@ the moment keys are close to 2.6 Million EC Each over 1.3 to 1.4 Million this time last year.
ummm... really for clarity lets be honest. They started out being about 750K. Then went up to the 900's. 1.3-1.4 would have been considered overpriced.
Regardless, whether its PWE or a handful of players, the entire dilithium market is rigged and manipulated. If you watch over a period of a day or week its pretty easy to see what goes on and how its being gamed. Even if you don't believe its rigged, just watching for any period of time makes it evident that its not based at all on supply and demand. Just today the price has gone from 140 to 142. No one actually bought out the Zen at that price, the sellers just inch it up. Zen is put into much higher price points to game the display. Because if there are 400K at say 140, why on earth would anyone list a few at 146 or 147. To keep the the display inching higher so their "lower" price looks like a deal.
They need to balance the refined dilitium costs with ec costs. There is way to much reliance on refined dilithium for everything. Of course that would cut into the zen-dil exchange, but when the dil vendors on ESD sell TRIBBLE because its a purple mk x, or blue in the case of consoles, no one buys that, except those that are unaware.
Right now the shipyard vendors offer Jack and sh** in usable items. Why spend EC on commons when you can loot greens in a foundry mission like fed farm or bought for miniscule amounts of money on the exchange or spend dil on "blue" when I can buy purples on the exchange albeit pricey depending on the level.
If you want to lower inflation, they can rework it so blues can be bought for EC and dil used on purples. That would also affect the exchange by driving down the cost of items like consoles. Or you make consoles bind on account. the Spire Consoles have helped but if regular consoles were BOA that would help even more.
Season 10 should be called something like The Orion Syndicate Heist
The premise is that the Orion Syndicate has broken into your personnel EC bank account and has misappropriated 50% of you balance. You must investigate and track down the perpetrators to recover as much of it as you can before your ECs get transferred to various dummy accounts and eventually makes their way into real legitimate accounts where your stolen ECs can no longer be identified.
You are guaranteed to loose 10% of what has been stolen because criminals do not meekly keep all stolen assets in an easily trackable slush fund for long. However, the longer it take to uncover what has happened to more ECs are permanently lost. Fail to complete this mission in time will result in a total loss of what has been stolen from your account.
Ummm... this mission is not replayable... unless you want half of what remains to be stolen...
The price of keys effects more then just keys themselves. There is a bigger picture to consider. There are plenty of players like myself with huge amounts of EC and as the prices on various items surge we hoard EC. I really want a Nicor but 300M is way too expensive even though I can afford 3 or 4 of them.
As prices rise more people hoard EC and less high valuable stuff sells. Also as I stated before the supply dries up as a result therefore increasing the prices as well. Weapon packs, traits, consoles have all seen at least 100 percent increases. Ships have doubled at the very least.
I have bought a few keys in the last month in comparison to 20 to 30. I haven't bought a key with Zen in almost a year. This has also kept me from giving out more ships to my fleet members and running promotions. These promotions help keep my fleet mates more active which in turn helps the game, even on a very small scale.
The price of keys effects much more then just those opening boxes.
How do i protect my EC from cryptic in case they go after wealthy players with hords of EC and dilithium
buy keys and store them
buy lock box ships and store them
imo cryptic is trying to push buying dlithium and cutting down ways to get wealthy from ftp..............Season 9 cut dilithium earning over 50% removing entire dilithium rewards in places and cutting it in others
next i see them cutting EC by limiting drops and quality of drops as well as ....heres the big one now brace yourselves
cutting the vendor buy rate for loot from 50% of item value to say 25%..... to cut down the amout of ec flowing into the economy
The amount of EC flowing into the economy is comical I see it as the next target for cryptic to nerf
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
How do i protect my EC from cryptic in case they go after wealthy players with hords of EC and dilithium
buy keys and store them
buy lock box ships and store them
imo cryptic is trying to push buying dlithium and cutting down ways to get wealthy from ftp..............Season 9 cut dilithium earning over 50% removing entire dilithium rewards in places and cutting it in others
next i see them cutting EC by limiting drops and quality of drops as well as ....heres the big one now brace yourselves
cutting the vendor buy rate for loot from 50% of item value to say 25%..... to cut down the amout of ec flowing into the economy
The amount of EC flowing into the economy is comical I see it as the next target for cryptic to nerf
You may well be right.
EC as an economy is basically over full.
Main reason for this is, in my view, two pronged.
Firstly, the big fleets are maxed out on holdings. Thus players who have demonstrated they are very good at amassing resources, including EC, have next to nothing to spend it on.
Secondly, many small fleets have stalled. A big part of that is an unintended consequence of the generosity of the big fleets opening their decks.
The incentive for small fleets to reach higher tiers is diminished.
The problem with cryptic addressing this is that if they merely reduce the amount of EC flowing in, it will severely impact new players compared with older players.
This is against the apparent medium term policy.
However, I can see them closing the mechanism that allows an invited member of a small fleet using bigger fleets stores.
Thus reincentivising the development of small fleets.
next i see them cutting EC by limiting drops and quality of drops as well as ....heres the big one now brace yourselves
cutting the vendor buy rate for loot from 50% of item value to say 25%..... to cut down the amout of ec flowing into the economy
The amount of EC flowing into the economy is comical I see it as the next target for cryptic to nerf
News flash good sir, they just INCREASED the vendor buy rate for loots. :eek: And go visit the undine battlezone or Ker'rat and we'll talk some more about not enough high quality loot drops.
The hyper inflation in the exchange is due to the greedy axeholes that plays the exchange metagame. That's all they do buy low sell high and there's a lot of them. Those are the guys you need to thank.
I bought approximately 350 keys when they were selling for 1.2 -1.3M each, and sold them all for pretty much double that.
But isn't that the practice of any business? Buy low and sell high?
I personally think the people with the funds and the wherewithall to do it, but don't, are missing out.
It is part of the game for me.
I bought approximately 350 keys when they were selling for 1.2 -1.3M each, and sold them all for pretty much double that.
But isn't that the practice of any business? Buy low and sell high?
I personally think the people with the funds and the wherewithall to do it, but don't, are missing out.
It is part of the game for me.
You can do what you want, it's a game. But in the end you're still a greedy axehole.
News flash good sir, they just INCREASED the vendor buy rate for loots. :eek: And go visit the undine battlezone or Ker'rat and we'll talk some more about not enough high quality loot drops.
The buy rate maxium is 50% of items value anywhere in the game ............... Are you claiming its changed ?
Undine content they are trying to push giving it a larger loot drop rate but its mostly low level loot
The high rate at ker'rat has always been the best loot drop to try and entice players to become targets for the pvper's thats not new its always been that way
and still hardly anyone goes compared to the stf's
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
The buy rate maxium is 50% of items value anywhere in the game ............... Are you claiming its changed?
True, the vendor rate is 50% ... but Cryptic boosed the base value of ground gear a while back to bring them more in line with what you could get selling off space gear. Still not that much but better than it used to be.
True, the vendor rate is 50% ... but Cryptic boosed the base value of ground gear a while back to bring them more in line with what you could get selling off space gear. Still not that much but better than it used to be.
I see what you mean ....point taken
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I don't know if it has been suggested since I don't want to read all nine pages atm, but if people think we need a EC sink, maybe can add a EC sink to gear like rep and fleet gear, and maybe lower the cost of dilithium for said items to compensate.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
I bought approximately 350 keys when they were selling for 1.2 -1.3M each, and sold them all for pretty much double that.
But isn't that the practice of any business? Buy low and sell high?
I personally think the people with the funds and the wherewithall to do it, but don't, are missing out.
It is part of the game for me.
Indeed, which shows you, people are buying them at the inflated prices. so, ultimately what drives the higher prices? The demand for the item by people buying them on the exchange. Sure there may be people complaining here about the price, but the obviously do not represent the market, since the items are selling.
I watch the games economy so that is my major discussion topic. Sometimes I post topics sometimes for the sole purpose of attempting to manipulate the economy as there is not an something like the SEC regulating the economy. I notice these trends and post also to gauge other peoples opinions. I spend 95% of my time in front of the exchange or leading my fleet then actually doing the regurgitated content.
