Concerning about a maxed dil-ex is should the zen dry up, even if momentarily, this game would then no longer have a good F2P model, and a new player coming in would have no means to acquire zen short of direct cash.
The only means left would be Dil to EC, and many things cannot be obtained with EC, which if that was the sole method, would also bump up the trade EC values due to increased demand along with the never-ending EC inflation.
The end result would be a game that becomes too expensive to be worth the grind given the depth and breadth of content to do with such items for a lot of F2P players to bother with, hollowing out the multiplayer aspect of those who spend a lot of cash, in effect also driving them away, till there's very few left.
This too wouldn't be a serious problem, except it's not the only MMO in existence, and its game engine is aging in comparison with alternatives, even if none exist in its IP genre yet.
> @foxrockssocks said:
> Actually that's the worst number for Cryptic.
Not if they prefer you spend real money to buy ships. And that is the main thing the want, so it trumps any lost income from people supposedly buying zen just to trade for dil. Selling ships is their business, and they want you buying them with cash, not trading dil for zen to get them.
Uhm. No.
It doesn't matter whether you or I agree. Cryptic actually has the cold hard numbers and they are clearly going to 'follow the money'. If their numbers told them that it was hurting them to have a high exchange rate then they would create some new dil sink to bring it down. The fact that they aren't doing that is basically proof that the numbers aren't telling them they need to do that.
Realining issues with Dilithium is always a bit of bother, the Devs need to sit down with a lovely bottle of malt and think things over, eventually they will hit on a solution to too much dilithium in circulation. Maybe they need a ships console that actually uses dilithium to gain some type of ingame perk or a kit frame thats similiar. Maybe it has a top up device that you fill with refined dilithium to say 100 dilith in 10 dilith units, it runs it for a certain time a bit like deuterium boosts from traelus but each used 10 dilith weakens the boost , but however you cant top it up from 80 to 100 its a one fill and consume before refilling again. jsut a thgouth. hic, oh well hic thas my bittle gune mabee i wiall lye doon fer a bit.hic
Laddy, don't you think you should... rephrase that??
And we also have a tweet (or a faceborg post) from a dev (Borticus, I believe) literally saying an exchange rate of 500 is absolutely horrible and they don't want it.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
> @foxrockssocks said:
> Actually that's the worst number for Cryptic.
Not if they prefer you spend real money to buy ships. And that is the main thing the want, so it trumps any lost income from people supposedly buying zen just to trade for dil. Selling ships is their business, and they want you buying them with cash, not trading dil for zen to get them.
Exactly right.. the idea that the current rate is somehow not good for Cryptic is frankly absurd.
Concerning about a maxed dil-ex is should the zen dry up, even if momentarily, this game would then no longer have a good F2P model, and a new player coming in would have no means to acquire zen short of direct cash.
This comes up a lot but it’s an unwarranted fear. If the supply of Zen on the exchange were to somehow dry up, Cryptic can infuse that supply at any time they wish. Zen is ‘in house’ currency that they make up and determine the value of. It’s backed by nothing, and they can create as much of it out of thin air as they want, any time they want. People say a lot that someone had to buy the Zen on the exchange at one point and that’s absolutely not true. More then likely, the Zen in the exchange is player bought Zen, but we don’t know that for sure.
And they have taken steps to deal with exchange rates.
Not recently they haven’t. In fact, the exchange rate is what it is as a direct result of very deliberate action taken by Cryptic. Bundle after bundle, packing releases one right after the other.. never having even a day where something isn’t up for sale.. they have driven the price of Zen through the roof. These actions trump anything they might have done years ago to curb the exchange rate, that was a long time ago and their methodology has clearly changed over time.
And we also have a tweet (or a faceborg post) from a dev (Borticus, I believe) literally saying an exchange rate of 500 is absolutely horrible and they don't want it.
Which means literally nothing because their actions are the exact opposite of their words.
Again, lets remember why the rate is what it is. It’s because of how Cryptic is running the game.. full stop. They are 100% responsible for the state of the exchange so them saying they don’t like it in a post is frankly just noise. I know there are some here that take their word as gospel, I go by their actions.
The exchange rate is exactly where they want it and it’s not changing anytime soon.
Now maybe they've simply thrown in the towel and decided it just isn't worth bothering over. That's certainly a possibility. But that doesn't mean they like how things are. And they don't. Because they've tried to address it.
That's what I'm thinking. But they only reason they would do that is if it were not a *significant* problem. They couldn't just 'give up' on something that was seriously effecting their bottom line; they would have to keep at it (even if it meant just adding a new fleet holding ever year, or whatever). The only way you can have the "luxury" of giving up on a problem in business is if it is not a serious problem.
Also, I'm pretty sure the Borticus tweet in question is from several years ago; so not relevant if they have in fact 'given up' on trying to control the exchange since then.
> @foxrockssocks said:
> Actually that's the worst number for Cryptic.
Not if they prefer you spend real money to buy ships. And that is the main thing the want, so it trumps any lost income from people supposedly buying zen just to trade for dil. Selling ships is their business, and they want you buying them with cash, not trading dil for zen to get them.
That is the whole point of the Dil exchange, to allow more people to buy ships with zen than if everyone had to make direct, personal purchases by letting whales indirectly fund the poors. If that breaks down because whales don't care about dilithium any more, then less people buy zen to trade which means less people spend zen on ships because there is less zen going to people who can't/won't buy it personally.
How many MUDD super packs can a whale account buy? Only one, obviously. If they also need 30000 zen worth of dil, though, then they've just bought two, bankrolling someone else's.
I guarantee you Cryptic does not like 500:1. There is no question they haven't done enough to handle it, either from no ideas, incompetence, or inaction, but they know it is a bad state.
I think they have given up. I was impressed at their efforts previously. They seemed genuinely interested in a reasonable balance. But, again, I'm not sure there's the will to do the things necessary to actually bring balance anymore.
These things would hurt bad:
#1 stop fleet invites completely and add new holdings. If medium fleets had to build everything the dilex would be fixed or tons of people would quit. Probably tons of people would quit. Ouch. The reason the dilex was great for a long long time was because all fleets all built everything. Now only mega-fleets build things right away. Why? Invites.
remove dilithium from rep rewards and admiralty. Ouch. That would hurt new players badly.
remove dilithium from event rewards. Ouch. That would hurt new players badly.
basically the only way to make dilithium would be tfo and doffing. sound popular? yeah.
I think they have realized they juiced the economy with so many dilithium sources that are so popular, there is no way now to remove them.
Of course this all can be fixed with my solution: massively expensive housing! I increase my offer today. I will pay 20 million refined for a ski chalet on Andoria. 15 million for a beach bungalow on Risa. And 5 million for an apartment near the Academy.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
IMO, there is one big thing they would need to do to increase demand for dilithium: regularly(key word) release items people actually want(key word) in the dil store. Those things would include:
ships
gear like the special consoles or weapon sets they award for doing an event 20 times
costumes
To be clear, I'm not saying make those things only obtainable through the dil store. But they would need to set some of those things aside for dil store exclusives rather than releasing them through normal means (C-store, lockboxes, events).
> @thegrandnagus1 said: > Also, I'm pretty sure the Borticus tweet in question is from several years ago; so not relevant if they have in fact 'given up' on trying to control the exchange since then.
Think that nails it in this thread. It would be so easy for them to adjust. They’d only need to flood the Phoenix box with desirable items and call it a day. Zero effort. That they don’t do anything like it speaks letters in their favor.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
> @foxrockssocks said:
> Actually that's the worst number for Cryptic.
Not if they prefer you spend real money to buy ships. And that is the main thing the want, so it trumps any lost income from people supposedly buying zen just to trade for dil. Selling ships is their business, and they want you buying them with cash, not trading dil for zen to get them.
Uhm. No.
It doesn't matter whether you or I agree. Cryptic actually has the cold hard numbers and they are clearly going to 'follow the money'. If their numbers told them that it was hurting them to have a high exchange rate then they would create some new dil sink to bring it down. The fact that they aren't doing that is basically proof that the numbers aren't telling them they need to do that.
I honestly don't know how long you've been playing the game, but the original intent FOR the dilithium exchange was that it would be a means for those like me who are F2P the means to get stuff from the C-store. This is a direct quote taken from one of the dev blogs going to F2P, and the link: The New Economy
The Currency Exchange will allow players to trade their Dilithium for other players' Cryptic Points. Why is this important? What this means is that anyone who is willing to spend their time to get Dilithium can trade that away for Cryptic Points, which means anyone willing to spend enough time can get anything and everything from the C-Store without spending any money. What it also means is that players with Cryptic Points can trade their points to get Dilithium that they want to get the in-game gear and starships they want.
Of course, it may not seem like the intent is the same for Cryptic today, given the push of all of these expensive packs. However, I don't think the push is entirely beause of Cryptic putting the prices that expensive, but rather the marketing team & possibly the publisher too pushing for more money.
Oh, and if you don't think they don't care about the fact that the exchange is so high, Augmented Dictator Games on Twitter pointed out that the exchange is too high and we need a new sink, and CaptainGeko (Al Rivera) replied "Working on It." Which means, Cryptic is aware of the issue and they're trying to help bring it down.
> @thegrandnagus1 said:
> Also, I'm pretty sure the Borticus tweet in question is from several years ago; so not relevant if they have in fact 'given up' on trying to control the exchange since then.
Think that nails it in this thread. It would be so easy for them to adjust. They’d only need to flood the Phoenix box with desirable items and call it a day. Zero effort. That they don’t do anything like it speaks letters in their favor.
I'm not sure that would solve the problem. Single character unlock gamble box BS is something many people avoid like the plague. That is the fundamental flaw with Phoenix boxes. They are gamble BS for one character only. Will you get that gold prize with one box, ten, or ten thousand? Now how long till you get it on your next character?
I think they would be better off with direct dilitihium store items. They could sell reskinned ships for 1m dil a pop, 200k if you already have the cstore version of it so they basically work like fleet ships. In fact they could BE fleet ships for those of us who don't bother with fleets (maybe even charge the fleet modules in addition to dil cost.) Vanity shields! Those are absurdly rare from the gamble boxes, so rare they may as well not exist, while rep shields are pretty easy to get, but why not have some other interesting ones for dil?
Concerning about a maxed dil-ex is should the zen dry up, even if momentarily, this game would then no longer have a good F2P model, and a new player coming in would have no means to acquire zen short of direct cash.
Well it looks like this is about to happen so we'll find out. There's less than 80k Zen on the exchange and it's dropping fast as players urgently dump their dil stockpiles.
What I want to know is this: these people who are buying dilithium with Zen, what are they spending it on?
but the original intent FOR the dilithium exchange was that it would be a means for those like me who are F2P the means to get stuff from the C-store.
Oh, I'm well aware. And I've taken FULL advantage of that system over the years. It's gotten me pretty much every lockbox ship I want without spending real money, and I currently have 39k zen sitting in the bank just from trading dil. But that's also kind of the problem; I'm sure Cryptic would rather I spent my money to get the ships I wanted.
Now before anyone says it, let me clarify 2 points:
Yes, I know the people who traded me the zen for my dil supposedly spent money on it (although a lot is also probably from the never-ending LTS stipend too).
Yes, I know Cryptic does make money from the people who buy zen just to trade for dil.
But here is the thing: they make more(key word) money from the people who buy zen to buy ships than they do from the people who buy zen to trade for dil.
So if Cryptic makes more(key word) money from the people who buy zen to buy ships, then they would prefer that people get their ships that way instead of the way I've been getting them.
In conclusion: I like the system that's allowed me to get all the stuff I wanted for free. And sure, I'd like the exchange rate to be way lower so I would get even more stuff for free. But I also completely understand why Cryptic wouldn't want that.
It would seem The Anti-Burn has come. Perhaps a novelty floating Dilithium Crystal pet is in order to mark the occasion. (1m refined dilithium per character.)
Well, the Dil. Exchange going from "normal" to "maxed out" and "dried up" within a day is peculiar... i mean, i think there were similar sales like this one before, but even when the exchange rate was at it's cap., there was still some ZEN floating around to be exchanged.
