Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[Traceguy]

13 hours ago, Toraak said:

These are horrible Idea's. Charging credits for many of the things on this list comes way to close to P2W.

Pay to win means you pay IRL money to get stronger than other players. Nothing in that list applies to that.

[Traceguy]

13 minutes ago, Exocor said:

 

What items exactly do you refer to that you get by doing planet missions? It can't be armor random drops. Each goes for what? 20.000 Credits at the vendor? You need 50.000 of those to accumulate a billion Credits.

Random armor drops indeed sell for millions of credits. This is because bioware has created a shortage of them by making gear drop match your level. There are some really unique bind-on-equip armors between level 1 to level 75. A level 80 can never get those again unless they use GTN or create a new toon. What do you think is easier? GTN. I sold a level 70 chest piece the other day for 500,000,000 credits.

[Traceguy]

4 hours ago, black_pyros said:

I can assure you I know it exactly. Maybe it's just you who doesn't know, but since you didn't even bother to say what you don't understand, I can't even explain it to you but hey, nvm thank you for trying, I guess 🤷‍♂️

Since you didn't explain it, you Indeed do not know what you're talking about. One last chance. Show me where I can spend my credits right now to buy Satele Shan's armor set? Show met right now where I can spend my credits to get some more CC?

The 2 things you listed don't count. For example, I got level 100 GS spending 0 credits. How do I spend credits on GS currently to get more CC?

Edited February 14, 2023 by Traceguy

[DawnAskham]

11 hours ago, MadDutchman said:

I feel like these changes fundamentally misunderstand the nature of markets. 

Most notably... you seem to be largely ignoring the actual market and relying on "administrative" changes (taxes) to influence the economy. 

While this can certainly be a part of it, the market is the vast, powerful engine of the economy and if handled properly, will have a vastly outsized, and far less controversial, effect on prices. 

So my suggestion is one I've made a number of times in the past, but now seems as good a time to make it again: Increase GTN Accessibility and Usage

The GTN tax is probably one of, if not the biggest, credit sinks in the game, and importantly is a tax that does not punish new players. Simply put, the more sales occur on the GTN, the more credits are drained from the economy. More importantly though, the more supply on the GTN will drive down prices, not through any tax, but based on the simple laws of supply and demand. 

So the two goals here are obvious enough: Make it easier for people to supply and make it easier for people to buy

• Increasing Supply: The idea here is to make it easier and more desirable for people to list on the GTN. As it stands now, many items are expensive/non-existent on the GTN largely because people are too lazy to list it, or don't know they can list it for a lot of money (Ex. Inspiration Vestments are very high value. How many world drops are just vendored because no one knows it's value?)
  • Show GTN pricing information on an items info panel (perhaps as an extended menu accessed via modifier key to keep down clutter). This will incentivize players to list items on the GTN rather than just vendoring them, with the higher the value, the better. 
  • Allow GTN listing at more locations, and even in the field (ex. through a legacy perk/purchase). If it's just as easy to list on the GTN rather then vendoring, they'll go for the option that has the best value
  • Quick Listing: Have preset listing prices on listing for "one click listing" to maximize ease of access (ex. a list item for 5% below current average price, current lowest price etc.) Custom pricing will still be allowed of course. 
  • Have a dedicated UI for collecting money from the GTN. Using the mail is, frankly, an awful system. 
  • Improve the listing UI for filtering and sorting listings
  • Provide a UI for providing historical sale information. If people know about hot items, supply will naturally flow to fill that demand
• Increasing Purchases: The idea here is, like above, to make it easier for users to find what they want, as well as advertise what they want. 
  • Add Buy listings. Fairly self explanatory, let players add buy listing for a specific price. If a seller doesn't want to wait for a buyer, they can sell it directly and immediately. Could automatically fulfill a buy listing when creating a sell listing as well if the list price is less than or equal to a buy listing. 
  • Smart Search: Add autocomplete to the text search, as well as text based categories (ex: adding :armor Mandalorian will search under armor for everything containing the text "Mandalorian"
  • Price Watches: Can place watches on specific items to give a notification based on pricing information, or show historical data (useful for sellers too)

A system like this should massively increase the supply on the GTN and increase the use of the GTN tax, which will both benefit inflation. It will also make interacting with the GTN a better user experience in general, so win-win. 

Some of these are obviously fairly big items, but they could be rolled out incrementally fairly easily. 

One has to wonder why even a simple increase to the sale price limit on the GTN isn't a part of Bioware's initial effort, as that seems to be the lowest hanging fruit, and a change which could remove significantly more credits from the game than any of the current changes on the PTS to travel and repair fees. 

Beyond increasing the limit, I would love to see improvements to the GTN - but given the amount of technical debt SWTOR has run up over the year and the limited resources provided by EA, I don't expect to see anything anytime soon.

[DWho]

27 minutes ago, Exocor said:

 

What items exactly do you refer to that you get by doing planet missions? It can't be armor random drops. Each goes for what? 20.000 Credits at the vendor? You need 50.000 of those to accumulate a billion Credits.

credits from random drops. Killing a mob with a level 80 character drops 250 credits while killing the same mob with a level 20 drops 40 credits (~6 times as much). A piece of gear that drops for a level 20 sells for 70 credits while one for a level 80 sells for 3000 (~40 times as much if you don't disassemble it for the more valuable sub-components). This was a huge boost in credit inflow in the game. Reverting to the original planet level rewards would cut credit inflow by a ton. Much more so than any of the other reward reductions Bioware has done over the years.

It addresses credit flux. The only thing that is going to affect Billionares is forcing them to trade on the GTN and taxing those sales (the travel costs are little more than a pin prick to those players - if even that - but are punative to low level and casual players)

[DWho]

10 minutes ago, DawnAskham said:

One has to wonder why even a simple increase to the sale price limit on the GTN isn't a part of Bioware's initial effort, as that seems to be the lowest hanging fruit, and a change which could remove significantly more credits from the game than any of the current changes on the PTS to travel and repair fees. 

Beyond increasing the limit, I would love to see improvements to the GTN - but given the amount of technical debt SWTOR has run up over the year and the limited resources provided by EA, I don't expect to see anything anytime soon.

The problem with just an increase is there is no real incentive to use the GTN for big sales/purchases. There is already a thriving market of off GTN sales where no credits at all are removed from the game ("tax evasion"). An increase in the GTN limit would have to be combined with something that forces trades back onto the GTN for it to be an effective sink.

[ronin_chi_lao]

1 minute ago, DWho said:

The problem with just an increase is there is no real incentive to use the GTN for big sales/purchases. There is already a thriving market of off GTN sales where no credits at all are removed from the game ("tax evasion"). An increase in the GTN limit would have to be combined with something that forces trades back onto the GTN for it to be an effective sink.

Honestly they should just find a way to limit prices on all cartel items and end game items in general no matter if still in a crate or not (esp. the ones they pulled out since they are reaching out in price more). *solved*

[microstyles]

36 minutes ago, DWho said:

The problem with just an increase is there is no real incentive to use the GTN for big sales/purchases.

I think you overestimate how much time and patience the average player has to spam trade chat in order to sell things. Convenience is always a huge incentive.

A raised cap would also mean fewer buyers in trade chat since they would have another, more convenient option.

[Jesseriah]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:40 PM, Sir-steve said:

• 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.

We need fun/shiny/desirable/cosmetic things (new or old) to SPEND our credits on so we get something in return.....not have them 'taxed' away to use something we already paid for.

 

Exactly.

[OlBuzzard]

From what the old man is seeing...
** The team is trying (and perhaps even listening a bit).  That tells me that @JackieKo is doing her part of conveying what's happening here ...  (as strange as that may sound) .. maybe even @EricMusco might even be listening!
** If you are expecting to fry everyone ...  That's just not going to happen.  There's been some stuff proposed here that (in my opinion) was little more than trolling.  NO I won't mention anything in specific.  That is not my objective in this post.
** Overall, this does tell me that so many of us are so desperate to try to get this under control that we are offering just about anything (within reason) to help!  THAT alone should point out just how serious most of us are convinced that this situation really needs to be addressed.  
** Additionally I would dare say (after reading other posts in other parts of the forum board) that what is happening on the GTN...  is just a REFLECTION of other issues at large.  Yes, credit sinks matter.  BUT (as someone else has so wisely pointed out) those credit sinks need to be the RIGHT credit sinks.  Otherwise, they only hurt the overall player base which in turn will impede the progression of SWTOR in the future.  
** Making parts of the game available such as augments that are not GATED will help player progression without dependance on the GTN thereby helping combat inflation issues that are still present.  (This does not apply to BiS slotted items which are currently being crafted.  Crafted items IMO is needing a lot of love.  And perhaps someone who is into crafting in a big way should start a separate thread on that subject so as to not derail this one).  In other words:  If prototype augments are available through playing the game that certainly changes matters a great deal.  Adding them should be relatively easy and much faster than waiting for the attrition of billions of credits on the market. (I'm hoping this makes sense).  This simply makes one more step available without dependance upon the GTN!
** Cutting off the source of multiplied billions upon billions of credits.  IMO it's staggering just how far this has really gone.  Spending hundreds of billions at a time?  It's just plain nuts!  Buying and selling does not GENERATE those kinds of credits!  And likewise neither will charging a hefty number of credits to the innocent players who have logged on and just want to enjoy SWTOR help resolve the situation (not on THAT kind of scale).

