I think the F2P whaling is going to burst eventually, ask Zinga how they are doing ...
Good to see Im not the only rational businessman with high integrity.
Free to play gaming should just die if it means relying on a whale economy.
Im more in favor of cheap to play. Everyone pays a little something, and if you want to feel rich in game, you dont have to spend more than $20 per month to have everything your digital heart desires. This allows you to feel wealthy in 3 games at once for a $60 a month price. Feeling like Tony Stark in multiple games at once just keeps the gaming industry strong when more are encouraged to pay and game for reasonable prices that dont wreck their budget.
STO: @AGNT009 Since Dec 2010
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
My numbers come from logical guesses. At most theres only got to be 5% of the total playerbase that is foolish enough to blow 100s in lockboxing in this game.
Of course the exchange doesnt run on straight dollars, I was doing the conversion for the sake of easier reading. Meaning $1 buys 1 key, and 50 lockboxes max should be opened to score enough lobi to buy the grand prize ships. And converting those ships to EC value on the exchange should cap at $50 spent.
Making most of the playerbase feel rich in game encourages more spending by more players than making most of the playerbase opt out of the gambling because they cant or wont blow real money on digital goods.
I swear most of the forum should have Cryptic Defenders signatures with Avenger themes, the way you all blindly defend price gouging, instead of having the best the game can offer for a reasonable fixed amount of money even with a mild amount of gambling mixed in. As the smart folks have pointed out, true capitalist economic models cant relate to this game and its infinite amount of EC.
So, your numbers are from guesses? That's make your argument dubious at best. Sorry, but Cryptic won't do waht you want them to do. I think it's time you stop.
Lobi store ships already sell for less on the exchange than the lock box cost of earning the lobi.
For example the 900-lobi Xindi Ateleth ship sells for around 100 million EC, roughly $45 worth of lock boxes. You have to open $225 worth of lock boxes to earn 900 lobi.
I've never understood this phenomenon. Why aren't Lobi ships selling for 300-400 million EC a pop? Even with the rare Lobi sales, those ships still are very expensive.
A fair way to gamble is to simply not gamble. No one forces you to buy master keys and open these boxes its all by choice. Why are the items up on the exchange expensive.2 reasons
1. someone did play the game and want to get something back on the that investment in terms of in game money which has no value other than in game.
2. Exclusivity. you know making sure these items are in low numbers and have some prestige and value in owning one.
My main point is games shouldnt even be allowed to use real world economic models to make money in a fantasy game. If it were up to me, there would be laws forcing gambling caps. The same way some states dont even allow gambling, there should be digital world protection as well.
Sigh, what idialistic ranting. If it where up to you, you would most likely what Business model would earn you the most money.
Good to see Im not the only rational businessman with high integrity.
Free to play gaming should just die if it means relying on a whale economy.
Im more in favor of cheap to play. Everyone pays a little something, and if you want to feel rich in game, you dont have to spend more than $20 per month to have everything your digital heart desires. This allows you to feel wealthy in 3 games at once for a $60 a month price. Feeling like Tony Stark in multiple games at once just keeps the gaming industry strong when more are encouraged to pay and game for reasonable prices that dont wreck their budget.
Then I'm glad that Cryptic will ignore your posts since I do enjoy playing STO.
Also, if you read that link the Nintendo President has no solution for funding games like STO without whales. "Iwata has challenged his team to come up with alternatives", i.e. he is hoping to maybe find some solution someday despite almost every MMO needing to go F2P to survive.
Lockbox ships are a vanity item that no one "needs." So far your ideas of price caps and price cuts make no economic or business sense they are just saying "high prices are not fair!"
Good to see Im not the only rational businessman with high integrity.
Free to play gaming should just die if it means relying on a whale economy.
Im more in favor of cheap to play. Everyone pays a little something, and if you want to feel rich in game, you dont have to spend more than $20 per month to have everything your digital heart desires. This allows you to feel wealthy in 3 games at once for a $60 a month price. Feeling like Tony Stark in multiple games at once just keeps the gaming industry strong when more are encouraged to pay and game for reasonable prices that dont wreck their budget.
Please tell me you don't believe that nonsense?
Nintendo is only going that way because they cater mostly to younger gamers (ie. kids), who would be far less likely to persuade their parents to buy them 1000 of lockbox keys and far more likely to get their parents to buy them a couple of dollars worth of game stuff every now and then.
It has nothing to do with integrity, it's about getting the most money from their target audience.
Seriously, just give up trying to get Cryptic to change their in-game economic policies, it has obviously worked well enough for them up to now.
Nintendo is only going that way because they cater mostly to younger gamers (ie. kids), who would be far less likely to persuade their parents to buy them 1000 of lockbox keys and far more likely to get their parents to buy them a couple of dollars worth of game stuff every now and then.
It has nothing to do with integrity, it's about getting the most money from their target audience.
Seriously, just give up trying to get Cryptic to change their in-game economic policies, it has obviously worked well enough for them up to now.
Very good point. Nintendo games are kid games so they can't use the model of $1,000 a month spending. Since they can't use it, Iwata is making a virtue of "choosing" not to as if he had a choice.
Seriously, there isnt any one item that a person has to buy off of the exchange to play the game. Its not that hard to level gear to MKXIV, T5 (FT5, T5U, FT5U) ships are more than capable to handle the missions, T6's are available at the ZStore, not the exchange. If you need help, ask a fleetie. Dont have a fleetie? Join a fleet.
problem is with that idea, say they make it so if you buy 30 r&d boxes or keys you`re guaranteed to get a ship but say you find the ship in the first few boxes or keys you could then sell on the remainder of the boxes or keys to some other players for a small fortune in EC especially if they think one of them might have a ship & unaware that none of these come with the ship because you got the one from that batch.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Yet another thread where the OP clearly doesn't understand how the system works.
NO one is forced to gamble in STO.
The bug ship has been mentioned. So I can only assume the OP doesn't have 500 million to buy one.
There are 3 Golden Snitch ships in the game right now OP.
This 3 ships (bug / elachi / Voth bull) are not in the lobi store... not in a lockbox. They are the only Limited time ships in the game. Cryptic uses them to push Promos. (you can read that as... they use them to bump sales every few months.)
Right now in fact the Elachi ship is the current promo. Which means you can buy R&D packs and take a gamble.....
OR thanks to the exchange... you can buy them for real $.
Lets take the bug ship though. (right now yes it is likely going to cost you 500mil. perhaps a bit more because it is not on sale right now... meaning the only ones out there are ones people have HELD on to) This is by design. Cryptic likes the cost of these to drift up... so when they bring a promo back for it, it creates a ferver, increasing sales.
Anyway to the point... the bug ship right now costs $220 (aprox).
You CAN NOT gamble for it right now that isn't an option. It is one of the 3 limited time ships. (you can gamble and try and get lockbox ships... but the bug isn't a lockbox ship its a promo pack ship)
That is fine by Cryptic... when the ship goes on sale that drops to in or around $100 while the promo is on. (due to simple supply).
As people have explained in the previous thread... and you seem to somewhat understand now. Zen ships cost $30 bucks. Making a zen store ship a "Fleet" level ship costs another $10. So one off fleet level zen store ships cost $40. (or aprox 4000 zen).... guess what buying and selling Keys for EC. Will cost you around the same amount of zen to buy the current lockbox ships. (100 mil ec = 4000 zen).
Look at the system though Cryptics eyes.
Zen ship = 3000 zen ($30 real money)
Fleet Zen Store Ship = 4000 zen ($40 real money)
Current Lockbox ship = 3750-4000 zen ($37-40 real money)
Older Lockbox ship = 4000-4500 zen ($40-45 real money)
Promotional R&D ships durring promotion = 15,000 zen (at 375 mil) ($150)
R&D Ships off promo = 22,000 zen ($220)
I know your looking at that and thinking 15-22k zen sounds insane. To Cryptic its $ in the bank. What you have to understand is those 3 ships are setup that way by design. It gives Cryptic something special that they can pull out every 3-4 months to drive sales for 2-3 weeks. (you will notice most of the R&D promos tend to hit right at the end of a fiscal reporting quarter).
The bottom line is when the Golden Snitch ships are on... you can Gamble for them. Or simply spend $150 to get one during its promo time. These are not figures Cryptic is seeing as broken.
Prevent OUTRAGEOUS forum posts with a dilithium charge per new thread.
OP has taken the time to respond and actually discuss his points so I give him points for that.
He doesn't seem to want to understand economics or accept that Cryptic understands item pricing better than he does. "Reality has a lock box bias" to paraphrase a political quote.
Bug ships that are worth $50 worth of lobi? Are we playing the same game?
Its either that, or you de-value the ship to a point where no one cares which would be bad for Cryptic. People get these for their rarity and novelty first, performance doesn't matter much. How else do you explain why the craptastic Tier 5 Bulwark is still nowhere to be found for a remotely appropriate price (based on performance)?
l
I swear every time I see something like this it just grinds my gears, first, there's nothing wrong with the bulwark... I swear every time somebody can't use the ship or they suck at it or they suck in general in playing the game it's got to be the ship's fault, it couldn't possibly be them because they are so OMGWTF fantastic newsflash maybe is not the ship maybe it's you..... OP I usually have the same thought you do sometimes they are usually enhanced by alcohol but I digress... Sorry brother this is not gonna happen.
I swear every time I see something like this it just grinds my gears, first, there's nothing wrong with the bulwark... I swear every time somebody can't use the ship or they suck at it or they suck in general in playing the game it's got to be the ship's fault, it couldn't possibly be them because they are so OMGWTF fantastic newsflash maybe is not the ship maybe it's you..... OP I usually have the same thought you do sometimes they are usually enhanced by alcohol but I digress... Sorry brother this is not gonna happen.
I agree, I know a guy who uses a build on a Bulwark that turns enough damage back that it actually vaporizes vapers.
Yet another thread where the OP clearly doesn't understand how the system works.
NO one is forced to gamble in STO.
The bug ship has been mentioned. So I can only assume the OP doesn't have 500 million to buy one.
There are 3 Golden Snitch ships in the game right now OP.
This 3 ships (bug / elachi / Voth bull) are not in the lobi store... not in a lockbox. They are the only Limited time ships in the game. Cryptic uses them to push Promos. (you can read that as... they use them to bump sales every few months.)
Right now in fact the Elachi ship is the current promo. Which means you can buy R&D packs and take a gamble.....
OR thanks to the exchange... you can buy them for real $.
Lets take the bug ship though. (right now yes it is likely going to cost you 500mil. perhaps a bit more because it is not on sale right now... meaning the only ones out there are ones people have HELD on to) This is by design. Cryptic likes the cost of these to drift up... so when they bring a promo back for it, it creates a ferver, increasing sales.
Anyway to the point... the bug ship right now costs $220 (aprox).
You CAN NOT gamble for it right now that isn't an option. It is one of the 3 limited time ships. (you can gamble and try and get lockbox ships... but the bug isn't a lockbox ship its a promo pack ship)
That is fine by Cryptic... when the ship goes on sale that drops to in or around $100 while the promo is on. (due to simple supply).
As people have explained in the previous thread... and you seem to somewhat understand now. Zen ships cost $30 bucks. Making a zen store ship a "Fleet" level ship costs another $10. So one off fleet level zen store ships cost $40. (or aprox 4000 zen).... guess what buying and selling Keys for EC. Will cost you around the same amount of zen to buy the current lockbox ships. (100 mil ec = 4000 zen).
Look at the system though Cryptics eyes.
Zen ship = 3000 zen ($30 real money)
Fleet Zen Store Ship = 4000 zen ($40 real money)
Current Lockbox ship = 3750-4000 zen ($37-40 real money)
Older Lockbox ship = 4000-4500 zen ($40-45 real money)
Promotional R&D ships durring promotion = 15,000 zen (at 375 mil) ($150)
R&D Ships off promo = 22,000 zen ($220)
I know your looking at that and thinking 15-22k zen sounds insane. To Cryptic its $ in the bank. What you have to understand is those 3 ships are setup that way by design. It gives Cryptic something special that they can pull out every 3-4 months to drive sales for 2-3 weeks. (you will notice most of the R&D promos tend to hit right at the end of a fiscal reporting quarter).
The bottom line is when the Golden Snitch ships are on... you can Gamble for them. Or simply spend $150 to get one during its promo time. These are not figures Cryptic is seeing as broken.
Dont forget to buy your Zen when it goes on sale to get an even deeper discount!
I've never understood this phenomenon. Why aren't Lobi ships selling for 300-400 million EC a pop? Even with the rare Lobi sales, those ships still are very expensive.
Shhh... . I love my 76 Mil Mobius more than any ship I've ever flown, and have great appriciation for people who are either very generous or very bad at math.
As Zephram Cochrane once said, "That'll do, pig. That'll do." - April 1st 2015.
Lobi ships dont sell for 160x the cost of a key or whatever because lobi is one prize out of many that you get for opening boxes.
Its the same reason lockbox ships dont sell for 250x the cost of a key.
Exactly... Lobis value is very easy to figure out.
If a ship sells for 95 million that costs 900 lobi Then each lobi is worth 105,555 EC.
This value holds pretty steady for the 800 lobi ships, and for things like lobi costumes and boffs that can be sold.
So every lockbox gets at least 400k worth of lobi in it. Pulling a lucky lockbox that awards 25 nets out the cost of the key. (the average lobi pay out though is like 5)
It is away to recoup at least some of the cost of keys... when the vast majority of lockboxs give you things like cheap doff packs, weapon packs, and cheap boosters. Very rarely do you pull anything worth more then 200-300k.
etc etc, you multiply each one's value by its chance to win, and add all the numbers up.
Exactly and divide that number by 100. Then add 500k to that number for the lobi value. This is where the lobi comes in... often it is the only thing that makes opening some of the older boxes profitable.
Some boxes like say for instance the Tholian box is a complete loss, with the average prize value being around 1mil at most. Even with the lobi that chances are you will loose 1 million every time you open one.
This is why in the OPS other thread I suggested... all the older boxes be rolled into one legacy box. Where the min lobi award be raised to 5 (meaning the avg would be 6) As well as having some of the older lowest value prizes rolled into something new... Like perhaps a Doff 3pk, that would give you 3 random doff packs, 3 mini packs most of the time with a small chance (2-5%) for those mini packs to be Full sized packs instead. They could also double the chance of the older lockbox ships. They would still be very rare.. I mean 0.8 instead of 0.4 is still not going make them super common.
. If it were up to me, there would be laws forcing gambling caps. The same way some states dont even allow gambling, there should be digital world protection as well.
You had some good points till this IMHO.
Respectfully, The Government has their nose into every thing we do now, I damn sure don't want more government or more laws, dictating my games.
Things are already bad enough, just no. no way, no how. Now If a company want's to voluntarily do this, sure, go for it, it's their dime. The fastest way to get me and plenty of others that I know, to stop gaming, is to legislate it.
Sorry, not this old man.
I now return you to this nights drama titled "Wallstreet 2410 "
My mother always told me to walk away from a fight, The Marines taught me how.
Comments
Good to see Im not the only rational businessman with high integrity.
Free to play gaming should just die if it means relying on a whale economy.
Im more in favor of cheap to play. Everyone pays a little something, and if you want to feel rich in game, you dont have to spend more than $20 per month to have everything your digital heart desires. This allows you to feel wealthy in 3 games at once for a $60 a month price. Feeling like Tony Stark in multiple games at once just keeps the gaming industry strong when more are encouraged to pay and game for reasonable prices that dont wreck their budget.
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
I've never understood this phenomenon. Why aren't Lobi ships selling for 300-400 million EC a pop? Even with the rare Lobi sales, those ships still are very expensive.
1. someone did play the game and want to get something back on the that investment in terms of in game money which has no value other than in game.
2. Exclusivity. you know making sure these items are in low numbers and have some prestige and value in owning one.
Sigh, what idialistic ranting. If it where up to you, you would most likely what Business model would earn you the most money.
And now guess what works best for cryptic...
Then I'm glad that Cryptic will ignore your posts since I do enjoy playing STO.
Also, if you read that link the Nintendo President has no solution for funding games like STO without whales. "Iwata has challenged his team to come up with alternatives", i.e. he is hoping to maybe find some solution someday despite almost every MMO needing to go F2P to survive.
Lockbox ships are a vanity item that no one "needs." So far your ideas of price caps and price cuts make no economic or business sense they are just saying "high prices are not fair!"
Please tell me you don't believe that nonsense?
Nintendo is only going that way because they cater mostly to younger gamers (ie. kids), who would be far less likely to persuade their parents to buy them 1000 of lockbox keys and far more likely to get their parents to buy them a couple of dollars worth of game stuff every now and then.
It has nothing to do with integrity, it's about getting the most money from their target audience.
Seriously, just give up trying to get Cryptic to change their in-game economic policies, it has obviously worked well enough for them up to now.
Very good point. Nintendo games are kid games so they can't use the model of $1,000 a month spending. Since they can't use it, Iwata is making a virtue of "choosing" not to as if he had a choice.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
And how exactly would that work? If anything, the prices would go higher to compensate for the new fees.
I guess it was about to happen sooner or later, Plasmanugget and I are in agreement. Ohmai
Prices too high? Sellers too "greedy"?
DON'T BUY THE STUFF!
Seriously, there isnt any one item that a person has to buy off of the exchange to play the game. Its not that hard to level gear to MKXIV, T5 (FT5, T5U, FT5U) ships are more than capable to handle the missions, T6's are available at the ZStore, not the exchange. If you need help, ask a fleetie. Dont have a fleetie? Join a fleet.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
that's not pretty I suppose, but it's there
and cryptic does limit the amount of money people can spend to buy zen, it's not much of a limit, but they do
threads like this, while thought out don't help anything
this game just is the way it is
I wish it were subscription, but it's not
if you are dying for EC the best way to get money in this game is to buy master keys with dilthium or real money and then sell them on the exchange
that's just the way it is
other than that, just play and enjoy what's there
EDIT: and no, I don't know what the money limits are, I just know they exist
NO one is forced to gamble in STO.
The bug ship has been mentioned. So I can only assume the OP doesn't have 500 million to buy one.
There are 3 Golden Snitch ships in the game right now OP.
This 3 ships (bug / elachi / Voth bull) are not in the lobi store... not in a lockbox. They are the only Limited time ships in the game. Cryptic uses them to push Promos. (you can read that as... they use them to bump sales every few months.)
Right now in fact the Elachi ship is the current promo. Which means you can buy R&D packs and take a gamble.....
OR thanks to the exchange... you can buy them for real $.
Lets take the bug ship though. (right now yes it is likely going to cost you 500mil. perhaps a bit more because it is not on sale right now... meaning the only ones out there are ones people have HELD on to) This is by design. Cryptic likes the cost of these to drift up... so when they bring a promo back for it, it creates a ferver, increasing sales.
Anyway to the point... the bug ship right now costs $220 (aprox).
You CAN NOT gamble for it right now that isn't an option. It is one of the 3 limited time ships. (you can gamble and try and get lockbox ships... but the bug isn't a lockbox ship its a promo pack ship)
That is fine by Cryptic... when the ship goes on sale that drops to in or around $100 while the promo is on. (due to simple supply).
