What is generating all these credits the last two years, Let's help the devs fix it

[RameiArashi]

If they ban an account does anyone else ever know about it? In the original Guild Wars an account being banned has the character on screen freeze and Dhuum the god of the death pops up and executes them with his scythe. Some people figured out how to get a temporary ban and did it on purpose just to make that scene happen so they could record it and put it on youtube.

[DavidAtkinson]

What is generating all these credits the last two years, Let's help the devs fix it.

 

I have no idea what it is and apparently neither do the developers, Maybe if we can post ideas of what easily repeatable thing is being done to generate this massive amount of credits so that we can get it fixed.

 

I don't know if its tons of free accounts doing something or what. Any ideas? It's obviously something that generates pure credits and not items, unless the items can then be sold for credits to a vendor.

 

Also, maybe the developers should do a sting operating on the credit sellers to find out how they are doing it. That's my top suggestion.

 

These exploiters can generate credits so easily that they can undercut the price from the cartel store by multiple times over. How bad does this have to get before action is taken. I am sure this is costing the game tons of money in loss sales of cartel items.

 

So because you are unable to get credits, it must mean those that have been successful in this regard must be doing something.. questionable ?

 

Some of them yes, most of the people however are legit. There is a well known crafter on DM that has so many credits that he could buy off the entire GTN multiple times and still have money left in his legacy bank.. but there are a lot of players who earn their credits by being top crafters. It started getting crazy with Ossus when the price of augments skyrocketed. They still cost a few millions today.. so there is quite some money involved IF YOU ARE WILLING to commit to become serious crafter.

 

I myself have billions from few years of selling mats and farming conquest on 20 alts and selling mats ... + real money investment in some hypercrates.

 

There is no real secret here. Like in life, if you want to have lots of money in this game, you have to do something in return. It's not easy.

 

Oh and by the way, one of the major reasons I struggled with credits a few years ago was because I was always spending in on some fancy CM item from the GTN and I always ended up bored of it the next day after the purchase.

 

My gear is not worth more than 200k credits in total.. I always wear cheap stuff. Never buy CM stuff from GTN anymore.

 

As for the CM sales, it's great for the game because the GTN is full of CM items, which means that someone is buying those with cartel coins aka $$$$$$ . The game is full of whales, mate. Some people spend a lot of $$$ on this game.

Edited September 16, 2020 by DavidAtkinson

[Storm-Cutter]

Simple math(s)

 

Players can easily make 100K in about 10 minutes if they choose to do some intensive stuff like heroics or daily areas.

Even if there are only 1000 players, they can do this every single day, it soon adds up.

- And this game is almost 9 years old. - Which is around a third of a TRILLION credits.

 

Ofc in the old days there were thousands of players on every sever - of which there were scores.

 

The credit sinks are few and far between, and every now and again the rewards for activities go up - and you get huge -if not hyper-inflation. Billions of credits were also made by exploiters, when you could buy items at low cost and re-vendor it for a higher price. - Even though some were squashed, probably a lot got away with it.

 

There are also bots, which are basically mining credits from mob re-spawns, closed instances, endless flashpoints or simply running circuits around lockboxes. - Indeed some players get their thrills making as much money as possible.

 

In the real world people have to eat and burn fuel and pay taxes and settle their monthly bills. - That keeps money scarce, circulating, and keeps inflation low. - There's precious little of that in the game.

 

Its a factor in a lot of well-established games. inflation is in constant positive feedback, and is rarely, if ever tackled.

[GeneralGyro]

I feel what they should do is cut everyones credits globally by 80-85% with the more billions you have, the % goes up so someone who had 40 million has 6 million and someone who had 40 billion has 4 million if it were a cut of 99.99%

[SteveTheCynic]

If they ban an account does anyone else ever know about it? In the original Guild Wars an account being banned has the character on screen freeze and Dhuum the god of the death pops up and executes them with his scythe. Some people figured out how to get a temporary ban and did it on purpose just to make that scene happen so they could record it and put it on youtube.

I saw that happen to someone once, in the Great Temple of Balthazar. Sadly I couldn't see *who* it was because the offender was behind another character, but it *was* impressive.

