Great they added Dilithium back into the STFs when it should never have been removed.

But did you have really have to nerf the Dilithium everywhere else.

Just when I thought it was getting fun playing a variety of missions.

Wam there goes the Dilithium!!!

This was done to reduce Dilithium in the game and increase the need to buy it.

If Cryptic can make the amount of Dilithium you get per ZEN smaller, than what it is now.

Players will need to buy more ZEN to get more Dilithium or grind it over time for free.

But just like the STFs they are not listening to what the community wants.

They can make money from many things but dont and feel free to post your idea.

Retrait token
New pay to play missions
More costumes
More Bridge officers
Pay to replay episodes to get the unique loot, Boffs, Cane and etc.
Buy bank access for your ship
Buy exchange access for your ship
Buy Email access for your ship
Buy a shuttle bay for your ship
Buy a house, condo or villa on a planet
Sell DOFF packs by color

Or

Cryptic just be creative break the mold stop looking for grind or save time(reduce grinding) and buy (pay for dilithium)revenue.

Sounds interesting.
Mind me asking two things:

1) Is buying Zen more attractive, if you get more or less Dilithium for it?

2) Does the Zen cost more if there is more or less Dilithium?

I can never get to figure this one out
I myself am a Free-to-play guy, but I got a few of my friends to play and pay... The idea of my previous speaker sounds worth a look. Just saying.


Best,
D

PS: Fun is obligatory!

I was really pointing out there is other ways to make money outside of Dilithium.

This change was to get more money out of the casual Free players.

Cryptic's thinking (educated Guess) is that Casual players will not have the time to grind for Dilithium.

Making this a way to grab more revenue from the larger F2P casual player base.

Its obvious that people rather pay(think fast food)and get it now than grind for weeks.

Example: If a player has unlocked the entire reputation system and has no Dilithium.

Will the player buy 96,000 Dilithium now to get a full set of MK12 or grind for 12 days or more.

It's really a matter of how you look at it, and how far people are willing to go along with it.

If the value of Dilithium goes up so it takes more Zen to buy X amount of dilithium, more Zen would have to be sold for people to buy that X amount of dilithium. Unfortunately, a lot of the people who might consider buying Dilithium with Zen aren't happy with the exchange rate as it is, and so they don't spend any at all.

In order to get to them, by making dilithium more common, Cryptic creates a surplus in the hands of the players who have too much free time in their days. If they sell off the excess, the cost of dilithium drops as the supply goes up, requiring less zen to be spent on getting the X amount, and the ones who previously thought it was too expensive will (hopefully) start buying dilithium with zen in sufficiently great numbers to offset the amount of revenue lost from the ones who already did this, and now have to spend less on zen to meet their dilithium goals.

I haven't checked in today yet, but so far the effect seems to have been the exact reverse. A fairly steady 160 D/Z before launch, to 156 D/Z yesterday. (Edit: Yikes. 151. I guess the demand for dilithium's up a lot more than the supply. I just don't understand what anyone is spending that dilithium on. People buying Zen for the Vesta really should've pushed it up, shouldn't it? I'm not sure anymore.)

Really ? You don't ?? Or did I just missed the /sarcasm@ ?

Because , some (quite many actually) are still struggling with the likes of 200.000 Dil for a set of curtains or a Morn Hologram .

See the thing is this :
In S.5 the Devs created a Starbase system based on the influx/output of Dil per that time period .
Now , in S7 , the Devs re-imagined the economy mixed in with their future plans (*(which apparently either include a whole lot less need for Dilithium , or A LOT more need to grind) .

Either way , the Starbases (with which we are still struggling) are based on old S.5 math .
S.7 math and S.5 math do not mix , and once the Dill in the economy that players have accumulated dries up ... , you're gonna see Dill prices skyrocket .


Totally agreed .
But it'll take a little longer (1-2 months) before the whole of the playerbase will wake up stripped of Dil as they knew it .

No sarcasm. I'm aware of the special decorative projects and whatnot, but (and I highlighted the special word there) those were already here. All the other projects? Fleet weapons? Already here. With Dilithium no longer required in leveling the reputation system, as it was on Tribble, there really aren't any new dilithium sinks being imposed on players just yet. At least, not in the first week, not until they hit that first tier and start unlocking stuff in the reputation store.

...

Oh wait.

Embassies.

Still wouldn't have pegged those for that big a drop, though. In combination with the new vanity project, maybe. But then I'd have expected the Vesta, paired with the removal of the clickies, to pull the whole thing in the other direction. Could be the early season influx of (usually temporarily) returning players spending leftover or newly bought zen, I suppose.

1) In a vacuum? Less. But if you can make people as eager or more eager to buy it for less, you make things fairer and more fun for fully F2P players who populate your game and it can be read as an economic vote of confidence in the value of your gameplay.

Whereas you could make buying Zen more attractive by giving it more buying power against dilithium. But there are a few problems with this. It can outstrip your players' ability to farm dilithium and then the price either rebounds or you have to mint dilithium to put on the exchange. It also results in a massive need for people to have things to spend dilithium on, which eats up more developer work.

Whereas dilithium being more valuable/expensive reduces the need for developers to develop lots of dilithium sink rewards and allows them to focus on making fewer good/expensive ones.

2) Zen costs less if there is more dilithium. The value of dilithium goes down if there is more dilithium. The less of something there is, the more valuable it is.

I'll add that there is already a ton of free ZEN floating in the economy due to stipends. Some of which I'm certain has to be on Cryptic's books for a year or two even if you have a lifer who has never logged in since F2P. It depends on how Cryptic's books work, whether they ever get to write that ZEN off... and they may actually write it off after one fiscal year and then have to retroactively adjust their books to re-recognize the liability if a player comes back and starts spending it.

It works in Cryptic's favor, most likely, to treat lifer/subber/promotional ZEN as an expense that they have to make up for to break even, including ZEN being accrued on inactive accounts.

The whole Dilithium bottleneck that Cryptic has created is expected to work two fold for them.

The 1st part was to greatly hinder the amount of free Dilithium that we able to grind out by lowering the payout and forcing us all to invest more time to get the amounts of Dilithium Ore that we were use to bring in.

The 2nd part is what their hoping will be a byproduct of the of the 1st part
Hinder the amount of Dilithium that can enter the market via free game play, drive up the demand for in-game Dilithium so that players that are willing to buy Zen to convert to Dilithium will have to buy twice has much Zen to get the amounts of Dilithium that they need.

Cryptic has succeeded in making the free grind to get Dilithium so unappealing that the players and fleets that are trying to race to the top and get the new shinies and the next level of their Star bases that they?ll see dropping $10-50 in Zen has a small price to pay to get the Dilithium they?ll need to reach their goals.

The nerfing of Dilithium payouts also puts the screws to the systematic alters out there that knew how to use their time and many alts to rake in has much free Dilithium has possible.

These changes won?t end here and has soon has the players start to figure out the best way to maximize their Dilithium grinding time under this new system I?m sure it will be adjusted again.

I can?t fault Cryptic for trying to make the most money possible from the STO player base; however, I can fault them for the tactics that they use.

Yay Dilithum powered Star Bases!

Yay Dilithum powered Romulan Home World!

Yay new Doff packs that we need to pay $ or convert Dilithium for just to get Doffs to pour into our Star bases!

Yay a new loot system for STF gear and now instead of chance we know it will only take us about 8-10 months to get all the equipment that we need!

Yay no new story line progressing missions in almost 2 years! (that is a good thing right?)

Yay the game that I once loved playing has turned into a 2nd job!

All joking aside, I?ve not actively played STO in over 8 months and I generally just long in once a month to update files.

I saw the eternal STO grind coming a while back and I wanted no part of it; however for some stupid reason I continue to hold out that someday I?ll log in to STO and find a reason to want to play it again.

We can have lots of dil in one place (FAs) or some dil in lots of places. Dunno about others, but I prefer the latter. They aren't going to give us both.

You?ll have to forgive me if I?m wrong has I?ve yet to play any of the FA that give out Dilithium but did they not just greatly reduce the amount of Dilithium that you could get from FA when they returned the Dilithium payouts to the STF missions?

I?ve come across a few forum post that have stated that the Dilithium amounts that the FA were paying out a few days ago were reduced when the Dilithium was returned to the STF?s