I do seem to be one of the only posters here who understands how it works...so... Thanks for participating.
Actually, you're the one person in this thread that is not understanding the issue.
I am not sure why you so adamantly defend a view point that is so obviously wrong, but it's not getting you anywhere. You are out of your depth in this conversation and I am sorry to say but you are one of the reasons why perhaps it's a good thing when Cryptic doesn't ask the player base for feedback.
I didn't misunderstand you but I will use your suggestions as an example...
The thing that no one is understanding is that being able to spend $1 of real world currency to buy a lockbox key and then selling the key on the exchange is like taking out a loan to buy things that you couldn't afford to buy through your own ability to earn money. When a person ran out of money in the real world they'd have to go to work, turning their time or skillsets into revenue...they might have to sell some things they own. There would be a finite amount of currency they could ever earn within the boundaries of their abilities. Eventually they'd reach a limit on how many loans they could take out and they'd spend more of their earned income paying back the loans.
Your idea to add a holodeck program that you pay to use would simply create a place where people need to spend MORE money than they've earned and would encourage them to take out more loans. Even if the cost of the holodeck was very high, people would never have to work harder to get more EC. What little EC would go to the holodeck wouldn't make up for the greater numbers of people taking out loans...loans that never need to be paid back. So more keys, more loans, and the amount of EC in the economy will continue to grow without anything working to slow it down...
I re-read those two paragraph several times to try an understand your point but in the end I can't help but conclude you're conflating completely unrelated things. This idea of loans for instance has no connection to key purchases and subsequent sales on the exchange. As I've seen others explain to you, you do not create EC from thin air by selling a key on the exchange, EC is only created by in-game activity where the game system itself (not another player) rewards a player for some given activity. When someone buys a key with real money they pay for the continued development of this game in return for a key that gives them a chance for something deemed very valuable in-game. When they sell the key to another player for EC, it's an exchange of EC from one player to another in return for the Key. There's NO loan, and there's NO new EC created by the game, existing EC has merely changed hands. The only thing new introduced into the game in this entire process is the key and any items it gives when it is used to open a lock box.
More keys does NOT equal more EC in the economy, that is categorically false!
BUYING something is not a solution to inflation. Taking money out of the economy is how you fight inflation. In the real world we have banks and interest rates on those loans. When inflation starts to heat up, we increase the interest rates to slow the economy down...when the economy starts to recess we lower interest rates to incentivize borrowing and spending. Adding GPL to EC currency for unique purchases would only create a bottleneck in the economy which people would avoid.
An "EC sink" doesn't matter when there is unlimited amounts of EC that an individual can acquire...not the least of which is because of how the game just gives you EC without any sort of underlying manufacturing chain that would, in a real economy, need to be kept prepped and primed.
When you're buying something from the game system (an NPC for example) that IS taking money out of the game economy. So buying something with EC from Cryptic is the solution.. at least the solution to what Borticus seemed to be indicating was the problem.
We have no banks or loans in STO so it's not relevant. EC is generated by player activity in the game (in essence printed into existence by Cryptic). The EC link to other currencies like Zen does not create any EC, but it does tend to concentrate EC in the hands of those players that spend real money, as well as those savy players who sell other in-game items to those same people, and most of all those who speculate and trade in this market. That in turn may give the free-to-play player who only makes EC from conventional means in-game like missions/DOFFs/Admiralty the impression of inflation where really they are just being priced out of low supply high demand items. Incidentally it's those conventional means of making EC in STO that is actually creating new EC in the game, not the Zen buyer or market speculator.
Ok, Warren Buffet, you're definitely trolling the people in this thread with your attitude. I suggest that you stop.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
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Well one of the biggest problems with EC inflation is that its been inflating for like 7 years or so, ever since the first lockbox ever came out and its items were sellable on the exchange. The people Space Rich in the game have so much EC that without a significant rework of the currency I think its physically impossible to stop inflation entirely.
one thing that might help is... simply make lockbox ships a more common reward. Back in the days with the Acheros and Vonph were very common rewards those were extremely cheap ec wise on the exchange compared to other lockbox ships. If everything is more common, everything is cheaper. Its hard for lockbox people to advertise selling a ship for 600mil ec when you could potentially pay only 300 mil and have a great chance of getting the ship yourself from the keys you bought.
In short, we can't do much about the rich people having so much money that the economy only perpetuates their value, but we can do something like increase the quantity of items people recieve because when things were very common they were very cheap.
All I have seen is deflation in the past years. What areas is the inflation happing in?
I trade daily selling 100’s of millions in a week on the market and everything I deal in has overall deflated. Lobi ships deflation, experimental upgrades deflation, salvage has gone up a tiny bit recently but long term deflation, consoles and ship gear massive deflation.
Lockbox items massive deflation. Vanity shields. Traits the lot all on average down long term.
I do not track keys but they have not changed that much over the years have they? They spike up and down a little based on events but are around about the same price.
Back on topic.
I don't think making T1 to T5 ships purchasable with EC would make much of a difference. They have been given away so many times already. Veterans own most of them, and new players don't really need them anymore now that leveling T6 ships are becoming the rule.
If they really want to tackle inflation, they would have to "tax" most player activities. Buying from the dilithium store, the fleet store, reputation store, putting up reputation projects, doff projects and R&D projects, upgrading and re-engineering, all of it would have to cost a considerable amount of EC.
This of course would be highly unpopular. Plus, setting prices in a way that new players won't be locked out from stores and activities for months and still have an noticeable effect on the total amount of EC in the game will be difficult to do. If you set prices too high, the average player simply won't do these activities anymore.
Another idea could be a game wide lottery. Every month there's a chance of winning a full mk XV epic space or ground set, a T6 ship, a 2000z coupon or whatever. You can enter by buying a ticket for 1m EC, up to 10 tickets per month.
Brainstorm with me! If we wanted to reduce EC inflation in STO, the game needs sinks for that currency which are Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible. What ideas do you have that might meet all 3 of those?
"Taxing" things is clearly not desirable so that's out.
The point is to have things people actually want to spend EC on. If they just wanted to just make EC disappear for no return value, they might as well make it fall out of your pocket while you walk.
Brainstorm with me! If we wanted to reduce EC inflation in STO, the game needs sinks for that currency which are Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible. What ideas do you have that might meet all 3 of those?
"Taxing" things is clearly not desirable so that's out.
The point is to have things people actually want to spend EC on. If they just wanted to just make EC disappear for no return value, they might as well make it fall out of your pocket while you walk.
Bort has the right idea.. Taxation is not going to do anything but cause unpheaval in the player base.
It's not hard to come up with something desirable to spend EC on, the hard part is the 'repeatable' part. Cosmetic options sadly do not fit this bill as they're a one time only purchase.
Anything I can think of lacks the 'repeatable' part of the equation which sadly is vital in order to achieve the desired effect. Off the top of my head, the best idea I can come up with is changing the Phoenix Boxes to cost EC instead of Dilithium.. but I don't really like that idea either as it puts the boxes out of reach for those that aren't 'space rich.'
Something similar to the Phoenix kits though would be a good option.. people always need those.
I can imagine that the folks discussing this EC problem here have little consideration for it but the problem you're having (apparently) is causing the exact opposite problem for players who can't seem to get their EC account balance past the 2.000.000....
I am one of those players.
I've been playing since closed beta but effectively still have only one character that has completed all the story arc missions, and can be considered to have reached the "end game".
Due to that Massive Multiplayer Offline Life Playing Game (MMOLPG) refusing to allow me much time to spend in MMO's at all, never mind STO in particular, i sometimes struggle to keep up with "new" tfo's, episodes, events and such. If i get to spend 5 hours a week playing STO it feels like a vacation, of like i must be neglecting something in RL.
I've only ever completed 1 event reputation in all the years i've been playing and thát took me 2 years to complete (the Risa Summer event, which got me the Vulcan Carrier).
People like me, which are called 'casual' players i guess, either have to empty their RL wallets to get halfway decent gear or gawk in frustration at that kind of kit on other players' ships! Like i said, i never get above the 2 million EC and that 2 million is what is left of a gift i once received from another player of 50 million, apparently disgusted with the ridiculous amount of EC she had, with each of her 30 or so characters.
You're complaining there is too much EC and nothing to spend it on. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to go on the exchange looking for something above mark XII and finding nothing even close to affordable for you of even Mark XII or of rare quality?!?!?!
My most developed character, the one with the tier 6 Vulcan carrier, still has mostly Mark XII weapons and stuff with one exception being a Mark XIII legandepic omnidirectional beam array which i managed to upgrade with some upgrade booster thingys. I'd like to have orange Mark XV weapons and stuff but i know i'll never ever be able to get it.
I know people like me don't figure into the thoughts of players like y'all and certainly not of the devs or anything, but i just wanted to at least let you know that people like us (who might even be a larger percentage of the total population than y'all think) exist, and that maybe y'all come across to us like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg and the like complaining they've started giving millions to charity because there's nothing good left for them to buy with their money. Or like an Elon Musk going to Mars because "Meh, got nothing else good i can spend money on anymore".
Anyway, apologies for my ranting like rant, it was not my intention to annoy y'all or accuse/attack anyone or anything.
Guess i just had to vent, and this time facebook or twitter just didn't feel like they would give me that "at least i got it off my chest" feeling i must be craving for......
or something....
Brainstorm with me! If we wanted to reduce EC inflation in STO, the game needs sinks for that currency which are Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible. What ideas do you have that might meet all 3 of those?
"Taxing" things is clearly not desirable so that's out.
The point is to have things people actually want to spend EC on. If they just wanted to just make EC disappear for no return value, they might as well make it fall out of your pocket while you walk.
Bort has the right idea.. Taxation is not going to do anything but cause unpheaval in the player base.
It's not hard to come up with something desirable to spend EC on, the hard part is the 'repeatable' part. Cosmetic options sadly do not fit this bill as they're a one time only purchase.
Anything I can think of lacks the 'repeatable' part of the equation which sadly is vital in order to achieve the desired effect. Off the top of my head, the best idea I can come up with is changing the Phoenix Boxes to cost EC instead of Dilithium.. but I don't really like that idea either as it puts the boxes out of reach for those that aren't 'space rich.'
Something similar to the Phoenix kits though would be a good option.. people always need those.
Well, a random item box was one of the suggestions I posted...however many pages ago it was before the derail. And it would work. Put some good unique item(s) as the rare top prizes and people will spend their hoard trying to get one. But not actually THE phoenix boxes, of course, but rather something new with new contents. Cannibalizing one of the few dilithium sinks in the game to make an EC sink would be like taking a tire off the left side of your car to replace a flat on the right.
Of the other stuff I suggested earlier, I believe the most successfully repeatable would be the ship skilltrees. There are a lot of ships in the game to power up and more released all the time. If they put in an element of choice there, they can sell respecs for even more repeatablitity. Boosts to the admiralty card, traits or other externally-usable unlocks would make it worth filling even for less-played ships. I would personally prefer Cryptic would also encourage actually flying multiple different ships more, but I doubt that's in the books.
More generally, EC-based upgrade paths could be added for pretty much anything players have multiples of, like boffs, gear, etc (and for the record, I'm not talking about replacing the dilithium-based item upgrading, but creating something new on the side, in addition to it).
And player housing of course could be an infinite sink for interior design supplies and services. Someone always wants to repaint the walls and stuff.
Creating new systems is the key to repeatability, because everything in the game currently save the lootboxes are designed to be one-time acquisitions.
All Characters get mandatory free education at their appropriate Academy to be funded by 'taxing' the Characters Bank by 5% per Month.
'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.'
Why? This is the proper first question to this idea. What is the problem that lots of EC is causing? What is the real goal? Reducing the amount of EC in game is not a serious goal, its arbitrary and when no problem is identified it serves no purpose. And since we don't know why they want to do this, fixing the real problem is like throwing darts blindfolded and handcuffed.
So what is the issue with having lots of EC in game? "Inflation!" No. The price of a can of space beans is exactly the same as it was 9 years ago. There is no inflation in this game. There is no inelastic demand for goods. No one is going to starve to death if they don't beat the other person bidding on the last can of space beans at the space market. Batteries and the like have a fixed price, can be "infinitely" reproduced with zero production cost. There are very few things that cost EC in the game, but those are typically one time costs like reputation projects. The garbage you vendor has a fixed price, and that has dropped since time began. The only prices that change are prices on the exchange, and those prices are set by the law of supply and demand. Yeah ships are expensive. They are ridiculously rare and always in high demand.
Have space banks changed their interest rates? Do space doctors raise their rates? Space mechanics charging you more to fix your spaceship? Those are all still 0.
But but currency is printed infinitely! Not true. EC is a time currency. Put time in killing stuff or doing other activities and you get credits and items to delete for credits. You can't get infinite created per day, you get a limited amount based on the time you spent doing things. In other words, put in time at your space job and get spacebux. Do your job well you get spacebux faster.
Its also not in circulation. Work all day in the space mine at Argala and you can deposit all those nice spacebux into your space bank, where no one uses it for a space loan to pay space bills, expand their space factory, or to buy space food. It just sits there in a hole in the ground. If you stop playing for a year or 5, your spacebux are still there and still not part of any economic activity. In fact, chances are you can buy many of the things you wanted to buy cheaper than when you left as people are chasing new things because the old stuff that was new when you stopped playing is old hat, or you can't find it at all because supply has dried up. The only time it changes hands is when you buy some new shiney someone else has, or when you run into those few things that do actually delete a tiny amount of EC like reputation projects.
But, "inflation!" What is the rate of inflation? What is the index used? No idea and no clue? Yeah. Real inflation is measured with an index. how much does the price of a can of beans, an ear of corn, etc. change with time? You use a broad array of goods to build such an index to remove the effects of something like a corn crop failure which would raise the price of corn due to effects that have nothing to do with inflation. And there is no such index here. If there were, it would generally show deflation, because the price of everything goes down with time as supply continuously increases for most things (magically just like EC...hint) and demand goes down as people buy their thing at premium prices and no longer need that thing again. Where prices go up is almost certainly going to be the result of a supply problem like stuff from old lockboxes.
Look, bottom line, inflation is a myth in games like this. Its this big scary phantom that people point to and beg big daddy government developer to do something about the fact that some people have lots of money, but no one can ever point to any problems it actually causes. If you only see one aspect of the "economy" in the creation of EC, and ignore doing any actual metrics to measure "inflation" as well as understanding how the "economy" actually functions in game, obviously you get a one sided view of things.
I don't expect to change anyone's mind with that. Its not that EC sinks are necessarily a bad idea, having more stuff to do with it is fine, but the silly goal of fighting non-existant inflation is ridiculous and can't work.
I'm sure something will be done, though, so what I will suggest is NO LISTING FEES. I swear to god-who-needs-a-starship, do not do this. I still remember when Champions Online did it, and I bring it up every time one of these discussions happens. It will destroy the exchange.
You like seeing those 500m EC ships on the exchange? Too bad. Listing them for 25m each time to watch them not sell right away is not going to happen any more. They will completely disappear from the exchange which artificially reduces supply. Instead they will go for 750m-1b because you have to hunt down a seller on the forums, and hope you don't have time zone issues meeting them. Rarer, niche items will also disappear from the exchange, no matter how reasonable their price, because if it doesn't sell quickly, its not worth listing repeatedly, like rare doffs for abilities no one uses till they get a bright idea for a new fun build.
Champions Online's market was destroyed when they put in listing fees. You used to be able to find any random costume item you wanted, and yes some were really expensive for being really rare, but you knew they were there and could buy them with enough money. Once the listing fees went in, they all disappeared. Maybe someone lists them a couple times, but the supply is kept artificially low because there are serious costs to listing things that may not sell in a month, much less a week. Instead people hawk their wares in zone chat, because what other option is there?
Brainstorm with me! If we wanted to reduce EC inflation in STO, the game needs sinks for that currency which are Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible. What ideas do you have that might meet all 3 of those?.
Am i the only one who noticed he lists 4 things not 3?
Oh well anyways, Taxation is not the answer. You'd either have to use a sliding scale based on ec not rank in order for new/casual players(not just low level) who are space "poor" to not be completely screwed over, or say TRIBBLE them and make it a flat tax. A listing price is also a bad idea. They added it and a money cap to DCUO and i ended up quiting out of frustration. I'd get the super rare items that i didn't need, but couldn't post them to boost my very low bank balance because I couldn't afford the fee! A fee after sell wouldn't be as bad as long as it was reasonable.
If you added consumables that were actually good(helpful and/or fun but not necessary), then you might meet three of the requirements, as they would(hopefully) be meaningful, definitely repeatable, and done right desirable. Accessible might be a problem if you price too high. Sadly i have no ideas for this.
As my last post mentioned Space Barbie is another sink. If it's per toon and not resalable you have one small sink. A lot of players enjoy space barbie and would dump ec per character to get what they want. Remove the dil ones from the store and make them ec. You can make it captain only w/o another expenditure to unlock it for Boffs. Maybe set up a barber with more options than the tailor(why are they changing your hair anyways?) for those who you know care about that(and the Landry's hair thread shows people do, for some strange reason).
That's really all i can think of and most of its already been said so...
edit, sorry bout the Tribble didnt know the word i used was, well bad.
Its all the side effect of gambling boxes and the terrible drop rates. You have a .05% chance of getting a ship per box. Might even be worse then that. So why gamble when you can pay a set price? Cryptic needs to wake up and start selling the ships directly. Hell, keep it how it is. One ship per character for a set price. People obviously pay the gouging prices, even now im sitting on 1.2 billion waiting for the Disco Connie to release. Been saving for months now.
But I liked the idea someone posted in here. Cryptic should start selling the ships on the exchange. If they want to set value of EC, best way to do it is increase supply. Supply goes up, price goes down. Price goes down, people spend more.
Or they can do what they are doing now. Bind all Doffs on Assignments and then charge you an EC Fee to Unbind them.
'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.'
I don't expect to change anyone's mind with that. Its not that EC sinks are necessarily a bad idea, having more stuff to do with it is fine, but the silly goal of fighting non-existant inflation is ridiculous and can't work.
Fully agree with you. From what I am seeing people are trying to find solutions to a non-existent inflation problem. We are in a deflaction market in STO and long term massive deflection with the index tracker I use. Long term I have not seen any evidence of inflation. The devs already solved the inflation problem years ago.
EC inflation is their fault... worrying about it 9 years in is a bit late.
Having said that.... lean into the gambling. We already have dabo tables. Add a big spender option.... let people spin the dabo wheel with bets of 1 million a dot, but add rewards that are both useful and account bound. Why not add account bound boosters, ship mastery boosters, stupid stuff like the fortune cookies that the lockboxs drop can drop on every bet. (granted whales toss them... trust me I do) However there would need to be a few grand prize wins that make it worth betting big EC. (cause lets be honest most boosters that are not XP are dirt cheap already)
The bottom line is make the bet large enough that new people are going to NOT do it... let them keep their EC for things they really need. At the same time make it attractive enough that a whale WILL drop 3 million on a 3 dot dabo bet hoping to grab something interesting. It could be a EC Sink ship... something unique. Or Some interesting Skin unlocks... or probably all that would be require would be a few UNIQUE vanity pieces. (if they are not unique the people with billions of EC stockpiled won't care)
I think the best thing to do would be to add one UNIQUE T6 ship grand prize to the dabo wheel a couple times a year... and make it ACCOUNT BOUND. I know that goes against Cryptics make all the monies... but if they really want to drop the value of EC they need to give people a reason to burn it. (and little things like boosters and the like frankly we can already buy those dirt cheap... and even unique boosters like ship mastery ones ect would not keep people spinning for long)
There is no inflation in this game. There is no inelastic demand for goods. The only prices that change are prices on the exchange, and those prices are set by the law of supply and demand. Yeah ships are expensive. They are ridiculously rare and always in high demand.
Keys were 2.x million EC back in ... 2014? ... now they're 4.x. I claim that what the market will bear has increased mainly because the supply of EC has increased.
I've gotten 600,000 EC from one endeavor box. I often get 100,00 EC from one day of admiralty. I get 2,000,000 EC (one time) from claiming a per-character gamma reward box. You're wrong if you think the generation of EC per day per endgame character played has not increased.
I'm sure something will be done, though, so what I will suggest is NO LISTING FEES. I swear to god-who-needs-a-starship, do not do this. I still remember when Champions Online did it, and I bring it up every time one of these discussions happens. It will destroy the exchange.
Which is why I argue for a low fee like 1% that is collected only after an item sells. 0 EC up front, 1% on sale.
