You can delude yourself all you want about manipulating the market. This is a video game not the real world. Cryptic is the only party that controls the supply of everything in this game. We dance to their tune. They are the organ grinder, and we are the dancing monkeys.
Cryptic doesn't really control. All the "wiki" learners miss a key point. No economic theory takes into account the fact we generate wealth from nothing. There is no end to wealth generated. No controls. Wealth is made from thin air.
Arguments about economics in most games are a joke, money is generated with no limits. That's why "sinks" become a issue. Aside from small samplings (player base), in game economies suffer from the endless creation of currency, that throws any school of thought out the window.
Except it is. Example, the recent Delta Recruit event, plenty of people were paying stupid amounts for must-have-the-best leveling-up gear. Even-numbered marks, phaser and disruptor stuff in particular. I just used the storebought Mk3/Mk5/Mk7 stuff and sold any desirable drops. A million a day just from random junk, plus since I was running a Romulan I got 4 chances for SRO boffs (worth a couple million each) as I went. By the time it was done, 20 million with no outside help from friends or my other characters, no farming, no market games, no waiting on market adjustments, just simply playing and keeping 'whats going on right now?' in mind as I went. You want a lockbox ship or a plasmonic leech or something pricey like that yes you'll have to put in some work at it, but anything other than the the super-premium stuff, simply paying attention will keep you pretty comfortable.
The STO exchange does a pretty good job of pricing things.
Some things are quite expensive, but this is only because they are expensive to produce.
For example, to produce a lockbox ship costs on average 250 lockbox keys. Most boxes give out decent consolation prizes, so all lockbox ships aren't pegged at 250x the cost of a key, but nevertheless, it is fundamentally the odds of winning a ship and the price of a key that determine what the ships and other box loot are worth.
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Consider CrtDx4 of CrtDx3Pen weapons.
Manufacturing them is quite expensive. A crtD3 or CrtD2Pen Mk2 weapon costs about 3.5m. 3x omega fragments is about 4m, a 2x chance accelerator is 1.6m.
So, the cost to make a UR weapon with crtd3+random mod or crtd2pen+random mod is 10m ec.
only 1/4 of these will get the desired mod on average, so the cost to make a mk8 UR weapon with the desired mods is, on average, 40m ec. Sometimes it doesnt go UR, and this doesnt even begin to price in the cost of making it epic rarity.
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A bug ship/sheshar requires on average opening 100 promo packs to get. Promo packs are nearly 8m ec apiece, thats 800m ec to produce one ship.
Once again, the consolation loot of lobi and R&D packs prevents these ships from being pegged at 800m, but given that R&D packs are worth 2m, and 10lobi is worth about 1m. a sheshar needs to sell for about 500m ec for people to break even in the long term opening the R&D packs.
If the ship sold for significantly less, it would be a strictly money-losing proposition to open R&D packs.
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People sometimes ask, "why are things on the exchange so expensive?" The stupid person's answer is "bcuz there greedy!"
The smart answer, the right answer, is "because they are expensive to make."
In reality, the 'greed' of buyers is exactly equal to the 'greed' of sellers. They cancel one another out. Greedy buyers want to rip sellers off by paying the lowest possible price for a thing, greedy sellers want to rip buyers off by charging the highest possible price. This creates supply and demand curves, where the effects of 'greed' cancel eachother out, and a fair price is reached.
A price both parties agree to is the only fair price, since if one party did not agree, it wouldn't be fair.
Good thing I had tons of omega techs, to make all those fancy weapons!
Cost=time alone
Fitted 2 mains fully and, had plenty to sell, which they all sold.
Also, the time of my selling those UR & Epic weapons, there were none on the exchange competing so, I had my own market running and, I got to determine the market price for them.
This here is the biggest problem with listing fees. The most expensive, rare things stay expensive and get even more rare because people no longer post them on the exchange to avoid the list fees. They still sell them but if anything the prices go up because the supply of the item is diminished due to having to manually sell things over chat channels.
This is precisely what happened when Champions put in their listing fee. Within a week, every rare costume item was gone from the market. You can't find that stuff without shouting in zone chat now. It is terrible for the buyer to have listing fees.
That's a problem that's not unique to Champions. I've run into it on other MMOs that have a listing fee. At a certain level, the cost of listing without being certain the item will sell (and the item being valuable enough to not want to throw it out there at lower than you think you can get) leads to things 'worth' more than that level vanishing from the market.
Fees aren't necessarily the death knell of auction houses though. Sale fees are generally more fair than listing fees. You still take a chunk out of the money changing hands, but since it's not an up front fee, you don't TRIBBLE over the poor new player who got a good drop, and it also doesn't TRIBBLE over the power player who can simply go off-market with his stuff. The majority of people will suck it up and pay a sale fee for the convenience of not having to waste time hawking their goods like a street vendor.
But listing fees? Why would you go to all the work of creating a convenient auction house system to reduce the burden of item trade and then implement incentives to drive people back to the way MMO items were traded before AH systems were built? Listing fees are proposed by people who don't understand economics, and designed by people who don't understand systems theory.
(Oh, and "Enjoy playing Bloomberg Commodities Trader 2015, instead of Star Trek/WoW/<insert MMO here>" :P)
Market... and playing the market game is part of every mmo.
If it isn't your cup of tea that is up to you as a player. Some people honestly enjoy working the market. Some developers embrace that more like CCP does with EVE.
In Cryptics case they have an economy that works... I am not saying they are genius game designers and that the market is perfect. They are wise enough to listen to there owners though who understand how to create an economy. Crafting materials / doffs ect by giving them uses as there own forms of currency in projects and crafting... they have created a pretty lively economy. It is better then most MMOs and perhaps not as good as the absolute best out there. Still its pretty good. Taxes won't solve the "issues" as the OP sees them. In fact the only real issues I have with the exchange are some of the broken mechanics in the search... I would also like to have search by time expire back. Some winer got that removed as well because they fat fingered a lockbox ship or something. Regardless I loved using it to get the best deals... and when new stuff would hit the best way to see what sort of trade volume things would have ect... was to pay attention to how often they where posted ect. You can still do that but its to tedious to bother on most stuff.
That's a problem that's not unique to Champions. I've run into it on other MMOs that have a listing fee. At a certain level, the cost of listing without being certain the item will sell (and the item being valuable enough to not want to throw it out there at lower than you think you can get) leads to things 'worth' more than that level vanishing from the market.
Fees aren't necessarily the death knell of auction houses though. Sale fees are generally more fair than listing fees. You still take a chunk out of the money changing hands, but since it's not an up front fee, you don't TRIBBLE over the poor new player who got a good drop, and it also doesn't TRIBBLE over the power player who can simply go off-market with his stuff. The majority of people will suck it up and pay a sale fee for the convenience of not having to waste time hawking their goods like a street vendor.
But listing fees? Why would you go to all the work of creating a convenient auction house system to reduce the burden of item trade and then implement incentives to drive people back to the way MMO items were traded before AH systems were built? Listing fees are proposed by people who don't understand economics, and designed by people who don't understand systems theory.
In general games only need to add sales taxes if they want to dispose of excess currency in game.
So say a game is giving its players 100 million gold a day (from missions ect)... if the market is trading 40-50mil back and forth every day... (and the game is only eating 20mil a day, from vendors ect) the developer may decide they don't want people to stock pile gold to fast. SO they can either reduce the gold pay out every day... so that Inflation doesn't happen and make the game harder for new people to get into (cause everyone that has been playing is super rich)... or they can add a TAX on the sales, and make 5-15% of the market activity evaporate into nothing. (there by keeping inflation down as well).
Most developers do both... they control how much is going out and they add sales taxes. (or they reduce the amount vendors pay for trash ect).
My point is Sales taxes are just one of the many tools MMO developers use to reduce the over all amount of Currency in game. Seeing as they have lots of cash sinks and have nerfed all the "Easy" ways to load up on Created EC (like Drop limits ect) there is no need for a sales tax.
Taxes will never do what some people in this thread are hoping for. (reduce the cost of super rare things like High end weapons / traits / ships ect) All it will do is increase there costs... as people offset the tax with higher prices... it will also raise the costs on commodities like R&D materials... because people have a hard time figuring out sales tax / vs futures buying and selling... so you end up with fewer people working that market, and to be honest that would increase the costs overall not reduce them. (As most futures workers as I alluded to earlier... artificially keep those prices in line so they can profit in small bursts here and there.) A sales tax makes that super risky and in order to turn a profit you have to REALLY fix those markets.
People don't seem to remember that EC inflation *used* to be an issue in STO, a big one, but that it was addressed by the devs long ago.
They lowered the value of vendor trash from trash collecting foundry runs.
Before they made the changes, the price of keys had gone from 1m to more than 3m, with the price of all the lockbox loot being inflated along with it.
After fixing the vendor garbage, key prices went down, and have remained stable and slow moving.
A bit of inflation is fine, its healthy, it gives people a reason not to just stockpile ec. Just like in the real economy.
Deflation is a killer, and rampant inflation is bad. What we have, stable, slow moving minor inflation, its good.
