Personally, I would never bother with Mk M or XI exchange stuff. I survived off of mission drops, entered the queues with mission drop equipment, and then financed the better rep and fleet gear that way.
Putting a cap on the exchange will solve nothing. It will drive people to sell stuff off the exchange, and then prices will be higher as people set their own benchmark. There is a cap already, 500 mil, and if you notice there are no JHAS on their as they worth more then 500 mil to a lot of players.
Putting a cap on the exchange will solve nothing. It will drive people to sell stuff off the exchange, and then prices will be higher as people set their own benchmark. There is a cap already, 500 mil, and if you notice there are no JHAS on their as they worth more then 500 mil to a lot of players.
No doubt a cap would simply lead to forum threads like... No Accx3 weapons of any type on the exchange, Do they drop at all ? With responses to those op like... Join STO Weapon Exchange channel. lol
If nothing else reading the OP gave me a good chuckle.
After playing this game since open beta my main account has pretty much everything from a LTS to my toons in a tier 5 fleet. So a couple of months ago just for laughs (and to see if being a F2P newb is really THAT bad) I decided to create an alt account and keep it strictly free, no money spent on it, no access to my tier 5 fleet and no help from my "wealthy" veteran toons.
Aside from my knowledge of the game I started in the exact same place as the OP and I have to say, aside from PvP (as I don't do it), being competitive is still so easy. Even with Mk X mission gear and loot drops and a few items bought off the exchange to quickly fill gaps in my equipment I was regularly winning SB24 and Gorn Minefield and was easy keeping my DPS up to respectable levels in STFs.
So to sum up - Myth Busted, you really don't need all that shiny overpriced loot off the exchange to be competitive.
GOD NO. NEVER, EVER, buy TRIBBLE from the D-Store. All that stuff is GARBAGE. Minerals are precious! Just get White XI guns (cheap as free) and the Solonae XII set (free). You should be gold from there until you can upgrade to your final set.
Hell, I still use white XI guns. If I can pull 12K off white guns, you don't need shinier guns until you can afford the real deal.
You are kidding. 80mil is cheap for a lockbox ship. Consider that it takes ~500 keys to get a ship. 500 keys @ 1.9M = 950M EC. And you pay merely 80.
Acc+CritH+Dmg is a really good combo for people looking for some weapons until fleet gear. Just saying. If OP doesn't know the easy way to make EC, this is the best option for him. Blue stuff with Accx2 off the exchange is pretty cheap.
This is an empty threat on it's best day. The forums are filled with scores of players threating to close their wallet if something isn't change, and to this day, the "wallet protest" does not work.
Unless there is an easier way for new players to build ships, without being overcharged by veteran players, I guess I just need to find another game to play.
I will pass on buying zen.
Thanks. I almost made a mistake.
I am barely able to build two entry level ships.
Cryptic nerfed ways to obtain efficient amount of ec; therefore, I am having problems with gathering enough resources. I feel like I am being pinched.
Purples aren't required. Greens will do, blues are better. Wanna know a good way to outfit a ship? Farm dil every day, try to hit the max 8k refined per day. It's not difficult. Convert that dil into zen. Buy a SINGLE key. Sell said key for 1.9 million credits. Outfit your ship.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
And he responded well, just wanted to say that in case anyone missed it in the seven pages of responses.
I blew through the levels with my 3 mains. I started not long ago at all and have all 3 at 50.
I've never really played a game like this where so much opens up after you are done with levelling.
Once I noticed that, I stopped trying to outfit my non 50's with very rare equipment. I hate recycling something that I used for less than a day because I outlevelled it.
Now, at level 50, there are so many opportunities to buy good equipment with dil that I just use the exchange to fill out the holes in my ship temporarily.
Also, I may not be the most social person...hell, I am NOT lol. But join a fleet. There is some outstanding equipment available through the fleets.
I joined one that still has growing to do, and am able to contribute and get fleet credit easily. Now my ships are tougher than they've ever been.
I don't see a problem with the exchange as it currently is. I have no problem selling/buying gear for toons at low levels. Heck, it's usually the lower level gear that nets me the most EC when compared to the Mk X, XI, XII gear that I put on the exchange.
Star Trek Battles: For those who want to Play Star Trek Online as it WAS MEANT TO BE!!!
There is no mission in this game that cannot be completed with white gear for your level. Most of the better gear will come from Rep grinds or Fleet grinds - either way, do not let it stop you enjoying the game for your own fun and experience.
Plus, it was funny when the level cap moved, all the people who worked so hard for max purple gear.... then suddenly, it was not the best.
I did not bother with purple gear (unless it is real easy to gain (no grind) or free drop) as in MMOs "best gear" is a subjective term and the Devs only "move the goal posts" on you anyway.
Short answer is no, not really. STO has a player driven market in the Exchange and Dilithium conversion. The only way to lower the prices is to flood the market with those items that are in high demand. That demand is the biggest reason for the inflated prices. Sorry.
the pricing reflects the market. none bound purple xi xii gear are rare stf drops and lock box. selling one fleet mark land's you 7.3 mil ec enough to eq any ship decently. that's only one week dil grinding on 1 toon.
1: Handicapping player base economies is never a good thing, and generally pisses people off.
2: There are actually tons of ways to make EC, I have strarted from scratch on plenty of characters. A few tips would be to A: Run loot farm missions daily, easily bank 1m a day.B: Farm Karr'at (Or however its spelled). C: Level a Romulan, You get 3 Boff choices between level 1-50 that come with a Superior Operative trait, those alone sell easily for 7-10m per, so getting near 30 m on a Rom by 50 isnt really hard.
Also you are not required to use the over priced items in exchange, there are also purple MK XI weapons under 100k including torps, DHC, DBB etc...nothing wrong with using Polaron Or tet until you can get the items you eventually want on your build.
Is there a way to force the EC Exchange market prices downward, so that noobie players can have a chance to build ships?
Sure. Flood the market with tons of the item you want to go down in price. Other players certainly won't buy up the items and relist them at their proper Exchange price point...
Fleet Leader of the first completed T5 Shipyard on Holodeck (January 24, 2013)
Part of the first team to beat the No Win Scenario (both KDF and Fed)
It's been a long road, getting from there to here~
just join a fleet and get the fleep weapons and item 10 million times better stuff on exchange another thing you could do si find those farm missions that perfect world dont like you using though i never use them heard rumors of some people walking away with 600k ec per foundry mission
There is nothing wrong with the market. look in any mmo, players that make the marketbase always sell at outrageous prices, or rather what seem outrageous to the player at the time. really these prices arnt that hard to achieve. I get random drops all the time i just put up at the low price and they sell. start with greens and blues. most of those you can get by replaying missions. then as you go and earn your dil replace with purple. any vetran player had to do it just the same way, except back in those days we had emblems instead of dilithium. we then used extra emblems to put those purples on the market...we sold them at high prices because they were hard to earn for. time = money even back then. most consoles went for the hundred's of thousands. todays market is too easy and cheap if you ask me.
why dont you, op, actually try earning up your gear like most other players did?! because it isnt quick, easy, and cheap you'll quit? then quit. people who arn't the least bit willing to try might as well give up. but for those people willing to try it's actually pretty simple to kit out a ship. just takes a week or two, if not using the market. then...when your done....keep doing that, get extra stuff and sell it on the exchange to get you started! NOT HARD!!
I will say this game's player base is terrible about the fast way is the only way. It is not the only way but other ways are obscure or almost not known anymore.
Does anyone remember the first days when we all grinded our dailies to earn up our gear??
god this post makes me feel like an old man. time to take a desk job next to quinn, maybe I can be there giving out a mission to all the newbies on how to EARN their max level gear.
All of my purple gear is fleet and rep gear. I think that I started out with green XIs for weapons and gradually upgraded as I found stuff. (Got 2 tactical consoles on Ker'rat for a couple of characters, which was cool. Niether was a purple XII.)
I kind of agree with the OP, When i started out items were fairly cheap, and over the past year i have seen the cost of items slowly increase, that's great for us that are selling these items, but not very good for the newbies.
On the other hand, their is always the vendor in Earth Space Dock (shipyard) who sells stuff like weapons, shields, engines etc at a set price.
you don't need mk xii purple stuff. I often start new characters out with mk xi green and blue stuff and go straight to elite stf with no problem. You can make elite stf viable build with all mk xi green and blue, most bought at or near vendor price.
Well the prices of low level items are largely reflective of how few players are at the level required to find them. Thus you end up with a weird sort of price increase because of the limited supply.
This is one of the reasons my build is very crappy until I hit level 50.
Its really lame that people sell at outrageously high prices what I will use for maybe 3 days on my ship before upgrading. The dumbest thing is I don't even consider buying stuff off the EC. Who is actually paying that much for them to be selling at those high prices?
Its really lame that people sell at outrageously high prices what I will use for maybe 3 days on my ship before upgrading. The dumbest thing is I don't even consider buying stuff off the EC. Who is actually paying that much for them to be selling at those high prices?
