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EC Cost Inflation in STO
repetitiveepic
Member Posts: 6,549 Arc User
Should anything be done about EC cost inflation in the game, and if so, what?
As anyone familiar with economics and STO can see, there is EC cost inflation in STO.
This is caused by the ever-increasing money supply of EC, which is in turn caused by the lack of sinks for EC in the game.
In the past year or so, EC prices of commonly traded like Keys and the products of lockboxes have doubled.
Money is constantly pouring into the game, but almost never leaving it in any systematic way.
Sure, people quit playing and their ec disappears, but there is no large scale sink for ec across the economy.
What would be an appropriate sink? Some people believe in forcing all to pay an exchange tax, others have had better ideas.
What do you think?
As anyone familiar with economics and STO can see, there is EC cost inflation in STO.
This is caused by the ever-increasing money supply of EC, which is in turn caused by the lack of sinks for EC in the game.
In the past year or so, EC prices of commonly traded like Keys and the products of lockboxes have doubled.
Money is constantly pouring into the game, but almost never leaving it in any systematic way.
Sure, people quit playing and their ec disappears, but there is no large scale sink for ec across the economy.
What would be an appropriate sink? Some people believe in forcing all to pay an exchange tax, others have had better ideas.
What do you think?
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I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
Stop making these flame magnets.
For example, on my latest character, I started all 5 reputations at once. And I'm not using my account bank for that character any time soon after spending 10 mill for a ship build. So I'm gonna have to do with what I earn. And believe me, that can be hard, to contribute to your fleet and keep reputation rolling.
But other than that, the inflation is going out of control.
As a good sign, I know a player has left the game for the next 5 months who happened to have 6 billion (as in 6.000.000.000) ec on his account bank, and he might not return afterwards. So that is a punch in the face of inflation.
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As the number of marks spending $ goes down... in game costs rise. Meaning those marks remaining must spend more $.
It means when there is a large number of people spending $ the EC costs drop and Cryptic makes x $. As the number of spenders drops the in games cost rise a bit and the amount they must spend goes up making up for the difference.
The EC inflation would have to get to a point where there marks remaining would stop spending $ completely.
We all know we are far from that point... so there is no issue.
Its working as intended.
I guess as long as he isn't playing any of his 6 accounts.
Be careful what you wish for though. It's guaranteed to have other consequences.
Joined January 2009
Guess who is gonna pay the difference? Me, the seller, or you the buyer? That's right... the buyer... Just like in real life.
Taxed exchange in a game is... well... the idea is a sign of stupidity to me, because the same people will be crying when the prices go up instead of down... And Trust me: I won't be selling for less, if I get decreased pricing.
"But anazonda... If you put up an item, and payed tax for it, and then take it down and put it up and you pay another tax, surely you will eventually sell at a lower price?".
Nope.. In fact, I will have to cover my losses somehow... I wonder who I want to pay for that? RIGHT... Whoever buys the item.
Obviously I am just one person, but like many others, I've leaned to use the exchange as my basis for new gear, and getting Dilithium... So you think I am alone?
Nope... There are tons of us who do it... in fact, I am probably on the low end of those who know how to use the exchange.
If I spend my gametime getting an item, that I then chose to sell, I AM getting payed for that efford.
So how do I, a Exchange user, think prices could go down?
Easy: Put worthwhile things into the game that cost EC... "Light variants" of the Ship consoles, in-game boosts that costs EC and generally Light-things for those who can't and wont grind for Dil, or spend money on Zen.
The Point-defense turret for example... Sell a one time consumeable Point defense turret for 100,000 EC... Thats a fair amount of EC, yet easily obtained at T5.
To afford it, you still have to play a lot to get the loot drops to turn into any reasonable amount of consumeable consoles, it won't significantly decrease the value of C-Store ships and it might even motivate future C-store purchases.
The only solution is stuff worthwhile to get directly with EC from vendors and not other players. Trouble is, name one worthwhile thing that can't already be got with EC in some way.
If there was a general inflation caused by a money supply increase, the vast majority of items would have price increases, by approximately the same amount in most cases. As this has not been the case, there is a clear lack of inflation.
You may not like that the market has increased the price of certain goods that you want to trade in, perhaps above your perception of value, but that does not mean something needs to be done about it. And from Cryptic's perspective, it's all good, because the items that have increased ec prices are c-store items (or things obtained from c-store items), particularly keys. As the ec price increases on the exchange, more people will buy them with zen to get some easy ec, which is in turn used for things like lock-box ships (at current ec prices for both ships and keys, it's statistically a lot cheaper to get the ships in the exchange). This will continue until the general player base decides keys are not worth it anymore; inexperienced and impatient sellers are quite efficient at finding the true price of things on the exchange, I've found.
every time you log a toon in youre deducted 1 million ec. if you dont have the 1,000,000 ec you have to wait for the weekend event to log back in.
i reckon that would fix a few problems.
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I think you'd get less outrage if you removed all savings above 200M EC.
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
That's really what this is about, isn't it? That numbers are big?
Say, when you die in ground fight then there is 20% chance that one of your ground team members is abducted. Then you have to pay ransom.
Problem solved
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
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You are overlooking the real cause of people wanting more lockbox keys to gain OP lockbox goodies.
Money growth (that is, increase in the EC supply) does not cause inflation.
