In most cases, the poor have very little to compete with the wealthy anyways so, it really wouldn't have such a huge effect on them.
And yes, it wouldn't make paupers out of the wealthy but, if the Dev's wanted a taxation as a means to drain the EC economy some, it is a good start.
Just saying.
The poor not being able to catch up with the wealthy is silly.
This is a video game not real life.
The poor... take some D convert it to Zen buy some keys and sell them. Now they have a bank roll.
Or they can STF for an hour every day for 3-4 days and have a 10mil EC bank roll.
Sometimes I get bored... and transfer 20mil to an alt and set my goal to turn it into 200mil as fast as I can. That most of the time involves logging into that toon for 5-10 min a few times a day for 2-3 days. That's it... one weekend.
Making fake money in almost any online game is never that hard. Find out what sells... what sells in volume... and understand that its better to make 3000 ec each profit on something you can sell in stacks of 200+ (think about it a stack of 250 of something that you are turning 2k each on is a 500k profit) as long as its stuff that moves, and small stuff moves. You don't get rich buying and selling ships or traits. Those are one off things where you find a deal on the exchange or decide to pull a bunch of boxes cause you want lobi anyway.
To really turn a few mil into 20 and 20 into 200... you work on the small stuff. Summer season is coming... if you know what your doing during the Risa event making a few billion in the few weeks it lasts isn't hard at all.
See here's the thing... If people knew what they were doing they wouldn't be making threads complaining about how things are too expensive on the exchange. :rolleyes:
Well no need for the rolleyeyes, clearly that is the case. lol
Still the point is valid... making game currency in a video game isn't rocket science. Even if your not counting the market working tricks... just playing the game and stockpiling in STO has always been a legit way to put away a million or two every night.
See here's the thing... If people knew what they were doing they wouldn't be making threads complaining about how things are too expensive on the exchange. :rolleyes:
Hold on there tiger, that means people would have to take the time to learn things about the game, instead of asking for everything to be handed to them on a plate. How many times have we seen this sort of thread, whether it be concerning Ec, Dilithium or something else in the game.
No matter how you look at it, that 1% will always be a 1% loss and, adjusting as people say for the loss, just causes even further loss!
Example of selling item @ 1mill - 1%[10,000], ok I need up my selling price by another 10k to make up for the tax so, I sell at 1mill + 10k.
Well, 1,010,000 - 1%[10100] so, the extra 10k being charged due to taxes, is only bringing back an actual 9.9k. An additional loss of 100 EC's, which isn't huge but, is still a loss of 1% each and every time no matter how you adjust the selling price!
There's ways of getting around that.
Let's say that I want to get my 1 mil ec, with a 1% tax. Simple enough - 1 mil/.99=1010101 ec (or 1010102 if I feel like rounding up). 1% of that's 10101. Boom. Made my 1 million.
Or the simpler solution - just jack it up to the nearest arbitrary number. Like 1.1 million.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Hold on there tiger, that means people would have to take the time to learn things about the game, instead of asking for everything to be handed to them on a plate. How many times have we seen this sort of thread, whether it be concerning Ec, Dilithium or something else in the game.
Honestly, the number of people in this game at least who would rather copy/scrounge from others success is pretty high I find. I mean if I was to make a list of common threads and in-game situations that seem to happen a lot:
Demands ec prices on the exchange come down.
Demands that X gets nerfed.
Demands the dilithium exchange is brought under control.
Player X reports Player Y for cheating because Player X is incompetant and doesn't understand how you're generating Z amount of heals/damage/whatever.
Player X insists content is clearly too hard despite his character/ship having a terrible build.
Player X blames literally anyone else in the same map for the mission failing, under the false illusion they're better and have actually contributed nothing to the match.
