What? Of course you can estimate within a reasonable factor. There was a pretty good drop rate and on average with large sample size you pretty much always got the same amount of tokens within a reasonable variance. RNG does allow you to say with this many box's on average you will get this many tokens with a variance of x tokens.
But you cannot guarantee it. You cannot say for an absolute fact that you have that many. While yes by the law of averages you can estimate an amount if you know the numbers, but again... the nature of RNG still makes it random because it is a dice roll on each and every box. So you actually do have a chance of either getting more, less, or the highly unlikely non at all.
The only fact with those boxes is that you have x number of boxes. What is in those boxes is still up to RNG upon opening said boxes.
And as someone with terrible E rank luck... I know that RNG can be a PITA.
The nature of RNG makes it random within a set variance. One cannot guarantee the precise number of tokens you will get but one can be 99% sure they will normally get x amount of tokens within a set variance out of Y amount of box's. I am not saying I lost precisely x amount of tokens. I am saying x amount of tokens is within the typical random variance of the amount of tokens you get out of the amount of box's I opened. Bar some once in a muti life time anomaly there is no way I would have got under 50 or even under 100 tokens given the amount of box's I opened.
your saying one cant guarantee a precise number, yet you are 99% sure you would have gotten over 50 to 100 tokens.
Well its a bit more complicated then that but yes effectively we can estimate with a high degree of accuracy what the minimum, average and maximum amount of expected tokens we are likely to get out of full stack of box's and multiple stacks of box. Not that there is much point running the maths anymore.
What? Of course you can estimate within a reasonable factor. There was a pretty good drop rate and on average with large sample size you pretty much always got the same amount of tokens within a reasonable variance. RNG does allow you to say with this many box's on average you will get this many tokens with a variance of x tokens.
But you cannot guarantee it. You cannot say for an absolute fact that you have that many. While yes by the law of averages you can estimate an amount if you know the numbers, but again... the nature of RNG still makes it random because it is a dice roll on each and every box. So you actually do have a chance of either getting more, less, or the highly unlikely non at all.
The only fact with those boxes is that you have x number of boxes. What is in those boxes is still up to RNG upon opening said boxes.
And as someone with terrible E rank luck... I know that RNG can be a PITA.
The nature of RNG makes it random within a set variance. One cannot guarantee the precise number of tokens you will get but one can be 99% sure they will normally get x amount of tokens within a set variance out of Y amount of box's. I am not saying I lost precisely x amount of tokens. I am saying x amount of tokens is within the typical random variance of the amount of tokens you get out of the amount of box's I opened. Bar some once in a muti life time anomaly there is no way I would have got under 50 or even under 100 tokens given the amount of box's I opened.
your saying one cant guarantee a precise number, yet you are 99% sure you would have gotten over 50 to 100 tokens.
Bort himself spelled out the odds: "1 in 4 chance to get a Token from an Endeavor Box."
That's how statistics work: you can't be certain you will have always thrown a 6, after rolling the dice only 6 times, but the chance to get a specific number is always, 100%, 1:6.
He also made the totally absurd claim that endeavor boxes are worth ~3500 dilithium on average, so I'm not putting any stock whatsoever in those chances. Or any statistics they post. Because they're clearly pulling numbers from some source other than the game we're actually playing.
Bort is known for creative ways of conveying truths, but I doubt they're lying about these odds. Like lock box odds: in communities like these, there's always some nerd (meant in a non-derogatory way), who checks the math. Would be a way too obvious fib.
I suppose it will act as a dil sink for those who just skip through admiralty to get dil vouchers or are OCD about doing everything in the game as quickly as possible, but all it will do for a lot of people (me included) is discourage the use of admiralty and endeavors somewhat which would not result in a dil sink at all, just a slowdown of those already slug-slow systems.
Instead of admiralty skips people will just use the "shuttle pass" trick of throwing a single shuttle or low-usefulness ship at an assignment that they don't want to bother with, which just slows progress by taking a slot plus the cooldown of the ship or shuttle used.
Same thing with endeavors, instead of playing until all of the dailies are done players will do the ones they want (along with the inevitable event) and quit for the day (unless of course they plan to do missions for a while) to wait for them to roll off and the next days endeavors show up (or longer in the case of the universal).
While it may force some hardcore dil farmers to spend a tiny bit more, it will also make the casual players even more casual and not spend quite as much time in the game.
I was going to write something about this new system but you said exactly what I was thinking, I used the shuttle trick as well when the system first came out. I will how however ask Who has all this extra dillithium that I am hearing about? The reason why this new system was started? I took over a federation fleet. The guy who started it left the game, every one who started with him left the game. The whole fleet was at 0 when I join with one of my fed toons, now by myself everything is finished I am currently working on upgrading colony world "by myself" up to teir 4 which cost 1,130,500 dillithim not to mention 100,000 dilithium X 3 Morale teir progress - infrastructure progress- renewable energy progress for the daily colony upgrades. I think STO has come along way since I started playing getting the daily dillithium cap 8000 use to be impossible but now I can do it on several toons daily if I want. I think this is a step back not forward. I am still in my original KDF fleet however, they are a little ahead of me on colony world, I have given millions in dilithium for those projects as well - I am a life time member since 2012 so I will use my 500 cryptic points at times to get things rolling along, however now in my KDF fleet since the cost of dillithium for projects on in colony word at teir 4 is so much we were barley moving along before this new system started now its pretty much stopped. Maybe cryptic can fix this by lowing the dillithium demand? maybe put provisions back in like it was for the star base when it first started.
While it may force some hardcore dil farmers to spend a tiny bit more, it will also make the casual players even more casual and not spend quite as much time in the game.
In my personal experience, this has proven correct.
I usually log in for a bit every day, do my event, do my Endeavors and my Admiralty and log out.
I have already reduced my time since I don't do admiralty anymore. What's the point? I used to do it for Dilithum which without the exchange now has absolutely no value to me at all. Dilithium for Zen was also my main EC method, so that's gone as well.
Right now, I have 16 re-roll tokens left. Once those are gone, I'll do my event and look at my endeavors and log out if I don't like them. I already have an Endeavor rank in the 560 range.. how much more power am I really going to get from it? And what do I even need it for anyway?
The changes they keep making are just making me play less and less. For all intents and purposes, I don't play STO anymore. I log in for 5-10 min a day, do some stupid event I don't even enjoy and then log out. In a couple more days, I'll complete the Event Campaign III and honestly, that might just be it for me, at least for a while.
It's not an 'I quit' post, it's a frustration post because it feels like everything they do just makes me want to play less and less. I keep holding on, waiting for some encouraging change, some new system, some new story content.. something other then a carbon copy 3 week event and a bunch of over priced bundles and lock boxes.
While it may force some hardcore dil farmers to spend a tiny bit more, it will also make the casual players even more casual and not spend quite as much time in the game.
In my personal experience, this has proven correct.
I usually log in for a bit every day, do my event, do my Endeavors and my Admiralty and log out.
I have already reduced my time since I don't do admiralty anymore. What's the point? I used to do it for Dilithum which without the exchange now has absolutely no value to me at all. Dilithium for Zen was also my main EC method, so that's gone as well.
Right now, I have 16 re-roll tokens left. Once those are gone, I'll do my event and look at my endeavors and log out if I don't like them. I already have an Endeavor rank in the 560 range.. how much more power am I really going to get from it? And what do I even need it for anyway?
The changes they keep making are just making me play less and less. For all intents and purposes, I don't play STO anymore. I log in for 5-10 min a day, do some stupid event I don't even enjoy and then log out. In a couple more days, I'll complete the Event Campaign III and honestly, that might just be it for me, at least for a while.
It's not an 'I quit' post, it's a frustration post because it feels like everything they do just makes me want to play less and less. I keep holding on, waiting for some encouraging change, some new system, some new story content.. something other then a carbon copy 3 week event and a bunch of over priced bundles and lock boxes.
I continue to wait.
This--especially "For all intents and purposes, I don't play STO anymore. I log in for 5-10 min a day, do some stupid event I don't even enjoy and then log out. In a couple more days, I'll complete the Event Campaign III and honestly, that might just be it for me, at least for a while."
