im not sure how many lobi crystals drop from 1 box?
I started keeping track of Lobi drops with the Hirogen boxes, and have found that a box will yield anywhere from 4-20 Lobi , with an average of 6-7 Lobi per box. So it would be about 123 boxes to get the 800 Lobi for the best Lobi store ships. And this is apart from the 100's of Lobi needed to buy other useful gear...
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
I started keeping track of Lobi drops with the Hirogen boxes, and have found that a box will yield anywhere from 4-20 Lobi , with an average of 6-7 Lobi per box. So it would be about 123 boxes to get the 800 Lobi for the best Lobi store ships. And this is apart from the 100's of Lobi needed to buy other useful gear...
Usually only the most current box listed offering more than 4 averages well, for me I have opened over 100 dominion boxes each only containing exactly 4.
Why would cryptic introduce ec sinks? Inflation isn't an increase in money supply, it's an increase in prices. The only things that are having increases in ec prices are things that come from the c-store, either directly (keys mainly, and then the things that people price based on key prices, like ship modules), or indirectly (lockbox ships, things that synergize with lockbox ships, or are needed to gear lockbox ships). Everything else is dropping in price, either slowly or quickly. Even some of the less-desirable lockbox stuff is falling in price.
If c-store things are increasing in price, without affecting the rest of the economy much, people will buy more c-store things to sell on the exchange. Cryptic wins, people selling stuff win, and people buying stuff win (they still bought something they didn't have before). No reason for ec sinks, because most importantly, Cryptic wins.
Why would cryptic introduce ec sinks? Inflation isn't an increase in money supply, it's an increase in prices. The only things that are having increases in ec prices are things that come from the c-store, either directly (keys mainly, and then the things that people price based on key prices, like ship modules), or indirectly (lockbox ships, things that synergize with lockbox ships, or are needed to gear lockbox ships). Everything else is dropping in price, either slowly or quickly. Even some of the less-desirable lockbox stuff is falling in price.
If c-store things are increasing in price, without affecting the rest of the economy much, people will buy more c-store things to sell on the exchange. Cryptic wins, people selling stuff win, and people buying stuff win (they still bought something they didn't have before). No reason for ec sinks, because most importantly, Cryptic wins.
Incorrect, inflation is seen in the cost increase of items, but it increases because the unit of currency decreases in value due to more of it being in circulation. This is generally why in the real world you see periodic raises for COL, due to the fact that as the currency unit inflates, if you're being paid the same amount you're effectively making less (because the value per unit is less, and you're getting the same units).
Incorrect, inflation is seen in the cost increase of items, but it increases because the unit of currency decreases in value due to more of it being in circulation. This is generally why in the real world you see periodic raises for COL, due to the fact that as the currency unit inflates, if you're being paid the same amount you're effectively making less (because the value per unit is less, and you're getting the same units).
That's a cause (just one of them) of inflation, but inflation itself is that increase in price - and not just in one small area, but in the whole basket of goods. This is why, to use a real-world example, the US inflation rate is barely above normal, despite having the money supply increase quite dramatically in recent years - prices haven't moved much (...or at least, officially).
Money supply can increase demand for a good at a certain price, because people have more money to spend, and therefore might be willing to pay more for an item than they were previously (or buy more of it at the same price - the effect is almost the same).
But there are other things that increase demand - the item can be seen as more valuable, for example (which I believe is the case for keys right now). Also, prices can increase because the supply decreases, while demand stays the same (this is what caused keys to jump in price in the first place - the usual suspects were buying bug promotion packs with their zen, instead of keys at the usual amount, so the supply of keys went down).
All this, of course, needs to be done in aggregate. If just keys (and key-related items) have price increases, than there is no evidence of inflation. If the price of everything else simultaneously goes down, that is evidence of a boom in keys, not inflation (if anything, it's a sign of deflation).
Incorrect, inflation is seen in the cost increase of items, but it increases because the unit of currency decreases in value due to more of it being in circulation. This is generally why in the real world you see periodic raises for COL, due to the fact that as the currency unit inflates, if you're being paid the same amount you're effectively making less (because the value per unit is less, and you're getting the same units).
How the heck is an EC ever going to deflate its own value, when the EC is an infinite, and never ending currency source?
The only limit on EC's is what a single character can have on hand, what the banks can hold, and what an item can be listed for sale on the exchange.
Outside of this limit, EC's themselves is limitless.
So inflation comes from a differing source, and reason, and not do to an ever existing game mechanic that has been around since damn near game launch.
RL economics does however in fact have a limited source of currency, and creating more with no actual GDP/gold/etc... type trade goods to back it, yes does cause deflation of the currency value, and effect inflation to a degree.
But unlike RL economics, STO has never ending money being produced, it has never backed that currency with anything besides what vendor's, and player's are selling.
So it is in fact player's that cause inflation, and not the EC, and the before most of us played mechanic that has existed.
Game inflation is often virtually driven by the player base, and not the Dev's, although they can have influence as well.
People figure up what they think a value of a virtual item is worth, than they see people want it so there is a demand, than people will go so far as to see how much they can charge for it before the demand dries up, and they are forced to stall inflation.
People who lists items in the Exchange must pay a listing fee. That fee is will be a percentage of the value the item is being listed for. Let's say 1% to keep it simple and 50 EC minimum fee. Since Master Keys are the main focus of this thread. If a player wants to list a key at a price of 2.5 million ECs, 25k EC is immediately deducted from the player's account. Naturally, there should be a confirmation message that appears on the screen prior to actually listing the item.
Items will stay listed on the Exchange for a period of 30 days. After the 30 day period, the item is returned to you. You will then be given the option to re-list on the exchange, but this time at only 0.5% maintenance fee on the value of the item, but a minimum of 50 ECs. The price of the item can be changed for not additional fee and the 0.5% fee is imposed on the new price.
Players can change the price of the listed item if they feel they are charging too little or much without having to de-list, then re-list the item. A 0.5% maintenance fee is charged on the price difference.
