You want to get rid of EC fast, make it the currency you can trade into Zen. It'll go. Have to make it a very high amount per Zen, the EC Exchange would have to work with numbers about 10000x what the Dilitium Exchange runs
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That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
No, it's not @seaofsorrows , because the EC didn't "sink", it was traded to another player. That EC is still in circulation, since the player from whom you bought your ship can turn around and use said EC on yet another purchase. Unless that EC is "destroyed" and removed entirely, it really doesn't count as a sink.
That’s not something I agree with as EC does not need to be destroyed to be removed from circulation. Trading with other players does at times remove vast amounts of EC from game circulation and I believe player trading does a better job of removing EC from circulation then the current in game EC sinks.
My ex Fleet mates alone have removed billions of EC from circulation by player trading. Player trading can be a massive EC sink, perhaps the biggest in game.
EDIT: Plus as a further point sometimes some of that player trading EC does get destroyed by the player. I have seen more then a few players destroy many millions of EC by player trading. Destroyed as in completely removed from the game and cannot come back.
you need to remove ec from the system when you give them to the system too, otherwise you just get more and more and more ec flying around.
and with the introduction of the endeavors and admirality, the amount of ec you could get from the game is increased by a good degree.
and after a new player leveld all his reputations, the only thing thats basically left to really remove ec from the game is to build up the fleet holdings, but thats not an infinite thing either. thats why a tax would be the best way for the future to have a sink. i mean you could start low with like 2% or so and if thats not enough increase it to a higher amount. close to all other mmos i know have such a fee to trades for exactly that reason to work as a sink
you could even argue from a roleplaying point of view that the house hosting the exchange want to "earn" something too
There are some really neat ideas posted on Twitter. I recommend anyone interested in on-topic answers rather than arguing about the meaning of the question, look them up at the source.
When a player quits the game and never comes back the EC that player got from player trading is effectively shredded / burnt. Its 100% completely removed from the game economy and cannot be used for anything else.
When a character is deleted all that EC from player trading is again shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
Lastly when people go over the EC cap with player trading the EC again is 100% shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
The above 3 with player trading cause vast amounts of EC to be removed from the game economy. EC that will never come back and renter the economy, EC that will never see the light of day again so can be counted as destroyed.
Hmm... well i may be late to counter this , but
1.) the devs don't really want players quitting just to remove EC from play. I don't think most players do either.
2.) I'd think a character that is to be deleted will have anything of value thats not character bound sent off to other alts, either through the account bank(EC and objects) or the mail. As a noob i may have deleted without doing this, but well i didn't exactly have tons of ec either.
3.)This one may have merit, i've never come close so i dont know.
Trading in general does not remove EC from play, just moves it around. Those circumstances you have mentioned aren't actually part of the trade cycle.
There are some really neat ideas posted on Twitter. I recommend anyone interested in on-topic answers rather than arguing about the meaning of the question, look them up at the source.
Yes when this first cropped up I noticed the twitter comments were much more constructive and on topic. Haven't checked since as I don't use Twitter. But it's probably reasonable safe to assume if the Developers read this thread at all, they stopped following it after the second page. It's been completely over run with posters trying to attach all kinds of agendas and gripes many of which seem born of ignorance and stupidity. Borticus didn't help matters by not clearly stating what the "problem" was that needed fixing.
There are some really neat ideas posted on Twitter. I recommend anyone interested in on-topic answers rather than arguing about the meaning of the question, look them up at the source.
The suggestions on Twitter were entirely superfluous and didn't fit any of the criteria. They were mostly just about selling something and didn't deal with the underlying problem...at all.
How do we know they don't deal with the underlying problem when we do not even know what the real underlying problem the devs are trying to solve is? Which is a big part of the problem of why this thread has been so messy as many of us don't see any problem to fix based on that question and so cannot find a solution.
I don't follow reddet, was there any further dev post that expanded the question?
What kind of things would people want to spend their EC on? A simple question. Is it that hard to understand? I don't think so.
