Really ? People have begging and pleading for this one specific ship for the entirety of the game (because of its iconic symbolism of Trek - not because its some super P2W ship - its a fan ship).. and they go and promo it ? Like wtf is wrong with them ?
Sure, I can even see their business angle, and it makes sense financially for the company, but ffs, at some point give the players a break. The model might have been reworked, but it was already in the game. There was no justification for gamblebox'ing it, other then pure greed.
And don't try and feed me the "Let's keep this ship uncommon BS". That ship is THE symbol of Trek, and if any ship should be EVERYWHERE in the game its this one.
And it would have sold like wildfire in the C-Store, generating plenty of profit for the company (for the little amount of work they had to do on it), but I guess they were too greedy to even consider that. Or maybe they've done it out of spite, for every End Game Connie thread ever created. I dunno, but either way its a disgrace or the greatest God troll of all time.
Besides, what happened to faction ships being available in the C-Store ? Honestly, at this point, they may as well close up the c-store ship page, and shove all of them in gamble boxes if their going to operate in this manner.
This is a prime example of unfettered capitalism.
And btw, I'm not even interested in this ship for personal use.
It's definitely in Cryptic/PWE's best interests and definitely not in the interests of most of the players who might actually want one of these ships.
I'd probably buy the TLC (heh) if it was a C-Store purchase. Since it's not, and the RNG typically does not favor most players who do not do something over and over again, it's a bad purchase.
Buy the R&D packs if you really need an R&D pack. You might get lucky. But rolling the dice against house odds? Unwise.
It's definitely in Cryptic/PWE's best interests and definitely not in the interests of most of the players who might actually want one of these ships.
I'd probably buy the TLC (heh) if it was a C-Store purchase. Since it's not, and the RNG typically does not favor most players who do not do something over and over again, it's a bad purchase.
Buy the R&D packs if you really need an R&D pack. You might get lucky. But rolling the dice against house odds? Unwise.
I know right? Makes more sense to wait for a whole bunch of people to buy them (which we all know they will) and buy either the promo packs themselves or the ships themselves off of the exchange after accumulating and saving up in game resources.
Really ? People have begging and pleading for this one specific ship for the entirety of the game (because of its iconic symbolism of Trek - not because its some super P2W ship - its a fan ship).. and they go and promo it ? Like wtf is wrong with them ?
Sure, I can even see their business angle, and it makes sense financially for the company, but ffs, at some point give the players a break. The model might have been reworked, but it was already in the game. There was no justification for gamblebox'ing it, other then pure greed.
And don't try and feed me the "Let's keep this ship uncommon BS". That ship is THE symbol of Trek, and if any ship should be EVERYWHERE in the game its this one.
And it would have sold like wildfire in the C-Store, generating plenty of profit for the company (for the little amount of work they had to do on it), but I guess they were too greedy to even consider that. Or maybe they've done it out of spite, for every End Game Connie thread ever created. I dunno, but either way its a disgrace or the greatest God troll of all time.
Besides, what happened to faction ships being available in the C-Store ? Honestly, at this point, they may as well close up the c-store ship page, and shove all of them in gamble boxes if their going to operate in this manner.
This is a prime example of unfettered capitalism.
And btw, I'm not even interested in this ship for personal use.
STO isn't set in the TOS period, it would be bizarre indeed to see everyone doing contemporary star trek in the TOS ships.
Consider this analogy:
Imagine there is a game based on naval combat between battleships from WW2. Would it be appropriate to include in the game a wooden sailing ship, perhaps the H.M.S. Victory, and have it be able to sail around and sink many modern battleships?
Would it make sense to have swarms of them everywhere? Would it be a very good WW2 navy game anymore?
sorry my buddy but they are already selling t6 ships in the cstore that you can put a TOS skin on, so they dont seem to agree with your brilliant logic.
they let you put the TOS skins on all on the t6 temporal ship versions so they dont seem to mind people flying around in TOS era visuals at t6 or want to limit it enough to not put in in the cstore
The most iconic ship of TOS should be unique and one time only? But this is simply the temporal version of a ship anyone can get as a new character.
You lost me on that one.
I have no problem with Cryptic making money. Lord knows I'm easily in 3-4k since I join the first few weeks after it was released. I rolled for the jjprise and was happy to do so, also sprung lobi for the Vengeance which is the first time I've used lobi for a ship instead of buying it outright.
But this was poorly done and your defense isn't convincing. The TOS ships should have been released as a zen pack. I fume over minor things but almost never fume over packaging.
STO isn't set in the TOS period, it would be bizarre indeed to see everyone doing contemporary star trek in the TOS ships.
CBS lightened up on the no TOS connie because they are tying it to the new series which takes place before TOS. AoY is very much part of the cross-ownership promotion.
Which means you've missed something important with your assertion.
The Promotional R&D Packs themselves will cost a small fortune on the exchange. I looked last night and a non-promo pack was (cheapest) 12 mil. Imagine what the price will jump to when these babies are put up for sale during the event.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The Promotional R&D Packs themselves will cost a small fortune on the exchange. I looked last night and a non-promo pack was (cheapest) 12 mil. Imagine what the price will jump to when these babies are put up for sale during the event.
I'm ok with that. EC is cheap. Zen is real life money. A tiny minority get rich playing the lottery. Everyone selling to lottery players gets revenue. Income is a time game.
But casinos are in no danger from the majority of the world ever really grasping that fact.
"I am not able to pay real money, so for that reason I don't have a chance to get one" is p2w and also unfair, in my opinion.
Then by your opinion, it's P2W.
Putting an item in a lock box that costs money and giving it an insanely low drop rate does not create a level playing field. It creates a situation where (on average) only those that spend a considerable amount can get the item. Yes, there are is the situational anomaly of the person that buys 1 pack and gets the ship, but on average, getting a ship from a R&D pack is a significant financial investment, far more so then buying from the C-Store.
I know what you'll say - "Everyone has the same statistical chance." And that's correct, but they all have the same infinitesimal chance which means that to have any real chance of getting the item, multiple purchases are required in order to get enough chances to have a realistic shot at 'winning.' Putting all the rhetoric aside, we both know that on average, 'winning' one of these ships will cost a sizable amount of money, likely upwards of $100+. To try and pretend that's a 'level playing field' is frankly laughable.
Would I call it 'Pay to Win?' No, just because this ship isn't necessarily more powerful then anything available for Zen or even free from Events (The Rezreth, built correctly can be a top performer and was completely free, same with the Nandi.) But while I don't call it 'Pay 2 Win' I hardly consider it a level playing field. On average, the T6 Connie will only be available to those willing to spend a very large amount of money trying to win it.
I disagree. In my opinion, if you have a chance to get it, especially one with a barrier to entry as low as a single promo pack, then it's fair to say that everyone has a chance to get it.
At the very minimum, everyone has a 1/100 chance of getting the ship. That's good enough for me.
Like i said in response to another poster, its qualitative not quantitative. It's a question about whether there is a chance, not about how big the chance is compared to something else.
If a ship was in the c-store and cost 15k zen, I dont think it would be fair to say that everyone had a chance to get one. People who paid for 15k zen or who managed to grind out that much zen worth of dil would have a 100% chance of getting one, and everyone else would have no chance at all.
This is an argument with 3 prongs, 3 premises. If we are going to accept premise 1, that its good to have rare and desirable stuff, then we have to ask, "how can the ship be rare and desirable?"
Either it can be difficult to obtain based on an RNG mechanic, or difficult to obtain because of a very high price.
One of the options is fair to everyone, since everyone has a chance, the other option isn't.
A qualitative analysis is inherently unfair to anyone seeking a detailed analysis which you seek to provide. A quantitative basis provides easy evaluation of benefits and costs. A qualitative basis leaves facts to be treated subjectively, which can mislead the reader and cause them to not act in their best interests. Hence, a quantitative analysis is desired. The fact that everyone has a chance does not change the fact that the chanceboxes are pay-to-win, in contradiction to your assertion that it is not.
Notably, in real life goods and services are often offered at fixed price points to prospective buyers. This lets them decide whether acquiring, say, a given good is in their best interests or if they are better off using their resources differently. This is considered fair because it allows consumers to make a benefit/cost analysis quite easily. Even if the item is rare, old and desirable, this is considered a fair way to sell it. A 15000-zen Constitution, even if per-character, would have been a fair option for Cryptic to take, although not necessarily in their best interests.
Well, we disagree about what 'fair' means. Having it exclusively available to people able to pay 150$ to get zen, or to grind that large quantity out, and completely unavailable to anyone else isn't fair to me. It's one of the premises I listed in the OP.
Also please bear in mind, the ship is available at a fixed price, because the promo mechanic means that people can trade them with each other, something that isn't possible with c-store ships. People who are capable of making benefit/cost analyses can recognize this quite easily.
But, in addition to this fixed price, there is another means to get one. You can get one by chance, and everyone can get a chance, not just that small group willing or able to pay or grind the large sum mentioned before.
Sale over the exchange is far from a fixed price, as exchange flippers can surely testify to. Since Cryptic does not maintain a monopoly over the cost of acquisition on the exchange, the price there will be highly variable. Assuming even the bare minimum of 750m EC per ship, this means that at exchange sales of 10mil per promo pack, a player would have to buy over 15 4-packs, with a cost of over 15000 zen. Granted these numbers are placeholders, but I think it illustrates my point without making wild assertions: The fact that they can be traded is of little consequence because it is still prohibitively expensive in that case. In fact, given the rarity and desirability of the pack, it will likely have an inflated price, incurring brutal costs than if they were simply sold via the C-Store.
The alternate means to acquire a pack is even more dreary. Even if players get a chance to receive it, the players have to expend resources for each chance they get. However, because of the prohibitively low chance, players who won't spend resources an order of magnitude or two above that needed for a single pack are highly disadvantaged. Even if such a player were to acquire the pack, they would be the exception rather than the rule, which may be fair from a statistical standpoint but not an economic one. In all cases, if they don't acquire the ship, then they will have a net loss, which is more undesirable than doing nothing at all and quite unfair compared to the C-Store if all the player wanted was to acquire the ship. At this point, I would even suggest that buying keys now out of sale and using them on the infinity box would provide better outcomes (not a good idea, but still better).
"I am not able to pay real money, so for that reason I don't have a chance to get one" is p2w and also unfair, in my opinion.
Then by your opinion, it's P2W.
Putting an item in a lock box that costs money and giving it an insanely low drop rate does not create a level playing field. It creates a situation where (on average) only those that spend a considerable amount can get the item. Yes, there are is the situational anomaly of the person that buys 1 pack and gets the ship, but on average, getting a ship from a R&D pack is a significant financial investment, far more so then buying from the C-Store.
I know what you'll say - "Everyone has the same statistical chance." And that's correct, but they all have the same infinitesimal chance which means that to have any real chance of getting the item, multiple purchases are required in order to get enough chances to have a realistic shot at 'winning.' Putting all the rhetoric aside, we both know that on average, 'winning' one of these ships will cost a sizable amount of money, likely upwards of $100+. To try and pretend that's a 'level playing field' is frankly laughable.
Would I call it 'Pay to Win?' No, just because this ship isn't necessarily more powerful then anything available for Zen or even free from Events (The Rezreth, built correctly can be a top performer and was completely free, same with the Nandi.) But while I don't call it 'Pay 2 Win' I hardly consider it a level playing field. On average, the T6 Connie will only be available to those willing to spend a very large amount of money trying to win it.
I disagree. In my opinion, if you have a chance to get it, especially one with a barrier to entry as low as a single promo pack, then it's fair to say that everyone has a chance to get it.
At the very minimum, everyone has a 1/100 chance of getting the ship. That's good enough for me.
Like i said in response to another poster, its qualitative not quantitative. It's a question about whether there is a chance, not about how big the chance is compared to something else.
If a ship was in the c-store and cost 15k zen, I dont think it would be fair to say that everyone had a chance to get one. People who paid for 15k zen or who managed to grind out that much zen worth of dil would have a 100% chance of getting one, and everyone else would have no chance at all.
This is an argument with 3 prongs, 3 premises. If we are going to accept premise 1, that its good to have rare and desirable stuff, then we have to ask, "how can the ship be rare and desirable?"
Either it can be difficult to obtain based on an RNG mechanic, or difficult to obtain because of a very high price.
One of the options is fair to everyone, since everyone has a chance, the other option isn't.
A qualitative analysis is inherently unfair to anyone seeking a detailed analysis which you seek to provide. A quantitative basis provides easy evaluation of benefits and costs. A qualitative basis leaves facts to be treated subjectively, which can mislead the reader and cause them to not act in their best interests. Hence, a quantitative analysis is desired. The fact that everyone has a chance does not change the fact that the chanceboxes are pay-to-win, in contradiction to your assertion that it is not.
Notably, in real life goods and services are often offered at fixed price points to prospective buyers. This lets them decide whether acquiring, say, a given good is in their best interests or if they are better off using their resources differently. This is considered fair because it allows consumers to make a benefit/cost analysis quite easily. Even if the item is rare, old and desirable, this is considered a fair way to sell it. A 15000-zen Constitution, even if per-character, would have been a fair option for Cryptic to take, although not necessarily in their best interests.
Well, we disagree about what 'fair' means. Having it exclusively available to people able to pay 150$ to get zen, or to grind that large quantity out, and completely unavailable to anyone else isn't fair to me. It's one of the premises I listed in the OP.
Also please bear in mind, the ship is available at a fixed price, because the promo mechanic means that people can trade them with each other, something that isn't possible with c-store ships. People who are capable of making benefit/cost analyses can recognize this quite easily.
But, in addition to this fixed price, there is another means to get one. You can get one by chance, and everyone can get a chance, not just that small group willing or able to pay or grind the large sum mentioned before.
Sale over the exchange is far from a fixed price, as exchange flippers can surely testify to. Since Cryptic does not maintain a monopoly over the cost of acquisition on the exchange, the price there will be highly variable. Assuming even the bare minimum of 750m EC per ship, this means that at exchange sales of 10mil per promo pack, a player would have to buy over 15 4-packs, with a cost of over 15000 zen. Granted these numbers are placeholders, but I think it illustrates my point without making wild assertions: The fact that they can be traded is of little consequence because it is still prohibitively expensive in that case. In fact, given the rarity and desirability of the pack, it will likely have an inflated price, incurring brutal costs than if they were simply sold via the C-Store.
The alternate means to acquire a pack is even more dreary. Even if players get a chance to receive it, the players have to expend resources for each chance they get. However, because of the prohibitively low chance, players who won't spend resources an order of magnitude or two above that needed for a single pack are highly disadvantaged. Even if such a player were to acquire the pack, they would be the exception rather than the rule, which may be fair from a statistical standpoint but not an economic one. In all cases, if they don't acquire the ship, then they will have a net loss, which is more undesirable than doing nothing at all and quite unfair compared to the C-Store if all the player wanted was to acquire the ship. At this point, I would even suggest that buying keys now out of sale and using them on the infinity box would provide better outcomes (not a good idea, but still better).
In any MMO, people who put in more time and effort have an advantage over people who don't. It's part of what an MMO is, a progress-based game.
I would object that you really have a problem with the first premise, not the second one. You seem to disagree that its good if there are rare and desirable things.
For things to be rare and desirable, it must be true that people want them, but also that not everyone will get one. This is what you're objecting to in the second part of your post.
As for the exchange and whether it ever represents a fixed price, it does. Its not at all uncommon for the market to settle on a price for an item. Moreover, if you can find an item for sale on the exchange, it displays the price for it. Clicking buy buys the item at the price.
Rarity by high fixed price is a real thing, so it is in fact possible to disagree with the second premise without discounting the first. Additionally, with rarity comes market instability. See the various other rare items in the game for more information.
With the phenomenal t6-TOS promo coming out, I think its important that people take a moment to think about *why* things like this have to come from RNG packs. It isn't venality on the part of the developers, there is a logical reason for why it is best for players and the community that it works this way.
To not run afoul of the no-necro rule, I post a new thread rather than bump an old one. It is what it is!
There are three good outcomes to look for with prize ships in STO.
1) The prize ships are rare and desirable. -If nothing is rare and desirable, the game is tepid and boring.
2) Everyone has a chance to get one. -If not everyone has a chance to get one, it is unfair, and pay2win.
3) The company earns revenue and profit. -This is absolutely necessary for the game to continue being run. Business has to earn profit.
-
If we make them available to anyone who wants one at a fixed price in the c-store, but that price is low, then they are no longer rare and desirable, and we sacrifice outcome 1.
-
The only way to make the promo ships very rare and desirable, if they are offered to anyone who wants one at a fixed price in the c-store, is to make that price very high.
The market prices them at about 15k zen, which takes into account the consolation prizes in the promo boxes as well as the odds of winning a ship. In terms of zen expenditure to get one, its closer to 25k zen.
However, if they were offered at that high price, almost no one would have a chance to get them, and also, the owners would not get much revenue.
-
Since having the ships rare and desirable is a good outcome, and the game earning profit is a good outcome as well, and everyone having a chance to get the prize ship is a good outcome as well, we should not give up any one outcome in order to secure two of the others, when instead we can get all three outcomes at the same time.
1) It is good that the ship is rare and desirable
2) It is good that everyone has a chance to get one
3) It is good if the company earns revenue and profit.
The good in these outcomes is cumulative. Having two outcomes is better than having one, and having all three is better than having either two or one.
We can only have all three of these good outcomes if the ships are awarded from RNG boxes.
Since all three outcomes is better than just two, or just one, we should unequivocally support the ships being released in RNG boxes, since it leads to the best possible outcome for the game.
With the phenomenal t6-TOS promo coming out, I think its important that people take a moment to think about *why* things like this have to come from RNG packs. It isn't venality on the part of the developers, there is a logical reason for why it is best for players and the community that it works this way.
To not run afoul of the no-necro rule, I post a new thread rather than bump an old one. It is what it is!
There are three good outcomes to look for with prize ships in STO.
1) The prize ships are rare and desirable. -If nothing is rare and desirable, the game is tepid and boring.
2) Everyone has a chance to get one. -If not everyone has a chance to get one, it is unfair, and pay2win.
3) The company earns revenue and profit. -This is absolutely necessary for the game to continue being run. Business has to earn profit.
-
If we make them available to anyone who wants one at a fixed price in the c-store, but that price is low, then they are no longer rare and desirable, and we sacrifice outcome 1.
-
The only way to make the promo ships very rare and desirable, if they are offered to anyone who wants one at a fixed price in the c-store, is to make that price very high.
The market prices them at about 15k zen, which takes into account the consolation prizes in the promo boxes as well as the odds of winning a ship. In terms of zen expenditure to get one, its closer to 25k zen.
However, if they were offered at that high price, almost no one would have a chance to get them, and also, the owners would not get much revenue.
-
Since having the ships rare and desirable is a good outcome, and the game earning profit is a good outcome as well, and everyone having a chance to get the prize ship is a good outcome as well, we should not give up any one outcome in order to secure two of the others, when instead we can get all three outcomes at the same time.
1) It is good that the ship is rare and desirable
2) It is good that everyone has a chance to get one
3) It is good if the company earns revenue and profit.
The good in these outcomes is cumulative. Having two outcomes is better than having one, and having all three is better than having either two or one.
We can only have all three of these good outcomes if the ships are awarded from RNG boxes.
Since all three outcomes is better than just two, or just one, we should unequivocally support the ships being released in RNG boxes, since it leads to the best possible outcome for the game.
This is one of the most well written posts I've ever read on these forums.
"I am not able to pay real money, so for that reason I don't have a chance to get one" is p2w and also unfair, in my opinion.
Then by your opinion, it's P2W.
Putting an item in a lock box that costs money and giving it an insanely low drop rate does not create a level playing field. It creates a situation where (on average) only those that spend a considerable amount can get the item. Yes, there are is the situational anomaly of the person that buys 1 pack and gets the ship, but on average, getting a ship from a R&D pack is a significant financial investment, far more so then buying from the C-Store.
I know what you'll say - "Everyone has the same statistical chance." And that's correct, but they all have the same infinitesimal chance which means that to have any real chance of getting the item, multiple purchases are required in order to get enough chances to have a realistic shot at 'winning.' Putting all the rhetoric aside, we both know that on average, 'winning' one of these ships will cost a sizable amount of money, likely upwards of $100+. To try and pretend that's a 'level playing field' is frankly laughable.
Would I call it 'Pay to Win?' No, just because this ship isn't necessarily more powerful then anything available for Zen or even free from Events (The Rezreth, built correctly can be a top performer and was completely free, same with the Nandi.) But while I don't call it 'Pay 2 Win' I hardly consider it a level playing field. On average, the T6 Connie will only be available to those willing to spend a very large amount of money trying to win it.
I disagree. In my opinion, if you have a chance to get it, especially one with a barrier to entry as low as a single promo pack, then it's fair to say that everyone has a chance to get it.
At the very minimum, everyone has a 1/100 chance of getting the ship. That's good enough for me.
Like i said in response to another poster, its qualitative not quantitative. It's a question about whether there is a chance, not about how big the chance is compared to something else.
If a ship was in the c-store and cost 15k zen, I dont think it would be fair to say that everyone had a chance to get one. People who paid for 15k zen or who managed to grind out that much zen worth of dil would have a 100% chance of getting one, and everyone else would have no chance at all.
This is an argument with 3 prongs, 3 premises. If we are going to accept premise 1, that its good to have rare and desirable stuff, then we have to ask, "how can the ship be rare and desirable?"
Either it can be difficult to obtain based on an RNG mechanic, or difficult to obtain because of a very high price.
One of the options is fair to everyone, since everyone has a chance, the other option isn't.
A qualitative analysis is inherently unfair to anyone seeking a detailed analysis which you seek to provide. A quantitative basis provides easy evaluation of benefits and costs. A qualitative basis leaves facts to be treated subjectively, which can mislead the reader and cause them to not act in their best interests. Hence, a quantitative analysis is desired. The fact that everyone has a chance does not change the fact that the chanceboxes are pay-to-win, in contradiction to your assertion that it is not.
Notably, in real life goods and services are often offered at fixed price points to prospective buyers. This lets them decide whether acquiring, say, a given good is in their best interests or if they are better off using their resources differently. This is considered fair because it allows consumers to make a benefit/cost analysis quite easily. Even if the item is rare, old and desirable, this is considered a fair way to sell it. A 15000-zen Constitution, even if per-character, would have been a fair option for Cryptic to take, although not necessarily in their best interests.
Well, we disagree about what 'fair' means. Having it exclusively available to people able to pay 150$ to get zen, or to grind that large quantity out, and completely unavailable to anyone else isn't fair to me. It's one of the premises I listed in the OP.
Also please bear in mind, the ship is available at a fixed price, because the promo mechanic means that people can trade them with each other, something that isn't possible with c-store ships. People who are capable of making benefit/cost analyses can recognize this quite easily.
But, in addition to this fixed price, there is another means to get one. You can get one by chance, and everyone can get a chance, not just that small group willing or able to pay or grind the large sum mentioned before.
Sale over the exchange is far from a fixed price, as exchange flippers can surely testify to. Since Cryptic does not maintain a monopoly over the cost of acquisition on the exchange, the price there will be highly variable. Assuming even the bare minimum of 750m EC per ship, this means that at exchange sales of 10mil per promo pack, a player would have to buy over 15 4-packs, with a cost of over 15000 zen. Granted these numbers are placeholders, but I think it illustrates my point without making wild assertions: The fact that they can be traded is of little consequence because it is still prohibitively expensive in that case. In fact, given the rarity and desirability of the pack, it will likely have an inflated price, incurring brutal costs than if they were simply sold via the C-Store.
The alternate means to acquire a pack is even more dreary. Even if players get a chance to receive it, the players have to expend resources for each chance they get. However, because of the prohibitively low chance, players who won't spend resources an order of magnitude or two above that needed for a single pack are highly disadvantaged. Even if such a player were to acquire the pack, they would be the exception rather than the rule, which may be fair from a statistical standpoint but not an economic one. In all cases, if they don't acquire the ship, then they will have a net loss, which is more undesirable than doing nothing at all and quite unfair compared to the C-Store if all the player wanted was to acquire the ship. At this point, I would even suggest that buying keys now out of sale and using them on the infinity box would provide better outcomes (not a good idea, but still better).
In any MMO, people who put in more time and effort have an advantage over people who don't. It's part of what an MMO is, a progress-based game.
I would object that you really have a problem with the first premise, not the second one. You seem to disagree that its good if there are rare and desirable things.
For things to be rare and desirable, it must be true that people want them, but also that not everyone will get one. This is what you're objecting to in the second part of your post.
As for the exchange and whether it ever represents a fixed price, it does. Its not at all uncommon for the market to settle on a price for an item. Moreover, if you can find an item for sale on the exchange, it displays the price for it. Clicking buy buys the item at the price.
Rarity by high fixed price is a real thing, so it is in fact possible to disagree with the second premise without discounting the first. Additionally, with rarity comes market instability. See the various other rare items in the game for more information.
Most of the other rare items have very stable markets. Annoraxes, sheshars, bug ships, bulwarks.
Anyway I had thought I'd been clear saying that you can either make a ship rare by making it expensive in the c-store - I'm almost certain I provided some figures about it in the OP - or you could make it rare by having it be a rare drop from an RNG.
Because I think high c-store prices aren't fair to people who for whatever reason cant spend that much real money, I think the RNG is better.
Also, I think the company will make more revenue from the RNG approach than they would if they put it up for 15,000 zen.
It's all right there in the OP I dont see how you missed it?
They're generally not very stable. The exchange has a rather low supply of those with a low demand due to their costliness. Because of this, hoarding and buying have significant effects on the market. Also, you could just look at the exchange.
As for whether it's fair to people who can't pay, it really isn't. Take again my example of 700m ship packs and 10m promo packs. For 7 promo packs, 1/10th the value of the ship, the chances of a player acquiring the ship are 0.99^7=0.93, which is 30% below the expected value. With even 70 promo packs, the chances of a player acquiring the ship are 0.99^70=0.5, which is far below the expected value of 1. Even if promo packs are less unfair to those who have less resources, it is still significantly unfair to players who use chance boxes.
Despite you feeling high C-Store prices are unfair to people who can't pay, it's a common real-life occurrence to deny goods and services to those people. In this case, the denials are made by RNG rather than by outright refusal, but the boxes are still skewed unfairly towards denial, as stated above. Additionally, 13k zen packs are all too common now in STO, and clearly demand is much higher for C-Store T6 TOS ships, so it's very possible Cryptic could have turned a greater profit off putting it up in the C-Store.
Well, we disagree about what 'fair' means. Having it exclusively available to people able to pay 150$ to get zen, or to grind that large quantity out, and completely unavailable to anyone else isn't fair to me. It's one of the premises I listed in the OP.
Also please bear in mind, the ship is available at a fixed price, because the promo mechanic means that people can trade them with each other, something that isn't possible with c-store ships. People who are capable of making benefit/cost analyses can recognize this quite easily.
But, in addition to this fixed price, there is another means to get one. You can get one by chance, and everyone can get a chance, not just that small group willing or able to pay or grind the large sum mentioned before.
Look, both methods - high price or randomness - are in their own ways "fair". But in a lot of cases, it's not the "actual" fairness that's at issue, it's the perception of such.
To go back to an ancient example, prototech drops from STFs. Prime demonstration of "Druk Fairness", the "everyone has the same chance" method. However, when you compared someone who needed say 1-3 tries to someone who still hasn't "gotten lucky" after 200 tries, the perception is that the system is inherently "unfair" and biased by a batch of code that has not encountered the proper set of conditions to generate a value in the appropriate range.
Because, it's at least somewhat well known, that all RNGs on computers to this point aren't truly random, they just do a real real good job of simulating randomness out of a specific set of real world conditions, typically "seeded" by the system clock which is tracking picoseconds... (or other somesuch "seed"...)
And last I checked, the exchange is not a "fixed price" - since it's "player driven", one pays what other players that day wishes, and are at the whims of "Exchange PvPers", "Ferengi marker-uppers", who "interfere" with "legitimate sellers". That is, if the market even elects to value the ship(s) at a point under the exchange cap...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
your premise falls short when you realize a few things.
1) Rarity is only gated by hitting the drop chance number, There is no actual limit to how many of these Connies could be pulled during the event. Realisitically that will make the ship rare but nothing stops someone from dropping ungodly amounts of money and cracking up thousands of t6 Connies, its just a matter of enough money being pumped into the event to increase the amount of Connies we see flying much like the current Kelvin Connie vs T'larus or Dx4s.
2) Everyone does have a chance to get one, you are correct on the face of it but still I won't say chances of getting one are as equal. You could crack one first pack I could go through hundreds and never see it that's some BS and why the C-store is far better.
3) The company does earn money.. short term, but once this very limited event is over what of it than? Guaranteed long run they could make more money dropping it in the C-store
4) Swarms of Connies breaking immersion with TOS ships. We can already do this with the Persaus, Gemini, and Ranger. Infact if the temporal mechanics where better this very well might of happened. You say, but do we see swarms of them? No but again nothing is stopping it other than people not wanting to fly the ships. I see a healthy amount of Rangers and it hasnt ruined the game more than all the other random ships we see flying around. Or Klingons and Feddies and Roms teaming up, So i don't really see the issue
I myself dont want a T6 Connie, but I from the standpoint of someone that's wanted a Rom Carrier for a long time understand the frustrations of players that do in seeing it slapped in a random pack vs put in the C-store.. Thankfully the ship I want will continue to be around vs the Connie after the promotion (though it could see repeat promotions)
Comments
What gave you that impression?
Sure, I can even see their business angle, and it makes sense financially for the company, but ffs, at some point give the players a break. The model might have been reworked, but it was already in the game. There was no justification for gamblebox'ing it, other then pure greed.
And don't try and feed me the "Let's keep this ship uncommon BS". That ship is THE symbol of Trek, and if any ship should be EVERYWHERE in the game its this one.
And it would have sold like wildfire in the C-Store, generating plenty of profit for the company (for the little amount of work they had to do on it), but I guess they were too greedy to even consider that. Or maybe they've done it out of spite, for every End Game Connie thread ever created. I dunno, but either way its a disgrace or the greatest God troll of all time.
Besides, what happened to faction ships being available in the C-Store ? Honestly, at this point, they may as well close up the c-store ship page, and shove all of them in gamble boxes if their going to operate in this manner.
This is a prime example of unfettered capitalism.
And btw, I'm not even interested in this ship for personal use.
I'd probably buy the TLC (heh) if it was a C-Store purchase. Since it's not, and the RNG typically does not favor most players who do not do something over and over again, it's a bad purchase.
Buy the R&D packs if you really need an R&D pack. You might get lucky. But rolling the dice against house odds? Unwise.
I know right? Makes more sense to wait for a whole bunch of people to buy them (which we all know they will) and buy either the promo packs themselves or the ships themselves off of the exchange after accumulating and saving up in game resources.
sorry my buddy but they are already selling t6 ships in the cstore that you can put a TOS skin on, so they dont seem to agree with your brilliant logic.
You lost me on that one.
I have no problem with Cryptic making money. Lord knows I'm easily in 3-4k since I join the first few weeks after it was released. I rolled for the jjprise and was happy to do so, also sprung lobi for the Vengeance which is the first time I've used lobi for a ship instead of buying it outright.
But this was poorly done and your defense isn't convincing. The TOS ships should have been released as a zen pack. I fume over minor things but almost never fume over packaging.
This time I'm fuming over packaging.
Which means you've missed something important with your assertion.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
But casinos are in no danger from the majority of the world ever really grasping that fact.
Sale over the exchange is far from a fixed price, as exchange flippers can surely testify to. Since Cryptic does not maintain a monopoly over the cost of acquisition on the exchange, the price there will be highly variable. Assuming even the bare minimum of 750m EC per ship, this means that at exchange sales of 10mil per promo pack, a player would have to buy over 15 4-packs, with a cost of over 15000 zen. Granted these numbers are placeholders, but I think it illustrates my point without making wild assertions: The fact that they can be traded is of little consequence because it is still prohibitively expensive in that case. In fact, given the rarity and desirability of the pack, it will likely have an inflated price, incurring brutal costs than if they were simply sold via the C-Store.
The alternate means to acquire a pack is even more dreary. Even if players get a chance to receive it, the players have to expend resources for each chance they get. However, because of the prohibitively low chance, players who won't spend resources an order of magnitude or two above that needed for a single pack are highly disadvantaged. Even if such a player were to acquire the pack, they would be the exception rather than the rule, which may be fair from a statistical standpoint but not an economic one. In all cases, if they don't acquire the ship, then they will have a net loss, which is more undesirable than doing nothing at all and quite unfair compared to the C-Store if all the player wanted was to acquire the ship. At this point, I would even suggest that buying keys now out of sale and using them on the infinity box would provide better outcomes (not a good idea, but still better).
Rarity by high fixed price is a real thing, so it is in fact possible to disagree with the second premise without discounting the first. Additionally, with rarity comes market instability. See the various other rare items in the game for more information.
This is one of the most well written posts I've ever read on these forums.
Hab SoSlI' Quch!
They're generally not very stable. The exchange has a rather low supply of those with a low demand due to their costliness. Because of this, hoarding and buying have significant effects on the market. Also, you could just look at the exchange.
As for whether it's fair to people who can't pay, it really isn't. Take again my example of 700m ship packs and 10m promo packs. For 7 promo packs, 1/10th the value of the ship, the chances of a player acquiring the ship are 0.99^7=0.93, which is 30% below the expected value. With even 70 promo packs, the chances of a player acquiring the ship are 0.99^70=0.5, which is far below the expected value of 1. Even if promo packs are less unfair to those who have less resources, it is still significantly unfair to players who use chance boxes.
Despite you feeling high C-Store prices are unfair to people who can't pay, it's a common real-life occurrence to deny goods and services to those people. In this case, the denials are made by RNG rather than by outright refusal, but the boxes are still skewed unfairly towards denial, as stated above. Additionally, 13k zen packs are all too common now in STO, and clearly demand is much higher for C-Store T6 TOS ships, so it's very possible Cryptic could have turned a greater profit off putting it up in the C-Store.
Look, both methods - high price or randomness - are in their own ways "fair". But in a lot of cases, it's not the "actual" fairness that's at issue, it's the perception of such.
To go back to an ancient example, prototech drops from STFs. Prime demonstration of "Druk Fairness", the "everyone has the same chance" method. However, when you compared someone who needed say 1-3 tries to someone who still hasn't "gotten lucky" after 200 tries, the perception is that the system is inherently "unfair" and biased by a batch of code that has not encountered the proper set of conditions to generate a value in the appropriate range.
Because, it's at least somewhat well known, that all RNGs on computers to this point aren't truly random, they just do a real real good job of simulating randomness out of a specific set of real world conditions, typically "seeded" by the system clock which is tracking picoseconds... (or other somesuch "seed"...)
And last I checked, the exchange is not a "fixed price" - since it's "player driven", one pays what other players that day wishes, and are at the whims of "Exchange PvPers", "Ferengi marker-uppers", who "interfere" with "legitimate sellers". That is, if the market even elects to value the ship(s) at a point under the exchange cap...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
1) Rarity is only gated by hitting the drop chance number, There is no actual limit to how many of these Connies could be pulled during the event. Realisitically that will make the ship rare but nothing stops someone from dropping ungodly amounts of money and cracking up thousands of t6 Connies, its just a matter of enough money being pumped into the event to increase the amount of Connies we see flying much like the current Kelvin Connie vs T'larus or Dx4s.
2) Everyone does have a chance to get one, you are correct on the face of it but still I won't say chances of getting one are as equal. You could crack one first pack I could go through hundreds and never see it that's some BS and why the C-store is far better.
3) The company does earn money.. short term, but once this very limited event is over what of it than? Guaranteed long run they could make more money dropping it in the C-store
4) Swarms of Connies breaking immersion with TOS ships. We can already do this with the Persaus, Gemini, and Ranger. Infact if the temporal mechanics where better this very well might of happened. You say, but do we see swarms of them? No but again nothing is stopping it other than people not wanting to fly the ships. I see a healthy amount of Rangers and it hasnt ruined the game more than all the other random ships we see flying around. Or Klingons and Feddies and Roms teaming up, So i don't really see the issue
I myself dont want a T6 Connie, but I from the standpoint of someone that's wanted a Rom Carrier for a long time understand the frustrations of players that do in seeing it slapped in a random pack vs put in the C-store.. Thankfully the ship I want will continue to be around vs the Connie after the promotion (though it could see repeat promotions)