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ENT MACO - Can someone explain this to me?
bartimaeus
Member Posts: 37 Arc User
Alright. The usual, in STO, is to have a new uniform added on C-Store, at the classic price of 550 ZEN. Good so far? Great. Now, we may also find uniforms in Lobi, for 200 or 300 Lobi Crystals, we may get them as a bonus for completing events, hitting T5 on Rep, completing a ground set etc. But those are exceptions. The usual is, as i said, C-Store, for 550 Zen.
Now, the Enterprise MACO - 22nd Century uniform, is available on Dill Store, along with some WoK uniforms, like the Excursion or the Engineer's vest. The prices go as this:
MACO ENT - 1.700.000 dill
Khan Ex - 1.275.000 dill
Khan Eng - 1.270.000 dill
Khan Cpt - 850.000 dill
With the current exchange rate (1 Z ~ 300 Dill), the MACO suit costs about 5.666 Zen. 11 times more than C-Store uniforms. 4250 are for the Eng and Ex uniforms from WoK, and the WoK Captain costs 2.833. Now, unless the Zen-Dill rate drops drastically (talking about 1 Z ~ <30 Dill), which is not gonna happen, you are paying, for one uniform (which you can't share with other toons either btw), more or less as much as you would pay for a T6 Ship Bundle.
Anyone care to explain this to me? The logic behind it? Because i am trying real hard, and there is absolutely no logical reason for anyone to give nearly 6000 ZEN for a uniform that will be bound to character afterwards.
Now, the Enterprise MACO - 22nd Century uniform, is available on Dill Store, along with some WoK uniforms, like the Excursion or the Engineer's vest. The prices go as this:
MACO ENT - 1.700.000 dill
Khan Ex - 1.275.000 dill
Khan Eng - 1.270.000 dill
Khan Cpt - 850.000 dill
With the current exchange rate (1 Z ~ 300 Dill), the MACO suit costs about 5.666 Zen. 11 times more than C-Store uniforms. 4250 are for the Eng and Ex uniforms from WoK, and the WoK Captain costs 2.833. Now, unless the Zen-Dill rate drops drastically (talking about 1 Z ~ <30 Dill), which is not gonna happen, you are paying, for one uniform (which you can't share with other toons either btw), more or less as much as you would pay for a T6 Ship Bundle.
Anyone care to explain this to me? The logic behind it? Because i am trying real hard, and there is absolutely no logical reason for anyone to give nearly 6000 ZEN for a uniform that will be bound to character afterwards.
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Or curiocity. I really want to know the reason. Even if it is illogical. Even if it doesn't make any sense, whatsoever.
It makes no sense at it's current price point.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Grinding alone, if you do 8k a day ... you'll have it in ... 213 days. That's assuming you don't spend your dil on anything else.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Guilty!!!
How's the internet reception back there in 2012?
Seriously, though, that hasn't been the norm by any stretch of the imagination since late in 2012. Since then, the only uniforms added to the C-Store have been the ones that were part of the expansion bundles. Everything else has been Lobi, Fleet, Reputation, Event store or the occasional giveaway item, as well as the 4 dilithium sink outfits that you mention.
Count the outfits released since 2012, and see just how few have been account or at least faction unlocks from the C-Store versus all of those that are character unlocks through all of those other means. There have been 9 released to the C-Store in total since the Fall of 2012, We've had 7 released in fleet stores, counting variant pieces for the Starbase ones as a single outfit due to cost. I don't even know offhand how many in the Lobi store, but there are many, loads of Event store items, and 2 from mission rewards. It's clear that they no longer see C-Store outfits as profitable by themselves, but as a way to get a few dollars from people who aren't interested in the expansion bundles, and have decided that character-bound outfits, from whatever source, are the way that they will justify outfit development time. I don't particularly care for it, but it is clear that they have made this decision and are sticking with it.
It's sad that they haven't added anything. It's slim pickings for KDF/Romulans.
Edit: Missed this
While that's true, it's not like there was a plethora of choices for Klingons even when they were adding outfits only to the C-Store, They had one outfit unique to them in there. Romulans released with 3 choices for only their faction, giving them triple the unique C-Store options that Klingons had, a ratio that persists to today.
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.'
Dil takes time to acumulate, but no real effort. Old timers have so much of the stuff they can't find stuff to spend it on. Your examples are high interest items into which players with too much dil can dump their excess.
Market forces have driven the exchange rate through the roof, and there are two ways to reign it in:
Devaluation: never popular because it would require Zen prices to go up to compensate for there being so much more of it floating around.
Inflation: also never popular because dil prices would have to go up drastically.
So we are left with market forces in which players sell Zen for what they can get and accumulate massive sums of dil to dump on the Zen market, encouraging Zen sellers to raise prices.
There are two less drastic ways of working it out:
Dil sinks: place rediculous prices on highly desired items so those dil stashes dwindle. With less dil available to buy Zen the price of Zen will have to go down.
Boycott: if enough players agree to not buy Zen above a certain price the price will come down to that point.
Both of these have issues. Set too high a price and the dil sink will be ignored. Boycotts are notoriously unreliable because all it takes are a few people who ignore it to keep prices high.
So, welcome to Econ 101, where we learn that market forces dominate any attempt at control, and the harder you try to control them the more destructive the result when your control ultimately fails. The very best thing to do about it is nothing.
Now, the Phoenix Prize Pack Events, that was an effective sink.
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.'
Its there as a high end vanity item. The entire point is that only a handful of people have them and can in turn use them to visually lord it over the peasants. Its not there for folks who might farm it over 200+ days, its for the people who drop so much real world cashy money that they could buy it out of February's slush fund, as an alternative to picking up a few hundred keys that month.
If the intention was truly to lord over the peasants, it really doesn't do it at all.
This maybe?
or is that too Q's Winter Wonderland?
It had a minor impact on the Exchange actually... which was shortly countered by something that drove the Exchange up again. I don't remember if it was a new ship, a sale, or a DL flooding event. But I do remember that something happened to drive the price up shortly after their release.
I worked hard to get my Ent MACO outfit, and would love to get the others, but dang is it a grind.
Google "monoclegate" and you might get some idea.
I tried them on Tribble since you can get free dil, because I wanted to see the engineer and excursion jackets and I was really disappointed in their quality.
Honestly I think they should not be Bind on Pickup. Sure they might go for 100 mil over the general 50 mil for a fed/cross faction Lobi outfit, but still... would be better in the long run.
I didn't have lots of dilithium until the MACO uniform went live and I dumped a bunch of Zen in the exchange. Currently have the uniform on two characters, and have an idea for a new gimmick character that would need it as well but I'll probably never make that character.
Definitely! They are dihydrogenoxide, not simply water.
Would I buy any of the other uniforms for that much? Hell no. Would I buy the uniform again on a different character? Hell no.
I bought it once for the theme I was doing and it worked out well, but, never again.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard