Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[casirabit]

44 minutes ago, WHTJunior said:

I mean, you're not actually teleporting there, right? There's upkeep on your ship, fuel, food, etc, for the trip there. That's how I see the travel costs. In the scenario for Strongholds, though, Eric does give the initial jump to SH a free pass, because you could then pop back to where you were, as if you didn't actually travel there. Once you decide to go to a planet, though, travel costs would apply.

Except I don't use my ship anymore.  Suppose I need to go to the planet (because of the heroics). In that case, I just use the quick travel with the heroics and then go to my stronghold if I just want to do some decorating. Still, I rarely use my stronghold to travel to the planet as there isn't a reason for me to go there unless I am doing heroics, which is rare, as I do the weeklies for conquest and the length of time I am on the game, just long enough each day to do the weekly to get the conquest points for my guild and then I do not log back on that character until the following week.   You could say I spend an hour (at the most a day), which might be 7 hours a week (since I have 7 characters) playing on Tor. 

[OlBuzzard]

2 hours ago, casirabit said:

Except I don't use my ship anymore.  Suppose I need to go to the planet (because of the heroics). In that case, I just use the quick travel with the heroics and then go to my stronghold if I just want to do some decorating. Still, I rarely use my stronghold to travel to the planet as there isn't a reason for me to go there unless I am doing heroics, which is rare, as I do the weeklies for conquest and the length of time I am on the game, just long enough each day to do the weekly to get the conquest points for my guild and then I do not log back on that character until the following week.   You could say I spend an hour (at the most a day), which might be 7 hours a week (since I have 7 characters) playing on Tor. 

Strangely enough I do (use my ship) from time to time.. though as you have so well pointed out ... Not as often as we once did!

Edited February 16, 2023 by OlBuzzard
clarification

[xshiromorix]

I agree with what some other commenters have said. Too many different currencies are a big part of the problem. The majority of the credits I make don't come from regular gameplay. They come from selling OEM and RPM crafting materials, which I only buy in the first place because I'm constantly maxed out on tech fragments I can't otherwise spend for anything useful. If those items were purchasable for credits instead, that would be 160 million credits removed from the game entirely instead of passed into my hands, and that's just one example. Jawa scrap is another. Take away jawa scrap, and make crafting materials purchasable for credits at an equivalent rate. Crafting materials are consumable and need to be replaced. There's a consistent credit sink for crafters that feels like a convenience instead of a punishment.

Others have suggested making cartel decorations and dyes unlockable in collections for credits, similar to the current guild donation system. Make them personally bound, like other cartel unlocks, so that they can't be exploited for resale.

Apply the GTN sale price cap and tax to player-to-player trades. Make it impossible for people to evade those limitations.

I feel like there are a lot of other better options for tackling the problem of inflation that haven't been considered fully in favour of changes that are likely to significantly hurt the experience of new and casual players, and will ultimately do nothing to curb gold selling and exploitive prospecting.

[WHTJunior]

6 hours ago, casirabit said:

Except I don't use my ship anymore.

You might not, but canonically, your character still would.

[xxSHOONYxx]

On 2/15/2023 at 3:06 PM, Asacledhae said:

Oh I do remember, trust me. All those "penalties" were one of the many reasons (alongside broken gameplay) that ended up in the mass exodus of the majority of players, before the first server merging. I even remember the queues you had in order to enter the game, and how broken those were.

Yes, I will keep making a fuss out of that cost, simply cause it's unfair, and punishes people for actually playing the game. The real problem is the gold sellers, and how they inflate the GTN, in order to keep running their business. THAT is what BioWare has to stop instead of punishing gameplay.

 

My friend, I have examples of people who simply log into the game, for casual play, Role Play, Exploration, and they don't have enough credits to spare, simply cause they find "endgame" repetitive and tedious to do. I play this game since early access, and trust me, I'm not someone who has 500 billion credits to my account. I go by with what I get from story mode/solo flashpoints. So yes, this affects me as well, cause unlike these inflators, i do NOT have credits to spare.

With all those added prices, do you think people will keep playing the game, or move on to something else? SWTOR isn't exactly a spring chicken anymore, is it!

A cost on travel punishes people that play the game? With that in mentality you can also say gear repair is unfair and punishes people that play, you got the gear so you shouldn't need to repair when you play the game.
Even doing story or flashpoints you rack up millions of credits. Last toon i leveled from 1 to 80 on the last double xp i made around 8m credits, and would have made more without doule xp. A 500-5k travel is pennies.  

