Reasons for a need in the dilithium refinement cap

seb00 · April 2016

For a very long time now 8000 (8500 with fleet dilithium holding doff assignment) has been more than sufficient as a daily limit to pace progress through the game. However with the addition of and increase in costs of doff rarity exchanges, reputation factions, and the sheer cost of both upgrade materials and upgrades themselves in dilithium, an 8500 cap slows progress down to a point where it has become more of a source of frustration than a good pacing mechanic. I'm not saying that it needs to be increased to a ridiculous level, that would just destroy game pacing and make everyone a superhero. I'm suggesting more of a re-balance based on increased options and costs. As a suggestion perhaps 1.5 times the current amount or 12k dilithium per day would not be a bad start. This would allow for more versatile and expedient gear progression without breaking the pace of the end game. Just some food for thought.

noroblad · April 2016

Messing with it at all will have a drastic effect on the zen-dil economy.
By drastic I will point to neverwinter which had a good year or longer period of time where the max rate of currency to zen was not enough so people did NOT sell zen, at all.

Even a small change like 1.5 (which isnt actually a small change) is pretty huge across the game.
Say there are what, 10k serious players? And each of those 10k serious players have an average of say 5 alts? That would introduce 50k * 4k dil into the system daily: 200k more dil dumped into the exchange.

We are already sitting on nearly 350 dil / 1 zen. The cap is 500, I think. Is this enough to tip it over so that its no longer possible to get enough dil for a zen to make selling zen worthwhile? I do not know, but having experienced a game with a dead exchange I am hesitant to encourage a change that might create that issue over here.

If it were not for the zen/dil relationship I would actually advocate removing the cap. It does not really do anything useful anymore... the bulk of the players are done gearing out and done building starbases and done upgrading. So it holds casual players back and does nothing to the hard core players except limit how many lockboxes they can open or something. If they removed the dil/zen ratio cap it would probably be fine (eventually) after a period of adjustment in the marketplace.

Anyway, there is your counter argument. It has nothing to do with slowing player's progress though, which is not necessary anymore.

rattler2 · April 2016

I have to agree with noroblad. An increase in the refine cap will devastate the Economy. I tried buying Zen via Astral Diamonds in Neverwinter. I got 0 because no one was selling since not only was there QUITE a bit of ADs, but it was required for many things, including their version of the Exchange of all things! Neverwinter's economy is hosed. I heard that Champions Online's economy is pretty bad too. STO is on a fence really, with the rates being affected by in game events and sales.

davefenestrator · April 2016

Yes. this will hurt the F2P players who buy zen with dil instead of real world cash, by increasing the ratio to at least 450 to 1. That won't affect me personally, but those with more time than money will be punished.

For those with more money than time, you can always grab an extra 30,000+ dil for 100 zen. Or wait for upgrade weekends when you get twice as many upgrade tech points for your dil.

farranor · April 2016

The cap is what gives dilithium its value. If they raised it by X%, zen sellers would charge X% more, dil ships would cost X% more, upgrades would cost X% more, fleet projects would require X% more, and so on. All it would do is cause inflation. You wouldn't get any increase in purchasing power.

bobbydazlers · April 2016

in actual fact with the way the dilithium exchange rate is going lately and the lack of any substantial dil sinks I was thinking more along the lines of lowering the refine cap to 5000 a day.
just some food for thought.

bobbydazlers · April 2016

coldnapalm wrote: »

bobbydazlers wrote: »

in actual fact with the way the dilithium exchange rate is going lately and the lack of any substantial dil sinks I was thinking more along the lines of lowering the refine cap to 5000 a day.
just some food for thought.

Actually, that won't affect the hard core farmers too much. They generally don't reach cap with any of their toons since it would take too long. You use 10+ alts and do quick things to rack in 3-5k dil each for arounbd 40k refines per day. If you REALLY want to reign in the dil market, they need to make dil an account resource and make it so you can only refine 15-25k dil per day per account. But alts pad their metrics...so not likely to change soon.

indeed it may not affect the hard core farmers too much but I believe it will affect more players then it will not, I think there are far more players with 6 or less characters then there are with 7 or more.
I think this will bring down the total amount of refined dilithium entering the game overall especially when there is an event that pays 50k dil.
this cannot hurt the dilithium exchange rate and will most likely bring down the rate or at least stabilise it at the level it is now.
of course the effect will not be immediate due to the amount of refined dil in the game already but over time you would see the dil exchange rate gradually decrease as the refined dilithium in the game is gradually used up I think.

angrytarg · April 2016

The cap is there to deliberately slow you down and give you incentives to log in. It's not meant to make anything better for you, the side effect is a somewhat checked dilithium exchange rate but that's not the main reason a cap exist. As such they will not change the cap (maybe lower it, though) as it would result in less mandatory log-ins.

kiralyn · April 2016

And yeah, a raised cap might not hurt the top-end players who max out (and more) their refining every day.... and therefore have plenty of unrefined lying around, and would have more refined & therefore could still afford to grab some zen even at 500.

But it would suck for the lower-end players who don't max out every day, who don't have a backlog of unrefined to process. And would therefore be stuck in an inflated economy, with the same amount of dil they had before. Not so great.

(We haven't seen any statistics on what % of the playerbase maxes their refining daily, since they changed the balance of dil gains.)

edit: personally, I don't max out refining on my characters unless they finish a rep, or there's a dil weekend & I have VIP mining claims. But then, I don't focus-play a single character a lot. And I'm in kind of a similar situation as mentioned above for the "hardcore" farmers - I've got around 8 alts, and just give them a set of DOFF and Admiralty missions once a day when I'm being active in the game. Roughly 2-3k per, depending. Been playing the game, on and off, for a long time. Just not at terribly high intensity after the first few months.

thekodanarmada · April 2016

I enjoy these threads in concert with the "ZOMG Zen Market Problem" threads.

tousseau · April 2016

Going to o agree with the others that a refining cap is not needed.

While, yes, it would be nice... I cannot see anything positive coming from it, figuring in the exchange on this.

puckerbrush · April 2016

I say raise the dilithium refine cap to say 100k per day so I can watch the games economy self destruct in a hyper-inflation hurricane.

xsi1e · June 2016

I get how raising the cap can hurt the market. However I have a example of how the cap can adversely effect a dedicated player. A fleetie and friend on mine loves to play STO. Over the course of 4 years my friend has amassed 9,587,887 unrefined dilithium. Currently if he only logged into STO to do nothing but refine his dilithium it would take him nearly 4 year. This is based off the 8500 daily refinement cap. My solution for players like my buddy is this. Ever hear the old adage "you have to spend money to make money". Offer a Zen shop item for "X" amount of Zen to convert "X" amount unrefined Dil to Zen that "can only" be used on the Zen store. (cant not be used on the dilithium exchange). Similar to the mechanic for fleet project only dilithium. I do not know how or if this would effect the Dil Exchange. Without trying it everything said is pure speculation.

whamhammer1 · June 2016

I find it extremely amusing that some people seem to think that the only place that dil goes to is the exchange. I spend plenty of dil on my Stabase Doff missions, upgrading ship equipment, etc... I cant remember the last time I have used dil to buy Zen.

xsi1e · June 2016

There are some people in fleets have their starbase maxed, all their ships in epic upgraded gear, their doffs all purple, their boffs all epic geared. Also there are fleets that are in armadas that every fleet in the armada have maxed starbase. So where to spend dil at that point? I know a lot of people spend their Dil elsewhere, but I don't think the OP is referring to those folks.

whamhammer1 · June 2016

^^ But dil' isnt only for the dil exchange, no matter what the OP intends, and its not only for F2P players who only want to get Zen through the exchange either.

rattler2 · June 2016

NECROMANCY!

davefenestrator · June 2016

No, the dil cap is as it should be to benefit casual players, especially those who support the game by spending real-world money.

Increasing the cap would help hardcore grinders and gold farmers more than "normal" players.

If you have 9 million unrefined dil, that's great. You never need to do anything that isn't fun just for dil. No need to farm contraband, no need to grind for marks. Relax and enjoy playing the fun stuff.

gradii · June 2016

bobbydazlers wrote: »

in actual fact with the way the dilithium exchange rate is going lately and the lack of any substantial dil sinks I was thinking more along the lines of lowering the refine cap to 5000 a day.
just some food for thought.

The upgrade system, fleet system, rep system, all requiring large amounts of dill not enough for you hmm?

gradii · June 2016

whamhammer1 wrote: »

I find it extremely amusing that some people seem to think that the only place that dil goes to is the exchange. I spend plenty of dil on my Stabase Doff missions, upgrading ship equipment, etc... I cant remember the last time I have used dil to buy Zen.

I know right!?

drmilky · June 2016

make 2 types of DIL refinement, the normal one we have that can be used for everything including the zen exchange and another with lets say 16000, even more, refinement per day but once refined can only be used to do upgrades and reputation projects.

fiberteksyfir · June 2016

At this point, all raising the limit would do is inflate the exchange more than it already is because people will simply have a ton more of the stuff to sell when the demand isnt particulary high right now. Drmilky made an interesting suggestion that falls in line woth the fleet/rep vouchers that have been available from time to time but idk if theyd put in a conversion from unrefined to one of these. If they did my guess would be a tax.of some kind (like 100 > 80 or something)

rllaillieu · June 2016

These threads make me wonder from what deep pit of nonsense are people dragging their math out of, but hey, it's also insanely stupid. Raised refinement cap would allow players to be able to process their dil faster and stockpile it more. I don't know why you all seem to think that people instantly spend their dil in buying Zen. If a person is sensible, they'll go for upgrades and stuff. And yes, I am an F2P player.

starmanj · June 2016

The STO store needs to have a Tokens for Dil refined CAP increase and a Dil Un-refined CAP increase, Like the Energy Credit Cap Increase. And I am only talking only about the 10 Mil Cap Limit. Especially on the Un-refined I am always going over it everyday.

echatty · June 2016

rllaillieu wrote: »

These threads make me wonder from what deep pit of nonsense are people dragging their math out of, but hey, it's also insanely stupid. Raised refinement cap would allow players to be able to process their dil faster and stockpile it more. I don't know why you all seem to think that people instantly spend their dil in buying Zen. If a person is sensible, they'll go for upgrades and stuff. And yes, I am an F2P player.

This is what I do. I haven't traded dil on the exchange in over a year or more. I keep it for upgrading equipment or buying rep/fleet stuff.

drmilky · June 2016

rllaillieu wrote: »

These threads make me wonder from what deep pit of nonsense are people dragging their math out of, but hey, it's also insanely stupid. Raised refinement cap would allow players to be able to process their dil faster and stockpile it more. I don't know why you all seem to think that people instantly spend their dil in buying Zen. If a person is sensible, they'll go for upgrades and stuff. And yes, I am an F2P player.

comments like this are what makes this forum a very hostile one to everyone that doesnt agree with a few number of "core" players.

echatty · June 2016

No, comments like that are another person's opinion. It didn't come off as hostile or anything else. Not to me anyway.

whamhammer1 · June 2016

^^^ This but in a world where the invention of "microagressions" and "triggers" are substitutes for self discipline and common sense, an opinion that doesnt agree with anothers is considered borderline "hate speech".

echatty · June 2016

Oh yes, I know. I can quote something and say that was the dumbest thing I ever read and get yelled at for calling the poster dumb. Yes I know, semantics, but you get where I'm coming from.

We can't post our own opinions in a polite way without someone coming in and calling us bigots or any number of foul names because we don't agree with the OP. Or we can agree with the OP and the other posters call us bigots because we don't agree with them.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. I prefer to post my opinion and ignore those who attempt to troll me about it.

arionisa · June 2016

Actually, I believe it is wording along the lines of "deep pit of nonsense", "insanely stupid", "if a person is sensible" that was being called out.

Being a player that does trade dilithium for zen, I have now been told I have no common sense and had to re-read a few times before I realized I wasn't also being called insanely stupid and told I was full of nonsense..... I am 55 years old and ceased really caring what others thought of me decades ago (family/friends/and employer excepted), at the same time I have for a number of decades also known that the vast majority of people do care what others say about/to them.

It is quite easy to post an opinion without use of any derogatory, insulting, or belittling terms..

sonsofcain · June 2016

I get that raising the refinement cap might push the ceiling of the dil/zen market, but I think if we're being honest it's going to hit 500 with or without the suggested change. Hell, I sold some zen two days ago for 394-1. As soon as the new ships Goin on sale in the exchange, we'll blow past 400, and at the end of the summer event, there will be abother upgrade weekend. Personally, I doubt we'll ever see sub-400 again after that. Basically, if this is the only reason bot to raise the refinement cap, then we might as well raise it. Just to be clear, I don't personally need to refine more than 8K a day. I wouldn't mind it, but it isn't necessary.

Reasons for a need in the dilithium refinement cap

Comments

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.

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.