7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN

[OlBuzzard]

Hmmm

WOW!!

Still debating over this??  I know how valued input is (particularly here) ..  sooo  I'll throw some more "valued words of wisdom out there".

** Inflation was waaaaay out of control.

** Something needed to be done! (OK so far).
** PAGES of suggestions and discussions followed.
** Aside from venting anger and hostility (looking for a single source to blame for the situation)  ... very little common ground was determined.
** The team has addressed the situation (and will continue to do so).
** No I don't agree with some of their choices / decisions made.  BUT ...
** IIRC I said something to the effect of "be careful of what you ask for"  (may not have been exact words)

So!  Here we are!

Might as well just chill out for a bit!  Two things come to my mind right now!
**  We've dropped the nickel in the jukebox ... soo looks like we're stuck with hearing this song until someone changes the record!!
** Hang loose mother goose .. keep cool! ( I doubt most will get this one ... but believe me it's the truth)

[Nee-Elder]

On 6/18/2023 at 10:57 PM, TheJediFolko said:

You can't just fixed inflation with taxation.

You fix with with money sinks. You make a system that incentivizes players to spend credits.

Personally i think "they" ( BioWare, Broadsward, whomever ) should make a system that incentivizes players to BUILD  something  (other than Cartel Market re-skins counter x infinity )  , using Crafting & Credits.

Like ohhh i dunno....a massive factional ( or guild )  space-station used to wage a Star War.

p.s.  Time to give BioWare some credit ( pun intended ) , since whatever they've done so far is indeed working to at least curb inflation.  Prices on GTN have been cut in half for all high end products. ( Augment 77's , for example )  -- Sure some of that is due to the recent eradication of certain *exploiters* , but mostly the taxes & such are starting to help a bit.

[DeannaVoyager]

6 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

p.s.  Time to give BioWare some credit ( pun intended ) , since whatever they've done so far is indeed working to at least curb inflation.  Prices on GTN have been cut in half for all high end products. ( Augment 77's , for example )  -- Sure some of that is due to the recent eradication of certain *exploiters* , but mostly the taxes & such are starting to help a bit.

 

Augment prices have come steadily downwards even before the patch, and they are still coming because a lot of people are not crafting them anymore for themselves, yet DF frag farming continues. When the supply gets higher than demand, prices go down. When demand gets higher than supply, prices go up. Guess why the inflation hit the roof when referral system was put to an end?

 

The other items, such as cartel market stuff also started to show up in GTN again because BW banned several credit sellers. This too already happened way before this last patch with crazy taxes and fees. 

 

In other words, the changes that came with 7.3 had nothing to do with prices getting down. It's a credit sink for those who don't care about getting rid of arbitrary numbers of credits every time they gift someone or trade something, but has zero effect on people like me:  I stopped gifting, I stopped crafting for others, I'm just basically rather sitting on my credits than throw it away. I may buy something from GTN, but for now I'm just waiting for prices to come down. If I don't get something because I waited too long, I don't care. Space barbie has never been my game. 

 

[Nee-Elder]

38 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

In other words, the changes that came with 7.3 had nothing to do with prices getting down.

Me thinks you just overstated your case ^ .

Regardless,  only BioWare has the internal server metrics (on the impact) and tbqh  there's really not much else they can do after 12 years of  Free-to-PAY  business model. 

The real question is: How 'bout that inflation effect once Broadsword takes over?

Edited June 20, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[OlBuzzard]

52 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Personally i think "they" ( BioWare, Broadsward, whomever ) should make a system that incentivizes players to BUILD  something  (other than Cartel Market re-skins counter x infinity )  , using Crafting & Credits.

Like ohhh i dunno....a massive factional ( or guild )  space-station used to wage a Star War.

p.s.  Time to give BioWare some credit ( pun intended ) , since whatever they've done so far is indeed working to at least curb inflation.  Prices on GTN have been cut in half for all high end products. ( Augment 77's , for example )  -- Sure some of that is due to the recent eradication of certain *exploiters* , but mostly the taxes & such are starting to help a bit.

If there was ever a good suggestion out there to look at .. IMO this is one of them!  (Please note that this has been stated before by others .. perhaps differently ...but essentially the same).

I LIKE IT !!!

