7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN

[JoeStramaglia]

Hello everyone! I’m Joe Stramaglia and I’m a Systems Designer on Star Wars: the Old Republic. Today I am bringing you some of our planned changes for the Credit Economy coming in 7.3 and giving you a hint at some of the changes in the pipeline. 

First off, I want to say thanks to everyone who provided constructive feedback to our initial changes we introduced in 7.2.1. We’re reading your feedback and looking at data for each phase of these releases as we want to be careful and considerate of each change’s effect. The changes we introduced in 7.2.1 were smaller scale than the ones we’ll be introducing in 7.3 and the upcoming patches, but no one change is looking to solve every problem. They each have a specific intention related to our goals that were shared in that previous post.

When we open up 7.3 content on the PTS, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• We’re retiring the Tax Evasion Guild Perk, it will no longer be available in future rotations.
• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.
• Many items will have adjusted Vendor sale values.

These changes are largely motivated around reducing GTN tax avoidance and adjusting credit inflow from item sales. However we’ve got a suite of changes that rely on these coming in our next phase, which I am going to reveal a little bit earlier as there will be further adjustments to these numbers as a result.

We’re actively exploring a complete overhaul of our Galactic Trade Network system! This will include a lot of things I cannot talk about yet as they will come after 7.3 but am very excited to reveal soon. Make sure you check out our livestream on May 3rd at 1pm CT / 6pm UTC and follow here on the forums for more information as we get closer.

When this overhaul happens we’re going to be converting the GTN Commission Fee to a Progressive Tax starting lower than our current fees but reaching a higher threshold than our current fees. The exact numbers will be released at a later time, but the Transaction Fees implemented in Secure Trade, Mail, and COD are a flat tax meant to mirror the highest bracket in the GTN to encourage using the network. Whenever Taxes are updated in the GTN those changes will be applied accordingly here as well.
 

We want the Galactic Trade Network to be the premier place for trade. Given we’re exploring the GTN as a place to improve the experience and make participating in our player market more enjoyable for everyone, we'd like to get your feedback on the current state of the GTN in terms of usability.

• What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?
• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?
• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?
• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?
• What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?

It’s important to note that the changes we’re currently planning are going to take place over multiple phases and releases so not all changes will come online at once. We look forward to sharing the current plans and taking your feedback into account!

May the Force be with you
 

[PallyHk]

Sounds good, but do you think you can remove the quick travel cost? Its not enough to take credits out of the system and just penalises new players and low level alts. This new method should be much better at combating the inflation anyway.

Would mail also have a tax for alts? I would like it if you could exchange money between your own characters without a tax, but if I'll need to use the account storage for that, I'm fine with it.

One thing I would say is maybe there should be a way to stop re-listings from the GTN. Maybe make all items bound to the player for two days?

Another would be letting you list items on the GTN for a bit longer. Maybe 7 days? I'm not sure how much strain GTN listings put on the servers.

Lowering the low-value item tax is a great idea for the GTN. What the game needs is to make it as QoL friendly to new players who just want to get a bit better gear for lets say 50 thousand credits.

 

My nitpicking aside, this is generally what needs to be done to combat the inflation, so take this post as encouragement.

Edited May 1, 2023 by PallyHk

[Nee-Elder]

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Hello everyone! I’m Joe Stramaglia and I’m a Systems Designer on Star Wars: the Old Republic. Today I am bringing you some of our planned changes for the Credit Economy coming in 7.3 and giving you a hint at some of the changes in the pipeline.

May the Force be with you

hi there  @JoeStramaglia  , nice to see you posting here since i believe it's your 1st official post ?    Anyways, thanks for starting this forum dialog with community and hopefully this keeps up ( whenever authorized )  because  these types of behind-the-code threads, while often contentious, are still extremely important to the playerbase.

The more INFO the better, imo.

Now then, if only u guys could please stop centering the game's "economy" around  EA's ridiculous  Cartel Market  legal credit swap system and instead start getting back to a more PLAYER-driven  CRAFTED items type system.  You know, being this is still a MMO & all.

Also,  @JackieKo  for some reason this post by Joe  isn't showing up on the 'Dev Tracker' .... yet ?  ---FIXED by Jackie, THANKS!

Edited May 1, 2023 by Nee-Elder
Reason: thanks for fixing Dev Tracker feed

[tomius]

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

 

Work orders would be a nice addition, for people to post items/gear they are looking for and then for crafters to be able to accept the workorder, make it and deliver the item for a fee.

[Medullah]

Any changes to GTN tax aren't going to be a big deal unless we can get the max selling price higher than a billion.  I'm guessing the reason it's stayed at 1b for years is because characters can't hold more than 4 billion due to database restrictions.  So top recommendation is -

- Raise GTN cap to at least 2-3 billion

- Allow credits in mail to go directly to Legacy cargo 

OR

- Raise the cap of credits one person can hold 

OR 

- At the very least, add a prompt "Accepting this mail will put you over the max allowed credits per character".  

 

Edit - As far as general GTN improvements, at the very minimum you guys need to do a sweep of the various options that just plain don't work and haven't in years, or even ever.  

Edited May 1, 2023 by Medullah

[AMAirlines]

Hey there, a GTN overhaul sounds very interesting, and if done right could really help the game. Here is my GTN feedback

 

• What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?
  • It is generally easy to find exactly what you want, and since the cap is under 1bil it is easy to pick up cheap items such as consumables, crafting mats, even augments, armor sets, some dyes. The system itself is functionally very good.
• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?
  • The GTN cap is too low, it leaves many rare items off the market place and forces us to buy from scalpers in general chat (Which BTW are running bot accounts to farm credits, I have names)
  • I can't leave my items up for more than 3 days
• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?
  • Buy higher value items
• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?
  • Item rating (for augments or gear pieces)
  • There should also be a wishlist for things you want and the game can notify you when it shows up on the GTN
• What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?
  • I have a rough estimate for how much I should spend on things, usually 1-2bil for a plat, 4bil for a hypercrate, such and such. Its just accepted values in the community.

ALSO HERE IS A WORD OF ADVICE ON FIXING THE ECONOMY. When you ban the people botting credits into the system and laundering credits, inflating the economy. LEAVE THEM BANNED. A few of the worst players got unbanned and inflation is already making a turn for the worst again. I have information on this, and you are welcome to reach out to me personally.

[DWho]

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

A filter for "unlocked for character" and "unlocked for account" for CM items. Its a bit of a pain to have to wade through items one by one to see if I have them unlocked somewhere already.

[mCion]

Thank you for taking GOOD steps to get control of the economy. Here are my answers as a player that used the GTN Heavily from two years ago to earlier this year.

What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?

Free Marketplace where you can post and forget (for 3 days).

 

What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?

Not seeing previous sell data (other games show you for what an item last sold), 3 day limit. 1 billion limit (this may not be an issue in the near future). Some filters are outdated (Cartel Market Item>Consumables)

Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

Seeing previous sell data, more than 3 day postings, more than 1 billion posting (this may not be needed in the near future with all the economy changes)

 

Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

Like:

-Sorting by price.

-Sorting by Seller.

-Partial word search (I can type "Tyth" and "sab" and get Tythian Lightsaber)
 

WISH existed.
Some searches are disabled until you more granularly filter, which is annoying. For example  I cannot search for "all headgear". I have to first choose "light, medium or heavy" armor for the "headgear" slot to be available. The same for item quality. I cannot search for all "purple" items, I have to do other filters first before I can search by item quality.

 

What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?

Currently use General price (currently it's just personal knowledge of what something costs), seller, time left, number of sellers selling the item, AND if it's available in the Cartel Market for Cartel Coins.
 

I Wish I had previous sale information (what the last one sold for) and a quick way to see if the item is currently being sold for Cartel coins.

--------------------
Thank you!
Edits for formatting only.

Edited May 1, 2023 by mCion

[jedimasterjac]

First off, thanks for sharing this. These changes seem much more promising than the last round. The communication is really appreciated. It would be awesome to see more communication like this on all sort of under-the-good aspects of the game. 
 

Is there any possibility of re-evaluating some of the 7.2.1 changes? They still seem marginally impactful on inflation while significantly hindering newer players. 
 

These changes seem exceptionally good, especially the flat 8% tax. At the same time, I strongly encourage you to also increase the GTN cap. Without the influx of supply on the GTN I don’t think that we can see prices start to reduce, and I think players will eat the 8% when we’re still talking about items selling for hundreds of millions more than the cap. The profit simply outweighs the tax. 
 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?

Honestly? Not much. It’s fine and functional, but there’s little about it that I’m tied to. 

 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?

The credit cap is a huge limiter, and until it’s increased we won’t see enough people starting to list items. 
 

I also find it pretty hard to search for exactly what I need. 
 

The categorization system for armor could really use updating. It was far more useful back when Heavy/Medium/Light armors were really a thing in the game. Now, there’s very little way to search through armor listings with effective filters, minus knowing exactly what you’re searching for. 
 

It would be nice to have an option for longer listings. I’d happily pay a premium fee to do so. (Or maybe an “automatically re-list” button?) It’s a bit frustrating having to sort through a bunch of mails. 
 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

List items over 1 billion credits. 
 

It would be wonderful to be able to see sale history on items — how many have sold over the past x days, average sale price, etc. 

 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

It’s very difficult for me to filter armors in useful ways. I’m not sure if there are current tags that would make to any better — but it would be nice to have some way to search for items and armors, maybe by theme. As it stands now I usually have to just have the collections window open at the same time and use collections to find the pieces I want. 
 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?

I would love to know how much the item has sold for on other listings. I think that sort of transparency helps us all, especially for more valuable/in demand items. It’s very easy to see only one item listed, for example, and to be unsure if it’s unlisted because this is a massive undercut (and it’s usually sold off market) or if it’s extremely over inflated. 

[Char_Ell]

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?

Searching is fairly easy to do.  I like to see and sort by Unit Price.

 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?

I dislike 1 billion credit limit as the inflation rate in the game's economy has pushed many desirable items' prices well above 1 billion credits.  

The sort by Unit Price feature does not always work.  I have to sometimes sort by Total Price and then sort again by Unit Price to get sort by Unit Price to work properly.

 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

Bundled item sales.  For example, I would like to sell a crafted armor set as a set, not its individual pieces.

 

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

I would like to be able to search for items sold by character name.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Char_Ell
added additional dislike

[EHKodiak]

• What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?
  
  It's very easy to use, and being able to sort by category, price and time remaining is super handy
   
• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?
  
  Whilst sorting by categories can be good, many of the categories and subcategories are outdated. Defunct drop downs and categories include: Accessories:, Usable By: and Stats: but you can probably scrap so many more.
  I'd also love to be able to not search via category as much, for example, I just want to view all armours, but to do that I have to select numerous subcategories in order for me to search
  
  I'd like more options for an items stay on the GTN, up from the current 3 days to (for example) 7 days if possible. To simplify things, if things were just up for one default time, that'd be nice too. Not sure why people would choose the lower amounts of time for their item to sell. 
  
  Credit limit of 1 billion really limits it. Probably time to raise it (and then tax it)
   
• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?
  
  I would LOVE to be able to search by Cartel Market Rarity, so via Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The rarity search right now is absolutely useless
  
  I'd also love to be able to filter out items I already have unlocked in collections. 
   
• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?
  
  As mentioned above, love to be able to search and filter by Cartel Market Rarity. So a filter to exclude all non cartel market items would be great. 
   
• What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want? 
  
