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Idea to solve the problem with the dil/zen exchange
seasalmon
Member Posts: 8 Arc User
What if the dev's made ships need dilithium to Warp somewhere?
Some Benefits:
- More realistic gameplay, since in movies dilithium is worth a lot and is overall really important, while right now ingame its just another currency
- It might fix the slightly out of hand getting problem at the dil/zen exchange, dilithium would be worth much more and people who dont want to waste their time farming it, are required to buy it for zen
- More zen are sold for dilithium, which enables ftp-players (like me) to get premium ingame stuff which is otherwise not avaidable for us
- Cryptic doesnt lose too much money on ftp-players since they still earn money on constant zen purchases by people who buy zen to get dilithium
- It would even make endgame hard sometimes, since, if you dont already have tons of it, you always have to carry some dilithium with you and be careful to not let it go out
Some problems and how they could be fixed:
- New players might be having problems since the first days ingame are already a bit confusing
- Solution: Make ships not need dilithium until level 20 / Make ships need more dilithium the bigger/better the ship is
- Someone might get stuck somewhere after using all his dilithium up
- Solution: Make a dilithium-source in every system, which is just not good enough to use it to farm dilithium, but enough to get you somewhere after a few minutes of farming
Are the devs even implementing ideas from their community?
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It also punishes anyone who wants to log in and just do the daily event if they don't have any refined dil on hand. Telling them they have to do "run errands for Quark on DS9" or "polish the windows in Earth Spacedock" first is anti-fun.
Taxing players is not going to work. You want an effective sink, you need one players WANT to use. Not HAVE to use.
1 ship account wide = 1 admiralty card account wide (using that ship once puts it on maintenance account wide)
right now if you have 60 dill hadars, 1 ship account wide = 60 uses to grind dill
What would you suggest as dilithium sink?
When selling players sell their Zen in the current market, they get the most value out of their real money and that's how I think it should be, to be honest.
Surely maximising the value of players' hard earned real Euro's or Dollars should take precendence over maximising the value of some virtual purple rocks, that can be obtained limitlessly and with increasingly less effort (which, btw, is also precisely why the exchange rate is what it is)?
Most of the times when I buy Zen nowadays, it's to quickly earn some fleet credits on new toons or get some quick Phoenix upgrades. So that I can quickly gear up a new toon and play the way I want to play, without having to grind too much or else wait for weeks just to buy an item from a fleet store, for example.
If the Zen-dil exchange moved to, say, 300 dilithium for 1 Zen, I probably wouldn't be as incentivised to spend real money in order to buy Zen at all. So there is that.
Free players may find the current exchange rate problematic, but honestly, that's just a matter of perspective and a lower rate wouldn't automatically be better or desirable.
What would you suggest? A sink that players really want to use needs to have items that are really good and limited in use, otherwise either players wouldnt want to use it or it would only work for a few days. I can completly understand you, but to get the dil/zen exchange running again you need something players are required to do.
I completly understand that players should get the most value out of their money and I dont think that is a problem either, its good for exactly the reasons you already wrote. The problem I meant was that because of the massive backlog on the exchange it takes ages for one to sell his dilithium EVEN at 500 dilithium per zen. Thats the main reason why I posted this discussion too, I posted a few offers to buy zen a few weeks ago and still didnt get them.
Why cant you say anything about it in here?
If you believe some posts on reddit it takes about 20-30 days right now.
What are your "obvious" reasons?
Right now it punishes everyone even trying to be ftp. There are many solutions for the problem with newbies and players including the many already existing sources to get dilithium. Still I can understand your reasoning and that this might become a problem if this concept would really be implemented into the game...
I agree that that is a serious issue that needs adressing.
Personally I don't see a movement tax as the solution though. Various better sinks have been proposed in the past, but so far I don't think many of them have been seriously considered. That might change with the change in leadership though, but no one can tell for sure.
In the end though, the problem we're seeing here is mostly the result of market intervention. Cryptic has stated in the past that the dilex is basically a free market, but this is not entirely accurate of course. First, they (and they alone) steer demand for Zen especially and also exert significant control on the demand for dilithium, albeit to a lesser extent compared to Zen demand.
