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The GTN & Economy is not broken, its thriving!


Sazodeha

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I have not played in years. I reactivated and subscribed and like all others, I was shocked by the GTN prices. But the worlds of Star Wars did go on without you, so it's not to be unexpected.

 

I always played with a focus on crafting., So I took inventory of everything I had in the bank on all my characters, pooled the few million I had from previous years, and got to work

 

I played storyline, crafted, gathered, bought, and sold. A year later I have more than enough to buy whatever I want or need on the GTN, have every stronghold available. I also have earned more than enough to actively play the market as I have been for this past year. All my characters have the best gear.

 

I have seen/read a great deal of complaining coupled with even more insanely radical solutions of how DEV should step in, wave their magic code, and "Fix the Economy", when the truth is, as in life, any "Power" stepping in to "Fix" the economy always makes it worse.

 

Fixing the economy is easy. If people would do the work, ie play the game, the influx of materials would balance supply and demand. Fixing the economy has always been about characters actually fixing it themselves rather than expecting a handout or freebie. As the saying goes. you want something done right, do it yourself.

 

ATM the craft node bug is an "Actual" economy-breaking problem, warping supply and demand. I believe there are people breaking them on purpose to create such a shortage to drive up prices. I have been bug reporting for months now and it's still not fixed. So complain about that as it plays a big role in prices being so high

 

Even with all that I still have a great deal to do with stories, chapters, playing, goals, etc. I do not have anything to do with PvP or Starfighter.

 

Peace...

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Sure, if you like being ripped off.

 

I dunno, I LIKE selling my stuff at a below the market rate. It gave me a reputation on my first account, and friends who appreciated that I actually cared about the player base and the newbies who may not have had a lot of funds but still deserved something of high quality.

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There's more to what's broken about the economy than just crafting materials. Look at the prices of Cartel Market items and e.g. 5.X Command Crate cosmetic shells. (Those are a special case, a bit, because they currently impossible to acquire any way *but* from another player.)

 

+ 1

 

Removing content from MMOs has secondary and tertiary effects. For example, I think, based off the GTN, there are two active crafters who can make the purple-black core crystals.

 

Put removed recipes on a vendor. Make said recipes cost credits (to remove them from the economy), and make them BoL.

 

Multiple birds slain with one stone.

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I think the issue is that if you're a new player, who doesn't have ten years of wealth built up, the GTN effectively might as well not exist. Between the vague technical and visual updates, wanting to make sure the game doesn't look "old", the extreme ability simplification, and so on, I think they're planning to draw in and retain new players for a while yet. If they're successful, hopefully they're able to figure something out with the credit supply.

 

Then again, I suppose they're probably fine with billion credit outfit prices that might just funnel people towards the cartel market instead.

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One thing they can do immediately is assign BoL on all companion gifts. Purple level sells from the vendor for 10k. Legendary sells for 250k. I see these being sold at 12k plus for stacks of 100 or more. These aren't being farmed. These are being bought and resold at higher prices, especially the legendary gifts.

 

If someone wants to level up their companions to 50, they can spend 5mil on 500 purples and do so in a few minutes. Or they can buy the companion booster from the GTN or the CM. BoL for gifts would immediately end the price gouging for gifts. I'm willing to bet that a great many newer players don't know about buying those gifts from vendors and go to the GTN where they spend 20% to 50% more depending on the gift.

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One thing they can do immediately is assign BoL on all companion gifts. Purple level sells from the vendor for 10k. Legendary sells for 250k. I see these being sold at 12k plus for stacks of 100 or more. These aren't being farmed. These are being bought and resold at higher prices, especially the legendary gifts.

 

If someone wants to level up their companions to 50, they can spend 5mil on 500 purples and do so in a few minutes. Or they can buy the companion booster from the GTN or the CM. BoL for gifts would immediately end the price gouging for gifts. I'm willing to bet that a great many newer players don't know about buying those gifts from vendors and go to the GTN where they spend 20% to 50% more depending on the gift.

 

I've also seen the same thing happen with the Rak vaccine - a guild I was in temp (very temp) even had a running joke in GC about the 'fools' that would buy these off the GTN after they had listed them for 10k or more (they only cost 2k from a medical droid vendor). Despicable behaviour imo.

 

There are always the same listings too for the crafting materials that can be obtained from the fleet vendor but the same also goes those that try and trick the more wealthier players by trying to simulate their listing is only a few thousand (with a careful combo of numbers/sequence) which if clicked means they just paid 100m for something instead of a 1,000 for eg, so blatantly obvious what they are trying to do.

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One thing they can do immediately is assign BoL on all companion gifts. Purple level sells from the vendor for 10k. Legendary sells for 250k. I see these being sold at 12k plus for stacks of 100 or more. These aren't being farmed. These are being bought and resold at higher prices, especially the legendary gifts.

