And the vast majority, lordkhorak, were simply exping up so they could run the storyline in one, semi-coherent run. They were not looking to exploit anything. Patrols on elite have always been good exp...always.
They are a gaming company. They should know their demographic at least.
Oh gee, a dil reward for this.
Guess what, gamers are going to find a way to hit "this" as much as they can.
You don't need a freaking crystal ball to know how gamers play. The fact that they didn't see this is, in fact, a fail on their part, not the community for doing what they do. This is basic gaming. The entire game is built around grinding, this community KNOWS how to grind, and knows how to find the best way to grind effectively.
If they had a working testing system in place, they would have caught it.
They are a gaming company. They should know their demographic at least.
Oh gee, a dil reward for this.
Guess what, gamers are going to find a way to hit "this" as much as they can.
You don't need a freaking crystal ball to know how gamers play. The fact that they didn't see this is, in fact, a fail on their part, not the community for doing what they do. This is basic gaming. The entire game is built around grinding, this community KNOWS how to grind, and knows how to find the best way to grind effectively.
If they had a working testing system in place, they would have caught it.
Sorry, this is on them.
Heh, they really need to hire some of us 'old farts' that have been gaming for 20+ years, online.
"We have this idea."
'Yeah, was done with game X, this was what happened."
Short sightedness most certainly killed a good thing, but the true petty patheticness of it is trying to pretend the players aren't to blame, that the shortsightedness isn't theirs because Cryptic didn't manage to stop every avenue of abusively exploiting it BEFORE players could abusively exploit it! *LMAO* Cryptic have to out-crowdthink a couple hundred thousand people and if they don't, it's THEIR FAULT.
[snipped wall of rant]
From what folks on tribble were saying, this was known and reported well before DR dropped. Tribble not only whispered in their ear, they told them flat out it would be a problem. So yea, Cryptic knew of the problem beforehand, knew players were aware of the potential for making mass amounts of unrefined dil and they chose to let it go forward. Only after they see the metrics do they call everyone doing it an exploiter and shut it down.
Still curious to know just how big the dil reward was. One post I saw referenced the reward being equal to the xp earned, i.e. 54k. That can just not be true.
Still curious to know just how big the dil reward was. One post I saw referenced the reward being equal to the xp earned, i.e. 54k. That can just not be true.
The reward was 2880 dil. Not the massive 54k you heard.
And this is why. Yes, Cryptic introduced a reward. Cryptic, not being completely omniscient, failed to account for players deciding to completely undermine that reward by running an exploit.
Oh but of course, it's somehow not an exploit because it's in the game, putting aside all logic and the actual applicable definitions of the word exploit of course. That being "make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhand". It's all big, bad, evil Cryptic's fault for not being all-seeing Gods.
Your post is completely correct, right here:
"You begin to see Cryptic's problem. They introduced a reward but left in place a system easily used to farm Dilithium because of it. Finally realizing their mistake, they close the loophole, label it an exploit and remove the present they gave us.
Short sightedness killed the good thing...."
Right there, that is all completely correct. They introduced a reward, but because they're not currently employing Odin's ravens to whisper in their ear (he gives a great health plan), left in place a system easily used to farm dilithium because of it. They realised their mistake, labelled it an exploit, because it is, and removed the reward because it was being exploited.
Short sightedness most certainly killed a good thing, but the true petty patheticness of it is trying to pretend the players aren't to blame, that the shortsightedness isn't theirs because Cryptic didn't manage to stop every avenue of abusively exploiting it BEFORE players could abusively exploit it! *LMAO* Cryptic have to out-crowdthink a couple hundred thousand people and if they don't, it's THEIR FAULT.
This is hilarious. This is literally the argument that you are in no way responsible for your own behaviour. It is entirely the fault of someone else that they did not stop you from finding a loophole in the rules and using it to break the rules, before you found it and abused it. Find that completely legal minutiae that lets you murder a guy, and you're not to blame for using it to murder a guy.
I'm off to tell my mother she's the worst person in the world, because of all those times she didn't manage to think of every way I could be naughty when I was young, and prevent me doing it before I could do it. It's her fault. She's responsible for me being naughty.
