Time to tax player trades and mailed credits?

[illgot]

Is it time to tax player to player credit trades and mailed credits?

 

Player to Player credit trades could be taxed. Taxes are required like a GTN posting fee. It wouldn't take the taxes out of the total mailed or traded but the user would have to have the 8% extra in their inventory.

 

This would enable players still receive the agreed upon trade amount (make it easier when giving away credits) and enable Bioware to tax third party gold selling sites who mail players credits (to help reduce inflation).

 

Inflation is getting out of hand. I think we are at the cusp of 1000 Cartel Coins being equal to 1 billion credits at this point (some servers have already gone over this ratio).

 

P.S. we should get rid of the guild tax reduction buff if possible. It is always a priority guild buff for my guilds but even the 3% (?) tax reduction is something doing more harm than good.

Edited July 25, 2022 by illgot

[Thunderisaclone]

Better off just removing in-game trade.

 

This is a sub benefit and if it was removed it would need to be replaced with something else. Not sure what that could be but sure there must be something BW could do.

 

GTN sale have a set limit on what you can sell for, Could also set in-game credit transfers at that same level. Which is also an option. At lest this would go a long way to discourage gold sellers.

[OlBuzzard]

Short answer: NOPE!

 

All of the taxes you can think of will not change what is happening on the GTN.

 

For example:

 

Something I just tried in the last few WEEKS ! I've spent several billion credits: Par of that on the GS .. part of it on stuff I thought might be interesting (mostly decor items). I also "invested" into some of the following items(categories).

** Higher profile space barbie outfits (complete sets) that originate from the CM.

** Higher volume mats

** Higher volume (sought after) deco items. Some from the CM ... others from in game. The vast majority from the CM.

 

I can tell you without any fear of contradiction whatsoever that the space barbie outfits (only 4 or 5 in particular) would yield 100Mil PROFIT per set ... MINIMUM. Sometimes that profit would yield as much as 350Mil !!!

I spent several billion .. but I made a LOT more than I spent. A LOT MORE!!

 

Not one single mat item yields as high of a profit margin as CM items that are being sold on the GTN. Some deco items from "in game" might come close (depending upon how a player acquires that item.)

 

It should also be noted that I totally understand the need to "remove" the excess of credits out there. Taxation isn't it!

 

Excessively charging someone will alienate newer players who are trying to get started (or get ahead enough) to enjoy the game. Taking them away from "everyone" will also flatly anger most everyone else.

 

"Trading" items is one of those benefits that subbing should not be messed with. (and BTW... I seldom use it. BUT many DO!)

 

Just my $.02 worth for this AM. And NO ... I don't expect some folks to agree with it!

[Darev]

The minute that the free blue rug deco (that every single character created in the game gets for free when they get their first stronghold) started going for 500k I knew it was trouble.

 

No type of “tax” is going to change what’s going on because credits are almost worthless.

People are buying in game items and treating it as virtual gold, because it will hold “value” more than the credits.

 

I saw someone asking for one of the sets of crafted armor that I was pretty sure my armor smith had the schematics for, some level 50’s set. I made it and sent it COD for 400k. When I told him the price he didn’t even blink. I probably undersold but it sure didn’t cost me 400k to craft it.

 

While I understand that things are screwy, taxing people *just* to delete credits from the game won’t help at all.

That’s pretty similar to just dropping a 0 off of all the rewards / costs…it doesn’t do anything at all, just gives the false appearance of something.

[casirabit]

No. There have been some explanations already as why not so not going to restate the reasons, just that I disagree with it and doing that would chase off the players and we surely don't need another reason to chase off players.

 

I don't use trade or the mail for credits but then again most of the items I have to trade I just put in the guild bank and tell the guild members to take them if they want them.

 

This can have a negative impact for those that actually send new players credits or items they need when they are starting out. Start taxing those types of trades and people may stop sending credits and items to new players which would hurt the game.

Edited July 25, 2022 by casirabit

[illgot]

Taxing alone isn't going to fix everything, but it will become an amazing credit sink on top of hopefully other credit sinks Bioware will install into the game.

 

This type of credit sink would at least remove 8% of all the credits third party sites sell which is a significant amount of credits (which I am sure Bioware has hard numbers on).

 

No one change is going to fix SWTORs economy, but a lot of little changes will have a positive effect.

[Darev]

Taxing alone isn't going to fix everything, but it will become an amazing credit sink on top of hopefully other credit sinks Bioware will install into the game.

 

This type of credit sink would at least remove 8% of all the credits third party sites sell which is a significant amount of credits (which I am sure Bioware has hard numbers on).

 

No one change is going to fix SWTORs economy, but a lot of little changes will have a positive effect.

 

Using this as a minor partial “fix” won’t fix anything.

Nothing.

It will only irritate players (as mentioned above) because we would know that it wouldn’t do anything. You can’t (well…shouldn’t) do something that you know in advance isn’t going to actually fix anything just so you can do it anyway simply to say that you did something.

 

Something doesn’t count unless it’s enough to make a noticeable positive change.

 

This wouldn’t be.

[RikuvonDrake]

don't think taxes are a great idea, instead they increase the credit cap on gtn as well as reduce the credit yield from drops, vendor prices and mission rewards which in turn will remove credits from the system in the long run

 

the inflation didn't happen overnight, it was a years-long process with the price increases, any reasonable attempt to fix that will take time as well and expect a "quick-fix" is pretty naive

[Darev]

[b[/b]I’m wondering if an idea like this would help, or just drive more players to try to flip things from the CM to earn credits.

 

When you get to legacy level 50, all of your “npc” *costs* go up.

At that point, you’ve been in the game a long time and should have a solid idea how to earn money.

In addition to your costs going up (costs not associated with any players, but costs too/from the game system) your credits earned from “the system” also get reduced. Missions yield only 25% of credits that you get while leveling your legacy level. Items from the vendor cost 2x, 5x, 10x more.

Crew Skill training should be left alone. We need player crafters and that, specifically, shouldn’t be altered when there are many more systems.

Repair costs would be affected.

Take away the guild repair option when you get to legacy level 50.

 

This would definitely not be popular, but I think this could actually help lower the amount of in-game credits.

 

Remember, it’s not the player to player transfer of credits causing the problem, it’s the amount of credits being generated compared to the amount of credits being destroyed which is currently out of balance.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Darev

[SteveTheCynic]

Inflation is getting out of hand.

Inflation in the SWTOR player market went out of control years ago. We are long and long (and longer than that) past "*is* getting out of control" on that.

[Ardrossan]

Better off just removing in-game trade.

 

This is a sub benefit and if it was removed it would need to be replaced with something else. Not sure what that could be but sure there must be something BW could do.

 

um no it is not a sub benefit, preferred have access to secure trade.

 

They should just shut the servers down and reduce everyone to 1M. Have it apply to Guild banks, legacy storage, and character's holding credits. If you're holding more than 1M, you won't be when the server reboots. That would fix everything, for awhile anyway. Would it piss players off? Of course. Would players unsub? Probably. Is that any different than the status quo? Not really. If you're still playing this game post 7.0, you've conceded that there's nothing BW can do that will cause you to leave.

 

You can trust me, I took an economics course in 2009.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Ardrossan

[OlBuzzard]

um no it is not a sub benefit, preferred have access to secure trade.

 

They should just shut the servers down and reduce everyone to 1M. Have it apply to Guild banks, legacy storage, and character's holding credits. If you're holding more than 1M, you won't be when the server reboots. That would fix everything, for awhile anyway. Would it piss players off? Of course. Would players unsub? Probably. Is that any different than the status quo? Not really. If you're still playing this game post 7.0, you've conceded that there's nothing BW can do that will cause you to leave.

 

You can trust me, I took an economics course in 2009.

 

This is even worse !! Total reject of idea!!

 

UGH !!

 

[/facepalm]

[curulz]

deleted Edited July 25, 2022 by curulz

[Chryptyk]

um no it is not a sub benefit, preferred have access to secure trade.

 

They should just shut the servers down and reduce everyone to 1M. Have it apply to Guild banks, legacy storage, and character's holding credits. If you're holding more than 1M, you won't be when the server reboots. That would fix everything, for awhile anyway. Would it piss players off? Of course. Would players unsub? Probably. Is that any different than the status quo? Not really. If you're still playing this game post 7.0, you've conceded that there's nothing BW can do that will cause you to leave.

 

You can trust me, I took an economics course in 2009.

 

Wow, someone even more drastic than me. I salute you! Maybe we're going about this the wrong way... instead of raising caps on things. Lower them instead. Say 1B cap per toon and guild banks and 10B for legacy bank. Still instant zap. Creds need a stat squish too!

[BRKMSN]

I think you want to leave player to player trade tax free, but the player to player trade credit cap should be much lower than the GTN cap. In turn, the GTN cap should be raised to an amount reflecting the current trade prices so that the credit sink can do it's job (slow inflation a bit). I'd also recommend doing away with the tax evasion guild perks.

 

There has been a lot of criticism about 7.0, but they really dropped the ball when it comes to credit sinks (removing amplifiers and moddable max level gear). They did chase off a lot of whales that are sitting on mountains of credits, but now the only credit sink in the game is the GTN and people are avoiding that altogether because of the cap.

Edited July 25, 2022 by BRKMSN

[CatrinTheWonk]

Allegedly, a billion ingame credits cost less than $2. Certainly not "a thousand cartel coins" by a long shot. (1000 cartel coins is roughly $7, you get x3 that on the grey market, newsflash).

 

You're about eight years too late for his kind of thing. Any transactional tax at this point only hurts the few new players you have, it doesn't effect anyone with >100 million in the bank.

 

Silly suggestion.

Edited July 26, 2022 by CatrinTheWonk