Except it's not entirely true. Lifetime subscribers get 500z a month for 'free.' How much of that goes onto the dilex and how much gets spend in the c-store is a different matter. But there is 'free' zen coming into the game.
(how 'free' this Zen is can be debated based on how a lifer values the various benefits of the lifetime sub cost and how long they've had it)
Well... technically you paid for some of it. Until you 'build up' enough stipend Zen to cover the initial cost of the Lifer Sub its technically all paid for. After that... its free Zen.
I would say it never becomes free zen... just the price paid for the zen goes down the longer the game lasts.
Your way around is more like people celebrating tax free day in May... claiming you have paid all their taxes now so your now working for you.
I prefer to think of it as ... 3.3 years till your zen costs what it costs everyone else. If you have a day one lifetime you paid upfront to get 12 years of zen at a 75% discount. lol (if you bought a life time account 6 years ago your only really getting your monthly zen at half off still)
3.3 years till your zen costs what it costs everyone else doesnt work for those that have been around a long time. I started playing in 2009 and we had to pay to play back then with there being no free option. The way I see it is the Lifetime subscriber was a cheaper discounted way for me to play then the monthly sub which was the other option. By the time the game was rereleased as a free game the monthly generated ZEN was free. If you work out how much it cost to play the game against how much I paid. Then the ZEN is being generated for free and I had a discount on the monthly sub cost to play the game.
To me the ZEN is not discounted, its being generated for free for no extra real money every month. Its being generated every month for no additional real money for well over 10 years so I don't see how I can view it any other way but free.
You aren't paying for it monthly... but you DID pay for it. You did pay for a lifetime. It may be so long ago you don't count it... and hey Cryptic has changed hands twice since so it isn't on their books either. BUT that was the sale they put on... you paid the $ for the sub, 500 STO currency a month for the life of the game was part of the package you paid for. (and it will always be impossible to value... cause who knows the game could have ended 2 months after you paid... or it could go another decade)
Cryptic doesn't get to complain that X amount of Zen is free. (and they don't) Cause it isn't true all zen was paid for... the fact you got a discount is irrelevant.
Not everyone did pay for it and even if they did the amount of money some of us spend to get the ZEN is in the negative. As the amount of money we spent is in the negative I view the generated ZEN as free as it doesnt cost me any real money to be generated and in fact saved me money. Using streamlined incorrect numbers to demonstrate as I haven't got time to work this out accurately.
I could have paid £350 to play the game without ZEN or £250 to play the game with free generated ZEN for life. At this point the ZEN is not discounted its a free extra that is generated for no extra real life money as I am at -£100. It didn't cost me extra money to get the ZEN bonus, it saved me money.
The discount as you call it has made the ZEN cost £0 and any extra produced ZEN is at a cost of £0. So I see the ZEN as generated every month for no additional real money. The bit I disagree with is "zen at a 75% discount." for people like myself I view that as a 100% discount which equals freely generated for no extra real cost.
Plus there is the argument ZEN was not part of the package when I paid for it. ZEN got added later just like the ZEN store which wasn't the ZEN store back then. ZEN was a free bonus upgrade extra added later. Although that type of argument is not something for this thread.
The point I was trying to get across is many of us count the ZEN produced as free and treat it as freely generated extra ZEN. It doesnt cost us extra money so its free after the pay back point and many of us hit the pay back point 10 years ago.
You did pay for it. I get your point you can consider it free all you like... but your selling yourself short. YOU paid for that zen. You had no idea when you bought a life time 10 years ago the game would still be going today. If it ended a year after you bough it the deal would have sucked. It doesn't matter if the game lasts 100 years you still paid for every single zen they stipend you.
Do the math for yourself. 10 years... 120 months. You have paid 2.91 a month over a decade for your zen. Every month what you paid every month goes down... that is the nature of a stipend deal.
I am not denying it was a good deal... and that it isn't the cheapest Zen in the game. It is... it is the cheapest zen in the game... that doesn't however make it free.
Its not a free injection of zen breaking the system. Its 500 zen per lifetime sub. Some of which might go into the F2P System much of it does not. We know the exchange churns 300-400k zen every day. How much money is actually going to cryptic that would very. As you say some people have low cost zen... some buy it 20 bucks at a time and pay full price. Some stock up during sales. Cryptic could be making 5k on a good day in zen that is traded... or it could be 3k for the same amount if lots of lifeers are using their 6000 per year stipend, and if the whales always buy in bulk.
Still the point I was trying to make clear is simple. There is no such thing as free Zen. Ever. Yes people with life times get 6000 zen a year that could potentially be very cheap (and is also pretty expensive if they bought a lifetime account recently) Regardless lifetime zen is a drop in the bucket... the amount of zen that moves through the exchange every day far exceeds the little bit of zen brought in by lifetime subs.
“Do the math for yourself. 10 years... 120 months. You have paid 2.91 a month over a decade for your zen. Every month what you paid every month goes down... that is the nature of a stipend deal.”
Having done the maths myself I get $0 on ZEN as I am factoring in the years before that decade when things were different. The nature of the stipend deal is that it was added after I paid so I never paid for it and even if we ignore that, the amount of money towards the ZEN stipend still works out at £0.
Factoring in the base subscription cost $14.99 x 24 = $359.76 against Life time $239.99 that’s a $120 difference in savings. ZEN wasn’t a thing back then neither was the ZEN store (we had a different store which worked differently). It was I think 2012 at the point ZEN was added to the game and the stipend was changed/upgraded to include ZEN along with the store being changed over to the ZEN store when the game was rereleased as free to play. At that point I am at -$120 which over a decade doesn’t = $2.91 a month it equals $0 on for the monthly ZEN stipend spread of a decade.
That’s why I see it as free. At the point ZEN was added I had already broken even and starting from a point of $0. It’s a decade of ZEN stipend from a breakeven point of $0.
EDIT: The life time sub has a break even point and at that break even point the Stipend ZEN is free.
“YOU paid for that zen. You had no idea when you bought a life time 10 years ago the game would still be going today. If it ended a year after you bough it the deal would have sucked. It doesn't matter if the game lasts 100 years you still paid for every single zen they stipend you.”
Counter point: It wasn’t 10 years ago it was much longer ago then that and before ZEN was even in the games. ZEN was added I believe 10 years ago.
When I paid for the life time sub, I had no idea that ZEN would be include and I would be getting ZEN every month. The ZEN stipend was a free upgrade when the game was re-released as Free to play.
When I paid for the life time sub, I had no idea that ZEN would be include and I would be getting ZEN every month. The ZEN stipend was a free upgrade when the game was re-released as Free to play.
Cryptic choose to add it to make up for the apparent loss in value when the game stopped requiring a sub. That was their choice.
You still paid them money. You didn't get a life time for free right.
There is no free zen. Sure Cryptic may have compensated some life time members pre zen days... with a stipend. But it was still compensation.... cause Cryptic felt at the time you paid them and saw value in that. Cryptic choose to value it... was it generous sure they didn't have to compensate old Lifetime memberships. But it was good business. They could have called it a legacy membership and let you stew.
No one was gifted lifetime subs. You supported them at some point in the past... and they compensated you, when they altered the deal. That was their choice... another way you can think of it. Cryptic comped you just like any other casino would if you had a history as a whale. They don't give chips to people without a history of spending $. They also expect it all to come back. The zen they give you has value. Its not a freebie. Trust me they know exactly on average how much life timers top up to pay for things.... sure some perhaps don't, but on average someone that dropped $ on a life time will take that 500 and buy another X thousand zen to buy a ship. For the most part stipend zen ends up being a minor 5-10% discount for life time members on ship bundles. (and that is the way Cryptic sees the stipend)
“You still paid them money. You didn't get a life time for free right. ”
Yes, I paid them money but not in regards to the ZEN stipend. That’s the point. Along with that, some did get the life time for free, there have been plenty of gifted free lifetime subs. Just like some players have had free gifted ZEN added to accounts which was generated ZEN without cash from players or via the stipend. Which is why I know 100% that there is free ZEN in game.
The math clearly shows there is free ZEN. The math shows I get ZEN at a cost of zero cash due to the breakeven point. The break even point shows the ZEN is free as the life time cost has been recovered and so after the break even point all future generation of ZEN is free. As the math I ran shows the cost of the ZEN has been zero real life cash. The cash I did spend would have had to have been spent regardless of the ZEN Stipend as it was a requirement just to log into the game. The amount of my real live money that went towards the stipend is $0 hence the ZEN generated from the stipend is free.
Not sure that was the reason, my understanding is they had no choice. They had to do it due to legal reasons from changing from a subscription-based system to a free to play system. It wasn’t a choice they had to do it. But going into that isn’t something for this thread. That would be going into 10-year-old history and law which isn’t really relevant as it wont change anything. Originally I was posting about tax rates and how if done incorrectly would cause hyper inflation on the EC exchange so its going a little off topic to dig into the reasons why they changed to a ZEN Stipend.
Except it's not entirely true. Lifetime subscribers get 500z a month for 'free.' How much of that goes onto the dilex and how much gets spend in the c-store is a different matter. But there is 'free' zen coming into the game.
(how 'free' this Zen is can be debated based on how a lifer values the various benefits of the lifetime sub cost and how long they've had it)
Well... technically you paid for some of it. Until you 'build up' enough stipend Zen to cover the initial cost of the Lifer Sub its technically all paid for. After that... its free Zen.
I would say it never becomes free zen... just the price paid for the zen goes down the longer the game lasts.
Your way around is more like people celebrating tax free day in May... claiming you have paid all their taxes now so your now working for you.
I prefer to think of it as ... 3.3 years till your zen costs what it costs everyone else. If you have a day one lifetime you paid upfront to get 12 years of zen at a 75% discount. lol (if you bought a life time account 6 years ago your only really getting your monthly zen at half off still)
3.3 years till your zen costs what it costs everyone else doesnt work for those that have been around a long time. I started playing in 2009 and we had to pay to play back then with there being no free option. The way I see it is the Lifetime subscriber was a cheaper discounted way for me to play then the monthly sub which was the other option. By the time the game was rereleased as a free game the monthly generated ZEN was free. If you work out how much it cost to play the game against how much I paid. Then the ZEN is being generated for free and I had a discount on the monthly sub cost to play the game.
To me the ZEN is not discounted, its being generated for free for no extra real money every month. Its being generated every month for no additional real money for well over 10 years so I don't see how I can view it any other way but free.
You aren't paying for it monthly... but you DID pay for it. You did pay for a lifetime. It may be so long ago you don't count it... and hey Cryptic has changed hands twice since so it isn't on their books either. BUT that was the sale they put on... you paid the $ for the sub, 500 STO currency a month for the life of the game was part of the package you paid for. (and it will always be impossible to value... cause who knows the game could have ended 2 months after you paid... or it could go another decade)
Cryptic doesn't get to complain that X amount of Zen is free. (and they don't) Cause it isn't true all zen was paid for... the fact you got a discount is irrelevant.
Not everyone did pay for it and even if they did the amount of money some of us spend to get the ZEN is in the negative. As the amount of money we spent is in the negative I view the generated ZEN as free as it doesnt cost me any real money to be generated and in fact saved me money. Using streamlined incorrect numbers to demonstrate as I haven't got time to work this out accurately.
I could have paid £350 to play the game without ZEN or £250 to play the game with free generated ZEN for life. At this point the ZEN is not discounted its a free extra that is generated for no extra real life money as I am at -£100. It didn't cost me extra money to get the ZEN bonus, it saved me money.
The discount as you call it has made the ZEN cost £0 and any extra produced ZEN is at a cost of £0. So I see the ZEN as generated every month for no additional real money. The bit I disagree with is "zen at a 75% discount." for people like myself I view that as a 100% discount which equals freely generated for no extra real cost.
Plus there is the argument ZEN was not part of the package when I paid for it. ZEN got added later just like the ZEN store which wasn't the ZEN store back then. ZEN was a free bonus upgrade extra added later. Although that type of argument is not something for this thread.
The point I was trying to get across is many of us count the ZEN produced as free and treat it as freely generated extra ZEN. It doesnt cost us extra money so its free after the pay back point and many of us hit the pay back point 10 years ago.
You did pay for it. I get your point you can consider it free all you like... but your selling yourself short. YOU paid for that zen. You had no idea when you bought a life time 10 years ago the game would still be going today. If it ended a year after you bough it the deal would have sucked. It doesn't matter if the game lasts 100 years you still paid for every single zen they stipend you.
Do the math for yourself. 10 years... 120 months. You have paid 2.91 a month over a decade for your zen. Every month what you paid every month goes down... that is the nature of a stipend deal.
I am not denying it was a good deal... and that it isn't the cheapest Zen in the game. It is... it is the cheapest zen in the game... that doesn't however make it free.
Its not a free injection of zen breaking the system. Its 500 zen per lifetime sub. Some of which might go into the F2P System much of it does not. We know the exchange churns 300-400k zen every day. How much money is actually going to cryptic that would very. As you say some people have low cost zen... some buy it 20 bucks at a time and pay full price. Some stock up during sales. Cryptic could be making 5k on a good day in zen that is traded... or it could be 3k for the same amount if lots of lifeers are using their 6000 per year stipend, and if the whales always buy in bulk.
Still the point I was trying to make clear is simple. There is no such thing as free Zen. Ever. Yes people with life times get 6000 zen a year that could potentially be very cheap (and is also pretty expensive if they bought a lifetime account recently) Regardless lifetime zen is a drop in the bucket... the amount of zen that moves through the exchange every day far exceeds the little bit of zen brought in by lifetime subs.
I'm sorry... But one's personal calculations as to how much of a Zen discount they have, long term, because of their LTS status is irrelevant in terms of the overall game.
What is relevant is how much Zen costs non-LTSers on average. Cryptic cannot count on a single person buying into a LTS. if they get a new LTSer, then they get that lump sum up front, but they must also deduct the dollar value of 500Zen each month for each LTSer whose account has "matured," and factor that into their profit/loss calculations. Because that's how much money in Zen sales they are not making.
If they stopped making ships, then nobody would buy a LTS or Zen. This is why they make a point to produce and sell as many ships as possible as often as possible, to drive those Zen sales. Everyone wants to throw money at ships, even though they add nothing to what players can DO in the game, just a new way to look while doing the same things over and over. That's why I don't buy Zen... Or trade RD for it. I don't care about a new look while doing old stuff. I want new stuff to do. And with content drops being so few and far between, I wait months for that, and they don't charge for it, so they get no money from me at all...
That's why I have championed monetized playable content with the ships rolled into the rewards for completing it. But there is nothing to be gained for backing that horse, as Cryptic is never going to go that route, because they know that they would have to produce new playable content as often as they've produced ships in order to make bank. In other words, they've got to do real work on the playable aspect of the game. But they are too small a team to have the available talent to do this efficiency, and God help them if they actually hire more devs to better distribute the workload, thus ensuring that the devs they have continue to wear so many hats that they cannot efficiently get anything done.
There are so many things about this game that need fixing and updating to a current standard. There is more Star Trek going on now than ever before (whether you like its new incarnations or not). This means there are more branches of the mythos for Cryptic to explore in gameplay mechanics and mission content, but they cannot without the man-hours available.
Someone used to say repeatedly that putting more people on a task does not mean it will get finished quicker. And that is true. However, there are so many tasks that need to be done, that are not getting done, because there isn't a dev assigned to do them. Because they don't have enough devs available. We are talking about tasks that should be important in terms of gameplay. But they take a minimalist approach to that, and a maximalist approach to ship production. Because ships are what they make money off of.
This is why I have shifted my position to putting playable content and mechanics behind a RD paywall. with a steep enough RD cost for each unlock that some people who buy Zen with real money may be willing to exchange some of that Zen for RD to shave off some of the grind, but anyone willing to put in enough gameplay to earn the RD can do so. So, it would be a Pay to Play model that is really just Play to Play for those willing to grind. And just like all Zen (except Zen that comes into the game for LTSers whose accounts have matured) does so with a direct real-money pruchase, All RD comes into the game as a result of time spent playing.
As long as those who buy Zen with their own money do not perceive a need for RD, then the DilEx will remain skewed towards the exchange rate cap of 500RD:1Zen with a lengthy delay in order fulfillment.
Both currencies need to be flowing out of the game at a rate that keeps the exchange of the two fluid. And that is not happening. The dilEx is currently obeying the Tamarian command "The River Tamok: In Winter!" which contextually translates to "Be still and shut up!" Because it's barely moving.
And yes... I know that calculations show that it IS moving, it is not moving enough. IfI cannot put up 500RD and INSTANTLY get 1Z, then no. It is not moving anywhere near enough. And that will not change without both currencies having a desirable use in the game, on-going and long-term. But the less Cryptic actually has to do in terms of gameplay, the more they cn just focus on ship sales and to Hell with people who don't want to spend real money on those ships. So far, the sinks they've recently implemented are band-aid treatments for arterial wounds. They are going to have to start doing a lot more gameplay development, with RD costs associated if they still want to kee the narrative that time and money are interchangeable, which is what made this games Free-To-Play model the least predatory out of most live service games on the market.
If, however, and I suspect this to actually be the case, then all we will see is band-aid solutions to an arterial wound, and that the condition the DilEx is currently in is the condition they really want it to be in, so that more new Zen purchases with real money are made, and where those who have surplus Zen after they've bought the latest ship would rather hold onto it than trade it away for worthless RD.
People have to want what requires RD to get. People already want what requires Zen to get.
They no longer really do ships for the CStore - because that's not what sells Zen. They do 'Hero' or 'Special' ships from the Star Trek series and put them in Lockboxes because what people buy the most with Zen is Master Keys in an attempt to get those Lockbox ships either by absolute Luck using Keys directly - OR - Buys Master Keys to sell on the EC Exchange to get the 1.5 Billon+ EC it takes to buy one of those ships someone else used a buttload of Master Keys on Lockboxes to get.
Make no mistake - Master Keys is what the majority buy Zen to obtain. The CStore Ships and the special 'Ship' and 'Mudd Store Packs' come in at a distant second or third to Master Keys.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I'll agree with end the bonus dil weekends, and I'll even go to the bonus dil after you finish a grind.. that needs to go away. unless and until they get the demand problem under control they need to turn off the faucet. pumping water out of the leaking boat does no good until you patch the holes
What (many) think the problems for the DZE mostly started once people finished the last Fleet Holding; and while Cryptic has stated they hadn't planned on introducing another.
I once suggested a compromise to renew some of the older Fleet Tier III holdings, one every year or two out to Tier IV! That also allow some new things to buy at those holdings either, while refreshing the looks slightly with far less time; and it be the best balancing force for the DZE.
It wouldn't also require a lot of effort, as it only need some minor updates how each of the Tier III Holdings currently looks. It also might slightly expand some of the offerings, in the Older Holdings too!
While I'd welcome or be open to a Ferengi Commerce Commission, or a Gamma Research Station; those would be new holdings, and they'd take a lot more time to develope, let alone take away from new Content. Which I'd suspect the majority wouldn't want.
Make no mistake - Master Keys is what the majority buy Zen to obtain. The CStore Ships and the special 'Ship' and 'Mudd Store Packs' come in at a distant second or third to Master Keys.
Where is that information from? I would like to verify this myself.
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
Make no mistake - Master Keys is what the majority buy Zen to obtain. The CStore Ships and the special 'Ship' and 'Mudd Store Packs' come in at a distant second or third to Master Keys.
Where is that information from? I would like to verify this myself.
The fact they keep putting the MAJORITY of new ships in Lockboxes and NOT the CStore. They put the buyable content in what generates the most Zen sales - and that's Master Keys to open Lockboxes to get one of the highly sought after ships.
If they made more sales of Zen for/from stuff in the CStore - that is where the majority of the new ships would go. The aim of every business is to do what they need to do to MAXIMIZE cashflow and profit.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I'll agree with end the bonus dil weekends, and I'll even go to the bonus dil after you finish a grind.. that needs to go away. unless and until they get the demand problem under control they need to turn off the faucet. pumping water out of the leaking boat does no good until you patch the holes
It's not the amount of dilithium ORE coming IN to the game. No matter how much ore comes in, there's a hard per character limit on how much can be refined. The problem is that what gets refined isn't coming OUT of the game. There are no IFs ANDs or BUTs about it. Cryptic MUST actually do some real work on playable content and add RD price tags to desirable elements. When RD starts flowing out of the game regularly again, an equilibrium between it and Zen will be achievable, and the DilEx will move both ways.
They need to start putting RD pricetags on things they will not put a Zen price tag on.
Not sure that's entirely correct as part of the problem is the shear volume increase of dilithium ore coming in to the gam. The devs have ballooned the amount up so much in recent years that I no longer do daily doffing, no longer do daily Admiralty and I still hit the daily cap while being at my smallest amount of play time. I have reduced my playtime by 80% daily and still hit the cap.
Players are being bombarded with dilithium in recent years. When players are being swamped in dilithium due to the changes the devs made it very much is a problem with the amount of dilithium coming in as well as going out. A big part of the problem are the constant events that run pretty much 100% now giving a none stop large flow of dilithium.
I agree with west. The supply of Dilithium is not the issue really because the only USABLE Dilithium is Refined. Raw ore can't be spent on anything. We can get that all we want, but we can only refine 8k a day per character. So there is a hard cap on the influx of refined Dilithium. Really the only thing more raw ore affects is how often players hit their daily refine limit.
We need a use for the Refined Dilithium. We need to generate Demand for Dilithium.
While in the past events that flooded the market with Dilithium did cause a bit of a spike in Zen prices, it always mellowed out after a few days or so when people worked through that supply. But the fact remains that we need viable sinks for the Refined Dilithium. Going after sources won't solve the existing problem as much as people think it will because it doesn't address the already existing Supply and the lack of Demand.
I'll agree with end the bonus dil weekends, and I'll even go to the bonus dil after you finish a grind.. that needs to go away. unless and until they get the demand problem under control they need to turn off the faucet. pumping water out of the leaking boat does no good until you patch the holes
It's not the amount of dilithium ORE coming IN to the game. No matter how much ore comes in, there's a hard per character limit on how much can be refined. The problem is that what gets refined isn't coming OUT of the game. There are no IFs ANDs or BUTs about it. Cryptic MUST actually do some real work on playable content and add RD price tags to desirable elements. When RD starts flowing out of the game regularly again, an equilibrium between it and Zen will be achievable, and the DilEx will move both ways.
They need to start putting RD pricetags on things they will not put a Zen price tag on.
Not sure that's entirely correct as part of the problem is the shear volume increase of dilithium ore coming in to the gam. The devs have ballooned the amount up so much in recent years that I no longer do daily doffing, no longer do daily Admiralty and I still hit the daily cap while being at my smallest amount of play time. I have reduced my playtime by 80% daily and still hit the cap.
Players are being bombarded with dilithium in recent years. When players are being swamped in dilithium due to the changes the devs made it very much is a problem with the amount of dilithium coming in as well as going out. A big part of the problem are the constant events that run pretty much 100% now giving a none stop large flow of dilithium.
Again... It doesn't matter how much ORE...
ORE
ORE
If I can only get 8000 ore in a day, I can only refine 8000 that day,
If I got 800,000 ore in a day, I can still only refine 8000 that day
But what about people with a bunch of characters?
Whether they have to grind like hell all day to get at least 8000 ore per toon, or if they manage to get 800,000 ore per toon, they still can only refine 8000 per toon.
So what if they have a massive stockpile of ORE? It's even more worthless than RD itself until its refined.
And its never been hard to hit 8000 ore if people just play the game and understood where to get it, back before Cryptic increased the rate at which ore comes into the game.
RD is flooding the market not because of the ore, but because RD has no long-term and continuing use. People with Zen to trade would rather than hold onto it than trade it away for something that has no use.
Only Cryptic can give it a use. And it can't be just one-off uses. It needs to be long-term and ongoing, and it needs to be attached to things that matter to players. Playable content, or access to end-game mechanics need to have an RD pricetag. For every way ore comes into the game, there simply needs to be something that takes RD out of the game.
For a long time, I've talked about how this game needs a big metagame that starts at the rank of Captain, and includes every possible gameplay mechanic with events seeded throught the game world just waiting to be triggered by whatever governing conditions hitting a threshold. Or untriggered by a different set of conditions. Each one of these would have as a condition a global value of contributed RD to a specific application related to what the event entails. IF that application does not receive the minimum RD for X number of days, the event triggers.
These things need to be scattered everywhere. Any location that has a space or ground zone needs to have some potential role in the metagame.
Thgis is a live world. Cryptic needs to start treating it as such. Mission content is great, but there needs to be meaningful and compelling reasons to engage with the gameworld even in the absence of new missions. Only Cryptic can make that happen. But no... They'll churn out ship after ship but can't be bothered to put serious effort into the existing gameworld and what players have to do in it. And hell, they could achieve this by taking the repetitive content people run and roll it into the metagame.
But you can stop playing, move to another game then come back with 800k refined which is what I have done many a times. So I disagree as it does matter up to a point. The big easy influx of Ore is making it easier and faster to get to the point of having no use for dilithium which in turn is driving up the price to hit the current cap faster as people have more spare and sooner to flood the exchange.
I played one of the recruit events and ended up with some silly amount of ore, over 1million without going out my way to collect ore. Then stopped playing that character giving me 1million+ refined next time I logged in to move onto any characters that needs it. The shear volume of Ore is creating a loop of never needing to build up refined ore even on new characters. As I instantly have more then I need to cover and needs of a new characters.
Making more uses of dilithium isn’t enough they also need to reduce the easy access to high volumes of dilithium ore to have a greater impact. If they make a new dilithium sink I am unlikely to care or notice if the current influx of easy dilithium ore stays the same.
Years ago I used to work to get dilithium ore. Now the 100% events uptime and influx being so high I just completely ignore trying to get dilithium ore and let it naturally overflow giving my toons spare to flood into the exchange. How can you say that has no impact. If I played like I do now in the past I wouldn't have as much refined ore a day to waste. That's all due to the influx of easy ore. The amount of dilithium ore coming into the game has increased and it is causing part of the problem. By reducing easy ore and how much is flowing into the game they don't need to remove as much from the game to keep equilibrium between it and Zen.
I played one of the recruit events and ended up with some silly amount of ore, over 1million without going out my way to collect ore. Then stopped playing that character giving me 1million+ refined next time I logged in to move onto any characters that needs it. The shear volume of Ore is creating a loop of never needing to build up refined ore even on new characters. As I instantly have more then I need to cover and needs of a new characters.
Making more uses of dilithium isn’t enough they also need to reduce the easy access to high volumes of dilithium ore to have a greater impact. If they make a new dilithium sink I am unlikely to care or notice if the current influx of easy dilithium ore stays the same.
Years ago I used to work to get dilithium ore. Now the 100% events uptime and influx being so high I just completely ignore trying to get dilithium ore and let it naturally overflow giving my toons spare to flood into the exchange. How can you say that has no impact. If I played like I do now in the past I wouldn't have as much refined ore a day to waste. That's all due to the influx of easy ore. The amount of dilithium ore coming into the game has increased and it is causing part of the problem. By reducing easy ore and how much is flowing into the game they don't need to remove as much from the game to keep equilibrium between it and Zen.
Without a LTS, you'd come back to +8K per alt instead of +56 or +64K per alt since only LTS gets the week prior auto-refinement.
I agree though that easy ore DOES matter because it means every player has more ore to refine. They get their 8K a day every day instead of something like 1 - 2K a day in ye olden times. They build up a backlog of ore to still meet the 8K cap on days where they just log in and build a model rocket or do one event TFO.
As a result they are less likely to ever want to spend zen on dil, and are more likely to have surplus refined dil to put into the exchange to buy zen.
That's for casual non-farmers. For farmers it's true that they eventually are capped at 8K/day on every alt and ore supply stops mattering but it does mean they can easily manage running more alts. If before they could find time for 15 alts, now they can run 30 and often just switch to each alt for their 8K without doing anything else that day for it. Switch-switch-switch-switch without a second of playing needed.
Comments
You did pay for it. I get your point you can consider it free all you like... but your selling yourself short. YOU paid for that zen. You had no idea when you bought a life time 10 years ago the game would still be going today. If it ended a year after you bough it the deal would have sucked. It doesn't matter if the game lasts 100 years you still paid for every single zen they stipend you.
Do the math for yourself. 10 years... 120 months. You have paid 2.91 a month over a decade for your zen. Every month what you paid every month goes down... that is the nature of a stipend deal.
I am not denying it was a good deal... and that it isn't the cheapest Zen in the game. It is... it is the cheapest zen in the game... that doesn't however make it free.
Its not a free injection of zen breaking the system. Its 500 zen per lifetime sub. Some of which might go into the F2P System much of it does not. We know the exchange churns 300-400k zen every day. How much money is actually going to cryptic that would very. As you say some people have low cost zen... some buy it 20 bucks at a time and pay full price. Some stock up during sales. Cryptic could be making 5k on a good day in zen that is traded... or it could be 3k for the same amount if lots of lifeers are using their 6000 per year stipend, and if the whales always buy in bulk.
Still the point I was trying to make clear is simple. There is no such thing as free Zen. Ever. Yes people with life times get 6000 zen a year that could potentially be very cheap (and is also pretty expensive if they bought a lifetime account recently) Regardless lifetime zen is a drop in the bucket... the amount of zen that moves through the exchange every day far exceeds the little bit of zen brought in by lifetime subs.
Factoring in the base subscription cost $14.99 x 24 = $359.76 against Life time $239.99 that’s a $120 difference in savings. ZEN wasn’t a thing back then neither was the ZEN store (we had a different store which worked differently). It was I think 2012 at the point ZEN was added to the game and the stipend was changed/upgraded to include ZEN along with the store being changed over to the ZEN store when the game was rereleased as free to play. At that point I am at -$120 which over a decade doesn’t = $2.91 a month it equals $0 on for the monthly ZEN stipend spread of a decade.
That’s why I see it as free. At the point ZEN was added I had already broken even and starting from a point of $0. It’s a decade of ZEN stipend from a breakeven point of $0.
EDIT: The life time sub has a break even point and at that break even point the Stipend ZEN is free.
Counter point: It wasn’t 10 years ago it was much longer ago then that and before ZEN was even in the games. ZEN was added I believe 10 years ago.
When I paid for the life time sub, I had no idea that ZEN would be include and I would be getting ZEN every month. The ZEN stipend was a free upgrade when the game was re-released as Free to play.
Cryptic choose to add it to make up for the apparent loss in value when the game stopped requiring a sub. That was their choice.
You still paid them money. You didn't get a life time for free right.
There is no free zen. Sure Cryptic may have compensated some life time members pre zen days... with a stipend. But it was still compensation.... cause Cryptic felt at the time you paid them and saw value in that. Cryptic choose to value it... was it generous sure they didn't have to compensate old Lifetime memberships. But it was good business. They could have called it a legacy membership and let you stew.
No one was gifted lifetime subs. You supported them at some point in the past... and they compensated you, when they altered the deal. That was their choice... another way you can think of it. Cryptic comped you just like any other casino would if you had a history as a whale. They don't give chips to people without a history of spending $. They also expect it all to come back. The zen they give you has value. Its not a freebie. Trust me they know exactly on average how much life timers top up to pay for things.... sure some perhaps don't, but on average someone that dropped $ on a life time will take that 500 and buy another X thousand zen to buy a ship. For the most part stipend zen ends up being a minor 5-10% discount for life time members on ship bundles. (and that is the way Cryptic sees the stipend)
The math clearly shows there is free ZEN. The math shows I get ZEN at a cost of zero cash due to the breakeven point. The break even point shows the ZEN is free as the life time cost has been recovered and so after the break even point all future generation of ZEN is free. As the math I ran shows the cost of the ZEN has been zero real life cash. The cash I did spend would have had to have been spent regardless of the ZEN Stipend as it was a requirement just to log into the game. The amount of my real live money that went towards the stipend is $0 hence the ZEN generated from the stipend is free.
No they couldn’t as that would have been a breach of contract from what I remember back then
Not sure that was the reason, my understanding is they had no choice. They had to do it due to legal reasons from changing from a subscription-based system to a free to play system. It wasn’t a choice they had to do it. But going into that isn’t something for this thread. That would be going into 10-year-old history and law which isn’t really relevant as it wont change anything. Originally I was posting about tax rates and how if done incorrectly would cause hyper inflation on the EC exchange so its going a little off topic to dig into the reasons why they changed to a ZEN Stipend.
Welcome to the STO forums.
They no longer really do ships for the CStore - because that's not what sells Zen. They do 'Hero' or 'Special' ships from the Star Trek series and put them in Lockboxes because what people buy the most with Zen is Master Keys in an attempt to get those Lockbox ships either by absolute Luck using Keys directly - OR - Buys Master Keys to sell on the EC Exchange to get the 1.5 Billon+ EC it takes to buy one of those ships someone else used a buttload of Master Keys on Lockboxes to get.
Make no mistake - Master Keys is what the majority buy Zen to obtain. The CStore Ships and the special 'Ship' and 'Mudd Store Packs' come in at a distant second or third to Master Keys.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
But Cryptic is working hard on fixing the problem!
"I like Dillithium"
I once suggested a compromise to renew some of the older Fleet Tier III holdings, one every year or two out to Tier IV! That also allow some new things to buy at those holdings either, while refreshing the looks slightly with far less time; and it be the best balancing force for the DZE.
It wouldn't also require a lot of effort, as it only need some minor updates how each of the Tier III Holdings currently looks. It also might slightly expand some of the offerings, in the Older Holdings too!
While I'd welcome or be open to a Ferengi Commerce Commission, or a Gamma Research Station; those would be new holdings, and they'd take a lot more time to develope, let alone take away from new Content. Which I'd suspect the majority wouldn't want.
I've been here since late 2012
Where is that information from? I would like to verify this myself.
Was pretty sure Astolfo made it clear it was kinda sarcastic and not implying you're new. Basically I was agreeing with you.
The fact they keep putting the MAJORITY of new ships in Lockboxes and NOT the CStore. They put the buyable content in what generates the most Zen sales - and that's Master Keys to open Lockboxes to get one of the highly sought after ships.
If they made more sales of Zen for/from stuff in the CStore - that is where the majority of the new ships would go. The aim of every business is to do what they need to do to MAXIMIZE cashflow and profit.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Players are being bombarded with dilithium in recent years. When players are being swamped in dilithium due to the changes the devs made it very much is a problem with the amount of dilithium coming in as well as going out. A big part of the problem are the constant events that run pretty much 100% now giving a none stop large flow of dilithium.
We need a use for the Refined Dilithium. We need to generate Demand for Dilithium.
While in the past events that flooded the market with Dilithium did cause a bit of a spike in Zen prices, it always mellowed out after a few days or so when people worked through that supply. But the fact remains that we need viable sinks for the Refined Dilithium. Going after sources won't solve the existing problem as much as people think it will because it doesn't address the already existing Supply and the lack of Demand.
I played one of the recruit events and ended up with some silly amount of ore, over 1million without going out my way to collect ore. Then stopped playing that character giving me 1million+ refined next time I logged in to move onto any characters that needs it. The shear volume of Ore is creating a loop of never needing to build up refined ore even on new characters. As I instantly have more then I need to cover and needs of a new characters.
Making more uses of dilithium isn’t enough they also need to reduce the easy access to high volumes of dilithium ore to have a greater impact. If they make a new dilithium sink I am unlikely to care or notice if the current influx of easy dilithium ore stays the same.
Years ago I used to work to get dilithium ore. Now the 100% events uptime and influx being so high I just completely ignore trying to get dilithium ore and let it naturally overflow giving my toons spare to flood into the exchange. How can you say that has no impact. If I played like I do now in the past I wouldn't have as much refined ore a day to waste. That's all due to the influx of easy ore. The amount of dilithium ore coming into the game has increased and it is causing part of the problem. By reducing easy ore and how much is flowing into the game they don't need to remove as much from the game to keep equilibrium between it and Zen.
Without a LTS, you'd come back to +8K per alt instead of +56 or +64K per alt since only LTS gets the week prior auto-refinement.
I agree though that easy ore DOES matter because it means every player has more ore to refine. They get their 8K a day every day instead of something like 1 - 2K a day in ye olden times. They build up a backlog of ore to still meet the 8K cap on days where they just log in and build a model rocket or do one event TFO.
As a result they are less likely to ever want to spend zen on dil, and are more likely to have surplus refined dil to put into the exchange to buy zen.
That's for casual non-farmers. For farmers it's true that they eventually are capped at 8K/day on every alt and ore supply stops mattering but it does mean they can easily manage running more alts. If before they could find time for 15 alts, now they can run 30 and often just switch to each alt for their 8K without doing anything else that day for it. Switch-switch-switch-switch without a second of playing needed.