So, what's different this time?
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,667Community Moderator
Well, the Dil. Exchange going from "normal" to "maxed out" and "dried up" within a day is peculiar... i mean, i think there were similar sales like this one before, but even when the exchange rate was at it's cap., there was still some ZEN floating around to be exchanged.
So, what's different this time?
My guess... less money floating around because of the pandemic. Only variable I can think of besides the Mudd Pack being a bit more desirable than previous ones. I sure as hell was tempted before the Genesis Pack was announced.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
You know, there IS one potential item that is often asked for, would be highly valued by everyone, is guaranteed to sell, and would have both a profound and permanent impact on the dil exchange rate if it was sold for dilithium (though zen would unfortunately be more likely): account unlock tokens for premium ships. Unfortunately though this has already been ruled out by Cryptic, even for zen, so it won't be happening.
Something similar that might have some lasting impact (though not as big of one) would be a buyout option for ship mastery. Though it's mostly a trivial inconvenience at this point to grind out mastery in a few patrols, I think enough people would do it for alts that it would have a decent impact on the dil economy if it had a dil price tag instead of zen. Maybe they could even convert the reputation buyout system to dil as well, or simply add a Tier 6 buyout option that uses dil and leave the Tier 5 buyout the way it is.
Well, the Dil. Exchange going from "normal" to "maxed out" and "dried up" within a day is peculiar... i mean, i think there were similar sales like this one before, but even when the exchange rate was at it's cap., there was still some ZEN floating around to be exchanged.
So, what's different this time?
My guess... less money floating around because of the pandemic. Only variable I can think of besides the Mudd Pack being a bit more desirable than previous ones. I sure as hell was tempted before the Genesis Pack was announced.
There is no new variable, it's been going this way for a very long time.. it just took a while to burn through the stock of available Zen. It was a near critical mass and then what did they do? Boom.. Bonus Dilithium Weekend coupled with a 20% Ship Sale.
To stand back and objectively look at how Cryptic has responded and not believe that this is exactly what they want is baffling. The only question is, when tomorrow comes around, will Cryptic decide to infuse the exchange with Zen? Will they do anything at all?
My money is on no action. No reason for them to do anything at all.
Insert witty signature line here.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,667Community Moderator
Actually apparently we have a Red Alert going on rather than DL.
Also... variables:
Pandemic: Less money floating around to spend in game. -Supply (Zen)
Mudd Pack: More desirable than previous ones due to the sheer number of ships that can be account unlocked. +Demand (Zen)
New Bundle: Includes 3 Lobi outfits and a lobi weapon as account unlocks. +Demand (Zen)
20% off ship sale. +Demand (Zen)
Supply and Demand. There's a LOT more Demand than Supply. Other contributing factors include lack of DL sinks to balance the economy, which would keep both sides flowing.
Sure we've come close in the past, but we always recovered. This time... we just hit that Perfect Storm that blew it all out.
The only thing Cryptic could have done differently is alter release dates so that they didn't stack up the Demand so quickly.
Word is they do intend to update the Phoenix Box at some point, so... we'll see what kind of impact that has, as anytime we do have a Phoenix Event, it does have effect the Exchange a bit.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Comments
The only means left would be Dil to EC, and many things cannot be obtained with EC, which if that was the sole method, would also bump up the trade EC values due to increased demand along with the never-ending EC inflation.
The end result would be a game that becomes too expensive to be worth the grind given the depth and breadth of content to do with such items for a lot of F2P players to bother with, hollowing out the multiplayer aspect of those who spend a lot of cash, in effect also driving them away, till there's very few left.
This too wouldn't be a serious problem, except it's not the only MMO in existence, and its game engine is aging in comparison with alternatives, even if none exist in its IP genre yet.
It doesn't matter whether you or I agree. Cryptic actually has the cold hard numbers and they are clearly going to 'follow the money'. If their numbers told them that it was hurting them to have a high exchange rate then they would create some new dil sink to bring it down. The fact that they aren't doing that is basically proof that the numbers aren't telling them they need to do that.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Exactly right.. the idea that the current rate is somehow not good for Cryptic is frankly absurd.
This comes up a lot but it’s an unwarranted fear. If the supply of Zen on the exchange were to somehow dry up, Cryptic can infuse that supply at any time they wish. Zen is ‘in house’ currency that they make up and determine the value of. It’s backed by nothing, and they can create as much of it out of thin air as they want, any time they want. People say a lot that someone had to buy the Zen on the exchange at one point and that’s absolutely not true. More then likely, the Zen in the exchange is player bought Zen, but we don’t know that for sure.
Not recently they haven’t. In fact, the exchange rate is what it is as a direct result of very deliberate action taken by Cryptic. Bundle after bundle, packing releases one right after the other.. never having even a day where something isn’t up for sale.. they have driven the price of Zen through the roof. These actions trump anything they might have done years ago to curb the exchange rate, that was a long time ago and their methodology has clearly changed over time.
Which means literally nothing because their actions are the exact opposite of their words.
Again, lets remember why the rate is what it is. It’s because of how Cryptic is running the game.. full stop. They are 100% responsible for the state of the exchange so them saying they don’t like it in a post is frankly just noise. I know there are some here that take their word as gospel, I go by their actions.
The exchange rate is exactly where they want it and it’s not changing anytime soon.
That's what I'm thinking. But they only reason they would do that is if it were not a *significant* problem. They couldn't just 'give up' on something that was seriously effecting their bottom line; they would have to keep at it (even if it meant just adding a new fleet holding ever year, or whatever). The only way you can have the "luxury" of giving up on a problem in business is if it is not a serious problem.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
That is the whole point of the Dil exchange, to allow more people to buy ships with zen than if everyone had to make direct, personal purchases by letting whales indirectly fund the poors. If that breaks down because whales don't care about dilithium any more, then less people buy zen to trade which means less people spend zen on ships because there is less zen going to people who can't/won't buy it personally.
How many MUDD super packs can a whale account buy? Only one, obviously. If they also need 30000 zen worth of dil, though, then they've just bought two, bankrolling someone else's.
I guarantee you Cryptic does not like 500:1. There is no question they haven't done enough to handle it, either from no ideas, incompetence, or inaction, but they know it is a bad state.
These things would hurt bad:
#1 stop fleet invites completely and add new holdings. If medium fleets had to build everything the dilex would be fixed or tons of people would quit. Probably tons of people would quit. Ouch. The reason the dilex was great for a long long time was because all fleets all built everything. Now only mega-fleets build things right away. Why? Invites.
remove dilithium from rep rewards and admiralty. Ouch. That would hurt new players badly.
remove dilithium from event rewards. Ouch. That would hurt new players badly.
basically the only way to make dilithium would be tfo and doffing. sound popular? yeah.
I think they have realized they juiced the economy with so many dilithium sources that are so popular, there is no way now to remove them.
Of course this all can be fixed with my solution: massively expensive housing! I increase my offer today. I will pay 20 million refined for a ski chalet on Andoria. 15 million for a beach bungalow on Risa. And 5 million for an apartment near the Academy.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
To be clear, I'm not saying make those things only obtainable through the dil store. But they would need to set some of those things aside for dil store exclusives rather than releasing them through normal means (C-store, lockboxes, events).
But honestly, they'll never do that.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
> Also, I'm pretty sure the Borticus tweet in question is from several years ago; so not relevant if they have in fact 'given up' on trying to control the exchange since then.
Think that nails it in this thread. It would be so easy for them to adjust. They’d only need to flood the Phoenix box with desirable items and call it a day. Zero effort. That they don’t do anything like it speaks letters in their favor.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I honestly don't know how long you've been playing the game, but the original intent FOR the dilithium exchange was that it would be a means for those like me who are F2P the means to get stuff from the C-store. This is a direct quote taken from one of the dev blogs going to F2P, and the link: The New Economy
Of course, it may not seem like the intent is the same for Cryptic today, given the push of all of these expensive packs. However, I don't think the push is entirely beause of Cryptic putting the prices that expensive, but rather the marketing team & possibly the publisher too pushing for more money.
Oh, and if you don't think they don't care about the fact that the exchange is so high, Augmented Dictator Games on Twitter pointed out that the exchange is too high and we need a new sink, and CaptainGeko (Al Rivera) replied "Working on It." Which means, Cryptic is aware of the issue and they're trying to help bring it down.
I'm not sure that would solve the problem. Single character unlock gamble box BS is something many people avoid like the plague. That is the fundamental flaw with Phoenix boxes. They are gamble BS for one character only. Will you get that gold prize with one box, ten, or ten thousand? Now how long till you get it on your next character?
I think they would be better off with direct dilitihium store items. They could sell reskinned ships for 1m dil a pop, 200k if you already have the cstore version of it so they basically work like fleet ships. In fact they could BE fleet ships for those of us who don't bother with fleets (maybe even charge the fleet modules in addition to dil cost.) Vanity shields! Those are absurdly rare from the gamble boxes, so rare they may as well not exist, while rep shields are pretty easy to get, but why not have some other interesting ones for dil?
There really is a lot they could do but haven't.
Well it looks like this is about to happen so we'll find out. There's less than 80k Zen on the exchange and it's dropping fast as players urgently dump their dil stockpiles.
What I want to know is this: these people who are buying dilithium with Zen, what are they spending it on?
But I respawn
I am duranium!
Oh, not long at all
https://i.imgur.com/dyYWIHL.jpg
Oh, I'm well aware. And I've taken FULL advantage of that system over the years. It's gotten me pretty much every lockbox ship I want without spending real money, and I currently have 39k zen sitting in the bank just from trading dil. But that's also kind of the problem; I'm sure Cryptic would rather I spent my money to get the ships I wanted.
Now before anyone says it, let me clarify 2 points:
Yes, I know the people who traded me the zen for my dil supposedly spent money on it (although a lot is also probably from the never-ending LTS stipend too).
Yes, I know Cryptic does make money from the people who buy zen just to trade for dil.
But here is the thing: they make more(key word) money from the people who buy zen to buy ships than they do from the people who buy zen to trade for dil.
So if Cryptic makes more(key word) money from the people who buy zen to buy ships, then they would prefer that people get their ships that way instead of the way I've been getting them.
In conclusion: I like the system that's allowed me to get all the stuff I wanted for free. And sure, I'd like the exchange rate to be way lower so I would get even more stuff for free. But I also completely understand why Cryptic wouldn't want that.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
It's not just Mudd's store. It's everything that they have going right now.
So, what's different this time?
My guess... less money floating around because of the pandemic. Only variable I can think of besides the Mudd Pack being a bit more desirable than previous ones. I sure as hell was tempted before the Genesis Pack was announced.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Something similar that might have some lasting impact (though not as big of one) would be a buyout option for ship mastery. Though it's mostly a trivial inconvenience at this point to grind out mastery in a few patrols, I think enough people would do it for alts that it would have a decent impact on the dil economy if it had a dil price tag instead of zen. Maybe they could even convert the reputation buyout system to dil as well, or simply add a Tier 6 buyout option that uses dil and leave the Tier 5 buyout the way it is.
There is no new variable, it's been going this way for a very long time.. it just took a while to burn through the stock of available Zen. It was a near critical mass and then what did they do? Boom.. Bonus Dilithium Weekend coupled with a 20% Ship Sale.
To stand back and objectively look at how Cryptic has responded and not believe that this is exactly what they want is baffling. The only question is, when tomorrow comes around, will Cryptic decide to infuse the exchange with Zen? Will they do anything at all?
My money is on no action. No reason for them to do anything at all.
Also... variables:
Supply and Demand. There's a LOT more Demand than Supply. Other contributing factors include lack of DL sinks to balance the economy, which would keep both sides flowing.
Sure we've come close in the past, but we always recovered. This time... we just hit that Perfect Storm that blew it all out.
The only thing Cryptic could have done differently is alter release dates so that they didn't stack up the Demand so quickly.
Word is they do intend to update the Phoenix Box at some point, so... we'll see what kind of impact that has, as anytime we do have a Phoenix Event, it does have effect the Exchange a bit.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode