Lower Lobi store prices by half

rodentmaster

Lower the Lobi store prices by half. Or make them account-wide unlocks.

currently they are WAY too overpriced. At the current average of just under 5 lobi per lockbox, do you know how many boxes you have to open to get 800 Lobi for a ship?

160. Current key rates on exchange are 2.8 Mil (higher, now), which would be over 440 ECs on the exchange -- which is a static price. As soon as you start buying hundreds of keys the price skyrockets and you're paying 4 Mil per key.

All for a char-only unlock.

It's worse as you go down the chain. I'm not even that interested in most of the ships. I MIGHT spend lobi on some other things but the prices are too high to justify it. Jem'Hadar set, for example. You get a SMALL upgrade. A modest bonus over the normal kit. On top of that you're giving UP your kit. Let's be honest: Those missions aren't the easiest. They're a bit of a grind to get. They're LONG as well. You invest a lot of time and effort to get them all. You turn them over and have to pay 200 Lobi on top of that, AND that's only for ONE set!! Say what? That one set sure as Hades isn't worth 1/4th of a Undine Bio-Cruiser (priced 800), nor is it worth 1/4 a JHCD (priced 800).

And the ground set is 150! What about your JH boff? What about your away team? What about your other alts? This is a ludicrous price range.

Let's go down even lower: 50 Lobi for a pistol? 50 Lobi for a whip that doesn't do much? 50 Lobi for a freaking pistol UPGRADE -- not even the weapon, just a minor upgrade (JH pistol upgrade).

Don't even get me started on the broken prices for outfits.

Then let's get even lower on the price scale. The 2 Lobi consumables and the 1 Lobi consumables. Still too over-priced! Try getting a stack of 20 to run on your player for combat use. That's 5 keys worth of resources that are meant to DISAPPEAR after use! That's 11.2 Mil on the exchange for a limited supply of combat consumables.

Srsly? What now? Madness!

Instead, how about you pay 1 lobi to get a stack of 5. On top of that, how about paying 10 or 20 Lobi to unlock the crafting RECIPE so you can make your own, kind of like making the JH recipes that only work with your JH weapons from The 2800 mission line.


In short, the prices are insane. From the low end up to the top. Utterly insane. If you're charging 800 Lobi for a ship, make it account-wide! Same for all outfits and kits/gear. If you're making them 1-time unlocks (which is clearly the way you're going, since these can be bought and sold on exchange) then LOWER THE PRICE! Lower it by HALF! Lower it by TWO THIRDS!

It's about $1.25 last I remember to get enough zen for a single key. That only gets you 5 Lobi. You're paying $1.25 minimum for a couple of consumables which are gone in seconds. You need many in a single mission. You're paying $12 for 50 Lobi to get a single pistol UPGRADE. You're paying $37.50 to upgrade a JH ground set for a tiny on-paper % upgrade in stats, and that's PER UPGRADE, you get ONE only. You're paying $50 USD PER console, PER weapon, PER JH space upgrade. Holy TRIBBLE! You're paying $200 USD per 800-Lobi ship. HOLY TRIBBLE!!


This needs to come down. All joking and caps-lock aside. You can't ask us to pay that kind of price for that tiny a return. You will get more business with lower prices. You're trying to compete with Steam, well look at their successes. Steam sales lower the price of games/units but make more profit overall because lower prices create a net increase in profits because of higher volume.

dahminus

The justification is that lobi is the "consolation prize."

The argument is that they could have given us nothing guaranteed, and have off throw money at a roll of a dice.

I'd be happy with a reduction, of course...but I understand how it is

Also, be grateful for the lobi events, another thing they didn't have to do

And you don't only get 5 every time. I've gotten a food few 40~s

daka86

I agree whit you we can only hope.

rodentmaster

Dahmius, 4.8 is the average. That includes the spikes of high numbers.

The only reason they are a "consolation" prize is because 99% of all lockbox stuff is pure TRIBBLE. So they tried to make a new system where you pay to get a new currency (hah! Remember when they said too many currencies ruined the game and they were cutting back? Good times...) to buy new things. The ONLY way to get this currency was tied to real-world money spending, i.e. zen. Get zen, buy keys, open boxes. The "it's a consolation" is nonsense. This is designed to make money. The problem is they're charging WAY too much.

Edit: 4.8 may be old info. Newer threads seem to suggest 5.3. Still, that's the average. That means across highs and lows.

feiqa

Not sure about character bound. You mean after you unbox the ship?
Because I have seen the ships for sale on the exchange.

That would be the same for the lock box ships in general.
Open it and it is bound to that character and no other.

atlmykl

They give out free lobi several times per year. I have never opened a lock box but I have 850 lobi in a year of playing. There is your discount right there.

bendalek

dahminus wrote: »

The justification is that lobi is the "consolation prize."

The argument is that they could have given us nothing guaranteed, and have off throw money at a roll of a dice.

I'd be happy with a reduction, of course...but I understand how it is

Also, be grateful for the lobi events, another thing they didn't have to do

And you don't only get 5 every time. I've gotten a good few 40~s

Actually the Lobi is THE prize ... It's there so that Cryptic can circumvent gambling laws in various countries, so they MUST give you a guaranteed item, that way, anything you spend is a "sale" and not a "bet".

So they will never drop the prices on Lobi items, as these are one of the few things they can fleece us on, without repercussion.

rast1qq

I agree with 1/2 prices but best thing is making lobi items accout wide

dessniper

If not 1/2 price then unlock purchased lobi items for the whole account. That seems like a fair trade.

starkaos

If they reduce the prices in half for Lobi Store items, then you can say goodbye to the free Lobi.

rodentmaster

But you can bet it would boost key sales if the prices were far more managable.

Besides, I've only seen them do 2 free lobi events in 2 years. They weren't overly serious about giving it away, let's be honest.

garaks31

let's negotiate about lobi store prices

ships buy one and second one gets 25% discount and 9x reclaimable pro acc

bo's 300 lobis for eng ,sci and tac together old ones gets intelligence abilities too ,9x reclaimable pro acc

gear sets could be sold single and as 3 item pack's with some discount ,9x reclaimable pro acc

costumes 5x reclaimable pro acc

(first claim not bound ,discounted and further claims bound to acc) :rolleyes:

davidwford

Holy Necro-thread Batman!

zzzspina01

the pricers are what they are. but what are you all talking about when it comes to account unlocks. as far as I can tell you have to by each item each time you want it. what is character unlocked when bort.

zzzspina01

sorry I think you guys mean costumes

tigeraries

never gonna happen.

lock box is pure gambling when you spend money on something and you can not state the value of an item you are buying.

You buy lock boxes for a min of 4 lobi in each box. anything else is bonus.

frankly i wish our gov would crack down on this type of transactions. I think grab bags at retail locations is considered gamboling and can be illegal... but cause we convert real money into zen... and then use zen to buy keys for digital items... it's a grey area and currently legal... real world laws on physical grab bags should apply to virtual goods.

xyquarze

Actually the easy solution (for us players) would be:

Lobi prices too high? - Do not buy stuff.

But you still got Lobi from the lock boxes?

Well, either you were hoping for that precious ship or whatever very rare drop you were looking for. Then Lobi is indeed a consolation price. Takes some time to consolidate, admittedly, but every once in a while you can get something nice(-ish).

Or you were buying the lock boxes in hope of Lobi. Well - turns out you shouldn't. With 1025 zen per 10 keys and 5.3 lobi per key that's around 15000 zen per ship. Single ship. For 10000 you get 9 Dyson destroyers account wide. If you think the ships are worth it, do not complain. If you do not think so - just do not buy keys.

(And yes, Cryptic may gain through more keys being sold if Lobi stuff got cheaper - but it would lose out on regular sales. Net gain? Net loss? Who knows. Every company has the right to charge whatever they want and see if people buy it. Some laws against fraudulent practices notwithstanding, I do not think they apply here. Cryptic is not a monopoly, Lobi ships are no basic necessities and so on...