The major culprits, I suspect, are vet players levelling new alts - they have the funds to get away with it!
Which is still daft, since a vet *should* know that they will rapidly outgrow Mk I - X gear regardless of its quality. I only bothered with high-end low mark gear on my first alt - never again!
In any case; a new player building a character on a budget just needs to accept that they will either have to spend real money, or make do with lower-spec gear. The only thing they'll struggle with is PVP.
This is one of the reasons my build is very crappy until I hit level 50.
Its really lame that people sell at outrageously high prices what I will use for maybe 3 days on my ship before upgrading. The dumbest thing is I don't even consider buying stuff off the EC. Who is actually paying that much for them to be selling at those high prices?
It's probably more of a supply issue - people just don't bother putting loot drops on the exchange while leveling, and loot drops are the only way to get those low-mark equips besides crafting.
If I want a particular setup on a low-level ship, I just get some commons from the shipyard.
You can usually find even better whites on the Exchange anyway, for close to vendor value. At those levels, a higher-mark white will completely dominate a lower-mark purple anyway.
I have played this game for almost 3 and a half years and I can say I have NEVER EVER bought ANYTHING from the exchange. There just isen't a need to until you hit max level or you're a hardcore PVP'er. The exchange is just a massive waste of EC when you're leveling up, you can get more than enough gear decent gear from drops, replaying missions (you can do this as many times you need and is usually better then what you can get from the exchange since they are special gear which is player bound) or if you're really patient doing crafting (but that's redundant anyway). Once you hit max level you can get fleet gear (if your in a fleet) or rep gear, which is also better than anything you can get on the exchange.
Foundry,Ker'rat,Starbase 24,STF's both Elite and normal should bring in plenty of EC for the determined player. If you just want to start a new character and level up don't buy anything, use what you get from drops and missions. The Jem Hadar space set is easily available through missions and is scaled to match the level you play the mission at (play at level 50 get the Mk XI set then use the lobi you've collected from missions to upgrade to Mk XII , you HAVE been getting your lobi's right?) Fleets generally have a HUGE amount of good gear available from their banks, I'm in charge of cleaning our bank and believe me I dump a lot of stuff on the exchange every week for cost. Exchange prices generally are based on rarity of the item so if you want something that drops once every 10k times or so then expect to pay through the nose for it. Ask the people on your friends list if they have anything you are looking for. Search the exchange more than once for an item, yes there are people who look for low priced items to resell but they do not have a special button that takes them right to what they want, they just spend more time searching for it than others and should make something from it. Also if you are looking for a particular modifier say [ACC]x3 you should realize it's going to be hugely expensive just from the standpoint of "I'm a PVP player and I don't want just everyone having this so lets make them work for it" You can find great deals on the exchange; I got my Recluse and my Orb Weaver because someone left out a zero and I happened to see it before anyone else, honestly if I'd had anyway of knowing who I bought it from or if they had mailed me saying they made a mistake I would have gladly sold it back to them, BUT people make mistakes and you should look for that. Another good EC driver is trading in your unwanted doffs for multiple lower ranks, they are much needed for fleet projects so carry good value. If all else fails ask politely for some help and chances are you will recieve good information as well as possibly some good items.
EC Exchange Market: Way Overpriced for New Players
As someone who is starting from scratch, building my first two ships, I find the items on the EC Exchange to be way overpriced. I am unable to make a solid build, which I could use to test items. I will eventually buy my first two c-store ships this week. However, if the EC Market prices remain high, I will not be able to create an affective build.
Quantum Torpedoes MK X, XI, and XII (purple) are valued at 20,000ish ec; however, players are selling them for 600,000-2,000,000 ec. I found many items to be overpriced.
Is there a way to force the EC Exchange market prices downward, so that noobie players can have a chance to build ships?
Is there also a way to obtain (non-reputation and fleet holding) purple items, which do not appear on the exchange? I think some of the (non-holdings) items are rapidly depleting.
Well, it is.
But consider that its not easy to find a Photon/Quantum Torpedo Launcher Mk X [Acc]x3 (that is one of the best out there).
So its pretty normal for someone who was lucky in getting them to sell them at high prizes.
About 1 year ago, I got a Phaser Dual Beam Bank Mk XII [Acc]x3.
I sold it for 5.000.000 EC.
I used them to buy a Superior Romulan Operative.
Now I got:
And I never spent money on this game.
I mean: if you learn to play, you only have to do it and you can have everything you want.
So:
- If you are FED / Rom-FED go farm in Ker'Rat.
- If you are KDF / Rom-KDF there is a system in Omega Leonis block like Ker'Rat where FED can't go (so go farm there).
You can get good items by farming there ... items that can be recycled or sold
Also: play PVE STFs, they will give you dilithium that can be refined, or Fleet Marks that can be converted in fleet credits (that can be used to buy Fleet Gears)
Why the heck was this moved into the Controls and UI section? Economy discussions have nothing to do with that.
I have 9 lockbox ships and I didn't open a single box to get them. I killed, and I looted, and I scrounged and saved my EC for each and every one of them. I got lucky with some good drops, and good doff and boff rewards, and by smartly buying and selling on the exchange. As others have said, purple gear isn't actually mandatory, and there are many ways to earn a lot of EC, but the majority of them are not necessarily intuitive for a new player to realize.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Comments
No doubt a cap would simply lead to forum threads like... No Accx3 weapons of any type on the exchange, Do they drop at all ? With responses to those op like... Join STO Weapon Exchange channel. lol
After playing this game since open beta my main account has pretty much everything from a LTS to my toons in a tier 5 fleet. So a couple of months ago just for laughs (and to see if being a F2P newb is really THAT bad) I decided to create an alt account and keep it strictly free, no money spent on it, no access to my tier 5 fleet and no help from my "wealthy" veteran toons.
Aside from my knowledge of the game I started in the exact same place as the OP and I have to say, aside from PvP (as I don't do it), being competitive is still so easy. Even with Mk X mission gear and loot drops and a few items bought off the exchange to quickly fill gaps in my equipment I was regularly winning SB24 and Gorn Minefield and was easy keeping my DPS up to respectable levels in STFs.
So to sum up - Myth Busted, you really don't need all that shiny overpriced loot off the exchange to be competitive.
This is an empty threat on it's best day. The forums are filled with scores of players threating to close their wallet if something isn't change, and to this day, the "wallet protest" does not work.
Purples aren't required. Greens will do, blues are better. Wanna know a good way to outfit a ship? Farm dil every day, try to hit the max 8k refined per day. It's not difficult. Convert that dil into zen. Buy a SINGLE key. Sell said key for 1.9 million credits. Outfit your ship.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
And he responded well, just wanted to say that in case anyone missed it in the seven pages of responses.
I blew through the levels with my 3 mains. I started not long ago at all and have all 3 at 50.
I've never really played a game like this where so much opens up after you are done with levelling.
Once I noticed that, I stopped trying to outfit my non 50's with very rare equipment. I hate recycling something that I used for less than a day because I outlevelled it.
Now, at level 50, there are so many opportunities to buy good equipment with dil that I just use the exchange to fill out the holes in my ship temporarily.
Also, I may not be the most social person...hell, I am NOT lol. But join a fleet. There is some outstanding equipment available through the fleets.
I joined one that still has growing to do, and am able to contribute and get fleet credit easily. Now my ships are tougher than they've ever been.
Our Battles
Current FE at 50 gives out 3 MXII items for your ship.
Seems like the only way to get EC fast is to grind or buy Zen and then turn those into lockbox keys.
Just grind for fleet marks and rep marks... what I am currently doing when I have time between the last and current festival grinds.
Thank you very much - I can pass that on to quite a few people
@OP
There is no mission in this game that cannot be completed with white gear for your level. Most of the better gear will come from Rep grinds or Fleet grinds - either way, do not let it stop you enjoying the game for your own fun and experience.
Plus, it was funny when the level cap moved, all the people who worked so hard for max purple gear.... then suddenly, it was not the best.
I did not bother with purple gear (unless it is real easy to gain (no grind) or free drop) as in MMOs "best gear" is a subjective term and the Devs only "move the goal posts" on you anyway.
the pricing reflects the market. none bound purple xi xii gear are rare stf drops and lock box. selling one fleet mark land's you 7.3 mil ec enough to eq any ship decently. that's only one week dil grinding on 1 toon.
2: There are actually tons of ways to make EC, I have strarted from scratch on plenty of characters. A few tips would be to A: Run loot farm missions daily, easily bank 1m a day.B: Farm Karr'at (Or however its spelled). C: Level a Romulan, You get 3 Boff choices between level 1-50 that come with a Superior Operative trait, those alone sell easily for 7-10m per, so getting near 30 m on a Rom by 50 isnt really hard.
Also you are not required to use the over priced items in exchange, there are also purple MK XI weapons under 100k including torps, DHC, DBB etc...nothing wrong with using Polaron Or tet until you can get the items you eventually want on your build.
