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.
I knew there was a reason I liked you! Well said! Reminds me of a joke I heard awhiles back.
Q: How many eighteen wheeler drivers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A:None. They'd all rather just sit there and cuss about how dark it is.
Being an eighteen wheeler drive myself, I can vouch for this. Never thought I'd see the day when MMO players and truckers would have something in common.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
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.
The Exchange doesn't work that way. If you post up Zen on the Sell side for 250/1, it'll instantly complete and give you the amount of current sell orders, highest to lowest, to complete your Zen amount. You list a 1000 Zen and 250, and the highest buy order is 396 Dil/Zen with more than a 1000Z available, you'll get back 396,000 Dil. There's usually a fair bit of sell orders, ready and waiting, I doubt you could move the Zen Exchange more than 10 Dil/Zen before they'd literally would stop selling you Zen (there is an actual number they'll cut you off, believing that fraud is a possibility, no matter what you use it for).
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
The problem with saying "Don't Buy" is the fact not everyone comes to the forums. So telling people not to buy or "close your wallets in protest" or whatever... essentially falls on deaf ears.
I wouldn't be surprised if it went up to at least 450, possibly even 500. The new expansion pack will likely be very expensive and that will further drive up the price.
Though, with more people spending time on Risa, perhaps the amount of dilithium diminishes and then the price increase might be limited. But I'm pretty sure it will rise anyway.
Which is good. More money for Cryptic = higher chance of Voth playable species
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
Though, with more people spending time on Risa, perhaps the amount of dilithium diminishes and then the price increase might be limited. But I'm pretty sure it will rise anyway.
Not likely. 2 things on Risa that could contribute.
Tropical Birds > Marks > DL > Zen
Feather Monkeys > Marks > DL >Zen
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.
OR
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.
Two problems with that:
That would be a dilithium cartel. Cartels are kind of unethical and frowned upon.
You have absolutely no way whatsoever to enforce it, so you would either post Zen for sale at ridiculously low dil prices like a sucker or post dil for sale at ridiculously high Zen prices and get no buyers.
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.
Solve? What do you mean, solve? Worse for what? You seem to have misread my post. All I said was that Cryptic/PWE might do something if the price reaches the cap, and that most likely they'll just increase the cap. The only "problem" that's supposed to "solve" is people being able to list their Zen at the dil price they think is a good deal, as being unable to do so would probably mean a dip in Zen sales. I'm pretty sure the cap is there to prevent exploits and glitches, not to help F2P players.
None of what you said about how long it takes to get enough dil for a given Zen item has the slightest relevance to what Cryptic/PWE are likely to do (if anything). STO exists to make money for the businesses that own and operate it.
The way cash trading works in Rift is that you spend cash on packs of the cash currency, and you can freely trade these packs as normal items. Hilariously, it takes so much in-game currency to afford one of these packs that the company had to raise the currency cap for free players or they would no longer be able to claim that free players could grind out cash items. The cap was 2500 plat, but these packs were up to 3200p on European servers. The cap was raised to 5000p. Crisis: averted!
Rift's P2W cancer is in a more advanced stage than STO's - cool new items in STO are always released for metrics/cash, but they aren't necessary to succeed at any content. Succeeding at end-game content in Rift requires the stats from cash shop purchases. All you're missing out on in STO if you don't do anything Zen-related is cool stuff. You can still complete content. You'll just feel like a downtrodden serf.
As a F2P player myself, it would be nice for me if the in-game currencies weren't worthless, but they are. Anyone who wants the nice cosmetics and the OP items is expected to open their wallet. For me, the game has turned into grinding in-game currencies and snagging all the little promos and metric event items, like the upcoming summer ship. Then I have to tell new players looking for a decent ship that they can either grind dil for months or wait for a new event ship for months... or pay cash. I would love it if events were available indefinitely, but Cryptic/PWE prefer their precious metrics, and they think that "HURR HURR GATES OF AQ IN WOW WAS AN EXCLUSIVE" is a reasonable justification for every single event in the game, forever being exclusive. And don't get me started on lockboxes, a.k.a. "if we turn our game into an online casino, people will buy ships for $100-200 instead of $20-30!".
