“This is literally not how an economy works. If people are going to spend 2mil+ dil during a phoenix event to get the rare tokens, they are just as likely to do it when phoenix boxes are always on because the tokens still exist while always on, as people have just as much of a need for them now as they did then.”
That literally is how the economy works. Plenty of us said that would happen for us and it did happen for us. We pointed out when the change went live that we wouldn’t be as likely to drop big 2mill+ days on phoenix anymore multiple times like we used to and looking back that it what happened. Many of us no longer do that just like we warned.
For some players 100% uptime led to a drop in extra Dilithium being spent from time limited impulse buys, it led to a drop in Dilithium being spent from overbuying as there was no longer a need to overbuy and it led to a drop in Dilithium spent from running out of tokens and swapping back to crafted.
“That's literally what it means. People were spending more on Phoenix upgrades, since they could now get them all the time, and people were spending more on Phoenix boxes because now they can spend all day every time trying to get those rare tokens. And again, the majority of the playerbase wasn't using the crafted upgrade items because everyone knew they sucked, and that you should just wait for Phoenix/Omega ones. Dil usage wouldn't have gone down due to it since most people, especially the long time dil farmers, weren't using them in the first place.”
That literally is not what it means as my example proves and many people literally now spend less on Dilithium to upgrade the same amount of items, no longer running short/out of Phoenix and so no longer needing to buy crafted.
I went from spending something like 2million on upgrades per active toons per year to 1million on upgrades per active toons per year(not every toon just the main ones). I went from doing my 2million Dilithium spread over a year to 1million in a tighter timeframe. So, I took part in the spike helped make that spike but spent less overall Dilithium. Not sure what you count as a farmers but I hit the daily refine Dilithium cap per day on multiple toons and could stop playing for 6+months and still be refining Dilithium on multiple toons. I don’t consider myself a big-time famer this is from my general every day activities. What this does it prove a spike doesn’t automatically collate to more total Dilithium leaving the market over time. If the spike was sustained sure it would but the spike wasn’t sustained, was it, it was just that a short-term spike and as I proved someone spending a spike doesn’t automatically collate to more total yearly spend on Dilithium. In fact, as in this case the spike can lead to less yearly Dilithium being spent. Or to put it another way instead of spending 2million spread over 1 year. Now spend 1million over a few months. Bigger spike, less overall spent which means less Dilithium leaving the game.
Also, as far as I can see you saying the majority of the player base wasn't using the crafted upgrade items is just something you made up. My personal tracking and sale numbers are completely at odds with what you are saying. I large amount of my time is spent on the market every single day it’s the first thing I do run to the market and look at sales and numbers. That’s how I know you are wrong. I can look at my own spreadsheets and see you are wrong.
“I know of no one beyond the greenest of new players who used anything other then Phoenix/Omega upgrades. “
Well as has been demonstrated time and time again you don’t represent a typical player and don’t represent the wider playerbase. Often what you say as though it is fact is just your personal way of playing not what the wider player base does.
People would join the game between phoenix events and so buy crafted. Others would not have enough Dilithium for the event so run out and swap to crafted between events for upgrades, other would miss the event entirely and tons of other reasons. Some players it was as simple as they didn’t want to wait months on end to upgrade so used crafted right away. Others misjudged how much Phoenix they needed for the year ran out and so swapped to crafted and the list goes on. Simple facts from sale numbers show that a part of the wider player base used crafted as the main form of upgrades until Phoenix went 100% uptime. So that wide part of the player base now spend less Dilithium on upgrades due to Phoenix being 100% available. I am included in that group due to Phoenix being 100% available I spend massively less Dilithium on upgrade over when Phoenix was a time limited event.
“So have I. You know why that is? Because there has been a constant stream of events to give out more dil then I could burn through normally. You're ignoring other factors behind people's dil numbers increasing, and trying to pin it all on Phoenix boxes, when that simply isn't the case.”
