Crying in the wind. In game market changes just like the market in the real world change.
There was a time I was buying dilithium at one price only to sell the same amount of dilithium off again at a higher price to make zen. Now it is reversed. You sell dilithium for a high amount of zen and you dont buy dilithium cause its worth more than a zen point is now.
People will complain all the time and the owner of my fleet complains that the dilithium values have crashed. I tell her that it depends on which side of the fence your on, in my eyes the dilithium value went up seeing as I had a backlog of close to 400k dilithium that I proceded to sell all of it over time at between 85:1 to 90:1 dil:zen rate. I was able to buy quite a bit of service unlocks and suppliment the purchase of two starships doing this. That is a up side for me but a down side for those buying Dilithium.
While I ran my dilithium bank dry Ive been refining the max dilithium, 8,000 a day and I am constantly increasing my dilithium ore reserves and not making a dent in it. So forgive me if I dont feel sorry for those that are complaining about how they are not able to buy as much dilithium with zen as they used to. I was tired of selling of large sums of dilithium that took me a long time to refine just to get a few zen points to suppliment my zen bank roll to purchase something. I think with how hard refined dilithium is to get and how easy it is to buy Zen I think the current rate of less than 100:1 is fair and reasonable for the amount of effort put in for getting the dilithium vs the effort put in to get the Zen.
The players are the ones ruining the economy , all trying to undercut the next guy, well all that undercutting has reduced the price so damned much!
This again comes back to personal and fleet progression. The only reason to buy Dilithium is because you want it right now; if you are willing to wait, you can grind it, even if just by doffing your way to a couple thousand a day, which takes minutes. If you want it NOW, the only effective strategy is to undercut. Therefore, undercutting is inevitable.
The only exception is people selling their stipend, and they're a drop in the bucket.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Yes, but players have the desire to buy and sell in these patterns due to the decisions PWE makes, to whit: there are currently a tremendous number of things in player and fleet advancement that require Dilithium, and not many new things to spend Zen on. Yes, there's more Dil than ever; but the need for it has increased far beyond that.
I am going to have to say this. For PWE to say they don't set the prices is untrue as long as they determine both the amount of dill you need for game progression and the amount that can be harvested by time.
In fact, I am going to take this one step further and say that the decision to including STF and Romulan gear into the dill price structure with VA equipment and ships has increased the demand for dill, but not enough to offset the dill farmers supply- a PWE decision.
With the same number of farmers, PWE has increased the available dill supply to the point where it takes more Zen to purchase the same amount of dill. Add into this equation additional dill farmers, and I don't see how PWE can say they don't set the prices. Of course, PWE is in the business of selling Zen.
Unless they mean that they don't set the individual unit price per player to be able to sell their units vs the next player when the market is saturated. That would be an arugment for fifth graders. Obviously someone would sell their units at a price the market can support. With saturation from PWE, it would drop the price per unit to the floor. Hrmmm.... I wonder where all that dill came from?
Lulz.
By the way, those complaining about people who spend money instead of "putting in the time": I work 9-11 hours a day for the money I spend on Zen. I'm grinding just like you. I'm putting in the time; I'm just putting it in on different quests than the ones you're using.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
By the way, those complaining about people who spend money instead of "putting in the time": I work 9-11 hours a day for the money I spend on Zen. I'm grinding just like you. I'm putting in the time; I'm just putting it in on different quests than the ones you're using.
I dont think its so much complaining about people who use real money to advance the game as much as complaining about people complaining that they have to spend more real money than they used to.
That is what this is about, the starter of the topic is complaining cause he has to pay more real money for the same amount of dilithium that he used to get. Personally in this cause thats crying in the wind in my eyes cause I always thought for how much effort one has to put in to get large sums of dilithium that the dilithium to zen exchange rate should be more equal than lopsided like it has been.
I mean 180 dilithium for 1 zen. that means to buy $5 worth of zen via dilithium it would cost you 90,000 dilithium and with a 8,000 refine cap a day that would take you just over 11 days of constantly refining dilithium to get $5. I think 85 - 90 to 1 is a better all around value. Will take cost you 42,500 dilithium for $5 worth of zen which is reasonable and take you about 5 1/2 days to obtain that much at 8,000 refining limit. That is more reasonable than 11 days in my book.
But for someone to complain saying oh im having to spend more real world money to buy the same amount of dilithium im not going to give you my money anymore can be akin to blackmail and its all laughable considering that he doesnt have to spend his money on dilithium and hes complaining about the costs. I wasnt on here complaining bout the costs of dil to buy a zen point for the effort I put in to make it.