I agree. I think the real problem is on the supply side. Some of the older, valuable, much desired items like the leech console and some traits are really expensive only because it's been a while since they were released.
It's not really that, all the lockboxes basically cost the same, you can get them for 10? dil each at different times in the year, and their exchange prices are pretty miniscule.
It's that the modern boxes have more valuable consolation prizes, so more of them get opened.
Look at the d'kora, its basically the only prize from the whole lockbox thats worth anything. So, people are less likely to open d'kora boxes, since they have to be realllllly lucky to win anything.
Cardassian and temporal boxes are a little bit better, both have one valuable consolation prize, a doff pack.
Compare with one of the modern boxes that has a ship, doff pack, traits, boff powers, R&D boxes etc etc. Its easier to win something from those, so people open more of them.
Yeah, it's late here, and I had a long weekend, so I could have worded my post better, but that's kind of my point. If there's 1 good item in an otherwise lackluster lockbox, that item will tend to be expensive because the EC value will reflect the risk the person opening the lockbox took to get that item. I think Cryptic should do a redo on some of the older lockboxes by replacing the t5 ship with a some T6 ship. That would allow newer players to get a temporary price cut on the wanted items and also give our local exchange ferengi a chance to restock for more profit later down the line. Unless I'm missing something, it's a win/win.
What they should do with lockboxes... is retire them once they get to be 3-4 back.
Then take all the unique items in those boxes and add them to one... Legacy Pack.
So all the time we would have the current box and the 2 previous.
All the older boxes would be in one big Legacy box, I would say perhaps even have the legacy box pull 5 base lobi instead of 4 (with the chances to pull more being the same as the newer boxes) This would give people a little extra incentive to open the "legacy" box... and mean things like maruders and galors would still get pulled fairly often.
What they should do with lockboxes... is retire them once they get to be 3-4 back.
Then take all the unique items in those boxes and add them to one... Legacy Pack.
So all the time we would have the current box and the 2 previous.
All the older boxes would be in one big Legacy box, I would say perhaps even have the legacy box pull 5 base lobi instead of 4 (with the chances to pull more being the same as the newer boxes) This would give people a little extra incentive to open the "legacy" box... and mean things like maruders and galors would still get pulled fairly often.
Interesting idea. Since they will only have T5 ships Cryptic could even raise the odds of getting a ship -- instead of the current 0.42% for 1 older ships, say 2% total for the 5 good ships in the pack.
That would get more casual players to open the boxes, and drive down the T5 ship prices so they are lower than new T6 lockbox ships.
That would get me to buy a few of the older ships that I look at now and think "115 million!? Nah, I'll get the Xindi Olaen instead."
Interesting idea. Since they will only have T5 ships Cryptic could even raise the odds of getting a ship -- instead of the current 0.42% for 1 older ships, say 2% total for the 5 good ships in the pack.
That would get more casual players to open the boxes, and drive down the T5 ship prices so they are lower than new T6 lockbox ships.
That would get me to buy a few of the older ships that I look at now and think "115 million!? Nah, I'll get the Xindi Olaen instead."
I like the idea of the legacy box having a higher T5 Ship pull rate... that would be an elegant way to deal with the obsoleted T5s.
They could also make sure there is always a major difference as well....
New boxes could have R&D packs.
Legacy could never gain R&D packs (even once the newer boxes go legacy)...
However to make up for that they could still have Mini Doff packs. However they should not drop one mini pack at a time but 3 instead. So replace all the mini packs with a "Legacy Doff pack 3-pk" then when you open that it would randomly reward 3 Mini packs (gamma / normal / fleet) Perhaps with another small chance to pull a full size pack. This would add some value to those mini packs. Burning a key on 5 lobi and a mini pack worth 120k is one of the most frustrating things in the game. (not that 3 makes it better... still lol)
I like the idea of the legacy box having a higher T5 Ship pull rate... that would be an elegant way to deal with the obsoleted T5s.
They could also make sure there is always a major difference as well....
New boxes could have R&D packs.
Legacy could never gain R&D packs (even once the newer boxes go legacy)...
However to make up for that they could still have Mini Doff packs. However they should not drop one mini pack at a time but 3 instead. So replace all the mini packs with a "Legacy Doff pack 3-pk" then when you open that it would randomly reward 3 Mini packs (gamma / normal / fleet) Perhaps with another small chance to pull a full size pack. This would add some value to those mini packs. Burning a key on 5 lobi and a mini pack worth 120k is one of the most frustrating things in the game. (not that 3 makes it better... still lol)
Im not sure why everybody seems to think t5s are so obselete. For lobi and lockbox boats they all get a free t5u bump and are very much competitive.. I just cracked my dkora out of storage the other day and still do a very decent 28k or so on it with un-upgraded mk xii spirals... And the recluse, wells, jhdc, and narcine off the top of my head are still pretty popular even with all the t6 stuff going around. My fed eng ate the traits from all the t6 boats she has access to and is in a t5fu avenger because it still performs very well. Until (if) we see a t7 im not sure any of the at least lockbox t5s are getting devalued any time soon.