Here we go you start with the lying again as what you are saying is not remotely true. My older post proves I am not ignoring other factors and did take them into effect. I am not pinning it all on Phoenix box's just pointing out that is one of the big factors. I bet you are just pretending I am ignoring them even after I clearly wasn’t as you don’t want to admit that some players now spend less Dilithium due to 100% uptime on uptime phoenix. The problem is the dev fault as they increased the supply of Dilithium massively while for people like myself they also massively reduced the amount of Dilithium we spend. We warned this would happen. The devs overall have reduced Dilithium outgoing and increased supply. This current result was predictably, no one should be shocked.
Which is why I believe removing Phoenix and going back to limited events would increase the Dilithium sink. Phoenix being 100% active is proven to cause some players to spend less Dilithium. I know for a fact if Phoenix was not 100% active I would be spending millions more Dilithium then I am now.
hwo to f2p get a gamma recruit now? I can't buy the character slots or the access to another species now without spending money. All of my character designs are pointless as I can't buy the things I need to make my characters how I want to. They should not have tied everything nice into the game to money. They should have made a more profound game.
You do understand the concept is NOT for Cryptic to provide a free game for your leisure & entertainment. Cryptic is a business & money is required to create, supply, & maintain the game, any game. Perhaps right now with the dilithium exchange bonkers players cannot exchange dilithium into zen at all or as easily. However, you can still buy zen. I, however, never buy zen unless there's a sale (zen charge bonus) & unfortunately I don't think there's one at the moment. So if you buy, buy & spend frugally. It sounds like your complaint is your not able to complete transactions the way you want, but you can still complete the transactions if you wanted to badly enough, there's a difference. Decisions decisions.
As mentioned elsewhere, we hear everyone's concerns and we're actively looking for solutions. This didn't exactly catch us by surprise, but implementing new plans to help has been slower going.
I've passed on ideas from this thread, Twitter and Reddit on how to help.
Thank you for doing that and looking into the problem. I think we all knew it couldn't have been a total surprise to you guys, glad to see you're trying to avoid raising the cap. That's definitely not a great solution.
As mentioned elsewhere, we hear everyone's concerns and we're actively looking for solutions. This didn't exactly catch us by surprise, but implementing new plans to help has been slower going.
I've passed on ideas from this thread, Twitter and Reddit on how to help.
Thank you for listening and passing along our ideas.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
hwo to f2p get a gamma recruit now? I can't buy the character slots or the access to another species now without spending money. All of my character designs are pointless as I can't buy the things I need to make my characters how I want to. They should not have tied everything nice into the game to money. They should have made a more profound game.
You do understand the concept is NOT for Cryptic to provide a free game for your leisure & entertainment. Cryptic is a business & money is required to create, supply, & maintain the game, any game. Perhaps right now with the dilithium exchange bonkers players cannot exchange dilithium into zen at all or as easily. However, you can still buy zen. I, however, never buy zen unless there's a sale (zen charge bonus) & unfortunately I don't think there's one at the moment. So if you buy, buy & spend frugally. It sounds like your complaint is your not able to complete transactions the way you want, but you can still complete the transactions if you wanted to badly enough, there's a difference. Decisions decisions.
You have to understand that not everyone has the means to buy zen, so they rely on the dilithium exchange to get their zen.
All they have to do is add old lobi ships to the Phoenix gold tokens.
They can even cycle them 2-3 options at a time for a few months. Pick the lobi ships that aren't quite exciting enough to end up in a Mudd pack. Make them account unlocks. People would gamble for a few months trying to unlock the ship they might want. Or score a ticket to hold on for the change of options in a few months.
Phoenix isn't the sink it used to be with Cryptic constantly giving away ultimate upgrades and selling them on key rings.
If they select the 2-3 options in the token store well they should be able to balance it out pretty well. If they really need to pull the needle down one month if it red lines again they can throw a super limited time Lockbox or even promo ship unlock in their for a week cycle or something.
All they have to do is add old lobi ships to the Phoenix gold tokens.
The phoenix box is NOT the solution. I've opened HUNDREDS of them simply to get upgrades and never once have I seen anything higher than a very rare reward, with drop odds THAT BAD I would never actively try to win a reward from any tier above that, ESPECIALLY Lobi ships since those are very easily obtained on the exchange for around 300 million EC. They need to add desirable items with clear cut prices, not more unobtainable gambling rewards.