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
I don't think you understand. Raising the cap on the DL Exchange won't solve anything. Lets say the Exchange hits 500/1. Now... divide a full day's worth of Dilithium (8000) by that 500. Result: 16 Zen for 8000 Dilithium.
If Cryptic does as you suggest and raise the Exchange cap to 600 and they DON'T do anything to counter the rise in Zen prices on said Exchange, that 16 Zen will become 13 Zen for a full day's worth of Dilithium, and we'd be right back to having this discussion. What will the solution be then? Raise it to 700/1? Now we're only earning 11 Zen per 8000 DL.
The only people who could make any reasonable amount of Zen via the DL Exchange then would be Altoholics who can mitigate that steep price with sheer numbers. Everyone else would be priced out of the C-Store entirely.
The DL Exchange doesn't generate Zen. Zen doesn't become more or less valuable in terms of what's in the C-Store. Dilithium prices for things like Fleet Consoles/Weapons doesn't change. The percieved value based on in game events is what changes. Fluctuates based on supply and demand. And right now Zen Demand AND Dilithium Supply are so high that it takes MORE Dilithium to get 1 Zen. The higher the price, the LONGER it takes to get a ship. And those months you mentioned turn into YEARS. That is not worth the effort for so little reward.
@thunderfoot006 You do not have to line up and kiss anything, as the dil exchange already shows, a large number of your fellow F2Pers are more then happy with dimished returns.
I am a big boy, more then enough space for everyone to take a smooch.
I don't think you understand. Raising the cap on the DL Exchange won't solve anything. Lets say the Exchange hits 500/1. Now... divide a full day's worth of Dilithium (8000) by that 500. Result: 16 Zen for 8000 Dilithium.
If Cryptic does as you suggest and raise the Exchange cap to 600 and they DON'T do anything to counter the rise in Zen prices on said Exchange, that 16 Zen will become 13 Zen for a full day's worth of Dilithium, and we'd be right back to having this discussion. What will the solution be then? Raise it to 700/1? Now we're only earning 11 Zen per 8000 DL.
The only people who could make any reasonable amount of Zen via the DL Exchange then would be Altoholics who can mitigate that steep price with sheer numbers. Everyone else would be priced out of the C-Store entirely.
The DL Exchange doesn't generate Zen. Zen doesn't become more or less valuable in terms of what's in the C-Store. Dilithium prices for things like Fleet Consoles/Weapons doesn't change. The percieved value based on in game events is what changes. Fluctuates based on supply and demand. And right now Zen Demand AND Dilithium Supply are so high that it takes MORE Dilithium to get 1 Zen. The higher the price, the LONGER it takes to get a ship. And those months you mentioned turn into YEARS. That is not worth the effort for so little reward.
Well said, Rattler, this is a very accurate description.
We Will hit 500 when the AOY ships go on sale individually. Also for certain other ships coming up.
The question then becomes whether Cryptic steps in and buys the unwanted dilithium or lets it go as I understand they did with Neverwinter.
I've explained many times why sinks will no longer work. Basically because if they are large enough to work people will skip them - especially fleets - by getting invites instead.
Actually I just thought of another idea. Putting the upgrade system in dilithium kept us going for a few months. Maybe if we bury the needle at 500 for a while they could offer some ships for dilithium. It's 1.5 million at a 500 exchange.
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."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Just because the game is F2P doesnt mean that all the stuff in it shouldnt be extremely easy to get as well.
The Zen items are pretty much luxury items to begin with. Cryptic has 2 givaway, current level, ships for short grinds a year, and usually do generic giveaways twice a year that usually net a T5 Zen ship, not to mention being able to buy ships on the exchange (admittedly for a lot of EC), and the ability to use the dil' exchange to supplement Zen purchases, even if it is 400:1, there is still the opportunity.
If F2P players want to reduce the exchange values, how about the players reduce the demand? Spend $20-30 bucks a year on Zen, directly support the game, and use the grinded dil-to-Zen to supplement the occasional Zen purchase. The reduced demand will reduce the strain on the supply, and make that commodity cheaper, and if it doesnt, you wont have to grinds as much anyways.
The problem with saying "Don't Buy" is the fact not everyone comes to the forums. So telling people not to buy or "close your wallets in protest" or whatever... essentially falls on deaf ears.
you could wave your magic wand and make sure every single STO player ever gets a 'don't buy if you want the dil market to drop' message and it would still be ignored by the majority
Everyone just did the Crystalline Event and got a bunch of dilithium. Since there is little worthwhile to buy with dilithium, people are buying Zen so they can get the AOY stuff. We don't need more ways to not spend dilithium, we need more desirable things to buy with dilithium.
IMO they could start by making all those dil ships account wide.
If i'm not mistaken the Dil exchange was near 500 when the mass influx of F2P players came in in year 2 and EvE players started gobbling up control of the market.... It was the whole reason the price plummeted to 100 in the first place... Someone had to intervene.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
It can go 1 million per zen. I hadn't bought any since it left the 160 range. Since then all my Dil goes for upgrades or Fleet projects. I want Zen I pay with $. Much cheaper.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
Well said, Rattler, this is a very accurate description.
...
Actually I just thought of another idea. Putting the upgrade system in dilithium kept us going for a few months. Maybe if we bury the needle at 500 for a while they could offer some ships for dilithium. It's 1.5 million at a 500 exchange.
Thanks sheldon. ^^
And... they kinda already offer ships for DL. Its the ones we can get as we level, from the T1 Miranda to the T5 Sovereign.
@thunderfoot006 You do not have to line up and kiss anything, as the dil exchange already shows, a large number of your fellow F2Pers are more then happy with dimished returns.
I am a big boy, more then enough space for everyone to take a smooch.
And here is your biggest problem. You can dish it but you get all butthurt whenever someone fires back.
Few things on the InterWebs are more pathetic than a thinskinned cyberbully with a quick mouth and a slow brain.
As to the 'fellow F2Pers' remark. I subscibe so people like you can have the lights on. I can mail you the reciepts or post them here. Your call. I really don't care which one you pick.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
The dil exchange was too high for me when it got past 250.
All my dil goes into fleet projects. Hell, I contributed 170k yesterday.
All I can say is, if you don't think it's worth it to trade dil for zen, then don't do it. I don't give a damn how high it goes. And griping about it on the forums isn't going to do a damned thing.
8k / 500 = 16 z a day. 16 z x 30 days = 480 z.
480 z x 12 months = 5760 z p/year.
compared: 300 dil.
8k / 300 = 26.6 z a day. 26.6 z x 30 days = 798 z.
798 z x 12 months = 9576 z p/year.
compared: 150 dil.
8k / 150 = 53.3 z a day. 53.3 z x 30 days= 1599 z.
1599 z x 12 months = 19188 z p/year.
the current rate of 500 has wiped off a considerably amount of profit anyone can make. if there is not a sink soon and this says at 500 for a long while, it would be worthless being on the dil market for any real reason unless you plan to spent most of the year trying to get a t6 ship at 5k zen.
the current market is oppressive.
So? You're talking a a difference from high to low of a little over US$130 per year here. that's approximately US$0.38 per day. Both are slave wages in the first place, just one is a slightly higher slave wage.
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.
It's actually counterproductive for Cryptic/Perfect World to let it get to the peak, especially if it stays there for a while. See, every Zen on there, save for maybe that earned by Lifetime subs with their stipends, is bought with real money. Who pays that real money shouldn't matter one bit to those who receive it. But, if the exchange goes to max level, and especially if it stays there for a while, those who would buy Zen to sell on the exchange would likely feel that they're not getting their actual money's worth in doing so, since it has reached price control levels. Likely any amount lost in those sales will not be covered by the people who already weren't buying Zen directly, and Cryptic/Perfect World will start to lose money in net Zen sales.
I've explained many times why sinks will no longer work. Basically because if they are large enough to work people will skip them - especially fleets - by getting invites instead.
The Research Lab did work, though. It kept the exchange rate very steady for the few months that it took for many fleets to build it out. Did it cause the exchange to sink? No, but it smoothed over the effects of at least one lockbox, a couple of promo ships, a good 8 C-store ships and any number of events that threw a bunch of dilithium at us. The effects even extended into season 11 and another lockbox for a time. The difference between it and the old fleet holdings or the upgrade system is that the pace of new items to spend Zen on dramatically increased last year, which upset the balance that I'm not even sure was something that Cryptic actively worked on maintaining. If it was, they've changed their minds, but it's just as likely that it was merely coincidence that there seemed to be things to balance the sides of the equation for a while. If we look at Neverwinter, balancing the exchange for their currency doesn't even seem to occur to the Cryptic team that runs that game.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
A small holding like the Research Lab won't last long enough to make as long term an impact as we ultimately need. We'd need something as big as a starbase to do it. Even then... it might be a bit of an issue because a lot of the larger fleets have stockpiles of DL they can dump into those projects without batting an eye.
It's actually counterproductive for Cryptic/Perfect World to let it get to the peak, especially if it stays there for a while. See, every Zen on there, save for maybe that earned by Lifetime subs with their stipends, is bought with real money. Who pays that real money shouldn't matter one bit to those who receive it. But, if the exchange goes to max level, and especially if it stays there for a while, those who would buy Zen to sell on the exchange would likely feel that they're not getting their actual money's worth in doing so, since it has reached price control levels. Likely any amount lost in those sales will not be covered by the people who already weren't buying Zen directly, and Cryptic/Perfect World will start to lose money in net Zen sales.
And then we'll have a Dil Exchange version of the 1920s "Black Friday" and the market will reset.
too much dil
because CC is too easy to do very quickly
folks with alts are completing entire group of rep lines and are swimming in dil from tier 5 rewards
add the CC reward dil
add various fleet system rewards.....everyone is swimming in unrefined dil and are processing it
as fast as they can
I don't think you understand. Raising the cap on the DL Exchange won't solve anything. Lets say the Exchange hits 500/1. Now... divide a full day's worth of Dilithium (8000) by that 500. Result: 16 Zen for 8000 Dilithium.
If Cryptic does as you suggest and raise the Exchange cap to 600 and they DON'T do anything to counter the rise in Zen prices on said Exchange, that 16 Zen will become 13 Zen for a full day's worth of Dilithium, and we'd be right back to having this discussion. What will the solution be then? Raise it to 700/1? Now we're only earning 11 Zen per 8000 DL.
The only people who could make any reasonable amount of Zen via the DL Exchange then would be Altoholics who can mitigate that steep price with sheer numbers. Everyone else would be priced out of the C-Store entirely.
The DL Exchange doesn't generate Zen. Zen doesn't become more or less valuable in terms of what's in the C-Store. Dilithium prices for things like Fleet Consoles/Weapons doesn't change. The percieved value based on in game events is what changes. Fluctuates based on supply and demand. And right now Zen Demand AND Dilithium Supply are so high that it takes MORE Dilithium to get 1 Zen. The higher the price, the LONGER it takes to get a ship. And those months you mentioned turn into YEARS. That is not worth the effort for so little reward.
You're the one not reading a single word of what I wrote, and I'm the one who doesn't understand? Let me try to use shorter words.
High dil costs don't matter to PWE. A higher exchange cap is not meant to fix high dil costs. It would only be to not cap Zen sale profits.
Now allow me to repeat the key part:
A higher exchange cap is not meant to fix high dil costs.
Is it clearer now?
The only point to increasing the cap is to avoid capping Zen sellers' profits. If the price could've gone to 1000 but they can only sell for 500, they're selling it on clearance for 50% off, whether they like it or not. A lot of people won't like that idea, so they won't buy Zen from PWE to exchange for dil. That is why Cryptic/PWE's most likely response to hitting the cap will be to increase the cap. And not for the purpose of making it easier for F2P players to get Zen. That is totally irrelevant to what I am saying here.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
Insulting my intelligence was not necessary. -_-
Raising the cap doesn't make sense. It will just make the economy worse. The Zen Sellers won't be able to sell if people are unwilling to buy their Zen. The higher the price, the LESS likely people will buy because it wouldn't be worth it.
