Just charge 10mil EC in space and ground maps for loadout swapping/respecing
Then you could sit back and watch people go broke.
No, but 1Million for a respec would be very interesting. I have plenty of respec token and I am not using it because I don't want to waste them, but charging 1 Million for a respect would be a good price and an interesting thing for people.
It would create a good sink and a way for people to experiment with different build.
Make an upgrade akin to the Phoenix upgrade and sell that for EC. The craftable upgrades are useless, costing large amounts of Dil with little to show for it, the 'ultimate' upgrades in the key-ring bundle are expensive, and the phoenix upgrades entirely depend on the unpredictability element of a phoenix event.
Maybe just make superior upgrade packs you can buy with EC?
Since phoenix boxes keep on being such a success they could integrate an EC sink there. Why does the trade-in of a higher ranking token into two lower ranking ones have to be for free?
Or perhaps find a reasonable “high” amount of EC that makes it possible to do it the other way around?
50k for a green, 500k for a blue, 5M for a purple, 50M for an ultra and 500M for an epic or whatever Bort feels like it's worth.
Seems rather steep and only caters to the super space rich on the high end. Also probably not viable because some of the super space rich would have no need for epic tokens, so ultimately that wouldn't really help much...
Having only a layman's understanding of inflation, largely from the indexes for goods and services used to track it in the UK, I decided to look up the definition of 'currency inflation' since it appeared to be a separate but related issue, and found this:
Currency Inflation - a situation in which more money becomes available without an increase in production and services, causing prices to rise: the market can experience price inflation without currency inflation, but the market cannot experience currency inflation without price inflation
Looking at the in-game situation at least in respect of 'desirable' items to spend EC on, it seems that Borticus statement on EC inflation is correct and both parts of the above statement do hold true: over time additional sources of EC have appeared, whereas the supply of desirable items has remained mostly flat due to the low drop rates for the lockbox items, that represent the most sought after items, combined with a fairly small pool of players compared to the overall population who are both willing and able to participate in the gambling process to generate them.
So I agree with most people here, either the supply of those lockbox items has to increase, or as has been proposed you need an additional pool of items or services that are at least as desirable and attractive to players to absorb that additional EC. I've seen several interesting suggestions so far, but whatever the approach chosen, I can't see it being successful unless it acknowledges and addresses the above.
Having only a layman's understanding of inflation, largely from the indexes for goods and services used to track it in the UK, I decided to look up the definition of 'currency inflation' since it appeared to be a separate but related issue, and found this:
Currency Inflation - a situation in which more money becomes available without an increase in production and services, causing prices to rise: the market can experience price inflation without currency inflation, but the market cannot experience currency inflation without price inflation
Looking at the in-game situation at least in respect of 'desirable' items to spend EC on, it seems that Borticus statement on EC inflation is correct and both parts of the above statement do hold true: over time additional sources of EC have appeared, whereas the supply of desirable items has remained mostly flat due to the low drop rates for the lockbox items, that represent the most sought after items, combined with a fairly small pool of players compared to the overall population who are both willing and able to participate in the gambling process to generate them.
So I agree with most people here, either the supply of those lockbox items has to increase, or as has been proposed you need an additional pool of items or services that are at least as desirable and attractive to players to absorb that additional EC. I've seen several interesting suggestions so far, but whatever the approach chosen, I can't see it being successful unless it acknowledges and addresses the above.
I am not following that statement as we have no price inflation if anything we have price deflection. According to that statement as we have no price inflation then there is no currency inflation because you cannot have currency inflation when the price is the same or going down which is what we have been having the past few years.
As we have static or price deflation then increasing drops rates will only further increase the price deflation.
Lockbox items have zero impact on currency in that all you are doing is moving currency between players, not removing it from the game. Increasing lockbox items wont change the amount of currency in game.
Just a thought. For a long time I, and many others, have desired the capability to grind up less aesthetically pleasing bridge officers into DNA paste and force feed them to the pretty ones. Thus transferring their Space traits.
How about a system which creates a bridge officer specific genetic resequencer by randomly selecting a trait from a consumed officer and turning it into a consumable. Then replaces a random trait on a target officer.
The in lore reason that the doner officers becomes unusable could be that they are on forced leave to recover from an experimental medical treatment.
Have the process cost a large amount of EC. That's our sink. Then this could also be used to promote the flow of EC with an additional system. Add a bridge officer requisition project that can be performed once per day per account by characters level 50 and up. Have that project reward boffs with some new or existing desirable space traits.
Players won't be able to get their perfect bridge crew without rolling the dice a lot of times, and it will take them a long time if they rely only on their own daily requisition. Even longer if they have alts. So those with the EC to do so may chose to buy bridge officers from newer or less established players. Those with the inclination to spend real world money will also have a reason to dump more lockbox and lobi stuff on the exchange in order get the EC to buy bridge officers.
So with this system we could both reduce EC inflation, and increase the supply of lockbox content.
The only downside I can think of is power creep... but honestly that horse is long gone already, no point in worrying about returning it to the stable now.
As a F2P, other than surfing the exchange for good deals, I use EC almost exclusively for one thing, purchasing contraband to turn in for dilithium. Would it make sense to have a similar idea to turn in EC direct? Have a bauble/trinket or thingy sold for EC by a vendor and account bound, turn in said item(s) for dilithium, and/or have the trinket/bauble as a requirement for some/all DOFF missions. The mechanisms for some of this are already in place and the games economy could be controlled by the current dil sinks.
'We can reengineer them. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the Galaxy's first resequenced individual. Better than they were before. Better, stronger, faster.'
'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.'
2% service tax on every item sold via the exchange. *drops mic*
to be fair, thats an actualy good method to drain some ec. because the only reason where its really important are trades between players so that would be the way to go
2% service tax on every item sold via the exchange. *drops mic*
to be fair, thats an actualy good method to drain some ec. because the only reason where its really important are trades between players so that would be the way to go
Yeah Neverwinter's exchange already does this. IE you list an item for 1000, the buyer pays 1000, and you get... most of that 1000.
Lord of the Rings Online Auction House charges a posting fee, small and dependant on time to be up. Then the Auction House takes a percentage of the sale price.
'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.'
Glad this isnt LotRO then. Posting fees=bad idea. The tax on sale is fine, but posting fees hurt those without a lot of ec while merely being a slight inconvenience for the ones Bort seems to be trying to drain EC from. Lets stop suggesting a posting fee people, that way lays badness.
Glad this isnt LotRO then. Posting fees=bad idea. The tax on sale is fine, but posting fees hurt those without a lot of ec while merely being a slight inconvenience for the ones Bort seems to be trying to drain EC from. Lets stop suggesting a posting fee people, that way lays badness.
It was suggested as a tax for sold items.
It is also why it was recommended as a percentage. 2 or whatever % of a 1.5B ec deal is more than of a 50k deal. As consequence rich players sink more than poor ones do.
Also new or casual players that don’t play the exchange much don’t get targeted at all.
Think the idea is best we had so far.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Glad this isnt LotRO then. Posting fees=bad idea. The tax on sale is fine, but posting fees hurt those without a lot of ec while merely being a slight inconvenience for the ones Bort seems to be trying to drain EC from. Lets stop suggesting a posting fee people, that way lays badness.
It was suggested as a tax for sold items.
It is also why it was recommended as a percentage. 2 or whatever % of a 1.5B ec deal is more than of a 50k deal. As consequence rich players sink more than poor ones do.
Also new or casual players that don’t play the exchange much don’t get targeted at all.
Think the idea is best we had so far.
I know it's a rare thing.. but I disagree with you.
I do like the idea of finding an in game sink for EC, something similar to Phoenix Kits that people would sink funds into.. I don't like the idea of an exchange tax.
Honestly, I don't think it will help. I think what will happen is that people with big ticket items will just go to trade channels instead of using the exchange and that creates a whole other mess of potential problems with scamming players. I like the Exchange because it's simple, and you run no risk of getting scammed unless of course you just decide to pay way more then something is worth which is on you.
I really don't see the Exchange tax working since players can just arrange private trades. Why would I list my 1.5 Billion EC ship on the exchange and pay tens of millions in fees when I can just sell it to you directly in a trade channel and get my entire 1.5 Billion that frankly.. I deserve?
The seller is the one that cranked open all those boxes, they deserve the return on investment.
But to be clear, I don't really believe the market is nearly as inflated as some do. I actually think things are fine the way they are, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Gamer term, from back when Dragon Magazine still existed, and D&D was still being published by TSR. What it derives from:
Monte Hall, host of "Let's make a Deal", a gameshow that saw popularity in the decades before cable Teevee, much less the internet. (The sixties and seventies).
What it means:
A GM (games master) who rewards players for showing up. Not for playing well, or for roleplaying well, or for being creative, but for showing up. Rewards them richly for showing up. Piles upon piles of Epic lootz, unique artifacts by the catalogue entry, vast sums of in-game currency-for doing the most trivial of things. "Killed a lone Kobold? here's an Epic Sword of Everythingslaying plus twenty-five!!" (makes more sense when you recognize that to-hit was calculated with a 20 sided dice and the base damage for a sword was 1D8, while most low level monsters had around 1D6 hitpoints.)
killed a goblin? Well look there! in its pockets you find an epic bag of holding filled with 1 Million Gold!!! (where the conversion rates 10 copper to 10 silver to 10 gold and most things cost around 5 silver or less.)
The Monty Haul DM is usually either inexperienced, or does this because nobody would tolerate his campaign style if he didn't dump vast amounts of suite Lootz every session to try and curry favor with his players. Notably, as players get more experienced in those games, they would tend to leave the Monty Haul DM/GM entirely seeking more immersive, challenging or interesting fare from DM's and GM's that didn't dump massive kingly rewards on their character merely for showing up in an effort to pathetically buy their loyalty.
Note that back in tabletop days, everyone who ever took on the job of DM/GM goes through this phase, and the ones who claim not to?
are lying either to themselves or everyone else.
Usage: what it means, is a Game master (or in the case of online and computer games, developer) who dumps rewards on the players just for showing up, then can't figure out how to fix their in-setting economy in the presence of so much gold it would sink the continent if not for the vast array of extraordinarily powerful artifacts also left gathering dust in the same stronghold basement.
one of the worst traits of the Monty Haul, is that their campaigns are unrestricted powercreep. To the point that they have to create gods for their players to fight in order to present any challenge whatsoever, and the vast array of stuff they've given their players over past sessions means that effort is insanely difficult. I mean, what're you going to do when the wizard's rocking a ring of unlimited wishes at god-level or the theif's got so many luck enhancers that he literally doesn't have a challenge rating he can't meet? (or the Fighter who's also casting both cleric and wizard spells at max level with no handicap thanks to the pile of enchanted gear you mistakenly gave him last session?)
what happens? Nerfs. If the GM lasts long enough to see his players leaving out of boredom, his first move is to nerf the TRIBBLE out everything-losing many players in the process, but if he's a true monty haul type, he'll end up nerfing to give them something even MORE overpowered later on.
does any of this sound familiar?
Not really. STO does reward players just for showing up, but simply as an extension of Easy Mode To The Max. A policy of "everyone must be able to win everything every time," which necessarily translates to the game winning itself no player action required.
STO doesn't give millions of gold or epic loot for everything you do, but rather bags of peanuts and a once-per-day token you can exchange for a item after collecting them for weeks. An item that's usually so mediocre the most interesting bit is the "exclusivity" of it going away after the event. And it is once per day. You want to play more? Well tough, it's peanuts for rewards or come back tomorrow.
STO doesn't try to create "gods" for us to fight to present any challenge, just the opposite. It puts a timer on the quest that makes the bad guys give up on their own, in case the players are too lazy or weak to fight even the same old HP sack mooks.
Nor does STO have all that much actual power creep. Players are simply overpowered to begin with because all the content is designed to be winnable by newbies. And the thing is, it doesn't even matter. The majority of content is timed, so often the biggest difference between an clueless newbie and a DPS-god is the number of endlessly-respawning optional rubber ducks they manage to shoot before the "You Win!" timer hits zero.
And on topic, STO doesn't actually create that much EC either. The problem is there's almost nothing to actually sink it at all. All the gear sold for EC is generic low-level junk, consumables are unnecessary, boff training manuals are dirt cheap and only needed once, rep projects drop free gear that vendors for more EC than the project consumed, etc, etc.
They need to sell something for EC that people actually want.
I support the idea of an exchange tax provided the removed EC has a direct, visible and positive effect on players. How about some kind of point system? Every EC that is taxed out of the game through the exchange will be added to this pool of points which is then distributed evenly among all players. These points could then be traded for some trinkets in a store dedicated to them, like the event token buyback store. The more the players use the exchange to tax EC out of the system the more points will be generated which will give us a motivation to actually help getting the EC out of the game. It would add a level of player control, like the server wide objectives during the original recruitment events, and remove the feeling that hard earned EC isn't simply robbed from us.
2% service tax on every item sold via the exchange. *drops mic*
I think you dropped your mic prematurely. One of the criteria is that the solution must be desirable, a sales tax is definitely not desirable by much of the player base. Plus as others have pointed out such an idea would shift a lot of high value trades off the exchange.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,434Community Moderator
I support the idea of an exchange tax provided the removed EC has a direct, visible and positive effect on players. How about some kind of point system? Every EC that is taxed out of the game through the exchange will be added to this pool of points which is then distributed evenly among all players. These points could then be traded for some trinkets in a store dedicated to them, like the event token buyback store. The more the players use the exchange to tax EC out of the system the more points will be generated which will give us a motivation to actually help getting the EC out of the game. It would add a level of player control, like the server wide objectives during the original recruitment events, and remove the feeling that hard earned EC isn't simply robbed from us.
Don't know... I don't see how that would actually work. Especially since it requires them to make new items that might not actually turn out to be desirable by the community, and thus ignored, which in turn would just turn this "incentive program" into a straight up tax with everyone ignoring the Incentive part.
I support the idea of an exchange tax provided the removed EC has a direct, visible and positive effect on players. How about some kind of point system? Every EC that is taxed out of the game through the exchange will be added to this pool of points which is then distributed evenly among all players. These points could then be traded for some trinkets in a store dedicated to them, like the event token buyback store. The more the players use the exchange to tax EC out of the system the more points will be generated which will give us a motivation to actually help getting the EC out of the game. It would add a level of player control, like the server wide objectives during the original recruitment events, and remove the feeling that hard earned EC isn't simply robbed from us.
Don't know... I don't see how that would actually work. Especially since it requires them to make new items that might not actually turn out to be desirable by the community, and thus ignored, which in turn would just turn this "incentive program" into a straight up tax with everyone ignoring the Incentive part.
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
And others have mentioned that as far as they have noticed, there hasn't been all that much EC inflation.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that is really experiencing EC inflation is lockbox and lobi ships (ANyone else remember when you could pick up an end game ship for 50mil?). Which makes sense. To get a lockbox/lobi ship so many boxes have to be opened that all the less desirable rewards are generated in far greater abundance than a single player could want.
But what would happen if lockboxes were removed from STO? without lockbox and lobi ships to save for EC earners would turn to spending their EC on other things. Assuming they still have an impetus to play at that point.
We are all working on the assumption that Borticus is looking for ways to counter the current EC inflation. I am not sure that's the case. What if he is looking for ways to keep the game economy going in the event that cryptic is forced to give up lockboxes?
I am not saying its going to happen. But lets credit Borticus with some foresight hear. Maybe he is preparing for the worst case scenario, which is only smart.
Umm, no. We're not going to start "doom and gloom" about Lockboxes. This has nothing to do with Lockboxes. So, I'm going to stop that right there before this thread derails into a lockbox debate.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
Your idea falls flat due to it's space socialism aspect. Ideological preferences aside, I think it's safe to say most players of STO are motivated by self gains for their character(s), with a few, but likely still a minority also for their fleet. So the idea that taxes are pooled and the rewards divided evenly among players would only enthuse a few space bums and ultra casuals, and add nothing to the desirability or rather lack there of for a taxation system.
Now if STO were transformed into more of an RvR or Fleet vs Fleet game then you could motivate players around this concept of shared gain for their faction/fleet. But so long as it's a PvE centric game where most players treat it as a single player RPG ideas like yours are a non starter.. and we can all be fairly confident STO isn't going to strongly deviate from that model.
And others have mentioned that as far as they have noticed, there hasn't been all that much EC inflation.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that is really experiencing EC inflation is lockbox and lobi ships (ANyone else remember when you could pick up an end game ship for 50mil?). Which makes sense. To get a lockbox/lobi ship so many boxes have to be opened that all the less desirable rewards are generated in far greater abundance than a single player could want.
But what would happen if lockboxes were removed from STO? without lockbox and lobi ships to save for EC earners would turn to spending their EC on other things. Assuming they still have an impetus to play at that point.
We are all working on the assumption that Borticus is looking for ways to counter the current EC inflation. I am not sure that's the case. What if he is looking for ways to keep the game economy going in the event that cryptic is forced to give up lockboxes?
I am not saying its going to happen. But lets credit Borticus with some foresight hear. Maybe he is preparing for the worst case scenario, which is only smart.
Well Cryptic do seem to like to live up to their name. But from Borticus's Twitter post it was plain he wanted to find new EC sinks, and generally in games such as this it's to counter inflation as the result of increased money supply. But yeah the real motivations remain cryptic, and I agree with you and others that I've not noticed a clear inflationary trend. Even on Lobi ships that you mentioned they have gone down not up in the last few years, as they used to sit around 300mil and now are more like 200mil. Those along with Lockbox ships which have increased in cost I think is more a matter of supply and demand than too much EC in the game.
I think at this point it's still a longshot in seeing gamble boxes banned here in the US where Cryptic is based.. at least in the near term. But even if that happened Cryptic could just add the promo and lockbox ships to the Zen store at exorbitant costs. After all every Zen that exists has been paid for with real (well more real) money. The amount EC in circulation doesn't really impact Cryptic's profits from Zen, only how much it's valued by players in player to player exchanges.
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
No, you haven't. It's the peeps obstinately keeping up this tax nonsense who have missed Borticus clearly asking for "Desirable" things to spend EC with. Despite several people repeatedly pointing it out.
Taxes are desirable things. Then everyone can go to the Academy for free, repair health damage without cost, even in the field, and get a steady income of 1,500,000 EC a month.
Warp and Singularity Cores will be replaced by Risian Solar Sail Drives.
'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.'
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
'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.'
Comments
No, but 1Million for a respec would be very interesting. I have plenty of respec token and I am not using it because I don't want to waste them, but charging 1 Million for a respect would be a good price and an interesting thing for people.
It would create a good sink and a way for people to experiment with different build.
My character Tsin'xing
And the countdown to anti-Bajor ranting from Cardassian fans begins. *looks at watch*
Never did understand that.
Anyways...
Seems rather steep and only caters to the super space rich on the high end. Also probably not viable because some of the super space rich would have no need for epic tokens, so ultimately that wouldn't really help much...
Currency Inflation - a situation in which more money becomes available without an increase in production and services, causing prices to rise: the market can experience price inflation without currency inflation, but the market cannot experience currency inflation without price inflation
Looking at the in-game situation at least in respect of 'desirable' items to spend EC on, it seems that Borticus statement on EC inflation is correct and both parts of the above statement do hold true: over time additional sources of EC have appeared, whereas the supply of desirable items has remained mostly flat due to the low drop rates for the lockbox items, that represent the most sought after items, combined with a fairly small pool of players compared to the overall population who are both willing and able to participate in the gambling process to generate them.
So I agree with most people here, either the supply of those lockbox items has to increase, or as has been proposed you need an additional pool of items or services that are at least as desirable and attractive to players to absorb that additional EC. I've seen several interesting suggestions so far, but whatever the approach chosen, I can't see it being successful unless it acknowledges and addresses the above.
As we have static or price deflation then increasing drops rates will only further increase the price deflation.
Lockbox items have zero impact on currency in that all you are doing is moving currency between players, not removing it from the game. Increasing lockbox items wont change the amount of currency in game.
How about a system which creates a bridge officer specific genetic resequencer by randomly selecting a trait from a consumed officer and turning it into a consumable. Then replaces a random trait on a target officer.
The in lore reason that the doner officers becomes unusable could be that they are on forced leave to recover from an experimental medical treatment.
Have the process cost a large amount of EC. That's our sink. Then this could also be used to promote the flow of EC with an additional system. Add a bridge officer requisition project that can be performed once per day per account by characters level 50 and up. Have that project reward boffs with some new or existing desirable space traits.
Players won't be able to get their perfect bridge crew without rolling the dice a lot of times, and it will take them a long time if they rely only on their own daily requisition. Even longer if they have alts. So those with the EC to do so may chose to buy bridge officers from newer or less established players. Those with the inclination to spend real world money will also have a reason to dump more lockbox and lobi stuff on the exchange in order get the EC to buy bridge officers.
So with this system we could both reduce EC inflation, and increase the supply of lockbox content.
The only downside I can think of is power creep... but honestly that horse is long gone already, no point in worrying about returning it to the stable now.
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.'
to be fair, thats an actualy good method to drain some ec. because the only reason where its really important are trades between players so that would be the way to go
ingame: @Felisean
My character Tsin'xing
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 was suggested as a tax for sold items.
It is also why it was recommended as a percentage. 2 or whatever % of a 1.5B ec deal is more than of a 50k deal. As consequence rich players sink more than poor ones do.
Also new or casual players that don’t play the exchange much don’t get targeted at all.
Think the idea is best we had so far.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I know it's a rare thing.. but I disagree with you.
I do like the idea of finding an in game sink for EC, something similar to Phoenix Kits that people would sink funds into.. I don't like the idea of an exchange tax.
Honestly, I don't think it will help. I think what will happen is that people with big ticket items will just go to trade channels instead of using the exchange and that creates a whole other mess of potential problems with scamming players. I like the Exchange because it's simple, and you run no risk of getting scammed unless of course you just decide to pay way more then something is worth which is on you.
I really don't see the Exchange tax working since players can just arrange private trades. Why would I list my 1.5 Billion EC ship on the exchange and pay tens of millions in fees when I can just sell it to you directly in a trade channel and get my entire 1.5 Billion that frankly.. I deserve?
The seller is the one that cranked open all those boxes, they deserve the return on investment.
But to be clear, I don't really believe the market is nearly as inflated as some do. I actually think things are fine the way they are, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
STO doesn't give millions of gold or epic loot for everything you do, but rather bags of peanuts and a once-per-day token you can exchange for a item after collecting them for weeks. An item that's usually so mediocre the most interesting bit is the "exclusivity" of it going away after the event. And it is once per day. You want to play more? Well tough, it's peanuts for rewards or come back tomorrow.
STO doesn't try to create "gods" for us to fight to present any challenge, just the opposite. It puts a timer on the quest that makes the bad guys give up on their own, in case the players are too lazy or weak to fight even the same old HP sack mooks.
Nor does STO have all that much actual power creep. Players are simply overpowered to begin with because all the content is designed to be winnable by newbies. And the thing is, it doesn't even matter. The majority of content is timed, so often the biggest difference between an clueless newbie and a DPS-god is the number of endlessly-respawning optional rubber ducks they manage to shoot before the "You Win!" timer hits zero.
And on topic, STO doesn't actually create that much EC either. The problem is there's almost nothing to actually sink it at all. All the gear sold for EC is generic low-level junk, consumables are unnecessary, boff training manuals are dirt cheap and only needed once, rep projects drop free gear that vendors for more EC than the project consumed, etc, etc.
They need to sell something for EC that people actually want.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
I think you dropped your mic prematurely. One of the criteria is that the solution must be desirable, a sales tax is definitely not desirable by much of the player base. Plus as others have pointed out such an idea would shift a lot of high value trades off the exchange.
Don't know... I don't see how that would actually work. Especially since it requires them to make new items that might not actually turn out to be desirable by the community, and thus ignored, which in turn would just turn this "incentive program" into a straight up tax with everyone ignoring the Incentive part.
Since it's highly likely we'll end up with some tax system either way, we have nothing to lose having them try this and I will for sure not stop Cryptic from adding Phoenix items or T1-T4 ships to that store. In the end it's up to them how much or how little they will TRIBBLE off their customers.
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Why is borticus worrying about EC inflation now?
And others have mentioned that as far as they have noticed, there hasn't been all that much EC inflation.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that is really experiencing EC inflation is lockbox and lobi ships (ANyone else remember when you could pick up an end game ship for 50mil?). Which makes sense. To get a lockbox/lobi ship so many boxes have to be opened that all the less desirable rewards are generated in far greater abundance than a single player could want.
But what would happen if lockboxes were removed from STO? without lockbox and lobi ships to save for EC earners would turn to spending their EC on other things. Assuming they still have an impetus to play at that point.
We are all working on the assumption that Borticus is looking for ways to counter the current EC inflation. I am not sure that's the case. What if he is looking for ways to keep the game economy going in the event that cryptic is forced to give up lockboxes?
I am not saying its going to happen. But lets credit Borticus with some foresight hear. Maybe he is preparing for the worst case scenario, which is only smart.
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What do you base this prediction that it is "highly likely we'll end up with some tax system" on? Have I missed some Cryptic comment on the subject?
Your idea falls flat due to it's space socialism aspect. Ideological preferences aside, I think it's safe to say most players of STO are motivated by self gains for their character(s), with a few, but likely still a minority also for their fleet. So the idea that taxes are pooled and the rewards divided evenly among players would only enthuse a few space bums and ultra casuals, and add nothing to the desirability or rather lack there of for a taxation system.
Now if STO were transformed into more of an RvR or Fleet vs Fleet game then you could motivate players around this concept of shared gain for their faction/fleet. But so long as it's a PvE centric game where most players treat it as a single player RPG ideas like yours are a non starter.. and we can all be fairly confident STO isn't going to strongly deviate from that model.
Well Cryptic do seem to like to live up to their name. But from Borticus's Twitter post it was plain he wanted to find new EC sinks, and generally in games such as this it's to counter inflation as the result of increased money supply. But yeah the real motivations remain cryptic, and I agree with you and others that I've not noticed a clear inflationary trend. Even on Lobi ships that you mentioned they have gone down not up in the last few years, as they used to sit around 300mil and now are more like 200mil. Those along with Lockbox ships which have increased in cost I think is more a matter of supply and demand than too much EC in the game.
I think at this point it's still a longshot in seeing gamble boxes banned here in the US where Cryptic is based.. at least in the near term. But even if that happened Cryptic could just add the promo and lockbox ships to the Zen store at exorbitant costs. After all every Zen that exists has been paid for with real (well more real) money. The amount EC in circulation doesn't really impact Cryptic's profits from Zen, only how much it's valued by players in player to player exchanges.
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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.'
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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.'