Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[DWho]

18 minutes ago, yastruyastru said:

Yes, this is working as intended. If you spend time to find a buyer for something, and meet him with in person, why should you be taxed same as someone that put the item on auction house and forgot about it for 3 days? 

you mean the effort of posting in Fleet Chat over and over

Last time I checked, paying taxes has nothing to do with the effort of selling something. Whether I sell it on an auction site, sell it door to door, or at a garage sale, I pay the same amount of tax on the money made

Edited February 11, 2023 by DWho

[DawnAskham]

27 minutes ago, yastruyastru said:

Yes, this is working as intended. If you spend time to find a buyer for something, and meet him with in person, why should you be taxed same as someone that put the item on auction house and forgot about it for 3 days? 

I absolutely do not want this to be capped or taxed in any way.  

Its also good thing as a MMO aspect that players buy and sell items to each other instead of putting it on GTN and that should not be penalized, even more, it should be incentivized. 

The first order of business should be Bioware staunching the inflow of credits into the game.

A simple (relative - no idea of the technical implications) change on the sink side would be to update the GTN to ALLOW higher value items to be sold as many items are being sold off-GTN not just to avoid the fees, but simply due to the limits.

After that, there are loads of good ideas in this thread about adding effective and large sinks that do not appear to require much in the way of technical implementation (though some could be perceived as a negative to Bioware given their reliance on CC sales).

Longer term I would not rule out some limits or thresholds or whatnot towards off-GTN trades, but those should only be evaluated (and carefully as there could be unpleasant unintended side effects) after credit inflows are stanched, other credit sink ideas have been pursued, and the GTN has been updated to allow sales of items with a selling cost of greater than one billion credits.

However, spamming chat to sell the same crap everyone else is selling is not adding any value to the game, so I do not think this should be incentivized (I would possibly agree if STWOR had something that allowed players to differentiate wares or create unique items, which it does not). 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by DawnAskham

[Ramalina]

It seems to me like the design motto for 7.x has been, "Embrace the bugs, embrace the grind."   I came back for a one time sub because I was hearing some good things about 7.2 content, and after Ruhnuk I'd say, "That was nice in  a lot of ways, but, never again."   I'm normally a rep grinder, but it really seemed like it was taking all the worst grind aspects from 1.0-6.0 and distilling them into one repellent experience.  Map builders did the nicest job they've done since, I don't know, 3.0, 1.0?  Ruhnuk is really nice looking.  But dear god, the grind.  I leveled my main through it, and I think that was enough for me.

What does this have to do with credit sinks though?  Grind sucks as a play experience.  It's poor game design, but there are practicalities that sort of force you to do it.  There's an opportunity here though.  Credit sink shortcuts.   I think I spent more on Galactic Seasons catchups in one week than I've put into other in game credit sinks in the last five years.  Yeah, I don't spend a lot.  It worked really well though.  I dumped over 100 million credits, and I was happy about doing it.   That's what you should be shooting for.  Making players happy to unload heaps of credits.

 

The 250 k companion gifts on Odessan are another good example.  More expensive than the companion gifts on fleet, but so much quicker.   Plus of course the quickest option is via Cartel Coins.    Yeah, this sort of opens up pay to win criticism, but that's already built in with the current F2P system, and strictly speaking, it's pay-to-avoid-miserably-boring-soul-sucking-unfun-time-sinks.  Sure avoiding that is a win, figuratively, but not by in game metrics.

 

Things like the kingpin event would also be a good credit bypass option.  Instead of standing on a location on Nar Shadaa for hours clicking a button, give the option to buy for maybe 750 million credits, a, "slot slicing data-spike," that changes the RNG chance of a win from some absurdly low number to say 10-20%.   Spending unreasonably large amounts of credits to bypass unreasonably small RNG chances seems like a pretty decent trade from a player perspective.

 

I'm finally starting to hit credit caps on my characters, and it's taken so long because I'm not super interested in playing the GTN markets.  That said, the reason I'm not credit depleted, is because there's not much to buy for credits that I want in game.   The good cosmetics are almost all CC gated, and I have plenty of CC from ages of subscription.   Strongholds were a decent sink, but I'm at the stronghold bonus cap, have been since a month or two after that came out, so no real reason to keep investing in them.   But avoiding pointless grind?   Totally worth it to me.   Honestly, if you could pay to raise the weekly reputation caps, I'd pay for that.  I'd pay for reputation items too.   If you give me opportunities to trade in game currency, which is basically worthless to me in game right now, to bypass pointless grinds put in because the rate of content production for SWTOR is glacial, then the in game currency has in game worth, because I get to edit out some of the stuff in SWTOR that I'd rather not do, and spend it queuing for GSF matches instead.  Win-win.

 

If there were really consistent "pay in game currency to avoid grind," structures, I also might reconsider whether to re-sub.  As it stands, for me, a SWTOR subscription is a pay-to-grind experience.   I'm not willing to pay for that.   I buy games to have fun.  If though, I get to skip the grind, or a least a lot of it by spending in game credits, then I'm more motivated both to spend in game currency and to spend real currency on a subscription instead of using SWTOR as a F2P GSF lobby.

 

FWIW, when I let my sub lapse after 7.0 came out, it was mostly about in game QoL issues.   If you revert a decade's worth of QoL improvements, then why should I pay for SWTOR when there's already a F2P option that's basically, "SWTOR minus in game QoL features"?   If I can get back QoL via in game currency expenditure, then it changes the value proposition of SWTOR in my entertainment budget pretty significantly.

[strallart]

Literally none of these changes will affect the economy, not even a little. They only punish player's who don't have billions of credits, especially F2P'ers.

Devs seriously think this will do anything? Or is this just a sinister way to make F2Pers sub. 

 

Actual credit sink's would be stuff like unique mounts/pets/cosmetics that cost billion's of credits. But you'll never do that because you could sell those on the Cartel Market.

Edited February 11, 2023 by strallart

[Char_Ell]

13 minutes ago, DWho said:

These are what Bioware should have dealt with first instead of nickle and diming casual players to death. In the business vernacular, these are "low hanging fruit". Big impact for relatively little effort (especially the GTN circumvention).

I agree credit sellers, bots, exploits, and circumvention of the GTN to avoid taxation need to addressed as part of lowering in-game inflation.  However I am of the opinion that most of these are not "low hanging fruit" as you seem to think and are not relatively little effort.  The only one that may be low effort is updating the game to apply tax to player-to-player traders. 

BioWare has made attempts in the distant past to ban accounts determined to be involved in credit selling.  It's something that keeps coming back and that can only be because there is sufficient player demand for credit selling service to make it worth the effort.  I don't know what BioWare has done in the past few years to combat credit selling but my impression is little to nothing.  I suspect COVID and the transition to remote work along with "a lot of changes happened this year (2022)" that Keith Kanneg mentioned in his 2022 December blog post effectively pushed these issues too low on the priority list for much in the way of resource allocation. 

I've read a lot of posts in this thread and the concerns about adding travel costs to the game that aren't currently in place.  At this point I feel that BioWare is at least starting to look at ways of combating inflation and they're taking small steps to begin with.  So although it has taken much longer than it should have I am appreciative that at least some action is finally being taken.  I certainly hope and expect BioWare will keep an eye on new player participation and retention data to ascertain if the increased travel costs are having negative impact there.  If they think it does then BioWare should revert to the previous travel costs or lower them.  SWTOR's high inflation is something that has gone on for too long and methods to lower the inflation are quite likely to cause some degree of pain/angst for SWTOR players.  I don't think this can be avoided.

[Exocor]

So, the economy changes are mostly small four-digit fees on quick travel and stuff like that. I'm not opposed to that, but I'd like to compare it to real world economics. Before we start, we should keep in mind that the money we're "taxing" with those small fees are completely taken out of the economy and don't get back into it by means of government spending.

 

The people that matter in swtor's user base are also always subscribers. We get free cartel coins and have the means to supply ourselves with more then enough credits by buying a single item from the cartel market and selling it to cover our repair costs, quick travel costs and all other funny small fees we can think about. It'll take some credits out of the game for sure, but nothing substantial. The people being hurt by that are those that don't have any. Those without a subscription. But I don't care about them, I'm upper middle class sitting on billions of credits, with items worth ten times my balance. You shouldn't care either, they don't pay anything for the games services.

 

However, as mentioned before, that's not substantial. It's like increasing sales taxes by 1%. I see it, at first glance I don't like it, but it won't matter that much.

 

So, what would matter? The money is concentrated in the upper-middle class and in the rich people. Those that regularly buy and sell stuff to those that bought credits from gold-sellers or got it indirectly from credit exploits. How do we get their money?

Yes, a direct wealth-tax will be quite unpopular and would lead to many people quitting (or at least threatening to quit). And it will lead to a rush on rare cartel market items and prices even skyrocketing even more in the short term. Let's not do that.

What we could do, is get the money at the points where we previously got it at. Selling and buying items. I agree with other comments here, that selling and buying items directly from another player - not from the GTN - should not be taxed. However, what we could and should do is accept the huge sums rare items go over the table for these days and increase the cap on GTN-sales. Right now, you can sell stuff for a maximum of 1bn credits. Up that cap to 20bn. The money we're taking out of the game with GTN-commissions would far outweigh the money we get from the quicktravel fees and the likes. Additionally, we slightly up the cost for putting items into the GTN. Right now it's a two-digit figure for an item that we're putting in for high six figures. Up that a bit, that we pay at least 10.000 for an item we want to sell for 1bn.

 

Those two suggestions are independent from each other - and both would put the burden on those that have and make lots of credits.

 

[DWho]

5 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

The only one that may be low effort is updating the game to apply tax to player-to-player traders. 

This is the one that would have the biggest impact on draining credits from the game. It is the existence of huge storehouses of credits on just a few players that keeps prices where they are. If people have hundreds of billions of credits, anyone selling something even remotely valuable is going to inflate the price to get the biggest return knowing there is someone out there able to and willing to pay the price. In my opinion, there are two different issues. High prices on the GTN caused by a glut of credits in the game (the bigger of the two problems) and inflation which is related to credit influx. Bioware has reduced rewards multiple times over the last couple of years (reducing heroic credit payouts, removing credits from GS objectives, lowering mission rewards again, and now travel expense). These have had no impact on prices on the GTN, if anything prices have gone up since these credit limiting methods were implemented.

[DarthNillard]

21 hours ago, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

First off, thank you all for the feedback here in the thread and especially for those who have jumped on PTS and played around with the changes. There are some great points of feedback and questions in the thread and I want to respond to some of the themes we are seeing.

These changes are not enough!
You are correct, and we know that, but it is a starting point. It is very important that we make these changes slowly and that we monitor their impacts closely. There are some excellent suggestions in this thread for further changes that are already in the works. As we said up front, you should expect to see changes that focus on the economy throughout the next few updates.

We want to start small and in targeted ways. More changes are coming in future updates.

Let me give you some specifics based on suggestions I am seeing in the thread. We know that players exchanging high value items will often trade outside of the GTN. Either because of its sale cap, or to avoid getting taxed at all on the transaction. This is likely the place you will see a number of changes coming after 7.2.1 to stop the loophole, and to start properly taxing high value trades. 

You're Not Hurting the Rich!
Well, we aren't trying to, not specifically. Inflation in its simplest form is about the amount of credits entering the economy against the amount coming out of it. Over time we have shot ourselves in the foot a bit as we have removed or minimized most regular credit sinks (removing training costs, etc).

The goal of these changes is to introduce passive, small credit removal to the game. This way we have credit removal a bit more in line with our credit generation. Removing singular batches of credits from a subset of players would not lower credit inflation (although it is an important component of it), and could not replace this type of passive removal.

We Need Credit Sinks

We hear you that it would also be great to have some more "spend a LOT of credits to get something specific" but one consideration is that many of the suggestions being made are one time purchases which do not continually reduce credits. As we have many systems that continually introduce credits, we need more things that reduce credits often and not on a one time basis. 

To help balance this, we have been steadily adding credit sinks over the past year or so. Most prominently would be the catch-up mechanic in both Galactic and PvP Seasons. The credit costs in those catch-ups can become quite substantial.

Could You Bring Back Amplifiers?
In short order, no. Our items are not built to have Amplifiers on them since we removed the system. However, the sentiment of this question is solid and is in alignment with what I said earlier, this is another example where we have removed some credit sinks.

The Stronghold Change Particularly Sucks
Yeah, let's talk about this one and our goal. As we are introducing a variety of passive costs to travel, players will inevitably look to find a way to subvert it, even if it is a small cost.

One way players could do this is to use the SH travel to a planet and then Exit Area. Our concern here isn't actually for traveling to the SH, it would be a player trying to use that as a stepping stone onto the planet itself.

With that said, we hear you on the sentiment of this one feeling especially punitive, paying to travel to something you paid for. So here is what we are going to try to change it to. We will not charge you to travel to a SH. Instead we would simply apply a travel cost to using Exit Area.

Note that this is not how it is implemented currently so it will require a bit of time to switch. If we can't make this change in time for launch we will likely do NO charges for SH travel in 7.2.1 and implement the proposed credit cost as noted above in the future.

Thanks all! Keep the feedback coming.

-eric
 

11+ years later, and you still have the short sighted thinking of a 5 year old.  Awesome!

[DarthNillard]

14 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

That doesn’t remove the credits from the system that cause the inflation. All it does is cap how much someone can sell those for on the GTN🤷🏻‍♀️. I’m assuming that’s the sales cap you’re talking about & not selling the items to a vendor. 

