Don't add credit sinks that hurt new players

[remylion]

1 hour ago, Blakinik said:

I fully understand the what and how they are doing it.  Its the perception aspect of it I have an issue with.

Want to reduce inflation?  Take away money with every transaction between players.  Trade cash or goods - % taken from valuation.  Don't have funds, trade can't happen.  Email something - can't access till you pay up.  Transfer credits?  No problem, we'll be Uncle Sam and take our share of it.  Everything traded would be up for a transaction fee.  it could be simply a 5,000 exchange fee.

How is that any different than the quick travel Nickel and Dime?  Aside from being way more aggreges and pointed.  They both do the same thing, except one is what is driving the inflation problem and tackles the issue unlike the other one that will smack lower level new players who simply will get mentally exhausted not being able to catch up in the game. 

Quick Travel Costs on the PTS

Quick travel cost is dependent on distance.

The most expensive distance to travel on Hutta is the space port to the Evoccii Workcamp costing 734 credits. The most expensive on Korriban is Sith Acadamy to the Field Research area costing 642 credits. Generally the cost of travel between locations is going to cost around 400 credits because you won't be at the edge of the map.

Gray vendor trash from level 1 mobs sells for 196 credits each.  By the time I left Korriban I had over 100,000 credits.

Quick travel costs are not going to break new players and is no more unfair than the cost of speeder travel, interplanetary travel using your ship, or repair bills.

I see countless complaints about how inflation is an issue but when Bioware starts to test credit sinks all I hear are complaints that they aren't doing enough. They have to start somewhere and it is better to start small on something people will always use that start big on a multi-billion credit sink most people may never use.

If you really believe 700 credits to travel instantly isn't accessible when you can earn 800 credits killing 4 level 1 mobs, I'm sorry, there is nothing I can say to convince you new players won't leave in droves the instant they see quick travel costs on the starter worlds.

Edited March 4, 2023 by remylion

[DeannaVoyager]

5 hours ago, remylion said:

Name a single time you heard of a player quitting an MMO solely because there was a cost associated with instantly traveling around the map? How many people do you think  quit SWTOR because there is a cost associated with flight points?

I had nearly 90,000 credits before I left the starter world because I ran around killing and looting everything. I did all the missions I could find and I pretty much walked everywhere so I didn't miss anything. Quick traveling was free and I still rarely used it my first time playing.

New players that show up after this change are not going to abandon SWTOR because of a 200 credit to 5000 credit quick travel cost. That is like saying SWTOR loses players constantly because flight points cost 200 credits to 5000 credits to use.

You know what might scare players away? When it is normal to pay billions of credits for a single item because of inflation. Quick travel costs will lower inflation. Once more credit sinks are added in inflation will drop even more.

Just dropping this here, it's from the PTS forums:

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/927664-game-economics/?do=findComment&comment=9743638

Quote

i know ive already cancelled my sub over this. if it goes through then this game will be dead to me sadly. this is a move that only harms players who dont have a metric F ton of credits , so new players and casuals will be getting harmed alot , the stupid rich will just laugh as the game starts to go into its final breaths before the plug is pulled. no offense to the devs but was any thought really put into this? it doesnt even sound good on paper let alone in practice. usually you want it to atleast sound good on paper first before trying it.....which again it does not......at all.

 

[remylion]

4 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Just dropping this here, it's from the PTS forums:

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/927664-game-economics/?do=findComment&comment=9743638

 

I am shocked that a player is going to leave the game solely based on one change in an MMO.

[DWho]

1 hour ago, remylion said:

Quick Travel Costs on the PTS

Quick travel cost is dependent on distance.

The most expensive distance to travel on Hutta is the space port to the Evoccii Workcamp costing 734 credits. The most expensive on Korriban is Sith Acadamy to the Field Research area costing 642 credits. Generally the cost of travel between locations is going to cost around 400 credits because you won't be at the edge of the map.

Gray vendor trash from level 1 mobs sells for 196 credits each.  By the time I left Korriban I had over 100,000 credits.

Quick travel costs are not going to break new players and is no more unfair than the cost of speeder travel, interplanetary travel using your ship, or repair bills.

I see countless complaints about how inflation is an issue but when Bioware starts to test credit sinks all I hear are complaints that they aren't doing enough. They have to start somewhere and it is better to start small on something people will always use that start big on a multi-billion credit sink most people may never use.

If you really believe 700 credits to travel instantly isn't accessible when you can earn 800 credits killing 4 level 1 mobs, I'm sorry, there is nothing I can say to convince you new players won't leave in droves the instant they see quick travel costs on the starter worlds.

There is something wrong with your numbers here. These are not the kind of credits you generate as a low level character on a starter planet. The 90,000 leaving the starter planet struck me as odd (I've played lots of characters and never that I can recall left a starter planet with more than 20K). Also 800 credits per mob of "level 1" NPCs seemed way to high for a low level character on a starter planet. So I went and took a look myself on the PTS.

Level 10 character killing level 6 mobs generated an average of 50 credits per mob or about 200 credits total (n=3) selling everything that dropped (gear, grey items, etc). The jump from the Forge to the Jedi Temple by quick travel was 1,000 credits (that was the furthest distance I recall ever jumping on Tython - It's a really long walk back otherwise). This character is also 2/3 of the way through Tython and has a total of about 2500 credits. I don't see how that character could even come close to 90K before finishing every mission on the planet.

Level 80 character killing level 6 mobs generated an average of 850 credits per mob or about 3400 credits total (n=3) also selling everything that dropped. I did get 800 credits per 4 mobs with the level 80 character attacking Flesh Raiders in the Gnarls (The level 10 character got about 100 credits for the 4 mobs)

note: the (n=3) means I killed 4 mobs 3 times and got basically the same amount for each group of 4 mobs.

Using your example to jump once (700 credits) would take 12-15 (level 6) mobs not 4 (level 1) .

Whatever you are doing it is not representative of a new player starting at 1st level on the starter planet.

[Blakinik]

2 hours ago, remylion said:

Gray vendor trash from level 1 mobs sells for 196 credits each.  By the time I left Korriban I had over 100,000 credits.

That is the PTS.  Go to Korriban Live Server not on the PTS and try it.  I would LOVE to have that much coming off Korriban Live server.  Reality is its far, far less.  But honestly the argument is moot and was shown many years ago that the nickel and diming did not work at all.

When it started you had to pay to level up.  It was "insignificant" and "you could gather all the credits you need running through missions".  Same repetitive horse crap being tossed around right now like its monkey poop.  And guess what?  You had to "farm" and "Grind" for enough to get a level.  Like literally pay to level up.  Then you had to pay to train every one of your skills.  You would triage and decide "Do I want Skill A or Skill B?" because you could only afford one.  And they admitted the reason they removed it was it was the #1 reason people listed as quitting the game. So it got uprooted with what you have today along with your universal companions as opposed to the dedicated types they did originally and skills that actually were fun and led to diverse characters.  It was also a time where there were pvp areas where you would literally get gawked in a 4v1 fight and if AoE'd you needed to make sure no one flagged for PvP was in your range else you'd be flagged too.  same with rezzing and heals.

Having lived through it, my answer is "nope - no thanks".

[DWho]

8 minutes ago, Blakinik said:

That is the PTS. 

It's not like that on the PTS either unless you are really high level (like 70-80) and not all gear scales that way, just some of it.

[DeannaVoyager]

5 hours ago, remylion said:

I am shocked that a player is going to leave the game solely based on one change in an MMO.

 

I guess you are easily shocked? I mean it's not too many posts ago when you were huffing and puffing from your high horse that no-one would ever do that and dared to find anyone who would. I ran into a person who did exactly that, who knows how many I'd find if I set out to look for it. Just because are unable to remember or imagine what it is like to be a new player, doesn't mean the rest of us don't understand why quick travel cost for can be a problem especially for new players. 

 

From personal perspective I can say that there are a couple of games I would spend more time on, but because quick travel costs too much for me and I have to walk everywhere, I lose interest in that game in about half an hour every time I play. I'd rather play a game than a walking simulator.

Edited March 4, 2023 by DeannaVoyager

[Darcmoon]

8 hours ago, remylion said:

I am shocked that a player is going to leave the game solely based on one change in an MMO.

A lot of times, that one change is just the last in a series of changes that a person doesn’t like.  Of course, that last change is probably the one they remember. 

[Stradlin]

I'm amazed this is seen as big a deal as this. How many times does a brand new player quick-travel around the starter planet anyway?How many times does it feel like something that must or should be done as they are progressing through Korriban and Hutta? Twice? Four times?  This whole thing is utterly trivial as a credit sink and won't change the overall experience of new players to one direction or another. They are the only ones who feel it to some degree, but its well within frames of irrelevancy even for them Im sure. Buying skills and abilities,  vehicles,driving skills..sum of these costs, back when there were such, was much bigger a deal for every new player than upped travel costs will ever be.

 

I think new legacies absolutely should be excluded from upped travel costs though. That said, we all kinda fail to put ourselves in that enviable position. New player has a new game to experience. How much do they think about fast travelling between teleportation hubs in that setting? Truly, nothing about this matters.

 

Either way,  patchnotes about this will  read like punchline of a joke. Players aren't using  in-game auction house for trades anymore, due to its obsolete max price tags.  Main hub of player to player trade is not a valid place for player to player trade when it comes to high end items. That's pretty wild. One billion is nothing now.  Some of the high demand dye modules sell for more than you can ask at GTN. One billion credits is nothing now.  And  here we are, talking about some 1k credit travel cost increases to fix the inflation...lol

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Stradlin

[Balameb]

I miss the days the Devs would at least grab their personal game accounts of few posts but years old in order to defend themselves.

 

This last attempt was lame.

 

 

[Stradlin]

If QT costs 1000 credits a pop,then a billion credits buys you one million quick travel clickies! Each QT takes 5 seconds to cast. That's five million seconds of quality time in cast times alone! Add to that little bit of mouse action and loading screens and so on, and I'd guess it would take like 10 million seconds of non stop  QT in order to get rid of 1 bil credits! That's four months, assuming you don't work or sleep.  Thats rough!

 

 

If we assume TOR has 33k active monthly players, each of them must QT 30 times til the entire  community combined  has managed to burn 1 bil to QT. 

Ie 30 QT clickies from  every active player burns as much cash as one single player can earn by selling one single moderately cool dye.

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Stradlin

[DWho]

The question is why charge for Quick Travel and going to your stronghold but not for heroic transports or other rapid transports (that's how it still is on the PTS). Those would seem to be used more by the players you are targeting to "drain" credits from. I know Bioware has said there are other changes in the works but their track record on following up on things that don't work is not very good. The flagship flashpoint for 7.0 is still broken and you still get pulled under the terrain a lot (maybe the fix for that was reducing the cost of dying for armor repair instead of actually fixing what is wrong). How many thousand times have we seen "will be addressed in a future update" and years later, still no fix.

I don't have an issue with QT having a cost, but the costs as they are on the PTS are way too high for the planets they are on and there is little faith that Bioware will actually follow up with something that will make a difference in the GTN prices. These credit sinks don't drain credits from the game only slow down the increase and as long as the number of credits in the game continues to increase, GTN prices will not come down.

[casirabit]

15 hours ago, remylion said:

I am shocked that a player is going to leave the game solely based on one change in an MMO.

As been stated before, it might have been the last straw but that is the one they will state when in truth it is a lot of things and that was the last straw.

[Ramahar]

23 hours ago, remylion said:

I had nearly 90,000 credits before I left the starter world because I ran around killing and looting everything

I'm going to call BS on this claim since you would have had to have spent 20+ hours on the starter world at an average of 26 creds a kill.
I leveled to 15 on each of the starter worlds since you made that claim and below is the earnings result. Tython being lowest because of having only one Heroic.
Tython - 8,467 creds
Ord Mantell - 10,967
Hutta - 11,234 creds
Korriban - 11, 096 creds

That was with no use and means of travel other the walking, not buying any gear, and selling every single piece of loot.

Paying 700+ credits for one quick travel will cut deeply into what a new player is earning on a starter planet.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Ramahar

[Stradlin]

9 hours ago, Ramahar said:

I'm going to call BS on this claim since you would have had to have spent 20+ hours on the starter world at an average of 26 creds a kill.
I leveled to 15 on each of the starter worlds since you made that claim and below is the earnings result. Tython being lowest because of having only one Heroic.
Tython - 8,467 creds
Ord Mantell - 10,967
Hutta - 11,234 creds
Korriban - 11, 096 creds

That was with no use and means of travel other the walking, not buying any gear, and selling every single piece of loot.

Paying 700+ credits for one quick travel will cut deeply into what a new player is earning on a starter planet.

 

How many times you think a new player feels like they want/need to use QT on a starter world?

"gah, dang it. I want to skip experiencing this brand new world I just entered  but cost is too dang  high! My experience suffers greatly from this." It is somehow hard to imagine this trail of thought happening. 

Some marginal increase to QT costs solves nothing, and it does needlessly effect experience of brand new players a tiny bit. This effect is minimal, almost certainly completely irrelevant and not necessarily a negative one. "arg! I'm too much of a peasant to even afford a QT cost:(" isn't by default a bad thing to feel in video game..since it is inevitably followed with " mwahha I can QT all day long I made it!" like 30 mins later. Sense of progress.

 

In wider sense, any and all credit sinks of this game,some of which were once meant to be significant,  are completely irrelevant for new players who participate in player to player trade. Way back when, something like unlockiong Tat SH fully was a truly significant effort and a long term goal to pursue. Now it is an afternoon of gathering grade 3 mats or something.

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Stradlin

[Balameb]

6 hours ago, Stradlin said:

 

How many times you think a new player feels like they want/need to use QT on a starter world?

 

I can think a few. Think that new players don't have mounts or rocket boost. They send you to points without even taxis and you need to get back. Sure if i had that option i would have loved to use it back when i was new; but if i saw a price of 700 i would have said hell no, i need those credits for an inventory slot first.

BW has been consistently over the years making it easier for new players because most of SWTOR new players are NOT MMO Veterans (they are star wars fans), why now do the opposite now? Simple, they are not trying to, they just thought a bad idea and they are sticking to it instead of admiting it was stup*d. They prefer to keep wasting time and money implementing it and of course they would love for testers to waste time on the PTS.

A credit sink like travel expenses is something that is used to make tiny balance adjustments to credit generation/sinks. But first you need something close to a balanced economy in order to make those adjustments.

[Stradlin]

3 hours ago, Balameb said:

I can think a few. Think that new players don't have mounts or rocket boost. They send you to points without even taxis and you need to get back. Sure if i had that option i would have loved to use it back when i was new; but if i saw a price of 700 i would have said hell no, i need those credits for an inventory slot first.

BW has been consistently over the years making it easier for new players because most of SWTOR new players are NOT MMO Veterans (they are star wars fans), why now do the opposite now? Simple, they are not trying to, they just thought a bad idea and they are sticking to it instead of admiting it was stup*d. They prefer to keep wasting time and money implementing it and of course they would love for testers to waste time on the PTS.

A credit sink like travel expenses is something that is used to make tiny balance adjustments to credit generation/sinks. But first you need something close to a balanced economy in order to make those adjustments.

 

Fully agree with what you closed with..This is tinkering, polishing and  fine tuning something that needs a sledge hammer.  Some really drastic measures might  make inflation slow down..but i'm betting there is next to nothing they can do to make it go backwards. What costs 2 bil today will surely cost at least 2 bils few years from now. If we assume same demand/supply ofc. This is why it'd be vital to give players ways to deal with inflation. There aren't any. Ie there needs to be a GTN able to s upport 1 bil plus trades.

 

 

Quote

i would have loved to use it back when i was new; but if i saw a price of 700 i would have said hell no, i need those credits for an inventory slot first.

 

I think here it gets interesting though! Or more interesting than few hundred cred price movements of QT anyway!

It isn't necessarily a bad thing you have to think about these things in a video game,that you have to  make these tiny short term sacrifices and feel these safe small irritations. It adds little bit of flesh to the bones. It isn't always good if the game does all it can to make your road flat, paved and void of curves.

Like..when WoW was at its absolute peak popularity, it was entirely common you had to decide which of the skills that became available after last level up you'd buy - no way you could afford them all at one go. It wasn't some design flaw or oversight. Tho they, too, certainly flattened the road just as well later. Blizzard  wanted you to make these decisions, these sacrifices. They wanted you to come visit the faction capital again  later for rest of the skills and in doing so  becoming tiny part of its crowd.

Mild, " safe" irritations often liven the game up. They make you turn into content for other people, as you stick with circling the same roundabout for a few extra times. -  You can't afford the QT so you have to leg it to the Jedi Temple. As you do so, you run by some other new guy doing his newguy stuff. You say nothing to him, he says nothing to you. You just pass one another on the road, that's all. Completely irrelevant. Just that big part of MMO charm and feel comes from the huge sum of countless such irrelevant encounters.

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Stradlin

[Balameb]

3 hours ago, Stradlin said:

 

Fully agree with what you closed with..This is tinkering, polishing and  fine tuning something that needs a sledge hammer.  Some really drastic measures might  make inflation slow down..but i'm betting there is next to nothing they can do to make it go backwards. What costs 2 bil today will surely cost at least 2 bils few years from now. If we assume same demand/supply ofc. This is why it'd be vital to give players ways to deal with inflation. There aren't any. Ie there needs to be a GTN able to s upport 1 bil plus trades.

 

 

 

I think here it gets interesting though! Or more interesting than few hundred cred price movements of QT anyway!

It isn't necessarily a bad thing you have to think about these things in a video game,that you have to  make these tiny short term sacrifices and feel these safe small irritations. It adds little bit of flesh to the bones. It isn't always good if the game does all it can to make your road flat, paved and void of curves.

Like..when WoW was at its absolute peak popularity, it was entirely common you had to decide which of the skills that became available after last level up you'd buy - no way you could afford them all at one go. It wasn't some design flaw or oversight. Tho they, too, certainly flattened the road just as well later. Blizzard  wanted you to make these decisions, these sacrifices. They wanted you to come visit the faction capital again  later for rest of the skills and in doing so  becoming tiny part of its crowd.

Mild, " safe" irritations often liven the game up. They make you turn into content for other people, as you stick with circling the same roundabout for a few extra times. -  You can't afford the QT so you have to leg it to the Jedi Temple. As you do so, you run by some other new guy doing his newguy stuff. You say nothing to him, he says nothing to you. You just pass one another on the road, that's all. Completely irrelevant. Just that big part of MMO charm and feel comes from the huge sum of countless such irrelevant encounters.

 

 

 

I certainly don't desagree in your apreciation. I started as f2p during 4.X. That means at start: no sprint, less exp, less rewards, no QT ... It did not drive me out, but i had played MMOs in late 90's early 2000s. BUT: That is not the case for several (if not most) new SWTOR players.

The problem i see is that this QT cost goes (maybe unintended, but still does) in the opposite direction of what BW has been doing for at least 6+ years. They were making being new (even f2p) a lot less restrictive allowing players to feel some aspects that would otherwise require being sub and/or spend more time in game. Actually, 1st unlock of QT travel was included for everyone with that intention. Now they want to charge? I mean, if you added so they copuld experience it, don't make it harder now.

This cost that was not there before, feels artifial specially since is way out of proportion in the first planets.

My guesstimate is this would burn a lot less than 100 bill per year/server; that is nothing it this economy and they managed to annoy people and waste dev resources by doing it.

A tiny (extra)cost increase on repair cost could cover the ludicrous few credits this QT fiasco may burn. They already have repair cost implemented, but the forgot to increase those cost in 7.0 despite they knew they messed up more economy inflation with 6.X. Now they want a new formula for repairs that no one asked (or worst), an artifical QT travel and we will keep weeklies/daily areas free travel while several of those destinations have character perks that were originaly intended to unlock fast/free travel. But hey, why would they add a cost that would be natural and is actually there in galaxy map (they are even using the same calculation for SH exit cost) when they can waste resources on something unnatural and keep fighting the game community?

I will answer myself. If they were to do proper, natural changes in the direction they claim are working on; then it would not be SWTOR Dev Team we all know.

[remylion]

On 3/4/2023 at 4:52 PM, Ramahar said:

I'm going to call BS on this claim since you would have had to have spent 20+ hours on the starter world at an average of 26 creds a kill.
I leveled to 15 on each of the starter worlds since you made that claim and below is the earnings result. Tython being lowest because of having only one Heroic.
Tython - 8,467 creds
Ord Mantell - 10,967
Hutta - 11,234 creds
Korriban - 11, 096 creds

That was with no use and means of travel other the walking, not buying any gear, and selling every single piece of loot.

Paying 700+ credits for one quick travel will cut deeply into what a new player is earning on a starter planet.

I logged back into that character and noticed it was only around 9,000 not 90,000.

I thought it had to be at least 90,000 to 100,000 after seeing what the trash mobs on the PTS dropped but that was on a level 80 character.

I still support the idea of travel costs but they should scale based on character level not distance.

Edited March 13, 2023 by remylion

[eabevella]

You know what will be a small traveling credit sink that actually only affect players who can afford it?

UNLIMITED SUMMON OUT OF THE PLAYER'S POCKET.

Keep the guild summon since it's "free" (paid by the guild). It has a >30min CD time for a reason.

Give subscribers the ability to summon for 40K or 100k each time without CD time.

I mean, if I want to pay 100k to save 10sec of waiting time, why not let me?

It's a credit sink, it doesn't hinder any existing play time quality, it will actually improve play time quality because payers who can afford it will summon to save time for the group, and that's a good thing for everyone, including the players who can't afford it. Faster group content = better player experience = people want to subscribe for good feature.

Why not?

[remylion]

27 minutes ago, eabevella said:

You know what will be a small traveling credit sink that actually only affect players who can afford it?

UNLIMITED SUMMON OUT OF THE PLAYER'S POCKET.

Keep the guild summon since it's "free" (paid by the guild). It has a >30min CD time for a reason.

Give subscribers the ability to summon for 40K or 100k each time without CD time.

I mean, if I want to pay 100k to save 10sec of waiting time, why not let me?

It's a credit sink, it doesn't hinder any existing play time quality, it will actually improve play time quality because payers who can afford it will summon to save time for the group, and that's a good thing for everyone, including the players who can't afford it. Faster group content = better player experience = people want to subscribe for good feature.

Why not?

When we were doing world bosses for Galactic Season we had to run a few times because the few people who knew how to get to them already used up their guild summons. This would be a nice credit sink.

[denavin]

On 3/3/2023 at 4:58 PM, remylion said:

Quick Travel Costs on the PTS

Quick travel cost is dependent on distance.

The most expensive distance to travel on Hutta is the space port to the Evoccii Workcamp costing 734 credits. The most expensive on Korriban is Sith Acadamy to the Field Research area costing 642 credits. Generally the cost of travel between locations is going to cost around 400 credits because you won't be at the edge of the map.

Gray vendor trash from level 1 mobs sells for 196 credits each.  By the time I left Korriban I had over 100,000 credits.

Quick travel costs are not going to break new players and is no more unfair than the cost of speeder travel, interplanetary travel using your ship, or repair bills.

I see countless complaints about how inflation is an issue but when Bioware starts to test credit sinks all I hear are complaints that they aren't doing enough. They have to start somewhere and it is better to start small on something people will always use that start big on a multi-billion credit sink most people may never use.

If you really believe 700 credits to travel instantly isn't accessible when you can earn 800 credits killing 4 level 1 mobs, I'm sorry, there is nothing I can say to convince you new players won't leave in droves the instant they see quick travel costs on the starter worlds.

If you don't have the 700 to 5000 credits to quick travel then it will matter to the player that can not quick travel.

700 to 5000 credits may not seem like a lot but if you only have a couple of hundred credits then it is a fortune.. Try to see how a New Player that Does Not have Multiple character in the game will see this. They will see it as game breaking.

[eabevella]

35 minutes ago, denavin said:

If you don't have the 700 to 5000 credits to quick travel then it will matter to the player that can not quick travel.

700 to 5000 credits may not seem like a lot but if you only have a couple of hundred credits then it is a fortune.. Try to see how a New Player that Does Not have Multiple character in the game will see this. They will see it as game breaking.

True.

It was pain to start a new legacy on a new server. I did it before GS3 start and it was... ugh.

I was groaning the whole way up until I saved enough credits to buy the capital stronghold and sold all the rewards on the GTN for a few millions, enough to unlock all the qol perks. For a new player who most likely doesn't know about the trick, 1k credits IS a lot.

Not to mention that I can get "free" mounts from my collection unlock, which will take about 2k to buy iirc.

[TziganeNZ]

For those who are throwing around numbers like 5 million, or 10 million or 100 million as costs for potential credit sinks, bear in mind that if BW actually takes those ideas and implements them, then the credit limit cap for preferred and F2P players will need to either be significantly raised or eliminated altogether.

Currently, a preferred player can only hold 1 million credits - obviously they are not contributing to inflation as they can only hold excess credits in escrow (unattainable unless buying a temporary unlock for CC), but they will also be hit by these travel and other costs being brought in.

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, eabevella said:

Not to mention that I can get "free" mounts from my collection unlock, which will take about 2k to buy iirc.

Already-paid-for rather than free, but yes.  However, the basic bottom-tier (formerly fixed at +90% speed increase) vendor mounts are 8K for cubs, 10K for non-subs.