If y'all are going to turn this into a doom thread, then we can close this now.
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> @sennahcherib said:
> 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.
But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
This makes no sense from an economic point of view. The number of players has nothing to do with the level of prices at the exchange, because supply and demand will scale down at the same level. With less players it may have more volatility, but in general half the playerbase means half the supply and half the demand. With the same amount of resources per player available, and nobody being able to turn in-game resources into real life resources (which is a given with STO), there is no reason to believe that this has any influence on in game prices.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
This makes no sense from an economic point of view. The number of players has nothing to do with the level of prices at the exchange, because supply and demand will scale down at the same level. With less players it may have more volatility, but in general half the playerbase means half the supply and half the demand. With the same amount of resources per player available, and nobody being able to turn in-game resources into real life resources (which is a given with STO), there is no reason to believe that this has any influence on in game prices.
It's refreshing to occasionally hear someone post something sensible that proves they have a realistic grasp on the subject they're discussing.
But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
This makes no sense from an economic point of view. The number of players has nothing to do with the level of prices at the exchange, because supply and demand will scale down at the same level. With less players it may have more volatility, but in general half the playerbase means half the supply and half the demand. With the same amount of resources per player available, and nobody being able to turn in-game resources into real life resources (which is a given with STO), there is no reason to believe that this has any influence on in game prices.
It's refreshing to occasionally hear someone post something sensible that proves they have a realistic grasp on the subject they're discussing.
Thank you for that.
Considering I saw similarry inflated prices in the Auction House in Vanilla WoW, I would say that avaibility of the main currency and the items being sold are more of a factor then the size of a playerbase or its evolution.
To clarify there's a lot of EC in the system and it's not that hard to get if you know how, that means that the prices will end up increasing since there's simply more people willing to pay that price and this will happen regardless of health of the playerbase.
But now, with so few players in the game, demand FAR outstrips supply and prices have skyrocketed as a result.
This makes no sense from an economic point of view. The number of players has nothing to do with the level of prices at the exchange, because supply and demand will scale down at the same level. With less players it may have more volatility, but in general half the playerbase means half the supply and half the demand. With the same amount of resources per player available, and nobody being able to turn in-game resources into real life resources (which is a given with STO), there is no reason to believe that this has any influence on in game prices.
That works if you assume all players are essentially equal. We know they aren't, however so the issue can lie with whales leaving.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit.
You would see the price of zen rise towards that fun 500 dil to zen marker, you'd see the supply of zen based items drop such as lockbox keys and the random stuff from lockboxes. With less lockboxes you'd see less lobi items as well.
That is how a lower population can destabilize things, but conversely you'd see similar effects if a lot more non-whales joined the game as well, if in the example the 10 whales are still there, but now they are supplying zen for 120 other people.
I have no idea what if anything is happening, just pointing out that this game does fundamentally rely on an influx of zen from a much smaller group of people to fund a larger group.
That works if you assume all players are essentially equal. We know they aren't, however so the issue can lie with whales leaving.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit. ...
That only makes sense starting from the assumption that whales are leaving more often than other players. You have zero evidence for that. ("My friend Shamu left the game" is an anecdote, not data.)
Without knowing the makeup of the "leavers" the reasonable assumption is that if 1% of the population in 2018 are whales, then in 2019 or 2020 it is still 1%, regardless of whether the total number of players has grown or shrunk.
There is only one reason why prices on the Exchange are as high as they are and it has nothing to do with "Equality". They are that high simply because people are willing to pay it and the relative scarcity of the items in question. That is all, nothing more.
For those who keep saying the whales are leaving...you all realize that lobi ships dropped a MASSIVE amount the weekend they ran the promo boxes...right? That means there was a large influx of lobi into the game. Wonder where that could have possibly come from. Yes SOME whales are leaving. I knew quite a few from my armada who are no longer with us today. But seriously, the market is doing what any market does when there is no sinks...it inflates. If anything, it's not inflating fast enough compared to how much EC we are pumping into the system.
