Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[Ominovin]

What is the general 'target' when it comes to character income? 

For instance, I ran a test on two of my characters yesterday by running their normal 'conquest' grind after putting all their credits into Legacy vault so I could see just how many credits they earned.

• Both characters were level 80 troopers (Tactics Vanguard and Gunnery Commando) in 336 Conquest Greens
  • Both characters are slicers, so a little of their income comes from nodes along the way.
  • If I had found a Grade 11 mission while slicing, my income would have been a lot higher as they typically sell for millions on the GTN.
• Makeb + Ziost weekly missions earned my Vanguard 468k credits.
• Onderaan + Iokath weekly missions earned my Commmando 632k credits.
  • I actually do the full set of Onderaan missions rather than the 6 required for the weekly.

So, I made about 1.1 million credits while grinding my 100k conquest points on these two characters:  What do the developers feel my net income actually should be for 4 weekly missions?  Without a major nerf to mission rewards / trash drops, I don't see the 'convenience fee' approach actually denting my credit income to a noticeable degree...

 

On a side note, I probably get 12,000 or so Tech Fragments a week, and with nothing else to actually spend them on, that means I typically put three RPM/OEM modules on the GTN each week and earn in the neighborhood of half a billion credits there, which makes the 6 million or so credits I get from weekly missions mere pocket change...

[DawnAskham]

3 hours ago, Ominovin said:

What is the general 'target' when it comes to character income? 

For instance, I ran a test on two of my characters yesterday by running their normal 'conquest' grind after putting all their credits into Legacy vault so I could see just how many credits they earned.

• Both characters were level 80 troopers (Tactics Vanguard and Gunnery Commando) in 336 Conquest Greens
  • Both characters are slicers, so a little of their income comes from nodes along the way.
  • If I had found a Grade 11 mission while slicing, my income would have been a lot higher as they typically sell for millions on the GTN.
• Makeb + Ziost weekly missions earned my Vanguard 468k credits.
• Onderaan + Iokath weekly missions earned my Commmando 632k credits.
  • I actually do the full set of Onderaan missions rather than the 6 required for the weekly.

So, I made about 1.1 million credits while grinding my 100k conquest points on these two characters:  What do the developers feel my net income actually should be for 4 weekly missions?  Without a major nerf to mission rewards / trash drops, I don't see the 'convenience fee' approach actually denting my credit income to a noticeable degree...

 

On a side note, I probably get 12,000 or so Tech Fragments a week, and with nothing else to actually spend them on, that means I typically put three RPM/OEM modules on the GTN each week and earn in the neighborhood of half a billion credits there, which makes the 6 million or so credits I get from weekly missions mere pocket change...

Let's be real here...credit sellers sell a billion credits for a little over one US dollar.

How much time would it take you to generate (not sell stuff to others like Grade 11 missions) to generate a billion credits?

Would you give those credits to someone else if they agreed to give you a buck and change?

The economy isn't fubar because players earn too much playing the game nor because there aren't higher nuisance costs for things like quick travel.

The economy is fubar because Bioware hasn't done anything to identify and close whatever exploits and bot-able loops are being used by credit sellers to generate so many credits so efficiently they can sell tens of billions for an hour's worth of real world earnings, even to those making minimum wage. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by DawnAskham

[OlBuzzard]

15 minutes ago, DawnAskham said:

Let's be real here...credit sellers sell a billion credits for a little over one US dollar.

How much time would it take you to generate (not sell stuff to others like Grade 11 missions) to generate a billion credits?

Would you give those credits to someone else if they agreed to give you a buck and change?

The economy isn't fubar because players earn too much playing the game nor because there aren't higher nuisance costs for things like quick travel.

The economy is fubar because Bioware hasn't done anything to identify and close whatever exploits and bot-able loops are being used by credit sellers to generate so many credits so efficiently they can sell tens of billions for an hour's worth of real world earnings, even to those making minimum wage. 

