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Low level items on the exchange.. Over priced crazyness
lordstipe2000
Member Posts: 61 Arc User
Apparently EC has become so meaningless to long term players that the exchange is out of control. I mean rare mk v phasers for 500,000 and up on the exchange... That's insane.i mean I know I would have to pay a few bucks but never imagined those prices. A new player will never be able to afford those kinds of prices. I'm not complaining or whining I just want to know why?
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Upgrading from MK II to MK XII atm costs 9,675 Dil, and that gives you 10 chances to upgrade rarity (VR to UR). Whereas trying to upgrade rarity at MK XIV can cost 2-3x that for 1 shot.
So people are stocking up low lvl gear for this atm, it sucks, but it is how it will be for a while now.
Or in other words: supply of low level rare items is quite low, also because these items are only earned as long as you don't hit the next rank. Supply of level 50 items is much higher since most players and thus most drops are level 50.
It's what the economy can handle. Kinda funny to see that price, as I recently posted a purple Mk V plasma beam for 24,000 -- a far cry from 500k for a rare Mk V phaser. And in my case, it didn't sell. I donated to my fleet instead.
Guessing aloud, prices like that are aimed at existing players with a new toon.
Pretty soon, crafted items are going to be far more available on the Exchange; imho, more players will be reaching level 15 in a few months, which means more crafted items showing up on the Exchange. Prices are going to get interesting when that happens. Supply and demand...
Joined January 2009
It seems like as a game gets older you see stuff move from being affordable to new players (which is pretty much everybody at the start) to only being affordable to older players, who have lots of in game currency, who want to roll alts. And it's usually also a reflection of how easy it has become to earn money. I remember back in the vanilla WoW days a 20 stack of copper ore or 20 peacebloom cost 10 silver. Nowadays the same 20 stack of tier 1 materials will go for 50-100 gold, maybe more. High level toons still have a use for those materials. For leveling up alt professions, or if they decide to reroll their own professions.
But in WoW's case it didnt mean that new players were cut out of the loop. You can still craft and gather your own mats yes, though depending on location you might be in competition with high level players for those low tier mats. But as a new player you wont be able to rely on the auction house for materials because they are so overpriced and you have no money. But that doesnt mean you cant take advantage of the situation. Those tier 1 materials? the 20 stack of copper ore that sells for 100 gold? a new player can go out, gather a ton of copper ore sell it for lots of gold and BAM you are now a new player with lots of money. I did that exact same thing when i rerolled on fresh servers in mop with no support from my rich alts on my main server. Double gathering, sell everything had lots of gold, eventually i had plenty of gold to where i could drop 1 gathering profession and pick up one i really wanted. Then when i had even more money saved up i dropped my other gathering profession and went with two crafting professions.
I dont think the same thing will work in STO. As a new player what is there to take advantage of? what can new players do that veteran players have a high demand for? IE the level 10 WoW toon gathering a ton of copper ore and selling it for 100g a stack. Does STO have anything like that? i dont think there is. They *could* gather R&D materials, but it seems like level 50's who do queues fairly regularly have plenty of mats themselves.
For example, on a few of my toons I have 100 doff slots filled by 100 purple doffs. I don't want to sell them but to complete some missions (like when I get some green "Entertainment Hologram") I need a slot. So I'll put a purple doff on the exchange for the maximum it'll let me (500 million ec). Is it a real sale? Well, no.
Then there's the higher prices. This is most obvious to see in something like Lore Data Chips. These chips have a 'rack rate' (what's on the item) of 100 ec. Yet you get nothing if you discard them, not even the 50 ec you'd normally get from vendors. So, I put them on the exchange for 100 ec. Some people put them on for say, 200, or 500, or 1,000. So if someone buys mine for 100 ec, the next available costs 200 ec. If it's popular and doesn't get put on often, it'll be that 1000 ec. Or in very rare cases, those little chips with a list price of 100 will be 1 million plus.
Then put into the mix buyer psychology: players don't want (in general) blue or green, so they'll search for purples. Purples go faster, pushing those prices up. Blues go slower, meaning fewer of those are put on the exchange as they're usually dumped on a vendor.
Now take that same mechanic, and consider the nature of lower-tier items. Players only get them while at that tier. Plus, it's only the even-marked (Mk II, IV, VI, VIII, X) which are the 'better' for the rank; and most players prefer purples over blues or greens. What's the result? Fewer of these lower-tier items available overall, and not that many put on exchange. Together with the pricing psychology, you'll end up with sky-high prices for basic equipment.
In the most obvious of this mechanic, a Blue Mk XII Console that gives a rack rate bonus of say, 25% will sell for more than the Purple Mk XI Console that gives the exact same rack rate of the hypothetical 25%... the Mk XII trumps the purple, and the cost for the same thing is higher. Buyer psychology at work!
You can check this out by looking at any piece of equipment and looking at prices. Want a set of 6blue Stun Phaser Pistol Mk VIIIs for your boffs? You'll see maybe 10 on the exchange, with the first for 500 ec, the next 1,500 ec, the next 50,000 ec and so on. Check the pricing for purple Mk VIIs and they'll have some cheaper, some more expensive, for the same stats.
Plus, if someone smells an opportunity (as is happening with the upcoming "Grind it up" mechanic), the exchange goes crazy, with this basic stuff getting bought out. It even happens on other things. For example, Critical Ship Components can be sold to a vendor for 2,000 ec. Yet it'll get put on exchange for as little as 1,000 ec. This 'cheap' stuff can be bought, and immediately dumped for more ec: instant profit. So even if a player wants to help newer players with cheaper equipment, it often won't last long enough on the exchange thanks to those who can see the profit opportunity.
