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.
Overall what I gathered out of your post is you're not making what you used to and as such you want restrictions put in place, same as what some others have gathered. I pulled this specific section of your post because I'm going to make a point with it in a minute.
What you're seeing is the law of supply and demand at play here. If demand goes up and supply keeps pace with it, then prices will stay the same. If demand goes up but supply doesn't keep pace, then prices will go up. If demand goes down and supply stays the same prices will go down. If demand stays the same but supply goes up, prices will go down. That's just the way the market works. When the new r&d system was released prices were sky high because not everyone had the new mats or ability to craft and so on. As people have finished their upgrades and so on demand has slowed down and as such prices have had to come down. You should have known this was coming.
Honestly the prices of r&d needed to come back down to earth as it shouldn't cost you an arm, leg, the sacrifice of a goat, the blood of a virgin, and your first born child, in order to upgrade things as what people were wanting to upgrade. I never expected upgrading was going to be free but honestly some of the stupidly high prices that people wanted for things were absolutely absurd.
In terms of why supply has gone up so much we already know some reasons. recent r&d events, plus more r&d boxes in the newer lockboxes. you also have people such as myself who have hit lvl 20 on at least one school of crafting. At level 20 it's pretty much guaranteed that i'm going to be making 2 upgrade techs per craft instead of the standard 1, simply because my chance to crit is so high. The same thing goes with making components. Because of this even more supply is injected into the market.
With this said part of being able to succeed in a market, be it real life or virtual, is the ability to adapt to the changing market conditions. If you can't do that you're going to get buried fast.
By your own logic once people hit 10-20k dps you say people have no need to improve their gear. Yet you hint at having gotten beyond 20k dps. By your own logic why do this since you're just wasting your time. You acknowledge why things are happening and you acknowledge that eventually people reach a point that they no longer have need of upgrades and new things in game. Yet at the same time you're complaining about it. I myself can safely say I've reached that point that I no longer need any lobi ships in game to complete my collection. I have all the lobi ships that I care to pick up for the time being. In this game it's about 20% ship, loadout, gear, and things like that. The other 80% is purely on the pilot of the ship.
Overall from what I'm seeing restricting the market like you're wanting is going to do nothing but artificially inflate prices and hurt the market and the game more in the long run. Personally I'm glad prices have come back down to a reasonable level on things.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
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.
Anecdotally, PvP doesn't seem to be the way to affect the market. I agree on the point of oversaturation, but the 90% you reference are unlikely to participate in the new market you suggest, 1 because they're casual enough to be satisfied with pve 20k or 2, because the ec entry barrier to be competitive in PvP is too rich for their blood.
For someone content as the game sits, I don't know off hand what incentives would be good enough to make then want to climb in the shark tank with experienced pvper's, but there might be something to it if solo queues and gear matching could be made to work. PvP would have to turn into something that the 90% could do by logging in, picking up a game, playing for 15-20, and going about their business without feeling like they spent that time being toyed with to the tune of a 15/2 loss.
You do know that there was an exploit that had the potential to give endless amounts of R&D supplies, and those that knew about it used the recent XP boost week to make full use of it, there's now that much of it out there that supply far exceeds demand, that's why the prices have crashed.
The exploit is still there it's just Cryptic have made it harder to grind vast amounts from.
If it's not against forum rules, I'm curious...figured something had to be going on when prices for superior upgrades dropped by about half almost overnight.
Sometimes a business model has run its course (my horseshoe outfitter was going way better a couple of centuries ago). Sometimes it will bounce back, sometimes it will disappear, most of the time it will stay a niche market with some profit for some people. This happens in RL and it happens in MMOs as well, since they always provide changing environments which will sometimes unbalance the economy as it was before. Expecting stuff you're keeping in your inventory to stay valuable (or even rise in value) may work out for you - then again you may lose everything if it becomes utterly worthless. Ways to generate money will always attract other people to try them out, too, thus reducing the profits in these fields (unless you have few enough people who actually can supply said service or good so the can effectively act as a cartel).
And in the medium to long run, there will be less and less profit. Demand on a lot of stuff will be sated, supply will increase, prices will drop. That means: live with reduced profits, or, if they aren't worthwhile, find a new field to earn profits.
But since profits in here are always gained from selling stuff to other players, why should the powers that be intervene to guarantee you a profit, which would at the same time mean other players need to pay more? Why should your profit matter more than my convenience to get stuff comparatively cheap without resorting to crafting? (Yes, there are some reasons to keep profiteers in this environment, but they are not that urgent)
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
That's what they got with chasing PvP and other players away by layer upon layer of grinding for everything, stupid monthly event grinding, reputations grinding, lockbox release inflation, traits inflation, timed projects inflation etc.etc.
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.
Anything that helps bring on the end of vastly inflated prices on the exchange is welcome. Millions plus for items and resources from scalpers? Yeah that makes for great gameplay.
Well when the proletariat arises against the 'Running Dogs of Capitalism' the Ferengi will be lined up against the wall and liquidated.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
long live the communism comrads. Why do you all wonder about materials price dropping , there are many ways to obtain them , and not that many things to do with them ... since upgrading is limited by dilithium. Allsow crafting is limited to mk II items , 3 mods , very rare and upgrades ... Nothing else to do. And theres the ppl. that spamming CC with alts. Consider yourself lucky if you sell something , there are ppl (including me) that never buy mats or upgrades from exchange (even if i have a ferengi bank account) i get all from playing stfs.
personally I have crafted and upgraded everything I wanted to just from mats I have mostly picked up from doffing and still have loads of mats to craft or upgrade more if I wish, you don't need to buy anything from the exchange and pay their high prices, there is no reason why any player cant do this and perhaps players are beginning to realise this and that's why your sales are tapering off. shame.
