7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN

[Levanchar]

Hi @JoeStramaglia

Thanks for sharing these upcoming changes. Below are some questions & feedback.

 

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

• 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.
  • Does this mean we can expect to be be double taxed? 
    • i.e. Fee for purchasing item in GTN + Delivery fee to mail
    • Or am I reading this wrong and its a one off all inclusive fee calculated based on the value of item brought?

 

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?
  • Access to old items and decorations that I can no longer obtain in-game as I only started playing 3 years ago
• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?
  • Rarity column doesn't sort high-low, or low-high
  • I can only list for a maximum of 3 days
• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?
  • Create bookmarks for items that I want to buy, but can't afford or out of stock
  • Post an ad for items I'm interested in buying or get crafted + what I'm prepared to pay, supply materials etc.
  • Mini stats like
    • line graph tracking prices over time (high, low, average price)
    • Number of items listed or sold
    • Top selling items
    • Any bargain items?
      • These can be filtered by day\week\month\year etc
• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?
  • Something that lets me filter out what I've already got in unlocked in Collections 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 keep a spreadsheet of
    • what I want to buy
    • Available in GTN or Cartel Market
    • If GTN, which server?
    • best price at the time I review my sheet
  • It'd be great if this data didn't have to be manually updated

[TheFiveOhFirst]

30 days for access to guild bank? That is so ridiculously punishing.

[DeannaVoyager]

9 hours ago, Vanechka said:

3- You guys set up a Guild bank system that requires us players to have 6 members in order for us to PURCHASE a guild bank. This REQUIREMENT should remain in place. if there are fewer than 6 people, the guild bank should be packed and credits should be removed by the GM or be LOST.

No. I have a couple of personal guilds, not for holding credits (I use cartel packs for that), but to have flagship summons and being able to do conquest for myself, alone, without being bothered by anyone. It's a privacy thing. I don't want to create extra level 1 alts or ask random people to join with alts they don't play just so that I can keep the stuff I already paid for. Or create extra accounts to have 6 "people" in my private guilds. I will if it goes to that but I'd rather not. I have no doubt credit sellers would do the same, thus making the requirement only hurt legitimate players. 

 

9 hours ago, Vanechka said:

I have a feeling there are probably hundreds of guilds with just 1 member in them and 4,294,967,295 credits in their guild banks. A scalper with multiple alts would do this. Almost every day I see someone spamming "Need 6 people to join the guild (to buy guild bank) you can leave after"

Those 6 people can be your own alts. If someone is spamming that on fleet, they are either lazy or stupid. Are you sure it's not "need 3 people to create a guild" spam instead? 

 

[TahliahCOH]

4 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Those 6 people can be your own alts. If someone is spamming that on fleet, they are either lazy or stupid. Are you sure it's not "need 3 people to create a guild" spam instead? 

This is all I have ever seen announced. If I'm on an un-guilded toon at the time, I'll help them create their own guild.

[ryuteki]

Hi, the travel costs make no sense whatsoever, *ESPECIALLY QUICK TRAVEL*, and could use another overhaul.

It can cost anywhere from 0 to 5000 credits to travel across the galaxy, but sometimes over 2000 credits to quick travel to a location on the same planet - one that would normally only take 150 credits if done by taxi?  It's really ridiculous and especially punishes new players, low level players, and those that prefer stealth or are combat-avoidant.  There have been times where I have literally lost money on a quest because I quick traveled back rather that take an insanely long (and often boring) time winding my way back to whatever taxi point I needed to get to just to save a few credits.  Ridiculous way to punish players who want to save a bit of time.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with paying for quick travel.  I just have a problem with your current pricing for it.

Recommend a reasonable distance based algorithm that is more in line with taxi rates and then maybe add on a reasonable "surcharge" because it's a custom pickup.  But nothing nearly as obnoxious as what it currently is.

Presumably you should be able to calculate distances based on x-y coordinates and go from there, yes?

So for a simple example:
- Let X = baseline distance of 1000 coordinate points (xy to xy).
- Let's say the base cost to travel X is 100 credits
- Standard surcharge for quick travel is 25% because it's a custom pickup:

If you want to add flavor, come up with a base travel rate for standard taxi service and quick-travel using the capitol worlds as the baseline.  Then for each world apply a multiplier that is in context with the world:
Starter planets (Tython, Hutta, etc): x .5, because new players/characters are poor.
Poorer/remote planets (Tatooine): x.75
Capitol planets/Fleet: x 1.0
War-torn planets (Corellia): x 1.25
Popular/wealthy planets: x 1.5
Resource-poor/corrupt planets: x 1.75
etc.

You could also apply modifiers for things like terrain or environment.  If the planet is relatively flat and open like Tatooine the multiplier would be less compared to one that had very rugged terrain like Mek Shah or lots of twists and turns like Nar Shadda.  Planets that have severe weather conditions like snow storms, sand storms, lots of rain, or other weird atmospheric conditions that makes travel a bit more hazardous could have additional multipliers.  Heavy traffic on dense urban population planets could be a factor.  Maybe the multiplier is factored into the whole planet's multiplier or maybe it's factored in to a specific area on the planet.

You could also block out zones within a planet that are flagged as safe, risky, or dangerous and apply some additional multipliers for that when it comes to quick travel.  For example:
Safe (no concerns about custom pickup): x 1.0, no additional charge
Risky (a bit iffy, so driver has to be cautious - jungle beasts, smugglers/thieves): x 2 multiple
Dangerous (risk of serious damage to vehicle/personal safety - aggressive sapient enemies / war zones): x 3 multiple

Example of how it would apply in game:  I'm a new Jedi running around on Thython.  I request a quick travel from deep within enemy territory after completing a quest.  The xy to xy distance from my location to my destination is 1400 points.
Cost = (100 base) * (1400/1000 distance) * (.5 Tython) * (1.25 Quick Travel) * (3 dangerous territory) = 263 credits (rounded up from 262.5),

So with some (hopefully) simple assignments of multipliers and risk zones based on the context, you'd have what I would imagine to be a fairly straight forward system that makes sense story-wise, still charges more money credits-wise, but isn't insane economically.

[JoeStramaglia]

Hello folks! With 7.3 now live, I wanted to answer a couple of questions that we saw on the forums in regards to the access cooldown we’ve added to Guild Banks. 

The original Guild Leader will still have access starting at guild creation, this change only applies to new members in that guild, including the ones that help form it.

Repairs and summons should remain unaffected by this change. The guild membership in this case should be looking at your legacy to determine if you have access, so your alts should remain unaffected. In terms of giving things to new members during this period, you may still trade or mail the item or credits as necessary to the new member.

This restriction was largely added to reduce the need for taxation at the guild bank level, but there were some additional behaviors we saw during a review of guilds that this helps to discourage. We’ll continue to monitor behavior to help us determine if we need to make other changes.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this thread, so please continue to offer your feedback here. 

[codydmaan]

On 5/1/2023 at 11:44 AM, 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. 

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
 

If u have to place a 30 day ban on guild bank usage your systems alredy broken

 

Just saying lol

[ceryxp]

30 minutes ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Hello folks! With 7.3 now live, I wanted to answer a couple of questions that we saw on the forums in regards to the access cooldown we’ve added to Guild Banks. 

The original Guild Leader will still have access starting at guild creation, this change only applies to new members in that guild, including the ones that help form it.

Repairs and summons should remain unaffected by this change. The guild membership in this case should be looking at your legacy to determine if you have access, so your alts should remain unaffected. In terms of giving things to new members during this period, you may still trade or mail the item or credits as necessary to the new member.

This restriction was largely added to reduce the need for taxation at the guild bank level, but there were some additional behaviors we saw during a review of guilds that this helps to discourage. We’ll continue to monitor behavior to help us determine if we need to make other changes.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this thread, so please continue to offer your feedback here. 

Interesting.  So you did take alts into consideration.  Any chance that consideration could be extended to alts and guild Conquest points / experience?  There really is no reason that I should have to wait until Tuesday reset to start earning guild experience when I create an alt and bring them into my own guild.

[DerkHenderson]

Could you explain to me why we are taxed on mailing credits within our own legacy - especially when we are rightfully NOT taxed on mailing items? Why am I being taxed 80M credits to mail 1B credits from one of my toons to another one of my toons? We have a legacy bank, all you're doing is making it incredibly inconvenient for no reason.

I really hope this is a bug.

[TrixxieTriss]

On 5/2/2023 at 1:44 AM, JoeStramaglia said:

your feedback into account!

Hi Joe, 

As per your directions in the other post from the other thread regarding the Guild trade changes, I’m posting a proposal here.

This isn’t directly related to guilds per say, but more to do with “gifting” items for free. 

Quoted from my response in the other thread :

“There is a solution.

All gifted / traded items that are given freely become legacy bound.

This was suggested by myself a few others as a way to still be able to give stuff away for free & still close the obvious loop hole that people might use to avoid the trade tax.

But we got lots of push back & no consensus. Because most of the people who commented weren’t legitimately looking to give stuff away for free. They just wanted to still be able to circumvent the trade fees.

If you really want to be able to gift items to others. I suggest you start a campaign asking to be able to gift items, but they become legacy bound when gifted. This is probably the only way BioWare will agree to allow free gifting without fees” 

A system like this would allow gifted items to still be given out to new players or as rewards.

Edited June 13, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[xordevoreaux]

Regarding the new guild restriction, JoeStramaglia said today:

Quote

this change only applies to new members in that guild, including the ones that help form it.

So the three people from the outset most invested in helping to get the guild off the ground at the guild's inception must sit on their hands for 30 days? Of all the MMOs I've ever played in my life, I have never, repeat never, come across anything close to such a restriction.

Bioware has gone completely off script on this.

[Nee-Elder]

22 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

So the three people from the outset most invested in helping to get the guild off the ground at the guild's inception must sit on their hands for 30 days?

oh , you mean like the 3 randoms from Fleet genchat  people always ask to "join & leave" once guild is formed?

Of course, i'm just targetting your IDEA (statement) .  Not you.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[xordevoreaux]

11 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

oh , you mean like the 3 randoms from Fleet genchat  people always ask to "join & leave" once guild is formed?

Of course, i'm just targetting your IDEA (statement) .  Not you.

The 3 people helping someone create a vanity guild wouldn't be affected by this rule, they'd be gone. Anyone creating a guild as a multi-player, multi-member player association would be affected.

[Nee-Elder]

6 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

The 3 people helping someone create a vanity guild wouldn't be affected by this rule, they'd be gone.

Anyone creating a guild as a multi-player, multi-member player association would be affected.

Hey look, you make a fair point there ^, i agree.

However, the notion that this change is gonna somehow dramatically  alter/ruin  legitimate guilds is, in my opinion, sorta ridiculous.   Solid GM's will adapt, as we always do.

That said, i am curious now ( relating to your admittedly fair point )  if my 3 original founding members of our 2 guilds from wayyyy back created in 2011  are now affected/restricted by this new 7.3 change.....  If only they were still  here $ubscribed to test it.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[SithLikeTraps]

On 5/1/2023 at 5:44 PM, JoeStramaglia said:

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%.

Well now we can see how "well" this system works. Charging millions as a mail fee for gold and hundreds of millions for platinum items means bye-bye to the giveaways, things like birthday gifts, and any other nice and social features that were invented to keep the guild climate up and give the players an incentive to grind the conquest. And how did you even come up with a quarter billion fee for a platinum item assuming it's supposed to be 8% of its GTN price and the GTN prices are limited to one billion?

Whoever came up with the idea "1. They trade off GTN 2. We charge insane amounts. 3. ??? 4. Inflation goes down" didn't realize that the people would simply stop trading expensive stuff. Previously I would craft an expensive item for a guildmate just for their mats, no charge, now? No way.

Are you actually trying to kill the game before it goes to the other developer?

[Balameb]

@JoeStramaglia@CommunityTeam I get that post that have direct insults in them gets deleted. But if for several years we endured that sometimes quotes from deleted post got to stay, why start enforcing a delete on all replies today?

 

I mean, this forum has an amazing feature that lets you highlight a portion of a post and make a quote. Me and at least one other make use of that feature and avoided the potentially ofending bits, yet were deleted.

 

FYI, the quoted portion was about was apears to be an inconsistency in the calculation of the 8% fee on some items. If i'm not mistaken, that is the kind of feedback/report Joe and the team needs.

 

[blakkwiddow]

15 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

However, the notion that this change is gonna somehow dramatically  alter/ruin  legitimate guilds is, in my opinion, sorta ridiculous.   Solid GM's will adapt, as we always do.

And we will complain about it the whole time lol.

[xordevoreaux]

21 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

However, the notion that this change is gonna somehow dramatically  alter/ruin  legitimate guilds is, in my opinion, sorta ridiculous.   Solid GM's will adapt, as we always do.

I would consider myself fairly solid as a guild leader after having spent 10 years running multiple successful guilds after creating them. My personal financial issues finally forced me to step down, but those guilds are in excellent and capable hands today and those guilds will remain viable concerns for the foreseeable future.

To that end, I must express my deepest gratitude to the members of those guilds who put millions of credits in the guilds as well as the engineering, command, and logistical tokens in the guild bank for me to open up the guild ships.

Now, that process cannot even begin to start in earnest until 30 days past a guild's creation. That's a long time for a guild's development to remain dormant after it's created.

With all work-arounds now made intentionally onerous and expensive, Bioware is severely testing the patience and tenacity of new guilds, both their leaders and membership, by kneecapping their efforts.

Edited June 13, 2023 by xordevoreaux

[Rocketmanballs]

Quick Travel costs are ridiculous.  I believe one of the biggest drivers of this inflation nonsense is allowing players to resell things they purchasse off the cartel market on the GTN (we all know you guys wont stop that because that's your $$$$).   I'm not wealthy credits wise by any means but there are things you can besides punishing low level players quick traveling.   Punishing players for things Bioware allowed to happen (bug exploits and Cartel Market sales on GTN)  is only going to hurt the game.   Bad move. 

I personally know people who did the companion gifts expoit (one i didnt participate in) who were never punished or had their credits/gifts taken away.  Some even laundered it in the GTN.  I remember feeling bad that I didn't exploit sinced they were never penalized.  No matter your opinion on the exploit, Bioware screwed it up completely.   The blame isn't solely on the exploiters. 

I don't have any suggestions except for making some fabulous strong hold decoration items that costs billions of credits.  Maybe that will reduce credits in the game.  Making it harder to make money is only punishing towards players who didn't exploit or are new to the game.  Un do this while you can. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Rocketmanballs

[OLLY-DA]

We need information about pricing of items. Some kind of knowledge about for which prices items have been sold on GTN.

[Rocketmanballs]

I just recently resubed to the game after a three year break and paid for a 6 month sub.  I'm now regretting that I did that after learning about these stupid taxes.  Get rid of the quick travel costs that can penalize new/returning players that didn't exploit or have billions of credits. 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Rocketmanballs

[Nee-Elder]

7 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

Now, that process cannot even begin to start in earnest until 30 days past a guild's creation. That's a long time for a guild's development to remain dormant after it's created.

in ESO, you can't even sell any items until you get 50 *active* members.

i think  there are far too many random/defunct/phony  "guilds"  created in SWTOR as it is,  so maybe this new 7.3 change will help  bridge the gap between  quality guilds and quantity.

9 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

With all work-arounds now made intentionally onerous

Is it really all that "onerous"  for  us GM's to simply make ourselves available  to new 30-day recruits for in-person trades?

i think not.

But hey, that's me.

-----

i would  concede perhaps BioWare should've  made it 14-days restriction instead, but i'm guessing they have their interal reasons.

[Rocketmanballs]

What's to stop players for incresing prices to cover the costs of taxes?

[Isabhell]

What you are doing with the economy is going to break guilds.  We help our guildies by giving them free augments, kits and medpacks/stims/adrenals.  To send one guildie 5 blue augs 2 purple augs 7 aug kits and 25 each medpack/stim/adrenal it cost me over 20 million.  These are gifts to my community members and you are punishing guilds for rewarding their community or helping their community in any number of ways.  

As it was with the cost of quick travel we started giving our community members that were in need funds to offset because there are so many people that are new to the game or starting out that you are just punishing.  now this?  Now i can't even give my guildies gifts?  I have a christmas in july event that it is going to cost a fortune in mail taxes because i can't just share love to my guild and community without being punished.  

 

I am so mad right now, beyond furious

[xordevoreaux]

1 minute ago, Nee-Elder said:

Is it really all that "onerous"  for  us GM's to simply make ourselves available  to new 30-day recruits for in-person trades?

i think not.

I'm sure my guilds aren't the only ones in this game than span 12 time zones.

For 30 days, the guild leader, and only the guild leader, can stay up at all hours waiting to receive guild contributions from people all over.

I would call that onerous.