rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
In my observations, I feel that the MOST healthy point is actually 250/1. That way Zen buyers get a decent amount, and Zen Sellers get more customers willing to buy said Zen.
While on an individual basis a Zen Seller may get less DL per Zen. That difference is made up by the number of people willing to buy at that price.
Everyone wanting 500/1 just wants to make people who can't afford to buy Zen with real money to be stuck with what they have. Pretty sure we NEED a way to bring the market under control otherwise ultimately the market will suffer. NO ONE will be willing to do business.
Dil prices will fall hard here after AOY releases. People will grind their new alts to 60 then want to upgrade everything which will mean a lot of dil. Also: 1 It's a lot easier to get dil in this game than pre DR. 2. Ship prices in the C-Store have not increased in price so inflation wise they've actually gotten cheaper.
Dil prices will fall hard here after AOY releases. People will grind their new alts to 60 then want to upgrade everything which will mean a lot of dil. Also: 1 It's a lot easier to get dil in this game than pre DR. 2. Ship prices in the C-Store have not increased in price so inflation wise they've actually gotten cheaper.
To be honest, it can go either way. New ships for purchase means people want zen, upgrades mean people want dil.
After 20-25 days there will be a reaction when the majority of people have gone through all of the reps and get the rewards from that.
It's a sinus function, up and down. The reason for the recent spike was the dominion ship lottery, but that should calm down shortly.
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.
Dil prices will fall hard here after AOY releases. People will grind their new alts to 60 then want to upgrade everything which will mean a lot of dil.
Do people really do that? I've been figuring there's two main camps - the Upgrade Everything folks, who concentrate on one or two characters to perfect them; and the Lots Of Alts crowd, who don't bother upgrading everything because it's an irrational goal when you've got lots of alts. But hey, I'm sure I could be wrong.
(And I suppose the middle ground is maxing out one character, while having lots of low-upgrade alts)
The crazy thing is people are constantly bemoaning the exchange being too high but yet are still buying Zen from it, pushing it higher!
If people stopped buying at that price the bottom would fall out of the market, but as it keeps climbing the only conclusion I can draw is that the vast majority of people are happy to pay that price for Zen.
Me personally, i'll just sit on my refined dil until it drops, or use it for my own needs in-game. I'm not throwing it at the exchange and funding something I think is getting ridiculous, no mater how much I want the latest shiny toy.
Although the current rate is oppressive to more casual players like me. I would quite happily go half n' half on at least one AOY ship but with such a rate it's unlikely i'll buy anything. the 3000Z price for a ship is extortionate for a bunch of pixels, at least suplementing my purchase with my dilithium made me more inclined to make purchases.
In the long view, Zen is a useless currency. Don't believe me? Go to the burger joint nearest to you and try to pay for a burger with Zen. This whole thing isn't about an exchange rate. It is all about power and control over others. When you surrender control of yourself to another player over your uncontrolled addiction to Zen, you are displaying weakness. Are you sure you want to do that?
Well, you can say that for just about any game currency. People spend real money or spend time grinding to get in game currency to do whatever... within the game. The only game that I am aware of where you can convert in game currency into real money is Entropia. Then again, I do not play any MMO other than STO so there might be a handful of other games similar to Entropia.
Zen is a digital currency that has never meant to be used as a substitute for fiat money in the global economy, unlike bitcoin. It is a currency used within games published by PWE as a means for generation revenue from it's player base. So expecting to purchase a burger with Zen is rather absurd. Hell, it is unlikely the local burger joint will accept bitcoin since each bitcoin is currently valued at $580.74 at the time of this post. That's a lot of change to give back in real currency.
I am pretty sure most people playing STO are not spending massive amounts of real money on the game. Sure, there are exceptions, but I am sure most people only spend a "reasonable" amount of money on the game. The amount that is considered "reasonable" can vary from person to person. For any STO player that are truly addicted to spending huge sums of money on the game... they need to admit to themselves that they are addicts and then seek professional help to ease the addiction.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
To be honest, it can go either way. New ships for purchase means people want zen, upgrades mean people want dil.
After 20-25 days there will be a reaction when the majority of people have gone through all of the reps and get the rewards from that.
It's a sinus function, up and down. The reason for the recent spike was the dominion ship lottery, but that should calm down shortly.
Its more than that. We have had nothing but things that have pushed the price up since last October AT LEAST, with nothing to act as a counterbalance.