By the way, those complaining about people who spend money instead of "putting in the time": I work 9-11 hours a day for the money I spend on Zen. I'm grinding just like you. I'm putting in the time; I'm just putting it in on different quests than the ones you're using.
Considering the amount I earn per hour at my job, vs the cash value of a hour's worth of dilithium grinding, I know which one I'd rather do. I just don't want dilithium badly enough to pay OR grind for it. I get small amounts here and there as I play. If it adds up eventually, super. If not, I don't waste a moment thinking about what I might be missing out on. That's what drives this market to either extreme, the basic human fear of missing something exciting.
I'll sell you some weapons from New Romulus. Never fired, only dropped once.
By the way, those complaining about people who spend money instead of "putting in the time": I work 9-11 hours a day for the money I spend on Zen. I'm grinding just like you. I'm putting in the time; I'm just putting it in on different quests than the ones you're using.
That's not a solid argument, altho personally I don't feel one way or another regarding the issue itself.
Let's assume $10/h with a real job, 40h/week, with 10% disposable income =
800 Zen / 8h (taking the full work day to just fuel your STO) = 100Zen/h + other benefits.
Regardless of the "bad" dilithium exchange ratio.
Ingame you're capped at 8.000 dilithium, say 90 Zen, per character - for roughly 1.5h of work.
x 5 = 450 Zen in 8h = 56Zen/h + mental problems and other issues like unemployment/social neglect;
and this only given a (historically) good exchange ratio (from this, the inverse, perspective).
It's clear that (within certain parameters) RMT is more effective than spending time ingame.
You could say RMTers put in time elsewhere and do different quests, yes, but their quests are much better if they have a somewhat decent income.
800 zen is 8$ not 80$ and btw u do need more then 1 and a half hour to cap dill so dill is still cheap so drop to 50 dill per zen or less is near future
people, you are adults, you play a game, which we all here LOVE.
we all buy Zen according to our wallet, or not, just being here with the community.
PLEASE, do as it suits you, buy a LTS, or don't ... buy Zen or grind Dill, but please do not ***** about it here in the forums afterwards..
it is all YOU doing it.. not Cryptic.
That is who it is. I am guilty of jacking the prices up on some items only because items that I am really wanting are jacked up themselves on the exchange but I try to keep my prices reasonable and I use the value listed on each item as a guide. I just wish people would stop complaining about how they are paying more zen for the same amount of dilithium. I didnt see people complaining about having to give a lot of dilithium for very little Zen.
800 zen is 8$ not 80$ and btw u do need more then 1 and a half hour to cap dill so dill is still cheap so drop to 50 dill per zen or less is near future
I think its up to the person, theres players in my fleet that can cap 8,000 dilithium in 45 minutes. I cap 8,000 in about 60 minutes if there are no connection issues with the game.
Two things Cryptic can do to balance out the dilithium economy:
A.) Increase the refinement cap.
B.) Release more content to the Zen store and/or release less (or cheaper) content with dilithium costs.
The dilithium exchange is absolutely based on the supply and demand set by the players. But that supply and demand always follows the production of content and the production of currency. Cryptic absolutely can affect the economy, as they are the sole producer of content here.
Two things Cryptic can do to balance out the dilithium economy:
A.) Increase the refinement cap.
B.) Release more content to the Zen store and/or release less (or cheaper) content with dilithium costs.
The dilithium exchange is absolutely based on the supply and demand set by the players. But that supply and demand always follows the production of content and the production of currency. Cryptic absolutely can affect the economy, as they are the sole producer of content here.
This is 100% the case - while the players create the buy/sell transactions it is Cryptic's business decisions that dictate where the price will go
IE creating massive dilthium sinks like Starbases and then making everything else cost dilthium to acquire - but leaving the refinement cap at 8000
couple that with not putting out a significant amount of new items in the Z-store and this is the result of Cryptic's business
Speaking of new stuff for the z-store - how about a whole lot of NEW costumes for the KDF??
... I feel I am correct -- it's being run by greedy players :P. Players set the price they are willing to trade for, and as it's been said many times, by many Devs, we do not manipulate the exchange.
...
This is due to the buy and sell orders that players, not Devs, want to make.
This is plain misleading or misunderstanding of supply/demand economy. The dev team controls the DI supply available to the player on a DI per time unit spent. The dev team has tightened the DI supply dramatically per player time unit so the supply has decreased. Assuming demand has remained constant(for sake of an example) the price of DI raises per Zen.
Saying the players control DI price is like saying that the tail wags the dog.
Path to 2409: Martok made the definitive statement of the Klingon Empire's view of the Romulan Star Empire in 2388. "
The Klingons will offer no treaty, no aid, and no hand that is not holding a blade"
This again comes back to personal and fleet progression. The only reason to buy Dilithium is because you want it right now; if you are willing to wait, you can grind it, even if just by doffing your way to a couple thousand a day, which takes minutes. If you want it NOW, the only effective strategy is to undercut. Therefore, undercutting is inevitable.
The only exception is people selling their stipend, and they're a drop in the bucket.
Yup, you are correct, I just do not have the patience ( or time ) to do the same missions day in and day out so I like to spend some real money to get there quicker. I don't mind dropping $40 a week into the game if I can get a nice 500,000+ Dil out of it ( 2 months of 8k a day ) , but getting less than 1 = 100 is pretty bad.
Honestly I took the other road of just leaving the game for now until a new big update hits, The market will hopefully recover by then.
I also cut off Cryptic's funding as of November last year. Another LTS here.
Reasons:
Z-Store Ships at Saturation Point - With the addition of the lockbox ships, we have all the canon designs except the Norway, New Orleans, and Ambassador now. Oh, and those Romulan ships that are part of the Romulan faction which will make its debut on February 33, 201never.
STO Revenues Obviously Not Spent on STO - Queue for your next mindless zergfest, please, because it's the cheapest content we can make. Klingons need not apply for pretty much, well, any purchasable content because it doesn't make money...so what the hell happened to the money we've already spent?
Not Enough Interior Packs - They're already underpromising on this, the Defiant took like two years and the Galaxy and Intrepid ones are barely on the radar. This is the new frontier of big ticket items for the Z-Store imo. Ships are kind of over as we have almost every combination of consoles possible, and everything else is in the Lobi store. Speaking of...
Too Much Lobi Store TRIBBLE - Some of the uniforms and items were put in the Lobi store out of reach of most players (4 Lobi/box with the good items starting at 200 Lobi)...then put on the exchange for 20m+. It's just ridiculous to spend $50 on a single-character unlock. These should be saved for second-chance ships and special shuttles mostly, or uniform prices need to be brought way the hell down.
Dilithium Exchange Rate in the Toilet - Enough said here.
Disrespectful Cryptic Developers - Check out this tweet from CaptainGeko basically telling the forum users to get bent and that we should just sit back and be pleased with whatever scraps of code they deign to share with us. He is entitled to his opinion and i am entitled to vote with my wallet and live off the stipend. I don't give a damn if they put Jean-Luc Picard himself in a lockbox, I won't be buying it with real money.
Delta Rising is the best expansion ever and the players love it! No, seriously! ...Why are you laughing so hard?
800 zen is 8$ not 80$ and btw u do need more then 1 and a half hour to cap dill so dill is still cheap so drop to 50 dill per zen or less is near future
Either you missed the 10% part or I'm missing something.
And no, "you" don't need more than 1.5h to get 8000 dilithium.
There might be people it takes longer than that but it's perfectly doable in 90 minutes.
70 minutes is doable (altho probably the utmost fastest possible day by day).
Really? Then I must be playing another game. The dil market is controlled by Cryptic by simply not showing all the offers.
I made a test: put some zen for sale at a price way over the market. I asked a friend if he can see my offer ( I excluded the fact that I wasn't able to see it), and of course no, there was no offer of mine. So simply by not showing all the offers, but only the lowest ones, CRYPTIC is controlling the market. At least be a man and admit it Brandon.
[*]Disrespectful Cryptic Developers - Check out this tweet from CaptainGeko basically telling the forum users to get bent and that we should just sit back and be pleased with whatever scraps of code they deign to share with us. He is entitled to his opinion and i am entitled to vote with my wallet and live off the stipend. I don't give a damn if they put Jean-Luc Picard himself in a lockbox, I won't be buying it with real money.
[/LIST]
Interesting. All the more disturbing considering the formulation of that users "rules" violates exactly those rules being mentioned - on the fly.
He basicly states hisself why the stuff he says is bull**** because of the way he says it.
And then a Dev supports it.
The whole thing is pretty ripe with delusion - and not because of any factual mistakes.
[*]Disrespectful Cryptic Developers - Check out this tweet from CaptainGeko basically telling the forum users to get bent and that we should just sit back and be pleased with whatever scraps of code they deign to share with us. He is entitled to his opinion and i am entitled to vote with my wallet and live off the stipend. I don't give a damn if they put Jean-Luc Picard himself in a lockbox, I won't be buying it with real money.
[/LIST]
I haven't seen anything that funny since there were new episodes of the Chappelle's Show. Just shows you what the Dev's priorities really are. If you are that disenchanted with what you do for work, then get out.
I haven't seen anything that funny since there were new episodes of the Chappelle's Show. Just shows you what the Dev's priorities really are. If you are that disenchanted with what you do for work, then get out.
I love it, because it's so true about the Forums, that's why i have the link in my signature.
Every time I read a thread like this there seems to be a serious mental block or selective discussion ignoring important information. The dil cap is at least 8000 per day per character. Everyone has two character slots so you can get at least 16000 dil per day if you want. If this is too constraining then you can purchase additional character slots. With four character slots I have ended buying over 5000 zen with dil in the past month. I have even bought zen for as low 85-87 dil each. Players have been willing to sell their zen for that little. If you don't want to sell zen for those prices then don't, you have control over what you're willing to sell it for.
There has been the argument that it's all the developers fault. Actually it's the fault of players that are angry about the dil exchange prices. The zen store prices are a fixed value. You can buy zen for a fixed amount of money and buy a fixed number zen store items. Then you can sell those items for ec, buy contraband and convert that to dil. There is more than one path to get dil. Again if you want more per day you need more character slots and those cost zen, not dil.
There has been discussion of the dil supply being restricted. There are more dil sinks that players want to use. However given the dil exchange prices there is actually more dil on the exchange than I've ever seen in past year or more. The volume I watched being traded on the exchange last weekend were substantial. The dil exchange prices are motivating more players to put dil on the market, in additional with zen being cheap it looks like players have been buying more character slots for the purpose of refining dil. Further to that contraband has been trading for 10k ec more than what it did a year ago.
If players are willing to sell zen for low prices they only have themselves to blame. The mechanisms are there to convert zen into dil, however it seems there are a lot of players that are making poor zen spending choices then trying to blame others for their decisions.
Every time I read a thread like this there seems to be a serious mental block or selective discussion ignoring important information. The dil cap is at least 8000 per day per character. Everyone has two character slots so you can get at least 16000 dil per day if you want. If this is too constraining then you can purchase additional character slots. With four character slots I have ended buying over 5000 zen with dil in the past month. I have even bought zen for as low 85-87 dil each. Players have been willing to sell their zen for that little. If you don't want to sell zen for those prices then don't, you have control over what you're willing to sell it for.
There has been the argument that it's all the developers fault. Actually it's the fault of players that are angry about the dil exchange prices. The zen store prices are a fixed value. You can buy zen for a fixed amount of money and buy a fixed number zen store items. Then you can sell those items for ec, buy contraband and convert that to dil. There is more than one path to get dil. Again if you want more per day you need more character slots and those cost zen, not dil.
There has been discussion of the dil supply being restricted. There are more dil sinks that players want to use. However given the dil exchange prices there is actually more dil on the exchange than I've ever seen in past year or more. The volume I watched being traded on the exchange last weekend were substantial. The dil exchange prices are motivating more players to put dil on the market, in additional with zen being cheap it looks like players have been buying more character slots for the purpose of refining dil. Further to that contraband has been trading for 10k ec more than what it did a year ago.
If players are willing to sell zen for low prices they only have themselves to blame. The mechanisms are there to convert zen into dil, however it seems there are a lot of players that are making poor zen spending choices then trying to blame others for their decisions.
This is perfectly valid and correct, but you cannot disregard Cryptics influence in shaping dilitihum demand.
The prices would not have developed the way they did had Cryptic not introduced the fleet and reputation projects with a huge dilithium component.
It is consequently very clear that it's not solely the players that are responsible - altho they were willing participants.
Cryptic has changed incentives - and players have responded.
It's absolutely not the case that players "simply decided to settle for a lower exchange ratio".
This wouldn't happen for no reason either way.
It won't be long until the established players have all things they needed to spend dilithium on, on most of their toons.
After this point it will only be the "adolescent" characters having to deal with this dilithium drain from reputation.
The pricing of fleet items and starbase projects is a much bigger and more long lasting effect, I think, but I think this has already stabilized for the most part.
We've already witnessed the value of dilithium falling over the last few days and I have no doubt it will continue to fall for a while until a certain equilibrium is reached after it had been upset by fleet projects/items and reputation.
Of course the exact value it will settle on is down to speculation and Cryptics future changes/additions in that regard.
The market will stabilize, as soon as folks hit T5 Rep, T5 fleet bases and have all the gear they need they'll sell off what they have for Zen.
Of course season 8 may be here by the time that happens so who knows what other "sink" they may create to keep up the need for Dilithium.
I also cut off Cryptic's funding as of November last year. Another LTS here.
Reasons:
[
STO Revenues Obviously Not Spent on STO - Queue for your next mindless zergfest, please, because it's the cheapest content we can make. Klingons need not apply for pretty much, well, any purchasable content because it doesn't make money...so what the hell happened to the money we've already spent?
Can't agree with this one as queued content is not the only thing they've added in the past year mission wise.m Also (whether you use/like them); the Fleet Advancement, Reoutation System, the Tau Dewa sector Block and the Defera, Nukara and especially the New Romulus ground zones were not a 'cut and paste' job by any means (nor were all the cutscences and VO added as you progress in Reputation Tiers in New Romulus Rep.
And (unless you believe DStahl is lying) there's the fact that they've increased the STO Dev team to a staff of 50; and by his comments it's still growing; the fact that they've hired Denise Crosby to do voice over as 'Sela' for an upcoming Anniversary mission, and the stuff being worked on for Season 8.
So, yes, there is a lot of problems/issues with STO (and that's true of any MMO these days) - BUT, given what they've added to the game over the past year (and I don't care for everything they've done, but that doesn't change the fact that any such development costs money - and not everyone will like everything; but most will find something); and the fact the STO Dev team has been, and is still being added to - I don't see how you can make the claim
"PWE/Cryptic isn't spending any money in further development of STO."
And it's not the case that PWE/Cryptic just spends development funds and resources across all their MMOs as (IMO) they DO have a game in what I consider near maintenance-mode, and that's Champions Onlibe.
^^^
If you want to really see a Cryptic game that ISN'T getting much of any resource or Cryptic Dev support, go peruse CO's forums - and look what its gotten in the past year. Not pretty (IMO); and it's a shame as I do think CO has a lot of potential that hasn't been given the chance to be realized.
Whether you like the direction they're taking STO or not; it is pretty clear they are continuing to commit funds to STO's development - and increasing that commitment with regard to STO's Dev team staffing.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 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..."
Really? Then I must be playing another game. The dil market is controlled by Cryptic by simply not showing all the offers.
I made a test: put some zen for sale at a price way over the market. I asked a friend if he can see my offer ( I excluded the fact that I wasn't able to see it), and of course no, there was no offer of mine. So simply by not showing all the offers, but only the lowest ones, CRYPTIC is controlling the market. At least be a man and admit it Brandon.
Please, stop "helping".
On each side of the exchange, only the most favorable offers matter, because why would you intentionally pay a higher price than someone's offering you? Even showing the five best and five worst provides lots of information as a very rough gauge of market stability and direction.
The way Cryptic controls the market, which they absolutely do*, is by controlling three of the four driving factors of the market - dilithium inputs, dilithium sinks, and zen sinks. The only one players have most of the control over is zen inputs, but that's still partly driven by the quantity and desirability of both sinks.
*Whether they control it competently and intentionally is a different issue.
And it's not the case that PWE/Cryptic just spends development funds and resources across all their MMOs as (IMO) they DO have a game in what I consider near maintenance-mode, and that's Champions Online.
^^^
If you want to really see a Cryptic game that ISN'T getting much of any resource or Cryptic Dev support, go peruse CO's forums - and look what its gotten in the past year. Not pretty (IMO); and it's a shame as I do think CO has a lot of potential that hasn't been given the chance to be realized.
Whether you like the direction they're taking STO or not; it is pretty clear they are continuing to commit funds to STO's development - and increasing that commitment with regard to STO's Dev team staffing.
Indeed, anyone that thinks STO is in bad shape needs to check CO out.
I had this number floating in my head.
I'd imagine STO to earns something between $100.000 and $1.000.000 per month (I basicly imagine a lot of people paying $1)
Let's say $5.000.000 per year -> $416.666 per month.
Total labor costs I'd imagine something like $4.000 per head per month on average (I don't have the slightest idea since I'm from Europe).
Times 50 this is $200.000 per month, which works quite well with the presumed $416.666 and the premise of ongoing expansion (and server costs, profit, et cetera).
It would also mean that at least a good part of the revenue is spent on STO.
In any case: These numbers have no basis in reality (but I tend to get surprised by the accuracy of my wildest estimates time and again, so I have some slight confidence that it's not totally off).
Comments
There was a time I was buying dilithium at one price only to sell the same amount of dilithium off again at a higher price to make zen. Now it is reversed. You sell dilithium for a high amount of zen and you dont buy dilithium cause its worth more than a zen point is now.
People will complain all the time and the owner of my fleet complains that the dilithium values have crashed. I tell her that it depends on which side of the fence your on, in my eyes the dilithium value went up seeing as I had a backlog of close to 400k dilithium that I proceded to sell all of it over time at between 85:1 to 90:1 dil:zen rate. I was able to buy quite a bit of service unlocks and suppliment the purchase of two starships doing this. That is a up side for me but a down side for those buying Dilithium.
While I ran my dilithium bank dry Ive been refining the max dilithium, 8,000 a day and I am constantly increasing my dilithium ore reserves and not making a dent in it. So forgive me if I dont feel sorry for those that are complaining about how they are not able to buy as much dilithium with zen as they used to. I was tired of selling of large sums of dilithium that took me a long time to refine just to get a few zen points to suppliment my zen bank roll to purchase something. I think with how hard refined dilithium is to get and how easy it is to buy Zen I think the current rate of less than 100:1 is fair and reasonable for the amount of effort put in for getting the dilithium vs the effort put in to get the Zen.
This again comes back to personal and fleet progression. The only reason to buy Dilithium is because you want it right now; if you are willing to wait, you can grind it, even if just by doffing your way to a couple thousand a day, which takes minutes. If you want it NOW, the only effective strategy is to undercut. Therefore, undercutting is inevitable.
The only exception is people selling their stipend, and they're a drop in the bucket.
I am going to have to say this. For PWE to say they don't set the prices is untrue as long as they determine both the amount of dill you need for game progression and the amount that can be harvested by time.
In fact, I am going to take this one step further and say that the decision to including STF and Romulan gear into the dill price structure with VA equipment and ships has increased the demand for dill, but not enough to offset the dill farmers supply- a PWE decision.
With the same number of farmers, PWE has increased the available dill supply to the point where it takes more Zen to purchase the same amount of dill. Add into this equation additional dill farmers, and I don't see how PWE can say they don't set the prices. Of course, PWE is in the business of selling Zen.
Unless they mean that they don't set the individual unit price per player to be able to sell their units vs the next player when the market is saturated. That would be an arugment for fifth graders. Obviously someone would sell their units at a price the market can support. With saturation from PWE, it would drop the price per unit to the floor. Hrmmm.... I wonder where all that dill came from?
Lulz.
I dont think its so much complaining about people who use real money to advance the game as much as complaining about people complaining that they have to spend more real money than they used to.
That is what this is about, the starter of the topic is complaining cause he has to pay more real money for the same amount of dilithium that he used to get. Personally in this cause thats crying in the wind in my eyes cause I always thought for how much effort one has to put in to get large sums of dilithium that the dilithium to zen exchange rate should be more equal than lopsided like it has been.
I mean 180 dilithium for 1 zen. that means to buy $5 worth of zen via dilithium it would cost you 90,000 dilithium and with a 8,000 refine cap a day that would take you just over 11 days of constantly refining dilithium to get $5. I think 85 - 90 to 1 is a better all around value. Will take cost you 42,500 dilithium for $5 worth of zen which is reasonable and take you about 5 1/2 days to obtain that much at 8,000 refining limit. That is more reasonable than 11 days in my book.
But for someone to complain saying oh im having to spend more real world money to buy the same amount of dilithium im not going to give you my money anymore can be akin to blackmail and its all laughable considering that he doesnt have to spend his money on dilithium and hes complaining about the costs. I wasnt on here complaining bout the costs of dil to buy a zen point for the effort I put in to make it.
Considering the amount I earn per hour at my job, vs the cash value of a hour's worth of dilithium grinding, I know which one I'd rather do. I just don't want dilithium badly enough to pay OR grind for it. I get small amounts here and there as I play. If it adds up eventually, super. If not, I don't waste a moment thinking about what I might be missing out on. That's what drives this market to either extreme, the basic human fear of missing something exciting.
That's not a solid argument, altho personally I don't feel one way or another regarding the issue itself.
Let's assume $10/h with a real job, 40h/week, with 10% disposable income =
800 Zen / 8h (taking the full work day to just fuel your STO) = 100Zen/h + other benefits.
Regardless of the "bad" dilithium exchange ratio.
