Questionite-to-Zen rate has been hovering in the 450:1 range for some time in CO. Folks still buy Zen.
Perhaps simplistic market analyses fail to take things like human greed into account? Just a guess...
The problem with any analysis of an exchange like this is that is has to take into account NOT JUST exchange rate but volume of transaction.
Overall, the surest sign of a healthy game, for all parties, is for the exchange rate to require as little dilithium as possible to buy 1 ZEN... But only when weighted to account for the volume of transaction. And I wouldn't use CO to describe a thriving game. I'm not preaching doom for you guys (and I have ideas on how to kickstart CO as someone who did play a bit and who played a lot of City of Heroes). You might say this doesn't favor Questionite/dilithium buyers except the best case scenario is one where they're happy enough and motivated enough by the game to pay a premium price for in-game currency. There's an economic satisfaction meter at player here that could be estimated based on a combination of the exchange value of in-game currency (ie. high value means playtime is valued highly) when weighted for the time rate of exchange and volume of offers (which indicates that the market is actually optimized).
You also have to take into account distortions for things like lifer stipends or bonus dilithium gains.
I think what we're seeing in STO is all temporary. What we have had is a massive surplus of dilithium dumped into the game (Delta Recruit alts claiming account wide rewards, dilithium weekend, bonus dilithium week, more active players mining dilithium, dilithium fleet vouchers, addition of dilithium to content that awarded none before, item upgrade tech that requires no dilithium). This is oversaturating the amount of dilithium demanded but is all a temporary bubble.
Meanwhile, the demand side has been shifted for ZEN because we have new lockboxes, presumably an atypical number of new players (whose C-Store demands have not been saturated), C-Store sales (which people want ZEN to take advantage of), and highly exotic new C-Store ships.
The idea that this change is permanent seems unlikely to me. This isn't how the game usually runs and it isn't necessarily something I'd expect to make a longterm trend out of unless developers think they can get longterm playtime increases by devaluing dilithium. But if that does hold true, I'd expect to see the refinement cap also increased since that would also devalue dilithium and drive more playtime. But this could all be seen on some level as an attempt by developers to potentially "buy" better playtime metrics at the cost of revenue since it's apparently a big aspect of how success is judged for a F2P game.
The one thing I'll say is that this is all speculation (which I know YOU know) but that a proper analysis requires data we don't have as players and that I haven't seen anyone propose a good test for guesstimating, in particular measuring the rate and quantity of transactions on the exchange over time or the amount of things like free dilithium or free ZEN creating a bubble in the economy.
At the end of the day, I don't think the current exchange rate will hold. Unless the devs want it to hold for the sake of some potential benefit like increased average playtime, if that can be traced back to devalued dilithium. All other things being equal, the market will reverse course and devs MIGHT see a net revenue gain from it reversing course.
And the high dilithium exchange has nothing to do with the ship sale?
It has everything to do with it. New ships came out, others went on sale. People want ships, demand for Zen is high. The exchange rate is what it is because people are willing to pay it to get the zen they want to buy the ships they want.
Anything else is sour grapes from people who cant get what they want for the price they want.
"Go play with your DPS in the corner, I don't care how big it is." ~ Me "There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
Surely you mean driving the dil to zen rate lower.
I don't know how you were taught supply and demand, but grinding dil raises the supply of dil, and buying zen raises the supply of zen.
If someone raises the supply of zen instead of raising the supply of dil, the ratio of zen to dil goes up, and in math, when something goes up, its inverse goes down.
So, the dil/zen goes down.
And quick question here
From cryptic business perspective are current Dil prises a good or bad thing?
I mean at current rate poor kiddies get to grind more if they want Zen while richirich kids are tempted to even buy Dil with real live currency for faster game progression and ship items which shine like latinum.
I think I got the Demand/Availability thingy but whats in for Cryptic?
-> 100 Dil = 1 Zen better or...
-> 300 Dil = 1 Zen?
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Oh no! Some people might have to pay for their new T-6 ships with real money? The horror!!!!!
Sarcasm off.
Lol that made me laugh ^^^
Thanks for my LOL for the day
But tbh i think you hit the nail on the head people are mad because they may just have to buy that brand new shiney with Que dramatic sound effects money :eek:
If you don't want to pay ~250 Dilithium per Zen,... well, there's always paypal and credit card. Don't want to use real money? Well, learn to save up or learn some patience,...
