Feedback/Suggestion (Credit Exploits/TOS Breakage)

[clhleroy]

A tip to help the SWTOR economy and effectively stop credit exploits, credit sellers, and kill all the websites that sell/buy credits or items for real life cash that I think should be taken into imediatly.

 

I have 2 ways of resolving this:

 

Option 1: (The least likely option)

Set up a stcript that binds all the cartel items to you on pickup that way they are untradable and not be able to be put on the GE.

 

Option 2: (The option thats way more resonable and still allows for competitive trading, fixes the SWTOR economy, and Effectively shuts down all buy/sell websites)

Set up or change some coding that allows all catel items to be sold on the GE "BUT NOT" be tradable between players. This would still provide competitive trading within STWOR still and to be honest I think would stop all these websites and cometitive trading that is not in GE. Regualr crafting items could still be tradable between players in this instence. While doing this removing the option to trade credits also prevints these websites that are selling credits from breaking TOS.

 

Now my explination of WHY I make these suggestins.

 

Hi My name is Curtis Herbold, I have been an off and on player of SWTOR and have continusly bought a subscription ever since the game was F2P the very first day and fell in love with the game. Over the years you all have said there is absolutly no credit exploits happening. However you know that there are websites buying and selling things. Well I have been back to playing SWTOR after about 6 months of not playing from December 21, 2021 to June 15, 2022 and the issues of these websites and trading are just getting far worse as the years go on. In the last week I have been on 20 hours strait a day and only have gotten 4 hours of sleep each night and the things I have seen in the last week alone each day for 20 hours strait on the imperial fleet alone in general chat is VERY EXTREAMLY CONCERNING.

 

In the last week alone Cartel Hypercrates went from selling at 250 MILLION credits to 4-6 BILLION credits for 1 SINGLE hypercrate and since hypercrates cant be sold on the GE, thats what people are selling them for in the General Chat and goes up to 180 BILLION Credits PLUS for a stack of 30 Plus crates. They also have been talking on the imperial fleet that they have been selling hypercrates on those websites for real money for $100+ or about 800 BILLION Credits to use in the game. This is not all. There has also been people BRAGGING how they buy credits on these websites all the time and never get caught and belive you will never do anything about it.

 

What I BRING to the table with Option 2 still allows trading, though not player to player anymore for cartel items, and fixes the economy the way the game was ment to be playied. You could do Option 1 but I only mintioned it for a Nuclear Option so I could give you a worst case senario and a much more resonable option comparison. Option 2, I THINK, is very much more reasonable and fixs everything involving the SWTOR economy and effectively shuts down all buy/sell websites.

 

IF you like option 2 I would get it implimented as quickly as possible because YESTERDAY July 21, 2022, Someone was selling a Hypercrate in the General Chat for 20 BILLION Credits and as the week and days go on, Hypercrates and getting more and more exploited because they arent allowed on the GE. Option 2 ALSO fixes any other cartel items that are also not allowed to be sold on the GE and could be exploited in this fastion.

 

PLEASE I BEG YOU Impliment Option 2 because it will fix everything you say is not happening because you live in DENIAL that there are no credit exploits going on but if you would just log in for 1 week for 20 hours a day just sitting on the imperial fleet and watch General Chat, you will see exactly what I see EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Edited July 22, 2022 by clhleroy

[BRKMSN]

I mean... selling things through trade is not an exploit. Buying credits from credit sellers is and that's a problem. The only real way to combat the credit-seller problem is with manpower. Unfortunately, the solution has a cost involved and the video game companies don't believe the benefit outweighs the cost. It's that simple.

 

Meanwhile, idiots will continue to give criminals their credit card numbers because they are lazy.

[clhleroy]

I mean... selling things through trade is not an exploit. Buying credits from credit sellers is and that's a problem. The only real way to combat the credit-seller problem is with manpower. Unfortunately, the solution has a cost involved and the video game companies don't believe the benefit outweighs the cost. It's that simple.

 

Meanwhile, idiots will continue to give criminals their credit card numbers because they are lazy.

 

 

NO you can solve alot of problems with that alone by doing some coding to disalow cartel items to be traded via player vs player and doing away with criedt trading all togeather for player vs player

 

Takes little effort to delete the code involving player to player credit trading while still allowing credit legacy trading between ur chars. All that takes is deleting the code for that aspect and changing a few words to disalow credit trading between players. As for making the Cartel items untradable between players, sure it will take more than just deleting code but it wouldnt take much more to imput 1 2 lines of code that disalows player player cartel market trading while still allowing it to be sold on the GE.

 

The coding is already there all they have to do is, change, delete and re-program a few lines of code that points to the referances for those changes. They can littraly change the way they do cartel market items by just changing the refrence coding that all of the cartel items point too and never touch an ounce of cartiel items coding.

 

It really isnt as hard as you would think, my mom is a programer and she litrally told me 6 diffrant language formates that is can be done EASILY with just a few lines of code because your not doing anything but limiting stuff. You not making containers for windows your not making content all you are doing is 2 lines of code to limit things. MUCH easier than making window containors and content and the player vs player money trading is super easy becauser all they have to do is delete the container off the the trade window and change a couple words to disalow credit trading.

 

Now if what I was proposing was making a contaier that fits in a popup window or new content it would be MUCH MORE difficult but deleting and changing a few lines of code is absolutly EASY as can be so as much as I hate to say it, even though you are right its not breaking TOS excpet for the website buy/sell, your post is invalid because my post was all about balanace changes to bring the SWTOR economy back to the way it needs to be without an OUNCE of exploits possible for the buying and selling of cartel items AND Killing all buy/sell websites. My suggestion had NOTHING to do with adding content and everything to do with balanceing the economy of SWTOR.

Edited July 23, 2022 by clhleroy

[clhleroy]

What I proposed takes very little manpower no extra money.

 

Its littrally 1% manpower and 0 COST.

 

At most it would take 5 hours to re-code because they have to find all those references that everything is pointing too and change it. My mom, if she kinda knew where everything was on the back end like the game developers do, or at least ways to find the code easily, she could have it done in 1 hour EASILY and ready for the next patch. When you are a programer what I propose can probaly be done in there sleep as easy as it is because is adding NOTHING, or at least very little, and changes the code of what is already there.

[SteveTheCynic]

A tip to help the SWTOR economy and effectively stop credit exploits, credit sellers, and kill all the websites that sell/buy credits or items for real life cash that I think should be taken into imediatly.

A noble goal.

I have 2 ways of resolving this:

 

Option 1: (The least likely option)

Set up a stcript that binds all the cartel items to you on pickup that way they are untradable and not be able to be put on the GE.

Would that stop the ridiculous prices for high-end Augments and other player-made objects?

Option 2: (The option thats way more resonable and still allows for competitive trading, fixes the SWTOR economy, and Effectively shuts down all buy/sell websites)

Set up or change some coding that allows all catel items to be sold on the GE "BUT NOT" be tradable between players. This would still provide competitive trading within STWOR still and to be honest I think would stop all these websites and cometitive trading that is not in GE. Regualr crafting items could still be tradable between players in this instence. While doing this removing the option to trade credits also prevints these websites that are selling credits from breaking TOS.

Stopping players from trading credits for items using the trade screen would stop players from selling crafted items via the trade screen, and it would also stop players from simply giving each other credits as gifts as well.

 

Some of the more ridiculous prices on the GTN (the proper abbreviation for what you call the GE) are for crafted items. People regularly complain here about GTN prices like 700 million for a 286- or 300- rated Augment.

Now my explination of WHY I make these suggestins.

 

Hi My name is Curtis Herbold, I have been an off and on player of SWTOR and have continusly bought a subscription ever since the game was F2P the very first day and fell in love with the game. Over the years you all have said there is absolutly no credit exploits happening.

Players regularly described the existence of such things, and BioWare *has* made reference to credit-exploits, as in the case where an item could be bought from a vendor and then sold back to the vendor for more credits than it cost to buy from the vendor.

In the last week alone Cartel Hypercrates went from selling at 250 MILLION credits to 4-6 BILLION credits for 1 SINGLE hypercrate and since hypercrates cant be sold on the GE, thats what people are selling them for in the General Chat and goes up to 180 BILLION Credits PLUS for a stack of 30 Plus crates. They also have been talking on the imperial fleet that they have been selling hypercrates on those websites for real money for $100+ or about 800 BILLION Credits to use in the game. This is not all. There has also been people BRAGGING how they buy credits on these websites all the time and never get caught and belive you will never do anything about it.

 

What I BRING to the table with Option 2 still allows trading, though not player to player anymore for cartel items, and fixes the economy the way the game was ment to be playied.

It wouldn't fix the economy. It would just peg prices on the GTN for high-end non-CM stuff at a billion credits (because that's the upper limit for the GTN). It would also *encourage* use of credit-seller sites, since there would be no way to buy CM stuff and sell it to other players for credits, so no way to acquire credits for those high-end items outside those sites.

[SteveTheCynic]

NO you can solve alot of problems with that alone by doing some coding to disalow cartel items to be traded via player vs player and doing away with criedt trading all togeather for player vs player

It might require code, or it might just require adding flags to the entries in the item databases (depending if there are flags that can prevent selling of ===> that item).

Takes little effort to delete the code involving player to player credit trading while still allowing credit legacy trading between ur chars.

Those two things are unrelated, so naturally deleting one would not affect the other. Well, except that by all accounts, the SWTOR code is a Big Ball O' Mud, and there's no guarantee that there aren't weird interdependencies between bits of code.

 

And it would be more than just deleting the code - they'd have to delete the entry boxes from the trading panel (which might be code, or might be a template).

 

And all the testing that would be necessary.

All that takes is deleting the code for that aspect and changing a few words to disalow credit trading between players. As for making the Cartel items untradable between players, sure it will take more than just deleting code but it wouldnt take much more to imput 1 2 lines of code that disalows player player cartel market trading while still allowing it to be sold on the GE.

How do you know how much code it would take?

It really isnt as hard as you would think, my mom is a programer

I am a programmer, too (and so was my mother, back in the 1960s). In fact, "programmer" has been my day job since 1989, more than thirty years now.

and she litrally told me 6 diffrant language formates that is can be done EASILY with just a few lines of code because your not doing anything but limiting stuff. You not making containers for windows your not making content all you are doing is 2 lines of code to limit things. MUCH easier than making window containors and content and the player vs player money trading is super easy becauser all they have to do is delete the container off the the trade window and change a couple words to disalow credit trading.

It's not "all they have to do". There would be a big list of testing to do, making sure there's no way to break in and trade credits in some other way.

 

"I deleted the code, ship it" doesn't fly in the real world.

 

And they'd presumably also have to delete the COD option on mail as well. Had you thought of that?

Now if what I was proposing was making a contaier that fits in a popup window or new content it would be MUCH MORE difficult but deleting and changing a few lines of code is absolutly EASY as can be

What's hard is knowing the *right* lines of code to delete, and dealing with weird side-effects of those lines being deleted.

so as much as I hate to say it, even though you are right its not breaking TOS excpet for the website buy/sell, your post is invalid because my post was all about balanace changes to bring the SWTOR economy back to the way it needs to be without an OUNCE of exploits possible for the buying and selling of cartel items

The exploits (if there are any at the moment) aren't, as such, *caused* by the buying and selling of CM items. They *facilitate* the ultra-high prices, but when these sorts of exploits happen, they usually happen in other parts of the game, feeding credits to the inflated player economy and inflating it further. (The one I noted in my other post invoived buying items for one credit each from an in-game vendor and immediately selling them back to the same vendor for a hundred credits each, no CM items or player-to-player trading involved. ==> found it: https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=819329 )

AND Killing all buy/sell websites. My suggestion had NOTHING to do with adding content and everything to do with balanceing the economy of SWTOR.

Your idea could easily *encourage* those websites rather than killing them.

[Darcmoon]

In the last week alone Cartel Hypercrates went from selling at 250 MILLION credits to 4-6 BILLION credits for 1 SINGLE hypercrate and since hypercrates cant be sold on the GE, thats what people are selling them for in the General Chat and goes up to 180 BILLION Credits PLUS for a stack of 30 Plus crates. They also have been talking on the imperial fleet that they have been selling hypercrates on those websites for real money for $100+ or about 800 BILLION Credits to use in the game. This is not all. There has also been people BRAGGING how they buy credits on these websites all the time and never get caught and belive you will never do anything about it..

 

What server are you on where Hypercrates were selling at 250 million last week? They have been over a billion for months now. Also, are they selling for 4-6 billion or 180 billion. You have both listed there and while I could have missed it, I haven't seen anyone paying 180 billion for a hypercrate.

[clhleroy]

You guys are not hearing me

 

You all didnt make the game so how do you truly know what is going to happen.

 

AGAIN If you lock the cartel market items to the GE and not make them tradable between players it doesnt matter if you buy it from the cartel market or buy it from a website, It wouldnt be tradable player vs player in any form and ONLY be tradable via the GE. It would stop the selling of Cartel market items to playervs playe 100%. Taking out the ability to trade credits would finish the job for these websites that sell credits bucase again at that point credits wouldnt be tradable player vs play.

 

Both options include the ability to not trade by mail.

 

If you take out the player vs player for both things it would effectivly SHUT DOWN those sites because those sites would not stay active so people could sell crap to them because trhen THEY would be losing money and not making it. It would effectivly cancel out ALL buying of things on thiese websites so there worthless and balance the SWTOR economy.

 

You guys really need to stop thinking about how bad of a idea it is and picking at it and acually READ what I say. I cant belive people cant use there brains and see the bigger picture in what I was saying. I cant beleave I have to go this far and explain it in alot more detail.

[BRKMSN]

The are three big problems with your proposal:

 

1) The ability to trade cartel market items for credits helps drive CM sales and brings in game revenue.

 

2) Players also like to buy things for their friends and sometimes their own alt accounts (some players have more than 1 SWTOR account). Your proposal would prevent that.

 

3) CM Crates are purely RNG and what would people do with duplicate bound to legacy items? How would that affect sales?

 

Once again. the only real solution is to punish exploiters and combat the credit sellers with proactive measures using manpower. Removing trade (involving CM items) from all players because of the actions of the credit sellers would likely make a lot of players unhappy.

Edited July 23, 2022 by BRKMSN

[SteveTheCynic]

You guys are not hearing me

Yes, we are. We just don't agree.

You all didnt make the game so how do you truly know what is going to happen.

I don't, but you don't either, and neither does your mother. (You mentioned her being a programmer, so ...)

AGAIN If you lock the cartel market items to the GE and not make them tradable between players it doesnt matter if you buy it from the cartel market or buy it from a website, It wouldnt be tradable player vs player in any form and ONLY be tradable via the GE.

GTN. It is the Galactic Trade Network, GTN.

 

Sites that sell *items* would just shift to selling other items, like high-end Augments.

 

But the big problem, the one that abets the inflated economy *and is caused by it* is the sites selling *credits*, and your proposal doesn't actually address *them* in a reliable way. After all, the site just has to ask the player to list a piece of starter world junk for a billion credits. They buy it, and you get your 920million.

 

Never underestimate the inventiveness of scumsuckers.

It would stop the selling of Cartel market items to playervs playe 100%. Taking out the ability to trade credits would finish the job for these websites that sell credits bucase again at that point credits wouldnt be tradable player vs play.

OK, but there are still huge amounts of credits lashing around, and the prices on the GTN for desirable non-CM items (notably high-end augments) would rapidly peg at a billion credits each (the GTN limit).

Both options include the ability to not trade by mail.

I mentioned that because *you* didn't.

You guys really need to stop thinking about how bad of a idea it is and picking at it and acually READ what I say. I cant belive people cant use there brains and see the bigger picture in what I was saying. I cant beleave I have to go this far and explain it in alot more detail.

That's mostly because you concentrated on the wrong parts of the puzzle and left parts out.

[SteveTheCynic]

The other thing about your suggestion is that it smells of having the effect of punishing the mass of players for the sins of a few, even if that isn't your intent.

 

You are proposing to obstruct ordinary player-to-player activities, including things like:

* Guilds gifting credits *directly* to newish members to help them develop characters.

* Players gifting credits (via the trade panel) to friends and/or family members

just to do something about inflation.

[Chryptyk]

I wouldn't mind if say 10% of all credit deposits disappear every tuesday at reset. The poor will barely be affected, and over time the rich will get poorer, which would drive prices down. They can continue this until the global credits in circulation reaches half of what it is now. As inflation stands now, you can't list a lot of items on the gtn and some of the more expensive items people will only trade hypercrates for.

 

People will cry it's not fair, but i say so what. It'll better in the long run. It's all pretend money anyways, so its meaningless. The rich will stay rich, just not at the ridiculous levels they are at now.

[BRKMSN]

I wouldn't mind if say 10% of all credit deposits disappear every tuesday at reset. The poor will barely be affected, and over time the rich will get poorer, which would drive prices down. They can continue this until the global credits in circulation reaches half of what it is now. As inflation stands now, you can't list a lot of items on the gtn and some of the more expensive items people will only trade hypercrates for.

 

People will cry it's not fair, but i say so what. It'll better in the long run. It's all pretend money anyways, so its meaningless. The rich will stay rich, just not at the ridiculous levels they are at now.

 

Credits are one of the few things that have been a "reward" for playing this game since launch. Every so often, because of a lack of credit sinks, they nerf credit rewards in the game. If they did what you propose here, this game wouldn't be rewarding at all to play.

 

This so-called "inflation" is always relative as it only affects player to player trade. The more things cost, the easier it is to make credits by selling things.

[Chryptyk]

the problem is credits have become almost meaningless. consider what you spend credits on. it's not a lot. the in-game economy is rapidly approaching barter only. the rich store their wealth in items. they have been for quite some time. while more people have more creds, the cost of everything has become ludicrous, so relative cred wealth is becoming lower and lower. we need less creds available. lowering rewards doesn't remove the ones already in circulation. they need to just be gone, period. while draconian, it will force prices to drop in the long term.

[Darcmoon]

I wouldn't mind if say 10% of all credit deposits disappear every tuesday at reset. The poor will barely be affected, and over time the rich will get poorer, which would drive prices down. They can continue this until the global credits in circulation reaches half of what it is now. As inflation stands now, you can't list a lot of items on the gtn and some of the more expensive items people will only trade hypercrates for.

 

People will cry it's not fair, but i say so what. It'll better in the long run. It's all pretend money anyways, so its meaningless. The rich will stay rich, just not at the ridiculous levels they are at now.

 

I sincerely doubt it would be better in the long run. I know if they started just taking credits and deleting them, I would quite the game right then and there. I'm sure quite a few others would also. It might even be enough for them to have to shut the game down. It is a stupid idea.

[Chryptyk]

I sincerely doubt it would be better in the long run. I know if they started just taking credits and deleting them, I would quite the game right then and there. I'm sure quite a few others would also. It might even be enough for them to have to shut the game down. It is a stupid idea.

 

Oh some people will definitely quit. I totally expect that. The more whales that quit, the better. I'd prefer to be able to use creds again and them actually have some meaning. For most people, who are not stupid rich, it wouldn't really hurt much. People have too many credits. That has to change. The whales buy things at exorbitant prices just to get under cap. If they [the whales and credits] disappear, less people will be able to afford things at those prices. and prices will drop. Greed should not be rewarded.

[BRKMSN]

Oh some people will definitely quit. I totally expect that. The more whales that quit, the better. I'd prefer to be able to use creds again and them actually have some meaning. For most people, who are not stupid rich, it wouldn't really hurt much. People have too many credits. That has to change. The whales buy things at exorbitant prices just to get under cap. If they [the whales and credits] disappear, less people will be able to afford things at those prices. and prices will drop. Greed should not be rewarded.

 

Why not? That is after all just your opinion. Players that invest time crafting or trading and keeping up with current trends, deserve the rewards they get for the time they invest in understanding the ever-changing game economy. Just because others have little to no interest in that aspect of the game, the players that do shouldn't be punished. The issue will always come down to the game failing to have sufficient credit sinks. Most of the items in the cartel Market could have been credit sinks if the game didn't rely on CM sales for revenue.

 

I fail to see how the "inflation" is the big deal people make it out to be. If we made CM items untradeable as proposed, then people would still have to use CCs to buy them. News flash... they can do that right now and save their precious credits. But ... but ... but now the prices of crafted items are up as well due to inflation. News flash... Everybody can craft their own stuff if they put in the effort.

 

The players that are the problem in this game are not the ones that put in the effort. It's the lazy people that don't want to invest the time that are complaining because they don't want to craft, don't want to sell or trade for profit, and they are the ones that sometimes turn to credit sellers because they want something but don't want to spend time farming credits either.

 

Now you can even make 20000 Cartel coins in just a few months whenever another Galactic Season begins and use those CCs for direct purchases or unlocks. The CC prices of CM items remain where they have always been and periodically go on sale. Basically you can play your way to a few free hypercrates every 6 months or so, just by playing the game. So...... yeah......

[Chryptyk]

Having CCs as rewards for seasons was a huge mistake imo. That was when hyperinflation started. Instead of CCs, the rewards should be non-tradable cartel packs, like it was in the DVL event way back.

 

Credits have to be gotten out of the system or else everything will be valued in numbers of hypercrates or individual packs. That credits are no longer useful as a means of exchange is a huge problem. That we have to spend real life money to buy items that we should be able to buy with credits is something i have a problem with.

 

If we want a specific item, we could buy CCs or the individual items directly. That's player choice and i don't have a problem with that. When i'm forced to do a trade in game and use crates as the measure of currency is what i have a problem with because credit value is utter garbage.

 

Fine then, you want a credit sync that helps everyone equally? Let us buy mats, armor, weapons, augs, etc with credits instead of having to farm for them. Let the achievement of killing things be its own reward. Or add some more mounts or whatever special so that doing ops and fps would have some unique reward worth chasing.

[BRKMSN]

Credits have to be gotten out of the system or else everything will be valued in numbers of hypercrates or individual packs. That credits are no longer useful as a means of exchange is a huge problem. That we have to spend real life money to buy items that we should be able to buy with credits is something i have a problem with.

Credits are still useful for things that are not CM items. If you simply want to avoid spending CCs for CM items, then you just have to adapt to whatever the player trade barter currently is. Credits would still be fine if "trust" wasn't an issue due to credit caps and listing caps being an issue. They probably should focus any changes right there. Increase the GTN listing limit as needed, allow the tax to remove credits from the game, and limit the amounts that can be exchanged in player to player trade windows so people don't circumvent the tax. It might be wise to remove the guild tax perks as well.

 

This way trade can still continue in a secure way and there will be an effective credit sink that at least slows inflation a bit.