the problem is, we generate ec via:
- seeling loot to the vendor
- admirality
- some doff missions
- endeavors
- tour the galaxy
and on the other side we have the following sinks to remove ec from the game:
- reputation (not really noticable at all)
- upgrading fleet holdings
- buy stuff from npcs (no one really buys that much stuff from npcs, maybe a new blue hangar pet or so for a new ship)
- a shuttle like the runabout
=> the main intention to have more ec is to use it to trade with other players. but that doesnt get the ec out of the cycle, it just transfer it from one player to the other.
thats why i would introduce a tax to that, because it would be a continued drain of ec from the game. all other methods arent really a continued drain. sure you could just add something like you need to repair your ships for ec or stuff like that but yea.. not very appealing for most of the players i guess.
and yes, there will be a few people avoiding the tax, but thats already the case that people dont trade everything via exchange, but the exchange is stil a more lazymode way to sell stuff instead of hanging around all the day and trying to sell the stuff via a trading channel.
another option would be to decrease the ec to just remove 1 didgit from the amount of ec everyone has stored. would mean 1b => 100m after it .
but that would defnitly result in a massive mob with pitchforkes and torches
“=> the main intention to have more ec is to use it to trade with other players. but that doesnt get the ec out of the cycle, it just transfer it from one player to the other.”
That is something I hear a lot but I would like to put forward that cycle is possibly one of the biggest removals of EC from the game and removes vast amounts of EC.
If the average player lasts 9 months was it? Then all that EC they built up from trading with other players and other sources is removed when they quit. Granted it can be re-added at a later date if they come back but a large amount of players that quit do not come back so the EC is effectively remove from the game.
I would expect players leaving the game removes many billions of EC from the market each year. Which I suspect is larger than the other sources that remove EC from the game and so player trading between each other are a big factor in why we don't have inflation.
That is something I hear a lot but I would like to put forward that cycle is possibly one of the biggest removals of EC from the game and removes vast amounts of EC.
I have to agree.
Even if the player doesn't leave the game, what do they usually buy with that huge chunk of EC? Usually lockbox ships..
If I spend 1 Billion on a Lockbox Ship.. that 1B EC is gone, not recycled. It's used to buy a ship that as soon as I open is now bound to me. Yes, I can use it on that character as much as I want, but I can never trade it or sell it. Lobi and Lockbox ships are an EC Sink.. a big one.
People buy ships for traits and consoles as well, how many Prototype Dreadnoughts have been sold just for the DPRM console? Or Astika's for Supremecy (though not so much anymore.)
Most EC sales end in the purchase of a big ticket item that becomes bound to the buyer. That is absolutely an EC sink.
No, it's not @seaofsorrows , because the EC didn't "sink", it was traded to another player. That EC is still in circulation, since the player from whom you bought your ship can turn around and use said EC on yet another purchase. Unless that EC is "destroyed" and removed entirely, it really doesn't count as a sink.
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well, the "Meaningful" is out the window before it's finished coding. Any meaningful change is guaranteed to be either undesirable, or non-repeatable, or both for the vast majority of the market players.
The things to spend EC on must be desirable, ie people must want to spend their EC on them. Some people not liking change is irrelevant.
"Desirable" is incredibly suspect as well, because the problem hasn't been defined, and may not actually exist. Most people here seem keen on meeting this with more stuff-which by definition has a shelf-life for how long you can cycle the powercreep before you hit the wall. Likewise for cosmetics.
You can't seriously think it would be hard for them to create stuff people would want to buy?
No "problem" is defined because that's not not part of the question.
"Repeatable" most of the suggestions that involve "Desirable" aren't repeatable. (More junk in the stores is more junk in the stores, most of which, if Cryptic follows tradition, will be obsolete by the second or third month by whatever the current flavor of the month is.)
Things are repeatable if they make them repeatable. And of course, everything doesn't actually need to be infinitely repeatable, just long enough that there's something new ready to go when the old stuff begins to hit the saturation point.