Ingame you're capped at 8.000 dilithium, say 90 Zen, per character - for roughly 1.5h of work.
x 5 = 450 Zen in 8h = 56Zen/h + mental problems and other issues like unemployment/social neglect;
and this only given a (historically) good exchange ratio (from this, the inverse, perspective).
It's clear that (within certain parameters) RMT is more effective than spending time ingame.
You could say RMTers put in time elsewhere and do different quests, yes, but their quests are much better if they have a somewhat decent income.
He's dead, Jim.
we all buy Zen according to our wallet, or not, just being here with the community.
PLEASE, do as it suits you, buy a LTS, or don't ... buy Zen or grind Dill, but please do not ***** about it here in the forums afterwards..
it is all YOU doing it.. not Cryptic.
That is who it is. I am guilty of jacking the prices up on some items only because items that I am really wanting are jacked up themselves on the exchange but I try to keep my prices reasonable and I use the value listed on each item as a guide. I just wish people would stop complaining about how they are paying more zen for the same amount of dilithium. I didnt see people complaining about having to give a lot of dilithium for very little Zen.
I think its up to the person, theres players in my fleet that can cap 8,000 dilithium in 45 minutes. I cap 8,000 in about 60 minutes if there are no connection issues with the game.
A.) Increase the refinement cap.
B.) Release more content to the Zen store and/or release less (or cheaper) content with dilithium costs.
The dilithium exchange is absolutely based on the supply and demand set by the players. But that supply and demand always follows the production of content and the production of currency. Cryptic absolutely can affect the economy, as they are the sole producer of content here.
This is 100% the case - while the players create the buy/sell transactions it is Cryptic's business decisions that dictate where the price will go
IE creating massive dilthium sinks like Starbases and then making everything else cost dilthium to acquire - but leaving the refinement cap at 8000
couple that with not putting out a significant amount of new items in the Z-store and this is the result of Cryptic's business
Speaking of new stuff for the z-store - how about a whole lot of NEW costumes for the KDF??
This is plain misleading or misunderstanding of supply/demand economy. The dev team controls the DI supply available to the player on a DI per time unit spent. The dev team has tightened the DI supply dramatically per player time unit so the supply has decreased. Assuming demand has remained constant(for sake of an example) the price of DI raises per Zen.
Saying the players control DI price is like saying that the tail wags the dog.
Path to 2409: Martok made the definitive statement of the Klingon Empire's view of the Romulan Star Empire in 2388. "
The Klingons will offer no treaty, no aid, and no hand that is not holding a blade"
Yup, you are correct, I just do not have the patience ( or time ) to do the same missions day in and day out so I like to spend some real money to get there quicker. I don't mind dropping $40 a week into the game if I can get a nice 500,000+ Dil out of it ( 2 months of 8k a day ) , but getting less than 1 = 100 is pretty bad.
Honestly I took the other road of just leaving the game for now until a new big update hits, The market will hopefully recover by then.
Now you're just making way to much sense
Reasons:
Either you missed the 10% part or I'm missing something.
And no, "you" don't need more than 1.5h to get 8000 dilithium.
There might be people it takes longer than that but it's perfectly doable in 90 minutes.
70 minutes is doable (altho probably the utmost fastest possible day by day).
He's dead, Jim.
Really? Then I must be playing another game. The dil market is controlled by Cryptic by simply not showing all the offers.
I made a test: put some zen for sale at a price way over the market. I asked a friend if he can see my offer ( I excluded the fact that I wasn't able to see it), and of course no, there was no offer of mine. So simply by not showing all the offers, but only the lowest ones, CRYPTIC is controlling the market. At least be a man and admit it Brandon.
Interesting. All the more disturbing considering the formulation of that users "rules" violates exactly those rules being mentioned - on the fly.
He basicly states hisself why the stuff he says is bull**** because of the way he says it.
And then a Dev supports it.
The whole thing is pretty ripe with delusion - and not because of any factual mistakes.
He's dead, Jim.
I haven't seen anything that funny since there were new episodes of the Chappelle's Show. Just shows you what the Dev's priorities really are. If you are that disenchanted with what you do for work, then get out.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
I love it, because it's so true about the Forums, that's why i have the link in my signature.
There has been the argument that it's all the developers fault. Actually it's the fault of players that are angry about the dil exchange prices. The zen store prices are a fixed value. You can buy zen for a fixed amount of money and buy a fixed number zen store items. Then you can sell those items for ec, buy contraband and convert that to dil. There is more than one path to get dil. Again if you want more per day you need more character slots and those cost zen, not dil.
