Leave the exchange alone (no taxes or fees).......just reduce the number of currencies in game that will keep prices from sky rocketing if you do not have to do a series of dailies to get one lousy mark of something or another items on the exchange would not be valued so high.
1 for PVP
1 for exploration that can buy items of any rank
1 for PVE = Energy credits
This would be limited to weapons, consoles, ETC.
(this excludes BO points and merits for training)
The easy fix is to allow players to buy any item from any vendor at its asking price in any and all currencies.
Example: If I want to buy a Anti proton gun from the omega group vendor and it cost 35 marks of whatever, I would also be able to buy it for its retail price of 2,500 engery credits or 95 5th badges of whatever.
Implement my exchange idea for BOs, have new and rarer, (blue, purple) pool of draft able officers, have you fleet skills banked so that you can train your BOs out of your gathered fleet Captains trainable skills/ transferable officers tab along with the current trade system. This would lower the high worth of officers with rarer skills and make a stronger pool of powers for Captains to obtain at a cheaper price.
Also do not bind space/ground weapons, consoles so they may be more on the market. This would only apply to RA gear and above, all lower ranks would be bind on equip.
15 or 16, if not more, Different Types of Currency, for one game is just a TAD Extreme. 2 or at most 3 different types of Currency to manage and keep track of is plenty for most purposes. The High End Items, Purples and others should be available for an Extreme Price, Over The Counter at some location. Instead of 25 Merrits of Honor, make them $5,000,000 EC, and this issue would be finished.
The High End Items would then be available to everyone, and would still be Rare due to the LONG Time to earn that much to buy them.
Then you could decide whether you wanted to buy them over the Counter, or in the Exchange.
Well that one is simple! Don't buy it for the price listed. If people do not buy it for that price it will force prices down or they will stop posting the item.
What's wrong with the exchange? High prices are a part of a game economy. If nobody buys or more people get those items then the price comes down.
But what does the effect of 'hording' and the fact that there are no overhead costs for posting on the exchange have on this statement. Implementing posting fees will help reduce some of the fraudulent Exchange posting that has been going on.... (How can you justify the posting of 'Non-Efficient' Uncommon Saurian BOs for 10s of millions of ECs on the Exchange???), but the primary issue is that there is a gross imbalance between supply and demand in the STO Economy, to the detriment of beginner and casual players.
What is needed is something to address the 'supply' side of the economy, such as 'Fleet Vendors' (with Vendor slots purchased for a sizable sum by the fleet to serve as a EC sink) that off Common even Mark merchandise, and a limited number of Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items...
As others of said, the problem is not the exchange in and of itself. (Yes, there are ridiculous listings. How do they hurt ANYBODY?)
The problem is rampant inflation, caused by money flowing into the economy with no way to leave it. There are no real money sinks, and until there are, this problem will only get worse.
What is needed is something to address the 'supply' side of the economy
There is an infinite supply. Its not like there are only 100 tribbles in the entire game and none will ever be given out again.
Now lets say that at some point everybody does a mission & earns a Super-Shield. Most people want to equip it, so they do. Very few people will decided to sell it instead. Therefore the supply on the exchange is very small, so they can charge whatever they want.
Economics, people. Isn't that a required course in High-School? The only people who should be complaining about the "high prices" on the Exchange should be 12 year olds who haven't taken "Economics" or "Free Enterprise" in HIgh School. (Or those that live in a Communist country)
(How can you justify the posting of 'Non-Efficient' Uncommon Saurian BOs for 10s of millions of ECs on the Exchange???)
I honestly think a lot of the people who put non-efficient Saurian BOs on the exchange for 10 million, or more, are people who don't understand why a particular BO is worth more then another. They simply see Saurians selling for millions and assume they all will.
I'm amazed every day to see people who've played this game for months and have no real idea of why one BO is better then another. There's really a huge throng of people playing who have no idea about the mechanics of the game or how sought-after some things are. Most people just play the game blissfully unaware.
Please don't change the exchange. I believe anything Cryptic tries to control it will make it worse.
If you don't like the prices don't buy and go out and earn the gear.
Again the exchange doesn't need to be altered in anyway, as the currency in this game means nothing (same with any game really. the only difference is how fast you can acquire Big Numbers between games) high prices are purely by demand of an item.
Meaning that Beam Overload 3 you want? So does everyone else. You're going to pay for it.
Mark 12 Blue Quantum? Be prepared to shell out the cash. Everyone wants it.
Here's two tips for the exchange, either 1 use weapons most people don't and save a ton. (and that results in ending up with better gear than the other guys will have) or 2, sell stuff yourself to make enough money to buy items that you desire.
There is a working economy in this game. And as far as the Exchange goes it works brilliantly.
While I agree there is nothing wrong with the Exchange the problem is inflation due to lack of vaule, but fewer Currencies might be something to look at, maybe something like this (expanded from OP's list):
Emblems (From Harder Missions like STFs or VA missions etc)
Marks of Honour (PVP money)
Marks of Exploration (Exploration money)
Gold Pressed Latium (Mini-game money)
Energy Credits (General usage and PVE money)
For a money sink you could have a currency changer that does charge you about +10% - 40% depending on what you want to change to if going up in currency vaule (like EC to Emblems would be a large fee so 40% or your EC is just to cover the exchangers).
1 Emb = 3 MoE = 5 MoE = 500 GPL = 100,000 EC, but changing from a low EC to Emb would cost you 140,000 EC per 1 Emb you wanted, but to a lower one like GPL it'll only cost 110,000 EC per 500 GPL.
Going down in vaule is just a simple -10% of the currency your changing into, so 1 Emb going to EC will only be 90,000 EC.
So to be a money sink the Exchangers always take a sum of money.
Not sure how this would "fix" the inflation, but it might just set the vaule of the currencies ingame so you know how much what is to what.
Not sure on the entire idea as only thought of it in 5mins while reading this thread and eating my dinner
All MMO exchanges are pretty similar...there is a huge premium on all items simply for the convenience of buying it right away, and prices reflect the inflation-adjusted, true value of the currency. (While vendor prices never change.)
I've been suggesting for quite a while that vendors be charged a maintenance fee on any item posted to the Exchange. The fee can be a small percentage of the asking price. The fee should be required up front and should pay for a specific listing period. This would discourage the use of the exchange as another vault and would also help to lower prices on items which depend on the desperate, or foolish, for a sale. If the items haven't sold within the listing period, they are returned as normal and the vendor can repay and repost in a new listing. Another method would be to deduct the listing fee directly from the vendors ec balance daily. If the user runs out of money the item is "repossesed" by the game. This would definitely bring an end to the 100 megacredit items, or properly penalize players abusing the system, or taking advantage of others. that's my 2 cents anyway.
I've been suggesting for quite a while that vendors be charged a maintenance fee on any item posted to the Exchange. The fee can be a small percentage of the asking price. The fee should be required up front and should pay for a specific listing period. This would discourage the use of the exchange as another vault and would also help to lower prices on items which depend on the desperate, or foolish, for a sale. If the items haven't sold within the listing period, they are returned as normal and the vendor can repay and repost in a new listing. Another method would be to deduct the listing fee directly from the vendors ec balance daily. If the user runs out of money the item is "repossesed" by the game. This would definitely bring an end to the 100 megacredit items, or properly penalize players abusing the system, or taking advantage of others. that's my 2 cents anyway.
For the love of God, the Exchange is NOT A FREAKING VAULT. Why does everyone think that? It only holds the items for SEVEN DAYS. After that, the item gets mailed back to you.
Secondly, If I have to pay to put stuff on the Exchange, I'll just price it HIGHER to cover the cost of the fee. (For example, lets say Crypitc listens and charges me a 10% fee to whatever price I set. Instead of putting it for $100,000, I put it for $110,000. I'm still making the same amount of money. You, however, are not paying 10% MORE than the high prices that you currently hate.)
Lastly, we are not "abusing" the system or taking advantage of others. I don't force people to buy my gear. You can make it to VA with only white gear and whatever drops in your missions.
For the love of God, the Exchange is NOT A FREAKING VAULT. Why does everyone think that? It only holds the items for SEVEN DAYS. After that, the item gets mailed back to you.
Secondly, If I have to pay to put stuff on the Exchange, I'll just price it HIGHER to cover the cost of the fee. (For example, lets say Crypitc listens and charges me a 10% fee to whatever price I set. Instead of putting it for $100,000, I put it for $110,000. I'm still making the same amount of money. You, however, are not paying 10% MORE than the high prices that you currently hate.)
Lastly, we are not "abusing" the system or taking advantage of others. I don't force people to buy my gear. You can make it to VA with only white gear and whatever drops in your missions.
Agreed.
Look I get it some of you are poor. That's not our fault. Infact it is your own. I was poor until I learned how to actually find stuff to sell that people wanted.
You want the shinies, you better pay for them. Or earn them. It's that simple. You don't want to earn the money to buy my shiny? Then don't complain about the price of my shiny. What these people are doing is pretty much tantamount to complaining about the inconvenience of having to drive to dine at a nice restaurant.
Yes it takes a modicum of effort to buy stuff on the exchange but it's very minimal. I burn and make back in one week I bet more than pretty much Anyone complaining about the cost of things on exchange probably has made from 1st level till now. Just two days ago I burned through 9.9 million on the exchange for my Mk 12 dual heavy cannons. I was broke. (down to like 30k)
Today I was sitting at 7.1 million. And I just blew all but 2.3 million on buying myself and a couple fleetmates several consoles and another MK 12 Dual heavy. And you know what?
I bet by the end of this week I will have probably 10 million or more again.
If I have to pay a % of posted price to sell a RARE item, that maybe won't sell quickly, you can bet I won't be putting it on the exchange.
I'll be posting it in chat at selling it privately instead. So if you want to charge me a fee that is fine, you can just READ about it every time you load into ESD or DS9 instead of on the exchange where it ORIGINALLY belonged.
All a fee will do is push sales of items to the chat market instead or people just won't bother at all and vendor it both ways HURT the player economy.
despite the annoyance of having dstahl called out in a thread title yet again, I really hope he does read this and knows that the vast vast majority of us understand how an exchange works and we are happy with it right now.
Cryptic has already announced their plans for the Exhcange: a surcharge. I don't believe they'll be doing any other adjustments. Most non-casual gamers understand how these types of systems work. Supply and Demand function in gaming just as it does in life.
it just means you won't be able to buy discount 'regular' items. If the fees too high and I don't think I can profit at least a little, I won't sell on the exchange.
Please don't change the exchange. I believe anything Cryptic tries to control it will make it worse.
If you don't like the prices don't buy and go out and earn the gear.
I agree that Cryptic should not make any move to Control it, but just as this Forum, Players should use Comon Sence when using it, and that makes life better for all involved.
Pricing a Level 5 Shield, or a Level 8 Engine for $10,000,000 is just plain Ludicrous any way you slice it.
Cryptic has already announced their plans for the Exhcange: a surcharge. I don't believe they'll be doing any other adjustments. Most non-casual gamers understand how these types of systems work. Supply and Demand function in gaming just as it does in life.
If I am reading this right, this will then work like a Rummage Sale?? You pay a Fee to have a table in the sale, and then make what you can from your items??
How will that ever make the exchange better, just remove those who want to put in frivelous postings?
a enormous money sink is in the making...Fleet Starbases. just gotta be patient.
I agree this along with people understanding the exchange better would help.
How about this? The Lord of The Rings Online has a one per server mission you can do that explains and shows you how to use the new LOTR store to buy items with real world money.
For STO, I would recommend the team come up with an exchange mission that explains the STO supply and demand economy out nicely & easily with non-purchaseable quest items(to prevent griefing while doing the quest) you use in the exchange to help new and casual players understand how they contribute to economy. Since there is an in-game option for players to affect the vendor at the highest Ambassador level, it would be good for all of those players to have some semblance of understanding of how best to manipulate things to stimulate the economy.
In addition to making the exchange easier to understand and cope with for all, it could have the idea posted earlier implemented where any item in the exchange could have an equivalent exchange rate for any item whether it be credits, latinum, or merit points. This will allow players to keep the economy vibrant no matter the funds they may be low on, as they could easier use the convert to pay with another form of currency that they have in abundance.
One final opinion would be to have that Storage/Crafting premium pack idea I posted a while back that is similar to Guild Wars' storage option that is $10 a tab. Failrly pricely I admit, but it would help give new players and casual players the option to:
1. Get additional storage slots they can use that also increase in the current manner that we experience as we level. The slots increase appropriate across all slots as you level up, ie Lieutenant has 20 slots along with up to 5 premium storage tabs with 20 lots in each tab, that increase to 30 slots when becoming Lieutenant Commander and so on.
2. To assist with crafting for Fed and Klingon, any item you find can be decontructed and sold for 30 to 40% more than the vendor would give you on a station by using the Storage/Crafting premium pack only Engineering dematerializer or whatever they want to call it. The goal of this second option is to not have useless items in your inventory that is not worth selling(the starting shields and guns), or is just taking up space that you may not care to use items below your level or Tribbles. At present, beyond trying to sell an item in the exchange, store it or gift it, you must destroy it for no real personal profit. I say, let us avoid such instances and just have an option to let us get rid of the useless stuff at a premium and continue playing our game without the need for useless interruption.
Ya know, I just had a fairly oddball idea to assist with the cornering of the market in the exchange by individuals and fleets. I say let Quark or a Ferengi intervene.
It goes something like this. If the exchange system notices a person or member of a group consistently buying items at a lower price (meaning more than twice in a 2 week period) that they themselves have sold the same items at on the exchange, then the system would put them into an account freeze where they cannot post any new sales for 24 hours. The way to get around this freeze is to pay an exhorbant amount of gold-pressed latinum to a Ferengi such as Quark to have that suspension reduced to half. Without the fee, they cannot use the exchange to purchase or sell any items until the 24 hour counter is over, nor can they send their purchased/inventoried items to another person or account character to sell on the exchange.
I understand they will be ways around this in some obvious ways, but it could help to stem the tide and it does come with a unique bonus akin to the higher Ambassador tiers by how it affects other players in the game. If the bribery of Gold Pressed Latinum is high enough, then the greed of the Ferengi becomes the genorosity of the Ferengi and for a limited time the Dabo bars pay out double or triple depending on the amount of that week's bribery.
Comments
Even bought a few things, because a kindred spirit placed something there at sane value.
---
The High End Items would then be available to everyone, and would still be Rare due to the LONG Time to earn that much to buy them.
Then you could decide whether you wanted to buy them over the Counter, or in the Exchange.
Lower taxes, cut spending.....oh you meant STO!
Well that one is simple! Don't buy it for the price listed. If people do not buy it for that price it will force prices down or they will stop posting the item.
Simple.
I wonder if Mr. Dan gets annoyed when people make threads with his name in it.
What is needed is something to address the 'supply' side of the economy, such as 'Fleet Vendors' (with Vendor slots purchased for a sizable sum by the fleet to serve as a EC sink) that off Common even Mark merchandise, and a limited number of Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items...
The problem is rampant inflation, caused by money flowing into the economy with no way to leave it. There are no real money sinks, and until there are, this problem will only get worse.
Now lets say that at some point everybody does a mission & earns a Super-Shield. Most people want to equip it, so they do. Very few people will decided to sell it instead. Therefore the supply on the exchange is very small, so they can charge whatever they want.
Economics, people. Isn't that a required course in High-School? The only people who should be complaining about the "high prices" on the Exchange should be 12 year olds who haven't taken "Economics" or "Free Enterprise" in HIgh School. (Or those that live in a Communist country)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand - Read it.
I'm amazed every day to see people who've played this game for months and have no real idea of why one BO is better then another. There's really a huge throng of people playing who have no idea about the mechanics of the game or how sought-after some things are. Most people just play the game blissfully unaware.
If there's a common BO on the exchange, I'm not going to buy it for a million credits.
As an owner you have the right to price your item at whatever you want.
If you don't like the prices don't buy and go out and earn the gear.
Meaning that Beam Overload 3 you want? So does everyone else. You're going to pay for it.
Mark 12 Blue Quantum? Be prepared to shell out the cash. Everyone wants it.
Here's two tips for the exchange, either 1 use weapons most people don't and save a ton. (and that results in ending up with better gear than the other guys will have) or 2, sell stuff yourself to make enough money to buy items that you desire.
There is a working economy in this game. And as far as the Exchange goes it works brilliantly.
Emblems (From Harder Missions like STFs or VA missions etc)
Marks of Honour (PVP money)
Marks of Exploration (Exploration money)
Gold Pressed Latium (Mini-game money)
Energy Credits (General usage and PVE money)
For a money sink you could have a currency changer that does charge you about +10% - 40% depending on what you want to change to if going up in currency vaule (like EC to Emblems would be a large fee so 40% or your EC is just to cover the exchangers).
1 Emb = 3 MoE = 5 MoE = 500 GPL = 100,000 EC, but changing from a low EC to Emb would cost you 140,000 EC per 1 Emb you wanted, but to a lower one like GPL it'll only cost 110,000 EC per 500 GPL.
Going down in vaule is just a simple -10% of the currency your changing into, so 1 Emb going to EC will only be 90,000 EC.
So to be a money sink the Exchangers always take a sum of money.
Not sure how this would "fix" the inflation, but it might just set the vaule of the currencies ingame so you know how much what is to what.
Not sure on the entire idea as only thought of it in 5mins while reading this thread and eating my dinner
Secondly, If I have to pay to put stuff on the Exchange, I'll just price it HIGHER to cover the cost of the fee. (For example, lets say Crypitc listens and charges me a 10% fee to whatever price I set. Instead of putting it for $100,000, I put it for $110,000. I'm still making the same amount of money. You, however, are not paying 10% MORE than the high prices that you currently hate.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricing - Here is how pricing works. Read it.
Lastly, we are not "abusing" the system or taking advantage of others. I don't force people to buy my gear. You can make it to VA with only white gear and whatever drops in your missions.
Agreed.
Look I get it some of you are poor. That's not our fault. Infact it is your own. I was poor until I learned how to actually find stuff to sell that people wanted.
You want the shinies, you better pay for them. Or earn them. It's that simple. You don't want to earn the money to buy my shiny? Then don't complain about the price of my shiny. What these people are doing is pretty much tantamount to complaining about the inconvenience of having to drive to dine at a nice restaurant.
Yes it takes a modicum of effort to buy stuff on the exchange but it's very minimal. I burn and make back in one week I bet more than pretty much Anyone complaining about the cost of things on exchange probably has made from 1st level till now. Just two days ago I burned through 9.9 million on the exchange for my Mk 12 dual heavy cannons. I was broke. (down to like 30k)
Today I was sitting at 7.1 million. And I just blew all but 2.3 million on buying myself and a couple fleetmates several consoles and another MK 12 Dual heavy. And you know what?
I bet by the end of this week I will have probably 10 million or more again.
Lrn2sell and lrn2buy.
If I have to pay a % of posted price to sell a RARE item, that maybe won't sell quickly, you can bet I won't be putting it on the exchange.
I'll be posting it in chat at selling it privately instead. So if you want to charge me a fee that is fine, you can just READ about it every time you load into ESD or DS9 instead of on the exchange where it ORIGINALLY belonged.
All a fee will do is push sales of items to the chat market instead or people just won't bother at all and vendor it both ways HURT the player economy.
Like others said we need money sinks.
I agree that Cryptic should not make any move to Control it, but just as this Forum, Players should use Comon Sence when using it, and that makes life better for all involved.
Pricing a Level 5 Shield, or a Level 8 Engine for $10,000,000 is just plain Ludicrous any way you slice it.
If I am reading this right, this will then work like a Rummage Sale?? You pay a Fee to have a table in the sale, and then make what you can from your items??
How will that ever make the exchange better, just remove those who want to put in frivelous postings?
I agree this along with people understanding the exchange better would help.
How about this? The Lord of The Rings Online has a one per server mission you can do that explains and shows you how to use the new LOTR store to buy items with real world money.
For STO, I would recommend the team come up with an exchange mission that explains the STO supply and demand economy out nicely & easily with non-purchaseable quest items(to prevent griefing while doing the quest) you use in the exchange to help new and casual players understand how they contribute to economy. Since there is an in-game option for players to affect the vendor at the highest Ambassador level, it would be good for all of those players to have some semblance of understanding of how best to manipulate things to stimulate the economy.
In addition to making the exchange easier to understand and cope with for all, it could have the idea posted earlier implemented where any item in the exchange could have an equivalent exchange rate for any item whether it be credits, latinum, or merit points. This will allow players to keep the economy vibrant no matter the funds they may be low on, as they could easier use the convert to pay with another form of currency that they have in abundance.
One final opinion would be to have that Storage/Crafting premium pack idea I posted a while back that is similar to Guild Wars' storage option that is $10 a tab. Failrly pricely I admit, but it would help give new players and casual players the option to:
1. Get additional storage slots they can use that also increase in the current manner that we experience as we level. The slots increase appropriate across all slots as you level up, ie Lieutenant has 20 slots along with up to 5 premium storage tabs with 20 lots in each tab, that increase to 30 slots when becoming Lieutenant Commander and so on.
2. To assist with crafting for Fed and Klingon, any item you find can be decontructed and sold for 30 to 40% more than the vendor would give you on a station by using the Storage/Crafting premium pack only Engineering dematerializer or whatever they want to call it. The goal of this second option is to not have useless items in your inventory that is not worth selling(the starting shields and guns), or is just taking up space that you may not care to use items below your level or Tribbles. At present, beyond trying to sell an item in the exchange, store it or gift it, you must destroy it for no real personal profit. I say, let us avoid such instances and just have an option to let us get rid of the useless stuff at a premium and continue playing our game without the need for useless interruption.
It goes something like this. If the exchange system notices a person or member of a group consistently buying items at a lower price (meaning more than twice in a 2 week period) that they themselves have sold the same items at on the exchange, then the system would put them into an account freeze where they cannot post any new sales for 24 hours. The way to get around this freeze is to pay an exhorbant amount of gold-pressed latinum to a Ferengi such as Quark to have that suspension reduced to half. Without the fee, they cannot use the exchange to purchase or sell any items until the 24 hour counter is over, nor can they send their purchased/inventoried items to another person or account character to sell on the exchange.
I understand they will be ways around this in some obvious ways, but it could help to stem the tide and it does come with a unique bonus akin to the higher Ambassador tiers by how it affects other players in the game. If the bribery of Gold Pressed Latinum is high enough, then the greed of the Ferengi becomes the genorosity of the Ferengi and for a limited time the Dabo bars pay out double or triple depending on the amount of that week's bribery.