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Dilithium and Zen -- An Observation
ztempest
Member Posts: 9 Arc User
This is not an angry or a troll post. It is simply an observation - an observation I thought I would share. What follows is logical deduction and somewhat my opinion as a player.
Perhaps someone has already made this point in the forums - if so, I have not seen it yet. What I have seen is a lot of complaints about how reducing the amount of dilithium in circulation will negatively impact Cryptic/PWE....
Those posts could not be more wrong. You have it all backwards, to be honest. The move to reduce the amount of dilithium in game is actually a stroke of genuis if you are a corporation seeking to increase revenues/profit.
Here is how it works....
DStahl stated several times in several venues that level 50 players were not converting enough Dilithium daily -- the number he kept throwing out there was an average of 3,000 dilithium per day per level 50 -- a bit less than half the daily allowance. So...he said that the solution was to reduce the dilithium in game to force players to play certain missions to obtain more dilithium.
Not very logical on the face of it...the problem is that I think (and here I am speculating) DStahl was actually only telling half the story.
Think about it -- a player has a daily cap of 8,000 refined dilithium...let's take any project or purchase that requires dilithium-- such as a starbase project, a reputation project, or a dilithium weapons purchase, and let't throw out a figure -- like 24,000 dilithium to complete the project or make the purchase.
With the daily cap, it will take three days of max dilithium refining to meet that single goal.
On the other hand, there is the exchange...and one quick purchase with Zen will give you that amount instantly. No dilithium refining caps to worry about -- no limits -- all you need is Zen.
Six months ago the exchange rate for dilithium to Zen was around 340 Dilithium per Zen. That meant that a player could toss 100 Zen onto the market and purchase 34,000 dilithium instantly. After these changes, the exchange rate of dilithium to zen is dropping dramatically - and it will likely continue to drop, because with less dilithium in circulation, it is becoming more valuable. I just checked, and the exchange rate is down to 143 to one Zen...that same 34,000 dilithium you could have purchased six months ago for 100 zen would cost a player 238 Zen or so today. A 130% increase.
So...logically speaking...if a player wants that instant infusion of dilithium without spending tons of time on missions gathering ore, and meeting their max refining capacity daily, they are going to have to purchase Zen to get it on the dilithium exchange...and because there is less dilithium on the market, they are going to have to purchase MORE Zen than they would have had to six months ago -- in fact, for this type of purchase, their Zen purchases will double.
DStahl was right when he said that level 50 players were not refining to their max capacity -- that was because they did not have to. Most dedicated level 50 players have no problem purchasing Zen every now and then...and as cheap as dilithium was, it was actually more economical to just buy it on the exchange than it was to grind it out over days and weeks.
So, in closing, by reducing the amount of dilithium circulating in the game, they potentially increase zen sales...which in turn equals more real revenue.
Once again, this is not an angry or troll post -- just a post that presents an alternative perspective behind the "why" of reduced dilithium in missions. It is actually very straightforward and logical when you think about it.
Perhaps someone has already made this point in the forums - if so, I have not seen it yet. What I have seen is a lot of complaints about how reducing the amount of dilithium in circulation will negatively impact Cryptic/PWE....
Those posts could not be more wrong. You have it all backwards, to be honest. The move to reduce the amount of dilithium in game is actually a stroke of genuis if you are a corporation seeking to increase revenues/profit.
Here is how it works....
DStahl stated several times in several venues that level 50 players were not converting enough Dilithium daily -- the number he kept throwing out there was an average of 3,000 dilithium per day per level 50 -- a bit less than half the daily allowance. So...he said that the solution was to reduce the dilithium in game to force players to play certain missions to obtain more dilithium.
Not very logical on the face of it...the problem is that I think (and here I am speculating) DStahl was actually only telling half the story.
Think about it -- a player has a daily cap of 8,000 refined dilithium...let's take any project or purchase that requires dilithium-- such as a starbase project, a reputation project, or a dilithium weapons purchase, and let't throw out a figure -- like 24,000 dilithium to complete the project or make the purchase.
With the daily cap, it will take three days of max dilithium refining to meet that single goal.
On the other hand, there is the exchange...and one quick purchase with Zen will give you that amount instantly. No dilithium refining caps to worry about -- no limits -- all you need is Zen.
Six months ago the exchange rate for dilithium to Zen was around 340 Dilithium per Zen. That meant that a player could toss 100 Zen onto the market and purchase 34,000 dilithium instantly. After these changes, the exchange rate of dilithium to zen is dropping dramatically - and it will likely continue to drop, because with less dilithium in circulation, it is becoming more valuable. I just checked, and the exchange rate is down to 143 to one Zen...that same 34,000 dilithium you could have purchased six months ago for 100 zen would cost a player 238 Zen or so today. A 130% increase.
