An idea to make Lobi less irritating, perhaps?

mistformsquirrel · November 2013

So I was thinking about this after being quite miffed about the new carrier's advanced form being a Lobi unlock. It's pretty irritating for a longtime player with only a little disposable income to try unlocking a ton of boxes or selling a load of fleet ship modules just to get the ship for only one character. I mean it was frustrating enough for me when I had to buy a ship and at least got it on my whole account...

BUT! I think I have a solution that may make Lobi less obnoxious while not actually taking any money from Cryptic (and thus is perhaps something practical).

What about a Lobi/Dilithium exchange similar to the Zen/Dilithium exchange?

I mean yes, you can already do that in a roundabout way if you farm Dilithium, trade it for Zen, then trade that in for Keys, which you then use to unlock boxes - but that's rather random; and if what your after is pretty much exclusively the Lobi? This would basically be a bit of a shortcut with little downside as near as I can tell.

Is there something I'm missing or is this a good idea?

keysmachine · November 2013

is this another i want more free stuff masked behind good intentions post again?

this game needs to generate revenue to run. they already made lobi account wide. and also they are running a 15/lobi a day event until friggin December 4th.

get on it and stop looking for ways to curtail the revenue stream.

mistformsquirrel · November 2013

In what way does this curtail revenue?

I'm not saying "Free Lobi" - I'm saying set up an exchange like Zen/Dilithium except for Lobi/Dilithium. Someone still has to unlock the boxes and generate the lobi; this just means that it doesn't have to be you, personally, doing that. Instead the person doing the unboxing can either save their lobi or sell it for refined Dilithium so they don't have to spend their time grinding for it.

It's the same principle as the Zen/Dilithium exchange - if you've got a lot of disposable income but no time, then you can just buy zen and sell it to get Dilithium; if you've got the opposite situation then you grind dilithium to get Zen. Same situation, just with Lobi; either way *someone* is spending zen on Master Keys to get Lobi in the first place to stock the exchange.

johngazman · November 2013

mistformsquirrel wrote: »

I think I have a solution that may make Lobi less obnoxious while not actually taking any money from Cryptic.

What about a Lobi/Dilithium exchange similar to the Zen/Dilithium exchange?

I mean yes, you can already do that in a roundabout way if you farm Dilithium, trade it for Zen, then trade that in for Keys, which you then use to unlock boxes - but that's rather random; and if what your after is pretty much exclusively the Lobi? This would basically be a bit of a shortcut with little downside as near as I can tell.

Is there something I'm missing or is this a good idea?

Possibly.

While Lobi aren't random, since you always get at least four per box, if you could just get all the Lobi you wanted by converting Dilith directly then Lockboxes would have less appeal, hence less people would play the lottery on keys and then turn to paying real money for keys when they run out of Dil and haven't quite got enough Lobi for that shiny thing they want.

I can see how Cryptic would ultimately lose money on allowing people to just get lobi.

Since you're not required to pay any money towards keys via Dilithium-Zen conversion, I can't say that this is a good idea because it's somewhat inconsequential since you can get Lobi for free anyway.

mistformsquirrel · November 2013

Not sure how that works really; could you explain? I mean someone's got to open lockboxes to generate that lobi in the first place, right? This isn't altering the total amount of lobi in the system, merely spreading it around to people willing to pay dilithium for it. Supply and demand suggests that either people keep buying the same amount of keys for their lockboxes, or the price goes up making a dilithium/lobi exchange unnattractive and therefore bringing people back around to buying the keys and lockboxes anyway.

I mean no I'm not suggesting this would bring in more money; but I'm currently not seeing how it'd result in less just yet.

ursusmorologus · November 2013

It would work if it was setup as a player exchange, since the Lobi could only come from lockboxes, and lcokbox keys would still be required to start the chain, so cryptic would still get cash from somewhere.

Just make it another tab on the dilithium exchange.

ursusmorologus · November 2013

mistformsquirrel wrote: »

Buying Lobi with Dilithium would bypass Zen entirely

nup, you need keys to open the lockboxes that have the lobi, keys must originate with zen, the whole process depends on zen

[current very-special event notwithstanding]

mistformsquirrel · November 2013

f2pdrakron wrote: »

Of course.

All Zen on the Exchange is payed for, buying keys with Zen means those Keys were paid, same with Keys on the exchange.

Buying Lobi with Dilithium would bypass Zen entirely, this would mean lesser revenue from Lock Boxes as even if people are selling Zen on the Dilithium Exchange and even if people are selling Keys on the Exchange those were at least brought.

