Because now everyone who only wants the console or trait needs to get the whole ship instead of just getting the cross faction pack, essentially doubling the price for those who could use the cross faction packs.
Then why they removed cross faction packs? Why adding more oil to the fire?
Is it possible to enable some ships from promo boxes or lock boxes(lets say >1y old) to be bought with higher amount of loby crystal as special ones ? Or some ec conversion to dil?
We are throwing ideas here without knowing is there even will or something to work on this problem from dev side? One info is enough to have at least hope to keep playing the game so that one day some things would be reached. And to calm the spirits for some time...
Money, plain and simple as the others have pointed out. This is one of their decisions I absolutely did not agree with as it removed a budget option for people. I get why they did it but I don't agree with it. This now means if folks want to get the console or trait from a ship, they now have to spring for the full ship instead of just the console/trait, hopefully meaning more money for them. However I see this backfiring on them big time.
Precedent has been set for certain ships to appear in the lobi store already, which is what they would end up doing unless something else comes up. they can absolutely make certain ships appear in the lobi store. Whether they will or not is a different story.
I'm sure they're aware of the absurd costs of certain items. Far as to what they're going to do about it I have no idea if anything. Even then I probably couldn't tell you even if I did know. However if they did make the changes from previous post, they could print their own cash.
i like how most of the discussion has been centered around ship costs. i get that these are the focal point for most, but ive since relegated myself to never getting a promo or LB ship due in large part of my bad luck with gambling, (i have used the free keys we get that are acct locked - no wins).
however, there are also things in them that others want as well. for me - vanity shields. (other things too, but primary to visual takes).
Ships are the worst offender on the list which is why they get the most attention. if they would address supply issues with certain things, remove certain speculators from the equation, and address the EC inflation, everything would come back down to earth, including the vanity shields.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
The misconception that an ec cap dictates or limits the worth of items is strong in this thread.
It's an indicator that many of the posters here generally don't understand how basic supply/demand works. It can be frustrating to discuss this topic with people that are uninformed but they seem to be passionate about STO. So at least their heart is in the right place. Even if they are demonstrably wrong on the facts.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
but this is a game, not real world economics. it should never be as difficult as it is for people to enjoy a game. and part of that is wanting to be able to afford things in the game. no one is saying they wouldnt pay for things, but they are saying those things are too expensive.
Which proves that they don't understand the basic supply/demand in this game. We'd all love a game that cost $60 with minimal microtransactions and access to all the ships we want with minimal grinding. However, that's not the game we have. If that doesn't work for you, then STO isn't the game for you.
in my case, as presented above - id work and pay for vanity shields if they were priced in a way for me to quantify cost vs effort. but when many are in the 100+mil, sorry, i wont buy it. maybe someone else will, but thats not even near what i consider value for the item, since its not a ship and has no bearing on stats (DPS, etc.)
This is good example of not understanding supply/demand. It doesn't matter vanity shields are overpriced in your mind. That's the price that the market will bear, so that's the going rate.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
but this is a game, not real world economics. it should never be as difficult as it is for people to enjoy a game. and part of that is wanting to be able to afford things in the game. no one is saying they wouldnt pay for things, but they are saying those things are too expensive.
Which proves that they don't understand the basic supply/demand in this game. We'd all love a game that cost $60 with minimal microtransactions and access to all the ships we want with minimal grinding. However, that's not the game we have. If that doesn't work for you, then STO isn't the game for you.
in my case, as presented above - id work and pay for vanity shields if they were priced in a way for me to quantify cost vs effort. but when many are in the 100+mil, sorry, i wont buy it. maybe someone else will, but thats not even near what i consider value for the item, since its not a ship and has no bearing on stats (DPS, etc.)
This is good example of not understanding supply/demand. It doesn't matter vanity shields are overpriced in your mind. That's the price that the market will bear, so that's the going rate.
lol, you mock me for not understanding my take on it. i have an understanding of supply and demand, i get it. but you seem to not get that people wont pay (or dont want to pay) certain process for certain things, regardless of what any market will bear. so please dont try to quantify misunderstanding of me not wanting to pay the price for something as not understanding supply and demand. those are two separate things my friend.
There is no point in arguing from the perspective of 'I don't want to pay that.' The market doesn't move on what you specifically wish to pay, the prices are what they are because the majority will pay what's being asked. If the majority agree that it's too expensive, they will abstain and the price falls.
