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The Destruction of the Dilithium Market
toddmillhouse
Member Posts: 59 Arc User
I'm just going to go ahead and say it. The Dilithium market is dead. The buy page is always blank, and selling zen happens so fast for small amounts I'm convinced it's being done automatically on Cryptic's back end. And the entire thing is 100% Cryptic's fault. The constant zen sales has flooded too much zen into the game and it has destroyed the Dilithium exchange which is something F2P players are supposed to rely on. At this point I don't know how to fix it other than Cryptic refunding all zen currently owned and intentionally crashing the market and starting over with more tight controls on how much Zen a player can have at a time. I know I have seen several listings on the Dilithium buying page of people selling millions of zen. I'm sorry letting the whales stockpile zen in this way has destroyed the economy as it was supposed to work and It really really needs a fix.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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There are approximately 4 MILLION buy orders @500 waiting to be filled. As soon as someone posts their zen to sell, it makes a tiny dent in the 4 MILLION pile and executes right away. There is no magic or deception going on there. I have accidentally posted some zen for sale recently (instead of my intended buy order), and yeah, it executed immediately. That's how it works.
As for the exchange being "dead", that's patently false. Sure, it's slow AF, but my buy orders are executing in 9-10 days right now.
Also, "letting whales stockpile zen". No one "let's" then do that. They paid for their zen. They can buy/hold/spend whatever they want, when they want. You do not get to tell people otherwise. I own zen, it's mine. You get no vote about my zen.
You have no entitlement to my zen.
I understand the frustration of having to wait, but it's just that.
In short, the problem isn't the value of Zen, it's the value of Dilithium.. or the subsequent lack thereof.
Without going into the entire thing for the thousandth time, until Dilithium becomes more valuable, the problem will persist. There are multiple ideas on how this will be accomplished, but that's the basics of what it boils down to.
Personally, I don't believe Cryptic has any actual intention of trying to fix it. I won't say they don't care, I just think they look at the work that would be involved and determine it a low priority.
"There's No Way Like Poway!"
Real Join Date: October 2010
I agree.
We might need a few more ways to spend Dil, so people with Zen are more interested in buying it and the market balances a bit better.
And I like both of your ideas, but unfortunately, I don't think Cryptic agrees.
They still have it in their heads that people will spend money to grind Phoenix boxes, I don't see that happening but my guess is their 'metrics' say otherwise. As for the lobi idea, again.. great idea.. but Cryptic isn't going to 'give away' Lobi despite that in this particular case, the positive effect on the overall economy would actually net them a gain.
Issue with this post is that Dil Exchange was not, at any point actually "disabled", and current state of DilEx is pretty much issue of negligence more than intentional sabotage.
The exchange maxed out long before the merger. In fact, many of us have been talking about the unavoidable draining of the Dilithium Market for years.. it was a trend that Cryptic refused to reverse to prevent the crash and now refuses to reverse to correct it. It's the same course they have taken in Neverwinter.
There is no conspiracy here, it's just simple negligence.
In fact I'd be surprised if they expected it to last this long, especially with certain 'Toobers promoting the F2P friendly message.
As far as Cryptic or whoever counts the beans probably believes the exchange has served it's purpose and it's up to the players to sort out.
On console there isn't the playerbase between the two platforms to really drive up the artificial inflation, so it'll be a while before it gets to PC levels.
Agreed, but whatever would be required for something like that would surely be 'too much work' as are most things that players suggest.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I understand they would be reducing their "double dipping" on getting paid on both ends of the market, but at 500 the amount is so pitifully small it seems fair. As a comparison in LOTRO you can gain LOTRO points for "free" by doing deeds. The company gives the main currency in this way for free. Sure, there is no market, but I don't think it would hurt STO much to buy at 500. It would be a nice nod the the free players. I don't care personally either way. My days of trading ended around 300. In those days I cared and was very vocal in warning about what I saw happening and now we are there.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Cryptic is giving away a free promo pack ship again this year, along with 3 event ships and a T6 100% off token. Asking for free zen on top of that would be getting greedy.
What didn't help Neverwinter was that they made Astral Diamonds pretty much a necessity for a lot more things. If I remember correctly, not only was their refine cap a LOT higher, but they also had ADs as the currency for their Auction House, which I felt was rather stupid and probably contributed to the problem. IMO Neverwinter's economy was pretty much shot from the get go, whereas STO's was actually pretty good for many years.
Also frankly... Neverwinter's team is separate from STO's team. So trying to lump them together is unfair. Yes they're under one roof, but that's about it. STO Devs are not moonlighting as Neverwinter Devs. We've actually lost some devs to Neverwinter, and even lost a few to the defunct Magic MMO that they tried to do more recently.
I agree with the need for dilithium demand.
I don't agree with removing the cap. I don't see how that will help at all.
I feel your pain west. Moreso because I'm one of the guys who have to try and keep the peace when things start going sideways and we get into the "accusation phase" of these kinds of discussions.
Most people seem to be forgetting that this is a complex problem. No one thing is going to magically fix the economy overnight so that we have orders being filled instantly again and like 300:1 or even 500:1 at the very least. I'm a bit frustrated too, but I understand things might not be fixed immediately. We get spikes when they pull out the vanity shields for DL, but that's not sustainable. We might get spikes if they do the same with lobi outfits or maybe even lobi consoles. But again, its not sustainable. And people, like sits, who come up with these big solutions, if they did those it would probably take A LONG TIME to impliment because of the sheer scale. And thats assuming they can actually squeeze it into the game in a way that makes sense and isn't viewed as a punishment or "taking things away" and promptly ignored outright, like the reroll tokens.
But people want a magic bullet to reset things five minutes ago, and if they don't get that... out come the pitchforks.
So yea... I feel the pain too. I understand the frustration. I just wish... it didn't lead down dark paths so much. -_-
1. we already have a bunch of these, we don't need another
2. the op didn't inform himself about the worksings of the exchange and his whole point of the exchange being dead is null
3. no more reasons
I think 6000 zen a year is reasonable. It feels like a pittance to me. I guess it wouldn't really matter how many characters you have as long as you could only refine 8000 per day. So I'd make that the limit. At least somewhere between 8 and 16.
They could also sell half the ships and other stuff for dilithium if they didn't want to buy at 500. Then maybe we would see prices in the low to mid 400's and they wouldn't have to buy a single grain. But then which would cost them more money?
Or they could do nothing and let it sit at 500. I don't care.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."