7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN

[Balameb]

9 hours ago, eabevella said:

I'm not paying 1m tax for giving out a stim as charity according to the test.

That was the first test, the next already removed tax/fee for that kind of consumables:

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929203-pts-economic-balance-changes/#comment-9757765

[eabevella]

7 minutes ago, Balameb said:

That was the first test, the next already removed tax/fee for that kind of consumables:

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929203-pts-economic-balance-changes/#comment-9757765

They better have.

Why they didn't exclude them in the first place just showed they don't play this game nor know the ecology of their players at all.

*eyes the QT fees*

[dgnuff]

On 5/5/2023 at 7:42 AM, JoeStramaglia said:

Can We Remove the Quick Travel Costs?

We do need small sinks in the game just like large ones. I know this one is a bit divisive, and it's something we’re monitoring closely. I can say that we’re open to making adjustments to it, but do not have plans to remove it at this time.

Agree 100% this is a very contentious issue.  I fully understand that you need the credit sink, that's absolutely necessary for the long term health of the game's economy, and we all know the economy is in a really bad state now.

 

However, against that I want to balance the experience my wife had starting a brand new character on Satele Shan server, given that we have only played on Star Forge since we started about two years ago.

 

TL;DR Quick Travel was completely inaccessible to her for pretty much all of the leveling experience, it was priced completely out of her reach.

 

Why is this a bad thing?  Consider the experience of a new player.  What the current pricing structure does is to train brand new players to think that Quick Travel is something for the very wealthy only, and so they just get into the habit of not using it.  Thus they become trained not to use Quick Travel, and you've just lost that credit sink for them.  They'll tend to go everywhere either on a personal speeder or a taxi, because those are affordable.

 

So I'm going to suggest that you change Quick Travel costs as follows.  For level 80 and above characters (thinking ahead to 8.0 and beyond) maintain the current prices.  However a level 1 character only sees a cost range of 10-100 credits.  Then just scale the prices from 10-100 to 100-5000 as the character levels up.

 

I wouldn't go linear on this, that'll bump the price a bit too quickly for low levels: by the time they hit level 10, 12.5% of the way to cap, we'd be looking at 21-712 cost range, and a typical level 10 first time player will only have a budget in the low thousands of credits.  Spending 25% of your entire wealth for one quick travel trip really isn't an option.

 

As a first pass, I'd go with a quadratic curve for the price increase, that would drop the level 10 pricing to around 11-176 credits, still very manageable on a brand new player budget.

 

Bottom line.  Something needs to change for the benefit of first time players, the current prices will leave a very bad taste in their mouths.

[ARFett]

Not thrilled at all about the changes as if you ARE Rich this is just a pat on your fingers.

And things only make it worse for new players as they are hit full force.

Also:

Tax for MAILS?!

I do use Mail to send creds and items around as every time going to the legacy locker to pull out items or even ressource scrips is just bothersome.

Please:

Tinker with the economy all you like.

But do NOT tax normal Mail between alts just to choke off trade loopholes for you "Choke the Economy" plot.

As it goes you are doing a bang job of hitting new players or players who are returning with a chokehold and not enjoyment.

Choking convenience mails when you have plenty alts is the opposite of making things fun.

Sending around certain amount of creds and things like ressource scraps or stims is a common thing.

Taxing normal mails...ugh.

Guys, your road to changes of economy is WRONG.

Rich players are not hit by it.

They STAY rich.

Give us exclusive high credit cost cosmetic items where we can blow our creds off.

Give us "convenience" things which cost high amount of creds.

Maybe even run out after a certain time limit.

Things like THAT would help with people spending their creds.

As it is every change just is a punch in the face to new players or returning players strapped of cash.

I am a 12 year sub without downtime and these changes won't hit my cred account much.

They are plenty annoying but no:

They will not reduce my credits in any way.

Choke a bit off?

Yeah.

But the bulk of creds are still rolling in.

 

[Lord_Janosch]

5 hours ago, ARFett said:

But do NOT tax normal Mail between alts just to choke off trade loopholes for you "Choke the Economy" plot.

Mails between alts are not going to be taxed

[Spikanor]

i think to increase the tax fee from the GTN is only going to backfire hard a lot then doing something good.

since more and more people will go sell there stuff in the trade chat then on the GTN.

what there need to do is first remove the GTN tax free guild perk for good that all the players are going to pay tax fee from the GTN.

and second add more things that there need to sell for credits that are more usefull to the players.

and 3th thing there need to do is that the skill trainers become usefull again so that you most pay for you skills again like it has to be in the first place since getting then for free is looking good but its hurting the game only more and thats what we see now from that idea from back then.

[mCion]

@JoeStramaglia

I know it's late on the thread, but it would be AMAZING if we could select GTN items we do not want to see.

For example, if we are browsing decorations, I do not want to got through 3 pages of House Alde Banners to get to the things I may be interested in. So if there was a button by the item that said something like "ignore" and then you could have a tab with a list of ignored items you can "unignore".

This would boost the use of the GTN and more transactions would be likely to happen.

 

Thanks again.

[Darcmoon]

On 5/25/2023 at 11:00 AM, Spikanor said:

i think to increase the tax fee from the GTN is only going to backfire hard a lot then doing something good.

since more and more people will go sell there stuff in the trade chat then on the GTN.

what there need to do is first remove the GTN tax free guild perk for good that all the players are going to pay tax fee from the GTN.

and second add more things that there need to sell for credits that are more usefull to the players.

and 3th thing there need to do is that the skill trainers become usefull again so that you most pay for you skills again like it has to be in the first place since getting then for free is looking good but its hurting the game only more and thats what we see now from that idea from back then.

They aren’t increasing the tax amount on the GTN.  They are doing tiers for the amount taxed and the highest tier will equal what the current tax percentage is. (The tier system is for the overhaul further out but the current 8% tax isn’t increasing before then or after barring them making another change.) Additionally, the player to player trades will be ‘taxed’ at the highest GTN tier rate.  They are also removing the tax reduction guild perk. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Darcmoon

[microstyles]

1 hour ago, Darcmoon said:

They aren’t increasing the tax amount on the GTN.  They are doing tiers for the amount taxed and the highest tier will equal what the current tax percentage is.

Did they change that? The first post says otherwise

On 5/1/2023 at 11:44 AM, JoeStramaglia said:

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 trade taxes will be even worse though so I'm pretty sure people will mostly use the GTN if possible

[Jdast]

35 minutes ago, microstyles said:

The trade taxes will be even worse though so I'm pretty sure people will mostly use the GTN if possible

I think the situation / final outcome on trade taxes is very much in flux / work in progress. SWTORISTA provided a useful chart on what that tax rates were on the PTS.

In response to that chart, Joe Stramaglia, who oversees these changes, made this post which you may find useful. Of particular note too is that the tax rates will vary by server.

https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929203-pts-economic-balance-changes/#comment-9757765

Bioware has explicitly stated their goal is to move the vast majority of trades to the GTN. While I support that goal, I don't see that stopping player to player trade on items far more expensive than the $1 billion credit cap on the GTN which presently exists.

As long as people are willing to shell out well over $1 billion credits for Hypercrates, for example, there will presumably / probably still be an active player to player trade market, albeit diminished. I am curious to see if those selling Hypercrates attempt to raise prices on those items essentially to shift the tax burden to the buyer.

Dasty

Edited May 26, 2023 by Jdast
Clarity

[Darcmoon]

27 minutes ago, microstyles said:

Did they change that? The first post says otherwise

The trade taxes will be even worse though so I'm pretty sure people will mostly use the GTN if possible

You are correct.  I got confused with the bullet points near the beginning of his post that talked about the 8% tax.   Unfortunately, we don’t know what the highest bracket will be or if they might change their minds on higher than  8% when they go to the progressive tax system.  

[microstyles]

5 hours ago, Jdast said:

Bioware has explicitly stated their goal is to move the vast majority of trades to the GTN. While I support that goal, I don't see that stopping player to player trade on items far more expensive than the $1 billion credit cap on the GTN which presently exists.

As long as people are willing to shell out well over $1 billion credits for Hypercrates, for example, there will presumably / probably still be an active player to player trade market, albeit diminished. I am curious to see if those selling Hypercrates attempt to raise prices on those items essentially to shift the tax burden to the buyer.

Yeah they really need to raise the GTN cap. I imagine any item worth over the GTN cap use going to get hit with the item fees. It will really stifle trade for those types of items, probably pushing the price up. 

For items under the cap I can't imagine why anyone would do off-GTN trading after the progressive fees get implemented. Both sides of the trades get fees at the highest fee rate.

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, Jdast said:

Bioware has explicitly stated their goal is to move the vast majority of trades to the GTN. While I support that goal, I don't see that stopping player to player trade on items far more expensive than the $1 billion credit cap on the GTN which presently exists.

As long as people are willing to shell out well over $1 billion credits for Hypercrates, for example, there will presumably / probably still be an active player to player trade market, albeit diminished. I am curious to see if those selling Hypercrates attempt to raise prices on those items essentially to shift the tax burden to the buyer.

Exactly! This is why BioWare need to increase the 1 billion GTN credit cap & individual character credit limits at the same time. Doing this piece meal is only going to cause more unforeseen issues. 

It should have been their first step in addressing inflation before adding QT travel fees. They seem to be doing the easiest stuff first & it’s a totally backwards approach to fixing inflation because the GTN is the largest & most effective credit sink in the game. 

Edited May 27, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Gamer_Auto]

On 5/22/2023 at 3:01 PM, dgnuff said:

Agree 100% this is a very contentious issue.  I fully understand that you need the credit sink, that's absolutely necessary for the long term health of the game's economy, and we all know the economy is in a really bad state now.

 

However, against that I want to balance the experience my wife had starting a brand new character on Satele Shan server, given that we have only played on Star Forge since we started about two years ago.

 

TL;DR Quick Travel was completely inaccessible to her for pretty much all of the leveling experience, it was priced completely out of her reach.

 

Why is this a bad thing?  Consider the experience of a new player.  What the current pricing structure does is to train brand new players to think that Quick Travel is something for the very wealthy only, and so they just get into the habit of not using it.  Thus they become trained not to use Quick Travel, and you've just lost that credit sink for them.  They'll tend to go everywhere either on a personal speeder or a taxi, because those are affordable.

 

So I'm going to suggest that you change Quick Travel costs as follows.  For level 80 and above characters (thinking ahead to 8.0 and beyond) maintain the current prices.  However a level 1 character only sees a cost range of 10-100 credits.  Then just scale the prices from 10-100 to 100-5000 as the character levels up.

 

I wouldn't go linear on this, that'll bump the price a bit too quickly for low levels: by the time they hit level 10, 12.5% of the way to cap, we'd be looking at 21-712 cost range, and a typical level 10 first time player will only have a budget in the low thousands of credits.  Spending 25% of your entire wealth for one quick travel trip really isn't an option.

 

As a first pass, I'd go with a quadratic curve for the price increase, that would drop the level 10 pricing to around 11-176 credits, still very manageable on a brand new player budget.

 

Bottom line.  Something needs to change for the benefit of first time players, the current prices will leave a very bad taste in their mouths.

Wait. How far are you QTing? It scales with distance. The farther away you QT, the more it costs. I'm consistently getting enough Credits from random drops to QT back to wherever the closest point is, and quests and other loot handles the rest.

Is this a F2P thing I've long since forgotten about?

[TrixxieTriss]

On 5/28/2023 at 12:22 PM, Gamer_Auto said:

Wait. How far are you QTing? It scales with distance. The farther away you QT, the more it costs. I'm consistently getting enough Credits from random drops to QT back to wherever the closest point is, and quests and other loot handles the rest.

Is this a F2P thing I've long since forgotten about?

It also depends on the planet. For instance, Nar Shad has some of the worst fees (highest) in the game and it’s  lowbie planet. 
 

Its the inconsistency that’s the problem. I also think the lower lvl planets shouldn’t have a QT cost or if they do it should’ve really, really low & not scale. 

