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Dilithium Exchange is to High at 453
starmanj
Member Posts: 714 Arc User
Dilithium Exchange is to High at 453 it really needs to go back down to 155-230 range LOL why did you all get it so high again?
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Cirran
Person B: why can't I refine more dil so I can add to the inflation and make the dilex go higher!? Also, why is the dilex so high?
Person C: why did you nerf marks turn in and rep completion during dil bonus weekends? Also, why is the dilex so high?
It's so high because of supply and demand. Cryptic has been very generous about handing out dil.
Players complain when Cryptic cuts off dil farming sources like running events on 10 characters at once. Then players complain about the dilex being too high.
You should have been here last week when it was at 475.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Why is it so high? Because there isn't anything to drive demand for Dilithium to balance the economy. IMO the IDEAL balance range is between 250-350, spiking depending on Zen sales and desirable C-Store releases. But we do need something to balance it out so that the exchange is fair to everyone, including people who actually take the time to grind out Dilithium for Zen.
Some may say that when the Fleet Starbases first came out, it was basically the golden age. Actually dipped down into the double digits because demand for Dilithium was so high, people were willing to sell Zen for Dilithium. These days we don't have anything like that. Many of the big fleets have maxed out their holdings, there's no real demand for DL outside of maybe the odd personal project, and supply is quite generous, which leads to an overabundance of DL.
Some people have tried to suggest a hard cap on refine rates that actually DECREASES how much everyone can get, but ultimately punishes people for putting in the effort vs those who don't. What's needed to balance the economy is a new, desirable sink that people are willing to use. Something that everyone can take advantage of as well. Not just those with deep pockets.
We've had a lot of desirable things come out for Zen, which influences the exchange rates. What we need now is something in the other direction. You get something in the DL Store that people want, you'll see the exchange rates change real fast. But it has to be something that isn't just a band aid kicking the can down the road. It needs to be meaningful and allow for long term balance of the economy.
Honestly, you two do not have any idea what is actually fair. The devs have said the exchange is too high and they're looking at ways to bring it down. At least, that's what they said when asked if the Phoenix box being permanently put out was because of the exchange.
500 dil to 1 zen might seem reasonable to you guys who fork over the zen you pay for on the exchange, but you have to think about those who are less fortunate who cannot afford to buy zen with cash. The only means people like me have a chance to get C-store items we want is to spend our time in game gathering up the dilithium that you guys want, which at 8000 a toon, amounts to a lot of time out of the day trying to get enough zen in order to afford to buy myself ships that I want.
I've been fortunate enough to have gotten a few of the Discovery ships from the exchange zen (I think I managed to do that first day for the Buran and KDF ship). I have saved some time with getting for free the Shran, the Europa, the Sommerville, the M'chla bird of prey, the klingon equivalent of the sommerville, but there are still ships that I need to complete my Discovery collection.
1. Upgrades to ships
2. Upgrade to abilities
3. Buy random 1-4 lobi boxes
4. Buy random 05-15 mark boxes
5. Change 1 seat on a ship
6. Extra proc for weapons
7. Buy random gear boxes
8. Buy previous event ships (hefty amount of course)
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
That was purchased zen too though, since Cryptic got $200 - $300 cash monies up front. You could think of it as earning 2.5% monthly payments from buying an annuity.
As far as I know, no zen exists in game that didn't come from giving Cryptic real world cash at some point.
20000 zen = $200
30000 = $300
Per month.
500 x 12 = 6000
Using the half off LTS sale, it will take 3 years, 4 months to get to the 20000 zen. Then 5 years for the 30000.
Take into account most LTS holders have been playing longer than that. Then, yes, at a certain point you've recouped what you spent and the Zen just becomes free. Just because they paid for, doesn't change the fact that at a certain point it becomes free. Basic math proves you wrong there. Granted in both cases it takes a good long while to get to that point.
Then if you factor in the bots and bots with LTS, that play the market to produce EC for their EC sales. There's a lot of free zen sitting on said Exchange. Which Cryptic has admitted bots are a problem.
