7.3.1 Credit Economy Initiative Update

[JoeStramaglia]

Hello again everyone!

First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in our last thread! We still have much to iterate on and your feedback has been invaluable. Furthermore, it’s with great pleasure to report that our economy is healing. I know it's a bit of a bumpy road to get there, but if we keep driving down it we’ll have a much more sustainable economy and a more approachable game.

Some of our previously announced changes are still coming in a later patch, but we are making some additional changes in this update that we previously touched on.

When 7.3.1 is live you will see the following:

• Quick Travel costs will now take into account your player level. This is largely to help players at lower levels.
  • The maximum cost matches our current maximum around level 35.
  • The minimum cost matches our current minimum around level 17.
  • The cost per distance matches our current cost at level 80.
• Trade and Mail fees are now driven off of the Galactic Trade Network Median Sales Data
  • This means that these will be based on the server and the specific sales on that server, this data already exists within the game so it's not a clean slate.
  • Select items have their fees removed (the previously changed consumable gameplay items and a list of over 3000 lower value items that were traded regularly on the GTN since 7.3). We may make continued adjustments here in the future.
  • Items that have not been traded on the GTN may not have a fee until they have been traded for some time.  This enables the game to determine the appropriate fee value.
• The Galactic Trade Network Buyout Price Limit has been increased from 1,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000.
  • This is to allow trade of higher value items.
  • Additional changes to the GTN will come in future patches.

As always, I look forward to your feedback and the data from these changes. We will have more changes in the future.

May the Force Serve You
Joe
 

[IIHawkerII]

Very nice! Glad to see the initiatives are paying off
I don't suppose we could get a cheeky look into the rewards for the upcoming season or the new Cartel Market items? =o

[WHTJunior]

Nice to see that there are changes that were vehemently proposed. I never thought I'd see the day where the GTN list price was increased, but here we are. I am looking forward to the GTN revamp. Are you allowed to talk about any of that, yet?

[Medullah]

33 minutes ago, JoeStramaglia said:

This means that these will be based on the server and the specific sales on that server, this data already exists within the game so it's not a clean slate.

It would be amazing if that data were made available to players listing things on the GTN.  Every once in a while we'll get something that isn't listed and you have no idea how much it goes for.

[ThanderSnB]

I am happy to see the GTN cap finally increasing.

[Chryptyk]

with an increase from 1B to 3B, i think we'll see some price inflation again.  how long it lasts though, we'll see.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Chryptyk

[denavin]

Instead of tying it to level how about tying it to the amount of total credits. Just because a player is level 17, 35 or 80 does not mean that they have billions of credits.

I have 32 players most with less than 4 million credits. Why should I have to pay the same amount of tax as a player with Billions of credits that I do not have. That is an unfair and unequal form of taxation. You guys are targeting the wrong players.

Players with Billions should be the ones paying the most and not the players that only have a few million.

I had a character at level 60 that only had a little over 100,000 credits and had to travel to 6 different planets which cost me 30,000 credits @5000 per planet. That cost me 1/3 or 30% of the total amount of all my credits. That is way too much, but a player with 1,000,000,000 credits has over 1 million times more credits and it would have only cost them less than 1% of their total credits. How is fair or equitable for players that are not a billionaire.

Your current tax and fee system only penalizes the players with lower incomes and does little to nothing to the players with billions.

[LD_Little_Dragon]

15 minutes ago, denavin said:

Instead of tying it to level how about tying it to the amount of total credits. Just because a player is level 17, 35 or 80 does not mean that they have billions of credits.

 

 I like that idea, it's basically a progressive tax.  It would have to be legacy based though, not just per character, or billionaires could just run around with no credits in their personal inventories to avoid the fees.

I'm not sure how feasable it would be to have constant 'legacy credits' monitoring.

[mCion]

Yes, the taxes have had a great effect. 

Thank you for monitoring.

We welcome the GTN price cap increase and the other changes.

PLEASE keep on monitoring the economy as these and previous changes are meant to correcting the anomalous economy and are NOT designed for a sustained economy. If everything goes to plan, in the near future the economy will be much more manageable and the Dev Team will need to slowly taper off these initiatives and replace them with other ones meant to sustain the economy (some of these might stay).