BTW. I have upgraded 12 ships worth of gear and 15 ground sets to mk14 all on my very own and haven't had the need to go to the exchange once.
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.
long live the communism comrads. Why do you all wonder about materials price dropping , there are many ways to obtain them , and not that many things to do with them ... since upgrading is limited by dilithium. Allsow crafting is limited to mk II items , 3 mods , very rare and upgrades ... Nothing else to do. And theres the ppl. that spamming CC with alts. Consider yourself lucky if you sell something , there are ppl (including me) that never buy mats or upgrades from exchange (even if i have a ferengi bank account) i get all from playing stfs.
100% this.
Also, another thing to think about is the ridiculous amount of resources the rep gear takes for rarity upgrades. That alone makes ppl dont bother with. Probably if those were lowered more ppl would spend and use R&D stuff, that inclusing mats and upgrade tech crafted items.
Anyway, this is just another "I cant find another ec source cuz this one is not giving me enuf profit" lol. Best to just "bounce" and find something else. Cuz a PvP thing wont help much. It will be just like the KDF ships, sci ones in particular. A content that not many would enjoy/use and wich will net losses to Cryptic.
Comments
Overall what I gathered out of your post is you're not making what you used to and as such you want restrictions put in place, same as what some others have gathered. I pulled this specific section of your post because I'm going to make a point with it in a minute.
What you're seeing is the law of supply and demand at play here. If demand goes up and supply keeps pace with it, then prices will stay the same. If demand goes up but supply doesn't keep pace, then prices will go up. If demand goes down and supply stays the same prices will go down. If demand stays the same but supply goes up, prices will go down. That's just the way the market works. When the new r&d system was released prices were sky high because not everyone had the new mats or ability to craft and so on. As people have finished their upgrades and so on demand has slowed down and as such prices have had to come down. You should have known this was coming.
Honestly the prices of r&d needed to come back down to earth as it shouldn't cost you an arm, leg, the sacrifice of a goat, the blood of a virgin, and your first born child, in order to upgrade things as what people were wanting to upgrade. I never expected upgrading was going to be free but honestly some of the stupidly high prices that people wanted for things were absolutely absurd.
In terms of why supply has gone up so much we already know some reasons. recent r&d events, plus more r&d boxes in the newer lockboxes. you also have people such as myself who have hit lvl 20 on at least one school of crafting. At level 20 it's pretty much guaranteed that i'm going to be making 2 upgrade techs per craft instead of the standard 1, simply because my chance to crit is so high. The same thing goes with making components. Because of this even more supply is injected into the market.
With this said part of being able to succeed in a market, be it real life or virtual, is the ability to adapt to the changing market conditions. If you can't do that you're going to get buried fast.
By your own logic once people hit 10-20k dps you say people have no need to improve their gear. Yet you hint at having gotten beyond 20k dps. By your own logic why do this since you're just wasting your time. You acknowledge why things are happening and you acknowledge that eventually people reach a point that they no longer have need of upgrades and new things in game. Yet at the same time you're complaining about it. I myself can safely say I've reached that point that I no longer need any lobi ships in game to complete my collection. I have all the lobi ships that I care to pick up for the time being. In this game it's about 20% ship, loadout, gear, and things like that. The other 80% is purely on the pilot of the ship.
Overall from what I'm seeing restricting the market like you're wanting is going to do nothing but artificially inflate prices and hurt the market and the game more in the long run. Personally I'm glad prices have come back down to a reasonable level on things.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
And for the OP? Boo-hoo-hoo, cry me a handful. You're not going to restrict the marked, so stop trying.
Anecdotally, PvP doesn't seem to be the way to affect the market. I agree on the point of oversaturation, but the 90% you reference are unlikely to participate in the new market you suggest, 1 because they're casual enough to be satisfied with pve 20k or 2, because the ec entry barrier to be competitive in PvP is too rich for their blood.
For someone content as the game sits, I don't know off hand what incentives would be good enough to make then want to climb in the shark tank with experienced pvper's, but there might be something to it if solo queues and gear matching could be made to work. PvP would have to turn into something that the 90% could do by logging in, picking up a game, playing for 15-20, and going about their business without feeling like they spent that time being toyed with to the tune of a 15/2 loss.
If it's not against forum rules, I'm curious...figured something had to be going on when prices for superior upgrades dropped by about half almost overnight.
My character Tsin'xing
Good. Very good.
And in the medium to long run, there will be less and less profit. Demand on a lot of stuff will be sated, supply will increase, prices will drop. That means: live with reduced profits, or, if they aren't worthwhile, find a new field to earn profits.
But since profits in here are always gained from selling stuff to other players, why should the powers that be intervene to guarantee you a profit, which would at the same time mean other players need to pay more? Why should your profit matter more than my convenience to get stuff comparatively cheap without resorting to crafting? (Yes, there are some reasons to keep profiteers in this environment, but they are not that urgent)
Very well said. I completely agree.
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.'
BTW. I have upgraded 12 ships worth of gear and 15 ground sets to mk14 all on my very own and haven't had the need to go to the exchange once.
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.
Well... one can only dream.
100% this.
Also, another thing to think about is the ridiculous amount of resources the rep gear takes for rarity upgrades. That alone makes ppl dont bother with. Probably if those were lowered more ppl would spend and use R&D stuff, that inclusing mats and upgrade tech crafted items.
Anyway, this is just another "I cant find another ec source cuz this one is not giving me enuf profit" lol. Best to just "bounce" and find something else. Cuz a PvP thing wont help much. It will be just like the KDF ships, sci ones in particular. A content that not many would enjoy/use and wich will net losses to Cryptic.