Time is also a very valuable resource to me. I’ve done the sell key for EC thing and the math really didn’t work out with ships upwards of 250 million. I put mostly everything I get out of the infinity box to use. Except for the kit and module spam.
If PWE made it time efficient to grind, they'd get less money. When you equate grinding zen via dil, you are producing <$1 an hour. You could go mow your neighbor's yard for money then buy Zen and easily come out ahead, for example. Depends on how much fun you get out of grinding Dil to balance that equation.
If you're grinding for zens and your grind is paying out less than 100 zen/hr, you should probably find a better grind.
Characterizing all grinds as paying out such low amounts is like characterizing all businesses as failing.
Last I looked at the Exchange (1Zen =283Dil), 100 Zen is 28.3K dil. You aren't making that going pew-pew in a few missions.
If you'd like to share your Dil fortune making strategy with us, I'd be happy to listen. Doing doffing & A.S.S. on 8 toons I make around 20K dil a day. Yes, I'm not going out of my way to find Dil; just taking the stuff that comes in front of me. So I'm making $0.70 a day!
(I'm gonna ignore the SFA and Dil Mine extra refining, cause I'm lazy.)
Anyway... the most Zen you can make a day is (8000*(# of toons)) / (exchange price)
So my max STOincome would be... (8000*8)/283 = $2.26 a day.
Unless you can convert unrefined Dil to Zen? Then having a billion unrefined Dil doesn't do you any good as far as STOincome is concerned. If you have 50 toons, you can make $14.13 a day. I'll leave it up to you how that works out to $/hr.
STO has the most generous F2P model in existence, fact.
After Warframe, opinion.
F2P isn't about being generous, though. A good F2P system encourages gameplay for those players who want to play and payment by those who want to skip ahead. The lockbox system does that, the big 3 events do that (through lobi), but the normal content fails, because there is little reason to play at all beyond seeing the story once.
I'd say STO used to have the best F2P system, but nowadays the incentives have dried up.
You can only enjoy a story once? How sad and empty your life must be. On the other hand, at least you save a bundle on DVDs - no need to buy a movie if you're never going to watch it again.
You can only enjoy a story once? How sad and empty your life must be. On the other hand, at least you save a bundle on DVDs - no need to buy a movie if you're never going to watch it again.
Kind of how I felt. I was thinking that I enjoy replaying the content with a different captain with different views and headcanoning their reactions.
There's so much fun to be had on this F2P game besides content anyway. And I enjoy it every time I can get in.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
I have always seen them as a necessary evil to keep the game financed. Also given that I've been lifetime since beta I have paid for a long time to actually play the game. Yes there have been things I've wanted in them which I have spent some zen on keys for.
But nothing I cant live without. I've always looked at them as need vs greed. There's never been anything I've really NEEDED in a lockbox to play and enjoy the game but that's just me, if you want to play as a cardassian or other race that has ships only obtainable from lockboxes then that's your NEED.
I severely doubt this game would be here if not for lockboxes.
In fact, Atari's experience was even less. Infogrames, a French publisher of text adventures for MS-DOS systems, purchased the Atari name when the video-game company was going under. Someone in their corporate offices thought that this, coupled with purchase of publication rights from a few actual modern game studios, gave them the expertise needed to operate in the then-current videogame environment. They were, clearly, sadly mistaken.
Champions Online tried the paywall thing for a while, after going F2P - the side Adventures were available for free to subscribers, or could be purchased by free players. It was a massive failure; people like to team up for those, in fact some are almost impossible to complete solo, and it was extremely frustrating trying to get together a group who all had the content unlocked and would all be online at the same time. Eventually those were all made free as well; as a result, they're much, much more popular than they were. (I often run a new character in CO through at least the first chapter of "Whiteout", in order to get the free temporary UNTIL Soldier sidekick.)
I think Atari's or Infograme's experience might have been less of an issue than their overall financial situation. They needed STO to be a cash cow from release to pay off their own debts, basically, they couldn't reinvest their money to grow the game. When they sold Cryptic, they solved their own financial problems, but also Cryptic's - suddenly they had an owner that was willing to invest into their game so it could grow and become profitable in the long run.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
the beauty is, that you are not required as a player to participate...yet you are allowed to reap the fruits whenever you want to. It leaves choices to players on what they want to get and what not, even though on the suface this is a random gamble. Only if you look at the details you find out that it isn't and you are allowed to only get what you want and most importantly they have nothing you NEED to play the game.
Paying a subscription requires a rather large dedicated fanbase to work...most games, even if they are good will never have that, this includes STO.
So yes, I do support lockboxes because they are a perfect way to keep the game going without forcing a "tax" on players...I can decide when and what I spend on the game. Not many other possible ways to finance a game that gives players this kind of freedom.
Comments
Last I looked at the Exchange (1Zen =283Dil), 100 Zen is 28.3K dil. You aren't making that going pew-pew in a few missions.
If you'd like to share your Dil fortune making strategy with us, I'd be happy to listen. Doing doffing & A.S.S. on 8 toons I make around 20K dil a day. Yes, I'm not going out of my way to find Dil; just taking the stuff that comes in front of me. So I'm making $0.70 a day!
(I'm gonna ignore the SFA and Dil Mine extra refining, cause I'm lazy.)
Anyway... the most Zen you can make a day is (8000*(# of toons)) / (exchange price)
So my max STOincome would be... (8000*8)/283 = $2.26 a day.
Unless you can convert unrefined Dil to Zen? Then having a billion unrefined Dil doesn't do you any good as far as STOincome is concerned. If you have 50 toons, you can make $14.13 a day. I'll leave it up to you how that works out to $/hr.
I'd say STO used to have the best F2P system, but nowadays the incentives have dried up.
Kind of how I felt. I was thinking that I enjoy replaying the content with a different captain with different views and headcanoning their reactions.
There's so much fun to be had on this F2P game besides content anyway. And I enjoy it every time I can get in.
But nothing I cant live without. I've always looked at them as need vs greed. There's never been anything I've really NEEDED in a lockbox to play and enjoy the game but that's just me, if you want to play as a cardassian or other race that has ships only obtainable from lockboxes then that's your NEED.
I severely doubt this game would be here if not for lockboxes.
I think Atari's or Infograme's experience might have been less of an issue than their overall financial situation. They needed STO to be a cash cow from release to pay off their own debts, basically, they couldn't reinvest their money to grow the game. When they sold Cryptic, they solved their own financial problems, but also Cryptic's - suddenly they had an owner that was willing to invest into their game so it could grow and become profitable in the long run.
the beauty is, that you are not required as a player to participate...yet you are allowed to reap the fruits whenever you want to. It leaves choices to players on what they want to get and what not, even though on the suface this is a random gamble. Only if you look at the details you find out that it isn't and you are allowed to only get what you want and most importantly they have nothing you NEED to play the game.
Paying a subscription requires a rather large dedicated fanbase to work...most games, even if they are good will never have that, this includes STO.
So yes, I do support lockboxes because they are a perfect way to keep the game going without forcing a "tax" on players...I can decide when and what I spend on the game. Not many other possible ways to finance a game that gives players this kind of freedom.