Well, the Unthinkable and "Impossible" just happened...

[Exocor]

Am 5.5.2023 um 00:06 schrieb DWho:

It wasn't really unthinkable or impossible. It was brought up during the PTS testing and at least they made the "jump to stronghold and back" not have a cost (there are other glitches that require you to leave your current location and return too), but you can't have a stronghold until level 10 (or was it 15) so your "stuck" in more ways than one. I think QT costs should be 0 at least until you hit level 10 and can get a stronghold (The capital world ones are pretty cheap).

 

A while back, they changed it that you cannot travel to the stronghold while moving. So in that infinite falling situation, a stronghold won't do you any good. Being invited to one might help though.

 

[Nee-Elder]

34 minutes ago, Ramalina said:

People keep saying this despite it being factually incorrect.

.........

• The Cartel Market sells 'coins' for RL money.
• Players, regardless of their in-game wealth, spend RL money to purchase digital items  as many times as their RL budget allows. ( sometimes even more )
• They then sell those digital items for in-game currency ( Credits ) and thereby increase their in-game wealth , without having to actually PLAY the core game itself.
• And of course the illegal credit-sellers compound the issue.

So tell me, exactly which part of all that ^ is  supposedly "factually incorrect" ?

45 minutes ago, Ramalina said:

Repeat after me, however many times it takes to sink in: CM TRANSACTIONS DO NOT CREATE CREDITS IN GAME.

First off,  repeat after me however many times it takes to sink in: YELLING IN CAPS BOLD DOESN'T MAKE YOU RIGHT.

It just makes you come off belligerent & obnoxious.

Secondly, when did i ever say CM micro-transactions  "created" Credits ?

53 minutes ago, Ramalina said:

They just offer an incentive for players to transfer existing credits to other players. 

Right, but my point was: That very "incentive" is fabricated & generated outside of the core parameters & principals of SWTOR gameplay.

In my opinion, this type of phony business model  which uses F2P'ers as willing but oblivious pawns, only creates ( your word ) transient feral  type gamers who will never be satisfied no matter how many re-skinned CM items ( or Credits from Hypercrates therein ) they acquire.  Because those items---or those Credits---weren't  earned thru  in-game means/efforts.

As opposed to say, for example, a crafted created item or an ultra rare looted item. <---Both of which give a greater sense of accomplishment and therefore greater 'attachment'. ( aka real digital 'value' )

In other words, the CM system makes it too fast & too easy to get "rich" .  And, more on topic, it only serves to further  inflate the in-game economy.  Does it not?

[Sanchpanza]

5 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

• The Cartel Market sells 'coins' for RL money.
• Players, regardless of their in-game wealth, spend RL money to purchase digital items  as many times as their RL budget allows. ( sometimes even more )
• They then sell those digital items for in-game currency ( Credits ) and thereby increase their in-game wealth , without having to actually PLAY the core game itself.
• And of course the illegal credit-sellers compound the issue.

Those credits that they exchange the CM items for are generated in the game and traded for the CM item. Actually buying the CM item and selling it doesn't generate any more credits, it just shifts it from one player to the other. The generation of the credits, that causes inflation, comes from different sources; Missions, selling items to vendors, etc.

 

[Ramalina]

7 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

.........

• The Cartel Market sells 'coins' for RL money.
• Players, regardless of their in-game wealth, spend RL money to purchase digital items  as many times as their RL budget allows. ( sometimes even more )
• They then sell those digital items for in-game currency ( Credits ) and thereby increase their in-game wealth , without having to actually PLAY the core game itself.
• And of course the illegal credit-sellers compound the issue.

So tell me, exactly which part of all that ^ is  supposedly "factually incorrect" ?

 

None of that is wrong.  But then, none of that is inflation either.

 

I'm not saying that you shouldn't object to issues with the CM, I'm just saying that it's best to clearly communicate CM issues that are separate from credit inflation issues separately, instead of lumping them in with inflation.

 

Technically, exploits aside, all in game credits are earned by gameplay, because that's the only way to create them if you don't have the credentials to log in as an admin and edit values on the servers.  Inflation happens when gameplay is giving many players more of those credits than they know what to do with, thus creating vast oceans of surplus to slosh around in the player to player economy.   It's pretty ridiculous even outside of CM items.  Gather a material via a crew skill mission.  Divide the number of mats received by the going GTN price.   Does it make any sense for the market price of a material to be 100 times the unit cost of having initiated the mission to get it?   That's a purely in-game to in-game transaction.

