My friends have a real job, and they wouldn't use their RL money on STO. Nothing wrong with that. Nobody wins prizes for spending money on cryptic. If naming them 'freeloaders' in F2P game makes you feel more important then I don't no what to tell you.
"Great men are not peacemakers, Great men are conquerors!" - Captain Archer" "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway #Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
[quote="sylveriarelden;12978831"]As far as "market speculation" and wondering what Cryptic might/will do- keep this in mind...
higher Dil->Zen conversion ratio benefits Cryptic the most, as it makes their Zen more valuable, and more people will be forced to buy Zen with RL monies. Cryptic doesn't make anything from people who freeload. [/quote]
This is a simplistic way of looking at a complicated issue. Let's pretend I want 3m dil for something. At 500:1 this dil purchase costs 6,000 Zen or $60. At 50:1 it costs $600. At 50:1 cryptic makes the most profit, but at 500:1 i am most likely to actually spend my money. At both 500:1 and 50:1 different market forces limit total transactions per day.
What is really best for cryptic's long term profits is the lowest number that results in the most Zen changing hands per day. If i need 3m dil, they want me to pay as close to 50:1 as possible. If I can fill all my dil needs, I'll never need to buy again, and the Zen side will dry up. Short term 500:1 seems like it is great for cryptic because it incentivises Zen selling. But it also fills all the sinks too cheaply reducing the number of Zen sales long run.
This is why upgrades and fleetholdings stopped working. Eventually, people with money are done. And any fleet buying dil now is finishing for half the Zen of the fleets who bought dil at 250:1. That's not in cryptic's best interest.
Long term sinks with a lower exchange rate will almost certainly make cryptic more profit.
Raising the cap would be a bad idea for everyone: Buyers, Sellers and Developers........High prices are associated with fewer/slower trades. To the point where the economy halts.
The current cap is 500 dilithium per zen. Some people here are pushing to have that increased. The problem is at the current high price the exchange is already at, I have no desire to trade dil for zen at all, and haven't for a while. Others have expressed the same sentiment. Increasing the cap would make matters a whole lot worse. If players can't sell their zen, then there's no reason for them to buy zen for real money. So yes, the economy would come to a screeching halt.
but if it reaches the cap it really will halt, because people wont be able to reach a price they agree on. happened in NW
And if they raise the cap it will eventually increase to it, halting the economy again. Then what? They increase the cap again and again, until eventually zen costs 10,000 dil each?
You realize when the rate hits 500 trades will get immensely slower from the perspective of the Dilithium sellers, right? Every time you post up more Dil you're going to the back of a single line that you can no longer skip to the front of by offering the Zeni sellers a better deal. Increasing the cap actually increases the volume of trading, and that's the underlying issue - there is SO MUCH WORTHLESS DILITHIUM flooding into the system the people who have it can't get rid of it fast enough... The person who would have sold off some zeni at 550 but doesn't think 500 is worth it doesn't enter the market at all, and the player who would have cheerfully sold their zeni for 550 if it meant they could buy the thing they wanted right now this instant is now 100% stuck behind a line of people capped at 500 that isn't moving fast enough for their deal to go through any time in the next 20 hours or worse as the flood waters continue to rise against the unyielding cap.
As far as "market speculation" and wondering what Cryptic might/will do- keep this in mind...
higher Dil->Zen conversion ratio benefits Cryptic the most, as it makes their Zen more valuable, and more people will be forced to buy Zen with RL monies. Cryptic doesn't make anything from people who freeload.
Personally, I ignore the Dil->Zen conversion because it's so imbalanced, if I want something I simply buy Zen. If there's nothing that interests me in the C-Store, I simply don't buy any.
I think it only matters most to people who don't want to spend any money yet want to reap the rewards just for playing the game. Good luck with that, lemme know how it all works out for you years from now when you're still grinding away to get those C-Store ships.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will have already played and enjoyed the game.
Let me tell you how many ships I've gotten through the conversion of Dilithium to zen since I've been playing:
2500+4000+12000+2500+6000=$270 dollars worth of ships I have gotten. All which I wouldn't wouldn't return even if I was given the same amount of zen back. This is one reason I've stuck with this game for so long. If we didn't have this ability, I would have left long ago.
Just to show that the amount of effort it would take for a F2P player to aquire any decent amount of Zen effectively equates out to more 'work' than most people would put into their work lol. So calling them 'freeloaders' is at the very least a bit insensitive, so if you don't mind could you refrain from the namecalling please?
This is a game, not a second job. Farming for dil for hours in game is a Job to you to get currency that does have a real world value that makes you.... GOLD FARMERS. hahahaha
Raising the cap would be a bad idea for everyone: Buyers, Sellers and Developers........High prices are associated with fewer/slower trades. To the point where the economy halts.
The current cap is 500 dilithium per zen. Some people here are pushing to have that increased. The problem is at the current high price the exchange is already at, I have no desire to trade dil for zen at all, and haven't for a while. Others have expressed the same sentiment. Increasing the cap would make matters a whole lot worse. If players can't sell their zen, then there's no reason for them to buy zen for real money. So yes, the economy would come to a screeching halt.
but if it reaches the cap it really will halt, because people wont be able to reach a price they agree on. happened in NW
And if they raise the cap it will eventually increase to it, halting the economy again. Then what? They increase the cap again and again, until eventually zen costs 10,000 dil each?
Out of curiosity, what do you think happens when it hits the cap?
Raising the cap would be a bad idea for everyone: Buyers, Sellers and Developers........High prices are associated with fewer/slower trades. To the point where the economy halts.
The current cap is 500 dilithium per zen. Some people here are pushing to have that increased. The problem is at the current high price the exchange is already at, I have no desire to trade dil for zen at all, and haven't for a while. Others have expressed the same sentiment. Increasing the cap would make matters a whole lot worse. If players can't sell their zen, then there's no reason for them to buy zen for real money. So yes, the economy would come to a screeching halt.
but if it reaches the cap it really will halt, because people wont be able to reach a price they agree on. happened in NW
And if they raise the cap it will eventually increase to it, halting the economy again. Then what? They increase the cap again and again, until eventually zen costs 10,000 dil each?
Out of curiosity, what do you think happens when it hits the cap?
About F2P players "freeloading": As has been said, most zen buyers and LTS will probably have started out as F2P. So they're - or part of them are - what will keep the game going. Also more F2P players means more players, which apart from more server load also means more interaction within a game, making it an MMO. So name calling is probably inappropriate.
At the same time, when you are using a free service that is kept alive by others paying for it, especially if you not paying is not a necessity but a choice (a choice you are entitled to make), you cannot always expect to have the same standing in everything. With the freedom of making a choice comes the freedom to take the consequences, and one of them is that your opinions may be considered less important by those who take the money.
About economics: if zen would be free, Cryptic would not make any profit. If zen would be prohibitively expensive, Cryptic would also not net money from the Dil exchange. Somewhere in between is a sweet spot from their point of view. But we don't know where that is, and never may know. The limits on the exchange are completely arbitrary in that respect and don't mean that the sweet spot cannot be higher than 500 or lower than 50. Cryptic probably has a better idea where it lies than us. All the calculations in this thread make assumptions in their conclusions which may be correct - or may not be.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Raising the cap would be a bad idea for everyone: Buyers, Sellers and Developers........High prices are associated with fewer/slower trades. To the point where the economy halts.
The current cap is 500 dilithium per zen. Some people here are pushing to have that increased. The problem is at the current high price the exchange is already at, I have no desire to trade dil for zen at all, and haven't for a while. Others have expressed the same sentiment. Increasing the cap would make matters a whole lot worse. If players can't sell their zen, then there's no reason for them to buy zen for real money. So yes, the economy would come to a screeching halt.
but if it reaches the cap it really will halt, because people wont be able to reach a price they agree on. happened in NW
And if they raise the cap it will eventually increase to it, halting the economy again. Then what? They increase the cap again and again, until eventually zen costs 10,000 dil each?