If you want to argue that Dil prices should be max all the time. Then here's a solution. All LTS Zen now becomes bound to account and unsalable on the Dilex. While it wouldn't help with the current zen on the market. It will definitely impact the future of said market, and thus give people reason to see why it's as high as it is. Because I'm guessing a large chunk of the zen on the market would disappear with this. However this will never happen, but it is one solution.
If you want to argue with the Real World money thing. You have to remember, most everything you buy depreciates in value after you buy it. Your car for example, you take a 20% loss right off the bat for signing the paperwork.
Another solution here, for those to maintain their greed, and give reason for the Dilex to be as high as it is. All ships and costumes are now per character, instead of account unlocks. Again this will never happen.
So as you can see, your real money argument just doesn't hold any water. I've proposed two solutions here to help your argument. Both of which would only serve to drive players away from the game.
If you can't define it as what it truly is, greed. Then do not try to justify with excuses.
You're looking at the LTS money wrong. $200 to Cryptic now is worth more to Cryptic than $5 a month for 40 months. Put it into the S&P 500 now and you'll have $272 or more in 4 years. A car depreciates, money that's invested properly grows.
LTS is like buying an Immediate Annuity. You pay in $x and get back a guaranteed $y each month until you die.
I"m NOT arguing that the dilex should be 500. It's right where it should be based on supply and demand, and I don't buy or sell dil.
Bots are a separate issue from zen, but all zen came from people giving Cryptic real world money.
Don't get me wrong, brainstorming ideas is great and it is a way to get a conversation started. You just also have to consider other factors, like what existed in the past, as well as how it might impact Cryptic, and in turn us the players.
I'm open to discussing ideas, and I'm willing to point out possible pitfalls of ideas as well. But I'm not trying to argue. I'm interested in discussion and willing to have some back and forth on refining ideas as well. As someone who's been playing since about a month before F2P I've seen some stuff. I'm drawing from what I remember to help spot what I feel might be issues, like with the extra procs on weapons for example.
If they decided to try and make owned Lockbox/Lobi ships available through Dilithium, that might have a dramatic impact on the exchange rates. However there's a fine line between viable and not. Too low and full account unlock would make everyone happy, but might only be a temporary solution to the Economy balance. Too high and not account unlock would be seen as too unfair to those who can't afford it. Honestly I might not mind if it was "Pay X amount of DL to spawn another copy of a lockbox/lobi ship account bound" because I might not want every ship for every character. BUT... and this is a big BUT, the price would have to be fair. Not 2 mil a pop like the Ent MACO per character. 500-600k per might be more reasonable for a ship.
The main factor that has to be considered is the player. We have players who are so space rich that they can get the Ent MACO for all characters no sweat. On the other hand we have players who struggle to get a decent amount of DL because of time constraints or even fatigue from grinding. You need to find a balance between the two extremes that makes it fair for all.
Also how would they handle things like the Prototype Dreadnought Cruiser that has faction equivelents? Would this theoretical account bound box only be the Fed one or would it open up into a faction appropriate ship if sent to a KDF or Romulan?
I could argue that it's too high. That's because a couple years ago I elected to solo level a fleet. So I place a higher value on my dil, than I do zen. I seldom use the Dilex as it is myself, and I only buy zen when there's something in the c-store I want. This is also a seldom occurrence.
But we can look at it from the dil side as well. As some would say, there's to much and not enough to do with it. So here is one solution to that.
A weekly reoccurring fleet projects with a dil cost the same as maximum tier. This is to keep that holding up and running, and able to produce buffs and gear. Pay it, or lose the ability to buy buffs and gear again until it is paid. This isn't a very good solution, but a solution none the less.
As for bots, they're as much a problem here, as they are everywhere else. The only consolation being Zen and Dil can't be trade through person to person trade. So, it has to be cycled through the Dilex and C-Store to become items that can be sold for EC. One can usually look toward the key market for this.
As for the LTS and zen part of it. I excluded the sales pitch of bonus Zen for that reason. Which if you look at it, it is 10% of total bought. Which tells me, if they're willing to give away an extra 10%, then the total mark up cost to buy is more than that. The LTS part I once considered long ago, before real life interfered and I never made the decision. Now, I have to weigh the cost versus the potential life span of the game. So, not a very sound investment at this point, for me any how. Had I decided back in 2012 when I first started playing, then it would have been a sound one.
