... every week or month (gotta calibrate those numbers if too aggressive), you could perhaps substract (0.25% credits or 0.50%, etc, adapt as neccesary), from EVERYWHERE, banks, guild deposits, everything. Each week. So interest on hoarding...

There are still a large number of players who have never reached a billion credits and struggle with them. However a small loss it would be for them, it would still be a major discouragement. I'm not keen on this idea, but if it were to happen, there absolutely would have to be a "safe" plateau in which anyone under that would not lose their credits.

That said, there will always be ways that people game this. Converting massive amounts of credits into hypercrates, for example. The risk here is that augments or aug mats might become the new core trading currency.

There are still a large number of players who have never reached a billion credits and struggle with them. However a small loss it would be for them, it would still be a major discouragement. I'm not keen on this idea, but if it were to happen, there absolutely would have to be a "safe" plateau in which anyone under that would not lose their credits.

 

That said, there will always be ways that people game this. Converting massive amounts of credits into hypercrates, for example. The risk here is that augments or aug mats might become the new core trading currency.

The problem is basically a water balloon. Squeeze part of it, the water will go elsewhere. Players will find the least line of resistance to make credits, regardless of any barriers to earning it or any sand pits that drain it away.

I would take away CCs as rewards for seasons. To me, it seemed that inflation was not that bad until seasons started. When it did, everyone suddenly became flush with them and bought all kinds of things from the CM and the GTN prices started creeping up and then shot up as time went on.

As wealth was redistributed, the prices for everything went up since there was more credits in more hands instead of just a few of them.

Price fixing has always also been an issue and to me it seems like more of it is going on. Those with more creds than anyone else can keep buying up everything cheap and setting a new higher standard price, which people will end up accepting because if they don't, they will be losing out on credits.

As to how to combat inflation, i don't know. We definitely do need to get money out of the system somehow or another though. The problem is that over time, more money will get into the system. There's not really a way to have negative outflow of the entire system. All that can be done at this point is to just slow the flow of it coming into the system to limit inflation. It can't really be stopped without extreme measures.

I would take away CCs as rewards for seasons. To me, it seemed that inflation was not that bad until seasons started. When it did, everyone suddenly became flush with them and bought all kinds of things from the CM and the GTN prices started creeping up and then shot up as time went on.

 

As wealth was redistributed, the prices for everything went up since there was more credits in more hands instead of just a few of them.

 

Price fixing has always also been an issue and to me it seems like more of it is going on. Those with more creds than anyone else can keep buying up everything cheap and setting a new higher standard price, which people will end up accepting because if they don't, they will be losing out on credits.

 

As to how to combat inflation, i don't know. We definitely do need to get money out of the system somehow or another though. The problem is that over time, more money will get into the system. There's not really a way to have negative outflow of the entire system. All that can be done at this point is to just slow the flow of it coming into the system to limit inflation. It can't really be stopped without extreme measures.

The hyper-inflation started when Bioware canceled the referral program which stopped people from gaining free Cartel Coins.

There used to be 4-5 pages of nearly all Cartel Market items available and after the referral program was canceled we were lucky to have one full page. The only people now constantly keeping the GTN stocked up were those paying real life cash for items. The result of less items is higher prices.

The primary cause of the hyper-inflation were people who started buying credits from third party sites to counter the rising prices of the GTN items. This was when the most expensive 40 dollar bundles were only 500-900 million credits.

Free Cartel Coins kept the GTN prices low because it created more competition to sell items since there was more supply. Free Cartel Coins do not increase the prices of items on the GTN and free Cartel Coins have no direct negative effect on inflation. People buying credits from third party sites is the root cause.

You can thank the inflation we have on Bioware canceling the referral program, getting rid of credit sinks, and all the players who buy credits from third party websites.

Database performance, if numbers get too high and the DB engine sucks. But hey thats why i say increase also other prices to help "deflate"... Then, in any case if you select other approach, caps should increase, no matter what. As the current situation is not desirable.

DB performance would not be impacted by bigger numbers. The change in column type from an INT to a BIGINT is a size increase, but would almost negligably affect performance considering the overall amount of data being stored, and the fact proper schema and index setup have way more impact than a single column like this. While there are many concerns for inflation, this would not be one of them.

I would take away CCs as rewards for seasons.

The hyper-inflation started when Bioware canceled the referral program which stopped people from gaining free Cartel Coins.

I agree with illgot. Cartel coins are a huge draw for me to follow Galactic Seasons all the way through, and illgot cites a valid causality between the removal of the Friends Referral program, the subsequent drop in the supply of cartel coins, and the resulting inflation (not that such is the only reason we have runaway inflation).

Seriously bad idea to remove CC rewards from Galactic Seasons.

How would you implement this tax? By auto withdrawing a % of a player's credits at the end of the week? From inventory, cargo hold, legacy bank, guild bank? pull from escrow on FTP? Tax on purchases?

Ultimately, however it is done, players will find ways around this. Perhaps it would be something as simple as mailing credits, or depositing in a bank that isn't taxed, or buying high value items, creating a FTP account to hold, etc. And the ones who will find the work arounds, will be the ones it would be most intended for in your example while the rank and file are the ones who would be taxed.

 

IMO, The best solution for this problem won't be done by trying to take from players. That will just cause negativity and likely some way around it will be found. They need to find ways to take credits out of economy by player choice in spending it - not in a punitive manner. But again, to my earlier point that would likely involve taking away from CM. And that ultimately is why this issue has been left to grow and fester.

There are things that cant be controlled in a normal economy, but in SWTOR they can. Developers have Absolute control.

And i said yes, ALL Credit accounts, it really isnt that hard, there has to be a database table with bank info linking to player id.

You substract from there the credits, nothing players can do.

The items, as you see, i said it first, but then keep in mind that if you purchase items (at inflated prices), to avoid the tax, when those items get "deflated" they are going to cost less later, so you will end up losing even more.

Empirical data? Sounds great, can you share them?

 

There is also a process to identify correlation and causality which requires much more than a simple thought experiment. You don't seem to have investigated at all what are the sources of the inflation in the first place. From what I've heard, and I might be wrong, the inflation has been mostly caused by bugs in the game where player have generated tons of credit out of thin air. Even if you very slowly remove a little bit of credit every week, no guarantee that this kind of issue would not happen again, especially that it apparently occurred several times in the past.

 

Moreover, you're not even asking yourself if it's technically possible or easy to do. For instance, what if people send their money through mails, do you expect the server to go through all the mails of everyone to remove 0.5% of the credit in there and that would be an easy thing to do?

 

I'm not saying your ideas are fundamentally bad, but I just want to point out that this is a complex issue and if there was any easy solution to it, I'm sure the dev would have already taken care of the problem. In both cases, your solutions doesn't convince me there is enough thought and investigation behind them to conclude they would work with certainty like you seem to imply.

Supposing you just not triying to troll, ill bite, once..

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12117884.pdf

Just search for "inflation and interest rate correlation", or something like that, and you will get tons of articles and data.

The paper talked about inflation on Islamic countries, i'd guess they have higher inflation rates than in the developed world. The first country that comes to my mind that been suffering from high inflation is Turkey.

The biggest difference between a normal economy and an artificial economy (like credits in SWTOR) is that this "credit economy" is really divided into two parts:

1: Credit costs decided by the game developers. This includes the cost for gearing, crew missions, character and legacy perks, vendor items, traveling, unlocks, etc... These are normal features players would expect to have as they play the game.

2: Credit costs in player to player trade / sales. These are not necessary for advancing the game. These items are either 100% vanity items or items obtainable through game content or mechanics, etc...

The in-game credit costs are not affected by "inflation" and are actually credit sinks that counter what we are calling inflation (rising prices in player to player sales). Over time, we've actually seen some of these reduced (like class skill training). Meanwhile, everything we do has potential to generate new credits into the game.

As inflation only affects player to player sales, there's another premium currency (Cartel Coins) that drives this process. Players can avoid spending credits by spending CCs on a majority of these items. As a result, players can turn CCs into credits through trade. This mechanic increases revenue from the game.

You don't have to read carefully between the lines to see why this game lacks sufficient credit sinks and why the band-aid "solutions" are to nerf credit rewards. The answer is right in front of you.

The biggest difference between a normal economy and an artificial economy (like credits in SWTOR) is that this "credit economy" is really divided into two parts:

 

1: Credit costs decided by the game developers. This includes the cost for gearing, crew missions, character and legacy perks, vendor items, traveling, unlocks, etc... These are normal features players would expect to have as they play the game.

 

2: Credit costs in player to player trade / sales. These are not necessary for advancing the game. These items are either 100% vanity items or items obtainable through game content or mechanics, etc...

 

The in-game credit costs are not affected by "inflation" and are actually credit sinks that counter what we are calling inflation (rising prices in player to player sales). Over time, we've actually seen some of these reduced (like class skill training). Meanwhile, everything we do has potential to generate new credits into the game.

 

As inflation only affects player to player sales, there's another premium currency (Cartel Coins) that drives this process. Players can avoid spending credits by spending CCs on a majority of these items. As a result, players can turn CCs into credits through trade. This mechanic increases revenue from the game.