Out of curiosity, what do you think happens when it hits the cap?
I voted for Bush, twice. What the hell do I know?
Sounds like you know a thing or two about markets crashing and praying for some quantitative easing.
Yes, they have a metrics sweet spot. If the # is too high they note reduced playtimes and logins and thus less opportunity to sell something. I believe they will do the right thing and keep it off the max.
That said, you can expect the needle to be buried next week and maybe for the week after. Then we may see some pullback.
For me the correct price is 130. Others have said mid 200's is most fair. My guess is Cryptic would be happiest with mid 300's.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
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The thing i wonder about is what is the real value of the exchange. We have the frenzy for AoY, new ships and new lockbox which has gradually pushed the price up.
However, if the exchange was reset to 250 then i think it would stabilize at 300 tops.
The real question is how to bring the exchange down from the frenzy induced price to the realistic price.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
The price is morally neutral as long as goods flow. Right now, they're flowing - no need to panic. If the price sticks at either the cap or the floor, goods won't flow, and then it's panicking time.
Just to show that the amount of effort it would take for a F2P player to aquire any decent amount of Zen effectively equates out to more 'work' than most people would put into their work lol. So calling them 'freeloaders' is at the very least a bit insensitive, so if you don't mind could you refrain from the namecalling please?
This is a game, not a second job. Farming for dil for hours in game is a Job to you to get currency that does have a real world value that makes you.... GOLD FARMERS. hahahaha
I'm not saying grinding dilithium is a job, I'm stating that it is a time investment, much like going to a job. It's just significantly less efficient, so it wouldn't be appropriate to refer to F2P players as 'freeloaders' or stating that they get stuff for free, because dil grinders have to invest MUCH more time in getting dilithium than Zen sellers have to invest into getting Zen.
Point is, looking at how much time it takes to grind out dil to get Zen, compared to how much time it takes to get the $$ to buy Zen, it just makes more sense for dil grinders to stop buying Zen from Zen sellers and just buy the stuff with money earned from their Jobs...
The Zen buyer/dil' grinder makes the consious choice to spend all of that time grinding for dilithium, no one forces them to do it, if they decide to use it to buy Zen with it, the amount of time spent doing it is not a real market decision point, just the individual grinders. The amount of time spent grinding dil can be very variable with more effi ient players taking almost no time , and others eons.
I also find it amusing that you tried to state that its less effort to spend the cash to get Zen. Not everyone is making a high hourly equivalent pay, for someone in a depressed region, it might take a days worth of work to get $10 US, especially after taxes and fees.
Literally speaking though, the investment of cash should be a higher calue than grinding does, as it goes directly into the companys accounts recievables. And when one is grinding, they are playing as well, and if you decide to grind so much that its a chore/job, theres only one person )per account) to blame.
Gee, we could just set a refinement cap 20k per day -- for the entire ACCOUNT. Casuals are completely unscathed and farmers stop overproducing to the point their crops have become worthless...
An account-wide refinement quota is a good step. But it might not be far enough. People talk about getting new players into the game or the effect the market will have on dissuading new players. Having a scaling increase in play based around an inverse of account age, say based around every 100 days. So a new account would have 4x account-wide dilithium refinement (32,000 dilithium/account-day), that then scaled to 3.5x, 3x, 2.5x, down to 1x dil cap at 700 days (8000 dilithium/account-day). I think it balances an early need while keeping late-game dilithium supply limited.
This would actually be a very BAD step. For me definitely a step further to spend less time ingame. As for every player with multiple alts which are to be provided with dill goodies. Or, just allow us to buy stuff with unrefined Dill, and only refined can be traded on exchange. Nothing against that.
Freeloaders, eh? I guess I almost fit in that category, seeing as I only paid for gold edition and didn't bother to sub again. Most of us are but mere mortals compared to the lifetime, subs and zen sellers. But without them this game would be struggling. Xen exchange is high, but it will probably come down after AOY hype is over.
Good luck with that...why do you think they flood the game with all of these dilithium events...people don't consider that the devs like the cost high? Maybe encourages people to buy zen instead of grinding for it?
AOY isn't going to bring the prices down...it's only going to go up...more and more till the ships and expansion are released...and will probably float around that level till the next big thing on the c-store.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
The goals of the devs in terms of the dilex price are inscrutable to me. Hence, I assume they just make game and let the price do as it will. I figure they'd step in if the market froze, which would only really happen if the price ceilings or floors.
The exchange is setup for those who pay to play, not those who play for free. Why in the world would Cryptic give a disadvantage to those who spend money to those who don't.
Go back to grinding, you might want to quit your day job to support your gaming fix.
The exchange is setup for those who pay to play, not those who play for free. Why in the world would Cryptic give a disadvantage to those who spend money to those who don't.
Go back to grinding, you might want to quit your day job to support your gaming fix.
Exactly...people who spend money!
Why do people think that Cryptic launches event after event which give out piles and piles of dilithium...yet never adds in anything that costs a significant amount of dilithium?
The exchanges goes up and up and up...who wins? Cryptic...to a lesser degree the people who buy zen to sell.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
The Zen buyer/dil' grinder makes the consious choice to spend all of that time grinding for dilithium, no one forces them to do it, if they decide to use it to buy Zen with it, the amount of time spent doing it is not a real market decision point, just the individual grinders. The amount of time spent grinding dil can be very variable with more effi ient players taking almost no time , and others eons.
I also find it amusing that you tried to state that its less effort to spend the cash to get Zen. Not everyone is making a high hourly equivalent pay, for someone in a depressed region, it might take a days worth of work to get $10 US, especially after taxes and fees.
Literally speaking though, the investment of cash should be a higher calue than grinding does, as it goes directly into the companys accounts recievables. And when one is grinding, they are playing as well, and if you decide to grind so much that its a chore/job, theres only one person )per account) to blame.
For the Record I'm not advocating for/against any perspective, I'm pointing out the problem from an unbiased point of view, or at least I'm attempting to.
I actually did some math a couple pages ago, I'll post it here for reference:
Let's assume someone can max a character's dil refinement of 8k in 10 minutes (unlikely but for argument's sake lets go with it).
Which means...
8000 * 6 (10 minutes = 6 per hour) 48,000 dilithium per hour
48,000 dilithium / 500:1 rate = 96 Zen per hour
96 * 8 hours (average full time work day in US) = 768 Zen per day
$1.00 (US) = 100 Zen, and with an average minimum wage of $7.25 (US) so you are effectively spending all day to 'earn' about one work-hour's worth of Zen...
So stating that dil grinders are getting Zen for free is horribly inaccurate, even at 48,000 dil/hour you are still investing significantly more time than is necessary to get your Zen.
Just doesn't seem worth it, does it?
This post does make a few assumptions:
1. a player can achieve 48,000 dilithium/hour.
2. a player has a job earning at least the average US minimum wage.
3. the exchange rate hits 500:1
If a player doesn't earn at least the equvalant of $1.00 USD/hour at their job you might just be better off grinding out the dil for Zen, assuming you can get close to 48k/hour.
I'm not saying the time investment should be equal for Paying/non-paying members, obviously the game could not sustain itself if the exchange rates favored spending time in-game instead of paying $$ for Zen.
However, there is a point where the time required to get Zen through in-game means make it more time effective to stop grinding out dil for Zen in favor of just buying Zen with money. At which point less people will exchange Dilithium for Zen and people will stop trying to sell Zen on the exchange because people won't be buying it.
Which would be bad for everyone, especially Cryptic as they won't be making as much money from Zen sales, which would result in a smaller production budget for STO, meaning it'll take longer to get new content, bug fixes, etc...
Actually the only Winners are the ones who sell Zen, both Cryptic and Players not inclined to splurge are the loosers.
Why?
Simple really, Stagnation.
Eventually the market will stop moving as less and less people will be willing to spend their dilithium on such a meager return and will instead hold on to it. Which in turn means it gets harder for the sellers will have a hard time moving their Zen.
In addition, most people who buy Zen with dil are those who don't want to splurge tons of cash on the game, and they aren't suddenly going to open their wallets and buy Zen when the dil price of zen becomes too high, they will just leave, or in the case of Subscribers and Lifetimers rely on their Stipends.
A moderate price of say 200-300 dil per zen is something that is in everyones best interest and stimulates the economy.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
It will go down eventually. Probably after AOY is been out for a few months.
"Great men are not peacemakers, Great men are conquerors!" - Captain Archer" "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway #Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
Frankly, if one feels the need to equate the time spent on thier grind to an hourly rate and compare it to the dollar value of units of Zen, thats thier problem.
Each person can decide if the time that they take grinding is worth it or not, and thats fine with me but to try to push the effort as an hourly rate equivalent, parallel to a job is proposterous and irrelevant to anyone but the person makng the claim, and here are a few reasons:
1) it is done while PLAYING the video game, youre supposed to be doing things for leisure
2)there is no realistic measure of what a "workers"time is worth compared to thier contribution to the game, there is not true value generated that should/could be reasonably be measured
3)there is little to account for ones actual proficiency, with the exception of the amount of dil grinded, which has no real world value
4)the supply (or lack therof) of Zen has more of an impact to the rate than units of "labor" do, as the "job market" is full people people wanting to "work" than there are "employers" wishing to pay for the "labor"
5) Neither dil or Zen are required to play the game, right now one can even get current level ships by the event, and reasonably high level weapons and equipment in the ec exchange.
When it comes down to it, the grinding of dil for more than anything tha. A small supplement of Zen is unhealthy to begin with, spend time enjoying the game. If you find that you must grind for unreasonable amounts of time, stop, if you cant stop, seek help for an addiction or obsessive-compulsive symptoms.
Honestly I won't buy zen for dil at this point, I'd pay 250 but not 500. As for the whole crowd of "get a job and open your wallet you lazy bum" some of us have lives outside of STO and things like bills, medical problems, bills, medical problems, and family that come much higher on the spending tree. If you can afford to buy all the zen you want congrats, I can't. 650$ (roughly) for all of the packs that I'd like to get is more than I can afford to spend, I'll just play as I am, have the free ships and be one of those loathsome free to play people who are to lazy to work. Oh wait, I work a full time job.
Actually the only Winners are the ones who sell Zen, both Cryptic and Players not inclined to splurge are the loosers.
Why?
Simple really, Stagnation.
Eventually the market will stop moving as less and less people will be willing to spend their dilithium on such a meager return and will instead hold on to it. Which in turn means it gets harder for the sellers will have a hard time moving their Zen.
In addition, most people who buy Zen with dil are those who don't want to splurge tons of cash on the game, and they aren't suddenly going to open their wallets and buy Zen when the dil price of zen becomes too high, they will just leave, or in the case of Subscribers and Lifetimers rely on their Stipends.
A moderate price of say 200-300 dil per zen is something that is in everyones best interest and stimulates the economy.
I could say it's in most people's interest that the price is that much.
evilmark444 for example in another thread stated that a dil to zen ratio of 500:1 would be in his best interest to have him spending his money on the game and if it drops below 450, he doesn't spend real money on the game.
When I started this game and before we had fleet holdings like the starbase, the exchange was somewhere upwards of 300. Once the starbase was introduced, the dil exchange fell due to the fact that dil was needed so much more than zen was needed at the time and there wasn't enough zen to keep the ratio up. This was also at a point before Reputations, before Admiralty and before dil was added to missions. I'm hoping that the ratio drops back down after AoY launches so that things become a bit more reasonable for a f2p player like myself.
some of us have lives outside of STO and things like bills, medical problems, bills, medical problems, and family that come much higher on the spending tree.
So tired of this kind of complaint. If you are imagining this entitles you to any sort of special consideration, you are wrong.
Believe it or not you do make a point I agree with, time invested in a game shouldn't be equated 1:1 with time spent at work.
However, I did point out the time investment grind vs. money because for many F2P players grind out dilithium so much that they burn themselves out, making what should be an enjoyabe game, more like a second job.
