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.
Wait are you complaining you can't buy a Lockbox class ship for under 2000 zen. Shocking. lol
There is nothing wrong with pricing on ships. Why anyone was ever selling lobi ships for less then the EC price of one key ring was beyond me. Those people where stupid.
> @evilmark444 said: > 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.
Those things do not disappear. You can found infinite fleets and contribute to a infinite number of different holdings in different fleets for your different toons. You can generate infinite number of provisions.
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Well I certainly never thought one of my threads would be so popular, so yay lol. Also on a side note, husanakx, I didn't expect to buy the daemosh with just the 20 key ring's value, I had about 60m in cash already but even with both combined it still wasn't enough to buy it. Maybe a year or two ago I saw daemosh's go for close to 100m cheaper on average.
There is a lot more to exchange prices than the terribly simplistic concept of EC inflation. Consider the supply of keys is directly based on people buying them with zen first. Zen availability is almost certainly lower thanks in part to the massive hit economies around the world have suffered due to overreaction to the virus from China. There are a lot of factors that go into exchange prices and suggesting they are just based on one thing is not reasonable.
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.
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.
Yes, that's exactly what I did. You seem to have missed the point, though. In contrast to RL, there is no continuous demand for things in this game, so the supply of things increases right alongside EC. They never get broken, used up, depleted, destroyed, outside of purposeful pointless destruction so there are more and more box items sitting around and the price just keeps dropping until the box is discontinued. The demand of some ships can even get filled and no one wants them any more without a serious price decrease.
Someone complained in the thread about 300m+ ships. That's been there for a long time, but for a good while there, I saw at least a dozen ships below 200m, because someone or many someones had a lot of Voth science ships to move and no one was buying them. I think some got as low as 160m at one point. When no one wants it, the price drops. Box ships are designed to be in short supply, though, so the price is always going to be high.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,561Community Moderator
Those things do not disappear. You can found infinite fleets and contribute to a infinite number of different holdings in different fleets for your different toons. You can generate infinite number of provisions.
Uh... that... is not a viable solution. You're basically suggesting abandoning established fleets to start from scratch JUST to act as an EC sink. No one is going to just drop out of a fleet to make a brand new one, then abandon that one to make another new one...
The amount of work needed for fleet holdings is not going to encourage people to use it as an EC sink. If you want a viable sink, its gotta be one that people are WILLING to use. Maybe adding projects that only take ECs in exchange for fleet credits and maybe some other things can work, but flat out making NEW fleets? No. That's just... no.
> @evilmark444 said:
> 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.
Those things do not disappear. You can found infinite fleets and contribute to a infinite number of different holdings in different fleets for your different toons. You can generate infinite number of provisions.
Most players have less than 5 alts, and most players join an existing fleet instead of starting their own.
Exchange purchases don't count, they don't destroy EC they just shift it. A sales tax would help a little with that.
Reputations are a one-time sink per character and again most players only have 1-4 captains.
Buying fleet gear uses a bit of EC but that's another one-time thing for those 1-4 captains.
Can you name any significant, ongoing sinks other than "starting a bunch of solo fleets", that players actually use?
I doubt there are many maxed out armadas around. I have never seen one. New toons are and will always be in need of fleetstuff.
There is always something to sink your ec in fleets.
Bottom line is nobody goes for this sink because getting the latest lock box ship is simply much more appealing.
Will be the same with every sink you end up discussing here. Reason is that the hypocrite who suggest a new sink won’t be the one going for it. He wants others to go for it just in order to make his grinding live easier.
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Will be the same with every sink you end up discussing here. Reason is that the hypocrite who suggest a new sink won’t be the one going for it. He wants others to go for them to make his grinding live easier.
I don't really grind myself, other than KDF admiralty on 1-2 of my alts for fleet dil. We just finished the colony holding in the fed fleet I'm in so I've stopped doing admiralty for that and am down to my KDF recruit to earn fleet credits to gear them up.
I have a lifetime sub and own more ships than I can fly, purchased with zen. I 'm a minnow not a whale though.
I don't mind more EC sinks because I don't mind helping out the F2P players.
> @davefenestrator said: > I don't mind more EC sinks because I don't mind helping out the F2P players.
Thanks! I’m not. I am a hardcore grinder in STO and I am a paying whale. I have built 2 maxed out fleets with my 13 all maxed out epic chars.
While the grinder part in me certainly feels the increasing pressure, the paying part is not willing to compensate for those who never spend a penny on this title.
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Do we even have an issue here? I’m still not following. Who has the issue?
People who either don't get how to raise huge amounts of EC, or can't raise it fast enough to catch up to everyone else trading on the exchange (so they'll always have less than they need for Cool Thing They Want).
(i.e, if you're not already sitting on billions, how do you catch up to the people with billions, as the price of things escalates into the billions?)
edit: of course, this is assuming "and without dropping piles of cash into keys"
edit2: hey, sure - "just found more fleets! grind more provisions!" is an EC sink. So is "just delete your EC". That doesn't mean they're sinks that anyone would want to participate in. They need to be useful and/or attractive, not just "set a match to your cash". (well, or 'unavoidable' like exchange fees. But as others have said, that ship has long sailed.)
You want to help with an EC Sink? Buy all your (Trainer NPC available) Training Manuals from the Exchange. Do the same with Hypos.
'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.'
Well captainmarvelush you misread my posts then, I never asked Cryptic to fix this and I didn't blame them for it either lol
But why would they? It benefits them greater because you're either going to open your wallet or spend more time grinding for it
There is no incentive for them to step in and work on the problem
One reason is to keep promo ships in the exchange instead of requiring in-person meetups for private trading. Whales might open less packs if there is an added hassle for selling the results.
Well captainmarvelush you misread my posts then, I never asked Cryptic to fix this and I didn't blame them for it either lol
But why would they? It benefits them greater because you're either going to open your wallet or spend more time grinding for it
There is no incentive for them to step in and work on the problem
One reason is to keep promo ships in the exchange instead of requiring in-person meetups for private trading. Whales might open less packs if there is an added hassle for selling the results.
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Well captainmarvelush you misread my posts then, I never asked Cryptic to fix this and I didn't blame them for it either lol
But why would they? It benefits them greater because you're either going to open your wallet or spend more time grinding for it
There is no incentive for them to step in and work on the problem
One reason is to keep promo ships in the exchange instead of requiring in-person meetups for private trading. Whales might open less packs if there is an added hassle for selling the results.
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Will many people really go through the effort of in-person trades just to keep an extra 4%?
"Ain't nobody got time for that" is my own feeling, but you could be right.
I doubt there are many maxed out armadas around. I have never seen one. New toons are and will always be in need of fleetstuff.
There is always something to sink your ec in fleets.
Bottom line is nobody goes for this sink because getting the latest lock box ship is simply much more appealing.
Will be the same with every sink you end up discussing here. Reason is that the hypocrite who suggest a new sink won’t be the one going for it. He wants others to go for it just in order to make his grinding live easier.
That's not how any of that works and is not a viable solution. You've completely ignored the question because you simply don't want to see the other viewpoint. Fleets and fleet holdings are only temporary solutions. People aren't going to continually recycle fleets when they already have one established. You're kidding yourself if you think people are going to just continually start fleets purely to destroy their EC and dilithium reserves. In order for a sink to be effective it has to be something that will always be needed or desired in some form or fashion, and one that folks will want to use. Once people have maxed out their fleets, all that's needed is keeping things in stock. Leveling a fleet is seen as more of a chore than anything else by the playerbase. If you honestly think people are going to just dump their resources to dump them, you have zero understanding of the general mmo gamer.
If one is given a reason to interact with said sink, veteran and new players alike will use it. You not liking said sink or not wanting said sink doesn't automatically mean one isn't needed or people wouldn't use it. You having not seen a maxed out armada does not mean they don't exist. Nor is everyone the hypocritical leech you seem to think they are. You are one person with one opinion of how things should be, and are not reflective of the entire playerbase.
"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
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Why do people use the auction houses in the many other MMOs that do have taxes? Because it's a lot more convenient than chat channel trading.
But yeah, it's too late to do it in this game. It would have had to exist from the beginning, for people to be used to it & for it to have already kept people from dropping stuff into the exchange for massive amounts of EC.
The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players.
Pretty much all the MMOs I've played that have some sort of exchange fee? Also have in-person trading. But most sales still happen through the auction houses. Because you can reach all the players (rather than just the small number who might be in range of your voice); and your stuff can be bought at all hours, not just when you happen to be on and trading.
I suppose part of the difference is in how the chat channels in those games work - they're generally only within a particular zone, rather than a game-wide user-defined "trade" channel. So trying to trade in chat is only reaching a small fraction of the people playing, many of whom aren't interested in the trade spam that's filling up their chat window and have already muted you.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,561Community Moderator
I think most MMOs also have a time limit on how long they can have things up for sale. I think STO mails items back to you after a week or so if it hasn't sold.
FF14 doesn't have a time limit though, but its also easier to see if you've been undercut.
> @seaofsorrows said: > Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it? > > Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Perhaps it’s a bit like with the trading channels you know.
I often encounter players in game who dislike those as much as I do and keep on preferring the anonymity of the exchange. Besides perhaps those taxes could be integrated into personal trades as well?
At least this would be a sink nobody could avoid like we have with fleets. Should also be fun. Whales and lock box opener will simply add the taxes on the sale price for the poor f2p to pay on top (which is only fair).
If things get 15% more expensive overnight we can at least tell those complaining about prices increases in forums that they doing some good fighting inflation.
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Exchange fees/taxes can utterly destroy the market for some things. As already pointed out, why sell your billion EC ship on the exchange where a 5% tax is you losing 50 million EC? There is also no reason to believe that will even affect exchange prices except making them higher. That tax WILL be passed on to the buyer, and there is still no evidence that the problem is currency inflation instead of a simple supply/demand issue.
Listing fees killed Champions Online's market for rare, low volume goods.
While it isn't a problem in STO other games changing the market taxes/fees have resulted in killing markets for low margin products that have costs to produce.
Do we even have an issue here? I’m still not following. Who has the issue?
People who either don't get how to raise huge amounts of EC, or can't raise it fast enough to catch up to everyone else trading on the exchange (so they'll always have less than they need for Cool Thing They Want).
Why should a newbie be able to afford a 1 bn EC ship? They shouldn't. EC is a time/work currency. You do not generate it without earning it, by spending time interacting with the game.
