some players put too much emphasis on the exchange, they seem to think that a new player cant get on in the game unless they buy all the gear they need and upgrade their ships to fleet status or by buying stuff from other players for exorbitant sums,
I say hogwash.
since I have been playing I have not had one fleet module ship, all of my ships I got from the game from levelling up, doing events and trading dil for zen to buy the odd c-store ship pack.
all of my gear from the lowest mk12 rare up to the epic I have just from in game drops and upgrading them myself, I can count the things I have now that I bought from the exchange on one hand and I got them for peanuts.
sure I have a few alts I use to gain a little extra dil but I only really doff with them and play them in events like mirror for the dil, I don't really need the dil for myself as I have all the gear I need for a good while, I just want the dil to fill fleet projects.
its taken me a few years to get where I am now but its been fun and I haven't had to rely on other players to do the work for me, I did it all by myself and its that much more rewarding because of that fact.
if I had started playing during the delta event and the alt characters I created then were my mains I could have them to the same state as my current mains in about the same time frame as it took me to get my actual mains to get there, sure I might be missing a few event ships but as most of them are only T5 that's not too much of a loss.
if other players feel the need to waste their time spending silly amounts on exchange items or even worse non-exchange items they don't need well BOO-HOO! that's their choice, perhaps they would be better off being more self reliant rather then spending out wads of EC or real money so others can do the work for them, I don't see why the devs should change anything about the game just to make it easier for them to get what they need off of the backs of others rather then just play the game as I have and get the stuff they need themselves.
if other players haven't got the patience it takes that's their problem.
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 just want to mention something in response to all the "play the exchange and you have no issues with EC". The only EC in this game comes from loot, doffing and now the admiralty system. Playing the exchange does not generate more EC it just shifts it from one player to another. Usually from poorer, inexperienced players to a richer, more experienced players. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Prices go up and less people can afford items.
Just selling loot doesn't get you anywhere nowadays, which is a real issue for new players. Especially since loot drops have practically no value for more advanced builds, they could really just drop the EC directly as it is incredibly rare that a drop sells for more than vendor-value on the exchange.
I'm not whining, I'm not space rich, but at 400m EC and a decked out main character I'm not exactly poor either. I'm just concerned that it gets increasingly difficult for new players to catch up, because the only way to get the amounts of EC you need is either real money (which is fine, but shouldn't be the only option) or playing Ferengi on the exchange.
I just want to mention something in response to all the "play the exchange and you have no issues with EC". The only EC in this game comes from loot, doffing and now the admiralty system. Playing the exchange does not generate more EC it just shifts it from one player to another. Usually from poorer, inexperienced players to a richer, more experienced players. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Prices go up and less people can afford items.
Just selling loot doesn't get you anywhere nowadays, which is a real issue for new players. Especially since loot drops have practically no value for more advanced builds, they could really just drop the EC directly as it is incredibly rare that a drop sells for more than vendor-value on the exchange.
I'm not whining, I'm not space rich, but at 400m EC and a decked out main character I'm not exactly poor either. I'm just concerned that it gets increasingly difficult for new players to catch up, because the only way to get the amounts of EC you need is either real money (which is fine, but shouldn't be the only option) or playing Ferengi on the exchange.
personally most game drops go strait into the replicator and get recycled, about the only stuff I sell on the exchange is stuff that cant be recycled or has no recycle value and then its mostly just sold for a token fee of a few EC.
anything else I don't want just gets discarded, in most instances I cant see much point in buying drop gear off the exchange, if it drops for them then chances are it will drop for me or else something as good or better will.
providing players set their loot threshold to epic at the earliest opportunity they really should not need to buy anything from the exchange.
its not unusual for me to get MKXII rare gear or better in a game drop and then there are the later mission rewards, doff rewards and reputation sets, with all that going on who needs the exchange.
I'm not the best player in the game by a long way but if I can kit out every ship on all my main characters with nothing but MKXII rare or better then I must be doing something right.
like I said in my last comment if new players were to make use of drop gear replacing stuff as better stuff comes available, discarding or recycling stuff they cant use on other ships gradually they will get all they need.
sure it takes time, you cant expect to get all the gear you need overnight but eventually they will look at the gear they have and knowing they didn't rely on others but accomplished it themselves will feel better for it.
Post edited by bobbydazlers on
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 just play the game. That's all. I play the game because Star Trek. I stopped worrying about whether or not I have all the very latest shinys and other stuff like the Big Kids do a very long time ago.
"Dammit, Jim! I'm an MMO! Not a graduate level economics course!"
One of the reasons some items in this game are so expensive in imaginary currency is because there are fools out there willing to pay that imaginary currency price.
You want prices on the Exchange to come down to a reasonable level? Fine.
Method one: Flood the market with the item in question. Worked with crafting mats, didn't it?
Method two: Stop buying stuff with stupid prices attached to them.
Doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics or a lot of fifty dollar explanations by alleged 'experts' about how to 'fix' the ingame economy to figure this out.
One last thing: I also learned awhile ago the shinys arrive in your inventory when they want to, Not when you want them to.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
The game is free what more could you want!?! There is no paid content to speak of, the ONLY thing they make you pay for is nice ships and they even give those away for free three times a year!!! There are less than fifty people on the DEV team who get paid dirt compared to most but they do it because they love it.
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.
I was in Open Beta test and until a few weeks ago, playing World of Warships by Wargaming. I will tell you now, those guys put the playerbase through the wringer milking everything they can from them. For that game, there arose a dirty tactic: They'd take a ship that they were prepping for release that was highly anticipated, then instead of just selling the ship on its own like everything else, they'd only put it out as part of some "fancy bundle" with a lot of TRIBBLE you don't care about but in total, is very expensive. They did this with the Tirpitz.
Then there was the whole Premium and Non-Premium account with marked disparity in XP & Credits earned. Big deal as the grind at higher tiers takes longer and higher tiered ships costed a lot to repair. There was no way to earn premium currency (doubloons) ingame, only with RL money. Wargaming makes PWE & Cryptic look tons better.
One thing is for sure... They get that that STO is significant enough because when I uninstalled World of Warships, I actually did the survey and when it asked about other games I played, STO is one of the default selections.
This game is time-intensive and people should realize that coming in. Without a credit card it will take quite some time to get the shiny stuff that you don't even NEED to play the game.
A couple years ago I calculated how much real money you 'make' by converting Dil to Zen. It was less than a dollar per hour (30 to 70 cents, I forget exactly). So yeah, you're gonna work a bit to earn that $30 ship. And that was back when the Dil/Zen ratio was a better than it is now.
So even if you're working at McDonald's for minimum wage, you'd be better off picking up a few extra hours of work over grinding Dil. Just sayin'.
Well, I can grind out 8k dil in about an hour. At current rate of around 240 zen, that is 33 1/3 zen per hour...so...yeah.....
Wooohooo, a whopping $0.333 per hour per toon, you go grinder lol
My dilemma in regards to exchange prices, is the extreme gap between Fed & KDF prices on certain items!
I get more people play Feds, and more people trade/sell items exclusively to this faction, but really in the world of EC & keys, it isn't all that different IMO.
You can freely move mass EC between account banking, as well as keys.
So, why the huge differential?
Well, I suppose it could relate to odds being better a Fed buying your items over KDF, but when you start seeing price gaps of 2:1 [KDF vs Fed] or even 3:1, it makes me wonder why!
If it takes 2 or even 3 Fed sales to equal the 1 KDF, than the effort/profitability seems a little redundant, because the odds of the KDF item selling at such a high # with fewer odds of a player(s) buying it, just doesn't factor to well IMO.
Not to say someone won't buy it, but watching such an item sit for god knows how long not selling, and the seller not bringing the price(s) down to better suite the demand, nor people really even supplying the demand on the KDF faction side, seems very lopsided IMO.
I don't know the exact # difference between active KDF vs Fed, but I am willing to bet the Fed side is higher, which is understandable why more supply is usually available, and why price competition is more relevant.
But, the KDF side price on similar/exact same items, tends to get blown out of proportion sometimes [not always].
Especially when the supply is kept low, and the demand starts drying up due to the overpriced supply there is, if you can even call it supply!!!
This game is time-intensive and people should realize that coming in. Without a credit card it will take quite some time to get the shiny stuff that you don't even NEED to play the game.
A couple years ago I calculated how much real money you 'make' by converting Dil to Zen. It was less than a dollar per hour (30 to 70 cents, I forget exactly). So yeah, you're gonna work a bit to earn that $30 ship. And that was back when the Dil/Zen ratio was a better than it is now.
So even if you're working at McDonald's for minimum wage, you'd be better off picking up a few extra hours of work over grinding Dil. Just sayin'.
Well, I can grind out 8k dil in about an hour. At current rate of around 240 zen, that is 33 1/3 zen per hour...so...yeah.....
Wooohooo, a whopping $0.333 per hour per toon, you go grinder lol
Yeah...but most other free MMO actually are sub 10 cents an hour conversion and many are sub 5 cents...so really STO is pretty generous. At 33 cents an hour, it is actually feasable to get stuff you want by just playing the game...and if you like to actually PLAY the game instead of what people on this board seem to want to do and just AFK and leech and make everyone else's life harder...then that 33 cents is kinda just a bonus really.
My dilemma in regards to exchange prices, is the extreme gap between Fed & KDF prices on certain items!
I get more people play Feds, and more people trade/sell items exclusively to this faction, but really in the world of EC & keys, it isn't all that different IMO.
You can freely move mass EC between account banking, as well as keys.
So, why the huge differential?
Well, I suppose it could relate to odds being better a Fed buying your items over KDF, but when you start seeing price gaps of 2:1 [KDF vs Fed] or even 3:1, it makes me wonder why!
If it takes 2 or even 3 Fed sales to equal the 1 KDF, than the effort/profitability seems a little redundant, because the odds of the KDF item selling at such a high # with fewer odds of a player(s) buying it, just doesn't factor to well IMO.
Not to say someone won't buy it, but watching such an item sit for god knows how long not selling, and the seller not bringing the price(s) down to better suite the demand, nor people really even supplying the demand on the KDF faction side, seems very lopsided IMO.
I don't know the exact # difference between active KDF vs Fed, but I am willing to bet the Fed side is higher, which is understandable why more supply is usually available, and why price competition is more relevant.
But, the KDF side price on similar/exact same items, tends to get blown out of proportion sometimes [not always].
Especially when the supply is kept low, and the demand starts drying up due to the overpriced supply there is, if you can even call it supply!!!
KDF gear being more expensive has been a fact of life in sto as far back as I can remember.
A great many fewer people play kdf and therefore many fewer lockboxes are opened kdf-side.
At the same time, the people who do play KDF tend to be passionate about it, and willing to spend extra.
To anyone out there opening lockboxes to make a space buck, always open them on KDF toons, and always open doff packs on KDF toons too. You can sell the loot for more if it is KDF-specific.
Well, that's kind of my point, it really doesn't cost any more to open boxes for either faction really, it just boils down to more people not wanting to bother with the KDF faction, but it's their loss of potential revenue by either overpricing, or simply not making anything available.
I myself don't mind spending a little bit more, but 2X - 3X+ vs Fed is by far rediculous [granted not on everything], especially if they aren't going to offer a decent supply to boot.
I have a Klingon toon, I would probably play it more if the UI wasn't so painful to look at. I just wish there was a neutral setting for that interface and display.
I am still waiting for a good argument being made on how exchange sold lock box ships and other "high end gear" is the only/must have way for a newer player to be "competitive" in this game.
Aren't the KDF still just contraband farming alts for rich Feddy mains?
MY God, the dishonor...
Living life as a Klingon, only to farm contraband for the Federation...
There will be no Sto'Vo'Kor for these sad, lame, warriors.
Never knowing the glory of battle, never knowing the weighted feel of a bat'leth in hand.
Fading away, rather then burning out in glorious battle.
I am still waiting for a good argument being made on how exchange sold lock box ships and other "high end gear" is the only/must have way for a newer player to be "competitive" in this game.
Its not ! End of story.
I'm still wondering where EC seller sites get their bankrolls
Its coming from somewhere !
Maybe those weirdo's/Cultists who were found gathering in the Original Risa Caverns, or more recently off the beaten path on Andoria !?
The EC economy is broken to the point of being unfixable. We've long passed the point where any kind of sink could be introduced that would affect the rich longtime players enough to matter, while also not bankrupting and disadvantaging the newer players. The only thing that can be done is to abandon it as a player to player currency and convert the Exchange to dilithium. Dilithium has plenty of checks on it to maintain its value, so inflation wouldn't be too much of an issue. I even recall one of the devs mention this in an episode of P1 a while back. The problem is that all the players benefiting from the current status quo with EC would riot, making this a somewhat scary change for Cryptic to make. That half a billion EC they're sitting on would suddenly become worthless for anything more than buying a metric s*** ton of standard consumables.