It's actually inflating plenty fast. Locbox ships are up around 50% from this time last year, promo ships 30%. Only lobi ships are down, because of oversupply from the back-to-back promo box sales this year.
That works if you assume all players are essentially equal. We know they aren't, however so the issue can lie with whales leaving.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit.
You would see the price of zen rise towards that fun 500 dil to zen marker, you'd see the supply of zen based items drop such as lockbox keys and the random stuff from lockboxes. With less lockboxes you'd see less lobi items as well.
That is how a lower population can destabilize things, but conversely you'd see similar effects if a lot more non-whales joined the game as well, if in the example the 10 whales are still there, but now they are supplying zen for 120 other people.
I have no idea what if anything is happening, just pointing out that this game does fundamentally rely on an influx of zen from a much smaller group of people to fund a larger group.
While you are technically correct, as has been said by @davefenestrator there is zero evidence for it. (Actually there is zero evidence for the general assumption of the post I was referring to that players are leaving in droves as well), so it is sensible to assume that players of all kinds are equally likely to leave a game. We could otherwise also make the scenario where whales are staying at a higher frequency.
It would be different if in-game currency were able to be transferred elsewhere (e. g. real hard cash) - then a diminishing player base would mean less potential income and the game being less interesting as a source of income. But even then, if enough whales left, the field is easier to play for the other remaining ones.
But that isn't the case with STO. F2P players play the game because they like it. Whales play the game because they like it and have a few more dollars to spare. When players are leaving there may be different reasons for F2P players (not being able to advance anymore through normal grinding as an example) and whales (e. g. not enough new shinies). But since I see no discernible change in grind or available new shinies, there's no reason to assume this.
And by Occam's Razor, since we have no reason to assume that different leaving ratios apply to different shares of the playerbase, but it is a well known fact that inflation of in-game currencies is an ongoing issue in (almost) all MMOs, it is the reasonable thing to assume until further evidence comes along that there will be no change in the general level of prices.
But we're already deeper in the topic than the post I was referring to was, which just stated "diminishing playerbase leads to rising prices", which is just not the way it is.
(What can be said though is that a dying game will face hyper-inflation. It really needs to be in its last throes though, a simple decline to half the playerbase or similar isn't enough. Once everybody knows the game is gonna end, say: devs stated "next tuesday we will shut down the servers", any currency immediately loses its value, there is no need to save up anymore, while any shiny will have at least some value to try out. But that is something STO is very, very removed from, this won't happen even in maintenance mode, as long as we can hope that it will last a bit longer.)
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Though the Infinity Boxes, of whatever flavor, brought prices down, they inevitably will go up because of Cryptic's hair-brained decision to make the T6 Selection Boxes Character Bound. That means you must make the right choice when selecting a Ship or Faction-Selection Ship Box from its contents.
Also, with the sheer volume of Ships availible to choose from certain ones are going to feel like the Maytag Repairman. Case in point, the Vonph and associates were dirt cheap when in a Ultra Selection Box with its own %chance to get. They got folded into the big box and prices shot up.
'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.'
> @captainmarvelush said:
> There is only one reason why prices on the Exchange are as high as they are and it has nothing to do with "Equality". They are that high simply because people are willing to pay it and the relative scarcity of the items in question. That is all, nothing more.
>
> ~ Cap
Incorrect. The prices actually correlate mathematically to the cost of the average number of keys needed to acquire one. Same for Promo ships.
Which is evidence for a healthy supply of ships and gear, driving down the selling cost to close to the creation cost through competition.
Note the the promo ship acquisition cost is higher not because of the zen cost (250 keys vs. 100 packs per ship) but because the R&D pack contents (other than the ship) are close to worthless. Compare the selling price of R&D mats vs. lock box weapons on the exchange.
If Cryptic would make the promo pack contents more valuable (more catalysts, more lobi, vanity shield chance?) the ship cost would plummet. For example, if R&D packs included 15 lobi you'd expect ship prices to drop by close to 100 million because of being able to sell 1.5 lobi ships from the 100 packs instead of 1.0 lobi ships.
That works if you assume all players are essentially equal. We know they aren't, however so the issue can lie with whales leaving.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit. ...
That only makes sense starting from the assumption that whales are leaving more often than other players. You have zero evidence for that. ("My friend Shamu left the game" is an anecdote, not data.)
Without knowing the makeup of the "leavers" the reasonable assumption is that if 1% of the population in 2018 are whales, then in 2019 or 2020 it is still 1%, regardless of whether the total number of players has grown or shrunk.
Of course I don't have any evidence. I don't need any either, because I never made any such claim of anything happening. You should read the whole post.
I argued simply that the assumption I was quoting was very possibly incorrect and put forth two different assumptions that could lead to economic problems, depending on the overall makeup of the playerbase between whales and free players.
Again, I don't know, and no one posting here knows what is actually going on, this is all academic.
> @davefenestrator said:
> (Quote)
>
> Which is evidence for a healthy supply of ships and gear, driving down the selling cost to close to the creation cost through competition.
>
> Note the the promo ship acquisition cost is higher not because of the zen cost (250 keys vs. 100 packs per ship) but because the R&D pack contents (other than the ship) are close to worthless. Compare the selling price of R&D mats vs. lock box weapons on the exchange.
>
> If Cryptic would make the promo pack contents more valuable (more catalysts, more lobi, vanity shield chance?) the ship cost would plummet. For example, if R&D packs included 15 lobi you'd expect ship prices to drop by close to 100 million because of being able to sell 1.5 lobi ships from the 100 packs instead of 1.0 lobi ships.
Just to clarify, I compare costs using EC, so the 100 Promo packs average to get a ship have an EC cost usually around 15 million EC and so 100 is 1.5 billion. As I noted before in a different thread Lockbox ships come out below the EC cost of the average number of keys to get one ship, as keys cost 4-6 million EC and 100 keys comes to 400 to 600 million but lockboxes don't average 1 ship per 100 boxes, IIRC its closer to 200 boxes for 1 ship so they actually get priced pretty low.
Right, though the odds I've seen here and in the wiki are 1:250 for lock box ships not 1:200.
The difference, why lock box ships are half the keys cost, is that when you open lock boxes you get ships, lobi AND traits, weapon packs, etc. that have value. When you open a pack you get ships, lobi ... and a rock.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit.
The problem here is that all your numbers are hypothetical and are tailored just to enforce your argument. I could easily make the exact same argument only in my version 2 regular players leave and 2 whales join.
Either way, Whales are just like regular players.. they're cyclical. They come and they go. The whales pouring in all the money today are likely not the same whales that were here a year or two ago. There are always more.
Let's see...a year ago. lockbox ships were in the 200 mil to 450 mil range depending on what part of the cycle they were in. So you are telling me that lockbox ships these days are reaching 600 mil? I don't think so. If you are comparing the low part of the cycle to a highish part, yeah that can happen. Promo ships a year ago was 1 to 1.4 bil a piece. I see some in the 1.2 to 1.3 range recently...so once again no real increase. If you are comparing the absolute lowest it has been to an average or above average part of the cycle...yeah your numbers could be correct...but that is not how to do comparison. These things goes up and down and it's how you make billions in this game. Like buying section 31 vanity shields when they were 100 mil a piece and now selling then for 200 mil a piece. These things cycle...and I have been paying at least SOME attention to it. While I may not churn the exchange nearly as much as I use to...I still make a few hundred mill here on the exchange...just in case. I may have a hoarding problem....
That is correct.. the numbers you are responding to are inaccurate to an almost absurd degree. The only thing I can think of that's actually inflated in cost over the years is lock box keys. My theory is that's mostly due to the Dilithium - Zen exchange rate since a lot of players use this method to buy keys. This has made keys more expensive over the years.
The 'big ticket' items are right around the same price as they have always been.. many are actually lower.
The inflation problem people are trying to solve actually doesn't exist.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit.
The problem here is that all your numbers are hypothetical and are tailored just to enforce your argument. I could easily make the exact same argument only in my version 2 regular players leave and 2 whales join.
Either way, Whales are just like regular players.. they're cyclical. They come and they go. The whales pouring in all the money today are likely not the same whales that were here a year or two ago. There are always more.
Let's see...a year ago. lockbox ships were in the 200 mil to 450 mil range depending on what part of the cycle they were in. So you are telling me that lockbox ships these days are reaching 600 mil? I don't think so. If you are comparing the low part of the cycle to a highish part, yeah that can happen. Promo ships a year ago was 1 to 1.4 bil a piece. I see some in the 1.2 to 1.3 range recently...so once again no real increase. If you are comparing the absolute lowest it has been to an average or above average part of the cycle...yeah your numbers could be correct...but that is not how to do comparison. These things goes up and down and it's how you make billions in this game. Like buying section 31 vanity shields when they were 100 mil a piece and now selling then for 200 mil a piece. These things cycle...and I have been paying at least SOME attention to it. While I may not churn the exchange nearly as much as I use to...I still make a few hundred mill here on the exchange...just in case. I may have a hoarding problem....
That is correct.. the numbers you are responding to are inaccurate to an almost absurd degree. The only thing I can think of that's actually inflated in cost over the years is lock box keys. My theory is that's mostly due to the Dilithium - Zen exchange rate since a lot of players use this method to buy keys. This has made keys more expensive over the years.
The 'big ticket' items are right around the same price as they have always been.. many are actually lower.
The inflation problem people are trying to solve actually doesn't exist.
Correct, as I sure you know Sea lockbox keys were as low as 1.2/1.4 million in late 2012/early 2013 (memory is a biz hazzy ) They reached a peak of 5.7 million a few years ago. Then i think either the infinity lockbox or something around the same time drastically turned lockbox keys the other way, to the standard point we have now (which is roughly 4.4million last time i checked the exchange, which was about one week ago).
So lockbox keys have inflated, but they have also trended downward the last year or so. However, it would take another drastic event to make them lower i suspect. If anything, they might stablize around this price point.
The drastic event, would have to be lockbox ships becoming account bound. Though, if anything if that occurred lockbox ship prices on the exchange would skyrocket (my own opinion, good chance i am wrong ) because they would be alot more vaulable.
My issue is with this whole thread is simply efficiency and ideology.
Everyone always seems to forget that there is a third option as to why there are so many of these ships on the market and that's literally the existence of third party providers.
IT's like everyone here assumes that everyone on the market is good faith actors.
These ships are worth something to someone and people will get them how ever they can. Literally they have a real world market value. Do not forget that.
There will always be a supply even when there is no demand because it is a business within a business.
Anyhow, as a so called whale myself (So called for I would be considered a whale but i don't believe something like a whale could exist in this particular game) I will have to agree with the EC side that says the best way is to sale items to claim what you want. It is the most static and most rewarding way to gain a ship.
I own countless infinity promo ships a couple i unlocked from hundreds of boxes and a couple i sold promos for and the one that seemed to benefit me most was simply selling then buying, it is just superior to opening boxes on your own.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit.
The problem here is that all your numbers are hypothetical and are tailored just to enforce your argument. I could easily make the exact same argument only in my version 2 regular players leave and 2 whales join.
Either way, Whales are just like regular players.. they're cyclical. They come and they go. The whales pouring in all the money today are likely not the same whales that were here a year or two ago. There are always more.
Of course they are hypothetical. I never stated otherwise. I don't know why this is hard. I don't know what is actually going on with player numbers and spending, but what I was replying to made the assumption that player loss wouldn't affect overall prices. I provided a scenario where player loss or gain could affect the prices to counterpoint the first assumption.
Since I'm being quoted as saying stuff I'm not about whales et al. I will point out that the dil exchange has steadily gone up and has seemed to be much more volatile lately. That lends support to the idea that there are less zen sellers per dilithium sellers. That could mean less whales, it could mean more dil sellers. Maybe it could be due to whales not having need for dil with their starbases and upgrading being done, or maybe more dil is on the market because dil sellers are at the same point. Maybe none of that is true but dil sellers are more efficient in their dil gathering/refining and just have more to sell.
Who knows? I don't. I'm just pointing out possibilities.