See, this is what I don't get - how does that add up?

If Player A buys a key, opens the lockbox, and gets 4 lobi, then decides they don't need that 4 lobi and puts it on the exchange, how is Player B buying that lobi for Dilithium going to change anything beyond convenience for both players? All it does is get an item out of Player As inventory and get some dilithium in their pocket, while Player B is a step closer to whatever it is they want from the Lobi store.

People keep saying that somehow cuts into revenue, but I'm just not seeing how and just asserting that it is so doesn't really make it true.

I mean - let me put this another way:

If the Zen exchange lost Cryptic money, wouldn't they have closed it down? (Or even never considered putting it up in the first place)? I mean this isn't even like with Zen where old lifetimers like me can put up their monthly stipend to get some Dilithium - there's no Lobi stipend or anything.

*edit* In response to the post two above this one:

1) Lobi from this event is unlikely to be a routine occurrence; so it doesn't enter my calculations. Now, if that were to change and free lobi for replays was a routine thing, then this exchange wouldn't even be something I'd be suggesting - but this is the only time it's ever happened to my knowledge and for all we know, the only time it ever will. I think that's kind of nothing compared to subscriber/lifetimers getting a zen stipend every month after all.

2) Doff packs with lobi in them still have to be bought in some fashion by someone at some point. Cryptic is still making money no matter how or who ends up with the pack and the lobi at the end of the day; unless I've missed some magical method of making Zen for free beyond aforementioned stipend, that doesn't involve crappy offers or signing up for credit cards I don't want.

mistformsquirrel · November 2013

Alright, two things, and then I'm out of here:

1) Saying "This will destroy the game" without presenting any actual evidence does not make it so. You didn't supply any evidence - you suggest that it would destabilize the balance between dilithium and Zen, yes, but I don't see how that's at all likely. Cryptic evidently knows what they consider too-low and too-high a price for Dilithium - that's why there are hard caps in place on both ends.

2) You've insulted me at least twice in this thread by calling me lazy. Why? What purpose does that serve? It certainly doesn't make me any more sympathetic to your argument, that's for certain. I asked for critique and instead I get abuse.

At any rate, I made my suggestion, that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

leviathan99 · November 2013

I think if you're looking for a Lobi shortcut, here's what would make the most financial sense for Cryptic and the playerbase. I'm going to hold off on "showing ALL my work", in terms of economic analysis, but you'd need all of these:

1) Lobi is sold direct from Cryptic. It would have to be at a more favorable rate than is found in lockboxes because Lobi is ALL you get.

2) Only available in bulk quantities. This safeguards against diminished demand for lockboxes (which are cheap) by making direct Lobi purchase expensive. If you want a little Lobi? Just buy a lockbox. I'm going to napkin math this out to suggest 100 Lobi for $20, 275 Lobi for $50, 650 Lobi for $100.

3) Probably want this to be a transaction OUTSIDE the C-Store like the various LoR bundles. This is in part due to credit card processing fees savings. ZEN purchases, especially small ones, get hit with payment processing fees which cut into their profits before any ZEN is spent. Because the fee structure with a processor is either size variable or less favorable than ideal to allow for small purchases, this means that PWE/Cryptic doesn't actually make the same money off of each 2500 ZEN ship for instance because their cost of the ZEN they sold is variable due to promotions and transaction fees. They can use the law of large numbers to assume a fairly stable profit margin for high selling items but less profitable items or some commodities like this could have economically disruptive effects if offered for ZEN because ZEN's value is not steady.

Also, the direct sale approach would be to make sure that this shortcut to acquiring Lobi is a direct cash transfer and not a stipend transfer, which would have implications on the game economy otherwise. By offering Lobi for cash and not ZEN, it's less disruptive to dilithium/ZEN exchange rates and lockbox key exchange pricing.

johngazman · November 2013

stoleviathan99 wrote: »

I'm going to napkin math this out to suggest 100 Lobi for $20, 275 Lobi for $50, 650 Lobi for $100.

Sweet mother of Christ, what?

If i'm paying $100 for Lobi - and Lobi alone - i'd expect to be get at least 800. Consider that a Legacy Pack includes a ton of stuff, and that's $160.

I know you're getting at not making Lobi too common, but $100 and still not having anything to show for it is a little off.

dahminus · November 2013

Zen/dilithium drives the economy. You need zen for keys for lobi.

I see no reason why a lobi/dili exchange would not reach an equilibrium after the initial influx

An idea to make Lobi less irritating, perhaps?

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