Fixing the credit economy

[Exocor]

So, for quite some time now we have been experiencing a steady inflation, pushed up one level of escalation with each new credit exploit and gradually increased by a natural influx of money from the system, with only few and limited ways to invest that money into the game again (credit sinks).

 

History is showing us, that those problems are not exclusive in video games. Back in the 1920s, Germany suffered under hyperinflation. It wiped out debts and capital fled into property. The government printing money to combat their own mounting debt excacerbated the problem. That directly led to this kind of hyperinflation - it had a similar effect to how credit exploits let the inflation rates explode.

But how was this kind of inflation combated back in the late 1920s? It's simple. The government stopped printing the old money. Instead they printed a new currency. The "Deutsche Mark" became the "Rentenmark". People were able to exchange their billions of "Deutsche Mark" into a lower figure of "Rentenmark". "Deutsche Mark" was no longer accepted as a currency anywhere. Government services and groceries had to be paid for with the new currency, while employees were being paid in the new currency as well. This didn't address inflation directly, but it addressed most of the effects.

 

I am suggesting the same for SWTOR. Add a new currency. Add a vendor to the fleet where you can exchange the old currency into the new one - obviously not 1to1 but with a certain rate the devs are probably way better suited to determine then I am. From my point of view, a factor of 10 should already be enough to fix a lot of problems. if you want, you could go even further. At the same time, game vendors only accept the new currency - and all prices will be slashed by the same factor you used for the credit exchange, so relative buying power stays the same.

However, I do recognize that many people see the billions upon billions of credits they ammased as some sort of achievement - so, if you want, you can keep them. You can still use them to trade with other players. You will be able to exchange them into the new currency whenever you want, so you don't lose relative purchasing power. You just can't use those credits at game vendors anymore.

 

Now, you probably think: "What is this fixing? You're only striking one zero from everyone?"

First of all, no, we won't steal anyone's credits. You could still keep every last one of the credits you currently own. That was the main concern some people had when reducing all credits by a certain factor was discussed. You're not losing anything.

Secondly, this fixes one major problem the economy now has: The GTN is not being used for high value items, thus buying and selling items is not as frequent. This reduces the opportunity for newer and less experienced players to enter the market. And even older players like me, who have very limited knowledge of buying and selling items are often confronted with the situation of having a rare item, wanting to make credits but having no clue if an offer made by a stranger is fair, or if he's trying to get that item cheaply. The GTN provides a point of reference. Search for the item, and then put it in for 95% of that price.

Thirdly, it fixes the issue of catching up. Mission rewards would gain importance as a means of obtaining credits and newer players would be able to afford rarer items by playing the game, instead of playing economy simulator or buying from a gold seller.

 

Ultimately, this change addresses one core issue: The credits exploit from the past, that blew up the amount of credits that are in the game. And every players can submit to this process volunatarily, no one would be forced to take part.

 

[Darcmoon]

2 hours ago, Exocor said:

I am suggesting the same for SWTOR. Add a new currency. Add a vendor to the fleet where you can exchange the old currency into the new one - obviously not 1to1 but with a certain rate the devs are probably way better suited to determine then I am. From my point of view, a factor of 10 should already be enough to fix a lot of problems. if you want, you could go even further. At the same time, game vendors only accept the new currency - and all prices will be slashed by the same factor you used for the credit exchange, so relative buying power stays the same.

However, I do recognize that many people see the billions upon billions of credits they ammased as some sort of achievement - so, if you want, you can keep them. You can still use them to trade with other players. You will be able to exchange them into the new currency whenever you want, so you don't lose relative purchasing power. You just can't use those credits at game vendors anymore.

 

Ultimately, this change addresses one core issue: The credits exploit from the past, that blew up the amount of credits that are in the game. And every players can submit to this process volunatarily, no one would be forced to take part.

 

If the vendors only accept the new credits then you are forcing everyone to take part.  They wouldn't be able to repair or buy anything from the new vendors that took the current credits but now require the new ones.  I also doubt that BW would actually slash the prices of the items on the vendors by the same factor.  Additionally, would you have a way to turn the new credits into the old ones?  If not, what should be done if someone wants the old credits like you say they can do but someone with the new credits doesn't have enough?  If they can't exchange them, then people will complain and it really hasn't solved anything.

[Exocor]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Darcmoon:

If the vendors only accept the new credits then you are forcing everyone to take part.  They wouldn't be able to repair or buy anything from the new vendors that took the current credits but now require the new ones.  I also doubt that BW would actually slash the prices of the items on the vendors by the same factor.  Additionally, would you have a way to turn the new credits into the old ones?  If not, what should be done if someone wants the old credits like you say they can do but someone with the new credits doesn't have enough?  If they can't exchange them, then people will complain and it really hasn't solved anything.

 

So, what is happening right now if you want to repair your armor? You have to spend your credits at a vendor. Let's say you pay 500.000 Credits for an almost complete repair. You now have 500.000 Credits less.

 

With the new currency, repair costs will be slashed by a factor of ten. So you have to spend 50.000 new credits. How do you get 50.000 new credits? By exchanging 500.000 of your old credits into 50.000 new credits. What's the result? You have 500.000 old credits less.

 

You notice anything? We have the exact same result as before. It is not taking away anybody's wealth anymore as before. This is not the American health care system - you cannot chose to not participate. It's the game. The only thing that would be preserved is the "perceived" wealth of having billions upon billions of credits and not have those taken away. You would still be able to do with those credits whatever you did before, only with the additional step of trading them in for another currency before.

 

As for your second problem:  You can still obtain old credits from other people, so I assume that there would be a market for retrading. But I don't know why you would want old credits instead of new ones if you're selling an item - the only things you can do with those is trading into new ones.

 

[Darcmoon]

15 minutes ago, Exocor said:

 

So, what is happening right now if you want to repair your armor? You have to spend your credits at a vendor. Let's say you pay 500.000 Credits for an almost complete repair. You now have 500.000 Credits less.

 

With the new currency, repair costs will be slashed by a factor of ten. So you have to spend 50.000 new credits. How do you get 50.000 new credits? By exchanging 500.000 of your old credits into 50.000 new credits. What's the result? You have 500.000 old credits less.

 

You notice anything? We have the exact same result as before. It is not taking away anybody's wealth anymore as before. This is not the American health care system - you cannot chose to not participate. It's the game. The only thing that would be preserved is the "perceived" wealth of having billions upon billions of credits and not have those taken away. You would still be able to do with those credits whatever you did before, only with the additional step of trading them in for another currency before.

 

As for your second problem:  You can still obtain old credits from other people, so I assume that there would be a market for retrading. But I don't know why you would want old credits instead of new ones if you're selling an item - the only things you can do with those is trading into new ones.

 

You're the one who originally said that players wouldn't be forced to take part.  As for changing 500,000 credits to 50,000 credits, people will complain about needing to take the extra step.  Whether that is logical or not, it will happen.  Of course, with the track record BW has for 'economic fixes', I would expect that they would still require 500,000 of the new credits to repair.  That way they can get more credits out of the economy.  As for why some people would want the old credits, you yourself said that people have their own reasons for wanting to hold on to the old ones.  And I could easily see alot of players not wanting to switch over to the new credits and only selling things using the old credits.  Regardless of the reason, it will be an issue.

[SteveTheCynic]

Would the GTN use new credits or old credits?

[Beoknez]

I believe the dev team should invoke a full investigation into big guild and groups regarding credit selling, and a full closure of a guild in case of awareness or participation that some higher ranking guildmembers did this should also be possible. Personal infos like credit cards etc can be used to track down scammer, perhaps other games non swtor related are affected by the same people.

Credits should stay the same and with time inflation will possibly drop

[Asheris]

Don't we have enough alternative forms of currency already? There are so much tokens and marks to gather - it's already a headache.

All we need is more credit sinks. And not that terrible travel tax, but something people would like to spend willingly on. Open a casino, start a raffle, let the whales throw credits at a chance to win vanity stuff and I'll guarantee the game economy will thrive again. 

[Toraak]

7 minutes ago, Asheris said:

Don't we have enough alternative forms of currency already? There are so much tokens and marks to gather - it's already a headache.

All we need is more credit sinks. And not that terrible travel tax, but something people would like to spend willingly on. Open a casino, start a raffle, let the whales throw credits at a chance to win vanity stuff and I'll guarantee the game economy will thrive again. 

The problem is that the whales are generally the people buying stuff on the CM to sell to others. They are less likely to spend credits on things like an Open Casino, raffle. Also for throwing credits at a chance to win even Vanity items, the forums will just be spammed with this isn't fair I can't afford that.

 

Not to mention if any Vanity items was that desirable to the community BW would be better off putting it on the CM for Real $ and making a profit then using it as a way to reduce credits.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Toraak

[Asheris]

17 minutes ago, Toraak said:

The problem is that the whales are generally the people buying stuff on the CM to sell to others. They are less likely to spend credits on things like an Open Casino, raffle. Also for throwing credits at a chance to win even Vanity items, the forums will just be spammed with this isn't fair I can't afford that.

 

Not to mention if any Vanity items was that desirable to the community BW would be better off putting it on the CM for Real $ and making a profit then using it as a way to reduce credits.

 

But that's the thing - you will always have players with and without credits, but the current state of game economy is just for those with a humongous amount of credits and nobody else. You can't even buy crafting mats because they all go in packs for millions of credits. Few years back a few million could buy you a hypercrate, not 50 durasteel...

And I guess you hit a nail in the head - the devs let the in-game economy crumble for a quick buck.

[Toraak]

1 hour ago, Asheris said:

But that's the thing - you will always have players with and without credits, but the current state of game economy is just for those with a humongous amount of credits and nobody else. You can't even buy crafting mats because they all go in packs for millions of credits. Few years back a few million could buy you a hypercrate, not 50 durasteel...

And I guess you hit a nail in the head - the devs let the in-game economy crumble for a quick buck.

But the whales are the ones Hoarding credits. They're not spending them recklessly. So having Casinos, and raffles and the like won't be effective against that. I have billions, and I didn't get it by wasting credits as I got them. I saved up over time.

 

Also as I said, any Vanity item that they could charge a massive credit cost for that people would want would be better off in the CM for Profit from BW. This is a business, and they are here to make money first and foremost.

[DWho]

The best solution is to make sure all player to player transactions are taxed at some rate, whatever that ends up being (even if its just a set transaction fee based on the "rarity" of the items traded). That draws out credits from the economy far more effectively than the small credit sinks like QT tax and it impacts the players with the most credits the most since they are the ones currently trading off-GTN for free (and removes far more credits from the game than thousands of QTs). Some players with billions don't care about the cost of the minor credit sinks because to them they are insignificant and others don't use them at all because they never leave their strongholds anymore, trading exclusively on and off GTN.