Sales Tax / Luxury Tax
The buyer pays a 1% sales tax on whatever item they purchase from the exchange. Pretty simple concept.
Any items listed for at least 100 million ECs is regarded as a luxury item regardless of it's actual value. A 2% sales tax is imposed on all luxury items and is paid by the purchaser. The tax is on the total value of the item, not the value in excess of 100 million ECs.
The cost to list any luxury item on the Exchange is an additional 0.5% luxury fee on top of the 1% listing fee. The fee is on the total value of the item, not the value in excess of 100 million ECs.
This methodology means items EC is removed from the economy with every transaction done on the Exchange. Since taxes will be paid by both the seller and the buyer it should have some impact on the selling price of an item. Seller need to be aware that the buyer will be paying a sales tax on top of the asking price so it can help mitigate the asking price for the item. This is especially the case for "Luxury Items" where the sales tax is 2% so an item listed for 200 million EC will actually cost the buyer 202 million EC. Generally speaking, anyone who can afford a 200 million EC item should be able to afford the 2 million EC tax.
The listing fee can potentially help mitigate absurd asking prices on the Exchange because the seller must pay a fee that is based on the listing price. This also affects people to simply uses the Exchange as "temporary inventory" so it also mitigate the affects of hoarding as well. The maintenance fee is simply a "service fee" that any real life Exchange would charge a fee for. It is a relatively low 0.5% because some people do honestly make mistakes when listing items so it is cheaper than de-listing the item and then re-listing it for the correct price. Additionally, the 0.5% fee to re-list the same item is a way to "keep" long term customers.
Overall, I don't think these fees are unusually harsh and it is a way to remove some ECs from the economy. Even the 2% luxury tax should not be too harsh since the "rich" should be able to afford paying a trivial amount.
In the end there is no real money sinks in this game which means prices simply goes up as people accumulate more and more wealth. Therefore, infinite money is quite sustainable in a game setting which has an overly simplistic economy. On the other hand, there is no such thing as an infinite money supply in the real world because continual printing of money simply decreases the value of currency to the point of economic collapse. Where currency is meaningless and people resort to bartering. Economic collapse will also result in civil unrest.
Argentina's economy has basically collapsed due to bad economic policies and continuously printing money which fuels inflation. Granted a lot of their problems are a result of price controls that the government has enacted in order to avoid financial collapse. Ironically, it is the continual manipulation of their economy to avoid financial disaster that actually accelerated the process of economic collapse. The continuous printing of money only adds more fuel to the fire since it devalues their currency.
The situation is so bad that the government has restricted access to foreign currency in the attempt to prevent citizens from converting their devaluing currency to harder currency such as greenbacks which would lead to even further monetary devaluation (a.k.a. inflation) as Argentine Peso are sold off for harder currency.
STO's economy is extremely simplistic in light of a real economy. There is basically one currency used in the game's universe. There is no other currency to use in the game other than ECs so there is generally no fear of an economic collapse; everyone accepts EC as payment.. However, in the real world the value of a nation's currency is always compared currencies of other nations. If your country is experiencing hyper inflation you better believe you are going to have serious economic problems because you will have an extremely hard time getting other countries to accept your quickly devaluing currency as payment. If no one accepts your currency you will not be able to import goods into your country. You will have mass shortages and eventually civil unrest because the world as you known it has collapsed.
RL economics does however in fact have a limited source of currency, and creating more with no actual GDP/gold/etc... type trade goods to back it, yes does cause deflation of the currency value, and effect inflation to a degree.
It really doesn't. Governments can essentially issue as much currency as they want, resulting in its value completely crashing if they do, which is why they don't. But this decision can essentially be made arbitrarily at any time. By your logic, the supply of currency is thus infinite. Even though this doesn't generally happen unless you live in Zimbabwe.
But unlike RL economics, STO has never ending money being produced
It doesn't. The expansion of the EC supply is limited by how quickly players can farm vendortrash to get it. No player or group of players can simply arbitrarily decide to flush trillions of EC onto the market overnight, which is more than can be said for real life.
it has never backed that currency with anything besides what vendor's, and player's are selling.
Yes, well, it turns out most of real-life money isn't backed by anything either. It's pure smoke and mirrors, nothing more than worthless paper, and sometimes not even that much. Yet, it works, for the same reason EC works: Like real money, EC is pretty much completely worthless, and absolutely nothing of any importance whatsoever in the game is bought with it. Like real money, if nobody were to accept it as money anymore, the only thing you could really use it for is fuel for fires.
This scenario is certainly POSSIBLE. If a massive, publicly available EC exploit were to suddenly appear, EC would collapse overnight as people emptied the Exchange of anything of value, and all trade would henceforth be conducted by bartering or using Lockbox Keys are currency (this already happens: Pretty much all serious traders take keys as being currency).
So it is in fact player's that cause inflation, and not the EC, and the before most of us played mechanic that has existed.
Game inflation is often virtually driven by the player base, and not the Dev's, although they can have influence as well.
Sometimes the game currency is just plain defective by design. Remember in Diablo II when the "gold" was worthless and everyone did business with SoJs as the de facto currency?
People figure up what they think a value of a virtual item is worth, than they see people want it so there is a demand, than people will go so far as to see how much they can charge for it before the demand dries up, and they are forced to stall inflation.
I don't think you grasp the difference between "inflation" and "high prices". Inflation isn't what causes high prices of specific items. Supply and demand causes that. Inflation is what systematicaly devalues the currency such that ALL items of any significance command higher prices across the board, not because of any particular change in the supply or demand of an item, but simply because an increase in the currency supply results in larger denominations of money being exchanged for the same things.
If I freeze you and bury you in a cave for 30 years, and you come back and notice that everyhting now costs 10x as much as before, this isn't because people have gotten 10 times greedier than before, it's simply inflation: A single buckazoid is worth less than before, but everything is still mostly the same relative to everything else.