My issue is with this whole thread is simply efficiency and ideology.
Everyone always seems to forget that there is a third option as to why there are so many of these ships on the market and that's literally the existence of third party providers.
IT's like everyone here assumes that everyone on the market is good faith actors.
These ships are worth something to someone and people will get them how ever they can. Literally they have a real world market value. Do not forget that.
There will always be a supply even when there is no demand because it is a business within a business.
Anyhow, as a so called whale myself (So called for I would be considered a whale but i don't believe something like a whale could exist in this particular game) I will have to agree with the EC side that says the best way is to sale items to claim what you want. It is the most static and most rewarding way to gain a ship.
I own countless infinity promo ships a couple i unlocked from hundreds of boxes and a couple i sold promos for and the one that seemed to benefit me most was simply selling then buying, it is just superior to opening boxes on your own.
I'm sorry but third party sellers are nonsense overall. There are no mechanical ways to get ships besides opening boxes with keys or buying them directly. There are no hackers that can generate ships with a few keystrokes. There's no way to bypass these things.
Can they get one by opening boxes then selling it for real money? Yes, that's possible, but not likely because its not profitable. Anyone who wants to spend real money on a ship should just buy zen, buy keys, sell keys, then buy the ship off the market.
The fact is, the grey market for MMOs died a decade ago because games put so many ridiculous BOA items and made enough ways to trade real money for in game money that there is no way to compete. Companies wanted total control over your money and didn't want to have to deal with the problem of scammers.
Any RMT sites or ads you see today are scams, pure and simple. There is no gold, no zen, no dil, there is no ship, nothing that is actually for sale. They promise you that so you give them your CC info and/or account info which they then steal. They have zero effect on the in game economy because they do not participate in it beyond robbing you.
I bought one recently for 1.275 billion EC. It wasn't easy to earn that much EC, but over time, it can be done. Stop salvaging those trash drops and sell them for EC, whether to a vendor or on the Exchange. Buy cheaper lock box ships when the Exchange is flooded with them, hold on to them, and then sell them a month later for a profit after people get burned out on the new shiny. If you get a ZEN stipend, you can save and use that to buy keys during sales that you can sell on the Exchange when keys are in high demand. During special events, things like Party Poppers from years past and earlier sell quite well. Every year, I make sure I earn extra just to sell them on the Exchange where those who have missed the event and chance to get one can buy one or more.
My issue is with this whole thread is simply efficiency and ideology.
Everyone always seems to forget that there is a third option as to why there are so many of these ships on the market and that's literally the existence of third party providers.
IT's like everyone here assumes that everyone on the market is good faith actors.
These ships are worth something to someone and people will get them how ever they can. Literally they have a real world market value. Do not forget that.
There will always be a supply even when there is no demand because it is a business within a business.
Anyhow, as a so called whale myself (So called for I would be considered a whale but i don't believe something like a whale could exist in this particular game) I will have to agree with the EC side that says the best way is to sale items to claim what you want. It is the most static and most rewarding way to gain a ship.
I own countless infinity promo ships a couple i unlocked from hundreds of boxes and a couple i sold promos for and the one that seemed to benefit me most was simply selling then buying, it is just superior to opening boxes on your own.
I'm sorry but third party sellers are nonsense overall. There are no mechanical ways to get ships besides opening boxes with keys or buying them directly. There are no hackers that can generate ships with a few keystrokes. There's no way to bypass these things.
Can they get one by opening boxes then selling it for real money? Yes, that's possible, but not likely because its not profitable. Anyone who wants to spend real money on a ship should just buy zen, buy keys, sell keys, then buy the ship off the market.
The fact is, the grey market for MMOs died a decade ago because games put so many ridiculous BOA items and made enough ways to trade real money for in game money that there is no way to compete. Companies wanted total control over your money and didn't want to have to deal with the problem of scammers.
Any RMT sites or ads you see today are scams, pure and simple. There is no gold, no zen, no dil, there is no ship, nothing that is actually for sale. They promise you that so you give them your CC info and/or account info which they then steal. They have zero effect on the in game economy because they do not participate in it beyond robbing you.
