighting how completely clueless you are.
Sigh..... The more i read this thread, the more that sinking feeling drops down my gut, telling me i will never, ever, in my lifetime (or STO's, whichever ends first) have epic mkXV weapons, consoles or gear.
Every time i look at the exchange a small sparkle of hope ignites inside, for just a few seconds, in which i dream there's something on it that i can afford.
Every time its snuffed out without compassion with me realizing the amounts the stuff i can use have at least one but more often 2 more digits than the total amount of my EC balance.
All hope abandoned i beam back up to my ship and go play with my toys (doff/admiralty) for a while before i have the motivation again to do something like a TFO or something.
Sigh..... The more i read this thread, the more that sinking feeling drops down my gut, telling me i will never, ever, in my lifetime (or STO's, whichever ends first) have epic mkXV weapons, consoles or gear.
Every time i look at the exchange a small sparkle of hope ignites inside, for just a few seconds, in which i dream there's something on it that i can afford.
Every time its snuffed out without compassion with me realizing the amounts the stuff i can use have at least one but more often 2 more digits than the total amount of my EC balance.
All hope abandoned i beam back up to my ship and go play with my toys (doff/admiralty) for a while before i have the motivation again to do something like a TFO or something.
1. Start working on your crafting. Get your Beams and/or Cannons to Level 15.
2. Create the weapon you want, craft it at Mark II. It will finish as a Mark II Very Rare. If the Mods aren't great, you can change them.
3. Wait until there is a Phoenix Box event. When the Phoenx Box event is running, buy Phoenix Boxes from the Dilithium Store. Unless there is something you really want, just convert all of your Phoenix Tokens to Uncommon (Green) and trade them for Phoenix Upgrade kits. Phoenix Kits apply 4 times the points of a Superior Kit and don't take any Dilithium to apply. Even though you're spending Dilithium on the kits, you end up saving a ton. Save these kits for an Upgrade Weekend.
4. During Upgrade Weekend, use the Phoenix Kits to upgrade your item from Mark II to Mark XV. If you're trying to push the item to Epic, you should do the first set of upgrades using an Omega Upgrade from the Anniversary Event if you have one. Otherwise, you can just pump Phoenix Kits into it until it's maxed.
If you really don't want to bother with all of this, then you can just take the Dilithium you would have spent on Phoenix Kits and convert it into Zen. Use the Zen to buy Master Keys and sell the keys for 4-5 Million each and buy what you want.
Either way, it's not that hard and the process won't change just because someone adds an Exchange Tax. The Tax won't magically make you 'space rich,' you're going to have to put some work in.
Glad this isnt LotRO then. Posting fees=bad idea. The tax on sale is fine, but posting fees hurt those without a lot of ec while merely being a slight inconvenience for the ones Bort seems to be trying to drain EC from. Lets stop suggesting a posting fee people, that way lays badness.
It was suggested as a tax for sold items.
It is also why it was recommended as a percentage. 2 or whatever % of a 1.5B ec deal is more than of a 50k deal. As consequence rich players sink more than poor ones do.
Also new or casual players that don’t play the exchange much don’t get targeted at all.
Think the idea is best we had so far.
I know it's a rare thing.. but I disagree with you.
I do like the idea of finding an in game sink for EC, something similar to Phoenix Kits that people would sink funds into.. I don't like the idea of an exchange tax.
Honestly, I don't think it will help. I think what will happen is that people with big ticket items will just go to trade channels instead of using the exchange and that creates a whole other mess of potential problems with scamming players. I like the Exchange because it's simple, and you run no risk of getting scammed unless of course you just decide to pay way more then something is worth which is on you.
I really don't see the Exchange tax working since players can just arrange private trades. Why would I list my 1.5 Billion EC ship on the exchange and pay tens of millions in fees when I can just sell it to you directly in a trade channel and get my entire 1.5 Billion that frankly.. I deserve?
The seller is the one that cranked open all those boxes, they deserve the return on investment.
But to be clear, I don't really believe the market is nearly as inflated as some do. I actually think things are fine the way they are, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
You are right. I did not take direct EC transactions or trades into account. While I think that cryptic could just tax the former easily as well the latter would be the way to go for peeps then. 1B EC ships would be simply traded via lock box keys or promo boxes hard to be taxed.
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Experience from this game itself actually tells another story. The server wide goals, that benefited all players equally during the recruitment events, had a noticeable impact on player participation in game activities. [...]
You're connecting totally different things. You're suggesting a tax that will take money away from players and then redistribute that payment with a server wide reward that's not at all tied to how much tax they paid. How is that in anyway related to a Recruitment Event where nothing is taken away from anyone and individuals benefit from participating in the event as individuals? A Recruitment Event is individual effort for individual reward, the "story" you're talking about exists only in your head, the reality is very different.
Sigh..... The more i read this thread, the more that sinking feeling drops down my gut, telling me i will never, ever, in my lifetime (or STO's, whichever ends first) have epic mkXV weapons, consoles or gear.
Every time i look at the exchange a small sparkle of hope ignites inside, for just a few seconds, in which i dream there's something on it that i can afford.
Every time its snuffed out without compassion with me realizing the amounts the stuff i can use have at least one but more often 2 more digits than the total amount of my EC balance.
All hope abandoned i beam back up to my ship and go play with my toys (doff/admiralty) for a while before i have the motivation again to do something like a TFO or something.
This response isn't just to you it's to everyone who makes posts like yours..
The only reason to be as space poor as you claim you are is that you don't put much time into the game and you don't spend real money on the game. People have already given good advice in regard to upgrading, all that really requires is refining dilithium once per day, buying phoenix upgrades when they're available, and waiting on an upgrade day. Doing the Omega particles during the event will save you having to buy those, and if your short of EC you can do extra to sell to other people then you have money to buy the 2x quality upgrades. Don't wait until the upgrade weekend to buy your Mk II weapons unless you're going to craft them. Right now is probably a good time to buy weapons, especially if you wanted the newest ones, as people are opening the weapon box primarily for the S31 vanity shield and are saturating the market with the weapons. Buying already MK XV epic items off the exchange is not for you it's for wealthy players who pay for the convenience of others doing all the work above for them.
That last sentence is another clue on how to make EC in this game. For instance when I first started playing STO I did buy an account unlock and a single T6 ship, but that's it. I made EC with my new character by getting all those LolWuts (or W/E they're called) during the Summer event on Risa and rather than rushing to buy stuff with them I sold them at a premium at the start of the event. At the same time I made even more EC by doing as many Romulan/Reman Boff recruitment assignments as I could and sold them on the exchange, back then they would go for as much as 15mil each for a female purple SRO. Today you can still get several million for a Reman. Same with Doff refugees, get a purple Technician, that's 10 million EC right there... All these are things that a brand new player can do. If your participating in the game, that is actually playing and trying to make some money, you will. If you're very short on game time or impatient to have all the things then you have to pay Cryptic for the privilege. If you have no time to play and won't pay Cryptic you have no business expecting to have the same things as those that do.
Glad this isnt LotRO then. Posting fees=bad idea. The tax on sale is fine, but posting fees hurt those without a lot of ec while merely being a slight inconvenience for the ones Bort seems to be trying to drain EC from. Lets stop suggesting a posting fee people, that way lays badness.
It was suggested as a tax for sold items.
It is also why it was recommended as a percentage. 2 or whatever % of a 1.5B ec deal is more than of a 50k deal. As consequence rich players sink more than poor ones do.
Also new or casual players that don’t play the exchange much don’t get targeted at all.
Think the idea is best we had so far.
I know it's a rare thing.. but I disagree with you.
I do like the idea of finding an in game sink for EC, something similar to Phoenix Kits that people would sink funds into.. I don't like the idea of an exchange tax.
Honestly, I don't think it will help. I think what will happen is that people with big ticket items will just go to trade channels instead of using the exchange and that creates a whole other mess of potential problems with scamming players. I like the Exchange because it's simple, and you run no risk of getting scammed unless of course you just decide to pay way more then something is worth which is on you.
I really don't see the Exchange tax working since players can just arrange private trades. Why would I list my 1.5 Billion EC ship on the exchange and pay tens of millions in fees when I can just sell it to you directly in a trade channel and get my entire 1.5 Billion that frankly.. I deserve?
The seller is the one that cranked open all those boxes, they deserve the return on investment.
But to be clear, I don't really believe the market is nearly as inflated as some do. I actually think things are fine the way they are, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
You are right. I did not take direct EC transactions or trades into account. While I think that cryptic could just tax the former easily as well the latter would be the way to go for peeps then. 1B EC ships would be simply traded via lock box keys or promo boxes hard to be taxed.
To be honest, if they borked up the exchange peeps would be likely be trading keys even if direct trades weren't taxed, simply because without the exchange there would be no point in having any signifcant amount of EC.
I've seen games like that, where nobody accepts money in trade because it's useless.
Glad this isnt LotRO then. Posting fees=bad idea. The tax on sale is fine, but posting fees hurt those without a lot of ec while merely being a slight inconvenience for the ones Bort seems to be trying to drain EC from. Lets stop suggesting a posting fee people, that way lays badness.
It was suggested as a tax for sold items.
It is also why it was recommended as a percentage. 2 or whatever % of a 1.5B ec deal is more than of a 50k deal. As consequence rich players sink more than poor ones do.
Also new or casual players that don’t play the exchange much don’t get targeted at all.
Think the idea is best we had so far.
I know it's a rare thing.. but I disagree with you.
I do like the idea of finding an in game sink for EC, something similar to Phoenix Kits that people would sink funds into.. I don't like the idea of an exchange tax.
Honestly, I don't think it will help. I think what will happen is that people with big ticket items will just go to trade channels instead of using the exchange and that creates a whole other mess of potential problems with scamming players. I like the Exchange because it's simple, and you run no risk of getting scammed unless of course you just decide to pay way more then something is worth which is on you.
I really don't see the Exchange tax working since players can just arrange private trades. Why would I list my 1.5 Billion EC ship on the exchange and pay tens of millions in fees when I can just sell it to you directly in a trade channel and get my entire 1.5 Billion that frankly.. I deserve?
The seller is the one that cranked open all those boxes, they deserve the return on investment.
But to be clear, I don't really believe the market is nearly as inflated as some do. I actually think things are fine the way they are, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
You are right. I did not take direct EC transactions or trades into account. While I think that cryptic could just tax the former easily as well the latter would be the way to go for peeps then. 1B EC ships would be simply traded via lock box keys or promo boxes hard to be taxed.
To be honest, if they borked up the exchange peeps would be likely be trading keys even if direct trades weren't taxed, simply because without the exchange there would be no point in having any signifcant amount of EC.
I've seen games like that, where nobody accepts money in trade because it's useless.
Yea that trend was (is?) heavily noticeable in the trading channels already in STO before the cap increase at the exchange. The trading channels became less relevant. The deals there simply have not been that good as they once were for quite some time as well.
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You're suggesting a tax that will take money away from players and then redistribute that payment with a server wide reward that's not at all tied to how much tax they paid. How is that in anyway related to a Recruitment Event where nothing is taken away from anyone and individuals benefit from participating in the event as individuals? A Recruitment Event is individual effort for individual reward, the "story" you're talking about exists only in your head, the reality is very different.
I have never suggested a tax. I have never claimed that a tax is related to recruitment events. Your aversion against a tax and the hostility you feel towards anyone you perceive as positive to a tax is quite obvious but please do us both a favour and direct that hostility elesewhere.
Comments
STO doesn't give millions of gold or epic loot for everything you do, but rather bags of peanuts and a once-per-day token you can exchange for a item after collecting them for weeks. An item that's usually so mediocre the most interesting bit is the "exclusivity" of it going away after the event. And it is once per day. You want to play more? Well tough, it's peanuts for rewards or come back tomorrow.
STO doesn't try to create "gods" for us to fight to present any challenge, just the opposite. It puts a timer on the quest that makes the bad guys give up on their own, in case the players are too lazy or weak to fight even the same old HP sack mooks.
Nor does STO have all that much actual power creep. Players are simply overpowered to begin with because all the content is designed to be winnable by newbies. And the thing is, it doesn't even matter. The majority of content is timed, so often the biggest difference between an clueless newbie and a DPS-god is the number of endlessly-respawning optional rubber ducks they manage to shoot before the "You Win!" timer hits zero.
And on topic, STO doesn't actually create that much EC either. The problem is there's almost nothing to actually sink it at all. All the gear sold for EC is generic low-level junk, consumables are unnecessary, boff training manuals are dirt cheap and only needed once, rep projects drop free gear that vendors for more EC than the project consumed, etc, etc.
They need to sell something for EC that people actually want.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
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I think you dropped your mic prematurely. One of the criteria is that the solution must be desirable, a sales tax is definitely not desirable by much of the player base. Plus as others have pointed out such an idea would shift a lot of high value trades off the exchange.
Don't know... I don't see how that would actually work. Especially since it requires them to make new items that might not actually turn out to be desirable by the community, and thus ignored, which in turn would just turn this "incentive program" into a straight up tax with everyone ignoring the Incentive part.
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
Why is borticus worrying about EC inflation now?
And others have mentioned that as far as they have noticed, there hasn't been all that much EC inflation.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that is really experiencing EC inflation is lockbox and lobi ships (ANyone else remember when you could pick up an end game ship for 50mil?). Which makes sense. To get a lockbox/lobi ship so many boxes have to be opened that all the less desirable rewards are generated in far greater abundance than a single player could want.
But what would happen if lockboxes were removed from STO? without lockbox and lobi ships to save for EC earners would turn to spending their EC on other things. Assuming they still have an impetus to play at that point.
We are all working on the assumption that Borticus is looking for ways to counter the current EC inflation. I am not sure that's the case. What if he is looking for ways to keep the game economy going in the event that cryptic is forced to give up lockboxes?
I am not saying its going to happen. But lets credit Borticus with some foresight hear. Maybe he is preparing for the worst case scenario, which is only smart.
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What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
Your idea falls flat due to it's space socialism aspect. Ideological preferences aside, I think it's safe to say most players of STO are motivated by self gains for their character(s), with a few, but likely still a minority also for their fleet. So the idea that taxes are pooled and the rewards divided evenly among players would only enthuse a few space bums and ultra casuals, and add nothing to the desirability or rather lack there of for a taxation system.
Now if STO were transformed into more of an RvR or Fleet vs Fleet game then you could motivate players around this concept of shared gain for their faction/fleet. But so long as it's a PvE centric game where most players treat it as a single player RPG ideas like yours are a non starter.. and we can all be fairly confident STO isn't going to strongly deviate from that model.
Well Cryptic do seem to like to live up to their name. But from Borticus's Twitter post it was plain he wanted to find new EC sinks, and generally in games such as this it's to counter inflation as the result of increased money supply. But yeah the real motivations remain cryptic, and I agree with you and others that I've not noticed a clear inflationary trend. Even on Lobi ships that you mentioned they have gone down not up in the last few years, as they used to sit around 300mil and now are more like 200mil. Those along with Lockbox ships which have increased in cost I think is more a matter of supply and demand than too much EC in the game.
I think at this point it's still a longshot in seeing gamble boxes banned here in the US where Cryptic is based.. at least in the near term. But even if that happened Cryptic could just add the promo and lockbox ships to the Zen store at exorbitant costs. After all every Zen that exists has been paid for with real (well more real) money. The amount EC in circulation doesn't really impact Cryptic's profits from Zen, only how much it's valued by players in player to player exchanges.
Warp and Singularity Cores will be replaced by Risian Solar Sail Drives.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
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l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
You have not missed any comment from Cryptic as far as I know. The prediction was simply based on empirical observations from how other MMOs deal with inflation.
Experience from this game itself actually tells another story. The server wide goals, that benefited all players equally during the recruitment events, had a noticeable impact on player participation in game activities. You are of course entitled to your own opinion and I will not be tricked by you to turn this into a discussion about socialism.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
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It is honestly frighting how completely clueless you are.
Or going for Troll of the Year. I mean how many ways have we explained it? Do we need to explain it in Klingon too?
Every time i look at the exchange a small sparkle of hope ignites inside, for just a few seconds, in which i dream there's something on it that i can afford.
Every time its snuffed out without compassion with me realizing the amounts the stuff i can use have at least one but more often 2 more digits than the total amount of my EC balance.