However, we have Cryptic saying that the Dilex is to high. So, we kind of have to look at it from their perspective here. As you can see from the solutions I thought up while typing all this, finding ones that aren't harmful to the game is a bit of a pain. All of mine would do more harm than good. This whole thing puts Cryptic squarely facing and Ogre's Choice. Because no matter which way they go with this, it's going to upset a lot of players. There isn't going to be a happy middle ground here.
Or they could just turn seats into gear. That's how it should have been from the beginning imo.
Asking someone to think about someone else? You're being silly! No...who cares about someone else when they can be full of greed?!?
Thank you for making that point.
I remember reading from one of the original blogs on the switch to F2P that the devs at that time had the idea that they would not be involved with the regulation of the exchange and that it would be up to the players to determine what would be a fair exchange rate would be.
Plus as I already stated, the original goal of the dilithium exchange was to allow players that were f2p to have the ability to get stuff from the C-store if they wanted to spend the time to gather the dilithium and trade it for at the time was Cryptic Points (now of course we use Zen). That particular blog stated that the prices should reflect the laws of supply and demand, where prices would go up or down based on the need for dilithium. Let's take a look back at when the fleet system first came out. The Fleet starbases needed dilithium, so as a result, the dilithium was easier to come by since there were people willing to exchange it for those who needed it, so the price dipped down since the demand was so high for it. Once there wasn't a need to really spend dilithium in game anymore, the price spiked since we now had an abundance of dilithium to spend, but nothing really to spend it on.
If the rate that @evilmark444 felt was fair to him was in place, with the exchange rate of 500 dil to 1 zen, 1 character's daily refinement for a player without liftetime sub and without a fleet (in this case, 8,000) would equal around 16 zen. If the refinement for the dilithum mine is in play, this is bumped to 500 more, so around 17 zen. That means for 1 character, getting a single C-store ship would be 3000 zen or 1,500,000 dilithium, which would take a little over 6 months to accumulate. The more characters though, the less they have to take the time to acquire.
How much time one has to play though is a big factor. Someone who has a job & a family will have little time to play a game that they don't want to spend money on, especially if they have bills to pay. So while some could justify that their hard extra income deserves the exchange at the cap, they honestly don't see the bigger picture.
They do have two forms of control on this, both of which we know. The 500 dil per zen cap, an the daily refinement. So they could reset the cap to what they feel should be max, since I'm guessing they never expected it to actually reach the point it has. Or they could lower the daily refinement cap. The latter being the worst of the two choices. Both would also hurt the game.
If they lower the dil to zen cap, it means less people selling it. If the lower the daily refinement, this will have a negative impact across the whole game.
This is where you have to look at things they've done. When it comes to gear, that's upgrading. Whether or not this is using Crafted, Phoenix, or Omega upgrades. Of these, only the original Omega's come without a dil cost. Plus with the change to Omega traces and such being account bound now. This puts more value on dil. Because now you can't buy your way to fully upgraded gear with Omega. You can buy the gear and upgrade yourself, or buy gear that someone else has already upgraded. This puts upgrading gear in the dil sink area. Only way around it is to spend the anniversary farming Omegas for the regular Omega upgrades.
Phoenix comes with the Dil cost to buy the boxes and get the tokens.
Crafted comes with the dil cost to make and use.
Personally, this doesn't affect me, as I don't upgrade anything I don't intend to use as a standard.
Another thing I could see helping here. Remove lock boxes from the C-store all together. Leave the dil store as the only means of acquiring them outside of drops. No more claimable free lock boxes. This would most definitely start draining off excess dil, and have no impact on the rest of the game. All it would cause is some price fluctuation on the exchange for the items they give.
Another would be to cut dil payout for everything, except doff assignments, in half. Doff assignments would be immune to this, because there are only a few that reward more than 5 dil at a time. But the dil payout for Admiralty would be cut in half, as would episode, battlezone, and TFO rewards.
Another thought is, ship skins in teh dil store. Not the ones you get form lockboxes and such. But more what I've seen some ask for. Skins for to give you ship a damaged, or even derelict look. Put a price tag of 500K dil per character on these and watch how much dil gets spent on them.
So while they do have ways of controlling the markets, it's a matter of finding the ones that don't have an overall negative impact on the game. The change to Omega doesn't do that. As you can still get to the same point without them, it just costs more dil now, and removes being able to buy them on the exchange.
We kinda need free players to keep it interesting.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
A large factor in my opinion on this matter is my absolute hatred for the F2P concept, my despising of the people who first came up with it, my anger at the many development teams that have implemented F2P models into their games, and my extreme bitterness towards players who pushed devs to attempt it and who have made the concept a success, not just here but in the entire gaming industry.
If it were up to me F2P wouldn't exist at all and every ship would be available to everyone for nothing more than a simple $15 subscription, so imo six months for one ship is a pretty good deal.
TRIBBLE selfish prick
#LegalizeAwoo
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An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Be it micro transactions or a subscription you are still paying for something you already purchased, just in a different way, and a tiny monthly subscription fee is much easier to handle than a massive lump sum purchase all at once. I've never had a problem with sub fees from my earliest MMO days and anyone who thinks about it rationally should understand why MMOs require more than just the initial purchase price to maintain them.
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Real Join Date: October 2010
Whether you like it or not, the reason F2P exists is largely because sub models do not work for every game, including this one. Creative people found a different way to monetize that works. Thankfully the early adopters didn't get screwed by the change to F2P here and have seen their gamble pay off.
It hasn't been mid 200s for years. New Fleet holdings tend to have some kind of impact on the exchange... until the big fleets finish their holding. The DL Store outfits knocked the price down a couple points, but then was instantly countered by an event.
That's also you. Not everyone can afford a monthly sub because of other things. There are currently 3 kinds of MMOs.
Sub games tend to be from the bigger companies, and yes the constanty income from people paying subs keeps them going, they also typically have some kind of microtransaction system. FF14 has the Mogstation, which includes items you can get, most of which are cosmetic.
Buy2Play, like Elder Scrolls Online, needs that initial purchase to get in the door, then has microtransactions for things. Some are cosmetic, but others include some of the DLCs.
Free2Play relies a lot on microtransactions, but opens the door to everyone to be able to play, and people who enjoy the game generally spend money. STO actually has one of the most generous models in the fact that nothing is behind a paywall and everyone can actually earn pretty much everything in the game. PC players can't grind out a LTS, but I heard that console players can.
How the F2P model is set up is a big factor in the game as well. On the one hand we have STO, which is quite friendly to F2P players. On the other we had Star Wars The Old Republic, that, last time I touched it, you had to give EA $5 just for frakkin' bank access. A BANK! Pretty much a staple service for an MMORPG.
Fact of the matter is F2P opens a game to a wider audience. Means more players, means more potential income.
I can vouch for that, as at current market value, I can genrally get about 100 zen, give or take, off 7 characters from Admiralty alone per day. And that's focusing on Ferengi Admiralty and having a bunch of ships already at my disposal that I've collected over the years. Someone who doesn't have that won't be able to get as much even with Ferengi or Klingon Admiralty.
I have a lot more I could say on this topic, but I don't want to derail this thread. So for now I'll just say that I will never, EVER have anything remotely positive to say about F2P, and nothing anybody says will ever change that.
Thank you for backing up my point.
I can say if it wasn't for the fact that STO moved from the Sub model to the F2P model, I honestly wouldn't be able to play today.
I have enjoyed every moment of being in this game. From receiving the Odyssey free ship on my first character, experiencing the closed beta of the Romulans on Tribble, launching into the Delta Quadrant in Delta Rising, and many more memories throughout the 8 years I've been apart of the game.
As it stands, the dilithium exchange is a vital part of the free 2 play experience. All of us need to come together and figure out how we can manage it so that everyone gets the best beneifts.
well, if tomorrow a monthly sub is needed to play at STO, for me it is simple; I just stop to play at this game. i don't want to pay a monthly sub just for a GAME. I'm not a LTS, for me it is unimaginable.