Personal trade tax value scaling is ridiculously inconsistent

[captainbladejk]

Just like the title says here, this new trade tax scaling is absolutely ridiculously inconsistent and just murdered people helping out new folks. To an extent I get wanting to remove excess credits from the game, but this isn't how you go about it. For that matter how is this "value" scaled anyways because it's way too high as it is right now and inconsistent. To showcase the inconsistency I tried plopping a few items in a trade window with a guildy to test the scaling. Below were a few results. 

 

Twisted Fang Lightsaber (single hilt) - 212.8m. - platinium

Elegant Duelists Armor - 1.3m - gold

Tempted Apprentice Shoto - 4.6m - silver

Antique Socorro Saberstaff Besh - 40k - bronze

 

Now I can see the higher rarities being a little more expensive on the "value" because of their rarity, but how are you telling me that a silver shoto is 4.6m and a gold armor set is 1.3m? Also 212.8m tax on a personal trade for that thing? That will sit and rot or get deleted before I ever pay that. These are just a few of the items to demonstrate the disparity. There are others that are more insane I'm sure.

 

As for the other items there are times before this I might hand out gear to random new people who legitimately need it, including the occasional XP boost. Last guy I handed a Marka Ragnos set which is a gold set of gear, along with Ziost Guardian saber and a crystal they could use. Now if I'm going to be punished by being told I now have to pay 4.6m credits or more for things like this, I will no longer be doing so, or handing out credits as I've done on occasion. Yall really need to scrap this and give us actual sinks we would want to invest in vs trying to punish people for daring to have credits or potentially helping folks. 

 

I've been with this game since beta and there was a reason some of these sinks like quick travel cost were removed to start with, is it punished new players and added nothing of value. Again if you really want to add sinks to pull out credits, give us things to invest in with credits like decorations, different kinds of dyes, or other items. The biggest one in the original thread the bioware folks put up that I'm surprised I didn't see, let folks pay an amount of credits to finish the cooldowns on their crafting instantly. Someone can wait 7 minutes to that set of adrenals, or they can pay 25k credits to have them now. 25k doesn't have to be the exact cost but is just one example. I would buy the daylights out of that one as it's rather ridiculous how long some items take to craft for what they are. For that matter you all could implement the ability to replay certain class story quests for the cost of credits to "explore other paths" without it effecting the new story if folks wanted. The "sinks" that were implemented add nothing of value to the game and are just asinine backwards. All these sinks do is punish people for the crime of having credits without addressing why things go so expensive to start with, nothing to spend credits on. And no a tax is not "spending credits" but stealing credits from people. Even still at the absolute very least the disparities should not be that high between items. And lastly if you really want people to use the GTN more, raise the cap on the GTN that people can list for. Raising the cap people can ask for doesn't mean folks will automatically get that or drive up prices, it lets you see more sales that already existed and pulls them out of private trade channels or similar. As much as I enjoy this game, this is a full on drop the ball fumble by the team on this one. 

 

Updated OP to include relevant original post thanks to another user providing it. https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929143-73-credit-economy-initiative-updates-and-the-gtn/
-Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.

-Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.

Edited June 17, 2023 by captainbladejk

[jnrose]

Yeah man, it's really hard not to be resentful towards the market. As someone who just enjoys playing the game, I hate having to worry about credits. 

Example I really want a Master Datacron for my characters. Not to resell but to actually use to enjoy the game. I'm willing to pay alot but not 2 billions worth just so these sellers profit. It's tough for the RP players out here. Good on you man for showing your support to newcomers, that's awesome!  

[captainbladejk]

Oh it gets even more foolish. Now that I'm a little more fresh brained this morning I did some more calculations. Depending on a few factors, the tax rate on items could go well above or below the 8% advertised. 

 

That tax above on that Twisted Fang Saber assumes that I intend to sell the item for 2,662,500,000 credits to get that 8% number above. I tried having a guildy flop some credits in the window just to see what would happen and there was no change in the associated fee. So I can only assume one of two things, either it just doesn't change and sticks with whatever "value" the devs think it has, or my guildy didn't flop enough credits into the window to change the potential fee. So assuming this is a static tax based on the "value" the devs have assigned it we've got a problem as the tax rate could got ALOT higher than the 8% easily enough. Let's suppose hypothetically I did want to sell the saber for that 2.6b price tag calculated as the saber's value. If said guildy wished to buy the saber for above that price, I am now paying less than the 8% tax. If I wanted to cut dude a break and sell it to him for a flat 2b cutting him a 600m credit break, that 212.8m credit tax would mean I'm now paying a tax rate of 10.65% on that item, which is well above what the devs advertised. Even then lets say I got tired of it sitting in my bank and not being used and wanted to just give it to said guildy, I'm still paying a 212.8m "tax" on a gift which is straight ridiculous and pure theft. The other day I gave a new guy a Marka Ragnos set, a Ziost Guardian hilt, a crystal, an xp booster, and some credits to get him started out. Based on these ridiculous tax rates I shudder to think how much would've been stolen from me, I mean "taxed." Even just handing a new guy 100k credits to cover a repair bill would mean i'm being charged an additional 8k credits on top of it which is just foolishness. Even worse is if someone wants to sell something for less than the perceived "value" they're basically being told they're wrong by the devs by virtue of the tax remaining the same and saying they're going to just steal more of the credits. 

 

idk who thought this absolutely ridiculous plan was a good idea, but they shouldn't be allowed near the game again save to undo it. 

Edited June 14, 2023 by captainbladejk

[klizilii]

Perhaps you could start by reading the developer posts on how they implemented the trade tax.  It seems you're missing some of the basic information on how the system is designed to operate.  The tax rate is intended to reflect the average selling price on the GTN. In cases where expensive cartel market items are not on the GTN, they do a conversion from other cartel market items to determine the value (in credits) of the item.

[VegaMist]

14 minutes ago, klizilii said:

Perhaps you could start by reading the developer posts on how they implemented the trade tax.  It seems you're missing some of the basic information on how the system is designed to operate.  The tax rate is intended to reflect the average selling price on the GTN. In cases where expensive cartel market items are not on the GTN, they do a conversion from other cartel market items to determine the value (in credits) of the item.

That is in fact what they did which makes the tax unpredictable. It also hurts the social aspect of the game cause way fewer people will feel charitable or plan giveaways if they have to pay for the privilege. By trying to solve one problem, they created a bigger one as a result. It's like that scene in "Team America: World Police" where they hunted a terrorist and blew up the whole Paris in the process.

[jedimasterjac]

10 minutes ago, VegaMist said:

That is in fact what they did which makes the tax unpredictable. It also hurts the social aspect of the game cause way fewer people will feel charitable or plan giveaways if they have to pay for the privilege. By trying to solve one problem, they created a bigger one as a result. It's like that scene in "Team America: World Police" where they hunted a terrorist and blew up the whole Paris in the process.

I don’t actually think player giveaways are that core of an experience that they need to be preserved at the expense of the game’s economy 

 

a more stable economy with deflation > a few new players getting a couple million credits every now and the 

Edited June 14, 2023 by jedimasterjac

[DawnAskham]

18 minutes ago, VegaMist said:

That is in fact what they did which makes the tax unpredictable. It also hurts the social aspect of the game cause way fewer people will feel charitable or plan giveaways if they have to pay for the privilege. By trying to solve one problem, they created a bigger one as a result. It's like that scene in "Team America: World Police" where they hunted a terrorist and blew up the whole Paris in the process.

Pretty much.

Barter - mostly dead.

Charity - not fully dead, but certainly will be far less than before.

And who knows if they will persist in efforts to combat excessive credit-generating loops, exploits, and RMT sellers (the root of the issue) - if they fail again, the economy will just go back into hyperinflation mode while players will be stuck with the garbage they have added.

Also the unintended consequences have clearly not been thought through - the aforementioned saber (Twisted Fang) is listed on almost every server, on SF lowest listed price is 665 hundred million.

That the fee for trading one is based on a value of 2.6 billion says either they are lying or incompetent with respect to using actual GTN prices OR maybe it isn't even valued by players at 665 hundred million as none are selling even at 665 hundred million on the GTN to establish a GTN market value basis.

EDIT TO ADD: I'm all for trying to have most sales go through the GTN, but the 'fixes' we've had versus Bioware simply managing the game (plug excessive credit generating loops, ban exploiters, ban RMT players) and increasing the GTN limit just leave me shaking my head.

Edited June 14, 2023 by DawnAskham

[klizilii]

18 minutes ago, VegaMist said:

That is in fact what they did which makes the tax unpredictable. It also hurts the social aspect of the game cause way fewer people will feel charitable or plan giveaways if they have to pay for the privilege. By trying to solve one problem, they created a bigger one as a result. It's like that scene in "Team America: World Police" where they hunted a terrorist and blew up the whole Paris in the process.

I have played other games that use a tax system on all trades and people just got used it it and nbd.  Nobody talks about it anymore.  The only thing I don't like about this system is that it double taxes players vs the GTN to make a trade.  I get the fact that they want to have the GTN to be the primary place to buy/sell items, but it rather sucks when you want to trade specific items with specific people that they now effectively pay a fee for buying items.

I'm sure if bioware doesn't make any big changes, people will just get used to it and move on.  I'd much rather see deflation in such a way that we start seeing premium items return to the GTN and preferred player credit limit actually allowing them to buy useful items off the GTN.  Yes, there are multiple other paths they could have taken, but I'm 100% okay with taxes/fees on all personal trades to match the GTN credit sink.  I absolutely hate having to deal with items not being listed on the GTN because they're over the GTN limit.

[VegaMist]

12 minutes ago, jedimasterjac said:

I don’t actually think player giveaways are that core of an experience that they need to be preserved at the expense of the game’s economy 

 

a more stable economy with deflation > a few new players getting a couple million credits every now and the 

Social aspect is the core experience of an MMO - the one that most reliably keeps people coming back. You destroy that - you destroy your game. This change didn't quite destroy it (fortunately it would take more than that), but still seriously wounded it.

[TrixxieTriss]

BioWare could easily address the gifting or free give away aspect of the game by making any “gifted items” (with out payment) become Bind 2 Legacy. 

[easyandrew]

It is working nicely,,gen chat on fleets on most servers are nice and quiet thank you,,

[captainbladejk]

9 hours ago, klizilii said:

Perhaps you could start by reading the developer posts on how they implemented the trade tax.  It seems you're missing some of the basic information on how the system is designed to operate.  The tax rate is intended to reflect the average selling price on the GTN. In cases where expensive cartel market items are not on the GTN, they do a conversion from other cartel market items to determine the value (in credits) of the item.

I did read it and what they advertised isn't what we're seeing. As I said elsewhere, 8% should be 8% whether it's GTN or personal trade. Using that price of the Twisted Fang above, to tax me at 212.8m suggests that I need to sell the saber for 2,662,500,000 credits in order for the 8% as advertised to match up. If I wanted to sell at 2b credits to cut someone break, the tax should be 160m. To tax me at the 212.8m still is false advertising at the worst, and a bug at best. Either it's 8% tax or it's not, there is no middle ground to this. If they're wanting 8% tax, then tax at 8%. To tax me at 10% instead of 8% is not what they said it was. If say I wanted to sell the saber at 427m, that's essentially 50% of the credits stolen for nothing. If they want to go that route, they may as well just set prices in stone and control the market directly. 

 

If they want sinks, there are better ways to go about it than punishing people with a tax that just annoys people. It's like trying to swat a fly with a nuclear weapon. Yeah you might squash the fly, but you roast everything else. 

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

1 hour ago, captainbladejk said:

I did read it and what they advertised isn't what we're seeing. As I said elsewhere, 8% should be 8% whether it's GTN or personal trade.

"The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

Edited June 15, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Darthjantom]

The system doesn't feel right. As I typed in another thread I do giveaways in my guild of a bunch of random stuff we have in our guild banks, and now the system wants us to pay 28 MILLION CREDITS just to mail a crappy silver Yellow Gold Indestructible Color Crystal! The trade fee is as much as the highest listings for that item on the GTN!

Mail Fee Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/wJNergY.png

Current Listings On GTN: https://i.imgur.com/ahQfFy1.png

Whereas a bunch of other mails sent out with some bronze items rounded up to like 200k per mail. And 1 mail with a gold armor set (Lucien Draay) and some bronze items ended up costing about 2.9 million to mail.

[klizilii]

17 minutes ago, Darthjantom said:

The system doesn't feel right. As I typed in another thread I do giveaways in my guild of a bunch of random stuff we have in our guild banks, and now the system wants us to pay 28 MILLION CREDITS just to mail a crappy silver Yellow Gold Indestructible Color Crystal! The trade fee is as much as the highest listings for that item on the GTN!

Mail Fee Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/wJNergY.png

Current Listings On GTN: https://i.imgur.com/ahQfFy1.png

Whereas a bunch of other mails sent out with some bronze items rounded up to like 200k per mail. And 1 mail with a gold armor set (Lucien Draay) and some bronze items ended up costing about 2.9 million to mail.

That definitely does not match with what they said would be how the tax works.  Sounds like it should go in bug reports.  Tax shouldn't be higher than tax on the average selling price on the GTN.

[DawnAskham]

1 hour ago, klizilii said:

That definitely does not match with what they said would be how the tax works.  Sounds like it should go in bug reports.  Tax shouldn't be higher than tax on the average selling price on the GTN.