All hope abandoned i beam back up to my ship and go play with my toys (doff/admiralty) for a while before i have the motivation again to do something like a TFO or something.
1. Start working on your crafting. Get your Beams and/or Cannons to Level 15.
2. Create the weapon you want, craft it at Mark II. It will finish as a Mark II Very Rare. If the Mods aren't great, you can change them.
3. Wait until there is a Phoenix Box event. When the Phoenx Box event is running, buy Phoenix Boxes from the Dilithium Store. Unless there is something you really want, just convert all of your Phoenix Tokens to Uncommon (Green) and trade them for Phoenix Upgrade kits. Phoenix Kits apply 4 times the points of a Superior Kit and don't take any Dilithium to apply. Even though you're spending Dilithium on the kits, you end up saving a ton. Save these kits for an Upgrade Weekend.
4. During Upgrade Weekend, use the Phoenix Kits to upgrade your item from Mark II to Mark XV. If you're trying to push the item to Epic, you should do the first set of upgrades using an Omega Upgrade from the Anniversary Event if you have one. Otherwise, you can just pump Phoenix Kits into it until it's maxed.
If you really don't want to bother with all of this, then you can just take the Dilithium you would have spent on Phoenix Kits and convert it into Zen. Use the Zen to buy Master Keys and sell the keys for 4-5 Million each and buy what you want.
Either way, it's not that hard and the process won't change just because someone adds an Exchange Tax. The Tax won't magically make you 'space rich,' you're going to have to put some work in.
You are right. I did not take direct EC transactions or trades into account. While I think that cryptic could just tax the former easily as well the latter would be the way to go for peeps then. 1B EC ships would be simply traded via lock box keys or promo boxes hard to be taxed.
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You're connecting totally different things. You're suggesting a tax that will take money away from players and then redistribute that payment with a server wide reward that's not at all tied to how much tax they paid. How is that in anyway related to a Recruitment Event where nothing is taken away from anyone and individuals benefit from participating in the event as individuals? A Recruitment Event is individual effort for individual reward, the "story" you're talking about exists only in your head, the reality is very different.
This response isn't just to you it's to everyone who makes posts like yours..
The only reason to be as space poor as you claim you are is that you don't put much time into the game and you don't spend real money on the game. People have already given good advice in regard to upgrading, all that really requires is refining dilithium once per day, buying phoenix upgrades when they're available, and waiting on an upgrade day. Doing the Omega particles during the event will save you having to buy those, and if your short of EC you can do extra to sell to other people then you have money to buy the 2x quality upgrades. Don't wait until the upgrade weekend to buy your Mk II weapons unless you're going to craft them. Right now is probably a good time to buy weapons, especially if you wanted the newest ones, as people are opening the weapon box primarily for the S31 vanity shield and are saturating the market with the weapons. Buying already MK XV epic items off the exchange is not for you it's for wealthy players who pay for the convenience of others doing all the work above for them.
That last sentence is another clue on how to make EC in this game. For instance when I first started playing STO I did buy an account unlock and a single T6 ship, but that's it. I made EC with my new character by getting all those LolWuts (or W/E they're called) during the Summer event on Risa and rather than rushing to buy stuff with them I sold them at a premium at the start of the event. At the same time I made even more EC by doing as many Romulan/Reman Boff recruitment assignments as I could and sold them on the exchange, back then they would go for as much as 15mil each for a female purple SRO. Today you can still get several million for a Reman. Same with Doff refugees, get a purple Technician, that's 10 million EC right there... All these are things that a brand new player can do. If your participating in the game, that is actually playing and trying to make some money, you will. If you're very short on game time or impatient to have all the things then you have to pay Cryptic for the privilege. If you have no time to play and won't pay Cryptic you have no business expecting to have the same things as those that do.
I've seen games like that, where nobody accepts money in trade because it's useless.
Yea that trend was (is?) heavily noticeable in the trading channels already in STO before the cap increase at the exchange. The trading channels became less relevant. The deals there simply have not been that good as they once were for quite some time as well.
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That's called creativity
I have never suggested a tax. I have never claimed that a tax is related to recruitment events. Your aversion against a tax and the hostility you feel towards anyone you perceive as positive to a tax is quite obvious but please do us both a favour and direct that hostility elesewhere.
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