The above also means another revelation; the longer those wait times get, the less dilithium needs to be earned, but it also means less playtime and less dilithium grinding is useful. Hence why i'm constantly saying in my original point in that dilithium is becoming useless as far as the market is concerned. Only higher earners and only on higher cost items is purchasing zen with Dil retaining any value and I am pretty sure this is still only causing even more inflation. And further hurting and penalizing poorer earners.
So a tax...a working tax would actually ironicly end up HELPING the poorer earners by stopping and hopefully reversing the inflation caused by those extreme earners.
(Made in another post in case TLDR)
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
The above also means another revelation; the longer those wait times get, the less dilithium needs to be earned, but it also means less playtime and less dilithium grinding is useful. Hence why i'm constantly saying in my original point in that dilithium is becoming useless as far as the market is concerned. Only higher earners and only on higher cost items is purchasing zen with Dil retaining any value and I am pretty sure this is still only causing even more inflation. And further hurting and penalizing poorer earners.
So a tax...a working tax would actually ironicly end up HELPING the poorer earners by stopping and hopefully reversing the inflation caused by those extreme earners.
(Made in another post in case TLDR)
Ah, so without so many words this appears to be a tax the rich to help the poor sort of proposal.
So your saying, on the "no nerfing will help" that they 'should' keep that 500 dil in 30 seconds?
No, I didn't say that.
Nerf the instant dil-sources and hard. Turn them into Weaklys instead of daylies.
What I'm saying is don't expect instant results. It will be months until the farmer-stockpiles are used up.
if say your earning more then 8000 dil in a day, you take a 10% tax for future dil earned, with increasing tax rates in increasing multiples up to a point.
You're not thinking this through. Consider all the consequences, the collateral damage.
Sure, you're hitting the problem, but not with a sniper-bullet but with a frag-grenade that kills everyone who happens to be in the same room.
This punishes people who play a lot on weekends, but don't have time to play on workdays.
You're telling them " You've played enough for today. Go away. Do something else"
You driving the weekend-players away - you know, the ones with full time jobs - and the $ that come with fulltime jobs - $ that can buy Zen - Zen that can buy dil from the exchange.
See where this is going when you think it through?
There already is a system in place to regulate the refined dil income, without telling players to stop playing. It's beautiful system where I can earn a week worth of dil in 2 days of intensive play, and spend the next 5 days refining it - and as a LTS I don't even need to login on those 5 days after work (altough I usually do and play an event queue, but that OT)
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
edited January 2023
You're failing to recognize that a tax has to be applied ACROSS THE BOARD. That means even those who aren't earning as much have to be taxed the exact same as those who do.
And a tax is going to cause the forums to go full nuclear thermite. Because it does not address DEMAND in a way that is beneficial to all. It just says that you now have to PAY in some way to play. You don't play enough, you get stonewalled because you can't pay your taxes. You play too much, you have to pay for it.
It has been covered multiple times that a forced tax of any kind will cause massive backlash from the playerbase, and potentially end up killing the game outright in the end.
What is needed is something to make Dilithium desireable, thereby naturally increasing the demand for Dilithium, and in turn bringing the economy more into balance.
A forced tax is not going to make Dilithium desirable. It will turn the game into a job JUST TO PLAY EVEN CASUALLY.
What will be mor attractive to the average player?
Oh! This thing that costs dilithium looks cool! I just happen to have a few zen to trade too!
Or...
Well shtako. I can't pay the Dilithium tax. Guess I have to spend money just to do something now...
That's dang near Mobile Game microtransaction level BS. Hell... that's almost EA level.
Long story short, Warren Buffett, we're not going to be taxing anyone.
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I don’t know if this will get me in hot water or not, but I was on YouTube and learned that some players are bot farming dilithium in game, some of whom have hidden themselves to avoid being caught. This alone can heavily affect the exchange rate in a negative way. So, deal with the bot farmers, help the exchange rates.
Here’s the link: (Video link removed due to content violating forum rules. - BMR)
Ok, folks. This is the third time now that I've had to remove this video link. Let's, please, stop posting this. Thank you.
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The above also means another revelation; the longer those wait times get, the less dilithium needs to be earned, but it also means less playtime and less dilithium grinding is useful. Hence why i'm constantly saying in my original point in that dilithium is becoming useless as far as the market is concerned. Only higher earners and only on higher cost items is purchasing zen with Dil retaining any value and I am pretty sure this is still only causing even more inflation. And further hurting and penalizing poorer earners.
So a tax...a working tax would actually ironicly end up HELPING the poorer earners by stopping and hopefully reversing the inflation caused by those extreme earners.
(Made in another post in case TLDR)
Ah, so without so many words this appears to be a tax the rich to help the poor sort of proposal.
Edit: I misread the post, sorry, but kind of, my idea was if someones earning more than a certain amount of dil start charging them an increasing % of that dil retroactively; if they earned 8k more than a soft-cap, they lose 800 of that dil, and maybe add some brackets to increase that % on further earnings. So if someones earning say, 160k dilithium they'd find everything over 80k dilithium over 80% of that is being lost to refinement fees, everything over say the 40k mark then it's like 30%ish(I was thinking like 10% per 8k or maybe 16k dil or something.
I was just looking though at some math though and concluded, anyone earning less than a certain threshold of dilithium in regards to items they are trying to purchase are effectively being 'taxed' . Or I guess 'screwed'.
Post edited by drunkflux#5679 on
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
You're failing to recognize that a tax has to be applied ACROSS THE BOARD. That means even those who aren't earning as much have to be taxed the exact same as those who do.
And a tax is going to cause the forums to go full nuclear thermite. Because it does not address DEMAND in a way that is beneficial to all. It just says that you now have to PAY in some way to play. You don't play enough, you get stonewalled because you can't pay your taxes. You play too much, you have to pay for it.
It has been covered multiple times that a forced tax of any kind will cause massive backlash from the playerbase, and potentially end up killing the game outright in the end.
What is needed is something to make Dilithium desireable, thereby naturally increasing the demand for Dilithium, and in turn bringing the economy more into balance.
A forced tax is not going to make Dilithium desirable. It will turn the game into a job JUST TO PLAY EVEN CASUALLY.
What will be mor attractive to the average player?
Oh! This thing that costs dilithium looks cool! I just happen to have a few zen to trade too!
Or...
Well shtako. I can't pay the Dilithium tax. Guess I have to spend money just to do something now...
That's dang near Mobile Game microtransaction level BS. Hell... that's almost EA level.