There is so much I'd like to do in STO right now. But by the time I've finished doing whatever the event of the day is for the umpteenth time in a row, I'm so bored and burned-out I just log out instead of, y'know, playing the regular content. I grind so much for new ships, and by the time I get them I just don't care anymore.
Cryptic really, really needs to ease off with the constant events. I'd honestly play the game more if they did those less.
Cryptic really, really needs to ease off with the constant events. I'd honestly play the game more if they did those less.
And yet Cryptic started doing constant event because one of the biggest complaints about STO before they started doing it was that there was nothing to do, or at least no reason to do it.
Why do Patrols/TFOs/Battlezones when you already have all the marks you need for the reps? Story missions are fun once or twice, but aren't very replayable. And admiralty, DOFFing, and crafting aren't really playing the game, its just menu clicking. Events are pretty much the only reason to do anything in-game at this point. That and Endeavors.
Last they spoke of it that I can recall, they said event participation was only going up to. So the number of people playing was improved by it.
Pardon me if I'm not inclined to take Cryptic's word for this. I regard their precious metrics as a self-fulfilling prophecy at best.
"Endeavor boxes are worth an average of 3500 dilithium."
Yeah, no. I've opened thousands of them. Many players have opened as many as that or more. Most days, I'm lucky to get a single stack of 1000 ore from endeavor boxes -- like today, in fact. On very rare occasions I get a second. Often I get no ore at all. Anything more than that has happened less than 1% of the time. A specialization xp box is the roughly the same frequency. Pretty easy math to do, and it doesn't add up to 3500. Not even close.
They mean 3500 over 4 box's not per box. Which to be fair 800 ish per box is about right.
Even though they are right this time I often feel like you, there metrics are often way off and cannot be trusted. The way they worked out the cost of reroll tokens just goes to show how massively out of touch they are with the player base and good game deployment. Just because 4 box's give 3500 dilithium that doesn't mean the right price for a token is what is it. I read that as if you want to use a token once you have to use up 4 days of earnings up. If I want to use 7 tokens out of 21 Endeavors in 1 week I have to use up nearly 1 months worth of earnings. At this cost I am just going to skip using the tokens so there wont be a dilithium sink for me.
"Endeavor boxes are worth an average of 3500 dilithium."
Yeah, no. I've opened thousands of them. Many players have opened as many as that or more. Most days, I'm lucky to get a single stack of 1000 ore from endeavor boxes -- like today, in fact. On very rare occasions I get a second. Often I get no ore at all. Anything more than that has happened less than 1% of the time. A specialization xp box is the roughly the same frequency. Pretty easy math to do, and it doesn't add up to 3500. Not even close.
They mean 3500 over 4 box's not per box. Which to be fair 800 ish per box is about right.
Even though they are right this time I often feel like you, there metrics are often way off and cannot be trusted. The way they worked out the cost of reroll tokens just goes to show how massively out of touch they are with the player base and good game deployment. Just because 4 box's give 3500 dilithium that doesn't mean the right price for a token is what is it. I read that as if you want to use a token once you have to use up 4 days of earnings up. If I want to use 7 tokens out of 21 Endeavors in 1 week I have to use up nearly 1 months worth of earnings. At this cost I am just going to skip using the tokens so there wont be a dilithium sink for me.
If I see an average of less than 1000 ore out all 3 or 4 endeavor award boxes combined, then it's not 3500 average total or 800 per box. FYI: from STO's wiki, the average chance of getting 1k dilithium ore package from the universal award box was roughly 50/50 (515 out of 1000). 50/50 when it awards 5 packs, or somewhere around 10-15% chance per award pack. VR endeavor award box also gives 5 award packs. Rare is worth 2. Uncommon is 1.
Do. The. Math. There is no way in hell it can ever add up to 3500. That's off by about 300%.
Done the maths and the average over 4 days was 4540 or 1135 per day. That was with 100 days of tracking data. Sometimes in the big days you get as much as 5250 in 1 box. Now there is a random element here so 1135 per day is on the high side but reasonable compared to the devs 875 per day just like some people will see 615 per day. If we go with the tracking data I have is on the high side due to random chance then the devs numbers seems to be correct.