No, it's not @seaofsorrows , because the EC didn't "sink", it was traded to another player. That EC is still in circulation, since the player from whom you bought your ship can turn around and use said EC on yet another purchase. Unless that EC is "destroyed" and removed entirely, it really doesn't count as a sink.
That’s not something I agree with as EC does not need to be destroyed to be removed from circulation. Trading with other players does at times remove vast amounts of EC from game circulation and I believe player trading does a better job of removing EC from circulation then the current in game EC sinks.
My ex Fleet mates alone have removed billions of EC from circulation by player trading. Player trading can be a massive EC sink, perhaps the biggest in game.
EDIT: Plus as a further point sometimes some of that player trading EC does get destroyed by the player. I have seen more then a few players destroy many millions of EC by player trading. Destroyed as in completely removed from the game and cannot come back.
ppl sell lockbox/lobi items for crazy EC because drop rate is so terrible.
Items i want (no ships) from a 0.05% drop rate RNG?
EC resolve that sometimes.
well, the "Meaningful" is out the window before it's finished coding. Any meaningful change is guaranteed to be either undesirable, or non-repeatable, or both for the vast majority of the market players.
The things to spend EC on must be desirable, ie people must want to spend their EC on them. Some people not liking change is irrelevant.
"Desirable" is incredibly suspect as well, because the problem hasn't been defined, and may not actually exist. Most people here seem keen on meeting this with more stuff-which by definition has a shelf-life for how long you can cycle the powercreep before you hit the wall. Likewise for cosmetics.
You can't seriously think it would be hard for them to create stuff people would want to buy?
No "problem" is defined because that's not not part of the question.
"Repeatable" most of the suggestions that involve "Desirable" aren't repeatable. (More junk in the stores is more junk in the stores, most of which, if Cryptic follows tradition, will be obsolete by the second or third month by whatever the current flavor of the month is.)
Things are repeatable if they make them repeatable. And of course, everything doesn't actually need to be infinitely repeatable, just long enough that there's something new ready to go when the old stuff begins to hit the saturation point.
Buying things doesn't solve any problems. If they add ten ships at a billion EC each and you spend your hoarded money to buy them...now you have them, so what will you spend the rest of your EC on?
Sure it does. You just intentionally picked an item that that you can't have multiple copies of as a strawman.
Besides, anything that costs 1 billion is clearly not "accessible" anyway.
No, it's not @seaofsorrows , because the EC didn't "sink", it was traded to another player. That EC is still in circulation, since the player from whom you bought your ship can turn around and use said EC on yet another purchase. Unless that EC is "destroyed" and removed entirely, it really doesn't count as a sink.
That’s not something I agree with as EC does not need to be destroyed to be removed from circulation. Trading with other players does at times remove vast amounts of EC from game circulation and I believe player trading does a better job of removing EC from circulation then the current in game EC sinks.
My ex Fleet mates alone have removed billions of EC from circulation by player trading. Player trading is a massive EC sink perhaps the biggest in game.
Giving EC to another player is not the same as removing it from circulation. Just because YOU don't have it anymore doesn't mean it isn't still in the economy and adding to inflation. To destroy currency you actually have to remove it from the economy so that it can't be used for anything else. In real economies we have the mint that destroys currency by shredding or burning...STO has nothing like that.
When a player quits the game and never comes back the EC that player got from player trading is effectively shredded / burnt. Its 100% completely removed from the game economy and cannot be used for anything else.
When a character is deleted all that EC from player trading is again shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
Lastly when people go over the EC cap with player trading the EC again is 100% shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
The above 3 with player trading cause vast amounts of EC to be removed from the game economy. EC that will never come back and renter the economy, EC that will never see the light of day again so can be counted as destroyed.
Going back to the original question how about making a beam/torpedo/mine that needs ammo? We know it can be done as there is already an ammo weapon in game. Now changing all current torpedoes/mines would cause outrage. But what if we created a new set of weapons that used ammo and that ammo cost EC? Energy weapons that need new replacement power crystals. Torpedoes/mines that need ammo of some sort.