Im not sure why everybody seems to think t5s are so obselete. For lobi and lockbox boats they all get a free t5u bump and are very much competitive.. I just cracked my dkora out of storage the other day and still do a very decent 28k or so on it with un-upgraded mk xii spirals... And the recluse, wells, jhdc, and narcine off the top of my head are still pretty popular even with all the t6 stuff going around. My fed eng ate the traits from all the t6 boats she has access to and is in a t5fu avenger because it still performs very well. Until (if) we see a t7 im not sure any of the at least lockbox t5s are getting devalued any time soon.
They are obsolete in an economic sense, which is the issue. (not that they are not usable to play the game).
They don't carry a trait, and for that reason alone they are worth less sales wise. The market for newer lockbox ships is greater. The primary market would want to use the ship for what it is... there is however a large secondary market that simply wants to unlock the trait and dock it.
The old T5s will never have this secondary market. So when you take the lower number on the market.. and more expensive acquisition due to most of them coming from lackluster boxes. It makes the fact that they sell for 20-200% more then the newer T6 ships hard to stomach for most people.
I mean yes I love my temporal science ship... that doesn't mean I think it should cost 3x as much as one of the newer T6 ships. However the games economy is setup in away where it will never ever sell for less then the T6s because it is expensive to pick one up. If you open those boxes you will loose 90% of the resources you use opening them, as the bobbie prizes in that box are terrible... the only thing worth anything really is the ship which is a 1% chance to pull. So its only natural that if I pull one I won't sell it for less then 200mil or so.
The issues we are talking about are economic ones not ones of viability in game.
Speak for yourself buddy. Personally I made 90 million EC this weekend from selling Kemocite II and a Plasmionic Leach with only mild price undercutting. This funded a whole new weapons array for my DSD and my fiance's D'Kyr. And consoles for both.
If people wouldn't pay hilariously high prices for lucky pulls, I'd never be able to afford that many Superior Tech Upgrades priced moderately even.
That's an error. There is an opportunity cost to using rather than selling the omega stuff. It *costs* the same.
Farming the omega stuff was time -> ec, it generated value for you, but using them rather than selling them had a real cost, an opportunity cost.
What I sold in common omega particles, more than made up for any possible loss from opportunity costs, not to mention the un-competing profits made from my sold weapons as well.
So, the time invested, was more than worth it, fitted 2 mains fully like I wanted, made profit on common particles and, made profit off of sold crafted junk weapons I didn't want.
The OP doesnt realise the exhange is player driven, and the value of EC is simply tuned to what a specific item is worth in real money (compared to zen, dil, lobi)
He simply has no clue how a free economic system works.
This whole thread has no point existing.
Youre not going to change an open and free trading system which has been around for 5 years.
People decided this should become a free2play/pay2win game partly because of declining subscriptions, now dont QQ because the direct result is exchange holding in-game gear only(pre f2p), to paid lockbox ships and other goodies(f2p), and yes someone paid for it.
If you re going to tax players on the exchange in one way shape or form, it wont matter. EC prices willl drop but it will be the same relative value, it will only make obtaining the same amount of EC harder, also for the players that cry about the prices.
So no matter what you do, as long as free currency exists for trading, and the corresponding trade items reflect paid objects, the system will remain sustained.
If you think EC prices are over the top, you should simply not be playing a mmo model such as STO.
That doesn't change the opportunity cost though, it's a technical point but it's good to internalize the fact of opportunity costs. It helps you always see the clearest picture of your finances.
There are two discreet, unrelated things that happen. One, you spend time to get particles, thus creating equity, value, or wealth for yourself.
Then, now that you have acquired this equity, you choose to sell it or dispose of it in some other way. You use it to craft, you forego the EC proceeds from selling it, and any profit you might have made from investing that EC in something else.
If the crafting is profitable, good! But you can't double dip in your accounting, the opportunity cost, the market value of all the materials, is subtracted from the gross profit to find the net profit.
Well, if you deem common crafting mats to make mkii weapons a loss!
Otherwise, time was my only true investment, everything else was profitable.
Ok mods, you can lock this thread now. Ive taken all the economic lessons learned here and have a new idea in a new thread coming soon.
Lastly, Im not being socialist. Im just after a defined and easy to understand value for my dollar. Im not against making a buck on a lucky roll, or after putting in an expensive effort to craft something.
STO: @AGNT009 Since Dec 2010
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
Lastly, Im not being socialist. Im just after a defined and easy to understand value for my dollar. Im not against making a buck on a lucky roll, or after putting in an expensive effort to craft something.
1.) Check what zen cost in dollar.
2.) Check what purchaseables from the zenstore cost at the exchange (Fleet ship modules, Starship upgrades, RnD-Pack etc. etc.)
3.) Check what named purchaseables cost in zen.
And thus you have an easy to understand value for your dollar. In a very trivial way.
One involves people working within voluntary transactions to advance their own standing on a fair playing field. The other involves the forcible taking from people who can't consent.
OP is not understanding economics. Infinite supply of credits, low supply of useful items, so price of items is a very large number of credits. This is not gouging, it is basic supply and demand theory. Using the exchange for storage sends the item to your mailbox for storage which can be done without bothering with the exchange for most items -- its pointless, and I doubt that is what you are seeing (possible, but seems dumb to me).
STO has a nearly infinite supply of credits, with almost zero use for them after a certain point. After a character reaches max level with most of the gear, the only use for credits is to buy things from other players. But there is an infinite supply of them -- one makes what, 1/2 a million every hour or so at 60 just in vendor trash -- so inflation and "high" prices result.
What needs to be done are credit sinks. Not on the exchange, or not *only* on the exchange. If you put a penalty on the exchange, all you do is HELP the farmers and established cartels/monopolies that manipulate the exchange -- trust me, these guys know how to make any system work in their favor. We need a useful credit sink in the game, something we can buy that is worth buying, for example get rid of the stupid "parts" to repair and make repairs cost like 1k / level of the player (60k max, then) a pop. Or put in a fuel system where it costs to travel -- we already have this in part, there are for-pay transwarps, so I am really just suggesting to extend this and/or do away with the free bypasses to the paid system to turn that into a credit sink. Better (in some ways) would be if they just put the very old (t5) lock box ships in the shipyard for 100 million credits each or something, that would get rid of some of the excess. Same for the ancient weapon boxes and such... it would solve the problem quickly at low risk (are people really buying large numbers of keys to open antique boxes ??).
It is probably too late, regardless. Too many EC in circulation to soak it back out now, it would take a decade for any "reasonably priced" sink to drain off the excess credits now.
One involves people working within voluntary transactions to advance their own standing on a fair playing field. The other involves the forcible taking from people who can't consent.
I for one do not support the idea of adding a posting fee. They have it over in champions and it has kept me from posting items at all. More so when I actually get items worth selling, and I don't have enough for the fee in the first place, and secondly, because i never get the money back if the item doesn't sell bringing me right back to the first issue.
It's a terrible idea and would do nothing to stop the problems you're talking about.
The capitalistic idealism that, people need be wealthy and, not contribute to their fellow citizens, is just how this country is headed.
Humans simply not caring about other humans, unless they deem them worthy of their mercy blessing!!!
America was strong, because they relied on themselves for production, now they rely on other's by outsourcing everything for profit margins.
Including worker's.
America (as the original colonies which became the continental United States) was founded without a tax on the transactions of goods and services. There is no provision for income tax in the constitution.
Also-- I do not deem you worthy of my mercy blessing. The weak will perish.
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?
You don't speak for me...so please don't use the "WE" word. This is a horrible idea and why punish those who are successful in selling in the exchange.
Don't force others to your opinion...the more threads you write the more they will be merged since it is against the forum rules. Your ideas fit more like a dictatorship as in China or the old soviet union. Even they are smart enough to work within Capitalism...I will leave it at that.
America (as the original colonies which became the continental United States) was founded without a tax on the transactions of goods and services. There is no provision for income tax in the constitution.
Also-- I do not deem you worthy of my mercy blessing. The weak will perish.
Yes, and just look how tax ridden the U.S. is today!!!
There's also, nothing in the constitution written, that gives the right to be wealthy either!!!
The question of how much you care about others has absolutely nothing to do with your position on capitalism.
I take that back.
If you support capitalism, you care enough about others to allow them to care about others as much as they are comfortable and capable of doing so.
You don't show others you care by stealing from them.
Capitalism is the ideology of stealing, just look how much white collar crime it breeds and, how much it promotes the ideology of capital wealth over bleeding others dry of theirs.
Capitalism is the ideology of stealing, just look how much white collar crime it breeds and, how much it promotes the ideology of capital wealth over bleeding others dry of theirs.
Getting back to the OP. That is a horrible idea. The dil exchange already takes a cut and you can see how the prices for that works. Dil is so over price its insane.