Perhaps we more established players can help newer players though, by offering to team up for missions with a view to handing over white 'vendor dump' equipment? It costs us a few minutes and gives new players a head-start on ec?
I now level my alts as soon as I can get to Defera Invasion zone, quick easy XP and lots of fleet marks, plus all the borg drops get me plenty of gear to upgrade.
I have gotten purple anti borg bound mark IV weapons and then turn around and a few days later can upgrade for free or using the crafter to upgrade there since the crafting drops on deferi are pretty much useless.
I wish we could use the Deferi Bord item drops for existing crafting.
Proving how sqewed this system is, its cheaper to upgraded a low level piece of equiptment to super powerful Gold rarity then it is to upgrade equiptment that we put so much effort into like the rep equiptment or payed for like Lobi equiptment so those who wish to keep the equiptment we have effectively get punished.
I deal with all the other stuff, even the T6 Fleet Advantage, but the way rarity is upgraded is horrible. Its shouldn't be harder to upgrade higher mark equiptment then lower mark.
When you uograde past mark 14 its shouldn't cost as much since your not going up to a higher mark, infact aside from a slight increase in rarity upgrade chance you get absolutely nothing from upgrading a mark 14 item so upgrading at that point shouldn't cost as much.
In fact this idea deserves its own thread.
t
Joined January 2009
Oh ok. I didn't realize people pre-complain about features now. Thanks
This one is easy, their is no need for anything above common level equipment when leveling. The increase in dps is minimal. Yes the asking price is very high, and may or may not sell. I would not even bother losing sleep over it.
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
First I'm not pissed off just surprised. However, your statement baffles me so explain plz?
Also to everyone who has responded thanks.. Multiple different views but I like that nothing is black and white after all (ok maybe the aliens from Let this be your last battle field are but who counts them).
1. A new crafting system was implemented.
2. Everyone's crafting skill was reverted to 0.
These 2 shocks have significantly reduced the amount of available low and mid-level items, thereby driving the prices sky high.
Meanwhile, the Exchange suffers from the hyper-inflation induced by the selling of Lockbox Keys, which exchanges IRL money for copious amounts of in-game money. With the abandonment of the dilithium store as a viable leveling-gear option, the only way a player can purchase upgrades while leveling is to sell Keys at 2 Million EC+, and pay the ridiculously inflated costs on the gear, thereby worsening the hyper-inflation situation.
And the hyper-inflation has gotten worse. About a year ago, Keys were selling for about 1.5 Million to 1.75 Million a piece. Now they sell for 2.35 to 2.5 Million a piece.
For all intents and purposes, the game's economy is 100% completely and totally broken.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Some great points here. I personally have used my lvl 13 crafting to craft purple tech and put it on the exchange for 15 000 ec , meaning im not out to make ec, but to have those for lower levels. As i am leveling new chars i know how much it sucks to not have purple tech. That said . Your idea to help newbies in their missions should go to kdf side as well. Ive had a hard time doing those missions solo. Im used to big bad TRIBBLE ships, and doing levels with min ships is ... painful.
That said, if there is a kdf british fleet looking for a member, send me a pm malinda@chrishellmax
That way we can be on the same time zone .. Im south african.
That said. I recently started trading on the exchange in gear and i can tell you this. There is some serous money to be made just by learning what items are needed, what sells the most and so forth. I mean you can literarily spend hours just doing buying and selling stuff on the exchange.
Its fun. Some of us do this for a living as well rl, so its a kind of extension to our lives.
Simple answer ... The exchange is totally completely and undeniably broken! ... It's a cluster****
However the "broken" part is not, as the backyard economists on here would like to make you believe, a result of the "market". It's a result of bad coding on Cryptic's part.
For example:
I type in "Phaser Beam Array" in the search bar, then I set the rank to "Lt Cmdr" and the Rarity to "Rare" ... I get 1 result for 500K EC.
With the same search title, but with "Any Rarity" I get 12 results, ranging in price from 10K to 2.5Million EC
Now I type in "Phaser Beam Array Mk V" ... Lo and behold I get over 300 results, and many, many Rare and Very Rare items for less than 20K ...
So, the problem has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "Economies" or "Hoarding" ...
So put away your philosophical textbooks, your treatises on the "Psychology of MMO Gamers" and your "Beginners Guide to Economics"
It's simply that the OP, and apparently many others, do not realise the exchange is **** and don't know how to use it.
This right here is a point I have been wondering myself. In the MMO you mentioned it was a viable thing for even low characters to get out there, locate and collect materials and in some cases it was even fun to dive to the ground of the sea with water breathing potions to collect that seaweed someone will pay money for.
STO doesn't have a world that works like that as all players always share the same map and endgame content is completely decoupled from the world anyway. Materials aren't gathered by going to a certain place but doing the same STF instances over and over again. STO doesn't even get the whole aspect of crafting. When I think about WoW though, I think it might maaaybe possible that some items I have crafted years and years back are *still* somewhere in the game with my character's name on it (Though I quit playing before the first expansion was released, so it might be a long shot
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Most of that stuff I wouldn't buy period.
At the same time I also often put up all and any stuff worth less than 500,000 ec for 911 credits.
That's how I see the exchange, sometimes the price is fubar and other times you find something good - but most of the stuff you don't really need.
My whole time here especially during dry periods the exchange kept me playing. Not necessarily to steal people's money but because it's one of the few areas they haven't put up timegates and try to control your every move.
Like I put a 911 item up worth 300 k and see it sell in 2 seconds knowing I just made some guy's day is awesome.
And you need only 1 fly to ruin a ton on medicine.
Bottom line is no matter how outrageous the prices if the item is wanted then people will pay that price.