Inflation comes from four sources:
We can dispense with #3 because there's no spec market in STO (unless you count the high-end prices on some Exchange items--and I suspect those are mailed back to the posters in due course). I suppose a case could be made for those who buy lower-priced assets and then attempt to resell them at a higher price, but the best they can do is resell at the lowest modal price, and the markup generally isn't that high. There's pressure, but it's not overwhelming.
(And, before I go on, remember that EC is a fiat currency, backed only by time and effort on the part of the players. It's not backed by a commodity, so you can't base its value against a measurable store of assets.)
#1 doesn't apply to those selling in the Exchange. They can't avoid competitive forces, because anyone with the same asset to sell can always offer that asset at a lower price. Where it does apply is with in-game NPC vendors, whose buying price remains remarkably consistent over time, regardless of the perceived markey value of the item as expressed in the exchange. The selling price of something no one wants to buy in the Exchange (a green Tachyon deflector dish, for example) remains more or less fixed over time, since none of the vendors can attempt to entice me by offering a better buying price.
The net effect is that a player's ability to generate revenue outside the Exchange for so-called vendor trash remains fixed over the long term. (This is true regardless of the 'Admiral Bobo'-style missions because STO limits their viability--for good reason.)
#2 applies to the extent that some things are more rare than others (Jem'Hadar attack ships, for example) and demand a higher price; the fewer there are in the marketplace, the higher the price goes. It also applies in that some new ship (or other asset) may suddenly catch the market's fancy, and so increased demand also raises prices. Inflation occurs here because there's no corresponding net increase in the ability to generate currency in the economy; the EC paid to buy any of these items generally comes from currency already in play, but held in reserve.
#4 happens when a Lockbox leaves the economy, thus reducing the ability to introduce the rare item for sale.
The complaint here isn't really about inflation per se--it's about a loss of buying power. When prices and wages rise in concert, no one complains much about inflation because buying power remains at parity. (This is why you hear complaints about how wages [or entitlements] aren't keeping up with the cost of living; a fixed pension implies a loss of buying power as inflation occurs.)
If NPC vendors could buy goods for a higher price, that would increase buying power because a player's ability to generate revenue per unit time would increase. Rolling back the time restrictions on EC-farming missions would also increase buying power even if vendor prices didn't change.
The idea of turning Fleet projects into greater EC sinks is interesting--until you remember that you can't ask for a raise, and you can't change jobs to get a raise. No matter what, a player's ability to generate EC as a function of time is still fixed, particularly after reaching level 50. This is one reason fleets recruit new players and eliminate inactive players--to get more productive "workers" for Fleet projects.
The one way that STO's economy varies from a real economy is that no one player has bills to pay. Starships operate without needing to be refueled (and only rarely need repairs). Crews don't eat or pay rent. Captains don't pay docking fees. We don't even stock up on quantum torpedoes. Fleets require upkeep--but that's different than the day-to-day experience of a player, and a player can technically remain in a fleet without paying for it at all. (At the discretion of the fleet, of course.)
So, without real economic pressures, it's hard to speculate on what the actual answer might be to this perceived issue of "inflation."
Nevertheless, there is one thing we can do as a community to keep prices down--don't pay outrageous prices for items. When sellers can't get their asking prices, they'll lower those prices. When under-educated consumers pay ridiculous prices, it just encourages sellers to keep charging those prices. (This is why--and I apologize in advance for the outrage this will cause in some quarters--advertisers like to target teens: high percentage of disposable income, very little sense of value for money, and highly influenced by peer pressure. In short: willing to buy utter TRIBBLE, and prepared to pay any amount to get it. Eventually experience teaches them where and when to spend their money--but at first, they're not really good at it, right?)
So, forego that new Magic Special ship, console, or weapon until the price comes down. Even question whether or not you really need it. Maybe you just want it. Wants are expensive--so you should be prepared to pay the asking price.
the account bank only goes to 500m, it sucks
and 1b is the cap per char..
its possible to have 6b.. but that would be 6 chars maxed out.
one of the EC sinks they could turn on in this game is actually charging for ship repair..
right now as it is, you go to the ship yard and it costs 0 ec to repair your ship.
they would also have to reprogram ship repair components to be TEMPORARY.. so at the end of whatever mission you were playing you HAD to go to the ship yard to PAY to repair your ship..
also they need to program the queue to NOT ACCEPT damaged ships..
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
I like the idea of charging for repair. Maybe dying would be actually worth avoiding.
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that is a terrible idea.
think of the logistics. is it 200m per toon? per account? what about alt acounts? fleet savings? what about mule fleets?
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1. Ship Repairs, Like the above poster said, add a queue LO for un repaired ships
2. Add an EC requirement to fleet projects. The dil requirement would remain, or maybe reduced up to 10% depending. This could be the biggest sink.
3. Add a decay system in game. This is for both ground and space. Again, need to add a queue LO.
4. Revamp crafting by getting rid of the stupid dil requirement for common/uncommon materials. There is nothing being crafted right now worth ANY Dil what so ever. Replace the dil reqt with an EC reqt.
5. Add a salary for your Active DoFFs and BoFFs assigned to a station or away team. Then tier it based on quality.
Give a fair bit of your own EC to people who don't have much, but deserve it even more...
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
Want the EC market to be toned down, well gotta get ALL the players onboard, good luck with that.
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What is the "inflation basket of goods" used? What methodology is used to define the inflation index and what are the assumptions behind selecting that methodology? Until someone can provide even some semblance of quantitative analysis, inflation just ain't so.