[/TWO THUMBS UP]

Edited June 20, 2023 by OlBuzzard

[Balameb]

16 minutes ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Augment prices have come steadily downwards even before the patch, and they are still coming because a lot of people are not crafting them anymore for themselves, yet DF frag farming continues. When the supply gets higher than demand, prices go down. When demand gets higher than supply, prices go up. Guess why the inflation hit the roof when referral system was put to an end?

 

The other items, such as cartel market stuff also started to show up in GTN again because BW banned several credit sellers. This too already happened way before this last patch with crazy taxes and fees. 

 

In other words, the changes that came with 7.3 had nothing to do with prices getting down. It's a credit sink for those who don't care about getting rid of arbitrary numbers of credits every time they gift someone or trade something, but has zero effect on people like me:  I stopped gifting, I stopped crafting for others, I'm just basically rather sitting on my credits than throw it away. I may buy something from GTN, but for now I'm just waiting for prices to come down. If I don't get something because I waited too long, I don't care. Space barbie has never been my game. 

I agree that prices went down mostly because of banned credit sellers. But is too soon to measure 7.3 fees as 'nothing'. You may sit on your credits as much as you want, but is not the norm. So be it people paying the fees or moving their sales to GTN, we have more credits being sinked. That, in the long run (or sooner even), and as long as sellers don't find new exploits (or BW F Ups again), will drive prices down even more.

We still need an increased sale cap in GTN. 4 billion, so hypercrates and the most expensive weapons can be sold on GTN.

14 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

there's really not much else they can do after 12 years of  Free-to-PAY  business model. 

The thing is (sadly) microtransactions came to stay; and the F2P part is not the issue. Other games have B2P, Paid Expansion, Subs and still have microtransactions: ESO, WoW, FFXIV.

Except for Old School Runescape (massive amount of subs with a game so old in graphic design that too easy to mantain and add content) i don't think games today can survive (and please their Publishers Overlords at the same time) with Sub (or B2P+Sub) without some form of microtransaction. Every new MMO in development will them in one way or another, and they are included even in some B2P AAA Single Player games. It sucks, but it is there.

29 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

The real question is: How 'bout that inflation effect once Broadsword takes over?

That is something that cannot be predicted. Once they switch, game population will likely change as well. And i don't just mean numbers, i think they may shift focus of things so their target 'content' may attract different kind of player.... in that scenario the needs of the economy (or lack of it) may be something completely different.

59 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Like ohhh i dunno....a massive factional ( or guild )  space-station used to wage a Star War.

As usual, i agree and like this kind of suggestions you make. Star Wars is such a massive IP with tons of things to explore in their universe/lore. I find myself amazed by how much BW limited the scope of this game. I know they wanted it to have some feel of a KOTOR3, but forcing such verticality in the story and placing all their budget in that, they kind of created their falling snowball and have no clue how to stop it. And i don't think new studio will have groundbreaking ideas.

I do like the Theme Park, but i find it usefull as a starting point. Currently is very limiting, not only because we lack more (and cool) side sandbox like systems, all new areas to play are tied to a vertical story progression. I think i lost count of how many daily areas are tied to content that can't be skipped since ossus. My tech toons don't even do SoR (makeb neither, but that is because it sucks), so my choices for these toons are too limited.

[microstyles]

1 hour ago, DeannaVoyager said:

In other words, the changes that came with 7.3 had nothing to do with prices getting down.

I agree that the quick travel fees and adjusted repair fees probably did not significantly contribute to the much lower item values we've seen in the past few months. I think that was mostly due to the banning of credit sellers.

However, I have noticed specifically cartel pack prices going down by like 20% since 7.3. This makes sense, since packs were one of the few things worth sub-1b that were traded heavily in trade chat. I imagine many that would sell crates are breaking them open to sell in the GTN as well to avoid the brutal trade fees on traded items.

Is that worth nearly shutting down trade chat and taxing gifts? I say no, but some may disagree.

[DawnAskham]

2 hours ago, microstyles said:

I agree that the quick travel fees and adjusted repair fees probably did not significantly contribute to the much lower item values we've seen in the past few months. I think that was mostly due to the banning of credit sellers.

However, I have noticed specifically cartel pack prices going down by like 20% since 7.3. This makes sense, since packs were one of the few things worth sub-1b that were traded heavily in trade chat. I imagine many that would sell crates are breaking them open to sell in the GTN as well to avoid the brutal trade fees on traded items.

Is that worth nearly shutting down trade chat and taxing gifts? I say no, but some may disagree.

The last line is the key point.

I believe most of the deflation was the banning of sellers / exploiters and just the general visibility of Bioware doing something, anything, about inflations and the economy (and specific to gold augments and the associated mats, the general progression of the expansion to a point where supply exceeds demand).

I do not believe the last set of changes were worth whatever amount of impact they may or may not have had in reducing prices, not since the changes pretty much kill a lot of social trade aspects MMOs have had at their core forever, such as crafting for others, barter / swapping items, gifts to friends and family and guildmates and new players, etc.

And certainly not since the changes have been implemented in such a kludgy Rube Goldberg-esque manner. 

I'll give credit to Bioware for acknowledging the problem, and credit for the ban wave, but everything else has been the typical one-step forward, ten-steps backward head-scratching, face-palming, 'wth were they thinking' garbage we've all gotten used to seeing in SWTOR.

Edited June 20, 2023 by DawnAskham

[Aaesith]

If you're going to update the GTN, please make it so i can set the price per item when selling a stack of item.
Also please make it so that I can buy only part of a stack of items listed on the GTN.

This would be a great quality of life making it that sellers no longer need to split stacks and buyers no longer need to buy a more expensive stack of the same item only because it's smaller. Let us buy 300 pieces of that 9999 stack of materials. 

Also listing all the items at the same price per item in a single listing would be great. This way I can buy 1000 of the same material quickly even if it's available from 10 players each selling 100 pieces at the same price.

Also auto filling the lowest current GTN price for an item as suggested price instead of your generic value  could make selling go faster.

 

[Aaesith]

Simply put...have someone play some other MMO's out there, study how they do in game trade and copy the best features ... hint hint 😀

[Gytheran]

Are you high? 2 million credits to send 1 decoration that sells for tokens you give out for free?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/855425504726482966/1121054586271191073/Are_you_high.jpg

[JanxMoltar]

How about auto-flag accounts that mail bazillion credits to random players daily?

And auto filter / flag accounts that spam words like "selling credits" etc.

Or is this happening and what is the progress report on this issue. Which IMO is one of the root causes of this inflation issue whatsoever.

And don't forget that newly starting player does not know the "inflation" and for them 100k is huge money. And when they realize 1bill is basically chump-change it is huge chance they will turn to those credit sellers to not fall behind.

What I'm trying to say is, fix the root cause before you start messing whith item prices. For example, green companion gifts from 60cr to 600cr 🤦‍♂️

From 60k cr to 600k to get one companion to lv20-ish.

 

Also the cc to cr conversation is out of whack.. maybe think about building internal cc/cr exchange where players can literally drive the price themselves.

Not make this into a lotery by making players buy and sell cc items.

[Balameb]

1 hour ago, JanxMoltar said:

How about auto-flag accounts that mail bazillion credits to random players daily?

And then they will come here crying they are actually filantropists.

2 hours ago, JanxMoltar said:

And auto filter / flag accounts that spam words like "selling credits" etc.

I still don't understand how this game lacks proper filters. The fact is the site that must not be named can write their complete url without problems. If players didn't had the chance to report spam, they could go on without needing to remake accounts so often.

2 hours ago, JanxMoltar said:

And don't forget that newly starting player does not know the "inflation" and for them 100k is huge money. And when they realize 1bill is basically chump-change it is huge chance they will turn to those credit sellers to not fall behind.

At old rates sure. At the last rates i saw, was not much better than Packs/Hypercrates exchange. Certainly not worth the risk. But hey, no value is worth the risk for me, i just asume everyone has their own limits.

2 hours ago, JanxMoltar said:

What I'm trying to say is, fix the root cause before you start messing whith item prices. For example, green companion gifts from 60cr to 600cr 🤦‍♂️

From 60k cr to 600k to get one companion to lv20-ish.

Again with this.

First, i don't know when the companion gifts had a cost that low. At 100s for green ones i think prices are the same as they used to be for me.

Second. How in the world did you came to 600k? Is there a gift that cost 600 and gives less points than tier 1 and requires 1000 of them to reach lvl 20(ish)?