IMO, theres is no correlation to how much Dilithium can be earned in an event or weekend or bonus period or whatever,... because no matter how much you earn, you can only refine 8k per day.
While that has historically been true, I'd venture that part of the reason the dil exchange is back at pre-Fleet levels is that we have had a crazy run of dil-boosting events - two Dilithium weeks, Delta Recruiting, CC etc - which means that players are running multiple alts converting 8K/day from backlog rather than perhaps 4-5K per day. In short, the market is saturated with Dil in a way that it has never been before. Couple this with the lack of new sinks, the need for new service unlocks for delta recruits, and some very desirable new ships... it's not surprising the exchange is where it is.
I don't think Cryptic give a rats' nadgers about where the exchange balance is, as long as people are still buying zen; whether they do so for C-store purchases or for dil trading is academic. They'll act to intervene when Zen sales drop.
I've been catching up on some Tribbles in Ecstasy eps , and I was pleasantly surprised by ep 164 (around the 0:23 min) and towards the end of the show as well , where some healty view points were expressed toward the idea of the Spec Points / Trees .
Namely that they are content that is out of reach for some / many players .
You can disagree , you can tell me I'm foolish , but it is exactly like that ... , and the more Spec Trees we get , the further the goal post , the further the incentive to do it all / grind for it .
Thus if this is meant to be the long term End Game , it fails more and more with each moving of the goal post and with limiting each Tree to a handful of ships .
Which is why I understand repetitiveepic's desire to buy points .
* You can't grind it all out in a timely relevant fashion (unless you have no life / responsibilities -- and even then it might cost you your sanity) .
* The limiting of powers to a few ships limits the interest in those powers .
* The content offered to "grind" is both limited and uninspiring ("kill 5 rats x 5 x 100.000 x 17" from 20 years ago) .
* Most of those who throw around the word "entitlement" never honestly see themselves finishing all the Trees , they're just TRIBBLE f#cks who get a kick out of dissing others while hiding behind a keyboard .
* Cryptic is putting effort into creating "content" that in the end very few hardcore players will access -- and that , along with many other of their choices is wrong .
... thus while I don't necessarily agree with repetitiveepic's solution of "buying yourself out of a problem" , I do see the problem while many just pretend that it does not exist ...
Low dilex means people who spend $ to get dil have to spend more money. But a low dilex also indicates there is a high demand for dil (to use in game).
High dilex means its harder to grind dil for zen in game, and people who spend $ to get dil get more dil for their money. But, a high dilex indicates a low demand for dil (to use in game).
It could go either way. It's not even clear that they care one way or another to be honest.
In their other games that use a copy/paste of the dil-zen system, have let the dilex max at 500 and you have to wait, sometimes days, to convert dil to zen.
Ah ok, thank you very much for explanation.
So its hard to tell which level is cool for cryptic. But in any case they do seem to have highly manipulative means to influence.
Lets say they release 3 triple ship packs in Z store that peeps go nuts for they devalue Dil while some potent sinks in game would actually value it more again.
At the moment they seem to be eager for the first road. But I cant really tell if its intentional because many Dil sinks currently in game plain and simply seem to fail royally (18k finish now buttons for a crafting system which not much to craft. Rarity upgrades option with elite salvages guarded behind elite play needed to be run in massive amounts).
Wouldnt be hard for cryptic to reverse the process. Selectable mods on crafting stuff for 10k Dil each, easy access to salvage tech. Suppose just another fleet holding wouldnt work.
Should be interesting times ahead. There I was thinking we have seen the worst sinks
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
But they do though, they rely on greed, they assume greed.
That sellers are greedy - that they want as much for their thing as possible, and that buyers are greedy, that they want to pay as little for a thing as possible.
Given that both buyers and sellers are greedy, changes in supply and demand lead to changes in price.
Lol, you are definitely not wrong here druk but, it is usually the sellers greed that starts the game afoot.
Aren't both sides selling something? No one wants to have a deal that's bad for himself.
