well I don't believe in making people not get a profit from the exchange that's just wrong, however like the boxes now dropping in their sister game NWO that have crafting supplies in them I believe they should make certain things in STO more available as drops in regular and advanced STO missions. like XI purples for example. They aren't the best items to drop but they should drop off of STFs on normal imo which would change the pricing a bit.
Also ships, they might lend a hand at making the ships costs have a cap. (I know this is against what I said a moment ago) but some of these ship prices are way out of reach like the 94 million. If I hadn't had such a great fleet and one of it's members so generous I would have never been able to get the temporal science ship yesterday because on average I never get enough EC from my daily missions and exploration of the foundry missions to get above 1 mil. That ship was 94 mil EC those kinds of prices are ridiculous.
Finally the items for equipping and increasing the reputation could be lowered in price. At a certain point shouldn't a VA have access to a lower priced variant where one could buy commodities and consumables at a lower rate other than 1400 EC a pop. Or they could even increase the drop rate of those items so that it would be far easier to farm for them from enemy ship encounters.
There's plenty of ways for them to improve this.
They could also allow for the exchange of dilithium to EC directly.
They still haven't done anything about the slow nature of dilithium acquisition. Their sister game NW can collect 24k AD a day while STO is still limited to 8k. I would have thought they'd realized by now just how limited they make this game.
With the colosal amount of bugs in this game they should give everyone an EC stipend of several thousand an hour just for playing.
TRIBBLE the game economy.
They do. Do you know how many 10s of thousands of EC I make per hour at level 50 just from throw-away drops that I don't even bother to take to the Exchange?
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
There are better ways to make ec anyway. I'm never a billionaire at any given time, but when I want something like a JHAS its no problem for me to raise tens or hundreds of mil ec in a few days. Farming sb 24, CE, foundry, doffing all on multiple characters to get around cooldowns make it easy. With all the contraband I get from marauding plus the occaisonal pvp dil grinds I usually refine dil cap on 6-10 characters per day, even more dil that gets turned into zen then EC.
The STO economy really does need an EC sink. The large amount of EC entering into the economy is the cause of the high inflation on the exchange. There are frequent threads made on these forums complaining about how the prices on the exchange are too high. The cause is more than just supply/demand. Yes supply and demand does influence it, but the overall cost of things (ie the inflation rate) is caused by the ever increasing amounts of EC being created. (Note: buying and selling on the exchange does not 'create' EC. It merely transfers existing EC from the buyer to the seller). EC is 'created' whenever you sell something to an NPC vendor, when you are awarded EC through PVP, doff assignments, missions, etc, AND in events like Tour the Universe. Without a balancing 'sink', the EC economy would be subject to rampant inflation. And indeed, there has been A LOT of inflation in STO. Before starbases and the reputation system were put in, there was essentially, NO sink for ECs. The devs can keep track of how much EC is in the system. Obviously, they feel those sinks aren't enough.
This is dead on. And really I think there are two themes in place here that work together - (1) reduce the available EC in the market and (2) lower the value of MK XII VR consoles, weapons, and anything outside of ships that cost 10 million plus.
Why? because as it stands the game CAN NOT increase the level cap. It cant. If tomorrow they made the level cap 60 and added in MK XIII or MK XIV gear... the rage...would be extreme. Think back to when they kept messing with Dilithium.
Or in RL - If you bought a new car for $100,000 and tomorrow that same car sold for $50,000... You'd be pissed off. But if that $100,000 car was sold for $50,000 a few years later.. after it is out of style and all that... you wouldn't even think about it.
Over time it is possible that changes in STO, creating a lack of EC and new venues in which to get high end consoles, that any level/gear increase would be well received by the player base and not seen as a massive underhanded ripoff.
PS - this doesn't address ships. In my mind we've tapped out and ships won't get any better than they are now short of Fleet upgrades. People wouldn't be to open to having hundreds of dollars in real money wasted overnight with a whole new crop of ships (not to mention most of the ships from the 'main' Trek IP are used up)
a major source of income has been removed due to [insert reason] and this has devastating consequences for both the P2Pers and F2Pers
This seeems to be the handiwork of the powers to be, that introduced unrep materials into crafting...
Cryptic expects players to spend an average of 3.5h a day playing. ( Read dev blog about dil mine )
That amount of time is untenable for working adults, especially so for those married and with kids.