All they have to do is add old lobi ships to the Phoenix gold tokens.
The phoenix box is NOT the solution. I've opened HUNDREDS of them simply to get upgrades and never once have I seen anything higher than a very rare reward, with drop odds THAT BAD I would never actively try to win a reward from any tier above that, ESPECIALLY Lobi ships since those are very easily obtained on the exchange for around 300 million EC. They need to add desirable items with clear cut prices, not more unobtainable gambling rewards.
I have 8 tokens in my bank... and no my suggestion isn't me just being greedy.
The gold tokens do drop.... and if Cryptic made them account unlocks people would roll.
All they have to do is add old lobi ships to the Phoenix gold tokens.
The phoenix box is NOT the solution. I've opened HUNDREDS of them simply to get upgrades and never once have I seen anything higher than a very rare reward, with drop odds THAT BAD I would never actively try to win a reward from any tier above that, ESPECIALLY Lobi ships since those are very easily obtained on the exchange for around 300 million EC. They need to add desirable items with clear cut prices, not more unobtainable gambling rewards.
I've opened probably over 2k by now, as when I do open them I open about 100. I've only gotten about 5-6 epic tokens.
If they add new uses for dilithium it cannot just be phoenix box, they are dirt cheap tbh. I can get 100 on just ten dollars. 110 at the 500 dil/zen cap. And no one wants to go for such insane rare items that they never show up, as far as I am concerned, epic tokens are useless simply due to the insane low drop rate. I only open for phoenix upgrades(lots of alts, oh yes my demand for upgrades has dropped DRASTICALLY, even more with DPRM being far less accessible now, ooops, yes, cryptic, making those easier to get ship trait boxes unobtainable lowered the alts people like me make and thus lowered my demand for upgrade tokens thus I sell less zen).
Think it was mentioned here, a housing like system thats better than just ship bridges could be cool, but it must be per-character and has to be costly. Enough that new alts and items will always greatly cut dilithium supply.
Worst comes to worst I think about it, I'd hate to see a harsher refinement cap but people just won't stop farming more and more dilithium and they often just spend MORE time to do so if some cheesy way of getting it is nerfed. Which means account-wide dil caps. That is, if worst comes to worst(I know many will push back on this idea, hey, thats great, I hate the idea to but hey, if people cannot control themselves what do you expect?).
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
All they have to do is add old lobi ships to the Phoenix gold tokens.
The phoenix box is NOT the solution. I've opened HUNDREDS of them simply to get upgrades and never once have I seen anything higher than a very rare reward, with drop odds THAT BAD I would never actively try to win a reward from any tier above that, ESPECIALLY Lobi ships since those are very easily obtained on the exchange for around 300 million EC. They need to add desirable items with clear cut prices, not more unobtainable gambling rewards.
Ding, ding. The phoenix prize packs are an awful dilithium sink beyond gear upgrades...
Well, there is one change that would solve that problem; the thing people have been asking for since they were introduced: allow people to upgrade to a higher tier token with a certain amount of lower tier tokens. That way you would have a guaranteed path to the epic token, even if you never got lucky along the way.
They have resisted the calls to do this in the past, but due to the emergency situation with the dilex maybe they would finally give in. It would certainly increase the desirability of the phoenix boxes if people had a guaranteed outcome, and they would be more willing to spend dilithium on them.
Seeing as people don't think buffing the Phoenix box would do anything. One more suggestion related. Instead of just adding time limited lobi ship unlocks for a gold token.
Why not add promo/lockbox ship consoles or even trait boxes (toon locked) into the Ultra rare tier. Again time gate them.
I'm sorry but you can't tell me if they add things like the Dynamic Power distributer and the like as time limited phoenix purple unlocks people wouldn't open a bunch on every toon they have to unlock them. I mean that would cut into potential mudd pack sales perhaps so Cryptic wouldn't be all that hot on it. For that matter they could even just add some new consoles... its not like making a new universal console and copying some GFX from another and inventing some stats is a ton of work.
One problem with the Phoenix for sure is the drop rate on that Ultra rare tier... Cryptic could for sure stuff some interesting thing in their in terms of consoles traits and the like as long as they look at their RNG table. I swear I have pulled I think 9 or 10 Gold tokens life time and actually fewer Ultra Rares.
