Oddly enough I agree with your concept. There actually is too much EC floating around the STO economy.
However, I cannot agree with effectively stealing 90% of players' wealth. This would create much discord among players who would feel they were robbed by the developers of their hard-earned currency.
There needs to be a way to remove EC from the economy without arbitrarily taking it away.
Read the post again maybe?
Decimation would not change anyone's wealth. 1m ec would become 100k, an item worth 1m would become worth 100k. An item that vendored for 30k would vendor for 3k.
All the ec in the game would need to be decimated at the same time, and all ec rewards also decimated.
Consider it another way. If all the ec was divided by 1,000, and then the letters "ec" changed to "kec" for "thousand ec," no one would gain or lose any wealth would they?
100,000 ec (100k ec) would be changed to 100 kec.
I read it. No need to for the condescending tone. I understand that the actual value of EC would remain (assuming that in-game prices/fees were also reduced accordingly). I was , however, referring to the perception that players would no doubt have of being robbed by the developers.
The massive amount of currency floating around isn't the real problem, it's merely a symptom of the real issue, which is there is not enough things to spend money on (aside from the Exchange, which would not remove EC from the economy only redistribute it to other players). Sadly this issue has been around for quite a while, and has only gotten worse with Admirality and other means of aquiring EC with little effort.
Education is the silver bullet. Once people have it explained to them anyone can understand it.
Be that as it may, think about it in terms of the economy of whatever country you currently live in.
If the federal government came in and said "We're going to cut the prices of all goods and services to 10% of their current value," everyone would cheer.
Follow that up with "We're also going to cut everyone's wealth, paychecks, and all sources of savings, investments, and income to 10% of their current value," and you'd have a nationwide riot on your hands.
It does not matter that the system would not change at all and that everything would be the same relative price. In fact, economists would laugh at it, as it's just a lot of work to keep us at the same relative level.
It does precisely jack all to alleviate the issue, and in fact, it creates more issues, as there is precisely nothing stopping a seller from raising the prices to higher than before.
In the end, the only net gain you get is more highly inflated prices for objects compared to their value.
Its weird that the first half of this post seems to more or less understand the issue, then the last two lines contradict the rest and go off the rails.
As to why the second two lines are wrong, read back over the stuff you wrote above it.
Don't have time to pore over and try to guess what you're talking about. Explain.
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
IMHO I also believed currency is NOT one of the "biggest" problems in STO. In scale of 1/100 perhaps probably 1000. When we have bugs that have not been fixed since the game launched, PvP that is virtually obsolete, PvE queues that are deader than the Sahara desert...currency fixing seems a bit lame.
I have been doing STO since launch and I noticed that people will always get that new "shinie" no matter what...even if they spend 1 or 2bil. I dont feel jealous about it and ask nobody to change the currency for things that seem "highly" priced. Eventually, like anything else it works itself out. You can always find a great deal or at least be creative how to get that first billion. Is not as hard as it looks these days.
Cutting off a decimal from the playerbase bank currency is probably as bad idea as Communism was 100yrs ago. Not a solution and really is not needed for a game of this caliber. Why waste unnecessary resources when there is so much more to "FIX" in this game. I will leave it at that and not looking for a smart come back from anyone...just leaving this there to bring some sanity to this posting.
[...] Players just want to get fairly rewarded for the keys they buy [...]
Unless I'm missing something, this seems to me like a reason that the idea as put forth in the OP might not work as well as you envision. Every key, fleet module, ship upgrade, lobi item, and even zen ultimately gets into the game through real money. If the people buying the keys/c-store items decide that they want to get at least 'X' value back out of something they spent real money to buy, then it might be that we never see keys posted much below 750k or 1 million. So, overnight, the amount of money on hand to everybody goes down to 10% of what it was, but costs go down to 15-20% of what they were, and everybody's relative buying power goes down significantly.
Since the cap things can be posted for on the exchange won't go down proportionally, what's to stop every Annorax from being posted for ~200m under the new scheme, a proportionally higher amount? The plan, as laid out, contains no constraint on how much can be asked for things. Sure, it creates a negative pressure on prices, but it has no guarantee that prices will track to the new relative value of EC. Reducing all EC values to 1/10 would most benefit people at or near the cap on multiple characters who carefully have to manage what's for sale lest they lose money...it won't benefit the 'space middle-class' any.
Phoenix box equivalent, with perhaps some long-sought item like a catalyst that allows you to fix mods on crafted stuff, seems like the best way to draw excess off the market quickly. Items that are consumable, preferably consumed in large quantities, and which are desirable and accessible to everybody.
Maybe if we concentrated our game lives on exploring or blowing stuff up instead of worrying on where to store Smaug's Gold and Treasure, that would change these QoL issues.
Don't have time to pore over and try to guess what you're talking about. Explain.
The first part seems to grasp what redenomination/decimation of the currency across the board does. There is 1/10th as much money as before, uniformly and universally, so everything, including labor, is worth 1/10th what it was before. "A lot of work to keep us at the same relative level," in your words.
The last two lines then abandon this sort of thinking and stake their claim in the vast desert of ignorance. "more highly inflated prices" and "doesnt alleviate the issue it creates more issues."
I'm having trouble reconciling the two viewpoints. Its not often you see someone who gets it one second then doesnt get it the next.
It's not the "vast desert of ignorance," my friend. It's the simple notion that people who pay real money to play the game by buying Zen and subscriptions will find their investment in the game severely curtailed.
Yes, everyone is at the same, relative level, but the simple fact of the matter is that people would not be willing to take what they perceive as a hit on their investments. Think of it like the stock market. If the price of the stock drops a bit, sure people will buy it up in droves in order to raise the prices and make a profit. However, if the price continues to fall after the purchase, those investors will drop their investments, pull out financially, and let it fail. It's smarter to take a small-to-mid-sized hit than to hold onto something that is categorically worthless and take a bigger hit. If the price drops too far right off the bat, nobody is going to invest at all unless it has immediate benefit to them.
Because of this, the items you can buy with Zen and sell on the Exchange (keys, fleet modules, upgrades, etc) will not be sold as often on the Exchange, which will in turn increase the potential price point because of supply and demand. Because a lot of people WANT them and not many people are selling them, it's a seller's market, so the seller can charge whatever they want.
The price drop for vaunted items will be temporary at best, and the prices will go back up in no time.
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
EC spending event. Something like the ability to convert ec into marks dilithium maybe out right buy ships not the zen ships or lock box ships of course. or something similar to the pheonix prize pack but with ec supply the sink and watch ec disapear.
No, they get uber wealthy by charging 10x as much as something is worth.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
No, 30 Keys is about 3,000 Zen, the cost of a T6 ship. It is also, at 5 million EC per Key, 150 million EC.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Crazy random number guy didnt think his thing through all the way.
Because once again, PLAYER GREED on a PLAYER RUN ECONOMY. Cryptic/PWE has nothing to do with it. How many times must this be explained to you till you get it through your skull?
Players DO NOT CARE. As much as you may think they do, they do not and will continue to charge whatever they feel like. Eventually someone will pay it. So you can decimate the market till you're blue in the face. Till you control what people sell stuff at, this is pointless.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Not accepting anything, just coming up with the general facts, at current costs, as to how that 150 million was derived.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I must admit, since I stopped caring about this conversation (sometime last night I believe), I'm finding this discussion most amusing!
Especially since 'decimation' is a temporary fix, eventually vendor items will reach 1 EC and then further 'adjustments' will only inflate the values of vendor items.
The only real solution is to give players something to spend EC on, not the exchange (that only redistributes credits between players, not remove them from the economy).
Until that happens, you can decimate the economy or raise the credit cap however many times you want, it won't fix things for long...
Crazy random number guy didnt think his thing through all the way.
Because once again, PLAYER GREED on a PLAYER RUN ECONOMY. Cryptic/PWE has nothing to do with it. How many times must this be explained to you till you get it through your skull?
That's where you're wrong. Cryptic (or PWE) controls supply, not the players. They control the odds of getting something useful out of gambling boxes. The introduction of Phoenix prize packs gave them back control over the dilithium exchange as well. They can even increase or decrease the amount of EC flowing into the game by adjusting item prices AND rarity.
If the goal is to allow the folks at credit cap to continue to amass even more wealth and to have items selling on the exchange for up to ten times its current limit (seven and a half billion of current Ec...), then decimal shifting the money's fine. I think a number of players would be against both of those goals...
Given the chaos and confusion it would cause for very little benefit, you're better off asking for what you're getting - a ten-fold increase in the personal Ec cap and Exchange price cap.
To which I absolutely expect than answer from Cryptic to be "No... Possibly Hell No."