 

I had some discussion of the economics affecting incentives for CM and crafting with respect to Bioware's business model, but apparently when discussing their business strategies even the word "the" is an "objectionable term" for what ever they're using for automated content monitoring on the forums.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Ramalina

[Nee-Elder]

6 hours ago, Sanchpanza said:

 Actually buying the CM item and selling it doesn't generate any more credits,

i don't believe i ever once said anything about CM items technically "generating" more credits  into the game world persay.

i only meant they ( CM coins ) provide a fabricated & foolish method to generate more credits too fast too often into the player's bank , sort of  like a Government just printing currency at will.

i also feel like much of this debate is just semantics.

After all, the term  'inflation' , as it were, is typically mostly due to the rapid (or slow) decrease in currency value combined with the  increase in cost of 'production'  of goods & services, no?   But with the Cartel Market , we ( the players ) don't produce ANY of those items.  EA does.

3 hours ago, Ramalina said:

I'm not saying that you shouldn't object to issues with the CM, I'm just saying that it's best to clearly communicate CM issues that are separate from credit inflation issues separately, instead of lumping them in with inflation.

Fair enough, and  i hear ya  yep.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Nee-Elder
Reason: many contributing factors, there are

[SteveTheCynic]

7 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

i don't believe i ever once said anything about CM items technically "generating" more credits  into the game world persay.

"per se" (it's Latin, meaning "as such".)

7 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

i only meant they ( CM coins ) provide a fabricated & foolish method to generate

That's the word people were picking up on.  If change the sentence so it says "bring" instead of "generate", the confusion would be much less.

7 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

more credits too fast too often into the player's bank , sort of  like a Government just printing currency at will.

No.  In fact, it is exactly nothing at all like a government printing currency at will.  Selling stuff on the GTN reduces the overall size of the player-to-player economy (measured as the total of all credits held by players, including "private" guilds.

7 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

i also feel like much of this debate is just semantics.

That's common on the Internet.

7 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

After all, the term  'inflation' , as it were, is typically mostly due to the rapid (or slow) decrease in currency value combined with the  increase in cost of 'production'  of goods & services, no? 

Not exactly.  In fact "decrease in currency value" is the same thing as "inflation" (money is worth less, so you need more of it to buy the same thing, that's inflation).  And the increase in the cost of production is just inflation at the *input* to the production process.

Hyperinflation (as opposed to ordinary inflation) is normally considered to be caused by a loss in confidence, on the part of buyers and sellers, in the value of the currency ("it can't be worth anything much, because otherwise why are they printing so much?" kind of thing) and when the government responds by printing even more, that just confirms the loss of confidence.

In the context of MMORPGs, of course, it's a little different, because the igmoney(1)-cost of production of e.g. loot from dead enemies, crafting materials from nodes, and mission rewards is completely zero, but those things allow us to acquire igmoney without spending it.  The things we *do* have to spend igmoney on are often insufficient to consume all the igmoney produced by those things, so there is progressively more and more igmoney in circulation, so it is viewed as progressively worth less and less.

(1) in-game money.  In SWTOR, that means credits.

Edited May 7, 2023 by SteveTheCynic
Glitched into an early post...

[Eckrond]

21 hours ago, DWho said:

If you are "in combat" is the relevant part of your statement, in which case you could just let yourself die and respawn at the nearest medcenter affecting the same thing as a /die or /kill mechanic would do except you wouldn't have to wait (still, new code is required to incorporate the "console command"). If you are stuck out of combat (which happens a lot more often than being stuck in combat), /stuck only moves you a short distance away which may or may not result in you still being stuck. Also note that traveling to your stronghold and back is also not a guarantee you will not still be stuck as it places you back in the same location you came from.

I was replying to YOUR claim there would be bugs with a feature already supported in game as if it were some sort of argument against implementing a /kill command as a better solution to OP's issue than working on QT prices.  Maybe re read the conversation before you reply again.

[DWho]

1 hour ago, Eckrond said:

I was replying to YOUR claim there would be bugs with a feature already supported

Implementing it the way you claimed would involve modifying old existing code (code as old as the game) since you would have to change the current shift in location code for code that kills and transports you. Just because the function is already supported somewhere else in the game is no guarantee that it won't introduce bugs when you try to use it somewhere else. The same is true for implementing entirely new code (a /kill function). Even the simple change they made to help out characters dealing with escrow and mailed credits backfired and ended up introducing a major credit exploit which did more damage to the game that the QT fees have any hope of fixing.

Edited May 7, 2023 by DWho

[ceryxp]

@DWho, you have found yourself on a pitch with a goal post that is never where it seems.  That is a game for fools and pigeons.  Do your mental health a favour and ignore the bleatings from the sheep.

