Credit Economy Initiative beginning with 7.2.1

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, fabsus said:

Your insinuation is quite impertinent and also inappropriate. However, based on your forum history, it's easy to see that you try to personally defame other commentators at the slightest hint of criticism, without any basis whatsoever. 

Perhaps you should advise the cynic in you to keep his fingers still.

I also think that I have explained in the simplest possible terms how inflation is developing and that it is still very easy to follow its course using various objects. We are not talking about some rocket science that is difficult to understand, but about the basics of the market economy. 

Your interpretation of any findings is also quite distorted. The evasion of the tax is actually not the problem/cause, but merely a consequence. I have already described that, too, as well as why inflation increases exponentially as a result. According to your statements here, inflation would then have to apply uniformly to all items. However, a look at the GTN disproves this. 
quod erat demonstrandum

Perhaps you should question the effort behind your demands and how many systems you want to intervene in. This alone makes the rights system much more complicated and inevitably leads to an increased moderation effort.

Furthermore, the assertion that merely raising existing values will lead to more problems than the complete restructuring of the rights and trading system is rather a case for stories from the fairytale forest. Less for a problem oriented discussion. 

Sadly, your logic on this is flawed & therefore, so is your explanation & solution to fix it.

Edited April 20, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[DawnAskham]

Place your bets...

When the next post goes up regarding initiatives for 7.3, will they pick the low-hanging fruit and simply increase the GTN sales price limit?

Or will we see something ridiculous like fees for closing annoying UI elements or some convoluted new 'tax' systems for trades?

 

[Toraak]

30 minutes ago, DawnAskham said:

Place your bets...

When the next post goes up regarding initiatives for 7.3, will they pick the low-hanging fruit and simply increase the GTN sales price limit?

Or will we see something ridiculous like fees for closing annoying UI elements or some convoluted new 'tax' systems for trades?

 

Personally I hope they tax trades and CoD's and removing the tax evasion guild perks. But in truth I doubt that will happen.

 

Raising the GTN cap would also be smart. Not everyone wants to spam trade channel to sell stuff. I have things to sell well over 1 billion cap, but I would rather be playing the game then spamming it on fleet, so the items stay on various characters.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Toraak

[DWho]

12 minutes ago, Toraak said:

Raising the GTN cap would also be smart. Not everyone wants to spam trade channel to sell stuff. I have things to sell well over 1 billion cap, but I would rather be playing the game then spamming it on fleet, so the items stay on various characters.

My concern with raising the GTN cap is how many of the things listed for 1 billion will double or triple in price because the only thing keeping them in check was the GTN cap and the "difficulty" of selling things in Trade Chat on the Fleet. Could an increase in the GTN cap trigger a spurt of mega inflation?

[recalcitrantIre]

2 hours ago, DWho said:

My concern with raising the GTN cap is how many of the things listed for 1 billion will double or triple in price because the only thing keeping them in check was the GTN cap and the "difficulty" of selling things in Trade Chat on the Fleet. Could an increase in the GTN cap trigger a spurt of mega inflation?

if something's worth 3b now then only the biggest idiots are selling it on the gtn

market prices are not a causal factor

[TrixxieTriss]

6 hours ago, DWho said:

My concern with raising the GTN cap is how many of the things listed for 1 billion will double or triple in price because the only thing keeping them in check was the GTN cap and the "difficulty" of selling things in Trade Chat on the Fleet. Could an increase in the GTN cap trigger a spurt of mega inflation?

Things above the cap are now being sold outside of the GTN in player to player trades. Which is obviously avoiding the 8% GTN tax as well. Increasing the GTN cap will just mean those items can be sold on the GTN & they will be taxed. Which is better for the game.

[Toraak]

7 hours ago, DWho said:

My concern with raising the GTN cap is how many of the things listed for 1 billion will double or triple in price because the only thing keeping them in check was the GTN cap and the "difficulty" of selling things in Trade Chat on the Fleet. Could an increase in the GTN cap trigger a spurt of mega inflation?

I'm not sure your concerns are needed. Consider this. People like me that have items over the 1 billion cap of worth that do not wish to sell them on trade channel are just hording the items. This means the supply may be higher then people realize, but people are unwilling to waste time selling in trade channel instead of playing the game itself. Wouldn't this mean that it could be possible that the Increase in items will improve the competition, and drive down prices if the GTN cap is raised? Those people would be willing to put stuff up on the GTN after all, even if they are unwilling to sell items through the trade channel or general channel.

[Balameb]

10 hours ago, DawnAskham said:

Place your bets...

When the next post goes up regarding initiatives for 7.3, will they pick the low-hanging fruit and simply increase the GTN sales price limit?

Or will we see something ridiculous like fees for closing annoying UI elements or some convoluted new 'tax' systems for trades?

 

I don't have big hopes for BW in that regard. Specially since they say they will talk about it in advance and inmediatelly close the thread. I mean, sure they did saw people getting angry on the subject but that does not mean they will actually listen to feedback.

We might see GTN cap increase. But knowing BW might as well also see they will now charge for Emergency Fleet Pass.

10 hours ago, DWho said:

My concern with raising the GTN cap is how many of the things listed for 1 billion will double or triple in price because the only thing keeping them in check was the GTN cap and the "difficulty" of selling things in Trade Chat on the Fleet. Could an increase in the GTN cap trigger a spurt of mega inflation?

It is actually a valid concern. But i also think at this point it is needed because as there will be things close to 1b price that might increase, there are things over 1b that are being sold outside and may now have more reference and potential competition if sold inside gtn.

[DawnAskham]

6 hours ago, Toraak said:

I'm not sure your concerns are needed. Consider this. People like me that have items over the 1 billion cap of worth that do not wish to sell them on trade channel are just hording the items. This means the supply may be higher then people realize, but people are unwilling to waste time selling in trade channel instead of playing the game itself. Wouldn't this mean that it could be possible that the Increase in items will improve the competition, and drive down prices if the GTN cap is raised? Those people would be willing to put stuff up on the GTN after all, even if they are unwilling to sell items through the trade channel or general channel.

Agreed.

Increasing the GTN cap will increase supply as there are more than a few players with items to sell that don't bother because they aren't going to spend time spamming chat on Fleet.

And an increase in supply will decrease prices.

The idea that most or even many items would increase in price if the GTN limit is increased is absurd assuming Bioware doesn't blow it by failing to control credit inflows along with exploits / bots / credit sellers.

Edited April 21, 2023 by DawnAskham

[DWho]

18 minutes ago, DawnAskham said:

The idea that most or even many items would increase in price if the GTN limit is increased is absurd assuming Bioware doesn't blow it by failing to control credit inflows along with exploits / bots / credit sellers.

I hope you are right. The last attempt to curb "influx" of credits came with a major credit exploit that wiped out anything it might have gained.

Edited April 21, 2023 by DWho

[black_pyros]

On 4/21/2023 at 5:45 PM, DawnAskham said:

Agreed.

Increasing the GTN cap will increase supply as there are more than a few players with items to sell that don't bother because they aren't going to spend time spamming chat on Fleet.

And an increase in supply will decrease prices.

Disagreed. The increase in supply may be countered by increase in demand. You guys seem to forget that the same as there are sellers that don't bother, there are buyers, too.

[TrixxieTriss]

On 4/22/2023 at 1:45 AM, DawnAskham said:

Agreed.

Increasing the GTN cap will increase supply as there are more than a few players with items to sell that don't bother because they aren't going to spend time spamming chat on Fleet.

And an increase in supply will decrease prices.

The idea that most or even many items would increase in price if the GTN limit is increased is absurd assuming Bioware doesn't blow it by failing to control credit inflows along with exploits / bots / credit sellers.

While I also agree in principle, those prices won’t drop over night when / if they increase the GTN cap. People need to be prepared that prices will increase for a period of time as the market finds some equilibrium. It may take 12 months before prices start to drop because BioWare have been taking so long to implement measures. 
 

[Blakinik]

Honestly I rather simply pay some fee and not have to worry about the nickel & diming on Quick Travel.  Make it something like 5 Million a character or something.  That alone who have a significant "dump" of credits out of the game.

And not to sound like a broken record beating a dead horse while digging 6 ft into the ground, but they seriously need to implement some credit sink that is able to be used multiple times continuously.  This alone would start stripping out the excess credits and provide for an outlet for the credits gathered.

Blakinik

[PallyHk]

This is a really bad choice.

The problem is the auction house and player tradings, not quick travel and repairs.

This just punishes new/preferred/poor players while doing nothing to the rich at all.

Removing the excess credit with a mechanic will make everyone else who doesn't have it to begin with utterly unable to play the game and reduce QoL for the vast majority.

Helping the economy can't come with a system that hurts new player retention.

I know this sounds painful, but the only way to fix it and not break the majority of the playerbase is capping the amount of credits that can be traded on the GTN and player to player, and maybe even putting in a cooldown mechanic for player to player trade if they reach a certain cap. Something like 100 million?
It would leave the richest with unusable amounts of credits, but it would not ruin the game for everyone else.

Maybe even reduce the ability to buy up and relist items, by making them bind to the player for 24 or 48 hours.

 

A good sink would be a small exchange for vouchers for certain cartel items, especially those that aren't on the CM anymore so that it doesn't eat into the company's profits.

Edited May 1, 2023 by PallyHk

[Eckrond]

On 4/20/2023 at 7:00 PM, Toraak said:

Personally I hope they tax trades and CoD's and removing the tax evasion guild perks. But in truth I doubt that will happen.

 

Raising the GTN cap would also be smart. Not everyone wants to spam trade channel to sell stuff. I have things to sell well over 1 billion cap, but I would rather be playing the game then spamming it on fleet, so the items stay on various characters.

Just giving you props for calling this, despite your cynicism regarding it actually happening.

[Immortalelf]

**EDIT**

Moved this entire post to the new sticky post regarding the Tax Inflation problem, it's more relevant there.3

Edited May 2, 2023 by Immortalelf
Moved to a more relevant Post.

[chroler]

On 3/29/2023 at 4:34 AM, TahliahCOH said:

If you do that, make it real test and start on a new server where you don't have access to your legacy funds 😛

 

So I did finally follow through with this. Played a Gunslinger, did just about everything on Ord Mantell except the Datacron Matrix Shard. I used QT twice, I think. Also did Esselles story once on the fleet, and after the completing the first area on Coruscant (no heroics), I was right at 50k in credits. When I finished the planet, using QT several times and doing heroics, I was over 100k.

Steep contrast to my first effort in the first year of the game when I showed up on Taris without enough credits for a mount. What the heck did I spend them on? Must have been armor. If anything, it highlights the wisdom of consulting a guide if you're a new player.

You're definitely more cognizant of the QT costs, and you utilize it in a different way. One time I QT'd to the nearest point to save credits, then hopped a taxi to my intended destination. So, it's an adjustment early on, but you can quickly build a decent credit cushion.

[kjarnage]

Inflation is a matter of supply and demand.

There is a need to reduce the supply of credits and increase the supply of items to bring supply in line with demand.

Increase item supplies slowly by increasing such things as drawing more mats or draws from decorations or decreasing the cool down, increasing gathering and mission mats. Not across the board but looking at what is in short supply as seen in GTN prices. Do slowly as for example the price of these utility decorations sky rocketed as you went from three to zero of these utility decorations as rewards in conquest.

Supply incremental changes. Doing things like cutting level one and 2 rank gifts made the missions uneconomical. 

Decrease the credit supply by decreasing the conquest reward credits for guild members as they pale in comparison to the plan encryption.

Do not tax items per se. Tax money transfers in gtn, mail (except within a legacy), and trade. Also guild with drawls not associated with repairs, and summons.  No tax related  to legacy bays, or into guild banks. you can trade items like giving each member of an ops team a stim or med packs.  Or you can trade items.   

Yes you would be taxing huge amounts paid to guild mercenaries. Even if paid in crates as someone had to buy the crates.

To reduce sales through guild banks also require no access for pending guild members. would cut down on hit and run guild thieves a little.

Rather than make major changes, make slower e changes like phasing out guild conquest credits.

Strongholds used to be a major credit sink. Maybe consider if strongholds can be further expanded or make the seasonal strongholds have expansions you have to pay for.

Adding new items for sale is one good credit sink, keeping working that.

 

 

 

[Del_Bergerac]

I've been completely avoiding using Quick Travel since it started costing what it now does. Why, when I easily have the in-game funds to cover it? Taxis cost tens to maybe a few hundred credits. Quick Travel costs hundreds to thousands of credits. Interstellar travel costs nil to a few thousand credits ... often far less than Quick Travel seems to cost, for far more significant benefits. To me, Quick Travel is disproportionately priced to the point where it feels jarring; something that's so clearly priced the way it is just to be an out-of-character mechanism, where the costs for other modes of travel haven't changed.

Credits are virtual, but they do also represent time that I've put into the game; effort that I've spent. I'm not about to throw that away on something that has such poor return-on-investment (for my gameplay, anyway). It's the same reason I watch and wait when I want to buy something off the GTN; why spend more than I have to, when I can get things for less with a bit of patience? Using taxis and a bit of patience (i.e., running), I can get to the same destination as Quick Travel, but at far less financial cost. Now, if costs for Quick Travel were to consistently fall between taxis and hyperspace jumps, that would seem more reasonable to me.

I would say that I get less done in the game than before, and I do put more thought into organising my travels than I used to, but I think that's about it. After a long time of not using taxis at all, I've become a regular taxi passenger again, taking in the scenery and (virtually) complaining about the increased traffic these days. 😀

Edited May 17, 2023 by Del_Bergerac
Minor formatting amendment

[Oneirophrenia]

Honestly, those QT, SH, Priority transport costs are pointless. It's like persistently poking at players but the annoyance level is hardly worthwhile given the tiny amount of credit they will remove from the game. For example QT will only start to add up for people who play story missions a lot, as in "do mission/QT to turn in/advance story", rinse repeat 10 times on each planet. Weeklies runners use it *maybe* 2 or 3 times per weekly(Manaan/Ruhnuk/Ossus/Onderon/Rishi) and for some weeklies only once(Oricon/Ziost) or none at all(CZ-198). 

As an alternative, just remove the credit reward from weekly missions upon repeat completions. For example, first time completion each week (per character) grants credits as normal, repeating it only grants conquest/reputation/item/tech frags but no credits.  This way casual players who run through the weeklies once per week per character won't have their already scarce income stream limited, and hardcore conquest players can still get what they need and won't even bat an eyelash at zero repeat completions credit rewards.

Additionally, HM/MM Flashpoints and Ops completion credit rewards and mob credit drops can also be removed. Only serious or hardcore sub players do these contents and few if any are dependent on these incomes to begin with.

Hell, if removing credits is such a huge thing that must be done, apply a credit cost to groupfinder activities. First 10 times (legacy wide) each week is free, after that every queue pop will cost say.. 1-10k to enter. The more you do, the higher the entry fee. This is coming from someone who PVPs at least 20 matches just about every week. 

That's my piece. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Oneirophrenia

[Ardrossan]

9 minutes ago, Oneirophrenia said:

Hell, if removing credits is such a huge thing that must be done, apply a credit cost to groupfinder activities. First 10 times (legacy wide) each week is free, after that every queue pop will cost say.. 10k to enter. This is coming from someone who PVPs at least 20 matches just about every week. 

Anything that disincentives group play seems like a very bad idea, especially on a legacy basis. I would expect massive outrage dwarfing the QT tax if that were ever implemented.

[umbradefensor]

I feel like this issue is a bit confusing to me, partially because I've been able to accrue at least some wealth in-game but also spend it quickly on buying companion gifts on Odessan and then using crew missions to sell crafting supplies to make more money.  But as many others have said, charging a fee on simple tasks like fast travelling is more a punishment than anything else, and effects new players disproportionately.  For me, it's annoying but makes literally no difference, but for a new player I see ways for that to be a problem, especially at lower levels.  Even my wife enjoys the benefit of me giving her credits, and she's still found the cost of travelling troublesome on occasions.  Especially seeing as how we bought the perks to instantly recharge QT, now having to pay every time is really just annoying. 

The biggest issue I see as needing a fix is cartel market having items that are grossly overpriced.  I mean it's one thing when crafting supplies are sold for prices higher than they technically should cost, (which is also a great way for newer/casual players to actually gain some wealth like myself), but when some things in GTN are sold for several billion credits for no evident reason, that's kinda ridiculous. 

Another issue to fix is the fact so many things simply don't use credits anymore.  It's not something I've become wealthy or high enough level to really notice, but I can still tell that it exists.  This game has a lot of different currencies and reaching the point where I actually care about them is becoming a nuisance.  

As I'm starting to join the group of higher-level players with at least some in-game wealth, I'm starting to recognize how these issues effect new players more than others and realizing the true gap between people like myself and those who can actually afford to spend several billion credits on stuff.  

These are just my personal observations as someone who really loves this game and has reached the point of now learning end-game content.  

[Noahtep]

Any one that is advocating for a credit wipe is either insane or free to play - maybe both.

[Incendi]

One of the biggest credit sinks I remember from back during vanilla was having to pay for your training, especially as you got higher up in levels. Another good one was the costume gear we could get from vendors, which sadly is all behind the CC market now, meaning that to get the stuff we'd have spent credits on in the past, we have to shell out extra real world money instead of dealing with the ever growing inflation. 

Even just bringing back the flashpoint vendors and their gear/costume gear and making it for credits or having an exchange for the old flashpoint or planet currency could help. It's like in the effort to make the game "easier" for players to speed run through vanilla, the game wound up creating massive issues with credit inflation.

[WHTJunior]

On 6/21/2023 at 3:10 AM, Incendi said:

Even just bringing back the flashpoint vendors and their gear/costume gear and making it for credits or having an exchange for the old flashpoint or planet currency could help. It's like in the effort to make the game "easier" for players to speed run through vanilla, the game wound up creating massive issues with credit inflation.

They added specialized planetary gear vendors, where each piece they sell is 200m, and bound to legacy. I'd actually be interested to know how many players, besides myself, have utilized these vendors.

The Swtorista Article on Planetary Specialty Goods Armor Vendors

https://swtorista.com/articles/new-planetary-specialty-goods-armor-sets/

 

A Database of Planetary Vendor Armor (also Swtorista)

https://swtorista.com/armor/planetary-vendors