All EC in the game originates from vendor recycling. I know of no other way in the game that EC can actually be created (other than in very small amounts from doff missions and the like).
I got a lot of it from tour de galaxy, before it was nerfed. With a good route, borg engine, diplo immunity and raiding party, you could do 3 laps easily, which was 1M from 1 hour flying around. I did my first millions from this, after that I started making mk xii consoles, got some very good ones (xii purple ap, dis, field gen, neutronium, things had some value back there). With the first 100M, I started gambling with boxes and doff packs, won some ships and expensive stuff, and now I just manage my money.
Defiant
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
I got a lot of it from tour de galaxy, before it was nerfed. With a good route, borg engine, diplo immunity and raiding party, you could do 3 laps easily, which was 1M from 1 hour flying around. I did my first millions from this, after that I started making mk xii consoles, got some very good ones (xii purple ap, dis, field gen, neutronium, things had some value back there). With the first 100M, I started gambling with boxes and doff packs, won some ships and expensive stuff, and now I just manage my money.
I think the point is though... everything you have made since that first couple million from racing around. Has come at some point from someone else either racing around doffing or vendoring junk.
When you sold those consoles... they where picked up with other peoples EC. It may have not been "earned" the creation way by them either... someone at some point did.
Right now the EC in the game is very much like Paper currency in the real world.
The people in charge Print it. They sell it to a bank... the bank throws it into circulation and it starts changing hands.
Cryptic has reduced the flow of "printed" EC... by printing less of it.
This would be just like a Countries Mint... slowing the Printing of new money. It won't increase the value of the currency instantly... it will over time though (how much time would depend on how much the currency changed hands) increase in value.
Inflation happens when a County simply prints to much money. They print more and more... and people with actual goods see less and less value in the currency and raise the price. By reducing the amount of new currency the opposite happens.
So this will slow the economy yes... however I doubt they reduced the amount of EC created enough to cause things to stale. As I see it this will simply combat some of the recent (last 6 months or so) inflation... for Cryptics part... they want to keep all lockbox ships in the 100-200 mil mark, they want there 2 super special limited time doff pack style ships (bug and bull right now) to stay drifting on the 500mil cut of point for the exchange... so they can dry them right out on the exchange for a month or two before a $ making doff pack sale.
What you guys have to remember is that all of the EC in the economy, all of the EC in people's account banks and elsewhere, all of it had to come from somewhere. Selling Doffs does not generate EC, selling Keys does not generate EC, it merely transfers EC from one place to another.
All EC in the game originates from vendor recycling. I know of no other way in the game that EC can actually be created (other than in very small amounts from doff missions and the like). So for example, let's imagine that all loot drops suddenly had zero value. What would happen to the EC in the game? In time it would find it's way into the banks of the super rich whilst everyone else slowly ran dry.
The OP is correct, the lowering of the reward value for loot drops is going to have a negative impact on the game economy, it will stabilize but it will take a long time to do so and in the meantime many newer players will become so frustrated that the cool stuff like A2B doffs are so far out of their reach that they feel they can never truly be competitive, they will leave or not play as much, there are plenty of other games out there.
The poster that mentioned this is exactly what PWE want is correct, ultimately any currency of any type that enters the game without having to be purchased originally with real money represents a loss of potential revenue for the holding company. This is the first step to removing the EC economy entirely. It's a big gamble, it's going to TRIBBLE people off, but it's going to happen as sure as a Romulan will betray you.
But as you point out - the EC is merely transferred.
Someone sells a lockbox ship for 150 Million EC. Now the other guy has 150 Million EC. And he can now buy another lockbox ship. Now that guy can buy something on the exchange.
Lockbox ships, master keys, lobi ships, fleet modules - they all come to t he game because someone spend Zen. Not because someone spend EC. So if the EC in the game was stagnant, nothing would really be hurt.
But there are things in the game that actually consume EC. Fleets need EC purchasable commodities, all reputation needs regular EC investment. This is the only part were EC is really consumed, not just transferred, and why the game will still need EC income sources. But the Exchange is not the reason we need big EC income.
Of course, without having some form of EC income in the first place, we would have never gotten the EC in the system, but that was then...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
But there are things in the game that actually consume EC. Fleets need EC purchasable commodities, all reputation needs regular EC investment. This is the only part were EC is really consumed, not just transferred, and why the game will still need EC income sources. But the Exchange is not the reason we need big EC income.
Also just like RL... the banker now and then is asked to remove X amount of currency from the system.
MMO mechanics educating our youth on the ins and outs of economics. Perhaps more people will wake up and stop trading there actual goods and service for paper.
But there are things in the game that actually consume EC. Fleets need EC purchasable commodities, all reputation needs regular EC investment. This is the only part were EC is really consumed, not just transferred, and why the game will still need EC income sources.
yep, and I think what we really need, is an additional sink for it, to "destroy" part of the generated EC. it has to be a shiny, so people will actually sink their EC for it.
Defiant
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
yep, and I think what we really need, is an additional sink for it, to "destroy" part of the generated EC. it has to be a shiny, so people will actually sink their EC for it.
Consumables are theoretically always a great "sink" for any resource. You use them up, and you need to buy them again, so it's never that you are full.
But that of course means better consumables than the current ones. Something more along the lines of the hydrogen cells or what they are called that you get in Alhena. Basically, a BO or Captain power equivalent in a potion.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
So we have rampant inflation due to scarcity and stringent cuts in rates of income.
I don't see how your conclusion follows your premise. What you describe is the opposite of inflation: Deflation. Because people have less EC to throw around, they can't afford these items, so these items will fall in price, or not sell.
However, the fact is, the amount of EC in circulation continues to increase, not decrease, because nothing actually REMOVES all this EC.
Don't think it's the new R&D stuff that's killing the exchange as much as it is the 1,000,000 EC Mk I engine or the 400,000 ec white grade duty officer or the lock box ship that's so high in price the number only exists in the US national debt.
What would happen to the EC in the game? In time it would find it's way into the banks of the super rich whilst everyone else slowly ran dry.
Leaving aside how utterly unrealistic this scenario is, this would actually be great. Imagine if all the nearly EC in the game *DID* end up in the hoards of dragons. Any EC hoarded by these mythical super-rich dragons is basically removed from play. Prices would fall like a stone, as these dragons would, as you propose, be hoarding all this money in their banks. Sure, there's some ultra-rich dragon hoarding trillions of EC, but what does that matter to the rank and file, who do business with the money they have?
Now, you argue, this super-rich guy, he could then buy the entire market...but to do that...he has to cough up his EC. And as he starts going on a buying spree to try to take everything on the market, the taps open. His EC floods into the market price, everyone gets EC from selling things to this guy or the guys who sold things to him, and, well, prices inflate...which is exactly the opposite of the scenario you propose above, that the super-rich hoard all their EC like dragons.
yep, and I think what we really need, is an additional sink for it, to "destroy" part of the generated EC. it has to be a shiny, so people will actually sink their EC for it.
Yes, we see what happens when it's unappealing -> Starbase, the Commodity Slots are usually protected by a "Someone Else's Problem Field".
We need something like ... a Shuttle event, in combination with a Xindi shuttle for purchase for several mil EC, Gold Plated Latinum Hull, a Crafing reciepe for a Hunter-Killer Drone that targets Disco Balls, Unique Race unlocks (Deferi? No problem, please insert TRIBBLE mil) etc.
Beta, LTA, CE, Multiple preorder Versions, all Addon Packs except AoY, nearly all KDF/Rom and ~50% of all Fedships, over 25 LockboxShips, Endurer of Atari's "Year of Hell", but...
Yes, we see what happens when it's unappealing -> Starbase, the Commodity Slots are usually protected by a "Someone Else's Problem Field".
I haven't found this to be a problem with my base. It's not the cost in EC that deters people from filling those commodities. It's the sheer hassle of acquiring those commodities to begin with. If someone could just straight up dump EC into an input and receive their FC, that would fill almost as quickly as expertise. It's not actually that much EC at all. BUT SO MUCH CLICKING.
THAT is why those slots are covered by "Somebody Else's Problem". No one wants to actually do that. The Torpedo Launchers were like this, too. MK 1 Torpedoes aren't expensive. But NO ONE WANTS TO FILL 100 WHITE TORPEDOES ONE AT A TIME.
Fleets will be hurting now. Especially the small ones. How many people are going to be contributing to fleet tasks when your income from items has been cut by more then 50%? In all reality you now have to work twice as hard to get the same amount of EC then you did a week ago. Now you expect people to just dump that into commodities for fleet tasks? Not going to happen.
Sure, sure. People will still say you can make tons of money in the game. But what about the casual gamer that only puts in a few hours a week? That is who is hurt the most.
I haven't found this to be a problem with my base. It's not the cost in EC that deters people from filling those commodities. It's the sheer hassle of acquiring those commodities to begin with. If someone could just straight up dump EC into an input and receive their FC, that would fill almost as quickly as expertise. It's not actually that much EC at all. BUT SO MUCH CLICKING.
THAT is why those slots are covered by "Somebody Else's Problem". No one wants to actually do that. The Torpedo Launchers were like this, too. MK 1 Torpedoes aren't expensive. But NO ONE WANTS TO FILL 100 WHITE TORPEDOES ONE AT A TIME.
Actually I do. I dont donate much ore to fleets. But what I replace it with is commodities, launchers, and boffs.
What some people are missing is what the original source of income in this game is. Sell gear to vendors. With out that, the in-game economy will eventually come to a crash. You make $15 an hour last Wednesday. You go into work Thursday and your boss says "Sorry but to "balance out the economy" we cut your pay to $5 an hour. I am sure you understand." Well there goes you buying that new car now since you now have to contribute a greater percentage of your income to basic needs.
For the price of that car to drop to the point that you can now afford it on $5 an hour income, not only does Ford have to change pricing but everyone else does as well. Food, gas, housing, clothing all have to drop. And they would all have to drop at the same time to keep the market balanced. For this balance to exist, PWE/Cryptic would have to cut the price of in-game items you can buy from them (vendors). That self-sealing stembolt that was 800 EC will now have to drop to 266 EC (1/3 of the original price) for the economy to stay balanced.
This is one of the reasons why the real-world US economy is still tanked. Because of the increase in the price of gas, everything else has to go up to cover that cost. What didnt go up was the cost of labor. Mean income has not increased in 15 years. That gallon of gas costs 4 times as much now as it did in 2000. Did your pay go up 4x to cover that increase? The real world economy is not balanced.
Same goes for here as well. Your actually job is to farm loot one way or another and then sell it to a vendor for EC. That is the basis of the in-game economy. Selling on the exchange does not generate revenue. Just like selling on Ebay does not generate revenue. You are simply transferring an item in exchange for a reasonable amount of money. The person that just purchased that item has to get their money from somewhere. Now that their funding has been cut, so has their buying power. Once that original funding source is cut it all slows down.
How far and fast it all slows down has yet to be decided. But it is an economic fact that it will.
Unfortunately you misunderstand the nature of the super-rich. Rather than buy up the market they tend to hoard their wealth, when they need something, anything, they know they can buy it, when they wish to control a stock item price (say something expensive and rare like the bug ship) they can but other than that they keep it to themselves. In the meantime with very little income entering the game from loot drops the average farmer will quickly realise they can't afford what they want without farming for more than twice as long as before. They stop buying, or maybe worse they leave, disillusioned and disappointed due to the exorbitant costs of buying the best gear, doffs, etc.
Eventually sellers will have to lower their prices as they realise they are just not selling at all. Their hard earned money (if they used it to buy keys or doff packs, or lobi items) is now fetching a much lower return in terms of EC:$ ratio. Now this would be fine if all the really great gear fell in price equally, but the most sort after items will always be controlled by those with the wealth to do so, a bug ship is still going to cost 200-400 million because the super rich can afford them, they can even sell them in the real world on ebay or other sites for real cash, people can and do make money from this game, and when real money is concerned all bets are off, but one thing's for sure, it's the casual gamer that's about to and indeed already is suffering.
We can see this already, Kerrat is pretty empty now, far less people farming than previously. Now for many the thrill of kerrat is the one place that kept them in the game when time were bad, but Kerrat with just borg is just like any other bland red alert or mission, to be fun requires people, and people will only come there if there's a reason. Personally I go to Kerrat for two reasons, to fill my inventory and when full to fight other players for a laugh. Now I no longer bother to farm, it's just not worth my time. I may still go for the pvp but I may just do something else entirely.
I can confirm that Kerrat was low in population on Friday 7/18/2014 at 10pm EST. I had an old PVP daily to clear Kerrat 3x...went in there expecting someone...anyone to be in there. I was the only person there. I never saw anyone in there. I got all the 8 scans and all the kill nodes for all three matches and never saw a single player in there...not fed, klink or rom...
I'm a lover not a fighter. But I'm also a fighter so don't get any ideas...
Life is unfair. If you can only play this game a few hours per week, then there will be things in this game you will never, ever be able to afford. Get over it.
They're not really gone, as long as we remember them
My 2 cents here is that a lot of people keep saying "oh there are other ways of making EC" and I know there are. I could stand at the exchange all day wait for people to list things under value and re-post them at higher prices or do other tasks of similar nature. But the thing is that's not fun or really playing the game IMO. Selling vender trash was great, you play the STF's and do things that are fun and get profit. The people who are ok with this type of stuff are career EC farmers not Starship Captains.
I don't agree with the overly pessimistic view in this thread.
First of all anyone paying 6 Mill for a VR Mk XI coil should wonder what he's doing. There are cheaper options to buy gear of equal or even better quality. You don't even have to be a permanent part of a fleet these days.
Second OP has no idea how an economy works. Inflation rises with increased influx of money not the other way around.
As a matter of fact we've seen drastic falls in prices for most items. Especially when it comes to weapons and consoles. Those Phaser, disruptor and antiproton consoles used to be 2-3 times of their current value! The reason mostly being newly introduced fleet stuff. By now you can get almost all shinies without any EC required. Pretty much the only items that have seen an increase in price are in some way tied to lockboxes. And even of those not all of them (e.g the VR Warp Core Engineer that clears debuff has halfed in price). Now why do some lockbox items become insanely expensive? First of all they're wanted and their scarce. Second of all Cryptic has developed a habit of introducing around 4 lockboxes a year. This leads to people spreading their opening of boxes over an increasing amount of boxes which will result in less supply of an item of a specific box. In consequence you have less supply. High demand vs. little supply equals high prices. It's that easy.
Thirdly I don't agree with the notion of rich hoarding money. At least not entirely. Unless they keep on working their balance they will also loose money simply because they want to get the latest shinies. This costs money and will distribute funds. Or they will loose money because you start taking risks that are too high in return for a small change. Trust me. I've moved billions. I've been there.
Last but not least it's still possible to make quite some EC in this game. However it is tied to actual work. You need to do work for them to get them because the people providing those items usually put in quite some work or money or risk, or all of those things, into it as well.
What some people are missing is what the original source of income in this game is. Sell gear to vendors. With out that, the in-game economy will eventually come to a crash.
I don't think it will crash anytime soon to be honest. Not with the gigantic amounts of EC still floating in the system.
It's annoying that one of the major sources of EC in the game has had its head cut off and its legs for good measure, but especially the high end of the exchange will not notice this change.
It has made it progressively more difficult for newer player to obtain lockbox ships though the exchange and as such this change is merely and indication that the developers want to push the economy towards a dilithium based rather than a EC based one.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Second OP has no idea how an economy works. Inflation rises with increased influx of money not the other way around.
Your scenario assumes that availability remains constant.
That's not the case here. Those consoles (as an example) are getting rarer all the time, the market is being squeezed from both ends and that is unsustainable.
Your scenario assumes that availability remains constant.
That's not the case here. Those consoles (as an example) are getting rarer all the time, the market is being squeezed from both ends and that is unsustainable.
The prices of those consoles is nowhere near of where they used to be a year ago. As a matter of fact their prices have gone down by more than 50%! So where exactly is your issue? I'm a professional trader. I work the exchange daily and I can tell you that it is only very few items that have seen an increase in value. The items you are complaining about have gone down big time. Simply because there's now fleet stuff. The reason for the lockbox items going up I have already explained.
As for judging availability it's fairly safe to conclude that drop rates have remained constant. And that is what counts. Maybe people farm them less which I do not know. However looking at the price erosion the equilibrium of supply and demand has shifted in the sense that supply has been exceeding demand by quite a bit hence the fall in price. In essence the consoles are not get rarer. Quite the contrary.
Its about time. The exchange has become more like a mob bank than anything. And don't try to blame it on the devs. They don't decide how much these items sell for. Players do. This is what happens when you let players decide what items are worth. The new crafting system is a great way for us players who aren't rolling in ec to get the good items. Now the only problem is the ridiculous prices players are putting on crafting items in the exchange. I say make these items bind on pickup and increase the amount you can find in waveform matching.
There has been a bunch of stealth nerfs to the loot table of the last bunch of "Seasons" - its annoying and there intentionally to drive us to fleet and rep gear. It's frustrating.
What some people are missing is what the original source of income in this game is. Sell gear to vendors. With out that, the in-game economy will eventually come to a crash. You make $15 an hour last Wednesday. You go into work Thursday and your boss says "Sorry but to "balance out the economy" we cut your pay to $5 an hour. I am sure you understand." Well there goes you buying that new car now since you now have to contribute a greater percentage of your income to basic needs.
Same goes for here as well. Your actually job is to farm loot one way or another and then sell it to a vendor for EC. That is the basis of the in-game economy. Selling on the exchange does not generate revenue.
How far and fast it all slows down has yet to be decided. But it is an economic fact that it will.
Yes. This is exactly right. And just like some politician said recently. The jobs will be to cater to the super-rich, grinding jobs they don't want to do. I made a good haul over festival favors for example.
The poor now get part time jobs at reduced salary for grinding the fast food vendor trash.
To extend the analogy further. What are keysellers but drug dealers pushing the key crack?
It's so worthless now I just discard it. The only way to make money now is to cater to the super wealthy. That's not the game I signed up for. Is this a Ferenginar simulation?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Now the only problem is the ridiculous prices players are putting on crafting items in the exchange.
How about you just start playing the game, such as the Elite STF's, and get it for free? You do realize that if you want something you have to work for it do you? On top of that, those "greedy" players asking for money for those items they worked for are just normal poor players that don't need the item. The super-rich don't care about these items much. They don't hold enough value (exempted is the current situation on VR's).
There has been a bunch of stealth nerfs to the loot table of the last bunch of "Seasons" - its annoying and there intentionally to drive us to fleet and rep gear. It's frustrating.
THAT you can blame on Cryptic.
Do you have any hard data to back that up or is it just your "feeling"? Thought so....................
Yes. This is exactly right. And just like some politician said recently. The jobs will be to cater to the super-rich, grinding jobs they don't want to do. I made a good haul over festival favors for example.
The poor now get part time jobs at reduced salary for grinding the fast food vendor trash.
To extend the analogy further. What are keysellers but drug dealers pushing the key crack?