It isn't really, but when someone doens't enjoy the game anymore because they are trying to gather enough resources for that new shiny, it would be alot less stressful just to go to work for a few extra hours a week and buy the shiny.
Obviously, it is all a matter of personal perspective. I have no intention of telling players whether they should spend their time grinding dilithium or buying Zen for $$. It's up to the individual player to determine if the current exchange rates warrant exchanging for Zen or buying it.
However, in a F2P game (one in which most anything can be obtained without any real money), a player shouldn't have to wait months or longer just to get an item that a paying player can scoop up in a matter of minutes with money.
This all boils down to the need for dilithium to be demanded at comperable rates to Zen, if players wanted to exchange their Zen for dilithium then more players would be encouraged to purchase Zen to sell. Resulting in lower exchange rates, meaning grinders would spend less time mindlessly grinding and more time enjoying STO.
Comments
"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." - Captain Janeway
#Support Mirror Universe I.S.S. Prefixes
higher Dil->Zen conversion ratio benefits Cryptic the most, as it makes their Zen more valuable, and more people will be forced to buy Zen with RL monies. Cryptic doesn't make anything from people who freeload.
[/quote]
This is a simplistic way of looking at a complicated issue. Let's pretend I want 3m dil for something. At 500:1 this dil purchase costs 6,000 Zen or $60. At 50:1 it costs $600. At 50:1 cryptic makes the most profit, but at 500:1 i am most likely to actually spend my money. At both 500:1 and 50:1 different market forces limit total transactions per day.
What is really best for cryptic's long term profits is the lowest number that results in the most Zen changing hands per day. If i need 3m dil, they want me to pay as close to 50:1 as possible. If I can fill all my dil needs, I'll never need to buy again, and the Zen side will dry up. Short term 500:1 seems like it is great for cryptic because it incentivises Zen selling. But it also fills all the sinks too cheaply reducing the number of Zen sales long run.
This is why upgrades and fleetholdings stopped working. Eventually, people with money are done. And any fleet buying dil now is finishing for half the Zen of the fleets who bought dil at 250:1. That's not in cryptic's best interest.
Long term sinks with a lower exchange rate will almost certainly make cryptic more profit.
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The current cap is 500 dilithium per zen. Some people here are pushing to have that increased. The problem is at the current high price the exchange is already at, I have no desire to trade dil for zen at all, and haven't for a while. Others have expressed the same sentiment. Increasing the cap would make matters a whole lot worse. If players can't sell their zen, then there's no reason for them to buy zen for real money. So yes, the economy would come to a screeching halt.
@repetitiveepic
And if they raise the cap it will eventually increase to it, halting the economy again. Then what? They increase the cap again and again, until eventually zen costs 10,000 dil each?
Let me tell you how many ships I've gotten through the conversion of Dilithium to zen since I've been playing:
Federation Ships: Heavy Escort Carrier, Galaxy pack (T4 Galaxy, T5 Galaxy and T5 Galaxy-X), Command Battlecruisers, Alita Heavy Escort Carrier
Klingon Ships: Command Battlecruisers, Qa'tel flight deck Raptor
Romulan ships: Ar'kif Tactical Warbird Carrier Retrofit, Command Battlecruiser Warbirds, Jhu'ael Tactical Warbird Carrier
2500+4000+12000+2500+6000=$270 dollars worth of ships I have gotten. All which I wouldn't wouldn't return even if I was given the same amount of zen back. This is one reason I've stuck with this game for so long. If we didn't have this ability, I would have left long ago.
This is a game, not a second job. Farming for dil for hours in game is a Job to you to get currency that does have a real world value that makes you.... GOLD FARMERS. hahahaha
The same that happened in NW.
I voted for Bush, twice. What the hell do I know?
At the same time, when you are using a free service that is kept alive by others paying for it, especially if you not paying is not a necessity but a choice (a choice you are entitled to make), you cannot always expect to have the same standing in everything. With the freedom of making a choice comes the freedom to take the consequences, and one of them is that your opinions may be considered less important by those who take the money.
About economics: if zen would be free, Cryptic would not make any profit. If zen would be prohibitively expensive, Cryptic would also not net money from the Dil exchange. Somewhere in between is a sweet spot from their point of view. But we don't know where that is, and never may know. The limits on the exchange are completely arbitrary in that respect and don't mean that the sweet spot cannot be higher than 500 or lower than 50. Cryptic probably has a better idea where it lies than us. All the calculations in this thread make assumptions in their conclusions which may be correct - or may not be.
Sounds like you know a thing or two about markets crashing and praying for some quantitative easing.
That said, you can expect the needle to be buried next week and maybe for the week after. Then we may see some pullback.
For me the correct price is 130. Others have said mid 200's is most fair. My guess is Cryptic would be happiest with mid 300's.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
However, if the exchange was reset to 250 then i think it would stabilize at 300 tops.
The real question is how to bring the exchange down from the frenzy induced price to the realistic price.
I'm not saying grinding dilithium is a job, I'm stating that it is a time investment, much like going to a job. It's just significantly less efficient, so it wouldn't be appropriate to refer to F2P players as 'freeloaders' or stating that they get stuff for free, because dil grinders have to invest MUCH more time in getting dilithium than Zen sellers have to invest into getting Zen.
Point is, looking at how much time it takes to grind out dil to get Zen, compared to how much time it takes to get the $$ to buy Zen, it just makes more sense for dil grinders to stop buying Zen from Zen sellers and just buy the stuff with money earned from their Jobs...
@orion0029
The Zen buyer/dil' grinder makes the consious choice to spend all of that time grinding for dilithium, no one forces them to do it, if they decide to use it to buy Zen with it, the amount of time spent doing it is not a real market decision point, just the individual grinders. The amount of time spent grinding dil can be very variable with more effi ient players taking almost no time , and others eons.
I also find it amusing that you tried to state that its less effort to spend the cash to get Zen. Not everyone is making a high hourly equivalent pay, for someone in a depressed region, it might take a days worth of work to get $10 US, especially after taxes and fees.
Literally speaking though, the investment of cash should be a higher calue than grinding does, as it goes directly into the companys accounts recievables. And when one is grinding, they are playing as well, and if you decide to grind so much that its a chore/job, theres only one person )per account) to blame.
This would actually be a very BAD step. For me definitely a step further to spend less time ingame. As for every player with multiple alts which are to be provided with dill goodies. Or, just allow us to buy stuff with unrefined Dill, and only refined can be traded on exchange. Nothing against that.
Good luck with that...why do you think they flood the game with all of these dilithium events...people don't consider that the devs like the cost high? Maybe encourages people to buy zen instead of grinding for it?
AOY isn't going to bring the prices down...it's only going to go up...more and more till the ships and expansion are released...and will probably float around that level till the next big thing on the c-store.
Go back to grinding, you might want to quit your day job to support your gaming fix.
Exactly...people who spend money!
Why do people think that Cryptic launches event after event which give out piles and piles of dilithium...yet never adds in anything that costs a significant amount of dilithium?
The exchanges goes up and up and up...who wins? Cryptic...to a lesser degree the people who buy zen to sell.
For the Record I'm not advocating for/against any perspective, I'm pointing out the problem from an unbiased point of view, or at least I'm attempting to.
I actually did some math a couple pages ago, I'll post it here for reference:
This post does make a few assumptions:
1. a player can achieve 48,000 dilithium/hour.
2. a player has a job earning at least the average US minimum wage.
3. the exchange rate hits 500:1
If a player doesn't earn at least the equvalant of $1.00 USD/hour at their job you might just be better off grinding out the dil for Zen, assuming you can get close to 48k/hour.
I'm not saying the time investment should be equal for Paying/non-paying members, obviously the game could not sustain itself if the exchange rates favored spending time in-game instead of paying $$ for Zen.
However, there is a point where the time required to get Zen through in-game means make it more time effective to stop grinding out dil for Zen in favor of just buying Zen with money. At which point less people will exchange Dilithium for Zen and people will stop trying to sell Zen on the exchange because people won't be buying it.
Which would be bad for everyone, especially Cryptic as they won't be making as much money from Zen sales, which would result in a smaller production budget for STO, meaning it'll take longer to get new content, bug fixes, etc...
Why?
Simple really, Stagnation.
Eventually the market will stop moving as less and less people will be willing to spend their dilithium on such a meager return and will instead hold on to it. Which in turn means it gets harder for the sellers will have a hard time moving their Zen.
In addition, most people who buy Zen with dil are those who don't want to splurge tons of cash on the game, and they aren't suddenly going to open their wallets and buy Zen when the dil price of zen becomes too high, they will just leave, or in the case of Subscribers and Lifetimers rely on their Stipends.
A moderate price of say 200-300 dil per zen is something that is in everyones best interest and stimulates the economy.
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@orion0029
Frankly, if one feels the need to equate the time spent on thier grind to an hourly rate and compare it to the dollar value of units of Zen, thats thier problem.
Each person can decide if the time that they take grinding is worth it or not, and thats fine with me but to try to push the effort as an hourly rate equivalent, parallel to a job is proposterous and irrelevant to anyone but the person makng the claim, and here are a few reasons:
1) it is done while PLAYING the video game, youre supposed to be doing things for leisure
2)there is no realistic measure of what a "workers"time is worth compared to thier contribution to the game, there is not true value generated that should/could be reasonably be measured
3)there is little to account for ones actual proficiency, with the exception of the amount of dil grinded, which has no real world value
4)the supply (or lack therof) of Zen has more of an impact to the rate than units of "labor" do, as the "job market" is full people people wanting to "work" than there are "employers" wishing to pay for the "labor"
5) Neither dil or Zen are required to play the game, right now one can even get current level ships by the event, and reasonably high level weapons and equipment in the ec exchange.
When it comes down to it, the grinding of dil for more than anything tha. A small supplement of Zen is unhealthy to begin with, spend time enjoying the game. If you find that you must grind for unreasonable amounts of time, stop, if you cant stop, seek help for an addiction or obsessive-compulsive symptoms.
I could say it's in most people's interest that the price is that much.
evilmark444 for example in another thread stated that a dil to zen ratio of 500:1 would be in his best interest to have him spending his money on the game and if it drops below 450, he doesn't spend real money on the game.
When I started this game and before we had fleet holdings like the starbase, the exchange was somewhere upwards of 300. Once the starbase was introduced, the dil exchange fell due to the fact that dil was needed so much more than zen was needed at the time and there wasn't enough zen to keep the ratio up. This was also at a point before Reputations, before Admiralty and before dil was added to missions. I'm hoping that the ratio drops back down after AoY launches so that things become a bit more reasonable for a f2p player like myself.
So tired of this kind of complaint. If you are imagining this entitles you to any sort of special consideration, you are wrong.
Please see the value in the future-vision of an Axanar supporter here.
Believe it or not you do make a point I agree with, time invested in a game shouldn't be equated 1:1 with time spent at work.
However, I did point out the time investment grind vs. money because for many F2P players grind out dilithium so much that they burn themselves out, making what should be an enjoyabe game, more like a second job.
It isn't really, but when someone doens't enjoy the game anymore because they are trying to gather enough resources for that new shiny, it would be alot less stressful just to go to work for a few extra hours a week and buy the shiny.
Obviously, it is all a matter of personal perspective. I have no intention of telling players whether they should spend their time grinding dilithium or buying Zen for $$. It's up to the individual player to determine if the current exchange rates warrant exchanging for Zen or buying it.
However, in a F2P game (one in which most anything can be obtained without any real money), a player shouldn't have to wait months or longer just to get an item that a paying player can scoop up in a matter of minutes with money.
This all boils down to the need for dilithium to be demanded at comperable rates to Zen, if players wanted to exchange their Zen for dilithium then more players would be encouraged to purchase Zen to sell. Resulting in lower exchange rates, meaning grinders would spend less time mindlessly grinding and more time enjoying STO.