[Sanchpanza]

9 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

i don't believe i ever once said anything about CM items technically "generating" more credits  into the game world persay.

i only meant they ( CM coins ) provide a fabricated & foolish method to generate more credits too fast too often into the player's bank , sort of  like a Government just printing currency at will.

i also feel like much of this debate is just semantics.

After all, the term  'inflation' , as it were, is typically mostly due to the rapid (or slow) decrease in currency value combined with the  increase in cost of 'production'  of goods & services, no?   But with the Cartel Market , we ( the players ) don't produce ANY of those items.  EA does.

The reason I posted what I did was to clarify the situation because you seemed to be conflating a lot of things together and lumping them under inflation. I just snipped your post because I'm used to doing that on other forums.

[Nee-Elder]

9 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

"per se" (it's Latin, meaning "as such".)

It's funny:  i accidentally mistyped that term a few months ago in haste and you quoted/corrected me back then ( even though i was already well aware of the proper Latin version vs. the commonly misused spell-how-it-sounds  Internet version ) .  After that prior post, and during the time just before you were fast approaching overtaking me as "Top Member"   , every so often in subsequent posts i would type it the wrong way on purpose just to see if YOU  ( notorious for parsing my & others' words in addition to---or sometimes even at the expense of---actually addressing the topic at hand ) would not only notice again but also recognize the redundancy instead of going into auto-SteveTheCorrector mode.

But you never noticed.  Or if you did, you either glossed over it and/or weren't interested in replying anyway.

Now today, you have confirmed what i always suspected.

9 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

 In fact, it is exactly nothing at all like a government printing currency at will. 

In my analogy, the 'government'  =  EA and their 'currency' is continuous re-skinned items x infinity ( plus essentially an unlimited supply of digital Cartel Coins, which intrinsically have zero actual value and therefore contribute nothing to the building of a MMO economy nor the motivation of player-society to produce/craft/harvest  goods & services more frequently ) .

So yeah, in my opinion, it is indeed a somewhat relatable scenario.

9 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

 Selling stuff on the GTN reduces the overall size of the player-to-player economy

Only if that "stuff" was actually crafted/created by PLAYERS , as opposed to being fed to them like Cartel-carrots by big brother EA.

Case-in-point: SWTOR has been, and still remains, in a hyperinflationary hyper-inflated state.

Hence why BioWare is now trying their best with in-game taxes (aka "fees" ) to mitigate the damage they (EA) mostly caused.

It's the ultimate irony; and twice since we're all paying for it.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Nee-Elder
Reason: semantics 4 Steve!

[Nee-Elder]

1 hour ago, Sanchpanza said:

The reason I posted what I did was to clarify the situation because you seemed to be conflating a lot of things together and lumping them under inflation.

Yeah i am indeed guilty of doing that sometimes , but i also think this inflation issue warrants a more comprehensive analysis.

I offered my opinion on what i believe is ALSO a contributing factor to the current state of SWTOR's supposed "economy".

[SteveTheCynic]

25 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Only if that "stuff" was actually crafted/created by PLAYERS , as opposed to being fed to them like carrots by big brother EA.

I say that it reduces the size of the economy because the only useful measure of the size of an MMORPG economy is the amount of igmoney in circulation, and a sale on the GTN removes 8% of the sale price from circulation.

25 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Case-in-point: SWTOR has been, and still remains, in a hyperinflationary state.

In a classic sense of the term, no, because the mechanisms are different(1), but if we say "hyper-inflated" instead, I'll go with that.

(1) In an inflating (regardless of the rate of inflation) MMORPG economy, there's lots of igmoney floating around, so people who have it are willing to spend more, which is not initially the same as a hyperinflating real-world economy where people have no confidence in the value of the money.  (Regardless of the level of inflation, that set of blue level 9 boots on Ord Mantell still costs 1600 credits or so, and that basic speeder at the vendor on the Fleet still costs 8K credits, so there's still a measure of the value of a credit.)

[Nee-Elder]

4 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

 the only useful measure of the size of an MMORPG economy is the amount of igmoney in circulation,

imo , you're forgetting the other half of the equation:  The amount of in-game items ( non-CM ) crafted/looted by players.  ( aka "goods & services" , per se   )

4 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

In a classic sense of the term, no, because the mechanisms are different, but if we say "hyper-inflated" instead, I'll go with that.

Fixed ^^ and done.

[Diamaht]

Qt within the same zone is about 100 to 400 credit usually not bad.

The new planet warp option isn't a bad suggestion.  Or just put 5k in a new characters wallet on creation.  Dont remember how much is in there to begin with.

Keep the fast travel charges though.

[SteveTheCynic]

4 hours ago, Diamaht said:

Dont remember how much is in there to begin with

Zero.

And don't forget that if they give new characters free credits just for beginning, *someone* will create a new character, move it somewhere it can jump to a stronghold, stick the free credits in the legacy storage, then delete the character and rinse and repeat.  (Yes, I'm aware that 5K credits will make spit-all difference to the overall inflation problem, but someone will do it anyway, especially goldsellers.)

[Diamaht]

34 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Zero.

And don't forget that if they give new characters free credits just for beginning, *someone* will create a new character, move it somewhere it can jump to a stronghold, stick the free credits in the legacy storage, then delete the character and rinse and repeat.  (Yes, I'm aware that 5K credits will make spit-all difference to the overall inflation problem, but someone will do it anyway, especially goldsellers.)

Yeah you are correct.  Then make it free to FT until lvl 5?

Or maybe its just a case where you submit a ticket, the mods will help you and bioware has a spot on the gamemap that needs a fix 

Edited May 8, 2023 by Diamaht

[tritiya]

15 hours ago, Diamaht said:

Yeah you are correct.  Then make it free to FT until lvl 5?

Or maybe its just a case where you submit a ticket, the mods will help you and bioware has a spot on the gamemap that needs a fix 

Or just don't raise the costs of playing the game at all, after all this inlation problem only exists if you open the GTN or use player-to-player trade. Only player-to-player economy is inflated, basic items and services are no. Speeder costs are not (and they should stay that way) affected. Basic armours are not becoming more expensive (and they should stay that way). They should have NOT touched repair costs too! This way thy will make inflation creep outside the GTN kiosks! Instead these new measures: Taxing player-to-player trades, mail trades and raising them GTN taxes is the right way to go. Another measure is to reduce rewards from missions and from selling junk (or even better, remove the junk drops from the game) and reduce income from selling each item to vendor (heroic armour drops from crates, green drops, medpack, etc). Quicktravel, ship fuel costs, repair, basic items should not be changed. Reduce income. This is what makes them credits appear ingame. The CM market is mostly affected by free CC flowing in the game (which should make CM items cheeper (credits wise) by the way. Galactic seasons should make CC items cheaper (or not more expensive). Real life money isn't inflating (costs in life are raising too, so it's not easier to get more cc and if it was then there should've been more competition between Cartel Market items sellers on the GTN). This QT tax intruduction and repair costs raising is just punishing all players because items sold on the GTN became more expensive... Just tax these trades and reduce credits inflow. Over time this should reduce prices on the GTN. And by the way on the EU server (Darth Malgus) credit sellers like to promote their offers frommidnight (EU time) until in the early morning... if they (the game developers/maintainers logg in during theese times (or log the chat) they will see this. And if they ban Credit sellers and exploters (if they really exist), please, ban them for good!

[Diamaht]

2 hours ago, tritiya said:

Or just don't raise the costs of playing the game at all, after all this inlation problem only exists if you open the GTN or use player-to-player trade. Only player-to-player economy is inflated, basic items and services are no. Speeder costs are not (and they should stay that way) affected. Basic armours are not becoming more expensive (and they should stay that way). They should have NOT touched repair costs too! This way thy will make inflation creep outside the GTN kiosks! Instead these new measures: Taxing player-to-player trades, mail trades and raising them GTN taxes is the right way to go. Another measure is to reduce rewards from missions and from selling junk (or even better, remove the junk drops from the game) and reduce income from selling each item to vendor (heroic armour drops from crates, green drops, medpack, etc). Quicktravel, ship fuel costs, repair, basic items should not be changed. Reduce income. This is what makes them credits appear ingame. The CM market is mostly affected by free CC flowing in the game (which should make CM items cheeper (credits wise) by the way. Galactic seasons should make CC items cheaper (or not more expensive). Real life money isn't inflating (costs in life are raising too, so it's not easier to get more cc and if it was then there should've been more competition between Cartel Market items sellers on the GTN). This QT tax intruduction and repair costs raising is just punishing all players because items sold on the GTN became more expensive... Just tax these trades and reduce credits inflow. Over time this should reduce prices on the GTN. And by the way on the EU server (Darth Malgus) credit sellers like to promote their offers frommidnight (EU time) until in the early morning... if they (the game developers/maintainers logg in during theese times (or log the chat) they will see this. And if they ban Credit sellers and exploters (if they really exist), please, ban them for good!

"I don't like QT change."

Simpler way to say all that

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by Diamaht

[recalcitrantIre]

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

"Tax" those transfers, and you actually have a useful inflation fighting tool.

aside from the fact that the GTN tax hasnt actually been any sort of countermeasure against inflation for years, and what Bioware are proposing is just an extension of the GTN tax to any kind of trade

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

If you want to fight inflation in SWTOR: don't complete quests that reward credits or things you can vendor for credits, don't gather resources for crafting that can be vendored for credits, don't loot NPCs for credits or items that can be sold for credits.  [IE don't play the game!]

lmao

or maybe Bioware could do their job properly, maybe even look at what other MMOs have done to balance out growing currency generation (hint: its large capacity direct credit sinks)

[Eckrond]

On 5/7/2023 at 6:52 AM, DWho said:

Implementing it the way you claimed would involve modifying old existing code (code as old as the game) since you would have to change the current shift in location code for code that kills and transports you. Just because the function is already supported somewhere else in the game is no guarantee that it won't introduce bugs when you try to use it somewhere else. The same is true for implementing entirely new code (a /kill function). Even the simple change they made to help out characters dealing with escrow and mailed credits backfired and ended up introducing a major credit exploit which did more damage to the game that the QT fees have any hope of fixing.

Now you're just reaching far and hard.  Even if they removed the current function and replaced it ONLY with dying, requiring a player to transport back to medcenter, this would still be a better answer to the OP's /stuck problem than your suggestion, we're not going to go down your yellow brick road of ignoring your bad suggestions.  Just no.

[Katahn]

Having one point on each planet, or at least the starter/capital planets be a free QT destination would help a lot to be sure, but I'm not sure it is necessary.  The real issue here is the /stuck command doesn't always work and there's no good alternative to get out of that situation.  A level 2 character on Tython shouldn't be needing to QT, and thus the credit cost should be irrelevant.

I like the idea of a /kill or /die command that teleports one to the nearest med center.  Might want to put a cooldown on it though, to stop it from being exploited as a form of "free" QT.  Maybe having /stuck insta-kill players if it is on cooldown the same way it kills them if they're in combat?

[eabevella]

Inflation happens due to those credits generated "out of thin air":

In game mission rewards.

Selling game generated loot items to in game vendor.

Exploits/bugs like that time when players can buy in game item from in game vendor for 1 credit then sell it for 2 credit*.

*Can't remember the exact buy-in vs sell-out differences but the point is it can generate billions of credits in a very short time as a net result.

When you have too much credits out of nowhere in a relatively short time and nowhere to "remove" it permanently, inflation is the byproduct/result.

The QT fees got so much rightful flame because 5k credits is a punishment to new/poor players that won't even do anything to the inflation.

BW needs to cut the root to inflation problem that is the credit printing machine aka whatever ways those goldseller use so that they think 1B/1USD was a fair price. And they seem to be doing something about it because gamereasy.com now sells credit in a 1B/8US currency so it's a clue that generating credits out of thin air has been more difficult to them. It would be nice if BW addresses it because their proposed new steps of fighting the inflation actually look promising.

It all comes down to the root issue of basically every argument in this forum: us speculating and arguing blindly (we can't access the real credit origin and flow after all), turning the discussion to some dictionary or writing debate, while BW can clarify the confusion easily but only says very little.

[Aries_cz]

On 5/9/2023 at 3:57 AM, recalcitrantIre said:

aside from the fact that the GTN tax hasnt actually been any sort of countermeasure against inflation for years, and what Bioware are proposing is just an extension of the GTN tax to any kind of trade

lmao

or maybe Bioware could do their job properly, maybe even look at what other MMOs have done to balance out growing currency generation (hint: its large capacity direct credit sinks)

GTN tax is actually pretty effective at draining out money from the economy, as it happens constantly.

Even if BW introduced ton of BoP/BoL items you can buy for large sums of credits, eventually, those items would be acquired by people, thus terminating that particular sink.

The big issue is that GTN prices are (as of time of writing this) capped at 1 billion credits, so people selling outside of it for more are not taxed (something something uber-rich not paying taxes). The presented changes should remove that problem.

[recalcitrantIre]

1 hour ago, Aries_cz said:

GTN tax is actually pretty effective at draining out money from the economy, as it happens constantly.

have you been paying attention to prices over the last few years? you'd have to be utterly delusional to think there are effective sinks anywhere in this game

but again, this is a problem borne of Bioware's years of neglect and they seem to be seriously convinced that every harebrained scheme that crosses their thoughts is a magic bullet