this is completely wrong, most of the unlocks and authorization items are bought by subscribers that are planning on going pref and don't care about the 1m credit cap, the market doesn't "overprice" items, if they don't sell the prices will gradually be reduced until someone buys them, just in the case of literally all unlocks and authorizations the demand is high enough from subs-going-pref that most items will never dip below a mil

 

and that's not a problem

 

 

 

struggling to comprehend if your suggestion list and this one, in particular, is serious or you just meming, but in case its serious, those vanity cosmetics are literally the reason why this game, and many others that use the same features, are still running

 

again, i hope you were joking but can't be sure on the internet

This would be true in the real world, but in a virtual one, where there are no inventory costs, the only thing that pushes prices down is a lack of inventory, and players are creative about making more space, even if it's only temporary.

Over the past year, I have watched an Outfit Slot Unlock (Account) go from about 10M to over 100M, with it switching hands a few times. Nobody seems to think 100+M is a worthwhile investment to resell this item. That guy is stuck with it until some idiot buys it for that much or they lower their price. But there's very little downward pressure to lower the price so it will sell.

The purpose of this thread is just a symptom of the true problem: greed. And that greed has fueled inflation to unprecedented levels. Some changes have also fueled that, such as the stack cap, as well as referral buying, which I don't know how isn't classified as an exploit. Even though the former was originally meant as a QoL improvement and the latter an incentive program to get players to recommend the game to their friends to try (and hopefully subscribe,) they have had an unintended consequence of fueling the super rich's greed, because the underlying problem is the decreasing value of the Galactic Credit. Until we see signs of the economy being corrected, people will continue to complain about GTN prices.

And OP, if there's a pre-existing thread on the subject, you should've posted in that thread.

over the last few years the GTN has gone nuts.. i used to play the GTN like buying a hypercrate for 30 million then selling the contents and i used to make a nice profit.. But these days the Ultimate hypercrate is selling for nearly a billion credits there is no way to make a profit from that anymore.. i'm not exactly short of credits myself, i have 3.7 billion but No way am i spending nearly a billion on one hypercrate

The thing is, other people are willing to pay that.

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it"

Of course the ending of the referral program just spiked the prices of CM items by undercutting supply. Must really be stinging for all the people who were blaming it for inflation (including the post right above yours...). The ultimate hypercrate went up almost 50% within 2 weeks of the ref program ending.

over the last few years the GTN has gone nuts.. i used to play the GTN like buying a hypercrate for 30 million then selling the contents and i used to make a nice profit.. But these days the Ultimate hypercrate is selling for nearly a billion credits there is no way to make a profit from that anymore.. i'm not exactly short of credits myself, i have 3.7 billion but No way am i spending nearly a billion on one hypercrate

then don't, it seems other people are happy to do so

There is no doubt some items that are overpriced on the GTN.

Seen some green and white reuglar NPC loot that is up for stupid prices. Even seen some starter level vendor bought equipment selling for over double or triple the vendor price, wich is bonkers.

So, yes, the GTN do have overpriced stuff, that has no business being there in the first place.

Of course the ending of the referral program just spiked the prices of CM items by undercutting supply. Must really be stinging for all the people who were blaming it for inflation (including the post right above yours...). The ultimate hypercrate went up almost 50% within 2 weeks of the ref program ending.

I hadn't thought about this; there is direct correlation. The inflated prices don't bother me, I was interested in why they'd gone up and this post is a good explanation.

I wonder if the people complaining about "overpriced" only had one way of making credits and that way is now ruined for them? I use several ways and am always able to afford to buy things I want at any price from the GTN (I'm looking at you decorations).

I hadn't thought about this; there is direct correlation. The inflated prices don't bother me, I was interested in why they'd gone up and this post is a good explanation.

I wonder if the people complaining about "overpriced" only had one way of making credits and that way is now ruined for them? I use several ways and am always able to afford to buy things I want at any price from the GTN (I'm looking at you decorations).

I used to craft, etc, but these days I make my money on flipping gtn stuff, especially decos...lol. The odd time I craft the stuff from kai, get the item checked off for the achievement and then sell it. Used to buy and sell crates too, but there's no profit in it these days, unless you bought them a few months ago...lol. Decos are the best for flipping, as long as you are smart about it. Some armour pieces are good too.

I used to craft, etc, but these days I make my money on flipping gtn stuff, especially decos...lol. The odd time I craft the stuff from kai, get the item checked off for the achievement and then sell it. Used to buy and sell crates too, but there's no profit in it these days, unless you bought them a few months ago...lol. Decos are the best for flipping, as long as you are smart about it. Some armour pieces are good too.

Up until recently, all of my GTN listings were crafted and I’d make 1/2-1 billion credits a week. But since they nerfed the referral program, the cost of CM items has risen due to less supply.

I knew this was going to happen (and even gave fair warning on the forums), so when it was announced I started buying up CM items I considered too cheap and I have been slowly flipping them on the GTN and using the profits to buy more. My GTN income has accelerated since doing this because many people still haven’t twigged that inflation is in run away mode due to BioWare reducing supply of CC.

Even crafted items have all gone up 10-20% across the board, but many players still haven’t twigged to this and you can buy and flip these too. This is what I’ve been doing on DM and Satele to get credits because I’ve no crafting network setup there and I only started on DM and went onto Satele to get more GS points done.

On SF I’m now making around 2-3 Billion credits a week and not crafting at all now.

On SS I still had a few million credits, so I used it to start buying cheap crafted items to flip. I’m now making 100mil a week there.

On DM where I had less than 5,000 credits (basically starting like a new player), I’m now making 5 mill a week flipping a handful of crafted stuff that’s listed too low. So anyone who says you can’t make credits as new player isn’t trying.

As more and more CCs from peoples stock piles are used up, the more inflation will continue until we have hyperinflation. Probably the most cost effective CC to credit flip is “server character slots”. They cost 600CC and you can sell them for 170,000,000 to 220,000,000. That is much better than selling any armor or boxes. They cost the same CC’s as most CM dyes too that I am buying up on the GTN for less than 1 million each. So anyone buying CM dyes with CCs to flip are really wasting their CCs. It blows my mind when I see these CM dyes selling lower than crafted ones.

I just wish I had more room to store all the CM dyes I’ve been buying for less than 2 mill because in 4-12 months they’ll be worth 100-1000x more than they are being sold for now.

Credits don't go away when spent (not entirely, the 8% tax means each generated credit must change hands 12.5x to be destroyed) but most items are effectively consumed(permanently off-market) when used in the game. It'd be like if houses were only purchaseable when new, but higher prices had little impact on increasing supply.

Prices would come down if we could somehow invest credits into higher production rates(increasing supply and decreasing the credits in circulation). They could also arbitrarily increase the production rates on materials or the like which would lead to corresponding declines in the prices of those items.

Credits don't go away when spent (not entirely, the 8% tax means each generated credit must change hands 12.5x to be destroyed) but most items are effectively consumed(permanently off-market) when used in the game. It'd be like if houses were only purchaseable when new, but higher prices had little impact on increasing supply.

 

Prices would come down if we could somehow invest credits into higher production rates(increasing supply and decreasing the credits in circulation). They could also arbitrarily increase the production rates on materials or the like which would lead to corresponding declines in the prices of those items.

So true, it’s why we have inflation staring to ramp up higher.

Some of us are capitalising on that by buying cheap now and storing to sell late.

Up until recently, all of my GTN listings were crafted and I’d make 1/2-1 billion credits a week. But since they nerfed the referral program, the cost of CM items has risen due to less supply.

Why would the loss of the referral program result in a lower supply of CM items? Do we have any evidence that this has actually happened or is it purely speculative? I suspect that any dent in CC available for purchasing has been more than made up for by the massive amounts of CC being handed out as GS rewards; I have more CC right now on hand than I've ever had due to the GS system; I suspect I'm not the only one.

Only the devs can say with any objective knowledge how much CC is in the game now versus when the referral program was active but I suspect there's way more CC floating around now than before which by the logic being used would actually mean GTN prices should be decreasing rather than increasing.

Perhaps the difference is that players are spending the CC on themselves rather than flipping cc to credits? That would mean a shift in buying patterns rather than CC drying up and it does support the idea that supply has been reduced, but we still do not know. Also if this were the case, players spending CC on themselves would mean a decrease in demand for GTN listed items as they are just buying the same items from another source with another currency. So, both supply AND demand decrease.

Perhaps the loss of referral whales created a bottle neck on available hypercrates available for credits? That would certainly have a direct impact on everything else which is sold downstream and dry up supplies (if supply has in fact been reduced). But then, that wouldn't explain why consumables like the Master's Datacron continues to climb in price.

I knew this was going to happen (and even gave fair warning on the forums), so when it was announced I started buying up CM items I considered too cheap and I have been slowly flipping them on the GTN and using the profits to buy more. My GTN income has accelerated since doing this because many people still haven’t twigged that inflation is in run away mode due to BioWare reducing supply of CC.

You, and everyone else. I believe that's called a speculation bubble. Most of the big credit items I've sold in the last few months were to flippers, not consumers. Then I watch them get listed over and over again for months, more often than not dropping down to a point where the flipper barely salvages the entire scheme.

I feel like, as of late, most people who watch the GTN are just trying to flip items rather than consume it... also reducing (reasonably priced) supply. Newer players have no choice but to use credit sellers if they are going to buy off of the GTN which creates inflation (credits aren't really in the economy before an actual player buys them with the intention of spending them).

If you were ahead of the curve on this, then I think that's smart business sense but at this point, half the player base is trying to flip for profit and it just feeds into a cycle which doesn't correct itself quickly.

Why would the loss of the referral program result in a lower supply of CM items? Do we have any evidence that this has actually happened or is it purely speculative? I suspect that any dent in CC available for purchasing has been more than made up for by the massive amounts of CC being handed out as GS rewards; I have more CC right now on hand than I've ever had due to the GS system; I suspect I'm not the only one.

 

Only the devs can say with any objective knowledge how much CC is in the game now versus when the referral program was active but I suspect there's way more CC floating around now than before which by the logic being used would actually mean GTN prices should be decreasing rather than increasing.

 

Perhaps the difference is that players are spending the CC on themselves rather than flipping cc to credits? That would mean a shift in buying patterns rather than CC drying up and it does support the idea that supply has been reduced, but we still do not know. Also if this were the case, players spending CC on themselves would mean a decrease in demand for GTN listed items as they are just buying the same items from another source with another currency. So, both supply AND demand decrease.

 

Perhaps the loss of referral whales created a bottle neck on available hypercrates available for credits? That would certainly have a direct impact on everything else which is sold downstream and dry up supplies (if supply has in fact been reduced). But then, that wouldn't explain why consumables like the Master's Datacron continues to climb in price.

Because the referral program gave you free CCs. With the removal of it, those new cartel coin referrals have stopped and the residual CCs are drying up as people leave the game still.

I personally use to get between 1000-5000 CC a month from my signature referrals. That’s now gone and it’s a few hundred. I’m assuming that everyone else who used to get free CCs this way are in a similar situation. Which means there are less free CCs available for people to buy CM items to list on the GTN.

I’ve stopped spending my pool of CCs and I’m saving what I have left to open up collection items I buy on the GTN.

There is a distinct lack of CM supply at the moment due to less free CCs. If you play the GTN market as much as I do, you can see it. That’s what’s driving prices up across the board, including crafted items. Because people who craft to make credits want to be able to afford the CM items that are increasing in price.

You don’t have to believe me, but I’ve been right in all predictions to do with this so far. Inflation will continue and crafted items you once paid sub 100,000 for will soon be 1 million. Many are already over 500,000.

You don’t have to believe me, but I’ve been right in all predictions to do with this so far. Inflation will continue and crafted items you once paid sub 100,000 for will soon be 1 million. Many are already over 500,000.

Selling low lvl crafted items for this ridiculously high prices 500k a piece, it's a greed and no need to create a story to cover this greed behind. The cost of mats obtained from ground or companion missions, did not change, then why the price of ready items did. Because of greed. This greed will ultimately destroy the swtor game from inside. It will become a game for the rich folks only, those few who plays a lot and buy/sell very expensive silver, gold and platinum items between themself. The number of other random players will slowly decrease, as they see that market is slowly going for the billions "worth" items. The uncontrolled greed will destroy swtor. When Bioware will shut down servers due to lack of players those whales sitting on billions will realise how bad mistake was to wind up the prices to ridiculous levels.

Selling low lvl crafted items for this ridiculously high prices 500k a piece, it's a greed and no need to create a story to cover this greed behind. The cost of mats obtained from ground or companion missions, did not change, then why the price of ready items did. Because of greed. This greed will ultimately destroy the swtor game from inside. It will become a game for the rich folks only, those few who plays a lot and buy/sell very expensive silver, gold and platinum items between themself. The number of other random players will slowly decrease, as they see that market is slowly going for the billions "worth" items. The uncontrolled greed will destroy swtor. When Bioware will shut down servers due to lack of players those whales sitting on billions will realise how bad mistake was to wind up the prices to ridiculous levels.

Agreed, it is pure greed, more so by a particular player who constantly brags about how many millions they make, while also starting a thread about not affording the new Xpac because they had to buy the new grade 11 upgrade, which was 500k (at the time) It is generally just greed. However regardless of threads like this about overpriced items on GTN, or other similar threads that crop up constantly, BW- nor anyone else, has any say over what players list there items at. Crafted or brought items. So threads like this are really just pointless.

To me, if as a player you consider a item, any item over-priced. Then don't buy it. If you do, then as a player you are just as much, part of the problem, as the ones selling it.

Selling low lvl crafted items for this ridiculously high prices 500k a piece, it's a greed and no need to create a story to cover this greed behind. The cost of mats obtained from ground or companion missions, did not change, then why the price of ready items did. Because of greed. This greed will ultimately destroy the swtor game from inside. It will become a game for the rich folks only, those few who plays a lot and buy/sell very expensive silver, gold and platinum items between themself. The number of other random players will slowly decrease, as they see that market is slowly going for the billions "worth" items. The uncontrolled greed will destroy swtor. When Bioware will shut down servers due to lack of players those whales sitting on billions will realise how bad mistake was to wind up the prices to ridiculous levels.

It’s called a free market. Crafted items can be made by anyone in the game who can be bothered. It’s on them if they choose to buy my stuff on the GTN at the prices I list. No one is forcing or tricking them. And obviously they have the credits if they can drop that many on something.

It’s not greed, it’s smart business acumen. It means I get enough credits to buy CM stuff I want and I don’t need to spend my whole time farming and crafting. No one is putting a gun to these people and telling them to buy. They can just as easily spend their own game time crafting. I provide a service by crafting and listing on the GTN. My time costs credits, who are you to decide how much my time is worth.

If people don’t like it, craft your own stuff to use and don’t be lazy.

Free market, sure, anyone can trade anything, for whatever price they want. The problem starts when only a narrow group of moguls sells the gold and platinum items, because only they can afford CM packs. It's not directly their fault. The problem starts from Bioware devs don't care about the situation or just have their own timeplan to close servers in some fixed date. They keep CM packs at high price, and keep a low chance to roll gold/platinum items from packs. As a result, only a few items on GTN for which whales automatically demand ridiculous prices, awaiting the other whales. Some cool armors are not even posted on GTN anymore, either they are kept away from GTN or just nobody had a chance to win them.

I remember times when greed was not a part of bussiness on GTN, market was full of nice items posted in decent prices. It only gets worse each year. I've got 32 alts, and finding a decent armor set now in a decent price is almost impossible. I'm slowly loosing interest in swtor and I bet many players have similar problem. Cannot dress their multiple characters in unique armors off the GTN because they can't afford them.

can't really complain about cost of cm items, if prices are too high (in your opinion), just buy cartel coins and buy the items then sell them cheaper on gtn, the supply more or less decided by players and the demand (and as such, the price) is the same

greed seems to be your problem as well, since you don't wanna reduce the prices of cm items by buying them yourself with cc and selling on gtn, just like ppl who have cc/cm items are greedy and want to sell at the highest price the market is willing to pay

pretty ironic

can't really complain about cost of cm items, if prices are too high (in your opinion), just buy cartel coins and buy the items then sell them cheaper on gtn, the supply more or less decided by players and the demand (and as such, the price) is the same

 

greed seems to be your problem as well, since you don't wanna reduce the prices of cm items by buying them yourself with cc and selling on gtn, just like ppl who have cc/cm items are greedy and want to sell at the highest price the market is willing to pay

 

pretty ironic

Good post.

What I see as the biggest problem is that people just have no patience. If they see something they want, they have to have it NOW!. For that reason, people will pay high prices and for that same reason, people will complain about the high prices.

Illustrating my point are the recent complaints about GS and its limited PO re-roll design. People were freaking out because they didn't like some of the POs they were assigned. All they have to do is skip those ones they hate when they don't have re-rolls. There's plenty of time to complete the season before it ends. But people want to be done NOW! Bioware even gave the CC option specifically for those people and they complain that it's a money-grab. They rolled out the credit sink catch-up option and people think they're evil.

Another example is the grindy achievements. People see some of the event ones and complain saying they won't be wasting their time. People act like you have to spend every waking moment getting that achievement done NOW, when it was really designed to be done over a long period of time.

When it comes to credits, people that complain either don't want to invest the time to learn and adapt with the game's economy or they don't want to play the game very much. They just want what they want NOW!

What I see as the biggest problem is that people just have no patience. If they see something they want, they have to have it NOW!. For that reason, people will pay high prices and for that same reason, people will complain about the high prices.

although I understand your point I don't see this as a problem whatsoever. as with a lot of things people who have patience and are willing to wait will be able to get better deals/cheaper price on the items they want, people who want things NOW for that instant gratification are often able to get that but are forced to pay more

I kinda agree with achievements but with the [Rampage Achievement Boost] item that you can gain now hopefully there will be more cartel market items that makes achievement hunting and in particular the grinding achievements easier to obtain, as long as people are willing to pay

games like this is a business after all, increasing microtransactions is smart and generally harmless for the player base when its only cosmetics

although I understand your point I don't see this as a problem whatsoever. as with a lot of things people who have patience and are willing to wait will be able to get better deals/cheaper price on the items they want, people who want things NOW for that instant gratification are often able to get that but are forced to pay more

 

I kinda agree with achievements but with the [Rampage Achievement Boost] item that you can gain now hopefully there will be more cartel market items that makes achievement hunting and in particular the grinding achievements easier to obtain, as long as people are willing to pay

 

games like this is a business after all, increasing microtransactions is smart and generally harmless for the player base when its only cosmetics

Those with patience may eventually see lower prices, but the floor for those lower prices has risen with inflation. And this last round of inflation jacked the prices on just about everything. That's a bitter pill to swallow for anyone that knows what items used to go for.

Those with patience may eventually see lower prices, but the floor for those lower prices has risen with inflation. And this last round of inflation jacked the prices on just about everything. That's a bitter pill to swallow for anyone that knows what items used to go for.

Here is what i think they need to do Because prices are so dumb now, Allow the free players and preferred Status players have a no limit credit cap like subs. As it stands now you could probably put that million credit cap in a Jawa gumball machine, and get 1 Jawa Gumball...

OR if they were smart offer something to subside and delete 90% of the credits off the servers and install a NPC that offers 90 day tokens for credits... anything just freaking put something useful in to get rid of these credits lol...

it just occurred to me what they could do, offer crates for credits like they use to do of random items THAT "Could" be Decent...

The "Free Market" only works when everyone has perfect information and acts on it -- that includes past prices, sale volume, etc.

We just don't have that in SWTOR, so there's really no way to know what an item is worth.

Any discerning customer and any of the rich will have recorded prices for quite some time. The only problem is, this isn't publicly available information.

Here is what i think they need to do Because prices are so dumb now, Allow the free players and preferred Status players have a no limit credit cap like subs. As it stands now you could probably put that million credit cap in a Jawa gumball machine, and get 1 Jawa Gumball...

 

OR if they were smart offer something to subside and delete 90% of the credits off the servers and install a NPC that offers 90 day tokens for credits... anything just freaking put something useful in to get rid of these credits lol...

 

it just occurred to me what they could do, offer crates for credits like they use to do of random items THAT "Could" be Decent...

Along that line of thinking, what they could do is reset the economy with a new credit conversion/new currency. This is what nations have done in real life to combat inflation is redenomination at an exchange rate at a large amount of the old currency. I don't see the devs doing something like this, as it would piss off all the rich players, even though the ones that made their wealth through legitimate means would have no problem accruing wealth in the new economy, because they know how to do it already. The poor would also complain about having next to nothing again, but as long as credit rewards are not changed, they would have greater purchasing power. It would essentially be resetting the galactic economy. This is basically the nuclear option.

I don't see them even considering something like this until they've raised the GTN sell cap to the limit. Let's hope they exhaust all other options before attempting this. It will cause a huge uproar amongst players when they see the size of their accounts have been dramatically reduced. Something tells me BioWare does not employ an economist on the SWTOR team.

I still think a progressive GTN tax and guild ship upkeep costs are the most palatable methods for reversing inflation.