In the end there is no real money sinks in this game which means prices simply goes up as people accumulate more and more wealth. Therefore, infinite money is quite sustainable in a game setting which has an overly simplistic economy. On the other hand, there is no such thing as an infinite money supply in the real world because continual printing of money simply decreases the value of currency to the point of economic collapse. Where currency is meaningless and people resort to bartering. Economic collapse will also result in civil unrest.
But that's precisely what happens in a game, too. Massive inflation will result in the currency becoming meaningless and people resorting to bartering. Rioting will ensue as people demand that the devs do something about it. So you see, all the things that happen in real life, happen in-game, too.
STO's economy is extremely simplistic in light of a real economy. There is basically one currency used in the game's universe. There is no other currency to use in the game other than ECs so there is generally no fear of an economic collapse; everyone accepts EC as payment.
Actually, the continued appearance of this topic indicates there *IS* a fear of economic collapse, and there are, in fact, things people don't trade EC for, due to this. And there is, in fact, a second currency used in the game: Keys. Should the EC economy implode for whatever reason, people will still accept keys as payment.
you have seriously bumped your head. That would crash the economy and the game would be dead in 3-6 months.
Historically speaking, I doubt a 1-2% fee rate would have a such a drastic impact, but it would also not have a significant effect on inflation. Larger values would certainly have an impact: Namely, big items being pushed out onto the black market and Zone chat filled with hawkers.
i stil dont get it
why the high prices with lobi ships
you no how much pll ea day get 1 ship
if you look ad the screen and see @....... get a undine nicore
ore any orther ship so ea day you see that ad least 10 pll get that kind of ship
so its rely not hard to get them and am sure alot have plenty of lobi crystals to
then you fly around and see what most players fly
and out of 100 ships you see maby 1 fly a undine ship
so in terms nobody wants it ore a tal shiar ship ore any orther lobi ship
so the system of geting a good ship is not working and players like to sell them then rely fly them
its more they only care about mony but if they sell it for so iinsane high prices
then rely nobody gone buy it
and this wil be going on in cricles and the economy is going nowhere
i stil dont get it
why the high prices with lobi ships
you no how much pll ea day get 1 ship
if you look ad the screen and see @....... get a undine nicore
ore any orther ship so ea day you see that ad least 10 pll get that kind of ship
so its rely not hard to get them and am sure alot have plenty of lobi crystals to
then you fly around and see what most players fly
and out of 100 ships you see maby 1 fly a undine ship
so in terms nobody wants it ore a tal shiar ship ore any orther lobi ship
so the system of geting a good ship is not working and players like to sell them then rely fly them
its more they only care about mony but if they sell it for so iinsane high prices
then rely nobody gone buy it
and this wil be going on in cricles and the economy is going nowhere
thats how i see it
sorry for my english
This has been addressed before.
You may see those announcements quite often, yes. But that does not mean they are common -- if anything, it understates just how many boxes are being opened at any given time. If you see announcements often, the boxes being opened are far greater than that.
And that's something to think about.
It's like an economic iceberg. We only see the tip. But underneath the waves are a whole bunch of boxes giving payouts we can't see.
It really doesn't. Governments can essentially issue as much currency as they want, resulting in its value completely crashing if they do, which is why they don't. But this decision can essentially be made arbitrarily at any time. By your logic, the supply of currency is thus infinite. Even though this doesn't generally happen unless you live in Zimbabwe.
It doesn't. The expansion of the EC supply is limited by how quickly players can farm vendortrash to get it. No player or group of players can simply arbitrarily decide to flush trillions of EC onto the market overnight, which is more than can be said for real life.
Yes, well, it turns out most of real-life money isn't backed by anything either. It's pure smoke and mirrors, nothing more than worthless paper, and sometimes not even that much. Yet, it works, for the same reason EC works: Like real money, EC is pretty much completely worthless, and absolutely nothing of any importance whatsoever in the game is bought with it. Like real money, if nobody were to accept it as money anymore, the only thing you could really use it for is fuel for fires.
This scenario is certainly POSSIBLE. If a massive, publicly available EC exploit were to suddenly appear, EC would collapse overnight as people emptied the Exchange of anything of value, and all trade would henceforth be conducted by bartering or using Lockbox Keys are currency (this already happens: Pretty much all serious traders take keys as being currency).
Sometimes the game currency is just plain defective by design. Remember in Diablo II when the "gold" was worthless and everyone did business with SoJs as the de facto currency?
I don't think you grasp the difference between "inflation" and "high prices". Inflation isn't what causes high prices of specific items. Supply and demand causes that. Inflation is what systematicaly devalues the currency such that ALL items of any significance command higher prices across the board, not because of any particular change in the supply or demand of an item, but simply because an increase in the currency supply results in larger denominations of money being exchanged for the same things.
If I freeze you and bury you in a cave for 30 years, and you come back and notice that everyhting now costs 10x as much as before, this isn't because people have gotten 10 times greedier than before, it's simply inflation: A single buckazoid is worth less than before, but everything is still mostly the same relative to everything else.
But that's precisely what happens in a game, too. Massive inflation will result in the currency becoming meaningless and people resorting to bartering. Rioting will ensue as people demand that the devs do something about it. So you see, all the things that happen in real life, happen in-game, too.
Actually, the continued appearance of this topic indicates there *IS* a fear of economic collapse, and there are, in fact, things people don't trade EC for, due to this. And there is, in fact, a second currency used in the game: Keys. Should the EC economy implode for whatever reason, people will still accept keys as payment.
Historically speaking, I doubt a 1-2% fee rate would have a such a drastic impact, but it would also not have a significant effect on inflation. Larger values would certainly have an impact: Namely, big items being pushed out onto the black market and Zone chat filled with hawkers.
Inflation most certainly causes higher prices on everything, if they are charged more, than they will charge more to make up the difference, as for anything beyond simply what is needed to remain living, and in business is one thing, but beyond that is shear profit due to greed.
Imagine a bath tub where there is a faucet which pours water into the tub, and a drain which drains it out.
Even if that faucet never stops flowing, as long as the drain can drain the water out at a given rate, the level of water in the tub will never rise.