Whenever any new C-Store item is released, the desirability of zen only goes up, since any given player's wishlist of C-Store items will once again expand. There's nothing to stop it except for the 500 dil/zen cap. At the same time, we are constantly flooded with easy dil. It's probably just a matter of weeks (or less) until it hits 500. After which it will probably stay there forever.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
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:
Why would I sell my zen for 400 dil when I can sell it for more?
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
If you want to reduce complex political and econimical concepts to a video game, in this case communism would rather be nobody owns any zen, there's a common pool of zen and every player is allowed to pick so many items they like so there's enough for everybody to get the same worth. Only Cryptic, being "the state", could generate more Zen to bolster that pool with the dilithium the collective playerbase generates. You can still generate as much dilithium as you want but you don't have personal advantages from it (eventually you have because you could choose a better item at one point), instead you benefit the community with it.
Post edited by angrytarg on
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Why would I sell my zen for 400 dil when I can sell it for more?
Counterargument: Why would people want to buy your Zen at that price when they could buy it for less?
The problem with your counterargument is that they won't be able to buy it for less.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,565Community Moderator
Actually... there is no problem because you wouldn't be getting their DL at your price. Not worth it. Therefor they'd wait until the price comes down, THEN buy. Thus... buy for less.
Actually... there is no problem because you wouldn't be getting their DL at your price. Not worth it. Therefor they'd wait until the price comes down, THEN buy. Thus... buy for less.
If that actually worked, then it would have already happened. I'm a good sport though. Tell you what. Pick whatever arbitrary price you want that's lower than the current market price. Last I checked today it was 412. Pick your price. Say 300. Come back here and tell me that I was wrong when you get everyone buying and selling dil/zen for the arbitrary price that you select.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Comments
I knew there was a reason I liked you! Well said! Reminds me of a joke I heard awhiles back.
Q: How many eighteen wheeler drivers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A:None. They'd all rather just sit there and cuss about how dark it is.
Being an eighteen wheeler drive myself, I can vouch for this. Never thought I'd see the day when MMO players and truckers would have something in common.
The Exchange doesn't work that way. If you post up Zen on the Sell side for 250/1, it'll instantly complete and give you the amount of current sell orders, highest to lowest, to complete your Zen amount. You list a 1000 Zen and 250, and the highest buy order is 396 Dil/Zen with more than a 1000Z available, you'll get back 396,000 Dil. There's usually a fair bit of sell orders, ready and waiting, I doubt you could move the Zen Exchange more than 10 Dil/Zen before they'd literally would stop selling you Zen (there is an actual number they'll cut you off, believing that fraud is a possibility, no matter what you use it for).
Though, with more people spending time on Risa, perhaps the amount of dilithium diminishes and then the price increase might be limited. But I'm pretty sure it will rise anyway.
Which is good. More money for Cryptic = higher chance of Voth playable species
Not likely. 2 things on Risa that could contribute.
Tropical Birds > Marks > DL > Zen
Feather Monkeys > Marks > DL >Zen
Two problems with that:
Solve? What do you mean, solve? Worse for what? You seem to have misread my post. All I said was that Cryptic/PWE might do something if the price reaches the cap, and that most likely they'll just increase the cap. The only "problem" that's supposed to "solve" is people being able to list their Zen at the dil price they think is a good deal, as being unable to do so would probably mean a dip in Zen sales. I'm pretty sure the cap is there to prevent exploits and glitches, not to help F2P players.
None of what you said about how long it takes to get enough dil for a given Zen item has the slightest relevance to what Cryptic/PWE are likely to do (if anything). STO exists to make money for the businesses that own and operate it.
The way cash trading works in Rift is that you spend cash on packs of the cash currency, and you can freely trade these packs as normal items. Hilariously, it takes so much in-game currency to afford one of these packs that the company had to raise the currency cap for free players or they would no longer be able to claim that free players could grind out cash items. The cap was 2500 plat, but these packs were up to 3200p on European servers. The cap was raised to 5000p. Crisis: averted!
Rift's P2W cancer is in a more advanced stage than STO's - cool new items in STO are always released for metrics/cash, but they aren't necessary to succeed at any content. Succeeding at end-game content in Rift requires the stats from cash shop purchases. All you're missing out on in STO if you don't do anything Zen-related is cool stuff. You can still complete content. You'll just feel like a downtrodden serf.
As a F2P player myself, it would be nice for me if the in-game currencies weren't worthless, but they are. Anyone who wants the nice cosmetics and the OP items is expected to open their wallet. For me, the game has turned into grinding in-game currencies and snagging all the little promos and metric event items, like the upcoming summer ship. Then I have to tell new players looking for a decent ship that they can either grind dil for months or wait for a new event ship for months... or pay cash. I would love it if events were available indefinitely, but Cryptic/PWE prefer their precious metrics, and they think that "HURR HURR GATES OF AQ IN WOW WAS AN EXCLUSIVE" is a reasonable justification for every single event in the game, forever being exclusive. And don't get me started on lockboxes, a.k.a. "if we turn our game into an online casino, people will buy ships for $100-200 instead of $20-30!".
If Cryptic does as you suggest and raise the Exchange cap to 600 and they DON'T do anything to counter the rise in Zen prices on said Exchange, that 16 Zen will become 13 Zen for a full day's worth of Dilithium, and we'd be right back to having this discussion. What will the solution be then? Raise it to 700/1? Now we're only earning 11 Zen per 8000 DL.
The only people who could make any reasonable amount of Zen via the DL Exchange then would be Altoholics who can mitigate that steep price with sheer numbers. Everyone else would be priced out of the C-Store entirely.
The DL Exchange doesn't generate Zen. Zen doesn't become more or less valuable in terms of what's in the C-Store. Dilithium prices for things like Fleet Consoles/Weapons doesn't change. The percieved value based on in game events is what changes. Fluctuates based on supply and demand. And right now Zen Demand AND Dilithium Supply are so high that it takes MORE Dilithium to get 1 Zen. The higher the price, the LONGER it takes to get a ship. And those months you mentioned turn into YEARS. That is not worth the effort for so little reward.
I am a big boy, more then enough space for everyone to take a smooch.
Well said, Rattler, this is a very accurate description.
We Will hit 500 when the AOY ships go on sale individually. Also for certain other ships coming up.
The question then becomes whether Cryptic steps in and buys the unwanted dilithium or lets it go as I understand they did with Neverwinter.
I've explained many times why sinks will no longer work. Basically because if they are large enough to work people will skip them - especially fleets - by getting invites instead.
Actually I just thought of another idea. Putting the upgrade system in dilithium kept us going for a few months. Maybe if we bury the needle at 500 for a while they could offer some ships for dilithium. It's 1.5 million at a 500 exchange.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The Zen items are pretty much luxury items to begin with. Cryptic has 2 givaway, current level, ships for short grinds a year, and usually do generic giveaways twice a year that usually net a T5 Zen ship, not to mention being able to buy ships on the exchange (admittedly for a lot of EC), and the ability to use the dil' exchange to supplement Zen purchases, even if it is 400:1, there is still the opportunity.
If F2P players want to reduce the exchange values, how about the players reduce the demand? Spend $20-30 bucks a year on Zen, directly support the game, and use the grinded dil-to-Zen to supplement the occasional Zen purchase. The reduced demand will reduce the strain on the supply, and make that commodity cheaper, and if it doesnt, you wont have to grinds as much anyways.
you could wave your magic wand and make sure every single STO player ever gets a 'don't buy if you want the dil market to drop' message and it would still be ignored by the majority
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Thanks sheldon. ^^
And... they kinda already offer ships for DL. Its the ones we can get as we level, from the T1 Miranda to the T5 Sovereign.
And here is your biggest problem. You can dish it but you get all butthurt whenever someone fires back.
Few things on the InterWebs are more pathetic than a thinskinned cyberbully with a quick mouth and a slow brain.
As to the 'fellow F2Pers' remark. I subscibe so people like you can have the lights on. I can mail you the reciepts or post them here. Your call. I really don't care which one you pick.
All my dil goes into fleet projects. Hell, I contributed 170k yesterday.
All I can say is, if you don't think it's worth it to trade dil for zen, then don't do it. I don't give a damn how high it goes. And griping about it on the forums isn't going to do a damned thing.
So? You're talking a a difference from high to low of a little over US$130 per year here. that's approximately US$0.38 per day. Both are slave wages in the first place, just one is a slightly higher slave wage.
It's actually counterproductive for Cryptic/Perfect World to let it get to the peak, especially if it stays there for a while. See, every Zen on there, save for maybe that earned by Lifetime subs with their stipends, is bought with real money. Who pays that real money shouldn't matter one bit to those who receive it. But, if the exchange goes to max level, and especially if it stays there for a while, those who would buy Zen to sell on the exchange would likely feel that they're not getting their actual money's worth in doing so, since it has reached price control levels. Likely any amount lost in those sales will not be covered by the people who already weren't buying Zen directly, and Cryptic/Perfect World will start to lose money in net Zen sales.
The Research Lab did work, though. It kept the exchange rate very steady for the few months that it took for many fleets to build it out. Did it cause the exchange to sink? No, but it smoothed over the effects of at least one lockbox, a couple of promo ships, a good 8 C-store ships and any number of events that threw a bunch of dilithium at us. The effects even extended into season 11 and another lockbox for a time. The difference between it and the old fleet holdings or the upgrade system is that the pace of new items to spend Zen on dramatically increased last year, which upset the balance that I'm not even sure was something that Cryptic actively worked on maintaining. If it was, they've changed their minds, but it's just as likely that it was merely coincidence that there seemed to be things to balance the sides of the equation for a while. If we look at Neverwinter, balancing the exchange for their currency doesn't even seem to occur to the Cryptic team that runs that game.
And then we'll have a Dil Exchange version of the 1920s "Black Friday" and the market will reset.
because CC is too easy to do very quickly
folks with alts are completing entire group of rep lines and are swimming in dil from tier 5 rewards
add the CC reward dil
add various fleet system rewards.....everyone is swimming in unrefined dil and are processing it
as fast as they can
dil will max at 500...then zen will stop
CC should have been on a 2 hour timer
You're the one not reading a single word of what I wrote, and I'm the one who doesn't understand? Let me try to use shorter words.
High dil costs don't matter to PWE. A higher exchange cap is not meant to fix high dil costs. It would only be to not cap Zen sale profits.
Now allow me to repeat the key part:
A higher exchange cap is not meant to fix high dil costs.
Is it clearer now?
The only point to increasing the cap is to avoid capping Zen sellers' profits. If the price could've gone to 1000 but they can only sell for 500, they're selling it on clearance for 50% off, whether they like it or not. A lot of people won't like that idea, so they won't buy Zen from PWE to exchange for dil. That is why Cryptic/PWE's most likely response to hitting the cap will be to increase the cap. And not for the purpose of making it easier for F2P players to get Zen. That is totally irrelevant to what I am saying here.
Raising the cap doesn't make sense. It will just make the economy worse. The Zen Sellers won't be able to sell if people are unwilling to buy their Zen. The higher the price, the LESS likely people will buy because it wouldn't be worth it.
If you want to reduce complex political and econimical concepts to a video game, in this case communism would rather be nobody owns any zen, there's a common pool of zen and every player is allowed to pick so many items they like so there's enough for everybody to get the same worth. Only Cryptic, being "the state", could generate more Zen to bolster that pool with the dilithium the collective playerbase generates. You can still generate as much dilithium as you want but you don't have personal advantages from it (eventually you have because you could choose a better item at one point), instead you benefit the community with it.
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Counterargument: Why would people want to buy your Zen at that price when they could buy it for less?