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Buying Keys - Cheaper to buy with dil (zen) than with EC
ddesjardins
Member Posts: 3,056 Media Corps
A recent post got me thinking. The OP was complaining that people who posted keys for sale on the exchange were undercutting the market by posting lower than the current price.
In a response I laughed - welcome to the economy of an MMO.
And it got me thinking. Assuming an ec only economy (no earned dil), what is the price of a key worth in EC?
Currently the only way to buy EC is Contraband (and/or turning in prisoners for the KDF).
Right now contraband is selling for 40,000 EC.
5 contraband, when turned in produced 2000 Dilithium
So 200,000 ec = 2000 Dilithium, or the ratio of ec to dil is 100:1
The Dilithium Exchange is fairly stage in the 150 range (151 today) to 1 Zen.
1 Key is worth today at 112.5 Zen (assuming a ten-pack)
So a key is worth 16,875 dilithium, or more appropriately 1,687,500 ec.
Current market resale price for a key is 2,700,000 ec, essentially a 60% markup.
Buying a key with Dil is much more cost effective.
My Two Bits (at 60% markup)
Admiral Thrax
In a response I laughed - welcome to the economy of an MMO.
And it got me thinking. Assuming an ec only economy (no earned dil), what is the price of a key worth in EC?
Currently the only way to buy EC is Contraband (and/or turning in prisoners for the KDF).
Right now contraband is selling for 40,000 EC.
5 contraband, when turned in produced 2000 Dilithium
So 200,000 ec = 2000 Dilithium, or the ratio of ec to dil is 100:1
The Dilithium Exchange is fairly stage in the 150 range (151 today) to 1 Zen.
1 Key is worth today at 112.5 Zen (assuming a ten-pack)
So a key is worth 16,875 dilithium, or more appropriately 1,687,500 ec.
Current market resale price for a key is 2,700,000 ec, essentially a 60% markup.
Buying a key with Dil is much more cost effective.
My Two Bits (at 60% markup)
Admiral Thrax
Post edited by ddesjardins on
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a bit of a chuckle
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
And then in comes the people with 25 alts...
I should get in on this and break the market wide open
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
I just got a kick out of the price of keys in ec.
Large fleets finished off their holdings, reducing the demand of dilithium.
In addition to what was said above (and it's a big factor), you have people mostly kitted out by now, which reduces the demand for dil. Also, everyone wants a Nicor, which in itself drives up the price of keys, which makes buying zen more attractive (so you can sell the keys and get lots more ec). Also, there was recently a ship sale, which always increases the price of zen, and a new OP ship was introduced, which also drives up the price of zen.
^ This ...
Plus the lowlife Exchange "gougers" (sorry, but that's what these people are) who purposely buy up any and all currently (or always) "in demand" item at any cheaper price, just so they can then "mark up' the price for themselves, I know of several players (even in my short time in STO) who spend hours upon hours in game every day, doing nothing else but buying Keys, Ships, DoFF's, BoFF's etc, and immediately putting them back up for sale at a higher price ...
I'm sure they are very proud of their large, virtual ... Impulse Thrusters ... but I think it's pathetic, and disgusting, that there are people out there who are artificially increasing the price of items for their own gain ...
The only reason you need Millions of EC to buy anything in game is because of people 'gouging' this way. Most items in game have a "fair" price marked on them buy Cryptic, but most don't realize it, because of these ... individuals ...
If it were up to me? I'd like to see a Maximum 1million EC sale price point set, and that would be for items that are generally only available from places like the Lobi Store or any non-bound C-Store items.
You must hate politicians?
system Lord Baal is dead
Who doesn't?
If you don't like the price don't buy it. If people like doing that with their game time, then who cares. I don't do it because I would rather be pew pewing. You can do anything thing in this game without spending 1 cent, if you got the time.
Yes, Freedom (of choice) is a very, very bad thing. The choice of the price, the choice, if the price is right.
I am not one of those Exchange-Traders, but what they are doing is legal and within the granted rights of "freedom" within this game. If you dont like the price, dont buy it, easy as it is. If enough ppl dont buy, the price will fall. If ppl are so dumb that they let exploit themselves, then let them be exploited. Maybe they get wiser then
This is quite an early proverb in the English language and, as such, might be thought to contain the wisdom of the ancients. The notion was known by the late 16th century, when it was expressed in rhyme by Thomas Tusser in Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1573:
A foole & his money,
be soone at debate:
which after with sorow,
repents him to late.
The precise wording of the expression comes just a little later, in Dr. John Bridges' Defence of the Government of the Church of England, 1587:
If they pay a penie or two pence more for the reddinesse of them..let them looke to that, a foole and his money is soone parted.
Just want to make sure I understand this correctly. You are saying that buying at a low price, and selling at a high price that others are willing to pay is wrong.
That is how things are done in the real world all the time. Even the things you buy from a store, restaurant, etc. The average cost to a fast food restaurant franchise is approximately $0.25 each for a burger. However, they usually sell them for $1:00 or higher. That is a high markup. If people were willing to pay $5:00 for that same burger, then they would sell it for that.
It is the same in the game. To make a profit, people use the same practice in-game as is done in the real world. To be honest, I would love it if the game's financial system was done more like it is in the series, and movies. Especially where GPL had a much higher value than EC.
However, that is not the way it is done. Still, the way it is done works for the game's economy.
I totaly agree. I hate those type of lowlifes too. If it was after me, I would hunt them down and ban them. Probably 90% of STO supply of ECs (including the value of expensive lockbox items like ships, traits, consoles, doffs etc.) are in the control of just a few multi-bilionares players. Cryptic can do some data mining using IPs to search and find them. If they would ban them, prices would drop alot.
No its not.
If the buyer doenst have any other option he is forced to buy at what ever price the seller sells.
This doesnt have anything with the right of property. Its plain specualtion and overinflating prices becouse there is no "police" to enforce rules. In real life, if u buy something from a supermarket, then set up a table in front of it to resell it at higher prices its illegal.
And yet the speculators just gained this right. How is it right for some1 to make an amount of ECs in 5-10 mins "playing" the exchange, while the normal players, those that actually play, would make that amount in a few hours grinding drops to sell to npc vendors?
What rights?
Its a case of exploiting (thru the exchange system) the new players (but not necesarly) that literaly fill the rich speculators pockets. The new players have to grind for much more if they want to get an item.
But until Cryptic wont put a time frame on a resell, or make the items bound on purchase or even better, a highest ECs price an item can have, ppl will still exploit other players via exchange.
Ohh and this is happening with the dil/zen market too. The speculaors manage to increase the price from 130 to 151 now...
Well, not everyone uses the exchange to make a profit all the time. I actually use it for temporary storage so I generally put a pretty high price on items so people will not buy them and they do not take up space in my inventory. For example, my KDF toon has 195 Doff and only 5 free slots. I am waiting for a discount for another 100 Doff slots, but I will likely buy it at the beginning of June regardless. Since I have very few slots I have bought a few refugees and marked them up on the exchange thinking that no one would touch them.... I was wrong.
One day I got a message stating that one of my refugees was sold. Since I was less than a minute away from an Exchange console I immediately went to check on prices. There were a few of the exact same refugee for much lower prices (1/10th of my "price") so I assume it was an accidental purchase. I bought one of them to replace the refugee that I assume was accidentally purchased.
In a separate incident, I purchased a Mirror Battlecruiser at a pretty inexpensive price and since I have no more available ship slots I kept it on the Exchange at a high price, much higher than the most expensive one. Several days later it was sold. I was like, "What?" I went to the exchange and battlecruisers were listed at far higher prices. No wonder my battlecruiser was bought. Now I need to wait for another one at a reasonable price. By then I will have likely bought more ship slots so I will not need to store it on the Exchange.
The reason for the 5 empty Doff slots is so that I can do the Doff recruiting missions to rank up my commendation level. The Doffs I receive are put up for sale on the Exchange. I'm not in a Fleet so white Doffs are of no use to me other than to be sold for ECs.
First of all, ROFL:rolleyes:
Second, IF you need shinies that bad, grind dil like the OP said OR SPEND real money and get keys to use/sell. You can get everything needed for ESTFs in game by doing episodes. You DO NOT Need anything sold on the exchange.
Third, Ever heard of a FREE MARKET ECONOMY? The exchange is an example. Again, if you don't like the price DON"T BUY IT.
Fourth, if you RP, maybe do it a little less, you can run daily foundry missions and get 300-800k multiplied by how many characters You have. I have 3 chars and I get anywhere from 1 mil to 2.5 mil per day between the Foundry and Tour the Universe. I can do them all in under 90 minutes.
Which, when you stop and think about it, is exactly how Cryptic/PWE wants it.
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page
You got it all wrong. I dont need anything. I got every shiny, ship or other stuff i want in the game.
My point was with this whole exchange speculation. I see ppl thinking how good and right is it, when its not, it should be frowned upon.
Even in a free market economy, I dont know if in US, but in UE and most other countries there are certain laws, guvern comissions, etc. that inforce a "good business intent" policy (not sure if this is the right translation, since english is not my native language). It prevends a seller for overpricing, or at least to justify that overpricing. Its the same laws that got Bill Gates in the monopoly law suit with EU a few years back.
Point is, even in a free market, you cannot raise a price too much or without been entitled to do that by various factors.
It's funny how you think that the price marked on item description is the "fair market price" when the vast majority of the items aren't even worth 1/2 of what that price is set as.
The price marked on items is some arbitrary decision, it's not really based on demand for the item nor is it based upon supply of the item. Exchange prices ultimately are.
The gougers you are are effectively commodity traders.... buying low and selling high. That's how they make more EC, and if that's what they like to do, I have no problem with it.
I sell items on the exchange as well for far higher than that marked value... because the item is rare and is valued higher on the exchange for players. I have no problem with this since the vast majority of stuff I get i vendor trash that I take a 50% hit on from marked value and is worth even less on the exchange.
The only thing I think they should do is open a trade forum. SWG was the same way, ridiculously high prices on vendors, but you could usually find the same things by posting on the trade forum what you were looking for or what you were selling for far more reasonable prices.
We market workers perform a valuable service for CRYPTIC.
Yes it means if I do my job well I get to play for free.... and crazy I enjoy playing a fake market where I can't really loose any actual money. lol
If they used ANY mechanic at all to remove price marking of items it wouldn't make life grand for those that don't want to earn EC to buy what they want. It would simply force Cryptic to CHARGE actual $ for more things.
Right now its a tidy little circle.
$ -> Zen ... with Zen you can Purchase stuff, or Convert to D and Purchase Stuff.... OR sell Purchased Zen stuff for EC (as in keys ect). The ONLY reason to convert your Zen into EC is to purchase stuff you want that DROPS or to avoid RNG from lockboxes.
Market workers that mark things up to there proper value are a GOOD thing for Cryptic. With out them the value of SOME stuff would drop no doubt... and this would devalue keys (as lockboxes would have in general less attractive things in them) People would there for open less boxes...
So yes Cryptic would make far less money... and the real catch is those people that don't care and just want there cheap exchange prices. The price on SOME stuff (Ships, traits people really want ect) Will in fact GO WAY up as the number of lockboxes being opened in general would drop... so the number of those Gold level rewards in the wild would drop as well... and with such small supply yes the price would skyrocket.
My point is Keeping the Majority of Lockbox items / Good value game drops priced at a proper market price (no one can price things out of the proper range... or the next market worker will just undercut right) keeps lockboxes flowing which is good for everyone. Keys are just tied to that... they are right now double what they where at 6 months ago... so if you are trying to sell them to high its your own fault they are not moving. The market workers will ensure the pricing is where it should be... and yes sometimes that is slightly lower then it was the day before.
You and I are in complete agreement (I don't care if this annoys others who likely think we're idiots).
I rarely try to sell anything on the Exchange (how often have I found that someone has undercut my price? far too often; I'm not trying to make millions off of stuff; just trying to sell what I don't need) and try to avoid buying from it unless a) I can afford to and b) there's no faster/cheaper way to do it. If I decide that it costs too much, I don't have to buy it. Let the gougers get their EC windfalls from buyers who would rather pay through the nose than use their common sense.
And I find it ironic that when it comes to kits and kit modules, prices for the common ones are (more often than not) under the price that you can get from selling to vendors.
In the end, I remind myself: This is only a game. This is not real life.
Don't. I limit myself to 5 contraband mules and have managed to get very nearly everything in the game in a bout 8 months. But if you make crazy numbers of alts and get too greedy, you only succeed in souring the value of everyone's dil and increasing the length of grinds.
This makes absolutely no sense. If everything is being undercut to the point it's not profitable to post things on the exchange how in the world can things on the exchange still be overpriced?
Of course it doesn't make sense, the poster is just upset that other people make EC off the exchange by selling high demand items for lots of ec and as such is just venting aimlessly at the fact that other make a lot of EC selling stuff, their poorly thought out argument meandering where ever is convenient at the time.