Rising Exchange Price

lessley00

This is about the dlilithium exchange. What is with the visibly rising price? over the last couple of years ive played I havent seen anything like this though in that time the price went from 90? per zen to 251 per zen. So WTF people? Your raising the price at such a rapid pace, explain why...

aliguana

everything is inflating. They've put the cap on the exchange up too, so people can sell Personal Shield II for like a billion ECS.

The more dil/ECs your have, the more you want. Basical Human Greed (in a universe where money is supposedly obsolete and irrelevant lol)

lessley00

hopefully STO's economy will crash from inflation and well start back over with good fair prices as the years-long downward spiral begins anew

szim

STO's economy won't crash. This is no real world economy with financial bubbles caused by speculation. The dilithium/zen price reflects the availablility of dilithium in the game, which has never been higher. Unless Cryptic puts in a gigantic dilithium sink or makes dilithium a lot scarcer the price will continue to rise. And the potential dilithium return per player and hour played will most likely rise as well which will cause further inflation.

garaks31

aliguana wrote: »

(in a universe where money is supposedly obsolete and irrelevant lol)

in star trek verse money is not irrelevant . only Federation citizens have abandon currency-based economics in favour of self-enhancement ...

lessley00

But EC? There isent anything differant about that, unless tour the galaxy now has a bigger payout

davefenestrator

Admiralty gives people 100K EC a day or more, along with 1K dil and mats. That's nothing to the hardcore farmers, but for casual players that's a big jump in income that is causing inflation.

mustrumridcully0

szim wrote: »

STO's economy won't crash. This is no real world economy with financial bubbles caused by speculation. The dilithium/zen price reflects the availablility of dilithium in the game, which has never been higher. Unless Cryptic puts in a gigantic dilithium sink or makes dilithium a lot scarcer the price will continue to rise. And the potential dilithium return per player and hour played will most likely rise as well which will cause further inflation.

The Admiralty system basically creates a source of an extra 40,000 Dilithium in 10 days for heavy grinders.
I have no idea how much EC it generates in that time.

szim

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

szim wrote: »

STO's economy won't crash. This is no real world economy with financial bubbles caused by speculation. The dilithium/zen price reflects the availablility of dilithium in the game, which has never been higher. Unless Cryptic puts in a gigantic dilithium sink or makes dilithium a lot scarcer the price will continue to rise. And the potential dilithium return per player and hour played will most likely rise as well which will cause further inflation.

The Admiralty system basically creates a source of an extra 40,000 Dilithium in 10 days for heavy grinders.
I have no idea how much EC it generates in that time.

Neither do I. But all currencies in the game are connected and convertible into each other anyway. There's an ever increasing influx of currency (dilithium and EC) into the game which causes inflation.

anodynes

lessley00 wrote: »

But EC? There isent anything differant about that, unless tour the galaxy now has a bigger payout

Aside from the new Admiralty sources mentioned in the previous replies, EC is also an inflation-prone currency by nature, as very little of it is actually consumed in the game. The only sources that consume any EC are things bought from vendors for EC and Reputation projects. Any EC used on the Exchange, and I would hazard a guess that this is the vast majority of EC spent in the game, just changes hands from one player to another.

bejaymac

Supply and demand, there is no huge dilithium sink in game to get the whales fighting each other, as a result the exchange rate has been slowly recovering to what some would class as normal.​​

sqwished

lessley00 wrote: »

This is about the dilithium exchange. What is with the visibly rising price? over the last couple of years ive played I havent seen anything like this though in that time the price went from 90? per zen to 251 per zen. So WTF people? Your raising the price at such a rapid pace, explain why...

Anyone remember when the Vesta class star ships were released and the exchange sky rocketed to well over 350 per zen? The problem is people have gotten so used to the Dilithium exchange being below the 100 mark. As @bejaymac has stated there are no major dilithium sinks in the game. Unless you count the upgrade and R&D systems. But given the rng nature of both those systems I think people would rather hit the exchange and buy what they want with the mods they want.​​

sunfrancks

Carefully controlled by Cryptic with lockboxes, cstore and sales etc.

stumpfgobs

The problem is the lack of any kind of meaningful money sink. Any items you sell and turn into EC are pretty much flat out adding to the inflation.

