Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[Traceguy]

Your proposed changes to the economy are asinine, and one doesn't need to test these changes to know how absolutely appalling and pathetic they are. If you want to combat inflation, you need to add real credit sinks.

Let sub players spend credits to change their appearance. Want to change your hair from black to brown? Pay 100,000,000 credits.

Bring back nightlife. People spend millions buying those tokens.

Reduce the Cartel Coin avenues and replace them with billions of credits. Want to unlock this item in collections? Pay 1 billion credits.

Sell bind on pickup XP boosts. 50,000,000 credits a piece.

Add a Cartel vendor with a weekly rotation of Cartel Market items. 500,000,000 credit purchases.

[xordevoreaux]

I think they should bring back amplifiers, but don't use RNG and don't tie them to gear, which changes gearing schemes every major release. Create 4 amplifier slots unique to the amplifiers to populate however.

[TrixxieTriss]

7 minutes ago, microstyles said:

Ok then we're closer to on the same page. I feel that the convenience of the GTN would be enough to keep the majority of there, but I could be wrong about that.

The numbers you give for a scaling tax are more reasonable than most, but I'm just not sure that's necessary since a % tax already scales with price. Something to keep in mind is that a scaling tax will discourage people from selling expensive items for credits (they can always trade for packs or whatever), which could have the opposite effect that you want.

Either I’m tired or youre not understanding what I’m saying.
How exactly would they be able to trade items for packs when I mentioned CM items would be restricted from being traded outside of the GTN? 

Restricted trades/sales of CM items outside of the GTN means the only other way to get them besides buying them with CC’s directly from the CM is to buy them on the GTN with credits. No trades for other CM or crafted goods. 

I don’t know if there needs to be a wealth tax or not, it’s just an idea. But if BioWare wants to remove credits from the mega wealthy faster, it would certainly help & it would only target those with Billions of credits & those trying to sell things for billions of credits. 

[DWho]

12 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

This was mentioned in earlier parts of this thread, and I vehemently disagree, because limited CM trades would absolutely kill my guild's ability to hand out CM items as door prizes at events. Our players are mostly rich and handing them 10 million credits is meh, but hand them a CM item they don't have yet, now they're happy.

As another thought, this could also be dealt with by allowing a "donation" mechanic, where the items can be given to another player if one player doesn't put anything into the trade window. Or there could be an exception for trades within the guild (with some limitations)

[TrixxieTriss]

10 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

This was mentioned in earlier parts of this thread, and I vehemently disagree, because limited CM trades would absolutely kill my guild's ability to hand out CM items as door prizes at events. Our players are mostly rich and handing them 10 million credits is meh, but hand them a CM item they don't have yet, now they're happy.

I have no answer to your dilemma. All I could suggest is some other sort of prizes 🤷🏻‍♀️

But I also used the word limit. Not ban because I would still like to give my wife items I buy for her as presents.

Im just throwing this out there as an idea.
Maybe items given as prizes/presents can’t be on sold on the GTN.
And maybe players could be restricted/limited on how many trades can be made per day/week/month? 

Nothing anyone comes up with is going to be 100% perfect for everyone. I don’t know what else to say. There are going to be some people who will be disappointed. The trick is to limit that as much as possible & achieve the target of reducing inflation without driving players from the game.

[TrixxieTriss]

5 minutes ago, DWho said:

As another thought, this could also be dealt with by allowing a "donation" mechanic, where the items can be given to another player if one player doesn't put anything into the trade window. Or there could be an exception for trades within the guild (with some limitations)

I like the donation idea. But there would have to be strict limits or people would find ways to circumvent it. 

[DraonaiMimnov]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:29 AM, 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! 

Hi Jackie,

I think the team should just implement a system in which you can buy cartel coins for credits, and base the currency conversion rate on big ticket items being sold, like character slots, renames, or hypercrates.

If a hypercrate is worth 5500 and they sell for 4 billion, it would be about 727,000 credits per cartel coin. If you really want to reduce inflation you'll want to drain the economy and reduce credit rewards significantly to keep inflation from rising back up. 

I think taxing these travel costs will only hurt new players and it will do nothing to reduce the amount of credits in the system from the people with billions.

[DWho]

1 minute ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I like the donation idea. But there would have to be strict limits or people would find ways to circumvent it. 

Agreed, no one thing is going to get things under control. It is going to take a combination of things and someone with a devious mind to sort out how any new system could be abused, because players will find a way to abuse it, if they can. I think the donation mechanic, combined with 1 trade only hypercrates and limited trades of other CM items could be a good core mechanic. There are obviously some drawbacks that would need to be sorted out and some loopholes to close, but I think it is a better way to attack inflation (which is really high prices at this point due to massive numbers of credits already in the game rather than the "influx" of credits) than the proposed changes. I think the credit sinks proposed by Bioware are alright, with some adjustments (it almost seems like these changes are designed to slow down progress through the game rather than combat inflation)

[Traceguy]

Here's another idea. Sell rare drops at vendors. I got that Rakghoul Sleen pet recently, and it's bound to legacy. Everyone wants it, and it's a rare drop that only 1 person in a group can get. Why not sell this at a Rakghoul vendor shop for 1,000,000,000 credits? People who want it will burn thier credits to get it

People also really want the Brontes mount and that wing mount. Sell those for 1,000,000,000 credits.

A real credit sink should be something the rich put their credits in, and not an something that's an inconvenience like quick travel costs and making people spend more on repairs. 

People are selling Augs for 2b-4b each. Why not add a vendor in the supplies section that sells augs for 1b each? You'll kill those aug sellers in a flash.

People really love tech frags. Why not add a vendor that sells tech frags? 100 tech frags = 1,000,000 credits.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Traceguy

[DeannaVoyager]

I decided to list a few suggestions anyhow, some of them have been posted by others already, I'm just emphasizing them here:

 

- Let us buy crafting mats with credits.
- Revert changes done to crafting at 6.0, make crafting simple and fun again. 

- Let us buy copies of decos for personal SH, like you can do with guild SH and flagship
- Let us change the characters appearance with credits instead of CC
 
- Get rid of the cooldown in flagship summons and let people pay it with their personal credits instead of guild credits. Right now only subscribers can summon and it's stupid. 

- Add 340 mods on the mod vendor already. People want to gear up alts and are willing to pay. Let them.

- Let people buy subscription time with credits.
- Give more monthly CC for subscribers.

- Ban sale runs to shut down gold sellers and real money transfers. 
- When you manage to catch and ban a gold seller, don't give them their account back a month later. Seriously, don't. 
 

 

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, MortenJessen said:

It is not what the sellers want for those augments that matters. It simply needs to be impossible for them to sell them for more than 1 B credits, the present GTN limit, by having the player to player tax free sales options removed completely. First step; realize that just because some one wants x unrealistic amount of credits for y item, does not make y item that much worth. 

And removing the option for players to mail and trade with each other, is the only way to go. So raising the GTN limit is a no-go as all it would achieve, is that in 1-2 years the whalers cries; raise the GTN limit to 200 B... and that is actually the opposite of what needs to be done.

That isn't the only way to go. Tax Player trades, and CoD's at the same rate as the GTN. This way regardless of which method people use to sell items, they get hit by the Tax. 

 

You can't realistically stop players from trading 1 CM item for another, without hurting BW's CM profits.

[SeaBananaMan]

The only unrealistic idea that people have proposed is just starting over on credits and wiping the slate clean. While BioWare could decide to do that, I don't think they will because that will make SO many people quit (especially the uber-wealthy that have poured thousands upon thousands of dollars into this game). Adding more sinks for the wealthy vs a small tax that hurts the poor is the way to go. We want the new players to keep playing (and, from a business perspective, love the game and want to subscribe over feeling like subscribing is the only option because the latter is more likely to quit) rather than feeling like the deck is stacked against them with fees that disproportionately affect them and not those with hundreds of billions stored across multiple accounts. I don't know how they would hit the credit sellers without monitoring every single mail message/trade and banning any suspicious amounts but that could also hurt legitimate players sending stuff to friends. A lot to think about, for sure- I'm glad BioWare is looking at our feedback and hope they don't implement their ideas as currently proposed. The current proposal has a lot of potential to do harm on newer players, without whom the game will die. 

[microstyles]

47 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Restricted trades/sales of CM items outside of the GTN means the only other way to get them besides buying them with CC’s directly from the CM is to buy them on the GTN with credits. No trades for other CM or crafted goods. 

Sorry I guess I misunderstood. I thought you meant to limit the CM trades, not eliminate them.

[microstyles]

15 minutes ago, SeaBananaMan said:

The only unrealistic idea that people have proposed is just starting over on credits and wiping the slate clean. While BioWare could decide to do that, I don't think they will because that will make SO many people quit (especially the uber-wealthy that have poured thousands upon thousands of dollars into this game).

Yeah I see credit wipe suggested pretty often and I have the same concerns. I think it would have more of effect on the less wealthy though. I know most of my SWTOR net worth is in items rather than credits, I'm sure most "wealthy" players are in a similar situation.

[krakadyla]

How delightful I am too see how the first idea to "fix" game economics is to make life harder for poor people while leaving the filthy rich unscathed. Just like real life! 🤑

Have no idea how to fix this mess, of course, don't even know if it's possible at all, I'm just here to laugh at BW's surprised Pikachu face when things were obviously going this direction update after update after update. Like, what did you guys expect?

[DawnAskham]

Inflation is driven by too many credits entering the system.

Any proposal that does not address credit inflows FIRST and FOREMOST is doomed to fail.

I am unaware of any legitimate gameplay loops that would account for the massive levels of inflation driven by the massive numbers of credits entering the game - I believe a large number of credits are still being created by exploits and bot activity.

I am also unaware of any recent actions by Bioware to demonstrate they are serious about dealing with credit inflows by plugging holes that allow exploits or dealing with bot / credit farmers.

Suggestions:

Engage the community by running a contest with a secure method for players to submit exploits to Bioware, with categories for big E exploits (e.g. hacking, duping, and manipulating game values) to small e exploits (such as repeatable gameplay loops paying excess credits, bot-able repeatable credit farms), and provide rewards (money, titles, game time, CC, etc.) for submissions that allow Bioware to identify and plug holes.

Otherwise, dealing with inflows comes down to Bioware managing the game in such a way that they identify exploits as soon as they appear, close them, and take appropriate action (perm bans and rollbacks) while also monitoring gameplay to identify loops being abused and again taking appropriate actions (close the loops, ban abusers, and rollbacks)

Of course this would require Bioware to do their job, which they clearly have not done thus far given the state of the economy and the runaway levels of inflation, so to say I have little faith this time will be different would be an understatement.

On the other side of the equation, removing excess credits will take time, but the focus should be on the big things first such as increasing the allowed max credit value of items posted on the GTN to allow for collection of GTN fees for all the >1 billion items being sold outside the GTN on a daily basis.

This may also require some changes and restrictions to off-GTN trades such as limiting the amounts of credits that can be manually traded between players (low enough to make it more of a hassle to trade outside the GTN) or sent through the mailbox.

Other suggestions are the same as always - identify desirable sinks that would actively target players with large credit balances to willingly part with their credits (another place to engage the community with a contest to develop ideas for items to add as credit sinks). 

Adding credit sinks that disproportionally affect casual or new players while not addressing credit inflows or doing much to reduce credits of long term players with billions is just going about it backwards. 

 

[Lyriel]

The changes to 'improve' the economy are entirely backwards. They will impact the people with the fewest credits the hardest, and not even impinge on the awareness of the ultra-wealthy. If your goal is to drive away everyone but the whales, then I guess your plan has some merit. Otherwise, not so much.

Trying to claw back some credits on the backs of the entire player base after allowing multiple exploits and years of trading outside the GTN to ruin the economy to the benefit of only the ultra-rich is, to be completely honest, the crappiest response possible. It won't make a dent where the problem actually lies. Those with billions of credits won't notice these amounts leaving their balance sheet when offset against their next 4 billion credit sale on the fleet (circumventing the one notable credit sink left in the game - and only because you made it necessary with the cap on the GTN). Those with a moderate amount of credits will start rethinking whether the cost of doing Conquest or Galactic Seasons is really worth it - and if they decide it's not, well, then how much longer will it be until they apply the same logic to the game as a whole? It's not like there's a truly vibrant end game here, with the pace at which content is released...

I for one do not have several billion credits despite being here since before launch, because my purpose in gaming is not to have a second job. I'm here to have fun. Balancing my checkbook is not fun. Deciding whether I can afford cab/plane fare to go do an activity is not fun. I don't think carrying that over to a game is fun either. I remember starting out new, and having to delay buying gear/skills (back when skills had a cost to train) because I didn't have enough credits to get them after I leveled. Again, that was not fun - and that lack of fun was what led to the change making skills no longer cost credits to unlock in the first place. But apparently no one left at BioWare remembers this.

Do better.

[lessandracassidy]

1 hour ago, xordevoreaux said:

I'm confused, please explain the ransom. If this "ransom" is transferring money between players, that's not a credit sink. A credit sink makes money disappear from the game, not swapping money between players.

I was referencing an achievement tied to the Pirate Incursion event. You can bypass one of the Heroics by paying a ransom of 15 million credits to the NPC inside the heroic, instead of fighting anything. There is an achievement for doing it 10 times. That money cannot be shared by players, only the person paying will get credit towards the achievement, so it's 150mil from each player who wants it.

Granted, in current economy, 150mil is still insignificant, but it wasn't when the achievement was released. I believe on release it was comparable to the inflation at the time.

 

[Glower]

On 2/9/2023 at 5:29 PM, JackieKo said:

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

Man, Bioware devs are like these video and game companies with invasive and annoying DRM systems in their products - pirates will use these products without issue while legitimate users will suffer at every possible stage.

 

If you have thick skin:

pirates ~ are exploiters and RMT players,

legitimate users ~ are your regular SWTOR player without a s-ton of billions (!!!) on balance.

[bockchow]

Please stop trying to fix inflation through punishment. Credits are what you give as a reward. Players should get to use that reward for something that is fun. Not drained from then through annoyances and inconvenience. Even if the amount of the charge is inconsequential pop-ups to approve the payment can be incredibly annoying. It's a game, we should be having fun. Not brining in real life annoyances into our fantasy escape. 

[MayaCoxack]

This choice is asinine at the worst and backwards at best.

Charging people to fast travel? That helps fix the economy how?

All it'll do is kill the desire to explore, the desire to play and worse, the desire to even show up.

Don't charge people to QT. Don't charge people to visit their own Strongholds. It's already annoying that you need to pay to visit your Capitol Planet or Fleet SHs if you're on the wrong faction - for the love of the Force don't make it even worse.

Give players an extra endgame item to optionally sink their teeth into that's worth the cost, don't force poor players to walk miles upon miles because they can't afford a QT and need to get back to their Stronghold, meaning they have to walk all the way to the spaceport, then go to the fleet, then walk to the right docking bay.

The community respects that you're hoping to fix the economy.
The community is telling you that this will only make it worse.

Edit: As a few players have suggested a couple fixes, I'll add one myself. Disallow Cartel Crates from being sold on GTN or Traded. They go for billions upon billions - kneecapping that capability is something that doesn't impact the majority of players while putting a bandage on the economy.

Edited February 10, 2023 by MayaCoxack
Thought of more stuff to add. This is feedback after all.

[eabevella]

By BW's logic, they'll start charging credits for doing any phased contents in 7.3. to "fix" the economy.

While the GTN and Trade stay as they are now because almost everyone here seems to think they are the main source of the problem, therefore they must  be working as intended.

[felleto]

2 hours ago, Traceguy said:

Your proposed changes to the economy are asinine, and one doesn't need to test these changes to know how absolutely appalling and pathetic they are. If you want to combat inflation, you need to add real credit sinks.

Let sub players spend credits to change their appearance. Want to change your hair from black to brown? Pay 100,000,000 credits.

Bring back nightlife. People spend millions buying those tokens.

Reduce the Cartel Coin avenues and replace them with billions of credits. Want to unlock this item in collections? Pay 1 billion credits.

Sell bind on pickup XP boosts. 50,000,000 credits a piece.

Add a Cartel vendor with a weekly rotation of Cartel Market items. 500,000,000 credit purchases.

I think you hit the bolt with the microspanner on the head there sir. 

As for the last suggestion, lots of players have said to bring something akin to the Black market auction house in WOW. 

[SeaBananaMan]

BioWare could also implement credit sinks for CM items but only for subs. That could also hurt the bottom line, though. I hope something can be done that encourages people to play and sub rather than leave.

[Eyvaera]

These proposed changes will not affect the people you claim you want it to.

This is a disproportionate measure that will predominantly and undeniably make the game harder (and much more annoying!) for lower & mid credit players, not to mention new players. You cannot solve a problem by deliberately making the game worse.

This will not have any impact on the ultra rich players, it will not affect those who play the GTN, and it will only encourage people towards the ones who sell credits for actual money, because now they'll need it for basic gameplay.

I've been playing SWTOR since launch but I primarily play the story content. When I earn credits they're almost immediately gone, and I've spent most of my time in-game relatively poor. This? If you implement these changes? Will make it worse.

All you're going to do is force people to waste minutes of their lives slowly and manually crossing the map because they can no longer quick travel. All you're going to do is lock people out of their strongholds. Want to grab something from your storage? Tough luck. Want to change your outfit before your (first, especially) cutscene but you need credits to apply it? Tough, you either spent that on travel or you can now no longer get back to your SH easily to grab creds/dyes/outfit pieces. Want to fight a boss but you keep dying? Oh, you can no longer afford to repair your gear and now you can't travel anywhere either. What even happens when people run out of credits, huh? Are they stuck there??

These are little changes that will have significant detrimental effects, and in many ways make playing the game a miserable experience. Please reconsider them.

And you know what would actually help? For one, GTN items that are sold for extortionate prices would have their market value lowered if you made the items more easily accessible. Frankly, people would snap up old retired items as well as those RNG-unlucky drops. Maybe new strongholds! New unlocks (like for SH deco; why is that restricted to guilds??). New gear to buy. More crafting materials available from vendors instead of GTN sellers. Giving CM items the option to buy them with credits instead. Etc etc. Places for people to actually spend their credits when accumulated.

Instead of punishing everyone else for the elite few (sound familiar?), why don't you instead give us better options in-game?

My final word on this is: why you'd want to take QoL away from your players--why you'd think that's a good idea at all--astounds me.