Every EC in game came from someone doing work first. Nearly every box item came from someone spending real money. Why should a newbie get to shortcut either? If they want EC now they can spend $$ and sell keys, or they can earn it with time/work put into the game.
The ship you want today will still be able to be gotten a year or ten from now, and is likely going to be cheaper at that time. Just like real life you want some luxury, you have to earn enough for it.
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Folks will have a choice, either they waste alot of time in trade channels where they're reaching a limited audience and must actively advertise their item if they want it to sell, meaning they can do nothing else while they're doing so, or they list it on the exchange and let the exchange handle the hard stuff for them while reaching potentially the entirety of the playerbase. A small 5% is well worth it to not have to worry about it. Said "tax" would just be the in game equivalent of real life auctioneer fees.
Plenty of other games have an exchange tax and their exchange/auction houses are just as lively as ours here in STO if not more so. For 99% of the items you list on the exchange, you will not notice or miss that 5% that gets taken out of it. The only time it becomes noticeable if ever is when you're listing items for hundreds of millions of credits or more. While 5% of 1b is going to be larger than 5% of 1m, alot more people are willing and able to buy something at 1m EC vs those who have the power to spend 1b EC. The higher up you go in price of an item, the less and less people will be able to afford them or be willing to spend those kinds of credits. Once you start hitting 1b EC or close to it, you've hit whale territory. Not all whales are going to be on at once. So again you throw your dice with the trade channels and catching potentially only those whales on at the same time you're advertising, or you let the exchange do it for you and have the potential to make a sale even when you're not online. The 5% tax is simply the trade off for the "auctioneer" handling the sale for you. In SWTOR there is an exchange tax, and folks still have the option to sell in the private channels or list on the exchange/GTN over there. Some go through the trade channels because they don't want to pay the tax, some don't give a bantha poodoo and prefer the convenience of the exchange even if they have to pay the small tax. Thus folks have a choice to make.
You do NOT need to disabled trading between players to make a fee/tax work, as the choice to interact with that fee/tax will always be up to the player. Disabling trading is a knee jerk reaction that would destroy any incentive people have for trading more than a tax ever would.
Exchange fees/taxes can utterly destroy the market for some things. As already pointed out, why sell your billion EC ship on the exchange where a 5% tax is you losing 50 million EC? There is also no reason to believe that will even affect exchange prices except making them higher. That tax WILL be passed on to the buyer, and there is still no evidence that the problem is currency inflation instead of a simple supply/demand issue.
Listing fees killed Champions Online's market for rare, low volume goods.
While it isn't a problem in STO other games changing the market taxes/fees have resulted in killing markets for low margin products that have costs to produce.
As I pointed out above, folks would still have the option of interacting with said fee/tax or not based on whether they list on the exchange or not. For the lower cost items folks could sell in trade channels if they're afraid of losing credits or choose to roll the dice. Either way they're not guaranteed a sale. Prices are going to be what they're going to be regardless of the fee/tax and folks will not notice that fee/tax save on higher priced items that are worth alot more anyways. Even then folks have the choice of whether they will interact with that tax/fee or not as outlined above. If they're concerned they can go through private trade channels, or if the don't care they can list on the exchange. The only change is now the ferengi auctioneers are actually being paid instead of being made to work for free. By your own logic you have no evidence to suggest it isn't currency inflation either, so why complain about something you have no evidence of?
The key here is that evidence has been presented to show some of the effects of inflation. Is it strictly inflation, no it's not. Is it strictly supply and demand, no its not. The problem is both happening at once. There is nothing to remove excess EC from the game that acts as a viable EC sink right now. As more and more gameplay occurs more and more EC is generated as a result. This leads to more supply of EC like pouring water into a bathtub with the drain plug in. The excess can't escape so it just piles on diluting the supply even further. What was once a 3m ec item soon becomes 4m, then 5m, and on down the line unless the dilution of the currency supply is stopped. Generating EC and dilithium isn't the issue here, the issue is that it never goes anywhere. The cost of producing keys hasn't risen, so we know it must either be supply and demand, inflation, or both. Since none of us have access to the player statistics, we can only safely assume inflation to be the chief culprit here.
As for your low margin products, any little thing could kill those off and it's not just a fee/tax. For those items people can still take them to the trade channels if that is a concern. Otherwise as the old saying goes, why put all your eggs in one basket? Why base one's entire portfolio of credits on low cost items that could drop out from under you in a heartbeat? I would also say at that juncture if that 5% is making or breaking said item, it deserves to go under in this instance.
Why should a newbie be able to afford a 1 bn EC ship? They shouldn't. EC is a time/work currency. You do not generate it without earning it, by spending time interacting with the game.
Every EC in game came from someone doing work first. Nearly every box item came from someone spending real money. Why should a newbie get to shortcut either? If they want EC now they can spend $$ and sell keys, or they can earn it with time/work put into the game.
The ship you want today will still be able to be gotten a year or ten from now, and is likely going to be cheaper at that time. Just like real life you want some luxury, you have to earn enough for it.
And there we have the true motivating factor behind your arguments. How dare a new person be able to have the same shiny ship as you. How dare that peasant think they should be allowed to have the premium ships like you do. How dare they not know their place as a noob and dare to set their sights on ships meant only for "elite" players. How dare they be able to have something you do.