 

[Darkestmonty]

1 hour ago, WHTJunior said:

Nice to see that there are changes that were vehemently proposed. I never thought I'd see the day where the GTN list price was increased, but here we are. I am looking forward to the GTN revamp. Are you allowed to talk about any of that, yet?

I remember people posting that increasing the GTN limit would destroy the economy... but in reality it will help decrease inflation and lower prices since there will be more visible competition to sell on the GTN.

  

57 minutes ago, Chryptyk said:

with an increase from 1B to 3B, i think we'll see some price inflation again.  how long it lasts though, we'll see.

there will only be inflation on items that were limited to 1 billion due to the GTN limits. Items that already sell in excess of 1 billion to 3 billion will drop in price because there will be visible competition to sell. You are no longer limited to getting lucky and finding a random person who has what you want selling the same time you are looking.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Hello again everyone!

First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in our last thread! We still have much to iterate on and your feedback has been invaluable. Furthermore, it’s with great pleasure to report that our economy is healing. I know it's a bit of a bumpy road to get there, but if we keep driving down it we’ll have a much more sustainable economy and a more approachable game.

Some of our previously announced changes are still coming in a later patch, but we are making some additional changes in this update that we previously touched on.

When 7.3.1 is live you will see the following:

• Quick Travel costs will now take into account your player level. This is largely to help players at lower levels.
  • The maximum cost matches our current maximum around level 35.
  • The minimum cost matches our current minimum around level 17.
  • The cost per distance matches our current cost at level 80.
• Trade and Mail fees are now driven off of the Galactic Trade Network Median Sales Data
  • This means that these will be based on the server and the specific sales on that server, this data already exists within the game so it's not a clean slate.
  • Select items have their fees removed (the previously changed consumable gameplay items and a list of over 3000 lower value items that were traded regularly on the GTN since 7.3). We may make continued adjustments here in the future.
  • Items that have not been traded on the GTN may not have a fee until they have been traded for some time.  This enables the game to determine the appropriate fee value.
• The Galactic Trade Network Buyout Price Limit has been increased from 1,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000.
  • This is to allow trade of higher value items.
  • Additional changes to the GTN will come in future patches.

As always, I look forward to your feedback and the data from these changes. We will have more changes in the future.

May the Force Serve You
Joe
 

And what about gifting items to players? Have you considered making it free and those items becoming legacy bound? 

And also what about item drops in groups? Are you going to make these free to trade between players in the group? 

Will you also consider increasing the preferred player credit limit so they can buy more items on the GTN?

There are a whole lot of potential sales being unfulfilled since inflation has pushed up prices, like dyes, that used to cost 200,000 & now cost 2 million credits (which is well above what preferred & free to play people can carry).

The current 1 million credit limit is way to low since hyperinflation pushed up prices. 

Edited August 28, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, denavin said:

Instead of tying it to level how about tying it to the amount of total credits. Just because a player is level 17, 35 or 80 does not mean that they have billions of credits.

Do you mean per character or per legacy?

Because if it was per character, what would stop people from just keeping most of their credits in their legacy bank so they don’t get taxed as much 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Spikanor]

2 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Additional changes to the GTN will come in future patches.

why not tell now what for changes there are coming and why not release then also at the same time if you increase the GTN limit from 1 bill to 3 bill then do also a compleet chance at the same time.

since therm: wil come in future patches is something we have hear before with the Dark vs light system and never got any new info about that also has come out.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, LD_Little_Dragon said:

would have to be legacy based though, not just per character, or billionaires could just run around with no credits in their personal inventories to avoid the fees.

Also what if you also have a personal guild? You could just as easily put most of your wealth in the Guild bank and you could reduce your tax even if it was linked to legacy. 

The sentiment behind the idea is noble. But honestly, I can’t see it working because there are too many ways to circumvent it. The work required to close all the loopholes makes the idea unfeasible.  

[Spikanor]

29 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

The current 1 million credit limit is way to low since hyperinflation pushed up prices. 

it was all a joke when there icrease it to the 1 mill credits for both status in the first place.

what was it now 250k icrease for pref status players and 500k increase for F2P players to have both status with the 1 mill credit limit.

so there is no compleet diffrend in credit limit between pref status players or F2P status players at all.

for my part there make it for F2P players 2 mill credits limit and for pref status players there new limit is 50 mill then you have something good but to give pref status players also 2 mill credit limit is still a joke for then.

[TrixxieTriss]

5 minutes ago, Spikanor said:

it was all a joke when there icrease it to the 1 mill credits for both status in the first place.

what was it now 250k icrease for pref status players and 500k increase for F2P players to have both status with the 1 mill credit limit.

so there is no compleet diffrend in credit limit between pref status players or F2P status players at all.

for my part there make it for F2P players 2 mill credits limit and for pref status players there new limit is 50 mill then you have something good but to give pref status players also 2 mill credit limit is still a joke for then.

I would suggest making the free to play credit holding limit 10 million & the preferred credit holding limit 50 million.

But I would put a cap on how much they could sell stuff for on the GTN. Make the sales cap 10% of the credits they can hold.

Ie, free to play with 10 million credit limit could sell stuff on the GTN up to 1 million credits. And preferred players with 50 million could sell stuff on the GTN up to 5 million credits. 

This way, there is still a reason to sell credit escrows on the cartel market & a QOL reason to subscribe. 

[Chryptyk]

1 hour ago, Darkestmonty said:

there will only be inflation on items that were limited to 1 billion due to the GTN limits. Items that already sell in excess of 1 billion to 3 billion will drop in price because there will be visible competition to sell. You are no longer limited to getting lucky and finding a random person who has what you want selling the same time you are looking.

that's not entirely true.  we'll see items like hypercrates and master's datacrons on the gtn again.  however, people are inherently greedy and will increase prices to get as much as they can for things.  just look at the gtn now and you'll see a lot of items listed at 1B or close thereto.  it's mostly because the current taxes make it more profitable and easier to list something at 1B, then to try to do a handoff at 1-1.5B (1.5B is the current price for a hypercrate).  due to inflation, prices of things became indexed to the cost of hypercrates, and people have gotten used to that.

i see increasing the cap to 3B as the devs encouraging people to increase the price of hypercrates upwards, which leads to overall inflation on other items.  i may be wrong, but people are greedy and always want the most credits they can get.  what will happen is that prices will increase and then there will be competition lowering prices to some new standard price, but that standard price will be higher than it is now is what i'm predicting.

[RadarOMalley]

I would posit that prices for certain items might fall if they were made available on the GTN from time to time. Items like the THORN sets, Sand Pillager, or the "retired" armor sets (CZ-13k Guerilla, Destroyer, etc) and weapons (Gamo Axe). It's their scarcity that pushes prices up, and their being available may have a tangible effect on lowering prices. 

[Darkestmonty]

14 minutes ago, Chryptyk said:

that's not entirely true.  we'll see items like hypercrates and master's datacrons on the gtn again.  however, people are inherently greedy and will increase prices to get as much as they can for things.  just look at the gtn now and you'll see a lot of items listed at 1B or close thereto.  it's mostly because the current taxes make it more profitable and easier to list something at 1B, then to try to do a handoff at 1-1.5B (1.5B is the current price for a hypercrate).  due to inflation, prices of things became indexed to the cost of hypercrates, and people have gotten used to that.

i see increasing the cap to 3B as the devs encouraging people to increase the price of hypercrates upwards, which leads to overall inflation on other items.  i may be wrong, but people are greedy and always want the most credits they can get.  what will happen is that prices will increase and then there will be competition lowering prices to some new standard price, but that standard price will be higher than it is now is what i'm predicting.

There are items on the GTN that are sold for 1 billion only because that is the current GTN limit. With trade taxes and credit taxes in trade, it isn't worth it to try sit on fleet for hours trying to sell an item worth 1.5 billion in /trade.

I'm betting Master Datacrons will increase in value to around 1.2-1.5 billion in the first week. Hypercrates will probably remain around 1.7-2.5 billion because Cartel Packs sell for 60-100 million, and other items which people usually only sell in /trade due to out pricing the GTN's current limit of 1 billion will lower in price because there will be visible competition to sell.

Prices aren't going to increase just because people are greedy, prices will adjust to their true market value because some prices have been artificially lowered due to GTN limits, credit taxes, trade taxes, and people having limited time to sit around fleet trying to sell directly.

[Saeten]

5 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Items that have not been traded on the GTN may not have a fee until they have been traded for some time.  This enables the game to determine the appropriate fee value.

They should at least have the minimum GTN tax fee applied. 8%, correct? Don't make them a 0 zero fee.

[Darkestmonty]

2 minutes ago, Saeten said:

They should at least have the minimum GTN tax fee applied. 8%, correct? Don't make them a 0 zero fee.

currently, new Cartel Market releases cost the seller zero credits to trade. The buyer still pays the 8% tax.

A few older items that haven't been sold often have slimilar costs of zero credits to trade but paid credits in trade always has an 8% charge.

[Gamer_Auto]

4 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Quick Travel costs will now take into account your player level. This is largely to help players at lower levels.

• The maximum cost matches our current maximum around level 35.
• The minimum cost matches our current minimum around level 17.
• The cost per distance matches our current cost at level 80.

This is a good change.

4 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

Trade and Mail fees are now driven off of the Galactic Trade Network Median Sales Data

• This means that these will be based on the server and the specific sales on that server, this data already exists within the game so it's not a clean slate.
• Select items have their fees removed (the previously changed consumable gameplay items and a list of over 3000 lower value items that were traded regularly on the GTN since 7.3). We may make continued adjustments here in the future.
• Items that have not been traded on the GTN may not have a fee until they have been traded for some time.  This enables the game to determine the appropriate fee value.

I, quite honestly, don't even know what this means.

4 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

The Galactic Trade Network Buyout Price Limit has been increased from 1,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000.

• This is to allow trade of higher value items.
• Additional changes to the GTN will come in future patches.

 

No! Down, down! R2, we need to be going down, not up!

[Spikanor]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I would suggest making the free to play credit holding limit 10 million & the preferred credit holding limit 50 million.

But I would put a cap on how much they could sell stuff for on the GTN. Make the sales cap 10% of the credits they can hold.

Ie, free to play with 10 million credit limit could sell stuff on the GTN up to 1 million credits. And preferred players with 50 million could sell stuff on the GTN up to 5 million credits. 

This way, there is still a reason to sell credit escrows on the cartel market & a QOL reason to subscribe. 

the reason to subscribe has been chance all with the 1 mill credit cap.

the nummber 1 reason people subscribe more is to get the last expension update's and also the last story line contant.

and there subscribe also only for the gelactic seasons to get the sub rewards from it also.

why you think a lot off people got pistoff on the devs and the communety mangers when there delay 7.0 with 2 extra month's thats all a sign people only do it for the new contant.

most of the benefits you get as sub can be unlock all with the cartal market upgrade's like 6th skill bar and stuff like that.

other benefits to subscribe are most gone now or are become useless for then.

the sprint unlock on lvl 1 same with the speeder ploting t/m lvl 5 has become useless for a big group only if you start a new char has it usefull but thats all.

and other benefits like no quick travel cost and stuff like that are now useless since sub players also need to pay for it.

most of the people give no crap about GSF or PVP at all so for that there not have to do it.

so the diffrend to become sub or stay preferred has chance a lot since the benefits are not that diffrend anymore like it was before.

so to give preferred status players a sell limit of 5 mill is not going to chance a lot for a big group of players so why add something like that if it has no use at all.

 

we need more usefull things then adding more pointless things in the game that make compleet no sence at all.

and what is the point for selling credit escrows when the credits are worthless in the first place, and second place most players are much smarter then the devs are since there store all there credits in the legacy cargo bay or guild bank and sell almost not to reach the 1 mill credit cap.

[Darkestmonty]

28 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

I, quite honestly, don't even know what this means.

There are some items which have had no significant presence on the GTN in years. No data, no item tax to trade. Brand new CM items can all in this category.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Darkestmonty

[Firelieutenant]

30 minutes ago, Gamer_Auto said:

This is a good change.

I, quite honestly, don't even know what this means.

No! Down, down! R2, we need to be going down, not up!

I agree with you. Raising the gtn limit is only going to make players sell an item for 3B instead of 1B further making the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. People will still spend $20 for cartel coins, purchase an item off the cartel market and instead of 1B credits it’ll be 3B only increasing inflation. If they lower the max sale price then that $20 you spent actually decreases in value. Really they should just associate an actual credit to dollar value amount and be done with it. If $20 = 20mlion credits then we have an actual exchange rate.