No, I do not think that. I think that I have seen such accusations made before in various threads about any number of topics and I was hoping to avoid having anyone jump in and make such an accusation if I had been vague in my statement about how I acquired so many credits, which would ultimately distract from the question at hand, which was what your reasoning was for eliminating 90% of the credits from player holdings. You answered that, and it sounds to me as though you are saying you believe 90% of the credits currently in game are the result of exploits. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, then I do not share your opinion.

No, I don't think that 90% of credits have been exploited. I have no real numbers to back any of this up. There have been some pretty massive exploits in the past and no one save BioWare really has any idea of how deep that actually goes...and likely not even they know exactly.

Even if there weren't any credits exploited, a game like this manufactures currency on demand (as in quest rewards)...there is no pre set amount in the economy. In most economies in the real world, there is a set amount of currency and IF they print more currency you get inflation and the cost of any given unit of currency is worth less. The economy in this game works no differently. With currency in this game and the way it is given out of thin air, it's already doomed to have serious inflation from the get go and action is needed by the developers to prevent inflation. The exploits and duping have caused the process of inflation to speed up exponentially, making things even worse than they should be.

Exploits or no exploits, it would be healthy for the overall game economy to delete a LOT of credits.

And you don't seem to get many players have acquired hundreds of million or billions of credits over YEARS. Of course it's not fair to them to get stripped of 90% of the credits they have fairly earned over the lifetime of the game. So new players want some new shiny that costs credits. It's fair for them to WORK FOR IT, just like the rest of us have since launch.

 

For new players to acquire Millions of credits is EASY, they don't need a handout by removing 90% of the credits from the game that people have worked hard to get over the years.

 

Not to mention Sales may lower for a short time, but within a month prices would be right back to what they are now, so sellers will just wait for a time so people get credits back from heroics, dailies and any other activity they use to get them. Farming 30-50 million in a week is definitely possible these days, so prices won't change for more then 2-4 weeks.

I get that as well as anyone. I've been here since before day one and never exploited or duped anything ever. My credits have been made grinding the GTN and crafting. More crafting in the early days, not so much so the past few years...it's mostly been playing the GTN. With that said, I have as much to lose as anyone if this is implemented and I still think it's a good idea.

I think it would take years for the prices to reach current pricing, if 90% of credits were deleted. But you are right, eventually we would be back in the same boat.

This has NOTHING to do for giving hand outs to new players. I agree they do need to work for it, I'm arguing that for a new player that knows nothing of this game's economy, current pricing seems out of reach. It's easy for us because we are familiar with how things work due to being involved for the better part of the past decade. For a new player it seems unreasonably daunting and that's not a good thing.

Exploits or no exploits, it would be healthy for the overall game economy to delete a LOT of credits.

It would be healthy for the *game* to provide things people want to buy for credits. Just "deleting" credits, as you so coyly put it, would just cause a repeat of the same situation a few weeks or months later, and would give the game an unhealthy reputation as the one that stole 90% of the players' in-game money.

The problem is that people have, over the years, whined and whined and whined, *endlessly* about the amount of credits they have to pay for stuff like ability training, gear repair bills, modification removal, etc. etc. etc., and now we are reaping the consequences - a vastly over-inflated player-to-player economy. (To be sure, the substantial rewards available for various types of missions have boosted the inflation, but the fundamental cause is the successive removal of credit sinks.)

It would be healthy for the *game* to provide things people want to buy for credits. Just "deleting" credits, as you so coyly put it, would just cause a repeat of the same situation a few weeks or months later, and would give the game an unhealthy reputation as the one that stole 90% of the players' in-game money.

 

The problem is that people have, over the years, whined and whined and whined, *endlessly* about the amount of credits they have to pay for stuff like ability training, gear repair bills, modification removal, etc. etc. etc., and now we are reaping the consequences - a vastly over-inflated player-to-player economy. (To be sure, the substantial rewards available for various types of missions have boosted the inflation, but the fundamental cause is the successive removal of credit sinks.)

I won't disagree with you there. It very well may be a better idea to have more (or more substantial) credit sinks. Give everyone a "choice". Really anything that gets credits out of the game at a reasonable rate would work. The only issue in my mind, would be that the player base outrage would parallel the outrage of credit deletion...because those credit sinks would have to be extremely intense to make a difference.

Fundamentally speaking, there is little difference between credit sinks and credit deletion. Only in the players mind. Both ways get credits out of the economy. Should we rip the bandaid off quickly, or do we pull it slowly?

Fundamentally speaking, there is little difference between credit sinks and credit deletion. Only in the players mind. Both ways get credits out of the economy. Should we rip the bandaid off quickly, or do we pull it slowly?

There's a very important difference between credit sinks and credit deletion (quite apart from the reputational damage). It's neatly expressed by a reference to the old saw about giving a man a fish (credit deleition) versus teaching a man to fish (credit-sink addition).

Credit deletion happens once, but does nothing to address the fundamental causes of the inflated economy, so the economy will (quite rapidly) reinflate.

Credit sink addition happens once, too, but keeps on removing credits from the economy. In essence, it *is* a way to address the causes because one of the causes is a lack of effective credit sinks. No, I can't guarantee that this or that or the other list of new / augmented credit sinks will actually be *enough*, but it will be better than doing nothing to address why the economy is inflated.

There's a very important difference between credit sinks and credit deletion (quite apart from the reputational damage). It's neatly expressed by a reference to the old saw about giving a man a fish (credit deleition) versus teaching a man to fish (credit-sink addition).

 

Credit deletion happens once, but does nothing to address the fundamental causes of the inflated economy, so the economy will (quite rapidly) reinflate.

 

Credit sink addition happens once, too, but keeps on removing credits from the economy. In essence, it *is* a way to address the causes because one of the causes is a lack of effective credit sinks. No, I can't guarantee that this or that or the other list of new / augmented credit sinks will actually be *enough*, but it will be better than doing nothing to address why the economy is inflated.

Hey, I'm sold and you're right.

Part of my unsaid reasoning for credit deletion, likely came from unknowns on certain issues, in which I was making assumptions. How long will this game be around? Assuming not too awfully long: What is development actually willing to do? What's a quick fix? Massive credit removal sounds reasonable (to me) assuming this game may not be around long and that it's easy to implement and the effects may last for a year(?). Good enough. However, the approach to fix the cause and not the symptom is definitely a better idea.

Of course maybe this game will be around fro 5+ more years...and hopefully it is.

going to say something here, because I have advocated straight up credit purge on swtor for 2 years.

Now.... I do get what you mean by lowering everyones money by 90%, but this is the part you are leaving out. in order for it to stick, you need to lower all "reward" credits or mats by 90%. Which ultimately defeats the purpose, because all it does is reset the economy currency to a lower percentage... and that does what exactly? so a cm item costs maybe 20m again like in 3.0? no one has 20m, so its no different than 150m in 5.0, just a lower percentage.

My reasoning for credit purging the game was to deplete the gold sellers credit stores. For every one billionair in swtor who says "why would you take my billions?" ask yourself, what exactly are you doing with billions? nothing costs that much, and by that reasoning it is the act of saving credits that you want, not spending... so how will losing your money change what you do everyday? youll just keep saving, not spending, one day youll have a billion again, and youll SS it and post everywhere, and like scrooge, get out a lawn chair and admire the view of your legacybays 1b credit ledger.

I have been a slicer, a mat farmer, an instance reseter since 3.0 when I began playing. percentagewise in this game I have made more money in a day just by playing the game than 90% of the population ever sees. but I dont save it. I make it for a reason, I spend it, and then I go bakc to what I was doing.. because I understand that game currency will always be there. there is a set average percent, there is a number I can make per hour, so why would I ever save 1b, or 2b/ I only need enough to buy my stuff.

going to say something here, because I have advocated straight up credit purge on swtor for 2 years.

I think you should tell us whether you understood the part about the damage a credit purge would do to SWTOR's reputation.

In theory, reducing the credit amounts earned and owned would have no effect at all. The 4m player would have 400k, the 400 million player would still have 100 times as much, and prices on the GTN would drop from, say, 10 million to 1 million, still more than the "poor" player can afford. In practice, sellers will keep their old price in mind and charge more than they should when you only look at the maths.

Just reducing the owned credits, but keeping quest rewards the same, would effectively increase quest rewards. That would benefit "wealthy" players who put some gameplay effort into farming credits. The gap between those and the "poor" players will increase even further. Furthermore, the GTN prices will increase, because sellers determine their price by the time they would have to spend earning the credits otherwise.

The "rich" players who are beyond farming credits and now play stock market on the GTN won't be affected either way.

For the new players something can be done: simply make everything give the same amount of credits, regardless of level. That won't help the "lazy" players who can't be bothered to start farming credits, though.

The Robin Hood approach (just take from the rich) would disgruntle those players who are most likely to spend real money beyond their sub. Bad idea for the future of Swtor. Those who just hoard their credits are already punished by inflation anyway.

I think you should tell us whether you understood the part about the damage a credit purge would do to SWTOR's reputation.

Honestly I don't think they have a rep to protect anymore. Everyone I know who plays swtor in 2019, and I mean everyone, is still here because they've invested so much time that it would just take too long to build again on a new game. The people I know range from people who buy from credit sellers, to dark project crafters, to NiM carrys for deco farming, but never have I met someone who would care if their credits were purged overnight. They would make it again in 3 weeks, nothing would change for them.

As for swtors rep? Let's be blunt for a sec here. Bioware launchs multiple years expansion, they have huge grinds for gear, doesn't look like that's changing with 6.0, they have credit exploits that go for weeks, and the credits melt into the game cuz they have no moderation for handling money sales or mail. They have 8 month seasons for ranked, while promising 6 months or less, they have little or no feedback to critism, they ignore PTS bugs unless their gamebreaking,... and I'm just going to mention the lack of communication twice, because holy crap, is that the worst. All we want is some answers. We want to talk to them, but no.

Soo no, I don't think they have arep anymore. What they have are new players coming in on the star wars disney wave, and old vets who just don't feel like investing in other games after so long. This is all personal exp and opinion, I claim nothing of percentages, and/or attempt to assume any amount of the population is described to a T by this