List could go on for quite a way, and while occasionally you get someone who genuinely is missing the point, I'd argue 90% of the time it is someone who can't be bothered and just wants everything given to them on a plate. This thread is no different, its a mistaken concept that's been done to death over the years and frankly a passive scrutiny reveals the flaws. At the end of the day its a player run economy, and at least in the form it is you don't have a rampant black market due to dumb control measures.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Have you never bought anything in real life? Taxes and fees always RAISE prices.
I knew this forum was full of people with no clue about economics, but seriously? :eek:
No... They're socialists. The basic definition of Socialism is pissing in the wind and hoping it works how you want it too. But it never actually does.
If you are not able to buy something now, you will not be able to buy it then. There will not be more lockbox ships available, just enough for the richest. And there are enough ways to stay rich, even with such taxes.
No... They're socialists. The basic definition of Socialism is pissing in the wind and hoping it works how you want it too. But it never actually does.
Another day another forced political comment accompanied by trouble with homonyms.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
"We all hate it"? Speak for yourself, not all of us. But by your own explanation, the amount of so called "greed" on the exchange says otherwise. People want to buy a certain item, I will charge what I want for it. You/they don't like the price, don't buy it. Cryptic has said multiple times that they will never control the exchange prices, be it the EC exchange or the Dilithium exchange. Putting a tax on an exchange does nothing but destroy an economy over time and puts control in the hands of even fewer than it is now. With few in control, the prices become even more exorbitant and nobody can afford anything other than what they pick up.
Is that what you want, a few elitist clods that lord over the majority? The one and only one thing that would be good that would come out of this is people interacting more with private trades to avoid the tax. But even then, people like you would moan about that in the long run and demand that all private trades involving EC have a tax too.
We all hate it. Gear priced so outrageously you assume the seller is using the exchange for storage and or insanely greedy.
What about a 1% of total lot price posting fee that charges 1% for every day item is on exchange, maxing out at 14 days before the item is returned to you?
Example, you post an item for $100,000. The posting fee is 1% for every 24 hours its on the exchange. If it sells in 1 minute, its 1%, if it sells in 23 hrs and 59 minutes, its 1%. You get 99,000 EC back on a 100G lot. But if you were greedy, and overpriced for the item, and it sat on the exchange for 14 days, the item is returned to you, and 14,000 deducted from your bank account. And the system would require you to put that $14,000 in as a deposit to make sure you were good for it up front. If you keep putting up the same item priced so bad it wont sell, it hurts the SELLER'S wallet for their greed.
Would this be a fair system for sellers and buyers to help make sure things are priced to sell? Instead of asking insane prices for low end gear? Can this be the cure for exchange inflation?
This games exchange is the only one that isn't anal retentive about the service! You can sell without needing EC, don't mess that up for us or I will send Liam Neeson after you! <I'm also making a very intimidating face right now!> Are you scared yet?
You know other players are greedy centered monsters, and overcharge everything ether out of desperation to get the latest goodies or fill their Uncle Scrooge money bin! I used to be one of them, I know how they think!
So if you wish to curse, please don't do this to the last refuge of MMO decency out there! Instead, sweet talk them into adding an investment pool.
Here is the idea, investing into your fleet> investing into it at the beginning of the week, depending one how much and how many played that week, you would return more from your investment. How many others invested would also affect the total take home every week as well.
New Lunar Republic
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
Or they can STF for an hour every day for 3-4 days and have a 10mil EC bank roll.
Sometimes I get bored... and transfer 20mil to an alt and set my goal to turn it into 200mil as fast as I can. That most of the time involves logging into that toon for 5-10 min a few times a day for 2-3 days. That's it... one weekend.
Making fake money in almost any online game is never that hard. Find out what sells... what sells in volume... and understand that its better to make 3000 ec each profit on something you can sell in stacks of 200+ (think about it a stack of 250 of something that you are turning 2k each on is a 500k profit) as long as its stuff that moves, and small stuff moves. You don't get rich buying and selling ships or traits. Those are one off things where you find a deal on the exchange or decide to pull a bunch of boxes cause you want lobi anyway.
To really turn a few mil into 20 and 20 into 200... you work on the small stuff. Summer season is coming... if you know what your doing during the Risa event making a few billion in the few weeks it lasts isn't hard at all.
The problem, of course, with the "just work the exchange! Lots o' cash!" theory (and I've seen it mentioned in every MMO I've played) is that it only works if there's a large population of people not doing it, to serve as credit sources/suckers for the ones who are. (i.e, if everyone were doing it, there'd be no money in it. Because there'd be no-one to buy your stuff.)
Hi, OP you must be new to MMORPG's. Player Run Economies are player run. And nothing is outrageously expensive. If you don't like it, than you clearly aren't used to how MMO's work.
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
I'm saying the more resourceful and ruthless you are on the exchange, the more profitable it will be for you. I once memorized the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, and that is what helped me to earn enough to buy all of the Ferengi prizes for Luna. They aren't just a running joke from Star Trek, they actually are a helpful guideline for making EC in an MMO!
Find whats popular and selling, then exploit it! You will find small items sell faster, clumped together they add up fast. Treat it as a daily, and you should have a more EC to work with.
But set goals for yourself as I did, so you aren't just grinding cash every login session. Know what you want before you begin earning or you end up becoming burnt out. The goal will be more satisfying once you can relax afterward and resume the game.
[ $ ]
New Lunar Republic
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
The problem, of course, with the "just work the exchange! Lots o' cash!" theory (and I've seen it mentioned in every MMO I've played) is that it only works if there's a large population of people not doing it, to serve as credit sources/suckers for the ones who are. (i.e, if everyone were doing it, there'd be no money in it. Because there'd be no-one to buy your stuff.)
I make 90% of my EC off of other people attempting to work the exchange.
This is like saying you can only work the stock market if every shlub in the world doesn't. Its not true.
I love when I see someone else moving in my market... the trick isn't finding items with no competition. The trick is finding the items with a lot of competition and knowing how to not be the last guy out.
With PVP being dead in this game... Exchange PvP is all we have left... leaving some Whale/gold farmer holding the bag is more fun then playing the game part of sto these days.
I get where you're coming from, but the simple answer to your question is, "No, this would be a terribly UNfair system to the little guy." This type of tax system would basically lock in the "haves" and lock out the "have nots."
Think if you got lucky and had a Sheshar dropped in your lap (assuming a value of about 400 million ec). You sell this thing and your problems are over, except you don't have the "cash" to even list it, let alone keep it up for the several days or week it may take to sell. How are you, as a "have not," supposed to get any value from this?
You could turn to trade channels, which you may not even know anything about. Hopefully, you find the one person online who speaks your language well enough to transact at the same time you can be online. If you don't, you're pretty well screwed and just sit on it for as long as it takes for the stars to align.
If you're trying to buy something rare, that could get even worse as there may only be one person who can sell you what you want, and every time you say no he just raises the price out of spite.
Without trade channels, you're left with trying to find a sponsor or "Investor." You come to me asking for the "cash" to list it - which, under your system, could potentially get up above 40 million. Assuming I'd even consider this (which I wouldn't because of the HUGE risk to me), I'd first insist on being paid back in full, plus at least a 10% commission for the risk I'm taking trusting you. The end result is that your 400 million item just dropped to 300 million - all coming out of your take, not mine.
If that ever happened, I can guarantee it would die quickly as leeches started realizing they could just scam "haves" out of millions of ec by asking, with no form of compensation possible.
What would be more likely is that I, as an experienced seller, would insist that you give me the item and I'll handle the selling of it myself (since I want to make sure my "cash" is protected and we get the most possible out of the item). Now you've got the standard exchange fee, plus my commission goes up since I have to work for it, reducing your take (assuming you see anything back) drops probably to below 200 million.
End result: You, the "have not," are basically under the thumb of me, the "have." I get more without losing anything, and you get less.
If you truly want to see prices go down, I personally think the only way to do that is for the developers to add some form of ec sink to the game - a motivation for those "haves" to actually want to acquire ec quickly to complete something.
It would need to be an ongoing, continuous thing that couldn't be easily maxed out, though - maybe like a weekly boost similar to the Delta Recruitment week rewards? Maybe a boost week costs 100 million ec or something, and once it completes you can reslot it?
I wish people would stop whining about the exchange. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. Its a player driven market of supply and demand. Either you can give the seller what they want or you can't and someone else will. Or, it won't sell. Which is their problem.
This pathetic attempt to punish those that attain high value items and sell them for high value is just petty. Let them do what they want and if someone wants it, there you go.
This is economy. The exchange is an economy. That's just the way it is. There are loads of things I want and cannot afford on it. I accept it for what it is. I don't spitefully try and punish the sellers.
Actually it does. you just have to have plenty of creds and, know what needs be cornered!!!
I love suckers that try to do that... taking money from people with this thinking is the easiest way to get rich.
There is almost nothing in this game that can be cornered as you are talking about. A few of the old lockbox ships perhaps cause they move so slow its not worth chasing the market.
When someone is silly enough to take something worth X and try and push it. There is always some one like me that picked up 100s of said item just waiting to see someone try what you are talking about.
For a real game exampl... a few days back some moron tried to push Constriction anchors to 3mil a piece. I made 30 mil or so selling them more at 1.5 mil each before they wised up. Considering I threw 40 or so of them in an alts bank space when they where selling for 50k each I found it fairly funny. The best ways to get rich is noticing early when someone tries to push something that is mostly worthless to a stupid price. Chances are they will by your stock under there price. (back in the doff money making days I used to lay price point trapps for market workers... and I would extract millions from them every day... TRIBBLE some market worker or even better a gold farmer out of millions can make your day... I once made almost 200 million on beta and tet particles in a day... all sold to one person who I assumed was a gold farmer that was pulling a triple shift or something.)
People do try that all the time... and if they push something like that they are very likely to end up having to by other market workers stock for 2x profit before they really have it cornered.
If it in fact stays there because there really is no supply... well that will self correct as well, because there are ways to earn everything in game. Its not like pass lockboxes are shut off like in some games. If constriction anchors for instance where really going to support a market of 3mil a piece, people would be opening that box again.
The most people can hope to do is hold a market for an hour or two... and for that to be profitable it has to be something that moves quickly.
Comments
The poor not being able to catch up with the wealthy is silly.
This is a video game not real life.
The poor... take some D convert it to Zen buy some keys and sell them. Now they have a bank roll.
Or they can STF for an hour every day for 3-4 days and have a 10mil EC bank roll.
Sometimes I get bored... and transfer 20mil to an alt and set my goal to turn it into 200mil as fast as I can. That most of the time involves logging into that toon for 5-10 min a few times a day for 2-3 days. That's it... one weekend.
Making fake money in almost any online game is never that hard. Find out what sells... what sells in volume... and understand that its better to make 3000 ec each profit on something you can sell in stacks of 200+ (think about it a stack of 250 of something that you are turning 2k each on is a 500k profit) as long as its stuff that moves, and small stuff moves. You don't get rich buying and selling ships or traits. Those are one off things where you find a deal on the exchange or decide to pull a bunch of boxes cause you want lobi anyway.
To really turn a few mil into 20 and 20 into 200... you work on the small stuff. Summer season is coming... if you know what your doing during the Risa event making a few billion in the few weeks it lasts isn't hard at all.
Well no need for the rolleyeyes, clearly that is the case. lol
Still the point is valid... making game currency in a video game isn't rocket science. Even if your not counting the market working tricks... just playing the game and stockpiling in STO has always been a legit way to put away a million or two every night.
I say...Better Dead Than Red!
:cool:
"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
Hold on there tiger, that means people would have to take the time to learn things about the game, instead of asking for everything to be handed to them on a plate. How many times have we seen this sort of thread, whether it be concerning Ec, Dilithium or something else in the game.
There's ways of getting around that.
Let's say that I want to get my 1 mil ec, with a 1% tax. Simple enough - 1 mil/.99=1010101 ec (or 1010102 if I feel like rounding up). 1% of that's 10101. Boom. Made my 1 million.
Or the simpler solution - just jack it up to the nearest arbitrary number. Like 1.1 million.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Honestly, the number of people in this game at least who would rather copy/scrounge from others success is pretty high I find. I mean if I was to make a list of common threads and in-game situations that seem to happen a lot:
List could go on for quite a way, and while occasionally you get someone who genuinely is missing the point, I'd argue 90% of the time it is someone who can't be bothered and just wants everything given to them on a plate. This thread is no different, its a mistaken concept that's been done to death over the years and frankly a passive scrutiny reveals the flaws. At the end of the day its a player run economy, and at least in the form it is you don't have a rampant black market due to dumb control measures.
I knew this forum was full of people with no clue about economics, but seriously? :eek:
No... They're socialists. The basic definition of Socialism is pissing in the wind and hoping it works how you want it too. But it never actually does.
Another day another forced political comment accompanied by trouble with homonyms.
"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 we all hated it, nobody would be doing it.
The exchange works fine (except for the broken search functions), so let's keep meddling fingers out of it.
Is that what you want, a few elitist clods that lord over the majority? The one and only one thing that would be good that would come out of this is people interacting more with private trades to avoid the tax. But even then, people like you would moan about that in the long run and demand that all private trades involving EC have a tax too.
So no, terrible idea.
This games exchange is the only one that isn't anal retentive about the service! You can sell without needing EC, don't mess that up for us or I will send Liam Neeson after you! <I'm also making a very intimidating face right now!> Are you scared yet?
You know other players are greedy centered monsters, and overcharge everything ether out of desperation to get the latest goodies or fill their Uncle Scrooge money bin! I used to be one of them, I know how they think!
So if you wish to curse, please don't do this to the last refuge of MMO decency out there! Instead, sweet talk them into adding an investment pool.
Here is the idea, investing into your fleet> investing into it at the beginning of the week, depending one how much and how many played that week, you would return more from your investment. How many others invested would also affect the total take home every week as well.
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
The problem, of course, with the "just work the exchange! Lots o' cash!" theory (and I've seen it mentioned in every MMO I've played) is that it only works if there's a large population of people not doing it, to serve as credit sources/suckers for the ones who are. (i.e, if everyone were doing it, there'd be no money in it. Because there'd be no-one to buy your stuff.)
Defending The Galaxy By Breaking One Starfleet Regulation After The Next.
<The bug ship sellers, maybe!>
I'm saying the more resourceful and ruthless you are on the exchange, the more profitable it will be for you. I once memorized the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, and that is what helped me to earn enough to buy all of the Ferengi prizes for Luna. They aren't just a running joke from Star Trek, they actually are a helpful guideline for making EC in an MMO!
Find whats popular and selling, then exploit it! You will find small items sell faster, clumped together they add up fast. Treat it as a daily, and you should have a more EC to work with.
But set goals for yourself as I did, so you aren't just grinding cash every login session. Know what you want before you begin earning or you end up becoming burnt out. The goal will be more satisfying once you can relax afterward and resume the game.
[ $ ]
"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!" -Lina Inverse
I make 90% of my EC off of other people attempting to work the exchange.
This is like saying you can only work the stock market if every shlub in the world doesn't. Its not true.
I love when I see someone else moving in my market... the trick isn't finding items with no competition. The trick is finding the items with a lot of competition and knowing how to not be the last guy out.
With PVP being dead in this game... Exchange PvP is all we have left... leaving some Whale/gold farmer holding the bag is more fun then playing the game part of sto these days.
Think if you got lucky and had a Sheshar dropped in your lap (assuming a value of about 400 million ec). You sell this thing and your problems are over, except you don't have the "cash" to even list it, let alone keep it up for the several days or week it may take to sell. How are you, as a "have not," supposed to get any value from this?
You could turn to trade channels, which you may not even know anything about. Hopefully, you find the one person online who speaks your language well enough to transact at the same time you can be online. If you don't, you're pretty well screwed and just sit on it for as long as it takes for the stars to align.
If you're trying to buy something rare, that could get even worse as there may only be one person who can sell you what you want, and every time you say no he just raises the price out of spite.
Without trade channels, you're left with trying to find a sponsor or "Investor." You come to me asking for the "cash" to list it - which, under your system, could potentially get up above 40 million. Assuming I'd even consider this (which I wouldn't because of the HUGE risk to me), I'd first insist on being paid back in full, plus at least a 10% commission for the risk I'm taking trusting you. The end result is that your 400 million item just dropped to 300 million - all coming out of your take, not mine.
If that ever happened, I can guarantee it would die quickly as leeches started realizing they could just scam "haves" out of millions of ec by asking, with no form of compensation possible.
What would be more likely is that I, as an experienced seller, would insist that you give me the item and I'll handle the selling of it myself (since I want to make sure my "cash" is protected and we get the most possible out of the item). Now you've got the standard exchange fee, plus my commission goes up since I have to work for it, reducing your take (assuming you see anything back) drops probably to below 200 million.
End result: You, the "have not," are basically under the thumb of me, the "have." I get more without losing anything, and you get less.
If you truly want to see prices go down, I personally think the only way to do that is for the developers to add some form of ec sink to the game - a motivation for those "haves" to actually want to acquire ec quickly to complete something.
It would need to be an ongoing, continuous thing that couldn't be easily maxed out, though - maybe like a weekly boost similar to the Delta Recruitment week rewards? Maybe a boost week costs 100 million ec or something, and once it completes you can reslot it?
That was exactly what I was going to say.
Ditto here!
This pathetic attempt to punish those that attain high value items and sell them for high value is just petty. Let them do what they want and if someone wants it, there you go.
Very well said. Its a very selfish tactic.
And, just as bad as those who corner markets!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I've seen people try to do this, it doesn't work. Don't state something theoretical and assume it's a fact.
This is economy. The exchange is an economy. That's just the way it is. There are loads of things I want and cannot afford on it. I accept it for what it is. I don't spitefully try and punish the sellers.
Actually it does. you just have to have plenty of creds and, know what needs be cornered!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I love suckers that try to do that... taking money from people with this thinking is the easiest way to get rich.
There is almost nothing in this game that can be cornered as you are talking about. A few of the old lockbox ships perhaps cause they move so slow its not worth chasing the market.
When someone is silly enough to take something worth X and try and push it. There is always some one like me that picked up 100s of said item just waiting to see someone try what you are talking about.
For a real game exampl... a few days back some moron tried to push Constriction anchors to 3mil a piece. I made 30 mil or so selling them more at 1.5 mil each before they wised up. Considering I threw 40 or so of them in an alts bank space when they where selling for 50k each I found it fairly funny. The best ways to get rich is noticing early when someone tries to push something that is mostly worthless to a stupid price. Chances are they will by your stock under there price. (back in the doff money making days I used to lay price point trapps for market workers... and I would extract millions from them every day... TRIBBLE some market worker or even better a gold farmer out of millions can make your day... I once made almost 200 million on beta and tet particles in a day... all sold to one person who I assumed was a gold farmer that was pulling a triple shift or something.)
People do try that all the time... and if they push something like that they are very likely to end up having to by other market workers stock for 2x profit before they really have it cornered.
If it in fact stays there because there really is no supply... well that will self correct as well, because there are ways to earn everything in game. Its not like pass lockboxes are shut off like in some games. If constriction anchors for instance where really going to support a market of 3mil a piece, people would be opening that box again.
The most people can hope to do is hold a market for an hour or two... and for that to be profitable it has to be something that moves quickly.