Devalued Dilithium?
Princess Trista
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
With all of the special deals since Black Friday, I am wondering if DB is devaluing the Dilithium and might bring out a new currency.... something like Latinum. Because dils used to be so hard to get, they were never on sale and now they are so easily obtainable by virtually any means - special first run missions, event rewards, special deals, campaigns....
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
1
Comments
As far as being " ... so easily obtainable ... " I don't see that either. I buy the monthly pack every month just so I can functionally play the game. I, basically, have no choice. If there is a magic well that coughs up dilithium I haven't found it yet.
Of course it's also a given that "they are adding more and more features where you have to pay actual money ... ".
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I think this is right.
In addition, more dilithium means more packs purchased, which means more possible DYC.
My first thought was a combination of narrowing the FTP/whale gap, along with giving players yet another hand in ultimately reducing our honor-debt. I actually think DB may be listening to players, since so many of their offers and enhancements since Christmas have been to give players more/better ways to acquire both honor and dilithium (the shortest path to more 5* crew and/or honor).
I think it's fair to suggest dilithium is being devalued, but I'd argue that the monthly card, campaigns and revamped event ranked rewards were already doing that. Buying dilithium directly from the store is relatively poor value, but is still the only way to get large chunks of dilithium on-demand all at once.
There is some free dilithium in the game if players work for it by ranking in events, doing the non premium campaigns, and achievements but yes most dilithium comes from purchases. But even those purchases can sometimes have workarounds. For a long time I have simply asked my family to gift me an iTunes card or google play card in lieu of gifts and use those to purchase dilithium in game. Others do internet surveys to get money for dilithium purchases.
As a side note to your electric car analogy, it is true you pay for electricity but that cost is far less than gasoline and electric cars have fewer costly maintenance issues on average. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/14/electric-vehicles-cost-less-than-half-as-much-to-drive/#73c183a3f973
The latter has been done before in other games (Sims Freeplay is one I know) where the former premium currency still exists but is by far less valuable than the one that was introduced later. I hope that this will not happen, in the case of SFP it led the game downwards imo and brought a lot of anger from people who had bought the initial premium currency for cash.
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The idea is not entirely without objective value. Spenders insulate their ability to claim top rank by spending. It's not a criticism, it's a reality. Dropping more dil to everyone potentially puts them into a position of having to increase spending to guarantee top rank. This is the problem with a blended community. People who pay to get ahead, compete with people who can't or don't, for the same rewards. Money wins every time.
This however could force spenders to consider if they have the resources and will to spend them to maintain the gap. If too many decide it is too much to invest and stop playing because they can't guarantee a top rank with money, DB will see a sudden drop in revenue.
If DB hadn't enabled the dynamic of paying for top rank and had capped the ability to get ahead in order to maintain competition this wouldn't be a big a problem. Purchases aren't strictly vanity, or a way for busy people to make up a time investment short fall.
The question isn't directly about devaluing the premium currency. Addressing the gap by supplying it to everyone can fix the problem of the gap frustrating the average player. Adding a new premium currency won't do anything good for the game. It will only shift the gap problem to the new one.
It's not a problem with an easy solution now. Somehow they need to fix the balance of the game to make it competitive for everyone. But they have to do it without causing an exodus of spending players who have gotten very comfortable.
Of the event types in this game only faction events are pure cash/dil to 1st place in an event. expeditions have a gating amount of spend (not as much as factions), but they are pretty rare, and also require a huge time investment.
Getting 1st in Galaxies (and faction/galaxy hybrids) and Skirmishes are all about saving resources (chrons and items from dailies and voyages) for a long period of time (over a year in most cases) and then taking 40-80 hours one weekend and spending them all. Very little advantage from spending other than a small amount to get warp 10. Spending may actually slow down your progress as you buy more crew to level than you get for free, causing you to have less total chrons to stockpile.
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I think people might be overreading into it.....
We're not in Zimbabwe territory yet but there is definitely a sprinkle of Seventies Harold Wilson.
I back up this comment as absolute truth
Paying to buy event crew before the event starts and leveling them up allows paying players in galaxy events significantly better odds of having the special item drop right out of the gate. Non spending players who don't buy the portal offer or didn't spend to rank in the previous event, have to spend twice as many chrons for the same VP. They make due with shorter voyages which means building that stash of chrons is harder to build.
Non spending players get gold and SRs. They have the same need to FE. What they don't get because they don't spend is the ability to FF those crew.
Whether it's spending money directly on packs, deals that include Dil and chrons, replication rations, and cites. Or it's buying dilithium to expand crew slots, revive voyages, buy extra shuttles, boosts or buy more packs. Spending players build those resource hordes to cash in on at faster rates. They have more FF crew. Buying more packs with money and dilithium, they are airlocking more cards and raking in significantly more honor, which allows them to buy additional rations and cites.
I'm sure that from the ivory tower people tell themselves everything is entirely about hard work and patience. I'm not condemning anyone for paying to win. To say I am entirely without jealousy would be an obvious lie. Every one is at some point. There is a gap whether the people in the tower believe it exists or not. Lie to yourself if you want. I play how I play, and I accept the side of the gap it puts me on. I won't drop money to compete against whales that will always be bigger. Spending players beat non spending players every single time.
Dilithium isn't loosing value. The cost for items with which Dil is a currency hasn't changed. The items purchased are still of the same value.
The thing that is devaluing Dil is the direct cash sales. Cash will always be an exclusive currency the game never drops. Having better cash sales devalues the premium in game currency. I'm not against cash sales. It supports the game. But the mechanics of currency markets are what they are. The value of Dil is dependent on it being the top premium currency, and the value of what you can get with it.
One thing I can say is buying the event crew before a galaxy doesn’t offer much either. If you are talking about a win you’re talking about what? At least 6 million points? You get three copies of that event crew by 130k points and the 4th for the community reward not too far into the event. I can say too that if you just got to top 1500 in the previous event, a 1/5 copy of the legendary is good enough to take you to victory, IF you are smart and have the resources. No spending is required to win a galaxy. VIP0’s have done it
I suspect he’s referring to the legendary in this case, not the super rares. I won a skirmish. The very next event was a galaxy. Having won the week before, I had the legendary at 5/5, and I wise shocked at how big a difference it made from my usual 1/5 in most galaxy events.
1/5 will give you a very good success percentage. Certainly good enough to win. The super rares will also provide that. I won the Bella Q galaxy with these exact criteria
a) You're already spending it all foolishly. It's not going to expire, so I don't understand the urge (seen all over these forums and reddit) to know the best way to spend it *right now*. Just wait a little bit until you have something worth spending for.
b)
This is utterly ridiculous, and you clearly have no idea how much dil someone like me or Paladin generally keeps on hand. Hint: It's multiples of 20-30k.
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So true. We all had the chance to earn 7620 dilithium this week. If we all did, which you would be crazy not to, it does nothing to close any gaps
SR, I'm not nearly in the same league (although I guess technically I'm a whale, just one of much smaller size), but I also am bemused by all the people dropping all that dil on various things willy-nilly. And not even things that they are really that keen about. Maybe they think there will be another offer like that in the near future?
I've never had close to this much dilithium at one time before, but I have no desire to go crazy spending it right now. The one thing I did do, which for me has been a very worthwhile way to spend it, was to buy one extra bonus reward in the mini-event whenever I had Honor or chrons drop.
There will be plenty of situations in the next months where there will be a pack that I really want to take a chance on, or just need the final star on an event crew, and the massive amount of dil I've got sitting there will definitely come in handy there.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Why exactly then? In my experience the next reward is disconnected from the previous, that is why I do not spend dil in Skirmshes any more.
I’m sure for those, buyers remorse has already kicked in
My anecdotal experiences have been otherwise, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
This sounds quite arrogant. Dumping dil on mega wrapups is not foolish, it is the best bang for the buck, and many of us would have done that also without the leap year offer or the mini event. Good crew pays off more today than in half a year (voyages, event successes etc. in the meanwhile). Religious saving gets you nowhere while your roster is half-decent at best.
Interesting... Maybe I gave it a try too seldome.