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The dilithium issue
cidjack
Member Posts: 2,017 Arc User
I came up with a suggestion after hearing some talk in various zones, I felt I would share it.
Last night, a couple of players were stating that they felt overburdened with the "tax" dilithium completion requirements Cryptic is putting on their ability to gather dilithium. The phrase "No taxation without representation"was thrown around.
Based off of the above comments, and others I have seen over the past few months, it dawned on me that players see dilithium not as a commodity to be used to improve game play, but as income both in and outside the game. Everyone knows at least on player who uses back channels to exchange keys, ships, etc for Real life currency, others who look forward to using dilithium to exchange for zen so they can get the next new zen ship.
It is has also has been mentioned to overcome the monumental grind for dilithium, players have resorted to skipping school, work, and important family functions. Players have even gone so far to skirting the TOS to employe means to gather even more dilithium over normal game play.
The root of all evil in this is the dilithium exchange. Removing the dilithium exchange completely and replacing it with players ability to purchase dilithium directly from the C-store in prepackaged set amounts would eliminate just a sample of the issues listed above and more.
I understand this suggestion will not be accepted by a number of members currently playing this game, and I accept the personal attacks from those who no longer play, but frequent the forums on a regular basis.
I cannot assume any positive or negative benefits to Cryptic by doing this, I do not work for the company, and will not presume to know Cryptic's business plan. I can only offer my insight based on my consumption of this video game.
Last night, a couple of players were stating that they felt overburdened with the "tax" dilithium completion requirements Cryptic is putting on their ability to gather dilithium. The phrase "No taxation without representation"was thrown around.
Based off of the above comments, and others I have seen over the past few months, it dawned on me that players see dilithium not as a commodity to be used to improve game play, but as income both in and outside the game. Everyone knows at least on player who uses back channels to exchange keys, ships, etc for Real life currency, others who look forward to using dilithium to exchange for zen so they can get the next new zen ship.
It is has also has been mentioned to overcome the monumental grind for dilithium, players have resorted to skipping school, work, and important family functions. Players have even gone so far to skirting the TOS to employe means to gather even more dilithium over normal game play.
The root of all evil in this is the dilithium exchange. Removing the dilithium exchange completely and replacing it with players ability to purchase dilithium directly from the C-store in prepackaged set amounts would eliminate just a sample of the issues listed above and more.
I understand this suggestion will not be accepted by a number of members currently playing this game, and I accept the personal attacks from those who no longer play, but frequent the forums on a regular basis.
I cannot assume any positive or negative benefits to Cryptic by doing this, I do not work for the company, and will not presume to know Cryptic's business plan. I can only offer my insight based on my consumption of this video game.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
No.
Skipping school? Where are the parents? They are responsible for getting their kids to school. Unless I had something I could pass on to other kids in the school, hospital or doctors appointments, or while I was in hospital I was not allowed to miss school by my mum. If I played truant I was in for it when I got home.
Even when I was in hospital for six weeks after surgery to correct a slipped epiphasis
(or however you spell it) I had school work brought in every day, except the weekend and the day of and day after my operation, by my mum.
Skipping work? Well don't be suprised to get the sack.
Skipping family functions? Gladly. Though you have to ask how important those functions were if they were willing to miss them for a game. Births, marriages, deaths and major age "milestones" were unmissible unless you were ill in my family, all others were optional.
However that is their problem not cryptics and they are the ones at fault and need to accept responsability for this and seek help for their problems. Instead of blaming a game for doing this.
Then see a mssive drop in the amount of zen sold and so a reducton in income leading to staff cuts and the game getting worse. Yep totally sound idea there.
Taking something you can earn and making it purchaseable in this manner is definetly a nerf. People "buy" into this game in two ways already:
1. time spent playing
2. money spent to buy game currency to essentially shorten time required to play.
Recent changes to dil awards represent Cryptic trying to drive up play time for the one group; or, to get people to buy zen to trade for dil for the other group. Both numbers increasing is helping their bottom line, which we all know underperformed expectations last year here in the US.
I don't think them doing what you ask is going to help their bottom line because everyone then becomes pay-to-play, and that isn't how they want it. They want it the way it is, only more to thier advantage. They "give" you a new kind of ship with special boffs; you spend for ship slots, boff slots, etc. You spend either time, or dil, or you buy zen to shorten the process. If you earn too much dil too fast, they re-balance for you to get less. If you finish misssions too fast, they add HP to make it take more time. The bar always gets moved, and not in favor of the players.
So, you can quit asking them for changes...they are way ahead of you.
"The house always wins."
So can you please pass that stuff you're smoking because it sounds like some seriously good ****, I want to fly like that new Romulan ship => http://i59.tinypic.com/2n16gjm.jpg :P
Seriously, what you're proposing here is Cryptic to shut down the game. You'll remove the reason STO went F2P, reason pointed out multiple times as the foundation of the game's survival.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If the current trend holds, in a couple of weeks it will be useless anyway since the exchange rate is so bad that only fools would throw dilith at it
Says who? In this theoretical future, it might be 100 Dilithium for 1 Zen.
