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The economy
fk21
Member Posts: 3 Arc User
My suggestions on repairing the economy in STO
I don’t expect this to go anywhere or even remain posted as it does make suggestions that will majorly affect the economy. After some thought and discussions with fleet mates we believe this would be a good way to attract others to the game, and even make the game feel more accessible to both new players and returning players who are not super rich.
First I think there needs to be an evaluation on where the price equilibrium for each item in the zen store is. An example of this would be my feelings on key prices, I would suggest that keys not cost more than 25 zen (roughly $0.25), My feeling here is that I equate the lock boxes to slot machines and when I enter a casino I don’t see very many people (if anybody) playing the $1 slots (I don’t believe $1.25 slots don’t even exist) but lots of people play the quarter slots. After discussing this with my fleet mates a few of them stated that if the price of keys were reduced to 25 zen per key then they would spend around $10 a month on keys. Currently they feel that the only use for keys is to quickly acquire EC, because of this they don’t buy any keys at all. I would also recommend offering a key (bound) as a reward for completing the weekly special event. (I believe it would get more people participating more frequently in the game)
Another suggestion is to offer a discount to complete a set of ships you have one or more of. I know many people who have one ship from a set, and would like to complete the set. But they feel that spending 2500 or 3000 zen per ship is not worth it. If you were to offer a discount on the discount pack for the ships based on how much of the set you currently own I believe there would be a lot more sales.
Taxing the Dilithium exchange. This is one I’m surprised is not already done. My suggestion is to tax us 15% when listing Dilithium, this would help create a Dilithium sink in the game, (Or even when transferring Dilithium between characters) This would help as the exchange would be used more for its intended purpose. My long term hopes would be that we could see less Dilithium hording like this.
The last suggestion I have is a general lowering of the cost of ships. The resent Leeta fundraiser event outlines exactly how over priced we feel these ships are. The T6 ships sold out so fast that many of us who wanted to have a chance at them even if just for the skin didn’t even get a chance as they were sold out before we got home from work. (In a way it felt like we were penalized) but even then many of us would spend Christmas money, birthday money, or just spare money on the game if we felt that it would get us something worthwhile. I’ve had 3 friends now who I tried to get playing the game, but when they saw the prices of everything, they immediately quit and I can't convince them to come back.
The reason I am making these suggestions is because I feel that this game is slowly dieing and only hard core fans are currently still playing. I have seen no new blood in this game in over a year and the few I try to recruit just shun the game as elitist because anything even decent is way out of reach. This is one of the few games where there is no one build path for everyone, the game is customizable like none other and can be fit like a glove to your play style. I don’t believe that any of my suggestions are outrageous. But I am hoping that they can assist in improving the game for a larger audience.
Last note please try to keep the replies positive so that any possible changes will benefit the community as a whole. If you are one of the ultra rich or have access to virtually unlimited funds because of who you know please refrain from posting, as your perspective on this is most likely going to be askew. I would mostly like to hear the opinions of newer players, and players who feel the economy in this game is broken.
I don’t expect this to go anywhere or even remain posted as it does make suggestions that will majorly affect the economy. After some thought and discussions with fleet mates we believe this would be a good way to attract others to the game, and even make the game feel more accessible to both new players and returning players who are not super rich.
First I think there needs to be an evaluation on where the price equilibrium for each item in the zen store is. An example of this would be my feelings on key prices, I would suggest that keys not cost more than 25 zen (roughly $0.25), My feeling here is that I equate the lock boxes to slot machines and when I enter a casino I don’t see very many people (if anybody) playing the $1 slots (I don’t believe $1.25 slots don’t even exist) but lots of people play the quarter slots. After discussing this with my fleet mates a few of them stated that if the price of keys were reduced to 25 zen per key then they would spend around $10 a month on keys. Currently they feel that the only use for keys is to quickly acquire EC, because of this they don’t buy any keys at all. I would also recommend offering a key (bound) as a reward for completing the weekly special event. (I believe it would get more people participating more frequently in the game)
Another suggestion is to offer a discount to complete a set of ships you have one or more of. I know many people who have one ship from a set, and would like to complete the set. But they feel that spending 2500 or 3000 zen per ship is not worth it. If you were to offer a discount on the discount pack for the ships based on how much of the set you currently own I believe there would be a lot more sales.
Taxing the Dilithium exchange. This is one I’m surprised is not already done. My suggestion is to tax us 15% when listing Dilithium, this would help create a Dilithium sink in the game, (Or even when transferring Dilithium between characters) This would help as the exchange would be used more for its intended purpose. My long term hopes would be that we could see less Dilithium hording like this.
The last suggestion I have is a general lowering of the cost of ships. The resent Leeta fundraiser event outlines exactly how over priced we feel these ships are. The T6 ships sold out so fast that many of us who wanted to have a chance at them even if just for the skin didn’t even get a chance as they were sold out before we got home from work. (In a way it felt like we were penalized) but even then many of us would spend Christmas money, birthday money, or just spare money on the game if we felt that it would get us something worthwhile. I’ve had 3 friends now who I tried to get playing the game, but when they saw the prices of everything, they immediately quit and I can't convince them to come back.
The reason I am making these suggestions is because I feel that this game is slowly dieing and only hard core fans are currently still playing. I have seen no new blood in this game in over a year and the few I try to recruit just shun the game as elitist because anything even decent is way out of reach. This is one of the few games where there is no one build path for everyone, the game is customizable like none other and can be fit like a glove to your play style. I don’t believe that any of my suggestions are outrageous. But I am hoping that they can assist in improving the game for a larger audience.
Last note please try to keep the replies positive so that any possible changes will benefit the community as a whole. If you are one of the ultra rich or have access to virtually unlimited funds because of who you know please refrain from posting, as your perspective on this is most likely going to be askew. I would mostly like to hear the opinions of newer players, and players who feel the economy in this game is broken.
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MMORPG magazine even listed STO as the best F2P game on the market. It is literally listed as the most generous free to play game in existence and even that isn't enough for you whining morons!
Just kill me now i hate this whole goddamn planet.
Seriously?
You should read something else, coz the best F2P is Path of exile. And you should also read this.
Just going to address this part.
You and I have vastly different experiences then. I started playing in March so did three other people in the fleet I'm in - one I might add we're building along with two "old timers who has both been around for about a year. In this time I've recruited 4 people for the game, and by extension our fleet, and most of my fleet mates have recruited somewhere between 2-5 people. Some are long time gamers, some haven't ever really played pc games or at least not MMOs, all of them are decidedly casual and happy about a game where it is possible to be casual and still have large parts of contents to enjoy.
And this aside there rarely goes by a week now where there isn't several threads here on the forum and on reddit about being a new player to the game or an old timer returning plus all the ones in zone chat.
Is the game dying? Maybe. I'm not saying my experience is any more accurate than yours, but given that each of us lies at an extreme and the truth of the matter is likely somewhere in between that. Which of us is closest to that truth remains an open question.
you cant tax the dili exchange. its needed for combining Dili of different chars. the game would die out otherwise.
also there is no reason to tax the dili exchange. its just an exchange between players.
taxing the normal exchange on the other hand would work as an ec sink and would lower prices of things emmediately, cause noone could afford to put overprices items for 7 days into this in the hope someone buys it.
things are expensive on the ec exchange, because the amount of ec in circular is constantly rising cause there is no natural sink other than "deleting an item bought with ec"
the thing with the key is like mentioned: they could sell them for 25zen, and they would lower the chances of getting sth desireable by 1/20 the same time. so it wouldnt change anything.
keysales, bundles etc are already there, and sice you can farm ingame zen, there is basically no need whatsoever to make such complex things into the cstore.
i managed to buy 90% of my storeships just by farming. - so its already a permanent 40-90% off.
I don't think we are talking about the same thing. Good games can be in the top 10, no matter how much money you have to put into it. For STO, yes it is a great game for a F2P, but no, it isn't free at all. The last question you are talking about, maybe you didn't read all coz there is a but : however, in order to compete with the top players, you will have to spend quite a sum of real-world cash.
Which is most obvious by his complete lack of knowledge about the dilithium exchange.
I believe the award was in 2013 but never-the-less it stands.
So you only want to hear from people who agree with you, huh? Anyone who disagrees with you is "skewed", huh? My goodness, the arrogance of some players.
Here are my points
1) STO is not "dieing"
2) More people playing the game is not necessarily profitable. More F2P who spend zero money in-game is not going to help Cryptic very much.
3) The economy does not need to be fixed because it is not broken. By definition, markets seek their own equilibrium and are self-correcting. Markets find their own equilibrium.
4) You can get damn near anything in the game without spending a cent of real world money. It's called grinding. You may not like it, but that's the price you pay for not having to spend real world money.
5) Oh, I know, you can't be "competitive" with the gear you have now. For an MMO, STO is mostly PVE, so against whom are you "competing"? If you feel the need to have the best gear on the best ship, well, that's on you. It's not required to play the game. These arbitrary limits you place on yourself are your problem.
6) The dilithium exchange was "intended" to exchange dilithium for zen and vice versa, not to "tax the 1% because that's what Star Trek is all about".
7) Noone owes you a damn thing. The prices are what they are. Don't like it? Don't buy it. They've still got their stuff, you've still got your money and no one is the worse off.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
i would disagree with all of the scores on the FTP.com website you list here, all of the items that are listed as receiving minus scores can are grossly misrepresented, for example are there micro-transactions yes takes away 5% and do micro-trans give advantages. yes takes away 15%.
both items fail to mention that they can be gained for free by some players just by playing the game through the exchange of dilithium with other players who are willing to buy it from them.
in fact the only game related purchases that you cannot get for free is monthly and lifetime subscriptions and they are totally optional and give players very little in the way of "advantages" from items that the same or better cant be gained through normal gameplay.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
But I agree the game is getting quite difficult and complicated. (which I think is a good thing for us veteran players.)
With one char at 8k dilithium/day that gonna take almost 3 months playing every day plus the leveling to be able to afford a decent ship. But he will also need bank slots, inv slots, ship slots, EC cap increase and maybe other stuff like skill reset or boff slots. For players that did this that way can't say anything else than bravo, but I don't think there are a lot of them in STO. It is easy to check, everytime you are in STF, look how many players don't have the Team Skill Point Bonus.
If you tax my dilithium which I spend so much of my time grinding for, just because I want to move MY dilithium around a little, you may count on my never wasting time with the exchange again. I don't use it much now because I flat refuse to spend more than 225 dilithium per zen purchased. The time I spent grinding for it is valuable to me, and I am already spending to much time not enjoying the game while logged on. SO yeah, tax = kiss of death.
Number two;
I think they should just add a random chance of a lock box key being in each lock box (say 1 out of 10) and that would make the lock boxes a bit more fun. As it sits, I can't support any more dramatic change than that. Either they would have to reduce all the chances for any good rewards, or we would be buried in Mirror Universe ships in short order.
Number three;
I saved for my Kumari three pack, so I know it can be done, and there are plenty of free ships, free costumes, and free inventory slots even! So no, I do not agree that people with less patience than I had should get the exact same discount for buying piecemeal. Like I said, the time I spend grinding for my dilithium is valuable to me, and therefore, my patience also has value. If you buy the economy sized package of potato chips at the grocery store ONE CHIP AT A TIME (!) do you expect the same discount?
Number four;
New players need to feel like they are part of something. No amount of shiney toys can compare to just making them welcome by your manner towards them. Become their older brother/sister, and make time to play the game at a pace they can enjoy. Train them, but at their pace. Tell them when they are doing a good job. Don't make jokes at their expense, don't call them names, and don't act like they are a burden. Be a friend. It works wonders.
So get your new friends into your Fleet or start one with them, and let them buy ships at low rank. Both my main UFP and KDF let you buy at rank TWO! Your friends only need four modules and some Fleet credits to get themselves excellent ships. Better than a lot of C-store stuff. If they are close friends give them a few Fleet modules as gifts. I've done that, so I can recommend it.
Also, one of our Fleet repositories was filling up with Mirror ships, and I'm not joking. I would expect any Fleet worth it's salt to have some very nice stuff to provide for it's members. In case I haven't been clear, I support the idea of Fleets, and the idea that Fleets will be the best way to keep numbers up for STO now and in the future.
Qapla!
And of course... If you play the right time, it will only be 15 days or so until you have your endgame ship. Winter, Summer and Anniversary Event tend to yield a grindable ship, with minimal time spend for it.
6800 posts and you think T6 is top ship?
Also that's 3 months without spending dilithium, meaning no stuff upgrade, no rep buy.
Events are all about luck, you get into this in time or you fail it, no one will wait an event to start the game.
Just wanted to say on your second point that the F2P MMO business model actually does need the new players who start off not paying. A large portion of them are just there to add that sense of MM to the O, and give the social gamers some one to play off of. However there also needs to be a number of players who "convert" into spenders. So increasing the flow of what the industry calls "freeloaders" will inevitably lead to increasing the number of "whales" "dolphins" and so on and would in fact be good for Cryptic.
Otherwise, good for you speaking your mind.
Qapla!
Are you trying to discourage people from earning Zen through Dil exchange ?
Then Keys will balloon in cost.
You think 4.7 - 5 mil for a key is bad ?
Try taxing Dil and see where the Key price goes.
So if I want to buy Zen, and I put up 100k dil, you're telling me it's A-Ok to tax me down to 85k ? For no reason whatsoever, other then you think we need more dil sinks ?
This ALONE would drive more players away then anything as yet seen in game.
Reducing Keys to 0.25$ would do what exactly ?
They wouldn't reduce the key price by 3/4 and keep the lockbox odds the same. That's a pipe dream.
This request makes no sense.
About winning keys from featured episode re-runs, Sure why not, 1 or 2 keys for a replay would be a good promotional thing.
***And as for the Mirror T6 bundle Charity Drive from Groupees.
I got home from work, the site said the T6 bundles were all SOLD OUT. I made my purchase anyway for the smaller ships and the Leeta boff, but low and behold, in my Redeemable codes package, there was a T6 package for me.
So while the site said SOLD OUT on the T6 bundle, I still got one.
Perhaps everyone who ordered through Paypal received the T6 bundle due to paypal having a hard time being processed by the site... I don't know, but I indeed got my T6 bundle, even thought the site had clearly stated them as being SOLD OUT.
the mere fact that it takes time to get these things is neither here or there, the web site in question implies they cannot be gained any other way and as such are misrepresented, if there was a lower minus score for "can be paid for or gained through extended play" it would be different but the scores are given in a way that makes the reader assume these items must be paid for and cannot be gained any other way and as such are unfair and unwarranted.
even then the web site implies that players must have these items to continue or at least be at a disadvantage without which is also untrue when in actual fact a player could manage very well with all of the items that come totally free in the game and never have to either spend money or use the dilithium exchange to buy these items.
there is no way on earth when you consider all of the free c-store item giveaways and the free top tier event ships that are available throughout a year that sto warrants 50% score as a free to play game.
I wonder if the person who compiled the score even bothered to play the game for any significant time and find out how the dilithium/zen exchange works and how much free stuff we get or did they just look at the c-store items and jump to misguided conclusions.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I whole heartily disagree with the tax on the dil exchange. That would make the dil to zen rate worse for zen sellers. Zen sellers like me love high dil rates, 500 to 1 is ideal.
But the lockbox key and promo pack prices rise to meet it so if your converting from money to EC or dilithium to EC you still retain the same buying power. If you have a stack of EC sitting around for a long time and don't do anything with it, it will devalue because of inflation. This is the whole point of investments.
I learned this in middle school for Christ's sake!
Keys don't get you anything you need or necessarily want to play the game, so meh, who cares? Flying some second-hand alien rustbucket is sketchy anyway.
Everybody has an idea to Whip Inflation Now (tm). They all work about equally well, which is to say, not. Any time there's a money sink added to a game that's sufficiently desirable to pull in enough cash to make it worthwhile, the farmers go into triple overdrive so their clients can buy the new shiny and you end up worse than when you started. Eradicate the black market and you might have a shot. Good luck with that.
Though, ever since Delta Rising, the queues have been very much dead and anyone can go in game and check for themselves.
STO is real interesting in that it's probably the most generous f2p game there is, with very few things you can't unlock by playing without paying.
To me that covers your complaint entirely OP, in that, it's time or money. You can buy and skip time, or spend time and skip money. And that's actually the one thing about STO that works and might even be great too.
If anything I am curious how people how put thousands of dollars into the game still have to do stuff like set up time gates and grind levels, same as everyone else. So far as, I would not assume whales would put up with it, it's TOO generous towards f2p'ers, it should cost them money.
But as we've seen with Delta Rising and moving forward, whales gonna whale to the point of buying every last c-store ships to play the singleplayer text based system of admirality, even if they don't have to.
So, I mean if anything the people who throw money into the game are the ones who have legit complaints, the f2p'ers are absolutely spolied.
indeed, and where does that "tax" on zen sales go, strait in the pockets of the game system and lost forever, how is that fair, its not fair on the seller of zen who might not be able to sell because buyers don't think its worth the bother shelling out that much dil, and its not fair on the buyer who might have to pay more dil to get zen and this would make the game even more PTW then it is considered now.
also cutting the price of lockbox keys would significantly have a knock on effect on the EC value, theres no way anyone would pay the same EC price for lockbox keys as they do now, why should anyone pay the same EC amount for a key that only cost the seller 25zen as they did when they cost 125 zen.
this would mean key sellers would have to sell 5 times as many keys to get the same amount of EC they do now.
in fact this could remove lockbox keys from the EC exchange completely, gaining the amount of EC you can get for 5 lockbox keys would take a fair amount of time but if they are suddenly only 1/5 the value that amount is much easier to get from just playing the game themselves without the need to spend money for lockbox keys.
and what of the players that get stuck in the middle they bought a load of keys yesterday then they find out today they are only worth 1/5 what they paid for them, this is bad enough when they spring a sale on us but at least it only short lived, doing this would be permanent.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Yea but that’s become a problem not easily solvable.
There is one group of players who want to run them but can’t because they are not good enough and the other group is so good at it that they reach their daily Dil refinement limit by playing them for 20 minutes and simply don’t need to do more.
More marks or Dil hardly solves it I’m afraid.
Some kind of old fashion queue only rewards would do the trick. Something one simply can’t get anywhere else and which remains acc bound.
5 times critical upgrade chance tokens could do the trick here. Just hang the carrot a bit lower for those who care enough to play…
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Yet Neverwinter is it's number 1 MMO for this month...which I hear isn't a great game...and in the top ten MMO's is a fishing game. Yeah...don't know how much credit these guys have.
And just found this nugget and I quote "Star Trek Online features an in-game store that offers a huge variety of premium items for purchase with Zen, the game’s premium currency only available with real-world money."
Well there you go...that site's review is worthless.
Any ARC employ would stop reading after asking to have keys at 25 zen........you silly...
I don't think that's true at all, for the simple fact they haven't done anything to solve it at all. They done nothing for a year, they tried no solutions.
Much more hilarious is that there was no problem with the queues before they created it, "it's a reporting error" remember that, at first refusing to even recognize their mistake with all the Delta Rising nerfs.
Foolish pride seems like to me, rather than just taking care of your job.