Unless you can convince a large number of players to not pay what's being asked, it won't make any difference. The prices are what they are because that's the items worth, which means the price is fair. If the price wasn't fair, it wouldn't sell.
lol, you mock me for not understanding my take on it. i have an understanding of supply and demand, i get it. but you seem to not get that people wont pay (or dont want to pay) certain prices for certain things, regardless of what any market will bear. so please dont try to quantify misunderstanding of me not wanting to pay the price for something as not understanding supply and demand. those are two separate things my friend.
It's fine that you don't want to pay a market price for something. However, it doesn't mean that it's inherently "too expensive." Hell, I won't pay the going rate for a Sheshar or Son'a Collector ship. However, the going rate is what it is since it's what the market will bear. It doesn't matter that I won't pay that price because someone else will. Complaining about it doesn't change these facts.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
we can agree to disagree, i understand your points, and also hope you understand mine.
On certain things, yes we can agree to disagree. However, some things are demonstrably true. In that case, it just is what it is regardless of how we feel about it.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
For ship prices it's not just what the market will bear, but also the cost of "production" which is based on how many packs must be opened on average to get one. That sets a floor on the price for many sellers.
With lock boxes, opening 250 boxes gets you on average 1 T6 ship, plus T5 ships, weapon packs, trait packs, misc.
With R&D promo packs, opening 100 boxes gets you 1 ship, some low-value catalysts and accelerators, and a mountain of worthless R&D mats.
Both also give you about the same amount of lobi.
If you open lock boxes, you can sell a lot more of the results than with R&D packs so the ship itself costs less.
This part is just guessing, but I also think supply of lock box ships is higher because more people open boxes for the other prizes like traits and weapon packs then win a ship pack as a side effect, while almost nobody opens R&D packs except for the chance at a ship.
Could you explain how that works? I am not a computer scientist, so I don't understand what you are saying.
I believe he's saying that beyond a certain point, the system cannot function. You can't run an N64 game on a SNES basically.
Another way to look at it is a cup full of water. It can only hold so much. Anything over that... just spills out and is unusable. It will only register what the cup can hold.
What I meant was why is 2,147,483,647 the largest number the code can handle.
Could you explain how that works? I am not a computer scientist, so I don't understand what you are saying.
I believe he's saying that beyond a certain point, the system cannot function. You can't run an N64 game on a SNES basically.
Another way to look at it is a cup full of water. It can only hold so much. Anything over that... just spills out and is unusable. It will only register what the cup can hold.
What I meant was why is 2,147,483,647 the largest number the code can handle.
Because that's the largest 32-bit number possible, to have a larger number it would have to be changed to 64-bit which I have no idea how difficult it would be to do. According to a quick Google search a 64-bit signed integer could handle numbers up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 and I don't think inflation could EVER get that bad, lol.
Personally, I think that most character-bound equipment should be unbound and available to sell on the exchange, even after equipping and using it. This includes things like reputation sets, mission reward sets, etc.
Frankly, I see no reason why things bind-on-pickup or bind-on-equip. If you decide you don't like the item, you should be able to try and sell it. The prices of these things will be dictated by the market. I imagine rep gear would sell pretty high due to the amount of time and resources needed to craft, and mission rewards would sell pretty low because they are easy to obtain. This would also give EC whales an option to not have to grind the rep for a new character if the only thing they want is the equipment. Non-EC whales can always just grind it out.
An alternative idea would be to replace the current injury system with an equipment degredation system, similar to many other MMOs where your equipment degrades upon use, with a large amount of degredation upon death. The EC sink would be the cost of repairing your equipment (can even make it scale based on level).
alternatively, and maybe even going hand in had with, above, say, Mk VI, weapons require power units for beams, and ammunition for cannons and torpedoes, with of course inventories for each sized according to size of the ship
Personally, I think that most character-bound equipment should be unbound and available to sell on the exchange, even after equipping and using it. This includes things like reputation sets, mission reward sets, etc.
Frankly, I see no reason why things bind-on-pickup or bind-on-equip. If you decide you don't like the item, you should be able to try and sell it. The prices of these things will be dictated by the market. I imagine rep gear would sell pretty high due to the amount of time and resources needed to craft, and mission rewards would sell pretty low because they are easy to obtain. This would also give EC whales an option to not have to grind the rep for a new character if the only thing they want is the equipment. Non-EC whales can always just grind it out.
An alternative idea would be to replace the current injury system with an equipment degredation system, similar to many other MMOs where your equipment degrades upon use, with a large amount of degredation upon death. The EC sink would be the cost of repairing your equipment (can even make it scale based on level).
alternatively, and maybe even going hand in had with, above, say, Mk VI, weapons require power units for beams, and ammunition for cannons and torpedoes, with of course inventories for each sized according to size of the ship
It would definitely add to the tactics of the game if every time you went into a TFO or mission, you have a finite number of torpedos/mines you could fire before you ran out. I like the idea of a torpedo/mine inventory that you could fill with up to X torpedos or mines where X depends on the class of ship.
30 for sci
40 for escort
50 for cruiser
This would make using torp spread or mine dispersal patterns a real tactical decision. I also think that at the same time, they would need to buff torpedos and mines to make them worth if you could only carry a finite number.
The last time they increased the EC cap, prices for promo ships plummeted which is a good thing.
Before, the exchange had a cap of 750m with a player cap of 1b.
Now, the exchange has a cap of 1.5b with a player cap of 2b.
Nothing basically changed and promo ship prices definitely didn't plummet. The perspective just changed because both caps increased.
Actually they did plummet. Connies were selling for around 1.8 billion EC because the exchange cap was 750M. With zero transparency in pricing, people could swindle buyers left and right. Once the exchange cap was raised to 1.5 billion, prices started to drop and settled around 1-1.1 billion EC for a long time. Since then, prices generally increased due to the 100% predictable inflation that's occurring 24/7.
Actually I disagree, and I have been playing since Beta and I have not seen this suppose plummet - In fact it increased as cap increased.
Top that off with the meddling of promo and T6 lockbox drop rates to an even lower percentage, this now caused a huge inflation in pricing these premium ships. There is indeed a huge shortage of specific types of promo and T6 lockbox starships. I remember the days the market was flooded with diverse premium ships, now their scarce, to the point where we are now seeing an insane price hike. Many players, I dare to say, are turning to a more darker market, something not advisable.
Always the rich looking for higher caps and they claim it will reduce prices...yet in the history of STO prices never go down for long...and always rise. We know the devs will never devalue zen....so we knows prices wont go down
So why not just be honest and admit you want higher caps so you can charge more, honesty would be refreshing!
The system is severely off balanced, and you are correct about the people vouching for a cap increase, it is an attempt to increase their wealth even more. Doing so will severely cripple the market and I dare to say some players will turn to gold sellers and darker markets.
What Cryptic needs to do is start making these purchases account unlocks, it is insane to repeat a purchase for a specific character etc.. as the account in fact represents a player as a whole. This would be more interesting because this will make the market more competitive. There will be an endless supply of new Promo and T6 Lockbox ships, make the older ones account unlocks, or start selling them in bundle packs at the prices they sell at the MIUDD store.
Then you will see an interesting turn in the market itself. By the way, there is no way to contain X amount of Billions in the game without making hundreds of alts and hundreds of alt accounts or dummy fleets.
you are correct about the people vouching for a cap increase, it is an attempt to increase their wealth even more.
So somehow you're able to see how much EC everyone on the forums has? Interesting. The primary request is that the exchange price cap be increased so that high price items start showing up there again instead of being hidden away in private trade channels.
Always the rich looking for higher caps and they claim it will reduce prices...yet in the history of STO prices never go down for long...and always rise. We know the devs will never devalue zen....so we knows prices wont go down
So why not just be honest and admit you want higher caps so you can charge more, honesty would be refreshing!
The system is severely off balanced, and you are correct about the people vouching for a cap increase, it is an attempt to increase their wealth even more. Doing so will severely cripple the market and I dare to say some players will turn to gold sellers and darker markets.
What Cryptic needs to do is start making these purchases account unlocks, it is insane to repeat a purchase for a specific character etc.. as the account in fact represents a player as a whole. This would be more interesting because this will make the market more competitive. There will be an endless supply of new Promo and T6 Lockbox ships, make the older ones account unlocks, or start selling them in bundle packs at the prices they sell at the MIUDD store.
Then you will see an interesting turn in the market itself. By the way, there is no way to contain X amount of Billions in the game without making hundreds of alts and hundreds of alt accounts or dummy fleets.
Nope. I have maybe 100 million EC and around 80 keys total across all of my characters.
I buy ships from the exchange, I've never sold any T6s (just a few T5s).
I vote for increases because that will move ship sales back to the exchange which is safer, easier (since supply will be increased), and cheaper for buyers (because sellers are back to competing with each other more than they do in trade channels).
The increase is needed because inflation from things like admiralty has pushed promo box prices past the current cap.
alternatively, and maybe even going hand in had with, above, say, Mk VI, weapons require power units for beams, and ammunition for cannons and torpedoes, with of course inventories for each sized according to size of the ship
I don't see that working. Besides, unlike other MMOs, we're running around with fully staffed starships with fully equipped armories. So maintenance fees are a non starter because we got lots of engineers aboard our ships, and the majority of us tend to hang out at major hubs, which tend to be major bases with shipyard facilities. The closest we have to something like this is the injury system. However the majority of us are swimming in regenerators and repair components that its a non-issue, and there's the odd person who seems to be out to collect every injury in the game like its a badge of honor.
And try to impose an ammunition "tax" on Torpedos, you'll not only have a riot on your hands from the Torp Build players, you'll see an immediate decrease in the number of Torpedos used in builds. Hell... ANY kind of ammo system that is to be used as an EC sink will result in pitchforks and torches. The fact we have replicators on our ships can also negate a need for "Ammo Storage". Before you bring up that some components can't be replicated, in game the Devs tried something with crafting that involved "unreplicatable materials" that cost Dilithium being added into recipes back when Memory Alpha was still the Crafting Hub and not just a dot on the map.
It didn't go over very well.
When the crafting revamp came along, the Unreplicatable Materials were retired, and just a straight DL input was added to high end crafts by needing purple quality components that require some amount of DL to craft.
There used to be an EC cost to using the Tailor, and there used to be an EC cost to Mission Transwarp. Both were removed.
While having an EC sink would probably help balance the economy, just like with a Dilithium Sink, its gotta be a meaningful one that people won't just ignore because its inconvenient.
Always the rich looking for higher caps and they claim it will reduce prices...yet in the history of STO prices never go down for long...and always rise. We know the devs will never devalue zen....so we knows prices wont go down
So why not just be honest and admit you want higher caps so you can charge more, honesty would be refreshing!
The system is severely off balanced, and you are correct about the people vouching for a cap increase, it is an attempt to increase their wealth even more. Doing so will severely cripple the market and I dare to say some players will turn to gold sellers and darker markets.
What Cryptic needs to do is start making these purchases account unlocks, it is insane to repeat a purchase for a specific character etc.. as the account in fact represents a player as a whole. This would be more interesting because this will make the market more competitive. There will be an endless supply of new Promo and T6 Lockbox ships, make the older ones account unlocks, or start selling them in bundle packs at the prices they sell at the MIUDD store.
Then you will see an interesting turn in the market itself. By the way, there is no way to contain X amount of Billions in the game without making hundreds of alts and hundreds of alt accounts or dummy fleets.
First, if one is gold selling or buying from gold sellers, I will do everything in my power to bust those people and hope they end up with a permaban, and I won't lost an ounce of sleep over it. If someone is going to buy from gold sellers, you are enabling theft from your fellow players as that's how they get most of their stock. You are also directly harming the game by taking cash away that would otherwise go into the game to support development of better systems to reduce inflation people claim they want. This is money that could also allow them to hire more people to get us more content also.
Second, it's cute that you think keeping caps where they are will somehow prevent prices from going past that point. All that's going to happen is folks will start demanding 2b EC plus keys or other such item to make up the difference. That will do little more than prevent those transactions from appearing on the exchange making it easier to rip people off. If someone is looking for a promo ship and is quoted a price of 2.5b ec, you have no way of knowing if that's a legitimate price, or if they're trying to take you for 500m ec ride. Ships are going to sell for what they sell for regardless of what the EC caps are.
While I would love to see ships become account wide purchases, again there must be a counter balance to allow Cryptic to keep making cash at the same rate or greater than before. Again folks need to realize we're simply not going to get account wide ship unlocks without some kind of catch or downside that inevitably comes with it. I really wish people would get that through their heads. The law of supply and demand is largely to blame here. If they upped the supply of the ships, this would greatly reduce prices. If they also gave us viable EC sinks, this will also reduce inflation further by making EC more valuable. Bringing prices down and EC inflation under control is the goal here.
Personally, I think that most character-bound equipment should be unbound and available to sell on the exchange, even after equipping and using it. This includes things like reputation sets, mission reward sets, etc.
Frankly, I see no reason why things bind-on-pickup or bind-on-equip. If you decide you don't like the item, you should be able to try and sell it. The prices of these things will be dictated by the market. I imagine rep gear would sell pretty high due to the amount of time and resources needed to craft, and mission rewards would sell pretty low because they are easy to obtain. This would also give EC whales an option to not have to grind the rep for a new character if the only thing they want is the equipment. Non-EC whales can always just grind it out.
An alternative idea would be to replace the current injury system with an equipment degredation system, similar to many other MMOs where your equipment degrades upon use, with a large amount of degredation upon death. The EC sink would be the cost of repairing your equipment (can even make it scale based on level).
alternatively, and maybe even going hand in had with, above, say, Mk VI, weapons require power units for beams, and ammunition for cannons and torpedoes, with of course inventories for each sized according to size of the ship
It would definitely add to the tactics of the game if every time you went into a TFO or mission, you have a finite number of torpedos/mines you could fire before you ran out. I like the idea of a torpedo/mine inventory that you could fill with up to X torpedos or mines where X depends on the class of ship.
30 for sci
40 for escort
50 for cruiser
This would make using torp spread or mine dispersal patterns a real tactical decision. I also think that at the same time, they would need to buff torpedos and mines to make them worth if you could only carry a finite number.
Stuff like this won't work this late in the game and will cause full on nuclear war and riots in the game. Having an EC sink needs to be something that will make folks want to interact with it and not just an annoyance they avoid like a plague. If someone runs out of power cells or ammo, they may as well hang it up as they're not going to be able to fight. In this instance it would add a complexity for the sake of adding complexity and something to manage, and wouldn't add any value to the game. There's having EC sinks, and viable EC sinks. You want the second thing, not the first. What you're proposing adds systems that have no value.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Having an EC sink needs to be something that will make folks want to interact with it and not just an annoyance they avoid like a plague. If someone runs out of power cells or ammo, they may as well hang it up as they're not going to be able to fight. In this instance it would add a complexity for the sake of adding complexity and something to manage, and wouldn't add any value to the game. There's having EC sinks, and viable EC sinks. You want the second thing, not the first. What you're proposing adds systems that have no value.
We don’t always agree, but on this we are 100% on the same page. Things like ammo as an EC sink is an insanely bad idea, and flat out wouldn’t work.
EC Sinks are supposed to be things people WANT to spend EC on. I still like the idea of EC cost to upgrade rarity on Phoenix Tokens, I think that would pull quite a bit of money out of the economy. Things along those lines are good ideas.. having to buy ammo is the exact opposite of a good idea.
And I know I'm going a little tin foil hat here, but I think the rich also enjoy tanking prices of items that can sell that have little consequence to them
I watched a video on youtube about how someone makes a lot of ec...describes his grind which had little to do with selling stuff on the exchange. He talked about selling doffs on the exchange that he got for free and he massively undercuts people
I've been noticing more and more the areas I used to make extra ec with getting these massive undercuts...see people selling a item for 900k-800k-799k and then a massive drop down to 125k. I'd always wondered why that happened till I saw his video and it makes me wonder if the heavy farmers do that to make quick ec and ruin the market for people who can't farm like them
It's obvious farmers just want the EC cap raised so they can list their promo ships for 2 billion on the exchange which will farther push inflation and their profit, not reduce it
EC is stored as signed 32-bit integer which has a maximum value of 2,147,483,647.
So they cannot 'simply' just raise the cap on a whim.
that may have been true when they raised it before, but since then Cryptic has replaced all 32 bit versions with 64 bit versions of the game, so the 32 bit limitations should no longer exist
Comments
Precedent has been set for certain ships to appear in the lobi store already, which is what they would end up doing unless something else comes up. they can absolutely make certain ships appear in the lobi store. Whether they will or not is a different story.
I'm sure they're aware of the absurd costs of certain items. Far as to what they're going to do about it I have no idea if anything. Even then I probably couldn't tell you even if I did know. However if they did make the changes from previous post, they could print their own cash.
Ships are the worst offender on the list which is why they get the most attention. if they would address supply issues with certain things, remove certain speculators from the equation, and address the EC inflation, everything would come back down to earth, including the vanity shields.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
It's an indicator that many of the posters here generally don't understand how basic supply/demand works. It can be frustrating to discuss this topic with people that are uninformed but they seem to be passionate about STO. So at least their heart is in the right place. Even if they are demonstrably wrong on the facts.
Which proves that they don't understand the basic supply/demand in this game. We'd all love a game that cost $60 with minimal microtransactions and access to all the ships we want with minimal grinding. However, that's not the game we have. If that doesn't work for you, then STO isn't the game for you.
This is good example of not understanding supply/demand. It doesn't matter vanity shields are overpriced in your mind. That's the price that the market will bear, so that's the going rate.
There is no point in arguing from the perspective of 'I don't want to pay that.' The market doesn't move on what you specifically wish to pay, the prices are what they are because the majority will pay what's being asked. If the majority agree that it's too expensive, they will abstain and the price falls.
Unless you can convince a large number of players to not pay what's being asked, it won't make any difference. The prices are what they are because that's the items worth, which means the price is fair. If the price wasn't fair, it wouldn't sell.
It's fine that you don't want to pay a market price for something. However, it doesn't mean that it's inherently "too expensive." Hell, I won't pay the going rate for a Sheshar or Son'a Collector ship. However, the going rate is what it is since it's what the market will bear. It doesn't matter that I won't pay that price because someone else will. Complaining about it doesn't change these facts.
With lock boxes, opening 250 boxes gets you on average 1 T6 ship, plus T5 ships, weapon packs, trait packs, misc.
With R&D promo packs, opening 100 boxes gets you 1 ship, some low-value catalysts and accelerators, and a mountain of worthless R&D mats.
Both also give you about the same amount of lobi.
If you open lock boxes, you can sell a lot more of the results than with R&D packs so the ship itself costs less.
This part is just guessing, but I also think supply of lock box ships is higher because more people open boxes for the other prizes like traits and weapon packs then win a ship pack as a side effect, while almost nobody opens R&D packs except for the chance at a ship.
What I meant was why is 2,147,483,647 the largest number the code can handle.
Because that's the largest 32-bit number possible, to have a larger number it would have to be changed to 64-bit which I have no idea how difficult it would be to do. According to a quick Google search a 64-bit signed integer could handle numbers up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 and I don't think inflation could EVER get that bad, lol.
Cryptic Dev Team - "Challenge accepted!"
alternatively, and maybe even going hand in had with, above, say, Mk VI, weapons require power units for beams, and ammunition for cannons and torpedoes, with of course inventories for each sized according to size of the ship
It would definitely add to the tactics of the game if every time you went into a TFO or mission, you have a finite number of torpedos/mines you could fire before you ran out. I like the idea of a torpedo/mine inventory that you could fill with up to X torpedos or mines where X depends on the class of ship.
30 for sci
40 for escort
50 for cruiser
This would make using torp spread or mine dispersal patterns a real tactical decision. I also think that at the same time, they would need to buff torpedos and mines to make them worth if you could only carry a finite number.
Actually I disagree, and I have been playing since Beta and I have not seen this suppose plummet - In fact it increased as cap increased.
Top that off with the meddling of promo and T6 lockbox drop rates to an even lower percentage, this now caused a huge inflation in pricing these premium ships. There is indeed a huge shortage of specific types of promo and T6 lockbox starships. I remember the days the market was flooded with diverse premium ships, now their scarce, to the point where we are now seeing an insane price hike. Many players, I dare to say, are turning to a more darker market, something not advisable.
The system is severely off balanced, and you are correct about the people vouching for a cap increase, it is an attempt to increase their wealth even more. Doing so will severely cripple the market and I dare to say some players will turn to gold sellers and darker markets.
What Cryptic needs to do is start making these purchases account unlocks, it is insane to repeat a purchase for a specific character etc.. as the account in fact represents a player as a whole. This would be more interesting because this will make the market more competitive. There will be an endless supply of new Promo and T6 Lockbox ships, make the older ones account unlocks, or start selling them in bundle packs at the prices they sell at the MIUDD store.
Then you will see an interesting turn in the market itself. By the way, there is no way to contain X amount of Billions in the game without making hundreds of alts and hundreds of alt accounts or dummy fleets.
So somehow you're able to see how much EC everyone on the forums has? Interesting. The primary request is that the exchange price cap be increased so that high price items start showing up there again instead of being hidden away in private trade channels.
Let's say they change that i can give my hand that someone will post some item for that price and then little by little that will be small too.
Nope. I have maybe 100 million EC and around 80 keys total across all of my characters.
I buy ships from the exchange, I've never sold any T6s (just a few T5s).
I vote for increases because that will move ship sales back to the exchange which is safer, easier (since supply will be increased), and cheaper for buyers (because sellers are back to competing with each other more than they do in trade channels).
The increase is needed because inflation from things like admiralty has pushed promo box prices past the current cap.
I don't see that working. Besides, unlike other MMOs, we're running around with fully staffed starships with fully equipped armories. So maintenance fees are a non starter because we got lots of engineers aboard our ships, and the majority of us tend to hang out at major hubs, which tend to be major bases with shipyard facilities. The closest we have to something like this is the injury system. However the majority of us are swimming in regenerators and repair components that its a non-issue, and there's the odd person who seems to be out to collect every injury in the game like its a badge of honor.
And try to impose an ammunition "tax" on Torpedos, you'll not only have a riot on your hands from the Torp Build players, you'll see an immediate decrease in the number of Torpedos used in builds. Hell... ANY kind of ammo system that is to be used as an EC sink will result in pitchforks and torches. The fact we have replicators on our ships can also negate a need for "Ammo Storage". Before you bring up that some components can't be replicated, in game the Devs tried something with crafting that involved "unreplicatable materials" that cost Dilithium being added into recipes back when Memory Alpha was still the Crafting Hub and not just a dot on the map.
It didn't go over very well.
When the crafting revamp came along, the Unreplicatable Materials were retired, and just a straight DL input was added to high end crafts by needing purple quality components that require some amount of DL to craft.
There used to be an EC cost to using the Tailor, and there used to be an EC cost to Mission Transwarp. Both were removed.
While having an EC sink would probably help balance the economy, just like with a Dilithium Sink, its gotta be a meaningful one that people won't just ignore because its inconvenient.
Second, it's cute that you think keeping caps where they are will somehow prevent prices from going past that point. All that's going to happen is folks will start demanding 2b EC plus keys or other such item to make up the difference. That will do little more than prevent those transactions from appearing on the exchange making it easier to rip people off. If someone is looking for a promo ship and is quoted a price of 2.5b ec, you have no way of knowing if that's a legitimate price, or if they're trying to take you for 500m ec ride. Ships are going to sell for what they sell for regardless of what the EC caps are.
While I would love to see ships become account wide purchases, again there must be a counter balance to allow Cryptic to keep making cash at the same rate or greater than before. Again folks need to realize we're simply not going to get account wide ship unlocks without some kind of catch or downside that inevitably comes with it. I really wish people would get that through their heads. The law of supply and demand is largely to blame here. If they upped the supply of the ships, this would greatly reduce prices. If they also gave us viable EC sinks, this will also reduce inflation further by making EC more valuable. Bringing prices down and EC inflation under control is the goal here.
Stuff like this won't work this late in the game and will cause full on nuclear war and riots in the game. Having an EC sink needs to be something that will make folks want to interact with it and not just an annoyance they avoid like a plague. If someone runs out of power cells or ammo, they may as well hang it up as they're not going to be able to fight. In this instance it would add a complexity for the sake of adding complexity and something to manage, and wouldn't add any value to the game. There's having EC sinks, and viable EC sinks. You want the second thing, not the first. What you're proposing adds systems that have no value.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
We don’t always agree, but on this we are 100% on the same page. Things like ammo as an EC sink is an insanely bad idea, and flat out wouldn’t work.
EC Sinks are supposed to be things people WANT to spend EC on. I still like the idea of EC cost to upgrade rarity on Phoenix Tokens, I think that would pull quite a bit of money out of the economy. Things along those lines are good ideas.. having to buy ammo is the exact opposite of a good idea.
And I know I'm going a little tin foil hat here, but I think the rich also enjoy tanking prices of items that can sell that have little consequence to them
I watched a video on youtube about how someone makes a lot of ec...describes his grind which had little to do with selling stuff on the exchange. He talked about selling doffs on the exchange that he got for free and he massively undercuts people
I've been noticing more and more the areas I used to make extra ec with getting these massive undercuts...see people selling a item for 900k-800k-799k and then a massive drop down to 125k. I'd always wondered why that happened till I saw his video and it makes me wonder if the heavy farmers do that to make quick ec and ruin the market for people who can't farm like them
It's obvious farmers just want the EC cap raised so they can list their promo ships for 2 billion on the exchange which will farther push inflation and their profit, not reduce it
that may have been true when they raised it before, but since then Cryptic has replaced all 32 bit versions with 64 bit versions of the game, so the 32 bit limitations should no longer exist