I think your info is off, and your math is worst.

2 hours ago, JanxMoltar said:

Also the cc to cr conversation is out of whack.. maybe think about building internal cc/cr exchange where players can literally drive the price themselves.

Not make this into a lotery by making players buy and sell cc items.

Prices are going down. Still, anyone can get a decent amount of credits with packs, easy to check on GTN. And for the lotery, if you check market(GTN+trade chat), you could see if a particular item will have more value than others. Newest addition usually are better investments. I haven't check the chat, but i have not found a single complete armor set or blaster from the latest bundle on GTN(in Star Forge), i guess their current value is way better than same amount of CCs in cartel packs.

[fabsus]

Good Job @JoeStramaglia

medipacks, stims and adrenals are 1 credit cheaper now.
thank for the great work! 
just 2,219,999 credits! 

[TrixxieTriss]

So far I think BioWare are definitely on the right track to fixing inflation with the  7.3 inflation changes. IMHO, these latest changes were pretty much all that was ever needed to make a major impact. So I would suggest they could even get rid of the quick travel costs again.

My only criticism of 7.3 was not giving an avenue to freely gift items to other players by employing a mechanism like Bind on Legacy (BoL) for any “actual” gifts.

Their next step should be to increase the GTN sell price to 4 billion & each individual character credit cap increased to 20 billion. Once that’s done, their anti-inflation changes should be given 12 months to work. Then if anything needs tweaking, they can look at it some more. 

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, fabsus said:

Good Job @JoeStramaglia

medipacks, stims and adrenals are 1 credit cheaper now.
thank for the great work! 
just 2,219,999 credits! 

That’s obviously a bug still. They were supposed to have fixed that. Can I suggest that you report it in the bugs section so they see it.

[Gytheran]

33 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

My only criticism of 7.3 was not giving an avenue to freely gift items to other players by employing a mechanism like Bind on Legacy (BoL) for any “actual” gifts.

This is a terrible idea. 

"actual gift" means literally nothing. A gift is a gift. They may choose to use it... or they may choose to sell it. It's not for YOU to decide what people do with their own items. It also doesn't affect the number of credits in the game.

[Toraak]

5 hours ago, JanxMoltar said:

How about auto-flag accounts that mail bazillion credits to random players daily?

And auto filter / flag accounts that spam words like "selling credits" etc.

Or is this happening and what is the progress report on this issue. Which IMO is one of the root causes of this inflation issue whatsoever.

And don't forget that newly starting player does not know the "inflation" and for them 100k is huge money. And when they realize 1bill is basically chump-change it is huge chance they will turn to those credit sellers to not fall behind.

What I'm trying to say is, fix the root cause before you start messing whith item prices. For example, green companion gifts from 60cr to 600cr 🤦‍♂️

From 60k cr to 600k to get one companion to lv20-ish.

 

Also the cc to cr conversation is out of whack.. maybe think about building internal cc/cr exchange where players can literally drive the price themselves.

Not make this into a lotery by making players buy and sell cc items.

Hate to tell you this but The Green companion gifts on the vendor have not changed prices in YEARS, if ever!!! Those have been the prices for as long as I can remember and I've been here since day 1 of early access.

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, Gytheran said:

This is a terrible idea. 

"actual gift" means literally nothing. A gift is a gift. They may choose to use it... or they may choose to sell it. It's not for YOU to decide what people do with their own items. It also doesn't affect the number of credits in the game.

And it’s that attitude that’s led BioWare to impose an even worse system where gifts are overly taxed.

Look at it this way. If BioWare don’t impose a tax or make the gift BoL, then they leave a massive loophole still for unscrupulous entities to circumvent the fee/tax system because those items could become a defacto currency. Which diminishes the anti-inflation measures. This is something they won’t allow anymore moving forward. 

At least the BoL idea is a compromise. It means people who want to gift items can still do so without incurring a huge cost. The only people who are negatively affected by it are those who don’t actually want it as a gift in the first place. Which means they intended to resell it. So it was never actually intended to be given as a gift to help someone out. Hence it isn’t a gift.

If you can’t see the benefits in gifts being made BoL instead of taxed, I suggest you’re not really being honest with reasons you want to gift in the first place. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[ShadessaWayland]

8 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

So far I think BioWare are definitely on the right track to fixing inflation with the  7.3 inflation changes. IMHO, these latest changes were pretty much all that was ever needed to make a major impact. So I would suggest they could even get rid of the quick travel costs again.

My only criticism of 7.3 was not giving an avenue to freely gift items to other players by employing a mechanism like Bind on Legacy (BoL) for any “actual” gifts.

Their next step should be to increase the GTN sell price to 4 billion & each individual character credit cap increased to 20 billion. Once that’s done, their anti-inflation changes should be given 12 months to work. Then if anything needs tweaking, they can look at it some more. 

increase the cap for gtn to 4 bil ore more only works bad mostly for new players becouse the players that spend alot off real money and buy stuff from the cash shop will dominate the gtn if you want it you need to pay the price and most new players will quit but its with every mmo i play you have 2 choices ore grind till you cant grind anymore ore spend real money 

 

i remember old days so 3 a 4 years back i think the lvl 70 boost data cron was so 200 mill now players ask 1.5 bil to 2 bil wtf 

seems players are more hungry for money now and then you have lets say 50 bil in you bank and they do nothing with it as long they have tons off cash 

 

what i think is no trading between players and the cap for gtn to 500 mil so every1 can buy what they want and everybody is happy but am sure that will never happen and it will soon be that cash shop item will be more and more up in price 

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

15 hours ago, Gytheran said:

Are you high? 2 million credits to send 1 decoration that sells for tokens you give out for free?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/855425504726482966/1121054586271191073/Are_you_high.jpg

That's insane.

[Sundown]

I still see prices going down. Also for things like dark projects or flagship plans (which for me are like a good indicator since the effort to get them remains unchanged).

Extending  the number of conquest commendations to obtain (and simplifying the currencies) and using increased tech fragment rewards (at least it seems to me that way, Old Wounds-missions grant quite a lot) goes a long way to beat inflation, as OEM/RPM are significantly easier to obtain now. For me personally I think that was one of the major contributors to inflation (besides excess credits from exploits obviously).

[Gytheran]

20 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

And it’s that attitude that’s led BioWare to impose an even worse system where gifts are overly taxed.

Look at it this way. If BioWare don’t impose a tax or make the gift BoL, then they leave a massive loophole still for unscrupulous entities to circumvent the fee/tax system because those items could become a defacto currency. Which diminishes the anti-inflation measures. This is something they won’t allow anymore moving forward. 

At least the BoL idea is a compromise. It means people who want to gift items can still do so without incurring a huge cost. The only people who are negatively affected by it are those who don’t actually want it as a gift in the first place. Which means they intended to resell it. So it was never actually intended to be given as a gift to help someone out. Hence it isn’t a gift.

If you can’t see the benefits in gifts being made BoL instead of taxed, I suggest you’re not really being honest with reasons you want to gift in the first place. 

What part of 'gifting an item doesn't change the number of credits in the game' do you not understand? 

Making a gift BoP will have 0 affect on the economy. It's not even debatable. It's a fact. There are no credits being created through the gifting of an item. It is not a factor in the inflation.

[Balameb]

21 minutes ago, Gytheran said:

What part of 'gifting an item doesn't change the number of credits in the game' do you not understand? 

Making a gift BoP will have 0 affect on the economy. It's not even debatable. It's a fact. There are no credits being created through the gifting of an item. It is not a factor in the inflation.

You are not getting the idea.

Making the item BoL is so that items avoids paying the new trade fee.

People complain about the fee when they are making a gift instead of a sale, so making the gift BoL helps solving that issue.

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, Gytheran said:

What part of 'gifting an item doesn't change the number of credits in the game' do you not understand? 

Making a gift BoP will have 0 affect on the economy. It's not even debatable. It's a fact. There are no credits being created through the gifting of an item. It is not a factor in the inflation.

You still aren’t getting it. BoL has nothing to do with reducing the credits or affecting the economy. It’s so people can gift items for free.

BioWare can’t allow gifting without either a tax/fee or BoL because it would allow people to use gifted items as currency they could further trade. 

Unfortunately BioWare have decided to go with the worst option, which is adding a tax to gifted items. 

Do you get it now? 

Edited June 22, 2023 by TrixxieTriss