It's so worthless now I just discard it. The only way to make money now is to cater to the super wealthy. That's not the game I signed up for. Is this a Ferenginar simulation?
Whenever someone buys a service of you, you cater to his or her needs. And your being paid for that. Whenever you buy something of someone, this person caters to your personal needs. This is not a function of wealth. It's a function of life and supply and demand.
I am specifically referring to a statement to the effect of - the jobs of the future will all be catering to the needs of the superwealthy. As they will be the only ones with money.
We see in our economy today that richy items keep going up in price and now the poor can no longer afford WalMart but must go to Dollar store. Same in STO.
Problem is, in STO, the Ferengi were largely there to show how much like earth 20th and 21st century they were and how we should try and stop being like that.
No one caters to the needs of the poor.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
But that shouldn't surprise you, all human interaction on this scale is a "Ferenginar simulation"
It certainly doesn't surprise me. However Star Trek is about rising above that.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Comments
I got a lot of it from tour de galaxy, before it was nerfed. With a good route, borg engine, diplo immunity and raiding party, you could do 3 laps easily, which was 1M from 1 hour flying around. I did my first millions from this, after that I started making mk xii consoles, got some very good ones (xii purple ap, dis, field gen, neutronium, things had some value back there). With the first 100M, I started gambling with boxes and doff packs, won some ships and expensive stuff, and now I just manage my money.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
I think the point is though... everything you have made since that first couple million from racing around. Has come at some point from someone else either racing around doffing or vendoring junk.
When you sold those consoles... they where picked up with other peoples EC. It may have not been "earned" the creation way by them either... someone at some point did.
Right now the EC in the game is very much like Paper currency in the real world.
The people in charge Print it. They sell it to a bank... the bank throws it into circulation and it starts changing hands.
Cryptic has reduced the flow of "printed" EC... by printing less of it.
This would be just like a Countries Mint... slowing the Printing of new money. It won't increase the value of the currency instantly... it will over time though (how much time would depend on how much the currency changed hands) increase in value.
Inflation happens when a County simply prints to much money. They print more and more... and people with actual goods see less and less value in the currency and raise the price. By reducing the amount of new currency the opposite happens.
So this will slow the economy yes... however I doubt they reduced the amount of EC created enough to cause things to stale. As I see it this will simply combat some of the recent (last 6 months or so) inflation... for Cryptics part... they want to keep all lockbox ships in the 100-200 mil mark, they want there 2 super special limited time doff pack style ships (bug and bull right now) to stay drifting on the 500mil cut of point for the exchange... so they can dry them right out on the exchange for a month or two before a $ making doff pack sale.
Its all working as designed.
But as you point out - the EC is merely transferred.
Someone sells a lockbox ship for 150 Million EC. Now the other guy has 150 Million EC. And he can now buy another lockbox ship. Now that guy can buy something on the exchange.
Lockbox ships, master keys, lobi ships, fleet modules - they all come to t he game because someone spend Zen. Not because someone spend EC. So if the EC in the game was stagnant, nothing would really be hurt.
But there are things in the game that actually consume EC. Fleets need EC purchasable commodities, all reputation needs regular EC investment. This is the only part were EC is really consumed, not just transferred, and why the game will still need EC income sources. But the Exchange is not the reason we need big EC income.
Of course, without having some form of EC income in the first place, we would have never gotten the EC in the system, but that was then...
Also just like RL... the banker now and then is asked to remove X amount of currency from the system.
MMO mechanics educating our youth on the ins and outs of economics. Perhaps more people will wake up and stop trading there actual goods and service for paper.
yep, and I think what we really need, is an additional sink for it, to "destroy" part of the generated EC. it has to be a shiny, so people will actually sink their EC for it.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
Consumables are theoretically always a great "sink" for any resource. You use them up, and you need to buy them again, so it's never that you are full.
But that of course means better consumables than the current ones. Something more along the lines of the hydrogen cells or what they are called that you get in Alhena. Basically, a BO or Captain power equivalent in a potion.
However, the fact is, the amount of EC in circulation continues to increase, not decrease, because nothing actually REMOVES all this EC.
Now, you argue, this super-rich guy, he could then buy the entire market...but to do that...he has to cough up his EC. And as he starts going on a buying spree to try to take everything on the market, the taps open. His EC floods into the market price, everyone gets EC from selling things to this guy or the guys who sold things to him, and, well, prices inflate...which is exactly the opposite of the scenario you propose above, that the super-rich hoard all their EC like dragons.
So, dragons are good.
Yes, we see what happens when it's unappealing -> Starbase, the Commodity Slots are usually protected by a "Someone Else's Problem Field".
We need something like ... a Shuttle event, in combination with a Xindi shuttle for purchase for several mil EC, Gold Plated Latinum Hull, a Crafing reciepe for a Hunter-Killer Drone that targets Disco Balls, Unique Race unlocks (Deferi? No problem, please insert TRIBBLE mil) etc.
THAT is why those slots are covered by "Somebody Else's Problem". No one wants to actually do that. The Torpedo Launchers were like this, too. MK 1 Torpedoes aren't expensive. But NO ONE WANTS TO FILL 100 WHITE TORPEDOES ONE AT A TIME.
Sure, sure. People will still say you can make tons of money in the game. But what about the casual gamer that only puts in a few hours a week? That is who is hurt the most.
Actually I do. I dont donate much ore to fleets. But what I replace it with is commodities, launchers, and boffs.
What some people are missing is what the original source of income in this game is. Sell gear to vendors. With out that, the in-game economy will eventually come to a crash. You make $15 an hour last Wednesday. You go into work Thursday and your boss says "Sorry but to "balance out the economy" we cut your pay to $5 an hour. I am sure you understand." Well there goes you buying that new car now since you now have to contribute a greater percentage of your income to basic needs.
For the price of that car to drop to the point that you can now afford it on $5 an hour income, not only does Ford have to change pricing but everyone else does as well. Food, gas, housing, clothing all have to drop. And they would all have to drop at the same time to keep the market balanced. For this balance to exist, PWE/Cryptic would have to cut the price of in-game items you can buy from them (vendors). That self-sealing stembolt that was 800 EC will now have to drop to 266 EC (1/3 of the original price) for the economy to stay balanced.
This is one of the reasons why the real-world US economy is still tanked. Because of the increase in the price of gas, everything else has to go up to cover that cost. What didnt go up was the cost of labor. Mean income has not increased in 15 years. That gallon of gas costs 4 times as much now as it did in 2000. Did your pay go up 4x to cover that increase? The real world economy is not balanced.
Same goes for here as well. Your actually job is to farm loot one way or another and then sell it to a vendor for EC. That is the basis of the in-game economy. Selling on the exchange does not generate revenue. Just like selling on Ebay does not generate revenue. You are simply transferring an item in exchange for a reasonable amount of money. The person that just purchased that item has to get their money from somewhere. Now that their funding has been cut, so has their buying power. Once that original funding source is cut it all slows down.
How far and fast it all slows down has yet to be decided. But it is an economic fact that it will.
I can confirm that Kerrat was low in population on Friday 7/18/2014 at 10pm EST. I had an old PVP daily to clear Kerrat 3x...went in there expecting someone...anyone to be in there. I was the only person there. I never saw anyone in there. I got all the 8 scans and all the kill nodes for all three matches and never saw a single player in there...not fed, klink or rom...
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
First of all anyone paying 6 Mill for a VR Mk XI coil should wonder what he's doing. There are cheaper options to buy gear of equal or even better quality. You don't even have to be a permanent part of a fleet these days.
Second OP has no idea how an economy works. Inflation rises with increased influx of money not the other way around.