Yes both sides are selling something but, as always, when something new is deemed for release, the exchange rate on the seller side [zen seller] rises immediately, showing that the greed factor which is relevant like druk mentioned, begins with what I just mentioned.
If it were the other way around, than 100's of thousands of zen willing to be bought by dilithium sellers, would spawn up first in 1 - 2 lower bid categories before the zen sellers took the initiative.
Low dilex means people who spend $ to get dil have to spend more money. But a low dilex also indicates there is a high demand for dil (to use in game).
High dilex means its harder to grind dil for zen in game, and people who spend $ to get dil get more dil for their money. But, a high dilex indicates a low demand for dil (to use in game).
It could go either way. It's not even clear that they care one way or another to be honest.
In their other games that use a copy/paste of the dil-zen system, have let the dilex max at 500 and you have to wait, sometimes days, to convert dil to zen.
I think some mistakes that are often repeated in these threads is to compare the rate with city of heroes - a dead game. I don't know much about neverwinter. But STO they seem really to work to create a balanced and healthy exchange. Not sure why they would allow neverwinter to be dead.
Another mistake is to compare now to the very early days of the dil exchange when there was nothing to spend the dilithium on. In the modern game the price has varied between around 110 to now 250. That is the relevant situation.
I suspect 250 is the upper limit for what the majority is willing to grind for - though like gas prices, is 270 much different than 250? It's possible 300 might be the psychological breaking point.
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."
I suspect 250 is the upper limit for what the majority is willing to grind for - though like gas prices, is 270 much different than 250? It's possible 300 might be the psychological breaking point.
Of course the sad reality here is that the difference between 200 and 300 is less then 14 cents on an 8,000 limit. All this angst over what amounts to the cost of 3 gumballs per week for most players.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Lol, you are definitely not wrong here druk but, it is usually the sellers greed that starts the game afoot.
It's basic supply and demand; it isn't like there is a conspiracy by people with a little money to control the Zen market.
The freemium players who live in STO want the shinies at the same time as paying players. Is that greedy of them to buy up the Zen on the exchange, driving up it's value and price?
Paying players aren't here to fund your acquisitions. It's an incentive to keep the 'free-folk' mining so paying players have something else to buy.
Of course the sad reality here is that the difference between 200 and 300 is less then 14 cents on an 8,000 limit. All this angst over what amounts to the cost of 3 gumballs per week for most players.
Except for the high-frequency dilithium traders, who regularly place both buy and sell orders at once, using the daily cycle to make some profits. A healthy market where both Zen and dilithium are in demand is required to keep that method going.
Except for the high-frequency dilithium traders, who regularly place both buy and sell orders at once, using the daily cycle to make some profits. A healthy market where both Zen and dilithium are in demand is required to keep that method going.
Thus my use of the words "for most players." I am not going to worry too much about what the minority do: the people with 40 characters who play 12 hours per day, the bond traders, etc.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I've sold my dilithium at lower rates, just like in the Exchange, I want my stuff to sale fast, not sit for weeks. Also I remember starting out, it was hard and Im very thankful to others who at the time where/are doing what Im doing now. There just isnt enough of us.
Thus my use of the words "for most players." I am not going to worry too much about what the minority do: the people with 40 characters who play 12 hours per day, the bond traders, etc.
Sorry, I missed that. I tried playing that market once and lost about 50,000 dilithium - I don't know how they are able to play it so well.
I guess I might disagree with one point, as a casual player. I am still running VR Mk 12 and 13 gear and almost never hit my 8000 dilithium cap on one character, let alone multiples. If I want to spend $5 to upgrade some things, the difference between 250 and 270 di/Zen is 10,000 dilithium. That 10,000 dilithium difference is (for me) an extra couple days of playing (for an hour or so each day).
That being said, I am happy the rate is as high as it is. It can't climb high enough, if you ask me.
Comments
The problem with any analysis of an exchange like this is that is has to take into account NOT JUST exchange rate but volume of transaction.