Always remember, it is Cryptic. They will choose the worst solution for any player. So no exchange and bad rates for direct purchase.
Please show me your examples of this tax.
The Dilithium Exchange works on supply and demand which is controlled by PLAYERS. Cryptic's involvement was to create the exchange and put a cap on it. This has been discussed to death.
The problems you list are player generated. They do it to themselves. It is player greed and impatience. People want everything NOW, and complain when they are not handed everything on silver platter. Skipping school? If they would stay they might learn something...like say about supply and demand or math maybe. Maybe it's time for these players you mention to take a step back from the game and take a closer look at what is really important to them.
Using the game as a source of income is just ridiculous. That is what the gold sellers do. Anyone who does this should be banned from the game. PWE through Cryptic owns this game, and the rights to profit from it. No one else does. You want to do that? Go play a game that accommodates that behavior, or create and publish your own.
Now there are a ton of dilithium sinks in the game, yes. I do think that all the dilithium in the crafting system is a bit overboard. But your solution goes straight into pay to win.
If you need dilithium right now, you can get it easy by buying zen and using the exchange. Thanks to the recent event there is a glut of dilithium.
I am not seeing what the issue is for people. Everyone has an opportunity to get what they need with the current system.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
If PWE were manipulating the exchange, the dilithium cost of zen would be much, much higher.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Over in Champions Online, we are almost 100% certain this is the case with our version of the Dilithium Exchange, the Questionite Exchange.
They appear to be trying to keep it above a certain level which looks to be around 350q per zen (yes it gets that high, I've seen it hit the cap at 500 per).
This would probably be the general case with STO as well.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
no. it does not. people pull prices out of their a**. zen is just shuffled around to keep the price going up and up. any buyers are at the mercy the people manipulating the market. there are no market forces at work. Just watch it for a couple of hours and its obvious there are shenanigans.
Uh, no.
There is a demand now. People want to get the new very expensive ships right now. This is driving demand for zen, which is in shorter supply, because it is acquired with real money, or a limited LTS stipend. The value of dilithium versus the value of zen is lower, because dilithium is essentially a FREE commodity. The only limit to the amount of dilithium you can get is the daily refining cap. You can exceed this with multiple characters. The price of zen will probably not go down appreciably because of this. The supply of dilithium will always outstrip the supply of zen by a large margin. It's like printing money...it causes inflation. You can always print more currency (gather and refine more dilithium), but the value of that currency will drop as more becomes available.
People being addicted to dil farming to the point they end up missing school is a game addiction problem that this would not solve. Take away the exchange and they'll just end up on the streets selling their body for Zen
It's not. The same thing happens there due to the same forces at work. Go see the Neverwinter Auction house for a good example. Over there there IS a tax on items put on the AH. That cost is passed to the buyer by jacking up the price to compensate. Also, the meta currency (Astral diamonds), is basically worthless compared to zen thanks to all the exploits that allowed the market to be flooded with AD. I haven't checked recently, but the last time I was in the game, the market was stuck at 500 AD to 1 zen with a huge backlog of AD offers. If it were not for the cap, prices would have soared even higher.
Same thing. Supply and demand.
Thank you for pointing this out, I forgot about that one. That would be another reason to close the exchange, alts should not be used for farming, IMHO.
I don't use alts for farming, but I do transfer dil from one to another when doing a bunch of gear upgrades. Alt "A" might need 20,000 dil for gear upgrades one week while alt "B" needs it the next.
I see now.
You are looking for Pay to Win.
Open your wallets or GTFO. That's what this boils down to.
Here is a newsflash for you. Some of us will move from character to character as the desire takes us. Locking dilithium to specific characters is a monumentally bad idea. It would force people to farm it only on one character, which would kill the game for a fairly large number of people.
Some people are dropping $10,000 a year on STO because of the massive dilithium dumps in this game....
I may have to boycott on pure principle...
So you favor removing the dilithium exchange entirely?
It's been relatively stable (in the 165-200 range) for the last several months. It fluctuates less now than it was a year ago, and in no way has it been going "up and up". Likely the stability is due to the large number of dil sinks and increased content which earns it in the game now driving dil demand up and the ability of hoarding down.
a) What happens to those people who rely on the exchange as their sole means of acquiring zen, assuming they do not do surveys, how else do you expect them to get zen if they do not have the means to do so?
b) OP, you mentioned that players shouldn't use alts for farming dilithium. Why do you feel this way, when the cap on refining it is 8000 per day? Would you rather have people who can't buy zen with real money and convert it to refined dilithium resort to having to wait 5-7 days to get a piece of reputation gear? Upgrade their gear? That's what you are suggesting.
Essentially, I agree that removing the dilithium exchange would essentially defeat the entire purpose of Cryptic's free 2 play model. Without it, STO would be just like SWTOR, people unable to get everything they want. At least with this system, people can get the most expensive items for their efforts.