Mirror Event - 50k DL per character
Sales
New C-Store ships
Breach Event - 50k DL per character
Crystaline Event - 50k DL per character (and quick enough to run ALL your alts and not burn out)
Habits of the Exchange:
New C-Store Shiny - Demand for Zen increases - Zen goes up
Sale - Demand for Zen increases - Zen goes up
Event with large DL reward - Market flooded with Dilithium - Zen goes up
New Fleet Holding - Demand for Dilithium increases - Zen goes down
No events of any kind for an extened period of time - Market stabilization at a balance point
If we have nothing driving the price up, the market tends to balance out at about 250/1 or so. However... we have had NOTHING but event after event for months, driving the price up, with no counterbalance to keep the market stable. If this keeps up, the market will implode in some form or another.
Dil prices will fall hard here after AOY releases. People will grind their new alts to 60 then want to upgrade everything which will mean a lot of dil. Also: 1 It's a lot easier to get dil in this game than pre DR. 2. Ship prices in the C-Store have not increased in price so inflation wise they've actually gotten cheaper.
Nah, I don't think so. It will will be more like a gradual decrease to at least the current level or higher.
As you yourself stated, it is a lot easier to get dil now. So supply of dil continues to flow, then there is noway the change rate can crash.
You say that now about ship prices, but I am sure that when Tier 7 ships are released for $35 / 3,500 Zen a lot of people will complain that T7 ships are too expensive.
Dil prices will fall hard here after AOY releases. People will grind their new alts to 60 then want to upgrade everything which will mean a lot of dil. Also: 1 It's a lot easier to get dil in this game than pre DR. 2. Ship prices in the C-Store have not increased in price so inflation wise they've actually gotten cheaper.
Nah, I don't think so. It will will be more like a gradual decrease to at least the current level or higher.
As you yourself stated, it is a lot easier to get dil now. So supply of dil continues to flow, then there is noway the change rate can crash.
You say that now about ship prices, but I am sure that when Tier 7 ships are released for $35 / 3,500 Zen a lot of people will complain that T7 ships are too expensive.
Although the current rate is oppressive to more casual players like me. I would quite happily go half n' half on at least one AOY ship but with such a rate it's unlikely i'll buy anything. the 3000Z price for a ship is extortionate for a bunch of pixels, at least suplementing my purchase with my dilithium made me more inclined to make purchases.
Yep.
#1 - Buy Zen when there is a 15% bonus.
#2 - Buy ships only when they are on sale.
#3 - Convert Dil to Zen the ease the "pain" of using real money to buy the shiny.
Why does the dil market have to cater to the free to play crowd? As a dil buyer the amount of dil that is dropped in game and the sheer number of F2P have devalued dil to the point where I am willing to buy it will real cash.
Supply vs demand, tin foil hats for those thinking Cryptic is messing with the dil exchange.
Dilithium is handed out like candy and everything costs Zen. That's supply and demand.
Dil sinks are all well and good, but they don't last forever: as fleets finish their starbases and players finish upgrading their gear, the demand for dil plummets. All we get is the opposite of sinks, with large dil packages for events, admiralty, and so on. Supply is sky-high while demand is not keeping up.
Most new content is released either for free (featured episodes, queues, rep, etc.), metrics (events), or Zen (C-store, lockboxes, etc.). There has been a bit more Zen introduced with Arc quests but Arc is massively hated (for very good reason) so this increase in supply doesn't come anywhere close to keeping up with the huge demand. Arc quests provide an absolutely tiny amount of Zen anyway, so even if they were popular it would still be negligible.
Imagine that you are Cryptic/PWE. You can release an item for EC and make no money off of it because EC is easy to grind, you can release an item for dil and make no money off of it because dil is easy to grind, or you can release it for Zen and make money off of it because Zen is purchased with money. Why would you ever release anything for dil or EC? And why would you care in the slightest how long players need to grind dil to exchange it for Zen? As long as the dil exchange is still active, with players purchasing Zen to sell there, you're making money, and money is all that matters to a business.
Cryptic/PWE might take some action if the price reaches the cap. If 1 Zen is worth 600 dil but you can only sell it for 500, that would be a bad deal for Zen sellers, which would probably make people less eager to buy Zen to sell on the exchange. The most likely solution is to simply double the cap. I'm sure we'll see Zen for 600, 700, and 800 dil in the future.