As for the exchange antiprton beams with critdx3 Mk II were at 12 mill not there at 3.5mill. the exchange always correct itself. Want another example, contraband was 15 mill for 250 now is under 8 mill. It just about waiting and know when to buy and when not too.
Comments
Cryptic doesn't really control. All the "wiki" learners miss a key point. No economic theory takes into account the fact we generate wealth from nothing. There is no end to wealth generated. No controls. Wealth is made from thin air.
Arguments about economics in most games are a joke, money is generated with no limits. That's why "sinks" become a issue. Aside from small samplings (player base), in game economies suffer from the endless creation of currency, that throws any school of thought out the window.
Except it is. Example, the recent Delta Recruit event, plenty of people were paying stupid amounts for must-have-the-best leveling-up gear. Even-numbered marks, phaser and disruptor stuff in particular. I just used the storebought Mk3/Mk5/Mk7 stuff and sold any desirable drops. A million a day just from random junk, plus since I was running a Romulan I got 4 chances for SRO boffs (worth a couple million each) as I went. By the time it was done, 20 million with no outside help from friends or my other characters, no farming, no market games, no waiting on market adjustments, just simply playing and keeping 'whats going on right now?' in mind as I went. You want a lockbox ship or a plasmonic leech or something pricey like that yes you'll have to put in some work at it, but anything other than the the super-premium stuff, simply paying attention will keep you pretty comfortable.
Good thing I had tons of omega techs, to make all those fancy weapons!
Cost=time alone
Fitted 2 mains fully and, had plenty to sell, which they all sold.
Also, the time of my selling those UR & Epic weapons, there were none on the exchange competing so, I had my own market running and, I got to determine the market price for them.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
That's a problem that's not unique to Champions. I've run into it on other MMOs that have a listing fee. At a certain level, the cost of listing without being certain the item will sell (and the item being valuable enough to not want to throw it out there at lower than you think you can get) leads to things 'worth' more than that level vanishing from the market.
Fees aren't necessarily the death knell of auction houses though. Sale fees are generally more fair than listing fees. You still take a chunk out of the money changing hands, but since it's not an up front fee, you don't TRIBBLE over the poor new player who got a good drop, and it also doesn't TRIBBLE over the power player who can simply go off-market with his stuff. The majority of people will suck it up and pay a sale fee for the convenience of not having to waste time hawking their goods like a street vendor.
But listing fees? Why would you go to all the work of creating a convenient auction house system to reduce the burden of item trade and then implement incentives to drive people back to the way MMO items were traded before AH systems were built? Listing fees are proposed by people who don't understand economics, and designed by people who don't understand systems theory.
Market... and playing the market game is part of every mmo.
If it isn't your cup of tea that is up to you as a player. Some people honestly enjoy working the market. Some developers embrace that more like CCP does with EVE.
In Cryptics case they have an economy that works... I am not saying they are genius game designers and that the market is perfect. They are wise enough to listen to there owners though who understand how to create an economy. Crafting materials / doffs ect by giving them uses as there own forms of currency in projects and crafting... they have created a pretty lively economy. It is better then most MMOs and perhaps not as good as the absolute best out there. Still its pretty good. Taxes won't solve the "issues" as the OP sees them. In fact the only real issues I have with the exchange are some of the broken mechanics in the search... I would also like to have search by time expire back. Some winer got that removed as well because they fat fingered a lockbox ship or something. Regardless I loved using it to get the best deals... and when new stuff would hit the best way to see what sort of trade volume things would have ect... was to pay attention to how often they where posted ect. You can still do that but its to tedious to bother on most stuff.
In general games only need to add sales taxes if they want to dispose of excess currency in game.
So say a game is giving its players 100 million gold a day (from missions ect)... if the market is trading 40-50mil back and forth every day... (and the game is only eating 20mil a day, from vendors ect) the developer may decide they don't want people to stock pile gold to fast. SO they can either reduce the gold pay out every day... so that Inflation doesn't happen and make the game harder for new people to get into (cause everyone that has been playing is super rich)... or they can add a TAX on the sales, and make 5-15% of the market activity evaporate into nothing. (there by keeping inflation down as well).
Most developers do both... they control how much is going out and they add sales taxes. (or they reduce the amount vendors pay for trash ect).
My point is Sales taxes are just one of the many tools MMO developers use to reduce the over all amount of Currency in game. Seeing as they have lots of cash sinks and have nerfed all the "Easy" ways to load up on Created EC (like Drop limits ect) there is no need for a sales tax.