I'm not proposing a tax where someone has to pay x amount at a specific time every month, just something that soft-caps dilithium earnings past a certain point. Your trying to liken this idea of implementation to an RL tax with filing taxes. I'm going by other games where auction houses ect have an "auction house fee". Say STO had such a system for energy credits, you post something to sell for 20 million your fined 1 million, and when it sells your fined another 1 million of the profits you made. Thats a scaling sink/auction fee.
Why not anything at all like that on dilithium? Because everyones blind on the "lets just make a sink that is desirable" you don't understand there is so much dilithium in the market that your screwed with that approach before you even begin. Not just in the market, consider what some of those extreme farmers have in reserve. Probably a LOT more.
What I started proposing towards the end since your so unwilling to address that the ultra-rich and ultra-farmers have completely cornered your games economy....is that a system be in place to soft-cap how much someone could earn by taxing what they are grinding as they are grinding it once they've gotten past a certain threshold. Aka, something to stop the extreme grinders from breaking the bank even more than they already have. If your not willing to even consider that, then I won't bother here, I will conclude you will never fix your economy again. Because your not remotely willing to address that some players earn far, far to much dilithium at the complete expense of literally everyone else.
Instead we have a "Dilithium printer go brrrr" situation.
This is a video game even, my idea could be something that just reduces dilithium earned by a % as it's refined past a certain number. Honestly with this I don't even see why not have refined dilithium be account-wide(can leave dil ore character-specific, maybe make is so if someone refines more than 16k, maybe 10%-20% of the extra dil past that 16k is removed).
Actually think about what I am saying and read some of what I suggested instead of assuming that my "tax" idea is placing "due taxes" on people every month.
Don't compare me to warren buffet btw. I can assure you that there are players who probably spent 10-20 times more than I ever have on this game or even over a hundred times more. And I kinda dislike warren buffet, he's a bad icon in my home state. He does bring up a point about the rich not paying much in taxes though, kinda like how this games economy doesn't really impact people to much dil while severely hurting newbies who probably give up in about a month. Most the newbies probably don't even come here to complain about the dilithium exchange.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Why would taxing dilithium help anything? That just makes things worse - you're focusing on the SUPPLY side of things - something devs have been addressing for awhile now. And dili is a resource, not a currency. You don't put a tax on a resource.
If you want to suggest fixes for the dili market, might I recommend focusing on the demand side of things? Like there's a reason Supply and Demand is often a business ethos. Aside from the botting, clearly the main issue is not from the supply side - it's clearly a demand side issue.
I just thought about something, the private queues allow a single player to do a task force, what if cryptic were to put in a minimum player count of, for example, 2 players in order to play a private instance? That should cut down on the number of bots at least for a little while.
Why would taxing dilithium help anything? That just makes things worse - you're focusing on the SUPPLY side of things - something devs have been addressing for awhile now. And dili is a resource, not a currency. You don't put a tax on a resource.
If you want to suggest fixes for the dili market, might I recommend focusing on the demand side of things? Like there's a reason Supply and Demand is often a business ethos. Aside from the botting, clearly the main issue is not from the supply side - it's clearly a demand side issue.
Dilithium is a currency, sorry. You have again, and many others even pointed out that exploits allow people to gain even more than ever before. But it's a currency designed to tie RL currency to energy credits.
Resources can be currency and are often used as currency, even designed to double as currency. If it was, you wouldn't be using it as an exchange to gain zen which is tied directly to RL$. This was done to combat "hyper inflation" where due to currency drops being non-stop all the time, without any measures done the currency becomes useless. Many devs try to rely entirely on money sinks and find sadly that eventually the money sinks product quickly becomes useless. In those situations, players eventually resort to a drop in game thats rare enough that all trading is 100% expected with that "resource", at that point, the resource has become a currency and replaces the one the devs intended to be the currency. At this point, new players will find they don't get any buying power at all with the regular currencies, and are effectively ejected from the economy before they even begin playing the game. Often forever(I never ONCE traded anything in diablo2 purely because of that).
To combat this, developers found a trick in the RL market to tie currencies to one another in other countries and commodities such as gold. Gold in fact, is considered THE standard, the US dollar is tied to it. And many countries tie there currency to the US dollar. This is done to slow down inflation to a reasonable rate that coincides with produced goods. Without these measures the US dollar would inflate far more quickly, potentially hyper-inflating.
In fact the currency chain to for RL to in game money translation is Dilithium > Zen for Dil earners, for those wanting to get EC with dil then it's Dil>Zen>Keys. Keys are valued, ignoring the major problem of ever increasing wait periods, 62,500 dilithium. Due to wait periods though, the key to EC value is constantly inflating still. Unfortunately dilithium is like Diablo 2's gold, it's constantly "printed", just like energy credits. And unfortunately it's done endlessly. And neither EC nore dilithium are actually removed in the auction house or dil/zen exchange. This means the supply of dil and EC have NOTHING to stop the extreme grinders from printing more and more, if the sinks go bust, then hyper-inflation continues and accelerates again.
Thats why I propose mechanics that soft-cap dil earnings past a point. Because some people just don't stop grinding no matter how messed up the economy is. This is true with all games like STO. I mean sooner or later players will have to decide to make a currency of there own and it'll be something ridiculously rare like diablo 2's stone of jordan before item duping became common. Most likely, keys. And the devs won't allow that, so then it'll have to become something else, maybe an ultra-rare and hard to obtain tribble for example.
But a proper soft-cap + a useful sink that isn't critical but still valuable, then you'd actually get somewhere. Maybe expand on lockboxes with cool stuff that is more valuable than the phoenix box? Or a wider variety other than just upgrades.
The devs efforts to address the issue have had zero impact and I don't think they have had any impact for a long time. If I was into illegal gambling i'd even bet a few hundred or even a thousand dollars this issue WON'T be resolved without soft-capping the supply of dil coming in. Many, many devs have tried to rely entirely on "money sinks" in the past, every single one of them have failed.
Some people have proposed "Must haves" that have to be purchased with dilithium for a "dil sink", eh....that sounds like a tax to if the must have is a mandatory long-term(phoenix upgrades are not a long-term sink for anyone). And scaling without a soft-cap on dil earning, even that could still end up being rapidly out-paced.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
You're failing to recognize that a tax has to be applied ACROSS THE BOARD. That means even those who aren't earning as much have to be taxed the exact same as those who do.
And a tax is going to cause the forums to go full nuclear thermite. Because it does not address DEMAND in a way that is beneficial to all. It just says that you now have to PAY in some way to play. You don't play enough, you get stonewalled because you can't pay your taxes. You play too much, you have to pay for it.
It has been covered multiple times that a forced tax of any kind will cause massive backlash from the playerbase, and potentially end up killing the game outright in the end.
What is needed is something to make Dilithium desireable, thereby naturally increasing the demand for Dilithium, and in turn bringing the economy more into balance.
A forced tax is not going to make Dilithium desirable. It will turn the game into a job JUST TO PLAY EVEN CASUALLY.
What will be mor attractive to the average player?
Oh! This thing that costs dilithium looks cool! I just happen to have a few zen to trade too!
Or...
Well shtako. I can't pay the Dilithium tax. Guess I have to spend money just to do something now...
That's dang near Mobile Game microtransaction level BS. Hell... that's almost EA level.
I'm not proposing a tax where someone has to pay x amount at a specific time every month, just something that soft-caps dilithium earnings past a certain point. Your trying to liken this idea of implementation to an RL tax with filing taxes. I'm going by other games where auction houses ect have an "auction house fee". Say STO had such a system for energy credits, you post something to sell for 20 million your fined 1 million, and when it sells your fined another 1 million of the profits you made. Thats a scaling sink/auction fee.
Why not anything at all like that on dilithium? Because everyones blind on the "lets just make a sink that is desirable" you don't understand there is so much dilithium in the market that your screwed with that approach before you even begin. Not just in the market, consider what some of those extreme farmers have in reserve. Probably a LOT more.
What I started proposing towards the end since your so unwilling to address that the ultra-rich and ultra-farmers have completely cornered your games economy....is that a system be in place to soft-cap how much someone could earn by taxing what they are grinding as they are grinding it once they've gotten past a certain threshold. Aka, something to stop the extreme grinders from breaking the bank even more than they already have. If your not willing to even consider that, then I won't bother here, I will conclude you will never fix your economy again. Because your not remotely willing to address that some players earn far, far to much dilithium at the complete expense of literally everyone else.
Instead we have a "Dilithium printer go brrrr" situation.
This is a video game even, my idea could be something that just reduces dilithium earned by a % as it's refined past a certain number. Honestly with this I don't even see why not have refined dilithium be account-wide(can leave dil ore character-specific, maybe make is so if someone refines more than 16k, maybe 10%-20% of the extra dil past that 16k is removed).
Actually think about what I am saying and read some of what I suggested instead of assuming that my "tax" idea is placing "due taxes" on people every month.
Don't compare me to warren buffet btw. I can assure you that there are players who probably spent 10-20 times more than I ever have on this game or even over a hundred times more. And I kinda dislike warren buffet, he's a bad icon in my home state. He does bring up a point about the rich not paying much in taxes though, kinda like how this games economy doesn't really impact people to much dil while severely hurting newbies who probably give up in about a month. Most the newbies probably don't even come here to complain about the dilithium exchange.
Rattler understood. Seems you didn't understand Rattler. You appear to just want to punish players, who, regardless of how they earn, earn their way through the game. I have a ton more respect for a player, like Rattler, who grinds their way through the game and converts their Dilithium to Zen, than someone like myself, who mostly just buys their Zen. BOTH types of players are important to the overall health of the game, though. One funds it, fulfilling the financial needs of the game. The other spends more time playing it, fulfilling the metrics needs of the game. You want to hurt the latter, where the majority of the financially challenged players reside, by punishing their in-game earnings, which they have worked hard for and deserve.
Now, addressing how much players may earn by adjusting rewards is one thing that could be done to reduce the amount of Dilithium coming into the game. This has been addressed many times already: converting the Dilithium reward from Ferengi Admiralty into a Dilithium bonus pool, converting the Dilithium reward from Klingon Admiralty into Fleet Dilithium, converting the Dilithium reward from Reputations into Reputation Dilithium. Massive earnings were reduced through these changes. But these were "fire and forget" tasks that enabled players to earn massive amounts of Dilithium over time without really engaging with the game. Just cycling through a bunch of toons in 30 minutes to setup Reputation projects, Admiralty and DOFFing assignments, then logout. Now players have to really work to get their Dilithium to convert to Zen, and you want to punish and "tax" that effort? Yeah, it'll reduce Dilithium alright. People will just up and quit in disgust.
The myopic one here seems to be you and your fixation on taxation to remove Dilithium from the game. Which, in all honesty, is an "easy out" for the devs, because it requires no real effort on their part. The issue is not and has never been how much Dilithium is coming into the game. Look at the thread title again: Dilithium Exchange Issue. Grinders want Zen for their Dilithium, their time-invested earnings, and it's not moving. Why? Because the players with the Zen, their economic purchasing power, have no reason to trade their cold, hard cash for Dilithium, because there's nothing worthwhile to invest it in. The only real, viable solution is sustainable Dilithium sinks, rewards, that entice players to want to invest their Dilithium and by extension get Zen buyers to convert their Zen to obtain them.
You're right. I shouldn't have compared you to Warren Buffett. He has a better grasp of economics.
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I wonder if this high zen cost and lack of dilithium sink will eventually end the game somehow?
Also I might have either a brilliant idea or a really dumb one... But what if the dilithium to zen cap was reduced instead of increased? Early in this thread someone said it should be increased to 1000, or even limitless! But that would crash the exchange for good, so what would doing the opposite of that do?
I wonder if this high zen cost and lack of dilithium sink will eventually end the game somehow?
Also I might have either a brilliant idea or a really dumb one... But what if the dilithium to zen cap was reduced instead of increased? Early in this thread someone said it should be increased to 1000, or even limitless! But that would crash the exchange for good, so what would doing the opposite of that do?
Absolutely nothing. Whether the exchange rate is 10:1 or 1000:1, there's still no reason for players to trade their Zen for Dilithium, because they have nothing to do with the Dilithium once they get it.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I wonder if this high zen cost and lack of dilithium sink will eventually end the game somehow?
Also I might have either a brilliant idea or a really dumb one... But what if the dilithium to zen cap was reduced instead of increased? Early in this thread someone said it should be increased to 1000, or even limitless! But that would crash the exchange for good, so what would doing the opposite of that do?
Absolutely nothing. Whether the exchange rate is 10:1 or 1000:1, there's still no reason for players to trade their Zen for Dilithium, because they have nothing to do with the Dilithium once they get it.
I see! Then maybe they should let some t6 ships be bought with dilithium. But that will never be...
> @quasarbat#2903 said: > I see! Then maybe they should let some t6 ships be bought with dilithium. But that will never be...
Exactly, if Cryptic were to do that, then it would hurt their profits. The only way I can see that happening is if they come out with T7 ships, but that is a long shot.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
The Devs have said multiple times that there are NO plans for T7 whatsoever.
Besides... what gimmick would you give T7 above starship traits that we got for T6? And we STILL don't have a T6 for everything.
I wonder if this high zen cost and lack of dilithium sink will eventually end the game somehow?
Also I might have either a brilliant idea or a really dumb one... But what if the dilithium to zen cap was reduced instead of increased? Early in this thread someone said it should be increased to 1000, or even limitless! But that would crash the exchange for good, so what would doing the opposite of that do?