Casual players may lose interest in the game and a portion of the playerbase will leave
The premise that removing a source of income will force F2Pers into P2Per is so totally false. This is the same analogy or mindset that the RIAA or music labels have when calculating losses from bootleg recordings. When calculating the mindset of F2Pers, there must be something of such value, that entices them to make the jump from playing a game for free to paying for it. Removing a major source of income for F2Pers will NOT convert the majority of F2Pers into P2Pers but rather, will make it alot harder for them to justify why they should be spending time on a game that charges $25 a ship, which will take approximately ( 2500zen / 70zen a day ) = 35 days or 35x3h=105h of grinding to have.
That said, i would expect a major price correction on the exchange, due to the fact that the supply of ec has been curtailed. I will also not be surprised to see that Cryptic also suffer a drop in sales of zen, for those who purchase zen solely for the purpose of easy ec conversion, may be less inclined to do so due to the lack adequate compensation for their unwanted stuff.
For the F2Pers, all is not lost though
Episode Replays actually can provide all the top end equipment for their needs. So in actual fact, those who wish to remain truly free, just needs to replay more, to get what they want. In this sense, top end may not be as powerful as the maco equipment but they are enough to get the job done.
Unwanted consequence
I do foresee STFs become a bit harder, either due to pugs coming in with inadequate equipment, or more AFKers lookign for easy dil.
Small fleets, may want to consider syndicated farm runs, either for EC or dil. Just takes some discipline..
Why? because as it stands the game CAN NOT increase the level cap. It cant. If tomorrow they made the level cap 60 and added in MK XIII or MK XIV gear... the rage...would be extreme. Think back to when they kept messing with Dilithium.
I was here for the "Marks of X" to Dil conversion. The rage was so thick you needed a machete to cut it.... didn't change anything.
The 4 hour cooldown wasnt all about the EC as everyone seems to believe. There was an exploit and that exploit was why they implemented the cooldown. They could have just made it a daily where you must complete it to get the rewards with a fail getting a bad joke worth of EC. That would have been the logical choice to make if they wanted to curtail the amount of EC gained because as it is we can still do the tour more than a single time per day even if that requires setting your alarm and getting up in the middle of the night just to do it.
What the cooldown was is simply a bandaid fix for the exploit. Nothing to do with lowering ones ability to gain EC without exploiting. Same as they did when they made the drop cap for foundries.
As for the loss of the exploit and many will now make less EC, that will have a minimal effect on the exchange. There is not that many people that do the tour to make a major change on the exchange.
I myself posted many suggestions in this thread that are a guaranteed way of making enough EC to make the tour irrelevant. I know this because those suggestions are what I do and I do not need or even do the tour. 16 million in 2 days is not something to ignore compared to 6 million. What I think many are angry about is the removal of the lazy "I win" button the tour exploit gave people.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
What I think many are angry about is the removal of the lazy "I win" button the tour exploit gave people.
Tour was far from lazy, as I've already explained on page 1, but players did use it as a means to compete with other ships in sector speed chases. I don't that's going to stop either. After all, everybody loves a race.
uh...you people do know they read this stuff, correct? why not just make a list so they can get rid of all the ec farming missions that "they" are too lazy to go look for....oh, wait.. you're doing it right now...
I use to do the tour before season 7. I would run it 3 full times and make around 1 mill EC. It was by no means easy. With the loading times at ESD and constant micro managing it wasn't a automatic "press a button get EC" thing.
I don't use it now. I usually sell stuff on the exchange, doff and sell loot back to vendors.
I can see why tons of players are upset. To me it is about HOW Crypic went about it. Doing it behind the scenes and not explaining it. I have always said that gaming companies hurt themselves more by doing stuff like this. They should have just posted and explained WHY they did it up front. Doing it the way they did makes players not trust them anymore. When you lose that trust, your player base start to question why do they even play.
I don't even do the crappy thing now anymore, the weak 350k for a single run now isn't even worth the effort to me. Real weak there Cryptic real weak!!!
Tour was far from lazy, as I've already explained on page 1, but players did use it as a means to compete with other ships in sector speed chases. I don't that's going to stop either. After all, everybody loves a race.
The tour itself isnt, but the exploit was. They could have put a cooldown if you dropped the mission but none if you complete it. certain setups can complete it multiple times in an hour and those who did that are ofcourse being punished. anyone that used the exploit i have no sympathy for, those who completed the tour i do.
As for a race i wish they added races, shuttle, starship, running, even the new floaters. prizes for first, second, and third place, Purple MK XII for first, Purple MK XI for second, and Purple MK X for third in the LvL 40-50 bracket. same for every ten level bracket on down with prizes in their level range. EC and maybe dilithium for everyone for just finishing. 10 players to start the race. I would definatly race people!
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Removing a major source of income for F2Pers will NOT convert the majority of F2Pers into P2Pers but rather, will make it alot harder for them to justify why they should be spending time on a game that charges $25 a ship, which will take approximately ( 2500zen / 70zen a day ) = 35 days or 35x3h=105h of grinding to have.
What does EC have to do with getting Zen? There is no quick way of converting EC to Zen. You can buy contraband to convert to dilithium, but it takes 4 hours to get 2000 dilithium. Not exactly efficient. EC has no bearing on the dilithium grind. Nor does it have much bearing on top end gear. Top end gear is obtained via fleet and reputation system, all of which is bind on pickup. And the cost is all dilithium, fleet credits, or marks. The only gear that you can argue that costs EC are the consoles, and even that is being brought into the fleet stores. And lockbox ships will always be a gamble.
I do believe that your premise is false. This was not done as a way to 'convert' F2P players into P2P players. It was done simply to keep a lid on the EC inflation. I will not be surprised if this is not enough to keep the ECs in check, and down the line, they will have to remove even more.
_____________________
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If it will never be change again then I will never and I mean never spend 1 more zen or buy 1 more perfect world point or renew my subscription to this poor excuse of a company. I may even consider quitting the game all together.
These are the potential consequences STO faces from reducing the available supply of ec to players:
1) Economy. Items that are over 10 mil will be out of reach to majority of F2P players who will be unable to save enough for their daily game needs
2) F2P. Players who do not pay will not be able to make ends meet without some heavy game involvement. This will force some of those unable to immerse themselves to leave, shrinking the F2P player base.
3) Fleets. Many small fleets will become unsupportable, forcing players to merge/migrate to larger fleets. Fleets that have been inching by till now will have have impaired or cease growth entirely.
4) Spending: With less ec floating around, regular players like me are going to have to tighten our belts and spend less and only for things that matter. A mistaken purchase that could be recoverable from before, can now have devastating consequences for a ordinary player. Less alts will be created because players won't be ale to afford equipping them, which means players will be less specialized and become sloppier.
The Advantages:
Despite from the consequences, there is one major advantage for STO, though not for players themselves:
P2P. The pay to play player base will increase as more players find they need to buy zen or goods they can't otherwise get any other way.
where is the logic of putting a 4 hour cool down on something that only ran 4 1hr every 12 to 13 hours, there is none because there is no logic to these idiots who cant even do weekly maintenance on game without breaking something within system.
so they can basically take their excuses and stick them where the sun don't shine because I have cancelled my subscription and am debating if im ever going to return again
It's a shame to hear that TtU has been altered, more so that it's been altered without any kind of warning. When I have the time I did run it and had build almost specifically for it to get as many runs in as possible, I'm aware they may have changed it to one run only for what I like to call 'Tour The Sector' where a player tours a few select sectors, drops the mission, returns to Yim and repeats, rather than doing the full tour, however doing this gave you far more EC than doing as many full tours as possible so the incentive to do full tours was lost.
I have two solutions for this:
a) Give the EC and/or extra EC upon returning to Yim (I'm aware there've been problems handing the mission in in the past however)
b) Keep it as one tour but increase the payout based on time it takes to complete the tour, for example an extra 1mil for completing it in 15min, 500k for completing it in 30 mins, 250k for completing it in 45mins, 125k for completing it in 50mins.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
If you know other foundry ec missions, know farming missions for KDF/Rom or know any other ways to make reliable ec, please post below. If no one else, you'll earn my appreciation for your time and helpfulness.
I will post if I find any other methods. Heads up fellow F2P'rs, together we'll get through this.
On both the Fed and KDF side my favorite has long been the Battleship Royal Rumble (name on KDF is similar or the same). It's not only my favorite Foundry "farming" run it's also a GREAT testbed and shakedown for new build's. It gives you a real combat environment test and allows you to test your build/skills against every sort of capital ship from high end DPS'ers to the more "science" oriented ships. That's where I usually run my combat logs to test overall DPS for a build as well.
