(Edit: Please note the date this discussion started, the 20th of December. This dialogue began pre-Slicing nerf. So the context has changed.)

 

I'd like to take a moment to talk about how slicing in its current form helps SWTORs economy, and why I think many are over reacting. SWTOR is a game of fixed rates. By which I mean the following cost/profits never change:

 

1. Character skill training

2. Crew Skill Missions Cost (The money you pay to send crew on missions)

3. Crew Skill Missions Return (The money you get from slicing)

4. Mount Training

5. Mount Cost (high end CE costs *a lot* of money.)

 

This means that Slicing has a fixed ceiling on profit. 10 months from now, I will be able to make just as many direct credits from slicing as I can today. For arguments sake, lets say I can make 5000 credits an hour max using slicing. (Not the real number, just makes the math easier)

 

There is only 1 area in which prices can inflate, and deflate:

 

1. The Galactic Trade Network: where we can sell our crafted/discovered goods.

 

Today a stack of Silica may sell for 500 credits. In four months time that stack of silica may sell for as much as a 10,000 credits. (An over simplified, and extreme example, to be sure.)

 

That means, as a slicer, today I can buy a lot of silica. In four months, I could only buy a stack after two hours of missions.

 

Here's the rub though: The Underworld Trader got that silica through a Crew Skill Mission at a fixed cost--it will never change. (Let's say 100 credits, I can't recall the exact cost of an UT mission right now.) Today, or 4 months from now it costs him the same amount of credits to acquire the raw goods, but he's selling it for 9500 more credits at stack. That's not inflation, that is profit induced by fixed-rate game mechanics. That is profit a player NEEDs to further their own crew skills, buy mounts, and train combat abilities.

 

 

Now, "Freeborne," you might say, "What about slicing nodes in the wild? Can't Slicers really boost their income with those?"

 

And I'd say, "Poster, I'm glad you asked!"

 

The answer is yes, and no. A slicer may find wild nodes, and shoot up his/her credit per/hour income. However, any of the other harvesting crew skills may do the same thing, and sell their goods on the GTN. And even if the Slicer *is* making more credits per hour, it just translates into more money they can spend on the GTN.

 

 

"But Freeborne," you could ask next, "What about players who only BUY things from the GTN, and don't sell on it. Won't they suffer from this Inflation?"

 

And I'd say, "Yes. Those players aren't participating in an MMO economy. They're driving by it and they're doing their own thing (which is certainly their right), but the thing is:"

 

If a player isn't taking a mission skill that returns marketable goods (Diplomacy, maybe? Can't tell you how well the "companion gift" market will do. But you can't sell the LS/DS points you get.), and is only depending on income from quests/mobs in the game, they are in for a World of Hurt--even if we removed Slicing from the game. You need to bring either disposable income, or desired goods to the market. The games current credit return from questing barely covers your combat skill training + mount training.

 

What does this tell us? Slicing *needs* to exist, otherwise people won't have have the disposable income required to purchase off the GTN.

 

If you have a clear, and academic, argument as to why slicing is "bad" for the economy, please post it in response and I'd be happy to debate it with you.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Freeborne

Great post!

I don't disagree, but I wanted to post anyway to say that you are dead on.

this is wrong; while im not one of these people who say slicing is OP, it does create an inflation problem.Slicing creates money that wouldn't exist otherwise(same as killing monster does) which create inflation and increase the price of everything that will be sold.Since item sell at a price determined by the market, inflation will rise the price of seller to include this inflation.

 

In real life; when inflation is present, usually the seller increase their price to match the inflation because the seller price to make the good as increased.In this case however, the price to make item is fixed and independent of inflation but the selling price will have to include the inflation created by slicing because everything else sold will.Of course since every profession has a fixed price to get good and since all money sink in this game are fix this render this argument abit wrong; however that is the behavor that will be experienced.

 

a simple example would be: if you can make a good for 20$ and sell it for 50$ and the Bank give 100,000 to everyone in the country; would you still sell the bicycle at 50$?

Edited December 20, 2011 by Asurai

Correct OP.

 

Inflation benefits the other trade skills, not slicing. Therefor slicing will always return the same amount, but other trade skills will get more. Slicing will become less desirable and less wanted as the other tradeskills start bringing in more money.

 

Long story short, Slicing will cause a short term cash injection into the economy but it'll drastically drop a few months out and stabilize as less people take Slicing and more people start taking others.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Shadowclaimer

I don't think SW TOR needs slicing. You can kill mobs, elite bosses, finish repeatable quests, all of which provide renewable sources of income. Furthermore, since people will likely always be either leveling mains or alts, it is unlikely that there will ever exist a state when all of the game's characters have completed all of the non-renewable quests they can, which means that this also will be a source of renewable income, as these quests are 'renewable', albeit on different characters. Edited December 20, 2011 by Ex_Everest

Correct OP.

 

Inflation benefits the other trade skills, not slicing. Therefor slicing will always return the same amount, but other trade skills will get more. Slicing will become less desirable and less wanted as the other tradeskills start bringing in more money.

 

Long story short, Slicing will cause a short term cash injection into the economy but it'll drastically drop a few months out and stabilize as less people take Slicing and more people start taking others.

 

This ^

 

Very succinct post that summarizes the actual impact.

Fair post but consider this:

 

If 5k is coming in the game per hour (on average) per slicing player, with no countering money sink, inflation will set in proportionately to percent of slicers vs non-slicers.

 

Thus if the only perceivable way to make income in a system is via slicing, more and more people who want to be 'Haves' vs 'Have-nots' (I know know many who cheer for being poor), the end result is algorithmic inflation.

 

Ex. First week prices rise only 1%

Second week all prices rise 2%, etc.

 

As the monetary base increases, with a flat line demand, prices will Inflate.

 

Imagine 20k for a T1 Blue item for your Twink.

 

That will DESTROY any new players entering the game.

 

How again is Inflation good for game? (Unless you like deserted servers)

 

Slicing (and Treasure Hunting), as is, must change, or it will destroy this game's ability to sustain a player base. Just like hyper inflation causes all mobile citizens to flee the country.

Edited December 20, 2011 by VorpalFox

Isn't the price high because of demand? When the demand goes up and the prices go up, there will be more people joining the competition selling these items, and the prices will go down again. Normal fluctuation that will settle when the economy starts balancing. All the trading skills will balance after time.

 

If there is more demand for certain crew-skill items, there will be more people taking that crew-skill. If the demand is low for another crew-skill, there will be less people taking it.

 

Problems here?

however when you get up to say 10k for a t1 blue...the money makers are going to realize that it is more valuable to spend not 36m getting 5k but 3 sets of 10 min getting the materials for 10k worth of profit thus slicing will slowly leak its way out of the economy...the goal of slicing is to give a base credit source to the economy and at some point it will serve its purpose and people will smart up to how other ways are more valuable to making money.

"But Freeborne" I might say "You're just arguing that the rampant inflation caused by slicing is good because it renders credit sinks in game insignificant, thereby making things cheaper for everyone"

 

Which is true. But is it really good for the economy? If it is, why not just have no slicing and no training/mount/repair costs either?

 

Currency stability is of paramount importance to any economy. Just ask Zimbabwe. The problem with an unstable currency is that it becomes desirable to hold asserts instead of cash. In SWTOR terms, this means you're going to be better off hoarding high level mats instead of credits, since the credits will lose value over time much faster than the mats will. When people don't want to hold currency, they are less liquid. Less liquidity reduces trade and slows the economy.

 

In the real world, if the problem is severe enough (such as the aforementioned Zimbabwe) the principal means of exchange eventually becomes supplanted, by US dollars, gold, etc. In SWTOR, credits are an enforced currency and HAVE to be used in the galactic trade network regardless of stability. Therefore it is in the interest of the economy to have as stable a currency as possible.

 

SOME inflation can be absorbed, but there is a limit to this. Less is better, and none at all would probably be preferable.

The OP and those supporting him are spot on with the economics here.

 

There are TONS of credit sinks in SWTOR, vanity items, useful items, items just to blow money on... heck, you can blow a million to get access to the VIP lounge... per character...

 

Cash in from slicing will soon turn into cash in the pockets of people who sell items the slicers want, and will in turn be blow on the many money sinks that are out there.

 

A good MMO economy needs multipath income sources, and multipath money sinks, SWTOR has both and only time will let the economy stabilize and grow. Once 6 months has passed if there is still a gross imbalance between class income capability then Bioware will need to look at that and balance it, but to react after only a week of early access would be unwise.

Slicing is not the "Free money" everyone seems to think it is. At low levels it seems amazing, but that ends soon enough.

 

At Slicing 400 your missions all take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. Cost per mission is between 1.4k and 2k. Average return on a mission is 1.5k, with crit returns being 4-5k. World gathering nodes on Balmora average 300-500 credits.

 

To put this in perspective, My one skill rank up at 38 cost 23k. I regularly vendor green drops for around 500-1k depending on the type of item. Also each mob drops around 100-150 credits(and usually comes in 3-5 packs).

 

I make more money per hour just doing quests and killing everything as I move from point A to B than Slicing makes from lock boxes/lock box missions. The real money maker for slicing is the selling Augments/schematics/mission items.

I believe it is better to let the economy balance itself than to tamper with it artificially.

The game has been out to the public a wopping 11.5 hrs. STOP your *****1NG!!!!! If you do not like slicing.. Do not pick it up. there are TONS of things you CAN do. If you need cash to buy stuff, quest, raid, kill mobs over and over again. To earn it.. Or ask a buddy for some that he prob made from Slicing... The game is fine how it is let go.....

I find this whole debate about Slicing to be very amusing, and I applaud the OP and some of the responses for the thought put into them. I also totally agree.

What gets me though, is that every negative response I see centers around two fallacious assumptions:

 

1) Inflation is bad

2) This skill is going to have a negative effect on new players

 

To address #1, inflation isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, controlled inflation is a very good (and necessary) thing for an economy. Do a little research on the subject to see what I mean. As I saw someone else post, the Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates to help control the economy. One of the major factors to doing so is to keep inflation at the proper levels. If you have too much inflation, you have high-priced goods and overemployment. If you have too little inflation, you have low-priced goods and unemployment. There's a fine line to balance to make sure your employment levels (Too much or too little is bad for the economy as well) and prices on goods are at a nominal level.

Don't bother debating this point unless you understand the underlying fundamentals of economics, it's not as simple as "Money is good" which most think it is.

The second point is just outright wrong, for multiple reasons. First is that mods and equipment are available at a fixed price from the vendors, this will not change. Since that is what most newbies interact with, they will be completely unaffected by high prices on goods and materials, and even if they are, they have an alternative to the GTN. It may not be as good as player-made stuff, but it's perfectly acceptable all the way to level 50.

The second reason why it is wrong is that Slicing will actually enhance the new player experience by giving them a way to afford all the things they need, such as skill training, mounts, upgrades, and play around with the social crafting aspects without having to make the hard decision between sending your companions on a quest to get mats to skillup, or buying that next rank of Force OneShotKill.

I find this whole debate about Slicing to be very amusing, and I applaud the OP and some of the responses for the thought put into them. I also totally agree.

What gets me though, is that every negative response I see centers around two fallacious assumptions:

 

1) Inflation is bad

2) This skill is going to have a negative effect on new players

 

#2 is my favorite to address because although it is difficult for new players to buy stuff on AH, they'll also be benefiting from inflation if they're selling stuff on AH as well. The boon to players who take part in the economy is huge from inflation (since it offsets the really high cost of training skills and other expenses that are static) while the only downside is for those who never sell anything on AH/Trade and only buy will have to pay more for said objects.

I always enjoy these type of conversations when it comes to in-game economies. Great OP and dicussion points..

Great post!

 

Agreed

I find this whole debate about Slicing to be very amusing, and I applaud the OP and some of the responses for the thought put into them. I also totally agree.

What gets me though, is that every negative response I see centers around two fallacious assumptions:

 

1) Inflation is bad

2) This skill is going to have a negative effect on new players

 

To address #1, inflation isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, controlled inflation is a very good (and necessary) thing for an economy. Do a little research on the subject to see what I mean. As I saw someone else post, the Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates to help control the economy. One of the major factors to doing so is to keep inflation at the proper levels. If you have too much inflation, you have high-priced goods and overemployment. If you have too little inflation, you have low-priced goods and unemployment. There's a fine line to balance to make sure your employment levels (Too much or too little is bad for the economy as well) and prices on goods are at a nominal level.

Don't bother debating this point unless you understand the underlying fundamentals of economics, it's not as simple as "Money is good" which most think it is.

The second point is just outright wrong, for multiple reasons. First is that mods and equipment are available at a fixed price from the vendors, this will not change. Since that is what most newbies interact with, they will be completely unaffected by high prices on goods and materials, and even if they are, they have an alternative to the GTN. It may not be as good as player-made stuff, but it's perfectly acceptable all the way to level 50.

The second reason why it is wrong is that Slicing will actually enhance the new player experience by giving them a way to afford all the things they need, such as skill training, mounts, upgrades, and play around with the social crafting aspects without having to make the hard decision between sending your companions on a quest to get mats to skillup, or buying that next rank of Force OneShotKill.

 

What he said

Inflation would be a problem if there was a limited amount of some resource that wasn't available to just about anyone who picks up the right skill. Now the high prices will be countered by oversupply. I would say no inflation because the supply will be equal or close to demand (a bit over or bit under, but close to balance) and the prices will adjust over time on their own to correlate the challenge required to get the item first place. Edited December 20, 2011 by Gerica

"But Freeborne" I might say "You're just arguing that the rampant inflation caused by slicing is good because it renders credit sinks in game insignificant, thereby making things cheaper for everyone"

 

Which is true. But is it really good for the economy? If it is, why not just have no slicing and no training/mount/repair costs either?

 

Currency stability is of paramount importance to any economy. Just ask Zimbabwe. The problem with an unstable currency is that it becomes desirable to hold asserts instead of cash. In SWTOR terms, this means you're going to be better off hoarding high level mats instead of credits, since the credits will lose value over time much faster than the mats will. When people don't want to hold currency, they are less liquid. Less liquidity reduces trade and slows the economy.

 

In the real world, if the problem is severe enough (such as the aforementioned Zimbabwe) the principal means of exchange eventually becomes supplanted, by US dollars, gold, etc. In SWTOR, credits are an enforced currency and HAVE to be used in the galactic trade network regardless of stability. Therefore it is in the interest of the economy to have as stable a currency as possible.

 

SOME inflation can be absorbed, but there is a limit to this. Less is better, and none at all would probably be preferable.

 

I really dislike real world analogies because all the real world factors don't apply here.

 

But let's run with this one:

 

Let's say players go all "zimbabwe" on us, and start hoarding high level UT materials in an attempt to corner the market.

 

One of two results will happen from this:

 

UT Materials price skyrockets high on the market. Players who are not hoarding these metals see continued profits from this because they don't stop selling. Pricing reaches it's high point, eventually, and the hoarders flood the market. Sellers attempt to undercut one another, and pricing goes down. People who didn't hoard still make a profit, and hoarders increased profit is dependent purely on the numbers.

 

But these UT Materials have top level cap on the GTN. For each individual buyer it becomes cost prohibitive to purchase them, because at X cost you're better off making a level 15 alt, and paying to level your own UT missions instead.

 

 

The flaw in the Zimbabwe analogy is that the raw goods users might attempt to "hoard" come from a renewable resource everyone has access to. You can't hold exclusive rights to a material everyone can farm at a click of a button. You do not even need to farm/camp nodes. Prices will have an upper limit defined by a players ability to just get it themselves.

I believe it is better to let the economy balance itself than to tamper with it artificially.

 

This is an MMO Economy. Every facet of it is artificial, and controlled.

I don't think SW TOR needs slicing. You can kill mobs, elite bosses, finish repeatable quests, all of which provide renewable sources of income. Furthermore, since people will likely always be either leveling mains or alts, it is unlikely that there will ever exist a state when all of the game's characters have completed all of the non-renewable quests they can, which means that this also will be a source of renewable income, as these quests are 'renewable', albeit on different characters.

 

Then you're arguing that slicing is bad because it provides more income that renewable quests?

 

That is incorrect. It provides less money that renewable quests, and less money than most materials other Crew Skills will give you to sell on the AH. (Assuming you have an economy that allows for Slicing, so you have disposable income. : P )

I really dislike real world analogies because all the real world factors don't apply here.

 

But let's run with this one:

 

Let's say players go all "zimbabwe" on us, and start hoarding high level UT materials in an attempt to corner the market.

 

One of two results will happen from this:

 

UT Materials price skyrockets high on the market. Players who are not hoarding these metals see continued profits from this because they don't stop selling. Pricing reaches it's high point, eventually, and the hoarders flood the market. Sellers attempt to undercut one another, and pricing goes down. People who didn't hoard still make a profit, and hoarders increased profit is dependent purely on the numbers.

 

But these UT Materials have top level cap on the GTN. For each individual buyer it becomes cost prohibitive to purchase them, because at X cost you're better off making a level 15 alt, and paying to level your own UT missions instead.

 

 

The flaw in the Zimbabwe analogy is that the raw goods users might attempt to "hoard" come from a renewable resource everyone has access to. You can't hold exclusive rights to a material everyone can farm at a click of a button. You do not even need to farm/camp nodes. Prices will have an upper limit defined by a players ability to just get it themselves.

 

I am professing my love for you.

 

MMO economies run artificially because the old rules of supply and demand are hard to rectify here, there is limitless supply of everything. Everyone can effectively obtain everything. The only really defining things an MMO economy needs are goldsinks to counter inflation. The "perfect" MMO economy has more gold going out in goldsinks than is coming in from other sources, however that leaves little spending room for player-player trade. So the goal is to find a balance where the economy will slowly inflate, but only so much that it never snowballs (IE: Slicing is the artificial part here, it'll inflate the economy purposefully to the point where people abandon Slicing and the inflation relatively "stops" or drastically slows) then Bioware can introduce content that consumes more currency and slows or reverses the inflation. Then it'll hit the buffer zone where Slicing is valuable again and the process repeats back and forth (ping-pong economy inflation).

Edited December 20, 2011 by Shadowclaimer