Who in Gre'thor are you or anyone else to try to dictate that sort of thing about what others should or shouldn't be allowed to have in this instance when it has ZERO effect on you personally? It's the same baseless logic as when people were complaining about others having access to the Samsar and other ships before the phoenix packs came out. "We wErE hErE FoR tHe eVeNt, WhY ShOuLd tHeY bE AbLe to gEt aCcOuNt UnLoCks liKe wE did WhEn tHeY wErEn't hErE." Back then as someone who also had the account unlock I asked them, "how does someone having the same item you do effect you in any way, positive or negative." So I'm going to ask you the same question, how does said noob being able to acquire a 1b EC ship effect you in any way positive or negative? How does them having a box/lobi/promo ship the same as you do effect you in any way? Please, share with the class as I legitimately want to know this, as that line of logic and attitude just stinks of elitism to me.
Show me where someone has suggested anyone be given something for free? Please I want to see this as I'm sure others do as well. No one is suggesting people be given something for free. What they are suggesting however is that there's no reason for prices to be creeping as high as they are now when little to nothing has changed. When folks are being asked fork over just shy of the currency cap you can hold, and even higher perhaps in some instances, that's not a good thing or healthy for the game.
When prices spike the way they have, it effects everything and everyone, and there is no reason for it to be as high as it is now for some items. Again NO ONE is suggesting folks be given things for free. However at the same time, if folks need to fork over billions of EC to have even a prayer at some of the premium items in game, what exactly is their motivation to stick around? If folks need to pull a EA Battlefront One and grind over 40 years (yes it was literally over 40 years) to unlock everything, what is their motivation to play? If folks have to pay hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of EC per "specialty" item to advance their build beyond basics, what is their motivation to stick around? No one is suggesting it be free, but they are suggesting it shouldn't fall to your grandchildren to finally get the ship.
"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
Well captainmarvelush you misread my posts then, I never asked Cryptic to fix this and I didn't blame them for it either lol
But why would they? It benefits them greater because you're either going to open your wallet or spend more time grinding for it
There is no incentive for them to step in and work on the problem
One reason is to keep promo ships in the exchange instead of requiring in-person meetups for private trading. Whales might open less packs if there is an added hassle for selling the results.
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Will many people really go through the effort of in-person trades just to keep an extra 4%?
"Ain't nobody got time for that" is my own feeling, but you could be right.
People are already used to doing it outside the exchange...4% may not sound like much but with promo ships we're near if not already at the point where that 4% could equal a 100 million credits.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Well captainmarvelush you misread my posts then, I never asked Cryptic to fix this and I didn't blame them for it either lol
But why would they? It benefits them greater because you're either going to open your wallet or spend more time grinding for it
There is no incentive for them to step in and work on the problem
One reason is to keep promo ships in the exchange instead of requiring in-person meetups for private trading. Whales might open less packs if there is an added hassle for selling the results.
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Will many people really go through the effort of in-person trades just to keep an extra 4%?
"Ain't nobody got time for that" is my own feeling, but you could be right.
People are already used to doing it outside the exchange...4% may not sound like much but with promo ships we're near if not already at the point where that 4% could equal a 100 million credits.
aside from a select few items, it's not very much 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
Considering how often we see threads complaining about how super expensive items are so super expensive compared to threads complaining about item prices nobody cares about, taxes more and more sound like a well thought through plan.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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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,
You just gave your own answer: inflation. "Wtf, keys are not worth 9.4m!" is the flipside of your argument. You're getting more EC for your keys: you're paying more for your ships. Very basic economics. Or did you seriously expect to get your Daemosh for the price it was when you would only get 4mil per key?!
Exchange fees/taxes can utterly destroy the market for some things. As already pointed out, why sell your billion EC ship on the exchange where a 5% tax is you losing 50 million EC? There is also no reason to believe that will even affect exchange prices except making them higher. That tax WILL be passed on to the buyer, and there is still no evidence that the problem is currency inflation instead of a simple supply/demand issue.
Listing fees killed Champions Online's market for rare, low volume goods.
While it isn't a problem in STO other games changing the market taxes/fees have resulted in killing markets for low margin products that have costs to produce.
As I pointed out above, folks would still have the option of interacting with said fee/tax or not based on whether they list on the exchange or not. For the lower cost items folks could sell in trade channels if they're afraid of losing credits or choose to roll the dice. Either way they're not guaranteed a sale. Prices are going to be what they're going to be regardless of the fee/tax and folks will not notice that fee/tax save on higher priced items that are worth alot more anyways. Even then folks have the choice of whether they will interact with that tax/fee or not as outlined above. If they're concerned they can go through private trade channels, or if the don't care they can list on the exchange. The only change is now the ferengi auctioneers are actually being paid instead of being made to work for free. By your own logic you have no evidence to suggest it isn't currency inflation either, so why complain about something you have no evidence of?
