the only people this will lock out are those who refuse to buy/sell anything to players and FTP players with credit limits. if you refuse to buy/sell anything to players in the current economy you are already locked out.

The "gold credits" can be sold to a vender for 1 billion credits. That will ensure they retain their credit value. Once their value is established in game people will probably just trade around the new credit instead of the old credits. Would you rather buy a hypercrate for 12 billion credits giving 8 billion credits up front then on the third trade give them another 4 in exchange for the hypercrate all the while hoping they don't log off after you give them the first 8 billion or would you rather trade them 12 "gold credits"? Why would people buy a new credit if you lose 25% of it's base value? Because the only other option is to either not accept credits once you hit the cap or spend time on fleet trying to buy other items which may lose their value over time. Then if you do buy other items you have to haggle with people trying to find a common value you agree with before you start bartering. I don't know if this would help stop exploits like duping the new credit, but maybe they should be tokens like tech frags which go directly into your inventory and can only be traded like credits and not physical items.

it will fix credit cap issues which the devs can't seem to increase due to being a 32 bit system (?). They could even turn credit conversion into a credit sink. Convert credits into "Gold Credits" at the new vender. "Gold Credits" cost 1.25 billion and can be stored like current credits but are only worth 1 billion credits. It is basically a 25% credit sink on it's base value to buy. This would allow players to go beyond the 4.29 billion credit limit and act as a credit sink. Items would start basically at ground zero costing 1-5 "Gold Credits" which we could probably store 4.29 billion of. If we ever hit the 4.29 billion limit on "Gold Credits" we can have "Platinum Credits" and start the process over again. Inflation wouldn't really be an issue if we were not limited with credit caps. And of course FTP players would have to be bumped up to 1 billion credit limit.

unless you are hitting your character cap, keep the ones you don't want around as mules to help you craft or organize items.

The fix is easy to understand, we need more credit sinks in game. The implementation of those credit sinks will take a lot of developer time, game resources, and play time to fix. I don't even know if Bioware has any of that at their disposal or if they even care as long as their Cartel Market sales haven't been negatively impacted.

this is wrong. The majority of credits in game did not come from credit exploits. The majority of credits came from thousands of bots running 24/7 then turning around and selling 1 billion credits for 1 dollar, and millions of legitimate players playing for 10 years constantly generating credits faster than any of the credit sinks could remove them. The max a legacy bank can hold is 104.29 billion. Even if players from years ago to today exploited 104.29 billion+4.29 billion per character, that does not account for the amount of credits we now have in game. I sell billions a night just in crafting materials and I am not the only one. Many crafters sell 5-10 billion a night in materials or Augment 77s. There is no way that "a very very large percentage of credits" came from credit exploits unless there are thousands of accounts holding 104.29 billion sitting on reserve from years ago. What seems more likely, a handful of credit exploits over the 10 years is primarily responsible for the inflation we have seen in the last 2 years... or the conquest system and simple missions that can easily be automated with thousands of accounts to the point where third party websites are selling 1 billion credits for 1 dollar.

I think it's random garbage gear from bosses until 75, then you start getting gear based on your loot discipline.

Bioware releases te prison jumpsuit and hot floor rug decoration 🤣

Half decent to me means trying to win by working the objectives and making call outs. They may not know the best tactics or have the perfect class set up but they are trying. Any half decent premade team is going to dominate most pugs. A well thought out pre-made that picks their classes and builds wisely while communicating and trying to win by working objectives will he unstoppable. Four players who are grouped, don't care about the objectives or winning and are only chasing players around will probably lose objective based games other than hypergate. Even if it is hypergate I have seen some pre-made groups intentionally ignore objectives to draw the game out longer to increase their kill count. I don't think it will be a massive issue after the first few weeks. Things should return to normal after people get bored. Having 4 people on an 8v8 team working together, communicating, and trying to win by playing the objectives is already a step up from most pugs who, if they are lucky, have 2 people doing more than treating the game like a TDK match.

Any half decent pre-made group of 4 players will easily dominate against a pug of 8 unless that pug is extremely lucky and gets 3-4 people that know what they are doing or the pre-made group sabotages themselves by refusing to play the objective. I have seen pre-made groups only care about the body count and ignore an objective even if they cleared it. You get 4 players in a pre-made that play to win and I doubt any pug team is going to stand a chance. Think of how rare it is when you find a pug where 2-3 players work the objective with little communication, now imagine that rare teamwork but in every game with instant communication over discord. Pre-made teams with players that know how to play objectives to win will deservedly win almost every game against a pug of randoms.

this would be awesome but I am not sure it can happen. We know they can merge servers, they have already done it, we don't know if it is possible for them to merge access GTNs and queues. It would be amazing to have one GTN for all the servers, I am not sure if pvp would benefit from this because ping time could create a massive advantage for some players and create an inverse disadvantage for others (I pvp on all servers and it is noticeable and impacts your game). Merging access and not servers also doesn't help if the GTN is still limited to 1 billion credits and you are on a very low pop server looking for a trade or crafter in /3 chat. FFXIV basically takes care of all these issues because you can hop around on different servers interacting with players and buying/selling (?) items off the different auction houses. I believe your queues maybe server only, I'm not all that familiar with how everything is set up.

All legitimate players increase inflation. Legitimate players are constantly generating credits out of no where and introducing those credits to the economy. They are earning small amounts of credits each, but when there are millions of players generating small amounts of credits at the same time, this has a big impact on increasing inflation over time. Are you sure you want to stick with the statement legitimate players "do not cause inflation at all"?

inflation doesn't increase when legitimate players buy or sell to each other. No credits are generated, credits only change hands so at worst, inflation remains the same. Inflation only increases when new credits are introduced into the economy. This can happen when players are rewarded with credits via missions/conquest/etc, sell items to a vender for credits, or buy credits from a third party website. Buying credits from a third party website is the only time players giving credits to another player increases inflation. This is because the credits being held by a third party website are not active in our economy. The credits held by a third party website are isolated from our economy until they are bought by a player at which point those credits become active in our economy which increases inflation. Lets say the economy could only have 100 billion credits. Once those 100 billion credits have entered the economy no more credits can be introduced; players no longer receive credits as a reward and the venders no longer give players credits when they sell items to them. If a player corners the market on a specific item and raises the price, inflation has not increased in this 100 billion max credit economy. If a player pays this higher price, this has no effect on the inflation of the economy which is now flat. Prices can fluctuate, inflation can drop if part of that 100 billion credits becomes inactive in the economy then rise again if those inactive credits become active again, but inflation in the game can not exceed the 100 billion credit limit of the economy. In SWTOR there is no limit on the amount of credits that can exist in our economy so inflation is ever increasing. The price of an item is the result of many factors but it is not the cause of inflation. The price of items is the result, not the cause. Exploiting venders during credit dupes, generating credits out of no where, buying credits from third party websites is the cause of inflation. Higher prices is the result of inflation due to the credit losing value or the result of an item being rare and the value going up because more people desire the item than what is available.

I'm going to guess after the developers get back on vacation in Jan. The last thing the developers or players need is something breaking during 7.2 and someone staying behind during Dec to fix it.

and that would shut down a massive portion of CM sales. I know a lot of players who buy hypercrates to unlock items and sell the items they don't want for credits. If every item was character bound then hypercrates would quickly become pointless as players start getting duplicates or items they don't need or want. I also know a lot of players who buy specific items like dyes/renames/new sets on the CM to sell for credits. Lets say Bioware binds all Cartel Market items when bought, inflation will still increase, only it will be an issue for player made and gathered items instead of currently effecting player made and gathered items along with CM items. Your suggestion does not fix inflation and will cause Bioware to lose revenue along with making many players angry they can't get CM items trading in game.

I wish they would turn the original companions back as they used to be. Blizz had a cannon attack which I miss. I use Altur a lot in group content, I'll usually leave the group so I can summon Altur and use his debuff on targets. Tagging still works so take advantage of it. As for why? I don't know, I know Bioware normalized companions at some point to try and make it easier on designing/sell more companions for the Cartel Market. Altur maybe a one off so they don't make their CM companions look useless (they are).

Inflation and high prices are not the same issue. You can not fix inflation by increasing the supply of an item people buy. Increasing the supply of items bought only lowers the price but does nothing to fix inflation or the cause of inflation.

Would I like to see a group only unranked and GSF pvp option? Yes. Do we have the population of this? No. Would I like to see only solo players queue for unranked and GSF pvp? Yes, but Bioware isn't going to restrict it even if premade teams are going to win 100% of the games against pugs. Nothing has happened in unranked or GSF in almost a decade, I doubt it's going to change anytime soon.

unless the devs didn't want to change the ranked system to work with the new dual spec combat class system. With such a small population that accesses ranked pvp in any serious fashion, it was probably cheaper to scrap ranked pvp.

subscriptions alone haven't worked for MMO in years.

inflation affects any player to player sales, this includes any crafted items like Dark Projects, augments, a few tacticals, etc. I sell a few billion in crafting resources in a single night, it's honestly why I never sell CM items for credits anymore.

player to player not NPC venders.

I still support taxing any credit transactions between accounts 8% to 10% Trade, mailed, or guild allowance withdraws (not guild summons or repairs), should be taxed 8% to 10%. This will probably be the most wide spread credit sink possible.

If I remember, Bioware disabled the ability to unlock Galactic Season tiers with CC so people didn't spend their CC on the PTS. I'm guessing it will be the same thing here. And why would Bioware care about the sanctity of PvP or any other part of their game when it comes to generating revenue. PvP is not holy ground. Have you seen how Bioware tried to make GSF all about micro-transactions?

inflation has been an issue since release but since they canceled the referral program it has blown up to exponential levels. Creating an environment which made players want to buy cheap credits from third party sources by shutting down the referral program drastically increased the rate in which inflation raised. That and cutting out and reducing credit sinks during that same time didn't help.