Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[JackieKo]

Hi everyone, 

This is a follow up to the information we released in the Game Update 7.2.1 PTS blog post. ICYMI, 7.2.1 will be introducing initiatives to combat the inflation that is present in the game. We’ve seen conversations surrounding this topic, and we share similar sentiment to the concerns about the game’s economy. This will be an ongoing initiative that will be rolled out over several updates as we want to slowly introduce these new changes and give players time to adjust and also provide opportunities to give us feedback. 

We understand that there is demand to fix things now, but we are taking special care to introduce these measures over time as correcting the economy is not something that can be done overnight. Immediate implementation can have the opposite effect and potentially crash the economy instead. 

We have been identifying key areas where improvements and changes can be made, and weighing how these will impact both the player experience and the economy. Our general economic balancing goals are as follows: 

• Reduce tax/credit cost avoidance
• Reintroduce credit sinks as some were removed in the past
• Adjust inflow in certain repeatable content
• Use these changes as opportunities to improve the experience while also reducing credits
• Monitor how these changes impact the economy over time and adjust accordingly if needed

With the 7.2.1 PTS opening soon, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• Quick Travel now has a credit cost associated, with a minimum cost of 100 credits and a maximum cost of 5000. The cost to travel is dependent on the distance traveled.
• Priority Transport Terminal now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between daily areas.
• Travel to Strongholds now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between planets.
• Repair cost formulas have been adjusted across the entirety of the game so that repair costs increase in relation to item level.
• Durability of equipment should now be lost at a LOWER rate on death, but a slightly HIGHER rate in normal gameplay. 

We ask that players submit their feedback here after they have have experienced these changes on the PTS. General discussion should be kept to this thread. 

While we cannot give a definitive timeline on when the future changes will be deployed, you should expect to continue seeing more changes in future game updates. As always, we will communicate the finer details, the timeline in which these changes can be tested, and when they will go live. 

Thanks all! 

[RikuvonDrake]

these are great changes that will help deal with the core issue which is too many credits being generated and not enough being removed from the system resulting in the inflation as the amount of credits in circulation is ever-increasing, also please up the credit cap on guildbanks, character cap and legacy cargo cause i am running out of room quickly

Edited February 9, 2023 by RikuvonDrake
added a questionmark

[Aakurb]

Poor players will become poorer, rich players won't be affected.

[BenKatarn]

While it's nice to see you trying to combat inflation, these first few changes are kinda... minimalistic? I feel like this isn't quite enough for a first outing, and in the case of the Priority Transport Terminal stuff I'm also a little confused. At least with the first couple of daily areas (up to Yavin), we can buy a legacy perk to go to that area immediately. If those transport passes also have a credit cost added to their uses, what is the point of having those perks in the first place? Just so we don't have to actually go to the galaxy map? I feel like this needs clarification. Will the individual transports for Heroics also get this kind of treatment? Overall, charging people now for instant transportation sounds more annoying than anything else and I don't think it will help battling inflation at all.

 

In general however, I feel this initiative misses one very vital issue with SWTOR's economy: there needs to be stuff that we can spend money on. While we've had our fair share of devastating exploits over the years that probably generated trillions of credits out of nowhere, the game has clearly failed to generate the means to get these credits out of the economy through some sort of trade. What I mean by that is that we need more things in this game that can be bought with credits. Of course, the main issue with making cool new stuff available for credits comes with its own set of issues, namely that making these things available for purchase via credits cuts into Cartel Market sales. I can understand that issue, but at the same time I am wondering why the game has basically abandoned the secondary market of buying a certain selection of Cartel Market items from the vendors on the Cartel Bazaar on the fleet in exchange for credits and Cartel Certificates, in combination with Cartel reputation. There was a fine selection of stuff back in the day that you could get your hands on via in-game currency with the trade-off of these items not unlocking within Collections. Could this feature maybe make a comeback to battle credit inflation? I need something to spend my money on, but I'm not going to do it by spending hundreds of millions on the GTN just to buy one rare dye.

Edited February 9, 2023 by BenKatarn

[megawarz]

 credit inflation wouldnt be a issue if there weren't bugs (features) that allowed players to have credit cap in legacy bays. On a side note, can you devs confirm if R-4 NiM is coming. Be very appreciated if that was relayed to all of us

[Otowi]

Not sure I agree on QT costing credits, seems to punish new players, or those that don't have much. And 5000 credits seems a tad OTT, so I hope that will be adjusted a bit down.

Increased repair costs is in the same vein as above. I hope you guys don't over do that, as it's very expensive as is with purple and gold equipment. 

[Nee-Elder]

13 hours ago, JackieKo said:

We ask that players submit their feedback here.

As you can see, already players are giving their feedback here in THIS thread instead, so perhaps maybe just *lock*  this sticky alltogether? ( in favor of the actual PTS feedback thread )

Not a big fan of these particular changes but anyways thanks again for all the new info & such  @JackieKo!

Edited February 10, 2023 by Nee-Elder
Reason: in my opinion, one thread for info and one for feedback

[PrometheusOmega]

Charging for Instant Transport will do nothing but persuade me to find another diversion. Making people pay to grind locations is just annoying. If you wish to recapture the money in circulation. Then bring back and Sell some old gear that is not on GTN or is no longer availiable. Us old players have the tons of credits the new players have very little.  So all you will be doing is making it harder on new players. Maybe have a High Stakes Lottery with BOL gear (ultra rare) or Let us buy that damn Czerka Crate o Matic with some billions of creds. Just my thought. I will find it very annoying to do all these transactions for doing dailies etc. I can find something else to give my real money to.

[Fenrir__]

30 minutes ago, BenKatarn said:

While it's nice to see you trying to combat inflation, these first few changes are kinda... minimalistic? I feel like this isn't quite enough for a first outing, and in the case of the Priority Transport Terminal stuff I'm also a little confused. At least with the first couple of daily areas (up to Yavin), we can buy a legacy perk to go to that area immediately. If those transport passes also have a credit cost added to their uses, what is the point of having those perks in the first place? Just so we don't have to actually go to the galaxy map? I feel like this needs clarification. Will the individual transports for Heroics also get this kind of treatment? Overall, charging people now for instant transportation sounds more annoying than anything else and I don't think it will help battling inflation at all.

 

In general however, I feel this initiative misses one very vital issue with SWTOR's economy: there needs to be stuff that we can spend money on. While we've had our fair share of devastating exploits over the years that probably generated trillions of credits out of nowhere, the game has clearly failed to generate the means to get these credits out of the economy through some sort of trade. What I mean by that is that we need more things in this game that can be bought with credits. Of course, the main issue with making cool new stuff available for credits comes with its own set of issues, namely that making these things available for purchase via credits cuts into Cartel Market sales. I can understand that issue, but at the same time I am wondering why the game has basically abandoned the secondary market of buying a certain selection of Cartel Market items from the vendors on the Cartel Bazaar on the fleet in exchange for credits and Cartel Certificates, in combination with Cartel reputation. There was a fine selection of stuff back in the day that you could get your hands on via in-game currency with the trade-off of these items not unlocking within Collections. Could this feature maybe make a comeback to battle credit inflation? I need something to spend my money on, but I'm not going to do it by spending hundreds of millions on the GTN just to buy one rare dye.

Ben Katarn summarized it the best. I understand charging for the transport costs in the activity finder to the daily areas and heroics as that is a system that was introduced that essentially circumvents one of the games original credit sinks. This also makes the legacy transport unlocks more valuable encouraging players to buy them and taking more credits out of the game. Charging for Quick Travel is just going to take more credits out of the game but literally not affect rich players whatsoever. The poor players will be hurt and overall just annoyed about the fact that QT is now costing them making certain of their regular activities less lucrative.

 

People need things to spend their credit's on right now that seems to be cool Cartel Market Items which people have to pay real money for and doesn't take anything out of circulation. What's needed is to have some of these cool items purchasable in game with credits to start readjusting the market and giving players ways to spend their credits. Add some awesome blasters, color crystals, sabers and more that people can spend credits on you will see a large amount of credits come out of the economy. The QT costs is just going to be obnoxious.

[NicoleMay]

These are good changes and 100% make sense. I am curious how repair bills will change in practice. But with field repair droid available, and a 15min CD, it's not bad. The rest of the changes feel a bit more punishing to newbies, rather than a tax on vets. This'll be pennies for most of us but a large chunk of change for those just leveling. Maybe swap to this pricing when you hit level 70 or something?

Edited February 9, 2023 by NicoleMay

[Medullah]

My suggestion to get rid of a ton of credits out there - offer an upgrade to Rocket Boost, no cooldown - 15 billion credits.  I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[felleto]

Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU! 