While I might not agree with the devs choices there math's appears to be 100% correct.
"Endeavor boxes are worth an average of 3500 dilithium."
Yeah, no. I've opened thousands of them. Many players have opened as many as that or more. Most days, I'm lucky to get a single stack of 1000 ore from endeavor boxes -- like today, in fact. On very rare occasions I get a second. Often I get no ore at all. Anything more than that has happened less than 1% of the time. A specialization xp box is the roughly the same frequency. Pretty easy math to do, and it doesn't add up to 3500. Not even close.
They mean 3500 over 4 box's not per box. Which to be fair 800 ish per box is about right.
Even though they are right this time I often feel like you, there metrics are often way off and cannot be trusted. The way they worked out the cost of reroll tokens just goes to show how massively out of touch they are with the player base and good game deployment. Just because 4 box's give 3500 dilithium that doesn't mean the right price for a token is what is it. I read that as if you want to use a token once you have to use up 4 days of earnings up. If I want to use 7 tokens out of 21 Endeavors in 1 week I have to use up nearly 1 months worth of earnings. At this cost I am just going to skip using the tokens so there wont be a dilithium sink for me.
If I see an average of less than 1000 ore out all 3 or 4 endeavor award boxes combined, then it's not 3500 average total or 800 per box. FYI: from STO's wiki, the average chance of getting 1k dilithium ore package from the universal award box was roughly 50/50 (515 out of 1000). 50/50 when it awards 5 packs, or somewhere around 10-15% chance per award pack. VR endeavor award box also gives 5 award packs. Rare is worth 2. Uncommon is 1.
Do. The. Math. There is no way in hell it can ever add up to 3500. That's off by about 300%.
Done the maths and the average over 4 days was 4540 or 1135 per day. That was with 100 days of tracking data. Sometimes in the big days you get as much as 5250 in 1 box. Now there is a random element here so 1135 per day is on the high side but reasonable compared to the devs 875 per day just like some people will see 615 per day. If we go with the tracking data I have is on the high side due to random chance then the devs numbers seems to be correct.
While I might not agree with the devs choices there math's appears to be 100% correct.
Uhm, and you failed at math, too. 1000 per day is *NOT* the same as 3500 per day that they claimed -- which *YOU* just demonstrated is wrong by 200-300%, so their math is not '100% correct.' Also, you don't get 4 boxes per day. You get 3.4 -- universals only run 3 times per week. And if they're calculating off of the vr/epic boxes, you only get the equivalent of 2 of those per day -- rare/uncommon combined is 3/5ths of a vr/epic one (in a week you can earn a maximum of 71 award packets -- 15 from universals, and 56 from the rest).
Their justification was premised either on failing spectacularly at math or just a blatant lie. And if they failed this badly at something as simple as the endeavor boxes (only 4 possible values, on fixed schedules), I have every reason to believe they did even worse with something even more complex as admiralty assignments (dozens of contributing factors and probabilities).
The maths seem to be correct 1 box a day over 100 days works out at around 875dilithium ish per box per box or 3500 over 4 box tested over 100 days. To confirm I just did a another sample today though small and opened 6 VR box's and got an average of 916 per box. Some box's got nothing but some box's had loads. The box's with 3 to 5 k per box bring up the average a lot.
"Endeavor boxes are worth an average of 3500 dilithium."
Yeah, no. I've opened thousands of them. Many players have opened as many as that or more. Most days, I'm lucky to get a single stack of 1000 ore from endeavor boxes -- like today, in fact. On very rare occasions I get a second. Often I get no ore at all. Anything more than that has happened less than 1% of the time. A specialization xp box is the roughly the same frequency. Pretty easy math to do, and it doesn't add up to 3500. Not even close.
They mean 3500 over 4 box's not per box. Which to be fair 800 ish per box is about right.
