test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Phoenix boxes are NOT delithium sinks
vanhyo
Member Posts: 229 Arc User
I just want to state a fact, because i keep seeing comments on "how successful" of a delithium sinks that is, where in reality the phoenix upgrades are superior to the R&D upgrades, rendering the later useless, and as a bonus you get a chance to win some very useful things from the lottery.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
It again comes down to demand. Once you've burned DL on the Phoenix Boxes to get everything you want, including mk XV gold gear, what's to draw you back into the Phoenix Boxes?
The Phoenix Boxes were a good sink when they were first brought out. They still are to a degree now, but nowhere near the level they were when they first appeared. Odds are that interest, and subsequent spike in effectiveness, would come with an update to the available rewards in the Phoenix Store.
Regular tech upgrades were too annoying to use. You'd either have to buy or craft them (I usually chose the former, so that meant the additional trouble of stopping playing the game to find an exchange console), on top of having the dilithium to actually do something with them.
It was also more expensive. You'd either spend a lot of time, or a lot of EC to even get the upgrades.
Which is why I didn't bother with alternative pieces of gear before. If my toon had a good set of equipment, I'd stick with that. Now, I try out new things, use beams on toons that only used cannons before, cannons on former beam-toons and so on. New episode rewards are more interesting too, because it's less trouble to try them out at maximum level. I've even created new toons that needed a lot of new gear, simply because I have much more high quality gear laying around now than I otherwise would have had - and because it's cheaper and less troublesome to get it if I don't.
So... Sure, you're absolutely right that not all the dilithium spent on obtaining Phoenix upgrades counts as a sink - cause some of it would have otherwise been spent on R&D upgrades. That's true. But it's also just one half of the story. I wouldn't have bought as many upgrades as I have done until now if we didn't have those Phoenix upgrades at all. I'm pretty sure it has caused me to spend more dilithium, not less. For which I received the benefit of being able to try out new and diversify existing builds.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
R&D used to be a great source of income few years ago, for the creative players, and still is to some degree, if you know what people need and ain't willing to craft.
I'm sure it is.
I remember that, not long after the R&D system was released, I made tens of millions of EC just by selling basic particles. And that was before inflation made everything more expensive - I could easily buy a lock box ship, dozens of keys which contained valuable stuff and so on. I remember having obtained close to 3000 lobi that I could use to buy multiple ships.
And that was just by selling some Z-particles and Rubidium.
But anyway, the fact that players can get rich through the R&D system doesn't have much to do with the question of whether the Phoenix boxes are a dilithium sink or not. Besides what I wrote above, the Phoenix boxes also contain acutal useful stuff - gear, tribbles, emotes and so on. Which tend to be more useful when actually playing the game than a piece of duranium ore
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
All i could collect with the R&D in EC was 2 lobi ships of worth
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
It is a sink done right, but of course it can only do so much against the tidal wave of shiny new zen-eating toys that have been coming out.
Why not add an even rarer chance at ships like the T6 box we just received and make some of the stuff sellable on the ec. But make it very rare. Or make it so it takes a lot of epic tokens to get a T6 box. Maybe 10 - 50 epic tokens.
Actually, since all tokens are recyclable to another box it's solves itself. A large amount of absurdly rare epic tokens could equal the T6 box and make it so more ships are available on the ec market. This could also make them slight more available and maybe lower the price a little.
That would be a nice sink as it gives everyone the chance at a ship or the ability to sell one. And if they are naturally account tradable at some level it's nice for account upgrades.
TLDR: Make a T6 box we just won in the event cost 10-50 epic phoenix tokens.
In fact this could include the two T6 zen ship or the lobi also. That would be a very worthwhile reason to use dil. It would be the best prize in the game for the rarest token in the game. That sounds pretty balanced given how hard it could be to get.
Once I'm out of reasons to use dil on keys I would be all over it. The only other thing that might be nice is if upgrade tokens could then be sold on the EC exchange. Or at least the ones below epic and ultra rare if it needs to make the ships rare. Although if you could buy the epic tokens directly it would probably have a similar effect and be interesting as an ec alternative to keys. At least for older stuff. You could also, alternatively, make only epic and ultra rare tokens sell-able and not uncommon, rare, and very rare. Of course if epic are sellable then you can downgrade them to any other token. So, makeing epic tokens rare on the market would be all you need.
If you could make epic tokens sellable they could be ultra expensive keys worth around 900,000,000 ec would make them worth the same as keys assuming 10 lobi per box. At 4x per box they would be worth 2,250,000,000 ec per token.
If you go by the 1500 lobi then it's worth 3.75 billion compared to current keys at 4x lobi per box. But at 10x lobi per box it's worth 1.5 billion. Meaning it's perfect for buying lobi. Other things in the game when compared to Ec prices usually go by 10x lobi per box where the game can control it. So having epic tokens sell from 1-1.5 billion is a good price. It would probably be pretty expensive going by supply and demand.
10 tokens for an epic tier 6 would be pretty worthwhile if you can save the ec. Maybe even 5 of them. If we had more ways to make EC in game it might be worth the other items as well and make a better cycle of gaining higher end ships with in game money. Might even balance out lobi again.
Ten to fifty epic phoenix tokens would take decades (or even a century or two) to build up. I am an altaholic so I go through phoenix boxes rather rapidly and since the phoenix thing started have gotten exactly two epic tokens for example. Also, the tokens can be broken down but not built up as far as I know of, so people cannot buy a bunch of boxes expecting to combine tokens to build epic level ones.
I was assuming extra ones would have more reason at common level to buy a new box for 10 commons for a chance at an epic.
Maybe if it cost near 1-5 epic tokens for the campaign III prize box.
Although you might be right and trading up in that situation might help make the price more balanced.
I assume to get 15 to 20 upgrades per box 10 pheonix boxes. So if you do two green per box...
Worst price for keys to zen is 160 ec per dil.
4k dil = 2 green = 640k ec = 1 box estimated average
10k dil = 5 green = 1 blue = 1.6m ec
50k dil = 5 blue = 1 purple = 8m ec
250k dil = 5 purple = 1 ultra rare = 40m ec
1.25m dil = 5 ultra rare = 1 epic = 200m ec
6.25m dil 5 epic = 1,000,000,000 ec = 1 prize token/box.
Then one prize token is equal to more than 1/2 max dil per character. 8)
Then let luck be on your side!
1125x 10 = 11,250zen = 1,000,000,000 ec. At 500 zen that makes 5.625 million dil.
So, buying keys is then cheaper at a flat rate. But buying phoenix boxes is better if you are lucky and get good drops. As the same 1 billion ec would be 6.25 million dil and 6,250,000/500 = 12,500 zen. they are very similar in price depending on which discounts you use. That actually seems pretty balanced.
I think they should make each upgrade token for 5 tokens each. It would be basically perfectly balanced. Then 5 epics for a campaign III box or a simple T6 box.
If the campaign III box with lobi were used it would make lobi much more affordable again. And you could sell or obtain epic tokens to use dil to get it in 1500 lobi chunks. It would also make lobi ships at 900 lobi ships worth about 600m if going by key prices.
This would probably make phoenix boxes the perfect dil sink. And leave room for more expansion of the game in the future.
Epic tokens would be worth about 20 keys. and a T6 campaign prize about 100 keys which equals about 400-1000 lobi. If needed the amount of epic tokens could be increased to balance it more. As it's random it could afford to be more expensive from luck. So baseline, with token upgrades, could be 10-20 epic tokens or more. As any lower token drops can save lots of time getting an epic.
So, I'm back to my 10-50 epic tokens being correct for price. If the tokens are upgradeable. epic tokens could be a steady seller at around 200m ec though if sold on the market. Assuming they sell. I assume they will be better to get with dil though making them a good dil sink. And keys a good moneymaker.
You could also go up to 10 trades per level to increase the base price of epics and then have less epics per box. This would raise the other ships prices relatively to make them fit in better. Not sure on the numbers though.
TLDR: We can combine diablo gems to buy ships! 8p
Edit: All sorts of custom trade ups could be done to make each tier worth different amounts fundamentally.
Bad example:
4k dil = 2 green = 640k ec = 1 box estimated average
16k dil = 8 green = 1 blue = 2.56m ec
80k dil = 5 blue = 1 purple = 12.8m ec
400k dil = 5 purple = 1 ultra rare = 64m ec
2m dil = 5 ultra rare = 1 epic = 320m ec
10m dil 5 epic = 1,600,000,000 ec = 1 prize token/box.
Then it's worth a whole characters max dil. The ultimate prize!
This also makes lobi worth around 1 million per lobi. So a 900 lobi ship is worth around 900m-1billion ec.
Phoenixes could still pay out from lucky drops vs key sales. But lobi would be a secondary thing unless it helps the prices from box openings go up. Not sure how that would work. Unless it helps by selling things on the market from lobi or cheapens a sale.. Maybe allow lobi exchange to exchange lobi with ec or something to make opening boxes still worth while. Or more worth while. This could be a raw currency exchange. maybe it's on drozana and drozana gains some exchange authority from the ferengi or something.
Although if you go by the x2T6 coupons for the zen store it should be worth 320,000 ec per lobi. Because 6000zenx500dilx160ec/1500= 320,000ec. Unless you seperate the prizes like the lobi, x2t6zen coupons,t6 box into different phoenix prizes with different prices.
Dil = 160ec approx.
4.5k dil = 2 green = 720k ec = 1 box estimated average
11.25k dil = 5 green = 1 blue = 1.8m ec
56.25k dil = 5 blue = 1 purple = 9m ec
281.25k dil = 5 purple = 1 ultra rare = 45m ec
1.40625m dil = 5 ultra rare = 1 epic = 225m ec
x2t6coupon = 6,000 zen = 3,000,000 dil = 480,000,000 ec = 2 epic tokens?
T6 box = 10,000,000 dil = 20,000 zen = 1,600,000,000 ec = 7 epic tokens?
Lobi: 4xkey; 10xkey
4xkey:
1500 lobi = 3,750,000,000 ec = 23,437,500 dil = 46,875 zen = 16-17 tokens
10xkey:
1500 lobi = 1,500,000,000 ec = 9.375m dil = 18,750 zen = 6-7 tokens*!
I guess you could make a choice box of 7 tokens for either the T6 box or the lobi. Then sell the coupons for 2 tokens. Unless those need to have different prices.
One off, if not the biggest Dilithium sinks in game was upgrading gear and Phoenix boxes reduced the amount of Dilithium needed to upgrade gear to something like half. What was a large downward pull on the Dilithium market got cut in half.
Phoenix boxes are making some players spend many millions less in dilithium.
I would even go as far as to say Phoenix upgrades are a big cause of the current problem. 10's of millions if not 100+million Dilithium would have left the game but no longer did due to Phoenix upgrades.
Maybe if they continued to update them, but no...the devs were more concerned with making money so they put that kind of stuff that would normally go to the phoenix store on Mudd's market
Yeah, I have to admit. Cryptic adding a 'upgrade weekend' years ago where upgrades are worth double wasnt exactly a smart move.
You had some people simply waiting out till the next weekend. Upgrading for half the cost, then waiting again. Instead of a steady steam, we have peaks and valleys. With ever diminishing returns for years.
Plus, with Cryptic stopping fleet holdings due to playerbase feedback and the development time it required. We approached the 'end of the road' without new construction.
With sinks that remained losing their effectiveness or were intentionally (though with good intentions) shot in the foot to assist with making the game more casual friendly.
Why though?
Phoenix upgrades are not free. They still cost dilithium. Even if it's less than you'd spend per upgraded item by using crafted upgrades, that still doesn't mean that you can't be spending more overall.
Once again: people can't claim that Phoenix tokens reduced the amount of dilithium spent on upgrades if you don't know how it affected the amount of items upgraded. For me at least, that number significantly increased once the Phoenix thing made upgrading much more worthwhile and less troublesome.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
To get at the total cost of dilithium (or, the total amount of dilithium removed from the game), you have to not only look at the cost per upgraded item, but also at the total amount of items upgraded. Even if one of those things goes down, if the other goes up it can still cancel out the effect of the other.
Even if, say (and this is just an example to demonstrate the idea, don't focus on the numbers here),
a Phoenix upgrade removes only 0.25 as much dilithium as an R&D upgrade
Then the Phoenix upgrade can still act as a sink if it leads to five times more upgraded items.
Once again, I'm not claiming that those numbers are correct, it's not even about the numbers. It's about the fact that you have to totally ignore this part of the story, assume the effect to be zero, to even be able to say something about the effectiveness of the Phoenix boxes as a sink. And make claims that they're not effective.
We obviously can't - at the level of the entire playerbase - know whether Phoenix upgrades actually led to players upgrading more stuff overall as they could suddenly be bothered to upgrade things they'd otherwise would have left laying around, not being cared for. But it seems reasonable to assume that you'd at least have to take into account some effect of Phoenix upgrades making upgrading much easier - and thus more attractive. At least more reasonable than just to ignore the effect and assume it to be zero.
And we don't really know the ratio of removed dilithium per Phoenix upgrade to an R&D upgrade - because there are too many factors involved there as well. Phoenix boxes don't necessarily lead to a consistent number of upgrades every time they're opened and the increase in rarity improvement compared to R&D crafted upgrades adds a random component too. So there's no way to calculate that.
Simply put, you can't claim that Phoenix tokens aren't a sink. There's no evidence to back that up - unless you're ignoring the bigger picture and only look at the dil cost per upgrade - and even those calculations that already drastically reduce the complexity of the issue, still have some inherent problems.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
And this indeed.
In my opinion, the perceived limited effectiveness of a sink isn't the most serious problem or even the most relevant thing when looking at the bigger picture.
It's the continuous addition of more expensive stuff, and even selling the same ships for ever higher prices. Besides adding tokens to improve existing ships.
You can add all the sinks you want, it's still only one half of the picture when you want to discuss the market. Many sinks that aren't seemingly effective now, likely could have been if they didn't continuously increase demand for Zen.
It's not that the sinks aren't effective. It's that - insofar as we can really say anything about that - they're actively making them ineffective.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Just look at how right after the vanity shield sale they went right into another c-store sale, thus completely nullifying the effects of the vanity shield sink...like every other week it's a new sale. Their mouths say we want to fix this problem but their actions say we want more money, who cares about the players?