Taxes will never do what some people in this thread are hoping for. (reduce the cost of super rare things like High end weapons / traits / ships ect) All it will do is increase there costs... as people offset the tax with higher prices... it will also raise the costs on commodities like R&D materials... because people have a hard time figuring out sales tax / vs futures buying and selling... so you end up with fewer people working that market, and to be honest that would increase the costs overall not reduce them. (As most futures workers as I alluded to earlier... artificially keep those prices in line so they can profit in small bursts here and there.) A sales tax makes that super risky and in order to turn a profit you have to REALLY fix those markets.
I agree. I think the real problem is on the supply side. Some of the older, valuable, much desired items like the leech console and some traits are really expensive only because it's been a while since they were released.
Yeah, it's late here, and I had a long weekend, so I could have worded my post better, but that's kind of my point. If there's 1 good item in an otherwise lackluster lockbox, that item will tend to be expensive because the EC value will reflect the risk the person opening the lockbox took to get that item. I think Cryptic should do a redo on some of the older lockboxes by replacing the t5 ship with a some T6 ship. That would allow newer players to get a temporary price cut on the wanted items and also give our local exchange ferengi a chance to restock for more profit later down the line. Unless I'm missing something, it's a win/win.
Then take all the unique items in those boxes and add them to one... Legacy Pack.
So all the time we would have the current box and the 2 previous.
All the older boxes would be in one big Legacy box, I would say perhaps even have the legacy box pull 5 base lobi instead of 4 (with the chances to pull more being the same as the newer boxes) This would give people a little extra incentive to open the "legacy" box... and mean things like maruders and galors would still get pulled fairly often.
Interesting idea. Since they will only have T5 ships Cryptic could even raise the odds of getting a ship -- instead of the current 0.42% for 1 older ships, say 2% total for the 5 good ships in the pack.
That would get more casual players to open the boxes, and drive down the T5 ship prices so they are lower than new T6 lockbox ships.
That would get me to buy a few of the older ships that I look at now and think "115 million!? Nah, I'll get the Xindi Olaen instead."
I like the idea of the legacy box having a higher T5 Ship pull rate... that would be an elegant way to deal with the obsoleted T5s.
They could also make sure there is always a major difference as well....
New boxes could have R&D packs.
Legacy could never gain R&D packs (even once the newer boxes go legacy)...
However to make up for that they could still have Mini Doff packs. However they should not drop one mini pack at a time but 3 instead. So replace all the mini packs with a "Legacy Doff pack 3-pk" then when you open that it would randomly reward 3 Mini packs (gamma / normal / fleet) Perhaps with another small chance to pull a full size pack. This would add some value to those mini packs. Burning a key on 5 lobi and a mini pack worth 120k is one of the most frustrating things in the game. (not that 3 makes it better... still lol)
Im not sure why everybody seems to think t5s are so obselete. For lobi and lockbox boats they all get a free t5u bump and are very much competitive.. I just cracked my dkora out of storage the other day and still do a very decent 28k or so on it with un-upgraded mk xii spirals... And the recluse, wells, jhdc, and narcine off the top of my head are still pretty popular even with all the t6 stuff going around. My fed eng ate the traits from all the t6 boats she has access to and is in a t5fu avenger because it still performs very well. Until (if) we see a t7 im not sure any of the at least lockbox t5s are getting devalued any time soon.
They are obsolete in an economic sense, which is the issue. (not that they are not usable to play the game).
They don't carry a trait, and for that reason alone they are worth less sales wise. The market for newer lockbox ships is greater. The primary market would want to use the ship for what it is... there is however a large secondary market that simply wants to unlock the trait and dock it.
The old T5s will never have this secondary market. So when you take the lower number on the market.. and more expensive acquisition due to most of them coming from lackluster boxes. It makes the fact that they sell for 20-200% more then the newer T6 ships hard to stomach for most people.
I mean yes I love my temporal science ship... that doesn't mean I think it should cost 3x as much as one of the newer T6 ships. However the games economy is setup in away where it will never ever sell for less then the T6s because it is expensive to pick one up. If you open those boxes you will loose 90% of the resources you use opening them, as the bobbie prizes in that box are terrible... the only thing worth anything really is the ship which is a 1% chance to pull. So its only natural that if I pull one I won't sell it for less then 200mil or so.
The issues we are talking about are economic ones not ones of viability in game.
Speak for yourself buddy. Personally I made 90 million EC this weekend from selling Kemocite II and a Plasmionic Leach with only mild price undercutting. This funded a whole new weapons array for my DSD and my fiance's D'Kyr. And consoles for both.
If people wouldn't pay hilariously high prices for lucky pulls, I'd never be able to afford that many Superior Tech Upgrades priced moderately even.