Why do people need to have less money?  If there's a cap on what things can be sold for, then that opens up 75+% of the population to items they currently will never come close to being able to afford.  There are plenty of people who just buy and sell things (which I will never understand doing in a video game as a means to no end, go play the stock exchange in RL and make some actual money if that is how you get your jollies off).  But the change I am recommending makes this no longer viable, so THEY will be out of the equation allowing for more free and fair trade.

[OlBuzzard]

I AM out of "credits" (Ok ...  I'm referring to the like / thank you stuff that we can offer)  So let me do it this way.  A big thank you to so many who have made positive in roads to this topic!  In particular the last few pages:
** @DWho
** @Char_Ell
** @DawnAskham
** @TrixxieTriss
** @eabevella

I owe you a couple likes / thank you when I can!

Good stuff can come out of this when we put our minds to it!!

[/two thumbs up]
 

Edited February 11, 2023 by OlBuzzard
clarification

[DavidKatski]

I don't have an issue with any of these changes. While I do use my SH's to travel and exit onto certain planets like Nar Shaddaa and Coruscant. I utilize that method as means of saving time rather than avoiding paying credits. It's much quicker to jump to my Nar Shaddaa SH and exit straight to the Promenade then to go through all the extra steps it takes when flying by ship and exiting in the docking bay. So, if there is to be an added cost to exit to planet from my SH, I don't have a problem paying it as long as it still saves me time. I might also point out if it hasn't been brought up that I'd be willing to pay an extra cost to travel to the Heroic Missions terminal from the Activities menu too.

In fact, I don't know if it's feasible, but I'd be willing to forego credits as a reward in the all the higher game content (Level 75 and higher Story, FP, and Ops) including killing mobs and such for a little extra CQ points, Tech Frags and such. I certainly don't feel that the measures you're wanting to add to fix credit inflation is going to break the game. I've been playing this game since launch and have no plans of leaving. I'm hoping, if the Bio Ware team is willing to see this game go for another ten years or more. The Old Republic timeline is open to have new content introduced for many, many years to come.

[recalcitrantIre]

3 hours ago, DarthNillard said:

Why do people need to have less money?

because the fundamental issue within the game is the playerbase as a whole has too much money, and the individual credit is devalued massively

that's the basic definition of economic inflation

4 hours ago, DawnAskham said:

(though some could be perceived as a negative to Bioware given their reliance on CC sales).

this is the other fundamental issue, Bioware are too beholden to EA's greed; why turn a desirable item into an ingame credit sink when it can be a $40 "microtransaction" instead?

even things like the reputation decoration vendors I don't think are going far enough with their credit-sinking capacity, especially when most of the decorations on offer are limited to 50 each for seemingly arbitrary reasons

[The-Kaitou-Kid]

On 2/10/2023 at 2:11 PM, EricMusco said:

These changes are not enough!

You are correct, and we know that, but it is a starting point. It is very important that we make these changes slowly and that we monitor their impacts closely. There are some excellent suggestions in this thread for further changes that are already in the works. As we said up front, you should expect to see changes that focus on the economy throughout the next few updates.

We want to start small and in targeted ways. More changes are coming in future updates.

Let me give you some specifics based on suggestions I am seeing in the thread. We know that players exchanging high value items will often trade outside of the GTN. Either because of its sale cap, or to avoid getting taxed at all on the transaction. This is likely the place you will see a number of changes coming after 7.2.1 to stop the loophole, and to start properly taxing high value trades. 

You're Not Hurting the Rich!
Well, we aren't trying to, not specifically. Inflation in its simplest form is about the amount of credits entering the economy against the amount coming out of it. Over time we have shot ourselves in the foot a bit as we have removed or minimized most regular credit sinks (removing training costs, etc).

The goal of these changes is to introduce passive, small credit removal to the game. This way we have credit removal a bit more in line with our credit generation. Removing singular batches of credits from a subset of players would not lower credit inflation (although it is an important component of it), and could not replace this type of passive removal.

 

So, from my point of view at least, you're muddying the waters here with this response. Are some of these changes bad in a vacuum? No. I understand some of them, if not most of them, the changes themselves aren't the problem. The problem comes from the order in which you're making the changes. Instead of tackling the major inflation points (players bypassing the GTN tax because of price caps, etc) you're hitting the points that will most affect newer players first. Which means until you guys actually get around to trying to address the other things, successfully or not, newer players are going to have a more difficult time catching up. If your goal is to make it easier for players to engage in the economy, starting with these changes first makes that worse.

 

You can do the changes for the bigger things now and still come back for these later (or do them at the same time, even), acting as if you can't and have to do these first is weird. It's a priorities thing and the point people are trying to make to you right now is that choosing these over addressing the bypassing of the GTN tax for instance (which is also a passive credit sink, on a much larger scale) was a mistake. You have your priorities wrong.

 

On 2/10/2023 at 2:11 PM, EricMusco said:

We Need Credit Sinks

We hear you that it would also be great to have some more "spend a LOT of credits to get something specific" but one consideration is that many of the suggestions being made are one time purchases which do not continually reduce credits. As we have many systems that continually introduce credits, we need more things that reduce credits often and not on a one time basis. 

To help balance this, we have been steadily adding credit sinks over the past year or so. Most prominently would be the catch-up mechanic in both Galactic and PvP Seasons. The credit costs in those catch-ups can become quite substantial.

 

The job you have here is more nuanced than this. You need credit sinks, whether they're reoccurring or not, that are appealing. That don't get instantly kneecapped by some other issue (see the cosmetic vendor on the fleet that I complained about in another post, sorry, I'm not letting that go).

 

Galactic Seasons is actually an example of one that I don't think is as effective as you make it seem. The costs can be substantial, sure, but that's predicated on a number of conditions before a player would actually use it. It has to be late enough in the season for the credit catchup to even apply, they have to have not played enough throughout the season to make progress in the GS since you can play fairly casually and still easily meet the goal, and then, perhaps most importantly, the rewards for the Galactic Season have to be appealing for them to want to push for them in the first place. In the past two GS, I've actually preferred the rewards earlier in the track, and have only pushed forward beyond that because it gives me something to do when I'm playing.

 

That's not to say people aren't using the credit catch up feature, I'm sure people are, but there's so many step off points that lower its effectiveness as a credit sink that I don't think it's one that you should be holding up as an example of you doing something to solve this problem. Nor should it really have ever been. It's a thing. I'm sure it's not making inflation worse, it wasn't a waste of time to add, but GS should be focused on giving players activities to push for, not introducing a credit sink, so while I don't think the credit catchup is an effective credit sink in terms of what the game really needs at the moment, the reason for that is a good thing that shouldn't be changed.

 

Honestly, there's been plenty of ongoing credit sinks that people have suggested. Here's one that occurred to me earlier: why not make a dye vendor on the fleet that sells some new, exclusive dyes for expensive costs? Some of the current CM dyes go for upwards of 500m each, so that market is certainly there, you could make some interesting dyes to sell on a vendor for upwards of 100m+ easily. If you make them worth the cost, people will jump at them. Dyes are consumable as well, so any time a player wants another copy of that dye, that's more credits poofing into the ether. You can still make CM dyes so this doesn't remove that revenue source, but you could add some credit cost dyes to contribute to addressing this problem. Obviously this wouldn't be enough on its own, but nothing will be, it's at least an attempt.

 

On 2/10/2023 at 2:11 PM, EricMusco said:

The Stronghold Change Particularly Sucks

Yeah, let's talk about this one and our goal. As we are introducing a variety of passive costs to travel, players will inevitably look to find a way to subvert it, even if it is a small cost.

One way players could do this is to use the SH travel to a planet and then Exit Area. Our concern here isn't actually for traveling to the SH, it would be a player trying to use that as a stepping stone onto the planet itself.

With that said, we hear you on the sentiment of this one feeling especially punitive, paying to travel to something you paid for. So here is what we are going to try to change it to. We will not charge you to travel to a SH. Instead we would simply apply a travel cost to using Exit Area.

Note that this is not how it is implemented currently so it will require a bit of time to switch. If we can't make this change in time for launch we will likely do NO charges for SH travel in 7.2.1 and implement the proposed credit cost as noted above in the future.

 

Far more sensible, totally fine with this. Had it been implemented like this from the start it would have been the most sensible change of the whole lot.

[Traceguy]

18 hours ago, Blakinik said:

 

I can unload a few 100 Dark Projects.  This can earn me several billion credits on the GTN.  Afterwards, I just play the "hold out" game in which I simply don't spend money.  And after prices start to fall those with the high levels of cash will snag everything and still sell at insane amounts.  If you have a monopoly before you will have a monopoly after.

100% this. Bioware, listen to me for 3 words "Supply and Demand".

Those with credits control the economy, and these people can afford to pay the pathetic 5000 credits for quick travel if they ever decide to leave the fleet.

But also, maybe you don't understand business. Businesses always pass their expenses on the customers. Raise the taxes by 5%? Sellers will raise their prices by 5%. Lower taxes by 5%? Players lower their prices by 5%.

YOU 👏 NEED 👏 TO 👏 ADD 👏 CREDIT 👏 SINKS!!!!

Not taxes, not fees....... CREDIT SINKS!!!!

 

 

[LD_Little_Dragon]

I add my voice to the numerous objections to the travel cost changes.  It will just be an annoyance and hinderance to newer/casual players.

 

With all the posts being deleted on this topic I'm not sure if anyone has brought up the not-so-great repair cost decisions that will lower costs on death, and increase costs for taking damage during gameplay.

1. This hits tanks doing their actual role in pve harder than dps/heals.  I mean if the heals and tanks do their job then the tanks dont' die but they take a whole lot of damage.  This is playing the game as intended.  Something should be done to keep the tanks repair costs in line with the dps/heals

2. This also punishes the newer/more casual type players.  They're the ones who run with the healer companions (which the game puts as default, meaning this is intended gameplay.

This won't affect me much since I mainly do solo stuff as a dps with a dps companion.  I don't die, and take very little damage.  This will hurt the players who are still learning ,or don't have time to learn, their classes (aka the newer/casual/poorer players) since they take a lot longer to kill things, and take a lot of damage to do it.  Heal comp means they don't die, but their damage taken will be high. 

In short: shifting repair costs from deaths, to damage taken, is a bad idea and will unfairly target tanks and new/casual type players.

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, OlBuzzard said:

Simply taking credits out of players coffers won't address the matter either!  Not unless something is done about WHERE the EXCESS credits are coming from.

EDIT:  Otherwise it's like the difference between dipping a swimming pool vs the OCEAN dry with a coffee can.  Any guess which is which and what the results will be? 

Do we have any evidence that there is a credit exploit happening at the moment?  Because BioWare are usually pretty quick to shut them down if they know what they are 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

[BakenFr]

Good morning,

you want to put back a good economy as it was the case a few years ago? start by closing the sites that offer the purchase of credit such as GamerEasy this will make the game a stable economy without some players filling credits with real money!

That's my suggestion.

@BioWare_JayT@b_buck @JackieKo

Edited February 11, 2023 by BakenFr

[TrixxieTriss]

9 hours ago, DarthNillard said:

Why do people need to have less money?  If there's a cap on what things can be sold for, then that opens up 75+% of the population to items they currently will never come close to being able to afford.  There are plenty of people who just buy and sell things (which I will never understand doing in a video game as a means to no end, go play the stock exchange in RL and make some actual money if that is how you get your jollies off).  But the change I am recommending makes this no longer viable, so THEY will be out of the equation allowing for more free and fair trade.

To understand that, you need to look at it from 2 perspectives. 

1. Some people play a games economy like a well tuned raid team. For them it’s about how Rich they can get. It’s a game within a game. If you come in and take their credits, you’ve essentially taken away their progress in the game.

2. If you make everything on the GTN affordable for most players to buy what they want over night, then no one buys off the CM or they buy less. There is so much unsold CM gear floating around in the game, that it would directly affect BioWares $$ stream from the CM. 

Affecting either like that would damage the game & its reputation. Any negative effect on the CM would probably kill the game. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

7 minutes ago, BakenFr said:

Good morning,

you want to put back a good economy as it was the case a few years ago? start by closing the sites that offer the purchase of credit such as GamerEasy this will make the game a stable economy without some players filling credits with real money!

That's my suggestion.

@BioWare_JayT@b_buck @JackieKo

How would you go about doing that? I’m sure you realise BioWare don’t own them. Theyre probably run outside of the US & EU. So getting them shut down is not some simple feat.

[TrixxieTriss]

58 minutes ago, Traceguy said:

100% this. Bioware, listen to me for 3 words "Supply and Demand".

Those with credits control the economy, and these people can afford to pay the pathetic 5000 credits for quick travel if they ever decide to leave the fleet.

But also, maybe you don't understand business. Businesses always pass their expenses on the customers. Raise the taxes by 5%? Sellers will raise their prices by 5%. Lower taxes by 5%? Players lower their prices by 5%.

YOU 👏 NEED 👏 TO 👏 ADD 👏 CREDIT 👏 SINKS!!!!

Not taxes, not fees....... CREDIT SINKS!!!!

 

 

You are right about everything but raising the Taxes part. Not about the sellers raising prices to compensate, but  about the need to have them & possibly still raise them.

BioWare need to close the loop holes that are allowing people to legitimately circumvent the best in game credit sink, the GTN tax. 

Until that’s closed off, all the fine tuning to other credit sinks or new ones will be meaningless. 

When the only way to sell or trade CM items is through the GTN, lots of credits will start to be removed from the game. 

Bioware can then better decide if they need to raise that tax or add a wealth tax on trades over 1 billion credits. 

I’ve already done the maths to show people that BioWare wouldn’t even need half the measures they want to add if they did that. 

Sure, they would probably still need to fine tune how many credits are coming into the game & how many are being taken out by game mechanics or other credit sinks. But they wouldn’t need to use punitive measures or mechanics to do it.

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, DawnAskham said:

Too many people, including Bioware, are ignoring the elephant in the room.

Selling CM items, flipping, selling mats, selling carries, selling crafted items, etc, regardless of the sales channel (e.g GTN, player trade, mailbox), DOES NOT CREATE CREDITS.

Credits are created ONLY through drops on defeated enemies, rewards, and selling items to vendors.

And I cannot fathom a legitimate normal gameplay loop that generates the amount of excess credits circulating in the economy.

Ergo exploits and TOS violators (bots) continue to drive the excessive amount of credits in the economy, and unless and until this side of the equation is addressed, applying nuisance sinks that mostly impact newer and causal players is a recipe for failure.

 

You’re assuming that this is recent & not historical exploits?

And not considering that BioWare added to it by removing credit sinks like amplifiers without reducing normal game generating credits at the same time. 

Amplifiers were an issue from the start with their gambling mechanics. It was a flawed idea for a credit sink because many people pushed back on the gambling aspect & it was too expensive for new players. BioWare then added more game generating credits to the system to help those people. This just made it worse because people like myself refused to use the gambling mechanic. So we accumulated 100’s millions of credits through normal game play. 

I can tell you I got mega rich during the 6.x era from normal game play & crafting dyes & selling them on the GTN. By todays standards, I’m not mega rich anymore because I took 12 months away from the game. 

But I don’t think the current inflation is from a current exploit. I think it’s more likely from the amount of historical exploits, plus BioWare kicking some own goals with the Amplifier system, by adding too many game generated credits & removing other historical credit sinks. 

I predicted most of what’s happening now with inflation over 3 years ago & was ignored by BioWare & derided by many in this community who are now complaining about it. 

That’s why I don’t think it’s an exploit because I could see this exact thing happening. It was all crystal clear to me over 3 years ago. The issue has just been compounding for another 3 years which has made it worse.

If you don’t believe me, go back & read my old posts & threads about inflation / hyperinflation. There are also threads & posts to do with Amplifiers & why the gambling mechanics weren’t going to work as a credit sink.

I personally don’t think there’s a current credit exploit. But if there is, someone reading this knows about it & should tell BioWare what it is before it damages the game anymore. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[OlBuzzard]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Do we have any evidence that there is a credit exploit happening at the moment?  Because BioWare are usually pretty quick to shut them down if they know what they are 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

If some of the proposed measures are implemented and YOUR suggestions followed (that seems to be where this is going) .. and everything works out fine ... then everybody is happy!  (Except for those players who are struggling to begin with.)  The rich will remain rich and those that have little .. will remain as such!

Something tells me that I'm not wrong!  Besides the statement that I've made still works!  It's not one that condemns BW as currently neglecting the incoming of credits from outside and illicit sources BUT it is one that that does seem to be left out of the plan of action stated at the beginning of all of this!

IIRC earlier I mentioned that the loopholes needed to be closed.  Only one or two either agreed or seemed to indicate the necessity of that change.  

IMO there is a lot more going on than just stick it to the rich!  Is that anyone with 1 billion or more ????  10 Billion or more? 100 Billion or more????  Or simply anyone who logs in and does anything more than a PvP match or run OP's.

** I personally agree that credit sinks are needed.  I DON'T agree with some of the ones that were proposed early on!  These will hurt more than they will help.
** I stated early on (and still maintain) that trade loopholes need to be closed!  (Closing the loopholes on BILLIONS that are traded several times daily covers considerably more than the 5K travel expenses suggested).  
** I also think that something needs to be done with the CM items traded.  [/shrugs]  I guess I'm out on a limb here but I'm still going to say it...  Seems like we've exchanged a large portion of the game content for CM items (and the profits that everyone enjoys with it).
** LIKE IT OR NOT ... if there are still credit sellers / exploits or bots being used THEN that still needs to be dealt with.  Just assuming that it WILL happen is a mistake.  If not .. then this entire process is for nothing!
** someone else suggested (and I agree) that there really needs to be something that players can and WILL spend heavy credits on!  Right now the CM seems to be the only place to do that.  OK ... that's cool!  The open up the CM for stuff that is BOP for credits a couple of weeks and see how it goes.  IF it works .. then target some "special" items that might generate some MORE interest that will also be BOP!
** I believe that @sandstroller made a good suggestion that is worth looking at!
** Could credits be used to buy amplifiers again ??  How about using credits to buy Augments (Blue ... not green and not BiS).
** IMO ... if enough incentive is placed in front of a lot of players they will spend billions (aka possible good credit sinks) a LOT faster than hurting those that may not have a lot to spend in the first place!

BTW...  I like the fact that the team decided to act.  And if you look at some of the proposals that is exactly what some folks asked for.   I'm personally really glad that as a community we can try to sort this out!

EDIT:  Buying and selling does not ADD credits to the game.  I simply is an exchange:  credits for goods purchased!

Just my $.02 worth for right now!

Edited February 12, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[TrixxieTriss]

3 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

If some of the proposed measures are implemented and YOUR suggestions followed (that seems to be where this is going) .. and everything works out fine ... then everybody is happy!  (Except for those players who are struggling to begin with.)  The rich will remain rich and those that have little .. will remain as such!

Something tells me that I'm not wrong!  Besides the statement that I've made still works!  It's not one that condemns BW as currently neglecting the incoming of credits from outside and illicit sources BUT it is one that that does seem to be left out of the plan of action stated at the beginning of all of this!

IIRC earlier I mentioned that the loopholes needed to be closed.  Only one or two either agreed or seemed to indicate the necessity of that change.  

IMO there is a lot more going on than just stick it to the rich!  Is that anyone with 1 billion or more ????  10 Billion or more? 100 Billion or more????  Or simply anyone who logs in and does anything more than a PvP match or run OP's.

** I personally agree that credit sinks are needed.  I DON'T agree with some of the ones that were proposed early on!  These will hurt more than they will help.
** I stated early on (and still maintain) that trade loopholes need to be closed!  (Closing the loopholes on BILLIONS that are traded several times daily covers considerably more than the 5K travel expenses suggested).  
** I also think that something needs to be done with the CM items traded.  [/shrugs]  I guess I'm out on a limb here but I'm still going to say it...  Seems like we've exchanged a large portion of the game content for CM items (and the profits that everyone enjoys with it).
** LIKE IT OR NOT ... if there are still credit sellers / exploits or bots being used THEN that still needs to be dealt with.  Just assuming that it WILL happen is a mistake.  If not .. then this entire process is for nothing!
** someone else suggested (and I agree) that there really needs to be something that players can and WILL spend heavy credits on!  Right now the CM seems to be the only place to do that.  OK ... that's cool!  The open up the CM for stuff that is BOP for credits a couple of weeks and see how it goes.  IF it works .. then target some "special" items that might generate some MORE interest that will also be BOP!
** I believe that @sandstroller made a good suggestion that is worth looking at!
** Could credits be used to buy amplifiers again ??  How about using credits to buy Augments (Blue ... not green and not BiS).
** IMO ... if enough incentive is placed in front of a lot of players they will spend billions (aka possible good credit sinks) a LOT faster than hurting those that may not have a lot to spend in the first place!

BTW...  I like the fact that the team decided to act.  And if you look at some of the proposals that is exactly what some folks asked for.   I'm personally really glad that as a community we can try to sort this out!

Just my $.02 worth for right now!

I of course agree with most of that. My concern is people thinking the reason for the inflation is a current credit exploit & not BioWare allowing inflation to run out of control for the last 3-4 years. 
If everyone is shouting wolf (credit exploits) with no evidence, it might distract BioWare away from actually fixing the systems that have allowed inflation to run out of control.

[parchedgoose]

Back in the very beginning it used to cost credits for everything we did and even getting off the starting planet most of us were still to broke to do much of anything.    Is this where we are headed now?  If so the number of people who hit the exit door will be huge and those who try to start will realize the futility of it the same way it did back when.   Don't believe me, look back at the numbers.   Not to mention there will be a new season..  THE RISE OF THE GOLD SELLERS, Pt. II.  Even the whales will find a new outlet.   The Cartel Mkt. will most likely collapse and the Hutts will be looking at you Dev's saying, "Just wut did you do?"

[OlBuzzard]

8 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I of course agree with most of that. My concern is people thinking the reason for the inflation is a current credit exploit & not BioWare allowing inflation to run out of control for the last 3-4 years. 
If everyone is shouting wolf (credit exploits) with no evidence, it might distract BioWare away from actually fixing the systems that have allowed inflation to run out of control.

Trust me ... I DO get it!!  I really do!  For me, personally, I've moved on from wondering "How did we get here?" to "How do we fix this?"

Without question there's enough blame to go around more than once on their end (responsibility and that sort of thing).  I'm just looking for solutions that will also plug the holes and make sure that we are at least covering as many bases as possible to TRY and make sure we're not headed down another path with another dead end!

IMO there's been some good ideas (some not so good).  But overall some good ideas and discussion on this!!

( I hope this makes sense).