 

You don't have to read carefully between the lines to see why this game lacks sufficient credit sinks and why the band-aid "solutions" are to nerf credit rewards. The answer is right in front of you.

Yes probably, but thats why at the very least i recommended increasing the caps, or credits will be substituted by another means of exchange, be it by banter or something else taking credit's place.

And that would be awful

OP, profoundly pissing people off —not just some people but everybody—by directly robbing them is NOT how you retain your player base.

 

Equally important, you're asking the crew who've engineered a known issues list a mile long to do this programming. Good luck on them programming your idea right the first time. One decimal percentage off, and everyone's broke.

You are not being robbed,... Thats why i said, they could even make an story quest, that the Republic/Empire needs to implement this tax to support the war effort !!.

You then could see new and more ships and stuff on fleet, so you feel your money is going to the war effort !!

You just add the tax into the purchase price on the GTN.

If you want to sell something and get a million credits for it, you just list it for enough credits over what you want to make and have the buyer pay the tax.

There are already too many sells outside GTN, further increases of the tax would make it so everyone sells by trading chat

Inflation isn't nearly as big a problem (in a game) as people make it out to be.

 

If trades become item for item instead of Item for credits, it's still a trade and very much in the spirit of trade. If today, Item X sells for 250M credits and Item Y sells for 250M credits, Item X can be traded straight across for Item Y. If inflation causes those amounts to quadruple in 1 year, Item X is still worth item Y. It's all relative.

 

As credit inflation rises, the prices for everything we sell also rise accordingly. So in the same scenario mentioned above, the items you craft can be sold for prices reflecting inflation. Same with Materials and looted items that aren't bound. It takes the same amount of time and effort through trade to acquire the amount of credits required to purchase another player's item, both before and after inflation. The only people really affected by inflation are those that don't use player to player sales to bolster their credit intake. Ironically, they tend to complain (to Bioware) about inflation, begging them to do something and Bioware's fall-to response continues to be "nerf credit rewards."

 

It is impossible to stop inflation. It can only be slowed down. To do that requires ample credit sinks and a system that can't be side-stepped. I have already listed several credit sink ideas in other topics exactly like this one, as have others. Even if they implemented all the reasonable suggestions (basically everything other than just flat-out stealing a percentage of our credits), they would need to stop funneling all the vanity stuff through the Cartel Market (requiring cartel coins for purchases) and offer "buyers" the choice of using CCs or credits. But then their profits would go way down which in turn could bring about a premature end to this game.

 

So my vote is to not worry about it (inflation). If the devs aren't going to take credit sinks seriously (7.0's removal of the gearing credit sinks without adding anything to replace them has a profound effect on inflation), then they shouldn't nerf credit rewards either. In game credit prices (from vendors and whatnot) have not risen due to "inflation." They remain static. That means every single vanity item can be bought with Cartel Coins by players without enough credits to buy something that was originally purchased by someone else with CCs. Every single item that is not a CM item that can still be traded can either be acquired through vendors, crafting, or game content by players that set out to get those items.

 

TL,DR:

Inflation is a made up "problem."

In first solution i gave, its just "learn to live with inflation", by increasing the caps and let it happen. But to be fair this hits new players the most.

And has the countereffect of making some of the fixed prices stuff trivial. Like for example Strongholds prices and room unlocks. In inflation driven, they should be market driven !!

This got out of hand to be honest, should have been dealt with beforehand.

I agree with illgot. Cartel coins are a huge draw for me to follow Galactic Seasons all the way through, and illgot cites a valid causality between the removal of the Friends Referral program, the subsequent drop in the supply of cartel coins, and the resulting inflation (not that such is the only reason we have runaway inflation).

 

Seriously bad idea to remove CC rewards from Galactic Seasons.

Yeah, a take on removing more CCs from circulation worsens inflation rather than helping it. Fewer players having access to high-demand items increases the cost they go for!

You are not being robbed,... Thats why i said, they could even make an story quest, that the Republic/Empire needs to implement this tax to support the war effort !!.

 

You then could see new and more ships and stuff on fleet, so you feel your money is going to the war effort !!

You're kind of playing semantics that the player isn't being robbed. You mention story quest explaining this - so would paying this tax be contingent on starting/completing this quest (which again takes dev resources that seem to be scarce these days)? I would assume it wouldn't as that would create a loophole where people could avoid it - so semantics aside, you are implementing a new system with the intent of removing earned gains from players with no opt-in.

I think it has been explained and agreed that there are 2 economies here. 1) the game economy 2)Player based trade economy.