Changing over to a dilithium based exchange would raise even more cries of Pay to Win, and probably destroy the Dilithium Exchange as we know it. Don't have enough dil for that trait you want that's listed? Go but some Zen and trade it on the Exchange. Pay to Win. Oh, and multiply that by X players, and you'll devalue Zen, which is Cryptic's bread and butter.
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
I can speak only for myself, but I think what all of these kinds of topics really boil down to is want and a feeling that something is out of reach. It doesn't FEEL good to believe - rightly or wrongly - that you just can't have something you want, even if it's a low-level want.
As someone with over 2 billion EC & 2.5 million refined dilithium, I know how to make currency in-game, yet if I wanted to get each of my characters a good gamble ship (Annorax, Sheshar, Wells, etc.) I'm nowhere near affording getting each of them even one without getting almost impossibly lucky. Whether I need those ships or not doesn't really matter. It's the idea that it feels too far off - possibly years - in the current game state for me to have a real shot at getting them.
That doesn't FEEL good, especially when I think of how much effort went into just getting to where I am. Thinking of what happened with the JHAS T6 replacement fiasco, potentially years of work just doesn't feel like it's worth the pay-off, either.
Feelings aren't rational, they're not logical, and they might change tomorrow as new information comes to light, but this is where I'm at and I'd imagine at least a few others are right now. Maybe there are tricks and secrets I'm not aware of that would get me everything I want. No, I absolutely don't NEED to have everything in the game and really don't want to. But at the end of the day it also doesn't feel good to know that 2 billion EC would only buy at most 3 characters an Annorax, or that 15,500 zen (fake currency valued at about $155 worth of real life currency) will only buy me 9 ships - on sale - out of the dozens available.
That's an incredible amount of money to think about spending on just a video game when you realize that a brand new, AAA, full game costs $60. True, I didn't pay real money for it, but it took a lot of time and I'm sure the company would prefer that I had spent real cash. I'm not opposed to spending money, but I have to feel like the money is worth what I'm getting.
I'm not saying everyone should have everything, just that it should at least feel attainable. Right now, for me and at least a few other players I know, it doesn't. Others disagree, I get that and don't blame them. Some people look at the challenge of earning enough over years for that final pay-off, or save up to just buy the one or two things they dearly want and forget everything else, but I know plenty of others who are just turned off by this.
I believe that - to stay healthy and growing - the game needs both types of players (big spenders and small spenders), and right now it FEELS like it's really only catering to one. You can compare it to a thousand other games I've never played and never will play, you can say that something I've never heard of is infinitely worse, but that doesn't change the fact that $155 is still a lot of money to drop on a game for only a fraction of the content.
All the content is FREE, the ships aren't. The ships don't limit the content you can play. I am more upset that we dont get that much additional content every season. If there was enough content coming through, some people wouldnt be focusing on not having a lockbox ship.
If all people spent on the game was $155, thats not much revenue for the game, is it. BTW, when the game started, if you paid a years sub in advance, it was $10/month ($120.00), and got no C/Z store ships at all, just admission to th content.
Instead of complaining about people who actually gambled and got the prized items, and sell it to others who wish to gamble (albeit it for a lot of ec), complain about the whole lockbox process. Better yet, dont participate in the lockbox process buy either buy/use keys or buying prize items items on he exchange. The less people who partake in the silliness make it less profitable for the exchange marketeers AND Cryptic.
Changing over to a dilithium based exchange would raise even more cries of Pay to Win, and probably destroy the Dilithium Exchange as we know it. Don't have enough dil for that trait you want that's listed? Go but some Zen and trade it on the Exchange. Pay to Win. Oh, and multiply that by X players, and you'll devalue Zen, which is Cryptic's bread and butter.
Assuming a switch to a dilithium based auction house would cause a run on the dilithium exchange (and it probably would, yes), what that means is that a whole lot of Zen was paid to other players in exchange for their dil. It would also take a lot of dil off the market and drive the price of Zen down if anything. That means that yes, a person with a lot of cash could pay to win, but they can do that right now by buying keys or ship modules. I could max out my EC cap right now if I tossed enough money in. At least in my scenario, a F2P player with a lot of time to grind dil also benefits greatly because the buying power of their dil goes up, allowing them access to more cash shop items. Dilithium represents time, Zen represents real world cash. Some players have more of one or the other, and the ability to trade them maintains the balance.
Now, I've heard that NW had a huge problem of inflation on their auction house, but as I understand that was due to insufficient sinks for their dil equivalent. STO doesn't have that problem, if anything people complain we have too many dil sinks.
Changing over to a dilithium based exchange would raise even more cries of Pay to Win, and probably destroy the Dilithium Exchange as we know it. Don't have enough dil for that trait you want that's listed? Go but some Zen and trade it on the Exchange. Pay to Win. Oh, and multiply that by X players, and you'll devalue Zen, which is Cryptic's bread and butter.
Assuming a switch to a dilithium based auction house would cause a run on the dilithium exchange (and it probably would, yes), what that means is that a whole lot of Zen was paid to other players in exchange for their dil. It would also take a lot of dil off the market and drive the price of Zen down if anything. That means that yes, a person with a lot of cash could pay to win, but they can do that right now by buying keys or ship modules. I could max out my EC cap right now if I tossed enough money in. At least in my scenario, a F2P player with a lot of time to grind dil also benefits greatly because the buying power of their dil goes up, allowing them access to more cash shop items. Dilithium represents time, Zen represents real world cash. Some players have more of one or the other, and the ability to trade them maintains the balance.
Now, I've heard that NW had a huge problem of inflation on their auction house, but as I understand that was due to insufficient sinks for their dil equivalent. STO doesn't have that problem, if anything people complain we have too many dil sinks.
I recall an exploit where you could put in a negative amount of AD in the auction house and get paid in AD instead of being charged AD which was not rolled back before the game went live "for real". I just ignored the exchange and then eventually the game.
The leadership farmers, with an easily scripted web interface none-the-less, meant the average non-exploiting player wasn't going to be able to make any F2P headway in AD->Zen.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Comments
I say hogwash.
since I have been playing I have not had one fleet module ship, all of my ships I got from the game from levelling up, doing events and trading dil for zen to buy the odd c-store ship pack.
all of my gear from the lowest mk12 rare up to the epic I have just from in game drops and upgrading them myself, I can count the things I have now that I bought from the exchange on one hand and I got them for peanuts.
sure I have a few alts I use to gain a little extra dil but I only really doff with them and play them in events like mirror for the dil, I don't really need the dil for myself as I have all the gear I need for a good while, I just want the dil to fill fleet projects.
its taken me a few years to get where I am now but its been fun and I haven't had to rely on other players to do the work for me, I did it all by myself and its that much more rewarding because of that fact.
if I had started playing during the delta event and the alt characters I created then were my mains I could have them to the same state as my current mains in about the same time frame as it took me to get my actual mains to get there, sure I might be missing a few event ships but as most of them are only T5 that's not too much of a loss.
if other players feel the need to waste their time spending silly amounts on exchange items or even worse non-exchange items they don't need well BOO-HOO! that's their choice, perhaps they would be better off being more self reliant rather then spending out wads of EC or real money so others can do the work for them, I don't see why the devs should change anything about the game just to make it easier for them to get what they need off of the backs of others rather then just play the game as I have and get the stuff they need themselves.
if other players haven't got the patience it takes that's their problem.
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.
Just selling loot doesn't get you anywhere nowadays, which is a real issue for new players. Especially since loot drops have practically no value for more advanced builds, they could really just drop the EC directly as it is incredibly rare that a drop sells for more than vendor-value on the exchange.
I'm not whining, I'm not space rich, but at 400m EC and a decked out main character I'm not exactly poor either. I'm just concerned that it gets increasingly difficult for new players to catch up, because the only way to get the amounts of EC you need is either real money (which is fine, but shouldn't be the only option) or playing Ferengi on the exchange.
personally most game drops go strait into the replicator and get recycled, about the only stuff I sell on the exchange is stuff that cant be recycled or has no recycle value and then its mostly just sold for a token fee of a few EC.
anything else I don't want just gets discarded, in most instances I cant see much point in buying drop gear off the exchange, if it drops for them then chances are it will drop for me or else something as good or better will.
providing players set their loot threshold to epic at the earliest opportunity they really should not need to buy anything from the exchange.
its not unusual for me to get MKXII rare gear or better in a game drop and then there are the later mission rewards, doff rewards and reputation sets, with all that going on who needs the exchange.
I'm not the best player in the game by a long way but if I can kit out every ship on all my main characters with nothing but MKXII rare or better then I must be doing something right.
like I said in my last comment if new players were to make use of drop gear replacing stuff as better stuff comes available, discarding or recycling stuff they cant use on other ships gradually they will get all they need.
sure it takes time, you cant expect to get all the gear you need overnight but eventually they will look at the gear they have and knowing they didn't rely on others but accomplished it themselves will feel better for it.
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.
"Dammit, Jim! I'm an MMO! Not a graduate level economics course!"
One of the reasons some items in this game are so expensive in imaginary currency is because there are fools out there willing to pay that imaginary currency price.
You want prices on the Exchange to come down to a reasonable level? Fine.
Method one: Flood the market with the item in question. Worked with crafting mats, didn't it?
Method two: Stop buying stuff with stupid prices attached to them.
Doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics or a lot of fifty dollar explanations by alleged 'experts' about how to 'fix' the ingame economy to figure this out.
One last thing: I also learned awhile ago the shinys arrive in your inventory when they want to, Not when you want them to.
I was in Open Beta test and until a few weeks ago, playing World of Warships by Wargaming. I will tell you now, those guys put the playerbase through the wringer milking everything they can from them. For that game, there arose a dirty tactic: They'd take a ship that they were prepping for release that was highly anticipated, then instead of just selling the ship on its own like everything else, they'd only put it out as part of some "fancy bundle" with a lot of TRIBBLE you don't care about but in total, is very expensive. They did this with the Tirpitz.
Then there was the whole Premium and Non-Premium account with marked disparity in XP & Credits earned. Big deal as the grind at higher tiers takes longer and higher tiered ships costed a lot to repair. There was no way to earn premium currency (doubloons) ingame, only with RL money. Wargaming makes PWE & Cryptic look tons better.
One thing is for sure... They get that that STO is significant enough because when I uninstalled World of Warships, I actually did the survey and when it asked about other games I played, STO is one of the default selections.
Wooohooo, a whopping $0.333 per hour per toon, you go grinder lol
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I get more people play Feds, and more people trade/sell items exclusively to this faction, but really in the world of EC & keys, it isn't all that different IMO.
You can freely move mass EC between account banking, as well as keys.
So, why the huge differential?
Well, I suppose it could relate to odds being better a Fed buying your items over KDF, but when you start seeing price gaps of 2:1 [KDF vs Fed] or even 3:1, it makes me wonder why!
If it takes 2 or even 3 Fed sales to equal the 1 KDF, than the effort/profitability seems a little redundant, because the odds of the KDF item selling at such a high # with fewer odds of a player(s) buying it, just doesn't factor to well IMO.
Not to say someone won't buy it, but watching such an item sit for god knows how long not selling, and the seller not bringing the price(s) down to better suite the demand, nor people really even supplying the demand on the KDF faction side, seems very lopsided IMO.
I don't know the exact # difference between active KDF vs Fed, but I am willing to bet the Fed side is higher, which is understandable why more supply is usually available, and why price competition is more relevant.
But, the KDF side price on similar/exact same items, tends to get blown out of proportion sometimes [not always].
Especially when the supply is kept low, and the demand starts drying up due to the overpriced supply there is, if you can even call it supply!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Agreed!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Well, that's kind of my point, it really doesn't cost any more to open boxes for either faction really, it just boils down to more people not wanting to bother with the KDF faction, but it's their loss of potential revenue by either overpricing, or simply not making anything available.
I myself don't mind spending a little bit more, but 2X - 3X+ vs Fed is by far rediculous [granted not on everything], especially if they aren't going to offer a decent supply to boot.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Didnt like the Klingon choices when I tried it back whenthey did that, dont remember if they made the Fed ones an option on KDF
MY God, the dishonor...
Living life as a Klingon, only to farm contraband for the Federation...
There will be no Sto'Vo'Kor for these sad, lame, warriors.
Never knowing the glory of battle, never knowing the weighted feel of a bat'leth in hand.
Fading away, rather then burning out in glorious battle.
Its not !
I'm still wondering where EC seller sites get their bankrolls
Its coming from somewhere !
Maybe those weirdo's/Cultists who were found gathering in the Original Risa Caverns, or more recently off the beaten path on Andoria !?
The Keylluminati is alive and well !
As someone with over 2 billion EC & 2.5 million refined dilithium, I know how to make currency in-game, yet if I wanted to get each of my characters a good gamble ship (Annorax, Sheshar, Wells, etc.) I'm nowhere near affording getting each of them even one without getting almost impossibly lucky. Whether I need those ships or not doesn't really matter. It's the idea that it feels too far off - possibly years - in the current game state for me to have a real shot at getting them.
That doesn't FEEL good, especially when I think of how much effort went into just getting to where I am. Thinking of what happened with the JHAS T6 replacement fiasco, potentially years of work just doesn't feel like it's worth the pay-off, either.
Feelings aren't rational, they're not logical, and they might change tomorrow as new information comes to light, but this is where I'm at and I'd imagine at least a few others are right now. Maybe there are tricks and secrets I'm not aware of that would get me everything I want. No, I absolutely don't NEED to have everything in the game and really don't want to. But at the end of the day it also doesn't feel good to know that 2 billion EC would only buy at most 3 characters an Annorax, or that 15,500 zen (fake currency valued at about $155 worth of real life currency) will only buy me 9 ships - on sale - out of the dozens available.
That's an incredible amount of money to think about spending on just a video game when you realize that a brand new, AAA, full game costs $60. True, I didn't pay real money for it, but it took a lot of time and I'm sure the company would prefer that I had spent real cash. I'm not opposed to spending money, but I have to feel like the money is worth what I'm getting.
I'm not saying everyone should have everything, just that it should at least feel attainable. Right now, for me and at least a few other players I know, it doesn't. Others disagree, I get that and don't blame them. Some people look at the challenge of earning enough over years for that final pay-off, or save up to just buy the one or two things they dearly want and forget everything else, but I know plenty of others who are just turned off by this.
I believe that - to stay healthy and growing - the game needs both types of players (big spenders and small spenders), and right now it FEELS like it's really only catering to one. You can compare it to a thousand other games I've never played and never will play, you can say that something I've never heard of is infinitely worse, but that doesn't change the fact that $155 is still a lot of money to drop on a game for only a fraction of the content.
While I understand where you are coming from:
All the content is FREE, the ships aren't. The ships don't limit the content you can play. I am more upset that we dont get that much additional content every season. If there was enough content coming through, some people wouldnt be focusing on not having a lockbox ship.
If all people spent on the game was $155, thats not much revenue for the game, is it. BTW, when the game started, if you paid a years sub in advance, it was $10/month ($120.00), and got no C/Z store ships at all, just admission to th content.
Instead of complaining about people who actually gambled and got the prized items, and sell it to others who wish to gamble (albeit it for a lot of ec), complain about the whole lockbox process. Better yet, dont participate in the lockbox process buy either buy/use keys or buying prize items items on he exchange. The less people who partake in the silliness make it less profitable for the exchange marketeers AND Cryptic.
Assuming a switch to a dilithium based auction house would cause a run on the dilithium exchange (and it probably would, yes), what that means is that a whole lot of Zen was paid to other players in exchange for their dil. It would also take a lot of dil off the market and drive the price of Zen down if anything. That means that yes, a person with a lot of cash could pay to win, but they can do that right now by buying keys or ship modules. I could max out my EC cap right now if I tossed enough money in. At least in my scenario, a F2P player with a lot of time to grind dil also benefits greatly because the buying power of their dil goes up, allowing them access to more cash shop items. Dilithium represents time, Zen represents real world cash. Some players have more of one or the other, and the ability to trade them maintains the balance.
Now, I've heard that NW had a huge problem of inflation on their auction house, but as I understand that was due to insufficient sinks for their dil equivalent. STO doesn't have that problem, if anything people complain we have too many dil sinks.
I recall an exploit where you could put in a negative amount of AD in the auction house and get paid in AD instead of being charged AD which was not rolled back before the game went live "for real". I just ignored the exchange and then eventually the game.
The leadership farmers, with an easily scripted web interface none-the-less, meant the average non-exploiting player wasn't going to be able to make any F2P headway in AD->Zen.