I only turn it in 1 time a day anyways. So this won't affect me what so ever.
This is a lie. It will affect everyone who even have 1 toon and run the mission once per day because now you have only 4 hours to restart the mission instead of 20 hours as it was before the nerf.
and if they log in at the same time every day, it wont matter. its not like you have to wait another 20 hours if you miss that "4 hour window"
I suggested a means to hit them where it hurts and that is a per ACCOUNT refining limit. I suggested 80k because it's max refining on 10 characters and seems a nice round figure. I'm sure the devs could decide on a reasonable figure, be it a little higher or little lower, but so long as it's not too incredibly draconian most players won't hit it.
Account refine cap is already in place and has been re-balanced throughout the years. The most recent change to it was when it was increased by 8k/day a couple of weeks ago. It seems you simply disagree with the devs on their decision for the size of this cap.
What you are suggesting seems oddly like the years old suggestion to reduce the refine cap per character from 8k to something lower; perhaps much lower.
Capping account refinement won't work. Freshly registered accounts in the dozens are what the hardcore farmers use so they would get around that with no problem. They don't even buy character slots for that reason. Far as I know each account can have like 3 chars right off the bat? To make an account refinement cap impact those farmers they have to probably make it 16k or something! That would impact a lot of non-farmers.
I know this because I once talked to someone who farmed like that. Don't think it's allowed by the rules but they still get away with it or use dynamic IP to hide that.
Capping account refinement won't work. Freshly registered accounts in the dozens are what the hardcore farmers use so they would get around that with no problem. They don't even buy character slots for that reason. Far as I know each account can have like 3 chars right off the bat? To make an account refinement cap impact those farmers they have to probably make it 16k or something! That would impact a lot of non-farmers.
I know this because I once talked to someone who farmed like that. Don't think it's allowed by the rules but they still get away with it or use dynamic IP to hide that.
Yeah I don't think at all that you can have multiple accounts, I figured there was some sort of IP checking in place to prevent it. I suppose there are ways around it, from what you're saying? I suppose that comes down to the age old wars between security and maluse.
I am under the impression one alternate account is allowed. But coming to think of it, the recent expansion probably just gave them another free character slot on any existing ones,, so that's probably equalling four characters now minimum. Not sure if it applies to future ones?
Good idea. Too bad I can't get back the 100's of K dilithium I dumped into fleet projects that get nowhere. The boulder has been pushed up to the summit, can't wait to see what all it mows down before it stops. LOL
Capping account refinement won't work. Freshly registered accounts in the dozens are what the hardcore farmers use so they would get around that with no problem. They don't even buy character slots for that reason. Far as I know each account can have like 3 chars right off the bat? To make an account refinement cap impact those farmers they have to probably make it 16k or something! That would impact a lot of non-farmers.
I know this because I once talked to someone who farmed like that. Don't think it's allowed by the rules but they still get away with it or use dynamic IP to hide that.
Yeah I don't think at all that you can have multiple accounts, I figured there was some sort of IP checking in place to prevent it. I suppose there are ways around it, from what you're saying? I suppose that comes down to the age old wars between security and maluse.
checking similar ips for multiple accounts wouldnt work, if multiple computers have access on the same network. ie. multiple playerss in the same household playing at the same time. and unless they are doing illegal things. im fairly certain someone can have more than one account, theres nothing in the ToS that says one account per person.
I'm pretty sure you can have multiple accounts, there's players I know have one free to play account and one they sub on so it can't be that hard.
The true farmers, those who are probably supplying the gold seller sites are using multiple toons on multiple accounts to do so. Any form of account limit will not stop that. There's supposedly prisons in certain countries where the inmates are forced to farm games like this to make money for the guards, basically a commercial gold seller operation. The sort of farming we're talking about is an industrial scale operation running constantly. The only way to combat this sort of thing is to hit it at the source, the mission cooldown time. Cutting it from one per 4 hrs to once per day won't have much effect on the casuals who log only for a few hours, it will hit the farmers though in a big way.
I only turn it in 1 time a day anyways. So this won't affect me what so ever.
This is a lie. It will affect everyone who even have 1 toon and run the mission once per day because now you have only 4 hours to restart the mission instead of 20 hours as it was before the nerf.
How can it be a lie, when I only log on 1 time per day anyways? It don't effect me at all. Even my Rep work, I only do it 1 time a day. I don't do the hourly.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
It's a good idea since the only CD that it had was during the assignment itself. As soon as that was done, you'd be able to queue another one, and get 12k dilithium (assuming, of course, that you queue'd the assignment as soon as the last one finished) for doing absolutely nothing, per day.
It's not as if that's the only source of dil, any way.
Let me clarify, many players use this feature along with a lot of characters to farm refined dilithium. I tried it but it's mind numbingly monotonous and time consuming, however it is as honest as any other grinding if you have the stomache and time for it and best of all its totally F2P so average and poor players could become atleast modestly wealthy. With it gone the exchange is going to shift very noticeably and I have no idea if it'll be good or bad but regardless of the new exchange rate this is a kick in the pants for F2P.
I can also say that these farmers convert their dilithium to EC via C-store items like keys so they supply a good bit of that market upon which everything else is based. Keys are the foundation of the current economy. Again I have no idea what this change will do long term but if it causes a large EC inflation It could easily erase any benefit of a lower dilithium exchange rate.
I should also point out that contraband has been around since the beginning of the dilithium system and has only been changed once (a slight nerf but nothing like this). In that time exchange rates have been as low as ~160 and as high as what we have now. I don't think it has impacted the exchange negatively in any way.
Once again I'm not what I'd call an expert, I've played with the economy for years and I have a decent pile of EC but I'm not STO Trump so if anyone feels that I've made a mistake or that they have a more solid understanding of this feel free to correct me.
I guess my main problem is they've tossed a monkey wrench into the economy and there's no telling what will happen. It seems very reckless to me
This change isn't about limiting the dil supply, it is about trying to get people the play the game more. You could offer 10K dil with every reward in the game and it wouldn't affect the dil supply or exchange rate because you can only refine 8-9K per character daily. So I think the move is to help reduce stockpiling unrefined dil, to try to prevent people just logging in to refine dil.
Imo It is only a matter of time until they nerf dil refining on multiple characters or the ways of sharing it. Since the massive reward/EC/dil making nerfs a while ago it seems like this is their strategy to try to get people to play more, earn less, and hence encourage people to buy more Zen. This is the lazy way. The better way is to refine the game more and add more interesting content, but I guess that take more time and money, i.e. less profit.
The better way is to refine the game more and add more interesting content, but I guess that take more time and money, i.e. less profit.
I could have sworn the game recently had some fine-tuning and refinement applied (something about infinity) along with an expansion containing a sizeable amount of interesting content was just added to the game, after a considerable investment of time and money.
That is very true but you could also say we got a reskinned federation faction with six new (albeit very good) missions to pander to nostalgic TOS fans and get them to come play and spend money. Also a bunch of new stuff to grind and buy.
Nothing wrong with running a business at all, I love Capitalism, but content-wise it seems a tad sparse compared to previous expansions. I can settle for quality over quantity though.
I'd have time to run missions and play all my toons regularly if I didn't have to spend an hour or so running doff assignments and Admiralty missions every day to get the dilithium that I need to do things that the game requires of me - such as upgrading my equipment - to be able to play it on a level that is acceptable to me. Instead, as a casual player, I end up having to spend my time primarily doing maintenance and time sinks. It's either that or get used to respawning constantly because I'm constantly outleveling my ships and gear on my lower level characters - which is ironically due to doffing and admiralty missions that I have to spend an hour or so running every day to can get the dilithium that I need to do the things that the game requires of me to be able to play on a level that is acceptable to me.
It's a vicious circle.
Balance the game, and stop nerfing dilithium gain please.
The problem with this is it's targeted at those who game the system with a metric asston of alts making hundreds of thousands of dilithium but it also hurts normal players like me who only have a half dozen or so. This was entirely too big a sledgehammer, and it doesn't address the fact that the big time farmers will just figure out another way to game the system.
What I propose instead is a per account refining limit, for example say 80k a day. That's max capacity on ten characters, whoever uses more than that can be safely said to be heavy duty farmers that are forking up the exchange for the rest of us. That's a change that would effectively target the people actually causing the problem while leaving the more average players unharmed.
You're beyond the norm if you have 5+ alts turning in contraband more than once a day.
If you are, you're farming, and lowering the value of dil for the casual players that log in once a day.
Casuals do not generate 80k dil a day.
As a player with 6 or 7 alts (only 2 of which are KDF - One that I play from time to time, and the other that I rolled after I made a Ferasan (that I spent cash to get the Zen for) and haven't had time to play yet) that I use to run Duty Officer Assignments and Admiralty missions several times daily - which I need to do to get the dilithium to do upgrades and the like, in order to play my characters - I've never made 80k dil in one day, unless it was during a dilithium event.
As it is, I don't have time to play my alts because of the amount of time I have to spend running these duty assignments and admiralty missions. (To top it off, the running R&D with these alts takes a considerable amount of time just to make doing upgrades with them viable, so that's yet another time sink that I have to deal with).
So how is it farming if I'm not gaming the system - but rather playing the game as is apparently intended, in order to get the dilithium that I need to play the game without constantly dying due to inferior gear?
Instead of nerfing dilithium gain, it would be better if they balanced the game to fix the power creep, which would remove some of the need for time sinks and Dilithium to upgrade. Make dilithium less valuable, and farming won't be necessary and the market inflation will fall under control.
And then I can spend more time playing my alt characters.
I never hit that amount of Dil. The most I got is the large amount for a turn in. Like end of Rep or admiralty. At most it's under 2k. And this is 1 character. If you add all mine. I may hit around 6k. That is I farm only. But I rather do the missions and play the game. Not to farm Dil.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
(First: I voted because I wanted to see the results in the thread and not have to click every time. I would like to reserve my final judgment until a couple of weeks have passed.)
Let me clarify, many players use this feature along with a lot of characters to farm refined dilithium. I tried it but it's mind numbingly monotonous and time consuming, however it is as honest as any other grinding if you have the stomache and time for it and best of all its totally F2P so average and poor players could become atleast modestly wealthy. With it gone the exchange is going to shift very noticeably and I have no idea if it'll be good or bad but regardless of the new exchange rate this is a kick in the pants for F2P.
I don't think most people have that in mind when they talk F2P. Yes, it is an aspect. But most(*) people don't think "You will be as rich as everybody else if you work hard enough for it" but "You will get good stuff when you play even if you don't pay anything." (Also most(*) people will probably start out with "I don't pay and still get everything, but that dream will quickly be squashed, and of course it will).
(*) "most" means, as always on these boards: this is my personal impression, and I deeply believe everybody else thinks like me, unless they're complete and utter morons
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
(Also most(*) people will probably start out with "I don't pay and still get everything, but that dream will quickly be squashed, and of course it will).
That's quite the phobia your "most(*) people" have. With that kind of outlook, it's no wonder they give up on their dreams.
Here's a thought ... MAYBE ... Cryptic should ALSO ... INCREASE the EC value of contraband (as well as the EC value of other items) for those of us whom do NOT turn it in for (UNREFINED) dilithium; but "sell" it on the Exchange instead.
Currently, and ever since contraband was a thing, its EC value is 500 EC (a potential "Vendor Trash" value of 250 EC).
Why not also increase contraband's EC value to 50,000 EC (a "Vendor Trash" value of 25,000 EC) per unit of contraband?
Personally, I'd much rather have EC that I can use "right now" (immediately) than Unrefined dilithium that I can ONLY refine at 8,000 per day.
But that's just me.
YES I would much rather Vendor Trash contraband for EC (under the "old" 4-hour Doff assignment), than turn it in for Unrefined dilithium.
Here's a thought ... MAYBE ... Cryptic should ALSO ... INCREASE the EC value of contraband (as well as the EC value of other items) for those of us whom do NOT turn it in for (UNREFINED) dilithium; but "sell" it on the Exchange instead.
Currently, and ever since contraband was a thing, its EC value is 500 EC (a potential "Vendor Trash" value of 250 EC).
Why not also increase contraband's EC value to 50,000 EC (a "Vendor Trash" value of 25,000 EC) per unit of contraband?
Personally, I'd much rather have EC that I can use "right now" (immediately) than Unrefined dilithium that I can ONLY refine at 8,000 per day.
But that's just me.
Because about 18 months - 24 month ago there were a lot of people being extremely vocal regarding complaining about EC inflation. An influx of EC will mean prices in the Exchange will begin to rise; it will happen naturally, but pumping more EC by raising the intrinsic value of items to be sold back to the vendors will cause inflation.
Cryptic took steps by cutting the intrinsic value of all the gear and also limited drops in those foundry missions players use to grind EC. They also do other things like reduce the amount of EC from Tour The Galaxy and other things that I do not remember.
I remember back in February 2014 when the going price of Master Keys as only around 1.7m EC on the Exchange.
Comments
That's several people now confirming in this thread that it will hurt farmers. That's good news for the "casual nubs" as one called them.
and if they log in at the same time every day, it wont matter. its not like you have to wait another 20 hours if you miss that "4 hour window"
Account refine cap is already in place and has been re-balanced throughout the years. The most recent change to it was when it was increased by 8k/day a couple of weeks ago. It seems you simply disagree with the devs on their decision for the size of this cap.
What you are suggesting seems oddly like the years old suggestion to reduce the refine cap per character from 8k to something lower; perhaps much lower.
I know this because I once talked to someone who farmed like that. Don't think it's allowed by the rules but they still get away with it or use dynamic IP to hide that.
I am under the impression one alternate account is allowed. But coming to think of it, the recent expansion probably just gave them another free character slot on any existing ones,, so that's probably equalling four characters now minimum. Not sure if it applies to future ones?
Bad for when i have no damm dil at the start of the game.
checking similar ips for multiple accounts wouldnt work, if multiple computers have access on the same network. ie. multiple playerss in the same household playing at the same time. and unless they are doing illegal things. im fairly certain someone can have more than one account, theres nothing in the ToS that says one account per person.
The true farmers, those who are probably supplying the gold seller sites are using multiple toons on multiple accounts to do so. Any form of account limit will not stop that. There's supposedly prisons in certain countries where the inmates are forced to farm games like this to make money for the guards, basically a commercial gold seller operation. The sort of farming we're talking about is an industrial scale operation running constantly.
The only way to combat this sort of thing is to hit it at the source, the mission cooldown time. Cutting it from one per 4 hrs to once per day won't have much effect on the casuals who log only for a few hours, it will hit the farmers though in a big way.
How can it be a lie, when I only log on 1 time per day anyways? It don't effect me at all. Even my Rep work, I only do it 1 time a day. I don't do the hourly.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
It's not as if that's the only source of dil, any way.
I can also say that these farmers convert their dilithium to EC via C-store items like keys so they supply a good bit of that market upon which everything else is based. Keys are the foundation of the current economy. Again I have no idea what this change will do long term but if it causes a large EC inflation It could easily erase any benefit of a lower dilithium exchange rate.
I should also point out that contraband has been around since the beginning of the dilithium system and has only been changed once (a slight nerf but nothing like this). In that time exchange rates have been as low as ~160 and as high as what we have now. I don't think it has impacted the exchange negatively in any way.
Once again I'm not what I'd call an expert, I've played with the economy for years and I have a decent pile of EC but I'm not STO Trump so if anyone feels that I've made a mistake or that they have a more solid understanding of this feel free to correct me.
I guess my main problem is they've tossed a monkey wrench into the economy and there's no telling what will happen. It seems very reckless to me
Imo It is only a matter of time until they nerf dil refining on multiple characters or the ways of sharing it. Since the massive reward/EC/dil making nerfs a while ago it seems like this is their strategy to try to get people to play more, earn less, and hence encourage people to buy more Zen. This is the lazy way. The better way is to refine the game more and add more interesting content, but I guess that take more time and money, i.e. less profit.
I could have sworn the game recently had some fine-tuning and refinement applied (something about infinity) along with an expansion containing a sizeable amount of interesting content was just added to the game, after a considerable investment of time and money.
Nothing wrong with running a business at all, I love Capitalism, but content-wise it seems a tad sparse compared to previous expansions. I can settle for quality over quantity though.
It's a vicious circle.
Balance the game, and stop nerfing dilithium gain please.
As a player with 6 or 7 alts (only 2 of which are KDF - One that I play from time to time, and the other that I rolled after I made a Ferasan (that I spent cash to get the Zen for) and haven't had time to play yet) that I use to run Duty Officer Assignments and Admiralty missions several times daily - which I need to do to get the dilithium to do upgrades and the like, in order to play my characters - I've never made 80k dil in one day, unless it was during a dilithium event.
As it is, I don't have time to play my alts because of the amount of time I have to spend running these duty assignments and admiralty missions. (To top it off, the running R&D with these alts takes a considerable amount of time just to make doing upgrades with them viable, so that's yet another time sink that I have to deal with).
So how is it farming if I'm not gaming the system - but rather playing the game as is apparently intended, in order to get the dilithium that I need to play the game without constantly dying due to inferior gear?
Instead of nerfing dilithium gain, it would be better if they balanced the game to fix the power creep, which would remove some of the need for time sinks and Dilithium to upgrade. Make dilithium less valuable, and farming won't be necessary and the market inflation will fall under control.
And then I can spend more time playing my alt characters.
Win win for all involved.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I don't think most people have that in mind when they talk F2P. Yes, it is an aspect. But most(*) people don't think "You will be as rich as everybody else if you work hard enough for it" but "You will get good stuff when you play even if you don't pay anything." (Also most(*) people will probably start out with "I don't pay and still get everything, but that dream will quickly be squashed, and of course it will).
(*) "most" means, as always on these boards: this is my personal impression, and I deeply believe everybody else thinks like me, unless they're complete and utter morons
Currently, and ever since contraband was a thing, its EC value is 500 EC (a potential "Vendor Trash" value of 250 EC).
Why not also increase contraband's EC value to 50,000 EC (a "Vendor Trash" value of 25,000 EC) per unit of contraband?
Personally, I'd much rather have EC that I can use "right now" (immediately) than Unrefined dilithium that I can ONLY refine at 8,000 per day.
But that's just me.
YES I would much rather Vendor Trash contraband for EC (under the "old" 4-hour Doff assignment), than turn it in for Unrefined dilithium.
Because about 18 months - 24 month ago there were a lot of people being extremely vocal regarding complaining about EC inflation. An influx of EC will mean prices in the Exchange will begin to rise; it will happen naturally, but pumping more EC by raising the intrinsic value of items to be sold back to the vendors will cause inflation.
Cryptic took steps by cutting the intrinsic value of all the gear and also limited drops in those foundry missions players use to grind EC. They also do other things like reduce the amount of EC from Tour The Galaxy and other things that I do not remember.
I remember back in February 2014 when the going price of Master Keys as only around 1.7m EC on the Exchange.
The day after the nerf went live it was down to around 380 dil per zen. Today it's back up to around 405 dil per zen.
So basically, this change was pretty pointless it seems, though it may have an impact over time.