Economy 1 is really not affected by the inflation as the devs control that pricing and nothing is really outlandish there.

Economy 2 is what has gone out of control and the reason have been discussed in this thread and in many others over the years (exploits, easy credit generation via heroics, removal of training costs, etc)

Now, is your goal of lowering inflation to make the costs of these cosmetic goods easier to obtain without having to spend real money? If so, IMO that has to be done in a voluntary way not a mandatory tax and here's why:

The option to buy many of these items without having billions of credits is there - 1) via cartel coins (for cosmetic items) -o-r 2) time and grinding (things like player crafted items - Augments, etc)

If you implement a system which takes away significant amounts of credits (which it would have to be to reduce the credits in circulation) from players who have invested either lots of real world money or lots of time into the game - you disincentivize both actions which would be very harmful for the game.

So while it is a noble goal to try and make things more affordable for players, the solution can't be done in the way you suggest without fallout which harms the game's viability.

This game is very resource strapped right now. They can't produce content at the same quantity as other MMOs in the marketplace. To take the steps you suggest requires these dev resources which will upset some and lead to 1) sub cancellations and 2) less spending of real money to buy cartel coins.

This is why the tax system shouldn't be the solution. You may be correct that this way could combat inflation (still think there will be loopholes exploited) but if it comes at the expense of people spending less buying cartel coins or cancelling subscriptions - it isn't worth it for the health of the game for the sake of optional/cosmetic purchases with in game currency.

You're kind of playing semantics that the player isn't being robbed. You mention story quest explaining this - so would paying this tax be contingent on starting/completing this quest (which again takes dev resources that seem to be scarce these days)? I would assume it wouldn't as that would create a loophole where people could avoid it - so semantics aside, you are implementing a new system with the intent of removing earned gains from players with no opt-in.

 

I think it has been explained and agreed that there are 2 economies here. 1) the game economy 2)Player based trade economy.

 

Economy 1 is really not affected by the inflation as the devs control that pricing and nothing is really outlandish there.

Economy 2 is what has gone out of control and the reason have been discussed in this thread and in many others over the years (exploits, easy credit generation via heroics, removal of training costs, etc)

 

Now, is your goal of lowering inflation to make the costs of these cosmetic goods easier to obtain without having to spend real money? If so, IMO that has to be done in a voluntary way not a mandatory tax and here's why:

 

The option to buy many of these items without having billions of credits is there - 1) via cartel coins (for cosmetic items) -o-r 2) time and grinding (things like player crafted items - Augments, etc)

If you implement a system which takes away significant amounts of credits (which it would have to be to reduce the credits in circulation) from players who have invested either lots of real world money or lots of time into the game - you disincentivize both actions which would be very harmful for the game.

 

So while it is a noble goal to try and make things more affordable for players, the solution can't be done in the way you suggest without fallout which harms the game's viability.

 

This game is very resource strapped right now. They can't produce content at the same quantity as other MMOs in the marketplace. To take the steps you suggest requires these dev resources which will upset some and lead to 1) sub cancellations and 2) less spending of real money to buy cartel coins.

 

This is why the tax system shouldn't be the solution. You may be correct that this way could combat inflation (still think there will be loopholes exploited) but if it comes at the expense of people spending less buying cartel coins or cancelling subscriptions - it isn't worth it for the health of the game for the sake of optional/cosmetic purchases with in game currency.

Man, the content would be a small conversation from Supreme Chancellor/Emperor, how you got enourmous wealth and how good for the Republic/Empire is you start contributing for the war effort...

Not much else.

Quest would be mandatory of course.

Then Copy/paste more ships into fleet, maybe even some starting planets above

In first solution i gave, its just "learn to live with inflation", by increasing the caps and let it happen. But to be fair this hits new players the most.

 

And has the countereffect of making some of the fixed prices stuff trivial. Like for example Strongholds prices and room unlocks. In inflation driven, they should be market driven !!

 

This got out of hand to be honest, should have been dealt with beforehand.

That's why my opinion is that it's really not a big deal and that there is no point in stressing too much about player-pricing. In order to avoid the 1M (F2P) credit cap, a subscription is required. So assuming that the new players that are "struggling" to amass credits are subbed, there is still a means for them to get "cool" CM stuff through Subscription, security key, achievement and Galactic Season Cartel Coin grants. New players shouldn't expect to have everything that exists right away, but they have the advantage of having a much larger variety of cosmetic / vanity items to choose from at the beginning. Long time players have probably stopped using many vanity things they thought were cool back in 2013 or 2014 now that we have so many more choices.

