Treasure Hunting Lockboxes are causing massive inflation and a proposed solution.

[SgtGrumbles]

I've only seen massive deflation on my server, not inflation.

[twpotter]

Either my game runs different to the OP or theirs something seriously messed up with the maths.

My normal method of obtaining creds in game would be to run heroics in groups (pre heroics nerf). A quick run through a bunch of planets would usually net around 1.5 mil in around 3-4 hours.

 

Just ran heroics solo continuously for 2 hours on my main, while sending my companions out on Treasure Hunting missions (all companions +50 influence)

 

I ran out of credits.

 

Are we all sure the OP isn't a gold seller put here to try and get another nerf ?

Kinda makes sense that nerfing legit methods of credit earning plays right into the gold sellers hands.

 

A post like the OP has already killed heroics now they wanna kill Treasure Hunting.

Edited July 30, 2016 by twpotter
might be considered offensive

[TrixxieTriss]

Either my game runs different to the OP or theirs something seriously messed up with the maths.

My normal method of obtaining creds in game would be to run heroics in groups (pre heroics nerf). A quick run through a bunch of planets would usually net around 1.5 mil in around 3-4 hours.

 

Just ran heroics solo continuously for 2 hours on my main, while sending my companions out on Treasure Hunting missions (all companions +50 influence)

 

I ran out of credits.

 

Are we all sure the OP isn't a gold seller put here to try and get another nerf ?

Kinda makes sense that nerfing legit methods of credit earning plays right into the gold sellers hands.

 

A post like the OP has already killed heroics now they wanna kill Treasure Hunting.

 

It's the maths, it's wrong and so is the time invested.

 

They are basing their whole argument on best scenario drops and not taking into account the cost of the missions and the amount of time a person would need to be logged on to do this.

 

You maybe right in your assessment of the OP being a gold seller. If I follow your logic, then you're suggesting by getting the Devs to nerf ledgitmate methods of earning credits for the average casual player, the gold farmers can keep running their bots, but players will be broke. So they then need to go to the gold sellers to get enough credits to enjoy the game?

 

Regardless, I can't for the life of me understand why the OP is so against people earning ledgitmate credits in the game. It's obvious that "if" they have been using TH to get all of this "supposed" data, they'll have all the credits from it. Maybe they now have way too much to ever spend them, but want to stay on top, so they want Bio to nerf it so that no one else can ever have more credits.

Either that or they've never done any of this research themselves, have no credits and are butt hurt because they can't buy what they want on the GTN. So they see some articale, probably the one I saw on Facebook and decide TH must be the reason for it. Next thing they've plagiarised it and posted the results without testing it.

 

I can tell you from first hand experience that you cannot make the credits the OP is suggesting by playing the game ledgitmately. Only people exploiting or using macros will be able to obtain those sorts of credits in TH. Even full time players like my self can't get close to those numbers, so maybe if the OP wants to make a YouTube video and show us, then we might start to take them seriously.

Edited July 30, 2016 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

Sorry but this completely and utterly false. 6 Treasure Hunting lockbox missions ( 2 Grade 9, 2 Grade 8, 2 Grade 7) will cost exactly 14,700 credits. It is the same expense and model for Slicing missions. Treasure Hunting will return 2 boxes on a critical. Treasure hunting boxes always return a a green or blue item. Grade 8 will also possibly return a schematic that isn't worth anything on the GTN. Slicing returns credit box and schematic or mission on critical. These schematics are worthless as well. Now lets look at some actual results. Note 1 currently anomaly. Currently, one of the grade 8 Treasure Hunting missions actually returns a grade 9 box. These are based on me running 50 of each of Grade 7, 8, and 9 missions.

 

Treasure Hunting

 

Grade 9 - Average credit return per box: 2715

Grade 9 - Average item vendor value per box: 4156

Grade 9 - Average value of credits and item per box: 6871

 

Grade 8 - Average credit return per box: 2412

Grade 8 - Average item vendor value per box: 1568 - Schematics are only worth 890 to vendor

Grade 8 - Average value of credits and item per box: 3980

 

Grade 7 - Average credit return per box: 2152

Grade 7 - Average item vendor value per box: 1785

Grade 7 - Average value of credits and item per box: 3937

 

Average return for running all 3 Grades with 6 companions is 29,576 on 14,700 spent. This is assuming no critical returns or failures.

 

Now for Slicing

 

Grade 9 - Average return of credits:3975

Grade 8 - Average return of credits:3953

Grade 7 - Average return of credits:3428

 

Average return of running all 3 Grades with 6 companions is 22,712 on 14,700 spent. This assuming no critical returns or failures.

 

So that means a difference of 6,864 credits per run of companions or Treasure Hunting is 85% more profitable in credit return than Slicing.

 

Now for the disclaimer.

Slicing has 1 positive over Treasure Hunting and that is the return of missions upon a critical. A player could choose to either vendor, use, or sell the missions on the GTN. Vendoring isn't very useful as they only return 1010 for Grade 7, 1280 for Grade 8, 1550 for Grade 9. Selling on the GTN could be more profitable, but I haven't personally measured how well missions sell. There would also be some luck in here as I imagine Diplomacy/Slicing/Treasure Hunting missions returns are more profitable than say Scavenging/Bioanalysis missions. Finally, players could choose to run the missions themselves, and sell the resulting returns on the GTN, but that would be too variable to properly calculate.

 

Final Thought:

 

Running Treasure Hunting either manually and legally, or macroing which is in violation of ToS, can be quite profitable. It isn't practical for players to claim that they can make more money daily by playing other areas of the game. A macro would allow a single character to make 7,140,480 credits of profit per day. AGAIN THIS IS ILLEGAL BY TOS. No player can maintain this level of credit influx by any other means other than selling on GTN. Yes, it is possible to make a lot of money running heroics, but at some point you are going to hit a wall of how many characters you actually have. No one is pulling in 50 Million a week running heroics/PvP/OPs/Dailies/FPs.

 

The daily and weekly credit values I posted do not even account for critical success rates of Treasure Hunting.

 

I don't think completely read what I said. You can farm slicing boxes, while your companions are off doing missions. I can get more credits from slicing nodes than I can from missions on either slicing or TH. Slicing nodes are pure credits, you don't even need to do the missions to earn more than TH.

[twpotter]

 

You maybe right in your assessment of the OP being a gold seller. If I follow your logic, then you're suggesting by getting the Devs to nerf ledgitmate methods of earning credits for the average casual player, the gold farmers can keep running their bots, but players will be broke. So they then need to go to the gold sellers to get enough credits to enjoy the game?

 

 

That's exactly what i meant.

Gold sellers have gone into overdrive recently. Mail spam, whisper spam, and general chat spam.

They know that we are skint!

[PatT]

It seems to me the real problem is the gold sellers/spammers. They server no legitimate purpose. All they do is raise inflation and annoy all of us.

 

So why not just focus on the real problem. Why waste respiratory functions on this tr hunting non-issue.

 

If you focus on the real problem, then innocent crafters won't get hurt by your "solution".

More intelligence is desparately needed here.

[AlrikFassbauer]

It seems to me the real problem is the gold sellers/spammers. They server no legitimate purpose. All they do is raise inflation and annoy all of us.

 

I doubt so when I see people trying to sell lore pieces for 40+ millions on the GTN.

Someone must have that money, and in MMO business terms, these people are called "Whales". Gold sellers/spammers would never try to sell such things, because everyone would notice their names.

[psandak]

It seems to me the real problem is the gold sellers/spammers. They server no legitimate purpose. All they do is raise inflation and annoy all of us.

 

So why not just focus on the real problem. Why waste respiratory functions on this tr hunting non-issue.

 

If you focus on the real problem, then innocent crafters won't get hurt by your "solution".

More intelligence is desparately needed here.

 

The OP's (and others of the same opinion) problem is that they do not see what Bioware IS doing and therefore incorrectly assume that Bioware is doing nothing.

[CKNORTH]

Ever try and sell something for 40m on the GTN, heck it takes me a few days to sell something for over 3m depending on item. Thos high insane prices are doing two things, one making people grind more credits for the super rare items and two, used as a way for the credit spammers to jack the market while they launder credits. Those high end items I would assume serve the perpose of giving credit spammers their unlimited income. And dare I say the selling of the items are from there own coffers to make it look like there is movement on the market, in which case they launder their own items to drive up the market...

 

P.S. If you want to stop high inflation it's quite simple. Stop buying credits with real money and just play the game and earn the credits for stuff you want. Doesn't get any simpler than that folks...

Edited July 30, 2016 by CKNORTH

[TrixxieTriss]

The OP's (and others of the same opinion) problem is that they do not see what Bioware IS doing and therefore incorrectly assume that Bioware is doing nothing.

 

Gold/credit farmers are like weeds, pull one out and 5 more pop up. This is the issue with F2P games. Of course they are also in account only based games, but in F2P there is no limit. If they ban one account, they can just open another with no financial cost to them.

All you have to do to see this at work is go to the starting planets and find all the bots. I was on Korriban the other night and there were 30 people on the planet, 7 of them were credit bots.

When they ban a high lvl bot, they have to lvl up more, so my assumption is they are constantly lvling up these bots so that there is zero down time if an account is closed/banned.

I also only ever see the same name for a short period of time. It's possible that they farm delete and then create to throw Bio off the trail.

It is impossible to police this problem in a F2P game without restricting ledgitmate players credit limits or ability to transfer credits.

The real issue and one that I can't ever remember seeing discussed in this forum, is the people who buy credits and support these people.

Everyone is quick to yell and blame bio for the problem, when the real issue is the people buying them. It's like illegal drugs, while ever there is a market, there will be a suppliers. This is why the "so called" war on drugs doesn't work and was never going to.

Maybe if a spot light was put onto the people who actually abuse the system by buying the credits, we could stem some of the problems. If people weren't buying lots, and I mean lots of credits, there would be no credit farmers or a lot less than there are. You have to remember that they are working, not playing, it's a business for them and our players are paying them hard currency for their services.

I'd love to actually see some positive action by the community in addressing this problem with in and not blaming Bio for something they can't control.

[CKNORTH]

Gold/credit farmers are like weeds, pull one out and 5 more pop up. This is the issue with F2P games. Of course they are also in account only based games, but in F2P there is no limit. If they ban one account, they can just open another with no financial cost to them.

All you have to do to see this at work is go to the starting planets and find all the bots. I was on Korriban the other night and there were 30 people on the planet, 7 of them were credit bots.

When they ban a high lvl bot, they have to lvl up more, so my assumption is they are constantly lvling up these bots so that there is zero down time if an account is closed/banned.

I also only ever see the same name for a short period of time. It's possible that they farm delete and then create to throw Bio off the trail.

It is impossible to police this problem in a F2P game without restricting ledgitmate players credit limits or ability to transfer credits.

The real issue and one that I can't ever remember seeing discussed in this forum, is the people who buy credits and support these people.

Everyone is quick to yell and blame bio for the problem, when the real issue is the people buying them. It's like illegal drugs, while ever there is a market, there will be a suppliers. This is why the "so called" war on drugs doesn't work and was never going to.

Maybe if a spot light was put onto the people who actually abuse the system by buying the credits, we could stem some of the problems. If people weren't buying lots, and I mean lots of credits, there would be no credit farmers or a lot less than there are. You have to remember that they are working, not playing, it's a business for them and our players are paying them hard currency for their services.

I'd love to actually see some positive action by the community in addressing this problem with in and not blaming Bio for something they can't control.

 

And this makes me think that Bioware should outright sell bundles of credits in 100k+ boxes in the CC store. There is no way to stop people from buying credits so the solution would be for EA/Bio just sell them, I rather EA get the money then some black market farmer get money. At least then it would go towards making the game "Better" lol

Edited July 30, 2016 by CKNORTH

[TrixxieTriss]

Ever try and sell something for 40m on the GTN, heck it takes me a few days to sell something for over 3m depending on item. Thos high insane prices are doing two things, one making people grind more credits for the super rare items and two, used as a way for the credit spammers to jack the market while they launder credits. Those high end items I would assume serve the perpose of giving credit spammers their unlimited income. And dare I say the selling of the items are from there own coffers to make it look like there is movement on the market, in which case they launder their own items to drive up the market...

 

Lots of those items are sold by the credit farmers for the very reason you suggest, to jack up the price which means people need to buy credits from them to afford the items.

Bio could actually combat this and I'm not sure why the don't.

First would be to make the hypercrates better value, not cheaper, just better quality. The amount of junk I got the other day from a 24x hypercrate wouldnt even come to 1 mil. I did not get anything I wanted or that anyone else wanted for that matter. I got 6 of those stupid imperial toy flags out of 6 chance cubes. That was an absolute disgrace and I won't be buying anymore items from the GTN.

Second, release old packs again like they used to do before. They would rotate through the old packs every 3-6 month period. This meant when things really started to get rare and the inflation started to sky rocket, along would come those packs again and inflation would drop as there was more supply.

[CKNORTH]

Lots of those items are sold by the credit farmers for the very reason you suggest, to jack up the price which means people need to buy credits from them to afford the items.

Bio could actually combat this and I'm not sure why the don't.

First would be to make the hypercrates better value, not cheaper, just better quality. The amount of junk I got the other day from a 24x hypercrate wouldnt even come to 1 mil. I did not get anything I wanted or that anyone else wanted for that matter. I got 6 of those stupid imperial toy flags out of 6 chance cubes. That was an absolute disgrace and I won't be buying anymore items from the GTN.

Second, release old packs again like they used to do before. They would rotate through the old packs every 3-6 month period. This meant when things really started to get rare and the inflation started to sky rocket, along would come those packs again and inflation would drop as there was more supply.

 

Or another solution would be an exchange of credits for CC, perpetual recycling of CC and credits... It would effect a lot of depletion of credits and control the amount stuff sells for on the GTN, then regulate in game how much credits are earned from weekly's and Crew Kills... Problem solved heh

[TrixxieTriss]

Or another solution would be an exchange of credits for CC, perpetual recycling of CC and credits... It would effect a lot of depletion of credits and control the amount stuff sells for on the GTN, then regulate in game how much credits are earned from weekly's and Crew Kills... Problem solved heh

 

But means less revenue for Bioware. They wouldn't sell as much stuff for real money on the Cartel Market. But I do agree that what you've suggested would work.

[CKNORTH]

But means less revenue for Bioware. They wouldn't sell as much stuff for real money on the Cartel Market. But I do agree that what you've suggested would work.

 

It would depend how they set a barter system for credits, best way would be like in GW2 people with credits can turn it into CC and people who want credits can get it with CC, some people just don't know how to earn the credits so buying CC in an exchange for credits would still make EA/Bioware profits sustained, as well after the initial market flux, we would see things balance out to more being controlled by the community and less of the GTN being controlled by the credit farmers... Just my opinion though :-)

[twpotter]

And this makes me think that Bioware should outright sell bundles of credits in 100k+ boxes in the CC store. There is no way to stop people from buying credits so the solution would be for EA/Bio just sell them, I rather EA get the money then some black market farmer get money. At least then it would go towards making the game "Better" lol

 

 

Totally agree,,,,what a great idea!!

Bioware can't stop the gold sellers via banning, squelching or any other means but they can sure as hell mess them up and make it not worth their time. It would also generate a lot of revenue for Bioware.

 

C'mon Bioware! sell creds for CC....BOOM ! Gold sellers be gone XD

[CKNORTH]

Totally agree,,,,what a great idea!!

Bioware can't stop the gold sellers via banning, squelching or any other means but they can sure as hell mess them up and make it not worth their time. It would also generate a lot of revenue for Bioware.

 

C'mon Bioware! sell creds for CC....BOOM ! Gold sellers be gone XD

 

Ikr, it's obviously a lucrative trade with the amount of effort credit farmers spend spamming everyone. Just get it over with Bioware sell those credits and make some real $$ seriously we want you to take their money so it goes towards the game! Lol

[Taramayne]

Ikr, it's obviously a lucrative trade with the amount of effort credit farmers spend spamming everyone. Just get it over with Bioware sell those credits and make some real $$ seriously we want you to take their money so it goes towards the game! Lol

 

..It's already been suggested that BW try selling game time tokens for CC and then exchange those for a fixed rate of credits in game. Just like WoW does. That might take a bite out of the gold seller's pockets.

[TonyTricicolo]

The only real way to get rid of credit sellers is to turn this game into buy to play but because free to play ideally gets more new potential subscribers that will never happen. However, games like GW2 are very successful with B2P. It has a cash shop with currency exchange features and most importantly...no credit sellers.

[Andryah]

Ikr, it's obviously a lucrative trade with the amount of effort credit farmers spend spamming everyone. Just get it over with Bioware sell those credits and make some real $$ seriously we want you to take their money so it goes towards the game! Lol

 

RMTs don't directly add credits to the game, they simply move them from one character to another through a transaction. Keep in mind, most RMTs now days are simply brokering... buying from one player and selling to another. There is absolutely zero need for RMTs to enter a game and earn credits to sell when they can simply buy from one and sell to another and take a markup profit for almost no effort.

 

Whereas..... the studio selling credits injects more new credits into the game. That represents free floating inflation with no checks in place. At least now.. every credit had to be earned (legally or illegally) that moves through the hands of an RMT.

 

As for spammers.... likely most of those are also not directly RMTs.. but rather players being compensated by RMTs for doing the spamming.

 

If you want to stop credit sellers, stop those that sell credits to them and buy from them.. which no MMO has ever figured out yet how to do effectively.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Andryah

[CKNORTH]

RMTs don't directly add credits to the game, they simply move them from one character to another through a transaction. Keep in mind, most RMTs now days are simply brokering... buying from one player and selling to another. There is absolutely zero need for RMTs to enter a game and earn credits to sell when they can simply buy from one and sell to another and take a markup profit for almost no effort.

 

Whereas..... the studio selling credits injects more new credits into the game. That represents free floating inflation with no checks in place. At least now.. every credit had to be earned (legally or illegally) that moves through the hands of an RMT.

 

As for spammers.... likely most of those are also not directly RMTs.. but rather players being compensated by RMTs for doing the spamming.

 

If you want to stop credit sellers, stop those that sell credits to them and buy from them.. which no MMO has ever figured out yet how to do effectively.

 

Didn't LOTRO do a chat feature that block all spammers? They added a selection to only receive /whispers from friends or guild mates. And open world chat I have never seen a spammer selling gold. Oh and their was also a selection to only receive mail from friends or guild mates which made all the spam go poof?

[Tsetso]

"Do not try to cause inflation on the economy. Instead try to see the truth."

"What truth?"

"There is no economy."

[grayblux]

RMTs don't directly add credits to the game, they simply move them from one character to another through a transaction. Keep in mind, most RMTs now days are simply brokering... buying from one player and selling to another. There is absolutely zero need for RMTs to enter a game and earn credits to sell when they can simply buy from one and sell to another and take a markup profit for almost no effort.

 

Whereas..... the studio selling credits injects more new credits into the game. That represents free floating inflation with no checks in place. At least now.. every credit had to be earned (legally or illegally) that moves through the hands of an RMT.

 

As for spammers.... likely most of those are also not directly RMTs.. but rather players being compensated by RMTs for doing the spamming.

 

If you want to stop credit sellers, stop those that sell credits to them and buy from them.. which no MMO has ever figured out yet how to do effectively.

 

Of course the credit sellers are directly adding credits into the game. How does treasure hunting on 300+ toons 24 hours a day in anyway benefit the economy or the players? Its as if someone was printing money in mass effect. The credit sellers will never stop as long as there is a way to automate profits. It takes them 0 effort to do this and yet it earns them great profits. I used to craft things like augments/hilts/armor to buy cartel items off the broker, but I stopped because the price of those items have gone up 20-30x or more and the price of the crafted goods are stagnant. It is slowly suffocating the economy and for a player like me who enjoyed the crafting/market aspect of the game, this change has ruined the game for me. 3 minutes for instant profit, it makes no sense. I remember the days of being so happy getting a thermal on those hour and a half missions and feeling good crafting an augment and selling it. Now i see 20+ stacks of the same companion gifts, 3-5 pages of the same name with stacks of thermals and crystals, it just totally killed any fun for me. I shouldn't say now, this was awhile ago I'm sure it has only gotten worse but I did the six month sub and within a month saw the economy get wrecked. Still feel nostalgic about the old days.

[Jeweledleah]

well... the nerf is live. no more credits from boxes, just items.

 

just figured, I'd resurect this thread, cause relevant.

[SithEmpress]

I wish they stop doing hidden stealth nerf, they could at least be up front about it, as we always figure them out. If they were going to do anything they could have just lowered the credits down but nope they have to complete remove them. This isn't going to change the inflation problem, there are so many way to make easy credits and for bots they will always find a way to grind something to make credits. I have yet to see a game that they can't find a mean to make credits. They will grind goodies if they can't get actual credits and then sell said items to make money. Those who buy credits are going to buy them maybe they will cost a little more but still not going to stop them, so it not going to fix either of these problems. Plus the game economy always inflated because it a game, not a real economy which have supply, demand, regulation, time to make something and so many other factors. This does take away credits from players who leveled the skill and actual do play the game. Then used this as a mean to make credits. Thankful I don't rely heavily on this skill but I feel for those who did. I just don't believe nerfing credits is going to change or fix anything but that just my opnion.