The key here is that evidence has been presented to show some of the effects of inflation. Is it strictly inflation, no it's not. Is it strictly supply and demand, no its not. The problem is both happening at once. There is nothing to remove excess EC from the game that acts as a viable EC sink right now. As more and more gameplay occurs more and more EC is generated as a result. This leads to more supply of EC like pouring water into a bathtub with the drain plug in. The excess can't escape so it just piles on diluting the supply even further. What was once a 3m ec item soon becomes 4m, then 5m, and on down the line unless the dilution of the currency supply is stopped. Generating EC and dilithium isn't the issue here, the issue is that it never goes anywhere. The cost of producing keys hasn't risen, so we know it must either be supply and demand, inflation, or both. Since none of us have access to the player statistics, we can only safely assume inflation to be the chief culprit here.
As for your low margin products, any little thing could kill those off and it's not just a fee/tax. For those items people can still take them to the trade channels if that is a concern. Otherwise as the old saying goes, why put all your eggs in one basket? Why base one's entire portfolio of credits on low cost items that could drop out from under you in a heartbeat? I would also say at that juncture if that 5% is making or breaking said item, it deserves to go under in this instance.
I don't think you grasp this. It isn't as simple as going outside the exchange to trade. Who has that thing you want? If it isn't listed on the exchange you have to spam WTB for days or months until you find out that you're missing a WTS for the thing you want because there's someone on the other side of the planet that has it, doesn't want to lose massive amounts of EC on the exchange selling it there.
The price of expensive things on the exchange won't just go up the price of tax, it will go higher because there will be less competition to sell those things. The 2 Superpromoships on the exchange that everyone wants are no longer competing with the other 8 that people are trying to sell through the trade channels. Someone who doesn't have the time to search high and low for the thing they want goes to the exchange, and the price for that convenience will be significantly higher than now, not to mention people in the channels can just point to inflated exchange prices as an excuse to sell it at that price.
In simpler terms, taxing the exchange will cause artificial scarcity which causes real price increases. Taxing the exchange will NEVER result in lower prices in the short term or the long term. It will result in scarcity and volatility in the pricing.
Why should a newbie be able to afford a 1 bn EC ship? They shouldn't. EC is a time/work currency. You do not generate it without earning it, by spending time interacting with the game.
Every EC in game came from someone doing work first. Nearly every box item came from someone spending real money. Why should a newbie get to shortcut either? If they want EC now they can spend $$ and sell keys, or they can earn it with time/work put into the game.
The ship you want today will still be able to be gotten a year or ten from now, and is likely going to be cheaper at that time. Just like real life you want some luxury, you have to earn enough for it.
And there we have the true motivating factor behind your arguments. How dare a new person be able to have the same shiny ship as you. How dare that peasant think they should be allowed to have the premium ships like you do. How dare they not know their place as a noob and dare to set their sights on ships meant only for "elite" players. How dare they be able to have something you do.
Who in Gre'thor are you or anyone else to try to dictate that sort of thing about what others should or shouldn't be allowed to have in this instance when it has ZERO effect on you personally? It's the same baseless logic as when people were complaining about others having access to the Samsar and other ships before the phoenix packs came out. "We wErE hErE FoR tHe eVeNt, WhY ShOuLd tHeY bE AbLe to gEt aCcOuNt UnLoCks liKe wE did WhEn tHeY wErEn't hErE." Back then as someone who also had the account unlock I asked them, "how does someone having the same item you do effect you in any way, positive or negative." So I'm going to ask you the same question, how does said noob being able to acquire a 1b EC ship effect you in any way positive or negative? How does them having a box/lobi/promo ship the same as you do effect you in any way? Please, share with the class as I legitimately want to know this, as that line of logic and attitude just stinks of elitism to me.
Show me where someone has suggested anyone be given something for free? Please I want to see this as I'm sure others do as well. No one is suggesting people be given something for free. What they are suggesting however is that there's no reason for prices to be creeping as high as they are now when little to nothing has changed. When folks are being asked fork over just shy of the currency cap you can hold, and even higher perhaps in some instances, that's not a good thing or healthy for the game.
When prices spike the way they have, it effects everything and everyone, and there is no reason for it to be as high as it is now for some items. Again NO ONE is suggesting folks be given things for free. However at the same time, if folks need to fork over billions of EC to have even a prayer at some of the premium items in game, what exactly is their motivation to stick around? If folks need to pull a EA Battlefront One and grind over 40 years (yes it was literally over 40 years) to unlock everything, what is their motivation to play? If folks have to pay hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of EC per "specialty" item to advance their build beyond basics, what is their motivation to stick around? No one is suggesting it be free, but they are suggesting it shouldn't fall to your grandchildren to finally get the ship.
Oh here we go. More of this mind reading BS. Who in Gre'thor are you to tell me what I'm actually thinking, and what I actually mean? You made up all kinds of strawman BS here, I'm not going to bother responding to it. You are arguing against a pure fiction of what you think I said instead of what I actually said. Not one thing in your reply has anything to do with what I actually wrote.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,561Community Moderator
@foxrockssocks
I think we get it by now that you feel an Exchange Fee is not viable. But you have yet to provide a possible, viable solution to the problem at hand.
We got EC flooding the market and no viable sinks, which is contributing to the exchange prices being high. So... what would you suggest as a possible way to bring Exchange prices down?
So far we've had the strategy of an Exchange Fee, which is common practice in pretty much every MMO, and "just make new fleets", which no one is willing to do when they're already in an established fleet. I would also like to point out that ECs are not the major input for fleets. Its DOffs and Dilithium for the most part, so that pretty much doesn't make sense. Yea there are some projects with ECs as an input, but those aren't the primary.