If a game developer has consistently shown they are unable to make simple changes without introducing a plethora of bugs, as well as fail at keeping stuff updated, why on earth would anyone support the type of overly complex changes they made to trades?

This mess is bugged, it will continue to be bugged, and over time, more and more bugs (or just unintended consequences) will appear that WILL NOT get addressed in a timely manner.

And this is before considering the negative effects these changes have on the social aspects of the game, such as actual barter, player-to-player crafting, and stuff like giveaways and guild events with prizes and such.

Unless their code base is such a mess that increasing a coded GTN limit was just orders of magnitude more complex than what we got, it makes NO sense they didn't just increase the GTN limit from the start, ban credit exploiters and RMT sellers, and give the game's economy some time to adjust.

Edited June 15, 2023 by DawnAskham

[Char_Ell]

22 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

BioWare could easily address the gifting or free give away aspect of the game by making any “gifted items” (with out payment) become Bind 2 Legacy. 

I like this idea but I wonder if it's one of those "easier said than done" things.

[klizilii]

1 hour ago, DawnAskham said:

Unless their code base is such a mess that increasing a coded GTN limit was just orders of magnitude more complex than what we got, it makes NO sense they didn't just increase the GTN limit from the start, ban credit exploiters and RMT sellers, and give the game's economy some time to adjust.

There is no magic code they can put in the game to prevent all future credit exploits, RMT, credit sellers, etc.  They clearly did some kind of credit farmer/seller ban recently, but you already see them coming back and selling credits again.  What you're talking about is impractical in terms of the amount of man hours and resources required to actually combat inflation on an ongoing basis.  These changes will have a more permanent impact so they can go back to creating content and fixing bugs, not chasing down accounts to ban.

Increasing the GTN limit is just kicking the can down the road and really isn't helpful because it does nothing for preferred players.  If they just increase the limit of credits you can have and spend, then all the in game vendor prices, etc. become completely uncoupled from the amount of credits players are using and that just leads to a bad experience as well.  It's not that simple of a problem to solve.

[DawnAskham]

1 hour ago, klizilii said:

There is no magic code they can put in the game to prevent all future credit exploits, RMT, credit sellers, etc.  They clearly did some kind of credit farmer/seller ban recently, but you already see them coming back and selling credits again.  What you're talking about is impractical in terms of the amount of man hours and resources required to actually combat inflation on an ongoing basis.  These changes will have a more permanent impact so they can go back to creating content and fixing bugs, not chasing down accounts to ban.

Increasing the GTN limit is just kicking the can down the road and really isn't helpful because it does nothing for preferred players.  If they just increase the limit of credits you can have and spend, then all the in game vendor prices, etc. become completely uncoupled from the amount of credits players are using and that just leads to a bad experience as well.  It's not that simple of a problem to solve.

There is 'magic code' - it's called doing their job with respect to continually managing the game (identify and ban exploiters / sellers, plug excessive credit generating loops).

And increasing the limit would not have been kicking the can down the road.

Assuming they actively managed the game (again - plug excessive credit generating loops, identify and ban exploiters / sellers) AND increased the limit, credit inflows would have shrunk while credit outflows would have increased.

Heck, even someone totally ignorant of the situation can look back and see that prices started falling a few months ago, spend a bit of time and do a bit of research, and identify the most likely reason for prices falling being the actions they took against exploiters and sellers.

All this 'solution' does is decrease social interactions (give aways, sharing between friends and guild members, basic barter, player-to-player crafting, etc) while introducing more bugs and potential for bugs (and probably potential for exploits) while not programmatically solving anything about exploiters and credit sellers.  

 

[klizilii]

2 hours ago, DawnAskham said:

There is 'magic code' - it's called doing their job with respect to continually managing the game (identify and ban exploiters / sellers, plug excessive credit generating loops).

And that costs money and time, which is in limited supply for this game.

[captainbladejk]

22 hours ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

"The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

And who determines it's value and how? An item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If I choose to sell that Twisted Fang saber for 426m credits, then the value of that saber for transaction is 426m credits and the tax for that should be 34m credits, not 212.8m credits. In that instance they're basically saying "we disagree with what your value of the item and if you want to sell it that low, you're going to now pay a tax of 50% instead of 8%" which again is not what they advertised. The only time its worth 2.6b is if someone is willing to pay me that amount of credits. You can quote that particular note all you want but it doesn't change the numbers as the numbers are what the numbers are. They say it's 8% tax on sales, yet their tax is demanding more than 8% in many instances. They're basically telling people they're only allowed to sell items for what they personally value them for. In which case again they may as well just take direct control of the markets with fixed prices and people get what they get. 

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

16 hours ago, captainbladejk said:

And who determines it's value and how?

Who - With respect, I would think the answer to that question blatantly obvious. There is only one answer to that question that is so obvious I think I have to be missing something here.

The person who is selling the item.

How - I'm not even sure how this question makes sense. They make a decision about how much they want to sell that item for.

People can sell whatever they want for whatever price they want. There are no rules regarding this. Someone could sell a stick of gum for a million bucks if they want to.

It's just a question of if anyone is willing to pay the amount being asked for the item being sold.

16 hours ago, captainbladejk said:

In that instance they're basically saying "we disagree with what your value of the item and if you want to sell it that low, you're going to now pay a tax of 50% instead of 8%" which again is not what they advertised.

Okay, now I know you're just trolling me here. We already covered this. This is has been covered by multiple people. You responded to the very quote that demonstraites with 100% certainty that it is unquestionably, beyond any shadow of a doubt and objectively exactly as advertised upfront.

"The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

"The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

"The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

Now, I'm not expressly stating that, I agree with this, or that I think it's a good idea, or that I think it's fair.

You can argue all of those things, but please stop insulting everyone's intelligence here when you have repeatedly lied about this point. It is exactly what they advertised.

Let me be clear here. I don't give a rat's ass how much they tax trade sells, if they tax trade sells, if they do one thing about the in-game economy or not.

But, if they are going to do something about it, than it does seem the fair thing to do to tax trade sells because they tax GTN sales. So if your really all that interested in what they are doing and if it's fair, than not taxing trade sales at all is unfair and trade sales has been getting preferential treatment for years.

I'm fine if they do absolutely nothing about the economy. Many other people, however, don't share my sentiment, and it isn't just about me.

16 hours ago, captainbladejk said:

They say it's 8% tax on sales, yet their tax is demanding more than 8% in many instances.

Again, totally untrue. They did not say that. They said that is the tax for the GTN and than they said  "The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

They are doing exactly what they said they were going to do, as advertised.

They have also said that with regard to gifts that the system isn't working as intended and there is a bug. That isn't them lying, that's a bug.

16 hours ago, captainbladejk said:

They're basically telling people they're only allowed to sell items for what they personally value them for.

I would love for you to show me where they said that. Because as I have already tested for myself, I remain just as able as ever to sell things for whatever friggen price I want to and I haven't heard anyone say they wanted to sell something for a certain price and were somehow not permitted by the game to do so in some new way.

16 hours ago, captainbladejk said:

In which case again they may as well just take direct control of the markets with fixed prices and people get what they get. 

Yes, I think it's quite likely they will impose communism into the game any day now.

I get that you don't like they are taxing Trade sells. Just say that you don't like what they are doing with Trade sales and be done with it. Stop lying about it.

If you don't like that they are trying to do away with Trade sales entirely, which is what they are essentially trying to do here so that they can uniformly tax all sales by the same amount and try to stabilize the economy somehow by doing that, that's fine. There's an argument to be made there.

But, in their effort to try and do that, they are taxing Trade sales significantly more. Which is exactly what they said they were going to do.

Both Hutts have told the same lie.

..........................

I don't care if they wanna tax Trade sales the same amount as they tax GTN sales, I don't care if they wanna tax Trade sales more than the amount they tax GTN sales. I'm neither defending it or opposing it. I don't care if they do absolutely nothing about the economy. But if they are going to do something, Trade sales should be taxed too.

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Darcmoon]

25 minutes ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Again, totally untrue. They did not say that. They said that is the tax for the GTN and than they said  "The transfer of some high value items through mail or direct trade is subject to a credit fee based on its value, paid by the sender."

They are doing exactly what they said they were going to do, as advertised.

They actually did say that.  In the first post here: 7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN - Page 20 - General Discussion - SWTOR | Forums the bullet points indicate that it is an 8% tax on trading/selling items person to person.

• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.

The part in bold is what indicates that it will be 8% also.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

1 hour ago, Darcmoon said:

They actually did say that.  In the first post here: 7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN - Page 20 - General Discussion - SWTOR | Forums the bullet points indicate that it is an 8% tax on trading/selling items person to person.

• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.

The part in bold is what indicates that it will be 8% also.

Than I stand corrected with apologies. Thank you for correcting me with a direct source.

I was wrong. Period.

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Darcmoon]

8 minutes ago, WayOfTheWarriorx said:

Than I stand corrected with apologies. Thank you for correcting me with a direct source.

I was wrong. Period.

 

No problem.  The OP should have linked to that post when he started talking about it or others questioned it.