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I Don't Buy It
ltminns
Member Posts: 12,572 Arc User
Five minutes after the Tweet and then the News blog announces the return of the Phoenix Prize Pack Event, the Dilitium Exchange is down about 30 per Zen and vice-versa. Ninety minutes it is down over 90. Prime working hours in the US. After the last Phoenix, the Exchange barely registered back up by 25.
The 200 Dilitium per Zen sold has been dodging on and off screen with about 579K Zen for sale. All the other amounts listed from 206 or so to 201 have only up to 40K indicated and most are in the hundreds to thousands to 14K. Even that 201 keeps dodging off the screen. Why would there be gobs of Zen looking to buy Dilitium at the lowest price that is not even listed when you could get more Dilitium for it otherwise?
There is a hidden hand operating here.
The 200 Dilitium per Zen sold has been dodging on and off screen with about 579K Zen for sale. All the other amounts listed from 206 or so to 201 have only up to 40K indicated and most are in the hundreds to thousands to 14K. Even that 201 keeps dodging off the screen. Why would there be gobs of Zen looking to buy Dilitium at the lowest price that is not even listed when you could get more Dilitium for it otherwise?
There is a hidden hand operating here.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
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.'
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.'
Lt. Philip J. Minns
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"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
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Just an off question, is their a max of how much Zen one person can have?
So, are you accusing Cryptic of intentionally de-valuing Zen?
Just curious why you think they would do that? What would they gain from making the game easier on those that don't spend money?
And as said above, plenty of US players on at this time of day, myself included. Not everyone works days and not everyone is off Saturday and Sunday. Game is always pretty heavily populated at this time of day.
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I do not believe that there is a limit to the amount of Zen an Account could have.
Cryptic would not make stuff cheaper to buy Zen, but who said Cryptic? Don't you know what the 'hidden' or 'invisible' hand is? The Market. If Cryptic had a hand in the Market, they would have made the Market go back UP after the last Phoenix into the 400s rather than letting it stagnate about 25 points or so above the low point after the crash on the last go round on this.
Would it be plausible for the scammers who sell EC and Ships to have many hundreds of thousands of Zen or millions of Dilitium that they could use to 'play' the Market?
I didn't buy Zen, but did manage to sell some off before it dropped another 50 or so points right after the announcement.
Well either it is too near in time to the last one or this was a quick decision to add this Event, but they did add nothing new to the Phoenix Store this time (Agony Rifle, ISS Stadi).
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.'
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Exactly. I didn't keep track how much of it was dil, but I earned around 6 million fleet credits supporting k13 for my fed fleet, and around 2 million for the KDF.
First Phoenix + k13 caused a sustained-100 to dil exchange. Second Phoenix temporarily lowering it close to another 100 is market forces not The Stonecutters.
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.'
I could not agree more. The government in the land of PWE is particularly well known for such practices.
And yes, there are those that play the market. For some people, STO is no longer about Star Trek or ships or builds. It's all about Zen/Dil/EC.
I will be more then happy to call for many, many, many nerfs.
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.'
Why?
Dil<>Zen rate too high = Cryptic artificially doing something to affect the market
Dil<>Zen rate to low = Cryptic artificially doing something to affect the market
Sorry, but maybe that tin foil hat is on a bit too tight; and what's really happening is standard Supply <> Demand economics and the current Phoenix Box just isn't in much demand (or at least not enough to make players want to buy Zen with Dil.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
A ship is much easier and appealing to grind for at 200dil-zen than it is at 400. More incentive to grind means more grinding, more playtime, more ship sales etc, better metrics.
May well not work this way at all but just seems to make sense to me somehow.
Ever rising exhange rates will simply alienate the free guys who grind, not great for a ftp game that is thought of by many as having a very reasonable ftp system in comparison to some other mmo's out there.
Then of course there is the spike in people cashing in all thier zen and buying more, emptying ingame pockets that will need to be refilled at some point. I know so many people ingame who bought unscheduled zen and blew all thier resources as soon as they could. win win on thier end in my opinion.
Still, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are manipulating the exchange, rather this event does so indirectly for sure. And why re-introduce it so soon if it was bad for them?
It's inconvenient timing for me personally but I still got enough upgrades to get a ton of stuff to epic so I'm happy
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
for EU its evening aka prime playtime
People will want more Dilithium to have more chances at the higher tier rewards. And in the end, it won't matter if you get it or not, because you can get other items or just mill them down into the tech upgrades and get a bunch of gear up to at least mk XIV.
Its a win for F2P DL farmers who are eyeballing something in the C-Store, its a win for people wanting to sell their Zen quickly to get more DL...
Its win-win for everyone!
For a long time we have had NOTHING to balance the DL Economy. Sales, events, and zen promos have driven the exchange rate up, and K-13 has barely made a dent like the starbase did. It had been creeping up for a long time. Then the first Phoenix box comes out and BLAMMO! Instant change in direction. They found a way to balance the economy easily with minimal effort while giving players a chance at things like the old event ships to finish sets (Kobali Samsar console anyone).
While the current trend for the exchange has been down, which has been a surprise to me with the recent release of the T6 Vestas, any time Cryptic can balance the player driven economy is a win for us all.
*mutters* Now I gotta work harder for my Enterprise MACO... I was actually trying to get more DL through Zen for that ridiculously priced outfit. >.<
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"The house always wins."
I think it is a foregone conclusion that they do control and manipulate the market to their best advantage at every opportunity. Losing is a bad business model. If there's something that happens to blunt this advantage, they nerf it, roll it back, or call it an exploit and just remove it.
Nobody is in business to lose money.
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The timing of this Phoenix, only three months after the last, is a bit puzzling. I am seeing a pattern though as the last one was about a month after the Sphere Builder Lockbox dropped and this, a month after the Undiscovered Lockbox. They also hit at the beginning of the last month of the Fiscal Quarter for the company.
If sales are important for the Quarterly Fiscal earnings and the Vesta Packs didn't meet expectations perhaps making Zen more available is a way to prod that.
30 points, 5 minutes.
When I originally wrote the OP, I was going to add in stuff about Europe and Tin Foil Hats, but decided against it. I figured others would do that for me.
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.'
American F2Per reporting in. Hi.
Its possible that the first Phoenix Box was just an assessment of how popular it would be. And holy buckets was it popular. We may be looking at something that will appear around every major event like Crystalline and Breach. We don't know the schedule.
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For myself, I'm only missing the Breen raider; I grabbed everything else I didn't already have (Risian ships excepted - they don't interest me) the first time around.
*Looks at my earnings from the Dyson ground battlezone and Admiralty, hands poster another tin-foil hat.*
It's one thing to say that the dilithium exchange ultimately benefits cryptic, but to ascribe every fluctuation to an illuminati-like hand is pushing things beyond all reason. The current system, with some small buffering, let's the price of zen/dil balance to player interest. Cryptic doesn't need to do anything except occasionally make a macro-economic adjustment for things to flow optimally. That's how they make money. Every zen moved through the system is a zen that's been paid for in some way (be it new purchases, subscriptions, or lifetime sales.) The more that moves, the more money they make. The absolute value of any transaction isn't the kicker. It's overall exchange activity.
So Cryptic balances exchange rates through population-scale events to make the exchange system as accessible as possible. We use it more, they profit more. This is a pretty basic example of an economic system. Though one party is making a profit (the business) other party (the consumer) is still getting a service that's been been balanced to promote as much activity as possible. IE. it's equitable to the total population. Ie. it works best for us too.
Systems don't need a manipulative hand to be profitable (or usable). Blind economic systems with superficial (ie. top level) oversight tend to work better over the long term. Just think of Cryptic as the Federal Reserve of STO's dil/zen exchange.
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We might have to consider players with altitis as well. Remember these ships are not account unlocks anymore for the event ones, and the T5 ships like the Bulwark weren't account unlocks to begin with. Even if we don't need the ships... there's still the Admiralty Cards they give. Or if you happen to have a Jem'Hadar Dread Carrier and want Bugship pets...
Its possible that at some point down the road all promo event ships will be put into the Phoenix Box as well. So the T6 TOS Connie/D-7/T'Liss may show up again. They'll find ways to make it worthwhile. Only promo ship I don't see showing up in the Phoenix Box at this time is the T6 Command Assault Cruiser, as that's tied to a real world product.
Hell... the tech upgrades are probably enough on their own to attract attention. Those things are sweet, and have 0 DL cost.
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Personally, I suspect it's just supply and demand, but if Cryptic were to put a "hidden hand" in, it certainly would be to lower the zen-Dil ratrio. The more Dil you can get for a Zen, the less Zen folks wqho pay real money need to buy. Financiually, it is in Cryptics interest to have as low a Dil cost to Zen as the market will bear, to 'encourage' an increase in Zen purchases.
Personally, I suspect it's just supply and demand, but if Cryptic were to put a "hidden hand" in, it certainly would be to lower the zen-Dil ratrio. The more Dil you can get for a Zen, the less Zen folks wqho pay real money need to buy. Financiually, it is in Cryptics interest to have as low a Dil cost to Zen as the market will bear, to 'encourage' an increase in Zen purchases.
Your logic is flawed, I would never give away Zen at a reduced value. Others can, but I am not.
Maybe not, but the hand is certainly there. I think of it more like this:
That stuff you get from the BZ (et al)? It is like the all-you-can-eat buffet at a Las Vegas resort hotel. I don't know how much you can stomach but there's a reason it's free. It's offset by how much you dropped on the accomodations & in the casino.
They never let the market go unmonitored, and definitely manage it within their power to do so when needed. The hand may not be heavy, but if they need to boost sales, they turn on some events to drive it. PWE are the masters of the time gate & monetization.