Comments
Don't have time to pore over and try to guess what you're talking about. Explain.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
I have been doing STO since launch and I noticed that people will always get that new "shinie" no matter what...even if they spend 1 or 2bil. I dont feel jealous about it and ask nobody to change the currency for things that seem "highly" priced. Eventually, like anything else it works itself out. You can always find a great deal or at least be creative how to get that first billion. Is not as hard as it looks these days.
Cutting off a decimal from the playerbase bank currency is probably as bad idea as Communism was 100yrs ago. Not a solution and really is not needed for a game of this caliber. Why waste unnecessary resources when there is so much more to "FIX" in this game. I will leave it at that and not looking for a smart come back from anyone...just leaving this there to bring some sanity to this posting.
Unless I'm missing something, this seems to me like a reason that the idea as put forth in the OP might not work as well as you envision. Every key, fleet module, ship upgrade, lobi item, and even zen ultimately gets into the game through real money. If the people buying the keys/c-store items decide that they want to get at least 'X' value back out of something they spent real money to buy, then it might be that we never see keys posted much below 750k or 1 million. So, overnight, the amount of money on hand to everybody goes down to 10% of what it was, but costs go down to 15-20% of what they were, and everybody's relative buying power goes down significantly.
Since the cap things can be posted for on the exchange won't go down proportionally, what's to stop every Annorax from being posted for ~200m under the new scheme, a proportionally higher amount? The plan, as laid out, contains no constraint on how much can be asked for things. Sure, it creates a negative pressure on prices, but it has no guarantee that prices will track to the new relative value of EC. Reducing all EC values to 1/10 would most benefit people at or near the cap on multiple characters who carefully have to manage what's for sale lest they lose money...it won't benefit the 'space middle-class' any.
Phoenix box equivalent, with perhaps some long-sought item like a catalyst that allows you to fix mods on crafted stuff, seems like the best way to draw excess off the market quickly. Items that are consumable, preferably consumed in large quantities, and which are desirable and accessible to everybody.
Only for you, perhaps
It's not the "vast desert of ignorance," my friend. It's the simple notion that people who pay real money to play the game by buying Zen and subscriptions will find their investment in the game severely curtailed.
Yes, everyone is at the same, relative level, but the simple fact of the matter is that people would not be willing to take what they perceive as a hit on their investments. Think of it like the stock market. If the price of the stock drops a bit, sure people will buy it up in droves in order to raise the prices and make a profit. However, if the price continues to fall after the purchase, those investors will drop their investments, pull out financially, and let it fail. It's smarter to take a small-to-mid-sized hit than to hold onto something that is categorically worthless and take a bigger hit. If the price drops too far right off the bat, nobody is going to invest at all unless it has immediate benefit to them.
Because of this, the items you can buy with Zen and sell on the Exchange (keys, fleet modules, upgrades, etc) will not be sold as often on the Exchange, which will in turn increase the potential price point because of supply and demand. Because a lot of people WANT them and not many people are selling them, it's a seller's market, so the seller can charge whatever they want.
The price drop for vaunted items will be temporary at best, and the prices will go back up in no time.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
True, every ship in the game is only worth a maximum of 150 million EC, which equates to the cost of a cstore ship in keys.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Because once again, PLAYER GREED on a PLAYER RUN ECONOMY. Cryptic/PWE has nothing to do with it. How many times must this be explained to you till you get it through your skull?
Players DO NOT CARE. As much as you may think they do, they do not and will continue to charge whatever they feel like. Eventually someone will pay it. So you can decimate the market till you're blue in the face. Till you control what people sell stuff at, this is pointless.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Especially since 'decimation' is a temporary fix, eventually vendor items will reach 1 EC and then further 'adjustments' will only inflate the values of vendor items.
The only real solution is to give players something to spend EC on, not the exchange (that only redistributes credits between players, not remove them from the economy).
Until that happens, you can decimate the economy or raise the credit cap however many times you want, it won't fix things for long...
Anywho, back to my snack.
Carry on, gentlemen.
That's where you're wrong. Cryptic (or PWE) controls supply, not the players. They control the odds of getting something useful out of gambling boxes. The introduction of Phoenix prize packs gave them back control over the dilithium exchange as well. They can even increase or decrease the amount of EC flowing into the game by adjusting item prices AND rarity.
Given the chaos and confusion it would cause for very little benefit, you're better off asking for what you're getting - a ten-fold increase in the personal Ec cap and Exchange price cap.
To which I absolutely expect than answer from Cryptic to be "No... Possibly Hell No."