The reason why prices got out of hand is a combination of things, because a real credit sink is lacking, because of bots, because of exploits and more. Have you ever thought that those qt prices might also hinder the bots that credit sellers use and in the end have less credits in circulation? Because that is basically what you see bots do in every game, do something very repetitive get easy and fast credits delete and create a new character/account. And it doesn't matter if they get banned because they are usually low level bots on f2p accounts and they just create more. If the devs want to put a price on qt they must see on their information that is being abused by some. If i were a dev, the first step i would take would be to stop or hinder the credits bots/credit sellers make, and then take more measures to reduce the amount of credits that are already in circulation, and in my opinion this seems to be what they intend to do to some degree

People "worried" about new players with qt prices when the most worrying thing is those new players going to the gtn and seeing those prices. 

[OlBuzzard]

Building for the future... Or perhaps in this case dealing with a very serious issue such as what we have here can easily reshape how people (older players new commers alike) see SWTOR.

The essence of what will take place (or perhaps better stated) what SHOULD take place:
** Find the source of the matter.  Sometimes a clearcut definition of what we are looking at is only the beginning.  BUT it is non-the-less the first step(s).
** Find the appropriate solution(s) to what created the opportunity in the first place
** Initiate said solution(s) to help prevent or stop the incoming flow or what has been feeding the situation.  It obviously has taken on a life of its own.  
** Take the necessary step(s) to help clean up the side effect(s) created by the incident(s).  Even if the source of what has made things difficult for everyone is dealt with there is still an equally difficult task ahead of cleaning up what has been left behind.

Regardless of what I think personally, the task ahead of the team is unquestionably a difficult one.  Hopefully, those ideas and comments that have offered a genuinely sound basis to work from will be taken seriously enough to at least serve as a foundational platform to build from.  It's unlikely that the task ahead will be easy.  Those decisions that are made should be weighed with both short-term and long-term insights.  And if the initial program(s) are discovered to be ineffective  ... then it would be wise to take another look at what SHOULD be done.  Don't wait another 12 to 14 months to re-address the situation.

The faster this matter is laid to rest the quicker we can all get back to the business of SWTOR and having fun ....  ( you know ...  like we use to do...  grilling each other on the forum boards). 

😉

[Asacledhae]

1 hour ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

A cost on travel punishes people that play the game? With that in mentality you can also say gear repair is unfair and punishes people that play, you got the gear so you shouldn't need to repair when you play the game.
Even doing story or flashpoints you rack up millions of credits. Last toon i leveled from 1 to 80 on the last double xp i made around 8m credits, and would have made more without doule xp. A 500-5k travel is pennies.  

The reason why prices got out of hand is a combination of things, because a real credit sink is lacking, because of bots, because of exploits and more. Have you ever thought that those qt prices might also hinder the bots that credit sellers use and in the end have less credits in circulation? Because that is basically what you see bots do in every game, do something very repetitive get easy and fast credits delete and create a new character/account. And it doesn't matter if they get banned because they are usually low level bots on f2p accounts and they just create more. If the devs want to put a price on qt they must see on their information that is being abused by some. If i were a dev, the first step i would take would be to stop or hinder the credits bots/credit sellers make, and then take more measures to reduce the amount of credits that are already in circulation, and in my opinion this seems to be what they intend to do to some degree

People "worried" about new players with qt prices when the most worrying thing is those new players going to the gtn and seeing those prices. 

Since we went down that path, yes. I also have the "mentality" that having to repair stuff more often than I used to, is lame as well. So what exactly is wrong with my mentality, I wonder? Cause according to you, having to unnecessarily pay for stuff is natural and I should endorse it. Well, not in a million years. Such a thing is petty, and needs to be removed from the game. Speaking of which, how much starting credits you gave to your new character? Also, how much time did you waste moving back and forth on foot or with a speeder, in order to avoid quicktraveling? Not everyone has billions of credits or vast hours to spare on gaming, my friend. Some people simply log in for an hour or so to just relieve themselves from stress with a good game. The last thing they want to do, is getting frustrated.

 

And no, said quictravel fees will not hinder a bot. In this situation, almost every "botter" with a so-called fresh account, is nothing more than a "hacked" account from a poor sod who fell into their trap. Which means they start loaded, even with a small amount. And how do you know they delete the account, and not just the character? Better yet, how do you know that they don't first transfer all their funds from one account to the other? So yeah, having a price on quicktravel will not stop them, and even if that was the case? It would be a matter of time before they were to find a workaround, a normal player would not, or even exploit guild summons. But let's assume you're right, and they do start fresh F2P accounts. If that was the case, then why wouldn't our devs place a level 50, or a month long restriction, to any trade, or GTN sale to said accounts? Or simply stop people from using general chats/tells, until their account is old enough to do so, as other games do?

Reducing the credits in circulation, will only lead to frustration. Frustration will lead to anger, anger will lead to hate, and hate to the dark side. A fed up naïve person, will actually REACH the credit seller for a relief they can't get in-game. The only way to get credits flowing, would be with with better rewards, and  in-game stores that sell unique bound to legacy on pickup stuff for credits people can get their hands on. 

 

By the way, I'm not worried about new players only, I'm worrying about myself as well. I've stopped using the GTN for quite some time now due to these prices, but the last thing I want to experience, is my hard earned credits being swiped away on stupid things. Every amount lost, is still an amount, no matter how big or small it is.

[OlBuzzard]

BTW...  I ran across something that I found to be a reminder of just how stubborn some of us older folks can be when it comes to determination in getting things done!! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4RxXQ71LEo

Granted it's a fictional character ...  but that entire film gets the point across!!

Solution easy??  Who said anything about easy??? We are only limited by our imaginations and determination!!

(Sorry for the extra post ... but this entire matter has been buggin' the ... daylights out of me!!)

[Gwena]

Bioware, if you guys want to add credit sinks in the form of travel costs, instead of making Strongholds and QT cost credits to use, how about adding a fee to heroic mission transports instead? That would, in effect, simply be lowering the credit reward you get from completing them. I also do find the idea of adding fees to the travel terminals for daily areas (to CZ-198, Yavin, etc) quite reasonable and a good idea for a credit sink.

Also, the more I think about having a fee added to QT the more I hate the idea. Back in the day I paid a pretty penny to shorten the cooldown on this wonderful convenience feature, and it makes leveling so, so much less tedious. I use it a ton and I love it. IMHO, adding what is essentially a "tedium avoidance fee" where there hasn't been one for the past 10-ish years is probably not the best idea. I know I hate it, at least.

Same goes for Stronghold travel fees, depending. I'm leveling a new character and I can't tell you how much tedious travel I've saved myself by popping to my SH --> ship for every darn "Use your ship's Holoterminal" at the end of a mission arc. Part of the appeal of Strongholds is the ability to freely come and go and quickly hop around without restriction. Even now that I literally have a billion credits (well, maybe 2 billion, I am probably poor by some people's standards) I STILL don't use the cross-faction SH's because I am habitually deterred by the fee.

[xxSHOONYxx]

38 minutes ago, Asacledhae said:

Since we went down that path, yes. I also have the "mentality" that having to repair stuff more often than I used to, is lame as well. So what exactly is wrong with my mentality, I wonder? Cause according to you, having to unnecessarily pay for stuff is natural and I should endorse it. Well, not in a million years. Such a thing is petty, and needs to be removed from the game. Speaking of which, how much starting credits you gave to your new character? Also, how much time did you waste moving back and forth on foot or with a speeder, in order to avoid quicktraveling? Not everyone has billions of credits or vast hours to spare on gaming, my friend. Some people simply log in for an hour or so to just relieve themselves from stress with a good game. The last thing they want to do, is getting frustrated.

 

And no, said quictravel fees will not hinder a bot. In this situation, almost every "botter" with a so-called fresh account, is nothing more than a "hacked" account from a poor sod who fell into their trap. Which means they start loaded, even with a small amount. And how do you know they delete the account, and not just the character? Better yet, how do you know that they don't first transfer all their funds from one account to the other? So yeah, having a price on quicktravel will not stop them, and even if that was the case? It would be a matter of time before they were to find a workaround, a normal player would not, or even exploit guild summons. But let's assume you're right, and they do start fresh F2P accounts. If that was the case, then why wouldn't our devs place a level 50, or a month long restriction, to any trade, or GTN sale to said accounts? Or simply stop people from using general chats/tells, until their account is old enough to do so, as other games do?

Reducing the credits in circulation, will only lead to frustration. Frustration will lead to anger, anger will lead to hate, and hate to the dark side. A fed up naïve person, will actually REACH the credit seller for a relief they can't get in-game. The only way to get credits flowing, would be with with better rewards, and  in-game stores that sell unique bound to legacy on pickup stuff for credits people can get their hands on. 

 

By the way, I'm not worried about new players only, I'm worrying about myself as well. I've stopped using the GTN for quite some time now due to these prices, but the last thing I want to experience, is my hard earned credits being swiped away on stupid things. Every amount lost, is still an amount, no matter how big or small it is.

What is natural is credit sinks in mmos, because without credit sinks things go bad, and in an exponential trajectory. If you want a real life example look at Venezeula, 1.700.000% of inflation in 2018 for mass printing their currency for years (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/7822/production/_105345703_venezuela-inflation_v3_976-nc.png).
Do you want it on a rp way to make sense for credit sinks? Well traveling requieres fuel, or pay for a ticket. Armor repairs? Things wear down with time and use, so fabrics or people have to be hired for it to be repaired.
Sent myself 1m to buy the legacy unlocks to get more xp and that was it. And used taxi as much as i could because im not there to "enjoy the ride", wanted to save as much time as i could because i already have around 60-70 max level throughout different servers and dont care about the story, so i didn't care about saving credits. QT credits will not hurt players leveling.

They will hinder bots that use quicktravel to get things done fast. And its how bots operate in most games, they dont even need to pay a sub and just leave the bot running.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meok80VDNEQ&ab_channel=AlexGames
F2p accounts doing repetitive stuff like that, 99% of bots are likely to be found on starting planets doing something repetitive as killing adds or doing a mission, gets rid of what they make delete the character or create a new account idk and start again. It won't stop bots but it will reduce the credits they make.
And they don't transfer because they are f2p accounts, they can buy stupid stuff on gtn and an actual sub account holding the credits listing those stupid things on gtn. 

At this point reducing the credits in circulation is the only way to combat inflation. My economic knowledge is very limited but the thing that is most known by probably everyone is that when countries prints money their inflation goes up. Thats why credit sinks are a thing in mmos, servers have infinite supply of credits and are constantly "printing money" when a player kills an add or does a mission. The inflation comes from that, or well by exploits. Now if credits in circulation are reduced and/or harder for credit sellets to earn due to bots being hindered, the prices of everything on the gtn will start to go down. 
If you put sought after items on a npc it will actually encourage people to buy from credit sellers. Making any npc that sells things for credits is an invitation to credit sellers to have more customers. 

[Asacledhae]

Well, a game isn't real life, and people want to get away from real life while playing a game. And let's face it: If you attempt to fight high prices by REDUCING people's income, you're in for a major disaster. So let's agree to disagree on this subject. You won't find many who will back up the extra costs, and no, putting in a few vendors with unique cosmetic items/decorations, while increasing the credit flow, won't drive people to get credits from sellers, cause they won't "have to". 

They'll simply enjoy their game, knowing that eventually they'll get what they need, and be happy about it. 

I strongly feel that a solution like the one I mention, about restricting trades/tells/use of global chat channels for new accounts for a small grace period, will be a start. You do not cripple or annoy your regular players with nonsense, if you want to have a healthy community.

[OlBuzzard]

7 minutes ago, Asacledhae said:

Well, a game isn't real life, and people want to get away from real life while playing a game. And let's face it: If you attempt to fight high prices by REDUCING people's income, you're in for a major disaster. So let's agree to disagree on this subject. You won't find many who will back up the extra costs, and no, putting in a few vendors with unique cosmetic items/decorations, while increasing the credit flow, won't drive people to get credits from sellers, cause they won't "have to". 

They'll simply enjoy their game, knowing that eventually they'll get what they need, and be happy about it. 

I strongly feel that a solution like the one I mention, about restricting trades/tells/use of global chat channels for new accounts for a small grace period, will be a start. You do not cripple or annoy your regular players with nonsense, if you want to have a healthy community.

I agree ... to a point.

IMO there are some real issues that really do need to be addressed.  IF those items are being looked into AND being fixed then that is the beginning of getting things under control.  I don't pretend to have all of the answers for what is transpiring in SWTOR (such as bots) ... but I do believe that the team knows or at least has a good idea where to look.

Getting that part of the equation resolved is only part of the overall solution.  And it could very well be that the team is simply choosing not to discuss publicly what their plans are to take care of business.  (Strangely enough I can see part of that reasoning). 

As we mentioned before... once the source of the matter is under control then the rest can be addressed.  It may take several steps to get there.  Credit sinks are always a part of just about any game.  I honestly get that!!  BUT with such a HUGE surplus around it will probably take some creative thinking to address the magnitude of what is out there!  IMO while that might make the task a bit more challenging that does NOT make the situation impossible to deal with!  (BTW... it should be noted that there are a couple of good suggestions in this thread that might actually work!  Try them ... and if not then try again!) 

Let's face it ... doing nothing really is not the solution.  The fact that the team is at least willing to try ... AND listen that is at least another step in the right direction.

[Asacledhae]

14 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

I agree ... to a point.

IMO there are some real issues that really do need to be addressed.  IF those items are being looked into AND being fixed then that is the beginning of getting things under control.  I don't pretend to have all of the answers for what is transpiring in SWTOR (such as bots) ... but I do believe that the team knows or at least has a good idea where to look.

Getting that part of the equation resolved is only part of the overall solution.  And it could very well be that the team is simply choosing not to discuss publicly what their plans are to take care of business.  (Strangely enough I can see part of that reasoning). 

As we mentioned before... once the source of the matter is under control then the rest can be addressed.  It may take several steps to get there.  Credit sinks are always a part of just about any game.  I honestly get that!!  BUT with such a HUGE surplus around it will probably take some creative thinking to address the magnitude of what is out there!  IMO while that might make the task a bit more challenging that does NOT make the situation impossible to deal with!  (BTW... it should be noted that there are a couple of good suggestions in this thread that might actually work!  Try them ... and if not then try again!) 

Let's face it ... doing nothing really is not the solution.  The fact that the team is at least willing to try ... AND listen that is at least another step in the right direction.

I hear you.

You make some very valid points here, and I'm behind these all the way. There are ways to deal with inflation without harming the community in the process. Credit sinks yes, but in ways it won't harm the legitimate players. That is what I'm hoping our devs will consider! Hopefully we'll cleanse our game in the long run. But it may be a bumpy ride...

 

Let's face it though, we all here want to enjoy our game and see it going well.

[OlBuzzard]

4 minutes ago, Asacledhae said:

I hear you.

You make some very valid points here, and I'm behind these all the way. There are ways to deal with inflation without harming the community in the process. Credit sinks yes, but in ways it won't harm the legitimate players. That is what I'm hoping our devs will consider! Hopefully we'll cleanse our game in the long run. But it may be a bumpy ride...

 

Let's face it though, we all here want to enjoy our game and see it going well.

An old saying from an older professor of mine (many years back):

"If you aim at nothing ... you WILL hit it every time!  (Guaranteed)" 

I've actually liked seeing some of the discussions in this thread!  Sure there are a lot of opinions ... and a pretty wide variety at that!  BUT IMO the main thing is that there is NO denying just how much the community really wants to see this fixed.  And (as you have pointed out) ...  we all want to see the game going well.

 

[Vikingninerthree]

I’ll second what has been said by others about costs on quick travel, etc. being overly punishing for new/poor players, while doing little to those with billions in their accounts. If you really want to combat inflation, then you need to come up with a way to narrow the gap between the richest and the poorest players, and that means that methods that apply evenly, won’t be effective.

Instead, how about a progressive fee for GTN sales and direct trades, i.e. a fee whose percentage of the price increases with the price? You could, for example say that the fee percentage is obtained by counting the number of digits in the price. This would result in a 1,000 credit sale being taxed at 4%, a 1,000,000 credit sale at 7% and a 1 billion credit sale being taxed at 10% (the sudden rate jumps from e.g., 999 to 1,000 credits can be avoided by using Log₁₀(price) to get the rate). There’s also a lot of further options that can be applied to tune the rate progression. If, for example, you’d want to hit the high prices even harder, while leaving low prices mostly untouched, you could get the final rate as 1.5^digits. That would elevate a 4-digit price to 5%, whereas the rate for a 10-digit price would be elevated to 57% (this would be excessive in my opinion, but it illustrates that potential for parameter tuning).

 

After all, the inflation isn't felt at vendors, as those prices are controlled. It's felt on the GTN, so it makes sense to focus measures against it on that.

[Sundown]

Repeating what I wrote in the other thread, as it is merely a general observation: BW seem to be solving the wrong problem. The amount of credits in the game does not come from regular gameplay, so "taxing" regular gameplay will not fix it, it will have no impact on those illegitimately creating the credits in the first place, but punish everyone else.

You need to ask yourself: how can one generate ingame credits to be able to sell them in the billions so quickly that it is a business model. Then remove those options.

You can also artificially define upper limits for items by just adding vendors selling stuff at a fixed rate. If OEMs would be sold for 10.000.000 (example!) there was no excessive sale for those, same for all other items.

 

Minor salty remark to BW: instead of just deleting/deactivating my comment in the other thread (I had misunderstood to be the discussion thread) you could have moved it here. Feels very disrespectful and somehow does not create a "positive forum experience".

[Deaconik]

4 hours ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

What is natural is credit sinks in mmos, because without credit sinks things go bad, and in an exponential trajectory. If you want a real life example look at Venezeula, 1.700.000% of inflation in 2018 for mass printing their currency for years (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/7822/production/_105345703_venezuela-inflation_v3_976-nc.png).
Do you want it on a rp way to make sense for credit sinks? Well traveling requieres fuel, or pay for a ticket. Armor repairs? Things wear down with time and use, so fabrics or people have to be hired for it to be repaired.
Sent myself 1m to buy the legacy unlocks to get more xp and that was it. And used taxi as much as i could because im not there to "enjoy the ride", wanted to save as much time as i could because i already have around 60-70 max level throughout different servers and dont care about the story, so i didn't care about saving credits. QT credits will not hurt players leveling.

They will hinder bots that use quicktravel to get things done fast. And its how bots operate in most games, they dont even need to pay a sub and just leave the bot running.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meok80VDNEQ&ab_channel=AlexGames
F2p accounts doing repetitive stuff like that, 99% of bots are likely to be found on starting planets doing something repetitive as killing adds or doing a mission, gets rid of what they make delete the character or create a new account idk and start again. It won't stop bots but it will reduce the credits they make.
And they don't transfer because they are f2p accounts, they can buy stupid stuff on gtn and an actual sub account holding the credits listing those stupid things on gtn. 

At this point reducing the credits in circulation is the only way to combat inflation. My economic knowledge is very limited but the thing that is most known by probably everyone is that when countries prints money their inflation goes up. Thats why credit sinks are a thing in mmos, servers have infinite supply of credits and are constantly "printing money" when a player kills an add or does a mission. The inflation comes from that, or well by exploits. Now if credits in circulation are reduced and/or harder for credit sellets to earn due to bots being hindered, the prices of everything on the gtn will start to go down. 
If you put sought after items on a npc it will actually encourage people to buy from credit sellers. Making any npc that sells things for credits is an invitation to credit sellers to have more customers. 

It actually shows your economic knowledge is limited. To combat the inflation the first thing you need to have is the control over the money generations. So let's now think about that, right?

Who's responsible for the credit influx?

1) BioWare with their improper testing creating credit exploits

2) Players

3) Credit sellers

Who's gonna feel punished by any "credit sinks" the most

1) BioWare

2) Players

3) Credit sellers

Now pick the correct answers. BioWare occassionally creates credit exploits and doesn't punish exploiters nor removes credits from the game afterwards. (at least to my knowledge) So they create plenty of credits, which are then sold by credit sellers to the players. And now BioWare is going to go on a roll saying - oh no, inflation happened, who knows how, let's combat this. LEZZ DO THIS!!!! Essentially they say - let's punish players for our mistakes and mishandling the situation.

SHould have they combat the inflation earlier? Yes. Should they combat it now? I say no.

Now to the elephant in the room. Creating positively viewed credit sinks will be hard. Creating credit sinks which won't punish F2P/Preferred players will be even harder. Creating credit sinks WHILE decreasing credit generations will punish currently poor players or the future new players. Limitting transfers between players will punish players.

And now to the final point of the economics fun part. Imagine the inflation goes so high the money essentiallly lose any value at all. Then the barter starts to appear. Which is already happening. People are paying in the CM items. So while you will combat the credits and inflation, the reality is that the truly rich players have more than 100 billions credits simply in the CM items they received over the recent months. There's a reason why sell runs are being payed by the hypercrates.

 

Long story short - until BioWare starts fighting the credit selling properly we will have the inflation because credit sellers are pumping back into the economy the credits. In other words, it would be like the inlfation in the Empire being caused by the Republic. Until the Empire gets their own money printing under control, they can't fight effectively the inflation.

Which also means, that we need to be sure that when the next credit exploit happens, it will be handled properly instead of punishing everybody by "fighting the inflation".

[xxSHOONYxx]

6 hours ago, Deaconik said:

It actually shows your economic knowledge is limited. To combat the inflation the first thing you need to have is the control over the money generations. So let's now think about that, right?