Overall, the surest sign of a healthy game, for all parties, is for the exchange rate to require as little dilithium as possible to buy 1 ZEN... But only when weighted to account for the volume of transaction. And I wouldn't use CO to describe a thriving game. I'm not preaching doom for you guys (and I have ideas on how to kickstart CO as someone who did play a bit and who played a lot of City of Heroes). You might say this doesn't favor Questionite/dilithium buyers except the best case scenario is one where they're happy enough and motivated enough by the game to pay a premium price for in-game currency. There's an economic satisfaction meter at player here that could be estimated based on a combination of the exchange value of in-game currency (ie. high value means playtime is valued highly) when weighted for the time rate of exchange and volume of offers (which indicates that the market is actually optimized).
You also have to take into account distortions for things like lifer stipends or bonus dilithium gains.
I think what we're seeing in STO is all temporary. What we have had is a massive surplus of dilithium dumped into the game (Delta Recruit alts claiming account wide rewards, dilithium weekend, bonus dilithium week, more active players mining dilithium, dilithium fleet vouchers, addition of dilithium to content that awarded none before, item upgrade tech that requires no dilithium). This is oversaturating the amount of dilithium demanded but is all a temporary bubble.
Meanwhile, the demand side has been shifted for ZEN because we have new lockboxes, presumably an atypical number of new players (whose C-Store demands have not been saturated), C-Store sales (which people want ZEN to take advantage of), and highly exotic new C-Store ships.
The idea that this change is permanent seems unlikely to me. This isn't how the game usually runs and it isn't necessarily something I'd expect to make a longterm trend out of unless developers think they can get longterm playtime increases by devaluing dilithium. But if that does hold true, I'd expect to see the refinement cap also increased since that would also devalue dilithium and drive more playtime. But this could all be seen on some level as an attempt by developers to potentially "buy" better playtime metrics at the cost of revenue since it's apparently a big aspect of how success is judged for a F2P game.
The one thing I'll say is that this is all speculation (which I know YOU know) but that a proper analysis requires data we don't have as players and that I haven't seen anyone propose a good test for guesstimating, in particular measuring the rate and quantity of transactions on the exchange over time or the amount of things like free dilithium or free ZEN creating a bubble in the economy.
At the end of the day, I don't think the current exchange rate will hold. Unless the devs want it to hold for the sake of some potential benefit like increased average playtime, if that can be traced back to devalued dilithium. All other things being equal, the market will reverse course and devs MIGHT see a net revenue gain from it reversing course.
It has everything to do with it. New ships came out, others went on sale. People want ships, demand for Zen is high. The exchange rate is what it is because people are willing to pay it to get the zen they want to buy the ships they want.
Anything else is sour grapes from people who cant get what they want for the price they want.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
Thats because upgrades are boring to most, buying a new ship from Z store however is not.
Not saying that this is the right approach to game but I suspect thats what most casuals do.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
And quick question here
From cryptic business perspective are current Dil prises a good or bad thing?
I mean at current rate poor kiddies get to grind more if they want Zen while richirich kids are tempted to even buy Dil with real live currency for faster game progression and ship items which shine like latinum.
I think I got the Demand/Availability thingy but whats in for Cryptic?
-> 100 Dil = 1 Zen better or...
-> 300 Dil = 1 Zen?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Lol that made me laugh ^^^
Thanks for my LOL for the day
But tbh i think you hit the nail on the head people are mad because they may just have to buy that brand new shiney with Que dramatic sound effects money :eek:
While that has historically been true, I'd venture that part of the reason the dil exchange is back at pre-Fleet levels is that we have had a crazy run of dil-boosting events - two Dilithium weeks, Delta Recruiting, CC etc - which means that players are running multiple alts converting 8K/day from backlog rather than perhaps 4-5K per day. In short, the market is saturated with Dil in a way that it has never been before. Couple this with the lack of new sinks, the need for new service unlocks for delta recruits, and some very desirable new ships... it's not surprising the exchange is where it is.
I don't think Cryptic give a rats' nadgers about where the exchange balance is, as long as people are still buying zen; whether they do so for C-store purchases or for dil trading is academic. They'll act to intervene when Zen sales drop.
Namely that they are content that is out of reach for some / many players .
You can disagree , you can tell me I'm foolish , but it is exactly like that ... , and the more Spec Trees we get , the further the goal post , the further the incentive to do it all / grind for it .
Thus if this is meant to be the long term End Game , it fails more and more with each moving of the goal post and with limiting each Tree to a handful of ships .
Which is why I understand repetitiveepic's desire to buy points .
* You can't grind it all out in a timely relevant fashion (unless you have no life / responsibilities -- and even then it might cost you your sanity) .
* The limiting of powers to a few ships limits the interest in those powers .
* The content offered to "grind" is both limited and uninspiring ("kill 5 rats x 5 x 100.000 x 17" from 20 years ago) .
* Most of those who throw around the word "entitlement" never honestly see themselves finishing all the Trees , they're just TRIBBLE f#cks who get a kick out of dissing others while hiding behind a keyboard .
* Cryptic is putting effort into creating "content" that in the end very few hardcore players will access -- and that , along with many other of their choices is wrong .
... thus while I don't necessarily agree with repetitiveepic's solution of "buying yourself out of a problem" , I do see the problem while many just pretend that it does not exist ...
Ah ok, thank you very much for explanation.
So its hard to tell which level is cool for cryptic. But in any case they do seem to have highly manipulative means to influence.
Lets say they release 3 triple ship packs in Z store that peeps go nuts for they devalue Dil while some potent sinks in game would actually value it more again.
At the moment they seem to be eager for the first road. But I cant really tell if its intentional because many Dil sinks currently in game plain and simply seem to fail royally (18k finish now buttons for a crafting system which not much to craft. Rarity upgrades option with elite salvages guarded behind elite play needed to be run in massive amounts).
Wouldnt be hard for cryptic to reverse the process. Selectable mods on crafting stuff for 10k Dil each, easy access to salvage tech. Suppose just another fleet holding wouldnt work.
Should be interesting times ahead. There I was thinking we have seen the worst sinks
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Lol, you are definitely not wrong here druk but, it is usually the sellers greed that starts the game afoot.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Aren't both sides selling something? No one wants to have a deal that's bad for himself.
Yes both sides are selling something but, as always, when something new is deemed for release, the exchange rate on the seller side [zen seller] rises immediately, showing that the greed factor which is relevant like druk mentioned, begins with what I just mentioned.
If it were the other way around, than 100's of thousands of zen willing to be bought by dilithium sellers, would spawn up first in 1 - 2 lower bid categories before the zen sellers took the initiative.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I think some mistakes that are often repeated in these threads is to compare the rate with city of heroes - a dead game. I don't know much about neverwinter. But STO they seem really to work to create a balanced and healthy exchange. Not sure why they would allow neverwinter to be dead.
Another mistake is to compare now to the very early days of the dil exchange when there was nothing to spend the dilithium on. In the modern game the price has varied between around 110 to now 250. That is the relevant situation.
I suspect 250 is the upper limit for what the majority is willing to grind for - though like gas prices, is 270 much different than 250? It's possible 300 might be the psychological breaking point.
"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's basic supply and demand; it isn't like there is a conspiracy by people with a little money to control the Zen market.
The freemium players who live in STO want the shinies at the same time as paying players. Is that greedy of them to buy up the Zen on the exchange, driving up it's value and price?
Paying players aren't here to fund your acquisitions. It's an incentive to keep the 'free-folk' mining so paying players have something else to buy.
Except for the high-frequency dilithium traders, who regularly place both buy and sell orders at once, using the daily cycle to make some profits. A healthy market where both Zen and dilithium are in demand is required to keep that method going.
Sorry, I missed that. I tried playing that market once and lost about 50,000 dilithium - I don't know how they are able to play it so well.
I guess I might disagree with one point, as a casual player. I am still running VR Mk 12 and 13 gear and almost never hit my 8000 dilithium cap on one character, let alone multiples. If I want to spend $5 to upgrade some things, the difference between 250 and 270 di/Zen is 10,000 dilithium. That 10,000 dilithium difference is (for me) an extra couple days of playing (for an hour or so each day).
That being said, I am happy the rate is as high as it is. It can't climb high enough, if you ask me.
Before marching on towards 500.
It's about time they unlocked the crafting mods. The value of upgrades as a dil sink is tremendously diminished by the crafting RNG.
It'll probably still be awhile before a new fleet holding introduces T6 fleet ships, but even then it'll only be a sink for mature, active fleets.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
Hopefully there will be a Zen sale this weekend and the dilith/Zen rate will come back down to earth. :rolleyes:
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat