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EC Sinks. Do we need them and what should they be?
rosetyler51
Member Posts: 1,631 Arc User
My stance on the matter. Yes they are needed. What they should be is a harder question.
Don't reply with "Cryptic will never do it.", I'm not asking Cryptic, I'm asking you.
How would you feel if some character level c-store items could be brought with EC from NPCs? Things like more doff slots, boff slots, respecs, and the like. The c-store versions would still be there as an easier way to get these things. Yes, no, maybe, I don't know, should I repeat the question?
Do you think EC sinks are not needed and if not what do you think are good EC sinks?
Don't reply with "Cryptic will never do it.", I'm not asking Cryptic, I'm asking you.
How would you feel if some character level c-store items could be brought with EC from NPCs? Things like more doff slots, boff slots, respecs, and the like. The c-store versions would still be there as an easier way to get these things. Yes, no, maybe, I don't know, should I repeat the question?
Do you think EC sinks are not needed and if not what do you think are good EC sinks?
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Not sure how I feel about NPC's selling c-store items for ec.
^ But, depending on cost of said items, it might upset the exchange ferengi's.
EDIT: Took out my ranting lol
Cosmetic options would be ok though. Make the EC payable like rep projects, smaller amounts over time.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Of course you can argue that fleets already are an EC sink since you could buy normal doffs for 20k-30k, but that's really an inefficient way to do it and it also requires slotting projects that require other resources. Some bonus project like the T5 mark dump project, but for EC might work.
I'm in a comparable position; my net EC worth is ~70 million across four toons, and I'm painfully stingy with my EC. I'd agree that we don't need sinks, but some back-of-the-envelope math suggests STO has an EC inflation rate of something like 60-75% (with a similar but less stable rate for dilithium); not bad for an MMO, sadly, but not at all sustainable in the long term.
you sure there's no exploits around which are allowing this?
I know CO had an issue with people abusing farming certain enemies in a particular zone which caused huge "global" inflation.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
On top of it i would add an EC entry fee for elite difficulty queues. The benefit of it would be two-fold. It will keep undergeared players out and will take some EC out of the game too.
Another thing that could take a lot of cash out of the game is selling certain upgrades for EC. Let's say 2 Million for 10 extra sale slots on the exchange up to a maximum of 100 or whatever?
My main sports the gear and build for elite queues (especially ground) and I do NOT have a lot of EC.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
> My stance on the matter. Yes they are needed. What they should be is a harder question.
>
> Don't reply with "Cryptic will never do it.", I'm not asking Cryptic, I'm asking you.
>
> How would you feel if some character level c-store items could be brought with EC from NPCs? Things like more doff slots, boff slots, respecs, and the like. The c-store versions would still be there as an easier way to get these things. Yes, no, maybe, I don't know, should I repeat the question?
>
> Do you think EC sinks are not needed and if not what do you think are good EC sinks?
NO[/color]
Original STO beta tester.
They're the only ones capable of sinking enough existing ECs to make any sort of difference in the inflation rate for us poor folks to notice. As much as I don't like it, a small group being eligible to receive special things the rest of us cannot, it seems to be our only viable option at this point.
The other option is to completely devalue existing things by making them available from a vendor, for a limited time. This approach would benefit us poorer folks, as we could get in on the action, but overall it would have less of an impact. If the items are tradeable, we would be faced with over-saturation issues and people would be less likely to sink ECs once they saw how much less than the vendor price other players were willing to accept for them.
As it stands it seems our primary underutilized EC sink is currently in the form of the GPL store, which is essentially locked behind a dabo timegate for most of us as we either don't care to take part in or don't realize there are other ways of obtaining GPL. Even worse, we don't seem to have much of an interest in what's in the GPL store, for one reason or another.
I suppose a brutal, but potentially effective approach to sinking ECs would be to simply remove all commodities from all item drop tables, make them all bind on pickup, double their vendor prices, set the vendortrash value to 0, and only give players the option purchase them from a vendor. That would sink some ECs, no?
This is true, give it to me instead.
God knows what casual/new people do for ec!
Also with the Dil Exchange it would take roughly 14 days for 1 toon to refine enough dill to equal the monthly stipend. Times that my 3 or 4 for a dedicated FTPer that equates to 30-40 million EC every 2 weeks at 8500 dil refined per day for 2 weeks and then converting to zen for keys for FSM.
That there's already plenty to spend ec on? That cryptic shouldn't punish the average player because of the 1% again?
Everything because it is extremely easy to earn credits in game with what I said. The only way to reduce credits in game is to reduce the generation of EC. The only way you do that is buy reducing the way it is generated, by selling loot to the vendor. That would be worse for not rich players than rich players.
As for buying Zen store items for EC - effectively, you already can: buy contraband for EC, turn it in for dilithium, use the dilithium to buy Zen. Do we particularly need any more sinks for EC? The people already dealing in hundreds of millions probably will continue to do so... the rest of us won't benefit, as far as I can see.
Tactical Team sucked, once upon a time. I got it buffed. Don't think for a minute that Cryptic ignores forum feedback.
How's about something like, O, I dunno, a super-expensive monocle?! That worked out real well for another company! XD
Besides, we already have plenty of EC sinks: they're called Superior Tech Upgrades.
This thread was over before it began.
No I'm not trying to "eat the rich". In my perfect world, the Richie Riches would have over the top but not gamebreaking shinies to show off with while those who are not there yet would have more choices of where to spend their money besides on the AH, leading to higher prices on everything.
For example, you could pay the AH for some over 10 million EC gear or could use a NPC that will charge 90% less that to "reforge" your gear with new stats.
Right now you can make EC just staying still, without never firing a shot. Just about anything you can do ingame makes EC. And that becomes a bad thing where is so few ways to get rid of it.
I understand that anything that touches your money is scary so how about a small step. Have NPCs sell white versions of consoles. This will give new characters an easier time while leveling. Everyone would sell the same items, not counting tactical consoles. Feds would sell phaser/photon, Klingons would have disruptor/photon, and the Republic would have plasma/plasma torp. Pretty much the same way it is now with weapons.
Everyone can see that.