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Our R&D Market is Suffering... And Heres Why
maxprange
Member Posts: 65 Arc User
When the R&D system was released, the materials were in short supply (expensive on the exchange), and in turn, so were the superior upgrades (very expensive per unit). Remember when it was first released and it could cost you upwards of 500k to even 1 mil to get a single superior upgrade? And where are we now... In todays times, the exchange economy has become overflowed with an abundance of materials and crafting components, resulting in cheaper access to R&D upgrades. This, combined with the increased amount of players with lvl 15 -20 in certain R&D apartments has brought more or less, an overflow in what we have access to in terms of R&D upgrades.
This sounds short in the long run, but take a look at the recent release of the new Herald lockbox. Prior lockboxes had a habit of bringing in quite a crowd, both in Zen and EC, but now, where is that EC crowd? Similar results can be seen with the previous Annorax drop, with a ton of wins the first day, but very few the following. Why is this? Simply, the amount of R&D available, along with the general lack new releases of major game changing mechanics like R&D and upgrades leaves for something to desire after about a year. And this is where we are at. (I will pick this up later with raw numbers).
The largest player base in STO are PvEers, of them, a very small percent make up the high DPS leagues (including myself), where competition and the need for the current, best supplies helps bring the market a profit. The general playerbase -- for ease, I will call this 90% -- does not need this kind of competition. Once they reach 10-20k DPS, they have no need to truly upgrade their gear. Think about it, after you reach 20k, do you really need to continue forking over cash to improve your skills? If everyone in the game did 20k DPS, not only would the game be fast, but it would lose much of its enjoyment. Similarly, in PvP, there is a need to buy and maintain the best skills to be able to compete fully, but eventually it does come to a point where people just do not need to buy new things.
So how does this all relate to R&D and the exchange? Well, with the lack of a new driving feature to the exchange, there is not a lot of sense of bringing new income. Sure the new lockboxes add an abundance of new ships, traits, keys, etc. to the exchange, but they don't truly provide a desire for everyone, including that 90% of the players to obtain. The average player isn't going to fork over upwards of 600-900 million for that Vonph dreadnought, and generally, neither are the high end DPSers.
So to further express this, I took a simple chart (and I can expand upon these later if requested, it will just take major time) that expresses the COST vs PROFFIT when creating ONE R&D upgrade from scratch (buying the materials and crafting the components to make the upgrade) WITH OUT getting a crit (multiple items for one project). The results, for every superior upgrade, turned out to be a higher cost than there is to profit. When the system came out, this was never an issue, where results as high as 4:1 pay out ratio or higher could be obtained. Now, the only way to pull a profit through R&D upgrades is to get that high level R&D level and get crits. In the chart and graph below, it shows this data, and now, after a little over a year, we have reached the point where COST out weighs PROFFIT.
Now, if you are to get those crits, and its almost impossible to not get some, you will still make a profit. Infact, if you are lvl 20 in a R&D department, your PROFFIT, when compared to your expenses will be closer to a 2:1 or a 3:2 payout, (for reference, you can multiply the data in my graph by 2.17-2.51 to get these numbers, I can expand upon where I got these numbers upon request, but know they are taken from real game data). This is great and all, but should all of STO's economy be this gambling based? Remember, Star Trek is supposed to be currency free (Federation At least), and right now, the game has gone past currency, to honestly gambling.
NOW DONT GET ME WRONG
Currency is a key aspect to this game, and I believe its a great feature. The only alternative to currency is major grinding, and that would probably take even more away from the exploration aspect. But honestly, Cryptic, we need a new system to pull profit from. We have kicked the dead horse as much as we can, and it proved to be great for a year but its not going to keep the games economy going forever. Just think, if Apple, Microsoft, Mercedes, Toyota, Intel, Nvidia, etc. all stopped making new devices for people to buy, would there be any market left? Now this new admiralty system, that's a great feature, but seems to reliant upon the other systems already in place.
(Stop here If you don't want to see my radical ideas of improvements to the game, they do stray away a bit from the point of the article at places)
Now, this thread's more meant to get the word, and the idea out in the open for people to think over, but where would the fun be if I didn't propose a few radical ideas to get turned down. Well for starters lets look at what brings a good profit in the real world... Competition. Now PvE DPS does provide good competition, but that's not a good enough driving force. That leaves one aspect left, PvP. PvP has needed a revamp for a while, (yup I had to go here as I am a PvPer myself), and with the new Specialization feature, why couldn't we have a PvP based specialization that only works in PvP (though it doesn't have to). What's the harm? And if it were to work out of PvP and give large enough bonuses, that would cause massive competition and a stride for improvement, as the only way to get it would be to do well in PvP, which comes from having good gear, which comes from participating in the exchange. Now this idea, while I did just try to sell it with Specialization, probably wouldn't work with it, but a new feature could always be developed, and honestly, I think a strong PvP aspect in the game would be great. What better way to bring players together than in a nice competition.
But of course, this alone wont help the economy; something big like R&D would have to be released again. So what could be released? Well, we do have crew on our ship, that generally we ignore... Could we not implement a system very similar to R&D but directly affecting the crew? I mean, a stronger crew will probably out preform a weak crew. Market it like R&D, make it exchangeable, set the system very similar, hey the exchange will work again.
Before I go any more off topic again, please consider what I've said, and ill post the image links below.
Chart: http://prnt.sc/8xbcyn
Graph: http://prnt.sc/8xb2xl
***Remember, the data in these graphs represents ONE, completely SELF MADE upgrade, with items BOUGHT VIA THE EXCHANGE, with NO CRIT.***
To get data representing a crit, multiply the profit by 2.17 to 2.51 (depending on your R&D skill level (15-20))
This sounds short in the long run, but take a look at the recent release of the new Herald lockbox. Prior lockboxes had a habit of bringing in quite a crowd, both in Zen and EC, but now, where is that EC crowd? Similar results can be seen with the previous Annorax drop, with a ton of wins the first day, but very few the following. Why is this? Simply, the amount of R&D available, along with the general lack new releases of major game changing mechanics like R&D and upgrades leaves for something to desire after about a year. And this is where we are at. (I will pick this up later with raw numbers).
The largest player base in STO are PvEers, of them, a very small percent make up the high DPS leagues (including myself), where competition and the need for the current, best supplies helps bring the market a profit. The general playerbase -- for ease, I will call this 90% -- does not need this kind of competition. Once they reach 10-20k DPS, they have no need to truly upgrade their gear. Think about it, after you reach 20k, do you really need to continue forking over cash to improve your skills? If everyone in the game did 20k DPS, not only would the game be fast, but it would lose much of its enjoyment. Similarly, in PvP, there is a need to buy and maintain the best skills to be able to compete fully, but eventually it does come to a point where people just do not need to buy new things.
So how does this all relate to R&D and the exchange? Well, with the lack of a new driving feature to the exchange, there is not a lot of sense of bringing new income. Sure the new lockboxes add an abundance of new ships, traits, keys, etc. to the exchange, but they don't truly provide a desire for everyone, including that 90% of the players to obtain. The average player isn't going to fork over upwards of 600-900 million for that Vonph dreadnought, and generally, neither are the high end DPSers.
So to further express this, I took a simple chart (and I can expand upon these later if requested, it will just take major time) that expresses the COST vs PROFFIT when creating ONE R&D upgrade from scratch (buying the materials and crafting the components to make the upgrade) WITH OUT getting a crit (multiple items for one project). The results, for every superior upgrade, turned out to be a higher cost than there is to profit. When the system came out, this was never an issue, where results as high as 4:1 pay out ratio or higher could be obtained. Now, the only way to pull a profit through R&D upgrades is to get that high level R&D level and get crits. In the chart and graph below, it shows this data, and now, after a little over a year, we have reached the point where COST out weighs PROFFIT.
Now, if you are to get those crits, and its almost impossible to not get some, you will still make a profit. Infact, if you are lvl 20 in a R&D department, your PROFFIT, when compared to your expenses will be closer to a 2:1 or a 3:2 payout, (for reference, you can multiply the data in my graph by 2.17-2.51 to get these numbers, I can expand upon where I got these numbers upon request, but know they are taken from real game data). This is great and all, but should all of STO's economy be this gambling based? Remember, Star Trek is supposed to be currency free (Federation At least), and right now, the game has gone past currency, to honestly gambling.
NOW DONT GET ME WRONG
Currency is a key aspect to this game, and I believe its a great feature. The only alternative to currency is major grinding, and that would probably take even more away from the exploration aspect. But honestly, Cryptic, we need a new system to pull profit from. We have kicked the dead horse as much as we can, and it proved to be great for a year but its not going to keep the games economy going forever. Just think, if Apple, Microsoft, Mercedes, Toyota, Intel, Nvidia, etc. all stopped making new devices for people to buy, would there be any market left? Now this new admiralty system, that's a great feature, but seems to reliant upon the other systems already in place.
(Stop here If you don't want to see my radical ideas of improvements to the game, they do stray away a bit from the point of the article at places)
Now, this thread's more meant to get the word, and the idea out in the open for people to think over, but where would the fun be if I didn't propose a few radical ideas to get turned down. Well for starters lets look at what brings a good profit in the real world... Competition. Now PvE DPS does provide good competition, but that's not a good enough driving force. That leaves one aspect left, PvP. PvP has needed a revamp for a while, (yup I had to go here as I am a PvPer myself), and with the new Specialization feature, why couldn't we have a PvP based specialization that only works in PvP (though it doesn't have to). What's the harm? And if it were to work out of PvP and give large enough bonuses, that would cause massive competition and a stride for improvement, as the only way to get it would be to do well in PvP, which comes from having good gear, which comes from participating in the exchange. Now this idea, while I did just try to sell it with Specialization, probably wouldn't work with it, but a new feature could always be developed, and honestly, I think a strong PvP aspect in the game would be great. What better way to bring players together than in a nice competition.
But of course, this alone wont help the economy; something big like R&D would have to be released again. So what could be released? Well, we do have crew on our ship, that generally we ignore... Could we not implement a system very similar to R&D but directly affecting the crew? I mean, a stronger crew will probably out preform a weak crew. Market it like R&D, make it exchangeable, set the system very similar, hey the exchange will work again.
Before I go any more off topic again, please consider what I've said, and ill post the image links below.
Chart: http://prnt.sc/8xbcyn
Graph: http://prnt.sc/8xb2xl
***Remember, the data in these graphs represents ONE, completely SELF MADE upgrade, with items BOUGHT VIA THE EXCHANGE, with NO CRIT.***
To get data representing a crit, multiply the profit by 2.17 to 2.51 (depending on your R&D skill level (15-20))
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Comments
My character Tsin'xing
I'm not sure how PvP competition translates into economic competition, but all I can say is "No. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and it ain't broke."
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I don't mean to be saying that its broken, more that the demand has gone way down, and the supply has gone way up. If you over saturate a market, then where's the value? Especially with all the people who left with DR, a decent chunk of money has gone out of the game, and the only way to get it circulating again is to essentially add a new market.
And that's what fuels a game, exploration is great, but there's no need to truly upgrade and get all new gear. PvE? Sure if you want to be the highest damaging player in the game, but that's all dependent on who you team with, and has no true competitive use (Fact: If any of those PvE teams go into PvP they tend to lose fast if they don't change to a PvP loadout).
So what's to lose for adding a PvP based goal to the game... If people don't do it, they don't do it, its not like it will have a negative effect on them in PvE, where there's not a ton of competition. As a matter of fact, wouldn't PvE be the exact opposite of competition? Team work?
1. You don't list the actual prices paid for materials. For all we know you could have picked the singles price as opposed to the bulk price. Or you used prices from a month or 2 ago. For example. I just looked at what I bought things at. As far as the materials + EC, a superior beam upgrade would cost me 70,800 not taking into account crits. And the price of some of those items have been lower than what I bulk bought them at. That's almost half the cost you listed. Cannon ones, with what I bought things at, cost me 61,800 in materials before criting. That's less than half what you list.
2. Criting. Really? You can't even craft them until you're at a level where you can crit them so that's another reason your post is invalid.
Beyond that, I don't even know what you're saying is wrong with things. You can get 2x+ your costs right now. So what's wrong with that? It wasn't that long ago, couple months or so, where the market was backwards and like you are saying. Where even buying in bulk and criting you'd probably lose money.
which means lots of profit to make still.
ummm theres this thing you can do... where you GET YOUR OWN CRAFTING MATS and voila its buckets cheaper to make superior upgrades.... so simple it plum evaded ya
The exploit is still there it's just Cryptic have made it harder to grind vast amounts from.
Agreed, markets are something that people should expect to possibly crash as some point, after all you can only drain people of their $ so much, before it doesn't trickle down quick enough, and/or they tire of paying such high prices for goods they may no longer need/want badly!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Just how hideously bad was this exploit?
There, shortened it for you.
Some people made a few billion EC in about three days.
It has to do with the Delta recruit event. Upon reaching level 10 on any character you can claim a massive R@D pack and the XP weekends let you hit level 10 in a single mission on Romulon characters. This has since been fixed in the latest patch as you must now be level 20 to access the temporal agents store.
For those who like to grind it can still grant you massive amounts of R@D supplies.
I leveled 6 deltas and I don't remember a "massive R&D pack".
EXACTLY!
As I see it, the OP is just whining because his profits have been declining. Too freaking bad! They nerfed the heck out of the profitability of all aspects of the game. So he should suck it up and quit whining.
With all serious I do not give two cents to your ability to make EC off of the R&D stuff. I should be thanking you, do to you and other players trying to strangle the exchange when the R&D system started, I taught myself how to collect and craft my own R&D items.
Yeah, they got Gummare and they got a free ride to Level 10 for one discipline. But no mats.
The pack distributed to the non-Deltas was not a massive one; it was the C-Store R&D Pack. Nice but not 'massive'.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I am not making enough from upgrades so restrict the market.
PVP is good for the Upgrade market so put in a system that makes more people PVP, so they will buy my ugrades.
I was gonna say something else but I got bored.
Fleet leader Nova Elite
Fleet Leader House of Nova elite
@ren_larreck
In the meantime and as a direct consequence Core gameplay, missions and mechanics suffered so much in the process that you can safely rename it to Grinding Online, Ferengi Economy Online or Exchange Online.
You know this game has touched the bottom when players try to "improve the ""game"" by adding more grinding to currency grinding.
Remember when STO was about playing??
This is a travesty to what STO was before, all the way until R&D revamp and Delta fkn Rising hit STO never to recover from series of wrong decisions by developers.
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
Eventually itll go back over 110k. It's annoying because I was after fleet ship modules but I can wait.
By playing through the delta recruit system you have unlocked a pile of rewards for any regular characters on your account, the temporal agent has marks, gear, dill, EC and an R&D pack for them, claim all that on a new character, hand it all to your main, delete the new character and rinse and repeat.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'