So...logically speaking...if a player wants that instant infusion of dilithium without spending tons of time on missions gathering ore, and meeting their max refining capacity daily, they are going to have to purchase Zen to get it on the dilithium exchange...and because there is less dilithium on the market, they are going to have to purchase MORE Zen than they would have had to six months ago -- in fact, for this type of purchase, their Zen purchases will double.
DStahl was right when he said that level 50 players were not refining to their max capacity -- that was because they did not have to. Most dedicated level 50 players have no problem purchasing Zen every now and then...and as cheap as dilithium was, it was actually more economical to just buy it on the exchange than it was to grind it out over days and weeks.
So, in closing, by reducing the amount of dilithium circulating in the game, they potentially increase zen sales...which in turn equals more real revenue.
Once again, this is not an angry or troll post -- just a post that presents an alternative perspective behind the "why" of reduced dilithium in missions. It is actually very straightforward and logical when you think about it.
Post edited by ztempest on
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Comments
What HAVEN'T they done to do that?
So, if you are right, we have the head STO guy bald-face lying to the community. Always a good move to do to your customers.
And, TRIBBLE with your customers only works for so long. Then they all go away and you have no job.
I'll summarize your post, ztempest, in a haiku! :cool:
STO customers... fruit.
Squeeze them till the juice is gone.
Discarded, unthanked.
Yeah, yeah, horrible, I know. I'm an engineer, not a poet!
Dstahls "goals" are going to backfire and the "logic" behind it all is flawed.
Players are already reporting fleet members quitting the game in large numbers and others saying they will NOT be buying more Zen for real money until the prices in the Dilithium exchange goes back up (which is completely TRIBBLE-backwards of Cryptic's goals).
I unlocked tier 1 Omega today and saw how much Dilithium each assimilated gear piece is going to cost, via projects, just to unlock them in the store, and that's just for the Mk X equipment!. I logged out of the game soon after and I'm not sure if I even want to play anymore.
Screenshots of what I'm talking about:
I don't want to spend ALL of my time doing nothing but farming Dilithium on multiple characters when I could be doing episodes and playing other content. And to be honest this game feels like it has a ton less content than other games. Edit: In fact, I can't stand farming in any MMO. Doing the same TRIBBLE over and over and over and......just to get more and more money. I like playing content. Something this game seems to be lacking.
What new "content" did season 7 bring? More grind. A couple new STFs and some Fleet actions for Omega/Romulan marks but that is just more grind. New Romulus? Nothing but grind. Run around doing the dailies in each area for Romulan Marks, takes me 2 days solo to tag enough Epohhs to be able to do the doff assignment to get ONE of the items needed to get the pet and it takes 1 day for the doff assignment and a total of 5 items. I'm seeing it's going to take me weeks to get just 1 Epohh pet. I don't care for teaming with people very often.
No new episodes or stories or anything but friggen grind this grind that. I did all the episodes on 1 character and when I got to the Borg Collective series I was highly disappointed. The Klingon War up to The Cardassian Struggle all had 19+ episodes each.
The Borg Collective = 4 episodes
The Breen Invasion = 5 episodes.
And finally, The Undine advance = 4 episodes.
I like playing content that has stories to it. Not do a bunch of grind to get good gear. The movies and TV shows weren't all about what type of phasers they used. It had story to it. This game is flat out boring now.
Edit: And I forgot to mention, I'm in a couple different fleets on the Fed side. Usually there are a couple people or more online when I'm on and fleet projects were going at a steady pace being completed. Now when I'm online nobody else is on at all and fleet projects seemed to be doing good at first after season 7 launched but now they seem to be nearly at a dead stop in progress.
Well, lets also face the fact that the number could be all the Level 50 alts that:
1) Did the Foundry Wrapper 1 click in under 15 seconds for 1440
2) Did the SFA Midterm for 480
3) Did the "Rescue Defari Captives for 480
4) Did the various Dof Missions for Contraband and ran that for 2000
and did nothing else (and a lot of players had alts like this - Leveled up through those missions and Doff missions)
Overall, that too could account for the overall 'average level 50 refinement' number they were seeing.
Also, overall they've increased the missions in game that give Dilithium; but removed the really quick source of 1440 - removed the 1440 BTran reward - and dropped the STF Elite award by about 200. (And without Borg Tech drops - removed a very random source of 2048 Dil too.) In the end, the 5 BNPs that you can turn in at any tier are accumulated at about the same rate as the EDCs were, and net about the same payout.
In general, they've just made it so that you actually have to play the game (and not just do some quick clicks for 1920 dil); and spread out some decent Dil rewards for playing content other than STFs. There's also the fact that once players start hitting T5 Omega Rep, they'll also be able to convert Omega marks into Dilithium.