Comments
Wait are you complaining you can't buy a Lockbox class ship for under 2000 zen. Shocking. lol
There is nothing wrong with pricing on ships. Why anyone was ever selling lobi ships for less then the EC price of one key ring was beyond me. Those people where stupid.
> 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.
Those things do not disappear. You can found infinite fleets and contribute to a infinite number of different holdings in different fleets for your different toons. You can generate infinite number of provisions.
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Yes, that's exactly what I did. You seem to have missed the point, though. In contrast to RL, there is no continuous demand for things in this game, so the supply of things increases right alongside EC. They never get broken, used up, depleted, destroyed, outside of purposeful pointless destruction so there are more and more box items sitting around and the price just keeps dropping until the box is discontinued. The demand of some ships can even get filled and no one wants them any more without a serious price decrease.
Someone complained in the thread about 300m+ ships. That's been there for a long time, but for a good while there, I saw at least a dozen ships below 200m, because someone or many someones had a lot of Voth science ships to move and no one was buying them. I think some got as low as 160m at one point. When no one wants it, the price drops. Box ships are designed to be in short supply, though, so the price is always going to be high.
Uh... that... is not a viable solution. You're basically suggesting abandoning established fleets to start from scratch JUST to act as an EC sink. No one is going to just drop out of a fleet to make a brand new one, then abandon that one to make another new one...
The amount of work needed for fleet holdings is not going to encourage people to use it as an EC sink. If you want a viable sink, its gotta be one that people are WILLING to use. Maybe adding projects that only take ECs in exchange for fleet credits and maybe some other things can work, but flat out making NEW fleets? No. That's just... no.
Most players have less than 5 alts, and most players join an existing fleet instead of starting their own.
Exchange purchases don't count, they don't destroy EC they just shift it. A sales tax would help a little with that.
Reputations are a one-time sink per character and again most players only have 1-4 captains.
Buying fleet gear uses a bit of EC but that's another one-time thing for those 1-4 captains.
Can you name any significant, ongoing sinks other than "starting a bunch of solo fleets", that players actually use?
Old players leave every day.
New fleets get founded every day.
Existing armadas get rearranged every day.
I doubt there are many maxed out armadas around. I have never seen one. New toons are and will always be in need of fleetstuff.
There is always something to sink your ec in fleets.
Bottom line is nobody goes for this sink because getting the latest lock box ship is simply much more appealing.
Will be the same with every sink you end up discussing here. Reason is that the hypocrite who suggest a new sink won’t be the one going for it. He wants others to go for it just in order to make his grinding live easier.
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I don't really grind myself, other than KDF admiralty on 1-2 of my alts for fleet dil. We just finished the colony holding in the fed fleet I'm in so I've stopped doing admiralty for that and am down to my KDF recruit to earn fleet credits to gear them up.
I have a lifetime sub and own more ships than I can fly, purchased with zen. I 'm a minnow not a whale though.
I don't mind more EC sinks because I don't mind helping out the F2P players.
> I don't mind more EC sinks because I don't mind helping out the F2P players.
Thanks! I’m not. I am a hardcore grinder in STO and I am a paying whale. I have built 2 maxed out fleets with my 13 all maxed out epic chars.
While the grinder part in me certainly feels the increasing pressure, the paying part is not willing to compensate for those who never spend a penny on this title.
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People who either don't get how to raise huge amounts of EC, or can't raise it fast enough to catch up to everyone else trading on the exchange (so they'll always have less than they need for Cool Thing They Want).
(i.e, if you're not already sitting on billions, how do you catch up to the people with billions, as the price of things escalates into the billions?)
edit: of course, this is assuming "and without dropping piles of cash into keys"
edit2: hey, sure - "just found more fleets! grind more provisions!" is an EC sink. So is "just delete your EC". That doesn't mean they're sinks that anyone would want to participate in. They need to be useful and/or attractive, not just "set a match to your cash". (well, or 'unavoidable' like exchange fees. But as others have said, that ship has long sailed.)
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.'
The exchange does not sink (destroy) EC, it just moves the EC from one player to another.
Cryptic needs to add a 4-5% tax on Exchange sales to start sinking a bit of that EC.
But why would they? It benefits them greater because you're either going to open your wallet or spend more time grinding for it
There is no incentive for them to step in and work on the problem
One reason is to keep promo ships in the exchange instead of requiring in-person meetups for private trading. Whales might open less packs if there is an added hassle for selling the results.
Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Will many people really go through the effort of in-person trades just to keep an extra 4%?
"Ain't nobody got time for that" is my own feeling, but you could be right.
That's not how any of that works and is not a viable solution. You've completely ignored the question because you simply don't want to see the other viewpoint. Fleets and fleet holdings are only temporary solutions. People aren't going to continually recycle fleets when they already have one established. You're kidding yourself if you think people are going to just continually start fleets purely to destroy their EC and dilithium reserves. In order for a sink to be effective it has to be something that will always be needed or desired in some form or fashion, and one that folks will want to use. Once people have maxed out their fleets, all that's needed is keeping things in stock. Leveling a fleet is seen as more of a chore than anything else by the playerbase. If you honestly think people are going to just dump their resources to dump them, you have zero understanding of the general mmo gamer.