Who's responsible for the credit influx?

1) BioWare with their improper testing creating credit exploits

2) Players

3) Credit sellers

Who's gonna feel punished by any "credit sinks" the most

1) BioWare

2) Players

3) Credit sellers

Now pick the correct answers. BioWare occassionally creates credit exploits and doesn't punish exploiters nor removes credits from the game afterwards. (at least to my knowledge) So they create plenty of credits, which are then sold by credit sellers to the players. And now BioWare is going to go on a roll saying - oh no, inflation happened, who knows how, let's combat this. LEZZ DO THIS!!!! Essentially they say - let's punish players for our mistakes and mishandling the situation.

SHould have they combat the inflation earlier? Yes. Should they combat it now? I say no.

Now to the elephant in the room. Creating positively viewed credit sinks will be hard. Creating credit sinks which won't punish F2P/Preferred players will be even harder. Creating credit sinks WHILE decreasing credit generations will punish currently poor players or the future new players. Limitting transfers between players will punish players.

And now to the final point of the economics fun part. Imagine the inflation goes so high the money essentiallly lose any value at all. Then the barter starts to appear. Which is already happening. People are paying in the CM items. So while you will combat the credits and inflation, the reality is that the truly rich players have more than 100 billions credits simply in the CM items they received over the recent months. There's a reason why sell runs are being payed by the hypercrates.

 

Long story short - until BioWare starts fighting the credit selling properly we will have the inflation because credit sellers are pumping back into the economy the credits. In other words, it would be like the inlfation in the Empire being caused by the Republic. Until the Empire gets their own money printing under control, they can't fight effectively the inflation.

Which also means, that we need to be sure that when the next credit exploit happens, it will be handled properly instead of punishing everybody by "fighting the inflation".

The only person i know that used a credit exploit was suspended for a week and the credits deleted, idk the rest. Bioware whether if it was the right choice or not has been combating inflation for some time, reducing conquest prices, amplifiers and more.
And it needs to be combated or else things will get worse exponentially. Doing nothing at all will punish poor and new players even more than starting to combat it. Anything a f2p gets is a weapon credit sellers can use to their benefit. F2p should not be allowed to interact with gtn at all because is the way bots have to give the credits they make to their owner.
But that is an issue of every mmo the inflation that happens because of the infinite credits that are produced.
If you think swtor is bad you should see other games how bad it is, one game comes to mind that they changed the max currency a player could hold to 9 quintillion (9,000,000,000,000,000,000)

There are very interest videos on youtube about economics and mmo economics from someone that knows a million more times than me about economic theories than me.

Credit sinks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W39TtF14i8I&ab_channel=ExtraHistory
Other methods to combat inflation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sumZLwFXJqE&ab_channel=ExtraHistory

Edited February 17, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[xxSHOONYxx]

10 hours ago, Asacledhae said:

You won't find many who will back up the extra costs, and no, putting in a few vendors with unique cosmetic items/decorations, while increasing the credit flow, won't drive people to get credits from sellers, cause they won't "have to". 

That is nice and all but that is not how many people work, Bioware and other games have accustomed people want things now and without effort, so they will buy credits

[Toraak]

A very long time ago there was a credit exploit, but from what I remember Many accounts were banned, and Trillions of credits were outright removed from the game because of it. This was years before the current inflation came about.

 

Hmm I may be thinking of when they hit the credit sellers hard that one time, now that I think of it.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Toraak

[Warped]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:29 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 after they have have experienced these changes on the PTS. General discussion should be kept to this thread. 

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

Thanks all! 

I posted this in the Credit economy feedback thread, but I'll post here as well:

None of these changes will have any inkling of a positive change in the overall issue of massive inflation. stop focusing on issues that are only going to affect new, casual, and FTP players. These players aren't the source of the issue.

Rather than nickel and diming every player in the game for PLAYING THE GAME, how about you open up the game for people to spend credits, you know; disposable income. One of the best ways to do this is a CURRENCY EXCHANGE. Example: 

in 7.0.2 you could exchange Conquest Commendations to Tech Frags and the cost of OEM-37s and RPM-13s were reduced from 5,000 (originally 10,000) to 4,000 tech frags. In the months since this change, I have watch the GTN prices of these items drop from 800-900 million credits down to 200-250 million credits. That's a huge drop in price for for an endgame crafting material. it's not just the drop in tech frags, it's the currency exchange of Conquest Commendations into Tech Frags. I do this constantly: CCs start to max out, convert a bunch of Conquest Commendations to TFs, TFs start getting full, buy OEM-37, list it on the GTN,  get credits.

If you're truly interested in reducing the inflation, set up a currency exchange and accept credits. Allow players to exchange credits for currencies like Daily Resource Matrixes and any other currencies in the game. These can be adjusted easily in one place on the fleet like a real currency exchange. Allow the exchange of one currency into another like Credits to DRMs, or Tech Frags to FP-1s, hell, expand it to allow for in-game credits to buy Cartel Points even.  you already have CCs to TFs in the game; expand that. people will spend billions to not have to farm materials and currencies. 

Stop taxing basic functions of the game that only hurt new players, and allow and expand the exchange of currencies that are already in the game. this only affects those that have hundreds of millions to billions in disposable credits that they spend willingly, and it's not a tax on just existing in the game. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Warped

[DawnAskham]

As long as DerpyMcGoo can buy a billion credits for less than a buck and a half, adding a bunch of nuisance sinks isn't going to do anything for the economy as a whole.  

Oh and I played through some of the previous exploits being discussed, and no, Bioware did not roll back or remove anywhere near the amount of credits that entered the system, nor close the accounts of exploiters.

Call me jaded, but I don't see anything here that is going to help the economy.

I don't see any action being taken on the credit generation / RMT side to address supply, nor to address artificial scarcity (CM items, items such as OEM / RPM), nor create meaningful sinks to siphon off a meaningful amount of credits.

All I see are simplistic 'quick fixes' that are anything but, and do little more than annoy players while disproportionately hitting new / low level players.

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by DawnAskham

[felleto]

On 2/16/2023 at 12:24 PM, Traceguy said:

This shouldn't even be a problem. Get rid of the asinine currencies and use credits. Get rid of tech frags. Goodbye paying 3500 tech frags for an implant upgrade, and hello 35,000,000 credit price tag.

 

abolish: FP-1s, OP-1s, CQ Comms, DRMs, R4 tokens, Tech Frags... Use credits! We have inflation because bioware doesn't let us use our credits in end game. Once you're in endgame, 99% of your purchases are done using a currency other than credits.

ETA: Get rid of the scrap currencies. Open the Jawa traders to credit trades.

Get rid of the Legacy Birthright Kits, open those vendors up to credits. You can't even get a LBK these days anyways.

Get rid of the LS/DS tokens. Open those vendors up to credits.

Get rid of or just flat out sell GS tokens.

I really like this and I believe that this will be implemented in some form in the future. I'm just happy they are addressing this issue in some way and hopefully the promise of continuing to address this issue in the next updates is not an empty one. I'm tired of those -.-

[DWho]

4 minutes ago, felleto said:

.... hopefully the promise of continuing to address this issue in the next updates is not an empty one.

This is the key. If months go by with no other adjustments made to attack the existing credit supply, the only effect of these changes will be a further drop in game population. There are too many fixes still listed as being "addressed in a future update" (that have been there for years). Hopefully, attacking the real problem of too many credits in the game (as opposed to the influx which has decreased over the last year or so as people have quit playing the game) will not be one of those.

[Warped]

On 2/16/2023 at 10:24 AM, Traceguy said:

This shouldn't even be a problem. Get rid of the asinine currencies and use credits. Get rid of tech frags. Goodbye paying 3500 tech frags for an implant upgrade, and hello 35,000,000 credit price tag.

 

abolish: FP-1s, OP-1s, CQ Comms, DRMs, R4 tokens, Tech Frags... Use credits! We have inflation because bioware doesn't let us use our credits in end game. Once you're in endgame, 99% of your purchases are done using a currency other than credits.

ETA: Get rid of the scrap currencies. Open the Jawa traders to credit trades.

Get rid of the Legacy Birthright Kits, open those vendors up to credits. You can't even get a LBK these days anyways.

Get rid of the LS/DS tokens. Open those vendors up to credits.

Get rid of or just flat out sell GS tokens.

This is the simplest solution to this issue. these other currencies do serve a function, but it's so bloated and convoluted now that it's just frustrating. They have cap on the amount you can hold, the amount you can earn weekly, and pigeon-holed vendors to keep the grind going. personally I despise the new currencies (especially the DRMs) and the abysmal gearing system they came with.  I advocate for a currency exchange vendor, but yours is simple.