If the exploit is fixed then why is the price of credits dropping?

[Rozaran]

If the exploit is fixed then why is the price of credits dropping or staying the same?

 

the credit selling websites and their spammers are still selling unlimited amounts on any server for the same or lower prices. so either the exploit is not fixed or there are multiple exploits out there.

 

as long as the price is this low the developers should assume there is an exploit or multiple exploits going on.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Rozaran

[DarthEnrique]

Cause the exploit wasn't focused on players who cheated I'm guessing, it was something else from my understanding.

 

The truth is the exploit isn't really over. You see these spammers posting, report them (you can right click on their name and hit "Report" and then Select "Spam") and report anyone you may know or suspect of using these sites. With in-game mail same thing, right click on the message (don't open it) and hit report then a thing should pop up that says report for spam or harassment and report them for spam.

 

I've got a LOT of tickets still open from people I've reported sending me spam mail or spamming those sites and Bioware has yet to look into them even though it won't take LONG to investigate the message is in the ticket.

[xordevoreaux]

May be also two things:

1. Competition among gold sellers, which would have nothing to do with the state of the exploit.

2. Because of the exploit and the announced ban for those who received money, players might be a bit more leery for a while to buy gold farmed credits, and the lower price is an attempt by the gold farmers to overcome that reluctance.

[Max_Killjoy]

Because exploits are not the sole driver of economics any more than bank robbery determines the value of the US dollar.

[Diviciacus]

Because exploits are not the sole driver of economics any more than bank robbery determines the value of the US dollar.

 

Money laundering would be closer, but otherwise you are correct.

[Andryah]

Probably because with the current release level of the game, fewer and fewer players actually need to consider buying credits from RMTs.

 

When you have a large supply and nobody buying.... you keep cutting prices.

[Rozaran]

but an exploit was supposedly "fixed". this should have caused prices to go higher. either they didn't completely fix it and there was another way of doing it or there is another exploit out there. because if an exploit was fixed which was referred to as the biggest in the history of the game then prices should go up.

 

 

then they ask us to give info if we received large amounts of credits including sales on the gtn. this sounds fishy. if they fixed it then they would know how the credits are generated and they could easily find those characters and track them. the fact that they ask us for help seems to indicate that they have no idea all the ways it's being generated and need clues.

 

i think they need to base their efforts on the price of credits. as long as its this low there has to be massive exploiting going on.

[DarthEnrique]

Cause it's not really fixed nor will it ever truly be there's always going to be exploiters out there.

 

If you paid any attention to the "falsely banned/suspended" players during this exploit they were being barred for selling items on the GTN for 125 million credits, while possibly innocent, this still raised red flags to them. Why I have no clue, but it's still going on, there are still people out there posting things for over 100 million credits so the exploit obviously isn't as over as we think. Is it possible these 125 credit sells were exploiters laundering money or they recieved laundered credits and didn't know it, I don't know, the truth is Bioware never fully explained what was causing all this as Eric refused to tell us anything other then people were receiving huge amount of credits through in-game mail and trade (guessing the GTN is a trade maybe, I'm not sure). And how exactly this "exploit" happened or how it was done was never told to us. We were just told to look for people were seen doing this, not what they were doing.

 

If this had to do with people going through and getting large quanties of money from in-game mail and trade why were people getting banned for selling items high priced on the GTN? This is something that has yet to make any sense to any of us.

 

There was definetly an exploit going on through the GTN though, as a player on my server posted Tulak Hord's Armor Set for 1 billion credits and when I said something to them at the 800 number even they said that was definetly apart of the exploit. (And funnily the representive got flabbergasted, I nearly died laughing at his reaction.)

 

So in all honesty unless they fully come out explain all this to us, I really don't know what to think.

Edited April 25, 2016 by DarthEnrique

[Elly_Dawn]

it's equally likely that the market just isn't there for RMTs on this game anymore, to the point they practically can't even give the credits away... considering how easy it is to get credits now, even creatures have a chance of dropping credits upon defeat now, it should be harder to RMT to the point that they are currently... if the game was a slog through countless enemies just to get a few credits the market would be there, but as the game currently rewards credits for almost anything you do, the constantly dropping prices makes sense without having to assume there's still an exploit in play... they just don't have a big market here anymore and they're getting desperate to squeeze as much profit as they can on a current lost cause for them...

[DarthEnrique]

Well credit spammers have been around since before 4.3 so this is all very confusing....

[Rozaran]

it's equally likely that the market just isn't there for RMTs on this game anymore, to the point they practically can't even give the credits away... considering how easy it is to get credits now, even creatures have a chance of dropping credits upon defeat now, it should be harder to RMT to the point that they are currently... if the game was a slog through countless enemies just to get a few credits the market would be there, but as the game currently rewards credits for almost anything you do, the constantly dropping prices makes sense without having to assume there's still an exploit in play... they just don't have a big market here anymore and they're getting desperate to squeeze as much profit as they can on a current lost cause for them...

 

i've been doing some research for weeks and this low price is mostly because of the exploits. let me tell you an interesting story.

 

 

i found one seller on an auction based website who was selling 600 million credits per server on every server. even though he sold 900 million or more per day he always had full stock of 600 million on each server. it's simply not possible to make that many credits constantly without exploits.

 

but i noticed something very very interesting about the seller. when server transfers were stopped he only sold on harbinger. why would he go from selling on all servers to only selling on harbinger i wondered. then i realized he was doing this, all of this selling with just one account. because as soon as server transfers were back i checked within the hour of server transfers being enabled and he was back selling on all servers.

 

so one guy is selling hundreds of millions on all servers and he is doing it with one account. his base server is harbinger and then he server transfers it when he gets an order.

 

he also had a base server on euro servers but i didn't think to write it down. if any dev needs this info i can give you all the info to catch this exploiter and figure out what he is doing and fix the exploit. just pm me, i'd pm you guys but it will just get lost in the mix and likely ignored.

 

he is doing it right now, after the supposed fix. so either there are other exploits out there or the guy has hundreds of billions stashed away.

 

 

i forgot one of the most important things, there is a website i check that the spammers advertise and they sell cheaper there on harbinger than all the other servers. so i bet this guy is supplying every major website and he charges them a little more on other servers cause he has to pay a small cartel coin cost to transfer. this took a lot of detective work. it's the site that starts with the letters "game". but he probably supplies all sites

Edited April 25, 2016 by Rozaran

[DarthEnrique]

I just looked on the game, there's still bots on Yavin 4.... X_X

[Rozaran]

Probably because with the current release level of the game, fewer and fewer players actually need to consider buying credits from RMTs.

 

When you have a large supply and nobody buying.... you keep cutting prices.

 

but if it was really fixed it would have went up some at the very least, especially if the exploit was as bad as they say

Edited April 25, 2016 by Rozaran

[horrorfaneightys]

i've been doing some research for weeks and this low price is mostly because of the exploits. let me tell you an interesting story.

 

 

i found one seller on an auction based website who was selling 600 million credits per server on every server. even though he sold 900 million or more per day he always had full stock of 600 million on each server. it's simply not possible to make that many credits constantly without exploits.

 

but i noticed something very very interesting about the seller. when server transfers were stopped he only sold on harbinger. why would he go from selling on all servers to only selling on harbinger i wondered. then i realized he was doing this, all of this selling with just one account. because as soon as server transfers were back i checked within the hour of server transfers being enabled and he was back selling on all servers.

 

so one guy is selling hundreds of millions on all servers and he is doing it with one account. his base server is harbinger and then he server transfers it when he gets an order.

 

he also had a base server on euro servers but i didn't think to write it down. if any dev needs this info i can give you all the info to catch this exploiter and figure out what he is doing and fix the exploit. just pm me, i'd pm you guys but it will just get lost in the mix and likely ignored.

 

he is doing it right now, after the supposed fix. so either there are other exploits out there or the guy has hundreds of billions stashed away.

 

 

i forgot one of the most important things, there is a website i check that the spammers advertise and they sell cheaper there on harbinger than all the other servers. so i bet this guy is supplying every major website and he charges them a little more on other servers cause he has to pay a small cartel coin cost to transfer. this took a lot of detective work. it's the site that starts with the letters "game". but he probably supplies all sites

 

Firstly, I wouldn't even go on those sites if I were you. You never know what sort of viruses you could end up with.

 

And that player whose selling all those credits from one account, will be getting them from other accounts that farm them. Probably lots, so that money isn't necessarily all from exploits.

[JediRelentless]

Why would someone do weeks of research on the prices of credit sellers unless they were a buyer or seller of credits??? Edited April 25, 2016 by JediRelentless

[EHKodiak]

If the exploit is fixed then why is the price of credits dropping or staying the same?

 

Because they weren't using the exploit, they were using standard farming methods. Credits are THAT easy to come by now.

[NakodaTheJedi]

but an exploit was supposedly "fixed". this should have caused prices to go higher. either they didn't completely fix it and there was another way of doing it or there is another exploit out there. because if an exploit was fixed which was referred to as the biggest in the history of the game then prices should go up.

 

 

then they ask us to give info if we received large amounts of credits including sales on the gtn. this sounds fishy. if they fixed it then they would know how the credits are generated and they could easily find those characters and track them. the fact that they ask us for help seems to indicate that they have no idea all the ways it's being generated and need clues.

 

i think they need to base their efforts on the price of credits. as long as its this low there has to be massive exploiting going on.

 

to my understanding and this is the way the devs made it sound thats not the exploit the exploit was a bug in the game or some kind of hole somewhere, and someone found out about it shared the trick and now are being punished for it. thats what i thought it sounded like to me anyway

[NakodaTheJedi]

but i noticed something very very interesting about the seller. when server transfers were stopped he only sold on harbinger. why would he go from selling on all servers to only selling on harbinger i wondered. then i realized he was doing this, all of this selling with just one account. because as soon as server transfers were back i checked within the hour of server transfers being enabled and he was back selling on all servers.

 

so one guy is selling hundreds of millions on all servers and he is doing it with one account. his base server is harbinger and then he server transfers it when he gets an order.

 

he also had a base server on euro servers but i didn't think to write it down. if any dev needs this info i can give you all the info to catch this exploiter and figure out what he is doing and fix the exploit. just pm me, i'd pm you guys but it will just get lost in the mix and likely ignored.

 

he is doing it right now, after the supposed fix. so either there are other exploits out there or the guy has hundreds of billions stashed away.

 

 

 

thats an interesting theory but you make him sound so stupid...why would he pay money for character transfers when he could just have one toon on each server lol

Edited April 25, 2016 by NakodaTheJedi

[IanArgent]

I don't recall the cost of credits in my email spam plummeting precipitously last week. And the US$ cost of credits has been on a slow downwards curve for a while now. Credits are as easy to get legitimately as they ever have been post 4.0, and barring the cost of a few outlying items (arbiter's saber, certain very rare decos and armors) GTN seems to be pretty stable.

 

I'm sure the exploit resulted in higher inventories to the credit sellers, but inventory at the sellers isn't going to drive a price decrease by itself - they don't have to pay to "warehouse" excess inventory. They might be in a race to the bottom due to each vendor undercutting each other, but an excess in supply ought not to drive prices lower by itself.

[Aeneas_Falco]

The main reason for the credit sellers lowering prices is probably just the greater availability of credits in the game. If there are expensive items on the GTN that players want to purchase, they can grind out the necessary millions for most of it running Heroics. Prior to the changes, accumulating enough credits to purchase the most expensive items was only possible from gaming the GTN, high level crafting, or converting Cartel Coins into credits by selling purchases on the GTN. Dailies were another option, but they were much more time consuming than the current Heroics, and offered lower rewards as well.

 

A lot of players find crafting boring and are discouraged by it being a bit of a credit sink until you get high level, many don't have the patience to study and play the market, and not everyone has the disposable income to purchase cartel coins. Heroic missions however, can be run by literally anyone.

 

The credit sellers have probably needed to adjust prices to account for the introduction of a new, and to many, more attractive option of accumulating credits.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Aeneas_Falco

[Rozaran]

 

thats an interesting theory but you make him sound so stupid...why would he pay money for character transfers when he could just have one toon on each server lol

 

 

using one account only costs him 90cc to server transfer. soon to be increased so the price difference per server on those sites will likely increase. he makes those sites pay the fees.

 

by doing it on one account it only costs him 15 dollars a month plus server transfer costs. rather than the cost of doing the exploit on every server which may involve getting specific reputation or rare items or whatever is necessary to do the exploit.

 

so for 15 dollars a month he owns the entire swtor economy and the devs can't or won't stop him. he is still selling 600 million per server 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. but it's not really 600 million. basically it's unlimited amounts because no matter what he sells he always has this same amount for sale.

 

and not one dev has asked me for details which i offered to provide them. i can't provide details on an open forum, it would just give him more customers.

 

either there are multiple unfixed exploits or the guy has hundreds of billions stashed away.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Rozaran

[Andryah]

but if it was really fixed it would have went up some at the very least, especially if the exploit was as bad as they say

 

No it would not.

 

Want to know why?

1) fewer players actually need to purchase credits illegally, given how easy they are to earn in game.

 

2) The RMTs... they don't actually use the exploits themselves (thought they may very well communicate them to select players), they rely on actual players doing so and then selling the credits to the RMTs.. who act as brokers and resell to players. RMTs in MMOs these days are brokers. They let the players do all the hard work. Some players are using MMOs to convert their play time into real money... especially if they are thinking about moving on to some other game.

 

3) Supply/demand at work here. More players are willing to sell credits (not just from exploits) to RMTs, but less players are actually buying. Hence prices are depressed, and likely to stay that way for a very long time.

 

People seem to like to stay with the old stereotype from 10 years ago when RMTs really did grind out a lot of their currency. That changed years ago.

 

What Bioware did with 4.0 in making credits flow much more freely in the normal game play..... that more then anything is what drove a collapse in RMT prices. Which does not in any way infer that exploits do not inject credits into the economy. This last exploit was pretty specialized and tricky to apply... and they squelched it much quicker then older exploits... so while the impact of a single player could be large... this particular exploit was not pervasive and most of the illicit credits probably got soaked up by Bioware actions (particularly given that they triggered a lot of false positives this time around that they have to manually review and claw back if the player was in fact innocent).

[Andryah]

using one account only costs him 90cc to server transfer. soon to be increased so the price difference per server on those sites will likely increase. he makes those sites pay the fees.

 

by doing it on one account it only costs him 15 dollars a month plus server transfer costs. rather than the cost of doing the exploit on every server which may involve getting specific reputation or rare items or whatever is necessary to do the exploit.

 

so for 15 dollars a month he owns the entire swtor economy and the devs can't or won't stop him. he is still selling 600 million per server 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. but it's not really 600 million. basically it's unlimited amounts because no matter what he sells he always has this same amount for sale.

 

and not one dev has asked me for details which i offered to provide them. i can't provide details on an open forum, it would just give him more customers.

 

either there are multiple unfixed exploits or the guy has hundreds of billions stashed away.

 

Server transfers simply made it easier for players to move credits to whichever server their RMT brokers asked them to. Pushing the transfer cap to 1000cc will eliminate a lot of this.

 

I know you think you cracked the algorithm here on RMTs.. but you really didn't. Server transfers simply made credits more fluid across servers for a period of time. That time comes to a close tomorrow. Players will still farm and sell credits to RMTs, it will just be more localized to the server they are farming on now... rather then fluid movement across servers.

 

And this one particular "player" you are focused on... who appears to be so wealthy... probably an enterprising player who is working as a middleman between other players and RMTS. He will get caught eventually and banned for it. Your job is to report them to the studio.

 

As for exploits... they really don't distort the player economies in any persistent way, unless the studio simply refuses to stop them and claw back the credits. Sure.. some will always escape.. but it's chump change compared to the players who routinely sell credits to RMTs for real money profits. Note: Credit prices from RMTs have been severely depressed since 4.0 released, more so over time as more players become credit self-sufficient.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Andryah

[Theeko]

I keep getting mails about buying credits as well, I report the mails and delete after

[PippiLangstrump]

I am pretty sure the real exploit from the credit sellers is their autobots they have on the servers.

 

 

Areas I have seen them farming with autobots.

Section X area mission

Ilum Imperial heroic area.

Yavin

Belsavis Republic open world heroic area.