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Price inflation on the exchange
misanthrope
Member Posts: 84 Arc User
Here I was wanting to buy myself a daemosh science vessel off the exchange by buying one of those 20 key ring bundles with zen and selling the keys on the exchange but that would've only gotten me 186m and the daemosh is going for 300m wtf, it is not worth 300m! 300 million use to be the price for ships that were discontinued like the recluse. I remember keys once selling for 4 million each on the exchange and the cheapest t6 ships going for around 150m, now keys are 9.4m and the cheapest t6 ships on the exhange are 240m. This is ridiculous, the price of these ships hasn't increased in lobi and zen prices for keys haven't changed either and since the foundry is gone the only way to get a real amount of energy credits without spending real money is tour the galaxy and the amount you get from it hasn't changed either. With the foundry gone and tour the galaxy the only real way to get energy credits the prices on the exchange should be dropping not increasing, this is bs.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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It's much much easier to get EC than before, and the game has no real EC sinks.
Zero EC is destroyed by the exchange, it just moves from one player to another. Supply of EC continues to grow too fast with no in-game expenses to speak of to destroy that supply.
Ok, you have the right idea.
As the game has progressed, Zen has become more valuable and Dilithium supply has increased. The Zen inflation is due to constant specials and items being on sale, and the Dilithium influx is from the constant string of events. It now takes more Dilithium to convert to Zen then it used to, many players use the Dilithium-->Zen method to obtain things like keys that are sold on the exchange and this inflates their value.
Well, obviously that's not true now is it? If it wasn't worth $300M then it wouldn't sell and people would lower the price. Everything on the exchange costs what it's 'worth.' The worth is defined solely by what people are willing to pay. Items that are over priced do not sell and the prices eventually drop. If the price stays steady at the current rate then the item is priced at exactly what it's worth.
You also used to get $4-5M EC per key and now you get $9M+
Then you simply misremember. At the time when keys were in that range, the cheapest T6 was generally the Vengeance class due to high supply, at that time the ship went from about 220-250M. I purchsed a couple during this time. There were occasions when they would dip around the $200M mark, I think I even got one for about $195M and was quite happy about it. There might have been cheaper ships that were in low demand, but obviously you're not attempting to buy one of the cheapest ships, the Daemosh is moderately priced with average demand.
Sounds about right, that gets you the cheapest Lobi ship for around $25.. about what it cost you back when the ship was cheaper and keys sold for less.
Irrelivant.
Pretty much nothing in that statement is correct. The foundry was shut down long before the spike in prices, the spike resulted from the long string of events coupled with Zen sales as explained earlier. Cryptic seems to have no interest in curbing this policy either, so best to just get used to it sadly.
The real hit is to grand prize ships that are now so expensive they can't even be sold on the exchange. For these ships you have to buy in trade channels which is a real shame.
None of us like it, but unless Cryptic shifts their focus it's the state of things going forward.
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Cryptic really ARE the only ones that can change it, though them going in and actually changing exchange prices is a ludicrous idea that would only result in more people using private trade channels instead of the exchange. What we need to combat the inflation are meaningful EC sinks, things we don't mind paying for that also permanently remove EC from the economy. Otherwise the endless inflation is only going to continue.
I have an alternate account where I've only done some daily endeavours. I've earned like 40m EC on one toon alone there.
Dave is right.
At least players who open lock boxes with bought Zen can finally earn some EC again by selling stuff.
Supply of a commodity does affect its price. The more items of that type you have, generally the cheeper it is because of availability.
Demand also comes into this as well, generally acting as a counterbalance to Supply. If there is a sufficient enough demand vs supply, the prices tend to level off at a balance point.
Now... if we look at the Daemosh, and compare her to, say... the Atlas Prototype Dreadnought... odds are the Atlas is going to be much more expensive because not as many people are providing the supply, so... higher prices. They're both T6 ships, yet there's probably more Daemoshes than Atlases.
We now come to the CORE issue with Exchange prices. We have NO viable EC sinks in game right now. Supply is running rampant, especially with Admiralty being a factor. Run Ferengi Admiralty on enough characters, you're making bank every day. Just depends on how crazy you are, or how patient you are. And that is a relatively PASSIVE source of ECs.
-There is no Exchange Fee for transactions to syphon off some of the ECs floating around in the wild. Its just pure, unaltered transfer of ECs from one player to another with 0 lost to the Ether.
-In game vendors sell their wares for dirt cheep, so that isn't really viable.
-While Dabo can use ECs... not everyone wants to gamble their ECs for the virtually worthless GPL, and if you have enough of a GPL stockpile... you can just gamble GPL for GPL. I should know this... I got enough to build the Great Pyramids of Giza AND the Great Wall of China! I WANT something to spend all that on!
The fact of the matter is... ECs are absolutely FLOODING the market right now. That is going to affect the Exchange. Introduce a viable EC sink that people will use... syphon off what's already out there to counterbalance the income, and the prices on the Exchange should come down and reflect that.
One possible EC sink would be to impose a percentage based Exchange fee, probably on purchase of a posted item. This is a common system used in other MMOs, usually somewhere below 10% of a listed price I wanna say. I think FF14 set their Market fee at around 4% or so. So while the buyer pays the listed price, the seller gets that minus 4% for the Exchange fee.
And the Market is still thriving. At the same time Gil is not quite so easy to come by as ECs are in STO. There are ways to make a lot of Gil, but it also means putting in the effort, or getting a really lucky drop to sell on the Market. A mount you can sell typically goes for millions, which goes back to Supply and Demand.
Part of the issue is less people overall opening lockboxes.
The easiest and most simple solution you might ask? Just increase the drop rates. More supply will immediately begin dropping the inflated prices. In fact it would probably increase the amount of people opening lockboxes too.
Will they do this? Hell no. This has already been brought up in the past, and the devs have rejected the idea. They're under the misconception that lockboxes can only be profitable if the odds are so bad people are forced to open a ton if they actually want the big prize. But if they were actually more rewarding then people would more naturally gravitate towards them.
This is something that really should have been around since the beginning, and would have helped a lot if it had been. However at this point I think an exchange fee would just push more people to the private trade channels.
That is exactly what would happen. An exchange tax would be hugely detrimental to the market unless it also came with the removal of the ability to trade between players directly which I am pretty sure no one wants.
The only thing an exchange tax accomplishes is pushing people even further into trade channels.
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OP ran into currency inflation trying to get a ship they wanted off the Exchange.
> OP ran into currency inflation trying to get a ship they wanted off the Exchange.
It’s the result of too many people grinding the game instead of paying for the game.
If the OP grinds as well he causes the problem he encounters.
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I remember a time when a good deal on a lock box ship was 300 mil ec. Now it’s almost 900.
I remember a time when a key sold for 3,6 mil ec. Now it’s almost 9,6.
In all this time the zen price for a key was the same. In all this time the RL money price for zen was the same.
EC Inflation is a Problem exclusivity for grinder with two simple solutions:
1) complain less in forums and grind more.
2) stop the grind and thereby make it easier for the rest of us.
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Now with that said this is a problem that's been going on for awhile in STO. There are definitely certain items that imo are severely overpriced for what they are. I would dare say everyone has at least one item that comes to mind they think is overpriced. With that said the exchange is largely governed by supply and demand. If supply of ships goes down but demand stays the same or goes up, prices of ships will go up. If supply goes up but demand stays the same prices will go down. If demand goes down then prices will go down. Last calculated odds of a box dropping were around 1/250 I believe someone calculated. Assuming for sake of argument that 1/250 is a guaranteed drop, that means out of every 250 boxes opened, 249 of them won't result in a ship. so if we assume an average key price of 9m per key, that would be just shy of 2.5b worth of keys just to generate one ship. Just to re-iterate this assumes that the 1/250 is a guaranteed drop, and in reality it's not. You could end up getting more than 1/250, or you could get flipped the bird each time. Up until recently more folks were opening boxes and the supply of ships was alot better, meaning prices were kept relatively low due to sufficient supply.
Now if we take lobi ships into account, lobi ships haven't gone up as much because there is largely a fixed cost with them of 900 lobi to generate a t6 ship. The only variable is the demand for each ship and the price of keys. If we assume an average of 7 lobi per key, that's 129 (128.5) to generate a ship. That's a static number that doesn't change. The only thing that changes is the price of the keys themselves. This is why lobi ships generally are far more stable in price than the lockbox or promo ship. If you open boxes or promo packs, it's guaranteed that you will eventually have enough lobi to generate a ship, where as there is nothing guaranteed with the box or promo ships. A problem we have right now is folks aren't opening as many boxes as previous, and/or ships simply aren't dropping as much as they were previously.
As things sit right now, there are two options you have to get the ship and generate the EC. Grind it out, or fork over cash to generate the EC through things like keys. I would also advise you to try crafting certain items people still want and are after. Certain pedigree weapons can go for alot depending on what they are. Simply because one doesn't like the price of an item doesn't mean it's automatically overpriced.
With all that said there are some problems that have been going on for awhile now that have been allowed to spiral out of control. The first and most important issue with it is that there are no dilithium and EC sinks to remove excess amounts of EC and dilithium from the game. As is right now, as folks grind and generate EC and dilithium this is like pouring water into a bathtub with the drain plug. While the drain plug is in place, no water can get out and eventually the bathtub will run over if excess water isn't removed. In order to maintain the water at a safe level, enough of the excess must be able to escape past the drain plug and into the drain. The key for Cryptic is finding a happy medium between EC and dilithium entering the supply chain vs what's removed. Clearly that balance hasn't been found.
Right now we have the phoenix packs which are a steady pull downward on the dilithium supply and is like a pin hole in the drain plug. It allows some water to escape, but not nearly enough. Folks will always need upgrades generally which is part of why the phoenix packs being a permanent thing was a good move on Cryptic's part. The chief thing we need right now are additional ways that create a bigger hole in the drain plug than the phoenix packs do to balance the EC and dilithium generated with what's removed. We can debate on what those sinks should be and what form they should take. However it doesn't negate the fact that they're needed, and those sinks won't come about if folks aren't able to talk about them.
An exchange tax can help remove some of the excess, but on its own isn't enough, just like the phoenix packs on their own aren't enough. Additional space barbie options would certainly be a popular addition in the community as it would give folks the ability to further customize their ship and toons. Personally I have said we should be able to dye our weapons and similar for awhile now. Even though CBS didn't like it initially years ago, I think games like SWTOR and others prove that people love the space barbie options. Plus I would also argue that the whole non-canon colors argument sailed long ago after they allowed off colors for certain weapons. They could also institute a "maintenance" cost to ships and weapons which would further pull EC out like a repair bill. It wouldn't be popular but it would get the job done of removing excess EC. Though for me personally if it improved the game as a whole I could live with it, but won't presume to speak for others on that one.
Overall this isn't an issue that's going to go away over night and folks are going to want to talk about it until solutions come about.
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The game has a TRIBBLE ton of EC sinks if you are not full of zen in your pockets.
I don't know how many millions of EC I've generated over the past year, but I do know the precise effect those millions have had on the exchange prices. Exactly zero. Why? I haven't bought anything from the exchange. EC generated does exactly nothing until it is competing for stuff on the exchange. But nothing breaks in STO either. I don't need to spend EC to repair the carburetor on my Akira or buy new torpedoes. Once I have that equipment I want, I'm done, no longer competing for that equipment.
Keep in mind this means that no newbie selling keys or torpedoes or whatever to bankroll their favorite box ship is getting anything from me. They have nothing I want. I don't need a spaceburger or space beans or a transporter mechanic or someone to mow my space grass. My spaceship is never going to break down and I'll never need a new one, I may only want a new one.
Its just not remotely as simple as people make it out to be. Game economies have some major, major differences to real economies and always boiling it down to everyone's favorite villain of EC generation ignores all the differences and how the specific game economy is affected by other factors, especially supply and demand of specific goods.
As always I ask for a price index for STO, which is how real world inflation is measured, but no one ever has one, simply basing their claim on a single or a few goods, none of which they've been properly tracking.
(Objectionable material removed) - darkbladejk
> The game has a TRIBBLE ton of EC sinks if you are not full of zen in your pockets.
We surely have!
Problem of threads like this one is that those asking for more sinks are not the ones who go for those we already have in the first place. I suppose I don’t have to tell you how unlikely it is that they will go for the ones they now suggest either.
They only want you and me to go for them in order to make their grinding life easier.
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What sinks are there? My experience could admittedly be different due to having a lifetime sub, but things I remember paying EC for in the past include the tailor and ship tailor (at launch), and transwarp to mission, all of which are free now. There are also the level 1 and 2 versions of Boff abilities but they are so cheap that they were never a legit EC sink even in the early days. I can't think of anything else I ever spend EC on except for the exchange, which has never had a fee.
> What sinks are there? My experience could admittedly be different due to having a lifetime sub, but things I remember paying EC for in the past include the tailor and ship tailor (at launch), and transwarp to mission, all of which are free now. There are also the level 1 and 2 versions of Boff abilities but they are so cheap that they were never a legit EC sink even in the early days. I can't think of anything else I ever spend EC on except for the exchange, which has never had a fee.
Go build some fleet holdings for your community.
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Considering those sinks pretty much disappear once the holding is finished those really aren't sufficient. I have contributed to holdings though to get fleet credits for consoles and stuff, I just do it with dil since it's a 1:1 ratio and dil is always the last thing to fill up in a holding project.
You literally just described supply and demand. You already have what you needed, therefore you have no more demand for said equipment, same with other folks in your shoes.
What sinks do we have still that many folks actually want to partake in? It's not enough to simply have a sink if folks want nothing to do with it or have no use for it. For a sink to be effective, it has to be something that provides value and something folks want. Aside from the folks that just want their own fleet, why would folks continue to start new fleets constantly once they have access to a maxed out fleet or similar? Fleet holdings are temporary solutions only.
I also find your last comment to be extremely narrow minded. High prices due to inflation or otherwise effect the entire community. There may be a privilege few who have more money than sense and can throw gobs of cash at the game to get whatever they want, but not everyone can do that. Throwing money at the game doesn't make one better than anyone else.
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