As people have explained in the previous thread... and you seem to somewhat understand now. Zen ships cost $30 bucks. Making a zen store ship a "Fleet" level ship costs another $10. So one off fleet level zen store ships cost $40. (or aprox 4000 zen).... guess what buying and selling Keys for EC. Will cost you around the same amount of zen to buy the current lockbox ships. (100 mil ec = 4000 zen).
Look at the system though Cryptics eyes.
Zen ship = 3000 zen ($30 real money)
Fleet Zen Store Ship = 4000 zen ($40 real money)
Current Lockbox ship = 3750-4000 zen ($37-40 real money)
Older Lockbox ship = 4000-4500 zen ($40-45 real money)
Promotional R&D ships durring promotion = 15,000 zen (at 375 mil) ($150)
R&D Ships off promo = 22,000 zen ($220)
I know your looking at that and thinking 15-22k zen sounds insane. To Cryptic its $ in the bank. What you have to understand is those 3 ships are setup that way by design. It gives Cryptic something special that they can pull out every 3-4 months to drive sales for 2-3 weeks. (you will notice most of the R&D promos tend to hit right at the end of a fiscal reporting quarter).
The bottom line is when the Golden Snitch ships are on... you can Gamble for them. Or simply spend $150 to get one during its promo time. These are not figures Cryptic is seeing as broken.
OP has taken the time to respond and actually discuss his points so I give him points for that.
He doesn't seem to want to understand economics or accept that Cryptic understands item pricing better than he does. "Reality has a lock box bias" to paraphrase a political quote.
I swear every time I see something like this it just grinds my gears, first, there's nothing wrong with the bulwark... I swear every time somebody can't use the ship or they suck at it or they suck in general in playing the game it's got to be the ship's fault, it couldn't possibly be them because they are so OMGWTF fantastic newsflash maybe is not the ship maybe it's you..... OP I usually have the same thought you do sometimes they are usually enhanced by alcohol but I digress... Sorry brother this is not gonna happen.
I agree, I know a guy who uses a build on a Bulwark that turns enough damage back that it actually vaporizes vapers.
Dont forget to buy your Zen when it goes on sale to get an even deeper discount!
Shhh...
Exactly... Lobis value is very easy to figure out.
If a ship sells for 95 million that costs 900 lobi Then each lobi is worth 105,555 EC.
This value holds pretty steady for the 800 lobi ships, and for things like lobi costumes and boffs that can be sold.
So every lockbox gets at least 400k worth of lobi in it. Pulling a lucky lockbox that awards 25 nets out the cost of the key. (the average lobi pay out though is like 5)
It is away to recoup at least some of the cost of keys... when the vast majority of lockboxs give you things like cheap doff packs, weapon packs, and cheap boosters. Very rarely do you pull anything worth more then 200-300k.
Exactly and divide that number by 100. Then add 500k to that number for the lobi value. This is where the lobi comes in... often it is the only thing that makes opening some of the older boxes profitable.
Some boxes like say for instance the Tholian box is a complete loss, with the average prize value being around 1mil at most. Even with the lobi that chances are you will loose 1 million every time you open one.
This is why in the OPS other thread I suggested... all the older boxes be rolled into one legacy box. Where the min lobi award be raised to 5 (meaning the avg would be 6) As well as having some of the older lowest value prizes rolled into something new... Like perhaps a Doff 3pk, that would give you 3 random doff packs, 3 mini packs most of the time with a small chance (2-5%) for those mini packs to be Full sized packs instead. They could also double the chance of the older lockbox ships. They would still be very rare.. I mean 0.8 instead of 0.4 is still not going make them super common.
But this game will never change.
You had some good points till this IMHO.
Respectfully, The Government has their nose into every thing we do now, I damn sure don't want more government or more laws, dictating my games.
Things are already bad enough, just no. no way, no how. Now If a company want's to voluntarily do this, sure, go for it, it's their dime. The fastest way to get me and plenty of others that I know, to stop gaming, is to legislate it.
Sorry, not this old man.
I now return you to this nights drama titled "Wallstreet 2410 "