The weapons would have to have something unique or some sort of advantage to make them worthwhile using.
Just spit balling perhaps a dual torpedo launcher that shot 2 torpedoes not at the same target but at two targets but needed EC to replace torpedoes. Mines that have a larger explosion radius and the better more experience EC parts boost the radius more and need replacing.
Beams could have an effeceint crystal to make them use less power to fire, or another type of crystal to make them fire faster? Basically a new type of weapon with an element to the weapon that can be upgraded to change the effect but wears out and is replaced by EC. The weapon can still work when the worn out park stops you just lose the benefit.
You could even expand the idea into engines or warp cores. Have something that modifies the engines/warp core but needs replacing every x hours. This would fit the rule Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible
Obviously not. The problem is there is nothing desirable. Hell... I'd shell out my GPL for those outfits in the Dilithium Store. I wouldn't care if they were still character unlocks only.
I imagine there are many people who look at them and concluding that five- and six-figure dilithium costs for a per-character aesthetic unlock are plain not worth it. That said, I also think that more copies would be moved if they were instead in the Z-store (you can, after all, turn dilithium into Zen; the truly impatient will pay up actual money).
As for an EC/GPL sink idea... consider by way of example 'Boldly They Rode'. Imagine if the Dominon-polaron weapon choices were replaced by a 'requisition clearance' which makes the complete family (DBBs, beam arrays, turrets, cannons) available for purchase at any relevant vendor.
If I'm going to delete a character I would liquidate all their assets to ECs, move any dil to the exchange for another character to grab and put the ECs into the acct bank. So no, their ECs wouldn't get burned, just transferred around to other toons.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
If I'm going to delete a character I would liquidate all their assets to ECs, move any dil to the exchange for another character to grab and put the ECs into the acct bank. So no, their ECs wouldn't get burned, just transferred around to other toons.
I would do that and you would do that but not everyone who deletes characters does. So EC does get burned from this. Characters leaving the game for good, account for a very large amount of EC that is removed from the economy.
No, it's not @seaofsorrows , because the EC didn't "sink", it was traded to another player. That EC is still in circulation, since the player from whom you bought your ship can turn around and use said EC on yet another purchase. Unless that EC is "destroyed" and removed entirely, it really doesn't count as a sink.
That’s not something I agree with as EC does not need to be destroyed to be removed from circulation. Trading with other players does at times remove vast amounts of EC from game circulation and I believe player trading does a better job of removing EC from circulation then the current in game EC sinks.
My ex Fleet mates alone have removed billions of EC from circulation by player trading. Player trading is a massive EC sink perhaps the biggest in game.
Giving EC to another player is not the same as removing it from circulation. Just because YOU don't have it anymore doesn't mean it isn't still in the economy and adding to inflation. To destroy currency you actually have to remove it from the economy so that it can't be used for anything else. In real economies we have the mint that destroys currency by shredding or burning...STO has nothing like that.
When a player quits the game and never comes back the EC that player got from player trading is effectively shredded / burnt. Its 100% completely removed from the game economy and cannot be used for anything else.
When a character is deleted all that EC from player trading is again shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
Lastly when people go over the EC cap with player trading the EC again is 100% shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
The above 3 with player trading cause vast amounts of EC to be removed from the game economy. EC that will never come back and renter the economy, EC that will never see the light of day again so can be counted as destroyed.
Going back to the original question how about making a beam/torpedo/mine that needs ammo? We know it can be done as there is already an ammo weapon in game. Now changing all current torpedoes/mines would cause outrage. But what if we created a new set of weapons that used ammo and that ammo cost EC? Energy weapons that need new replacement power crystals. Torpedoes/mines that need ammo of some sort.
The weapons would have to have something unique or some sort of advantage to make them worthwhile using.
Just spit balling perhaps a dual torpedo launcher that shot 2 torpedoes not at the same target but at two targets but needed EC to replace torpedoes. Mines that have a larger explosion radius and the better more experience EC parts boost the radius more and need replacing.
Beams could have an effeceint crystal to make them use less power to fire, or another type of crystal to make them fire faster? Basically a new type of weapon with an element to the weapon that can be upgraded to change the effect but wears out and is replaced by EC. The weapon can still work when the worn out park stops you just lose the benefit.
You could even expand the idea into engines or warp cores. Have something that modifies the engines/warp core but needs replacing every x hours. This would fit the rule Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible
IF the those new items had enough of a stat boost to matter where you want them, they will become the new "must" have items. That won't be desirable to many people to have to get a bunch of new gear. I know I would be annoyed at having to gold a whole new set of gear. I mean I can...easily with the resources I have...but I hardly would consider that desirable.
Again, "desirable" refers to the items themselves (=people want them), not to the condition of "having" to acquire them.
On the other hand the game has yet to provide me a reason to "gold" even a single piece of gear, so that doesn't seem likely. And I certainly wouldn't spend any EC on consumable gear boosts, the game is too easy.
Do people delete toons and forget to transfer assets? Yes. Do people leave the game and never return, thereby taking their assets from the economy? Yes. Do people go over the EC cap and accidentally burn excess? Yes. Are these solutions? No.
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Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Do people delete toons and forget to transfer assets? Yes. Do people leave the game and never return, thereby taking their assets from the economy? Yes. Do people go over the EC cap and accidentally burn excess? Yes. Are these solutions? No.
Agreed. They're not solutions.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
To remove EC from the game you need a process which "destroys" that EC, not one that transfers it to another system (like the Exchange does).
It literally needs to be a sink, something that one the EC is used on it, it never comes back and is gone from the game.
There are systems like that in the game already tbh, Zen used in the C-store is gone once you spend it, Lobi is gone once you spend it, fleet credits are gone once used. In fact the in game stores for buying commodities are sinks as they remove EC permanently too.
The big problem though is that for 99% of the players, once you get to Level 50+ you've got nothing to spend that EC on. And once you get that high in the game the EC starts to pour in via Endeavors, selling loot drops, Admiralty etc. So you're starting to make more of the stuff but you've got no reason to spend it on any of the sinks. The only thing you have a reason to store EC for is to buy things from the Exchange, to save up for those big money items you want for the endgame builds, or maybe to use a high end character to buy for a new low end toon you've started.
So literally all of the high end EC generation is being saved and used for the Exchange system, and all that does is transfer the EC between players. If you buy a ship of someone for 1Billion EC, that EC has now gone to someone else, it still exists and can be used again.
And the more people get to end game and start earning large amounts of EC, the more the total volume of EC inflates, which means eventually there's just too much of it in existence and it almost becomes worthless. Of course it's not totally worthless because it can still buy items, but it will slowly all work its way into the pockets of the people selling the big items, or into the pockets of people saving for big items. So it's essentially useless numbers on a UI when you get to that stage.
Rarity of lockbox items and high cost of crafting/upgrades etc. means prices will always stay high, so even if people get richer the costs are still staying high, and the EC is really only flowing between rich people selling/buying high end items.
You want a sink that will destroy EC that the average player will use? It's got to be something that is desirable, it's got to be something that is repeatedly wanted/needed/used, it has to be something that is priced within reach of the average Joe.
Those holo-disguise things from the latest lockbox are a good example, though not terrible useful admittedly. What if you could buy those on mass for EC, or the same for your ship?
Or costume unlocks that last only a few days or a week or something.
Or what about doffs who temporarily join your crew on loan for EC for a week or so, something highly desirable people will want to have on they rosters.
Do people delete toons and forget to transfer assets? Yes. Do people leave the game and never return, thereby taking their assets from the economy? Yes. Do people go over the EC cap and accidentally burn excess? Yes. Are these solutions? No.
Not only are they solutions but they are the reason we don’t need any new solutions. They remove enough EC from the game that we have no inflation. They have been working fine for years so why do we need any other solution when there isn’t any inflation problem due to the natural loss we get from players leaving? The natural loss is not going to stop and its working perfectly well to keep inflation in check. I do not see what the problem is for leaving everything how it is right now and just monitoring the situation. Its not like we have any problem that needs solving.
There doesn't appear to be an inflation problem in the game that needs solving. Which means at the moment its impossible no matter the solution to reduce inflation further. Based on everything I have seen inflation is as low as it can get right now.
If I'm going to delete a character I would liquidate all their assets to ECs, move any dil to the exchange for another character to grab and put the ECs into the acct bank. So no, their ECs wouldn't get burned, just transferred around to other toons.
I would do that and you would do that but not everyone who deletes characters does. So EC does get burned from this. Characters leaving the game for good, account for a very large amount of EC that is removed from the economy.
How many players with toons that have EC in the BILLIONS don't check and just delete a toon? And NOT have it rolled back if they did it by accident? I would say that number is right around zero. So no, that does not remove any meaningful amount of EC from the market. Players who perma quit...yeah that does IF they were a big market trader and got most of their wealth by collecting it from other players. If they are just collecting EC as they play...not so much. At least unless they have been playing for like 5 years or more at rather unreasonable amounts of time. But having the EC control of a game be that people need to perma quit the game is...well...just a bad one. For the players...for the game company...yeah this is good for NOBODY.
Approx. 99% of my current Fleet have left to never return. Some deleted characters on the way out, others have characters that will never be logged into again removing billions from the game. They don’t need to be active for 5 years to build up large amounts of EC. What about all the causal players that open a few lock box’s, sold a big ship for loads of EC then months down the line quit without spending the EC?
People naturally join and quit MMORPG’s its unavoidable and a normal part of the process. Why is it good for nobody that this process that is going happen no matter what is playing a part to reduce or stop inflation?
No, @pottsey5g , they are not solutions at all. As you say, they are a normal part of the process and are already going on, however, they are not solving whatever issue Borticus is trying to address. Now, don't get me wrong, personally, I don't see any issue that needs addressing to begin with, so I'm not entirely sure what Borticus wants "fixed" with another EC sink.
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From what I can see there is a large group of players that are roll playing or just want to do what they see in the shows and don't care about ship building at all. Some just play a few hours a week and will never get a ship build done. If this is true I have a off the wall idea that could take some EC out of the game and help these players out at the same time.
Make a build store. You could start with a build for each of the Hero ships. A canon base build using the console from the ship that when everything is upgraded to Mk 15 would be around mid range DPS. Maybe tie it in with the self leveling ships.
It would not be pay to win as you could do much better with other builds. The goal of getting everything upgraded from Mk 12 to Mk 15 is something more players could do. Knowing that in the end they would have a ship that could handle tfo's and other content would help in keeping them around as well as using the upgrade system.
A three part ground boff set with a choice of weapon with the effects from each of the shows would be something else to think about.
The EC would be out of the game so the price could be low enough that players would be able to buy them.
Now, don't get me wrong, personally, I don't see any issue that needs addressing to begin with, so I'm not entirely sure what Borticus wants "fixed" with another EC sink.
That's pretty much where I am too, I am proposing 'solutions' to a problem I don't understand because I don't see it as being a real issue. I personally believe that the EC economy in STO is perfectly fine.. I am not even close to being 'good' at generating EC but I can still easily make enough to get what I want/need. It's a system that's accessible to everyone, but they have to put a little work in.
There hasn't been a single proposal in this entire thread that's addressed all of Bort's criteria.. because that solution does not exist. The big sticking point is always going to be 'accessible.' As long as there are people in the game that won't put any time or effort into learning how to generate EC they will always consider any solution inaccessible.
The best solution to this 'problem' really is for those having a hard time making EC to just ask questions and do a little research to fix their own problem. It's something we simply don't need to address.
Since the game went free to play the only EC I have destroyed has gone into fleet projects (originally via commodities), rep projects and until recently trans warps.
The remainder of the vast quantity I have generated has gone to the exchange and contributed to inflation. The reason being that there is nothing worth using that isn't sourced from dilithium or zen.
Anything that fails to compete with dilithium or zen derived ships/items will fail to sink any EC from my pockets. But Anything that can compete with dilithium or zen derived ships/items will detract from the real world income cryptic needs to keep the game going.
So that's both the Meaningful and Desirable requirement, at least from my perspective. The EC sink has to be as good or better then something from a box, rep project, lobi store, fleet store or the zen store. 'As good as' could be in either aesthetic, or statistical terms. So it basically means that it will eather require cryptic to invest artistic development time, or give out some power creep.
Sadly Repeatable presents a problem. because if it is both meaningful and repeatable, it is not desirable, its work.
I hate work.
The Accessable requirment then compounds the problem. Because if its meaningful and repeatable, but not accessible I can just write it off as something most people don't have, so I don't need it. But if its accessible, that means every one but me will have it unless I work.
I don't want to work. I don't like these four requirements at all.
Honestly if repeatable 100% has to be a requirement then I am prepared to live with a tax. A tax is far better. Just make sure its applied to trades, the mail and fleet banks as well as the exchange.
Comments
- seeling loot to the vendor
- admirality
- some doff missions
- endeavors
- tour the galaxy
and on the other side we have the following sinks to remove ec from the game:
- reputation (not really noticable at all)
- upgrading fleet holdings
- buy stuff from npcs (no one really buys that much stuff from npcs, maybe a new blue hangar pet or so for a new ship)
- a shuttle like the runabout
=> the main intention to have more ec is to use it to trade with other players. but that doesnt get the ec out of the cycle, it just transfer it from one player to the other.
thats why i would introduce a tax to that, because it would be a continued drain of ec from the game. all other methods arent really a continued drain. sure you could just add something like you need to repair your ships for ec or stuff like that but yea.. not very appealing for most of the players i guess.
and yes, there will be a few people avoiding the tax, but thats already the case that people dont trade everything via exchange, but the exchange is stil a more lazymode way to sell stuff instead of hanging around all the day and trying to sell the stuff via a trading channel.
another option would be to decrease the ec to just remove 1 didgit from the amount of ec everyone has stored. would mean 1b => 100m after it .
but that would defnitly result in a massive mob with pitchforkes and torches
ingame: @Felisean
If the average player lasts 9 months was it? Then all that EC they built up from trading with other players and other sources is removed when they quit. Granted it can be re-added at a later date if they come back but a large amount of players that quit do not come back so the EC is effectively remove from the game.
I would expect players leaving the game removes many billions of EC from the market each year. Which I suspect is larger than the other sources that remove EC from the game and so player trading between each other are a big factor in why we don't have inflation.
I have to agree.
Even if the player doesn't leave the game, what do they usually buy with that huge chunk of EC? Usually lockbox ships..
If I spend 1 Billion on a Lockbox Ship.. that 1B EC is gone, not recycled. It's used to buy a ship that as soon as I open is now bound to me. Yes, I can use it on that character as much as I want, but I can never trade it or sell it. Lobi and Lockbox ships are an EC Sink.. a big one.
People buy ships for traits and consoles as well, how many Prototype Dreadnoughts have been sold just for the DPRM console? Or Astika's for Supremecy (though not so much anymore.)
Most EC sales end in the purchase of a big ticket item that becomes bound to the buyer. That is absolutely an EC sink.
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You can't seriously think it would be hard for them to create stuff people would want to buy?
No "problem" is defined because that's not not part of the question.
Things are repeatable if they make them repeatable. And of course, everything doesn't actually need to be infinitely repeatable, just long enough that there's something new ready to go when the old stuff begins to hit the saturation point.
My ex Fleet mates alone have removed billions of EC from circulation by player trading. Player trading can be a massive EC sink, perhaps the biggest in game.
EDIT: Plus as a further point sometimes some of that player trading EC does get destroyed by the player. I have seen more then a few players destroy many millions of EC by player trading. Destroyed as in completely removed from the game and cannot come back.
Items i want (no ships) from a 0.05% drop rate RNG?
EC resolve that sometimes.
Besides, anything that costs 1 billion is clearly not "accessible" anyway.
When a character is deleted all that EC from player trading is again shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
Lastly when people go over the EC cap with player trading the EC again is 100% shredded / burnt, 100% removed from the game economy.
The above 3 with player trading cause vast amounts of EC to be removed from the game economy. EC that will never come back and renter the economy, EC that will never see the light of day again so can be counted as destroyed.
Going back to the original question how about making a beam/torpedo/mine that needs ammo? We know it can be done as there is already an ammo weapon in game. Now changing all current torpedoes/mines would cause outrage. But what if we created a new set of weapons that used ammo and that ammo cost EC? Energy weapons that need new replacement power crystals. Torpedoes/mines that need ammo of some sort.
The weapons would have to have something unique or some sort of advantage to make them worthwhile using.
Just spit balling perhaps a dual torpedo launcher that shot 2 torpedoes not at the same target but at two targets but needed EC to replace torpedoes. Mines that have a larger explosion radius and the better more experience EC parts boost the radius more and need replacing.
Beams could have an effeceint crystal to make them use less power to fire, or another type of crystal to make them fire faster? Basically a new type of weapon with an element to the weapon that can be upgraded to change the effect but wears out and is replaced by EC. The weapon can still work when the worn out park stops you just lose the benefit.
You could even expand the idea into engines or warp cores. Have something that modifies the engines/warp core but needs replacing every x hours. This would fit the rule Meaningful, Desirable, Repeatable, and Accessible
As for an EC/GPL sink idea... consider by way of example 'Boldly They Rode'. Imagine if the Dominon-polaron weapon choices were replaced by a 'requisition clearance' which makes the complete family (DBBs, beam arrays, turrets, cannons) available for purchase at any relevant vendor.
On the other hand the game has yet to provide me a reason to "gold" even a single piece of gear, so that doesn't seem likely. And I certainly wouldn't spend any EC on consumable gear boosts, the game is too easy.
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Agreed. They're not solutions.
It literally needs to be a sink, something that one the EC is used on it, it never comes back and is gone from the game.
There are systems like that in the game already tbh, Zen used in the C-store is gone once you spend it, Lobi is gone once you spend it, fleet credits are gone once used. In fact the in game stores for buying commodities are sinks as they remove EC permanently too.
The big problem though is that for 99% of the players, once you get to Level 50+ you've got nothing to spend that EC on. And once you get that high in the game the EC starts to pour in via Endeavors, selling loot drops, Admiralty etc. So you're starting to make more of the stuff but you've got no reason to spend it on any of the sinks. The only thing you have a reason to store EC for is to buy things from the Exchange, to save up for those big money items you want for the endgame builds, or maybe to use a high end character to buy for a new low end toon you've started.
So literally all of the high end EC generation is being saved and used for the Exchange system, and all that does is transfer the EC between players. If you buy a ship of someone for 1Billion EC, that EC has now gone to someone else, it still exists and can be used again.
And the more people get to end game and start earning large amounts of EC, the more the total volume of EC inflates, which means eventually there's just too much of it in existence and it almost becomes worthless. Of course it's not totally worthless because it can still buy items, but it will slowly all work its way into the pockets of the people selling the big items, or into the pockets of people saving for big items. So it's essentially useless numbers on a UI when you get to that stage.
Rarity of lockbox items and high cost of crafting/upgrades etc. means prices will always stay high, so even if people get richer the costs are still staying high, and the EC is really only flowing between rich people selling/buying high end items.
You want a sink that will destroy EC that the average player will use? It's got to be something that is desirable, it's got to be something that is repeatedly wanted/needed/used, it has to be something that is priced within reach of the average Joe.
Those holo-disguise things from the latest lockbox are a good example, though not terrible useful admittedly. What if you could buy those on mass for EC, or the same for your ship?
Or costume unlocks that last only a few days or a week or something.
Or what about doffs who temporarily join your crew on loan for EC for a week or so, something highly desirable people will want to have on they rosters.
There doesn't appear to be an inflation problem in the game that needs solving. Which means at the moment its impossible no matter the solution to reduce inflation further. Based on everything I have seen inflation is as low as it can get right now.
Approx. 99% of my current Fleet have left to never return. Some deleted characters on the way out, others have characters that will never be logged into again removing billions from the game. They don’t need to be active for 5 years to build up large amounts of EC. What about all the causal players that open a few lock box’s, sold a big ship for loads of EC then months down the line quit without spending the EC?
People naturally join and quit MMORPG’s its unavoidable and a normal part of the process. Why is it good for nobody that this process that is going happen no matter what is playing a part to reduce or stop inflation?
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From what I can see there is a large group of players that are roll playing or just want to do what they see in the shows and don't care about ship building at all. Some just play a few hours a week and will never get a ship build done. If this is true I have a off the wall idea that could take some EC out of the game and help these players out at the same time.
Make a build store. You could start with a build for each of the Hero ships. A canon base build using the console from the ship that when everything is upgraded to Mk 15 would be around mid range DPS. Maybe tie it in with the self leveling ships.
It would not be pay to win as you could do much better with other builds. The goal of getting everything upgraded from Mk 12 to Mk 15 is something more players could do. Knowing that in the end they would have a ship that could handle tfo's and other content would help in keeping them around as well as using the upgrade system.
A three part ground boff set with a choice of weapon with the effects from each of the shows would be something else to think about.
The EC would be out of the game so the price could be low enough that players would be able to buy them.
That's pretty much where I am too, I am proposing 'solutions' to a problem I don't understand because I don't see it as being a real issue. I personally believe that the EC economy in STO is perfectly fine.. I am not even close to being 'good' at generating EC but I can still easily make enough to get what I want/need. It's a system that's accessible to everyone, but they have to put a little work in.
There hasn't been a single proposal in this entire thread that's addressed all of Bort's criteria.. because that solution does not exist. The big sticking point is always going to be 'accessible.' As long as there are people in the game that won't put any time or effort into learning how to generate EC they will always consider any solution inaccessible.
The best solution to this 'problem' really is for those having a hard time making EC to just ask questions and do a little research to fix their own problem. It's something we simply don't need to address.
EC inflation is a myth.
The remainder of the vast quantity I have generated has gone to the exchange and contributed to inflation. The reason being that there is nothing worth using that isn't sourced from dilithium or zen.
Anything that fails to compete with dilithium or zen derived ships/items will fail to sink any EC from my pockets. But Anything that can compete with dilithium or zen derived ships/items will detract from the real world income cryptic needs to keep the game going.
So that's both the Meaningful and Desirable requirement, at least from my perspective. The EC sink has to be as good or better then something from a box, rep project, lobi store, fleet store or the zen store. 'As good as' could be in either aesthetic, or statistical terms. So it basically means that it will eather require cryptic to invest artistic development time, or give out some power creep.
Sadly Repeatable presents a problem. because if it is both meaningful and repeatable, it is not desirable, its work.
I hate work.
The Accessable requirment then compounds the problem. Because if its meaningful and repeatable, but not accessible I can just write it off as something most people don't have, so I don't need it. But if its accessible, that means every one but me will have it unless I work.
I don't want to work. I don't like these four requirements at all.
Honestly if repeatable 100% has to be a requirement then I am prepared to live with a tax. A tax is far better. Just make sure its applied to trades, the mail and fleet banks as well as the exchange.