Even though they are right this time I often feel like you, there metrics are often way off and cannot be trusted. The way they worked out the cost of reroll tokens just goes to show how massively out of touch they are with the player base and good game deployment. Just because 4 box's give 3500 dilithium that doesn't mean the right price for a token is what is it. I read that as if you want to use a token once you have to use up 4 days of earnings up. If I want to use 7 tokens out of 21 Endeavors in 1 week I have to use up nearly 1 months worth of earnings. At this cost I am just going to skip using the tokens so there wont be a dilithium sink for me.
If I see an average of less than 1000 ore out all 3 or 4 endeavor award boxes combined, then it's not 3500 average total or 800 per box. FYI: from STO's wiki, the average chance of getting 1k dilithium ore package from the universal award box was roughly 50/50 (515 out of 1000). 50/50 when it awards 5 packs, or somewhere around 10-15% chance per award pack. VR endeavor award box also gives 5 award packs. Rare is worth 2. Uncommon is 1.
Do. The. Math. There is no way in hell it can ever add up to 3500. That's off by about 300%.
Done the maths and the average over 4 days was 4540 or 1135 per day. That was with 100 days of tracking data. Sometimes in the big days you get as much as 5250 in 1 box. Now there is a random element here so 1135 per day is on the high side but reasonable compared to the devs 875 per day just like some people will see 615 per day. If we go with the tracking data I have is on the high side due to random chance then the devs numbers seems to be correct.
While I might not agree with the devs choices there math's appears to be 100% correct.
Uhm, and you failed at math, too. 1000 per day is *NOT* the same as 3500 per day that they claimed -- which *YOU* just demonstrated is wrong by 200-300%, so their math is not '100% correct.' Also, you don't get 4 boxes per day. You get 3.4 -- universals only run 3 times per week. And if they're calculating off of the vr/epic boxes, you only get the equivalent of 2 of those per day -- rare/uncommon combined is 3/5ths of a vr/epic one (in a week you can earn a maximum of 71 award packets -- 15 from universals, and 56 from the rest).
Their justification was premised either on failing spectacularly at math or just a blatant lie. And if they failed this badly at something as simple as the endeavor boxes (only 4 possible values, on fixed schedules), I have every reason to believe they did even worse with something even more complex as admiralty assignments (dozens of contributing factors and probabilities).
The maths seem to be correct 1 box a day over 100 days works out at around 875dilithium ish per box per box or 3500 over 4 box tested over 100 days. To confirm I just did a another sample today though small and opened 6 VR box's and got an average of 916 per box. Some box's got nothing but some box's had loads. The box's with 3 to 5 k per box bring up the average a lot.
Done the maths and the average over 4 days was 4540 or 1135 per day.
4 days, 14 boxes, netted you 1135 ore. TOTAL. Seems like that's about ~2400 ore short of the 3500 you are also claiming is '100% correct math.'
That could have been clearer English on my part, 1135 was the average per box over 100days which works out as 4540 for 4 box's higher then the devs average but within the random variation expected. The 2nd way smaller sample done today was 916 per box which is 3664 for 4 box's much closer to the typical amount expected. As there is a random variation some people will see 1000+ per box and others will see sub 600 per box but the true average without variation is 875 per box.
My English was poor but the math's is correct. All it takes is 1 box at 5.5k+ or a few at 3k and the average for the week it brought up.
IF you want to make some decent Dilithium sinks. I suggest that you alter the 1:1 Dilithium cost on fleet projects. and make it like 1:2 or higher. One of the BIGGEST blocks on fleets I have seen is that Dilithium donations, and Duty officers are the LAST thing to always be donated to.
A further Dil sink is make sell Doffs at the Starbase for DIL instead of buying them with fleet credits.
Duty officers (Doffs) are commissioned at the Academy and cost 1000 dilithium for a general recruitment cadre. I believe you can only get Bridge Officers (Boffs) at the star base. And last I checked, specialized officers like (Piolt specialization etc.) also require dilithium as well. But I think it is a very small amount.
Do you mean selling them on the exchange for dilirhium rather than EC? Or maybe just making more available for fleet projects?
The fleet holding is already the only sizable dilithium tax in the game already.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,559Community Moderator
majority? sure about that? my fleet is on the cutting edge of complete, yet far from it due to the drop in player base and life moving on for many.
I specifically said older fleets. I've been around long enough to have seen them impliment the DL Exchange years ago, and I know what kind of impact fleet holdings had. I don't doubt your fleet is making progress. I'm pointing out that a lot of the active, older fleets aren't in need of anything.
The fleet holding is already the only sizable dilithium tax in the game already.
The problem is the majority of the older, well established fleets have already completed their holdings so they aren't needing any for Fleet projects.
majority? sure about that? my fleet is on the cutting edge of complete, yet far from it due to the drop in player base and life moving on for many.
i just wish people would also look at dil sinks from a new player perspective as well.
i get it...those that have millions, want and should get something to drop millions into. but lets not forget the player base that is new, or middle ground, and do not have millions to do so with.
First, rattler was absolutely right, you misread his post. The older and well established fleets are mostly done, there are tons of long time fleets that are complete and not in dire need of any fleet projects.
As for the new player experience, I see what you're saying but with all do respect you're incorrect. A dilithium sink absolutely should not be targeted at new players. Why? Simple.. because new players have more then enough dilithium sinks as it is. A new player is trying to build up their ship, they need dilithium.. badly. Rather they are cranking Phoenix Boxes trying to get items they have missed, putting them into fleets projects for marks, buying fleet gear, upgrading ship and ground items, they have plenty to use Dilithium on.
I don't think you're going to hear any new players crying for dilithium sinks anytime soon.
As for fleet holdings, again.. it's the worst idea there is. It's nothing but a tax on those that put the most into fleets and the 'average' player will likely ignore it unless it's a direct benefit to them. The fact is, most fleets are built up by a small, core group of dedicated players and using a new holding as a sink only strips Dilithium from these players.
The Vanity Shields was the best idea they have had so far, they figured it out.. now they just need to apply it. You do flash sales on highly desirable, expensive items for Dilithium.. for a limited time only. People will stock pile Dilithium, they'll horde it like crazy in anticipation. There are PLENTY of super rare and expensive items in this game that can be used the exact same way that the Vanity Shields were used.
The Vanity Shield promo is the only thing so far that has moved the needle. It worked.. learn from what works.
Comments
Bort is known for creative ways of conveying truths, but I doubt they're lying about these odds. Like lock box odds: in communities like these, there's always some nerd (meant in a non-derogatory way), who checks the math. Would be a way too obvious fib.
I was going to write something about this new system but you said exactly what I was thinking, I used the shuttle trick as well when the system first came out. I will how however ask Who has all this extra dillithium that I am hearing about? The reason why this new system was started? I took over a federation fleet. The guy who started it left the game, every one who started with him left the game. The whole fleet was at 0 when I join with one of my fed toons, now by myself everything is finished I am currently working on upgrading colony world "by myself" up to teir 4 which cost 1,130,500 dillithim not to mention 100,000 dilithium X 3 Morale teir progress - infrastructure progress- renewable energy progress for the daily colony upgrades. I think STO has come along way since I started playing getting the daily dillithium cap 8000 use to be impossible but now I can do it on several toons daily if I want. I think this is a step back not forward. I am still in my original KDF fleet however, they are a little ahead of me on colony world, I have given millions in dilithium for those projects as well - I am a life time member since 2012 so I will use my 500 cryptic points at times to get things rolling along, however now in my KDF fleet since the cost of dillithium for projects on in colony word at teir 4 is so much we were barley moving along before this new system started now its pretty much stopped. Maybe cryptic can fix this by lowing the dillithium demand? maybe put provisions back in like it was for the star base when it first started.
In my personal experience, this has proven correct.
I usually log in for a bit every day, do my event, do my Endeavors and my Admiralty and log out.
I have already reduced my time since I don't do admiralty anymore. What's the point? I used to do it for Dilithum which without the exchange now has absolutely no value to me at all. Dilithium for Zen was also my main EC method, so that's gone as well.
Right now, I have 16 re-roll tokens left. Once those are gone, I'll do my event and look at my endeavors and log out if I don't like them. I already have an Endeavor rank in the 560 range.. how much more power am I really going to get from it? And what do I even need it for anyway?