In exactly the same way, the money supply can remain constant, or even decrease, as long as there is a suitable balance of sinks to make up for the constant inflow.
You need to stop and think about this for a change.
Instead of being so hateful toward your fellow players, consider that more than one person has politely explained the facts to you, and learn about it.
You sum it up pretty well but your signature takes it to another level. It takes a Ferengi to understand!
Imagine a bath tub where there is a faucet which pours water into the tub, and a drain which drains it out.
Even if that faucet never stops flowing, as long as the drain can drain the water out at a given rate, the level of water in the tub will never rise.
In exactly the same way, the money supply can remain constant, or even decrease, as long as there is a suitable balance of sinks to make up for the constant inflow.
You need to stop and think about this for a change.
Instead of being so hateful toward your fellow players, consider that more than one person has politely explained the facts to you, and learn about it.
Ok imagine that tub is being filled by the niagara falls with the same tiny drain, now confucius how do you propose to make a dent in that?
Sinks only take money from those who have little to begin with, far quicker than those who already have maxed sums on multiple toons.
So now what do you think of such an dumb idea as that?
These are just extreme examples, mind you. But they introduce the precedent that there would be a type of 'black market' in STO where people would engage in tax-free trades in order to save money, no matter how small the amount that would be saved -- since it wouldn't just 'stop' at Lockbox Ships. Nothing would stop this 'black market' from engaging in numerous trades regarding a variety of merchandise, as people see an easy way to avoid getting taxed.
But the costs are borne by the purchaser. The supplier has no incentive to not go through the Exchange if they're going to get the same profit, in a more convenient fashion with no risk.
It also isn't as if people aren't already arranging trades on forums anyway, and there's literally no reason to do that right now.
only proof of inflation is exchange, and as the preice there is stable 130-140 in last 30 days, there is no inflation in this game. inflation on key is simple because there is no need to seel keys for EC, as you got pretty decent gear from running reputation, and it cost you 0.
and all so, it is evident that people are buying keys in masses, so no one in right mind would lower the price so much that would affect people to lower the price. it is what it is, stop buying keys, and price will drop. but that's not going to happend.
and i have to say that DOOM is becoming boring, leave if you dont like it. game is not failing in any aspect, except of your expectation of it.
Like someone mentioned before me, a massive ec sink that has been plugged is from the availability of fleet gear.
Before the fleet spire, I was easily spending 35M on Mk XII tac consoles. Now even consumables have been taken out of the rep grind, what do people have left to spend their ec on?
Nothing essential as far as I can see. (Unless you're not in a fleet)
you have seriously bumped your head. That would crash the economy and the game would be dead in 3-6 months.
0.5% - 2% fee are in fact have a very small impact in the game economy where is actually an unlimited money supply. I use those percentage since is pretty easy for people to calculate. In fact, the fees should be higher in order to have teeth.
In the real world economy commodities and stock exchanges imposes much higher fees (as well as regulations) and that has not crashed the real world economy.
These are policies that removes money from the game to help slow down the rate of inflation because as money is remove from an economy, the intrinsic value of the remaining currency increases.
The luxury tax I mentioned serves two purpose:
1. The removal of excess money from the game.
2. Price control.
Price control helps to regulate market prices from being excessively high. I don't look at prices of items on the Exchange every day. That is not why I play STO so I do not know if items priced at 500k, 1 million or 100 million ECs should be considered "Luxury". However, it is clear that there is price gouging running rampant in the Exchange. The Luxury Tax and associated listing fee surcharge helps to mitigate price gouging / predator prices.
While it might seems to go against the laissez faire mentally, in the real world there is no true laissez faire economy because all governments practices some form of market regulations. A general statement would be market regulations helps protect the consumer. However, market regulations have also been used to impede foreign investments or discourage the population from buying foreign goods.
An easy example of market regulations used to discourage the purchase of foreign goods is the "Playstation 4 Tax" in Brazil. Before any taxes the PS4 is price at R$858 (Brazilian Real), converted to USD using today's exchange rate, that works out to $386 which is pretty close to what you pay for the PS4 on Amazon.
Then comes the pain... import tax, ICMS state tax, IPI tax, etc... that adds R$2524 to the cost for retailers to import each PS4 unit into the country. That works out to $1,135 in national taxes and import taxes. Naturally, retailers need to add in a profit margin for themselves at about R$875 (a 22% profit margin). This works out to a suggested retail price of R$3,999 or $1,798 USD.
It's good that you've come to accept the truth of inflation and how it works.
But you still shouldn't be so hateful toward your fellow players.
Or rude to the people taking time out of their busy days to explain things to you.
---
I will admit that the people who are already big winners and successes, who have lots of money already, will be well off no matter what happens. But, that's a good thing. They earned their money and therefore deserve it more than anyone else, and it would be wrong for them to lose it, especially to dry the tearful eyes of others.
Some inflation is a good and necessary thing. A sink could curb inflation to whatever degree the powers that be wanted.
Bear in mind, the game currently has no EC sinks to speak of. It's like a bath tub with the drain plugged, the water will fill up eventually, no matter how weak the flow from the faucet.
If it were up to me, the EC sinks in the game would be things people could buy from vendors for EC, or EC requirements for projects.
The devs don't enjoy good will from many players, and something like an 'exchange tax' would not be viewed kindly. It would be the lazy solution, the unprincipled solution, the 'who cares about the players' solution.
Who are you trying to kid?
Let's see there isn't really any less sinks than there was 2 yrs ago, so that doesn't matter.
Player base comes, and goes, so the production of flowing currency, is roughly stable as it was 2 yrs ago.
key selling competitor's is most likely the same, as there is never less than 400 keys listed at any given moment.
So what could it possibly be?
Well demand has always been steady, but the only true answer is player's simply demand more for the keys.
Which still boils down to plain old greed.
It's like why oil companies producing fuel charge roughly $4 a gallon.
Because after all making the same product, as they did just 15-20 yrs ago requires double the cost right?
Well they say it is because consumption is the biggest key, and the fact they now have to blend ethanol in with it.
