How to fix inflation

[OlBuzzard]

57 minutes ago, DWho said:

yeah, I don't get those stacks either. It really has to be bots running 24/7 (or its a dupe cheat of some kind). I have 50 some characters on Star Forge with 6 of them being crafters (they also have the "mission" mats skills). Pretty much every other character has 3 of the 4 gathering skills and I pick up mats whenever I come across them during play. I have lots of mats but couldn't do pages of the same mat in stacks of 999 (certainly not more than once).

I suggested being able to buy the "matrices" you need for gear upgrades for credits. I think that could be an effective sink without causing too much havok in gearing, especially now as we are nearing the end of gear increases for the expansion. I expect 1 more increase that takes everything except the newest Operation to 240 and that Operation to 250. The one thing I scrape for is usually the Daily Matrices for conquest gear. Unless you have multiple 80s, gearing up a character is a very time consuming process (once you get one there it's not too bad as long as the alts are similar specs).

I think they need to find a way to tax player to player trades off the GTN too or "block" them altogether (perhaps with the other thing I suggested which is once an item is traded, it becomes bound to legacy). flipping items by definition drives up the price. No one would sell an item they bought for less than they paid for it unless they were trying to cut their losses.

I still think that if you manage to level a character all the way to lvl 80 and complete all the story, you should be able to buy at least one good thing with credits without having to "farm" for a year all the while watching the prices go up.

Edit: they could also make Crafting a viable endeavor again to help burn up some of those stockpiled mats.

hmmmm

Interesting!

More thoughts:
** Flipping stuff really doesn't drive up the price nearly as much as credit glut from the credit sellers.  I've seen stuff flip more than once and still be "reasonable". I can easily see where some of the CM stuff might be moved to BoP (MAYBE?).
** "office site"  (off of the GTN) trading might be difficult to do.  I'm not saying that there isn't some sort of merit to needing it in some fashion or another.  To be perfectly candid about it I'm just not sure what or how to approach it in the proper fashion.
** Being able to have better access to Augments and Mods (across the board for all subscribers) would also make it more equitable (less likely to be dependent on GTN availability).
** AND YES ...  definitely crafting is still hurting and needs to be fixed so that it really is a viable part of the game again. 

[DWho]

27 minutes ago, septru said:

 

uh... what? I made a whole thread complaining about inflation a couple months ago.  So to say that I (btw influential people on the internet lol) don't complain is just wrong. However, I think we need to complain about the right things. Some of your (and others) "solutions" are not practical, never going to work, or just laughable. 

4 of the 5 that I listed earlier all are viable. All 5 would work to reduce the cost of items over time. They would certainly be unpopular with players hoarding items in hopes of selling them for big profits since all would reduce the value of what they have stockpiled, but that is the price of speculating on a future gain.

All are based on systems that already exist in the game.

1) They are currently able to identify items purchased from the GTN or traded from other players (see the thread about deconstruction not yielding augmentation components).

2) There is already a GTN listing fee, just don't refund it when the sale expires.

3) Making "CM" items saleable on a vendor is certainly possible and selecting them could be based on what people are stockpiling (which could be determined by a script reviewing their cargoholds).

4) Creating a drain on credits from gearing already exists with the Hyde and Zeek vendors, not a complex task to add "matrices" to a vendor. While perhaps not palatable to the "exclusivity" types, it is a sink that would be used by almost everyone and potentially drains large quantities of credits simply because of the volume of use.

The only one that is difficult, though it is the most important, is to go after credit sellers and buyers alike. That one takes a commitment from Bioware to stamp it out, so players need to keep complaining about that to get some action. This is the one players need to push on the forums because it is a hard call for Bioware.

What wouldn't work is reducing credit rewards from play even more (as suggested by some) because people already don't have enough credits to afford things on the GTN and will turn to credit sellers which injects more credits into the game than any gameplay could.

[septru]

35 minutes ago, DWho said:

4 of the 5 that I listed earlier all are viable...

I'm assuming you're talking about these? 

8 hours ago, DWho said:

1) All items acquired second hand (whether from the GTN, Player trades, or out of Guild banks) become bound to legacy. You can still purchase items with CCs (obtained through playing the game or direct purchases from Bioware) and sell them for credits once and can still trade them between characters in your legacy. Flipping of items is what drives up prices.