I swear I have pulled I think 9 or 10 Gold tokens life time and actually fewer Ultra Rares.
You either have the greatest luck on earth, or you misremember. Either way, you are VASTLY underestimating the rarity of Phoenix Box UR and Epic Drops. They are currently the worst odds in the game, you have better chances of winning a lockbox or R&D Ship then to get a UR or better drop from Phoenix Boxes. The drop rates are ridiculously, inexcusably bad and are the reason that most people don't crank on them for tokens.
I have 12 characters, all with Epic everything.. I have opened.. A LOT of Phoenix Boxes over the years, it would honestly be embarrassing to even type how many boxes I have opened. Over the course of these years I think I have seen 2 Epic Tokens and probably about 6-8 UR. I am fortunate in the fact that I don't need anything from either store, I have all the ships, the only thing I would use them for are T6X Tokens of which I already have several banked.. so it's not a big deal. If I needed something from the Epic store though, I would do without.. no way I would gamble on those odds.. they're insanely bad. Honestly, it's insulting how bad the odds are.
I got an Epic Token when Phoenix first came out, then a UR about a year ago. In the last three weeks I pulled two Epics. Otherwise, nada.
'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.'
I got like 8 UR tokens very early on - probably they made a change in the drop rate later. However in certainly over 1000 boxes (maybe 2000) I have zero epic tokens. And no UR in years.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If there are 500 dil sell orders for zen then how are there no 500 buy orders showing up. Something is off here....
If one exists should not the other?! What am I not understanding about how the dil exchange works?
There is currently a steady 250k volume to sell zen at 500 dil should that not show up in the buy area? Is there some auto feature that makes the buy to sell be a difference of 1 or something. If they set that difference to 0 would it not solve the problem. Or just set it to 0 when it hits 500 to keep the economy going. This problem seems artificial... Or slightly stupid.
But the sell zen side is filled at a constant 500 dil at around 250k. It's not dropping fast. So, why are those not part of the buy side? I think there is some logic that says it has to be -1 in order to see on the buy side. They can't be being filled that fast if it's not changing on the sell side. It should be pulling zen to save like other orders.
If there is 250k sell zen then the system has that sitting and not being used. I want to buy zen. And I have an order for 250 zen to buy at 500 dil a peice. It's not fulfilling the order. Even though the sell side has it constantly there. The system is not fully using what it has in it. If it's a logic with +-1 to post to the other tab then they need to add a condition for when sell is at 500 to allow a 0 difference to post to the buy side.
You can't buy this kind of entertainment where people reveal the depths of their intelligence on levels that could only be the result of catastrophic brain damage.
If there is 250k sell zen then the system has that sitting and not being used. I want to buy zen. And I have an order for 250 zen to buy at 500 dil a peice. It's not fulfilling the order.
The system is poorly worded, the offers you're seeing on the 'Sell Zen' side are showing the dilithium that is available and at what price. What it's really saying is that there is a demand for 250k zen at 500:1, so 125,000,000 dilithium is available for purchase at that price point. And I'm pretty sure it's first in, first out, which means you need to wait for all the orders that were put in before yours to be fulfilled before your turn comes around.
hwo to f2p get a gamma recruit now? I can't buy the character slots or the access to another species now without spending money. All of my character designs are pointless as I can't buy the things I need to make my characters how I want to. They should not have tied everything nice into the game to money. They should have made a more profound game.
You do understand the concept is NOT for Cryptic to provide a free game for your leisure & entertainment. Cryptic is a business & money is required to create, supply, & maintain the game, any game. Perhaps right now with the dilithium exchange bonkers players cannot exchange dilithium into zen at all or as easily. However, you can still buy zen. I, however, never buy zen unless there's a sale (zen charge bonus) & unfortunately I don't think there's one at the moment. So if you buy, buy & spend frugally. It sounds like your complaint is your not able to complete transactions the way you want, but you can still complete the transactions if you wanted to badly enough, there's a difference. Decisions decisions.
You have to understand that not everyone has the means to buy zen, so they rely on the dilithium exchange to get their zen.
Oh I do & I usually don't care, totally F2P players play an important role in a mmo just like "whales" imo, but I see it as a bit of an entitlement issue if someone plays completely "free" then complains if things aren't going how they like or has become more difficult in game. It'd be a similar entitlement if a "whale" complained & expected it to be easier just because they spend lots of money.
In the end with of all things within STO, Cryptic controls the drop rates so Cryptic very much have a direct impact over supply just like we players do with the demand.
Dilithium needs to be made more valuable. The problem is that Zen is too over dominating over Dilithium and decreasing its value over time.
Last year it was 380+dil/zen and the year before that it was somewhere between 350+dil/zen if I could remember now it is 500dil/zen. Dilithium is losing more importance and value as time goes on. It's taking more and more Dilithium to buy one Zen coin each year. Next year probably around 700+dil/Zen the year after 1000dil/zen.
Each year it is taking more and more dilithium to buy just one zen coin this is the problem it is losing value.
Driving the cap isn't going to fix the problem it rebalancing the value of Dilithium to make it more important. Otherwise you will see prices like 1Million dil/zen or 1Billion dil/zen. There has to be a hard cap to stop the inflation from becoming to ridiculous.
Some people also misunderstand what the concept of a F2P game actually means. It simply means you get to play the game for free. Some, like STO, give away litteraly all misson content for free(while others only offer the base game for free and sell expansions). But no part of the F2P model has anything to do with being able to get the game store items for free. The fact that STO has a zen exchange at all is a luxury, but not any kind of requirement.
For those of you saying raising the cap would fix this, you should be aware that Neverwinter raised the cap to 1:750 and the exchange is now at a backlog of 70 million. There is a tracking thread (should you care to read) that states people who posted in January are just getting their Zen now. Raising the cap apparently makes your backlog swell and grow exponentially. The people posting for freebie zen on that game today will not see it until February of next year. This could be a lot worse the more Cryptic monkeys with it.
f2p is also on the side of good mechanics if taken far enough. That is why you want it dominate so the game is better. Anything outside of it tends to draw away from development as people want money and that breed laziness as that is the point of using money. To make something easier than doing it yourself. IE this requires you to learn more or do better on a professional level. that is where game dynamics related to money come in. Money itself is a luxury. People just don't learn enough to do anything besides use it now and don't realize this anymore. You have to know how to do things before you can establish trade system or nobody can make anything or sufficient quantities/qaulity to trade.
the money side should be like a translation layer. It bridges real life issue with a fuctional game worlds. You don't want it to interfere with the game world development though. Or you get boring games. And other deeper issues.
Basically, if you can't play fully f2p the game is broken/underdeveloped. The more you can play f2p by definition the better the game is as that just means it has deeper mechanics and thought behind it. So, f2p is on the side of the players interest. And the quality of the core game. Outside of laziness of course.
This isn't an issue of entitlement(which is nonesense to begin with as people are naturally entitled to things.) it's a matter of knowing what you are talking about and understanding game development in regards to education and quality. Something that has been woefully lacking in the last several decades as education has dropped like a rock around the world. To simplify you need to gain experience and ability sufficiently before selling things or it cause a bunch of problems. this is where free comes in. It's part of building knowledge. That is why in the 90's free software was literally the most professional. We were still educating more fully. That environment was crushed and now you see the problems that come with that reality.
BTW, the emotional desire to stick to money over developing harder is a natural educational issue. If you have learened less you want to stick to the seemingly immediately easier thing. Making money. If you have learned more you see farther and develop more to make money by producing more for the customer. If you are in the middle it's a matter of how much per side. Ability comes with knowledge. So does forethought and harder work ethic. especially because knowing more makes it easier to think out and hence it's easier to do and not a problem. That is the main reality in design fields like software development. And why almost everyone in the past who worked in these areas were engineers and could do all the work involved. These companies also used to be educational environments when we had a much healthier environment in general. Which happens naturally when sufficient education exists.
Comments
For some players 100% uptime led to a drop in extra Dilithium being spent from time limited impulse buys, it led to a drop in Dilithium being spent from overbuying as there was no longer a need to overbuy and it led to a drop in Dilithium spent from running out of tokens and swapping back to crafted.
That literally is not what it means as my example proves and many people literally now spend less on Dilithium to upgrade the same amount of items, no longer running short/out of Phoenix and so no longer needing to buy crafted.
I went from spending something like 2million on upgrades per active toons per year to 1million on upgrades per active toons per year(not every toon just the main ones). I went from doing my 2million Dilithium spread over a year to 1million in a tighter timeframe. So, I took part in the spike helped make that spike but spent less overall Dilithium. Not sure what you count as a farmers but I hit the daily refine Dilithium cap per day on multiple toons and could stop playing for 6+months and still be refining Dilithium on multiple toons. I don’t consider myself a big-time famer this is from my general every day activities. What this does it prove a spike doesn’t automatically collate to more total Dilithium leaving the market over time. If the spike was sustained sure it would but the spike wasn’t sustained, was it, it was just that a short-term spike and as I proved someone spending a spike doesn’t automatically collate to more total yearly spend on Dilithium. In fact, as in this case the spike can lead to less yearly Dilithium being spent. Or to put it another way instead of spending 2million spread over 1 year. Now spend 1million over a few months. Bigger spike, less overall spent which means less Dilithium leaving the game.
Also, as far as I can see you saying the majority of the player base wasn't using the crafted upgrade items is just something you made up. My personal tracking and sale numbers are completely at odds with what you are saying. I large amount of my time is spent on the market every single day it’s the first thing I do run to the market and look at sales and numbers. That’s how I know you are wrong. I can look at my own spreadsheets and see you are wrong.
Well as has been demonstrated time and time again you don’t represent a typical player and don’t represent the wider playerbase. Often what you say as though it is fact is just your personal way of playing not what the wider player base does.
People would join the game between phoenix events and so buy crafted. Others would not have enough Dilithium for the event so run out and swap to crafted between events for upgrades, other would miss the event entirely and tons of other reasons. Some players it was as simple as they didn’t want to wait months on end to upgrade so used crafted right away. Others misjudged how much Phoenix they needed for the year ran out and so swapped to crafted and the list goes on. Simple facts from sale numbers show that a part of the wider player base used crafted as the main form of upgrades until Phoenix went 100% uptime. So that wide part of the player base now spend less Dilithium on upgrades due to Phoenix being 100% available. I am included in that group due to Phoenix being 100% available I spend massively less Dilithium on upgrade over when Phoenix was a time limited event.
Here we go you start with the lying again as what you are saying is not remotely true. My older post proves I am not ignoring other factors and did take them into effect. I am not pinning it all on Phoenix box's just pointing out that is one of the big factors. I bet you are just pretending I am ignoring them even after I clearly wasn’t as you don’t want to admit that some players now spend less Dilithium due to 100% uptime on uptime phoenix. The problem is the dev fault as they increased the supply of Dilithium massively while for people like myself they also massively reduced the amount of Dilithium we spend. We warned this would happen. The devs overall have reduced Dilithium outgoing and increased supply. This current result was predictably, no one should be shocked.
Which is why I believe removing Phoenix and going back to limited events would increase the Dilithium sink. Phoenix being 100% active is proven to cause some players to spend less Dilithium. I know for a fact if Phoenix was not 100% active I would be spending millions more Dilithium then I am now.
You do understand the concept is NOT for Cryptic to provide a free game for your leisure & entertainment. Cryptic is a business & money is required to create, supply, & maintain the game, any game. Perhaps right now with the dilithium exchange bonkers players cannot exchange dilithium into zen at all or as easily. However, you can still buy zen. I, however, never buy zen unless there's a sale (zen charge bonus) & unfortunately I don't think there's one at the moment. So if you buy, buy & spend frugally. It sounds like your complaint is your not able to complete transactions the way you want, but you can still complete the transactions if you wanted to badly enough, there's a difference. Decisions decisions.
Thank you for doing that and looking into the problem. I think we all knew it couldn't have been a total surprise to you guys, glad to see you're trying to avoid raising the cap. That's definitely not a great solution.
Thank you for listening and passing along our ideas.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
You have to understand that not everyone has the means to buy zen, so they rely on the dilithium exchange to get their zen.
They can even cycle them 2-3 options at a time for a few months. Pick the lobi ships that aren't quite exciting enough to end up in a Mudd pack. Make them account unlocks. People would gamble for a few months trying to unlock the ship they might want. Or score a ticket to hold on for the change of options in a few months.
Phoenix isn't the sink it used to be with Cryptic constantly giving away ultimate upgrades and selling them on key rings.
If they select the 2-3 options in the token store well they should be able to balance it out pretty well. If they really need to pull the needle down one month if it red lines again they can throw a super limited time Lockbox or even promo ship unlock in their for a week cycle or something.
The phoenix box is NOT the solution. I've opened HUNDREDS of them simply to get upgrades and never once have I seen anything higher than a very rare reward, with drop odds THAT BAD I would never actively try to win a reward from any tier above that, ESPECIALLY Lobi ships since those are very easily obtained on the exchange for around 300 million EC. They need to add desirable items with clear cut prices, not more unobtainable gambling rewards.
I have 8 tokens in my bank... and no my suggestion isn't me just being greedy.
The gold tokens do drop.... and if Cryptic made them account unlocks people would roll.
I've opened probably over 2k by now, as when I do open them I open about 100. I've only gotten about 5-6 epic tokens.
If they add new uses for dilithium it cannot just be phoenix box, they are dirt cheap tbh. I can get 100 on just ten dollars. 110 at the 500 dil/zen cap. And no one wants to go for such insane rare items that they never show up, as far as I am concerned, epic tokens are useless simply due to the insane low drop rate. I only open for phoenix upgrades(lots of alts, oh yes my demand for upgrades has dropped DRASTICALLY, even more with DPRM being far less accessible now, ooops, yes, cryptic, making those easier to get ship trait boxes unobtainable lowered the alts people like me make and thus lowered my demand for upgrade tokens thus I sell less zen).
Think it was mentioned here, a housing like system thats better than just ship bridges could be cool, but it must be per-character and has to be costly. Enough that new alts and items will always greatly cut dilithium supply.
Worst comes to worst I think about it, I'd hate to see a harsher refinement cap but people just won't stop farming more and more dilithium and they often just spend MORE time to do so if some cheesy way of getting it is nerfed. Which means account-wide dil caps. That is, if worst comes to worst(I know many will push back on this idea, hey, thats great, I hate the idea to but hey, if people cannot control themselves what do you expect?).
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Well, there is one change that would solve that problem; the thing people have been asking for since they were introduced: allow people to upgrade to a higher tier token with a certain amount of lower tier tokens. That way you would have a guaranteed path to the epic token, even if you never got lucky along the way.
They have resisted the calls to do this in the past, but due to the emergency situation with the dilex maybe they would finally give in. It would certainly increase the desirability of the phoenix boxes if people had a guaranteed outcome, and they would be more willing to spend dilithium on them.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Why not add promo/lockbox ship consoles or even trait boxes (toon locked) into the Ultra rare tier. Again time gate them.
I'm sorry but you can't tell me if they add things like the Dynamic Power distributer and the like as time limited phoenix purple unlocks people wouldn't open a bunch on every toon they have to unlock them. I mean that would cut into potential mudd pack sales perhaps so Cryptic wouldn't be all that hot on it. For that matter they could even just add some new consoles... its not like making a new universal console and copying some GFX from another and inventing some stats is a ton of work.
One problem with the Phoenix for sure is the drop rate on that Ultra rare tier... Cryptic could for sure stuff some interesting thing in their in terms of consoles traits and the like as long as they look at their RNG table. I swear I have pulled I think 9 or 10 Gold tokens life time and actually fewer Ultra Rares.
You either have the greatest luck on earth, or you misremember. Either way, you are VASTLY underestimating the rarity of Phoenix Box UR and Epic Drops. They are currently the worst odds in the game, you have better chances of winning a lockbox or R&D Ship then to get a UR or better drop from Phoenix Boxes. The drop rates are ridiculously, inexcusably bad and are the reason that most people don't crank on them for tokens.