  I use sort by unit price all the time, and as a big trader in the game I tend to know the prices pretty well off the top of my head. I guess an average price that the item has sold for over the past 7 days would be useful, but not required.

Edited May 1, 2023 by EHKodiak

[jedimasterjac]

3 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

Bundled item sales.  For example, I would like to sell a crafted armor set as a set, not its individual pieces.

That’s a really great idea!

[Eckrond]

• Sort by Cartel Rarity
• Higher thresh-hold for max GTN price
• Default all sorting by lowest price and then apply the sort filter from there, e.g. even if we sort by name, those items should appear from LOWEST to highest price by name.  This would be a big one please.
• An estimated value applying the GTN tax would be appreciated, e.g. I list something at 1,000 credits, there will be text somewhere in the window that notes I should expect to receive 920 credits if the item sells.

[mCion]

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

When we open up 7.3 content on the PTS, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• We’re retiring the Tax Evasion Guild Perk, it will no longer be available in future rotations.
• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.
• Many items will have adjusted Vendor sale values.

I know that I was not the only one that advocated for these changes, and that the idea was probably around with the developers anyway, but THANK YOU for taking some of the best ideas posted and discussed in the forums to address high end item inflation AND to bring the economy under better control and moderation from Bioware. These and other changes will allow you guys to tweak and modify the economy in the future should the need arise. 

[jedimasterjac]

5 minutes ago, Eckrond said:

Default all sorting by lowest price and then apply the sort filter from there, e.g. even if we sort by name, those items should appear from LOWEST to highest price by name.  This would be a big one please.

This would be really nice! It’s frustrating how, when sorting by anything other than lowest price, I have to find the item I want, directly search for that item, then filter by lowest price, just to make sure I’m not accidentally screwing myself over 

[RikuvonDrake]

• What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?

Fairly easy to use, cross-faction ensures large quantities of items and the multiple sorting options enable specific searching, its also VERY fast.

• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?

Sorting by unit price works in wonky ways; otherwise, it seems pretty stable.

• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

Automatic pricing for items when selling, with an option to price it at the same price as whatever currently is the lowest or a couple of % lower would help add more items to GTN cause now it's quite an effort to research meaning lots of items never make it to GTN.

• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

if I don't fill in any information in Name: but select "Decorations" in Category the search button is greyed out saying I need to select more stuff to be able to search, but if I just press enter it works anyway. And the "Usable By:" option only works for equipment not for consumables, it would be great if it could sort out items that I have already confused and can't use again.

Would also love to increase the GTN cap to above 1 billion credits and make it match the character cap, that would ensure more items on GTN and less done directly via trade both now and in the future.

• What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?

Unit price and if I can use the item or not, the latter doesn't really work for consumables which I wish it would. For example, when I search for decorations on GTN I get hundreds of pages of decorations I theoretically can use but not consume since I have reached the cap 50/50 with them, I wish when I select "Usable By:" and then "Me" it would filter those out.

Edited May 1, 2023 by RikuvonDrake

[Darthjantom]

What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?

-> The 1 billion credit cap is too low.

-> When going through many pages of a search result it takes ages to go through them, and the page number often disappears.

-> It's hard to see at first glance what I have already unlocked in collections, I have to manually hover over items to see this.

Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

-> Place buy orders for a specific item at a specific price (or lower), so I don't have to manually search and keep eye on items im interested in on GTN every day.

-> List items for longer then 3 days.

-> Instead of flipping through pages of search results let me just scroll down seeing all results on one page.

Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

-> A Vehicle and Creature filter for mounts. And similarly for Pets add Ship Model, Creatures and Droids filters.

-> A "Show Cartel Market Items Only" filter for like Armors/Crystals/Weapons, and a filter to show only Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum items.

-> A filter to only show gear/augments of specific item ratings.

[Loc_n_lol]

1 hour ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

I'd like to be able to return only one instance (the cheapest) of an item I search for, rather than every single instance on the market.

For example if I query something like "armor set" or "black dye", which can return many different types of items, I'd want a list of different items for sale, but only the cheapest of each type would displayed, with no duplicates.

[LadyAdmiral]

• What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?

--

• I like that it mostly functions.
• I like that it's cross-faction.

--

• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?

--

General:

• The GTN box/text is small even with my "bigger" interface.
• Mails disappearing after 30 days I get distracted and forget stuff easily.
• Would like more storage like green cargo personal bank lol. Bonus if more in yellow legacy bank too.
• 1 bill credit cap due to inflation

Buying:

• I dislike that it does not automatically sort by price lowest to highest. I have to sort it manually each time and I feel like players sometimes don't know that option even exists.
• Sometimes when you sort by price, it can be confusing because if you accidentally double click it, it can put the highest one first. While it super obvious if you are buying something like an expensive lightsaber, it cane be confusing if you are buying something like a stack of materials and did'nt do the math per item quickly. It's better now that there are commas now though.

Selling:

• I find the price per item (like crafting materials) confusing as I have to do the math with a calculator outside the game. I would look up how much the cheapest crafting material per item costs, then I have to multiply it by the number I have, then put the total in the listing. Versus just typing in the price i want to sell each one for.
• I hate having to relist stuff. It honestly makes me stop selling stuf on the GTN and instead I sometimes throw stuff on the ground because I know its not rare and know i will have to relist it and its too much of a pain in the *** to both with that for 50,000 credits.

--

• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?

--

• When I was collecting armors, I wish I could filter out sets I already had in collections unlocked. I didn't want to see any items from sets I already had.
• When I was looking for "cool new fashion looks", I would sort by Armo -> Chestpiece -> Sort by lowest to highest. Then I would have to flip through many pages. I wish there was a way to show only "lowest of each unique item" - so I didn't have to see fourty pages of Rotworm huttball jerseys, but instead see the next cheapest unique chestpiece (by name). I would also use this for collecting Crafting Schematics i wanted to get one of each over time.
• Get rid of the filters for Light / Medium / Heavy / Adaptive and just have them be all one category otherwise when searching for fashion i have to go thru all of them individually. Or, if you don't get rid of it, instead make a new option at hte top of the list that defaults to "All types".
• I really wish there was a "buy order" system like in GW2 so I can say I want 500 crafting materials at a certain price. I also wish I could do that for a rare lightsaber - ex I will buy Tulak Hord's lightsaber automatically if someone posts it for 700,000,000 credits. As a crafter that would be cool too, cus i can craft lots of rare interesting looks but if I pre-craft them i will have to relist them 40 times. But with "wwork orders" I could se someone spcifcally wants one and has fronted the cash and can craft it and sell it to them automaticallly.

--

• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?

--

• Wish I could filter by Dyes as a main category
• For armor: I kinda use the rarity filter, but only because I don't have a better option. I wish I could filter by: Moddable/Non-moddable. And filter by Cartel Market/Craft/Non-cartel-market (example random drops). (but don't necessarily want to get rid of rarity search)
• Filter out crafting schematics oi have already learned (the icons are greyed out, which is useful, but i still have to flip thru the pages)

--

 

• What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?

--

• Materials: I use sort by lowest to highest per item. Well actualy I use sort highest to lowest normal, get mad or confused, then remember i need to sort highest to lowest per item (Unit price). Then I have to kinda manually compare how many are listed with how many I need versus how many are available total on the GTN. For example if I need 400 crafting crystals materials, I need to weigh buying 40 individual lots which takes time but may be cheaper, or buy the stack of 500 which are pricy and has 100 more than I even need. 

---

 

Community feedback:

• Sort by quantity
• For filters, I would like it if we could filter it down to items I have not collected. A filter by cartel market quality (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) could also be nice, but I’d really like to not have to scroll through pages of bronze items I already own when I browse
• Using full proper names using "s so "Black and White Dye" doesn't return things with Black or And or White or Dye.
• How about a filter for how an item is obtained, i.e. a deco specific to a flashpoint or operation
• extremely dislike that items bought from vendor can be resold for much higher, clog up gtn (example white crafting materials) .. also comp gifts. often ppl say resell iokath recomvinator to make credits (note: free to play have no other way to get recombinators because they can not get to iokath)
• it would be nice if i could buy the desired quantity of crafted mats from the GTN instead of having to buy 10 different listings... this might eliminate duplicate posts if the gtn price fixes mats
• Light/medium/heavy seems usefull to me as for world drop armors, I can filter out trooper armors or smuggler armors or jedi consular armors like that
• what I do not like is that the Light/med/heavy is required before I can search for a specific slot
• GTN should more clearly state what is the GTN tax (note: there's now way to see the GTN tax before you list stuff?????)
• It would be cool if the GTN would allow you to automatically repost an expiring item instead of getting it in the mail and reposting it manually
• One catch with taking away having to relist things is that we’d probably see more people using the GTN as extra storage - throwing items on for a ridiculous price so they won’t sell but won’t take up inventory space
• I dislike that the GTN mails get deleted after 30 days (so once I had a sudden family emergency situation) and did not log in for like 40 days and all my stuff posted in the GTN was LOST forever
• Cross Server GTN would be AMAZING mmCion: and help all the other smaller servers

[jedimasterjac]

1 minute ago, Loc_n_lol said:

For example if I query something like "armor set" or "black dye", which can return many different types of items, I'd want a list of different items for sale, but only the cheapest of each type would displayed, with no duplicates.

WoW’s current AH drop downs would be a pretty nice way of handling this. And it would clean up a lot of pages on the GTN. 

[DamzTheShadow]

Tbh i dont see how will increasing GTN cap help? It will just allow people to sell stuff on even more inflated prices. The ridiculous prices of items need to go down, the cap is fine how it is

[thoughtfix]

This response is going to echo a couple other posts I've had in threads on the subject:

The primary goal is to take credits from the people who have the most, and to hit it where they use it the most or manipulate the markets most. How do they manipulate it?

1. Relisting GTN items for higher prices. Possible solution: Have every GTN purchased item account bound for a period of time that reduces the viability of "collecting for profit" - 7 days minimum, 30 maximum.
2. Avoiding GTN fees by using COD and Trade. Possible solution: Reduce the amount of credits one player can give any other player per day to an amount reasonable for GAMEPLAY, not for high-credit trades. Restrict high credit trades to the GTN with the GTN taking a cut.
3. Some trades are worth more than 1B credits to the seller or buyer (like Master's Holocron and Equipment Bundles - please take that back down to 2k CC so I can enjoy being a returning player) Possible solution: Allow 5B+ trades on GTN, but implement a sliding scale of fees at every 10M credits. 5% under 5M, one more percent per 5 mil for all trades up to 25% for 100M, then scale again to 28% over 500M and 30% over 1B. Yes, that's huge. But if you're trading in the billions, you can afford it. "But that will make people list higher to get their money!" yeah but it will also cause them to lower their prices in time when nobody buys their overpriced stuff. It will also take the most credits away from the people with the most. Stacks/stack size/number of listings allowed per player/account must also be tuned.

Focus economy efforts very heavily on GTN and trade where the economy is broken because that's where things get out of control. Fast travel is not breaking the economy and disproportionally hurts new or returning players. If fast travel costs credits, it should be scaled for the character's level. Someone at level 20 on a new or returning account trying to cross Nar Shadaa to give a Hutt his quest turn-in will be hit way harder by a 5k credit quick travel. Still, billionaires on daily quests won't have enough money removed from their (many fewer) quick travels to matter to the overall economy. No new "across the board" taxes should be implemented. Only areas where the economy is broken should be hit.

I have other thoughts about potential credit sinks, but your post asked about the GTN.

There are many ways the GTN search and discovery can be improved other than this. Think of how player-controlled addons in WoW fixed their AH in the past. I just wanted to focus on the inflation issue.

[jedimasterjac]

10 minutes ago, DamzTheShadow said:

 

Tbh i dont see how will increasing GTN cap help?

 

I’m by no means an economist, but here is how I see it:

1. High-value items being sold off GTN listings automatically makes the supply seem far more restricted.
 

2. Many players may possess high value items they’d like to sell, but they don’t want to sell them via player trades, so that supply is untapped in player inventories. 
 

Until those items can be publicly listed, it is much harder for prices to go down, because the supply seems so small, whether or not it is. By them being listed on the GTN, it becomes much more easy for there to be visible pressures and forces on pricing. 
 

It won’t be immediate, but it seems, to me, to be the only way for high-value items to decrease in price, otherwise they’re just going to keep being sold.

 

like, okay, sure, I’ll get an 8% tax if I sell outside of the GTN, but what difference does that make if my item will sell for 1.5 billion instead of the 1 bil GTN cap? I’m still making significantly more by selling off GTN. So even if they implement this hypothetical scaling tax, where I might potentially be taxed less by selling on the GTN, my profit would still very heavily outweigh listing on the GTN  

 

And don’t get me wrong, the universal tax itself is good and helps to reduce the amount of credits in the economy, which will itself reduce inflation, but I think it will be much slower at reducing prices if we don’t allow them to be on the GTN. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by jedimasterjac

[JMNeves]

Finally, progressive tax. I've been telling everyone that should have been a thing since the beginning.

Anyway, what we currently have from the GTN functions well enough, but:

• 1 - The function of sorting by unit price has been broken for idk how long. We have to first sort by price, then click to sort by unit price. That's annoying;
• 2 - As many have pointed out, the credit limit is a big problem since many items are worth more than what the GTN allows;
• 3 - The fact that there is a 3 day limit on listings is also a factor that makes item prices fluctuate wildly. At the very minimum a week would make the economy much more stable and consistent;
• 4 - Alternatively to being able to list items for longer, we could have a price history for items on a separate GTN tab. Just like how today we have a tab for buying and another for selling. We'd have a third tab, but for price history, with averages, highs and lows. That would also make everything more consistent and healthy;
• 5 - For the love of all that's sacred, let us list all non-bound items. Lord knows how many of us have reconstructed hypergates, Apex statues, and whatever else stuck in our inventories. And people want to buy them! That forces us to advertise in general chat on the fleet. That takes time;
• 6 - Work orders and wishlists would be nice. You select the item you'd like to have, and choose a price you're willing to pay and you "pre-pay it" to the GTN. As soon as someone matches your order, the trade is automatic. Alternatively if money isn't an issue, you put an order up on the GTN and it notifies you similar to an in-game ticket that the item you've requested is available for "x" and you may choose to pay that price or no;
• 7 - One thing that I deeply dislike about the GTN is how it currently handles dye names. If I search for "black and black" I'm not looking for dyes with "black" on the name. I'm looking for a specific one. The GTN should accept quotation marks like a google search that will match your results to exactly what you've typed (ignoring capitalization, of course)

EDIT:

• 8 - Some kind of "unlocked to this character" and "unlocked to legacy" indication would be nice for people trying to snipe cheap deals to progress on their collections unlocks. 

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by JMNeves

[codydmaan]

Tax personal trades MORE the the Gtn tax. 

 

Example gtn is 8% 

Make personal trades 15% 

 

tax the items in a trade window individualy.

Example people now only trade in cartel packs because the credit inflation is so high. 

Tax the amount per item in relation to their last traded value on the gtn.

 

Example if a player traded 99 cartel packs to another player for a cartel market item. Tax the 99 cartel packs in relation to their gtn value. 

For example cartel packs are 160m credits on starforge so thats 160m x 99 =15.84billion value trade. Tax that trade by 8% which would be 1.267billion.