There has been discussion of the dil supply being restricted. There are more dil sinks that players want to use. However given the dil exchange prices there is actually more dil on the exchange than I've ever seen in past year or more. The volume I watched being traded on the exchange last weekend were substantial. The dil exchange prices are motivating more players to put dil on the market, in additional with zen being cheap it looks like players have been buying more character slots for the purpose of refining dil. Further to that contraband has been trading for 10k ec more than what it did a year ago.
If players are willing to sell zen for low prices they only have themselves to blame. The mechanisms are there to convert zen into dil, however it seems there are a lot of players that are making poor zen spending choices then trying to blame others for their decisions.
This is perfectly valid and correct, but you cannot disregard Cryptics influence in shaping dilitihum demand.
The prices would not have developed the way they did had Cryptic not introduced the fleet and reputation projects with a huge dilithium component.
It is consequently very clear that it's not solely the players that are responsible - altho they were willing participants.
Cryptic has changed incentives - and players have responded.
It's absolutely not the case that players "simply decided to settle for a lower exchange ratio".
This wouldn't happen for no reason either way.
He's dead, Jim.
The market will stabilize, as soon as folks hit T5 Rep, T5 fleet bases and have all the gear they need they'll sell off what they have for Zen.
Of course season 8 may be here by the time that happens so who knows what other "sink" they may create to keep up the need for Dilithium.
Can't agree with this one as queued content is not the only thing they've added in the past year mission wise.m Also (whether you use/like them); the Fleet Advancement, Reoutation System, the Tau Dewa sector Block and the Defera, Nukara and especially the New Romulus ground zones were not a 'cut and paste' job by any means (nor were all the cutscences and VO added as you progress in Reputation Tiers in New Romulus Rep.
And (unless you believe DStahl is lying) there's the fact that they've increased the STO Dev team to a staff of 50; and by his comments it's still growing; the fact that they've hired Denise Crosby to do voice over as 'Sela' for an upcoming Anniversary mission, and the stuff being worked on for Season 8.
So, yes, there is a lot of problems/issues with STO (and that's true of any MMO these days) - BUT, given what they've added to the game over the past year (and I don't care for everything they've done, but that doesn't change the fact that any such development costs money - and not everyone will like everything; but most will find something); and the fact the STO Dev team has been, and is still being added to - I don't see how you can make the claim
"PWE/Cryptic isn't spending any money in further development of STO."
And it's not the case that PWE/Cryptic just spends development funds and resources across all their MMOs as (IMO) they DO have a game in what I consider near maintenance-mode, and that's Champions Onlibe.
^^^
If you want to really see a Cryptic game that ISN'T getting much of any resource or Cryptic Dev support, go peruse CO's forums - and look what its gotten in the past year. Not pretty (IMO); and it's a shame as I do think CO has a lot of potential that hasn't been given the chance to be realized.
Whether you like the direction they're taking STO or not; it is pretty clear they are continuing to commit funds to STO's development - and increasing that commitment with regard to STO's Dev team staffing.
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..."
Please, stop "helping".
On each side of the exchange, only the most favorable offers matter, because why would you intentionally pay a higher price than someone's offering you? Even showing the five best and five worst provides lots of information as a very rough gauge of market stability and direction.
The way Cryptic controls the market, which they absolutely do*, is by controlling three of the four driving factors of the market - dilithium inputs, dilithium sinks, and zen sinks. The only one players have most of the control over is zen inputs, but that's still partly driven by the quantity and desirability of both sinks.
*Whether they control it competently and intentionally is a different issue.
Indeed, anyone that thinks STO is in bad shape needs to check CO out.
I'm hopeful that they'll put some investment into CO in the short term to try to capitalize on the exodus from CoH, but it's probably too late by now.
I'd imagine STO to earns something between $100.000 and $1.000.000 per month (I basicly imagine a lot of people paying $1)
Let's say $5.000.000 per year -> $416.666 per month.
Total labor costs I'd imagine something like $4.000 per head per month on average (I don't have the slightest idea since I'm from Europe).
Times 50 this is $200.000 per month, which works quite well with the presumed $416.666 and the premise of ongoing expansion (and server costs, profit, et cetera).
It would also mean that at least a good part of the revenue is spent on STO.
In any case: These numbers have no basis in reality (but I tend to get surprised by the accuracy of my wildest estimates time and again, so I have some slight confidence that it's not totally off).
He's dead, Jim.