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Borticus wants to reduce EC inflation.
pwstolemyname
Member Posts: 1,417 Arc User
So Bort has been tweeting:
https://twitter.com/BorticusCryptic/status/1129440815585976320
Brainstorm with me! If we wanted to reduce EC inflation in STO, the game needs sinks for that currency which are Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible. What ideas do you have that might meet all 3 of those?
I don't tweet, so I thought I would respond hear, and give others the opportunity to chip in too.
Right now the game has five currency types:
Four of these currencies can be used to acquire 'end game' equipment in a manner which leads to the consumption of the currency. Energy Credits are different, in that when we use them to obtain 'end game' equipment we trade them to another player, so the energy credits traded persist and we get inflation.
To address this inflation we could just have another tax in the form of a rep/fleet project bar to fill up. But no one likes tax, and with the continue event cycle causing us to play STO like a job instead of a game already, I don't think it will have a positive impact on the playbase. It also wont be as effective as it was in the past, given that it must now also counter the influx of extra EC we are all making through personal endeavors.
We could also have an NPC sell us something for a lot of EC that we will all want.
If its a consumable of some kind then it could continue to do its job of countering inflation into the future which is grate. BUT a consumable brings a couple of problems. If its a consumable that doesn't have a large effect, then we won't buy it and it wont work. If it has a large effect then it will contribute to power creep(unless its cosmetic, like a holo emitter). On the other hand if its a consumable that is required for some reason, such as making imposible content possible, then people will either not run said content, or feel that its just another tax.
If its a non consumable then it has to be able to compete with the 'end game' gear we already have access to from the other currencies, and won't continue to act as a sink perpetually as a consumable would. However I think people would probably react a lot more positively to it.
Personally I would like to see something that encourages the flow of EC from old timers like myself, to newbies. I don't just want my EC to be worth more. I want a reason to trade it to new players who need more. So my suggestion would be to add something to the loot table, that drops rarly, and can be used along with EC to obtain something else.
Newbies spend more time actively playing the game then I do these days. Its still new and fresh for them, so they don't just log in to do dailies. Spending more time playing, means they have more time to get drops then I do. So if i want some new shiny thing I might go to the exchange and buy the drop from them. Then turn it into whatever the shiny thing I want is, at the NPC.
The idea is that with a two step system (trade EC on exchange, then spend EC and Drop at NPC) we both remove excess EC from the economy, and encourage the movement of EC within the economy, which is also important.
The one downside to the drop system is that although I don't play as much, I can get the same number of loot drops a newbie might get in an hour by spending ten minutes in the right place putting out massive DPS. So to make this work and stop me doing that there would need to be some sort of per player(player not character. Oldies like me have many many character slots) drop limit... one per hours max or something like that.
https://twitter.com/BorticusCryptic/status/1129440815585976320
Brainstorm with me! If we wanted to reduce EC inflation in STO, the game needs sinks for that currency which are Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible. What ideas do you have that might meet all 3 of those?
I don't tweet, so I thought I would respond hear, and give others the opportunity to chip in too.
Right now the game has five currency types:
- Dilithium: Rewards time spent playing non-specific content, and is caped.
- Energy Credits: Rewards time spent playing non-specific content, and are not caped.
- Zen: Rewards contributing to the maintenance and development of the game.
- Marks: Reward time spent playing specific content, and are not caped.
- Lobi: Rewards repeated failure and frustration.
Four of these currencies can be used to acquire 'end game' equipment in a manner which leads to the consumption of the currency. Energy Credits are different, in that when we use them to obtain 'end game' equipment we trade them to another player, so the energy credits traded persist and we get inflation.
To address this inflation we could just have another tax in the form of a rep/fleet project bar to fill up. But no one likes tax, and with the continue event cycle causing us to play STO like a job instead of a game already, I don't think it will have a positive impact on the playbase. It also wont be as effective as it was in the past, given that it must now also counter the influx of extra EC we are all making through personal endeavors.
We could also have an NPC sell us something for a lot of EC that we will all want.
If its a consumable of some kind then it could continue to do its job of countering inflation into the future which is grate. BUT a consumable brings a couple of problems. If its a consumable that doesn't have a large effect, then we won't buy it and it wont work. If it has a large effect then it will contribute to power creep(unless its cosmetic, like a holo emitter). On the other hand if its a consumable that is required for some reason, such as making imposible content possible, then people will either not run said content, or feel that its just another tax.
If its a non consumable then it has to be able to compete with the 'end game' gear we already have access to from the other currencies, and won't continue to act as a sink perpetually as a consumable would. However I think people would probably react a lot more positively to it.
Personally I would like to see something that encourages the flow of EC from old timers like myself, to newbies. I don't just want my EC to be worth more. I want a reason to trade it to new players who need more. So my suggestion would be to add something to the loot table, that drops rarly, and can be used along with EC to obtain something else.
Newbies spend more time actively playing the game then I do these days. Its still new and fresh for them, so they don't just log in to do dailies. Spending more time playing, means they have more time to get drops then I do. So if i want some new shiny thing I might go to the exchange and buy the drop from them. Then turn it into whatever the shiny thing I want is, at the NPC.
The idea is that with a two step system (trade EC on exchange, then spend EC and Drop at NPC) we both remove excess EC from the economy, and encourage the movement of EC within the economy, which is also important.
The one downside to the drop system is that although I don't play as much, I can get the same number of loot drops a newbie might get in an hour by spending ten minutes in the right place putting out massive DPS. So to make this work and stop me doing that there would need to be some sort of per player(player not character. Oldies like me have many many character slots) drop limit... one per hours max or something like that.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
fleet ships
lobi items
we have too few ultra and gold doffs !
ec to lobi , to fm , to dill
ship mastery leveling boosters for ec
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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heheh, when this game launched, those regular ships in the shipyard like the Assault Cruiser, Negh'Var used to cost EC. Negh'Var used to cost 30k EC or something like that.
Here's an idea. Offer some services to cost EC. Going to the tailor? Pay the barber or seamstress. Want more outfit options? Spend EC to unlock those for your character. Can be a new reason for dumb restrictions(such as Orion females not being able to use New Styled Elegant hair) to be lifted if you want to spend the EC. Make the ability to kitbash reputation or racial outfit parts unlockable for X amount of EC).
lobi items is not going to happen because lock boxes keep the lights on.
For ec > lobi you can buy and use keys: 4.x million ec => 4-5 lobi and some lock box loot.
Ship mastery leveling boosters for ec is a great idea, especially since it now takes a huge number of queue runs for even one ship. It also destroys the ec and doesn't cannibalize from any existing dil, marks, zen or lobi sinks.
Ship mastery will also appeal to the whales, so they will keep buying zen to open lock boxes to get ships to sell the rest of us to get ec to finally get ship mastery boosters.
That's part of the problem why you're space poor.
"But then people wont buy as many keys because they wont need ships for multiple characters"
I would ESTIMATE that less than 10% of players would even think about spending that much for alts. Spending that much on an alt is madness to me.
That <10% are the whales who buy multiple copies of 1.x billion EC ships, and Cryptic needs them to keep doing that, so nope not going to happen.
You can do that now with lock box keys, plus you get the lock box contents.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Of course there was going to be a problem with inflation. Not helped much by the focus on dumping potentially desirable ships and stuff into gambleboxes with poor to negligible drop rates.
One easy(ish) method to ease things would be to shift cosmetics over to ec from the dil & lobi stores. Certainly the dil store ones which are vastly overpriced anyway.
Increasing the drop rate of the high end gamblebox items might also help but will never happen as so much stock is put on the ships=content single avenue of making money for them to want to risk reducing that in any way.
You already lowered the EC sale value for items.
Foundry is gone, so that (previously reward curtailed) avenue is closed.
No EC sinks in Fleets just for the sake of sucking up EC as we know how that worked out with the Colony Holding and Dilitium.
No MACO/TNG exorbitant style EC costs for clothing.
There are way too many pendulum sledgehammers as it is.
A Dilitium Bonus Weekend immediately followed by a Phoenix Event does not bode well for planning ahead.
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.'
well thats only marginally helpful... i buy keys like 10 at a time every other month or so, 45-50 mil every other month would not really solve my problem. A good t6 ship from the pack could get me 300-400 mil and while i can at times got through 100 keys and only get junk and 1 t5 ship(which sell for next to nothing) i can also get a t6 in like 15 boxes. It's rng but thats how i've sustained myself for some time. Been a bit dry lately though so i'm in need of alternate income. I put an epic covariant xv shield capx2 plus the epic cap, and dis and amp(this i assume is the deal breaker) i believe up at 10 mil less than the other epic xv covariants... and have had to repost it 4 times now, just as an example.
.
As someone also mentioned salvage, how about it cost salvage and Dilithium as well, but make it reasonable. Maybe a couple thousand (1k,2k?) salvage, and a 50k Dilithium per T5, and like 75k Dil for T6? Obviously I don’t know how much of a sink this would be, but it’s something different?
How about a slot machine on ds9 or drozana, the big reward is...
My character Tsin'xing
So... turn an MMO into a mobile game where we only have limited energy per day to do ANYTHING... and if you can't keep generating enough ECs you can't even play at all. OH... and since a fresh player starts with 0 ECs... can't do SQUAT.
Yea... good way to kill the game if you ask me.
How does making lockbox keys bind on pickup solve the problem of inflation? All it does is remove an option for people who can't afford to buy keys who otherwise can't.
What's needed is something worth buying with ECs via vendors.
Same with GPL. We need something worth spending that on too. Because I've built and rebuilt the Great Pyramids of Giza multiple times with my stash. I kinda wanna unload it but can't because there's nothing worth buying.
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Or, allow the purchase of dilithium using ec and allow the purchase of reputation marks with ec.
The other useless items I keep acquiring thousands of are common and uncommon R&D items. Every single thing you do rewards you for R&D. For those of us that don't do R&D projects every day, it's just needless accumulation of useless things.
Vendor ships used to have an EC cost. They swapped them to Dil instead.
Never was a fan of Dilthium as a currency. Woudn't the Fed and KDF go to war over planets that had Dilithum in TOS era? The 1701 didn't even carry any spare crystals. I never thought of Dil as abundant enough to be used as a currency.
A 5% fee on a billion is quite a bit.
I can't see any easy way to fix inflation. Some people are so space-rich, anything Cryptic does will not hurt them. While the normal and poor players will take the hit.
I wonder if Cryptic can determine what is the bigger issue: is new money being generated in-game or is the available money just accruing on a relatively few accounts?
My character Tsin'xing
Would have to be a pretty high amount to justify the ability. But might work.
They did... then recrystalization started coming into play, meaning crystals lasted longer. Then I think they started making Warp Cores more effecient, making them last longer... https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Dilithium
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colored text = mod mode