If one is given a reason to interact with said sink, veteran and new players alike will use it. You not liking said sink or not wanting said sink doesn't automatically mean one isn't needed or people wouldn't use it. You having not seen a maxed out armada does not mean they don't exist. Nor is everyone the hypocritical leech you seem to think they are. You are one person with one opinion of how things should be, and are not reflective of the entire playerbase.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Why do people use the auction houses in the many other MMOs that do have taxes? Because it's a lot more convenient than chat channel trading.
But yeah, it's too late to do it in this game. It would have had to exist from the beginning, for people to be used to it & for it to have already kept people from dropping stuff into the exchange for massive amounts of EC.
Pretty much all the MMOs I've played that have some sort of exchange fee? Also have in-person trading. But most sales still happen through the auction houses. Because you can reach all the players (rather than just the small number who might be in range of your voice); and your stuff can be bought at all hours, not just when you happen to be on and trading.
I suppose part of the difference is in how the chat channels in those games work - they're generally only within a particular zone, rather than a game-wide user-defined "trade" channel. So trying to trade in chat is only reaching a small fraction of the people playing, many of whom aren't interested in the trade spam that's filling up their chat window and have already muted you.
FF14 doesn't have a time limit though, but its also easier to see if you've been undercut.
> Why would anyone sell anything on the exchange ever if they were taxed for it?
>
> Your solution would not drive ships back to the exchange, it would drive everything to trade channels. The only way an exchange tax works is if you also disable the ability to trade items between players. Do you favor that solution as well? A half measure only makes the problem worse.
Perhaps it’s a bit like with the trading channels you know.
I often encounter players in game who dislike those as much as I do and keep on preferring the anonymity of the exchange. Besides perhaps those taxes could be integrated into personal trades as well?
At least this would be a sink nobody could avoid like we have with fleets. Should also be fun. Whales and lock box opener will simply add the taxes on the sale price for the poor f2p to pay on top (which is only fair).
If things get 15% more expensive overnight we can at least tell those complaining about prices increases in forums that they doing some good fighting inflation.
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Listing fees killed Champions Online's market for rare, low volume goods.
While it isn't a problem in STO other games changing the market taxes/fees have resulted in killing markets for low margin products that have costs to produce.
Why should a newbie be able to afford a 1 bn EC ship? They shouldn't. EC is a time/work currency. You do not generate it without earning it, by spending time interacting with the game.
Every EC in game came from someone doing work first. Nearly every box item came from someone spending real money. Why should a newbie get to shortcut either? If they want EC now they can spend $$ and sell keys, or they can earn it with time/work put into the game.
The ship you want today will still be able to be gotten a year or ten from now, and is likely going to be cheaper at that time. Just like real life you want some luxury, you have to earn enough for it.
Plenty of other games have an exchange tax and their exchange/auction houses are just as lively as ours here in STO if not more so. For 99% of the items you list on the exchange, you will not notice or miss that 5% that gets taken out of it. The only time it becomes noticeable if ever is when you're listing items for hundreds of millions of credits or more. While 5% of 1b is going to be larger than 5% of 1m, alot more people are willing and able to buy something at 1m EC vs those who have the power to spend 1b EC. The higher up you go in price of an item, the less and less people will be able to afford them or be willing to spend those kinds of credits. Once you start hitting 1b EC or close to it, you've hit whale territory. Not all whales are going to be on at once. So again you throw your dice with the trade channels and catching potentially only those whales on at the same time you're advertising, or you let the exchange do it for you and have the potential to make a sale even when you're not online. The 5% tax is simply the trade off for the "auctioneer" handling the sale for you. In SWTOR there is an exchange tax, and folks still have the option to sell in the private channels or list on the exchange/GTN over there. Some go through the trade channels because they don't want to pay the tax, some don't give a bantha poodoo and prefer the convenience of the exchange even if they have to pay the small tax. Thus folks have a choice to make.
You do NOT need to disabled trading between players to make a fee/tax work, as the choice to interact with that fee/tax will always be up to the player. Disabling trading is a knee jerk reaction that would destroy any incentive people have for trading more than a tax ever would.
As I pointed out above, folks would still have the option of interacting with said fee/tax or not based on whether they list on the exchange or not. For the lower cost items folks could sell in trade channels if they're afraid of losing credits or choose to roll the dice. Either way they're not guaranteed a sale. Prices are going to be what they're going to be regardless of the fee/tax and folks will not notice that fee/tax save on higher priced items that are worth alot more anyways. Even then folks have the choice of whether they will interact with that tax/fee or not as outlined above. If they're concerned they can go through private trade channels, or if the don't care they can list on the exchange. The only change is now the ferengi auctioneers are actually being paid instead of being made to work for free. By your own logic you have no evidence to suggest it isn't currency inflation either, so why complain about something you have no evidence of?
