BW: Are you really not going to address your sub's concerns about comm xfer caps?

[peter_plankskull]

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but BioWare didn't tell us about the commendation cap for obvious reasons. They did not want players hoarding and spreading comms to receive a ludicrous amount of credits. Inflation is already horrible on SWTOR. Nothing is reasonably priced on the GTN. Cutting down on the amount of credits players could have made goes a long way to reversing the issues of credits being too easy to accumulate in the game.

 

The next step is for BioWare to place a credit cap per character (100 mill seems like a reasonable cap) to continue to counteract the players running around with billions of credits. BioWare desperately needs to fix the economy.

 

Look... normally I try to avoid personal insults or snarky comments unless its in a jesting manner or about the cartel market... but ill say it... god ... im glad you don't work for this game.

 

Restricting actual legit players, especially ones that have worked hard in this game, is one of the worst possible methods to ever do as it pisses off your players in the game. People spend lots of time, effort, and maybe even money to get over 100 million credits, there is NO reason once so ever to take it from them. If they want to reduce inflation then they should provide money sinks or time sinks such as they did before with training skills so the low end of the game doesn't amass millions like it does now. Another step would to do the obvious and nerf heroic credit payouts or make them harder. If every average joe can obtain millions of credits, then those millions of credits eventually devolve in value since there so easy to come across. Another good step would be to not go on vacation for a entire month while a major exploit rips the economy to shred...

[Jedi_riches]

Look... normally I try to avoid personal insults or snarky comments unless its in a jesting manner or about the cartel market... but ill say it... god ... im glad you don't work for this game.

 

Restricting actual legit players, especially ones that have worked hard in this game, is one of the worst possible methods to ever do as it pisses off your players in the game. People spend lots of time, effort, and maybe even money to get over 100 million credits, there is NO reason once so ever to take it from them. If they want to reduce inflation then they should provide money sinks or time sinks such as they did before with training skills so the low end of the game doesn't amass millions like it does now. Another aw step would to do the obvious and nerf heroic credit payouts or make them harder. If every average joe can obtain millions of credits, then those millions of credits eventually devolve in value since there so easy to come across. Another good step would be to not go on vacation for a entire month while a major exploit rips the economy to shred...

 

Basically this, if bioware really wanted to they could help limit the inflation like was suggested money sinks training costs (removable dyes would help here too) but what they did was unfair as many players consolidated their comms without the full facts and are now finding out they are now worse off than before thanks to bioware bad communication.

[curulz]

The next step is for BioWare to place a credit cap per character (100 mill seems like a reasonable cap) to continue to counteract the players running around with billions of credits. BioWare desperately needs to fix the economy.

 

Do you think the excess credits will be distributed to the less wealthy? Plus there already is a credit cap, but it's much larger than your number. Lowering the cap would not be a change for the good, in my opinion.

 

From what I've seen, this whole inflation thing is the wrong terminology anyway. It seems like it's only impacting certain CM vanity items. DMC for example were expensive early on in 4.0 but stabilized to around 700k to 1 mil for several months. As more poet please geared up, there was less demand and supply rise of course but they remained fairly stable in price. If it was inflation in the general sense, then the price would have remained very high or even risen, despite the change in supply and demand. Similar with the isotopes, crafting mats, crafted items, etc.

 

I don't dispute there was a huge influx in credits via exploits or what have you, but it didnt seem to impact the value of all items, mostly vanity items, therefore not inflation. The credits themselves were not devalued, but some items rose in perceived value because of the increase in the amount of credits.

[TUXs]

People spend lots of time, effort, and maybe even money to get over 100 million credits, there is NO reason once so ever to take it from them.

While I really don't care about this topic, because I feel like 2mil or even 10mil, is fairly insignificant, this is the #1 reason to remove the stupid cap. People EARNED it...just give it to them.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Do you think the excess credits will be distributed to the less wealthy? Plus there already is a credit cap, but it's much larger than your number. Lowering the cap would not be a change for the good, in my opinion.

 

From what I've seen, this whole inflation thing is the wrong terminology anyway. It seems like it's only impacting certain CM vanity items. DMC for example were expensive early on in 4.0 but stabilized to around 700k to 1 mil for several months. As more poet please geared up, there was less demand and supply rise of course but they remained fairly stable in price. If it was inflation in the general sense, then the price would have remained very high or even risen, despite the change in supply and demand. Similar with the isotopes, crafting mats, crafted items, etc.

 

I don't dispute there was a huge influx in credits via exploits or what have you, but it didnt seem to impact the value of all items, mostly vanity items, therefore not inflation. The credits themselves were not devalued, but some items rose in perceived value because of the increase in the amount of credits.

 

Inflation is the correct term but you are right in that it does only effect certain items significantly. CM items ideally have a finite supply in what people are willing to spend on packs ( and less people playing = less people buying to sell not to mention the insanely cheap price of credits people are buying but that's a whole other story ) compared to mats/crafted goods etc. that ideally have a much higher rate and non limited supply as there is no real world cost associated.

 

Even those items have moved up in price if for example you compare what you paid for top end gear in 2.0 then 3.0 and now 4.0 , other items not so much as supply still far out strips demand.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

While I really don't care about this topic, because I feel like 2mil or even 10mil, is fairly insignificant, this is the #1 reason to remove the stupid cap. People EARNED it...just give it to them.

 

They should have never been converted to credits - should have been converted to CXP ( or tokens/trophies to get CXP ) to be consumed when people reach level 70.

 

However that would mean people spend less time grinding and possibly less time subbing thus not a good choice for BWA. They don't give too much a **** about their economy really and everything points to them doing as much as possible now to cash in on as little investment as possible.

[curulz]

Inflation is the correct term but you are right in that it does only effect certain items significantly. CM items ideally have a finite supply in what people are willing to spend on packs ( and less people playing = less people buying to sell not to mention the insanely cheap price of credits people are buying but that's a whole other story ) compared to mats/crafted goods etc. that ideally have a much higher rate and non limited supply as there is no real world cost associated.

 

Even those items have moved up in price if for example you compare what you paid for top end gear in 2.0 then 3.0 and now 4.0 , other items not so much as supply still far out strips demand.

 

Perhaps I'm picking nits, and it has been a while since Econ, but if its only impacting some but not all items its hard to call it inflation since the currency itself is not going down in value. Obviously this isn't real world, so there aren't essential goods and services that are needed in a game. So perhaps a more traditional definition isn't applicable and in the MMO world anytime an exploit adds currency to a game is called "inflation". Honestly I don't know, this is the only MMO I've played since COH years ago.

 

And yes gear and other items increased in price with expansions, but they also increased in stats therefore increasing the value of the item. Same way that a 220 item is more expensive than a 216.

 

to poke holes in my own thinking though....the fact that the real world conversion of $ to credits by the credit sellers has gone down drastically could be used as evidence. Since the $ hasn't really changed, but now that same $ buys significantly more credits. But most of the time it seems like people claiming inflation are really saying "I don't have enough credits to buy something" (not aiming that at you) which doesn't necessarily mean its inflation, just means they can't afford an item.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Perhaps I'm picking nits, and it has been a while since Econ, but if its only impacting some but not all items its hard to call it inflation since the currency itself is not going down in value.

 

How do you measure value though? We can measure it in real world terms on an open market ( albeit a black market ) in that is has gone from around $2 a million to about $0.35.

 

You could argue that doesn't count as it's not officially supported by the game but then any item that costs real world money officially ( CM items ) has inflated massively ( hypercrates, packs for example ) and thus therefore the in game currency has devalued as to what you would pay real world $ for ( basically you get a lot more credits for your $ )

 

Obviously this isn't real world, so there aren't essential goods and services that are needed in a game. So perhaps a more traditional definition isn't applicable and in the MMO world anytime an exploit adds currency to a game is called "inflation". Honestly I don't know, this is the only MMO I've played since COH years ago.

 

I like to personally relate inflation to the items that have a more finite supply and are equated to real world money in some manner, each to their own but if it's not inflation what is it?

 

And yes gear and other items increased in price with expansions, but they also increased in stats therefore increasing the value of the item. Same way that a 220 item is more expensive than a 216.

 

That's moot because you are effectively doing the same content at the same difficulty. Thus you are paying more credits to end up as strong as you would have been previously in regards to the content you are doing. Based on that the price of gear has indeed inflated.

 

to poke holes in my own thinking though....the fact that the real world conversion of $ to credits by the credit sellers has gone down drastically could be used as evidence. Since the $ hasn't really changed, but now that same $ buys significantly more credits. But most of the time it seems like people claiming inflation are really saying "I don't have enough credits to buy something" (not aiming that at you) which doesn't necessarily mean its inflation, just means they can't afford an item.

 

I am not overly concerned about credits. I have a horde of CM items I got and managed to sell over a billion worth of items in 6 weeks as preferred ( wanted to test and preferred is the only method that stopped my wanting to buy more packs ).

 

I do have some concerns over inflation itself ( even though I guess it could be argued it benefits me having all these CM items ) in that the more unaffordable items become from normal game means the more it might deter players from playing the game ( less people for me to run content with ) and even the more it directs them towards gold sellers ( which I don't care about other than the spam ).

[eartharioch]

Perhaps I'm picking nits, and it has been a while since Econ, but if its only impacting some but not all items its hard to call it inflation since the currency itself is not going down in value.

 

Actually, pretty much everything has increased in price -- commodity items (e.g., 208 modifications) have been impacted less than "luxury" items, but prices have increased drastically. OFC, given changes in server (and game as a whole) population, the removal of many credit sinks (such as trainer fees), and a near-year of dirt cheap transfers, it would be difficult to attribute *all* of the price increases to inflation, but there were a number of exploits (in addition to increased in-game payouts) that can quite realistically be said to have increased the number of credits available per player at the same time as the number of players has been decreasing. Fewer players with more credits pretty much means that GTN prices will increase.

 

And obviously BW is aware of the issue, as you can tell by the drastic increase of fixed in-game credit sink prices. For example, the Legacy Convenience Field Repair Droid and Field Mail Droid (from 1.x) cost 50K/100K/200K and 50K/25K/25K (and the price hasn't changed). The new Field Personal Cargo Hold and Field Legacy Cargo Hold introduced this last year cost 1000K/1750K/2500K and 2000K/2750K/3500K. That's over a 10X increase in price.

 

The new Legacy of Promptness (reducing time to give companions gifts) costs more than 5x the old companion bonuses (increasing influence from gifts, influence from conversations, and, crafting crit %).

 

So, yes, the servers have seen massive inflation in the past year.

Edited November 10, 2016 by eartharioch

[Toraak]

I read the samething announcement you did, and in it, no where did I read and assume I should send to all one character. I did send some to a character and used them to get a full 208 before 5.0, but the rest stayed with my other toons. What would make you think you would have to consolidate them? Not understanding your logic here.

 

They did it in the hope of getting the Comms converted into Command XP so they'd have a higher rank once 5.0 launched (so better gear). When BW made it credits instead, they feel cheated. (tho lets face it, they were putting the comms on 1 character in the hopes of cheating the system.)

[eartharioch]

They did it in the hope of getting the Comms converted into Command XP so they'd have a higher rank once 5.0 launched (so better gear). When BW made it credits instead, they feel cheated. (tho lets face it, they were putting the comms on 1 character in the hopes of cheating the system.)

 

Actually, it's the opposite. BW had previously announced that WZ Comms would be converted to credits, so there was no expectation of CXP, BW just hadn't said what the payout would be, or (most importantly) that it would be capped per character. So players knew that they wouldn't be able to buy new gear with their old comms and would only get credits, and since the Legacy Comm transfer tokens don't stack (and thus take prohibitively too much Legacy Cargo space for large amounts) just moved them onto their main(s), since the new gearing system is very alt-unfriendly.