Well if consumption skyrocketed by a factor of 100%, than yes I can see that issue, or if ethanol was very expensive, but it isn't.
And yet today you spend more for fuel only to get less for your dollar, as ethanol produces less fuel economy meaning less mpg.
I am not totally hating on people who do this, as it is after all human nature, but for them to try and deny it makes them look like such a fool.
Socialism in any society can be a good thing, but too little of it can prove to be disastrous.
Actually, the continued appearance of this topic indicates there *IS* a fear of economic collapse, and there are, in fact, things people don't trade EC for, due to this. And there is, in fact, a second currency used in the game: Keys. Should the EC economy implode for whatever reason, people will still accept keys as payment.
The problem with that statement is there is no formal way to barter items with other players. Meaning there is no clearinghouse where you put up a master key for an item you wish to obtain from me (like two purple Doffs). The Exchange itself is a clearinghouse. I list my purple Doffs on the Exchange thus they are removed from my roster. You see the Doffs and decide to buy them. Your EC passes thru the Exchange (a clearinghouse), then into my bank account.
Bartering relies on "trust" and "faith". You see the Doffs on the Exchange and you somehow figure out I am seller. You IM me stating you which to trade a master key for both of the purple Doffs. I agree to the trade and de-list my Doffs. I then ask you to send me the master key prior to me giving you the Doffs. You mail me your key. At that point I walk away and either decide to keep the Doffs or put them back on the Exchange.
It's like why oil companies producing fuel charge roughly $4 a gallon.
Because after all making the same product, as they did just 15-20 yrs ago requires double the cost right?
Well they say it is because consumption is the biggest key, and the fact they now have to blend ethanol in with it.
Well the cost of production has increased over the years (i.e. inflation) and must be factored into the price equation. Additionally, the price also takes into consideration the cost of oil exploration which has skyrocketed over the years since the easy to find oil fields to find have all been found. What is currently available in the ocean is very deep in the ocean. The technology to access those oil fields are rather expensive because they are more or less bleeding edge tech. Therefore, the actual cost to extract the oil has dramatically increased. That cost is then passed on to the consumer.
However, it is not as simple as that since the price you pay at the pump is based on the price of oil in the commodities futures market. A lot of things can affect future market prices especially geo-political events. The prices of gas can be affected by a war that may or may not take place. For example, let's assume something is going on in the Middle East and it is of great
concern to the US and a small fleet is sent to that area in the event that military action.
The news alone can cause the price of gas / oil futures to increase because there could potentially be a shortage of oil imports. Due to this potential oil shortage, many industries who requires oil to operate will lock in contracts now due to fears that the potential oil import shortage will become reality. Airlines, trucking companies, plastic manufacturers all decides to buy gas / oil contracts now to lock in the current price of oil for delivery.
This will drive up the cost gas at the pump and it will happen immediately even though the potential for a real shortage may be months away or might not even occur at all if the crisis is averted.
Regarding the enthanol... yes, it's original intent was to help reduce gasoline consumption and yes, using enthanol does decrease octane which generally means less mileage per gallon. However, there is a huge proponent of ethanol and that is the agricultural industry (i.e. farmers). The agricultural industry has many lobbyist in Congress who's primary goal is to ensure that the use of ethanol continues. The corn grown for ethanol is a guaranteed cash crop for farmer because it is subsidized by government. The US government is paying farmers to grow corn for the sole purpose of ethanol production. Due to this artificial demand for corn, the prices of corn grown for consumption purpose is higher than it should be since not all the corn down will be used for animal or human consumption.
Well the cost of production has increased over the years (i.e. inflation) and must be factored into the price equation. Additionally, the price also takes into consideration the cost of oil exploration which has skyrocketed over the years since the easy to find oil fields to find have all been found. What is currently available in the ocean is very deep in the ocean. The technology to access those oil fields are rather expensive because they are more or less bleeding edge tech. Therefore, the actual cost to extract the oil has dramatically increased. That cost is then passed on to the consumer.
However, it is not as simple as that since the price you pay at the pump is based on the price of oil in the commodities futures market. A lot of things can affect future market prices especially geo-political events. The prices of gas can be affected by a war that may or may not take place. For example, let's assume something is going on in the Middle East and it is of great
concern to the US and a small fleet is sent to that area in the event that military action.
The news alone can cause the price of gas / oil futures to increase because there could potentially be a shortage of oil imports. Due to this potential oil shortage, many industries who requires oil to operate will lock in contracts now due to fears that the potential oil import shortage will become reality. Airlines, trucking companies, plastic manufacturers all decides to buy gas / oil contracts now to lock in the current price of oil for delivery.
This will drive up the cost gas at the pump and it will happen immediately even though the potential for a real shortage may be months away or might not even occur at all if the crisis is averted.
Regarding the enthanol... yes, it's original intent was to help reduce gasoline consumption and yes, using enthanol does decrease octane which generally means less mileage per gallon. However, there is a huge proponent of ethanol and that is the agricultural industry (i.e. farmers). The agricultural industry has many lobbyist in Congress who's primary goal is to ensure that the use of ethanol continues. The corn grown for ethanol is a guaranteed cash crop for farmer because it is subsidized by government. The US government is paying farmers to grow corn for the sole purpose of ethanol production. Due to this artificial demand for corn, the prices of corn grown for consumption purpose is higher than it should be since not all the corn down will be used for animal or human consumption.
Yes I can highly agree with everything you just said, but after all that is factored the oil industry isn't a multi billion or trillion dollar corporation for not having some greed in there as well.
I mean let's face it after all expenses are paid, the top cream of the crop business owner's and runner's make oodles of money, and it doesn't come from not charging exorbitant fees for oil, and oil based products.
I mean let's face it after all expenses are paid, the top cream of the crop business owner's and runner's make oodles of money, and it doesn't come from not charging exorbitant fees for oil, and oil based products.
Hah, came across this right after I read your post. :P
Comments
I started keeping track of Lobi drops with the Hirogen boxes, and have found that a box will yield anywhere from 4-20 Lobi , with an average of 6-7 Lobi per box. So it would be about 123 boxes to get the 800 Lobi for the best Lobi store ships. And this is apart from the 100's of Lobi needed to buy other useful gear...
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Usually only the most current box listed offering more than 4 averages well, for me I have opened over 100 dominion boxes each only containing exactly 4.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
If c-store things are increasing in price, without affecting the rest of the economy much, people will buy more c-store things to sell on the exchange. Cryptic wins, people selling stuff win, and people buying stuff win (they still bought something they didn't have before). No reason for ec sinks, because most importantly, Cryptic wins.
Incorrect, inflation is seen in the cost increase of items, but it increases because the unit of currency decreases in value due to more of it being in circulation. This is generally why in the real world you see periodic raises for COL, due to the fact that as the currency unit inflates, if you're being paid the same amount you're effectively making less (because the value per unit is less, and you're getting the same units).
That's a cause (just one of them) of inflation, but inflation itself is that increase in price - and not just in one small area, but in the whole basket of goods. This is why, to use a real-world example, the US inflation rate is barely above normal, despite having the money supply increase quite dramatically in recent years - prices haven't moved much (...or at least, officially).
Money supply can increase demand for a good at a certain price, because people have more money to spend, and therefore might be willing to pay more for an item than they were previously (or buy more of it at the same price - the effect is almost the same).
But there are other things that increase demand - the item can be seen as more valuable, for example (which I believe is the case for keys right now). Also, prices can increase because the supply decreases, while demand stays the same (this is what caused keys to jump in price in the first place - the usual suspects were buying bug promotion packs with their zen, instead of keys at the usual amount, so the supply of keys went down).
All this, of course, needs to be done in aggregate. If just keys (and key-related items) have price increases, than there is no evidence of inflation. If the price of everything else simultaneously goes down, that is evidence of a boom in keys, not inflation (if anything, it's a sign of deflation).
How the heck is an EC ever going to deflate its own value, when the EC is an infinite, and never ending currency source?
The only limit on EC's is what a single character can have on hand, what the banks can hold, and what an item can be listed for sale on the exchange.
Outside of this limit, EC's themselves is limitless.
So inflation comes from a differing source, and reason, and not do to an ever existing game mechanic that has been around since damn near game launch.
RL economics does however in fact have a limited source of currency, and creating more with no actual GDP/gold/etc... type trade goods to back it, yes does cause deflation of the currency value, and effect inflation to a degree.
But unlike RL economics, STO has never ending money being produced, it has never backed that currency with anything besides what vendor's, and player's are selling.
So it is in fact player's that cause inflation, and not the EC, and the before most of us played mechanic that has existed.
Game inflation is often virtually driven by the player base, and not the Dev's, although they can have influence as well.
People figure up what they think a value of a virtual item is worth, than they see people want it so there is a demand, than people will go so far as to see how much they can charge for it before the demand dries up, and they are forced to stall inflation.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Listing Fees / Maintenance Fees
People who lists items in the Exchange must pay a listing fee. That fee is will be a percentage of the value the item is being listed for. Let's say 1% to keep it simple and 50 EC minimum fee. Since Master Keys are the main focus of this thread. If a player wants to list a key at a price of 2.5 million ECs, 25k EC is immediately deducted from the player's account. Naturally, there should be a confirmation message that appears on the screen prior to actually listing the item.
Items will stay listed on the Exchange for a period of 30 days. After the 30 day period, the item is returned to you. You will then be given the option to re-list on the exchange, but this time at only 0.5% maintenance fee on the value of the item, but a minimum of 50 ECs. The price of the item can be changed for not additional fee and the 0.5% fee is imposed on the new price.
Players can change the price of the listed item if they feel they are charging too little or much without having to de-list, then re-list the item. A 0.5% maintenance fee is charged on the price difference.
Sales Tax / Luxury Tax
The buyer pays a 1% sales tax on whatever item they purchase from the exchange. Pretty simple concept.
Any items listed for at least 100 million ECs is regarded as a luxury item regardless of it's actual value. A 2% sales tax is imposed on all luxury items and is paid by the purchaser. The tax is on the total value of the item, not the value in excess of 100 million ECs.
The cost to list any luxury item on the Exchange is an additional 0.5% luxury fee on top of the 1% listing fee. The fee is on the total value of the item, not the value in excess of 100 million ECs.
This methodology means items EC is removed from the economy with every transaction done on the Exchange. Since taxes will be paid by both the seller and the buyer it should have some impact on the selling price of an item. Seller need to be aware that the buyer will be paying a sales tax on top of the asking price so it can help mitigate the asking price for the item. This is especially the case for "Luxury Items" where the sales tax is 2% so an item listed for 200 million EC will actually cost the buyer 202 million EC. Generally speaking, anyone who can afford a 200 million EC item should be able to afford the 2 million EC tax.
The listing fee can potentially help mitigate absurd asking prices on the Exchange because the seller must pay a fee that is based on the listing price. This also affects people to simply uses the Exchange as "temporary inventory" so it also mitigate the affects of hoarding as well. The maintenance fee is simply a "service fee" that any real life Exchange would charge a fee for. It is a relatively low 0.5% because some people do honestly make mistakes when listing items so it is cheaper than de-listing the item and then re-listing it for the correct price. Additionally, the 0.5% fee to re-list the same item is a way to "keep" long term customers.
Overall, I don't think these fees are unusually harsh and it is a way to remove some ECs from the economy. Even the 2% luxury tax should not be too harsh since the "rich" should be able to afford paying a trivial amount.
In the end there is no real money sinks in this game which means prices simply goes up as people accumulate more and more wealth. Therefore, infinite money is quite sustainable in a game setting which has an overly simplistic economy. On the other hand, there is no such thing as an infinite money supply in the real world because continual printing of money simply decreases the value of currency to the point of economic collapse. Where currency is meaningless and people resort to bartering. Economic collapse will also result in civil unrest.
Argentina's economy has basically collapsed due to bad economic policies and continuously printing money which fuels inflation. Granted a lot of their problems are a result of price controls that the government has enacted in order to avoid financial collapse. Ironically, it is the continual manipulation of their economy to avoid financial disaster that actually accelerated the process of economic collapse. The continuous printing of money only adds more fuel to the fire since it devalues their currency.
The situation is so bad that the government has restricted access to foreign currency in the attempt to prevent citizens from converting their devaluing currency to harder currency such as greenbacks which would lead to even further monetary devaluation (a.k.a. inflation) as Argentine Peso are sold off for harder currency.
STO's economy is extremely simplistic in light of a real economy. There is basically one currency used in the game's universe. There is no other currency to use in the game other than ECs so there is generally no fear of an economic collapse; everyone accepts EC as payment.. However, in the real world the value of a nation's currency is always compared currencies of other nations. If your country is experiencing hyper inflation you better believe you are going to have serious economic problems because you will have an extremely hard time getting other countries to accept your quickly devaluing currency as payment. If no one accepts your currency you will not be able to import goods into your country. You will have mass shortages and eventually civil unrest because the world as you known it has collapsed.
you have seriously bumped your head. That would crash the economy and the game would be dead in 3-6 months.
It doesn't. The expansion of the EC supply is limited by how quickly players can farm vendortrash to get it. No player or group of players can simply arbitrarily decide to flush trillions of EC onto the market overnight, which is more than can be said for real life.
Yes, well, it turns out most of real-life money isn't backed by anything either. It's pure smoke and mirrors, nothing more than worthless paper, and sometimes not even that much. Yet, it works, for the same reason EC works: Like real money, EC is pretty much completely worthless, and absolutely nothing of any importance whatsoever in the game is bought with it. Like real money, if nobody were to accept it as money anymore, the only thing you could really use it for is fuel for fires.
This scenario is certainly POSSIBLE. If a massive, publicly available EC exploit were to suddenly appear, EC would collapse overnight as people emptied the Exchange of anything of value, and all trade would henceforth be conducted by bartering or using Lockbox Keys are currency (this already happens: Pretty much all serious traders take keys as being currency).
Sometimes the game currency is just plain defective by design. Remember in Diablo II when the "gold" was worthless and everyone did business with SoJs as the de facto currency?
I don't think you grasp the difference between "inflation" and "high prices". Inflation isn't what causes high prices of specific items. Supply and demand causes that. Inflation is what systematicaly devalues the currency such that ALL items of any significance command higher prices across the board, not because of any particular change in the supply or demand of an item, but simply because an increase in the currency supply results in larger denominations of money being exchanged for the same things.
If I freeze you and bury you in a cave for 30 years, and you come back and notice that everyhting now costs 10x as much as before, this isn't because people have gotten 10 times greedier than before, it's simply inflation: A single buckazoid is worth less than before, but everything is still mostly the same relative to everything else.
But that's precisely what happens in a game, too. Massive inflation will result in the currency becoming meaningless and people resorting to bartering. Rioting will ensue as people demand that the devs do something about it. So you see, all the things that happen in real life, happen in-game, too.
Actually, the continued appearance of this topic indicates there *IS* a fear of economic collapse, and there are, in fact, things people don't trade EC for, due to this. And there is, in fact, a second currency used in the game: Keys. Should the EC economy implode for whatever reason, people will still accept keys as payment.
Historically speaking, I doubt a 1-2% fee rate would have a such a drastic impact, but it would also not have a significant effect on inflation. Larger values would certainly have an impact: Namely, big items being pushed out onto the black market and Zone chat filled with hawkers.
why the high prices with lobi ships
you no how much pll ea day get 1 ship
if you look ad the screen and see @....... get a undine nicore
ore any orther ship so ea day you see that ad least 10 pll get that kind of ship
so its rely not hard to get them and am sure alot have plenty of lobi crystals to
then you fly around and see what most players fly
and out of 100 ships you see maby 1 fly a undine ship
so in terms nobody wants it ore a tal shiar ship ore any orther lobi ship
so the system of geting a good ship is not working and players like to sell them then rely fly them
its more they only care about mony but if they sell it for so iinsane high prices
then rely nobody gone buy it
and this wil be going on in cricles and the economy is going nowhere
thats how i see it
sorry for my english
This has been addressed before.
You may see those announcements quite often, yes. But that does not mean they are common -- if anything, it understates just how many boxes are being opened at any given time. If you see announcements often, the boxes being opened are far greater than that.
And that's something to think about.
It's like an economic iceberg. We only see the tip. But underneath the waves are a whole bunch of boxes giving payouts we can't see.
EDIT: Helpful Image to better explain the relationship between the lockbox ship spam and the lockboxes being opened during that period of time.
Inflation most certainly causes higher prices on everything, if they are charged more, than they will charge more to make up the difference, as for anything beyond simply what is needed to remain living, and in business is one thing, but beyond that is shear profit due to greed.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
You sum it up pretty well but your signature takes it to another level. It takes a Ferengi to understand!
Ok imagine that tub is being filled by the niagara falls with the same tiny drain, now confucius how do you propose to make a dent in that?
Sinks only take money from those who have little to begin with, far quicker than those who already have maxed sums on multiple toons.
So now what do you think of such an dumb idea as that?
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
But the costs are borne by the purchaser. The supplier has no incentive to not go through the Exchange if they're going to get the same profit, in a more convenient fashion with no risk.
It also isn't as if people aren't already arranging trades on forums anyway, and there's literally no reason to do that right now.
and all so, it is evident that people are buying keys in masses, so no one in right mind would lower the price so much that would affect people to lower the price. it is what it is, stop buying keys, and price will drop. but that's not going to happend.
and i have to say that DOOM is becoming boring, leave if you dont like it. game is not failing in any aspect, except of your expectation of it.
Before the fleet spire, I was easily spending 35M on Mk XII tac consoles. Now even consumables have been taken out of the rep grind, what do people have left to spend their ec on?