What I sold in common omega particles, more than made up for any possible loss from opportunity costs, not to mention the un-competing profits made from my sold weapons as well.
So, the time invested, was more than worth it, fitted 2 mains fully like I wanted, made profit on common particles and, made profit off of sold crafted junk weapons I didn't want.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
He simply has no clue how a free economic system works.
This whole thread has no point existing.
Youre not going to change an open and free trading system which has been around for 5 years.
People decided this should become a free2play/pay2win game partly because of declining subscriptions, now dont QQ because the direct result is exchange holding in-game gear only(pre f2p), to paid lockbox ships and other goodies(f2p), and yes someone paid for it.
If you re going to tax players on the exchange in one way shape or form, it wont matter. EC prices willl drop but it will be the same relative value, it will only make obtaining the same amount of EC harder, also for the players that cry about the prices.
So no matter what you do, as long as free currency exists for trading, and the corresponding trade items reflect paid objects, the system will remain sustained.
If you think EC prices are over the top, you should simply not be playing a mmo model such as STO.
Well, if you deem common crafting mats to make mkii weapons a loss!
Otherwise, time was my only true investment, everything else was profitable.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Lastly, Im not being socialist. Im just after a defined and easy to understand value for my dollar. Im not against making a buck on a lucky roll, or after putting in an expensive effort to craft something.
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
1.) Check what zen cost in dollar.
2.) Check what purchaseables from the zenstore cost at the exchange (Fleet ship modules, Starship upgrades, RnD-Pack etc. etc.)
3.) Check what named purchaseables cost in zen.
And thus you have an easy to understand value for your dollar. In a very trivial way.
No it's not.
One involves people working within voluntary transactions to advance their own standing on a fair playing field. The other involves the forcible taking from people who can't consent.
STO has a nearly infinite supply of credits, with almost zero use for them after a certain point. After a character reaches max level with most of the gear, the only use for credits is to buy things from other players. But there is an infinite supply of them -- one makes what, 1/2 a million every hour or so at 60 just in vendor trash -- so inflation and "high" prices result.
What needs to be done are credit sinks. Not on the exchange, or not *only* on the exchange. If you put a penalty on the exchange, all you do is HELP the farmers and established cartels/monopolies that manipulate the exchange -- trust me, these guys know how to make any system work in their favor. We need a useful credit sink in the game, something we can buy that is worth buying, for example get rid of the stupid "parts" to repair and make repairs cost like 1k / level of the player (60k max, then) a pop. Or put in a fuel system where it costs to travel -- we already have this in part, there are for-pay transwarps, so I am really just suggesting to extend this and/or do away with the free bypasses to the paid system to turn that into a credit sink. Better (in some ways) would be if they just put the very old (t5) lock box ships in the shipyard for 100 million credits each or something, that would get rid of some of the excess. Same for the ancient weapon boxes and such... it would solve the problem quickly at low risk (are people really buying large numbers of keys to open antique boxes ??).
It is probably too late, regardless. Too many EC in circulation to soak it back out now, it would take a decade for any "reasonably priced" sink to drain off the excess credits now.
Not even remotely close!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
It's a terrible idea and would do nothing to stop the problems you're talking about.
America (as the original colonies which became the continental United States) was founded without a tax on the transactions of goods and services. There is no provision for income tax in the constitution.
Also-- I do not deem you worthy of my mercy blessing. The weak will perish.
I take that back.
If you support capitalism, you care enough about others to allow them to care about others as much as they are comfortable and capable of doing so.
You don't show others you care by stealing from them.
You don't speak for me...so please don't use the "WE" word. This is a horrible idea and why punish those who are successful in selling in the exchange.
Why the double posting?
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1471651
Don't force others to your opinion...the more threads you write the more they will be merged since it is against the forum rules. Your ideas fit more like a dictatorship as in China or the old soviet union. Even they are smart enough to work within Capitalism...I will leave it at that.
Yes, and just look how tax ridden the U.S. is today!!!
There's also, nothing in the constitution written, that gives the right to be wealthy either!!!
Capitalism is the ideology of stealing, just look how much white collar crime it breeds and, how much it promotes the ideology of capital wealth over bleeding others dry of theirs.
You know, capitalists support things like this!
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/08/27/starbucks-fires-employee-on-food-stamps-for-eating-a-sandwich-from-the-garbage
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Not quite.
Not even remotely close, capitalism promotes the incentive of wealth, at the expense and misery of others.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
As for the exchange antiprton beams with critdx3 Mk II were at 12 mill not there at 3.5mill. the exchange always correct itself. Want another example, contraband was 15 mill for 250 now is under 8 mill. It just about waiting and know when to buy and when not too.