I feel people should quit being so over-dramatic about inflation in player to player trade. It's so easy to use the same feature to make credits if a player just makes an effort. Sometimes all they need to do is ask for advice on where to start. Once they get their foot in the door, they figure the rest out real quick. Unfortunately, some people refuse to make the effort, which to me is weird, since not having the means to acquire what they want is what they come here to complain about ( "Bioware, DO SOMETHING!!!" )

Man, the content would be a small conversation from Supreme Chancellor/Emperor, how you got enourmous wealth and how good for the Republic/Empire is you start contributing for the war effort...

 

Not much else.

 

Quest would be mandatory of course.

 

Then Copy/paste more ships into fleet, maybe even some starting planets above

You act like scripting a small conversation and the tax is like some quick little development. There is code that has to be written to force this mandatory quest so that people can't skip it, auto remove that % of credits across all cargo hold, character inventory, etc There is a level of complexity in doing this, especially going into older code and making sure the changes don't affect anything else. Then that development work needs to be QA'd set to run on a schedule, etc. This takes time and resources regardless of how small you think it is.

Not to mention my last point. Taking away earned credits in game will lead to people unsubbing and/or spending less real world money on Cartel Coins - a negative to the game's revenue, all so that some players can buy cosmetics from each other easier. This won't lead to revenue generation, so why would they undertake this change?

That's not to say they shouldn't try and combat inflation, just that I disagree with your proposal to do it in a punitive way vs an opt-in sink - not to mention that the mandated way of forcing this quest isn't as easy a development in reality that you seem to think it would be.

Third take: inflation is not an issue. If the problem is that people have too many credits then they can afford the prices. Of course this presumes that a new player does not have the right to buy the most expensive things as soon as they download the game.

inflation is only an issue because of credit caps. Credit caps + inflation means at some point credits will become useless because players won't be able to carry anymore. Once that happens everyone will drop credits and we will turn to a barter system.

inflation is only an issue because of credit caps. Credit caps + inflation means at some point credits will become useless because players won't be able to carry anymore. Once that happens everyone will drop credits and we will turn to a barter system.

Which is exactly why i am proposing to safe credit system, either by increasing caps or reducing credits. Devs choice.

But they gotta take one!

The difference between this and a normal economy is that there is no actual need for credits. Nobody is going to starve for lack of credits or that new shiny armor.

The main issue with inflation is that the game has a declining population. Fewer players = less competition on GTN = less incentive to lower prices to remain competitive.

All you have to do is look at how prices have exploded on GTN since 7.0 hit. I've been doing the mat selling thing for as long as I've been playing and, every time there has been a player exodus, GTN has gone through the roof. It is crazy what mats are going for right now.

As for the other taxes (why do the kids on these boards always think that higher taxes are the answer to everything?), let's take a look at that and apply it to my situation.

The way I sell Mats is that the Purples and Oranges are sold according to current GTN value. Everything else is sold according to a system that I put in place before the Dread Masters were a thing. This helps create incentives for people to get on GTN as they can find the blues and greens at 2.0 pricing. Sometimes, I'll also throw some purples on GTN at a highway robbery price just to nudge GTN a little. Occasionally, I will buy and resell a stack of purples if they're way below market value but, given that all 7 of my toons are gatherers, that's kind of rare.

So you decide to introduce a new tax to "balance" inflation. All right. I'll stop the occasional purple giveaway and jack blues. Another tax? I'll jack greens. Another tax? At this point, I may decide that it's just not worth the time or creds to mine mats so GTN and the crafters that frequent GTN lose another source of easy mats. This makes GTN less useful and causes those crafters to decide whether it's worth creating a couple toons solely for gathering purposes or whether they should just not bother.

Congratulations, you've now created supply chain issues to go along with your inflation.

Then there's the other option of just robbing players of their credits. While this idea is in line with EA/Bioware/s weirdly punitive approach to their player base of punishing people for turning on the game, a good look at SWTOR's dwindling player base would indicate that this approach is not working. The fact of the matter is that, the more SWTOR does things like "Oh, you now have to complete weeklies before the end of the week" or "Oh, we're just going to start stealing credits from you.....because...reasons?", the more that I and my $15 a month lean towards the notion that the game isn't worth playing anymore. The more that you run off actual subscribers, the less money EA has to keep the lights on as well as to justify the upcoming 2023 non-exclusive license costs. (Admittedly, the decision has almost certainly already been made whether or not to close up shop in late 2022/2023 so my $15 probably doesn't have that much weight anymore if the decision is negative.)

Ultimately, if EA/Bioware really wants to solve in-game inflation, the more they have to start shifting their thinking to the carrot of player retention/attraction and away from the stick of punishing their player base.