[AbsolutGrndZero]

I'm reminded of when I used to play City of Heroes, they had a contest to win something, I forget what, but that doesn't matter.  The game takes place in the fictional city of Paragon, located in the state of Rhode Island.  However, the actual residents of the state of Rhode Island were excluded from the contest due to Rhode Island having some of the most draconian "consumer protection" laws in the USA.  Basically, from what I recall and understood, NC Soft would have had to pay the state of Rhode Island a tax based on the value of the item and the number of participants in the contest.  Didn't matter that you didn't have to pay to join the contest, Rhode Island required them to pay a fee to run the contest in the state of Rhode Island. It would have cost them a few thousand dollars (or more, again this was years ago but I know the price was extremely high) to give something away to their players for free.  SO they just said "Rhode Island residents are ineligible."  It was a point of hilarity to players.  But the reason I am reminded is because its exactly the same thing that's happening here inside Star Wars if this goes to live.  As I've said before, I love to gift stuff to new players.  Be it a bronze or silver cartel speeder or outfit, or crafted color crystals (I love to craft up a bunch of magenta crystals and go give them to new players on Tython so they can have a pretty pink lightsaber.)  But, just like Rhode Island did with City of Heroes, you're going to stop me doing that.

Edited May 29, 2023 by AbsolutGrndZero
Clarification and correcting typos.

[Gamer_Auto]

23 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

It also depends on the planet. For instance, Nar Shad has some of the worst fees (highest) in the game and it’s  lowbie planet. 
 

Its the inconsistency that’s the problem. I also think the lower lvl planets shouldn’t have a QT cost or if they do it should’ve really, really low & not scale. 

Hm...That's odd. Maybe that's because of how the maps for that planet work? Because I've done some short QTing around Belsavis, Voss, Corellia, Makeb, Onderon, and they weren't that bad. Is it that Subscribers get boosted Credits, or is this something I just got numb to because of how fast I can grind Heroics on my mains? I'll need to pay attention when I take my latest characters to Nar Shaddaa.

[YodaUnrea]

Honestly i am thankful for the work and idea you want to put into this game to fix the economy, but this will not going to work out in long terms. We all know why. What you really need to do is step in against credit sellers and buyers even if you need to make radical changes. Becasue you can put any high tax on everything you want including high travel costs etc this is not going to work out while people buying bills of credits for a dime from third party sites. in order to fix the economy you need to get your hand dirty and literaly destroy the root of the problem. 

[ShadessaWayland]

i think raise te cap ad GTN to lets say 3 bil gonna back fire to new players becouse am very sure alot off vetran players sell the prises to max cap so the new players cant buy anything i was suprised how much players sell there lvl 70 token ore the master datacron token to get to lvl 80 players even sell it for more then 1 bil in chat its pretty sad but its in every mmo i play the rich players that also spend alot off real money will dominate the market so for new players it will be very hard to enjoy this game 

[Shayddow]

For Nar Shaddaa I don't use QT, as the taxis are only 75 credits to get back to promenade, and I can use my SH to get back to starting point on the planet.

Planets that I find annoying are those with no speeder nearby - for example to complete the GSI weekly, some of the dailies on Alderaan you have to venture into the opposite faction's area to complete the quest. There are no taxis from there to get back to your home faction's base. (So, again, Stronghold to the rescue).  

For GTN:  I too would like to be able to see if I already have something when I list it. But usually what I do if I place an item for sale, is first check thru my collections in the applicable category (armor/weapon/pets/mounts etc), then if I have it already, then check the market, see if any others are selling, put it up for sale at a competative price. Its an extra step but it works for me. If I don't have the item, I stick it in my legacy vault and claim it with appropriate character. If its a deco, it depends. Most I claim straight out. But a few I've sold.

[Gamer_Auto]

On 5/31/2023 at 6:39 PM, Shayddow said:

I too would like to be able to see if I already have something when I list it. But usually what I do if I place an item for sale, is first check thru my collections in the applicable category (armor/weapon/pets/mounts etc), then if I have it already,

If you hover over a collection-compatible item, there's actually a spot that says whether or not it's in your collection (with differences for if it's on one character or available for your entire account).

[Traceguy]

On 5/24/2023 at 2:55 AM, ARFett said:

Not thrilled at all about the changes as if you ARE Rich this is just a pat on your fingers.

And things only make it worse for new players as they are hit full force.

Also:

Tax for MAILS?!

I do use Mail to send creds and items around as every time going to the legacy locker to pull out items or even ressource scrips is just bothersome.

Please:

Tinker with the economy all you like.

But do NOT tax normal Mail between alts just to choke off trade loopholes for you "Choke the Economy" plot.

As it goes you are doing a bang job of hitting new players or players who are returning with a chokehold and not enjoyment.

Choking convenience mails when you have plenty alts is the opposite of making things fun.

Sending around certain amount of creds and things like ressource scraps or stims is a common thing.

Taxing normal mails...ugh.

Guys, your road to changes of economy is WRONG.

Rich players are not hit by it.

They STAY rich.

Give us exclusive high credit cost cosmetic items where we can blow our creds off.

Give us "convenience" things which cost high amount of creds.

Maybe even run out after a certain time limit.

Things like THAT would help with people spending their creds.

As it is every change just is a punch in the face to new players or returning players strapped of cash.

I am a 12 year sub without downtime and these changes won't hit my cred account much.

They are plenty annoying but no:

They will not reduce my credits in any way.

Choke a bit off?

Yeah.

But the bulk of creds are still rolling in.

 

If you're sending mail to alts, you're playing the game wrong. Maybe you missed it, but you know the yellow colored storage unit? Yes, the one that has 100 people stacked on it. Get ready to have your mind blown. It's called LEGACY STORAGE, and get this... YOUR ENTIRE LEGACY OF ALTS CAN ACCESS IT

[ARFett]

9 hours ago, Traceguy said:

If you're sending mail to alts, you're playing the game wrong. Maybe you missed it, but you know the yellow colored storage unit? Yes, the one that has 100 people stacked on it. Get ready to have your mind blown. It's called LEGACY STORAGE, and get this... YOUR ENTIRE LEGACY OF ALTS CAN ACCESS IT

Nothing new.

But just sending creds AND stuff you switch from toon to toon around is faster by mail by far.

And more convenient.

So your poor sarcasm does not faze me one bit...

And there is no "playing the game wrong".

As much as you got a opinion and I got one.

Period.

[TahliahCOH]

On 5/31/2023 at 6:39 PM, Shayddow said:

Planets that I find annoying are those with no speeder nearby - for example to complete the GSI weekly, some of the dailies on Alderaan you have to venture into the opposite faction's area to complete the quest. There are no taxis from there to get back to your home faction's base. (So, again, Stronghold to the rescue).  

Exactly. Stuff like this is why I no longer do the GSI weeklies at all. Nor do I do the Bounty Hunter event. I'm not shelling out 5k x however many times to complete these. I guess it doesn't matter to them that they are making content either inaccessible or unappealing. Quick Travel fees are ludicrously over-priced. As someone noted above, you can take a taxi for 75 creds, but it costs 5k to QT. It's just not even worth going to some of these planets anymore unless you're doing Heroics (which, so far at least, they don't charge you to travel to them; if they did, I wouldn't do Heroics ever again, either). As content is limited, I'm honestly not enjoying . . . or playing the game as much.

[Vanechka]

Good afternoon Joe Stramaglia

Thank you for the updates. From what I can see, you are focusing on one of the main problems with inflation "Scalpers"

They are the ones forcing players with no credits to go to Farming Websites to trade cash for credits and to pray on people who have Cartel Coins to purchase cartel packs so that the scalpers can trade them for credits. Everything posted by you is a good start, am glad you guys are going the right way.

I do have a few recommendations that would probably help in future updates.

1-Make cartel packs BOUND on purchase. Once the pack is open, it can remain the same way it has been, (2-day bound cooldown).

This will stop Scalpers from preying on players with CCs and also will encourage players with CCs to use the GTN themselves.

2-Whatever you do, Do not increase the CAP, Not at the GTN, not in Personal Strongholds, Not in the Guild banks. not in Personal vaults. Based on the game mechanics, Once you reach the cap. You are pretty much set for life, for all your alts, for your guild, and even a few of your friends. There is NO need to raise the cap. Raising the cap will only allow scalpers to continue to raise the prices at the GTN and will increase the price of all items to cover the tax increase you guys are working on.

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.

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"

I am a GuildMaster who reached the cap long ago by selling mats and loot the honest way My guild bank has reached the cap long ago. We have been playing since Alpha August 2010, We are one of the oldest, active guilds on the server. I have nothing to hide.

Thank you for your time and the work you put into the game.