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
has any F2P player who opened a lot of boxes got a ship out of it ??
im opened 600-800 boxes by now and never got a single ship ...while gold members i know got 2 ships sometimes from as little as 20 boxes opened
The rewards your get from the lockboxes are random. There is no weight given towards the number of lockboxes, whether your are a silver or account account, how long you've been playing, or any other thing one can come up with. Getting a big prize ship is about the odds of taking 8 coins, tossing them into the air, and all 8 coins coming up heads. You are doing that every time you open up a lockbox looking for the big prize. It's the same odds each time and every time. You might get it on the first box or it may be 1000 boxes.
(Note: The odds of the ship are actually a bit better than the 8 coins all heads up).
You seem to harbor some resentment towards those players that have taken the time and patience to amass a large number of resources. I myself personally have been investing and grinding for the last 6-8 months to amass what I have. When you speak about attempting to deny people profits it makes you seem resentful and kind of communist in thinking.
Personally I thought the Tour was boring and a very poor way to make EC. Yes it was easy and mindless and maybe that is what attracted many players. I am going to fly in circles for a hour to make a million or two? That is highly ineffective.
I hate grind and after several months of grind, I have finally freed myself of it. I prefer the social aspect and the number of challenges and enjoyable things to do. Not the grind.
More effective ways of making EC are following the market trends and inventing and holding items for later sale, flipping high value items as in Lockbox/Lobi ships and wheeling and dealing with other players. At first you may not have the big EC to make the large deals but over time you will amass the EC needed.
The key is patience and the ability to be smart with what you buy. I have amassed a large number of resources and I am getting ready to buy my first lobi ship. All the while I trade 5-10 a week for a profit. Heck I have given out 2 Lockbox ships to members of my fleet, while I still fly a free ship. My weekly EC income is close to 30 million.
As I said in the other thread on this subject, removing sources of income never improves an economy.
- poking around the exchange for undervalued items (like somebody selling disruptor coils without checking what they're really worth, or leaving a zero off the sell price when posting a bugship...) snapping them up, turning around and reselling them at correct market value.
I usually post items at around half price to the RRP, as I have got them for nothing I am still making total profit and it will sell fast so I always have room to sell more.
The biggest problem I have is making enough dill to get Zen.
has any F2P player who opened a lot of boxes got a ship out of it ??
im opened 600-800 boxes by now and never got a single ship ...while gold members i know got 2 ships sometimes from as little as 20 boxes opened
Second Cardy box gave me a Galor, the first some battery combo. Though this was when they first came out so I only opened the two gold ones I got. I had some spare c-points left so used them for the keys.
Even then there were gold players who opened a ton of them and got nothing worth bothering about let alone a ship.
The tour itself isnt, but the exploit was. They could have put a cooldown if you dropped the mission but none if you complete it. certain setups can complete it multiple times in an hour and those who did that are ofcourse being punished. anyone that used the exploit i have no sympathy for, those who completed the tour i do.
Explain what is the exploit ? How was it done ?
Ppl putting 9 in Driver Coil and using the Borg Engine ? That's not an exploit .
Ppl doing only a few sectors and re-reacquiring the mission ? That's not an exploit either , as you were payed by sector , not by completing the full race , and you can drop / acquire any mission in STO .
So what was the exploit ?
'Cause I don't think there was one .
Comments
Also ships, they might lend a hand at making the ships costs have a cap. (I know this is against what I said a moment ago) but some of these ship prices are way out of reach like the 94 million. If I hadn't had such a great fleet and one of it's members so generous I would have never been able to get the temporal science ship yesterday because on average I never get enough EC from my daily missions and exploration of the foundry missions to get above 1 mil. That ship was 94 mil EC those kinds of prices are ridiculous.
Finally the items for equipping and increasing the reputation could be lowered in price. At a certain point shouldn't a VA have access to a lower priced variant where one could buy commodities and consumables at a lower rate other than 1400 EC a pop. Or they could even increase the drop rate of those items so that it would be far easier to farm for them from enemy ship encounters.
There's plenty of ways for them to improve this.
They could also allow for the exchange of dilithium to EC directly.
They still haven't done anything about the slow nature of dilithium acquisition. Their sister game NW can collect 24k AD a day while STO is still limited to 8k. I would have thought they'd realized by now just how limited they make this game.
TRIBBLE the game economy.
I have never played STO for an hour LOL.
My character Tsin'xing
Do you really make 400 M Ec just with that?
This is dead on. And really I think there are two themes in place here that work together - (1) reduce the available EC in the market and (2) lower the value of MK XII VR consoles, weapons, and anything outside of ships that cost 10 million plus.
Why? because as it stands the game CAN NOT increase the level cap. It cant. If tomorrow they made the level cap 60 and added in MK XIII or MK XIV gear... the rage...would be extreme. Think back to when they kept messing with Dilithium.
Or in RL - If you bought a new car for $100,000 and tomorrow that same car sold for $50,000... You'd be pissed off. But if that $100,000 car was sold for $50,000 a few years later.. after it is out of style and all that... you wouldn't even think about it.
Over time it is possible that changes in STO, creating a lack of EC and new venues in which to get high end consoles, that any level/gear increase would be well received by the player base and not seen as a massive underhanded ripoff.
PS - this doesn't address ships. In my mind we've tapped out and ships won't get any better than they are now short of Fleet upgrades. People wouldn't be to open to having hundreds of dollars in real money wasted overnight with a whole new crop of ships (not to mention most of the ships from the 'main' Trek IP are used up)
It's actually been quite fun and I actually have grouped for the Heroics there. :eek:
I love that we are getting Fleet consoles!
a major source of income has been removed due to [insert reason] and this has devastating consequences for both the P2Pers and F2Pers
This seeems to be the handiwork of the powers to be, that introduced unrep materials into crafting...
Cryptic expects players to spend an average of 3.5h a day playing. ( Read dev blog about dil mine )
That amount of time is untenable for working adults, especially so for those married and with kids.
Casual players may lose interest in the game and a portion of the playerbase will leave
The premise that removing a source of income will force F2Pers into P2Per is so totally false. This is the same analogy or mindset that the RIAA or music labels have when calculating losses from bootleg recordings. When calculating the mindset of F2Pers, there must be something of such value, that entices them to make the jump from playing a game for free to paying for it. Removing a major source of income for F2Pers will NOT convert the majority of F2Pers into P2Pers but rather, will make it alot harder for them to justify why they should be spending time on a game that charges $25 a ship, which will take approximately ( 2500zen / 70zen a day ) = 35 days or 35x3h=105h of grinding to have.
That said, i would expect a major price correction on the exchange, due to the fact that the supply of ec has been curtailed. I will also not be surprised to see that Cryptic also suffer a drop in sales of zen, for those who purchase zen solely for the purpose of easy ec conversion, may be less inclined to do so due to the lack adequate compensation for their unwanted stuff.
For the F2Pers, all is not lost though
Episode Replays actually can provide all the top end equipment for their needs. So in actual fact, those who wish to remain truly free, just needs to replay more, to get what they want. In this sense, top end may not be as powerful as the maco equipment but they are enough to get the job done.
Unwanted consequence
I do foresee STFs become a bit harder, either due to pugs coming in with inadequate equipment, or more AFKers lookign for easy dil.
Small fleets, may want to consider syndicated farm runs, either for EC or dil. Just takes some discipline..
My character Tsin'xing
What the cooldown was is simply a bandaid fix for the exploit. Nothing to do with lowering ones ability to gain EC without exploiting. Same as they did when they made the drop cap for foundries.
As for the loss of the exploit and many will now make less EC, that will have a minimal effect on the exchange. There is not that many people that do the tour to make a major change on the exchange.
I myself posted many suggestions in this thread that are a guaranteed way of making enough EC to make the tour irrelevant. I know this because those suggestions are what I do and I do not need or even do the tour. 16 million in 2 days is not something to ignore compared to 6 million. What I think many are angry about is the removal of the lazy "I win" button the tour exploit gave people.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Tour was far from lazy, as I've already explained on page 1, but players did use it as a means to compete with other ships in sector speed chases. I don't that's going to stop either. After all, everybody loves a race.
ever wonder why this thread hasn't been closed?
think about it.
I don't use it now. I usually sell stuff on the exchange, doff and sell loot back to vendors.
I can see why tons of players are upset. To me it is about HOW Crypic went about it. Doing it behind the scenes and not explaining it. I have always said that gaming companies hurt themselves more by doing stuff like this. They should have just posted and explained WHY they did it up front. Doing it the way they did makes players not trust them anymore. When you lose that trust, your player base start to question why do they even play.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The tour itself isnt, but the exploit was. They could have put a cooldown if you dropped the mission but none if you complete it. certain setups can complete it multiple times in an hour and those who did that are ofcourse being punished. anyone that used the exploit i have no sympathy for, those who completed the tour i do.
As for a race i wish they added races, shuttle, starship, running, even the new floaters. prizes for first, second, and third place, Purple MK XII for first, Purple MK XI for second, and Purple MK X for third in the LvL 40-50 bracket. same for every ten level bracket on down with prizes in their level range. EC and maybe dilithium for everyone for just finishing. 10 players to start the race. I would definatly race people!
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
What does EC have to do with getting Zen? There is no quick way of converting EC to Zen. You can buy contraband to convert to dilithium, but it takes 4 hours to get 2000 dilithium. Not exactly efficient. EC has no bearing on the dilithium grind. Nor does it have much bearing on top end gear. Top end gear is obtained via fleet and reputation system, all of which is bind on pickup. And the cost is all dilithium, fleet credits, or marks. The only gear that you can argue that costs EC are the consoles, and even that is being brought into the fleet stores. And lockbox ships will always be a gamble.
I do believe that your premise is false. This was not done as a way to 'convert' F2P players into P2P players. It was done simply to keep a lid on the EC inflation. I will not be surprised if this is not enough to keep the ECs in check, and down the line, they will have to remove even more.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I have got every MU ship to date but never got the top prizes
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I have two solutions for this:
a) Give the EC and/or extra EC upon returning to Yim (I'm aware there've been problems handing the mission in in the past however)
b) Keep it as one tour but increase the payout based on time it takes to complete the tour, for example an extra 1mil for completing it in 15min, 500k for completing it in 30 mins, 250k for completing it in 45mins, 125k for completing it in 50mins.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Ditto got mirror ships and junk but never a top drawer prize.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
On both the Fed and KDF side my favorite has long been the Battleship Royal Rumble (name on KDF is similar or the same). It's not only my favorite Foundry "farming" run it's also a GREAT testbed and shakedown for new build's. It gives you a real combat environment test and allows you to test your build/skills against every sort of capital ship from high end DPS'ers to the more "science" oriented ships. That's where I usually run my combat logs to test overall DPS for a build as well.
The rewards your get from the lockboxes are random. There is no weight given towards the number of lockboxes, whether your are a silver or account account, how long you've been playing, or any other thing one can come up with. Getting a big prize ship is about the odds of taking 8 coins, tossing them into the air, and all 8 coins coming up heads. You are doing that every time you open up a lockbox looking for the big prize. It's the same odds each time and every time. You might get it on the first box or it may be 1000 boxes.
(Note: The odds of the ship are actually a bit better than the 8 coins all heads up).
You seem to harbor some resentment towards those players that have taken the time and patience to amass a large number of resources. I myself personally have been investing and grinding for the last 6-8 months to amass what I have. When you speak about attempting to deny people profits it makes you seem resentful and kind of communist in thinking.
Personally I thought the Tour was boring and a very poor way to make EC. Yes it was easy and mindless and maybe that is what attracted many players. I am going to fly in circles for a hour to make a million or two? That is highly ineffective.
I hate grind and after several months of grind, I have finally freed myself of it. I prefer the social aspect and the number of challenges and enjoyable things to do. Not the grind.
More effective ways of making EC are following the market trends and inventing and holding items for later sale, flipping high value items as in Lockbox/Lobi ships and wheeling and dealing with other players. At first you may not have the big EC to make the large deals but over time you will amass the EC needed.
The key is patience and the ability to be smart with what you buy. I have amassed a large number of resources and I am getting ready to buy my first lobi ship. All the while I trade 5-10 a week for a profit. Heck I have given out 2 Lockbox ships to members of my fleet, while I still fly a free ship. My weekly EC income is close to 30 million.
in the words of two great Trek characters:
"If it should become necessary to fight, could you arrange to find me some rocks to throw at them?"
"What are we supposed to do without engines and weapons? Drift over there and use harsh language?"
points and a free hug to those that can tell me who said these and where they came from :cool:
I usually post items at around half price to the RRP, as I have got them for nothing I am still making total profit and it will sell fast so I always have room to sell more.
The biggest problem I have is making enough dill to get Zen.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Second Cardy box gave me a Galor, the first some battery combo. Though this was when they first came out so I only opened the two gold ones I got. I had some spare c-points left so used them for the keys.
Even then there were gold players who opened a ton of them and got nothing worth bothering about let alone a ship.
Random is random.
Explain what is the exploit ? How was it done ?
Ppl putting 9 in Driver Coil and using the Borg Engine ? That's not an exploit .
Ppl doing only a few sectors and re-reacquiring the mission ? That's not an exploit either , as you were payed by sector , not by completing the full race , and you can drop / acquire any mission in STO .
So what was the exploit ?
'Cause I don't think there was one .