I have 12 characters, all with Epic everything.. I have opened.. A LOT of Phoenix Boxes over the years, it would honestly be embarrassing to even type how many boxes I have opened. Over the course of these years I think I have seen 2 Epic Tokens and probably about 6-8 UR. I am fortunate in the fact that I don't need anything from either store, I have all the ships, the only thing I would use them for are T6X Tokens of which I already have several banked.. so it's not a big deal. If I needed something from the Epic store though, I would do without.. no way I would gamble on those odds.. they're insanely bad. Honestly, it's insulting how bad the odds are.
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.'
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If one exists should not the other?! What am I not understanding about how the dil exchange works?
There is currently a steady 250k volume to sell zen at 500 dil should that not show up in the buy area? Is there some auto feature that makes the buy to sell be a difference of 1 or something. If they set that difference to 0 would it not solve the problem. Or just set it to 0 when it hits 500 to keep the economy going. This problem seems artificial... Or slightly stupid.
If there is 250k sell zen then the system has that sitting and not being used. I want to buy zen. And I have an order for 250 zen to buy at 500 dil a peice. It's not fulfilling the order. Even though the sell side has it constantly there. The system is not fully using what it has in it. If it's a logic with +-1 to post to the other tab then they need to add a condition for when sell is at 500 to allow a 0 difference to post to the buy side.
The system is poorly worded, the offers you're seeing on the 'Sell Zen' side are showing the dilithium that is available and at what price. What it's really saying is that there is a demand for 250k zen at 500:1, so 125,000,000 dilithium is available for purchase at that price point. And I'm pretty sure it's first in, first out, which means you need to wait for all the orders that were put in before yours to be fulfilled before your turn comes around.
Oh I do & I usually don't care, totally F2P players play an important role in a mmo just like "whales" imo, but I see it as a bit of an entitlement issue if someone plays completely "free" then complains if things aren't going how they like or has become more difficult in game. It'd be a similar entitlement if a "whale" complained & expected it to be easier just because they spend lots of money.
In the end with of all things within STO, Cryptic controls the drop rates so Cryptic very much have a direct impact over supply just like we players do with the demand.
Last year it was 380+dil/zen and the year before that it was somewhere between 350+dil/zen if I could remember now it is 500dil/zen. Dilithium is losing more importance and value as time goes on. It's taking more and more Dilithium to buy one Zen coin each year. Next year probably around 700+dil/Zen the year after 1000dil/zen.
Each year it is taking more and more dilithium to buy just one zen coin this is the problem it is losing value.
Driving the cap isn't going to fix the problem it rebalancing the value of Dilithium to make it more important. Otherwise you will see prices like 1Million dil/zen or 1Billion dil/zen. There has to be a hard cap to stop the inflation from becoming to ridiculous.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
the money side should be like a translation layer. It bridges real life issue with a fuctional game worlds. You don't want it to interfere with the game world development though. Or you get boring games. And other deeper issues.
Basically, if you can't play fully f2p the game is broken/underdeveloped. The more you can play f2p by definition the better the game is as that just means it has deeper mechanics and thought behind it. So, f2p is on the side of the players interest. And the quality of the core game. Outside of laziness of course.
This isn't an issue of entitlement(which is nonesense to begin with as people are naturally entitled to things.) it's a matter of knowing what you are talking about and understanding game development in regards to education and quality. Something that has been woefully lacking in the last several decades as education has dropped like a rock around the world. To simplify you need to gain experience and ability sufficiently before selling things or it cause a bunch of problems. this is where free comes in. It's part of building knowledge. That is why in the 90's free software was literally the most professional. We were still educating more fully. That environment was crushed and now you see the problems that come with that reality.
BTW, the emotional desire to stick to money over developing harder is a natural educational issue. If you have learened less you want to stick to the seemingly immediately easier thing. Making money. If you have learned more you see farther and develop more to make money by producing more for the customer. If you are in the middle it's a matter of how much per side. Ability comes with knowledge. So does forethought and harder work ethic. especially because knowing more makes it easier to think out and hence it's easier to do and not a problem. That is the main reality in design fields like software development. And why almost everyone in the past who worked in these areas were engineers and could do all the work involved. These companies also used to be educational environments when we had a much healthier environment in general. Which happens naturally when sufficient education exists.