 

If someone wants to level up their companions to 50, they can spend 5mil on 500 purples and do so in a few minutes. Or they can buy the companion booster from the GTN or the CM. BoL for gifts would immediately end the price gouging for gifts. I'm willing to bet that a great many newer players don't know about buying those gifts from vendors and go to the GTN where they spend 20% to 50% more depending on the gift.

 

this happens in all MMOs, venders sell an item, players can turn around and resell that item for double what the vender sells it at.

 

You know who is buying those stacks of 100? People who can afford it and don't care. This form of reselling doesn't really have a negative effect because it removes credits via the GTN tax. It's actually an active money sink that works on the ignorance or laziness of players.

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People who say this stuff never seem to get that if everyone took the advice and crafted, the GTN would be overloaded with it, pushing sell prices down until you can't benefit from it much anymore. Not to mention the more doing their own crafting, the less wanting to buy from others. The people who thrive off it thrive because most people don't bother, or don't have the time to. Their loss is your gain. It's not designed to be a mutually beneficial system you can all benefit from in similar ways if you just realize you can do it.

 

Now the original SWG that was much more like a mutually beneficial system with the interdependent professions, though it still had its problems of people who just happened to be there at the right time to farm certain resources, for example.

Edited by Rolodome
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Of course you are right but there is also some mentality.

 

Some decide to sell an item at very high price. Some will join, and put the same item at a lower price but sill very high. No one will feel the urge to cut them for a lot, seeing that the product value is totally wrong.

 

Of course the value each estimate is personal but well lets take an example from last night :

 

- Ttile Bounty collector

I had myself one to sell. As everyone i check if there is some and the range of price.

it was going from 900m to 400m ..... Honestly, for a title ? yes its a purple, but i have yet to see one wearing this title.

I could not sell it at all at those range of prices. I felt bad. Something was wrong

And as usual when i go mad, i do silly stuff : sent mine for 1 credit. (YEah i know one of those fool may have bought it and will make a huge profit, but at least i will not make a huge profit for something that is not deserving it.

And after that, i sold about 60 items (weapons, armot set, crystals, emotes and toys at 1 credit too). Those where on my accounts since very long and some from recently, but usually i was keeping them to offering them at new area, until i was harassed by someone who was mad at me for giving away items with for some great value)

 

So until you will have some who wants to profit from others, no matter if the items value they gave it is totally wrong, the economy will be altered.

Edited by mirellha
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this happens in all MMOs, venders sell an item, players can turn around and resell that item for double what the vender sells it at.

 

You know who is buying those stacks of 100? People who can afford it and don't care. This form of reselling doesn't really have a negative effect because it removes credits via the GTN tax. It's actually an active money sink that works on the ignorance or laziness of players.

 

Bioware can easily address this by making any vendor items non listable on the GTN. There by making people go to the vendors to buy the items. And then said items should be BoP.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I think the issue is that if you're a new player, who doesn't have ten years of wealth built up, the GTN effectively might as well not exist. Between the vague technical and visual updates, wanting to make sure the game doesn't look "old", the extreme ability simplification, and so on, I think they're planning to draw in and retain new players for a while yet. If they're successful, hopefully they're able to figure something out with the credit supply.

 

Then again, I suppose they're probably fine with billion credit outfit prices that might just funnel people towards the cartel market instead.

 

To this my point,. When I came back I had but a few million. It took less than a year to be able to buy almost anything I wanted. It's not hard.

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People who say this stuff never seem to get that if everyone took the advice and crafted, the GTN would be overloaded with it, pushing sell prices down until you can't benefit from it much anymore. Not to mention the more doing their own crafting, the less wanting to buy from others. The people who thrive off it thrive because most people don't bother, or don't have the time to. Their loss is your gain. It's not designed to be a mutually beneficial system you can all benefit from in similar ways if you just realize you can do it.

 

Now the original SWG that was much more like a mutually beneficial system with the interdependent professions, though it still had its problems of people who just happened to be there at the right time to farm certain resources, for example.

 

This is the truth. When I played originally towards the beginning my main focus was crafting. Before dev crushed it and all the crafters quit or left. So when I came back, very few were crafting. I was able to craft all the gear I needed for my own characters, harvest, craft, sell. buy low, sell high., etc. In the end, I am now more than comfy $$ wise.

 

If DEV would give crafting meaning again, stop making it pointless, (in a manner of speaking. What cost ungodly amounts in materials and time, you get for free every week, so why the hell would I craft leg MODs?) this problem wouldn't exist.

 

DEV ruined crafting, therefore ruined the market. People who think that crafting is not the root of every other issue regarding prices are not paying attention!! Hell, it made me rich!

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They don’t need to increase it, what they need to do is decrease the amount a player can trade outside of the GTN.

 

This is just plain foolishness and I am guessing you are poor IRL.

 

Do you think the world, capitalism, cares about your sense of morality, what's wrong or right and what should be? This is rainbows and unicorn-ville. A nice idea but imaginary.

 

The market dictates and actually balances when people put their minds to it. Unfortunately, our culture is what it is, reward for no effort made, praise work that's sub-par just because you may hurt their feelings. A sense of deserving when it's not earned. etc.

 

People who play for free have absolutely no right to ask for anything. You want a spot at the table, pay for a subscription. You are playing for free!! What makes you think your needs or wants matter?? Especially for those of us who spend real, hard-earned money to be here. How would that even be fair to the paying customer??

 

the Market is fine,. I think Dev should focus back on crafting, make it viable again, and the market will correct itself, as it should always be in the matters of economy. It broke because DEV destroyed the product by ignoring the base of the said economy by ignoring crafting.

 

Most All the crafters left, paying subscribers (ill never understand that business model) because DEV stopped caring. Look at the harvest bug, it's been broken for months now. This bug has allowed this money exploit to run absolute havoc on the market and they completely turn a blind eye. I have been reporting it daily for months, not a thing has been done. So there is the problem.

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This is just plain foolishness and I am guessing you are poor IRL.

 

Do you think the world, capitalism, cares about your sense of morality, what's wrong or right and what should be? This is rainbows and unicorn-ville. A nice idea but imaginary.

 

The market dictates and actually balances when people put their minds to it. Unfortunately, our culture is what it is, reward for no effort made, praise work that's sub-par just because you may hurt their feelings. A sense of deserving when it's not earned. etc.

 

People who play for free have absolutely no right to ask for anything. You want a spot at the table, pay for a subscription. You are playing for free!! What makes you think your needs or wants matter?? Especially for those of us who spend real, hard-earned money to be here. How would that even be fair to the paying customer??

 

the Market is fine,. I think Dev should focus back on crafting, make it viable again, and the market will correct itself, as it should always be in the matters of economy. It broke because DEV destroyed the product by ignoring the base of the said economy by ignoring crafting.

 

Most All the crafters left, paying subscribers (ill never understand that business model) because DEV stopped caring. Look at the harvest bug, it's been broken for months now. This bug has allowed this money exploit to run absolute havoc on the market and they completely turn a blind eye. I have been reporting it daily for months, not a thing has been done. So there is the problem.

 

"Capitalism - God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor"

 

Ron Swanson

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The reality is this game is just fundamentally not very well managed, and the distorted economy is just another symptom of general incompetence.

 

SWTOR isn't in "maintenance mode," but it isn't truly a AAA title anymore either. EAware has gotten what it wants from it, and will continue to support micro-transactions with the minimum amount of resources it thinks it can get away with.

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The reality is this game is just fundamentally not very well managed, and the distorted economy is just another symptom of general incompetence.

 

SWTOR isn't in "maintenance mode," but it isn't truly a AAA title anymore either. EAware has gotten what it wants from it, and will continue to support micro-transactions with the minimum amount of resources it thinks it can get away with.

 

We need new terminology to define how Bioware handles SWTOR. My vote is for "Maintenance Plus", cause I like to keep things positive.

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The market dictates and actually balances when people put their minds to it. Unfortunately, our culture is what it is, reward for no effort made, praise work that's sub-par just because you may hurt their feelings. A sense of deserving when it's not earned. etc.

The problem is not whether the market balances, but *at what level* it balances. And it's not clear whether it balances in the way you think it does, if a few people in each sector dominate the market by the simple expedient of having enough credits to consistently buy up all the cheap stuff and relist it at their "preferred" price.

 

Sure, that helps other *sellers* (who are almost guaranteed a sale as long as they list items for less than 92% of that "preferred price"), but doesn't help buyers.

People who play for free have absolutely no right to ask for anything. You want a spot at the table, pay for a subscription. You are playing for free!! What makes you think your needs or wants matter?? Especially for those of us who spend real, hard-earned money to be here. How would that even be fair to the paying customer??

You know that only subscribers can post on these forums, right?

the Market is fine,. I think Dev should focus back on crafting, make it viable again, and the market will correct itself, as it should always be in the matters of economy. It broke because DEV destroyed the product by ignoring the base of the said economy by ignoring crafting.

The *crafting* part of the market, sure, maybe (see note above about market dominators), but crafting isn't *all* of the market.

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This is just plain foolishness and I am guessing you are poor IRL.

 

Do you think the world, capitalism, cares about your sense of morality, what's wrong or right and what should be? This is rainbows and unicorn-ville. A nice idea but imaginary.

 

The market dictates and actually balances when people put their minds to it. Unfortunately, our culture is what it is, reward for no effort made, praise work that's sub-par just because you may hurt their feelings. A sense of deserving when it's not earned. etc.

 

People who play for free have absolutely no right to ask for anything. You want a spot at the table, pay for a subscription. You are playing for free!! What makes you think your needs or wants matter?? Especially for those of us who spend real, hard-earned money to be here. How would that even be fair to the paying customer??

 

the Market is fine,. I think Dev should focus back on crafting, make it viable again, and the market will correct itself, as it should always be in the matters of economy. It broke because DEV destroyed the product by ignoring the base of the said economy by ignoring crafting.

 

Most All the crafters left, paying subscribers (ill never understand that business model) because DEV stopped caring. Look at the harvest bug, it's been broken for months now. This bug has allowed this money exploit to run absolute havoc on the market and they completely turn a blind eye. I have been reporting it daily for months, not a thing has been done. So there is the problem.

 

You should see how laughable most of your post is. You don’t even realise you can’t post on the forums if you are free 2 pay. Only Subs can post here and I’ve been paying non stop for a subscription for 10 years

 

You also don’t seem to understand the game that well or it’s system. Sure the crafting has been neglected, but no one has been exploiting it. What ever this harvesting bug is you think generates so many credits that it’s caused the problems, you are sadly mistaken.

 

And calling me poor as some sort of personal attack because you disagree with my points of view is beyond childish. Did you just finish high school or something?

 

If you weren’t so cut throat in you’re world views, maybe you’d realise that the game needs to cater to the new players too or there won’t be a game to play.

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We need new terminology to define how Bioware handles SWTOR. My vote is for "Maintenance Plus", cause I like to keep things positive.

 

I like what you did there, very clever.

I’m more of a glass is half empty sort of girl, So I propose “Carbinite Maintenance” (life support).

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You also don’t seem to understand the game that well or it’s system. Sure the crafting has been neglected, but no one has been exploiting it. What ever this harvesting bug is you think generates so many credits that it’s caused the problems, you are sadly mistaken.

The harvesting bug is the one where gatherable nodes are visible on the minimap and in the world, but can't be harvested. "Broken" nodes also don't have the floaty Aurebesh text by them. They get progressively more numerous until an instance is empty and resets.

 

But the other poster is wrong about the impact of the bug. It doesn't as such *generate* credits, but the scarcity (they are harder to harvest) drives the price up, and the ridiculous quantities of credits washing around *allows* that increase. Probably the only things that mitigate the fallout from this bug are gather-skill missions and buying materials from the Jawa token vendors.

Edited by SteveTheCynic
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You should see how laughable most of your post is. You don’t even realise you can’t post on the forums if you are free 2 pay. Only Subs can post here and I’ve been paying non stop for a subscription for 10 years

 

You also don’t seem to understand the game that well or it’s system. Sure the crafting has been neglected, but no one has been exploiting it. What ever this harvesting bug is you think generates so many credits that it’s caused the problems, you are sadly mistaken.

 

And calling me poor as some sort of personal attack because you disagree with my points of view is beyond childish. Did you just finish high school or something?

 

If you weren’t so cut throat in you’re world views, maybe you’d realise that the game needs to cater to the new players too or there won’t be a game to play.

 

Self-Reflect...

 

None of my post was a personal attack. It was direct -literal (an argument can be "foolishness", that's not personal) I cannot control how you perceive what I wrote or the world, I can only tell you my intent. It was literal. Your post is "idealistic" and even arguably altruistic. To give away high-value items for the sake of a flighty idealism or altruism could be said to be philanthropic, sure, but as a foundational practice is "poor" in wealth building, again, literal. But in a real-life context, imaginary. with maybe small expressions on a bell curve. Being poor is not an insult, philosophically speaking "the poor" have greater wealth than the rich, but that's a long-winded discussion and not for the forum. But again, I cannot control your perception. not to mention and as a side note, it sounds more like your painting a state of poverty as derogatory, shame on you.

 

I also have been a sub since the beginning. Legacy. With a couple of years break between. I have a full understanding of the mechanics and system. I have 18 maxed characters, billions of credits, and all my 'banks' are bursting. Built-up by my "understanding". Then there is the question of my intelligence, schooling, education, and so forth. Of which, I am pretty sure is higher than yourself, given my age (unless you're retired too?) and literal education. But then again, this isn't a "bigger stick" argument. Nonetheless, your statement is an assumption properly said, a personal attack. Perspective to being hypocritical? (that which you see in others, lives in you)

 

then we come to the whole "cutthroat" statement and here it becomes tiresome and redundant. As again, you resort to personal attack (sigh). But, to your point. I guarantee that a "new player", with time, could very easily work their way into billions. almost too easy actually. your point is moot.

 

on f2p posting. out of context and fine, concede., doesn't really matter, the point stands. Whether they can post or not, I simply made the point as the argument was made that the f2p couldn't enter the market because of credit limits. Point made.

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