The changes they keep making are just making me play less and less. For all intents and purposes, I don't play STO anymore. I log in for 5-10 min a day, do some stupid event I don't even enjoy and then log out. In a couple more days, I'll complete the Event Campaign III and honestly, that might just be it for me, at least for a while.
It's not an 'I quit' post, it's a frustration post because it feels like everything they do just makes me want to play less and less. I keep holding on, waiting for some encouraging change, some new system, some new story content.. something other then a carbon copy 3 week event and a bunch of over priced bundles and lock boxes.
I continue to wait.
This--especially "For all intents and purposes, I don't play STO anymore. I log in for 5-10 min a day, do some stupid event I don't even enjoy and then log out. In a couple more days, I'll complete the Event Campaign III and honestly, that might just be it for me, at least for a while."
There is so much I'd like to do in STO right now. But by the time I've finished doing whatever the event of the day is for the umpteenth time in a row, I'm so bored and burned-out I just log out instead of, y'know, playing the regular content. I grind so much for new ships, and by the time I get them I just don't care anymore.
Cryptic really, really needs to ease off with the constant events. I'd honestly play the game more if they did those less.
Pardon me if I'm not inclined to take Cryptic's word for this. I regard their precious metrics as a self-fulfilling prophecy at best.
Even though they are right this time I often feel like you, there metrics are often way off and cannot be trusted. The way they worked out the cost of reroll tokens just goes to show how massively out of touch they are with the player base and good game deployment. Just because 4 box's give 3500 dilithium that doesn't mean the right price for a token is what is it. I read that as if you want to use a token once you have to use up 4 days of earnings up. If I want to use 7 tokens out of 21 Endeavors in 1 week I have to use up nearly 1 months worth of earnings. At this cost I am just going to skip using the tokens so there wont be a dilithium sink for me.
While I might not agree with the devs choices there math's appears to be 100% correct.
My English was poor but the math's is correct. All it takes is 1 box at 5.5k+ or a few at 3k and the average for the week it brought up.
A further Dil sink is make sell Doffs at the Starbase for DIL instead of buying them with fleet credits.
Do you mean selling them on the exchange for dilirhium rather than EC? Or maybe just making more available for fleet projects?
The fleet holding is already the only sizable dilithium tax in the game already.
The problem is the majority of the older, well established fleets have already completed their holdings so they aren't needing any for Fleet projects.
I specifically said older fleets. I've been around long enough to have seen them impliment the DL Exchange years ago, and I know what kind of impact fleet holdings had. I don't doubt your fleet is making progress. I'm pointing out that a lot of the active, older fleets aren't in need of anything.
First, rattler was absolutely right, you misread his post. The older and well established fleets are mostly done, there are tons of long time fleets that are complete and not in dire need of any fleet projects.
As for the new player experience, I see what you're saying but with all do respect you're incorrect. A dilithium sink absolutely should not be targeted at new players. Why? Simple.. because new players have more then enough dilithium sinks as it is. A new player is trying to build up their ship, they need dilithium.. badly. Rather they are cranking Phoenix Boxes trying to get items they have missed, putting them into fleets projects for marks, buying fleet gear, upgrading ship and ground items, they have plenty to use Dilithium on.
I don't think you're going to hear any new players crying for dilithium sinks anytime soon.
As for fleet holdings, again.. it's the worst idea there is. It's nothing but a tax on those that put the most into fleets and the 'average' player will likely ignore it unless it's a direct benefit to them. The fact is, most fleets are built up by a small, core group of dedicated players and using a new holding as a sink only strips Dilithium from these players.
The Vanity Shields was the best idea they have had so far, they figured it out.. now they just need to apply it. You do flash sales on highly desirable, expensive items for Dilithium.. for a limited time only. People will stock pile Dilithium, they'll horde it like crazy in anticipation. There are PLENTY of super rare and expensive items in this game that can be used the exact same way that the Vanity Shields were used.
The Vanity Shield promo is the only thing so far that has moved the needle. It worked.. learn from what works.