A friend of mine told me that the inflation is a good thing for the game provider as players can buy zen and convert that via keys into EC - which means money for cryptic. Higher EC prices mean it takes longer to farm that cash and makes the zen-to-ec route more attractive.
I think we have all seen or read those questions in chat about "how to get EC" and selling keys (or other zen stuff) is among the top answers every time. So, yeah, that might be why EC is left to rise unchecked.

On the other hand, the inflation will drive away new players. That's pretty much a given. Logging in, playing a little, falling in love with a ship you encounter in sector-space and then getting all hopes and dreams crushed by realizing you have to grind away your soul to get the EC - and by the time they get the EC, inflation rears its ugly head and laughs at them. I have witnessed this quite a few times. New players grinding like mad and once they are at their initial ec-goal, the prices went up by another 20 or so million and the grind starts anew and the prices keep rising.
Now it is possible to play the market or use other methods to acquire capital at a decent rate but new players have to learn those methods first and i'm willing to bet a good chunk just gives it up before they reach that understanding.

Adding money sinks is not as easy as it sounds either. If players perceive it as punishing (like a death penalty that costs you Ec or a fee on the exchange) it will impact the game negatively. On the other hand if cryptic would create content to sell for EC (like costumes or sought after consumables) they could sell them for dilithium/zen (or better yet lobi!) too which would be more profitable for them in the short term. So there is a certain interest of actually NOT getting any money sinks.

From my point of view, and as some poster mentioned earlier in this thread, pretty much all currencies are interchangeable. If something ingame is sold for EC, some players will use zen to get that EC and the company will profit from that too.

Things that could be offered ingame for EC (just example prices) that require minimal work are:
- Higher item limit on the exchange, permanently or temporary available for EC. Buy 10 exchange slots for 50.000 Ec.
- Universal Repair kit that reduces the respawn timer by 5 seconds and repairs all ship damage. Clearly a luxury good, doesn't drop, only available from a npc vendor for 60k EC a pop.
- ESD/Qo'nos to Fleet base transport. Transports you directly from ESD/Qo'nos to your fleet base. 5000 per transport.
- Low tier admirality cards for single use. Buy a stack of mediocre single use ship cards from a vendor.
- Recruitment Announcer. Sell a 1 or 2 line global announcement for EC. Should be pricey and have limitations to prevent spam.
- Bank Reserve Extension. Buy another 50 mil EC bank capacity for 1 million EC up to 100 billion or whatever.
- Sell fixed demo ships at the ship yard. Fully geared ships with locked equipment for demonstration that are only good for 1 stf or 1 hour. Pricey, but tasty - with the real thing in customizeable available in the zen store.
- Make doffs stackable for a price. A npc could sell doff register cards that could hold 20 or 50 doffs of your choice - makes it easier to sell them in bulk on the exchange. And of course a register would cost EC.
- npcs could auction unique stuff on the exchange (if it had bidding) for EC, which would be a money sink without peers.

etc.

thunderfoot

When I first started playing the Exchange Rate was 350 dilithium to 1 Zen. There were large amounts of dilithium in game and no real way to spend it. Since nearly everything in the game now awards an amount of dilithium, it has lost value to Zen. Further, there are the new Z Store ships and items. Which has increased the value of Zen more. It will swing the other way. Eventually. Whenever there becomes more of a reason to possess Dilithium than to possess Zen.

We have lots more dilithium, sure. But since it is more available, and in larger amounts than ever before, it has lost purchasing power. Which means we spend more dilithium for the same amount of Zen.

There is no dark conspiracy or secret cabal or evil plan created by some mad genius super villain at Cryptic. Despite what others may post. While they are entitled to their opinion, however willfully and blindly wrong it may be, they never offer any proof, do they?

questerius

Current booster: Elachi dreadnought

The frenzy people go into for these ships or new toys can be both amusing and utter frustrating since the exchange can react like a pinball machine.

