Well yes, you are correct. I should have specified a desirable new demand.
What I was really getting at though, is that any effort to cut earnings, is going to have zero effect on the players I was talking about, it will only slow people down from entering that category.
And Yet, that does seem to be the path they are taking right now, making it harder to 'get dilithium' vs, putting in time to develop a sink to make existing dilithium desirable, which ultimately , will make it much, much harder or new players to get a foot on the ladder. I've been playing STO for nearly 5 years now, and back then, starting from nothing it already felt like I was climbing Mount Everest, If I was just starting now, I don't know I would even stick around to bother.
The problem, for Cryptic, is as I've said before - any dilithium sink, has to be seen as desirable, and a net positive, not a punishment or as 'taking something away' (Admiralty/Endeavour Tokens I'm looking at you) or it will just be ignored by the player base.
For a long time, a new ship would be released, the price would spike briefly, then there would be a phoenix event, combined with a "cool off" period that would bring the price back down, But then we had a period of time that saw Promo-Sales after, Store Sales, After Flash Sales, After Key Sales, After Promo Sales, back to back to back; with no phoenix events for nearly a year to tamp down the Dil Price afterwards meaning the price stayed high, so the next sale came almost immediately and the price just spiked further, this hyper-inflation was caused, though a combination of factors Fleets reaching Cap, and the ever increasing demand for Zen, and period of time with no cool off or nothing to drive it down.
I do recall in a stream a week or two ago, that Borticus stated there is 1 possible Dilithium Sink upcoming; he said closer to the end of this month based on original estimates. Yet he wasn't sure if it was slightly pushed back, and he also didn't say what it was either.
He said their were possibly also 1 or 2 others being considered, yet didn't elaborate much more than that, or when.
Several people have contributed to idea's, yet right now the ball is totally in the court of DIL buyers--they are getting AMAZING value for their ZEN right now.
Just remember, Econ 101, supply and demand. Right now the supply of Dil exceeds the need to convert to Zen. the only way it changes is to choke off the supply of Dil. the PROBLEM is that while it is easy to do, doing it so you are not TRIBBLE over the casual players take a lot more thought and finess
Not the only way. You could also intro new demand for dil.
That only works if the they haven't already hit a saturation in terms of numbers of players willing to wallet.
They have data we don't... if the number of walleting for purple rock players is unchanged... Then chocking the supply is about the only option really.
Not true at all. Because the "problem" isn't solely, or even demonstrably, that the number of Zen sellers went down because of players being unwilling to spend on Zen. In fact, there is no public data on Zen sales (gamewide, not just Zen going through the exchange). Those players might still be buying Zen, but just not using it to trade for dilithium.
The willingness to use Zen to trade for dilithium.... requires that there be a use for the dilithium.
And as I have (repeatedly) pointed out before.... every method of using dilithium OTHER than using it to buy Zen... is ultimately limited. At some point, an individual player will have done all of those things (upgrades, Phoenix boxes, fleet projects, etcetera) that they have any desire to do.
Once they reach that point, dilithium is worthless to that player, except for buying Zen. (And of course, you're not going to sell Zen in order to buy Zen.) So those players who got there by trading Zen stop, and those who got there by farming dilithium, simply increase the flood.
The ONLY way to pull players out of that situation, and back into using dilithium (for other things), is to create new dilithium demand, because they've already done all the existing things.
Cutting off income, might help the exchange overall, but it only does so by slowing players down from reaching that tipping point.
And an important factor, that often isn't discussed, is the development cost of adding new dilithium sinks to the game. And I'm sure that's part of the hold up behind the scenes. It's the old business triad: it can cheap, it can be fast, it can be good -- pick any two. Getting the right mix for the resources they can afford to invest is definitely a delicate balancing act.
And I've already (in other threads) proposed two ways that dilithium demand could be added VERY easily (development wise). Both of them would require no new artwork, no new mechanics, etc, just simply adding listings to the Phoenix store.
Probably no more (or less) development time than things like, oh, changing the T5 reputation rewards, or the Admiralty tour of duty rewards, were.
The trade-up option you've mentioned before, definitely. That should be relatively quick and simple, but of questionable effectiveness -- demand for much of the higher tier prizes just isn't that significant (I can think of one epic tier ship that has a decent amount of demand, but the rest are niche at best). The lobi crystal option for prize vouchers should be simple and effective, but not quick -- you're cutting into the value of prize packs doing that, which is something they'd have to evaluate carefully before jumping in.
You're conflating quick to consider with quick to actually do. The lobi crystal option would require exactly the same, or less, programming time as the other proposal.
It doesn't matter if it's 'quick to do' if it still requires lengthy evaluation before proceeding -- the time it takes remains the same. As I said, lobi crystals are directly tied to how the game is monetized -- gamble boxes -- and no changes to something like that is going to be made in haste, no matter how quickly the actual change can be done mechanically.
I would say a change like that to lobi won't happen unless Cryptic is forced to abandon gamble boxes completely. Which is always possible... I mean they sort of been preparing for it just in case.
I don't see it happening though. The lobi store is the lockbox door prize store... unless lockboxes go away lobi has to remain that.
Thank you all for the update and views; unfortunately I readily fall into the category of Cryptic Greed. With it maxed, they want more direct Zen purchases. There's so much they could of already done -raising the cap, more sinks, etc... and considering ships cost say £20 each, bundles and megapacks around £40 each and £80 each... it's been broken for so long with no fix purely due to greed (in my opinion). 60k Zen for the 8 choice Mudd's DQ pack? That's 30mil Dilithium, or nearly £700 ($800) real cash.
They could of converted some on the Zen-only ships, perhaps 3-8 T6's to Dilithium, even for 5-10x more Dil than the original Zen amount (so a 3k Zen ships costs 1.5mil Dil now, if converted to a Dil purchase, make it 7.5mil+ or a stupid amount, if it's a good T6 then people will pay it/work towards it). Or applied this to some of the Zen-only purchases of other things - make an Extra 1x Acc Bank Slot 100k - the only reason not to is greed or lack of players, both.
Look, don't get me wrong, I know I signed up for a pay to win/heavy microtransaction game - we all did, and if we didn't, Cryptic make it clear to new players in the first 10 minutes with the Zen store - they make it obvious there's people been here for years and it'll cost too much to catch up. But the level of greed set against bug fixing, shoring up mechanics, attention, etc... It feels, more than ever before, that they are stringing out cash-grabbing before breaking point - especially with their silence on the issue.
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Here's a crazy Idea that I haven't seen posted here or on other fourms talking about this issue..
How about the item exchange? Making just certain Zen store items such lockbox keys, R&D packs and lockbox/lobi ships available to buy and sell for dilithium also instead of just EC?
That could be a win / win situation for everyone. There's a lot of people who just buy Zen to get keys, upgrade tokens, R&D boxes exc. just to sell these items for energy credits just to buy ships. I know a guy who buys and sells on the exchange who is maxed out on EC with 3 characters but can't get enough refined dil. He's sitting on a bank full of keys, R&D boxes and ships because he has no incentive to sell anything for EC anymore.
That could reduce the demand on the Dil exchange for people who are trying to get Zen for these items. And give incentive for people to sell some of these items for Dil instead of EC.
Just a suggestion.. I'm sure someone else has to of thought of this before me. I just haven't seen it posted anywhere..
While trading refined dilithium for goods sounds okay in principle, the reality is that it just makes it caveman easy to move refined dilithium between accounts. ie dilithium farmers. So it won't solve anything. It will, in fact, make the situation worse. All that dilithium locked up on alt accounts? Not stuck there anymore, free to move to any account of the player's choosing.
I have to agree with corin on this one. This feels like it would just promote multiboxing with entire accounts dedicated to DL farming for the main.
While trading refined dilithium for goods sounds okay in principle, the reality is that it just makes it caveman easy to move refined dilithium between accounts. ie dilithium farmers. So it won't solve anything. It will, in fact, make the situation worse. All that dilithium locked up on alt accounts? Not stuck there anymore, free to move to any account of the player's choosing.
I have to agree with corin on this one. This feels like it would just promote multiboxing with entire accounts dedicated to DL farming for the main.
Its already something Cryptic has to crack down on now and then. I agree this would make it far worse.
For everyone saying there is nothing to do with Dill... come on now, that is hardly true.
We can all look at the amount of Zen moving through the exchange now that its stuck at 500... and its clear 3-5 thousand dollars daily in Zen is being bought from Cryptic to trade to other players for purple rock.
For something that I hear has no use... it sounds like Cryptic is making six figures monthly from players wanting to buy it for some use.
For everyone saying there is nothing to do with Dill... come on now, that is hardly true.
We can all look at the amount of Zen moving through the exchange now that its stuck at 500... and its clear 3-5 thousand dollars daily in Zen is being bought from Cryptic to trade to other players for purple rock.
For something that I hear has no use... it sounds like Cryptic is making six figures monthly from players wanting to buy it for some use.
They would be making far more if Dilithium had more uses, because as of right now, all the current uses outside of Zen have a finite lifespan.
Fleet Holdings: After they're maxed there's really just provisioning projects, and even that only goes so far once fleet members get what they want.
Phoenix Box: Biggest draw is the Phoenix Tech Upgrades. Best upgrades in the game short of an Ultimate. After that getting what you want from the boxes. Short of trying to actually go for the ships at UR and Epic, again... finite lifespan on Phoenix gear
Rep Gear: Again... what will you spend on once you have the gear you want?
All of it comes down to the fact that every sink we have right now has a lifespan. And as of right now, all the big, active fleets that helped with balancing the economy with the Dilithium demand no longer have the demand for Dilithium. That's why we don't have the Zen surplus we had years ago that allowed for instant transactions on the DL Exchange. There is more Demand for Zen than there is for Dilithium. Doesn't mean ALL demand for Dilithium dried up, but as of right now... its mostly going into orders for Zen.
We need to raise the demand for Dilithium to balance the economy. While yes the economy is still functional, it would be in all of our interests, even Cryptic's, to have a more balanced economy because then we have far more movement both ways. And word on the grapevine is that we do have a sink coming soon that may help. This will take many things working together, both small and large, both sink and income.
For everyone saying there is nothing to do with Dill... come on now, that is hardly true.
We can all look at the amount of Zen moving through the exchange now that its stuck at 500... and its clear 3-5 thousand dollars daily in Zen is being bought from Cryptic to trade to other players for purple rock.
For something that I hear has no use... it sounds like Cryptic is making six figures monthly from players wanting to buy it for some use.
They would be making far more if Dilithium had more uses, because as of right now, all the current uses outside of Zen have a finite lifespan.
Fleet Holdings: After they're maxed there's really just provisioning projects, and even that only goes so far once fleet members get what they want.
Phoenix Box: Biggest draw is the Phoenix Tech Upgrades. Best upgrades in the game short of an Ultimate. After that getting what you want from the boxes. Short of trying to actually go for the ships at UR and Epic, again... finite lifespan on Phoenix gear
Rep Gear: Again... what will you spend on once you have the gear you want?
All of it comes down to the fact that every sink we have right now has a lifespan. And as of right now, all the big, active fleets that helped with balancing the economy with the Dilithium demand no longer have the demand for Dilithium. That's why we don't have the Zen surplus we had years ago that allowed for instant transactions on the DL Exchange. There is more Demand for Zen than there is for Dilithium. Doesn't mean ALL demand for Dilithium dried up, but as of right now... its mostly going into orders for Zen.
We need to raise the demand for Dilithium to balance the economy. While yes the economy is still functional, it would be in all of our interests, even Cryptic's, to have a more balanced economy because then we have far more movement both ways. And word on the grapevine is that we do have a sink coming soon that may help. This will take many things working together, both small and large, both sink and income.
Well your assuming this game has a player base that is willing to wallet more then 5k a month for in game currency.
I'm not talking about the people willing to buy zen for items... but people willing to buy zen just to trade for grind currency.
That has a ceiling. There are a lot of players (like myself frankly) that will spend money, now and then... even more then we feel we should really, but still won't ever bring ourselves to buy currency we could grind.
I keep hearing people explain if they just added more annoying sinks players would pony up... I don't actually buy that. Considering the number I see peak on steam, and assuming the real population is probably 2x that give or take. I just don't see it. I'm sure cryptic counts as active players people that have touched the game once in a 90 days or something... but of real actual daily players. I mean according to steam that is 1300 daily average with a monthly peak of 2100. So if we are kind and say this game has 5,000 active daily players... then the numbers say $1 gets spent for everyone of them daily on buying zen or $30 a month for everyone on average. I know that isn't so... which means there is a handful of people accounting for the majority of zen for dill purchasing. If we used to old troupe of the top 10% accounting for 90% of the business... then that means 500 players are spending a lot of money every day. (like those 500 players are averaging 10 bucks a day type spend). I don't see how Cryptic turns the second class of spenders like me that will drop a few bucks now and then on a ship pack into people willing to spend an average of $10 a day buying purple rocks.
I could be way off... I just don't see it. Those of us who are lower case s spenders.... are not going to all of a sudden turn into whales cause Cryptic added a new grind. For sure not if they lock something behind a Dill pay that we already had without it. I have a strong sense the cap on spend for dill rocks is pretty solid and likely unchanged. Cryptic has the numbers, and I would be willing to bet the amount of $ spent on zen to be traded hasn't changed much in a long time. Which would mean any new sink they add is for appearances and nothing more. IMO the only way the exchange moves instantly long term anyway is if they seriously reduce the amount of dill that can be earned easily. (and they are off to a good start on that I think)... a temp sink like Vanity shield sales and the like might momentarily drop pressure, but vanity shields actually proves my point. Players treated that "sink" like a sale no different then buying any other vanity item from the exchange. They converted some zen for a shield... but did they convert to buy rerolls of any type ?
Anyway some sinks may take some dill out of the seller pool... but I doubt it, at least not long term. Most players seem to have gotten pretty used to paying for 1/2 to all of their zen items with whales help. I don't see the amount of $ whales are willing to throw the plebs way going up.
Its Supply and Demand.
As of right now we have a lot of Supply of Dilithium, but not a lot of Demand for it. On the other hand we have a lot of demand for Zen, but not as much Supply.
With a more balanced economy, and more demand for Dilithium, we should see more movement on both resources. People who don't have the time to grind out Dilithium are more likely to just buy it off the DL Exchange. In return, people who DO have the time will be able to get Zen in exchange for their Dilithium. Its win/win when it works. As of right now we don't have a balanced economy.
Any F2P game will have whales, both new and old. Hell... even sub games will have whales. But here on STO we actually have a way for these people to help others who can't afford their own. When the DL Exchange is more balanced, its actually very F2P friendly. Right now... it just works, but takes time on the Zen buying side of things.
Like I said, it all boils down to Supply and Demand.
Right now Johnny Wall Street or Jeffery the Retiree has no need of dil if they have played a while.
Fleets don't work as sinks as they require truly extortionate amounts of dil and to be quite honest most rep and lockbox gear is superior, so no rush there dil wise especially seeing as most players, myself included, wait for 10 of 10 Klingon to roll around. In fact, one of my fleets outright suggests it.
Then Phoenix boxes, despite the message spam (my tin foil hat speculates those are plants), you're not getting anything worthwhile out of those. At this point I can do advanced (default for most players) comfortably with purple XII if needed.
EC is another issue, inflation raises the prices and Joey Peasant relies on keys for his EC mostly, which he buys with dilex zen. He of course now needs even more keys.
I could go on but every change they make now is going to be like trying to plug a bursting dam with your finger. New players will bear the brunt as usual.
Its Supply and Demand.
As of right now we have a lot of Supply of Dilithium, but not a lot of Demand for it. On the other hand we have a lot of demand for Zen, but not as much Supply.
With a more balanced economy, and more demand for Dilithium, we should see more movement on both resources. People who don't have the time to grind out Dilithium are more likely to just buy it off the DL Exchange. In return, people who DO have the time will be able to get Zen in exchange for their Dilithium. Its win/win when it works. As of right now we don't have a balanced economy.
Any F2P game will have whales, both new and old. Hell... even sub games will have whales. But here on STO we actually have a way for these people to help others who can't afford their own. When the DL Exchange is more balanced, its actually very F2P friendly. Right now... it just works, but takes time on the Zen buying side of things.
Like I said, it all boils down to Supply and Demand.
Yes but the SUPLLY of Zen isn't going to go up. Is Cryptic going to dig up new whales somewhere ?
Your right its a supply and demand issue. I agree this game has a great setup for F2P. Every business not just games there is always a top 10... the 10% of clients/players what have you that account for 90% of revenues. That proves itself in almost every industry everywhere. I have no idea how many "whales" there is in terms of numbers but I imagine if I'm not wrong about around 5k ongoing daily players then there is perhaps 500... so 500 people paying $200-300 a month each, sounds about right too me. Thing is that has probably been true of the state of the game for years.
The problem is supply of Zen... its not going to go up. It just won't. I think a lot of players need to take a sober minute and understand that 300,000 - 400,000 zen is sold to F2P players daily. STO is not a huge game in terms of player numbers... it has a small group of dedicated die hards with $. Right now today on the low side they are spending $3000 a day, as much as 5k on peak days. That group won't grow so the supply of Zen won't change.
So yes all that can really be done is effect the supply of Dill. Sure you can try and get regular players to try and spend it on sinks.... my point is simple, good luck with that. Regular non whale players in this game are at this point pretty much all selling purple rocks to pay for the stuff they want. They are not going to grind harder, or turn into big spenders... so they will pretty much ignore the new sinks. Unless they can't in which case if you think there was uproar about the T5 payouts just wait.
My perception is my reality, and this is how I perceive things.
Then I have to ask, at the risk of being called a shill or whatever juvenile namecalling people like you tend to resort to: why are you still here?
Why are any of us here?
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And Yet, that does seem to be the path they are taking right now, making it harder to 'get dilithium' vs, putting in time to develop a sink to make existing dilithium desirable, which ultimately , will make it much, much harder or new players to get a foot on the ladder. I've been playing STO for nearly 5 years now, and back then, starting from nothing it already felt like I was climbing Mount Everest, If I was just starting now, I don't know I would even stick around to bother.
The problem, for Cryptic, is as I've said before - any dilithium sink, has to be seen as desirable, and a net positive, not a punishment or as 'taking something away' (Admiralty/Endeavour Tokens I'm looking at you) or it will just be ignored by the player base.
For a long time, a new ship would be released, the price would spike briefly, then there would be a phoenix event, combined with a "cool off" period that would bring the price back down, But then we had a period of time that saw Promo-Sales after, Store Sales, After Flash Sales, After Key Sales, After Promo Sales, back to back to back; with no phoenix events for nearly a year to tamp down the Dil Price afterwards meaning the price stayed high, so the next sale came almost immediately and the price just spiked further, this hyper-inflation was caused, though a combination of factors Fleets reaching Cap, and the ever increasing demand for Zen, and period of time with no cool off or nothing to drive it down.
He said their were possibly also 1 or 2 others being considered, yet didn't elaborate much more than that, or when.
Several people have contributed to idea's, yet right now the ball is totally in the court of DIL buyers--they are getting AMAZING value for their ZEN right now.
I would say a change like that to lobi won't happen unless Cryptic is forced to abandon gamble boxes completely. Which is always possible... I mean they sort of been preparing for it just in case.
I don't see it happening though. The lobi store is the lockbox door prize store... unless lockboxes go away lobi has to remain that.
They could of converted some on the Zen-only ships, perhaps 3-8 T6's to Dilithium, even for 5-10x more Dil than the original Zen amount (so a 3k Zen ships costs 1.5mil Dil now, if converted to a Dil purchase, make it 7.5mil+ or a stupid amount, if it's a good T6 then people will pay it/work towards it). Or applied this to some of the Zen-only purchases of other things - make an Extra 1x Acc Bank Slot 100k - the only reason not to is greed or lack of players, both.
Look, don't get me wrong, I know I signed up for a pay to win/heavy microtransaction game - we all did, and if we didn't, Cryptic make it clear to new players in the first 10 minutes with the Zen store - they make it obvious there's people been here for years and it'll cost too much to catch up. But the level of greed set against bug fixing, shoring up mechanics, attention, etc... It feels, more than ever before, that they are stringing out cash-grabbing before breaking point - especially with their silence on the issue.
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How about the item exchange? Making just certain Zen store items such lockbox keys, R&D packs and lockbox/lobi ships available to buy and sell for dilithium also instead of just EC?
That could be a win / win situation for everyone. There's a lot of people who just buy Zen to get keys, upgrade tokens, R&D boxes exc. just to sell these items for energy credits just to buy ships. I know a guy who buys and sells on the exchange who is maxed out on EC with 3 characters but can't get enough refined dil. He's sitting on a bank full of keys, R&D boxes and ships because he has no incentive to sell anything for EC anymore.
That could reduce the demand on the Dil exchange for people who are trying to get Zen for these items. And give incentive for people to sell some of these items for Dil instead of EC.
Just a suggestion.. I'm sure someone else has to of thought of this before me. I just haven't seen it posted anywhere..
I have to agree with corin on this one. This feels like it would just promote multiboxing with entire accounts dedicated to DL farming for the main.
Its already something Cryptic has to crack down on now and then. I agree this would make it far worse.
For everyone saying there is nothing to do with Dill... come on now, that is hardly true.
We can all look at the amount of Zen moving through the exchange now that its stuck at 500... and its clear 3-5 thousand dollars daily in Zen is being bought from Cryptic to trade to other players for purple rock.
For something that I hear has no use... it sounds like Cryptic is making six figures monthly from players wanting to buy it for some use.
They would be making far more if Dilithium had more uses, because as of right now, all the current uses outside of Zen have a finite lifespan.
All of it comes down to the fact that every sink we have right now has a lifespan. And as of right now, all the big, active fleets that helped with balancing the economy with the Dilithium demand no longer have the demand for Dilithium. That's why we don't have the Zen surplus we had years ago that allowed for instant transactions on the DL Exchange. There is more Demand for Zen than there is for Dilithium. Doesn't mean ALL demand for Dilithium dried up, but as of right now... its mostly going into orders for Zen.
We need to raise the demand for Dilithium to balance the economy. While yes the economy is still functional, it would be in all of our interests, even Cryptic's, to have a more balanced economy because then we have far more movement both ways. And word on the grapevine is that we do have a sink coming soon that may help. This will take many things working together, both small and large, both sink and income.
Well your assuming this game has a player base that is willing to wallet more then 5k a month for in game currency.
I'm not talking about the people willing to buy zen for items... but people willing to buy zen just to trade for grind currency.
That has a ceiling. There are a lot of players (like myself frankly) that will spend money, now and then... even more then we feel we should really, but still won't ever bring ourselves to buy currency we could grind.
I keep hearing people explain if they just added more annoying sinks players would pony up... I don't actually buy that. Considering the number I see peak on steam, and assuming the real population is probably 2x that give or take. I just don't see it. I'm sure cryptic counts as active players people that have touched the game once in a 90 days or something... but of real actual daily players. I mean according to steam that is 1300 daily average with a monthly peak of 2100. So if we are kind and say this game has 5,000 active daily players... then the numbers say $1 gets spent for everyone of them daily on buying zen or $30 a month for everyone on average. I know that isn't so... which means there is a handful of people accounting for the majority of zen for dill purchasing. If we used to old troupe of the top 10% accounting for 90% of the business... then that means 500 players are spending a lot of money every day. (like those 500 players are averaging 10 bucks a day type spend). I don't see how Cryptic turns the second class of spenders like me that will drop a few bucks now and then on a ship pack into people willing to spend an average of $10 a day buying purple rocks.
I could be way off... I just don't see it. Those of us who are lower case s spenders.... are not going to all of a sudden turn into whales cause Cryptic added a new grind. For sure not if they lock something behind a Dill pay that we already had without it. I have a strong sense the cap on spend for dill rocks is pretty solid and likely unchanged. Cryptic has the numbers, and I would be willing to bet the amount of $ spent on zen to be traded hasn't changed much in a long time. Which would mean any new sink they add is for appearances and nothing more. IMO the only way the exchange moves instantly long term anyway is if they seriously reduce the amount of dill that can be earned easily. (and they are off to a good start on that I think)... a temp sink like Vanity shield sales and the like might momentarily drop pressure, but vanity shields actually proves my point. Players treated that "sink" like a sale no different then buying any other vanity item from the exchange. They converted some zen for a shield... but did they convert to buy rerolls of any type ?
Anyway some sinks may take some dill out of the seller pool... but I doubt it, at least not long term. Most players seem to have gotten pretty used to paying for 1/2 to all of their zen items with whales help. I don't see the amount of $ whales are willing to throw the plebs way going up.
As of right now we have a lot of Supply of Dilithium, but not a lot of Demand for it. On the other hand we have a lot of demand for Zen, but not as much Supply.
With a more balanced economy, and more demand for Dilithium, we should see more movement on both resources. People who don't have the time to grind out Dilithium are more likely to just buy it off the DL Exchange. In return, people who DO have the time will be able to get Zen in exchange for their Dilithium. Its win/win when it works. As of right now we don't have a balanced economy.
Any F2P game will have whales, both new and old. Hell... even sub games will have whales. But here on STO we actually have a way for these people to help others who can't afford their own. When the DL Exchange is more balanced, its actually very F2P friendly. Right now... it just works, but takes time on the Zen buying side of things.
Like I said, it all boils down to Supply and Demand.
Then I have to ask, at the risk of being called a shill or whatever juvenile namecalling people like you tend to resort to: why are you still here?
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Right now Johnny Wall Street or Jeffery the Retiree has no need of dil if they have played a while.
Fleets don't work as sinks as they require truly extortionate amounts of dil and to be quite honest most rep and lockbox gear is superior, so no rush there dil wise especially seeing as most players, myself included, wait for 10 of 10 Klingon to roll around. In fact, one of my fleets outright suggests it.
Then Phoenix boxes, despite the message spam (my tin foil hat speculates those are plants), you're not getting anything worthwhile out of those. At this point I can do advanced (default for most players) comfortably with purple XII if needed.
EC is another issue, inflation raises the prices and Joey Peasant relies on keys for his EC mostly, which he buys with dilex zen. He of course now needs even more keys.
I could go on but every change they make now is going to be like trying to plug a bursting dam with your finger. New players will bear the brunt as usual.
Yes but the SUPLLY of Zen isn't going to go up. Is Cryptic going to dig up new whales somewhere ?
Your right its a supply and demand issue. I agree this game has a great setup for F2P. Every business not just games there is always a top 10... the 10% of clients/players what have you that account for 90% of revenues. That proves itself in almost every industry everywhere. I have no idea how many "whales" there is in terms of numbers but I imagine if I'm not wrong about around 5k ongoing daily players then there is perhaps 500... so 500 people paying $200-300 a month each, sounds about right too me. Thing is that has probably been true of the state of the game for years.
The problem is supply of Zen... its not going to go up. It just won't. I think a lot of players need to take a sober minute and understand that 300,000 - 400,000 zen is sold to F2P players daily. STO is not a huge game in terms of player numbers... it has a small group of dedicated die hards with $. Right now today on the low side they are spending $3000 a day, as much as 5k on peak days. That group won't grow so the supply of Zen won't change.
So yes all that can really be done is effect the supply of Dill. Sure you can try and get regular players to try and spend it on sinks.... my point is simple, good luck with that. Regular non whale players in this game are at this point pretty much all selling purple rocks to pay for the stuff they want. They are not going to grind harder, or turn into big spenders... so they will pretty much ignore the new sinks. Unless they can't in which case if you think there was uproar about the T5 payouts just wait.
Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started...
Wait
The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool.....