Firstly, the ledger sheets of all digital transactions show precisely how much zen is purchased and precisely how much zen is spent on each individual item in the c-store. No interpretation needed. Secondly, that being the case it is very very easy to track their exact monetary income down to the last key. It does not matter to Cryptic if those keys are bought by me with Zen I sold Dill for and I'm gonna sell them for EC. Someone paid $ for the Zen to sell to me, and that Zen bought Keys. It is equally irrelevant to them if those keys are bought by someone who is going to open boxes with them and they used their own $, again that Zen bought keys.
Their accounting absolutely has to track all of these factors, tbey answer to the CEO, and they also answer to CBS because if the licensing fees are not paid there is no game, then too they must answer to PWE because if the publisher isn't paid there is no game. Incompetence of the kind you suggest would have killed the whole company years ago.
Well, you missed my point completely, but if you think interpretation of the numbers isn't involved in the decision making processes of any organization, then there isn't much point in moving forward with this conversation.
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
They definitely have a way to collect and interpret sales data. That's what told them they'd make more off putting the Donnie in the promo rather than the C-Store. As much was said in the livestream when it was brought up.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Once the first Constitution made it to a Promotion Box the chains were forged for early era iconic hero ships to come.
"I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."
'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.'
Oh, it is extremely skewed. For example, I can buy an item that comes in a multiple choice reward pack for less than I can buy the pack. In other words, I can buy an item, knowing exactly what I'm getting, for less than it costs to buy the pack that only gives me a chance to get that item. This isn't a one time anomaly either.
That's because stupid people open them instead of selling the pack with a greater value potential. As the saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted.
A multiple-choice pack is naturally priced by the most expensive item you can choose from it.
Yeah I really like the idea of flying that D7 too, but in my understanding of the way it works, these RnD packs don't normally drop ships so you have to buy a bulk of them during the specials and hope for the best, unlike standard lockboxes. This makes them exceptionally rare, and as this thing is even brand new there is no real supply of the ship so the price is going to be at the maximum possible.
I bought a 4 pack and hoped for the best. No luck. Oh well. Waste of 700 zbucks, as I fully suspected it would be.
And that's the sad thing, because these ships are so insanely rare, for non-whales and non-addicted people (most people) trying to open boxes for these is just not rational. If droprates on ships were increased from these boxes, I really think they would sell more boxes/keys.
Yeah I really like the idea of flying that D7 too, but in my understanding of the way it works, these RnD packs don't normally drop ships so you have to buy a bulk of them during the specials and hope for the best, unlike standard lockboxes. This makes them exceptionally rare, and as this thing is even brand new there is no real supply of the ship so the price is going to be at the maximum possible.
I bought a 4 pack and hoped for the best. No luck. Oh well. Waste of 700 zbucks, as I fully suspected it would be.
And that's the sad thing, because these ships are so insanely rare, for non-whales and non-addicted people (most people) trying to open boxes for these is just not rational. If droprates on ships were increased from these boxes, I really think they would sell more boxes/keys.
R&D Boxes actually have better odds then standard lock boxes.. roughly double (1% compared to .5%.) The issue with R&D Boxes is that they're considerably more expensive then a lock box key which is what makes them more expensive overall.
The good part is that the Boxes also sell for quite a bit more then a single key so you need to sell far less of them on the exchange in order to buy a ship outright.
While I want to agree with you that increasing the odds would sell more boxes, I unfortunately, don't think it works that way. The boxes appeal to those that will keep swiping that credit card and keep cranking those boxes till they get what they want. The quicker they get their shiny, the sooner they stop buying boxes. These events really don't cater to the 'average' player, they cater to those that will spend obscene amounts of money until they get what they want.
Guys lets not rehash the old "are lockboxes gambling" type of stuff and avoid those arguments because they never end well and one of us will end up having to lock the thread. There are times and places for that but here isn't one.
I've been watching people with the D7 Miracle Worker Flight Deck Carrier with all their pew pew pets, and thought I'd like to fly one myself. Looking on the exchange, my Liberated Borg Klingon would have to pay 1,353,200,000 EC to obtain one.
Doing the maths, I would need to sell in the neighborhood of 270 keys; and at today's cost (full price, no sale) that would run me roughly 31,000 zen. To purchase that with $$$$, would cost around $300, and with dilithium (at this moment it would cost me 438+ per Zen) it would be well over 13,500,000 Dil.
Assuming that I don't want to dish out $300 (and I DO NOT), I can refine enough dilithium to purchase the Zen to purchase the keys to sell the keys to buy the ship in 1700+ days; or using all of my toons, about 4 months. This of course assumes everything remains the same as it is today.
What I believe has happened here is that everyone has embraced the idea that it is always cheaper to buy lock box ships on the exchange than to gamble opening the lock boxes. Fewer people are opening the lock boxes because of this, and fewer lock box ships are making it to the exchange. Less supply, same demand (arguably higher demand on the exchange) results in higher cost on the exchange.
I'm not going to pay $300 for a ship. I'm not going to sit around and grind the dilithium for this ship. And I'm not going to gamble on the lock boxes. In the end, I'm not going to get this ship. This means that Cryptic will sell one less of these than it could. I wonder how many people feel the same as I do?
First to be perfectly blunt, you are not entitled any specific price just because you want a ship. Unless you have evidence of some kind of exploit you want to make myself or my cohort aware of via PM, ships and prices in general on the exchange are set by supply and demand. As demand for ships goes up but supply stays the same, prices will rise. If demand goes down then so will prices and so on. Why would someone accept a trade of only 500m when they could get twice that amount and such?
The other thing that factors into the price of a ship is how easy it is to acquire the ship. Promo ships are typically hardest to acquire followed by lockbox ships, and then lobi ships, in that order. Generally by and large it takes more resources such as zen, dilithium, ec, and such to generate a promo ship than it does a box ship or lobi ship. It's alot cheaper EC and zen wise to open 200 lockboxes than it is to open 200 promo packs. Thus part of why promo ships go for as much as they do. You will typically never see a promo ship for under 1b ec purely because of how difficult it is to generate them. This is because you could end up taking that 1b ec and then some to generate another one.
The reason folks are typically more prone to save packs and keys and trade those for a ship is because that's a guaranteed way to get the ship. If you have 250 and going off current prices last I checked that's 4.7m per key and 1.175b ec worth of value. That 1.175b is guaranteed trade value, where as you wouldn't be guaranteed a ship if you used those keys to open boxes. Typically if you're going to save up for a ship, then keys and fleetship modules are good items as they hold their value and will always be in demand. Unopened promo packs themselves are also great sellers and will typically go for more than box keys and fleetmodules.
As the last bit, if you really want the ship then one of two things is going to have to happen, either you grind for it and/or shell out some cash to convert to keys/packs to trade for a ship, or take a stab at once on your own. I deal in promo and box ships on the regular and I can tell you from experience, if I'm asking for 1.3b and someone offers me 1.2 or even that 1.175 above, generally I will take the offer as I would rather make a slightly smaller sale vs no sale at all.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
The economy on this game is out of control because of a lack of players buying and selling on the exchange. Inflation has skyrocketed over the past few years... and the situation is only getting worse as time goes on.
When I played the exchange several years ago it worked out that 1 ZEN was worth about 1,000,000 EC. There were sufficient lockbox ships on the market that you could get one for about 100,000,000 EC... it wasn't that big of a deal. But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
The economy of a dying game... get used to it, things won't get any better.
A Lobi ship, is not a lockbox ship. It is a ship produced from lobi, the byproduct of opening keys. Despite the sheer amount of lobi needed to produce one, Lobi ships are a guaranteed eventually reward unlike the random chance of lockbox ships. Thus Lobi ships frequently drop below 200 mil, and average around 185 mil to 200 mil ec per ship, even when new lobi ships come out.
A Lockbox ship, refers to a ship that can only be rewarded from opening lockboxes. The drop rate for the ship is generally accepted(by those who actually open thousands of these in a day) as 0.4% chance to win. Due to the sheer amount of lockboxes needed to win a single ship, (Sometimes more than lobi ships need but sometimes not) these are very often priced at around 400 to 600 mil.
A Promo ship is an interesting beast. though its generally accepted by those who open thousands of promo boxes to win these that the chance is 1% or around there, the prices of them are usually fairly exhorbitant compared to lockbox ships, fluctuating depending on the promo ship from 1bil to 1.35 bil if its a ship in demand or one of the ships that many consider not worth a promo slot.
(By the way I'm not here to debate if Crosis or Rook or Dukedom are whales or not, but they are part of the people who open thousands of boxes to make and sell ships, or to test odds over on tribble)
Rattler is correct in a way, I have seen a couple of lockbox ships drop all the way down to 200 mil, but only ships like the Benthan where the demand for them is so low, the people who own them would do anything to at least make some profit off of them. Even ships that have been out for a long time tend to only go as low as a little bit below 400 mil. What seems to keep the price high is that, because of the infinity box, all ships need to be almost equal in value, since with that box you can choose any of them, so any ship that a significant amount of people want will be around the average price if not a little more.
The economy on this game is out of control because of a lack of players buying and selling on the exchange. Inflation has skyrocketed over the past few years... and the situation is only getting worse as time goes on.
When I played the exchange several years ago it worked out that 1 ZEN was worth about 1,000,000 EC. There were sufficient lockbox ships on the market that you could get one for about 100,000,000 EC... it wasn't that big of a deal. But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
The economy of a dying game... get used to it, things won't get any better.
This proves nothing. The death of STO since its inception has been greatly exaggerated. Enough of the doom threads, please. Thank you.
The economy is fine. Just because it isn't working the way some think it should does not mean it isn't working as intended, nor that because it isn't working as (general) you think it should, means the game is doomed.
I've been hearing doom for as long as I've been playing, which is to say, since LoR. And it hasn't gone yet.
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.
yeah sure the economy is fine: using the frustration to make money, it is a little bit weird and a little bit unscrupulous. I have in mind the constitution class ship. The ICONIC ship.
When I played the exchange several years ago it worked out that 1 ZEN was worth about 1,000,000 EC. ...
Did you mean 100 zen? I came back to the game in Fall 2014 after playing a bit in 2012. 100 zen or one lock box key was worth 2,000,000 - 3,000,000 EC. Lock box ships were around 200 million when I bought my Vaadwaur Manasa in early 2015. $100 bought you enough zen / keys for a ship then and it still does.
EC and dil Inflation has happened because it is now much easier to get dil and EC thanks to featured rewards, 10+ reps, admiralty, account-wide recruitment rewards, endeavor boxes.
Prices climbed steadily, but then ship prices fell after the infinity boxes and packs were released.
I have been hearing DOOM for the past 10 years. Also, the other posters are right. MMO economies change over time basically always. I have seen lock box keys as low as 1.2 million and as high as 5.7 million in my time.
Cost of things is subjective. Especially in a player run exchange. Cryptic does control indirectly certain factors, but players regulate themselves. Which can cause some weird things, but hey, thats life
That's because stupid people open them instead of selling the pack with a greater value potential. As the saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted.
If those "stupid people" wouldn't open boxes, "smart people" would have no ships to buy for EC. At all.
The economy on this game is out of control because of a lack of players buying and selling on the exchange. Inflation has skyrocketed over the past few years... and the situation is only getting worse as time goes on.
Over the last couple years, the cost of 'big ticket' items has actually slightly fallen.
People have been saying the game is dying for 10 years, they didn't know what they were talking about and neither do you.
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STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
__________________________________
STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
There is some evidence of ship inflation, but only on the lockbox level. New ships frequently reach up to 600 mil or more if they're actually either good and desireable. I mean we've gone from the days when keys were 2 mil and lockbox ships were 60 to 80 mil, to keys being 4mil and lockbox ships being 400 to 600 mil. For the most part the prices are eh... semi stable. Lobi and Promo ships are by far the most stable, but Lockbox prices fluctuate.
Comments
It's a Lobi ship, and people generated a ton of lobi over the weekend trying to get the R&D pack ships.
Ironic....tons of a ship I don't want. o.o
Well, you missed my point completely, but if you think interpretation of the numbers isn't involved in the decision making processes of any organization, then there isn't much point in moving forward with this conversation.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Actually, for a time they were well over 1.5B.. if anything, the price of Promo ships has come down slightly.
There is absolutely no evidence that 'less people are opening boxes,' because it simply isn't true.
Many players open boxes for ships.. always have, always will.
Smart players, sell the boxes and buy the ships. They have been, and still are a significant minority.
Nothing to see here.. business as usual all around.
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"I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."
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.'
A multiple-choice pack is naturally priced by the most expensive item you can choose from it.
I bought a 4 pack and hoped for the best. No luck. Oh well. Waste of 700 zbucks, as I fully suspected it would be.
And that's the sad thing, because these ships are so insanely rare, for non-whales and non-addicted people (most people) trying to open boxes for these is just not rational. If droprates on ships were increased from these boxes, I really think they would sell more boxes/keys.
R&D Boxes actually have better odds then standard lock boxes.. roughly double (1% compared to .5%.) The issue with R&D Boxes is that they're considerably more expensive then a lock box key which is what makes them more expensive overall.
The good part is that the Boxes also sell for quite a bit more then a single key so you need to sell far less of them on the exchange in order to buy a ship outright.
While I want to agree with you that increasing the odds would sell more boxes, I unfortunately, don't think it works that way. The boxes appeal to those that will keep swiping that credit card and keep cranking those boxes till they get what they want. The quicker they get their shiny, the sooner they stop buying boxes. These events really don't cater to the 'average' player, they cater to those that will spend obscene amounts of money until they get what they want.
First to be perfectly blunt, you are not entitled any specific price just because you want a ship. Unless you have evidence of some kind of exploit you want to make myself or my cohort aware of via PM, ships and prices in general on the exchange are set by supply and demand. As demand for ships goes up but supply stays the same, prices will rise. If demand goes down then so will prices and so on. Why would someone accept a trade of only 500m when they could get twice that amount and such?
The other thing that factors into the price of a ship is how easy it is to acquire the ship. Promo ships are typically hardest to acquire followed by lockbox ships, and then lobi ships, in that order. Generally by and large it takes more resources such as zen, dilithium, ec, and such to generate a promo ship than it does a box ship or lobi ship. It's alot cheaper EC and zen wise to open 200 lockboxes than it is to open 200 promo packs. Thus part of why promo ships go for as much as they do. You will typically never see a promo ship for under 1b ec purely because of how difficult it is to generate them. This is because you could end up taking that 1b ec and then some to generate another one.
The reason folks are typically more prone to save packs and keys and trade those for a ship is because that's a guaranteed way to get the ship. If you have 250 and going off current prices last I checked that's 4.7m per key and 1.175b ec worth of value. That 1.175b is guaranteed trade value, where as you wouldn't be guaranteed a ship if you used those keys to open boxes. Typically if you're going to save up for a ship, then keys and fleetship modules are good items as they hold their value and will always be in demand. Unopened promo packs themselves are also great sellers and will typically go for more than box keys and fleetmodules.
As the last bit, if you really want the ship then one of two things is going to have to happen, either you grind for it and/or shell out some cash to convert to keys/packs to trade for a ship, or take a stab at once on your own. I deal in promo and box ships on the regular and I can tell you from experience, if I'm asking for 1.3b and someone offers me 1.2 or even that 1.175 above, generally I will take the offer as I would rather make a slightly smaller sale vs no sale at all.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
When I played the exchange several years ago it worked out that 1 ZEN was worth about 1,000,000 EC. There were sufficient lockbox ships on the market that you could get one for about 100,000,000 EC... it wasn't that big of a deal. But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
The economy of a dying game... get used to it, things won't get any better.
A Lobi ship, is not a lockbox ship. It is a ship produced from lobi, the byproduct of opening keys. Despite the sheer amount of lobi needed to produce one, Lobi ships are a guaranteed eventually reward unlike the random chance of lockbox ships. Thus Lobi ships frequently drop below 200 mil, and average around 185 mil to 200 mil ec per ship, even when new lobi ships come out.
A Lockbox ship, refers to a ship that can only be rewarded from opening lockboxes. The drop rate for the ship is generally accepted(by those who actually open thousands of these in a day) as 0.4% chance to win. Due to the sheer amount of lockboxes needed to win a single ship, (Sometimes more than lobi ships need but sometimes not) these are very often priced at around 400 to 600 mil.
A Promo ship is an interesting beast. though its generally accepted by those who open thousands of promo boxes to win these that the chance is 1% or around there, the prices of them are usually fairly exhorbitant compared to lockbox ships, fluctuating depending on the promo ship from 1bil to 1.35 bil if its a ship in demand or one of the ships that many consider not worth a promo slot.
(By the way I'm not here to debate if Crosis or Rook or Dukedom are whales or not, but they are part of the people who open thousands of boxes to make and sell ships, or to test odds over on tribble)
Rattler is correct in a way, I have seen a couple of lockbox ships drop all the way down to 200 mil, but only ships like the Benthan where the demand for them is so low, the people who own them would do anything to at least make some profit off of them. Even ships that have been out for a long time tend to only go as low as a little bit below 400 mil. What seems to keep the price high is that, because of the infinity box, all ships need to be almost equal in value, since with that box you can choose any of them, so any ship that a significant amount of people want will be around the average price if not a little more.
This proves nothing. The death of STO since its inception has been greatly exaggerated. Enough of the doom threads, please. Thank you.
The economy is fine. Just because it isn't working the way some think it should does not mean it isn't working as intended, nor that because it isn't working as (general) you think it should, means the game is doomed.
I've been hearing doom for as long as I've been playing, which is to say, since LoR. And it hasn't gone yet.
Did you mean 100 zen? I came back to the game in Fall 2014 after playing a bit in 2012. 100 zen or one lock box key was worth 2,000,000 - 3,000,000 EC. Lock box ships were around 200 million when I bought my Vaadwaur Manasa in early 2015. $100 bought you enough zen / keys for a ship then and it still does.
EC and dil Inflation has happened because it is now much easier to get dil and EC thanks to featured rewards, 10+ reps, admiralty, account-wide recruitment rewards, endeavor boxes.
Prices climbed steadily, but then ship prices fell after the infinity boxes and packs were released.
Cost of things is subjective. Especially in a player run exchange. Cryptic does control indirectly certain factors, but players regulate themselves. Which can cause some weird things, but hey, thats life
If those "stupid people" wouldn't open boxes, "smart people" would have no ships to buy for EC. At all.
Over the last couple years, the cost of 'big ticket' items has actually slightly fallen.
People have been saying the game is dying for 10 years, they didn't know what they were talking about and neither do you.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman