Just so you won't say it wasn't predictable ...

[microstyles]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

At the same time prices dropped on the GTN, BioWare had announced changes to the GTN fees & P2P trades. Also the QT & damage credit sinks would be starting to affect credits for newer & less wealthy players. 

You can't be serious. Prices on items are like 1/3 of what they were a few months ago. I'm pretty sure I've seen you, yourself posting math on how the new credits sinks are completely inconsequential compared to the size of the economy. There's no way they're responsible for what I'm seeing in the market.

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Im not saying credit sellers don’t influence the market. But they aren’t the only thing & they aren’t causing the inflation, they are a symptom of it.

Regardless of whether they cause inflation or not, banning them seems to have had a massively positive effect on the credit economy. Far more than I would expect any of the proposed economy initiatives to have over the same time period. 

[TrixxieTriss]

41 minutes ago, microstyles said:

I'm pretty sure I've seen you, yourself posting math on how the new credits sinks are completely inconsequential compared to the size of the economy

Actually I posted how the 8% tax works on the GTN & I compared the amount of QT times it would take to one person to remove those credits. My comparison was to show that the QT fees weren’t enough to bring down inflation by themselves.

I didn’t say they would have no affect on new or poor players. I actually argued that these players would be overly affected by the changes & would have even less credits to spend on things like the GTN. Essentially BioWare would be making the poor poorer & it wouldn’t make a dent in those that were rich. 

The real test of inflation dropping is seeing highend CM’s reappearing on the  GTN & dropping significantly in price. From what I can tell, this isn’t happening yet & the only price drops were on things that were overstocked on the GTN already. 

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, microstyles said:

banning them seems to have had a massively positive effect on the credit economy

Warning, long winded post incoming. 

Of course banning them has had an affect. But not only for the reasons you think.

Many of these credit selling networks were probably ones controlling some prices & stock lvls on the GTN as part of the credit engine / wheel system I was describing earlier.

By removing them from the game, they would have removed a lot of items & credits they had stored up to control parts of the market.

How do I know this, well I’m not a credit seller, but when I got bored with the game’s lack of new playable content a few years ago, I looked at other ways to entertain myself.

One of those was to see how many credits I could make by playing the GTN like a stock broker & industrial crafter. I played the GTN 4-8 hours a day. That’s how I was able to identify others doing the same as me, including the probable credit sellers. 

After a few months & making billions of credits (this was 4+ years ago before most people even had 100 million credits), I was able to influence prices in certain GTN categories or specific items & then flip them for huge profits. I used 2 fully opened guild banks & 50+ character banks to store items so that the market wouldn’t be over stocked on certain items I was interested in influencing. From there I could set a price & afford to even lose credits if someone went to war over prices. 

It was during this time that I realised the credit sellers were trying to deliver credits to players via stupidly high priced items they got their buyers to list things at. So I started listing many of the same things at ridiculously high prices too, which turbo boosted my wealth in the game even more. 

Eventually I got bored again after a few months of hitting my self imposed target & started sharing how to do this with people on the forums. I know of some who listened to me & also made Billions for themselves & others who argued what I was crazy listing like that & no one would by my stuff (guess who was right 😉).

I don’t really care wether people agree with what I did or how I made my credits from crafting & GTN flipping. I was playing the game as BioWare had set it up.

My point is, it did make me as close to an expert at understanding how the GTN worked and how it can easily be manipulated. It also helped me identify who the other market players were & many of them were suspected credit sellers. 

Once I saw the problems with the GTN market & the inflation that was happening & the credit sellers, I came to the forums to inform BioWare & other players.

Mind you, this was 3+ years ago & it’s taken BioWare that long to catch on to what was happening or listen to players complaining about it. But they did nothing until inflation became so completely out of control that it probably started affecting their CM profits. 

So that’s the reason I know the credit sellers aren’t botting to accumulate credits, as many here have suggested. One GTN sale would make them more credits than a bot could collect in a month.

There is no need for them to ever run bots that give piddling returns when they can & do manipulate the GTN. And now that the GTN cap has been reached 🤦‍♀️, the inflation genie really is out of the bottle & it’s become a perpetual credit engine for the credit sellers. 

So obviously, when BioWare removed some of the credit seller’s network (they wouldn’t have got them all), it is going to have an immediate affect on prices because they aren’t artificially controlling sectors of the market. And once those sectors drop, then other sectors / items drop in response. 

And before anyone PM/DM’s me. No, I’m not going to give away the trade secrets because that will just make matters worse. There are plenty of tidbits in my old posts & this one that lay the groundwork for any traders out there to figure out.

Im also not super wealthy anymore by the games current wealth standards because I gifted lots of my credits to people before 7.0 was released & then unsubscribe for 12 months because 7.0 was a debacle. Hyper Inflation now means my billions are equivalent to millions. 

[Balameb]

8 hours ago, eabevella said:

I "feel" like I see REDACTED less frequent but that's only my "feelings"

I agree. But I suggest not posting the name so clearly here to avoid mods removing your post. Try 'Site that must not be named' or something like that.

[StrikePrice]

The economy on SS is starting to see rapid deflation. So, it's only a matter of time before BW realizes what they did. 

Gee, I wonder why our CM sales are down 🤷‍♂️

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

10 hours ago, eabevella said:

I don't mean too specific like a list of banned accounts, just to confirm/clarify of the type of action they took in the background if they did.

Or just say something like "yes we did something but we can't talk more" or "no we didn't but we do have something in plan (the post of their proposed 7.3 change)"

You know, like, just say "no we don't plan on doing NiM R4" instead of silence.

I think what you stated above would be totally reasonable. Gives the player base enough information to know something is being done and it's not just being ignored, while at the same time respect the privacy of those parties that may have been involved in the action.

Being met with silence is not a good way to engender trust with the player base and it's certainly not going to be appreciated.

Bioware would do well to take a page from your book on the matter.

[microstyles]

7 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I didn’t say they would have no affect on new or poor players

When I said they were inconsequential, I meant from an economic standpoint. 

7 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

The real test of inflation dropping is seeing highend CM’s reappearing on the  GTN & dropping significantly in price. From what I can tell, this isn’t happening yet & the only price drops were on things that were overstocked on the GTN already. 

I don't monitor off-GTN items so I guess I can't say one way or the other conclusively. I see character renames on the GTN consistently now, I think they were like 2b when I started in October. There are several items that would sell instantly at 1b that are selling for like 300m now. I figured a bunch of the previously 1.5b-3b stuff would have fallen to GTN levels by now.

6 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Warning, long winded post incoming. 

Thanks for the insight. I figured credit sellers stock was from banking credits from previous versions of the game with better credit generating, and saving credits from exploits.

[Ardrossan]

21 hours ago, OlBuzzard said:

IMO in this thread there are several statements made by many different individuals ... MANY of which are correct.  The real frustrating part is watching someone fuss about who is MORE correct!  

Why not just help solve the problem and work together for a change?

(Like anybody these days wants to hear that sort of thing!!!)

[/facepalm]

Although we disagree on a lot of things, I know exactly how you mean and I feel very similar. It's a shame that the venue prevents us from having a...full and frank exchange of ideas. But you know, the star wars setting has a lot of examples that perfectly describes this sense of frustration, like Manaan in the first kotor or Voss in this game...Empire and Republic having to be so cordially passive aggressive with each other on Voss-ka otherwise the Three will throw them off the Step of Harmony 

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Ardrossan

[OlBuzzard]

1 hour ago, Ardrossan said:

Although we disagree on a lot of things, I know exactly how you mean and I feel very similar. It's a shame that the venue prevents us from having a...full and frank exchange of ideas. But you know, the star wars setting has a lot of examples that perfectly describes this sense of frustration, like Manaan in the first kotor or Voss in this game...Empire and Republic having to be so cordially passive aggressive with each other on Voss-ka otherwise the Three will throw them off the Step of Harmony 

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra 

Unfortunately this discussion really is no longer about solutions it has become something else... AND equally as unfortunate many folks are all about bashing the daylights out of the development team.

** In one breath ...  (Just for example) .. BOTS are a problem.  No wait ... they use to be ...but not so much toady??? .. And yet other exploits ...  (that were equally in the past) .. the damage was already done before it was stopped.  Unfortunately that is just how it is!!
The simple truth is ... BOTH are equally problematic at best and both share equally in the problems that we face today!

** What some are suggesting???  (yes I'm posing that as a question)...  IMO some are more on a rant about the state of the development team.  Often times referring to years of posting warning signs along the way. 

** Swinging the ban-hammer!!  If and when that takes place aside from issuing warnings (or perhaps reminders ) of rules or potential actions being taken against specific infractions ... I really don't think it's our business as to whom is being banned.  

Solutions???  I'm not certain as to how the steps that are being taken will affect things long term.  Some of the steps being taken make sense ... while others are less than stellar! (Sorry .. just my own thoughts on the matter to this point).

BTW..  it should be noted that I intentionally left myself open to a couple of comments just to see if someone would take the bait!  And yes ...  we received pretty much what we figured would be the response!

Ideas and suggestions and the development team:  IMO this is one of the single biggest topics that I personally have to get use to!!  I have seen a LOT of really good ideas come from this community on a wide variety of subjects (other than this one).  Those are promptly ignored!  I guess it's a gaming thing!  My son was personal friends with some folks who worked for more than just one development team.  And (for whatever reason) .. this IS the case!  Kind of sad really.  I'm not sure if there are legal issues (unions) that guide those decisions or what or why ... but that is just how it is!

When given the matter at hand in this topic...  I disagree with this "burn the heretic" format! (which is the way it's coming across to me personally) ... and hope that somewhere down the road we can find a legitimate means of resolving this matter.

Final input (for now) :  I have not logged in for weeks now!   (Has nothing to do with the economy) ...  but the game is unquestionably suffering! I sincerely hope that we can see SWTOR return to a more stable and consistent state with a brighter future!  And yes ...  it is entirely possible that my subscription will eventually end and no one will be rolling their eyes to the top of their head reading stuff like this anymore!

[Ardrossan]

27 minutes ago, OlBuzzard said:

bait

Sorry to hear that you're losing interest in swtor, but I think it's pretty natural. I also go through cycles, play other games, do other things, and I think that's true for many players. And I do genuinely connect what you're saying there with the sense of despair that there's some great ideas lying on the table but no one's picking them up.

Still, at the end of the day, it's just a game. I've gotten a decade of enjoyment out of it. If it were to end tomorrow I don't think I'd be too bothered, but at the same time, I don't think the current state of the game economy is what would lead to that. It's important but not that important imo. As a company, bioware has released some amazing games with great replayability and I'm still pretty optimistic about their future success with upcoming games like ME4. 

Sorry folks, off-topic derail is complete. I'd have messaged the player directly but darn it all, an error message always comes up

[TrixxieTriss]

On 5/11/2023 at 4:35 PM, recalcitrantIre said:

the biggest culprit for causing inflation is bioware themselves

At the end of the day, this 👆is why we have runaway inflation 

[Keetsune]

On 5/9/2023 at 5:04 PM, xxSHOONYxx said:

Credit sellers are the biggest cause of inflation.

You are delusional if you think so.

[Darev]

I'm mostly glad I didn't see this thread a few days ago when it first started.

But, now that I have...

There are good things from a few of the forum posters here (whom I happen to interact with the most).

BOTS:   I don't see them anywhere near as often as I used to.   Before they nerfed the credits from slicing nodes BOTS were all over Yavin IV's daily area.  And that was a long time ago.   There also used to be BOTS, or people, who used to time the respawn of various lockboxes and log in just long enough to open the lockbox and log right back out.  This used to happen on Oricon, frequently.  They'd switch instances, log out, wait 10-15 minutes, and do it all over again.

I'm on the fence about bots farming crafting mats being an issue.  On one hand, they're not directly generating PURE credits by getting system generated mats.   They have to sell the mats on the GTN for credits from other players, which have already been generated by the sysem and are already part of the economy.   Someone in this thread called it "draining credits" (or something like it) from the over all economy...pulling those credits from many accounts to a single account.   More like credit consolidation.   Now, if those accounts are also credit sellers, it still doesn't affect the overall number of credits in the system, because the credits were just moved from player to player, not generated by the system.

 

"legitimate" Sources of Credits generated by the system:

1.   Mission completion rewards (all types, not going to list them, but anything from class quests to conquest to pvp matches - they all generate credits into the game from "the system")

2.   Slicing - both crew skill missions and slicing nodes.

3.   Vendoring in game items.   Selling garbage loot you pick up to a vendor generates credits, albeit a small amount.  (adding to this - the 6.0 version of the game that gave you gold 306 gear hand over fist, that you could vendor for 5k-12k each piece...THAT was a HUGE - and recent - way to generate large amount of credits)

4.   Killing NPCs.    When you loot the corpses, you get credits.   These are also generated from "The System"

Basically any way you can get credits that doesn't involve other players.

 

So...

NO GTN - this shifts credits from one player to another, it does NOT generate "new" credits into the economy.  It might distribute newly created ITEMS into the economy, but those credits which bought those items were already in the system/economy.

There are ways to play the GTN to make lots of credits for you, but doing so doesn't add credits that didn't already exist.

NO Player to Player trades.     Again, just moves credits from one player to another.

 

As I said in one of the previous threads about this that I posted in, it's the credit GENERATION part of the equation that needs to be fixed.

 

BUT, I do recognize, that it's the overall amassment of credits that "gets the most press" even though that is generally credit transfers, NOT credit generation.

 

You can't TRANSFER what was never created.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Darev

[OlBuzzard]

@Darev ...  well said!!  RIGHT ON!!

What anyone does with the credits in their pockets (buy stuff ...  sell / make more credits) has NOTHING to do with HOW they got those credits in the first place.

Additionally :
 

** So much of what we do defines what and who we really are!
** Screaming at the darkness??  Anyone can criticize and tear down!  The bigger the target the easier it is to do some serious damage.

** BURN the heretic!!  LET THEM BURN!!

And then???

BUT somebody screwed up!!

And?  Then what??

Yeah ... things are a mess.  Anyone with a brain in their head knows we're in a real jam right now!!

Need a better outlet ... design something:  A space station, a new ship ... a house.. a table (live edge stuff is fun to build too BTW)

Writing???  Try it some time!  NO???  That's cool.  I've tried it and ... (not so good!)

Still frustrated??  (I am) ...  

Keeping things in focus helps!  I know what happened .. AND that someone really messed up!  AND YES ... someone needs to fess up and maybe offer better help!  I think most of us get that!  But don't be surprised that some people will still not be happy until they see a couple key members of the team gone!  Some have an axe to grind and have been grinding for a long time now! That will not solve the problem either!

Until someone inside of the team has a really good heart to heart about the overall scope of the game:  It's content, providing more consistent areas of various player activities (both PvP and PvE), gearing system, companions, stories (see note) ...  and yes the economy .. SWTOR will without question continue it's downward spiral.

On the other hand, there is so much potential in so many areas! It's there and I KNOW it's possible!

Beyond that ...  it's out of my hands!  I am making my own decisions based on what has taken place in the past ...  and what we are looking at for SWTOR in the immediate future (not just what is happening on the GTN).

[DWho]

1 hour ago, Darev said:

As I said in one of the previous threads about this that I posted in, it's the credit GENERATION part of the equation that needs to be fixed.

That may have been the issue in the past (and may be in the future if Bioware is actually able to drain credits from the game) but right now the issue is the amassing of huge amounts of credits through player to player trades that bypass the GTN. If all trades are taxed at their value, the economy quickly comes under control. The amount of credits you can generate as a player is tiny compared to what is already in the game and the credit sellers keep filling in the holes that legitimate GTN trades take out of the system.

As to the argument that the number of credits in game doesn't cause inflation, when the number of players holding those massive numbers of credits shrink (they accumulate the credits from everyone else) they have a monopoly. They can buy out any specific item and re-list it for whatever obscene amount they want to (and someone will pay it eventually - buying credits from credit sellers if they need to). That is what drives up prices not the couple of million credits a player gets from leveling their character (daily areas are as different story but that is a whole different argument as several of the daily areas over reward for the time investment - like CZ)

Edited May 13, 2023 by DWho
Additional Commentary

[Darev]

2 hours ago, DWho said:

That may have been the issue in the past (and may be in the future if Bioware is actually able to drain credits from the game) but right now the issue is the amassing of huge amounts of credits through player to player trades that bypass the GTN.    If all trades are taxed at their value, the economy quickly comes under control. The amount of credits you can generate as a player is tiny compared to what is already in the game and the credit sellers keep filling in the holes that legitimate GTN trades take out of the system.

(They're in the process of fixing this with the announced changes in 7.3)

2 hours ago, DWho said:

As to the argument that the number of credits in game doesn't cause inflation, when the number of players holding those massive numbers of credits shrink (they accumulate the credits from everyone else) they have a monopoly.

(This is the result of a free market economy, which is what the game seems to emulate - as did the previous MMO I Played, Star Wars Galaxies, which had a FAR more robust player driven economy)

They can buy out any specific item and re-list it for whatever obscene amount they want to (and someone will pay it eventually - buying credits from credit sellers if they need to).

 

That is what drives up prices

This is what I disagree with.  You're right, when a small number of players amass the greatest number of credits, beyond what the average player can achieve, the average player won't be able to afford beyond a certain price.  Players can price things however they want.  If they charge too much, no one will (or could), be able to buy them.

This is where balancing the credit sinks to the credit generation comes into play.  Buy sell via the GTN all day long, there's a tax for that.   Don't want to pay the tax, until 7.3, just do a person to person trade.   Now there will be a tax for that, and that's what is going to help drain the credits out of the economy.  It'll be slow, but eventually the end result will be that in order to sell whatever items players are keeping, or generating, to consolidate credits from other people playing the game, the sellers will need to match prices to what's realistic for the (hopefully) lower number of credits in the system overall.

not the couple of million credits a player gets from leveling their character (daily areas are as different story but that is a whole different argument as several of the daily areas over reward for the time investment - like CZ)

I love CZ-198 especially for that reason.   And while the reward vs. time for that daily area is greater than any other, you'd still have to do it at least 10 times to get even close a million credits.   I think the current reward is about 70k per run, if you get the weekly in as well.    That's 2.5 hours farming the same thing.   It's tedious and boring to do it that many times in a row.  Honestly, there are probably better ways to do it if you can get a big group together and want to hang out while killing mobs.....places.

 

[Darev]

There's a great line in a mediocre Kevin Bacon movie called Quicksilver.

He plays a former stockbroker who goes bust and has to become a bike messenger.

He's at a party with a bunch of the "old crowd" and everyone is look at him as the guy who lost it all.

"The money's still there, it just belongs to someone else now." was his response.

 

I probably saw that movie on cable when I was 15 and that line has stuck with me ever since.

 

...oh yeah...and BMX tricks on 10 speeds?   cool stuff for a kid in the late 80's

[TrixxieTriss]

4 hours ago, Darev said:

Slicing - both crew skill missions and slicing nodes

It’s been a while since I checked, but how many credits are slicing nodes actually giving these days?
I thought they removed them entirely during 6.x or at least nerfed them so hard that you get more credits selling junk from mobs 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Darev]

Just now, TrixxieTriss said:

It’s been a while since I checked, but how many credits are slicing nodes actually giving these days?
I thought they removed them entirely during 6.x or at least nerfed them so hard that you get more credits selling junk from mobs 🤷🏻‍♀️

I couldn't tell you for sure.  I picked slicing when I made the new toon a few months ago to see how many credits leveling brought in, and there's some.   But I don't think it's an great amount.

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, DWho said:

They can buy out any specific item and re-list it for whatever obscene amount they want

You’d be assuming someone other than another super wealthy player the same as them has the credits. Most super wealthy players don’t pay the super high prices. You don’t gain such wealth by doing that. 
If people list stuff higher than the vast majority have available, then those items won’t sell & they are forced to reduce their prices. 
Of course they could keep relisting it every 3 days, but who can be bothered doing that for up to 50 items that don’t sell 🤷🏻‍♀️. It’s a waste of time. 
So they will keep reducing the price until they get a sale. 

[DWho]

3 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

You’d be assuming someone other than another super wealthy player the same as them has the credits. Most super wealthy players don’t pay the super high prices. You don’t gain such wealth by doing that. 

Correct. People who don't have those credits go to credit sellers which pumps more "out of the economy credits" back into the system. Credits sitting in credit seller banks don't cause inflation because they are out of circulation. When a "not super wealthy" player buys those credits, they pump them back into the economy directly into the "super wealthy player's bank account". It is a forgone conclusion at this point that at least some of those super wealthy players (and guilds) sell their credits back to credit sellers (since it is now a lot more profitable to buy credits from players than to farm them now) creating a loop that buries the economy.

[DWho]

39 minutes ago, Darev said:

(This is the result of a free market economy, which is what the game seems to emulate - as did the previous MMO I Played, Star Wars Galaxies, which had a FAR more robust player driven economy)

With the number of people bypassing the GTN now, it has lost a lot of it's effectiveness in controlling the economy (you could cut in game rewards to zero and the game would close before it had any impact on the prices of items currently selling off-GTN). The development of alternate currencies (hypecrates and cartel packs) just makes the situation worse as it devalues the credits even more.

[TrixxieTriss]

11 minutes ago, DWho said:

It is a forgone conclusion at this point that at least some of those super wealthy players (and guilds) sell their credits back to credit sellers (since it is now a lot more profitable to buy credits from players than to farm them now) creating a loop that buries the economy.

That’s pure nonsense & hyperbole. What ounce of proof or logic do you have that suggests that ever happens 🤷🏻‍♀️. When you have to start making stuff up to support your position, you’ve already lost the argument.

[TrixxieTriss]

12 minutes ago, DWho said:

With the number of people bypassing the GTN now, it has lost a lot of it's effectiveness in controlling the economy

He never said any different. And BioWare are taking steps to close that loophole, which will make it the most effective credit sink in the game again. 

[DWho]

4 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

That’s pure nonsense & hyperbole. What ounce of proof or logic do you have that suggests that ever happens 🤷🏻‍♀️. When you have to start making stuff up to support your position, you’ve already lost the argument.

take a look at some of the sites that have credit seller info. Some people are too eager to make a profit they don't even hide their identity (lots of in game names and how to contact information). You just don't want to acknowledge it is happening.