There is no inflation in this game. There is no inelastic demand for goods. The only prices that change are prices on the exchange, and those prices are set by the law of supply and demand. Yeah ships are expensive. They are ridiculously rare and always in high demand.
Keys were 2.x million EC back in ... 2014? ... now they're 4.x. I claim that what the market will bear has increased mainly because the supply of EC has increased.
I've gotten 600,000 EC from one endeavor box. I often get 100,00 EC from one day of admiralty. I get 2,000,000 EC (one time) from claiming a per-character gamma reward box. You're wrong if you think the generation of EC per day per endgame character played has not increased.
I'm sure something will be done, though, so what I will suggest is NO LISTING FEES. I swear to god-who-needs-a-starship, do not do this. I still remember when Champions Online did it, and I bring it up every time one of these discussions happens. It will destroy the exchange.
Which is why I argue for a low fee like 1% that is collected only after an item sells. 0 EC up front, 1% on sale.
I don’t remember what the price was in 2014 but since 2015 Lockbox keys over gone down in price from being sold at over 5million to now under 4million which is a deflation trend in recent years, not inflation.
Why not introduce Running Costs into Star Ships, consoles, and storage? Create a 'Maintenance System' for gear. Everything degrades in capability, have us hire experts to keep it all working right. If you say: "But I have an Engineering Dept. for that", make the costs for materials rather.
There are Energy Credits. Make it cost Energy, traded as ECs, to run the machines and equipment required to do that maintenance. The more ships you have, the more consoles you have, the more maintenance you do. the more it costs.
As Captains we all have to do paperwork. DOff assignments, Admiralty right on top, why not have a balance sheet for costs of running your ship?
The game is anti casual enough without people logging in to find themselves in debt. lol
If there going to try and sink EC they need people to willing burn it... not try and tax it with exchange taxes or taxes masquerading as repair bills.
People need to buy something from the system... or gamble it away to the system. Be it the option to buy fleet ships for EC... or High bet gamble rolls or something.
Being Cryptic I would say just take the easy path.... add a unique dabo wheel grand prize ship with a stupid low drop chance. Make it account bound so people aren't winning them to sell contributing to the problem. Make it unique and desirable enough to get people burning EC on the wheel. I would think Lobi store class T6 would do it. When EC starts heading back up 6 months later release a new golden snitch dabo ship.
That way Cryptic doesn't have to add any new systems and all it costs them is one T6 design... which they seem to pull out every few weeks anyway at this point. Make the min bet to get a chance to win the rare dabo ship 500k EC or 1 mil even per dot. Let people spin 3 million ec down the drain a spin. Give them a handful of door prizes such as account bound boosters and what not... and a small lockbox like chance to win an account bound unique whip. A lot of whales will burn their bank rolls, or at least a good chunk and it should help.
Technically we can already buy fleet ships with ECs or "gamble it away". Its called buying Fleet Ship Modules and Keys off the Exchange. The only difference is that it doesn't destroy the spent ECs.
But I do agree that enforcing a "maintenance tax" is not going to help, as that would also punish players for having alts and not maintaining said alts. And some people have as many characters as there are total character slots.
Technically we can already buy fleet ships with ECs or "gamble it away". Its called buying Fleet Ship Modules and Keys off the Exchange. The only difference is that it doesn't destroy the spent ECs.
But I do agree that enforcing a "maintenance tax" is not going to help, as that would also punish players for having alts and not maintaining said alts. And some people have as many characters as there are total character slots.
Very true we can gamble our EC away... but your right it just sticks around. Whatever sink they do add the EC has to be destroyed and the rewards have to be account bound. That is the key.
Phoenix worked this way for destroying access Dil. The only think you can do to add to the EC exchange there is prehaps use upgrades to better Equipment to sell. Everything else is account bound and makes that mechanic a decent sink. Perhaps the returns on that one have settled the last few events as most people have the majority of their gear upgraded at this point.
A new Phoenix like sink for ec is what is needed. Interestingly it would also work as a dil sink, as a lot of the access Dil in the game is being farmed... and now that people have upgraded their stuff there in many cases cashing that Dil in for EC. Dropping the value of EC would in turn drop the value of Dil.
Comments
Actually, you're the one person in this thread that is not understanding the issue.
I am not sure why you so adamantly defend a view point that is so obviously wrong, but it's not getting you anywhere. You are out of your depth in this conversation and I am sorry to say but you are one of the reasons why perhaps it's a good thing when Cryptic doesn't ask the player base for feedback.
I re-read those two paragraph several times to try an understand your point but in the end I can't help but conclude you're conflating completely unrelated things. This idea of loans for instance has no connection to key purchases and subsequent sales on the exchange. As I've seen others explain to you, you do not create EC from thin air by selling a key on the exchange, EC is only created by in-game activity where the game system itself (not another player) rewards a player for some given activity. When someone buys a key with real money they pay for the continued development of this game in return for a key that gives them a chance for something deemed very valuable in-game. When they sell the key to another player for EC, it's an exchange of EC from one player to another in return for the Key. There's NO loan, and there's NO new EC created by the game, existing EC has merely changed hands. The only thing new introduced into the game in this entire process is the key and any items it gives when it is used to open a lock box.
More keys does NOT equal more EC in the economy, that is categorically false!