As a matter of fact we've seen drastic falls in prices for most items. Especially when it comes to weapons and consoles. Those Phaser, disruptor and antiproton consoles used to be 2-3 times of their current value! The reason mostly being newly introduced fleet stuff. By now you can get almost all shinies without any EC required. Pretty much the only items that have seen an increase in price are in some way tied to lockboxes. And even of those not all of them (e.g the VR Warp Core Engineer that clears debuff has halfed in price). Now why do some lockbox items become insanely expensive? First of all they're wanted and their scarce. Second of all Cryptic has developed a habit of introducing around 4 lockboxes a year. This leads to people spreading their opening of boxes over an increasing amount of boxes which will result in less supply of an item of a specific box. In consequence you have less supply. High demand vs. little supply equals high prices. It's that easy.
Thirdly I don't agree with the notion of rich hoarding money. At least not entirely. Unless they keep on working their balance they will also loose money simply because they want to get the latest shinies. This costs money and will distribute funds. Or they will loose money because you start taking risks that are too high in return for a small change. Trust me. I've moved billions. I've been there.
Last but not least it's still possible to make quite some EC in this game. However it is tied to actual work. You need to do work for them to get them because the people providing those items usually put in quite some work or money or risk, or all of those things, into it as well.
I don't think it will crash anytime soon to be honest. Not with the gigantic amounts of EC still floating in the system.
It's annoying that one of the major sources of EC in the game has had its head cut off and its legs for good measure, but especially the high end of the exchange will not notice this change.
It has made it progressively more difficult for newer player to obtain lockbox ships though the exchange and as such this change is merely and indication that the developers want to push the economy towards a dilithium based rather than a EC based one.
Your scenario assumes that availability remains constant.
That's not the case here. Those consoles (as an example) are getting rarer all the time, the market is being squeezed from both ends and that is unsustainable.
The prices of those consoles is nowhere near of where they used to be a year ago. As a matter of fact their prices have gone down by more than 50%! So where exactly is your issue? I'm a professional trader. I work the exchange daily and I can tell you that it is only very few items that have seen an increase in value. The items you are complaining about have gone down big time. Simply because there's now fleet stuff. The reason for the lockbox items going up I have already explained.
As for judging availability it's fairly safe to conclude that drop rates have remained constant. And that is what counts. Maybe people farm them less which I do not know. However looking at the price erosion the equilibrium of supply and demand has shifted in the sense that supply has been exceeding demand by quite a bit hence the fall in price. In essence the consoles are not get rarer. Quite the contrary.
THAT you can blame on Cryptic.
Yes. This is exactly right. And just like some politician said recently. The jobs will be to cater to the super-rich, grinding jobs they don't want to do. I made a good haul over festival favors for example.
The poor now get part time jobs at reduced salary for grinding the fast food vendor trash.
To extend the analogy further. What are keysellers but drug dealers pushing the key crack?
It's so worthless now I just discard it. The only way to make money now is to cater to the super wealthy. That's not the game I signed up for. Is this a Ferenginar simulation?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
How about you just start playing the game, such as the Elite STF's, and get it for free? You do realize that if you want something you have to work for it do you? On top of that, those "greedy" players asking for money for those items they worked for are just normal poor players that don't need the item. The super-rich don't care about these items much. They don't hold enough value (exempted is the current situation on VR's).
Do you have any hard data to back that up or is it just your "feeling"? Thought so....................
Whenever someone buys a service of you, you cater to his or her needs. And your being paid for that. Whenever you buy something of someone, this person caters to your personal needs. This is not a function of wealth. It's a function of life and supply and demand.
We see in our economy today that richy items keep going up in price and now the poor can no longer afford WalMart but must go to Dollar store. Same in STO.
Problem is, in STO, the Ferengi were largely there to show how much like earth 20th and 21st century they were and how we should try and stop being like that.
No one caters to the needs of the poor.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
It certainly doesn't surprise me. However Star Trek is about rising above that.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."