Combat Inflation by Eliminating Sales Runs

[OlBuzzard]

 

 

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

 

Wrong answer!!

 

BTW.. Whales?? As a general rule they are inoffensive creatures. But I'm guessing that since someone is looking for something to use as a slang term ... I'm guessing that there is something else going on!!

 

Regardless of what happens .. those who know how to use the market to legitimately make credits can and always will do so. Those players who know how to farm tons of credits ... CAN and WILL always do so! (There is nothing wrong with either one of these practices).

 

This is NOT inflation!!

 

Taking away 1/2 of everything (everyone) hurts everyone ... unless you are targeting just those who have a lot! This is also just plain wrong!

 

Stopping those who sell credits (from outside sources) ... THAT IS something that really needs to be done! I personally receive at least 3 or 4 messages advertising the selling of credits for cash every week. I promptly report it. If nothing is done .. then obviously those who are behind it don't feel any need to worry about continuing their normal routine of "credit selling".

 

BTW... this is NOT a rant. I'm simply pointing out that the generation of credits (particularly from an outside source) is what contributes to inflation on a substantial level.

[Ardrossan]

Taking away 1/2 of everything (everyone) hurts everyone ... unless you are targeting just those who have a lot! This is also just plain wrong!

 

Good idea, the snap should only affect anyone who has more than 1 billion in legacy storage, or characters with 500+ million on hand. Of course, whales can be very sneaky about finding ways to game the system--that's why they're whales in the first place, taking advantage of the market and credit exploits--which is why Bioware shouldn't give any warning that they plan to do this, give them time to make plans, instead they should just do it as a stealth nerf in a patch.

[RikuvonDrake]

Good idea, the snap should only affect anyone who has more than 1 billion in legacy storage, or characters with 500+ million on hand. Of course, whales can be very sneaky about finding ways to game the system--that's why they're whales in the first place, taking advantage of the market and credit exploits--which is why Bioware shouldn't give any warning that they plan to do this, give them time to make plans, instead they should just do it as a stealth nerf in a patch.

 

Bioware will surely be in favour of removing credits from players who are subscribers or/and have bought cartel coins to buy items from the cartel market to sell on gtn in exchange for credits, what a realistic idea. In fact, I think Bioware should do whatever one of you other people suggested and remove half of whatever cartel market items players have in their inventory/cargo hold or legacy bay.

 

From a business standpoint, that makes sense.

Edited August 24, 2022 by RikuvonDrake

[OlBuzzard]

Good idea, the snap should only affect anyone who has more than 1 billion in legacy storage, or characters with 500+ million on hand. Of course, whales can be very sneaky about finding ways to game the system--that's why they're whales in the first place, taking advantage of the market and credit exploits--which is why Bioware shouldn't give any warning that they plan to do this, give them time to make plans, instead they should just do it as a stealth nerf in a patch.

 

I can see that since this reply does not offer any realistic approach to the issue at hand or realistic suggestion that your response must unquestionably fall under another category ...

 

hmmmm .. I'm having one of those senior moments again. I know there's a name for it !!

 

Oh well ... no biggie!

[Ardrossan]

Bioware will surely be in favour of removing credits from players who are subscribers or/and have bought cartel coins to buy items from the cartel market to sell on gtn in exchange for credits, what a realistic idea. In fact, I think Bioware should do whatever one of you other people suggested and remove half of whatever cartel market items players have in their inventory/cargo hold or legacy bay.

 

From a business standpoint, that makes sense.

 

Thank you for your support. Given Bioware's behavior thus far, I think it makes quite a bit of sense as something they might conceivably do, particularly given that they've never shown much interest in feedback from the playerbase on previous major decisions. They have their vision and if this happens to be what they have in mind, they will do it, regardless of whether it makes sense from a "business standpoint".

 

I can see that since this reply does not offer any realistic approach to the issue at hand or realistic suggestion that your response must unquestionably fall under another category ...

 

hmmmm .. I'm having one of those senior moments again. I know there's a name for it !!

 

Oh well ... no biggie!

 

Is it 'realistic' for the whales to expect to keep all their bloated wealth but somehow the inflation problem will go away on its own without them having to lose anything? That sounds pretty drat "unrealistic" to me.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Ardrossan

[Xhuuyaa]

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.

 

The point was; these are just numbers and reducing them would not change so much. Even if Thanos snaps 50% of the population out of existence - earth population whould be like ~1975.

He buys just some years before things are the same. All the things Thanos does.. at the end they make a difference of barely 50 years. Thanos obviously wasnt very good doing the maths.

 

In SWTOR it would be maybe 1-2 years, inflation would stay at the same high and things would spiral further out of control.

[Ardrossan]

The point was; these are just numbers and reducing them would not change so much. Even if Thanos snaps 50% of the population out of existence - earth population whould be like ~1975.

He buys just some years before things are the same. All the things Thanos does.. at the end they make a difference of barely 50 years. Thanos obviously wasnt very good doing the maths.

 

In SWTOR it would be maybe 1-2 years, inflation would stay at the same high and things would spiral further out of control.

 

A few years ago we had a server merge and created new servers from the various old ones. That was actually the second or third time the servers had been merged, and at the time there were people complaining that it wasn't a real solution and we'd have the same problems with servers queues that we did before the merge, it just delayed the inevitable. And they were right. And so what?

 

How long you think this game has? It doesn't need to be a permanent solution, just delay the problem for a few years. And if it becomes a problem again they can do another snap, just like they can do another server merge.

 

I lol at everyone in this thread rolling their eyes like "oh BW would never do that!" Seriously? Y'all act like you've been here since Day 1 but y'all don't seem to pay much attention. If BW does anything at all to fix the problem, this is what they would do, because it's similar to what they have done in the past. Aside from doing nothing at all.

[Xhuuyaa]

I lol at everyone in this thread rolling their eyes like "oh BW would never do that!" Seriously? Y'all act like you've been here since Day 1 but y'all don't seem to pay much attention. If BW does anything at all to fix the problem, this is what they would do, because it's similar to what they have done in the past. Aside from doing nothing at all.

 

But this isnt a fix, not in any kind or form. Inflation is a problem of value not numbers. Sure you can go and make every 100 a 10 if you wish. If you feel more comfortable with smaler numbers... go ahead.

But nothing will change (it would probably easyer to remove all credit caps in the game, its essentially the same but in the opposite direction).

 

Btw a server merge has a lot of benefits because there are more players on one place. For sure, this will erode over time... but it helps more but pure cosmetic. So your analogy isnt the best one.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Xhuuyaa

[Mongorr]

Just a short comment regarding the "whales" moniker. In the F2P industry this usually denotes big spenders (real money spenders), the other two groups being "Dolphins" and "Minnows". So if the real "whales" left, this game would actually be dead.

 

So it's not quite the correct term for the people with tons of credits (via exploits).

[xordevoreaux]

So if the real "whales" left, this game would actually be dead.

I don't need to be a whale to play this game, haven't been a whale in 8 years, not starting now, and I'll hazard that I'm not the only player in the game who plays who isn't a "whale" and who's totally happy playing the game without being one.

[Mongorr]

I don't need to be a whale to play this game, haven't been a whale in 8 years, not starting now, and I'll hazard that I'm not the only player in the game who plays who isn't a "whale" and who's totally happy playing the game without being one.

 

I never said you need to become a "whale". I simply stated that the real big spenders (not the whales Androssan was referring to) keep this game alive through their spendings. Source: me being a product manager in the F2P industry for the past 10 years. (Caveat: not all F2P games rely equally on the big spenders. But my guess is that this game does).

[Ardrossan]

I never said you need to become a "whale". I simply stated that the real big spenders (not the whales Androssan was referring to) keep this game alive through their spendings. Source: me being a product manager in the F2P industry for the past 10 years. (Caveat: not all F2P games rely equally on the big spenders. But my guess is that this game does).

 

ok, that's fair. I guess we need another term to describe the people who have billions of credits made through exploits and gaming the market, but don't pay much for their CCs.

 

Barnacles?

Edited August 25, 2022 by Ardrossan

[RikuvonDrake]

I don't need to be a whale to play this game, haven't been a whale in 8 years, not starting now, and I'll hazard that I'm not the only player in the game who plays who isn't a "whale" and who's totally happy playing the game without being one.

 

his point is that whales fund the game, often to a larger extent than people who pay a monthly fee, as a subscriber you are obviously important for Bioware but they prioritize whales much more, which is why they most likely aren't too unhappy with the high prices on cartel market items. cause in reality, all that does is simply add value for whales who buy cm items to sell on gtn, I think the vast majority of players buy cm items to use for themselves, a limited amount buys them to exchange for credits

 

regardless, happy to see we finally established that sale run prices aren't an issue, cause it felt the main complaint in this thread was the price of the runs, not them existing

[DeannaVoyager]

his point is that whales fund the game, often to a larger extent than people who pay a monthly fee, as a subscriber you are obviously important for Bioware but they prioritize whales much more, which is why they most likely aren't too unhappy with the high prices on cartel market items. cause in reality, all that does is simply add value for whales who buy cm items to sell on gtn, I think the vast majority of players buy cm items to use for themselves, a limited amount buys them to exchange for credits

 

regardless, happy to see we finally established that sale run prices aren't an issue, cause it felt the main complaint in this thread was the price of the runs, not them existing

 

I haven't seen anything like that being established. Just because a few people started to argue about other stuff contibuting to inflation and managed to derail from the topic, does't mean sale runs aren't causing it too.

 

Before 7.0 the "reason" for high prices on sale runs was the cost of crafting nightmare crystals. Nightmare crystals are gone, half of the raiding community is gone. Sale runners now have less competition and prices are still getting higher. What's the excuse for the price now, because the "cost" of carrying someone is gone with the nightmare crystals?

 

Also as long as we have sale runs in the game, we have people who break TOS. Sale runners sell their credits to third party, and buyers will buy their credits from there. We've transferred from people buying cosmetics (cheevos, mounts) to people buying BiS gear. Because less people are able to get their gear by playing the game, and less people providing sale runs, it adds up to the inflation. Demand is way higher than supply.

 

Buying cheevos also devalues legit cheevos. Sale runners are basically p'ing on the rest of the raiding community with that. Remove ops cheevos from game if they aren't really meant to be cheevos and they can be bought. Having to buy BiS gear also makes the game P2W. The only people benefitting from this gearing system are the sale runners who then convert it to real money with credit sellers which is a violation of TOS. That alone should be a reason to eliminate sale runs from the game.

 

If BW wants the game to be P2W, why do it through sale runners? Just add a vendor on the fleet and let people buy their BiS gear from a vendor. Same thing with golden augments. Give people a way to get credits out of the game instead of transferring it to the sale runners who'll only sell it to a third party for real money.

[ZUHFB]

Before 7.0 the "reason" for high prices on sale runs was the cost of crafting nightmare crystals. Nightmare crystals are gone, half of the raiding community is gone. Sale runners now have less competition and prices are still getting higher. What's the excuse for the price now, because the "cost" of carrying someone is gone with the nightmare crystals?

 

Crystals were never expensive. They never were the reason for the price? Sellers just realized they can actually want a lot when sales reached 1b for wings since it's basically impossible for someone to farm that in a not P2W way, either buying CC and then selling stuff on GTN or just buying it right away. If someone wants wings they AND they would pay 1b for it they also pay 5b. Then they realized "oh hey we are still getting a lot of customers, we get more money for less effort, let's just keep increasing".

 

Also as long as we have sale runs in the game, we have people who break TOS. Sale runners sell their credits to third party, and buyers will buy their credits from there. We've transferred from people buying cosmetics (cheevos, mounts) to people buying BiS gear. Because less people are able to get their gear by playing the game, and less people providing sale runs, it adds up to the inflation. Demand is way higher than supply.

 

It is more a side effect of inflation, with all prices increasing sellers also increase the cost for the carrys because they would kinda scam themselves if they didn't.

 

Buying cheevos also devalues legit cheevos. Sale runners are basically p'ing on the rest of the raiding community with that. Remove ops cheevos from game if they aren't really meant to be cheevos and they can be bought. Having to buy BiS gear also makes the game P2W. The only people benefitting from this gearing system are the sale runners who then convert it to real money with credit sellers which is a violation of TOS. That alone should be a reason to eliminate sale runs from the game.

 

You can buy most achievements actually, in case you haven't noticed it yet. Also wdym HAVING? You don't have to buy gear? If you really need 340 to clear IPCPT maybe you aren't supposed to clear the boss? Has that ever crossed your mind? There are, again, almost no sales going on. They are in fact so rare I only know of two sales this week. Doesn't really seem like a huge problem, also all of the people involved are poor as dirt so they won't resell their credits.

 

If BW wants the game to be P2W, why do it through sale runners? Just add a vendor on the fleet and let people buy their BiS gear from a vendor. Same thing with golden augments. Give people a way to get credits out of the game instead of transferring it to the sale runners who'll only sell it to a third party for real money.

 

Ah yes, R-4 sales. Yeah, all the teams I know that sell R-4... they only had one buyer and they didn't even get to keep the tokens afaik.

[DeannaVoyager]

Crystals were never expensive.

 

I didn't say crystals were expensive. I said that was the excuse they used for the high prices.

 

Seeing you still have trouble understanding what you read, I'm not gonna bother with the rest of your response. It's again way off topic and simply not worth my time.

[DWho]

To combat inflation they could

 

1) Player to Player off GTN trades cannot include credits. This hits the credit sellers and credit buyers and creates a trail (since you have to send credits through the mail then) that Bioware can track/investigate. It also increases the probability of getting shafted if you buy or sell credits (since you have to hope they actually mail the credits)

 

2) Increase GTN trade limit to 6 billion (increase subbed credit limit to 6 billion per toon). This might not be possible due to software limitations. Leave F2P and Preferred where they are to inhibit credit sellers.

 

3) Implement a script that automatically marks all high value trades (GTN or Player to Player) for review by Bioware.

 

4) Implement a review system that looks at all guild/accounts with more than a set amount of credits (or hypercrates) in their banks.

 

5) Permanent disbanding of any guild accepting credit card payments for sales runs or other game content. Permanent banning of the GM of that guild as well.

 

These would help track down credit sellers, credit buyers, and the "dirty" guilds out there

[septru]

Sale runners sell their credits to third party, and buyers will buy their credits from there.

 

If you have evidence, you should send that evidence along with the exact player names to BioWare's moderation team...

 

In the meantime though. I'm pretty sure the guy that runs sales runs literally contradicted you. You can continue to ignore what he said, and we will continue to not believe you.

 

So, I'm gonna weigh in as I'm the one in charge here.

 

We currently have no systems in place that allow buyers to buy credits from our sellers. Even if we did, I value my account over the small amount of money I'd make off it. Its simply not worth it to us.

Edited August 26, 2022 by septru

[DeannaVoyager]

If you have evidence, you should send that evidence along with the exact player names to BioWare's moderation team...

 

In the meantime though. I'm pretty sure the guy that runs sales runs literally contradicted you. You can continue to ignore what he said, and we will continue to not believe you.

 

It's not my job to send the evidence It's BW's job to track the people who are breaking TOS. If they can't do that the best option is to eliminate sale runs completely.

 

We've had at least one sale runner admitting some of them sell the credits they make 3rd party for real money and then the 3rd party sells the credits to someone else for real money. This poster here mentioned the sale runs can also be paid with a credit card. https://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=10045213&postcount=24

 

You don't want to believe it's happening? Then don't. You are certainly allowed to be blind and in denial about it.

[Toraak]

It's not my job to send the evidence It's BW's job to track the people who are breaking TOS. If they can't do that the best option is to eliminate sale runs completely.

 

We've had at least one sale runner admitting some of them sell the credits they make 3rd party for real money and then the 3rd party sells the credits to someone else for real money. This poster here mentioned the sale runs can also be paid with a credit card. https://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=10045213&postcount=24

 

You don't want to believe it's happening? Then don't. You are certainly allowed to be blind and in denial about it.

 

Just because someone says it doesn't mean that person wasn't trolling you. If you have no proof then you don't actually know it true. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, however just claiming it does, doesn't make it true.

 

If you have proof, then you should send it to BW so they can investigate and take the appropriate action.

[ZUHFB]

Sale raids have existed since I started playing a few years back. Inflation wasn't a big thing then - I remember doing heroics to effort my first augments... it was like 3 heroics / MK-10 augment kit and now they go for like 5mil/a piece. Back then it was 70k, back then Wings cost 300million instead of 30billion, a 100x increase. The augments kits inflated MORE than Wings. But that is something different, point is that sales aren't, not were they ever, the reason for inflation - the rising prices are a direct result of inflation.

[ZUHFB]

Just because someone says it doesn't mean that person wasn't trolling you. If you have no proof then you don't actually know it true. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, however just claiming it does, doesn't make it true.

 

If you have proof, then you should send it to BW so they can investigate and take the appropriate action.

 

Except they can't, because this took place in discord and doing things in discord has no consequence for in game. Would be too easy to fake too, also how do they know the accounts are related? It's not like you can connect them.

[Chryptyk]

Except they can't, because this took place in discord and doing things in discord has no consequence for in game. Would be too easy to fake too, also how do they know the accounts are related? It's not like you can connect them.

 

People are very identifiable in discord as to who they are in game, for these kinds of things (sellers that is). All the sales coordinators are known on every server. Additionally, It wouldn't be the first time that EAware has banned someone because of something that was initiated via discord.

[Chryptyk]

It's not my job to send the evidence It's BW's job to track the people who are breaking TOS. If they can't do that the best option is to eliminate sale runs completely.

 

We've had at least one sale runner admitting some of them sell the credits they make 3rd party for real money and then the 3rd party sells the credits to someone else for real money. This poster here mentioned the sale runs can also be paid with a credit card. https://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=10045213&postcount=24

 

You don't want to believe it's happening? Then don't. You are certainly allowed to be blind and in denial about it.

 

With the change of payment from credits to hypercrates for sales runs, i wonder how much business the credit sellers have had. I haven't looked into it, but people would have to calculate which is cheaper, to buy credits to buy hypercrates in game, or to just buy the hypercrates from the credit sellers. At some point, you'd think EAware would think about how much money they are losing to the credit sellers and shut them down.....unless something else is going on with them that we don't know about, and they are allowing them to continue operating for a reason.

[Ardrossan]

Just because someone says it doesn't mean that person wasn't trolling you. If you have no proof then you don't actually know it true. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, however just claiming it does, doesn't make it true.

 

If you have proof, then you should send it to BW so they can investigate and take the appropriate action.

 

Bioware already has proof. They deleted a comment from one of the naysayers in this thread freely admitting to the practice. On that alone, that account should be permabanned, doesn't matter whether he was trolling or not, it's an actionable offense, but dude is still here talking tough. They could act if they wanted to, and clearly they don't.

 

This entire thread is against the TOS as far as I can tell, but they don't close it. Why? Who knows.