Bathe me in flames, call me a Cryptic fanboy. Go on, you know you want to. It's standard procedure. Anything so you can be the victim instead of the offender. Anything so it's not your fault that when Cryptic smiled and gave us a cookie with a happy heart, you booted them in the shin and ran off with the packet.
Struggling so hard not to insult you like you insulted the player base right there. It only became an exploit when Cryptic looked at their data and realized there was a very odd and probably quite large amount of Dilithium being generated by the system.
This was being used by a certain area of the player base using a pre-existing system to get their specializations because Cryptic made the DR patrols so damned boring! Add to that, Cryptic have admitted they made a mistake with DR regarding Tau Dewa because the npc's weren't scaling properly and giving out too much exp for the very little effort required.
This is nothing but Cryptic's fault ESPECIALLY when you consider THEY WERE TOLD by those who tested that the system was clearly open to a possible exploit... If it wasn't Tau Dewa, it was the mission in Cardassian space with the infinitely spawning npc's as long as you didn't progress the mission.
(sorry to chop it all out, but just too much there)
Bathe me in flames, call me a Cryptic fanboy. Go on, you know you want to. It's standard procedure. Anything so you can be the victim instead of the offender. Anything so it's not your fault that when Cryptic smiled and gave us a cookie with a happy heart, you booted them in the shin and ran off with the packet.
Anyway...peraonally I'll neither bathe you in flames, nor call you a fanboy. I will however point out that since this problem (apparently), among many others were noted and ignored during DR's time on tribble. This does in fact make it entirely cryptic's fault for once again ignoring the people who are testing their content, game, code, whatever you wish to call it. Whatever you do choose to call it, it most certainly was not short sightedness that caused this, it was stupidity.
Was I leveling with friends in Tau Dewa? Yep, I sure was, but for the purpose of running the new story line without having to hit a level gap. Hell we didn't even know about the dil thing until mid-day yesterday. And even yesterday while Tau Dewa was shut down, we continued to level elsewhere.
Short sightedness most certainly killed a good thing, but the true petty patheticness of it is trying to pretend the players aren't to blame, that the shortsightedness isn't theirs because Cryptic didn't manage to stop every avenue of abusively exploiting it BEFORE players could abusively exploit it! *LMAO* Cryptic have to out-crowdthink a couple hundred thousand people and if they don't, it's THEIR FAULT.
This is hilarious. This is literally the argument that you are in no way responsible for your own behaviour. It is entirely the fault of someone else that they did not stop you from finding a loophole in the rules and using it to break the rules, before you found it and abused it. Find that completely legal minutiae that lets you murder a guy, and you're not to blame for using it to murder a guy.
FACT = Cryptic made the game.
FACT = Cryptic should have a devbase of interactions regarding the game and any changes made to backtrack and see any interactions that goes on. I used to work for Activision and Interplay, back in the 90's this sort of thing was FOUNDATION 101 game design.
FACT = Cryptic are either lazy and didn't check, incompetent and don't have a clear devbase, or don't have a clue whats going on in their own game. They have turned into a reactionary dev company, playing whack-a-mole with the problems coming up within the game. NO game company which takes on a reactionary role lasts long, i give Cryptic to possibly 2016, maybe 2017 and it will be gone.
FACT = I would back off a bit if i was you, your nose is getting a little brown lordkhorak
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
I have to say I was running patrols for xp just to bridge the ridiculous xp gap between story missions. I have to say I'm at lvl 56 atm and not many missions have had a good helping of story. in fact several just made me think. expansion? seriously? i've played better foundry missions.
with running patrol missions for xp as a necessity. this 'expansion' has so far not delivered compared to LOR in terms of enjoyment for me.
The reward was 2880 dil. Not the massive 54k you heard.
Thanks for the info. I thought I read somewhere, concerning the foundry missions, Cryptic wanted a 480 dil to 15 min time invested. So they thought it would take 1.5 hrs to earn 54k xp regardless of what their testers told them.
Not sure why they removed it though. They got the amount wrong. By now they should have a good sense how long it will take to hit the 54k. Why not adjust rather than delete?
Thanks for the info. I thought I read somewhere, concerning the foundry missions, Cryptic wanted a 480 dil to 15 min time invested. So they thought it would take 1.5 hrs to earn 54k xp regardless of what their testers told them.
Not sure why they removed it though. They got the amount wrong. By now they should have a good sense how long it will take to hit the 54k. Why not adjust rather than delete?
Because a bean counter hit the red alert when they saw the potential loss of revenue. This has all the earmarks of bureaucratic panic.
if they had made new mission give good XP dont think anyone would have been in Tau Dewa i do not like replaying the same mission 100 times to fell in the grap of XP that was between missions more so if its new content with an actual story..................
you could always apply to work there. Several STO players ended up working at least as CMs and others ended up working for Cryptic/PWE directly (borticus, suricata, etc.)
Part of the problem here is that players of STO are used to a metric of leveling in the game. When you turn that metric COMPLETELY ON ITS HEAD and then have the nerve to look surprised when people push back against it...calling them names and blaming them for your lack of foresight (I mean you ARE in charge of this system after all...NOT the players) I think some humility and an apology would not be out of order here.
It's your game in the end, YOU take some responsibility for what is YOURS. People will respect that, they don't respect people who are in ultimate control of a situation who blame everyone else when something doesn't go according to "plan"....
So from the patch notes, it looks like it was both dilithium and exp too fast but not the drops of upgrade kits. No doubt related to the ships spawning below squad leader level but I'd think that would have hurt xp.
On the other hand, they reduced exp needed for ship mastery and even are giving mastery buffs for exp already earned. So clearly is was the captain exp that they thought was too fast.
upgrade kits are in all loot tables. You only saw them a lot because 1. elite mobs drop them more often (elite mob loot table) 2. you are spawning a lot of mobs in a single map so ithey will have more chances at dropping (random number generator) 3. you are running the map continuously so you are seeing more drops just because you are pewing hundreds of mobs per hour.
There is no real way to nerf just the upgrade kits from TD alone, without changing the global elite loot table drop percentage for level 50 space maps.
The real bug here is that the ships which were spawning below squad leader level were giving too much XP back to the now-overpowered player ships.
you could always apply to work there. Several STO players ended up working at least as CMs and others ended up working for Cryptic/PWE directly (borticus, suricata, etc.)
I'm not sure enough of my commitment to this game to apply. I've worked for other gaming companies in the past and it's a lot of fun, but I have to believe in the source material first.
I can't see what difference there is with any of they changes they making you can still choose to match levels in your group so they are still going to spawn at level 50 if the lowest member in your group is level 50 which is what people were doing before.
I can't see what difference there is with any of they changes they making you can still choose to match levels in your group so they are still going to spawn at level 50 if the lowest member in your group is level 50 which is what people were doing before.
The reason they changed it was because after you maxxed out your ship specialization slots any extra levels you received in it were rewarded with dilithium. (Is that terminology correct?)
And people were grinding that hard in Tau Delta. So they turned into Madagascar and shut. Everything. Down.
The patrols in Tau Delta probably won't be changed. They'll still be grindable, they're just taking out the dilithium reward for the "exploit".
I still don't understand how getting a bunch of Dilithium ORE is a problem.
One can only process 8K a day.
There are lot of folks that have a krap-load of ORE sitting in their accounts.
That hasn't fouled up the Exchange at all.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I can't see what difference there is with any of they changes they making you can still choose to match levels in your group so they are still going to spawn at level 50 if the lowest member in your group is level 50 which is what people were doing before.
The changes they made will help the leveling go faster so you'll be able to play the story with less interruption.
I still don't understand how getting a bunch of Dilithium ORE is a problem.
One can only process 8K a day.
There are lot of folks that have a krap-load of ORE sitting in their accounts.
That hasn't fouled up the Exchange at all.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
Not sure if I said it here or elsewhere, but this was a panic move by the bean counters. Refined or unrefined doesn't matter, all that matters is it's dilithium, a commodity they want people to spend real money on. Even the exchange is only meant to top off what you may have already bought.
It is possibly one of the silliest panics I've seen in a game in a long time.
I'm not sure enough of my commitment to this game to apply. I've worked for other gaming companies in the past and it's a lot of fun, but I have to believe in the source material first.
Gawd, how pretentious does that sound?!
To me it doesn't sound the least bit pretentious. It sounds honest. There is no way I could possibly go to work for cryptic given the way I see things being done from this side of the connection. I would feel more and more soulless with every passing day.
To me it doesn't sound the least bit pretentious. It sounds honest. There is no way I could possibly go to work for cryptic given the way I see things being done from this side of the connection. I would feel more and more soulless with every passing day.
I will say this, these forums are (NO sarcasm) amazing. The community at large is well spoken and there is a distinct lack of incoherent all caps and symbols posts. The forum mods are either doing a fantastic job or the community itself should be lauded. Yeah, people vent, but for the most part I'm seeing just that; venting.
Even the trolls are subtle and well done.
However the nuts and bolts customer service aspect...yikes. Dell could take lessons on how to TRIBBLE off your customer base from them.
FACT = Cryptic should have a devbase of interactions regarding the game and any changes made to backtrack and see any interactions that goes on. I used to work for Activision and Interplay, back in the 90's this sort of thing was FOUNDATION 101 game design.
FACT = Cryptic are either lazy and didn't check, incompetent and don't have a clear devbase, or don't have a clue whats going on in their own game. They have turned into a reactionary dev company, playing whack-a-mole with the problems coming up within the game. NO game company which takes on a reactionary role lasts long, i give Cryptic to possibly 2016, maybe 2017 and it will be gone.
FACT = I would back off a bit if i was you, your nose is getting a little brown lordkhorak
FACT - Cryptic decided the situation was not okay and fixed it.
Also - we know from many, many Tribble Test releases that bugs that get reported there do not always get fixed when the stuff is released, but we know plenty bugs that have been reported there and gone to Holodeck have been fixed eventually.
Also, the impact of a bug is not always visible from the start. In the past, people's habit was actually not running the Tau Dewa Patrols in Teams at Elite difficulty. So while the bug was known, it would normally have little impact. What they didn't anticipate correctly is that people would change their behaviour considerably to use this exploit.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Also, the impact of a bug is not always visible from the start. In the past, people's habit was actually not running the Tau Dewa Patrols in Teams at Elite difficulty. So while the bug was known, it would normally have little impact. What they didn't anticipate correctly is that people would change their behaviour considerably to use this exploit.
And that's where most people have the issue.
This is a grinding game.
They designed it that way. Deliberately.
They put in a grindy bit and then got all shocked when people were grinding. Then they went all thumbs trying to fix it. Shutting down an entire sector? lulz
Yes, I get the Law of Unintended Consequences, but, this is one they should absolutely have anticipated considering how they have designed the game to be played.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
There is another way to look at it.
Yes so long as someone pays for the Zen they get their cash, but I reckon in an ideal world they would prefer that everyone buys Zen direct instead of using huge stockpiles of Dil and enough patience to save up.
I suppose it's also possible that a player with that huge stockpile won't be playing much of the game at all. They'd either log in, refine the limit and log out again or perhaps fly the odd STF if they are in the mood. Something quick and easy, which from what I've seen here is not what DR offers.
It's in Cryptic's best interest that players log in to play, so they can woo you with their shiny products among other things.
Yes so long as someone pays for the Zen they get their cash, but I reckon in an ideal world they would prefer that everyone buys Zen direct instead of using huge stockpiles of Dil and enough patience to save up.
I suppose it's also possible that a player with that huge stockpile won't be playing much of the game at all. They'd either log in, refine the limit and log out again or perhaps fly the odd STF if they are in the mood. Something quick and easy, which from what I've seen here is not what DR offers.
It's in Cryptic's best interest that players log in to play, so they can woo you with their shiny products among other things.
People who do the log in, refine, log out to refine another day are the exception, not the rule. Most people are willing to fork out $20-$100 bucks to get the dil they need RIGHT NOW. Instant gratification.
Once they spend on the ships, the upgrades, the dil increase, the ec increase, the boff and doff and ship limit increase, any little fun bits they might want like costumes, etc, that's a good chunk of change, even if someone plays for a couple of months, maxes out one toon, and then never plays again.
Comments
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
They are a gaming company. They should know their demographic at least.
Oh gee, a dil reward for this.
Guess what, gamers are going to find a way to hit "this" as much as they can.
You don't need a freaking crystal ball to know how gamers play. The fact that they didn't see this is, in fact, a fail on their part, not the community for doing what they do. This is basic gaming. The entire game is built around grinding, this community KNOWS how to grind, and knows how to find the best way to grind effectively.
If they had a working testing system in place, they would have caught it.
Sorry, this is on them.
Heh, they really need to hire some of us 'old farts' that have been gaming for 20+ years, online.
"We have this idea."
'Yeah, was done with game X, this was what happened."
:P
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
From what folks on tribble were saying, this was known and reported well before DR dropped. Tribble not only whispered in their ear, they told them flat out it would be a problem. So yea, Cryptic knew of the problem beforehand, knew players were aware of the potential for making mass amounts of unrefined dil and they chose to let it go forward. Only after they see the metrics do they call everyone doing it an exploiter and shut it down.
Still curious to know just how big the dil reward was. One post I saw referenced the reward being equal to the xp earned, i.e. 54k. That can just not be true.
The reward was 2880 dil. Not the massive 54k you heard.
Struggling so hard not to insult you like you insulted the player base right there. It only became an exploit when Cryptic looked at their data and realized there was a very odd and probably quite large amount of Dilithium being generated by the system.
This was being used by a certain area of the player base using a pre-existing system to get their specializations because Cryptic made the DR patrols so damned boring! Add to that, Cryptic have admitted they made a mistake with DR regarding Tau Dewa because the npc's weren't scaling properly and giving out too much exp for the very little effort required.
This is nothing but Cryptic's fault ESPECIALLY when you consider THEY WERE TOLD by those who tested that the system was clearly open to a possible exploit... If it wasn't Tau Dewa, it was the mission in Cardassian space with the infinitely spawning npc's as long as you didn't progress the mission.
Bottom line: Their game, their TRIBBLE up.
Anyway...peraonally I'll neither bathe you in flames, nor call you a fanboy. I will however point out that since this problem (apparently), among many others were noted and ignored during DR's time on tribble. This does in fact make it entirely cryptic's fault for once again ignoring the people who are testing their content, game, code, whatever you wish to call it. Whatever you do choose to call it, it most certainly was not short sightedness that caused this, it was stupidity.
Was I leveling with friends in Tau Dewa? Yep, I sure was, but for the purpose of running the new story line without having to hit a level gap. Hell we didn't even know about the dil thing until mid-day yesterday. And even yesterday while Tau Dewa was shut down, we continued to level elsewhere.
Not that they would listen to us anyway. *sigh*
/WTB SOW
FACT = Cryptic made the game.
FACT = Cryptic should have a devbase of interactions regarding the game and any changes made to backtrack and see any interactions that goes on. I used to work for Activision and Interplay, back in the 90's this sort of thing was FOUNDATION 101 game design.
FACT = Cryptic are either lazy and didn't check, incompetent and don't have a clear devbase, or don't have a clue whats going on in their own game. They have turned into a reactionary dev company, playing whack-a-mole with the problems coming up within the game. NO game company which takes on a reactionary role lasts long, i give Cryptic to possibly 2016, maybe 2017 and it will be gone.
FACT = I would back off a bit if i was you, your nose is getting a little brown lordkhorak
with running patrol missions for xp as a necessity. this 'expansion' has so far not delivered compared to LOR in terms of enjoyment for me.
Thanks for the info. I thought I read somewhere, concerning the foundry missions, Cryptic wanted a 480 dil to 15 min time invested. So they thought it would take 1.5 hrs to earn 54k xp regardless of what their testers told them.
Not sure why they removed it though. They got the amount wrong. By now they should have a good sense how long it will take to hit the 54k. Why not adjust rather than delete?
Because a bean counter hit the red alert when they saw the potential loss of revenue. This has all the earmarks of bureaucratic panic.
system Lord Baal is dead
you could always apply to work there. Several STO players ended up working at least as CMs and others ended up working for Cryptic/PWE directly (borticus, suricata, etc.)
It's your game in the end, YOU take some responsibility for what is YOURS. People will respect that, they don't respect people who are in ultimate control of a situation who blame everyone else when something doesn't go according to "plan"....