Absolutely nothing. Whether the exchange rate is 10:1 or 1000:1, there's still no reason for players to trade their Zen for Dilithium, because they have nothing to do with the Dilithium once they get it.
I see! Then maybe they should let some t6 ships be bought with dilithium. But that will never be...
Putting ships to be purchased with Dil won't (in the case of T6's) and didn't help the Dil exchange one iota! Dil uses need to be repeatable, not one purchase and they're done.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
I just thought about something, the private queues allow a single player to do a task force, what if cryptic were to put in a minimum player count of, for example, 2 players in order to play a private instance? That should cut down on the number of bots at least for a little while.
Bots aren't even really the issue. Bots are a smoke screen. Cryptic would love you to believe botting is an actual real issue. I am not suggesting no one has ever tried to use a BOT in STO... but the freq is HIGHLY over rated.
Dill is NOT hard to get. Lets be honest most players can do 1-3 ques a day per toon and easily refine 8k. After you have done that for awhile you get a backlog of Reputation marks which you can turn in 15 at a time. Meaning you don't HAVE to play 20 toons 1-3 ques a day. Just a couple will do. Once you have marks in every reputation logging in and starting the 1hr mission, then coming back 1-2 hours later and doing it a second time easily nets you 8k a day. Its NOT hard to farm dill. You don't NEED to bot it. That is just the truth. Throw in Admiralty if you want.
Its not botting or even "Farming" to earn dill for 20 or 30 toons if you play daily. As long as your the type of player that is willing to play a few different toons. Just run 2 or 3 random ques on a few different toons every day and after a month or so you have more then enough marks to do a quick log and click on days your not playing those toons.
The issue is what the Dill resource is good for... Cryptic is their own enemy here because they don't seem to understand their own system. They are selling free event items directly for Zen.... which proves they have no clue. If they sold those items for Dill they would make the same amount of $, but the game economy would be healthier. They would make the same amount of $. The Colony/Fleet sinks worked... but then they decided the game didn't need any work done on that stuff anymore. All they do now is work on ship skins to sell new ship packs. They could easily add new tiers to old fleet holdings (which doesn't require new asset work). They want more sinks. Start bumping the minor holdings research lab, K-13, Spire, Embassy to Tier 4. They could bump two a year and have sinks for 2 more years. Take them to Tier 4, take some of the old items like Embassy consoles and give them a stat update, sell them for more Dill cost then the old versions. Spire consoles same thing update them a bit... give people a reason to replace their current gold gear with new gear that will cost Dill and require upgrading which costs more dill. Zero asset work... simply copy and paste item change states unlock at Tier 4. Roll each Tier 4 bump out every 4-6 months. They have so many easy low effort fixes... but they can't even be bothered with those.
> @quasarbat#2903 said:
> I see! Then maybe they should let some t6 ships be bought with dilithium. But that will never be...
Exactly, if Cryptic were to do that, then it would hurt their profits. The only way I can see that happening is if they come out with T7 ships, but that is a long shot.
Adding things for sale for dill doesn't actually hurt profits...
Most people don't actually farm millions of dill. If they did what they should have done and put Mudds free event and ship sales into the dill store instead. Cryptic would have made the same $.
A new player isn't going to have 4 million dill to buy an unlock for say a Vulcan T'pau scout ship (which was a free event ship) or any of the other mudd event ship options. Cryptic is selling them for 8k in Zen directly. They could just as easily add the unlock to the Dill store for 4 million dill. Buy the same amount of Zen and convert it to dill. Cryptic gets the exact same amount of $... but the dill exchange gets dropped by 4 million every sale.
Of course you can't do this with EVERY item... or the exchange would reverse the opposite way until it was such a bad deal no one would spend money. Items that where logical adds to the dill store where previous free event give aways. During the events we are allowed to buy them out early with Dill. So all they would have been doing would have been giving new players (or those that that missed events) the option to buy those things later in the same way. (at a premium)
The Devs have said multiple times that there are NO plans for T7 whatsoever.
Besides... what gimmick would you give T7 above starship traits that we got for T6? And we STILL don't have a T6 for everything.
Yeah, I mean T6[X] ISN'T T7 (you know buying a Zen Token that allows you to UPGRADE any existing T6 ship)...oh, wait...
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 just thought about something, the private queues allow a single player to do a task force, what if cryptic were to put in a minimum player count of, for example, 2 players in order to play a private instance? That should cut down on the number of bots at least for a little while.
Bots aren't even really the issue. Bots are a smoke screen. Cryptic would love you to believe botting is an actual real issue. I am not suggesting no one has ever tried to use a BOT in STO... but the freq is HIGHLY over rated.
Even though there was a tweet about this from them last fall, it wasn't Cryptic that convinced me that it could possibly be part of the issue, at least at one time.
Dill is NOT hard to get. Lets be honest most players can do 1-3 ques a day per toon and easily refine 8k. After you have done that for awhile you get a backlog of Reputation marks which you can turn in 15 at a time. Meaning you don't HAVE to play 20 toons 1-3 ques a day. Just a couple will do. Once you have marks in every reputation logging in and starting the 1hr mission, then coming back 1-2 hours later and doing it a second time easily nets you 8k a day. Its NOT hard to farm dill. You don't NEED to bot it. That is just the truth. Throw in Admiralty if you want.
The need for it should be irrelevant as it's not permitted. Great advice otherwise, especially about farming dil.
Its not botting or even "Farming" to earn dill for 20 or 30 toons if you play daily. As long as your the type of player that is willing to play a few different toons. Just run 2 or 3 random ques on a few different toons every day and after a month or so you have more then enough marks to do a quick log and click on days your not playing those toons.
For sure as long as the player is at the keyboard, aside from reports of a queue that apparently auto-completes in 11 minutes even on elite (which could be a great time for doing admiralty).
Logging onto multiple toons all the time with only dilithium in mind is farming in my view though. I think a lot of players just want to play the game for fun and entertainment.
You did refer to farming dil above, but then in the following paragraph apparently it not "farming". Ok. Definitions can be quirky and putting something in quotes makes it different.
The issue is what the Dill resource is good for... Cryptic is their own enemy here because they don't seem to understand their own system. They are selling free event items directly for Zen.... which proves they have no clue. If they sold those items for Dill they would make the same amount of $, but the game economy would be healthier. They would make the same amount of $. The Colony/Fleet sinks worked... but then they decided the game didn't need any work done on that stuff anymore. All they do now is work on ship skins to sell new ship packs. They could easily add new tiers to old fleet holdings (which doesn't require new asset work). They want more sinks. Start bumping the minor holdings research lab, K-13, Spire, Embassy to Tier 4. They could bump two a year and have sinks for 2 more years. Take them to Tier 4, take some of the old items like Embassy consoles and give them a stat update, sell them for more Dill cost then the old versions. Spire consoles same thing update them a bit... give people a reason to replace their current gold gear with new gear that will cost Dill and require upgrading which costs more dill. Zero asset work... simply copy and paste item change states unlock at Tier 4. Roll each Tier 4 bump out every 4-6 months. They have so many easy low effort fixes... but they can't even be bothered with those.
Certainly it takes dev time to inspire wallet passion. Unfortunately my own take on further fleet holding expansions at this point would be nothing more than a blank stare.
I'm quite happy to slot "unload surplus fleet marks" which doesn't have ANY dilithium cost to it. It's really a nice hands off approach to things. Heck, it's taken about 10 years for smaller or satellite fleets to complete existing holdings (if they even managed to) so as far as freedom from $$$ holdings is concerned my own take is that it's about time.
Maybe it's just me but there sure seems to be a lot of unfinished Colony holdings out there. It's almost like they got stalled due to the high dilithium cost and not enough players wanting to take part in such an expensive $$$ dil sink. Maybe they found saving up dil for Zen was a better choice?
Also, any new fleets still have a multi-year journey ahead of them so not having new holdings or expansions could be good planning on the devs part. I wish them luck and hope they have as many good times with fleet mates as I did.
I just thought about something, the private queues allow a single player to do a task force, what if cryptic were to put in a minimum player count of, for example, 2 players in order to play a private instance? That should cut down on the number of bots at least for a little while.
Bots aren't even really the issue. Bots are a smoke screen. Cryptic would love you to believe botting is an actual real issue. I am not suggesting no one has ever tried to use a BOT in STO... but the freq is HIGHLY over rated.
Dill is NOT hard to get. Lets be honest most players can do 1-3 ques a day per toon and easily refine 8k. After you have done that for awhile you get a backlog of Reputation marks which you can turn in 15 at a time. Meaning you don't HAVE to play 20 toons 1-3 ques a day. Just a couple will do. Once you have marks in every reputation logging in and starting the 1hr mission, then coming back 1-2 hours later and doing it a second time easily nets you 8k a day. Its NOT hard to farm dill. You don't NEED to bot it. That is just the truth. Throw in Admiralty if you want.
Its not botting or even "Farming" to earn dill for 20 or 30 toons if you play daily. As long as your the type of player that is willing to play a few different toons. Just run 2 or 3 random ques on a few different toons every day and after a month or so you have more then enough marks to do a quick log and click on days your not playing those toons.
The issue is what the Dill resource is good for... Cryptic is their own enemy here because they don't seem to understand their own system. They are selling free event items directly for Zen.... which proves they have no clue. If they sold those items for Dill they would make the same amount of $, but the game economy would be healthier. They would make the same amount of $. The Colony/Fleet sinks worked... but then they decided the game didn't need any work done on that stuff anymore. All they do now is work on ship skins to sell new ship packs. They could easily add new tiers to old fleet holdings (which doesn't require new asset work). They want more sinks. Start bumping the minor holdings research lab, K-13, Spire, Embassy to Tier 4. They could bump two a year and have sinks for 2 more years. Take them to Tier 4, take some of the old items like Embassy consoles and give them a stat update, sell them for more Dill cost then the old versions. Spire consoles same thing update them a bit... give people a reason to replace their current gold gear with new gear that will cost Dill and require upgrading which costs more dill. Zero asset work... simply copy and paste item change states unlock at Tier 4. Roll each Tier 4 bump out every 4-6 months. They have so many easy low effort fixes... but they can't even be bothered with those.
How are bots a smoke-screen!? It has been shown on certain videos the 'damage' that one bot-farm can do; so if there's 10 bot-farms with hundreds of accounts and thousands of characters each....well, just do the math. Bots ARE part of the problem and they have been proven with plentiful video evidence to exist, and as someone who plays on PC (since 2011) and XB (since 2017), it is blindingly obvious the effect bots are having. I'll also point out that Cryptic barely ever has mentioned ANYTHING about bots.....I'm talking barely a tweet or two, as has already been posted, so they are not 'bleating' on about it enough for it to be even considered a smoke-screen.
And seriously....the game needs a player-focused Dil sink, NOT another fleet holding nor tiers that effectively freeze out anyone not in a fleet.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
I just thought about something, the private queues allow a single player to do a task force, what if cryptic were to put in a minimum player count of, for example, 2 players in order to play a private instance? That should cut down on the number of bots at least for a little while.
Bots aren't even really the issue. Bots are a smoke screen. Cryptic would love you to believe botting is an actual real issue. I am not suggesting no one has ever tried to use a BOT in STO... but the freq is HIGHLY over rated.
Dill is NOT hard to get. Lets be honest most players can do 1-3 ques a day per toon and easily refine 8k. After you have done that for awhile you get a backlog of Reputation marks which you can turn in 15 at a time. Meaning you don't HAVE to play 20 toons 1-3 ques a day. Just a couple will do. Once you have marks in every reputation logging in and starting the 1hr mission, then coming back 1-2 hours later and doing it a second time easily nets you 8k a day. Its NOT hard to farm dill. You don't NEED to bot it. That is just the truth. Throw in Admiralty if you want.
Its not botting or even "Farming" to earn dill for 20 or 30 toons if you play daily. As long as your the type of player that is willing to play a few different toons. Just run 2 or 3 random ques on a few different toons every day and after a month or so you have more then enough marks to do a quick log and click on days your not playing those toons.
The issue is what the Dill resource is good for... Cryptic is their own enemy here because they don't seem to understand their own system. They are selling free event items directly for Zen.... which proves they have no clue. If they sold those items for Dill they would make the same amount of $, but the game economy would be healthier. They would make the same amount of $. The Colony/Fleet sinks worked... but then they decided the game didn't need any work done on that stuff anymore. All they do now is work on ship skins to sell new ship packs. They could easily add new tiers to old fleet holdings (which doesn't require new asset work). They want more sinks. Start bumping the minor holdings research lab, K-13, Spire, Embassy to Tier 4. They could bump two a year and have sinks for 2 more years. Take them to Tier 4, take some of the old items like Embassy consoles and give them a stat update, sell them for more Dill cost then the old versions. Spire consoles same thing update them a bit... give people a reason to replace their current gold gear with new gear that will cost Dill and require upgrading which costs more dill. Zero asset work... simply copy and paste item change states unlock at Tier 4. Roll each Tier 4 bump out every 4-6 months. They have so many easy low effort fixes... but they can't even be bothered with those.
How are bots a smoke-screen!?
Because, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the problem isn't the supply of Dilithium - it's the demand for Dilithium. Until there's some reason for folks with Zen to want to frequently sell their Zen for Dil, the market's going to remain at its cap.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,596Community Moderator
No one disputes that bots are an issue in ANY game. Even FF14 has problems with bots. And the funny thing is its usually easy to identify them because they're all clones and generally somehow go under the map to get around. And then there's the goldsellers that are stupid enough to advertise in chat that are much easier to report. (I report them for RMT (Real Money Transaction) activity every chance I see one. I'm doin' my part )
However dealing with Supply will not solve the Demand issues. We NEED things to SPEND DL on.
To my recollection, these are the steps that the Devs have taken on the supply side.
Adjusted Klingon Admiralty Track to reward Fleet Vouchers instead of Raw Ore.
Adjusted Ferengi Admiralty Track to reward a Bonus Pool instead of Raw Ore. (had been a carbon copy of Klingon ToD before)
Adjusted Reputation T5 rewards to give Rep Vouchers instead of Raw Ore.
Adjusted Event rewards to be account based rather than character based.
On the Demand side they have tested a few things. A couple were... not well received.
Admiralty Skip Tokens removed from drop pool and made available for DL (believe later readded to the drop pool but still available anytime for DL)
Endeavor reroll tokens removed from drop pool and made available for DL (believe readded to the drop pool but still available anytime for DL)
Vanity Shield Dilithium Sale (good for spikes, but not really sustainable)
The Devs are collecting data and making plans behind the scenes. To the casual observer it may look like they're doing nothing or don't care. However they're always working on something. They are also not required to give us running commentary on every step they take every minute of every day.
With a problem this complex, there is no one, single, magic bullet solution. Is it frustrating? Yes. I feel it too. But I also understand that things take time. Sometimes a long time. Raging about it on the forums or throwing out accusations will not get it solved any faster.
> @protoneous said: > Cost to get one Colony holding to Tier 5 - 90,000,000 dilithium or $1800 USD > > Earnings of one alleged bot farm per month - 350,000,000 dilithium or $7000 USD
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Poorer/richer is a non-starter label for me at least. As players we all have the option to play a little or play a lot.
So a tax...a working tax would actually ironicly end up HELPING the poorer earners by stopping and hopefully reversing the inflation caused by those extreme earners.
(Made in another post in case TLDR)
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Ah, so without so many words this appears to be a tax the rich to help the poor sort of proposal.
No, I didn't say that.
Nerf the instant dil-sources and hard. Turn them into Weaklys instead of daylies.
What I'm saying is don't expect instant results. It will be months until the farmer-stockpiles are used up.
You're not thinking this through. Consider all the consequences, the collateral damage.
Sure, you're hitting the problem, but not with a sniper-bullet but with a frag-grenade that kills everyone who happens to be in the same room.
This punishes people who play a lot on weekends, but don't have time to play on workdays.
You're telling them " You've played enough for today. Go away. Do something else"
You driving the weekend-players away - you know, the ones with full time jobs - and the $ that come with fulltime jobs - $ that can buy Zen - Zen that can buy dil from the exchange.
See where this is going when you think it through?
There already is a system in place to regulate the refined dil income, without telling players to stop playing. It's beautiful system where I can earn a week worth of dil in 2 days of intensive play, and spend the next 5 days refining it - and as a LTS I don't even need to login on those 5 days after work (altough I usually do and play an event queue, but that OT)
And a tax is going to cause the forums to go full nuclear thermite. Because it does not address DEMAND in a way that is beneficial to all. It just says that you now have to PAY in some way to play. You don't play enough, you get stonewalled because you can't pay your taxes. You play too much, you have to pay for it.
It has been covered multiple times that a forced tax of any kind will cause massive backlash from the playerbase, and potentially end up killing the game outright in the end.
What is needed is something to make Dilithium desireable, thereby naturally increasing the demand for Dilithium, and in turn bringing the economy more into balance.
A forced tax is not going to make Dilithium desirable. It will turn the game into a job JUST TO PLAY EVEN CASUALLY.
What will be mor attractive to the average player?
Oh! This thing that costs dilithium looks cool! I just happen to have a few zen to trade too!
Or...
Well shtako. I can't pay the Dilithium tax. Guess I have to spend money just to do something now...
That's dang near Mobile Game microtransaction level BS. Hell... that's almost EA level.
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Here’s the link: (Video link removed due to content violating forum rules. - BMR)
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> Ok, folks. This is the third time now that I've had to remove this video link. Let's, please, stop posting this. Thank you.
Ok, I won’t use the video for reference, however, I still feel strongly that bot farming is hurting the game though.
Edit: I misread the post, sorry, but kind of, my idea was if someones earning more than a certain amount of dil start charging them an increasing % of that dil retroactively; if they earned 8k more than a soft-cap, they lose 800 of that dil, and maybe add some brackets to increase that % on further earnings. So if someones earning say, 160k dilithium they'd find everything over 80k dilithium over 80% of that is being lost to refinement fees, everything over say the 40k mark then it's like 30%ish(I was thinking like 10% per 8k or maybe 16k dil or something.
I was just looking though at some math though and concluded, anyone earning less than a certain threshold of dilithium in regards to items they are trying to purchase are effectively being 'taxed'
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
I'm not proposing a tax where someone has to pay x amount at a specific time every month, just something that soft-caps dilithium earnings past a certain point. Your trying to liken this idea of implementation to an RL tax with filing taxes. I'm going by other games where auction houses ect have an "auction house fee". Say STO had such a system for energy credits, you post something to sell for 20 million your fined 1 million, and when it sells your fined another 1 million of the profits you made. Thats a scaling sink/auction fee.
Why not anything at all like that on dilithium? Because everyones blind on the "lets just make a sink that is desirable" you don't understand there is so much dilithium in the market that your screwed with that approach before you even begin. Not just in the market, consider what some of those extreme farmers have in reserve. Probably a LOT more.
What I started proposing towards the end since your so unwilling to address that the ultra-rich and ultra-farmers have completely cornered your games economy....is that a system be in place to soft-cap how much someone could earn by taxing what they are grinding as they are grinding it once they've gotten past a certain threshold. Aka, something to stop the extreme grinders from breaking the bank even more than they already have. If your not willing to even consider that, then I won't bother here, I will conclude you will never fix your economy again. Because your not remotely willing to address that some players earn far, far to much dilithium at the complete expense of literally everyone else.
Instead we have a "Dilithium printer go brrrr" situation.
This is a video game even, my idea could be something that just reduces dilithium earned by a % as it's refined past a certain number. Honestly with this I don't even see why not have refined dilithium be account-wide(can leave dil ore character-specific, maybe make is so if someone refines more than 16k, maybe 10%-20% of the extra dil past that 16k is removed).
Actually think about what I am saying and read some of what I suggested instead of assuming that my "tax" idea is placing "due taxes" on people every month.
Don't compare me to warren buffet btw. I can assure you that there are players who probably spent 10-20 times more than I ever have on this game or even over a hundred times more. And I kinda dislike warren buffet, he's a bad icon in my home state. He does bring up a point about the rich not paying much in taxes though, kinda like how this games economy doesn't really impact people to much dil while severely hurting newbies who probably give up in about a month. Most the newbies probably don't even come here to complain about the dilithium exchange.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
If you want to suggest fixes for the dili market, might I recommend focusing on the demand side of things? Like there's a reason Supply and Demand is often a business ethos. Aside from the botting, clearly the main issue is not from the supply side - it's clearly a demand side issue.
Dilithium is a currency, sorry. You have again, and many others even pointed out that exploits allow people to gain even more than ever before. But it's a currency designed to tie RL currency to energy credits.
Resources can be currency and are often used as currency, even designed to double as currency. If it was, you wouldn't be using it as an exchange to gain zen which is tied directly to RL$. This was done to combat "hyper inflation" where due to currency drops being non-stop all the time, without any measures done the currency becomes useless. Many devs try to rely entirely on money sinks and find sadly that eventually the money sinks product quickly becomes useless. In those situations, players eventually resort to a drop in game thats rare enough that all trading is 100% expected with that "resource", at that point, the resource has become a currency and replaces the one the devs intended to be the currency. At this point, new players will find they don't get any buying power at all with the regular currencies, and are effectively ejected from the economy before they even begin playing the game. Often forever(I never ONCE traded anything in diablo2 purely because of that).
To combat this, developers found a trick in the RL market to tie currencies to one another in other countries and commodities such as gold. Gold in fact, is considered THE standard, the US dollar is tied to it. And many countries tie there currency to the US dollar. This is done to slow down inflation to a reasonable rate that coincides with produced goods. Without these measures the US dollar would inflate far more quickly, potentially hyper-inflating.
In fact the currency chain to for RL to in game money translation is Dilithium > Zen for Dil earners, for those wanting to get EC with dil then it's Dil>Zen>Keys. Keys are valued, ignoring the major problem of ever increasing wait periods, 62,500 dilithium. Due to wait periods though, the key to EC value is constantly inflating still. Unfortunately dilithium is like Diablo 2's gold, it's constantly "printed", just like energy credits. And unfortunately it's done endlessly. And neither EC nore dilithium are actually removed in the auction house or dil/zen exchange. This means the supply of dil and EC have NOTHING to stop the extreme grinders from printing more and more, if the sinks go bust, then hyper-inflation continues and accelerates again.
Thats why I propose mechanics that soft-cap dil earnings past a point. Because some people just don't stop grinding no matter how messed up the economy is. This is true with all games like STO. I mean sooner or later players will have to decide to make a currency of there own and it'll be something ridiculously rare like diablo 2's stone of jordan before item duping became common. Most likely, keys. And the devs won't allow that, so then it'll have to become something else, maybe an ultra-rare and hard to obtain tribble for example.
But a proper soft-cap + a useful sink that isn't critical but still valuable, then you'd actually get somewhere. Maybe expand on lockboxes with cool stuff that is more valuable than the phoenix box? Or a wider variety other than just upgrades.
The devs efforts to address the issue have had zero impact and I don't think they have had any impact for a long time. If I was into illegal gambling i'd even bet a few hundred or even a thousand dollars this issue WON'T be resolved without soft-capping the supply of dil coming in. Many, many devs have tried to rely entirely on "money sinks" in the past, every single one of them have failed.
Some people have proposed "Must haves" that have to be purchased with dilithium for a "dil sink", eh....that sounds like a tax to if the must have is a mandatory long-term(phoenix upgrades are not a long-term sink for anyone). And scaling without a soft-cap on dil earning, even that could still end up being rapidly out-paced.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Rattler understood. Seems you didn't understand Rattler. You appear to just want to punish players, who, regardless of how they earn, earn their way through the game. I have a ton more respect for a player, like Rattler, who grinds their way through the game and converts their Dilithium to Zen, than someone like myself, who mostly just buys their Zen. BOTH types of players are important to the overall health of the game, though. One funds it, fulfilling the financial needs of the game. The other spends more time playing it, fulfilling the metrics needs of the game. You want to hurt the latter, where the majority of the financially challenged players reside, by punishing their in-game earnings, which they have worked hard for and deserve.
Now, addressing how much players may earn by adjusting rewards is one thing that could be done to reduce the amount of Dilithium coming into the game. This has been addressed many times already: converting the Dilithium reward from Ferengi Admiralty into a Dilithium bonus pool, converting the Dilithium reward from Klingon Admiralty into Fleet Dilithium, converting the Dilithium reward from Reputations into Reputation Dilithium. Massive earnings were reduced through these changes. But these were "fire and forget" tasks that enabled players to earn massive amounts of Dilithium over time without really engaging with the game. Just cycling through a bunch of toons in 30 minutes to setup Reputation projects, Admiralty and DOFFing assignments, then logout. Now players have to really work to get their Dilithium to convert to Zen, and you want to punish and "tax" that effort? Yeah, it'll reduce Dilithium alright. People will just up and quit in disgust.
The myopic one here seems to be you and your fixation on taxation to remove Dilithium from the game. Which, in all honesty, is an "easy out" for the devs, because it requires no real effort on their part. The issue is not and has never been how much Dilithium is coming into the game. Look at the thread title again: Dilithium Exchange Issue. Grinders want Zen for their Dilithium, their time-invested earnings, and it's not moving. Why? Because the players with the Zen, their economic purchasing power, have no reason to trade their cold, hard cash for Dilithium, because there's nothing worthwhile to invest it in. The only real, viable solution is sustainable Dilithium sinks, rewards, that entice players to want to invest their Dilithium and by extension get Zen buyers to convert their Zen to obtain them.
You're right. I shouldn't have compared you to Warren Buffett. He has a better grasp of economics.
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Also I might have either a brilliant idea or a really dumb one... But what if the dilithium to zen cap was reduced instead of increased? Early in this thread someone said it should be increased to 1000, or even limitless! But that would crash the exchange for good, so what would doing the opposite of that do?
Absolutely nothing. Whether the exchange rate is 10:1 or 1000:1, there's still no reason for players to trade their Zen for Dilithium, because they have nothing to do with the Dilithium once they get it.
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I see! Then maybe they should let some t6 ships be bought with dilithium. But that will never be...
> I see! Then maybe they should let some t6 ships be bought with dilithium. But that will never be...
Exactly, if Cryptic were to do that, then it would hurt their profits. The only way I can see that happening is if they come out with T7 ships, but that is a long shot.
Besides... what gimmick would you give T7 above starship traits that we got for T6? And we STILL don't have a T6 for everything.
Putting ships to be purchased with Dil won't (in the case of T6's) and didn't help the Dil exchange one iota! Dil uses need to be repeatable, not one purchase and they're done.
Bots aren't even really the issue. Bots are a smoke screen. Cryptic would love you to believe botting is an actual real issue. I am not suggesting no one has ever tried to use a BOT in STO... but the freq is HIGHLY over rated.
Dill is NOT hard to get. Lets be honest most players can do 1-3 ques a day per toon and easily refine 8k. After you have done that for awhile you get a backlog of Reputation marks which you can turn in 15 at a time. Meaning you don't HAVE to play 20 toons 1-3 ques a day. Just a couple will do. Once you have marks in every reputation logging in and starting the 1hr mission, then coming back 1-2 hours later and doing it a second time easily nets you 8k a day. Its NOT hard to farm dill. You don't NEED to bot it. That is just the truth. Throw in Admiralty if you want.
Its not botting or even "Farming" to earn dill for 20 or 30 toons if you play daily. As long as your the type of player that is willing to play a few different toons. Just run 2 or 3 random ques on a few different toons every day and after a month or so you have more then enough marks to do a quick log and click on days your not playing those toons.
The issue is what the Dill resource is good for... Cryptic is their own enemy here because they don't seem to understand their own system. They are selling free event items directly for Zen.... which proves they have no clue. If they sold those items for Dill they would make the same amount of $, but the game economy would be healthier. They would make the same amount of $. The Colony/Fleet sinks worked... but then they decided the game didn't need any work done on that stuff anymore. All they do now is work on ship skins to sell new ship packs. They could easily add new tiers to old fleet holdings (which doesn't require new asset work). They want more sinks. Start bumping the minor holdings research lab, K-13, Spire, Embassy to Tier 4. They could bump two a year and have sinks for 2 more years. Take them to Tier 4, take some of the old items like Embassy consoles and give them a stat update, sell them for more Dill cost then the old versions. Spire consoles same thing update them a bit... give people a reason to replace their current gold gear with new gear that will cost Dill and require upgrading which costs more dill. Zero asset work... simply copy and paste item change states unlock at Tier 4. Roll each Tier 4 bump out every 4-6 months. They have so many easy low effort fixes... but they can't even be bothered with those.
Adding things for sale for dill doesn't actually hurt profits...
Most people don't actually farm millions of dill. If they did what they should have done and put Mudds free event and ship sales into the dill store instead. Cryptic would have made the same $.
A new player isn't going to have 4 million dill to buy an unlock for say a Vulcan T'pau scout ship (which was a free event ship) or any of the other mudd event ship options. Cryptic is selling them for 8k in Zen directly. They could just as easily add the unlock to the Dill store for 4 million dill. Buy the same amount of Zen and convert it to dill. Cryptic gets the exact same amount of $... but the dill exchange gets dropped by 4 million every sale.
Of course you can't do this with EVERY item... or the exchange would reverse the opposite way until it was such a bad deal no one would spend money. Items that where logical adds to the dill store where previous free event give aways. During the events we are allowed to buy them out early with Dill. So all they would have been doing would have been giving new players (or those that that missed events) the option to buy those things later in the same way. (at a premium)
Yeah, I mean T6[X] ISN'T T7 (you know buying a Zen Token that allows you to UPGRADE any existing T6 ship)...oh, wait...
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..."
The need for it should be irrelevant as it's not permitted. Great advice otherwise, especially about farming dil.
For sure as long as the player is at the keyboard, aside from reports of a queue that apparently auto-completes in 11 minutes even on elite (which could be a great time for doing admiralty).
Logging onto multiple toons all the time with only dilithium in mind is farming in my view though. I think a lot of players just want to play the game for fun and entertainment.
You did refer to farming dil above, but then in the following paragraph apparently it not "farming". Ok. Definitions can be quirky and putting something in quotes makes it different.
Certainly it takes dev time to inspire wallet passion. Unfortunately my own take on further fleet holding expansions at this point would be nothing more than a blank stare.
I'm quite happy to slot "unload surplus fleet marks" which doesn't have ANY dilithium cost to it. It's really a nice hands off approach to things. Heck, it's taken about 10 years for smaller or satellite fleets to complete existing holdings (if they even managed to) so as far as freedom from $$$ holdings is concerned my own take is that it's about time.
Maybe it's just me but there sure seems to be a lot of unfinished Colony holdings out there. It's almost like they got stalled due to the high dilithium cost and not enough players wanting to take part in such an expensive $$$ dil sink. Maybe they found saving up dil for Zen was a better choice?
Also, any new fleets still have a multi-year journey ahead of them so not having new holdings or expansions could be good planning on the devs part. I wish them luck and hope they have as many good times with fleet mates as I did.
How are bots a smoke-screen!? It has been shown on certain videos the 'damage' that one bot-farm can do; so if there's 10 bot-farms with hundreds of accounts and thousands of characters each....well, just do the math. Bots ARE part of the problem and they have been proven with plentiful video evidence to exist, and as someone who plays on PC (since 2011) and XB (since 2017), it is blindingly obvious the effect bots are having. I'll also point out that Cryptic barely ever has mentioned ANYTHING about bots.....I'm talking barely a tweet or two, as has already been posted, so they are not 'bleating' on about it enough for it to be even considered a smoke-screen.
And seriously....the game needs a player-focused Dil sink, NOT another fleet holding nor tiers that effectively freeze out anyone not in a fleet.
However dealing with Supply will not solve the Demand issues. We NEED things to SPEND DL on.
To my recollection, these are the steps that the Devs have taken on the supply side.
On the Demand side they have tested a few things. A couple were... not well received.
The Devs are collecting data and making plans behind the scenes. To the casual observer it may look like they're doing nothing or don't care. However they're always working on something. They are also not required to give us running commentary on every step they take every minute of every day.
With a problem this complex, there is no one, single, magic bullet solution. Is it frustrating? Yes. I feel it too. But I also understand that things take time. Sometimes a long time. Raging about it on the forums or throwing out accusations will not get it solved any faster.
Earnings of one alleged bot farm per month - 350,000,000 dilithium or $7000 USD
> Cost to get one Colony holding to Tier 5 - 90,000,000 dilithium or $1800 USD
>
> Earnings of one alleged bot farm per month - 350,000,000 dilithium or $7000 USD
This is exactly what I’m getting at.