Then you lead a sad existence... Why bother with a game if you think its content is regurgitated?
How boring lets spend 95% of my time in a game stood watch fictional game markets...
Any you OP, quite clearly trying to manipulate the market in some way.
ummm... really for clarity lets be honest. They started out being about 750K. Then went up to the 900's. 1.3-1.4 would have been considered overpriced.
Regardless, whether its PWE or a handful of players, the entire dilithium market is rigged and manipulated. If you watch over a period of a day or week its pretty easy to see what goes on and how its being gamed. Even if you don't believe its rigged, just watching for any period of time makes it evident that its not based at all on supply and demand. Just today the price has gone from 140 to 142. No one actually bought out the Zen at that price, the sellers just inch it up. Zen is put into much higher price points to game the display. Because if there are 400K at say 140, why on earth would anyone list a few at 146 or 147. To keep the the display inching higher so their "lower" price looks like a deal.
yeah, it was 750 k for like what, a month,then 900 k for maybe 2 weeks, then it quickly climbed to the 1.2-1.4 mark and not only stayed there, but basically became the staple over about the last two years.. never really went below, never really went over. now, all of a sudden. boom, it sky rockets. it didn't inch up, it just inflated almost over night. . but just saying, claiming they started at 750k is pretty unfair to put in the argument, as that was shorter lived than the time it takes to experience all the content in a cryptic expansion. so a little less than a month.
like I said, plain and simple, what is causing this is less people are competing with pricing on the exchange. the tycoons don't have as many people undercutting, thus, they can afford to buy out the lower priced ones and resell them. (as before so many people were undercutting it would have been a full time job and taxing on the pocket. ).
Consider a bath tub. If you turn on the faucet and plug the drain, as time goes on, more and more water will accumulate in the tub.
When sources of money are greater than sinks for money, the amount of money will increase over time.
Imagine a graph where the vertical axis is money, and the horizontal axis is time. Going from left to right, the line plotted on the graph will go up. The more time passes, the more money there is.
In economics, this is called "inflation."
This is complete bulls***, despite if people's cash flow of funny money increases, doesn't mean the price of commodities sold by player's need increase dramatically.
You cannot imply real world economics, in a game that has infinite money.
It still boils down to GREED, clear and simple, and no other explanation for it.
EC's are limited per character, limited being used to sell items on the exchange, yet everything keeps increasing in price only for those people to do what?
Max out their character's limit on EC's, than what spend it on nothing.
Well there are those, and than there are those who want something, and don't have the EC's to buy all those high OP items, so they sell items at again highly OP cost to get that shiny quickly.
Look at it this way, they recently changed traits to facilitate the 'fresh' level 50 player to not feel like they cannot keep up.
If EC inflation continues so many things on the exchange would take that 'fresh' 50 player far too long to gather enough EC to participate in the market at all.
Exactly .
In STO the really rich get richer and the poor stay poor .
... and yes , if you can get a 100-150M EC lockbox ship once every 3-5 months , you're poor ...
Thanks to you I was able to convert some year-old stipends to EC through selling keys. Keys went for 1.2 million almost a year ago. But now they sold for 2.4 million or more! They sold like hotcakes! Combined with the key sale, I had a FREE Nicor Bio-Warship in NO TIME.
[Yes, this is where inflation comes from - Straight from the Ferengi Commerce Dept @ Cryptic. They originated ALL of it. EC is a money maker for them just like Dilithium. What other reason is there for 99% of all LockBox Items being UNBOUND and Available on the EC Exchange?]
Three great easy places to put them, IMHO, would be...
1) Exchange Tax. This is a great one because if it is a % it will auto inflate with everything else.
2) Mail Tax. Why not.
3) Contraband turn in Fee. This would take massive amounts out even at a reasonable number like say 10k EC.
Other good places for EC sinks would be desireable consumables, Doff system, Boff training (add captain only trained skills for a mil EC for example), and so on.
I really cannot believe STO does not have any long term even minor EC sinks. Every other game exchange has atleast performed a tiny amount of de-inflation in my experience.
*On an unrelated note is it just me or has the dil to zen market held steady even with the current event?
I think cryptic wants the inflation as some of the EC sinks are removed. Like the tailor and ship tailor.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I think cryptic wants the inflation as some of the EC sinks are removed. Like the tailor and ship tailor.
Yep, since EC is dropped just about everywhere and there are not as much sinking it and nickle and diming player to death on it all over the place, it's value goes down relative to all of the scarce items dropped from lockboxes, keys bought (ultimately) with zen by players and the like. As such, since the value of keys are relatively static (being driven by harder currency value) their cost relative to EC goes up because the value of the EC is going down.
People may want to argue that economic theory doesn't apply here, but it most certainly does.
You also forgot the first law of an economy, is that inflation spells greed plain and simple.
agreed, its pretty lame really I mean purp low level gear is quite pricey as well, I mean I expect it for end game but really, low level purps are ranging from 500k to 1.4 mil its ridiculous.
I mean I know people are greedy but these people who are pricing these items so high are literally just exploiting new comers lol
most of the low level purp gear isnt worth it but they dont know that lol
I think cryptic wants the inflation as some of the EC sinks are removed. Like the tailor and ship tailor.
Tailor fees were probably removed because they were already practically negligible and basically pointless. Even at 10k EC per costume change it doesn't make much of an impact on the EC in the Exchange... it's less than 0.5% of the cost of one key at the moment.
agreed, its pretty lame really I mean purp low level gear is quite pricey as well, I mean I expect it for end game but really, low level purps are ranging from 500k to 1.4 mil its ridiculous.
Because only people with more credits than sense buy low level purple gear. Or buy low level gear, period. Mk X-XII gear is typically cheaper than the lower stuff just because there's so much more of it available.
ummm... really for clarity lets be honest. They started out being about 750K. Then went up to the 900's. 1.3-1.4 would have been considered overpriced.
Regardless, whether its PWE or a handful of players, the entire dilithium market is rigged and manipulated. If you watch over a period of a day or week its pretty easy to see what goes on and how its being gamed. Even if you don't believe its rigged, just watching for any period of time makes it evident that its not based at all on supply and demand. Just today the price has gone from 140 to 142. No one actually bought out the Zen at that price, the sellers just inch it up. Zen is put into much higher price points to game the display. Because if there are 400K at say 140, why on earth would anyone list a few at 146 or 147. To keep the the display inching higher so their "lower" price looks like a deal.
The Dil/zen exchange DOES NOT work like the EC-item exchange. The exchange rate is determined by an algorithm based on the amounts of both currency in the exchange, like FOREX. It's a currency exchange, not a commodity exchange, or a stock exchange. For example, you can hold out for a price more desirable to you, but you can't undercut to get your stuff sold more quickly - if you try, you will get the current going rate. Also, you instantly get what you buy, and sell what you put up (if at the current (or lower) rate), because it's putting your stuff into a big pool, not selling between individuals.
People are dumping a lot of dil into the exchange because:
1. There is just more of it, between the big fleets being finished, people finishing getting the gear they want from fleet/rep stores (and not having to spend as much on the rep store now because of the rep boxes), and all the dil-making events that have been happening; and
2. Zen is more desirable, because of the high price of keys on the Exchange.
Comments
ummm... really for clarity lets be honest. They started out being about 750K. Then went up to the 900's. 1.3-1.4 would have been considered overpriced.
Regardless, whether its PWE or a handful of players, the entire dilithium market is rigged and manipulated. If you watch over a period of a day or week its pretty easy to see what goes on and how its being gamed. Even if you don't believe its rigged, just watching for any period of time makes it evident that its not based at all on supply and demand. Just today the price has gone from 140 to 142. No one actually bought out the Zen at that price, the sellers just inch it up. Zen is put into much higher price points to game the display. Because if there are 400K at say 140, why on earth would anyone list a few at 146 or 147. To keep the the display inching higher so their "lower" price looks like a deal.
Right now the shipyard vendors offer Jack and sh** in usable items. Why spend EC on commons when you can loot greens in a foundry mission like fed farm or bought for miniscule amounts of money on the exchange or spend dil on "blue" when I can buy purples on the exchange albeit pricey depending on the level.
If you want to lower inflation, they can rework it so blues can be bought for EC and dil used on purples. That would also affect the exchange by driving down the cost of items like consoles. Or you make consoles bind on account. the Spire Consoles have helped but if regular consoles were BOA that would help even more.
It means I'm not buying any keys. Simple.
My personal line is two million.
Anything over that and I just keep my money.
Season 10 should be called something like The Orion Syndicate Heist
The premise is that the Orion Syndicate has broken into your personnel EC bank account and has misappropriated 50% of you balance. You must investigate and track down the perpetrators to recover as much of it as you can before your ECs get transferred to various dummy accounts and eventually makes their way into real legitimate accounts where your stolen ECs can no longer be identified.
You are guaranteed to loose 10% of what has been stolen because criminals do not meekly keep all stolen assets in an easily trackable slush fund for long. However, the longer it take to uncover what has happened to more ECs are permanently lost. Fail to complete this mission in time will result in a total loss of what has been stolen from your account.
Ummm... this mission is not replayable... unless you want half of what remains to be stolen...
As prices rise more people hoard EC and less high valuable stuff sells. Also as I stated before the supply dries up as a result therefore increasing the prices as well. Weapon packs, traits, consoles have all seen at least 100 percent increases. Ships have doubled at the very least.
I have bought a few keys in the last month in comparison to 20 to 30. I haven't bought a key with Zen in almost a year. This has also kept me from giving out more ships to my fleet members and running promotions. These promotions help keep my fleet mates more active which in turn helps the game, even on a very small scale.
The price of keys effects much more then just those opening boxes.
buy keys and store them
buy lock box ships and store them
imo cryptic is trying to push buying dlithium and cutting down ways to get wealthy from ftp..............Season 9 cut dilithium earning over 50% removing entire dilithium rewards in places and cutting it in others
next i see them cutting EC by limiting drops and quality of drops as well as ....heres the big one now brace yourselves
cutting the vendor buy rate for loot from 50% of item value to say 25%..... to cut down the amout of ec flowing into the economy
The amount of EC flowing into the economy is comical I see it as the next target for cryptic to nerf
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
You may well be right.
EC as an economy is basically over full.
Main reason for this is, in my view, two pronged.
Firstly, the big fleets are maxed out on holdings. Thus players who have demonstrated they are very good at amassing resources, including EC, have next to nothing to spend it on.
Secondly, many small fleets have stalled. A big part of that is an unintended consequence of the generosity of the big fleets opening their decks.
The incentive for small fleets to reach higher tiers is diminished.
The problem with cryptic addressing this is that if they merely reduce the amount of EC flowing in, it will severely impact new players compared with older players.
This is against the apparent medium term policy.
However, I can see them closing the mechanism that allows an invited member of a small fleet using bigger fleets stores.
Thus reincentivising the development of small fleets.
News flash good sir, they just INCREASED the vendor buy rate for loots. :eek: And go visit the undine battlezone or Ker'rat and we'll talk some more about not enough high quality loot drops.
I bought approximately 350 keys when they were selling for 1.2 -1.3M each, and sold them all for pretty much double that.
But isn't that the practice of any business? Buy low and sell high?
I personally think the people with the funds and the wherewithall to do it, but don't, are missing out.
It is part of the game for me.
Officially Nerfed In Early 2410
The buy rate maxium is 50% of items value anywhere in the game ............... Are you claiming its changed ?
Undine content they are trying to push giving it a larger loot drop rate but its mostly low level loot
The high rate at ker'rat has always been the best loot drop to try and entice players to become targets for the pvper's thats not new its always been that way
and still hardly anyone goes compared to the stf's
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
True, the vendor rate is 50% ... but Cryptic boosed the base value of ground gear a while back to bring them more in line with what you could get selling off space gear. Still not that much but better than it used to be.
I see what you mean ....point taken
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Indeed, which shows you, people are buying them at the inflated prices. so, ultimately what drives the higher prices? The demand for the item by people buying them on the exchange. Sure there may be people complaining here about the price, but the obviously do not represent the market, since the items are selling.
Then you lead a sad existence... Why bother with a game if you think its content is regurgitated?
How boring lets spend 95% of my time in a game stood watch fictional game markets...
Any you OP, quite clearly trying to manipulate the market in some way.
Go play the game as it was meant to be played.
yeah, it was 750 k for like what, a month,then 900 k for maybe 2 weeks, then it quickly climbed to the 1.2-1.4 mark and not only stayed there, but basically became the staple over about the last two years.. never really went below, never really went over. now, all of a sudden. boom, it sky rockets. it didn't inch up, it just inflated almost over night. . but just saying, claiming they started at 750k is pretty unfair to put in the argument, as that was shorter lived than the time it takes to experience all the content in a cryptic expansion. so a little less than a month.
like I said, plain and simple, what is causing this is less people are competing with pricing on the exchange. the tycoons don't have as many people undercutting, thus, they can afford to buy out the lower priced ones and resell them. (as before so many people were undercutting it would have been a full time job and taxing on the pocket. ).
This is complete bulls***, despite if people's cash flow of funny money increases, doesn't mean the price of commodities sold by player's need increase dramatically.
You cannot imply real world economics, in a game that has infinite money.
It still boils down to GREED, clear and simple, and no other explanation for it.
EC's are limited per character, limited being used to sell items on the exchange, yet everything keeps increasing in price only for those people to do what?
Max out their character's limit on EC's, than what spend it on nothing.
Well there are those, and than there are those who want something, and don't have the EC's to buy all those high OP items, so they sell items at again highly OP cost to get that shiny quickly.
Human nature at its finest, GREED.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Exactly .
In STO the really rich get richer and the poor stay poor .
... and yes , if you can get a 100-150M EC lockbox ship once every 3-5 months , you're poor ...
Thanks to you I was able to convert some year-old stipends to EC through selling keys. Keys went for 1.2 million almost a year ago. But now they sold for 2.4 million or more! They sold like hotcakes! Combined with the key sale, I had a FREE Nicor Bio-Warship in NO TIME.
[Yes, this is where inflation comes from - Straight from the Ferengi Commerce Dept @ Cryptic. They originated ALL of it. EC is a money maker for them just like Dilithium. What other reason is there for 99% of all LockBox Items being UNBOUND and Available on the EC Exchange?]
I think cryptic wants the inflation as some of the EC sinks are removed. Like the tailor and ship tailor.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Yep, since EC is dropped just about everywhere and there are not as much sinking it and nickle and diming player to death on it all over the place, it's value goes down relative to all of the scarce items dropped from lockboxes, keys bought (ultimately) with zen by players and the like. As such, since the value of keys are relatively static (being driven by harder currency value) their cost relative to EC goes up because the value of the EC is going down.
People may want to argue that economic theory doesn't apply here, but it most certainly does.
agreed, its pretty lame really I mean purp low level gear is quite pricey as well, I mean I expect it for end game but really, low level purps are ranging from 500k to 1.4 mil its ridiculous.
I mean I know people are greedy but these people who are pricing these items so high are literally just exploiting new comers lol
most of the low level purp gear isnt worth it but they dont know that lol
Tailor fees were probably removed because they were already practically negligible and basically pointless. Even at 10k EC per costume change it doesn't make much of an impact on the EC in the Exchange... it's less than 0.5% of the cost of one key at the moment.
Because only people with more credits than sense buy low level purple gear. Or buy low level gear, period. Mk X-XII gear is typically cheaper than the lower stuff just because there's so much more of it available.
The Dil/zen exchange DOES NOT work like the EC-item exchange. The exchange rate is determined by an algorithm based on the amounts of both currency in the exchange, like FOREX. It's a currency exchange, not a commodity exchange, or a stock exchange. For example, you can hold out for a price more desirable to you, but you can't undercut to get your stuff sold more quickly - if you try, you will get the current going rate. Also, you instantly get what you buy, and sell what you put up (if at the current (or lower) rate), because it's putting your stuff into a big pool, not selling between individuals.
People are dumping a lot of dil into the exchange because:
1. There is just more of it, between the big fleets being finished, people finishing getting the gear they want from fleet/rep stores (and not having to spend as much on the rep store now because of the rep boxes), and all the dil-making events that have been happening; and
2. Zen is more desirable, because of the high price of keys on the Exchange.