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People are voting with their wallets, it's "Yes"
repetitiveepic
Member Posts: 6,549 Arc User
There has been a lot of ballyhoo on the forums about the game being wrecked, and people abandoning it, but I don't think there is good evidence that this is true.
The metric I use is a public metric, and I think a compelling one- the price of cash shop items in in-game currency.
Specifically, the price of keys and other c-store only items in ec, and the price of dil in zen.
I had the unpleasant experience of playing a game called archeage at its launch recently, and like STO, it had a cash shop which was the only source of many useful items.
The game crashed and burned, and the prices of these items went up and up on the game's auction house. Prices have nearly tripled at this point vs what they were when people still liked the game.
This is because people stopped spending money.
The only truly limited resources in STO are the c-store items and zen, since they cannot be earned in game, only bought for real money.
If people on the whole spend less money on the game, then the supply of these items will go down, and over time, their price in game will go up, since in game resources like dil and ec can be generated infinitely.
This isn't happening in STO though. Lockbox keys are, if anything, going down in price, and the dil value of zen is quite stable, in spite of the huge dil sink of upgrading items being introduced.
If people started spending significantly less money on STO, you would see the ec prices of keys, fleet ship modules, ship upgrade tokens and R&D packs go up and up, as well as the dil/zen rate.
None of this is happening, there isn't any indication people are spending less on the game.
The metric I use is a public metric, and I think a compelling one- the price of cash shop items in in-game currency.
Specifically, the price of keys and other c-store only items in ec, and the price of dil in zen.
I had the unpleasant experience of playing a game called archeage at its launch recently, and like STO, it had a cash shop which was the only source of many useful items.
The game crashed and burned, and the prices of these items went up and up on the game's auction house. Prices have nearly tripled at this point vs what they were when people still liked the game.
This is because people stopped spending money.
The only truly limited resources in STO are the c-store items and zen, since they cannot be earned in game, only bought for real money.
If people on the whole spend less money on the game, then the supply of these items will go down, and over time, their price in game will go up, since in game resources like dil and ec can be generated infinitely.
This isn't happening in STO though. Lockbox keys are, if anything, going down in price, and the dil value of zen is quite stable, in spite of the huge dil sink of upgrading items being introduced.
If people started spending significantly less money on STO, you would see the ec prices of keys, fleet ship modules, ship upgrade tokens and R&D packs go up and up, as well as the dil/zen rate.
None of this is happening, there isn't any indication people are spending less on the game.
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For example, lockbox keys could be going down in price because of EC deflation, as EC is successfully drained from the economy by gear upgrades, secondary deflectors, etc. or by people with large EC reserves not logging in or quitting, which increases the value of EC in circulation.
I'm not saying that things are bad.
I am saying that the measure you're using probably isn't enough to make an observation based on.
Keys are a good indication. The cost on exchange going down could simply be less people around to buy them and people wanting them shifted for what they can get.
And while the zen/dil ratio appears to be stable at the moment, it actually has jumped quite a bit since DR launched. It's gone from around 120 per zen to the 160 or so it is at the minute. While this could be an indication of people spending more dil on upgrades, it could also be an indication of less people around to actually by zen to sell.
Regretfully, not something we can know for sure on the forums as we don't have access to Cryptic data.
This. Dil has been remarkably stable at around the 160 mark since about Apr 14 if memory serves - following a long period hovering about 125-130. I think that was mainly due to fleets "completing" at T5 and the ammount being bought for Fleet projects tailing off.
There was a brief spike up to around 190 when DR first went live - I suspect a lot of people cashing in to buy new ships and outfits - but that was very short-lived.
One thing to keep in mind with the ratio is that the ratio is not by itself an indicator.
Here are the things to keep in mind with the dilithium exchange:
- Ratio of ZEN to dilithium is one factor.
- QUANTITY of ZEN and QUANTITY of DILITHIUM is another.
- There is free ZEN in circulation (or not in circulation) based on level of lifer activity and level of developer activity. Lifers get free ZEN monthly. There are probably times of the month when a disproportionate number of lifers get ZEN and this is likely heavily skewed to late and early in the month because of the game's launch, which extended from late in the month to early in the month, and sales, which I think typically end at the end of a month and begin at the begining of a month. I'm not necessarily suggesting Cryptic employees use their free ZEN on the exchange but they might or might indirectly influence prices through normal play.
I'm not just suggesting lifers influence things one direction because any time fewer or more lifers than average login, it will influence things in a different direction from the baseline. ZEN sales and free offers may also have some influence.
- The relative cost of dilithium also is a factor. This doesn't just apply to things like bonus dilithium weekends but is also influenced by players who login and find themselves engaged in activities that award less or no dilithium, like Argala. Generally, grinding a new rep or spec removes dilithium from the economy and players completing these activities increases the amount in circulation.
- Obviously, dilithium and ZEN sinks matter as does demand for these sinks.
In terms of how an overall optimized exchange would look while benefiting Cryptic the most:
Dilithium being valuable relative to ZEN is one dimension.
High quantity of trade is another dimension.
Third and fourth factors include the rate of "sink" for dilithium and ZEN.
Putting on my economist hat and being very precise here (since I have simplified this statement in the past):
An optimized exchange for Cryptic's profitability is one which achieves an optimized balance of the highest value for dilithium (over ZEN) and volume of exchange, weighted to the relative "sink" rate of ZEN and dilithium.
They should want dilithium to have the highest value possible for the sake of ZEN purchasing and also for trading volume to be as high as possible, which is why you need the highest point where these two curves meet. However, a really comprehensive analysis should weight these values for the "sink rate" (ie. rate each currency leaves the economy through purchase) on each side.
I've tended to avoid discussing that last point but it is potentially very relevant and is part of what I'd weight for if I actually worked at Cryptic.
My spider senses are tingling Batman, they tell me there is a direct correlation between the amount of corn syrup and pork consumed and the amount of zen purchased post DR. It is a fascinating bit of statistical science. You square the amount of bacon and hog jowl and diversify for X which is metric tons of GMO corn syrup consumed, and oddly enough that solves for Y which is Zen purchased by eaters and breeders.
Math!
Upgrades do if people are upgrading without using crafting or the exchange. I strongly suspect a very substantial portion of upgrading activity uses the vendor supplied upgrade tech.
I was salty about being called an exploiter for playing the game, about the various income nerfs, and worst of all (for me) the death of casual PvP. Left the game for a bit, came back and played with builds mostly. It's still pretty easy to accumulate wealth. Overall, the more things change the more they stay the same.
Cryptic has mostly failed at PR for the past few months, but all indicators I see suggest the game is healthy.
First, people play the exchange... a lot. There are people that just buy up thousands of items and relist them for profit. Keys are one of the items you see a lot of speculation on ... few real players buy stacks of 100 keys at a time to open boxes -- it happens, but most players buy a few at a time, not hundreds.
Second, you don't know when those keys were bought. A single person wanting EC to buy an elachi dred for example could cause a brief crash the key market by selling old stock in his bank, if he had say 200, 300 keys in his bank and wanted EC...
Third, we are between boxes. The ppl that want to open delta boxes have done so. A new one is on the horizon, probably around anniversary event. Demand is probably low, and will pick back up when they do the "all boxes drop" week or a new box is let out.
It is a market. People will buy up the keys to actually use when the price drops enough, which will reduce the supply. People will stop buying keys for zen, because they are cheap on exchange. Eventually the supply decreases, demand increases, and price will change accordingly. There is no leap between normal market flux & players spending money or overall game health etc.
Has there even been enough time to chart a real trend? The key crash is what, less than a week old? The other stuff... who knows? There was a "DR is new" spending frenzy for upgrade tokens, ship packs, keys for the new box, .... this is just now wearing off perhaps?
I don't know. But I don't think people are spending less, but there are probably less people, but the ones who stayed probably are the spenders... its impossible to make blanket comments about it.
I see so many t6 ships bought. So many other purchases since DR ... you see visual evidence of money spent all over the game all the time. Its impossible to gauge it though, since dil2zen paid for some of it, LT sub paid for some of it, ... etc. We don't know, but for sure, keys can't be used to make any sort of statement about anything.
This is no doubt true for a segment of the players, but I don't think you can point to any one factor that is reducing PVE participation. Folks are always eager to paint every issue with a broad brush.
I personally don't play them, because I hate the revamp and don't enjoy them. The reduced payouts just make them less attractive.
My character Tsin'xing
They also added a battlezone, but there isn't as much incentive to go back there once it's finished than for the Voths one.
The only endgame content they truly added was the patrol grind, but I'm not sure that a lot of players enjoy doing it.
More people used to do STF because they were easy to grind, for a good dil/marks reward. Now, they are harder for less.
And not every STF was played, mind you. Nothing changed for a lot of them.
Some of your assumptions aren't considering both sides of the coin.
So you are saying people aren't spending less in game, right? Evidenced by the price of items in the game. But there are two sides, the supply and demand. So if an equal amount of supply as demand has disappeared the price won't change.
Your arguement is flawed because its just the ratio that dictates the price, not the quantity.
As someone who logs in, doffs and logs off I no longer consume or supply anything, so a non-paying player now has 0 influence on your visible statistics.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
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Before they squashed the fun out of them, I played an STF nearly every time I logged in, regardless of what was going on (winter event, summer event, etc).
Not everyone looks at the game like it's a career, or a race, or building an empire. Some people just want to have fun with their free time. New STFs = no fun = don't play. New crafting system = too complicated = no fun = don't use. DR missions = limited fun = limited play.
I still find portions of the game entertaining enough to log in, but I play WAY less than I used to, and what I do play doesn't compel me to buy new ships.
In my own little demographic, Cryptic is really missing their mark with these changes.
Vazlav for one is probably going to be at 60 and working on amassing Specialization points before he ever enters Delta Quadrant. I'll only have to worry about "grinding to level" if the cap suddenly pops up to 70 or something.
Am I the only one with alts?
As for the expansion, I am seeing a lot of previously active players leaving and a lot of older players who were on a break returning to give the game another shot. No idea what the net result is and Cryptic isn't talking, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. STO will go on, at least until the license is pulled out of it. That is the only thing that kills games like this one.
I stopped reading right here because it is total and utter BS and sounds like a alternate way of trying to call STO P2W...which is untrue.
You can earn them in game...saying otherwise is a boldface lie. You can earn almost anything in game by selling dilithium for zen.