[SteveTheCynic]

I feel what they should do is cut everyones credits globally by 80-85% with the more billions you have, the % goes up so someone who had 40 million has 6 million and someone who had 40 billion has 4 million if it were a cut of 99.99%

Do you really want SWTOR to die with a reputation as the game that stole all its players' "gold"?

[Balameb]

While there were (and probably we still have) exploits that easy "create" credits, one of the huge problem is there are also several legit ways of creating them.

Mission rewards and loot. In 5.X heroics were and incredible source of credits because of several factors: mission rewards being the most visible but some people ignored the biggest one: trash gear. All those 210/220 and occasional 228 had back then an incredible high sell vendor value. And heoric areas had a LOT of this loot. FPs on the other hand provided very little in comparison.

 

And what does BW in their wisdom do in 6.0: Increase the amount of end game gear loot you get from everything out of proportion to compensate the weak aspects of 6.x gearing. Result: a continuation of easy and fast credit creation.

Yes, there are ways to earn more than just vendor whatever you don't use(some comented in this thread), but as an easy and fast method is valid and even comented on popular guides about how to farm gear/credits. Lots of people just want fast, not smart.

 

Amplifiers as a credit sink is weak. And the more expensive they make it the less credits get sinked as a lot of people will just ignore it.

Of course, changing a season credit sink so anyone can get lots more stuff without spending a dime on it does not help.

[casirabit]

Sure. Yet,people tend to have some sort of failsafes for any and all important emails they use, too. I'm not saying it'd be impossible or never happens. It is possible and does happen. Just that I bet it extremely uncommon nowadays. When it does happen, I imagine victim is almost always somebody who, in terms of possessions, isn't much of a target really. (Long since forgotten and abandoned F2P account without any established characters or relevant amounts of credits) I'd guess characters themselves are the valuable part here (as spam bots and farming bots or w/e) , not the credits legit owner of the account once earned.

 

I did once and I even had a security key but the funny part is I was online and all of sudden I lost connection and then had a problem with getting back and got a message about my information changed and therefore I immediately called SWTOR and got my account back and haven't had a problem since. This was about 2 years after launch.

[GeneralGyro]

Do you really want SWTOR to die with a reputation as the game that stole all its players' "gold"?

 

there can be worse reputations for this game to die with - im just offering my solution take it as you wish

[DuchessKristania]

Something that might help with the lack of credit sinks is to greatly reduce the number of currency types in the game. All these events/rep vendors have decos, mounts, armor, etc that are not only locked behind influence level but require a special currency rather than credits. I know they use those currencies as incentive for doing the events, but there is a ridiculous variety of currency in this game and most of what you can buy with pure credits is just junk. (Outside of GTN sales.)

 

I have tons of credits sitting in my legacy bank, yes I have sold stuff on the GTN, but the biggest reason I've been expanding my credit number is just the simple fact that outside of gearing my toons there just isn't much I have to spend it on. Many of the items I want are things I purchase without using credits. So, I earn credits doing the events, but then use the special currency to buy the stuff I want from the vendor.

[TrixxieTriss]

I feel what they should do is cut everyones credits globally by 80-85% with the more billions you have, the % goes up so someone who had 40 million has 6 million and someone who had 40 billion has 4 million if it were a cut of 99.99%

 

LoL, that’s ludicrous and would lose more players. I for one would quit right there.

[JediJoy]

There are plenty of credit sinks in the game now. We dont need any more.

People have tons of credits because, like me, they left the game to come back years later with cargo holds full of crap that now are selling for top "dollar" on the gtn (especially crafting mats, war supplies, invasion forces, dark projects etc).

 

If you talk to people who have been here since the beginning without leaving, they dont have as many credits compared to people like me who have left for a bit. This doesnt apply to everyone of course.

 

My main point is this.... who cares how much candy cane has in their banks. EA/BW have enabled a ton of credit sinks into the game and this time next year the majority of everyone will be broke again.

[Stradlin]

LoL, that’s ludicrous and would lose more players. I for one would quit right there.

 

Its bit funny how the very thing he suggests is kinda happening anyway in this current hyper inflation. I mean, let's say somebody with 1 bil credits logged out last January and returned yesterday. That 1 bil in bank sure as heck is much, much less now than it was on January.

 

 

..Ofc, it isn't that clear cut. All server side purchases and meh-tier cartel items are immune to inflation for example. But..well, that guy from January example sure wishes he would have turned his money into cartel hypercrates before leaving. That 1 bil would have bought him..what, 8 or 9? Now, it buys him 4.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Stradlin

[TrixxieTriss]

Its bit funny how the very thing he suggests is kinda happening anyway in this current hyper inflation. I mean, let's say somebody with 1 bil credits logged out last January and returned yesterday. That 1 bil in bank sure as heck is much, much less now than it was on January.

 

 

..Ofc, it isn't that clear cut. All server side purchases and meh-tier cartel items are immune to inflation for example. But..well, that guy from January example sure wishes he would have turned his money into cartel hypercrates before leaving. That 1 bil would have bought him..what, 8 or 9? Now, it buys him 4.

 

That makes no sense at all.

[JattaGin]

BW doesn't care about in-game credits. They only care about cartel coins, because that's what brings the money in.

[SteveTheCynic]

That makes no sense at all.

He has a fair point - inflation reduces the value of money, since over time it buys progressively less stuff if there's inflation around. He then combines this with a comment on the (observable) fact that inflation is highly non-uniform. Some prices go up and up and up, while others are pretty static, and most prices from NPCs don't change ever. That speeder that was 8K from the vendor in 2013 is *still* 8K in 2020.

[waylance]

From what I've heard in game there is an exploit that generates tons of credits. Its been being used for at least 4 months by now.

[TrixxieTriss]

He has a fair point - inflation reduces the value of money, since over time it buys progressively less stuff if there's inflation around. He then combines this with a comment on the (observable) fact that inflation is highly non-uniform. Some prices go up and up and up, while others are pretty static, and most prices from NPCs don't change ever. That speeder that was 8K from the vendor in 2013 is *still* 8K in 2020.

 

Yeah, but it doesn’t make someone stop playing, which is the point he was trying to link to my post

[TrixxieTriss]

From what I've heard in game there is an exploit that generates tons of credits. Its been being used for at least 4 months by now.

 

That’s rubbish.

[waylance]

That’s rubbish.

 

What is rubbish about it? What special powers do you have that tells you no ones knows of a credit exploit?

[Stradlin]

That makes no sense at all.

 

Heh.. This thread is ultimately about inflation, no? Talking about inflation does make a little bit of sense I'd say. We are not losing credits, but in certain..layers of economy, all of our credits are growing weaker every day. I'm not commenting on what does or doesn't stop somebody from playing or anything like that.

 

If you are active in player-to-player market and buying expensive stuff that is in high demand, then your credits buy you much less today than they did six months back.Simple as that. In this regard, your credit pile is much weaker now than it was.

If you take that same credit pile to a Stronghold vendor and unlock few SHs, then your credits are every bit as valuable as they were six months back.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Stradlin

[SteveTheCynic]

What is rubbish about it? What special powers do you have that tells you no ones knows of a credit exploit?

You made a wild claim with no concept of evidence to back it up. The fact that there are lots of credits washing around does not indicate that there is an exploit *now*.

 

Note: if you have actual worthwhile evidence of such a thing, you should send it in a forum private message to EricMusco or CommunityTeam. Do not broadcast it here.

[gelper]

Its bit funny how the very thing he suggests is kinda happening anyway in this current hyper inflation. I mean, let's say somebody with 1 bil credits logged out last January and returned yesterday. That 1 bil in bank sure as heck is much, much less now than it was on January.

 

 

..Ofc, it isn't that clear cut. All server side purchases and meh-tier cartel items are immune to inflation for example. But..well, that guy from January example sure wishes he would have turned his money into cartel hypercrates before leaving. That 1 bil would have bought him..what, 8 or 9? Now, it buys him 4.

 

This is a really smart way of looking at it. Every day that this situation exists where we have massive inflation from some kind of credit exploit or whatever it is the less and less value our credits have. Same effect as if they were deleting our credits.

[Raazmir]

There are limitless resources in the game therefore there are limitless credits. If literally nothing else 7 years of a few million people selling vendor trash and doing dailies is going to massively inflate the # of credits in existence.

[TrixxieTriss]

This is a really smart way of looking at it. Every day that this situation exists where we have massive inflation from some kind of credit exploit or whatever it is the less and less value our credits have. Same effect as if they were deleting our credits.

 

Dude, there is no credit exploit at the moment.