Combat Inflation by Eliminating Sales Runs

[DeannaVoyager]

A few days ago i had a very interesting conversation on Discord with a person advertising run sales at Republic Fleet on Darth Malgus server. Basically, they told me their guild will run Dread Fortress NiM for me, in exchange for 90 b credits, all payable in Cartel Market items or via credit card.

 

I pretended to be interested and asked for more details aka " what's in it for me, besides a title? " and they answered : " well for starters, people's respect. just take a look at the Fleet, at all the people with Brontes's jetpack and mask, people respect them, don't you want that? besides, how many of them do you think earned the titles, mounts and masks fair and square? I'll tell you, only a few, during and before 6.0, the rest of them payed for everything "

 

Needless to say, i was shocked, because i always imagined the people with NiM related items/titles gaining them by working hard..

 

To stay on topic - i don't see any solution to end this very dishonorable practice ( well call me old fashioned, but i don't want to pay for NiM items and titles, but earn them correctly) .

 

Limiting the amount of credits a player can have ( inventory, legacy bank) to 100 mil might do the trick, but again, i'm no expert in economy.

 

So sale runners also accept credit cards now. Nice... Why am I not surprised.

No wonder they don't want anyone else to have access to better gear.

 

Not only do these people break TOS very openly, but they devalue all the legitimate NiM cheevos, titles and mounts on top of adding up to the inflation.

 

I don't think limiting the amount of credits to 100 mil is a solution though. That would punish all the people who have earned their credits without breaking TOS. I like the idea of following the money, I think it was Chryptyk's suggestion in the first post. And of course make the BiS gear accessible to everyone to reduce the need of sale runs instead of adding a new item for them to sell (gearing sale run).

[Hrafnhildur]

So sale runners also accept credit cards now. Nice... Why am I not surprised.

No wonder they don't want anyone else to have access to better gear.

 

Not only do these people break TOS very openly, but they devalue all the legitimate NiM cheevos, titles and mounts on top of adding up to the inflation.

 

I don't think limiting the amount of credits to 100 mil is a solution though. That would punish all the people who have earned their credits without breaking TOS. I like the idea of following the money, I think it was Chryptyk's suggestion in the first post. And of course make the BiS gear accessible to everyone to reduce the need of sale runs instead of adding a new item for them to sell (gearing sale run).

 

 

@Deanna - As I said, I'm no economy expert. You are right about one thing , the sale runs devaluate the achievements of all legitimate NiM raiders. That is shameful and very dishonorable, as some guilds offer free training NiM raids and even let the "newcomer" keep the loot.

[DWho]

A few days ago i had a very interesting conversation on Discord with a person advertising run sales at Republic Fleet on Darth Malgus server. Basically, they told me their guild will run Dread Fortress NiM for me, in exchange for 90 b credits, all payable in Cartel Market items or via credit card.

 

I pretended to be interested and asked for more details aka " what's in it for me, besides a title? " and they answered : " well for starters, people's respect. just take a look at the Fleet, at all the people with Brontes's jetpack and mask, people respect them, don't you want that? besides, how many of them do you think earned the titles, mounts and masks fair and square? I'll tell you, only a few, during and before 6.0, the rest of them payed for everything "

 

Needless to say, i was shocked, because i always imagined the people with NiM related items/titles gaining them by working hard..

 

To stay on topic - i don't see any solution to end this very dishonorable practice ( well call me old fashioned, but i don't want to pay for NiM items and titles, but earn them correctly) .

 

Limiting the amount of credits a player can have ( inventory, legacy bank) to 100 mil might do the trick, but again, i'm no expert in economy.

 

I hope you reported them to Bioware. Not only is it a blatant violation of the TOS, it probably is actually illegal and Bioware could get in trouble with the Feds over it. It's probably also a violation of the Discord TOS (and could be reported there as well).

[Hrafnhildur]

I hope you reported them to Bioware. Not only is it a blatant violation of the TOS, it probably is actually illegal and Bioware could get in trouble with the Feds over it. It's probably also a violation of the Discord TOS (and could be reported there as well).

 

No offense DWho, but Bioware doesn't get in trouble with anyone, not even the international organizations - last time I used the report function it was about a player avoiding IP ban by having someone else log on their account, pay for they subscription and change the country from a banned one to a not banned one. What do you think happened? Nothing! The player breaking the rules was still advertising their guild at the Fleet!

So what makes you think think they will do something in this case?

[TonyTricicolo]

I am old and this is an "I remember when..." story:

 

I remember when we had to walk everywhere. I remember when the time between shuttles were 20mins. I remember when the journey to obtain exclusive items was long and arduous, making the accomplishment revered and acknowledged by other players who understood how hard the task was. For those who know, know!

 

The first time I saw someone wearing a Mandalorian Helmet in SWG I was star struck. That guy, as far as I was concerned, was the baddest MFer on Sunrunner. A crowd used to form around him at the Mos Eisley Cantina. After talking with him and finding out the process of obtaining the materials and going to Death Watch Bunker to craft it, I decided I wanted to do it too. I wanted people to crowd around me just like that guy. Vain, sure, but it was the respect given to those who wore it that was really what I sort after. Suffice to say, I died a lot. I mean a lot. It literally took me months of grinding Black Sun for BH schems, collecting Binary Liquids, Alum Minerals, and PLCs. Finally when I was ready, I had to find other willing players, especially a crafter, to help me craft the helmet. We fought our way down through DWB and the timer started...My eager anticipation grew wildly!

 

It was glorious, I accomplished what I sort out to do and I was very proud. Yeah, it took me a long time and by the time I got mine it was becoming a more common sight to see players with Mandalorian Helmets. So what! I loved mine! One of my greatest memories from SWG.

 

Fast forward years later and we have quick travel, mounts, insta access to anywhere across the galaxy, xp boosts, time saving bundles, micro transactions, credit sellers, and sales runs. Nowadays, we have a "gimme gimme nao" culture that will never understand what it was like to earn something. I'm not upset, nor jaded, and I'm not calling a WAAmbulance while pouting my old man rhetoric. It's just a different paced world now.

 

Long story short:

I don't pretend to know the answer on how to fix the broken economy so I won't even attempt it.

Titles, exclusive items, and accomplishments don't mean Shi7 to anyone but yourself. If getting the "Wings of the Architect" by any means makes YOU happy, then do it! If you want to pay for instant gratification or want to grind long hours to get what you want then that is fine as long as you aren't hindering some one else.

Edited August 20, 2022 by TonyTricicolo

[FlatTax]

Gold Farmers exist for one reason: they offer a better deal than EA for people paying to win.

 

Our Cosmetics aren't Cosmetic-Only; they're mules for money laundering. Our cash purchases, once converted into Credits, become endgame Augs, Comp levels, Perks for crafting crits, XP bonuses, movement speed, etc. But, because it's EA, it's a lousy deal.

 

Enter the Gold Farmer.

 

The solution is for EA to demonetize our game mechanics.

[Zarahemla]

Best way to "fix" the inflation is to take the credits out of circulation. If everyone quits SWTOR, then your credits are taken out of circulation. If you have 90 billion credits in your legacy bank, and you unsubed today, those 90 billion credits are out of the in-game economy, the same as if they were deleted by giving them to a vendor. If you are not willing to do your part, how can you ask Bioware to do other suggestions (like my suggestions numbered 142 and 151 in this thread).

 

That being said, let's talk about the value of players selling runs. This game has been out for 10 years. If you have spent the last 10 years playing this game, and you don't have the mount that drops from Story Mode (SM), and Hard Mode (HM), and Nightmare Mode (NiM) Explosive Conflict (EC), how can you call yourself a gamer? You have wasted your life.

 

There are some dedicated players who have played this game for 10 years, but they don't have every achievement / vanity item they want. Maybe they couldn't find 7 other friends to help them clear those objectives, maybe they themselves are not good enough. Maybe the cleared the content but didn't get those vanity items to drop for them. For players like that, should they never get the chance to get these vanity things? If that is the case, they might as well quit the game, and find something they can do.

 

That is why I like sales runs. If you are not currently killing a NiM boss, you can be preparing to kill a NiM boss by earning credits, credits you can use to give to other players to help you get those objectives. Let's say someone killed a NiM boss with 7 other friends, and the wings (or some other prestigious mount) dropped, and their friend got the mount, and they paid their friend to give them that mount. What is the difference between them and someone who paid 7 strangers to carry them to kill that NiM boss and give them that mount? Is the mount really that prestigious if the boss can be killed with 7 people, and one carry?

 

The game company (Bioware) should either make the boss so hard that you can't carry people (making the mount prestigious) or allow for casual players to get NiM clears. Casual players can do this by buying sales runs or using NiM crystals. Bioware got rid of NiM crystals. So if the only way a casual player can get 100% achievements is by paying people, that is on Bioware for making the game too easy. Want to unsub yet?

 

If the only way a casual player can clear a boss is by paying for a sales run, and inflation (caused by exploits, not sales runs) has gotten so out of control that the players selling runs are no longer accepting credits as payment (now taking hypercrates as payment) and they are requiring 15 hypercrates for one boss kill (about $750 of Real Life money) to carry you, then that is Bioware's fault for not rolling back the servers when credit exploits were discovered. Still want to sub to a gaming company doesn't roll back servers, allowing inflation to get out of hand?

 

Now if you are a NiM raider who can carry people, and you are breaking ToS by selling your credits for RL money to credits sellers, should your account be banned? Yes. You then use your RL money to buy a Master's Datacron and Equipment Bundle, and do it again until it is no longer fun or profitable. Should the credit sellers be banned for breaking ToS? Yes, and they will use their RL money to make a new level 1 character to keep posting in general chat, until it is no longer profitable.

 

Now if you are a casual player who wants to get achievements you can't get on your own, and you don't have the time or energy to find 7 other players to help you kill NiM bosses and get vanity items, you are either forced to pay the raid sellers $750 worth of hypercrates per boss, or you can quit the game.

 

If you are an MMO developer, you should have a department dedicated to the in-game economy, banning credit sellers, and others, and rolling back servers when credit exploits are discovered. This should be your most important department.

 

It seems like only poor people and dumb people (but I repeat myself) complain about Capitalism.

 

Or you could be cynical and say Bioware is making their money when casual players buy hypercrates to give to raid sellers, who then break those hypercrates down into hyperpacks to sell them on the GTN, where Bioware takes 8% of those credits as a GTN fee, and then those raid sellers sell those credits to credit sellers. Bioware wins. But do you really want to subscribe to such a cynical idea?

Edited August 22, 2022 by Zarahemla
Clarity

[ZUHFB]

The true way of getting rid of inflation is banning credit sellers, and buyers! Sale runs don't add credits to the economy, they also don't "collect" them. There is one buyer and 7 sellers, if anything the credits are more spread after a saleraid.

 

One more thing, don't buy those runs. Raiders take advantage of the buyers, they don't sell because they have to. It's a complete monopoly. At the end of 6.X there was a guy that bought TC 16man HM for, I think, 15 bil - twice.

[Chryptyk]

If the only way a casual player can clear a boss is by paying for a sales run, and inflation (caused by exploits, not sales runs) has gotten so out of control that the players selling runs are no longer accepting credits as payment (now taking hypercrates as payment) and they are requiring 15 hypercrates for one boss kill (about $750 of Real Life money) to carry you, then that is Bioware's fault for not rolling back the servers when credit exploits were discovered. Still want to sub to a gaming company doesn't roll back servers, allowing inflation to get out of hand?

 

 

Credit sellers are selling hypercrates now as well, and at a much cheaper rate than what it would cost with CCs to get. They've been advertising it in their spam for months now. EAware should be stepping in to stop them if they want to protect their revenue of people buying CCs, you would think. Atm, it is actually cheaper to buy credits to get what you want, than to buy CCs to get what you want.

 

A carry is not illegal. The facilitation of it is where the illegalities occur. The prices of them determines the demand for people to buy credits, or now hypercrates. Tracking large credit transfers should be easily traceable. However, tracking crates is harder to do unless they can flag them being traded in bulk. Whatever, they just need to do something to shut down the credit sellers.

[SteveTheCynic]

Gold Farmers exist for one reason: they offer a better deal than EA for people paying to win.

Historically, they existed (and do still in most MMORPGs) to make money for themselves. Offering a better deal than the game's publisher/developer is *how* they do their thing, not *why*.

The solution is for EA to demonetize our game mechanics.

How do you propose that they do that?

[septru]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

[Chryptyk]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

 

fine with it but it would only be a matter of time before inflation strikes again. it would need to be coupled with more credit sinks and/or continual taxes of some sort.

[SteveTheCynic]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

It would probably be interpreted as "SWTOR is the game that stole half its players' gold."

[WorldSmasher]

I understand that you're talking about credit sellers (gold farmers in WoW). Yet, I do not understand the meaning of this term/phrase:

 

"selling runs"

 

What is that?

[ZUHFB]

I understand that you're talking about credit sellers (gold farmers in WoW). Yet, I do not understand the meaning of this term/phrase:

 

"selling runs"

 

What is that?

 

You pay a rather large quantity of credits so people carry you through a NiM operation so you can receive the loot, the problem is that both sides break the ToS. The buyer... more often than not buys the credits from 3rd party. Since they removed crystals from the game a lot of those sales are done with account sharing, so they play your character. Both is against the ToS, not only the buying of credits, but also the account sharing. Some sellers even sell their credits back to 3rd party.

 

All of this is bad. It's not healthy for the game and I do not want it to continue. Some, no most, big selling teams do not break the ToS, they do neither account share nor sell their credits. They should ban people who buy credits, people who sell credits and all of the 3rd party accounts. However none of the three are the case right now.

 

However, like always most people just don't know what they are talking about, inflation and removal of crystals has m made sales not only harder but also more annoying so a lot less of them are done now than in the last few weeks of 6.X. Blaming sales for inflation is ridiculous.

Edited August 23, 2022 by ZUHFB

[TonyTricicolo]

I understand that you're talking about credit sellers (gold farmers in WoW). Yet, I do not understand the meaning of this term/phrase:

 

"selling runs"

 

What is that?

 

Simply put, you pay a team with Hypercrates and they run the Operation for you with the intent of giving you a sort after rare reward.

[DeannaVoyager]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

 

That doesn't sound fair.

 

They would also have to remove 50% of all the cartel items people have stored in their cargo to bypass the credit limitations to make it fair. Your suggestion would rob 50% off from the people who haven't been hoarding, and nothing from the whales who store their credits in hypercrates.

[Darcmoon]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

 

You would probably have a number of people quit. I know I would.

[septru]

So follow up question:

 

How do we think these credits got in the game in the first place? Because credit sellers and sales runs didn't create the credits. Is it conquest, credit exploits, bots, not enough credit sinks? What are we thinking?

[Deaconik]

So follow up question:

 

How do we think these credits got in the game in the first place? Because credit sellers and sales runs didn't create the credits. Is it conquest, credit exploits, bots, not enough credit sinks? What are we thinking?

 

IMO credit exploits. Recently we saw massive increase in the prices of items and just after BioWare announced they removed some NPC sellers which were connected to an exploit. It may be just a coincidence

[OlBuzzard]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

 

If they snapped their fingers and 50% of all in-game credits disappeared ... that's not the ONLY THING that would disappear!!

:eek:

 

(subtle hint .. the players attached to those credits would be close behind! )

Edited August 23, 2022 by OlBuzzard

[Ardrossan]

So let's talk seriously...

 

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

 

That's what they should do. I would actually suggest making it a 90% cut to avoid the problems people are saying with having stored items in legacy. It doesn't matter if you have Revan's mask to sell when you only have 10% of 4 billion left to play with. You sell it for what people can afford, and they would no longer be able to afford the ridiculous prices they currently sell for. Yes, the whales would still have a lot of money comparatively, but that's always going to be a problem. At least we can eliminate their market and prevent them from gaining more money as quickly as they've been making it up till now.

 

Here's my follow-up question: Of the players in this thread outraged by the idea, how many of them do you think are the whales directly or indirectly contributing to this problem and having the most to lose?

Edited August 24, 2022 by Ardrossan

[Xhuuyaa]

So let's talk seriously...

How would people feel if BW pulled a Thanos and 50% of all in-game credits were removed?

 

This wouldn't change a thing. The poorest fella in the game would stay the poorest and the richest would stay the richest.

[Ardrossan]

This wouldn't change a thing. The poorest fella in the game would stay the poorest and the richest would stay the richest.

 

It wouldn't eliminate inequality, no. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to remove credits from the game so the GTN remains useful and players aren't throwing around billions of credits. Bring it back to 2.0 when 1 Million was a lot of money.

 

If they snapped their fingers and 50% of all in-game credits disappeared ... that's not the ONLY THING that would disappear!!

:eek:

 

(subtle hint .. the players attached to those credits would be close behind! )

 

If the whales leave that would only help the economy. Do it, Bioware!

[Toraak]

That's what they should do. I would actually suggest making it a 90% cut to avoid the problems people are saying with having stored items in legacy. It doesn't matter if you have Revan's mask to sell when you only have 10% of 4 billion left to play with. You sell it for what people can afford, and they would no longer be able to afford the ridiculous prices they currently sell for. Yes, the whales would still have a lot of money comparatively, but that's always going to be a problem. At least we can eliminate their market and prevent them from gaining more money as quickly as they've been making it up till now.

 

Here's my follow-up question: Of the players in this thread outraged by the idea, how many of them do you think are the whales directly or indirectly contributing to this problem and having the most to lose?

 

Truthfully I don't store CM Items, and I seldom if ever buy CC's in this game. If BW removed 50% of my credits from the game I'd definitely quit. I've earned those credits in game fairly and that would be BW telling me I don't want your money any longer.

 

For the record I've been a sub since day 1, and in game since Day one of early access.

 

If you truly want to get rid of inflation.

 

1) Remove the ability to trade credits or items.

 

2) Force all items to be sold on the GTN. Raise the GTN cap higher Maybe up to 3-4 Billion.

 

3) Remove Guild perks that reduce the GTN Tax.

 

4) Increase the GTN tax from 8% to a sliding scale. The higher the cost the higher the % you lose. As an example. Items under 10 million the GTN tax is 10%, 10-100 million the GTN tax is 15%, 100 mil-1 billion is 20%, 1 billion-2.5 Billions is 25%, and 2.51 billion-cap is 30%.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Toraak