Ah, just this statement alone...
In this day and age... with all the security protocols surrounding the financial institutes, you sincerely believe that the rmt companies that buy ec's, sale ec's, so on and so forth would risk their business for what? A hand full of dollars? Wow, makes absolutely no sense. If I could make thousands of dollars why would i waste that to steal tens of dollars? That is immediately returned to you by your credit card company or your bank and my business is shut down? That... just.... wow...
Side stepping your puzzling views, I will restate what i said; they could simply easily support the system that you're complaining about and they do. Easily. You either know nothing about economics, game economics, or to a lesser extent humans by denying the existence of these companies. Some of the wealthiest players in this game currently are RMT's like it or not.
They sale ships, traits, shields, consoles, and Doffs by say it with me, not hacking into the system as you so ludicrously and asininely posted but by purchasing boxes, by purchasing keys, and opening boxes to get the items and resale them not only for ec's but also for cold hard cash. Currently the ship you are complaining about literally sales for 200-225.00usd.
They have no overhead and can make a ton of money. You need to take a closer look at this part of the market without ideological blinders on and then reevaluate your views on the overall market.
As I said before this is not an overall critique of the market but a part of the market that is often ignored and should have light shined on it.
Also, for future reference. If so many people are telling you, you are wrong and then proceeding to prove to you you are wrong, doubling, tripling and quadrupling down will not make you correct. You will just entrench yourself and in the end look utterly foolish dying on a hill in which there was no war and lose all credibility in any conversation based on facts and not fallacies...
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This makes no sense from an economic point of view. The number of players has nothing to do with the level of prices at the exchange, because supply and demand will scale down at the same level. With less players it may have more volatility, but in general half the playerbase means half the supply and half the demand. With the same amount of resources per player available, and nobody being able to turn in-game resources into real life resources (which is a given with STO), there is no reason to believe that this has any influence on in game prices.
It's refreshing to occasionally hear someone post something sensible that proves they have a realistic grasp on the subject they're discussing.
Thank you for that.
Considering I saw similarry inflated prices in the Auction House in Vanilla WoW, I would say that avaibility of the main currency and the items being sold are more of a factor then the size of a playerbase or its evolution.
To clarify there's a lot of EC in the system and it's not that hard to get if you know how, that means that the prices will end up increasing since there's simply more people willing to pay that price and this will happen regardless of health of the playerbase.
That works if you assume all players are essentially equal. We know they aren't, however so the issue can lie with whales leaving.
Imagine 10 people provide the next 90 with the zen necessary to bring lockbox and other goods to the market. Now lets say 5 random people leave the game. If 2 of those are whales, then the supply side of Zen has taken a 20% hit while the demand side has taken only a 3% hit.
You would see the price of zen rise towards that fun 500 dil to zen marker, you'd see the supply of zen based items drop such as lockbox keys and the random stuff from lockboxes. With less lockboxes you'd see less lobi items as well.
That is how a lower population can destabilize things, but conversely you'd see similar effects if a lot more non-whales joined the game as well, if in the example the 10 whales are still there, but now they are supplying zen for 120 other people.
I have no idea what if anything is happening, just pointing out that this game does fundamentally rely on an influx of zen from a much smaller group of people to fund a larger group.
That only makes sense starting from the assumption that whales are leaving more often than other players. You have zero evidence for that. ("My friend Shamu left the game" is an anecdote, not data.)
Without knowing the makeup of the "leavers" the reasonable assumption is that if 1% of the population in 2018 are whales, then in 2019 or 2020 it is still 1%, regardless of whether the total number of players has grown or shrunk.
~ Cap
While you are technically correct, as has been said by @davefenestrator there is zero evidence for it. (Actually there is zero evidence for the general assumption of the post I was referring to that players are leaving in droves as well), so it is sensible to assume that players of all kinds are equally likely to leave a game. We could otherwise also make the scenario where whales are staying at a higher frequency.
It would be different if in-game currency were able to be transferred elsewhere (e. g. real hard cash) - then a diminishing player base would mean less potential income and the game being less interesting as a source of income. But even then, if enough whales left, the field is easier to play for the other remaining ones.
But that isn't the case with STO. F2P players play the game because they like it. Whales play the game because they like it and have a few more dollars to spare. When players are leaving there may be different reasons for F2P players (not being able to advance anymore through normal grinding as an example) and whales (e. g. not enough new shinies). But since I see no discernible change in grind or available new shinies, there's no reason to assume this.
And by Occam's Razor, since we have no reason to assume that different leaving ratios apply to different shares of the playerbase, but it is a well known fact that inflation of in-game currencies is an ongoing issue in (almost) all MMOs, it is the reasonable thing to assume until further evidence comes along that there will be no change in the general level of prices.
But we're already deeper in the topic than the post I was referring to was, which just stated "diminishing playerbase leads to rising prices", which is just not the way it is.
(What can be said though is that a dying game will face hyper-inflation. It really needs to be in its last throes though, a simple decline to half the playerbase or similar isn't enough. Once everybody knows the game is gonna end, say: devs stated "next tuesday we will shut down the servers", any currency immediately loses its value, there is no need to save up anymore, while any shiny will have at least some value to try out. But that is something STO is very, very removed from, this won't happen even in maintenance mode, as long as we can hope that it will last a bit longer.)
Also, with the sheer volume of Ships availible to choose from certain ones are going to feel like the Maytag Repairman. Case in point, the Vonph and associates were dirt cheap when in a Ultra Selection Box with its own %chance to get. They got folded into the big box and prices shot up.
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.'
Which is evidence for a healthy supply of ships and gear, driving down the selling cost to close to the creation cost through competition.
Note the the promo ship acquisition cost is higher not because of the zen cost (250 keys vs. 100 packs per ship) but because the R&D pack contents (other than the ship) are close to worthless. Compare the selling price of R&D mats vs. lock box weapons on the exchange.
If Cryptic would make the promo pack contents more valuable (more catalysts, more lobi, vanity shield chance?) the ship cost would plummet. For example, if R&D packs included 15 lobi you'd expect ship prices to drop by close to 100 million because of being able to sell 1.5 lobi ships from the 100 packs instead of 1.0 lobi ships.
Of course I don't have any evidence. I don't need any either, because I never made any such claim of anything happening. You should read the whole post.
I argued simply that the assumption I was quoting was very possibly incorrect and put forth two different assumptions that could lead to economic problems, depending on the overall makeup of the playerbase between whales and free players.
Again, I don't know, and no one posting here knows what is actually going on, this is all academic.
Right, though the odds I've seen here and in the wiki are 1:250 for lock box ships not 1:200.
The difference, why lock box ships are half the keys cost, is that when you open lock boxes you get ships, lobi AND traits, weapon packs, etc. that have value. When you open a pack you get ships, lobi ... and a rock.
R & D packs were made for Charlie Brown -
The problem here is that all your numbers are hypothetical and are tailored just to enforce your argument. I could easily make the exact same argument only in my version 2 regular players leave and 2 whales join.
Either way, Whales are just like regular players.. they're cyclical. They come and they go. The whales pouring in all the money today are likely not the same whales that were here a year or two ago. There are always more.
That is correct.. the numbers you are responding to are inaccurate to an almost absurd degree. The only thing I can think of that's actually inflated in cost over the years is lock box keys. My theory is that's mostly due to the Dilithium - Zen exchange rate since a lot of players use this method to buy keys. This has made keys more expensive over the years.
The 'big ticket' items are right around the same price as they have always been.. many are actually lower.
The inflation problem people are trying to solve actually doesn't exist.
Correct, as I sure you know Sea lockbox keys were as low as 1.2/1.4 million in late 2012/early 2013 (memory is a biz hazzy
So lockbox keys have inflated, but they have also trended downward the last year or so. However, it would take another drastic event to make them lower i suspect. If anything, they might stablize around this price point.
The drastic event, would have to be lockbox ships becoming account bound. Though, if anything if that occurred lockbox ship prices on the exchange would skyrocket (my own opinion, good chance i am wrong
Everyone always seems to forget that there is a third option as to why there are so many of these ships on the market and that's literally the existence of third party providers.
IT's like everyone here assumes that everyone on the market is good faith actors.
These ships are worth something to someone and people will get them how ever they can. Literally they have a real world market value. Do not forget that.
There will always be a supply even when there is no demand because it is a business within a business.
Anyhow, as a so called whale myself (So called for I would be considered a whale but i don't believe something like a whale could exist in this particular game) I will have to agree with the EC side that says the best way is to sale items to claim what you want. It is the most static and most rewarding way to gain a ship.
I own countless infinity promo ships a couple i unlocked from hundreds of boxes and a couple i sold promos for and the one that seemed to benefit me most was simply selling then buying, it is just superior to opening boxes on your own.
Of course they are hypothetical. I never stated otherwise. I don't know why this is hard. I don't know what is actually going on with player numbers and spending, but what I was replying to made the assumption that player loss wouldn't affect overall prices. I provided a scenario where player loss or gain could affect the prices to counterpoint the first assumption.
Since I'm being quoted as saying stuff I'm not about whales et al. I will point out that the dil exchange has steadily gone up and has seemed to be much more volatile lately. That lends support to the idea that there are less zen sellers per dilithium sellers. That could mean less whales, it could mean more dil sellers. Maybe it could be due to whales not having need for dil with their starbases and upgrading being done, or maybe more dil is on the market because dil sellers are at the same point. Maybe none of that is true but dil sellers are more efficient in their dil gathering/refining and just have more to sell.
Who knows? I don't. I'm just pointing out possibilities.
I'm sorry but third party sellers are nonsense overall. There are no mechanical ways to get ships besides opening boxes with keys or buying them directly. There are no hackers that can generate ships with a few keystrokes. There's no way to bypass these things.
Can they get one by opening boxes then selling it for real money? Yes, that's possible, but not likely because its not profitable. Anyone who wants to spend real money on a ship should just buy zen, buy keys, sell keys, then buy the ship off the market.
The fact is, the grey market for MMOs died a decade ago because games put so many ridiculous BOA items and made enough ways to trade real money for in game money that there is no way to compete. Companies wanted total control over your money and didn't want to have to deal with the problem of scammers.
Any RMT sites or ads you see today are scams, pure and simple. There is no gold, no zen, no dil, there is no ship, nothing that is actually for sale. They promise you that so you give them your CC info and/or account info which they then steal. They have zero effect on the in game economy because they do not participate in it beyond robbing you.
Ah, just this statement alone...
In this day and age... with all the security protocols surrounding the financial institutes, you sincerely believe that the rmt companies that buy ec's, sale ec's, so on and so forth would risk their business for what? A hand full of dollars? Wow, makes absolutely no sense. If I could make thousands of dollars why would i waste that to steal tens of dollars? That is immediately returned to you by your credit card company or your bank and my business is shut down? That... just.... wow...
Side stepping your puzzling views, I will restate what i said; they could simply easily support the system that you're complaining about and they do. Easily. You either know nothing about economics, game economics, or to a lesser extent humans by denying the existence of these companies. Some of the wealthiest players in this game currently are RMT's like it or not.
They sale ships, traits, shields, consoles, and Doffs by say it with me, not hacking into the system as you so ludicrously and asininely posted but by purchasing boxes, by purchasing keys, and opening boxes to get the items and resale them not only for ec's but also for cold hard cash. Currently the ship you are complaining about literally sales for 200-225.00usd.
They have no overhead and can make a ton of money. You need to take a closer look at this part of the market without ideological blinders on and then reevaluate your views on the overall market.
As I said before this is not an overall critique of the market but a part of the market that is often ignored and should have light shined on it.
Also, for future reference. If so many people are telling you, you are wrong and then proceeding to prove to you you are wrong, doubling, tripling and quadrupling down will not make you correct. You will just entrench yourself and in the end look utterly foolish dying on a hill in which there was no war and lose all credibility in any conversation based on facts and not fallacies...