Fix Inflation PLEASE

[septru]

Please for the love of god. Do something. Anything. Literally can't buy anything on the GTN anymore because its priced above 1b. 

 

• Disable player-to-player trades.
• Disable mail COD.
• Raise GTN tax to 20%. 

 

Here's another good idea: 

 

On 10/13/2022 at 12:27 PM, illgot said:

8% tax to all credit transactions. This would include mailing credits, trading credits, and guild allowances.

Edited October 20, 2022 by septru

[ZUHFB]

Please announce it before it happens. Many players stored their credits in items to avoid legacy capping. I really do not feel like losing 75b.

[Darcmoon]

45 minutes ago, septru said:

Please for the love of god. Do something. Anything. 

 

• Disable player-to-player trades.
• Disable mail COD.
• Raise GTN tax to 20%. 

 

Just like that inflation gets fixed. 

 

Literally can't buy anything on the GTN anymore because its priced above 1b. 

That won’t fix inflation.  That will just make it look like it is fixed.  

[Char_Ell]

41 minutes ago, septru said:

Please for the love of god. Do something. Anything. 

• Disable player-to-player trades.
• Disable mail COD.
• Raise GTN tax to 20%. 

Just like that inflation gets fixed. 

Literally can't buy anything on the GTN anymore because its priced above 1b. 

I understand the sentiment but your proposed solutions to lower the game economy's inflation rate would have other not-so-positive consequences.  There is no easy solution to the inflation problem that would not have negative repercussions.  I think the adage "pick your poison" appropriately describes what BioWare faces with SWTOR's game economy.  There are negative outcomes for staying the course and there are negative outcomes for making changes.

How would Cartel Market sales revenue be impacted by such a change?  I can't imagine it would be positive and I'm pretty sure BioWare would not want to take a hit on Cartel Market revenue.

One player is in an ops group and doesn't have a stim.  Another player has an extra stim to provide but can't trade with the other player because player-to-player trades are no longer allowed.

Just a couple of things I thought of off the top of my head.

[septru]

42 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

I understand the sentiment but your proposed solutions to lower the game economy's inflation rate would have other not-so-positive consequences...

 

One player is in an ops group and doesn't have a stim.  Another player has an extra stim to provide but can't trade with the other player because player-to-player trades are no longer allowed.

I agree. This is a really bad unintended consequence. Inflation is worse. 

 

We need to fix inflation and we need to fix it now.  Because sooner or later (much sooner than a lot of people think), we won't be able to buy stims on the GTN. 

 

42 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

How would Cartel Market sales revenue be impacted by such a change?

 

If anything, players would buy more CM items because players would be able to actually sell them on the GTN with less hassle.

 

I have 5plat and 20gold armor sets in my bank that I don't bother trying to sell because I would have to sit on fleet for a year just trying to sell it. God forbid the armor sets are worth more than 4b, because then I have to arrange for an intermediary. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by septru

[illgot]

the only way to fix inflation is for Bioware to create credit sinks.

I think the fastest credit sink would be taxing all credit transfers for trades, mail, and guild allowances 8%.

This will immediately double tax the credits players buy from third party sources which I believe to be the root of our hyper inflation issue. Taxing all credit transfers will tax the credits the bots mail to the primary account, then it will tax the credits a second time when the primary account mails the credits to a player.

Then those credits will be taxed a third time when the player spends them.

Next increase the GTN limit and increase player capacity to at least match the new GTN amount.

There is no quick fix to inflation at the level we have at the moment.

[septru]

11 minutes ago, illgot said:

This will immediately double tax the credits players buy from third party sources which I believe to be the root of our hyper inflation issue. Taxing all credit transfers will tax the credits the bots mail to the primary account, then it will tax the credits a second time when the primary account mails the credits to a player. Then those credits will be taxed a third time when the player spends them.

It would have to be more than 8% to make a real difference. Credit sellers can make up the difference of 8% by just making more bots. 

[TyrFoge]

1 hour ago, septru said:

I agree. This is a really bad unintended consequence. Inflation is worse. 

We need to fix inflation and we need to fix it now.  Because sooner or later (much sooner than a lot of people think), we won't be able to buy stims on the GTN. 

Exactly this right here.

I've said this before on here but I think unfortunately the only thing that can fix the economy (not necessarily the inflation) is to remove in game trades (not just of credits) and exchanging items/credits through the mail system. It's not a perfect solution or even a desirable one on all fronts but what is the option? Do nothing? I think we can all agree things have gotten WAY out of control and something needs to be done in order if ANYTHING to not drive off new players who can't afford a single item on the GTN. (No I'm not talking about the most desirable/new CM items or whatever).

I keep hearing/reading "but what about if someone in my Ops need a stim/boost/vaccines etc!?!". Simple. Add a portable Guild Bank to the Legacy perks just like the Cargo Bay, and Legacy bank. Make the blasted thing FREE (or virtually free) if you have to so there's no excuse not to have access to it. Leave it up to the guild leaders and raid leaders to make sure any potentially needed items are in the Bank and their members are taken care of. "But what about PUGs?" Yes they will be negatively impacted but lets face it. They inherently are to some degree anyway and I certainly don't mean to sound calloused or rude but the trade off of possibly "not getting a stim" for an Ops far far outweighs the "needing a billion credits" for one...

Edited October 13, 2022 by TyrFoge

[Darcmoon]

2 minutes ago, TyrFoge said:

Exactly this right here.

I've said this before on here but I think unfortunately the only thing that can fix the economy (not necessarily the inflation) is to remove in game trades (not just of credits) and sending credits through the mail system. It's not a perfect solution or even a desirable one on all fronts but what is the option? Do nothing? I think we can all agree things have gotten WAY out of control and something needs to be done in order if ANYTHING to not drive off new players who can't afford a single item on the GTN. (No I'm not talking about the most desirable/new CM items or whatever).

I keep hearing/reading "but what about if someone in my Ops need a stim/boost/vaccines etc!?!". Simple. Add a portable Guild Bank to the Legacy perks just like the Cargo Bay, and Legacy bank. Make the blasted thing FREE (or virtually free) if you have to so there's no excuse not to have access to it. Leave it up to the guild leaders and raid leaders to make sure any potentially needed items are in the Bank and their members are taken care of. "But what about PUGs?" Yes they will be negatively impacted but lets face it. They inherently are to some degree anyway and I certainly don't mean to sound calloused or rude but the trade off of possibly "not getting a stim" for an Ops far far outweighs the "needing a billion credits" for one...

But they also have to look at what the ‘solution’ will cause in terms of negatives.  How many people would quit over the change?   Depending on what the change is will change that number.   Will the outflow be more than the new players they get?   Banning player to player trades will cause an uproar in a number of people.  Would the negatives outweigh the benefits is something I don’t think anyone could say with certainty without doing it but how likely are they to take that risk?   It is a double edged sword. 

[Loc_n_lol]

Well, inflation is good to an extent, because an economy where everyone tends to lose currency over time would not be very fun to play in, right ? We all want our numbers to go up, not down.

If your problem is jsut that the numbers are reaching amounts that the game wasn't designed for, then the solution could simply be to shift every credit container, one digit to the right. That won't really change anything for player trading. Although it would suck for anyone who has fixed costs, like raiders, so on second though, maybe don't change anything and let the economy balloon out of control even more, I like "free" repairs in worthless currency. 😁

[TyrFoge]

23 minutes ago, Darcmoon said:

But they also have to look at what the ‘solution’ will cause in terms of negatives.  How many people would quit over the change?   Depending on what the change is will change that number.   Will the outflow be more than the new players they get?   Banning player to player trades will cause an uproar in a number of people.  Would the negatives outweigh the benefits is something I don’t think anyone could say with certainty without doing it but how likely are they to take that risk?   It is a double edged sword. 

It all is a "double edged sword" really. There's no "simple" solution where everyone's going to be happy. Arguing that "X amount of players may quit" over a change seems a bit counterproductive.  It could easily be countered with  "X amount of players may quit" if nothing is done. So perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned "new players" because I don't want this topic to derail into an "inflow vs. outflow" conversation. Honestly however I believe there are more players in an "uproar" that items are costing billions and billions of credits, that nothing is on the GTN but rather in Player to Player trades, and BW is literally doing nothing than there are players who would be outraged that they can't sell there wares for more than the GTN allows. BW created the GTN with it's "taxes" for a reason. To control the economy and create an artificial credit sink there. Allowing players to get around it has had some seriously negative unforseen outcomes of late. One that can't be fixed by simply adding "more credit sinks". For example if they increase costs for repairs (as I've seen suggested) it's just going to encourage players to add yet another hypercrate or an extra billion to the price of their item and pass that cost on. Credit sinks like that will NEVER impact the sellers. It's kinda like real life that way. 😛

Edited October 13, 2022 by TyrFoge

[Darcmoon]

11 minutes ago, TyrFoge said:

It all is a "double edged sword" really. There's no "simple" solution where everyone's going to be happy. Arguing that "X amount of players may quit" over a change seems a bit counterproductive.  It could easily be countered with  "X amount of players may quit" if nothing is done. So perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned "new players" because I don't want this topic to derail into an "inflow vs. outflow" conversation. Honestly however I believe there are more players in an "uproar" that items are costing billions and billions of credits, that nothing is on the GTN but rather in Player to Player trades, and BW is literally doing nothing than there are players who would be outraged that they can't sell there wares for more than the GTN allows. BW created the GTN with it's "taxes" for a reason. To control the economy and create an artificial credit sink there. Allowing players to get around it has had some seriously negative unforseen outcomes of late. One that can't be fixed by simply adding "more credit sinks". For example if they increase costs for repairs (as I've seen suggested) it's just going to encourage players to add yet another hypercrate or an extra billion to the price of their item and pass that cost on. Credit sinks like that will NEVER impact the sellers. It's kinda like real life that way. 😛

People have been trading off the GTN since the game started.  It has been allowed the entire time.   
As for who might quit if nothing is done vs who might quit if BW tries to fix the economy in ‘this’ way ( and I’m using this as a catchall for any solution they choose not just yours) also has to take into account how many would land in both categories if their desired solution isn’t the one used?   I’m not saying I know the correct or incorrect solution to the problem but I can definitely see some negatives that may mean more to some people than others. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Darcmoon

[illgot]

1 hour ago, septru said:

It would have to be more than 8% to make a real difference. Credit sellers can make up the difference of 8% by just making more bots. 

this isn't to fix inflation, it is to try and slow down the credits coming in from third party sites and tax trades because the GTN is set at 1 billion credits.

To fix inflation will take a lot of different credit sinks and time for those credit sinks to take effect.

 

1 hour ago, TyrFoge said:

Exactly this right here.

I've said this before on here but I think unfortunately the only thing that can fix the economy (not necessarily the inflation) is to remove in game trades (not just of credits) and exchanging items/credits through the mail system. It's not a perfect solution or even a desirable one on all fronts but what is the option? Do nothing? I think we can all agree things have gotten WAY out of control and something needs to be done in order if ANYTHING to not drive off new players who can't afford a single item on the GTN. (No I'm not talking about the most desirable/new CM items or whatever).

I keep hearing/reading "but what about if someone in my Ops need a stim/boost/vaccines etc!?!". Simple. Add a portable Guild Bank to the Legacy perks just like the Cargo Bay, and Legacy bank. Make the blasted thing FREE (or virtually free) if you have to so there's no excuse not to have access to it. Leave it up to the guild leaders and raid leaders to make sure any potentially needed items are in the Bank and their members are taken care of. "But what about PUGs?" Yes they will be negatively impacted but lets face it. They inherently are to some degree anyway and I certainly don't mean to sound calloused or rude but the trade off of possibly "not getting a stim" for an Ops far far outweighs the "needing a billion credits" for one...

There is no reason to block trades if Bioware can add an 8% tax to all credit transactions. This would include mailing credits, trading credits, and guild allowances.

Trading is more than credit transactions. It's about crafting items for friends, helping new players with free items, surprising your friend with a rare Cartel Market item they have wanted for years. Credit transactions in any form should be taxed.

If we are worried about inflation, there is no reason to block trades, just tax all credit transactions 8%... and get rid of the Tax Evasion guild perk. I love this perk, I sell billions on the GTN still so it is my primary perk along with other trades. We don't need it. I love Tax Evasion but please just get rid of it to help combat inflation.

Edited October 13, 2022 by illgot

[septru]

52 minutes ago, Darcmoon said:

How many people would quit over the change?

I'm willing to bet, not many. 

 

Anyone that plays the game can see how much inflation is hurting the game. I know I would happily give up 20% of my credits every time I make a GTN sale, if I knew everyone else is too. 

Also, just going to point out. In about a year (maybe less) the average player is going to be capped on credits in their legacy banks. How many players do you think would quit over that? 

[septru]

47 minutes ago, illgot said:

this isn't to fix inflation, it is to try and slow down the credits coming in from third party sites and tax trades because the GTN is set at 1 billion credits.

To fix inflation will take a lot of different credit sinks and time for those credit sinks to take effect.

Right now the credits made by credit sellers exceeds the credits lost through credit sinks. The only way to fix inflation is to cut out credit sellers. My change would do that.

Edited October 13, 2022 by septru

[Darcmoon]

10 minutes ago, septru said:

I'm willing to bet, not many. 

 

Anyone that plays the game can see how much inflation is hurting the game. I know I would happily give up 20% of my credits every time I make a GTN sale, if I knew everyone else is too. 

Also, just going to point out. In about a year (maybe less) the average player is going to be capped on credits in their legacy banks. How many players do you think would quit over that? 

You say that but I saw someone advocating for BW to reset everyone back to 0 credits. I’d be willing to bet a lot would quit in that case.  Depending on what the change/solution/etc was would change how many would be willing to quit.  Unfortunately, neither of us know how likely it would be to happen.  

I doubt everyone would say inflation is hurting the game but I think the most would agree.  However I don’t think as many would gladly give up more money to the GTN because of it.  
 

I don’t know what the average player has for credits so I won’t speculate how likely they will cap in about a year. And to use your answer: I’m willing to bet, not many.  I also think BW would possibly either find a way to raise the limit or add a new method of storing credits in addition to the existing ones. 

[Exly]

Who needs to worry about credits when there are so many other forms of currency in this game.  How many people can't afford to buy a gear upgrade, or to repair their gear due to a lack of credits?  It's more likely that they that you will run short of tech fragments, conquest commendations, daily resource matrix, op-1 catalysts, fp-1 stabilizers or wz-1 accelerants that you need long before you will run short of credits.  Why not get rid of all of the extra currencies, and start having people use credits to buy things instead

Also, inflation a lot of the inflation in the game is caused by item scarcity.  When the supply of an item is low, and the demand is high, people who have the credits will drive up the price.  Maybe the fix for inflation is to make items less scarce.  

Right now, materials needed to craft gold augments are listed for sale on the GTN for about 300 million credits.  Imagine what would happen to the price if you only needed 1 of each of these instead of 5 each to make a cm-1337 so that you could craft an augment.  Prices would almost certainly go down on the mats needed and on the augments.  They could also make them available on a vendor and sell the mats for credits at a price that they felt was fair.  That would help to put a cap on the amount people would be willing to pay for them and would take credits out of the game when people chose to buy them from a vendor instead of another player.

So maybe the best ways to fight inflation is to get rid of some or all of the specialized currencies in the game, and to make items that people want available at a rate that keeps up with demand and reduces the risk that item scarcity will lead to inflation.

[DeannaVoyager]

20 minutes ago, Exly said:

Right now, materials needed to craft gold augments are listed for sale on the GTN for about 300 million credits.  Imagine what would happen to the price if you only needed 1 of each of these instead of 5 each to make a cm-1337 so that you could craft an augment.  Prices would almost certainly go down on the mats needed and on the augments.  They could also make them available on a vendor and sell the mats for credits at a price that they felt was fair.  That would help to put a cap on the amount people would be willing to pay for them and would take credits out of the game when people chose to buy them from a vendor instead of another player.

 

 

I had been saving several RPMs and OEMs to craft new augments, but I looked at the GTN and decided I'm not going to waste hundreds of millions for augments that will be obsolete who knows how fast. If it would only cost one of each to craft, I would do so. And it's not just those mats, it's all mats. Since we don't get any more jawa junk, even the green mats cost crazy now. 

 

We are also missing a really obvious and easy credit sink, that would also be useful: Flagship summons. They are restricted to subsribers only and they have 30 minutes cooldown. Why? Change the summons to withdraw the credits from the summoner's own inventory instead of guildbank so that even F2P can use their own credits to summon. Make the cost cumulative: if someone uses summon again before 30 mins is gone, double the cost, but get rid of the cooldown. 

 

[JediQuaker]

One aspect worth considering. At this time 'inflation' mostly affects the prices of cosmetic items on the GTN but, if you create new 'credit sinks', that would adversely affect all credit functions, reducing the credits a player has available to pay for common game functions such as 'repairs', travel costs, etc.

[septru]

15 minutes ago, JediQuaker said:

One aspect worth considering. At this time 'inflation' mostly affects the prices of cosmetic items on the GTN but, if you create new 'credit sinks', that would adversely affect all credit functions, reducing the credits a player has available to pay for common game functions such as 'repairs', travel costs, etc.

 

Lol repair costs are 400k and travel costs are 2k? Most players have more than billions of credits. 

[TyrFoge]

3 hours ago, illgot said:

There is no reason to block trades if Bioware can add an 8% tax to all credit transactions. This would include mailing credits, trading credits, and guild allowances.

Trading is more than credit transactions. It's about crafting items for friends, helping new players with free items, surprising your friend with a rare Cartel Market item they have wanted for years. Credit transactions in any form should be taxed.

I get it. I honestly do. This is why I said "there's no simple solution" and "it's all a double edged sword". All players won't be 100% happy with any changes made. It's called compromise. But as far as alot of the very valid reasons you gave pointed out here for keeping Trade how many of those can be solved by placing said items in a Guild bank for a friend? Again maybe not all but I'd be willing to bet a fairly large chunk of them. The inconvenience of that reality outweighs the ability of players ability to abuse the Trading and Mail system to circumvent the GTN taxes and most importantly it's cap.

[curulz]

1 hour ago, TyrFoge said:

But as far as alot of the very valid reasons you gave pointed out here for keeping Trade how many of those can be solved by placing said items in a Guild bank for a friend? 

 If you think inflation can be combated by changing the trade system, then OK...but I think eliminating it is the nuclear option.   I just got a deco that I have lots of, someone on my team doesn't, too bad can't give it to you. You need a stim or medpack?  well I've got one but we're not in the same guild, so can't have them.   Just the other day a new player was on coruscant asking if anyone could craft some armor and I just happened to be on that toon, he got what he wanted for nothing.  All the people who run events to recruit new players by giving away credits or prizes, too bad.  

Your option would take away the easiest way to move things to another player and make it so its only available to those in the same guild.  I find that solution highly undesirable.  

[Char_Ell]

2 hours ago, JediQuaker said:

One aspect worth considering. At this time 'inflation' mostly affects the prices of cosmetic items on the GTN...

I believe this is not a true statement.  When people post NPC vendor purchased or easily obtainable items for multiple millions on the GTN and those items are purchased at those prices it seems abundantly clear to me that inflation has spread beyond mostly cosmetic items.

2 hours ago, JediQuaker said:

 ... but if you create new 'credit sinks', that would adversely affect all credit functions, reducing the credits a player has available to pay for common game functions such as 'repairs', travel costs, etc.

Just depends on how any credit sinks are implemented.  Credit supply is apparently abundant and when there is an abundant supply of money and product demand exceeds product supply then prices will increase.  That is the situation SWTOR's economy faces.  Options to reduce inflation are to reduce credit supply or increase product supply or decrease demand.  Based on what I see the credit sellers currently advertising the demand for their services has decreased in the last few months.  In any event, credit sinks are one way to reduce credit supply and yes, they can certainly be a negative experience.  I like the ideas of graduated tax rates for GTN listings (higher percentage for higher sale prices) and adding those same graduated tax rates for player-to-player and COD mail transactions.  I'm not an economist though.  I just know any solution that reduces inflation will create negative response from at least some portion of the player base.

[DakhathKilrathi]

I think it's at the point that no credit sink can solve the problem without being hugely punishing to newer/poorer players. 

Fairest way to do it is a currency reset; knock 2 - 3 zeroes off of every credit balance in the game. If you have less you lose less. If you have more you lose more. It's fair and it doesn't actually change the relative value of what people already have. Balance mission rewards appropriately after that. 

It's a drastic step, but we're at the point that they need to take a drastic step. I'd be okay with losing billions if it fixed the problem permanently. 

[starbuckone]

9 hours ago, septru said:

Please for the love of god. Do something. Anything. 

 

• Disable player-to-player trades.
• Disable mail COD.
• Raise GTN tax to 20%. 

 

Just like that inflation gets fixed. 

 

Literally can't buy anything on the GTN anymore because its priced above 1b. 

The only way to fix it isn't what you recommended but increased drop rates across the board for all items in cartel packs as well as lowering prices of cartel packs. When you pay real world currency out of your own pocket then you have the right to dictate pricing.