So, the issue isn't that Dilithium is less available; it's that they added a lot of new Dilithium sinks into the game. Also, given a lot of STF players (myself included) cashed out our old STF reward items into Dilithium - there's probably a bit of a glut in certain circles.
In the end, it'll still be another few weeks until one can really access what the changes did to the overall in game Dilithium economy.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Yes and with the new Dilithium sinks, everybody is going to want to unlock TRIBBLE for their personal reputation stores. With the costs on those, especially Omega rep Assimilated Mk X gear at tier 1, less people are going to be contributing to fleet projects making a lot of fleets stall (2 fleets I'm in already seem to be more inactive than before s7 and also stalled on contributions soon after). It's bad enough everyone wants to be in a Tier 4 or 5 fleet to get fleet ships and it takes forever to get there. Now it's going to take even longer because of all the noobs that want to spend all their Dil on useless Mk X TRIBBLE right now and/or buy Zen since it's dropping in price.
Zen unit value is going down the drain since Season 7 began. I suspect the devs will even have to artificially intervene on this very soon. Remember my words.
Either devs will cut off the supply of Dilithium even further to support Zen higher value or they will simply set an artificial value for Zen to prevent further fluctuations that are costing them ( i never believed the Dilithium market was entirely driven by players anyway, i suspect PWE are messing with the prices already to a point thought... ).
This, pretty much. I liked being able to get my dilithium cap in under an hour as much as the next guy, but that doesn't necessarily mean my gain was healthy for the economy long-term.
Oh, if I had 480 dilithium for every time a forumgoer has said that, I wouldn't need a monthly Zen stipend!
You have it backwards, they need to increase supply of Dilithium, if they want to make Zen higher value.
If they do that, they would have a lawsuit on their hands. And they know it. Ever wonder why they are always careful to say they do not manipulate the exchange whenever the topic comes up? It is a very serious charge, and if evidence ever appears where they have been messing with it, they're sunk.
My bad.. that's what i meant.
But how explain Zen has fallen to 143 Dilithium per unit in less than a week while it was being exchanged for 160?
Even the Vesta ship does not seem to have encouraged huge acquiring of Zen via Dilithium or logically the Zen would have go up in price due to high demand.
Are people sitting on their Dilithium and waiting for something? Or is it already getting spent on in-game stuff like starbases and Rep projects?
If lot of people have bought Zen with real money in order to buy Dilithium then how explain Dili prices are going down?
So anyone understand what is going on? How explain 160 to 143 in 7 days?
Or to put it better there are more people with zen wanting to convert it to dilithium than tere are people with dilithium.
My recommendation: sell dilithium!
Of course, over 20 years ago I failed 2nd year economics twice so I may be wrong. But I have 21k in zen right now.
Selling Dilithium to acquire Zen? Yup, that is what i figured out and posted earlyer. I am just waiting to see prices fall around 130 and then ill buy Zen and get all the shinies i want in the C-Store and tell PWE i did not spent a single dollar in your craptastic Season 7.
This seems to be in line with Stahl's statements about wanting players to refine more by way of being able to earn dilithium through a broader selection of content. That thread also does not cover many other ways of earning dilithium, through DOFFing or dilithium rep projects, or the fact that the mining for dilithium bonus was increased 33% etc.
So there is more dilithium on offer to those who want it across a broad selection of content. I can see how this is intended to allow the average player who does not run eSTFs to actually earn and refine more than that measly 3,000 dilithium according to the content they have a preference in playing over what they were being pidgeon-holed into doing.
It's possible that people are just gaming the market. I've heard of dilithium hoarders before on the forums, and I wouldn't put it past them to be holding on to millions of dilithium to cash out on the greater exchange rates we've seen lately.
Another explanation is that the dilithium sinks have become so great that hoarders are waiting for the supply to dwindle before they cash in.
Why would I say this? Simple, lets say that someone with more money than sense decides to purchase Zen to get the 200,000 Dilithium for a starbase special project.
At the average rate before S7 (160/Zen) this would be 1250 Zen or $15 (as you can only purchase Zen in $5 packages from the PWE site.
At the current rate (143/Zen) it's 1399 Zen, whilst this is still $15 it also means less Zen for that person to spend in the C-Store.
If it drops to CO average (70/Zen) then it's 2858 or $30
If it hits the worst case scenario (25/Zen) then it's 8000 Zen $80
Yes if the market crashed to 25 Zen tomorrow Cryptic would investigate to ensure that this wasn't the work of someone malicious flooding the market with cheap Zen, but they wouldn't manipulate the market for two reasons.
Those figures are BS spin contributed by a Cryptic apologist that for some reason wants people to think they're better off than they are.
The truth is, for those that don't play the STFs, there's an increased amount of Dilithium attached to some of the events in game now so, on the surface of it those players are better off.
But that 'analysis' fails to factor in the true STF losses and further to that, the increased Dilithium costs in-game.
So whilst they may have juggled stuff around to make it appear there's more Dilithium in the game, it's just a smoke screen for reducing it and/or artificially creating demand for it.
Zen having a low value is exactly what Cryptic wants because you'll have to buy more of it to finish your starbase/buy your Mk XII armor etc. It also handily diminishes the value of any stipends being awarded too (from a Zen->Dilithium standpoint).
I am still not totally convinced that many players buy Zen with $ to then exchange it for Dilithium.
I always figured people would spend $ to get Zen because there is an expansive new shiny in the C-Store and simply do not have enough Dilithium ot get say 5000 Zen for the Vesta.
It is easy enough to acquire 8000 Dilithium a day in the game by mindlessly grinding and some people made quite a stash of Dili when they converted their old Borg EDC and Salvages.
Many might see a good opportunity to acquire Zen by trading in Dilithium they got for free to then get their hands on the C-Store most expensive items. that is certainly what i intend to do. PWE is not making $ that way with me. I only bought Zen with $ before to get C-Store stuff. Now that i can get more Zen by trading in Dilithium, i might not need to use $ to get Vesta.
But again , were people really spending their stipends to acquire Dilithium? I very rarely traded-in Zen for Dili and only when i was like short of 1000 dili or so to get something... Most of the time i was going reverse and trading in Dili to acquire Zen and combined with my stipend i started buying all the ships from the C-Store for no $ costs.
I think for the most part that's correct. But there's a number of Fleet/starbase contributors that pour a great deal of money into the game by buying Zen to convert to Dilithium.
But 8000 refined Dilithium a day isn't that much when starbases (and now reputation gear) require hundreds of thousands of refined Dilithium.
True, to a certain extent the current situation is good for Dilithium grinders - they're still limited by the amount they can refine in a day though.
But the STF changes have for me, made it vastly more inconvenient and time-consuming to get 8000 a day across my 3 characters - before I could do it without even really thinking about it.
In the old system, the overabundance of dilithium made people want to spend to a lot of their di to convert it to as many c-points as possible. Now, it's the opposite. People are desperate to acquire as much di as possible, but the supply of c-points remains the same while the suppy of di has dwindled. Isn't this what's happened?
The price has fallen from 160 to 143 because the supply of dilithium has decreased.
The Vesta should have raised the price, that is true, I think it did a little, and without Vesta we would be lower than 143 now, maybe 130.
Yes, people are sitting on dilithium, because they know, they will need it for equipment/reputation now, because it is not as easy to get anymore (console-clicking) and because they hope the price drop will continue and drop even lower than 143.
All of this pushes stronger to decrease the value, than the Vesta pushes to increase the value.
This post has it exactly right. To date, the Season 7 Dilithium economy is overperforming because of the massive STF rewards cash out at the end of Season 6.
There is no way lvl 50 characters are earning more on average than they were in Season Six, and there is plenty of MATH to support that data point.
We can only surmise Cryptic desired a recession in the STO economy for purposes of rebalancing the purchasing power of various currencies. This will take time if that is the objective. Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy few weeks.
In the "Quickie" Foundry Daily alone, the economy just has a couple hundred million Dilithium per week bubble burst. The impacts of that are unpredictable, and were obviously not well planned for.
Rules of Acquisition at Priority One
Used to be Dil was one of the first buckets filled in Fleet Projects, now it sits there empty. No one is contributing Dil anymore. Cryptic killed off the fleet progression w/ S7.
The problem is the "broader type of content" involved is still the repeat-these-things over and over type of content, as opposed to immersive content.
Stories and episodes are the primary content I like. If they would add dilithium to the existing episodes and storyline missions, I'd happily repeat those before all of the daily grind missions. There is more "meat" to them. They are more engaging; my characters feel like part of the story, part of the world, as opposed to just robots repeating tasks for goodies -- that let you repeat the tasks faster.
Now, to be fair, there are a number of dailies and the new mini-content on New Romulus that I enjoy, but not as *dailies*, just as other missions. They are enjoyable as missions as opposed to daily repeatables, but then I don't reap the benefits (dilithium, gear, marks, etc.) because I don't just play the same ones over and over again.
Cryptic does a spectacular job of creating systems and mechanics to tell stories in, then decides it's too hard to provide the stories to go with said systems.
I've reached the point of thinking that if they want players to produce the story content via the Foundry, they need to do something to make the Foundry a viable alternate leveling path with real rewards. Not as fast (please) as the official content, but at least with enough "carrots" to make it worthwhile for a lot of players. Because even players who enjoy stories the most still want to advance their characters in the process.