When you're buying something from the game system (an NPC for example) that IS taking money out of the game economy. So buying something with EC from Cryptic is the solution.. at least the solution to what Borticus seemed to be indicating was the problem.
We have no banks or loans in STO so it's not relevant. EC is generated by player activity in the game (in essence printed into existence by Cryptic). The EC link to other currencies like Zen does not create any EC, but it does tend to concentrate EC in the hands of those players that spend real money, as well as those savy players who sell other in-game items to those same people, and most of all those who speculate and trade in this market. That in turn may give the free-to-play player who only makes EC from conventional means in-game like missions/DOFFs/Admiralty the impression of inflation where really they are just being priced out of low supply high demand items. Incidentally it's those conventional means of making EC in STO that is actually creating new EC in the game, not the Zen buyer or market speculator.
--- not an actual definition
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one thing that might help is... simply make lockbox ships a more common reward. Back in the days with the Acheros and Vonph were very common rewards those were extremely cheap ec wise on the exchange compared to other lockbox ships. If everything is more common, everything is cheaper. Its hard for lockbox people to advertise selling a ship for 600mil ec when you could potentially pay only 300 mil and have a great chance of getting the ship yourself from the keys you bought.
In short, we can't do much about the rich people having so much money that the economy only perpetuates their value, but we can do something like increase the quantity of items people recieve because when things were very common they were very cheap.
I trade daily selling 100’s of millions in a week on the market and everything I deal in has overall deflated. Lobi ships deflation, experimental upgrades deflation, salvage has gone up a tiny bit recently but long term deflation, consoles and ship gear massive deflation.
Lockbox items massive deflation. Vanity shields. Traits the lot all on average down long term.
I do not track keys but they have not changed that much over the years have they? They spike up and down a little based on events but are around about the same price.
I don't think making T1 to T5 ships purchasable with EC would make much of a difference. They have been given away so many times already. Veterans own most of them, and new players don't really need them anymore now that leveling T6 ships are becoming the rule.
If they really want to tackle inflation, they would have to "tax" most player activities. Buying from the dilithium store, the fleet store, reputation store, putting up reputation projects, doff projects and R&D projects, upgrading and re-engineering, all of it would have to cost a considerable amount of EC.
This of course would be highly unpopular. Plus, setting prices in a way that new players won't be locked out from stores and activities for months and still have an noticeable effect on the total amount of EC in the game will be difficult to do. If you set prices too high, the average player simply won't do these activities anymore.
Another idea could be a game wide lottery. Every month there's a chance of winning a full mk XV epic space or ground set, a T6 ship, a 2000z coupon or whatever. You can enter by buying a ticket for 1m EC, up to 10 tickets per month.
The point is to have things people actually want to spend EC on. If they just wanted to just make EC disappear for no return value, they might as well make it fall out of your pocket while you walk.
Bort has the right idea.. Taxation is not going to do anything but cause unpheaval in the player base.
It's not hard to come up with something desirable to spend EC on, the hard part is the 'repeatable' part. Cosmetic options sadly do not fit this bill as they're a one time only purchase.
Anything I can think of lacks the 'repeatable' part of the equation which sadly is vital in order to achieve the desired effect. Off the top of my head, the best idea I can come up with is changing the Phoenix Boxes to cost EC instead of Dilithium.. but I don't really like that idea either as it puts the boxes out of reach for those that aren't 'space rich.'
Something similar to the Phoenix kits though would be a good option.. people always need those.
I can imagine that the folks discussing this EC problem here have little consideration for it but the problem you're having (apparently) is causing the exact opposite problem for players who can't seem to get their EC account balance past the 2.000.000....
I am one of those players.
I've been playing since closed beta but effectively still have only one character that has completed all the story arc missions, and can be considered to have reached the "end game".
Due to that Massive Multiplayer Offline Life Playing Game (MMOLPG) refusing to allow me much time to spend in MMO's at all, never mind STO in particular, i sometimes struggle to keep up with "new" tfo's, episodes, events and such. If i get to spend 5 hours a week playing STO it feels like a vacation, of like i must be neglecting something in RL.
I've only ever completed 1 event reputation in all the years i've been playing and thát took me 2 years to complete (the Risa Summer event, which got me the Vulcan Carrier).
People like me, which are called 'casual' players i guess, either have to empty their RL wallets to get halfway decent gear or gawk in frustration at that kind of kit on other players' ships! Like i said, i never get above the 2 million EC and that 2 million is what is left of a gift i once received from another player of 50 million, apparently disgusted with the ridiculous amount of EC she had, with each of her 30 or so characters.
You're complaining there is too much EC and nothing to spend it on. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to go on the exchange looking for something above mark XII and finding nothing even close to affordable for you of even Mark XII or of rare quality?!?!?!
My most developed character, the one with the tier 6 Vulcan carrier, still has mostly Mark XII weapons and stuff with one exception being a Mark XIII legandepic omnidirectional beam array which i managed to upgrade with some upgrade booster thingys. I'd like to have orange Mark XV weapons and stuff but i know i'll never ever be able to get it.
I know people like me don't figure into the thoughts of players like y'all and certainly not of the devs or anything, but i just wanted to at least let you know that people like us (who might even be a larger percentage of the total population than y'all think) exist, and that maybe y'all come across to us like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg and the like complaining they've started giving millions to charity because there's nothing good left for them to buy with their money. Or like an Elon Musk going to Mars because "Meh, got nothing else good i can spend money on anymore".
Anyway, apologies for my ranting like rant, it was not my intention to annoy y'all or accuse/attack anyone or anything.
Guess i just had to vent, and this time facebook or twitter just didn't feel like they would give me that "at least i got it off my chest" feeling i must be craving for......
or something....
Of the other stuff I suggested earlier, I believe the most successfully repeatable would be the ship skilltrees. There are a lot of ships in the game to power up and more released all the time. If they put in an element of choice there, they can sell respecs for even more repeatablitity. Boosts to the admiralty card, traits or other externally-usable unlocks would make it worth filling even for less-played ships. I would personally prefer Cryptic would also encourage actually flying multiple different ships more, but I doubt that's in the books.
More generally, EC-based upgrade paths could be added for pretty much anything players have multiples of, like boffs, gear, etc (and for the record, I'm not talking about replacing the dilithium-based item upgrading, but creating something new on the side, in addition to it).
And player housing of course could be an infinite sink for interior design supplies and services. Someone always wants to repaint the walls and stuff.
Creating new systems is the key to repeatability, because everything in the game currently save the lootboxes are designed to be one-time acquisitions.
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.'
So what is the issue with having lots of EC in game? "Inflation!" No. The price of a can of space beans is exactly the same as it was 9 years ago. There is no inflation in this game. There is no inelastic demand for goods. No one is going to starve to death if they don't beat the other person bidding on the last can of space beans at the space market. Batteries and the like have a fixed price, can be "infinitely" reproduced with zero production cost. There are very few things that cost EC in the game, but those are typically one time costs like reputation projects. The garbage you vendor has a fixed price, and that has dropped since time began. The only prices that change are prices on the exchange, and those prices are set by the law of supply and demand. Yeah ships are expensive. They are ridiculously rare and always in high demand.
Have space banks changed their interest rates? Do space doctors raise their rates? Space mechanics charging you more to fix your spaceship? Those are all still 0.
But but currency is printed infinitely! Not true. EC is a time currency. Put time in killing stuff or doing other activities and you get credits and items to delete for credits. You can't get infinite created per day, you get a limited amount based on the time you spent doing things. In other words, put in time at your space job and get spacebux. Do your job well you get spacebux faster.
Its also not in circulation. Work all day in the space mine at Argala and you can deposit all those nice spacebux into your space bank, where no one uses it for a space loan to pay space bills, expand their space factory, or to buy space food. It just sits there in a hole in the ground. If you stop playing for a year or 5, your spacebux are still there and still not part of any economic activity. In fact, chances are you can buy many of the things you wanted to buy cheaper than when you left as people are chasing new things because the old stuff that was new when you stopped playing is old hat, or you can't find it at all because supply has dried up. The only time it changes hands is when you buy some new shiney someone else has, or when you run into those few things that do actually delete a tiny amount of EC like reputation projects.
But, "inflation!" What is the rate of inflation? What is the index used? No idea and no clue? Yeah. Real inflation is measured with an index. how much does the price of a can of beans, an ear of corn, etc. change with time? You use a broad array of goods to build such an index to remove the effects of something like a corn crop failure which would raise the price of corn due to effects that have nothing to do with inflation. And there is no such index here. If there were, it would generally show deflation, because the price of everything goes down with time as supply continuously increases for most things (magically just like EC...hint) and demand goes down as people buy their thing at premium prices and no longer need that thing again. Where prices go up is almost certainly going to be the result of a supply problem like stuff from old lockboxes.
Look, bottom line, inflation is a myth in games like this. Its this big scary phantom that people point to and beg big daddy government developer to do something about the fact that some people have lots of money, but no one can ever point to any problems it actually causes. If you only see one aspect of the "economy" in the creation of EC, and ignore doing any actual metrics to measure "inflation" as well as understanding how the "economy" actually functions in game, obviously you get a one sided view of things.
I don't expect to change anyone's mind with that. Its not that EC sinks are necessarily a bad idea, having more stuff to do with it is fine, but the silly goal of fighting non-existant inflation is ridiculous and can't work.
I'm sure something will be done, though, so what I will suggest is NO LISTING FEES. I swear to god-who-needs-a-starship, do not do this. I still remember when Champions Online did it, and I bring it up every time one of these discussions happens. It will destroy the exchange.
You like seeing those 500m EC ships on the exchange? Too bad. Listing them for 25m each time to watch them not sell right away is not going to happen any more. They will completely disappear from the exchange which artificially reduces supply. Instead they will go for 750m-1b because you have to hunt down a seller on the forums, and hope you don't have time zone issues meeting them. Rarer, niche items will also disappear from the exchange, no matter how reasonable their price, because if it doesn't sell quickly, its not worth listing repeatedly, like rare doffs for abilities no one uses till they get a bright idea for a new fun build.
Champions Online's market was destroyed when they put in listing fees. You used to be able to find any random costume item you wanted, and yes some were really expensive for being really rare, but you knew they were there and could buy them with enough money. Once the listing fees went in, they all disappeared. Maybe someone lists them a couple times, but the supply is kept artificially low because there are serious costs to listing things that may not sell in a month, much less a week. Instead people hawk their wares in zone chat, because what other option is there?
Am i the only one who noticed he lists 4 things not 3?
Oh well anyways, Taxation is not the answer. You'd either have to use a sliding scale based on ec not rank in order for new/casual players(not just low level) who are space "poor" to not be completely screwed over, or say TRIBBLE them and make it a flat tax. A listing price is also a bad idea. They added it and a money cap to DCUO and i ended up quiting out of frustration. I'd get the super rare items that i didn't need, but couldn't post them to boost my very low bank balance because I couldn't afford the fee! A fee after sell wouldn't be as bad as long as it was reasonable.
If you added consumables that were actually good(helpful and/or fun but not necessary), then you might meet three of the requirements, as they would(hopefully) be meaningful, definitely repeatable, and done right desirable. Accessible might be a problem if you price too high. Sadly i have no ideas for this.
As my last post mentioned Space Barbie is another sink. If it's per toon and not resalable you have one small sink. A lot of players enjoy space barbie and would dump ec per character to get what they want. Remove the dil ones from the store and make them ec. You can make it captain only w/o another expenditure to unlock it for Boffs. Maybe set up a barber with more options than the tailor(why are they changing your hair anyways?) for those who you know care about that(and the Landry's hair thread shows people do, for some strange reason).
That's really all i can think of and most of its already been said so...
edit, sorry bout the Tribble didnt know the word i used was, well bad.
But I liked the idea someone posted in here. Cryptic should start selling the ships on the exchange. If they want to set value of EC, best way to do it is increase supply. Supply goes up, price goes down. Price goes down, people spend more.
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.'
Having said that.... lean into the gambling. We already have dabo tables. Add a big spender option.... let people spin the dabo wheel with bets of 1 million a dot, but add rewards that are both useful and account bound. Why not add account bound boosters, ship mastery boosters, stupid stuff like the fortune cookies that the lockboxs drop can drop on every bet. (granted whales toss them... trust me I do) However there would need to be a few grand prize wins that make it worth betting big EC. (cause lets be honest most boosters that are not XP are dirt cheap already)
The bottom line is make the bet large enough that new people are going to NOT do it... let them keep their EC for things they really need. At the same time make it attractive enough that a whale WILL drop 3 million on a 3 dot dabo bet hoping to grab something interesting. It could be a EC Sink ship... something unique. Or Some interesting Skin unlocks... or probably all that would be require would be a few UNIQUE vanity pieces. (if they are not unique the people with billions of EC stockpiled won't care)
I think the best thing to do would be to add one UNIQUE T6 ship grand prize to the dabo wheel a couple times a year... and make it ACCOUNT BOUND. I know that goes against Cryptics make all the monies... but if they really want to drop the value of EC they need to give people a reason to burn it. (and little things like boosters and the like frankly we can already buy those dirt cheap... and even unique boosters like ship mastery ones ect would not keep people spinning for long)
Keys were 2.x million EC back in ... 2014? ... now they're 4.x. I claim that what the market will bear has increased mainly because the supply of EC has increased.
I've gotten 600,000 EC from one endeavor box. I often get 100,00 EC from one day of admiralty. I get 2,000,000 EC (one time) from claiming a per-character gamma reward box. You're wrong if you think the generation of EC per day per endgame character played has not increased.
Which is why I argue for a low fee like 1% that is collected only after an item sells. 0 EC up front, 1% on sale.
The game is anti casual enough without people logging in to find themselves in debt. lol
If there going to try and sink EC they need people to willing burn it... not try and tax it with exchange taxes or taxes masquerading as repair bills.
People need to buy something from the system... or gamble it away to the system. Be it the option to buy fleet ships for EC... or High bet gamble rolls or something.
Being Cryptic I would say just take the easy path.... add a unique dabo wheel grand prize ship with a stupid low drop chance. Make it account bound so people aren't winning them to sell contributing to the problem. Make it unique and desirable enough to get people burning EC on the wheel. I would think Lobi store class T6 would do it. When EC starts heading back up 6 months later release a new golden snitch dabo ship.
That way Cryptic doesn't have to add any new systems and all it costs them is one T6 design... which they seem to pull out every few weeks anyway at this point. Make the min bet to get a chance to win the rare dabo ship 500k EC or 1 mil even per dot. Let people spin 3 million ec down the drain a spin. Give them a handful of door prizes such as account bound boosters and what not... and a small lockbox like chance to win an account bound unique whip. A lot of whales will burn their bank rolls, or at least a good chunk and it should help.
But I do agree that enforcing a "maintenance tax" is not going to help, as that would also punish players for having alts and not maintaining said alts. And some people have as many characters as there are total character slots.
Very true we can gamble our EC away... but your right it just sticks around. Whatever sink they do add the EC has to be destroyed and the rewards have to be account bound. That is the key.
Phoenix worked this way for destroying access Dil. The only think you can do to add to the EC exchange there is prehaps use upgrades to better Equipment to sell. Everything else is account bound and makes that mechanic a decent sink. Perhaps the returns on that one have settled the last few events as most people have the majority of their gear upgraded at this point.
A new Phoenix like sink for ec is what is needed. Interestingly it would also work as a dil sink, as a lot of the access Dil in the game is being farmed... and now that people have upgraded their stuff there in many cases cashing that Dil in for EC. Dropping the value of EC would in turn drop the value of Dil.