Question:
What happens when this theory get multiplied over and over again ...  A LOT !!!   Somehow ... this is starting to smack of P2W.  At the very least it would be easy to manipulate entire sections of the GTN!  BTW..  by P2W I mean someone is paying out real cash for multiplied billions of credits which are in turn used for products or items / achievements etc. found in game.  It would be interesting to do a paper trail (so-to-speak) on where the credits were actually are spent!

I personally believe that players just being players buying and selling or even credit farming would still take months (under normal circumstances) to accumulate billions.  And I have my doubts that it would be HUNDREDS of BILLIONS...  (I could be wrong).  My initial gut feeling is that I'm not too far off the mark though!

In short... I agree with this assessment! 

That being said... IF this supply of credits has been cut off and has not been a problem for a year or so I would be EQUALLY interested in knowing about it. (Fair is Fair).

[Exocor]

vor 12 Minuten schrieb DawnAskham:

The economy is fubar because Bioware hasn't done anything to identify and close whatever exploits and bot-able loops are being used by credit sellers to generate so many credits so efficiently they can sell tens of billions for an hour's worth of real world earnings, even to those making minimum wage. 

 

On the chance of being called a boomer.... Back then, in the good old days when I started playing - Patch 3.0 effectively - the economy was different. Rare Cartel Market Items sold for 100m in the GTN. Back then, credit selling bots were a thing as well. They just sold less for more. If I remember correctly, the going rate was a few dollars for ten million. But if we had noticed: The leaps forward in inflation did occur whenever there was a credit exploit. I cannot say if inflation was creeping forward slowly without an inflation, but if it did, it wasn't really noticable.

 

What I'm trying to say is: bot-able loops and small explots don't matter that much. What matters is, when there is an exploit where you can sell an item for more than it costs to buy to the same NPC or when you can duplicate items. The gold selling websites are the first to abuse that bug and almost everybody is a benificiary. Most notably those that sell at the GTN, where those credits are being washed clean. Indirectly everyone who offers services to other players. We've organized sale raids during patch 5.0 and we made fortunes with that - pretty much the only real source of income I had, ending with roughly 5bn credits in the bank. The players we sold that stuff to were not the brightes candles on the cake, most of them either sold at the GTN or bought credits directly.

 

So, Bioware is right in that they now come for us to get the money out of the game. I have no problem with losing some of my money if everyone else does to. It balances the economy and ultimately makes stuff more affordable for newer players. In the end, it doesn't really matter for me - if I have 20bn and have to pay 5m per Augmentation Kit or if I have 2bn and pay 500k per Augmentation Kit is all the same to me. As long as I have reasonably ways to remain in the upper middle-class in this game, when it comes to credit income, I'm good. Only thing that's important to me in all that money business is, that I can find what i need in the GTN. I don't want to go shopping in /Trade because Augmentation Kits cost >1bn. The next credit exploit is going to come at one point, so if the developers are trying to do something right now to lower the amount of credits in the game, let them.

 

 

[Exocor]

vor 9 Minuten schrieb OlBuzzard:

I personally believe that players just being players buying and selling or even credit farming would still take months (under normal circumstances) to accumulate billions.

 

Just a thought: One RPM/OEM goes for 200m on my server. It takes 20 minutes to do one Dread Fortress Story Mode. You need two to be able to afford one RPM/OEM. In order to accumulate 1bn, you need five RPM/OEM, so 10 runs. That's just over three hours. That way you can farm a billion credits in prime time every day if you really want to.

 

And yes, everyone can do Dread Fortress SM. It's easer than a Veteran Flashpoint and usually you have a bunch of BiS-Geared people carrying you through all of it.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Exocor

[DWho]

19 minutes ago, Exocor said:

 

Just a thought: One RPM/OEM goes for 200m on my server. It takes 20 minutes to do one Dread Fortress Story Mode. You need two to be able to afford one RPM/OEM. In order to accumulate 1bn, you need five RPM/OEM, so 10 runs. That's just over three hours. That way you can farm a billion credits in prime time every day if you really want to.

 

And yes, everyone can do Dread Fortress SM. It's easer than a Veteran Flashpoint and usually you have a bunch of BiS-Geared people carrying you through all of it.

 

So you are saying raiders are the problem. I have played the game "normally" for 10 years and don't even have 1 billion credits across all my characters. I didn't buy stuff to sell on the GTN, I didn't farm content, I didn't buy credits, I didn't buy anything extravagant off the GTN, just played the game as intended. People playing the game normally are not the problem. It is the people abusing the system (like those raiders farming easy Operations for tech fragments to buy rare crafting mats you mentioned). The changes Bioware is suggesting disproportionally impact people playing the game normally. They don't impact the farming raiders, the daily farmers, the credit buyers, the GTN whales, or any of the others that are the real problem. You also can't take a level 80 character running missions on a high level planet as an indication of how much an average player makes in a day of playing. If you are lucky, running through the story (including exploration missions), which is what the vast majority of the players playing the game are doing, nets you a couple million.

[coachVV]

Maybe I am missing it, but it seems like a really good credit sink would be to expand the amount of SH decos available at vendors. I mean, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of decos and it seems like the vast majority of them are not available at vendors. Put 80-90% of them in vendors, and watch the credits disappear

[Zeloz]

Please add in to my thoughts but is this not a game to enjoy and have fun with?

With bots and other methods that are being used to constantly inject massive amounts of credits into the game, should things not be more focused on improving the buying experience for players rather than penalizing them?

I had a couple ideas that might help some:

(1) Make it so any item sold can no longer be sold for a higher price then the initial sell price (this stops scalpers from buying and trying to resell for a higher price.  They added no additional value).

(2) Make it so items have an absolute max value per item for GTN and trading (harder to pull off)

(3) Make Cartel items earnable in game with time played at a slow rate (bound to player)

(4) Limit the number of sales per week of cartel based items (so someone with tons of credits can't just buy 400 sets of armor).  I get buying some sets for yourself and maybe a few extra sets for a friend or two, but trying to take everything to get rich to the detriment of others isn't very nice (again harder to pull off due to people using multiple accounts)

 

Unless the bots/farmers can be stopped (doubtful) this problem will always exist.  If players can get what they want, then bots/farmers won't be as much of an issue.

These are just a few ideas that could be added to or changed, but I feel that the changes made should be to improve the experience and let normal players have a chance to get something that they want and actually have fun.  Not to penalize and discourage them.  I believe most people just want to get some cool things with the effort they put in.  This is a game after all

Edited February 13, 2023 by Zeloz

[black_pyros]

I keep seeing many players asking for credit sinks that exist for years already. For example a way to purchase Cartel Certificates with credits. You can already do that, it's called:

Spoiler

Nightlife Event

Or a way to purchase Cartel Coins with credits. You can do that, too, it's called:

Spoiler

Galactic Seasons

 

[Ramahar]

On 2/10/2023 at 3:11 PM, EricMusco said:

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).

So you aren't going to remove the reason everything being sold on GTN and in Trade are so expensive but instead are going start a new system of charges that make sure those who can't afford to pay $billions for trade item will never be able to do so.

[Traceguy]

Dyes can only be used once before they are gone forever. Why don't you just add a dye vendor the the fleet and sell dyes for 100,000,000 credits a piece?

Would you rather a player on the fleet sell black/black dye for 2,000,000,000 (2b), or have an NPC sell it for 200,000,000 (200m)?

Edited February 13, 2023 by Traceguy

[Traceguy]

4 hours ago, black_pyros said:

I keep seeing many players asking for credit sinks that exist for years already. For example a way to purchase Cartel Certificates with credits. You can already do that, it's called:

  Reveal hidden contents

Nightlife Event

Or a way to purchase Cartel Coins with credits. You can do that, too, it's called:

  Reveal hidden contents

Galactic Seasons

 

I don't think you know what you're saying. But thank you for trying.

[Toraak]

39 minutes ago, Traceguy said:

Dyes can only be used once before they are gone forever. Why don't you just add a dye vendor the the fleet and sell dyes for 100,000,000 credits a piece?

Would you rather a player on the fleet sell black/black dye for 2,000,000,000 (2b), or have an NPC sell it for 200,000,000 (200m)?

This is really never going to happen. If you think BW would put CM items, even dyes like Black & black on a vendor for credits your not thinking correctly.

 

BW makes $ when people buy some of the more desirable dyes, or items and want to keep making $ from them on the CM. 

[Traceguy]

On 2/10/2023 at 1:54 PM, Eyvaera said:

Sure, but when I start a new character I end up with an inventory full of assorted mail items that I want to dump in storage, no credits to apply an outfit (yes, I do want to do that when I pick up new gear, else it'll all be mismatched)

The mail from bioware never expires. Simple solution. Don't take out the mail. Leave it there. Also irrelevant for troopers. There's no mailbox in the walker.

Again, irrelevant. We're talking about collections. No one cares about the trash armor you pick up, especially not for the first cutscene in the walker.

 

[xxSHOONYxx]

This first step changes will hardly matter to any player even if f2p and doubt they were put for the normal player base because a few credits here and there will do nothing in the great scheme of things of people making billions of credits a day, everyone knows it and so do the devs, they are not stupid either.
It is more than likely a way to slow down credit seller's bots that do something non stop. 

[Exocor]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb DWho:

So you are saying raiders are the problem. I have played the game "normally" for 10 years and don't even have 1 billion credits across all my characters. I didn't buy stuff to sell on the GTN, I didn't farm content, I didn't buy credits, I didn't buy anything extravagant off the GTN, just played the game as intended. People playing the game normally are not the problem. It is the people abusing the system (like those raiders farming easy Operations for tech fragments to buy rare crafting mats you mentioned). The changes Bioware is suggesting disproportionally impact people playing the game normally. They don't impact the farming raiders, the daily farmers, the credit buyers, the GTN whales, or any of the others that are the real problem. You also can't take a level 80 character running missions on a high level planet as an indication of how much an average player makes in a day of playing. If you are lucky, running through the story (including exploration missions), which is what the vast majority of the players playing the game are doing, nets you a couple million.

 

I'm pretty sure I didn't say what you're suggesting, but you may read into my comment what you want.

 

My point is, that I see farming Dread Fortress Storymode as "normal" playing. If you've ever done a flashpoint, queued for PvP or even did a story chapter or a star fortress, you should be able to do this operation without problems. On my server, there are groups forming on the fleet every 15 minutes in prime time, sometimes multiple at the same time. We're not talking about the best raiders in the game farming easier operations. We're talking about the "normal" player doing content and getting rewarded for it. You're pretty much arguing: "I've never had a job and I'm sitting at home on my couch doing nothing. For some reason, I don't have money." Yes, Captain Obvious. If you want more money, you should use your brain and engage in those activities that earn you a good amount of money within a reasonable amount of time. I personally don't have time to sink 8 hours a day into doing weekly missions. I'm raiding for one or two hours every other day and that's it.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Exocor

[DawnAskham]

11 hours ago, SoontirMorillo said:

"Not sell stuff to others like Grade 11 missions"... why would you rule that out? You just can't start your argument by stating that you are not allowed to engage in credit making techniques.

This game is a multiplayer game and not a single player game. You can't just rule out engaging in the multiplayer part to make credits. Of course if you treat this game as a single player, you will never make a billion credits. Simply because every NPC only gives you 1k credits at a time.

If you rule out multiplayer ways to get credits, and only accept single player methods, you also have to rule out prices depending on multiplayer, prices that are set by other players. You only should accept prices that are single player, prices that are from NPC.

Could a single player produce enough credits to buy everything possible from a NPC vendor... yes. He totally can.

You can't demand that a single player income should generate enough credits to pay multiplayer prices. This is not fair.

Selling crafting materials is an easy way for everybody to get credits. You just can't rule out the most effective credit gaining method in the game.

You need to accept the reality of the economy you live in. Not selling on the GTN is not an option.

Inflation is driven by excess credits in the economy - too many credits chasing too few items. 

When discussing excess credits, one needs to consider sources of credits flowing into the game.

Credits in SWTOR are NOT created when players sell items to each other. Credits are only created when looting credits off defeated enemies, completing missions and such that reward credits, or selling items to NPC vendors for credits.

Selling items to others only moves existing credits through the economy, it does not create them.

Inflation therefore has nothing to do with how much one can sell an OPM or crafted augment or hypercrate to another player - we are all aware of how easy it is to sell random junk for millions or something a bit more desirable for billions.

And my point is that if it takes an average player several hours to generate several million new credits through gameplay while credit sellers offer nearly a billion credits for a dollar, then it seems reasonable to conclude credit sellers are not creating those credits through normal gameplay (unless they like to work for pennies an hour). 

Unless we see the rate of inflation stabilize instead of continuing to grow exponentially, it suggests there are non-normal / abusive / exploitive means of generating credits being used by credit sellers (e.g. bots and exploits). 

Thus adding some extra fees for travel or whatnot isn't going to solve the problem.

Edited February 13, 2023 by DawnAskham

[xordevoreaux]

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

This is really never going to happen. If you think BW would put CM items, even dyes like Black & black on a vendor for credits your not thinking correctly.

 

BW makes $ when people buy some of the more desirable dyes, or items and want to keep making $ from them on the CM. 

Correct, for instance, today's sale is the black-on-black dye.

Smart billionaires will snap those up and convert their credits to storage items as some have said.

Moving liquidity into commodities is a safe escape from inflationary pressure. Those people can then simply wait out the clock for this inflationary effort by Bioware to take effect.

Stockpiles of storable items, even if somehow limited in trade value or such, will most likely still wind up tradable, and no tax on trade will stop trades.

[WHTJunior]

I feel like a lot of these could be adjusted per level. Or maybe consider the Legacy level prior to applying any of these costs. i.e. no cost for Legacy under level 10 or so, and full costs for max level Legacy.

Stronghold cost should apply when Exiting to Planet, not when first going to the Stronghold. As someone else mentioned, if you go to your SH to do something (place a new deco, adjust outfit in peace, meet a friend, etc), and return to the previous area, why should that cost extra? If it's planetary travel that you want to charge for, doing it on Exit to Planet would accomplish that.

About Quick Travel use, once I fully unlock the no-cooldown version of QT, I honestly use it free-for-all willy-nilly. If it starts to cost a lot, I might stop for a few seconds to ensure that I am going to the right location. I might actually run to the taxi outside, instead of teleporting from the cantina. It's currently a huge time saver, but depending on the cost, I'll see if it gets much use. Maybe if it still costs less than a speeder ride...

What I'd really like to see in future updates, is a restriction on resellers. If a Cartel Market item can be bound to GTN/Legacy, and then BoP once purchased, You'd have a lot less resellers barking in trade, and a lot less overpriced items being resold on GTN. This is especially true if 1b is still the cap, as no item could ever be sold higher than that. Then, fix the GTN recommended sale price to match similar recent sales, group items with the same name in the search results, and add a filter to hide already collected items.

[Desplain]

On 2/11/2023 at 12:03 AM, Twelfthdoctor said:

I am seeing some positive signs from the discussion around potential changes to how stronghold fees work, as well as some of the changes planned for later updates, and a repeated theme I hear from the development side is a need for  credit generation to be offset by ongoing costs rather than one-time purchases that will end up buried.

I also remember a time when I had to choose whether to increase my speeder speed, pay for a trainer to give my character a defensive skill, a general class skill, or improve one tied to my spec. Mind you, at *that* time, I could buy an account-wide Artifact Equipment Authorization for 345k credits. I don't think we'll ever get back to that, but ideally the rate of inflation can stabilize enough for costs and in-game caps, fees, etc. to be relatively in line with the overall economy.

So, recurring credit cost options that I see tossed around and approve of:

1. Purchase  additional decoration copies for personal stronghold: With a lot of decorations just not available due to loot table drop changes to flashpoints over the years and the elimination of specific packs form the Cartel Market, there's an incentive to form a guild for one character just to unlock copies of decorations that (if they're even available on the GTN at all) cost more than fully unlocking a stronghold of any size. I'd love to pay a million credits a pop to buy a retired chair ten or twenty times to fill out a room with a certain theme or style.

2. Appearance Designer changes for credits: I know players who like to change their hairstyle weekly (or more often), and opening up those alterations from default or kits they've previously bought to credits (NOT buying new styles through the designer for credits) would be a good way to trim back excess credits.

3. Galactic Starfighter cosmetics: These stopped being sold in the Cartel Market, so I presume they weren't selling well at their Cartel Market cost rates, given that they were per-character. That might make them a prime opportunity to pull out at least a few credits.

 

Signed.

 

Additionally Bioware could sell the decorations from "Secrets of the Enclave" and "Spirit of Vengeance" for credits.

No one is doing these flaspoints anymore, because the drop rate is far to low.

 

By the way these decorations are sold for billions of credits on the GTN.

 

So why not sell them for credits by a fleet vendor, I would love to buy them for my Jedi  or Mandalorien themed strongholds.

 

[EnbyDisaster_]

On 2/9/2023 at 1:21 PM, 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.

100% agree, and Ik a few other people have had the same thought I did when looking at this, instead of charging new players 100 creds to use QT, reopen old CM items for sale OFF the CM as rare, expensive items.  Also, the DS/LS vendors that are at this point essentially phased out?  Make the tokens equivalent to a ridiculous amount of creds and make their items buyable for either/or.  Glad something is being done at least though.

[vanonipro]

My 2 credits.

These changes will have a huge impact on the inflation everyday and will only affect rich players:

1. Raise GTN max price limit - that way, rich players with deals over 1bn will still pay 8% fees. For every 4 billion sale, it would BURN 320 millions in fees. At the moment, they don't pay fees, because they can't use GTN. 

2. With that, raise GTN fees for deals above 100M from 8% to 10%. And for deals above 1 billion raise fees to 12-15%.

 

Now, for a changes that will affect everyone:

1. Raise prices of all Legacy unlocks

2. Raise prices of all Stronghold unlocks

3. Allow players to unlock stuff in Collections for credits, not only Cartel Coins, this will be a huge credit sink

4. Add more things to buy for credits

Edited February 13, 2023 by vanonipro

[Traceguy]

Sell us LS/DS tokens. 100,000,000 per token.

Sell us Galactic seasons tokens. 100,000,000 per token.

Sell us legacy birthright kits. 1,000,000 per kit.

Sell us reputation medals. 1,000,000 each.

Sell us R4 tokens. 50,000,000 each.

Sell us tech frags. 10,000,000 per 100x.

Sell us FP-1s, OP-1s, Daily Resource Matrix, conquest commendations etc.

Sell us heroic auto-completions. 10,000,000 per quests.

Sell us conquest points. 100,000,000 for 100,000 Conquest points.

Sell us augments 500,000,000 each.

Sell us CQP boosts. 25% more CQPs for 3 hours. Etc.

 

There an infinite number of credit sinks you can add without raising repair costs, repair frequency, and travel costs.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Traceguy

[WHTJunior]

49 minutes ago, vanonipro said:

3. Allow players to unlock stuff in Collections for credits, not only Cartel Coins, this will be a huge credit sink

I like this one, and also add more categories of items to Collections, to unlock: Event rewards, planetary vendor sets, ideally add every cosmetic item for stamping, all vendor mounts, pets. There are a lot of items that I would like to use, but I never seem to see them on the server I need them on.

Along with this, I saw a suggestion to allow character customization be for credits as well. Changing race could still be locked to CC, but gender, body type, complexion, hair, scars, etc could be credits. I had some characters that I wanted to get older or stronger, but because it costs CC, I just opted not to. Not worth it.

[Advocatis]

Listen to the people telling you this won’t affect the target audience for constricting the game economy.  They throw around figures of 100,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 like that quantity of credits is nothing.  To them it isn’t.

What is being proposed for inflation control is not only nibbling at the edges of the problem, it’s landing like a ton of bricks on the players that can least afford them while not affecting the players that can.  They need to give the money somewhere to go in sufficient quantity to make a difference.  Just charging players to go about base game play isn’t the way to do this.