I'd say the more likely explanation is that a lot of people on these forums just don't want there to exist anything they "have to" spend any resources or play time on and are intentionally derailing the thread as if not talking about stuff to buy would prevent Cryptic from adding any.
The suggestions on Twitter were entirely superfluous and didn't fit any of the criteria. They were mostly just about selling something and didn't deal with the underlying problem...at all.
Except the underlying "problem" was never explicitly identified, so you honestly can't say that. All you can offer is your opinion on what the "problem" is, and even then, that might not be an actual "problem."
How do we know they don't deal with the underlying problem when we do not even know what the real underlying problem the devs are trying to solve is? Which is a big part of the problem of why this thread has been so messy as many of us don't see any problem to fix based on that question and so cannot find a solution.
Exactly, but given Borticus' replies on Twitter one can infer a couple of things: 1) More EC is being generated than destroyed resulting in too much EC in the economy, 2) In his opinion, players are having to pay too much in EC for items off the Exchange (he specifically balks at players paying a billion EC for anything). So, while a new EC sink may help deal with the former, it is less likely to effect the latter.
Borticus incorrectly assumes that players haven't been paying billions in EC for items all along. They have, though, but in private deals and trading channels, because the Exchange cap previously prevented listing items at those prices. Upping the Exchange cap brought those trades more into the "light of day," but it didn't cause prices to inflate. Using the example of Lockbox ships, Borticus acknowledges that supply is a factor in Exchange pricing, but doesn't seem to give it enough credence. This is to be expected, of course, because the odds of getting a ship from a Lockbox indirectly helps fund the game.
There's a very simple mathematical formula to determine the base price of a Lockbox ship: (Exchange price of 1 key in EC) x (the average number of opened Lockboxes to get a ship, the odds) = starting price in EC for a Lockbox ship on the Exchange. There are player-controlled variables, of course, like desirability, rarity, etc., that can influence that price up or down, but one can reasonably expect and calculate these prices. Notice the multiplier in this formula relates to the odds programmed into opening the box, a variable controlled by Cryptic. Bring the odds down, and the price comes down, too. The base price in EC of a key can also be determined mathematically, since a key costs 125 Zen in the C-Store and there are Zen to Dilithium to EC and vice versa equations. End result: Do the math and you'll understand why Exchange prices are what they are. Reducing the amount of EC in-game won't bring Exchange prices down, though, because as I said, they've always been that high. It'll just mean fewer people will be able to afford said ships and further concentrate the "wealth" on those who already have it.
Again, I fall back to my original position: I don't see a problem that needs solving here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT among the space rich and DO NOT have billions of EC, but facts are facts: this is simple, undeniable math and not that difficult to understand why things work the way they work. Your acceptance of these facts, however, may vary.
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What kind of things would people want to spend their EC on? A simple question. Is it that hard to understand? I don't think so.
I'd say the more likely explanation is that a lot of people on these forums just don't want there to exist anything they "have to" spend any resources or play time on and are intentionally derailing the thread as if not talking about stuff to buy would prevent Cryptic from adding any.
That explanation doesn't seem very likely at all to me. Just because a bunch of people think there is no problem it doesn't mean they don't want to spend EC on things. No one is intentionally derailing in the hope to prevent Cryptic from adding EC sinks. That would just be silly.
We used to have that. There were all kinds of fees that got removed: Tailor fees, Starship Customization fees, Transwarp fees, etc. I wouldn't want to see those things return, though.
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The problem is that there are too many currencies, and everything I can think of that is "Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible" is either already available for one of those other currencies, or would be a nerf to an existing mechanic and therefore wouldn't fulfill the 'desirable' requirement.
Borticus incorrectly assumes that players haven't been paying billions in EC for items all along. They have, though, but in private deals and trading channels, because the Exchange cap previously prevented listing items at those prices. Upping the Exchange cap brought those trades more into the "light of day," but it didn't cause prices to inflate. Using the example of Lockbox ships, Borticus acknowledges that supply is a factor in Exchange pricing, but doesn't seem to give it enough credence. This is to be expected, of course, because the odds of getting a ship from a Lockbox indirectly helps fund the game.
Not true. Prices for promo box ships only went over the original 500 million exchange cap briefly in late 2015 before the cap was raised to 750 and stayed under that for another year. People paying billions for ships is a relatively recent development.
Borticus incorrectly assumes that players haven't been paying billions in EC for items all along. They have, though, but in private deals and trading channels, because the Exchange cap previously prevented listing items at those prices. Upping the Exchange cap brought those trades more into the "light of day," but it didn't cause prices to inflate. Using the example of Lockbox ships, Borticus acknowledges that supply is a factor in Exchange pricing, but doesn't seem to give it enough credence. This is to be expected, of course, because the odds of getting a ship from a Lockbox indirectly helps fund the game.
Not true. Prices for promo box ships only went over the original 500 million exchange cap briefly in late 2015 before the cap was raised to 750 and stayed under that for another year. People paying billions for ships is a relatively recent development.
I believe that keys were also cheaper then, which would fall in line with your figures.
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The suggestions on Twitter were entirely superfluous and didn't fit any of the criteria. They were mostly just about selling something and didn't deal with the underlying problem...at all.
Except the underlying "problem" was never explicitly identified, so you honestly can't say that. All you can offer is your opinion on what the "problem" is, and even then, that might not be an actual "problem."
How do we know they don't deal with the underlying problem when we do not even know what the real underlying problem the devs are trying to solve is? Which is a big part of the problem of why this thread has been so messy as many of us don't see any problem to fix based on that question and so cannot find a solution.
Exactly, but given Borticus' replies on Twitter one can infer a couple of things: 1) More EC is being generated than destroyed resulting in too much EC in the economy, 2) In his opinion, players are having to pay too much in EC for items off the Exchange (he specifically balks at players paying a billion EC for anything). So, while a new EC sink may help deal with the former, it is less likely to effect the latter.
Borticus incorrectly assumes that players haven't been paying billions in EC for items all along. They have, though, but in private deals and trading channels, because the Exchange cap previously prevented listing items at those prices. Upping the Exchange cap brought those trades more into the "light of day," but it didn't cause prices to inflate. Using the example of Lockbox ships, Borticus acknowledges that supply is a factor in Exchange pricing, but doesn't seem to give it enough credence. This is to be expected, of course, because the odds of getting a ship from a Lockbox indirectly helps fund the game.
There's a very simple mathematical formula to determine the base price of a Lockbox ship: (Exchange price of 1 key in EC) x (the average number of opened Lockboxes to get a ship, the odds) = starting price in EC for a Lockbox ship on the Exchange. There are player-controlled variables, of course, like desirability, rarity, etc., that can influence that price up or down, but one can reasonably expect and calculate these prices. Notice the multiplier in this formula relates to the odds programmed into opening the box, a variable controlled by Cryptic. Bring the odds down, and the price comes down, too. The base price in EC of a key can also be determined mathematically, since a key costs 125 Zen in the C-Store and there are Zen to Dilithium to EC and vice versa equations. End result: Do the math and you'll understand why Exchange prices are what they are. Reducing the amount of EC in-game won't bring Exchange prices down, though, because as I said, they've always been that high. It'll just mean fewer people will be able to afford said ships and further concentrate the "wealth" on those who already have it.
Again, I fall back to my original position: I don't see a problem that needs solving here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT among the space rich and DO NOT have billions of EC, but facts are facts: this is simple, undeniable math and not that difficult to understand why things work the way they work. Your acceptance of these facts, however, may vary.
I agree with you the billion EC range ships have little to do with in EC and inflation and they existed for years on the trade channels before the exchange had the cap raised. It’s pretty much down to low supply and high demand. No matter what EC sinks are added those ships are going to stay expensive if the drop rates are not changed. A good exmple to go with your math point which I fully agree with are the Undine and Voth ships which went from 100 millon+ to last time I looked sub 10 million and the change was caused by a change in drop rates.
On the whole though I thought they fixed exchange EC items prices when they added reengineering which caused EC item prices to plummet. The few expensive items left are purely down to supply/demand not EC inflation.
i played so many mmos where have sell fee but its not stop gold sellers selling ingame money. Fee makes prices cheaper but not if you spend 10 bucks for 50mil and you get your item anyway you need.
Fee makes prices cheaper but if there is fee you have to sell lowest price if you cant sell your item fast the next selling is now twice of fee cost. Basicly ppl have to sell her items fast with fee cheapest as possible. But these lockbox ships fall down in price if there is time limit like 24 hours for your sell you lose twice or more if nobody buy your ship the mehanic like this best item in game someday cost 50mil maybe but ppl lose money very fast. This basicly market killer but not stop gold sellers.
Every mmo have gold sellers if its super hard or not they are there anyway. Only this can stop that all items you get are account bound. Lockboxes give selectable list, items, ships everything from list you open. All is account bound no need exchange anymore.
Borticus incorrectly assumes that players haven't been paying billions in EC for items all along. They have, though, but in private deals and trading channels, because the Exchange cap previously prevented listing items at those prices. Upping the Exchange cap brought those trades more into the "light of day," but it didn't cause prices to inflate. Using the example of Lockbox ships, Borticus acknowledges that supply is a factor in Exchange pricing, but doesn't seem to give it enough credence. This is to be expected, of course, because the odds of getting a ship from a Lockbox indirectly helps fund the game.
Not true. Prices for promo box ships only went over the original 500 million exchange cap briefly in late 2015 before the cap was raised to 750 and stayed under that for another year. People paying billions for ships is a relatively recent development.
I believe that keys were also cheaper then, which would fall in line with your figures.
I don't have data for keys at that time period, but the median price for (T6) lockbox ships was around half to quarter of the price they are now, so I'd agree it's most likely keys were cheaper as well.
And I'm sure Borticus has better stastistics to work with than I do.
While it is true that one can get "lucky" and obtain a ship with 1 key, that is not what happens on average. Until you understand that it is the average that determines this variable in the equation, you're not likely to understand what most others already do about Exchange pricing. As I said, you're acceptance of the facts may vary.
The variables are not imaginary. Search the Exchange and find what the current going rate for a Key is. Last I checked it was, give or take, somewhere around 4M EC (NOTE: this does fluctuate). Although the official odds of getting a ship are unknown, through testing, the commonly accepted odds are about 200:1 (NOTE: this does not fluctuate), which means it takes, on average about 200 keys to produce a ship. 4M EC x 200 = 800M EC (NOTE: this is the starting asking price). Factor in "the new hotness" of some desirable Trait, or iconic status of the ship, and you could easily push the asking price to 1B EC or more. When keys were going for 2M EC on the Exchange, yes, ships cost half as much, because 2M EC x 200 = 400M EC. If you cannot math, I cannot help you.
The only thing players can do here is 1) refuse to buy keys at 4+ million EC, thereby forcing sellers to reduce their asking prices and bringing that variable down, 2) refusing to buy into the hype on a given ship, thereby forcing sellers to ask for little to no mark up. Neither of these is likely to happen, though, as players "just gotta have it now." Another way to potentially bring the market price down on ships is to flood the market, either by hoarders actually posting their wares in greater numbers, or by Cryptic lowering the odds. Neither of these is likely to happen either, as hoarders are not in the selling game to take a loss, by that same token neither is Cryptic.
Your idea about selling Lockbox keys for EC, even during a limited time event, is a non-starter as well. Yes, it could potentially see the Exchange flooded with Keys and force those prices down, especially since the Event price would likely be a fraction of the going rate. That, of course, lowers that variable in the above equation and would bring down Exchange prices on ships. We could, potentially, see an increase in ship supply on the Exchange, as some of those Keys would likely be used to actually open Lockboxes, which then could drive down ship Exchange prices, because mark up could be minimized due to the increased supply. But since such an Event could KILL C-Store key sales, the very thing that keeps the lights on, this is not a good idea, and not one that Cryptic is likely to explore due to its potential to eat into their profits.
I may not be Warren Buffet, but it's quite clear that you do not understand the economics at all.
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“The reason you don't see any sort of problem is because you are conditioned to ask "what does it cost" and then you pay that price. You don't have experience in living with items that have "targetable value".”
That is completely wrong. I don’t see a problem because there is no problem. It has nothing to do with conditioning or being unaware of production cost in fact I am 100% aware of production costs which is why I know most prices are perfectly reasonable and fair. How do you know I don’t have experience?
“The many of us who aren't hung up on haggling know that the prices in the exchange are wholly ridiculous. The market isn't free, there is no method of introducing competition or in countering monopolization. The people who wrongfully assume "supply and demand" in this scenario invariably just don't understand how markets work. If someone controls the supply they manufacture the demand...if there is demand then someone will throttle the supply to drive up the cost. None of these things matter to people who are conditioned to just see a price, say: "gee that's expensive, better save up for it" and go back to their grind.”
Accept for in most cases is isn’t wholly ridiculous and makes perfect sense. In fact the prices have been the best they have been in almost 10years. If you run the math the prices most items sell at are reasonable and low.
The problem with what you just wrote is no single player or group of players control a single point of supply. So it’s not possible for a group to monopolization and create demand. I spend a large amount of my time crafting and have seen many try and fail in the market areas I operate in.
Controlling the market and creating demand doesn’t work unless there is limited production people all working together which rarely happens if ever. What typically happens is the person trying to control the market gets undercut by others and the person controlling the market ends up selling very little as the prices stay low from the others that are offering supply and not taking part in creating demand. That is why prices are in a downward trend. For most items single players do not drive the price up.
For what I can see nearly everything has a reasonable price in game. The very few items that are expensive have a high demand and very low supply which is what keeps the price up.
People with lots of EC can easily spend ALL their time opening lockboxes and acquiring huge numbers of desirable items and then leak them onto the market very slowly keeping prices very high to support their lockbox opening "production".
This is the only thing you've said so far that I can agree with.
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No, really, I know you don't understand how this works. I was able to corner the market on blue and green computer chips and kept the prices at half a million EC for months.
Well you are wrong and I do understand the market as if I didn’t I wouldn’t be so successfully on it. I have seen 100’s of people try and corner the market in areas I operate in and it never works. Some manage a brief spike but it never last long, often only an hour or two before the other suppliers undercut the person trying to drive the prices up.
Yes if you pick some rarely traded item with low volume you can spike it up for longer but try that with one of the popular areas of the market and it just doesn’t work like you say.
You say I am wrong but the math shows that I am correct. Prices are reasonable and fair for the majority of items.
“People with lots of EC can easily spend ALL their time opening lockboxes and acquiring huge numbers of desirable items and then leak them onto the market very slowly keeping prices very high to support their lockbox opening "production".”
You don’t understand the market do you? It doesn’t work like that. If you open up a large amount of box’s and try and drip feed to keep the item prices high you will fail from all the people who are not bothering to drip feed and just putting the items straight into the market as soon as they get them. That is why lockbox item prices go on a sharp downward trend straight after release. It doesn’t matter how slow you drip feed the items others who are not drip feeding will cause the price to go down stopping your price hike drip feeding effort. So prices do not stay high so you cannot keep up the opening lockbox opening "production".
Trying to get back on topic. I see no evidence of inflation and no evidence that the majority of items are incorrectly or unfairly price. On the whole the market looks really healthy and fair value to me. A few items spike up and down and a few items are expensive due to supply/demand but the majority of items are in a good EC price point.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,674Community Moderator
nix... none of your ideas are viable. Give it a rest and stop beating us with a stick to defend the chicken coop. Hell... so far you've come up with ideas to shut the game down by depriving them of income that keeps th lights on.
Even if you did study economics of some kind like you just claimed, you're not working with ALL relevant data. Just your observed data, which could only be a fraction of the total data, and thus incomplete. And its pretty clear NO ONE here agrees with your "Keys make ECs" train of thought, as it has been pointed out god knows how many times that Lockbox Keys do not add ECs to the economy. They just move existing ECs around. A fact you have, multiple times, ingored. Not only that, you have single handedly devolved this thread into a debate on the economy of the game in general, acted like you know all, disregarded opposing viewpoints, and have generally declared all of us to be idiots who don't know an EC from a rock for all intents and purposes.
Some of us have been working the Exchange for a long time to get what we want. For myself, I have gotten just about all my fancy lockbox gear off the Exchange, generally by selling various items including tech upgrades. So I know a thing or two about the Exchange, as well as the general behavior of the Dilithium Exchange as well. You don't see me bashing anyone who doesn't agree with me. I am not all knowing, and I certainly don't act like it. We all have differing viewpoints, with different sets of data to draw from. That doesn't make their viewpoint any less relevant than your own.
This is a complex issue. One that no one person can magically solve by saying "Oh just do this because I studied economics!" And frankly... ANYONE on the internet can say something like that. And we don't know if its true or not because we're just avatars and text on a screen. We can say we studied anything at all, and no one can refute or confirm that really. Hell... I can say that I have a degree in Astrophysics if I wanted to. (I don't by the way)
So... respectfully... stop beating us with the stick. Unless you are willing to listen to differing viewpoints your continued use of "The beatings will continue until morale improves" tactics is not earning you any points. In fact it is showing a complete unwillingness to consider anyone else's viewpoints that do not line up with your own.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
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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.'
you need to remove ec from the system when you give them to the system too, otherwise you just get more and more and more ec flying around.
and with the introduction of the endeavors and admirality, the amount of ec you could get from the game is increased by a good degree.
and after a new player leveld all his reputations, the only thing thats basically left to really remove ec from the game is to build up the fleet holdings, but thats not an infinite thing either. thats why a tax would be the best way for the future to have a sink. i mean you could start low with like 2% or so and if thats not enough increase it to a higher amount. close to all other mmos i know have such a fee to trades for exactly that reason to work as a sink
you could even argue from a roleplaying point of view that the house hosting the exchange want to "earn" something too
ingame: @Felisean
Hmm... well i may be late to counter this , but
1.) the devs don't really want players quitting just to remove EC from play. I don't think most players do either.
2.) I'd think a character that is to be deleted will have anything of value thats not character bound sent off to other alts, either through the account bank(EC and objects) or the mail. As a noob i may have deleted without doing this, but well i didn't exactly have tons of ec either.
3.)This one may have merit, i've never come close so i dont know.
Trading in general does not remove EC from play, just moves it around. Those circumstances you have mentioned aren't actually part of the trade cycle.
Yes when this first cropped up I noticed the twitter comments were much more constructive and on topic. Haven't checked since as I don't use Twitter. But it's probably reasonable safe to assume if the Developers read this thread at all, they stopped following it after the second page. It's been completely over run with posters trying to attach all kinds of agendas and gripes many of which seem born of ignorance and stupidity. Borticus didn't help matters by not clearly stating what the "problem" was that needed fixing.
I don't follow reddet, was there any further dev post that expanded the question?
What kind of things would people want to spend their EC on? A simple question. Is it that hard to understand? I don't think so.
I'd say the more likely explanation is that a lot of people on these forums just don't want there to exist anything they "have to" spend any resources or play time on and are intentionally derailing the thread as if not talking about stuff to buy would prevent Cryptic from adding any.
Except the underlying "problem" was never explicitly identified, so you honestly can't say that. All you can offer is your opinion on what the "problem" is, and even then, that might not be an actual "problem."
Exactly, but given Borticus' replies on Twitter one can infer a couple of things: 1) More EC is being generated than destroyed resulting in too much EC in the economy, 2) In his opinion, players are having to pay too much in EC for items off the Exchange (he specifically balks at players paying a billion EC for anything). So, while a new EC sink may help deal with the former, it is less likely to effect the latter.
Borticus incorrectly assumes that players haven't been paying billions in EC for items all along. They have, though, but in private deals and trading channels, because the Exchange cap previously prevented listing items at those prices. Upping the Exchange cap brought those trades more into the "light of day," but it didn't cause prices to inflate. Using the example of Lockbox ships, Borticus acknowledges that supply is a factor in Exchange pricing, but doesn't seem to give it enough credence. This is to be expected, of course, because the odds of getting a ship from a Lockbox indirectly helps fund the game.
There's a very simple mathematical formula to determine the base price of a Lockbox ship: (Exchange price of 1 key in EC) x (the average number of opened Lockboxes to get a ship, the odds) = starting price in EC for a Lockbox ship on the Exchange. There are player-controlled variables, of course, like desirability, rarity, etc., that can influence that price up or down, but one can reasonably expect and calculate these prices. Notice the multiplier in this formula relates to the odds programmed into opening the box, a variable controlled by Cryptic. Bring the odds down, and the price comes down, too. The base price in EC of a key can also be determined mathematically, since a key costs 125 Zen in the C-Store and there are Zen to Dilithium to EC and vice versa equations. End result: Do the math and you'll understand why Exchange prices are what they are. Reducing the amount of EC in-game won't bring Exchange prices down, though, because as I said, they've always been that high. It'll just mean fewer people will be able to afford said ships and further concentrate the "wealth" on those who already have it.
Again, I fall back to my original position: I don't see a problem that needs solving here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT among the space rich and DO NOT have billions of EC, but facts are facts: this is simple, undeniable math and not that difficult to understand why things work the way they work. Your acceptance of these facts, however, may vary.
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We used to have that. There were all kinds of fees that got removed: Tailor fees, Starship Customization fees, Transwarp fees, etc. I wouldn't want to see those things return, though.
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I believe that keys were also cheaper then, which would fall in line with your figures.
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On the whole though I thought they fixed exchange EC items prices when they added reengineering which caused EC item prices to plummet. The few expensive items left are purely down to supply/demand not EC inflation.
Fee makes prices cheaper but if there is fee you have to sell lowest price if you cant sell your item fast the next selling is now twice of fee cost. Basicly ppl have to sell her items fast with fee cheapest as possible. But these lockbox ships fall down in price if there is time limit like 24 hours for your sell you lose twice or more if nobody buy your ship the mehanic like this best item in game someday cost 50mil maybe but ppl lose money very fast. This basicly market killer but not stop gold sellers.
Every mmo have gold sellers if its super hard or not they are there anyway. Only this can stop that all items you get are account bound. Lockboxes give selectable list, items, ships everything from list you open. All is account bound no need exchange anymore.
And I'm sure Borticus has better stastistics to work with than I do.
While it is true that one can get "lucky" and obtain a ship with 1 key, that is not what happens on average. Until you understand that it is the average that determines this variable in the equation, you're not likely to understand what most others already do about Exchange pricing. As I said, you're acceptance of the facts may vary.
The variables are not imaginary. Search the Exchange and find what the current going rate for a Key is. Last I checked it was, give or take, somewhere around 4M EC (NOTE: this does fluctuate). Although the official odds of getting a ship are unknown, through testing, the commonly accepted odds are about 200:1 (NOTE: this does not fluctuate), which means it takes, on average about 200 keys to produce a ship. 4M EC x 200 = 800M EC (NOTE: this is the starting asking price). Factor in "the new hotness" of some desirable Trait, or iconic status of the ship, and you could easily push the asking price to 1B EC or more. When keys were going for 2M EC on the Exchange, yes, ships cost half as much, because 2M EC x 200 = 400M EC. If you cannot math, I cannot help you.
The only thing players can do here is 1) refuse to buy keys at 4+ million EC, thereby forcing sellers to reduce their asking prices and bringing that variable down, 2) refusing to buy into the hype on a given ship, thereby forcing sellers to ask for little to no mark up. Neither of these is likely to happen, though, as players "just gotta have it now." Another way to potentially bring the market price down on ships is to flood the market, either by hoarders actually posting their wares in greater numbers, or by Cryptic lowering the odds. Neither of these is likely to happen either, as hoarders are not in the selling game to take a loss, by that same token neither is Cryptic.
Your idea about selling Lockbox keys for EC, even during a limited time event, is a non-starter as well. Yes, it could potentially see the Exchange flooded with Keys and force those prices down, especially since the Event price would likely be a fraction of the going rate. That, of course, lowers that variable in the above equation and would bring down Exchange prices on ships. We could, potentially, see an increase in ship supply on the Exchange, as some of those Keys would likely be used to actually open Lockboxes, which then could drive down ship Exchange prices, because mark up could be minimized due to the increased supply. But since such an Event could KILL C-Store key sales, the very thing that keeps the lights on, this is not a good idea, and not one that Cryptic is likely to explore due to its potential to eat into their profits.
I may not be Warren Buffet, but it's quite clear that you do not understand the economics at all.
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Accept for in most cases is isn’t wholly ridiculous and makes perfect sense. In fact the prices have been the best they have been in almost 10years. If you run the math the prices most items sell at are reasonable and low.
The problem with what you just wrote is no single player or group of players control a single point of supply. So it’s not possible for a group to monopolization and create demand. I spend a large amount of my time crafting and have seen many try and fail in the market areas I operate in.
Controlling the market and creating demand doesn’t work unless there is limited production people all working together which rarely happens if ever. What typically happens is the person trying to control the market gets undercut by others and the person controlling the market ends up selling very little as the prices stay low from the others that are offering supply and not taking part in creating demand. That is why prices are in a downward trend. For most items single players do not drive the price up.
For what I can see nearly everything has a reasonable price in game. The very few items that are expensive have a high demand and very low supply which is what keeps the price up.
Whatever, dude. LOL
This is the only thing you've said so far that I can agree with.
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Yes if you pick some rarely traded item with low volume you can spike it up for longer but try that with one of the popular areas of the market and it just doesn’t work like you say.
You say I am wrong but the math shows that I am correct. Prices are reasonable and fair for the majority of items.
You don’t understand the market do you? It doesn’t work like that. If you open up a large amount of box’s and try and drip feed to keep the item prices high you will fail from all the people who are not bothering to drip feed and just putting the items straight into the market as soon as they get them. That is why lockbox item prices go on a sharp downward trend straight after release. It doesn’t matter how slow you drip feed the items others who are not drip feeding will cause the price to go down stopping your price hike drip feeding effort. So prices do not stay high so you cannot keep up the opening lockbox opening "production".
Trying to get back on topic. I see no evidence of inflation and no evidence that the majority of items are incorrectly or unfairly price. On the whole the market looks really healthy and fair value to me. A few items spike up and down and a few items are expensive due to supply/demand but the majority of items are in a good EC price point.
Even if you did study economics of some kind like you just claimed, you're not working with ALL relevant data. Just your observed data, which could only be a fraction of the total data, and thus incomplete. And its pretty clear NO ONE here agrees with your "Keys make ECs" train of thought, as it has been pointed out god knows how many times that Lockbox Keys do not add ECs to the economy. They just move existing ECs around. A fact you have, multiple times, ingored. Not only that, you have single handedly devolved this thread into a debate on the economy of the game in general, acted like you know all, disregarded opposing viewpoints, and have generally declared all of us to be idiots who don't know an EC from a rock for all intents and purposes.
Some of us have been working the Exchange for a long time to get what we want. For myself, I have gotten just about all my fancy lockbox gear off the Exchange, generally by selling various items including tech upgrades. So I know a thing or two about the Exchange, as well as the general behavior of the Dilithium Exchange as well. You don't see me bashing anyone who doesn't agree with me. I am not all knowing, and I certainly don't act like it. We all have differing viewpoints, with different sets of data to draw from. That doesn't make their viewpoint any less relevant than your own.
This is a complex issue. One that no one person can magically solve by saying "Oh just do this because I studied economics!" And frankly... ANYONE on the internet can say something like that. And we don't know if its true or not because we're just avatars and text on a screen. We can say we studied anything at all, and no one can refute or confirm that really. Hell... I can say that I have a degree in Astrophysics if I wanted to. (I don't by the way)
So... respectfully... stop beating us with the stick. Unless you are willing to listen to differing viewpoints your continued use of "The beatings will continue until morale improves" tactics is not earning you any points. In fact it is showing a complete unwillingness to consider anyone else's viewpoints that do not line up with your own.
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