Nothing essential as far as I can see. (Unless you're not in a fleet)
0.5% - 2% fee are in fact have a very small impact in the game economy where is actually an unlimited money supply. I use those percentage since is pretty easy for people to calculate. In fact, the fees should be higher in order to have teeth.
In the real world economy commodities and stock exchanges imposes much higher fees (as well as regulations) and that has not crashed the real world economy.
These are policies that removes money from the game to help slow down the rate of inflation because as money is remove from an economy, the intrinsic value of the remaining currency increases.
The luxury tax I mentioned serves two purpose:
1. The removal of excess money from the game.
2. Price control.
Price control helps to regulate market prices from being excessively high. I don't look at prices of items on the Exchange every day. That is not why I play STO so I do not know if items priced at 500k, 1 million or 100 million ECs should be considered "Luxury". However, it is clear that there is price gouging running rampant in the Exchange. The Luxury Tax and associated listing fee surcharge helps to mitigate price gouging / predator prices.
While it might seems to go against the laissez faire mentally, in the real world there is no true laissez faire economy because all governments practices some form of market regulations. A general statement would be market regulations helps protect the consumer. However, market regulations have also been used to impede foreign investments or discourage the population from buying foreign goods.
An easy example of market regulations used to discourage the purchase of foreign goods is the "Playstation 4 Tax" in Brazil. Before any taxes the PS4 is price at R$858 (Brazilian Real), converted to USD using today's exchange rate, that works out to $386 which is pretty close to what you pay for the PS4 on Amazon.
Then comes the pain... import tax, ICMS state tax, IPI tax, etc... that adds R$2524 to the cost for retailers to import each PS4 unit into the country. That works out to $1,135 in national taxes and import taxes. Naturally, retailers need to add in a profit margin for themselves at about R$875 (a 22% profit margin). This works out to a suggested retail price of R$3,999 or $1,798 USD.
http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2013/10/22/sony-explains-the-1800-usd-price-of-the-ps4-in-brazil/
Who are you trying to kid?
Let's see there isn't really any less sinks than there was 2 yrs ago, so that doesn't matter.
Player base comes, and goes, so the production of flowing currency, is roughly stable as it was 2 yrs ago.
key selling competitor's is most likely the same, as there is never less than 400 keys listed at any given moment.
So what could it possibly be?
Well demand has always been steady, but the only true answer is player's simply demand more for the keys.
Which still boils down to plain old greed.
It's like why oil companies producing fuel charge roughly $4 a gallon.
Because after all making the same product, as they did just 15-20 yrs ago requires double the cost right?
Well they say it is because consumption is the biggest key, and the fact they now have to blend ethanol in with it.
Well if consumption skyrocketed by a factor of 100%, than yes I can see that issue, or if ethanol was very expensive, but it isn't.
And yet today you spend more for fuel only to get less for your dollar, as ethanol produces less fuel economy meaning less mpg.
I am not totally hating on people who do this, as it is after all human nature, but for them to try and deny it makes them look like such a fool.
Socialism in any society can be a good thing, but too little of it can prove to be disastrous.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The problem with that statement is there is no formal way to barter items with other players. Meaning there is no clearinghouse where you put up a master key for an item you wish to obtain from me (like two purple Doffs). The Exchange itself is a clearinghouse. I list my purple Doffs on the Exchange thus they are removed from my roster. You see the Doffs and decide to buy them. Your EC passes thru the Exchange (a clearinghouse), then into my bank account.
Bartering relies on "trust" and "faith". You see the Doffs on the Exchange and you somehow figure out I am seller. You IM me stating you which to trade a master key for both of the purple Doffs. I agree to the trade and de-list my Doffs. I then ask you to send me the master key prior to me giving you the Doffs. You mail me your key. At that point I walk away and either decide to keep the Doffs or put them back on the Exchange.
You are now empty handed...
Well the cost of production has increased over the years (i.e. inflation) and must be factored into the price equation. Additionally, the price also takes into consideration the cost of oil exploration which has skyrocketed over the years since the easy to find oil fields to find have all been found. What is currently available in the ocean is very deep in the ocean. The technology to access those oil fields are rather expensive because they are more or less bleeding edge tech. Therefore, the actual cost to extract the oil has dramatically increased. That cost is then passed on to the consumer.
However, it is not as simple as that since the price you pay at the pump is based on the price of oil in the commodities futures market. A lot of things can affect future market prices especially geo-political events. The prices of gas can be affected by a war that may or may not take place. For example, let's assume something is going on in the Middle East and it is of great
concern to the US and a small fleet is sent to that area in the event that military action.
The news alone can cause the price of gas / oil futures to increase because there could potentially be a shortage of oil imports. Due to this potential oil shortage, many industries who requires oil to operate will lock in contracts now due to fears that the potential oil import shortage will become reality. Airlines, trucking companies, plastic manufacturers all decides to buy gas / oil contracts now to lock in the current price of oil for delivery.
This will drive up the cost gas at the pump and it will happen immediately even though the potential for a real shortage may be months away or might not even occur at all if the crisis is averted.
Regarding the enthanol... yes, it's original intent was to help reduce gasoline consumption and yes, using enthanol does decrease octane which generally means less mileage per gallon. However, there is a huge proponent of ethanol and that is the agricultural industry (i.e. farmers). The agricultural industry has many lobbyist in Congress who's primary goal is to ensure that the use of ethanol continues. The corn grown for ethanol is a guaranteed cash crop for farmer because it is subsidized by government. The US government is paying farmers to grow corn for the sole purpose of ethanol production. Due to this artificial demand for corn, the prices of corn grown for consumption purpose is higher than it should be since not all the corn down will be used for animal or human consumption.
Yes I can highly agree with everything you just said, but after all that is factored the oil industry isn't a multi billion or trillion dollar corporation for not having some greed in there as well.
I mean let's face it after all expenses are paid, the top cream of the crop business owner's and runner's make oodles of money, and it doesn't come from not charging exorbitant fees for oil, and oil based products.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Hah, came across this right after I read your post. :P
Now that is the truth, and yet funny, and not so funny at the same time.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!