2) A non-refundable listing fee for the GTN. If your item doesn't sell for the price you asked, it still costs you credits. That reduces the the tendency to list items for much more than they will sell for normally in the hope one person will shell out boatloads of credits at some point in the future. This is a direct drain of credits from the game

3) Make some of the more popular "restricted" items available through sale from vendors for millions of credits. Another direct drain of credits from the game.

4) Since everyone gears, make the "materials" needed to upgrade gear available for credits. Keep the initial item needed for the upgrade obtainable from the play-style it currently resides under. Another direct drain of credits.

4) Severe punishments for players that buy or sell from credit sellers.

4/5 of your solutions either don't actually fix inflation, aren't practical, or just laughable. 

 

1) Does not actually fix inflation. Flipping items does not contribute to inflation. 

2) Does not actually fix inflation. The GTN listing fee is like what 2k credits? That's not a large enough credit sink to make any significant dent in inflation. 

3) LOL. You already took ranked rewards from ranked players, want to take NiM rewards from NiM players too? I guess we need to start spreading rumors about how toxic the NiM community is, and maybe they will remove NiM from the game too. 

4) We already kinda already have it in the game. IIRC you have to pay 1m for each tactical and 1m for each gear upgrade. The problem is it is wayyyy to low. The question is: how high to do you want to make it? You can't raise the price too much since gearing is an essential part of the game. In fact, gear grinds are literally the only content BioWare seems capable of making. 

5) Not practical. BioWare quite simply does not have the resources to "investigate" anyone. They haven't banned credit sellers/buyers in years. 

35 minutes ago, DWho said:

#5 takes a commitment from Bioware to stamp it out, so players need to keep complaining about that to get some action. This is the one players need to push on the forums because it is a hard call for Bioware.

dude you're either trolling or so naïve you can't even read the words in front of you. BioWare. Is. Not. Going. To. Moderate. No. Matter. How. Many. Complaints. You. Make. they literally do not have the resources to do it.

 

on Satele Shan there was a player called Moophy who literally /stucked every single ranked pvp game he ever played. he played thousands of games. the ranked community sent in t.h.o.u.s.a.n.d.s. of reports regarding this player. we made a whole youtube playlist that included over a hundred videos of him throwing. we reported him for 3 years. he still isn't banned 3 years later. 

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by septru

[DWho]

38 minutes ago, septru said:

I'm assuming you're talking about these? 

4/5 of your solutions either don't actually fix inflation, aren't practical, or just laughable. 

 

1) Does not actually fix inflation. Flipping items does not contribute to inflation. 

2) Does not actually fix inflation. The GTN listing fee is like what 2k credits? That's not a large enough credit sink to make any significant dent in inflation. 

3) LOL. You already took ranked rewards from ranked players, want to take NiM rewards from NiM players too? I guess we need to start spreading rumors about how toxic the NiM community is, and maybe they will remove NiM from the game too. 

4) We already kinda already have it in the game. IIRC you have to pay 1m for each tactical and 1m for each gear upgrade. The problem is it is wayyyy to low. The question is: how high to do you want to make it? You can't raise the price too much since gearing is an essential part of the game. In fact, gear grinds are literally the only content BioWare seems capable of making. 

5) Not practical. BioWare quite simply does not have the resources to "investigate" anyone. They haven't banned credit sellers/buyers in years. 

dude you're either trolling or so naïve you can't even read the words in front of you. BioWare. Is. Not. Going. To. Moderate. No. Matter. How. Many. Complaints. You. Make. they literally do not have the resources to do it.

 

on Satele Shan there was a player called Moophy who literally /stucked every single ranked pvp game he ever played. he played thousands of games. the ranked community sent in t.h.o.u.s.a.n.d.s. of reports regarding this player. we made a whole youtube playlist that included over a hundred videos of him throwing. we reported him for 3 years. he still isn't banned 3 years later. 

 

First, we are not talking about inflation. We are talking about reducing prices

1) you're wrong, flipping drives up prices which drives people to credit sellers, that's simple math. Or do you routinely sell items for less than what you paid for them.

2) It's a percentage of the sale price so it increases with the asking price.

3) This doesn't take anything away from anyone but rather gives an accelerated path to the end. You still need to have the item to upgrade first (Which you can only get from the "appropriate" content).

4) it's the volume that makes it work not the maximum value. The current system isn't used nearly enough

5) I can read just fine, I just disagree with your interpretation. They were able to find enough resources to completely turn the gearing system upside down based on the complaints of very few players. This is no different except that it affects every player in the game and not just the handful upset that some player they don't even know has gear almost as good as theirs. As I said, it has to happen or there is no sense talking about controlling inflation at all because without shutting down credit sellers and buyers (and buyers is really the key), it can't be controlled.

[septru]

12 minutes ago, DWho said:

First, we are not talking about inflation. We are talking about reducing prices

 

12 minutes ago, DWho said:

I can read just fine

 

obviously not the title of the thread

Edited December 5, 2022 by septru

[DWho]

4 minutes ago, septru said:

 

 

obviously not thread titles

Despite the title of the thread, the entire discussion in the thread, including from you, has been about reducing the price of items on the GTN. When the only way you can afford items on the GTN (and a lot of items are off GTN trades now) it to buy something with real money to sell for in game credits, there is a serious problem with the game. I guess I should start a new thread the, "Reducing Prices on the GTN" and post the same ideas.. Maybe all player to player trade needs to be ended (not serious in case you can't tell). That would certainly solve inflation as well as the arguments over prices.

[Achnaattwo]

6 hours ago, OlBuzzard said:

 I don't mean a handful of maxed out stacks (999) I mean PAGES of huge quantities ALL done by one player.  (Essentially flooding the market)

have always wondered how they can do that.  Last time I looked, it's like a kazilloin of qty 10 , page after page, but still adds up to 1000 - 9999 on the GTN by same player. and at a higher price (total if you bought all the 10 stacks). Guess they're trying to make look cheaper.

I dislike hindsight, if I knew the prices were going up like they did, I would had bought the Mats I need to craft, when I could afford them.

I haven't been to the GTN for a long while, Peek every once in a while,  place an item on there if I have a extra, what I believe a ftp/pref can afford at that level. if someone want to buy it and resell, so be it, I got what I wanted. I don't need all those billions to play the game.

100,000,000 will last to well over 50, on a new character.  even less, since I'm just using it for Legacy perks and Gathering missions, and not looking on GTN for anything

 

But yeah, used to see 9999 for sale on GTN,  and same player will have 2-4 of that amount for sale

 

[Joonbeams]

Every credit - each and every one in the game - originated from "legit" in-game activities at some point (for the sake of discussion, I'm assuming no "hacks"). There is no way (see assumption previously) for a credit seller to net add credits to the game. So as much as we want to blame credit sellers (and yes, they are bad for the game), it's the game design decisions that ultimately caused the inflation, not credit sellers. Credit sellers could not have caused inflation even if they wanted to. So what did? Put simply, for the interests of time, the game never designed a way to meaningfully remove credits from the game, once generated, i.e. meaningful credit sinks. A SWTOR credit, once created, can never be destroyed (again, barring trivial legacy sinks). Adding net new currency to an economy with no way to remove it, is literally the textbook way of causing inflation. (There's a more nuanced explanation, but that would take too long and doesn't really help with the major points.)

To further the problem, enabling the player-to-player sale option for cash shop items using in-game credits only accelerates the problem by encouraging credit-farming/new generation of credits, where said credits will never be removed from the economy but will only go to other players. So, even if real sinks were never added, had the player-to-player sale of the most-desired items (i.e. cash shop) never been permitted, the inflation rate would have been slower (we'd still have inflation eventually though, for the reasons above). But this cash shop decision has been a financial boon. There's no (near-term) financial reason for them to change any of this, and so inflation is here to stay...

[MortenJessen]

The main problem is, that a very very large percentage of credits got into the game net, as you call it, trough credit copy scams, vendor fraud, and the likes. No hacks. Many many players has used those methods to introduce credits into the game, and BW got around to finding and deleting very few of them, if any (I know BW made a fuss out of saying they did this and that about it, ironically even admitting that they could not do anything really effective, but they "tried"). And they banned very very few of the players who did it. My bet is, botting aside, that right now, the game has the worst net influx of credits ever in its history, just look at how long time it takes a FRESH new player to even get a lousy billion today to buy an augment. SO, since many of the credits gold Sellers are selling are either the result of hacking or botting, and the prices are still going up and up, my guess is, that the circle has best be broken around the amount of credits that CAN change hands, to make net influx of credits, and hence even higher prices, stagnate.  And kill off gold sellers, but as some one nicely put it, they also pay sub, so BW has zero reason to do that, so other methods has to be found.

Edited December 7, 2022 by MortenJessen
Spelling

[illgot]

1 hour ago, MortenJessen said:

The main problem is, that a very very large percentage of credits got into the game net, as you call it, trough credit copy scams, vendor fraud, and the likes. No hacks. Many many players has used those methods to introduce credits into the game, and BW got around to finding and deleting very few of them, if any (I know BW made a fuss out of saying they did this and that about it, ironically even admitting that they could not do anything really effective, but they "tried"). And they banned very very few of the players who did it. My bet is, botting aside, that right now, the game has the worst net influx of credits ever in its history, just look at how long time it takes a FRESH new player to even get a lousy billion today to buy an augment. SO, since many of the credits gold Sellers are selling are either the result of hacking or botting, and the prices are still going up and up, my guess is, that the circle has best be broken around the amount of credits that CAN change hands, to make net influx of credits, and hence even higher prices, stagnate.  And kill off gold sellers, but as some one nicely put it, they also pay sub, so BW has zero reason to do that, so other methods has to be found.

this is wrong. The majority of credits in game did not come from credit exploits. The majority of credits came from thousands of bots running 24/7 then turning around and selling 1 billion credits for 1 dollar, and millions of legitimate players playing for 10 years constantly generating credits faster than any of the credit sinks could remove them.

The max a legacy bank can hold is 104.29 billion. Even if players from years ago to today exploited 104.29 billion+4.29 billion per character, that does not account for the amount of credits we now have in game. I sell billions a night just in crafting materials and I am not the only one. Many crafters sell 5-10 billion a night in materials or Augment 77s. There is no way that "a very very large percentage of credits" came from credit exploits unless there are thousands of accounts holding 104.29 billion sitting on reserve from years ago.

What seems more likely, a handful of credit exploits over the 10 years is primarily responsible for the inflation we have seen in the last 2 years... or the conquest system and simple missions that can easily be automated with thousands of accounts to the point where third party websites are selling 1 billion credits for 1 dollar.

Edited December 7, 2022 by illgot

[Nee-Elder]

1 minute ago, illgot said:

The majority of credits in game did not come from credit exploits.

What seems more likely,

If the  'Cartel Market'  (aka BioWare's legal  credit-selling re-$kins x infinity program) didn't  cause  the inflation , it certainly didn't help it.    And probably even  exacerbated it , continuously & exponentially  with each passing year.

Problem is,  at this point, if you get rid of  Cartel Market  then you may as well get rid of SWTOR.

So, round & round we go with more "fix inflation plox!!!!!"  threads every month.

Definition of insanity tbqh.

[illgot]

6 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

If the  'Cartel Market'  (aka BioWare's legal  credit-selling re-$kins x infinity program) didn't  cause  the inflation , it certainly didn't help it.    And probably even  exacerbated it , continuously & exponentially  with each passing year.

Problem is,  at this point, if you get rid of  Cartel Market  then you may as well get rid of SWTOR.

So, round & round we go with more "fix inflation plox!!!!!"  threads every month.

Definition of insanity tbqh.

The fix is easy to understand, we need more credit sinks in game.

The implementation of those credit sinks will take a lot of developer time, game resources, and play time to fix. I don't even know if Bioware has any of that at their disposal or if they even care as long as their Cartel Market sales haven't been negatively impacted.

Edited December 7, 2022 by illgot

[DWho]

2 minutes ago, illgot said:

The fix is easy to understand, we need more credit sinks in game.

The implementation of those credit sinks will take a lot of developer time, game resources, and play time to fix. I don't even know if Bioware has any of that at their disposal or if they even care as long as their Cartel Market sales haven't been negatively impacted.

The problem with credits sinks, not that they don't need to be implemented somewhere (GTN would be the best place since the majority of credits in game pass through there at one point or another), is that they primarily impact the players playing the game (with new players impacted the most severely) and do nothing to shed the massive number of credits already in game. Many of the people with "billions" of credits don't even play the game enough to have any in game credit sink make a difference. The wrong credit sinks will move the game back to a point where someone playing the game won't even be able to afford repairing their gear, a good recipe for collapsing the playerbase. The key now to getting credits in game is forcing all player to player trades back onto the GTN where the sinks there can at least do something rather than being circumvented.

Maybe titles like "Exploiter", "Credit Hoarder", and "Super Rich" for a couple of billion each could do something, but they're one offs. Eliminating credit buyers would probably be more effective than going after credit sellers (though they are really the same thing). If no one is buying credits, no one will farm them to sell to credit sellers and running bots 24/7 becomes pointless. If all of the credits that were earned by players no longer playing the game left the game instead of being transferred to credit sellers, there would be a lot less credits in the game driving up prices.

[Joonbeams]

3 hours ago, illgot said:

this is wrong. The majority of credits in game did not come from credit exploits. The majority of credits came from thousands of bots running 24/7 then turning around and selling 1 billion credits for 1 dollar, and millions of legitimate players playing for 10 years constantly generating credits faster than any of the credit sinks could remove them.

The max a legacy bank can hold is 104.29 billion. Even if players from years ago to today exploited 104.29 billion+4.29 billion per character, that does not account for the amount of credits we now have in game. I sell billions a night just in crafting materials and I am not the only one. Many crafters sell 5-10 billion a night in materials or Augment 77s. There is no way that "a very very large percentage of credits" came from credit exploits unless there are thousands of accounts holding 104.29 billion sitting on reserve from years ago.

What seems more likely, a handful of credit exploits over the 10 years is primarily responsible for the inflation we have seen in the last 2 years... or the conquest system and simple missions that can easily be automated with thousands of accounts to the point where third party websites are selling 1 billion credits for 1 dollar.

Pretty much. While it's certainly possible that some influx of credits came into the game via exploits and hacks, it's unlikely that this represents the vast majority. Credit farming (via bots or raw time/sweat) has been far too easy. And with 11 years of players and no thoughtful mechanisms to remove these credits, the inflation we're seeing was bound to happen. The inflation problem is all about an excessive amount of credits in the game (almost entirely from in-game activities) with no way to get them out....

[Joonbeams]

3 hours ago, DWho said:

The problem with credits sinks, not that they don't need to be implemented somewhere (GTN would be the best place since the majority of credits in game pass through there at one point or another), is that they primarily impact the players playing the game (with new players impacted the most severely) and do nothing to shed the massive number of credits already in game. Many of the people with "billions" of credits don't even play the game enough to have any in game credit sink make a difference. The wrong credit sinks will move the game back to a point where someone playing the game won't even be able to afford repairing their gear, a good recipe for collapsing the playerbase. The key now to getting credits in game is forcing all player to player trades back onto the GTN where the sinks there can at least do something rather than being circumvented.

Maybe titles like "Exploiter", "Credit Hoarder", and "Super Rich" for a couple of billion each could do something, but they're one offs. Eliminating credit buyers would probably be more effective than going after credit sellers (though they are really the same thing). If no one is buying credits, no one will farm them to sell to credit sellers and running bots 24/7 becomes pointless. If all of the credits that were earned by players no longer playing the game left the game instead of being transferred to credit sellers, there would be a lot less credits in the game driving up prices.

And it will be difficult to implement any of this now -- not without a credit purge (which could lead to riots, lol). The credit sink concept really needs to be part of the game design from the beginning. The later it's added, the harder it is for new players to catch up. Additionally, proper credit sinks go hand-in-hand with deflationary concepts such as limiting means for generating credits (e.g. drastically limiting credit rewards) early in the game life. In general, managing inflation in a game like this -- if desired at all -- has to be a long-term, intentional, continuously monitored and adjusted process. 

[hillerbees]

Is it time to hit a reset button and revalue the currency?  I know some people might have stockpiled items in addition to, or instead of, credits but if a new credit was introduced to replace the current one (say an exhange rate of 1 new credit for say a million old credits) so wiping out a lot of in grained wealth.  Those new to the game would suffer less and the whales such as myself would take a hit in order to make the economy worthwhile again.

Its no fun hitting legacy and personal credit caps that were never intended to come into play and for items to show on the GTN.  Back in the day I remember paying 7 million credits for the original Revan mask...it was a fortune.  Now lets say someone wanted 4 billion for it today it would still be cheap by comparison.

Its time for devs to do something and make the main currency THE currency in game - its zero fun piddling around with a heap of different tokens while a meaningless one accumulates without reason.

[OlBuzzard]

50 minutes ago, hillerbees said:

Is it time to hit a reset button and revalue the currency?  I know some people might have stockpiled items in addition to, or instead of, credits but if a new credit was introduced to replace the current one (say an exhange rate of 1 new credit for say a million old credits) so wiping out a lot of in grained wealth.  Those new to the game would suffer less and the whales such as myself would take a hit in order to make the economy worthwhile again.

Its no fun hitting legacy and personal credit caps that were never intended to come into play and for items to show on the GTN.  Back in the day I remember paying 7 million credits for the original Revan mask...it was a fortune.  Now lets say someone wanted 4 billion for it today it would still be cheap by comparison.

Its time for devs to do something and make the main currency THE currency in game - its zero fun piddling around with a heap of different tokens while a meaningless one accumulates without reason.

This will not solve anything!  It will add to the troubles!

[illgot]

58 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

This will not solve anything!  It will add to the troubles!

it will fix credit cap issues which the devs can't seem to increase due to being a 32 bit system (?). They could even turn credit conversion into a credit sink.

Convert credits into "Gold Credits" at the new vender. "Gold Credits" cost 1.25 billion and can be stored like current credits but are only worth 1 billion credits. It is basically a 25% credit sink on it's base value to buy. This would allow players to go beyond the 4.29 billion credit limit and act as a credit sink. Items would start basically at ground zero costing 1-5 "Gold Credits" which we could probably store 4.29 billion of. If we ever hit the 4.29 billion limit on "Gold Credits" we can have "Platinum Credits" and start the process over again.

Inflation wouldn't really be an issue if we were not limited with credit caps.

And of course FTP players would have to be bumped up to 1 billion credit limit.

Edited December 8, 2022 by illgot

[Darcmoon]

11 minutes ago, illgot said:

it will fix credit cap issues which the devs can't seem to increase due to being a 32 bit system (?). They could even turn credit conversion into a credit sink.

Convert credits into "Gold Credits" at the new vender. "Gold Credits" cost 1.25 billion and can be stored like current credits but are only worth 1 billion credits. It is basically a 25% credit sink on it's base value to buy. This would allow players to go beyond the 4.29 billion credit limit and act as a credit sink. Items would start basically at ground zero costing 1-5 "Gold Credits" which we could probably store 4.29 billion of. If we ever hit the 4.29 billion limit on "Gold Credits" we can have "Platinum Credits" and start the process over again.

Inflation wouldn't really be an issue if we were not limited with credit caps.

And of course FTP players would have to be bumped up to 1 billion credit limit.

How would you make people covert to the ‘gold credits’?  If you don’t have anything that is bought with it there is no real incentive to switch?

[illgot]

1 hour ago, Darcmoon said:

How would you make people covert to the ‘gold credits’?  If you don’t have anything that is bought with it there is no real incentive to switch?

The "gold credits" can be sold to a vender for 1 billion credits. That will ensure they retain their credit value.

Once their value is established in game people will probably just trade around the new credit instead of the old credits. Would you rather buy a hypercrate for 12 billion credits giving 8 billion credits up front then on the third trade give them another 4 in exchange for the hypercrate all the while hoping they don't log off after you give them the first 8 billion or would you rather trade them 12 "gold credits"?

Why would people buy a new credit if you lose 25% of it's base value? Because the only other option is to either not accept credits once you hit the cap or spend time on fleet trying to buy other items which may lose their value over time. Then if you do buy other items you have to haggle with people trying to find a common value you agree with before you start bartering.

I don't know if this would help stop exploits like duping the new credit, but maybe they should be tokens like tech frags which go directly into your inventory and can only be traded like credits and not physical items.

Edited December 8, 2022 by illgot

[DWho]

10 minutes ago, illgot said:

The "gold credits" can be sold to a vender for 1 billion credits. That will ensure they retain their credit value.

Once their value is established in game people will probably just trade around the new credit instead of the old credits. Would you rather buy a hypercrate for 12 billion credits giving 8 billion credits up front then on the third trade give them another 4 in exchange for the hypercrate all the while hoping they don't log off after you give them the first 8 billion or would you rather trade them 12 "gold credits"?

Why would people buy a new credit if you lose 25% of it's base value? Because the only other option is to either not accept credits once you hit the cap or spend time on fleet trying to buy other items which may lose their value over time. Then if you do buy other items you have to haggle with people trying to find a common value you agree with before you start bartering.

So you want to create a new economy that shuts out anyone who doesn't have billions of credits (sort of like the current economy does). This won't fix inflation, it will accelerate it. Seems like a system that will just make it easier to launder credits and make off GTN trades easier (they need to be made harder so the limited credit sink that the GTN is can at least function). It also makes it easier for credit sellers to stockpile even more credits to sell.

[illgot]

21 minutes ago, DWho said:

So you want to create a new economy that shuts out anyone who doesn't have billions of credits (sort of like the current economy does). This won't fix inflation, it will accelerate it. Seems like a system that will just make it easier to launder credits and make off GTN trades easier (they need to be made harder so the limited credit sink that the GTN is can at least function). It also makes it easier for credit sellers to stockpile even more credits to sell.

the only people this will lock out are those who refuse to buy/sell anything to players and FTP players with credit limits.

if you refuse to buy/sell anything to players in the current economy you are already locked out.

Edited December 8, 2022 by illgot

[DWho]

9 minutes ago, illgot said:

the only people this will lock out are those who refuse to buy/sell anything to players and FTP players with credit limits.

if you refuse to buy/sell anything to players in the current economy you are already locked out.

How so, Your system creates an alternate currency that is well above what the vast majority of players will be able to acquire without buying stuff for real money from Bioware's cash shop and selling it on the GTN. The inconvenience of trading large numbers of credits is one of the few controls left on prices. If you made it easier to exchange large numbers of credits, prices would skyrocket. The game already has developed an alternate currency system, the hypercrate. All very large transactions are being done with hypercrates precisely because of the difficulties in transferring large numbers of credits. An alternate currency system removes any resistance to rising prices.

[illgot]

15 minutes ago, DWho said:

How so, Your system creates an alternate currency that is well above what the vast majority of players will be able to acquire without buying stuff for real money from Bioware's cash shop and selling it on the GTN. The inconvenience of trading large numbers of credits is one of the few controls left on prices. If you made it easier to exchange large numbers of credits, prices would skyrocket. The game already has developed an alternate currency system, the hypercrate. All very large transactions are being done with hypercrates precisely because of the difficulties in transferring large numbers of credits. An alternate currency system removes any resistance to rising prices.

have you looked at the GTN lately?

 

[Darcmoon]

4 hours ago, illgot said:

The "gold credits" can be sold to a vender for 1 billion credits. That will ensure they retain their credit value.

Once their value is established in game people will probably just trade around the new credit instead of the old credits. Would you rather buy a hypercrate for 12 billion credits giving 8 billion credits up front then on the third trade give them another 4 in exchange for the hypercrate all the while hoping they don't log off after you give them the first 8 billion or would you rather trade them 12 "gold credits"?

Why would people buy a new credit if you lose 25% of it's base value? Because the only other option is to either not accept credits once you hit the cap or spend time on fleet trying to buy other items which may lose their value over time. Then if you do buy other items you have to haggle with people trying to find a common value you agree with before you start bartering.

I don't know if this would help stop exploits like duping the new credit, but maybe they should be tokens like tech frags which go directly into your inventory and can only be traded like credits and not physical items.

I personally think that a number of people wouldn't be willing to lose 250 million for the gold credits.  I wouldn't, that is for sure.  It's not like its that hard to store credits.  The legacy storage can hold around 100 billion credits alone.  Loosing 25 billion to convert it to gold credits isn't worth it.  As for buying a hypercrate for 12 billion credits, I wouldn't do that anyway since I don't think they are worth anywhere near that much.