I do believe that by now the team is getting a pretty clear picture of what is going on!  If I accomplish nothing else I would prefer the team to take appropriate steps to get this under control.  And yes... I do agree that this is going to take time.  We didn't arrive here over night!  It's unlikely that this situation is going away quickly.

NO!  I really don't expect this to be that well received because I didn't blast the thunder out of anyone!  BUT... that being said.  This is one time I hope that this message is taken very seriously!  That's just how I do things.  Sometimes it works ...  sometimes not!

Some very good points have been made and good ideas have been presented.  No...  not all of them are good.  But a lot of them are!

Finish STRONG!  

[Traceguy]

Fact is, no one sells on trade chat to evade tax. They do it because they can't get more than 1b on GTN. No one is going to sell Darth Malgus's lightsaber on the GTN for 1b when someone in trade chat will offer to buy it for 5b.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Traceguy

[DasDeke]

17 hours ago, Zeloz said:

It seems like most of these changes only affect/annoy the average player, and farmers/bots will still be clear to screw the economy further.  Literally one armor set sold at the price of 1 billion or more could let any person pay off these fees for years and years.  The average player is not destroying the economy either with the few million that can be made through normal activities over months.  I totally agree that they should not be focusing on these types of credit sinks and should instead focus on giving the average player the ability to obtain the items they want for the time they put into the game, simple as that.  If you're here devs, the real way to make this better is to make it so people can't resell items for a higher price than the initial price sold to stop scalpers, have a sliding tax on items so the higher the selling price of the item the more gets removed from the economy, perhaps put a max value on each item, reduce the number of cartel items one can purchase in a given timespan (if the item does not get bound to your own character) so that people aren't hoarding tons of items, and let players buy cartel items with another form of currency based on the time you put into the game/activities.  If you let players get what they want, everyone will be happy.

Building off how about instead of Cartel Coins for Appearance changes, you start charging credits? Or using credits to buy game time (similar to how WoW does it).

[casirabit]

16 hours ago, Jursy said:

If the stronghold travel cost is ONLY if you switch planets, I'm fine with paying for that.  BUT, I'm reading that QT costs on Coruscant and Dromund Kaas are 5000 credits at the max end.  That's excessive!  If QT is that excessive, then stronghold costs will have the same 300 - 500 percent markup as well.  Right?  Bioware, are you trying to drive people away from your game?  

In addition to all that, now I have to repair more often and for more credits.  While I understand and agree with the need to fight inflation in the game, this feels like punishment to me.  I pay for games to have FUN, not to be punished for playing.  It's looking like I'll end up saving $360 a year in real money.  Thanks for that at least, Bioware.

Yes, I tested Coruscant, and their QT was even higher than some of the higher-level planets, which I said is stupid.  Coruscant is one of the beginning planets. (Not a problem for me as I tend to send credits to my new characters but for brand new players a problem)

[Advocatis]

12 hours ago, Blakinik said:

I like where you are going, but don't think it takes it all the way there.  There is also a flaw in the system - the RNG nature of the loot crates.  Want to knock this one out right at the start, but effectively by making a "rarity" aspect it perpetually drives prices higher and higher until either enough copies have entered the market in which it becomes saturated to which the only demand is future players demanding purchases, or allow for some alternative posting of items on the GTN for credits.

Effectively if they want to reduce the inflation and credits, they need to become the equivalent of the SWTOR Federal Reserve.  Instead of buying "bonds" to pump cash into the economy (in SWTOR terms - purchase of items on the GTN by some 'bot' or vendors buy items), they need to do the inverse and have a series of 'bots' posting items for sale in a competitive fashion.  every vented lightsaber (of even a Czerka Crate-o-matic or any ultra rare high value items) they sell for billions of credits immediately gets pulled from the economy and digitally destroyed.

 

I like that idea of using CM items to drain the economy of excess credits directly from the people that have them.  Competitive (but not punitive) pricing should not only drain excess credits, but slowly bring down GTN prices as well.  Of course, it’s easy for me to agree with this, as I don’t play GTN investment games.  All my resources pretty much go straight to my characters.

[Toraak]

3 hours ago, Traceguy said:

Pay to win means you pay IRL money to get stronger than other players. Nothing in that list applies to that.

Agreed, which is why I said it comes close to. Buying tech frags, resource matrix's, or other currencies for credits wouldn't be P2W, but it would encourage players to use Credit Sellers to get them to get the 2nd best level of gear.

 

Now putting up R-4 Tokens up for credits would definitely be pushing that even further, since R-4 tokens (in Vet Mode) are the BiS gear, While you could argue that you could still get the items in game for free (which is true), it would be pushing people way more to buy credits from these sites. I personally would hope BW would try and avoid selling Currencies and Gear tokens for credits because of this.

[Jdast]

22 hours ago, Traceguy said:

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.

 

Toraak is 100 percent correct. This is Pay to Win (P2W). The individuals who would most celebrate this change would be third party credit sellers.

You are literally saying players can buy BiS slot gear with credits which, in fact, are purchasable with cold hard IRL cash. I would go further than Toraak, though, and say it's not "close to P2W" - it is P2W. Under your proposed system, people could never engage in FPs, OPs, etc. and still purchase gear through Real Money Transfers (RMT) or as you say -- IRL money.

The day this happens is the day I insta-quit.

Dasty

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jdast
Clarity

[ronin_chi_lao]

11 minutes ago, Toraak said:

Pay to win means you pay IRL money to get stronger than other players. Nothing in that list applies to that.

Except some players do. To credit sellers. 

[OlBuzzard]

5 minutes ago, Jdast said:

Toraak is 100 percent correct. This the definition of Pay to Win (P2W). The individuals who would most celebrate this change would be third party credit sellers.

You are literally saying players can buy BiS slot gear with credits. I would go further than Toraak, though, and say it's not "close to P2W" - it is P2W. Under your proposed system, people could never engage in FPs, OPs, etc. and still purchase gear through Real Money Transfers (RMT). 

The day this happens is the day I insta-quit.

Dasty

And IMO there is very little difference between this and paying out billions (10's of billions) to buy a players way through parts of the game where the good stuff is obviously gated.  

BOTH are one in the same.  No wonders so many are so riled up about this entire affair!

[jedikranma]

Bring back old schematics from 1.0 to 6.0. charge higher prices for old schematics and bring them back monthly, say like armormech in april, armstech in may, and etc. 

Bring back old pvp and raiding gear. talking about the old tionese, columi, rakata looks at level 50. sell the sells at 1 million per and make it bop so it cannot be resold on the gtn. 

Let us use credits to unlock on titles you cant get anymore for alts, like containment officer or sis agent during the chevin event since you can't bring those back. 

 

[Traceguy]

1 hour ago, Jdast said:

Toraak is 100 percent correct. This is Pay to Win (P2W). The individuals who would most celebrate this change would be third party credit sellers.

You are literally saying players can buy BiS slot gear with credits which, in fact, are purchasable with cold hard IRL cash. I would go further than Toraak, though, and say it's not "close to P2W" - it is P2W. Under your proposed system, people could never engage in FPs, OPs, etc. and still purchase gear through Real Money Transfers (RMT) or as you say -- IRL money.

The day this happens is the day I insta-quit.

Dasty

Tell me, when a player sells a BiS to another player, how is that not making credit sellers cheer? It's not pay to win, in no way does that make you win by paying money. Did you forget we're talking about credits? Not CCs.  

[Traceguy]

1 hour ago, ronin_chi_lao said:

Except some players do. To credit sellers. 

So a Player selling augs for 2b makes Credit sellers less money than Bioware selling them for 500m? Come on think harder.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Traceguy

[Jdast]

1 hour ago, Traceguy said:

Tell me, when a player sells a BiS to another player, how is that not making credit sellers cheer? It's not pay to win, in no way does that make you win by paying money. Did you forget we're talking about credits? Not CCs.  

Of course credit sellers cheer when a player "sells" BiS to another via sale runs/ expensive augments, etc. But there is an important distinction...

1) For sale runs, the buyer still has to participate in the content, which is categorically different, while there are alternative paths for augments; and

2) There is undoubtedly an alpha percentage of the population that would take advantage of the 'buy on demand' aspect of the system you propose as opposed to dealing with the hassle of finding a sales run.

3) It is impossible to enforce banning sale runs or private transactions for a myriad of reasons. Your proposed solutions would destroy the trading economy for augments and do nothing about sale runs other than impose an artificial and arbitrary cap. I have no idea how you arrived at the prices you suggested. Your system works only if you consider ruining the trading economy, which I suppose is your goal. But yes, one way to curb inflation is to destroy trading altogether -- just like a good way to cure a headache is to remove the head.

/shrug

Bottom line: Third party credit sellers would rejoice under your system.

I didn't understand your last point about credits vs. CC's. I know the difference. In any case, we are at risk of derailing the thread so I'll bow out. Feel free to have the last word, but suffice it to say, we should agree to disagree. There is a reason no major Western MMORPG has the system you propose. 

Dasty

Edited February 14, 2023 by Jdast
Stupid typos!

[ronin_chi_lao]

31 minutes ago, Traceguy said:

So a Player selling augs for 2b makes Credit sellers less money than Bioware selling them for 500m? Come on think harder.

Your twisting my words. Not all players play the gtn with cc and WILL buy from a credit seller for way cheaper then trying to sell something nice they got from cartel. They get 2 bil for 5 dollars (of real money) from a credit seller and get the augs and whatever else you suggested they need. Then that would be pay to win. 

[OlBuzzard]

35 minutes ago, Jdast said:

Of course credit sellers cheer when a player "sells" BiS to another view sale runs/ expensive augments, etc. But there is an important distinction...

1) For sale runs, the buyer still has to participate in the content, which is categorically different; and

2) There is undoubtedly an alpha percentage of the population that would take advantage of the 'buy on demand' aspect of the system you propose as opposed to dealing with the hassle of finding a sales run.

3) It is impossible to enforce banning sale runs or private transactions for a myriad of reasons. Your proposed solutions would destroy the trading economy for augments and do nothing about sale runs other than impose an artificial and arbitrary cap. I have no idea how you arrived at the prices you suggested. Your system works only if you consider ruining the trading economy, which I suppose is your goal.

/shrug

Bottom line: Third party credit sellers would rejoice under your system.

I didn't understand your last point about credits vs. CC's. I know the difference. In any case, we are at risk of derailing the thread so I'll bow out. Feel free to have the last word, but suffice it to say, we should agree to disagree. There is a reason no major Western MMORPG has the system you propose. 

Dasty

Exactly this ... ^^^

** There is a vast difference between using credits for stuff that's like decos or appearance items that are also BOP when purchased  (If anyone buys them) ... AND that of armor items that are used for in-game stats! 
** I'm personally still not happy with the concept of sales runs or the rest of that sort of thing (IMO it's still a form of P2W).  BUT also it's next to impossible to regulate or monitor.  BTW... it should be noted that the participation level is not that high if said player is pretty much being carried through.  (Just my opinion on that one).
** Several others have suggested ideas that would be tempting for players to actually spend large quantities of credits through temporary vendors (all said items would be BOP)  Obviously that would in turn remove said credits from the game.  IMO it will take significant efforts with significant impact (in terms of larger quantities of credits) in order to have the sort of positive effect on SWTOR that is needed.  
** I still think it is equally important to make sure that credits are not being pumped BACK into the game through credit sellers etc.  Otherwise, all of this is for nothing!

This should not be seen as an impossible task but perhaps an opportunity to help heal some old wounds.  IMO that is something we could ALL use right about now!

[jahrnyn]

6 hours ago, Gibonski said:

You know what destroyed the economy? RPM prices, and the fact that you could go in 4v4 premades and win-trade it over and over and over again on your 20+toons with a guild every night, for so many months...

Well, youre half right. Coz at least they did bring something to the table (RPM in this case) unlike the resellers. OFC BW should monitor situations like this and take steps against it FAST but i guess they dont have enough manpower. 

Again, pls BW dont punish new/casual players. We need them (less wait time in activities and more lively servers ), you need them (they have the posibility to spend money on sub/cc) - everybody wins.