I won't pay more than 200 dil per Zen unless its for something like a fleet ship module so any moves to organise players to lower the dil rate I would back.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
Cryptic/PWE might take some action if the price reaches the cap. If 1 Zen is worth 600 dil but you can only sell it for 500, that would be a bad deal for Zen sellers, which would probably make people less eager to buy Zen to sell on the exchange. The most likely solution is to simply double the cap. I'm sure we'll see Zen for 600, 700, and 800 dil in the future.
Raising the Zen cap won't solve anything. In fact... it will make things worse as guess what? We're making 1 Zen a day! YAY! We'll be able to buy a ship in about 50 years!
Ain't gonna happen.
The DL exchange allows F2P people a means of getting the C-Store Shiny. Its meant to be F2P friendly. 500/1 isn't friendly. In fact... it is painful. I was gonna grind out the Temporal pack, like I did the Delta, and I was actually getting a head start this time. But at 400+/1... Temporal Pack went poof for me. Even with all my characters... I would have to be grinding every source of DL on 8 characters just to make any decent amount of Zen. And that would cause a burnout. As it stands... I'll stop when I have 3k for whenever they release a T6 Sovy and wait out the Zen Storm until the market crashes or balances out.
We, as in the player community, could get together and form a "Dilithium Trade Commission" of sorts and regulate ourselves, say no one can sell zen over 400, but not less than 200. I don't know, do something big, shake and rattle(ler2) some cages and show Cryptic greed isn't all that makes the world go round. (After all the LOVE of money is the root of all evil, not money.)
Hell this could even get huge attention, imagine:
The Star Trek Online community has banded together to do things that Cryptic, the developer, never intended. Sources say Cryptic is deleting all the accounts of people involved do to, quote, they're taking our money, food and wives! They'll die for this!!!!!, unquote.
ok, maybe I had a bit to much fun bashing Cryptic there...
Just a thought. I mean there are communities in the game after all, look at all the fleets. Whats to stop there from us forming a community that tries to enforce, or advocate, fair dil>zen and zen>dil trade.
I see what you did there.
Having some way to regulate the price to a degree sounds pretty good. The problem is how to follow through without costing those involved quite a bit of real money or Dilithium to keep the Exchange in that range. Without some help from Cryptic in that regard... anyone trying to rebalance the DL Exchange is going to be out of a lot of money to do it. By setting a large amount of Zen at, say 250/1, that MIGHT get the attention of everyone and they'll start reposting their Zen around that point. But its going to have to be a LARGE amount that would stay up for a while to be noticed.
I do believe we need action now before all hell breaks loose, but... I honestly don't see how at the moment.
We, as in the player community, could get together and form a "Dilithium Trade Commission" of sorts and regulate ourselves, say no one can sell zen over 400, but not less than 200.
We, as in the player community, could get together and form a "Dilithium Trade Commission" of sorts and regulate ourselves, say no one can sell zen over 400, but not less than 200.
That's not regulation. It's communism.
No. Communism would be taking all the Zen and distributing it evenly no matter how much you buy. Basically giving EVERYONE a Zen stipend like the Lifers and Subs, and making it even across the board. No matter how much you spend, you get X amount.
Regulation is controlling the market so it doesn't go crazy. The suggestion of regulating sales between 400 and 200 Zen leaves room for fluctuations based on outside influences like sales and new sinks.
We, as in the player community, could get together and form a "Dilithium Trade Commission" of sorts and regulate ourselves, say no one can sell zen over 400, but not less than 200.
That's not regulation. It's communism.
No. Communism would be taking all the Zen and distributing it evenly no matter how much you buy. Basically giving EVERYONE a Zen stipend like the Lifers and Subs, and making it even across the board. No matter how much you spend, you get X amount.
Regulation is controlling the market so it doesn't go crazy. The suggestion of regulating sales between 400 and 200 Zen leaves room for fluctuations based on outside influences like sales and new sinks.
Hmm....I wonder if I should spend $1000 on zen and buy all the dilithium off the market and declare myself the Dilithium Queen? And then sell it all back at 750/1
Guess I'll be stockpiling dil for a while, I stopped buying when it went north of 320/1 and frankly if it's going to take me 9+ months to unlock the new romulus pack I will find other things to do.
I find it strange people balk at exchanging one made up pixel currency for another and would rather use legal tender instead for in game purchases. Just mental to me.
Why does the dil market have to cater to the free to play crowd? As a dil buyer the amount of dil that is dropped in game ans the sheer number of F2P have devalued dil to the point where I am willing to buy it will real cash.
Supply vs demand, tin foil hats for those thinking Cryptic is messing with the dil exchange.
So we're all supposed to line up and kiss your TRIBBLE because you've (GASP!) spent Real Money on this game? Just like a lot of other people have? What makes you so special other than riding the short bus every day?
Never did care for the taste of jackass and see no reason to learn to now.
As for those tinfoil hats you mentioned, don't forget to make one in your size.
That is, if you have enough tinfoil to wrap around your opinion of yourself.
May not be that much tinfoil on the planet.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Some players will, some won't. It's at the price now that makes getting a LTS is looking to be a better deal.
You just explained how the market is working as intended. The more attractive it is for you to spend cash, especially large amounts of cash, the more Cryptic likes it.
As for the exchange, it will only drop when fools stop paying these prices. I never have more than maybe 300k combined via all my alts, until now, there is no value on the Dil market to me atm. I might buy 100z or so to get my pile over the 500 line because there's something I've been looking at for a bit, but doubful.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. Want the market to drop? Stop buying fools.
Comments
While on an individual basis a Zen Seller may get less DL per Zen. That difference is made up by the number of people willing to buy at that price.
Everyone wanting 500/1 just wants to make people who can't afford to buy Zen with real money to be stuck with what they have. Pretty sure we NEED a way to bring the market under control otherwise ultimately the market will suffer. NO ONE will be willing to do business.
I've been giving that some thought as well myself.
To be honest, it can go either way. New ships for purchase means people want zen, upgrades mean people want dil.
After 20-25 days there will be a reaction when the majority of people have gone through all of the reps and get the rewards from that.
It's a sinus function, up and down. The reason for the recent spike was the dominion ship lottery, but that should calm down shortly.
Do people really do that? I've been figuring there's two main camps - the Upgrade Everything folks, who concentrate on one or two characters to perfect them; and the Lots Of Alts crowd, who don't bother upgrading everything because it's an irrational goal when you've got lots of alts. But hey, I'm sure I could be wrong.
(And I suppose the middle ground is maxing out one character, while having lots of low-upgrade alts)
If people stopped buying at that price the bottom would fall out of the market, but as it keeps climbing the only conclusion I can draw is that the vast majority of people are happy to pay that price for Zen.
Me personally, i'll just sit on my refined dil until it drops, or use it for my own needs in-game. I'm not throwing it at the exchange and funding something I think is getting ridiculous, no mater how much I want the latest shiny toy.
Although the current rate is oppressive to more casual players like me. I would quite happily go half n' half on at least one AOY ship but with such a rate it's unlikely i'll buy anything. the 3000Z price for a ship is extortionate for a bunch of pixels, at least suplementing my purchase with my dilithium made me more inclined to make purchases.
Well, you can say that for just about any game currency. People spend real money or spend time grinding to get in game currency to do whatever... within the game. The only game that I am aware of where you can convert in game currency into real money is Entropia. Then again, I do not play any MMO other than STO so there might be a handful of other games similar to Entropia.
Zen is a digital currency that has never meant to be used as a substitute for fiat money in the global economy, unlike bitcoin. It is a currency used within games published by PWE as a means for generation revenue from it's player base. So expecting to purchase a burger with Zen is rather absurd. Hell, it is unlikely the local burger joint will accept bitcoin since each bitcoin is currently valued at $580.74 at the time of this post. That's a lot of change to give back in real currency.
I am pretty sure most people playing STO are not spending massive amounts of real money on the game. Sure, there are exceptions, but I am sure most people only spend a "reasonable" amount of money on the game. The amount that is considered "reasonable" can vary from person to person. For any STO player that are truly addicted to spending huge sums of money on the game... they need to admit to themselves that they are addicts and then seek professional help to ease the addiction.
Its more than that. We have had nothing but things that have pushed the price up since last October AT LEAST, with nothing to act as a counterbalance.
Habits of the Exchange:
If we have nothing driving the price up, the market tends to balance out at about 250/1 or so. However... we have had NOTHING but event after event for months, driving the price up, with no counterbalance to keep the market stable. If this keeps up, the market will implode in some form or another.
Nah, I don't think so. It will will be more like a gradual decrease to at least the current level or higher.
As you yourself stated, it is a lot easier to get dil now. So supply of dil continues to flow, then there is noway the change rate can crash.
You say that now about ship prices, but I am sure that when Tier 7 ships are released for $35 / 3,500 Zen a lot of people will complain that T7 ships are too expensive.
A lot of people would be right.
Yep.
#1 - Buy Zen when there is a 15% bonus.
#2 - Buy ships only when they are on sale.
#3 - Convert Dil to Zen the ease the "pain" of using real money to buy the shiny.
Supply vs demand, tin foil hats for those thinking Cryptic is messing with the dil exchange.
Dil sinks are all well and good, but they don't last forever: as fleets finish their starbases and players finish upgrading their gear, the demand for dil plummets. All we get is the opposite of sinks, with large dil packages for events, admiralty, and so on. Supply is sky-high while demand is not keeping up.
Most new content is released either for free (featured episodes, queues, rep, etc.), metrics (events), or Zen (C-store, lockboxes, etc.). There has been a bit more Zen introduced with Arc quests but Arc is massively hated (for very good reason) so this increase in supply doesn't come anywhere close to keeping up with the huge demand. Arc quests provide an absolutely tiny amount of Zen anyway, so even if they were popular it would still be negligible.
Imagine that you are Cryptic/PWE. You can release an item for EC and make no money off of it because EC is easy to grind, you can release an item for dil and make no money off of it because dil is easy to grind, or you can release it for Zen and make money off of it because Zen is purchased with money. Why would you ever release anything for dil or EC? And why would you care in the slightest how long players need to grind dil to exchange it for Zen? As long as the dil exchange is still active, with players purchasing Zen to sell there, you're making money, and money is all that matters to a business.
Cryptic/PWE might take some action if the price reaches the cap. If 1 Zen is worth 600 dil but you can only sell it for 500, that would be a bad deal for Zen sellers, which would probably make people less eager to buy Zen to sell on the exchange. The most likely solution is to simply double the cap. I'm sure we'll see Zen for 600, 700, and 800 dil in the future.
Raising the Zen cap won't solve anything. In fact... it will make things worse as guess what? We're making 1 Zen a day! YAY! We'll be able to buy a ship in about 50 years!
Ain't gonna happen.
The DL exchange allows F2P people a means of getting the C-Store Shiny. Its meant to be F2P friendly. 500/1 isn't friendly. In fact... it is painful. I was gonna grind out the Temporal pack, like I did the Delta, and I was actually getting a head start this time. But at 400+/1... Temporal Pack went poof for me. Even with all my characters... I would have to be grinding every source of DL on 8 characters just to make any decent amount of Zen. And that would cause a burnout. As it stands... I'll stop when I have 3k for whenever they release a T6 Sovy and wait out the Zen Storm until the market crashes or balances out.
I see what you did there.
Having some way to regulate the price to a degree sounds pretty good. The problem is how to follow through without costing those involved quite a bit of real money or Dilithium to keep the Exchange in that range. Without some help from Cryptic in that regard... anyone trying to rebalance the DL Exchange is going to be out of a lot of money to do it. By setting a large amount of Zen at, say 250/1, that MIGHT get the attention of everyone and they'll start reposting their Zen around that point. But its going to have to be a LARGE amount that would stay up for a while to be noticed.
I do believe we need action now before all hell breaks loose, but... I honestly don't see how at the moment.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
King (during a speech): "Remember the Golden Rule!"
Peasant #1 asks Peasant #2: "What's the Golden Rule?"
Peasant #2: "Whoever has the gold makes the rules."
(In case anyone wonders, I'm a F2P player.)
No. Communism would be taking all the Zen and distributing it evenly no matter how much you buy. Basically giving EVERYONE a Zen stipend like the Lifers and Subs, and making it even across the board. No matter how much you spend, you get X amount.
Regulation is controlling the market so it doesn't go crazy. The suggestion of regulating sales between 400 and 200 Zen leaves room for fluctuations based on outside influences like sales and new sinks.
No, that is socialism.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
So we're all supposed to line up and kiss your TRIBBLE because you've (GASP!) spent Real Money on this game? Just like a lot of other people have? What makes you so special other than riding the short bus every day?
Never did care for the taste of jackass and see no reason to learn to now.
As for those tinfoil hats you mentioned, don't forget to make one in your size.
That is, if you have enough tinfoil to wrap around your opinion of yourself.
May not be that much tinfoil on the planet.
You just explained how the market is working as intended. The more attractive it is for you to spend cash, especially large amounts of cash, the more Cryptic likes it.
As for the exchange, it will only drop when fools stop paying these prices. I never have more than maybe 300k combined via all my alts, until now, there is no value on the Dil market to me atm. I might buy 100z or so to get my pile over the 500 line because there's something I've been looking at for a bit, but doubful.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. Want the market to drop? Stop buying fools.