Any change that you guys bring to this game is greatly appreciated. Please, communicate more and as often as humanly possible. I look forward to any updates coming for this beloved game!

 

[kezzin]

Everything except the quick travel is fine. That will hurt new players more than it will help anything else.

[ZUHFB]

I'm sorry? Are you guys literally trolling the player base now? 

Sale raiders sell trillions of credits each month to third party websites, and now they have to pay 5k credits if they want to quick travel? How will they/we ever afford this! 

Jokes asides, this doesn't actually do anything, these """"credit sinks"""" will be as effective as clearing an ocean with a water bottle.

All while the very people who sell their credits say this is "very good and will improve the economy" with a bunch of people who have no idea what's going on giving the same feedback. These are bad changes. They aren't going to do anything, this won't fix the economy. This won't do anything, but now the people profiting of your game are cheering on these changes because they specifically managed to not get hit by them YET AGAIN. 

5 hours ago, JackieKo said:

We understand

I very much doubt that. 

Bioware is making a fool out of themselves. Ban credit sellers, wipe/punish credit buyers. I'm sure making them spend 0,000005% of the credits each quick travel will have a huge impact, thanks bioware, I'm so glad I'm giving my sub money to see it be wasted on these very good changes. 

Edited February 9, 2023 by ZUHFB

[Traceguy]

5 hours ago, JackieKo said:

Hi everyone, 

This is a follow up to the information we released in the Game Update 7.2.1 PTS blog post. ICYMI, 7.2.1 will be introducing initiatives to combat the inflation that is present in the game. We’ve seen conversations surrounding this topic, and we share similar sentiment to the concerns about the game’s economy. This will be an ongoing initiative that will be rolled out over several updates as we want to slowly introduce these new changes and give players time to adjust and also provide opportunities to give us feedback. 

We understand that there is demand to fix things now, but we are taking special care to introduce these measures over time as correcting the economy is not something that can be done overnight. Immediate implementation can have the opposite effect and potentially crash the economy instead. 

We have been identifying key areas where improvements and changes can be made, and weighing how these will impact both the player experience and the economy. Our general economic balancing goals are as follows: 

• Reduce tax/credit cost avoidance
• Reintroduce credit sinks as some were removed in the past
• Adjust inflow in certain repeatable content
• Use these changes as opportunities to improve the experience while also reducing credits
• Monitor how these changes impact the economy over time and adjust accordingly if needed

With the 7.2.1 PTS opening soon, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• Quick Travel now has a credit cost associated, with a minimum cost of 100 credits and a maximum cost of 5000. The cost to travel is dependent on the distance traveled.
• Priority Transport Terminal now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between daily areas.
• Travel to Strongholds now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between planets.
• Repair cost formulas have been adjusted across the entirety of the game so that repair costs increase in relation to item level.
• Durability of equipment should now be lost at a LOWER rate on death, but a slightly HIGHER rate in normal gameplay. 

We ask that players submit their feedback here. 

While we cannot give a definitive timeline on when the future changes will be deployed, you should expect to continue seeing more changes in future game updates. As always, we will communicate the finer details, the timeline in which these changes can be tested, and when they will go live. 

Thanks all! 

If you want to address inflation, here is 1 easy solution. Allow Subscribers to change their appearance using credits in stead of CCs. Want to change your hair color? 100,000,000 credits. BAM. That is how you do it.

[lrdseverus]

I think these changes penalize newer players more than it will fix the inflation issues. Also, as someone who does strongholds, I have already spent a lot to unlock and decorate them. Charging me to go there is overkill. I don't think this is the right direction to address the inflation issues and will just annoy / drive existing players from the game.

[RadarOMalley]

Adding here in the event my comments are removed from the other feedback thread:

Not a fan of the Quick Travel credit cost change. I've always seen QT as a convenience for people who have traveled to locations while doing regular class stories. And you added QT cooldown reduction perks to encourage people to utilize the system. It seems like introducing credit costs now for this is arbitrary and capricious. I'm also confused by the Priority Transport Terminal costs.  

I get the sense that this will have the largest impact on newer players that do not have a lot of credits. For long-time players, 100 credits is nothing. For a new player, that's a significant hit. I'm very in favor of appropriate credit syncs to normalize game economics. I'm not in favor of arbitrarily introducing costs for everyday, banal activities that are integral to the basic enjoyment of the game. 

Re: strongholds, I don't agree with the base "travel to Stronghold." We pay a lot to unlock Strongholds and there shouldn't be a cost for what is essentially going to our in-game homes. If the intent is to recoup existing costs related to travelling between planets, I have no problem with paying the transfer fee when I go from Fleet to my Nar Shaddaa Stronghold and then onto Nar Shaddaa--that's an actual planetary transfer. But if I'm going from Fleet to a Stronghold and then back to Fleet, there should be no additional cost for doing that. That's exploitation of the player for actually using their Strongholds. 

[narrator_jack]

I feel the following two things should be done

Lower the quick travel cost or outright remove it. This tax will only harm preferred/non sub players. It won't affect the ultra rich in the slightest.

Remove the stronghold tax. It's just silly that we have to pay to use something we paid for. Not to mention it makes giving drip to new toons you just rolled very annoying.

[SeaBananaMan]

I like the idea behind these but I think there are some more targeted ways of pulling credits out of the economy. It's a good idea to decrease the generated credits from missions etc and honestly, quick travelling having the same cost as a taxi (for example) makes sense. The credit penalty on stronghold use seems to discourage people from going to (and therefore buying and unlocking and spending credits on decorations etc) on those strongholds. I think the increased repair cost is realistically going to get eaten by guilds, not the richest players. Free-to-play and preferred players are particularly going to be affected by these changes. It could get them to sub to have more credits to play with but I think it would be smarter to add more things to buy instead of more things that automatically take away- especially because it incentivizes playing and subbing.

I think some better sinks would be as follows-

Reintroducing amplifiers. If they hurt combat, that's fine- make them apply to crafting or sprint or mount speed. I want to go fast!

More mount speed for 25+ million credits. Some planets are really big and having more speed would help.

Less cooldown for Rocket Boost for 500 million credits. Even making it have a 10 second cooldown for constant uptime would be so nice.

A 1 billion credit unlock per character per thing unlock cost on the same class as the original. If I become a Warstalker on a sage/sorc, for example, I should be able to buy that unlock on a different toon that only works while in sage/sorc combat style because I've already proven I can do on that class in the past.

A 1 billion credit unlock per character for retired cosmetics like titles/armor/weapons etc you can't get anymore.

A raid reset token that each player in the operation has to use if you'd like to get practice in on harder bosses or raids. Not everyone has a lot of characters and can't swap around to practice things. Maybe that would cost 50 milllion credits per person and you could only use 3 a week per legacy?

A 1 billion credit transfer to cartel coins- maybe like 50 or 100 cc with a limit on how many of these you could do per week per account (5?)

Adding retired gearsets to collections that could be unlocked with cartel coins and credits so you can still make a profit.

A trade/mail tax that's higher than the GTN to force prices down.

An option to buy appearance changes with credits instead of cartel coins- 100 million credits at least. You could combine it with cartel coins with a lower cartel coin purchase price if you wanted to still have cartel coins spent. 

Add a tuning-esque option to weapons/mounts/armor in being able to add visual effects like lightning or a glow or something kind of similar to the Dantooine heroics thing. Similar to this, the ability to dye mounts/weapons would be really nice.

An Omni-Dye that costs 1 billion credits (you could do it in cartel coins, too) that lets you pick any two colors.

A tertiary dye ability for those sets that have one color be undyable like that collar section on the Bastila Shan armor.

The ability to change your character's primary combat style (only can do it once) for 25 billion credits.

Some sort of in-game fundraiser where the top 25 people that donate credits get a special title like Intergalactic Trillionaire or something.

[Twelfthdoctor]

Copying over from the other thread per Jackie's post about only including direct feedback there. The original might get deleted.

"

I am going to agree with a lot of folks here that travel costs are going to hit new/ social-focused players and casual role-players hard, and does not seem likely to hit the high-end economy issues.

 

I might get attacked for this, but I think there ought to be a tax on player direct trades of credits of 5-10%, and the same for mail. Someone who sits on fleet selling valuable old or hot-new items via trade chat is not going to be affected by a few hundred or a few thousand credits in travel cost, and is bypassing *millions* of potential GTN tax credits when they sell their shiny sword for four billion. Even a 1% tax here would be 40,000,000. If you want to talk about fee avoidance, this is the prime example, exacerbated by the GTN cap forcing players to sell high-end goods untaxed in this economy.

Compare that to charging a level twelve-to-twenty player who gets lost on fleet trying to get back to Dromund Kaas, spending for planetary travel via the map or a stronghold instead of using the shuttle. Can they still afford to fix their gear? Are they feeling like they're improving their character and making progress? New-player experience is the best hope for any game to continue to have longevity, and they'll be seeing talk of billions in chat while they can barely cobble together thousands.

Edited 51 minutes ago by Twelfthdoctor
Changed 'uncapped' to 'untaxed, where referring to direct trade sales "

[csilvajonas]

I could be wrong on this, but i think rich players are mostly crafters, raider or people selling credits. For the first 2, i'd suggest making crafting materials something you can buy using credits (i mean endgame materials, like OEM/RPM, no more tech fragments for those or maybe a vendor we can buy with credits and another with tech frags, sounds fair to me), making endgame gear also an option on vendors could work (so we get 2 options, for those who aren't rich, get gear as we do now, for rich people, they can just buy gear). Along with this, some really nice cosmetics gear/mounts you can only buy using credits sounds like a good option to me. And items that are really usefull, like buying experience boosts with credits, the instant lvl 50 companion gift, things that players use but that wouldn't compete with cartel market, if that makes sense. In my head this could work, cause would be credits going back into the game. And try to make things an option, not force them, cause not everyone is rich and it's fair to have another path to get things that we use (like augments/gear/materials), but when it comes to cosmetic, make exclusive things for rich people (not some generic reused mount/armor, but things they would actually pay for).

[JLazarillo]

I'll be frank, I don't see how stuff amounts to nickel-and-diming for long-time, richer players that can re-earn a couple thousand credits in maybe a few seconds, but makes it harder for newer players to build in-game wealth in the first place, is supposed to help "especially new players" "engage in our trade economy".  Seems like it'd do the opposite.  I'm fine with the changes, in part because screw it, I am a long time player and this won't even be noticeable to me, but I feel like a better way to combat the real credit reserves would be to raise the cap on GTN sales while also increasing its cut.

[SteveTheCynic]

5 minutes ago, SeaBananaMan said:

More mount speed for 25+ million credits. Some planets are really big and having more speed would help.

I'm not sure that 25 million would make more than a slight dimple in the problem, maybe less, but yes.  I'd like a mount that can go as fast as Petey.

Um.

Petey is the GW2 Roller Beetle mount (GW2 has mounts that are actually cool, nothing in any other MMORPG I've played(1) comes even close), and its top speed is equivalent to approximately +900%(2) in SWTOR movement rate terms.  I could go for that in the Dune Sea or the Clabburn Tundra.

(1) The list is long.  Dirac Angestun Gesept.

(2) It can reach in excess of 130 mph == probably *exactly* 60 m/s.  SWTOR characters using Sprint (documented as +35%) travel at about 8 m/s (yes, I measured it), which means that "+0%" is about 6 m/s.  60 m/s is, therefore +900%.

[sandstroller]

This is so ridiculous.  I paid MILLIONS for every single SH I have and now you want to charge me to go there?  These proposed changes won't do a thing to reduce how many credits people have but it will annoy all of us til we quit.  DO SOMETHING REAL vs annoy people. 

Stongholds are a prime example on how to reduce credits in circulation...they cost a ton to buy and open.  RELEASE MORE OF THEM!  They costs to decorate both in CCs and GTN purchases to decorate.  The decos have always cost millions and millions to decorate.  Put back in the need to have fully decorated SHs for CQ bonus......far more effective than charging players to actually travel to them.

Put things in vendors for people to BUY WITH CREDITS.  You have invented 8 zillion currencies to the point we have a full tab of currencies and complain we have amassed credits.  It's such a joke.  STOP MAKING NEW CURRENCIES and allow us to actually spend credits for things we need.  

Start selling things for credits vs just annoying everyone with "fees"  People want to buy things. 

 

 

[TUXs]

This doesn't fix anything - it simply makes the game less enjoyable. 

The reason for inflation is resource scarcity. Make every resource in game available to buy with credits and you remove credits from the game. Sell gold augments on a vendor for 500mil each and you'll see inflation gone in a week because those credits would begin to leave the game, not just get tossed around to other players. Gold augments were the start of this spiral of devaluing currency.

Speaking of currency - combine them. We have far too many. Nothing (aside from augments) is bought with credits any longer, just new currencies you add to the game, that's why it's out of control.