Secondly, a cap exist.
Backlogs are, ultimately, occurring as a result of this limiting of the free market. The actual price - due to oversupply of dilithium and years of inflation that is also visible in the EC market for example - is much higher than 500. Cap it at 500, and it's going to take much longer before people offer sufficient amount of Zen.
I have no idea which one of these factors is more important. But the way I see it, the only real 'solution' to fixing the backlog - one that doesn't involve cutting the amount or ease with which dilithium is earned or drastically lower the demand for Zen (by releasing fewer new ships, which could seriously hit the game financially) - would be to remove the cap and let the exchange float freely entirely. But that solution isn't ideal either, as it might create other problems.
I'd honestly suggest something similar to what FF14 does with major community run things like Ishgard Restoration. Have the players BUILD something big for everyone. Think of it like a server wide Fleet Holding or something. IMO a good place to do that might either be us building New Khitomer in the Gamma Quadrant, or rebuilding Khitomer Alliance HQ after Jm'pok used the Mycelial Weapon on Khitomer. We could get a source for Alliance themed gear and ships (After they had their Anniversary event for those who missed it and don't have the account unlock). In the past, Fleet Holdings were a major driving factor. Give the players something to work towards, and something to say "we did that".
You want to expand it? Maybe use it to prototype a housing system. We have a very limited version of that with ship interiors, and being able to put up trophies of our choice that we earned from achievements. In theory that could be expanded. It wouldn't be FF14 level customization, but having certain nodes interactable might be doable as the system already exists with the trophies.
A reliable, sustainable sink has to be something players WANT to interact with. It has to be worthwhile and rewarding, not punishing for playing the game. A community built social hub also has an advantage that Fleet Holdings don't have. You don't need to make basically two versions depending on faction. One single social hub open to all players. Over time new projects can be added. Do we want a shipyard in orbit or do we want a housing block? Do we want to build Unity 1 Starbase in orbit? How will this social hub evolve based on what resources are contributed where?
On "regular" weapons (drops or standard vendor purchases) this color change could be repeated indefinitely, while on Lobi, Zen (including weapons purchased from packs or included with a ship), Reputation, Mission Reward Special Weapons or Set Pieces, and Lockbox this color change can only be implemented once before having to either reclaim or make another purchase or play through.
The new crafting materials necessary for this change can be scattered among the various system patrols and even among some new ones.
In addition to providing another Dilithium Sink, this would promote a potential increase in playtime in areas that some player may otherwise ignore and possibly some purchases using other currencies.
Sure, it's not a perfect solution and it would only apply to those of us who want some consistency in our weapons discharge, but one more idea couldn't hurt.
The devs have already said that changing the colors of weapons effects would not fly due to stylistic restrictions from Paramount or whatever. On the other hand, there have been requests to have alternate weapons introduced into the crafting system, like the TOS phasers which are just regular phasers with the TOS look, and I suppose they could put a small dil cost or whatever on making those alternates. There are not a lot of weapons with just cosmetic alternates like that in the game though.
No one was saying the DL Exchange doesn't work. Its just that it takes so long for people buying Zen to GET their Zen because not very many people are selling Zen for Dilithium. We're flooded with Dilithium and no real reason to use it once certain things have been accomplished. If the economy was more balanced we'd have more trading more often, thus shorter wait times for people buying Zen.
Far as I know, TOS style weapons are available from the Fleet K-13. And variant weapons like Andorian Phasers in the DL Store are locked behind getting Andorian ships. In fact... I think most variant weapons that aren't in a lockbox are locked behind getting an associated ship, like Cardassian and Spiral Wave Disruptors.
You think Cryptic or DECA care that it takes a month or so to sell another player your in game currency for $ currency?
The problem with sinks... is no one suggesting actually wants to use them, they want others to use them. SO they can more efficiently sell their own purple rock.
If you think the exchange is broken. Do your part. Go buy zen and sell it for some purple rock.
Okay, in short, if this was a pre-TMP game, you might have a point, but ST:IV moots the point completely. By the time TNG ended, it was well established that Dilithium recrystalisation was a thing. It extended the life of crystals to the point that Dil scarcity wasn't an issue until 'The Burn'.
As for your solutions to issues, I can level a toon to 20 inside an hour and to 65 in around 8. If I was a FTP player, I wouldn't have any Dil by that time if I was also using it to buy the old C-Store ships I needed for equipment, nevermind a 'warp-tax' that wouldn't make any difference to the market.
The game is a 'theme-park' not a sim-management game (Doffing and Admirality aside). The two best solutions to the glut, and it is a glut, have been proposed, but there is just the lack of Dev time to do it. A game-wide holding and a personal-only holding would wipe out the glut within days. The problem is, it would probably take about 6 months dedicated Dev time to develop and finish.
Except that all Zen on the DL Exchange is paid Zen. Someone bought that Zen and chose to trade it for Dilithium. So its not "free" Zen at all.
I've heard some people in the past say that that wasn't okay, because then other players couldn't tell what kind of energy weapons you were using but... how many of us memorize the colour and sound of every VARIANT of every energy type?
I just bring this up because I do see vanity shields are sometimes available for dil, so it must be a good dil sink for some.
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New offers to buy Zen are taking around 3 weeks to fulfill, so you will get Zen if you are patient about it, but there is no way beside divine intervention Cryptic will be pulling Zen out of free air to put in there. You don't understand what would happen.
What you are talking about is similar to 'quantitative easing', which even in best case scenarios doesn't actually do economies that much good. Even if they could input new Dil, at what price do you think it going to be set at? The system automatically will have to fulfill all the orders at 500 (around 8.5 mil Dil) then there are all the offers below 500. How much Zen do you propose they put on the market and how much money do you propose Cryptic should lose just to clear the exchange? Cryptic are also going to have to program an avenue (effectively a 'dumb' character) to accept the massive amount of Dil that's going to have to be held on the system for all those transactions to go through.
Regardless of the amount that Cryptic put in, that Zen will evaporate and the market will be back at 500 quicker than rabid US shoppers on Black Friday, because that is what the players who have bought Zen to buy Dil will put it up for. There is simply so little desire for Dil that there is no competition for it. You only need to look at the astounding range of global fuel prices to understand this. In some countries, it's cheaper than water to the point they are almost giving it away, in other countries, they pay a massive premium of tax and other costs on top of the wholesale price costing well over $100 to fill a tank.
And that still doesn't solve the issue as there is still a massive glut of Dil that people will be forced to sell for 500:1. Until there is a brand new large-scale contiguous dil sink, this is how things will remain.
When I suggested the server wide Holding on Khitomer, I was basing it on the Exchange behavior we saw back when everyone was still working on their fleet starbases. Yea there were far fewer sources for Dilithium, but the fact remains that Fleet Holdings were a major balancing factor because of how much Dilithium they required. Now all the big Fleets, the ones who were basically driving the DL Exchange, have 100% finished all their Holdings. Since Fleets started maxing out their Holdings, demand for Dilithium dropped. We saw spikes in demand every once in a while, but we kept getting things that made Zen more desirable, and more Dilithium. Crafting isn't a big enough sink because there are only a few things that people will want consistently. Upgrading gear only goes so far as once you get Mk 15 Gold there's no more need for upgrading unless you decide to experiment with other things. Rerolling mods only goes so far until you get either your desired mods or the Meta mods, then you don't need any DL anymore.
Its a clearcut case of Supply and Demand. We have HIGH Supply of Dilithium, but Low Demand.
We need something sustainable, big, and worthwhile to bring the demand for Dilithium up to a point that the Exchange prices for Zen go down.
As someone who has used the DL Exchange since it was implimented I've seen a lot of patterns. There is no grand conspiracy to keep Zen prices high. Its all Community Reaction. It is a player driven market. Give the players something to react to and they will respond.
You can still get zen, it just is delayed.
In balance, we get more ships for free now than we did before the year-long campaigns started, and this year we get more than last year if we use the lobi for a ship.