Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[Toraak]

43 minutes ago, LD_Little_Dragon said:

Yes, they changed it years ago.  That was my point.  Quicktravel that you could use easily and often was a huge improvement to enjoying the game.

The dev's want to remove the quicktravel whenever you want option from newer/poorer players and that is removing QoL, not improving it.   Like so many recent changes it's a downgrade, not an upgrade.

The cost will be minimal. from my experience on the PTS, people are over exaggerating how much it'll affect people. This won't hurt much at all for new players, and in truth will do nothing to help fix the inflation either.

[Spamfritter]

On 2/9/2023 at 1:06 PM, Aakurb said:

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

Precisely. MMO game developers seem to struggle with basic economic concepts in their own games. Largely unregulated economies like the one in SWTOR will ALWAYS end up with rampant and runaway inflation because they lack the controls real world economies use to control inflation. Star Wars the Old Republic and Star Trek Online currently have the exact same problem and both developers are trying to deal with their respective issues in precisely the same was. They think credit sinks are how to do it and they just aren't. 

If you are wealthy, doubling or even tripling gas prices isn't going to change your life style or impact you all that much. If you are raking in 10's of thousands of dollars a month, going from $50 or $100 a week in gas to $100, 200 or even $300 a week probably isn't going to change anything for you. 

For players who have billions of credits, its going to take a lot more than credit sinks of 5,000cr. here and a few hundred credits there to make an impact. On the other hand, any meaningful credit sink for players with that kind of in-game currency would bankrupt players who do not have hundreds of millions of credits on hand. 

I will say it again as clearly as I can for the developers: In game credit sinks will accomplish nothing but make the poor feel poorer. If you have billions of credits in the bank and can afford to spend millions on something as mundane as dye modules or crafting mats on the GTN today, a 5,000cr. quick travel fee for something that used to cost nothing or 500cr. won't impact you in the least. 

To put it in perspective, inflation was already becoming a problem years ago. When I quit playing this game about three years ago a basic craftable black and red dye module went for about 45,000cr. on the GTN. I started playing this game again about a week ago. Today, the very cheapest black and red dye module is 650,000cr. on the GTN. I only have a couple of hundred million credits, and I feel broke. 

With what I have currently, I don't think any of the proposed credit sinks will impact me. 

Do better. 

[TrixxieTriss]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:57 AM, Toraak said:

this is incorrect. Your forgetting new players don't have unlimited QT's. New players have no legacy, so no legacy levels or perks. New players have a 6 min CD on Quick Travel ability. They won't use it as much as veteran players. Not to mention they're going to be less likely to speed through the story, and want to explore more the 1st playthrough. Which means even less use of Quick Travel.

 

People need to stop claiming this will hurt new players, it really won't hurt them much at all.

As a matter of interest. Have you started a brand new character on the PTS & done a play through of these changes to come up with these conclusions?

Because others have & they do show that it does have an affect on new players & hardly any affect on established players. 

BioWare should not be targeting new players with credit sinks. They aren’t the ones that have billions of credits or who are causing the inflation. BioWare should be targeting the people causing the inflation, not making it more difficult for new players. Talk about doing it backwards.

Edited March 20, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Toraak]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:58 PM, TrixxieTriss said:

As a matter of interest. Have you started a brand new character on the PTS & done a play through of these changes to come up with these conclusions?

Because others have & they do show that it does have an affect on new players & hardly any affect on established players. 

BioWare should not be targeting new players with credit sinks. They aren’t the ones that have billions of credits or who are causing the inflation. BioWare should be targeting the people causing the inflation, not making it more difficult for new players. Talk about doing it backwards.

Yes I did, and didn't notice a massive problem. I played it as if I was new, so not using the QT's as often as I would on live which is every chance I get. I set a timer for 6 mins, so I knew when the CD would be up for a new account at legacy level 1, and I did not notice much of a problem. 

 

I highly doubt most people that tested would think to use that 6 min timer, and just used QT every chance they got. Since nobody that I read said they tried such a strategy, I can't imagine anyone would think about it.

[DWho]

2 hours ago, Toraak said:

Yes I did, and didn't notice a massive problem. I played it as if I was new, so not using the QT's as often as I would on live which is every chance I get. I set a timer for 6 mins, so I knew when the CD would be up for a new account at legacy level 1, and I did not notice much of a problem. 

 

I highly doubt most people that tested would think to use that 6 min timer, and just used QT every chance they got. Since nobody that I read said they tried such a strategy, I can't imagine anyone would think about it.