The key here is that evidence has been presented to show some of the effects of inflation. Is it strictly inflation, no it's not. Is it strictly supply and demand, no its not. The problem is both happening at once. There is nothing to remove excess EC from the game that acts as a viable EC sink right now. As more and more gameplay occurs more and more EC is generated as a result. This leads to more supply of EC like pouring water into a bathtub with the drain plug in. The excess can't escape so it just piles on diluting the supply even further. What was once a 3m ec item soon becomes 4m, then 5m, and on down the line unless the dilution of the currency supply is stopped. Generating EC and dilithium isn't the issue here, the issue is that it never goes anywhere. The cost of producing keys hasn't risen, so we know it must either be supply and demand, inflation, or both. Since none of us have access to the player statistics, we can only safely assume inflation to be the chief culprit here.
As for your low margin products, any little thing could kill those off and it's not just a fee/tax. For those items people can still take them to the trade channels if that is a concern. Otherwise as the old saying goes, why put all your eggs in one basket? Why base one's entire portfolio of credits on low cost items that could drop out from under you in a heartbeat? I would also say at that juncture if that 5% is making or breaking said item, it deserves to go under in this instance.
And there we have the true motivating factor behind your arguments. How dare a new person be able to have the same shiny ship as you. How dare that peasant think they should be allowed to have the premium ships like you do. How dare they not know their place as a noob and dare to set their sights on ships meant only for "elite" players. How dare they be able to have something you do.
Who in Gre'thor are you or anyone else to try to dictate that sort of thing about what others should or shouldn't be allowed to have in this instance when it has ZERO effect on you personally? It's the same baseless logic as when people were complaining about others having access to the Samsar and other ships before the phoenix packs came out. "We wErE hErE FoR tHe eVeNt, WhY ShOuLd tHeY bE AbLe to gEt aCcOuNt UnLoCks liKe wE did WhEn tHeY wErEn't hErE." Back then as someone who also had the account unlock I asked them, "how does someone having the same item you do effect you in any way, positive or negative." So I'm going to ask you the same question, how does said noob being able to acquire a 1b EC ship effect you in any way positive or negative? How does them having a box/lobi/promo ship the same as you do effect you in any way? Please, share with the class as I legitimately want to know this, as that line of logic and attitude just stinks of elitism to me.
Show me where someone has suggested anyone be given something for free? Please I want to see this as I'm sure others do as well. No one is suggesting people be given something for free. What they are suggesting however is that there's no reason for prices to be creeping as high as they are now when little to nothing has changed. When folks are being asked fork over just shy of the currency cap you can hold, and even higher perhaps in some instances, that's not a good thing or healthy for the game.
When prices spike the way they have, it effects everything and everyone, and there is no reason for it to be as high as it is now for some items. Again NO ONE is suggesting folks be given things for free. However at the same time, if folks need to fork over billions of EC to have even a prayer at some of the premium items in game, what exactly is their motivation to stick around? If folks need to pull a EA Battlefront One and grind over 40 years (yes it was literally over 40 years) to unlock everything, what is their motivation to play? If folks have to pay hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of EC per "specialty" item to advance their build beyond basics, what is their motivation to stick around? No one is suggesting it be free, but they are suggesting it shouldn't fall to your grandchildren to finally get the ship.
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People are already used to doing it outside the exchange...4% may not sound like much but with promo ships we're near if not already at the point where that 4% could equal a 100 million credits.
aside from a select few items, it's not very much at all
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You just gave your own answer: inflation. "Wtf, keys are not worth 9.4m!" is the flipside of your argument. You're getting more EC for your keys: you're paying more for your ships. Very basic economics. Or did you seriously expect to get your Daemosh for the price it was when you would only get 4mil per key?!
I don't think you grasp this. It isn't as simple as going outside the exchange to trade. Who has that thing you want? If it isn't listed on the exchange you have to spam WTB for days or months until you find out that you're missing a WTS for the thing you want because there's someone on the other side of the planet that has it, doesn't want to lose massive amounts of EC on the exchange selling it there.
The price of expensive things on the exchange won't just go up the price of tax, it will go higher because there will be less competition to sell those things. The 2 Superpromoships on the exchange that everyone wants are no longer competing with the other 8 that people are trying to sell through the trade channels. Someone who doesn't have the time to search high and low for the thing they want goes to the exchange, and the price for that convenience will be significantly higher than now, not to mention people in the channels can just point to inflated exchange prices as an excuse to sell it at that price.
In simpler terms, taxing the exchange will cause artificial scarcity which causes real price increases. Taxing the exchange will NEVER result in lower prices in the short term or the long term. It will result in scarcity and volatility in the pricing.
Oh here we go. More of this mind reading BS. Who in Gre'thor are you to tell me what I'm actually thinking, and what I actually mean? You made up all kinds of strawman BS here, I'm not going to bother responding to it. You are arguing against a pure fiction of what you think I said instead of what I actually said. Not one thing in your reply has anything to do with what I actually wrote.
I think we get it by now that you feel an Exchange Fee is not viable. But you have yet to provide a possible, viable solution to the problem at hand.
We got EC flooding the market and no viable sinks, which is contributing to the exchange prices being high. So... what would you suggest as a possible way to bring Exchange prices down?
So far we've had the strategy of an Exchange Fee, which is common practice in pretty much every MMO, and "just make new fleets", which no one is willing to do when they're already in an established fleet. I would also like to point out that ECs are not the major input for fleets. Its DOffs and Dilithium for the most part, so that pretty much doesn't make sense. Yea there are some projects with ECs as an input, but those aren't the primary.