Lulz. Loading...please wait.
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
upgrade kits are in all loot tables. You only saw them a lot because 1. elite mobs drop them more often (elite mob loot table) 2. you are spawning a lot of mobs in a single map so ithey will have more chances at dropping (random number generator) 3. you are running the map continuously so you are seeing more drops just because you are pewing hundreds of mobs per hour.
There is no real way to nerf just the upgrade kits from TD alone, without changing the global elite loot table drop percentage for level 50 space maps.
The real bug here is that the ships which were spawning below squad leader level were giving too much XP back to the now-overpowered player ships.
I'm not sure enough of my commitment to this game to apply. I've worked for other gaming companies in the past and it's a lot of fun, but I have to believe in the source material first.
Gawd, how pretentious does that sound?!
The reason they changed it was because after you maxxed out your ship specialization slots any extra levels you received in it were rewarded with dilithium. (Is that terminology correct?)
And people were grinding that hard in Tau Delta. So they turned into Madagascar and shut. Everything. Down.
The patrols in Tau Delta probably won't be changed. They'll still be grindable, they're just taking out the dilithium reward for the "exploit".
One can only process 8K a day.
There are lot of folks that have a krap-load of ORE sitting in their accounts.
That hasn't fouled up the Exchange at all.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
The changes they made will help the leveling go faster so you'll be able to play the story with less interruption.
As. Stated the change was to reduce dilithium.
Not sure if I said it here or elsewhere, but this was a panic move by the bean counters. Refined or unrefined doesn't matter, all that matters is it's dilithium, a commodity they want people to spend real money on. Even the exchange is only meant to top off what you may have already bought.
It is possibly one of the silliest panics I've seen in a game in a long time.
To me it doesn't sound the least bit pretentious. It sounds honest. There is no way I could possibly go to work for cryptic given the way I see things being done from this side of the connection. I would feel more and more soulless with every passing day.
I will say this, these forums are (NO sarcasm) amazing. The community at large is well spoken and there is a distinct lack of incoherent all caps and symbols posts. The forum mods are either doing a fantastic job or the community itself should be lauded. Yeah, people vent, but for the most part I'm seeing just that; venting.
Even the trolls are subtle and well done.
However the nuts and bolts customer service aspect...yikes. Dell could take lessons on how to TRIBBLE off your customer base from them.
FACT - Cryptic decided the situation was not okay and fixed it.
Also - we know from many, many Tribble Test releases that bugs that get reported there do not always get fixed when the stuff is released, but we know plenty bugs that have been reported there and gone to Holodeck have been fixed eventually.
Also, the impact of a bug is not always visible from the start. In the past, people's habit was actually not running the Tau Dewa Patrols in Teams at Elite difficulty. So while the bug was known, it would normally have little impact. What they didn't anticipate correctly is that people would change their behaviour considerably to use this exploit.
And that's where most people have the issue.
This is a grinding game.
They designed it that way. Deliberately.
They put in a grindy bit and then got all shocked when people were grinding. Then they went all thumbs trying to fix it. Shutting down an entire sector? lulz
Yes, I get the Law of Unintended Consequences, but, this is one they should absolutely have anticipated considering how they have designed the game to be played.
And then how they handled it is just laughable.
There is another way to look at it.
Yes so long as someone pays for the Zen they get their cash, but I reckon in an ideal world they would prefer that everyone buys Zen direct instead of using huge stockpiles of Dil and enough patience to save up.
I suppose it's also possible that a player with that huge stockpile won't be playing much of the game at all. They'd either log in, refine the limit and log out again or perhaps fly the odd STF if they are in the mood. Something quick and easy, which from what I've seen here is not what DR offers.
It's in Cryptic's best interest that players log in to play, so they can woo you with their shiny products among other things.
People who do the log in, refine, log out to refine another day are the exception, not the rule. Most people are willing to fork out $20-$100 bucks to get the dil they need RIGHT NOW. Instant gratification.
Once they spend on the ships, the upgrades, the dil increase, the ec increase, the boff and doff and ship limit increase, any little fun bits they might want like costumes, etc, that's a good chunk of change, even if someone plays for a couple of months, maxes out one toon, and then never plays again.