You can buy the promo packs on the exchange for a nominal amount of ec, or else convert dil-zen.
A single promo pack is 300 zen or probably 13m ec.
Well within reach of anyone who cares to get one and doesnt want to pay real money for it.
However, this requires that a player have access to those resources. This means time spent in acquiring the EC/dil necessary to turn profits and acquire those promo packs. Additionally, players are not limited to purchasing one promo pack. By purchasing multiple promo packs, players can increase their chances of acquiring at least one promo ship over those who are unable to.
Precisely, since people can spend time acquiring ec/dil instead of paying real money for it, it is the opposite of 'pay2win.'
You can increase your chance of getting the ship to 100% by acquiring enough ec to just buy one from a winner.
This is not hard to do without paying, so surely it can't be argued that you're required to pay to win, or that paying is the only reasonable path to winning.
However, time spent acquiring resources in-game is not rated equivalently with time spent earning money in real life. Given a certain amount of time, most players can acquire more resources in-game by earning money in real life, using it to purchase zen, and then using that zen to acquire items to sell for EC; than if they simply spent that time acquiring resources in-game.
Additionally, some players may not have the free time to acquire sufficient resources to purchase from a winner, relegating their chances to 0% and requiring that they pay-to-win. While it may not be the only reasonable path for some players, it can be for most others.
This is probably a dumb and/or noobish question (apologies in advance if it is), but how does one go about acquiring hundreds of millions of EC in the game? I've been selling stuff on the exchange including some R&D resources, components, and lock box keys, and I've still only got about 12 million. This is my first time really getting into dealing on the exchange in order to save up enough EC to buy a ship, so I'm still a bit new to this. I just have no idea how people are coming up with all this EC and calling the KT Connie and Vengeance "cheap," when it's taken me about a month just to save up my measly 12 million EC so it seems far from "cheap" to me. I'm curious as to how people are doing it.
If someone receives a rare item that is not bound to them, by whatever means (mission reward, lockbox, special R&D pack), they have the choice of using it themselves or selling it on the exchange. There are always going to be players who are feeling impatient, and don't want to spend however much time or effort is required to get this item in-game. So selling this rare item, for as high a price as you think you can get, earns EC that would otherwise take a lot more time.
Sale of two keys would have netted you almost that 12 million EC by themselves. Keys, R&D Mats, Crafted Items, Contraband, Superior Upgrade Manuals, Lockbox Ships still boxed, Traits, Doffs, and Lockbox Weapons still boxed.
Well with the upcoming T6 TOS Constitution Promotion, those special Promotion R&D Packs, but those packs must be bought from the C-Store during the Promotion.
Creation of a Temporal Recruit could net that Character almost 8 Million EC if you completed all Mission Arcs.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
It took me 5 days to put together the EC for my KT Connie, @306 million. I have no problems doing it again, without spending a penny.
Given a significant quantity of initial resources, it's easy to turn a profit in the market. Unfortunately, new players start out broke. Learning the market takes time for them, and it takes a substantially longer time for players who are broke to acquire 300 million.
No one has a 0% chance if its in an RNG box, since the odds of winning aren't 0%. That's a premise of the thread.
As a matter of fact, everyone as at least a 1/100 chance of winning, if they open just a single promo pack.
Fair enough, but it doesn't change the fact that the chances of winning vary over the player's resources. Whether they pay in time or in real-life cash, this is by nature unfair and pay-to-win. After all such a system encourages the spending of money which increases Cryptic's revenue. However, it does mean your second premise is faulty.
Thanks for all the replies; yeah, I just started out broke in the game (again), so I'm selling whatever I can for what I believe to be fair prices based on just watching the exchange and keeping track of how much things are going for. I just sold a key last night and got over 5 million for it, so I'm getting there little by little. Mainly I'm just trying to save up for the KT Connie, and then the Vengeance after that.
Remembering your "love" of all things TOS when the Kelvin Connie came out, I'm actually gonna view this as an effort to be sincere, and not a "troll" because you're not a TOS fan...
Blank is/are rare and desirable. -If nothing is rare and desirable, the game is tepid and boring.
First off, what's "rare"? Is rarity to be determined arbitrarily? By "canon"? What?
Well, how's about we just start with a somewhat standard "rare" is "something that's just not supposed to occur on a regular basis". Fairly standard and straightforward definition, correct?
Like upgrading. While the system advertises "x many tech points applied" per activation, there's a "rare" chance that you'll instead get a "bonus" of 50% - via the "1.5 tech points applied critical" result. And, as your last point
We can only have all three of these good outcomes if the ships are awarded from RNG boxes.
seems to indicate, the fact that the critical system is RNG-guided is a "perfect" method to ensure it's function.
So, by this logic, we don't need "double tech points during upgrades" weekends, we already have an "always on" system where a 50% increase in tech points is applied randomly.
And with this as the case, it should become the universal standard for the application of all "rare" and therefore "desirable" outcomes that, as my earlier definition states, is to be invoked for all activities that are "above and beyond the standard outcome 'as advertised' by the game".
So no more "double dilithium" weekend, it becomes "chance for bonus dil" weekend - heck even a 50% success rate means that the chances of getting 30k dil out of 3 "well applied" rich dilithium claims is "worth the price of admission" to the weekend, but the same statistical chance that the player would have only gotten 15k - or the "standard going rate" means that even by cashing in the claims during the "bonus chance weekend" the player "lost nothing", right? Same with mark bonus weekends - 50% chance that each "earning" of marks, whether a daily bonus, standard mission reward, extras from the completion of the optional, or the few remaining "choice of mark" boxes earns the bonus marks...
TL/DR: RNG "adds fun" to everything that's desirable, should be applied to everything rare, so anything above and beyond "regular gameplay rates" should be RNG-ified...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Ipso Facto. Also pronounced 'That's the fact, Jack!'
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
The problem with this is that there are many more ships that are desireable and can be made rare. A T6 Sovereign for example, why not putting them in a prize box as well? All your points remain valid. And after that a T6 Nova perhaps? Or a T6 Nebula, T6 Vor'cha?
Your points are entirely arbitrary since they apply to every popular ship out there.
Here's how I see it. They need to finance their console port who's success is anything but sure. Or in other words, they probably won't use most of the money made out of this T6 connie promotion to create new actual content.
I had great misgivings about a t6 TOS connie being added to the game. The regular t6 connie from the latest movies is fine because it's from an alternate timeline so its plausible.
However, having a TOS connie be part of the contemporary setting in STO just didn't make sense, especially not if they were all around.
Running this as a promo, which will keep them quite uncommon, solves that issue to my satisfaction. It's a wise solution to a difficult issue, and I applaud the developers for it.
I am so sick of this argument.
The Exeter, the Vesper, and the Excalibur are 25th century starships. Even if they weren't, the game is freaking RIDDLED with T6 TOS era ships now, and even -before- AOY, you had numerous ship designs that were either from eras close to or even -predating- TOS that were available as endgame ships. The whole "T6 Connie will break immersion" argument is absolute bunk.
I legitimately hate the fact that they made the Connie a roulette ship. Cryptic's business model has already run off all of the friends I used to play with, and I am seriously disheartened. I don't have the time to spend grinding up billions of EC to buy this thing off the exchange, and at least right now, I seriously don't feel like giving Cryptic a dime, but every time I see an Exeter tooling around in sector space, I'm gonna frown a bit. Every time the TOS connie shows up in a queue event, or I see one outside ESD, I'm gonna feel annoyed, and there are a lot of games out there that I can play that -don't- make me feel like TRIBBLE on a semi-regular basis.
No one has a 0% chance if its in an RNG box, since the odds of winning aren't 0%. That's a premise of the thread.
As a matter of fact, everyone as at least a 1/100 chance of winning, if they open just a single promo pack.
Fair enough, but it doesn't change the fact that the chances of winning vary over the player's resources. Whether they pay in time or in real-life cash, this is by nature unfair and pay-to-win. After all such a system encourages the spending of money which increases Cryptic's revenue. However, it does mean your second premise is faulty.
No, the premise is that everyone has a chance, not that everyone has the same chance.
It's a qualitative difference not a quantitative one that matters.
My point is not that the condition of the second premise isn't satisfied; my point is that the entire point of the second premise is irrelevant to the discussion because it implies a situation which is not the case, namely that the chanceboxes aren't pay-to-win or unfair.
Comments
However, time spent acquiring resources in-game is not rated equivalently with time spent earning money in real life. Given a certain amount of time, most players can acquire more resources in-game by earning money in real life, using it to purchase zen, and then using that zen to acquire items to sell for EC; than if they simply spent that time acquiring resources in-game.
Additionally, some players may not have the free time to acquire sufficient resources to purchase from a winner, relegating their chances to 0% and requiring that they pay-to-win. While it may not be the only reasonable path for some players, it can be for most others.
If someone receives a rare item that is not bound to them, by whatever means (mission reward, lockbox, special R&D pack), they have the choice of using it themselves or selling it on the exchange. There are always going to be players who are feeling impatient, and don't want to spend however much time or effort is required to get this item in-game. So selling this rare item, for as high a price as you think you can get, earns EC that would otherwise take a lot more time.
Well, statistically this is the low end of happening given the probable drop rate, sockpuppet.
I doubt it's going to be 306mill, but good on you.
Well with the upcoming T6 TOS Constitution Promotion, those special Promotion R&D Packs, but those packs must be bought from the C-Store during the Promotion.
Creation of a Temporal Recruit could net that Character almost 8 Million EC if you completed all Mission Arcs.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Given a significant quantity of initial resources, it's easy to turn a profit in the market. Unfortunately, new players start out broke. Learning the market takes time for them, and it takes a substantially longer time for players who are broke to acquire 300 million.
Fair enough, but it doesn't change the fact that the chances of winning vary over the player's resources. Whether they pay in time or in real-life cash, this is by nature unfair and pay-to-win. After all such a system encourages the spending of money which increases Cryptic's revenue. However, it does mean your second premise is faulty.
First off, what's "rare"? Is rarity to be determined arbitrarily? By "canon"? What?
Well, how's about we just start with a somewhat standard "rare" is "something that's just not supposed to occur on a regular basis". Fairly standard and straightforward definition, correct?
Like upgrading. While the system advertises "x many tech points applied" per activation, there's a "rare" chance that you'll instead get a "bonus" of 50% - via the "1.5 tech points applied critical" result. And, as your last point seems to indicate, the fact that the critical system is RNG-guided is a "perfect" method to ensure it's function.
So, by this logic, we don't need "double tech points during upgrades" weekends, we already have an "always on" system where a 50% increase in tech points is applied randomly.
And with this as the case, it should become the universal standard for the application of all "rare" and therefore "desirable" outcomes that, as my earlier definition states, is to be invoked for all activities that are "above and beyond the standard outcome 'as advertised' by the game".
So no more "double dilithium" weekend, it becomes "chance for bonus dil" weekend - heck even a 50% success rate means that the chances of getting 30k dil out of 3 "well applied" rich dilithium claims is "worth the price of admission" to the weekend, but the same statistical chance that the player would have only gotten 15k - or the "standard going rate" means that even by cashing in the claims during the "bonus chance weekend" the player "lost nothing", right? Same with mark bonus weekends - 50% chance that each "earning" of marks, whether a daily bonus, standard mission reward, extras from the completion of the optional, or the few remaining "choice of mark" boxes earns the bonus marks...
TL/DR: RNG "adds fun" to everything that's desirable, should be applied to everything rare, so anything above and beyond "regular gameplay rates" should be RNG-ified...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
I'm out.
Your points are entirely arbitrary since they apply to every popular ship out there.
Here's how I see it. They need to finance their console port who's success is anything but sure. Or in other words, they probably won't use most of the money made out of this T6 connie promotion to create new actual content.
I am so sick of this argument.
The Exeter, the Vesper, and the Excalibur are 25th century starships. Even if they weren't, the game is freaking RIDDLED with T6 TOS era ships now, and even -before- AOY, you had numerous ship designs that were either from eras close to or even -predating- TOS that were available as endgame ships. The whole "T6 Connie will break immersion" argument is absolute bunk.
I legitimately hate the fact that they made the Connie a roulette ship. Cryptic's business model has already run off all of the friends I used to play with, and I am seriously disheartened. I don't have the time to spend grinding up billions of EC to buy this thing off the exchange, and at least right now, I seriously don't feel like giving Cryptic a dime, but every time I see an Exeter tooling around in sector space, I'm gonna frown a bit. Every time the TOS connie shows up in a queue event, or I see one outside ESD, I'm gonna feel annoyed, and there are a lot of games out there that I can play that -don't- make me feel like TRIBBLE on a semi-regular basis.
My point is not that the condition of the second premise isn't satisfied; my point is that the entire point of the second premise is irrelevant to the discussion because it implies a situation which is not the case, namely that the chanceboxes aren't pay-to-win or unfair.
The T6 Connie coming is going to be min of 750 Million easy
Yes they are. Suppose I can buy these from the exchange and add more admirlity cards. The JJ connie and other temporal ships will be superior.