Amusing when you have not planned purchases, frustrating when a planned purchase requires 1-2 weeks more refining/dilithium gathering due to a sudden skyrocketing exchange rate.​​

whitewhale80

Ultimately the insane exchange prices especially for low mark items is a detriment to the long term future for the game, I have seen posts on general gaming forums from new players who see mk vi stuff for sale for completely insurmountable amounts so they don't bother and move on to other newer games where there isn't such a market for scalpers to exploit the market. Ever dwindling new player base simply means the long term players will get milked more.

Everyone loses, except for the scalpers who have to set up new accounts to hoard yet more money for no purpose.

tempus64

New holding was added to Fleets, the rate went down.
New ship released, rate goes up then back down.
Sale occurs, rate goes up then back down.
etc etc etc.
However, after the last thing that caused it to go up, it didn't really go back down. I figure it's due to 2 things. Most big fleets have completed the new holding. Second is that those that data mine knew the promo was coming up and so have been converting lots of dil to zen in order to buy up lots of them to sell for EC.

cidjack

Come on 500 dil to 1 zen.

twg042370

cidjack wrote: »

Come on 500 dil to 1 zen.

I seem to recall that happening right after F2P.

I also seem to recall that in the time between that and New Romulus, it fell to 120 or something.

Boom bust. Boom bust. Welcome to unfettered capitalism. At least none of us are going to rob a convenience store during the bust.

...

I hope.

cidjack

Easier to rob fleet banks!

svindal777

lessley00 wrote: »

This is about the dlilithium exchange. What is with the visibly rising price? over the last couple of years ive played I havent seen anything like this though in that time the price went from 90? per zen to 251 per zen. So WTF people? Your raising the price at such a rapid pace, explain why...

A new ship, a ship sale, a new lockbox, and a sheshar promo in rapid succession. Everyone of these bumped the rate up. It will fall after the promo is done, then it will rise again with the next new C-store shiny.

duncanidaho11

lessley00 wrote: »

This is about the dlilithium exchange. What is with the visibly rising price? over the last couple of years ive played I havent seen anything like this though in that time the price went from 90? per zen to 251 per zen. So WTF people? Your raising the price at such a rapid pace, explain why...

I've scanned this thread and a think a lot of time could have been saved if someone pointed out what has lead the OP to his conclusion that "there's been a WTF'ingly RAPID increase in zen price" is his faulty premise that at any time in the recent past we were at 90 dil per zen. 215-230 I think was the range before the sales, carrier, promo (all -zen from the market), admiralty rewards, new rep, and mirror event (all +dil to the market) pumped the price up to <251 in accordance with ordinary supply/demand mechanics.

These market fluctuations are basically all normal things that don't require any great explanations. Any shock to the price is going to be obviously interpretable from a correspondingly shocking news story or content release. If you're at the point of having to ask what's going on (from a point of complete bafflement) then you might just want to take a look at your starting premise because that's most likely the fault in that situation.

sqwished wrote: »

As @bejaymac has stated there are no major dilithium sinks in the game. Unless you count the upgrade and R&D systems.​​

Why the fixation on sinks? Try listing the dilithium sources way back when (compared to now) and you have (IMO) a much more powerful explanation for why dil prices were so, relatively speaking, low. It took forever to earn any appreciable quantity of the stuff.

sheldonlcooper

Cryptic does try to keep it reasonable and I commend them for it. However, with the amount of dilithium available now it is an inexorable climb up to 500. It is, at least a slow climb.

Consider that the fleet lab extra slots (and indeed upgrading the labs themselves) moved it down a grand total of 10 points and only briefly, it's clear that no sink can stop the climb. If the sink is too big (like research lab upgrade) people will simply not do it. So we see only very large fleets completing and everyone else getting invites.

No, the only way to stop the climb would be to make a new cap at 300 (a good idea that Cryptic) or greatly reduce the amount of dilithium coming in. That would cause such an outcry I don't see it happening. Maybe a little here and there but nothing like what is necessary. We will permanently cross 250 soon as we have 200 and 220.

macready08

When you have credit card scammers selling ec at half the price that cryptic is selling it for inflation is bound to happen you can get a billion ec for 90 bucks. Then add in the exploits that cryptic does not fix for months sometimes a year. But no matter what just like in America cryptic wants inflation so there is so much out cry about pricing that they can swoop in and come up with a new currency without a huge backlash from players. And when that happens every currency you currently hold will be turned into new currency at an exchange rate of bend over and smile.

questerius

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

szim wrote: »

STO's economy won't crash. This is no real world economy with financial bubbles caused by speculation. The dilithium/zen price reflects the availablility of dilithium in the game, which has never been higher. Unless Cryptic puts in a gigantic dilithium sink or makes dilithium a lot scarcer the price will continue to rise. And the potential dilithium return per player and hour played will most likely rise as well which will cause further inflation.

The Admiralty system basically creates a source of an extra 40,000 Dilithium in 10 days for heavy grinders.
I have no idea how much EC it generates in that time.

It's insignificant how much dilithium is generated through the admiralty or other sources since the dilithium refining limit is still at 8k. 8.5 and some with additional projects and gold status.

The cause for the fluctuations is the purchase of zen with RL money and that tends to increase with the release of new ships, sales and promotions like the current R&D/Elachi Dreadnought.​​

tacticalrook

STO's economy isn't capitalistic. In fact, a number of folks have accumulated a large amount of space wealth simply by taking advantage of the blunders of the large number of players whose decisions are based on the misguided belief STO's economy is actually based on capitalism (while they collectively downplay or outright ignore all of the signs it isn't).

duncanidaho11

questerius wrote: »

It's insignificant how much dilithium is generated through the admiralty or other sources since the dilithium refining limit is still at 8k.​​

Provided you're already maxing out on all characters via other means. In which case you scale back those over time and let the easy money from Admiralty roll in. It still has an effect here.

Think long term and especially think more than a very carefully specified set of circumstances.

mustrumridcully0

Maybe they

questerius wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

szim wrote: »

STO's economy won't crash. This is no real world economy with financial bubbles caused by speculation. The dilithium/zen price reflects the availablility of dilithium in the game, which has never been higher. Unless Cryptic puts in a gigantic dilithium sink or makes dilithium a lot scarcer the price will continue to rise. And the potential dilithium return per player and hour played will most likely rise as well which will cause further inflation.

The Admiralty system basically creates a source of an extra 40,000 Dilithium in 10 days for heavy grinders.
I have no idea how much EC it generates in that time.

It's insignificant how much dilithium is generated through the admiralty or other sources since the dilithium refining limit is still at 8k. 8.5 and some with additional projects and gold status.​​

It's not insignificant at all. I almost never reach the refinement cap in my usual play (and I play a bit daily). And I suspect that is true for many more players than people think.

And if you got multiple characters, each has their own refinement limit, and actually doing regular content to get Dilithium is more of a time investment then the Admirality System.

And then there are players that can auto-refine Dilithium and are not on every day normally.

szim

questerius wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

szim wrote: »

STO's economy won't crash. This is no real world economy with financial bubbles caused by speculation. The dilithium/zen price reflects the availablility of dilithium in the game, which has never been higher. Unless Cryptic puts in a gigantic dilithium sink or makes dilithium a lot scarcer the price will continue to rise. And the potential dilithium return per player and hour played will most likely rise as well which will cause further inflation.

The Admiralty system basically creates a source of an extra 40,000 Dilithium in 10 days for heavy grinders.
I have no idea how much EC it generates in that time.

It's insignificant how much dilithium is generated through the admiralty or other sources since the dilithium refining limit is still at 8k. 8.5 and some with additional projects and gold status.

The cause for the fluctuations is the purchase of zen with RL money and that tends to increase with the release of new ships, sales and promotions like the current R&D/Elachi Dreadnought.​​

Of course it's significant. Not everybody maxed out his dilithium refinement limit on several chars ever single day. I mostly played on my main before the admiralty system was introduced. Now I'm leveling the admiralty on 5 chars at the same time and I'm able to refine 8000 dilithium on all of them every single day. So the total amount of refined dilithium increased from 8000 per day to 40'000 per day. I would call this a significant increase.

warpangel

lessley00 wrote: »

This is about the dlilithium exchange. What is with the visibly rising price?

Sheshar promo event.

Really, is it so hard for people to just read the recent announcements before asking this question? The answer is always there.