While I don't agree that it has no impact on re-playing story or leveling characters, what is the point of it then. It clearly won't have any impact on the number of credits in the game (since the players replaying the story or leveling characters don't generate anywhere near enough credits to have an impact - at most 2-5 million per play-through). If it isn't going to even slow down credit generation, why implement it instead of something related to the GTN. At least with a change to the GTN you would actually be removing credits from the game (since listing something on the GTN doesn't actually generate any new credits by itself and a sale removes 8% of the transaction cost). This just seems poorly thought out overall.

Costs for heroic transports make sense because farming daily areas and some heroic areas can generate lots of credits. I think a simpler way to reign in credit influx is to revert back to mobs dropping planet level rewards instead of character level rewards. You can keep the mission rewards the same if you like (though they should simply put a cap on those too so that level 80s running the Coruscant heroics aren't rewarded better than someone running the heroics on Voss)

I'd also like to see some differentiation in costs for heroic transports based on whether it is a jump from fleet/stronghold to the start point compared to on planet jumps (which should be less). If you are going to keep the QT costs, they should be based on area jumps not pure distance so that jumping from one speeder pad to another doesn't cost 10 times as much using the taxi.

Edited March 21, 2023 by DWho
some additional commentary

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, DWho said:

While I don't agree that it has no impact on re-playing story or leveling characters, what is the point of it then. It clearly won't have any impact on the number of credits in the game (since the players replaying the story or leveling characters don't generate anywhere near enough credits to have an impact - at most 2-5 million per play-through). If it isn't going to even slow down credit generation, why implement it instead of something related to the GTN. At least with a change to the GTN you would actually be removing credits from the game (since listing something on the GTN doesn't actually generate any new credits by itself and a sale removes 8% of the transaction cost). This just seems poorly thought out overall.

Costs for heroic transports make sense because farming daily areas and some heroic areas can generate lots of credits. I think a simpler way to reign in credit influx is to revert back to mobs dropping planet level rewards instead of character level rewards. You can keep the mission rewards the same if you like (though they should simply put a cap on those too so that level 80s running the Coruscant heroics aren't rewarded better than someone running the heroics on Voss)

I'd also like to see some differentiation in costs for heroic transports based on whether it is a jump from fleet/stronghold to the start point compared to on planet jumps (which should be less). If you are going to keep the QT costs, they should be based on area jumps not pure distance so that jumping from one speeder pad to another doesn't cost 10 times as much using the taxi.

It's not meant to hamper replay throughs however. It's meant to hamper people doing Heroic Spam. Those heroic transports to my understanding are still considered QT's. So those level 80's spamming heroics will generate less credits now with the Tax then they currently do. That I believe is the main point for the QT tax.

 

The starting player or those going through stories a 2nd or 3rd time won't be the ones this affects as much. As I've said in the past I do not think this will affect inflation, but will somewhat slow down credit generation to a point (Notice I said to a point, not enough to do anything most likely.), but BW did say this was stage 1, and that they intend to see what changes need to be made in the future. 

[DWho]

Heroic Transports and your legacy QT ability function differently. The heroic transports take you directly to the entrance of the heroic while the personal QTs only take you to an unlocked QT point (typically at speeder pads). The personal QTs existed long before the heroic transports and are thus very likely to use a different mechanism (and separate code structure). It should have been possible to add a cost to heroic transports without adding them to the personal QTs.

A 1% increase in the GTN tax would have done more for reducing credits in the game than any personal QT tax will ever do (and should have been extremely easy to code)

The QT costs are an unnecessary annoyance (especially with the annoying pop-up asking if you want to spend the credits). If you want to drain credits, why not just reduce the rewards for completing the heroic missions by a 1000 credits (adjusted down for lower level characters who receive lower rewards for them). That would be unnoticeable by players and would have accomplished exactly the same thing (and wouldn't have been interpreted as nickle and diming them to death or reducing the effectiveness of a very popular QoL).

It really does seem the intent is to get people to quick travel less as a means or slowing down the rate they complete content irrespective of the rewards it grants. I didn't see a functional Heroic transport cost on the PTS so it's likely one won't be included in this when it goes live (or the costs are going to be so egregious, the forums would have burned down under the criticism).

[krackcommando]

I know this has already been mentioned elsewhere, but....

every single one of the changes mentioned in 7.2.1 are things that should have been in place YEARS ago to slow down inflation. these are not helpful to combat existing inflation. in fact, they appear to disproportionately affect new accounts. and maybe preferred/f2p. this in no way affects anyone setting and paying ridiculously high prices for relatively basic goods in trade or on the gtn.

I think you're doing this backarseward. this is something you should do AFTER the big credit sinks so that the rest of the economy is more affordable.

[Ardrossan]

On 3/21/2023 at 11:31 AM, Toraak said:

It's not meant to hamper replay throughs however. It's meant to hamper people doing Heroic Spam. Those heroic transports to my understanding are still considered QT's. So those level 80's spamming heroics will generate less credits now with the Tax then they currently do. That I believe is the main point for the QT tax.

It's amusing that you refer to it as 'heroic spam' as if the players are doing something wrong or that bioware didn't intend. The new mechanics make doing heroics the easiest way to collect DRMs quickly; if players are doing a lot of heroics, they are doing exactly what bioware has set up for them to do. 

Maybe you should quit blaming players and rationalizing BW's actions, which as many have said, will accomplish nothing but frustration and is a transparent attempt to lengthen travel time to stretch out 10 year old content.

[aeterno]

I'm no expert but it feels this will just feel bad QoL and newbie-wise with little to no tangible effect.

People are conscious of the economy being scuffed by people with billions galore dictating market prices.

They can macro their toon to QT for the rest of their lives and it won't make a dent.

You ain't fixing this on the back of minute transactional taxation. Yes, it adds up to a large sum, but not where it counts. The market will still be dictated and warped by people with purchasing power that won't ever register these changes. Those people are not making credits by hopping from heroic to heroic, they're using the credits they have to play the market. 

 

If BW wants to suck credits out of the system they have to give end-game players credit sinks that actually have appeal to those players... with something like WoWs Black Market Auction House. Put up the rarest/removed/most desirable items for a bidding war between the fat cats of the server. If it removes 50-100 billion credits out of the system in one pop, it's worth it to sell a dude the Wings of the Architect or an otherwise 10k CC item.

Edited March 24, 2023 by aeterno

[Toraak]

12 hours ago, Ardrossan said:

It's amusing that you refer to it as 'heroic spam' as if the players are doing something wrong or that bioware didn't intend. The new mechanics make doing heroics the easiest way to collect DRMs quickly; if players are doing a lot of heroics, they are doing exactly what bioware has set up for them to do. 

Maybe you should quit blaming players and rationalizing BW's actions, which as many have said, will accomplish nothing but frustration and is a transparent attempt to lengthen travel time to stretch out 10 year old content.

I'm not blaming anyone, heck I do heroic spam as well from time to time, so on those days it will be meant for me as well. And as I've said It will accomplish nothing. If you think I've said otherwise you need to reread many of my posts. 

[peterschlossersw]

Controlling ANY economy is hard to do, be it game-life or real-life.  Some of the changes proposed by SWTOR developers to introduce credit sinks, such as charging for use of Quick Travel seem misguided.  We didn’t get credit rich because there was no fee for using QT.  I got credit rich buying low, and selling high. But there ARE some lessons we can learn from real-life economy controls.

• Do not allow the exchange of ANY item or credit between accounts without taxation.  This includes direct trades, mail, etc.  Many things in real-life are taxed when ownership changes.  The DMV charges the new car owner a tax.  PayPal (in most cases) exacts their fee when money changes hands. 
• If tradable game items (ie. Unstable Peacemaker, Twisted Fang, Senya’s Pike) were assigned a realistic trade value, then the net worth (total credit and item holdings) of a given server-account could be calculated used to make taxation decisions.  The more you have, the higher your tax RATE.
• Just as the IRS, the concept of capital gains tax could be used.  If I paid 4M for an item I later sold for 404M, I could fairly be taxed on the 400M gain.  An item I pay 400M for later sells for 425M, it seems more fairly taxed on the 25M gain.
• If you ARE going to tax us for a given service, consider taxing us at differing rates.  A F2P player may still be taxed, but less than a subber with millions of credits in the bank.  Subbers with 100B+ in their legacy bank, can easily afford to pay a higher tax RATE than a subber just starting out with only a few million credits.

These are just a few real-life examples doing a great deal to keep economies in check.

[ShadowyKai]

Quote

Credit Economy Initiative - Our team implemented the first changes to correct some of our economic inflation.

Oh, here comes that sinking feeling ... 

[Traceguy]

21 hours ago, peterschlossersw said:

 

•  A F2P player may still be taxed, but less than a subber with millions of credits in the bank

 

Bioware's goal is to get F2P to sub. So they'd be better off saying "Sub benefits: Lower tax rates"

[Traceguy]

On 3/24/2023 at 3:51 PM, aeterno said:

If BW wants to suck credits out of the system they have to give end-game players credit sinks that actually have appeal to those players... 

This. At level 80, there is practically nothing to spend credits on. We moved on to spending DRMs and Tech Frags. Players are rich because endgame has become a "earn credits, can't spend credits" thing. Not a "Free quick travel makes me rich" thing

Edited March 27, 2023 by Traceguy

[peterschlossersw]

19 minutes ago, Traceguy said:

Players are rich because endgame has become a "earn credits, can't spend credits" thing.

I'll acknowledge the accumulation of wealth, hunting the GTN for under-valued items, and upselling them, has become my game within the game.

[WHTJunior]

15 minutes ago, peterschlossersw said:

I'll acknowledge the accumulation of wealth, hunting the GTN for under-valued items, and upselling them, has become my game within the game.

To be fair, you aren't contributing to Bioware's definition of inflation, which is mass introduction of credits into the system. You are only transferring some credits to someone else, only to have someone transfer you more credits than you paid. The only increase here, is to the perceived inflation, where items on the GTN cost more than before.

[peterschlossersw]

I'm not convinced a credit exploit from way back in 6.0? is to blame for current inflation.  What about those credit farmers?  The gamer-easy ones with purported bots farming slicing lockboxes 24/7?  Are they able to trade their credits to buyers without taxation?  It may also be prudent to limit the number of times a single account can gather lockboxes in one day, if these guys are pouring credits into the system.  I now see a new trend across servers, someone redirecting to discord wanting to buy credits for real $$$.

Edited March 28, 2023 by peterschlossersw

[Thompsons]

Posting only in agreement to what's been posted already by many:

The changes here hurt new/poor players who are struggling to accumulate wealth more than it drains the wealthy. The charges affect things new/poor players use to save money -- and time. For instance, my habit of going to the fleet and using hanger terminals there to go to planets at no cost is a habit formed when I was broke. 

[Tiiamaath]

To really combat inflation is to add back old armor sets and weapons to the cartel market or add them to vendors. The biggest culprit is the Cartel Market. This is where the inflation comes from.  Once an item disappear from the cartel market the price go up by billions and billions.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Tiiamaath

[DewyMossEmpire]

The only thing Quick Travel fees are going to do is harm new players, but the game needs new players. It doesn't need more rich veteran players, who will not be affected by this change whatsoever.

Honestly, at this point, it seems like the economy is beyond repair or salvation.

Unpopular hot take, but unless they are simply going to drain everyone's credits across all servers and put a hard cap of (for a random example) 10 million credits for all players, they may as well just leave it alone. There is no going back, they allowed it to get to the point of no return. Either leave it be or make a completely drastic change.

Quick Travel fees is not the change we need, not by a long shot.

[peterschlossersw]

3 hours ago, DewyMossEmpire said:

Quick Travel fees is not the change we need, not by a long shot.

I agree. This proposed changed seems poorly analyzed and weakens my confidence in BW's decision-making.  Who is accountable for approving such choices?

I found a recent change "no up/down arrow on inventory compact" to be really pointless. It means I must close and reopen my inventory to compact as I open the gear boxes from weeklies.  In my experience with software design, a change, just for the sake of change without really solving a problem, (potentially) creates more problems than it solves.  This one qualifies as a solution in seek of a problem.

We all want the inflation/economy issue solved.  But in my experience, controlling economies is not easy to do.  I vote no to knee-jerk reactional changes, please. 

Asking everyone to pay for the problems the elite impart has never been a sustainable solution.  Is this also apolitical issue? hell yea.

Edited March 28, 2023 by peterschlossersw

[recalcitrantIre]

2 hours ago, peterschlossersw said:

 I vote no knee-jerk reactional changes, please.

the game economy has been in such a poor state for such a long time that I doubt anything could really be considered a knee-jerk reaction, and even reverting some of the most critically influential changes wouldn't have much impact because the damage wrt legitimate generation of inordinate amounts of credits is already done

[peterschlossersw]

2 hours ago, recalcitrantIre said:

because the damage wrt legitimate generation of inordinate amounts of credits is already done

seriously? were does this jive come from? This is almost as disinformative as fleet shat. the "have nots" whining about what the "haves" have?  All this hearsay without any kind of evidentiary support bugs me. sorry.  stop this fear mongering, already. film a documentary or something.  I got my 104B legacy bank warning without any credit exploit, thank you. just wasteful lengthy tedious work.

[onidakken]

Who are these guys . the ones who think that this is going to change anything? I am not a hardcore grinding  player.. I play for fun.

I am not a very rich player..but at the end of the day i'd like to feel i made a profit. I spent millions on my legacy perks to allow me to use my qt to qt saving me some money. I wont go to pts server anymore..anything negative you say about the changes are ignored.

   Changes that they want to make make the game less enjoyable.  No one wants to play a game where all the hard work you do is penalized. Maxed out my sh..well sucks to be me..i will have to pay to go home. Maxed out my char perks..now i still have to pay to use them.  bad ideas all around. 24 plus pages of folks saying BAD IDEA..but ya still gonna do it anyway.  can take my 16 bux elsewhere. i call for a vote of no confidence in the devs leadership ability.