Sure. Flood the market with tons of the item you want to go down in price. Other players certainly won't buy up the items and relist them at their proper Exchange price point...
Part of the first team to beat the No Win Scenario (both KDF and Fed)
It's been a long road, getting from there to here~
why dont you, op, actually try earning up your gear like most other players did?! because it isnt quick, easy, and cheap you'll quit? then quit. people who arn't the least bit willing to try might as well give up. but for those people willing to try it's actually pretty simple to kit out a ship. just takes a week or two, if not using the market. then...when your done....keep doing that, get extra stuff and sell it on the exchange to get you started! NOT HARD!!
I will say this game's player base is terrible about the fast way is the only way. It is not the only way but other ways are obscure or almost not known anymore.
Does anyone remember the first days when we all grinded our dailies to earn up our gear??
god this post makes me feel like an old man. time to take a desk job next to quinn, maybe I can be there giving out a mission to all the newbies on how to EARN their max level gear.
DPS on a very tight budget
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=818721
How to spec an Escort for STFs
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=295581
All of my purple gear is fleet and rep gear. I think that I started out with green XIs for weapons and gradually upgraded as I found stuff. (Got 2 tactical consoles on Ker'rat for a couple of characters, which was cool. Niether was a purple XII.)
On the other hand, their is always the vendor in Earth Space Dock (shipyard) who sells stuff like weapons, shields, engines etc at a set price.
So i'm kinda on the fence about this one.
My character Tsin'xing
Its really lame that people sell at outrageously high prices what I will use for maybe 3 days on my ship before upgrading. The dumbest thing is I don't even consider buying stuff off the EC. Who is actually paying that much for them to be selling at those high prices?
The major culprits, I suspect, are vet players levelling new alts - they have the funds to get away with it!
Which is still daft, since a vet *should* know that they will rapidly outgrow Mk I - X gear regardless of its quality. I only bothered with high-end low mark gear on my first alt - never again!
In any case; a new player building a character on a budget just needs to accept that they will either have to spend real money, or make do with lower-spec gear. The only thing they'll struggle with is PVP.
It's probably more of a supply issue - people just don't bother putting loot drops on the exchange while leveling, and loot drops are the only way to get those low-mark equips besides crafting.
If I want a particular setup on a low-level ship, I just get some commons from the shipyard.
Exposing fakes since 2374
Thanks
Helln'Back
Fleet Admiral
101st Airborne
Well, it is.
But consider that its not easy to find a Photon/Quantum Torpedo Launcher Mk X [Acc]x3 (that is one of the best out there).
So its pretty normal for someone who was lucky in getting them to sell them at high prizes.
About 1 year ago, I got a Phaser Dual Beam Bank Mk XII [Acc]x3.
I sold it for 5.000.000 EC.
I used them to buy a Superior Romulan Operative.
Now I got:
4-Sup. Romulan Operatives
1-Sup. Reman Infiltrator
2-[Purple] Conn Officers
3-[Purple] Projectile Weapons Officers (torp version)
Also, I have:
1-Adv. Fleet Photon Torp
1-Adv. Fleet Quantum Torp
3-Elite Fleet Disruptor DHC
3-Elite Fleet Disruptor Turrets
2-Elite Fleet Resilient Shields
1-Elite Fleet Singularity Core
1-KHG Deflector Dish Mk XII
1-KHG Combat Engine Mk XII
3-Enhanced Neutronium Alloys
2-Field Generator Mk XI [Blue]
5-Vulnerability Locators [Dis]
And I never spent money on this game.
I mean: if you learn to play, you only have to do it and you can have everything you want.
So:
- If you are FED / Rom-FED go farm in Ker'Rat.
- If you are KDF / Rom-KDF there is a system in Omega Leonis block like Ker'Rat where FED can't go (so go farm there).
You can get good items by farming there ... items that can be recycled or sold
Also: play PVE STFs, they will give you dilithium that can be refined, or Fleet Marks that can be converted in fleet credits (that can be used to buy Fleet Gears)
As I said: you only have to play
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I have 9 lockbox ships and I didn't open a single box to get them. I killed, and I looted, and I scrounged and saved my EC for each and every one of them. I got lucky with some good drops, and good doff and boff rewards, and by smartly buying and selling on the exchange. As others have said, purple gear isn't actually mandatory, and there are many ways to earn a lot of EC, but the majority of them are not necessarily intuitive for a new player to realize.
Joined January 2009