Eric Musco, Lead Producer for SWTOR, took to the forums to respond to initial community feedback about BioWare’s planned solutions to fix the hyperinflation we’re experiencing in the game.
In case you missed it, BioWare is going to be making a bunch of changes to help fix SWTOR’s economy and bring down inflation. We still don’t know what their long-term plan is, but they have announced the first batch of changes that will be coming in 7.2.1 including:
- Quick Travel now has a credit cost associated, with a minimum cost of 100 credits and a maximum cost of 5000. The cost to travel is dependent on the distance traveled.
- Priority Transport Terminal now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between daily areas.
- Travel to Strongholds now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between planets.
- Repair cost formulas have been adjusted across the entirety of the game so that repair costs increase in relation to item level.
- Durability of equipment should now be lost at a LOWER rate on death, but a slightly HIGHER rate in normal gameplay.
BioWare is fully aware that these are incredibly small changes that will do almost nothing on their own. They have done this deliberately in order to avoid crashing or otherwise ruining the economy. Eric emphasized it is very important that the changes are made slowly and that the impacts are monitored closely.
He also specifically addressed some other common themes in the feedback including the fact that the current batch of changes will not affect the rich at all, that we need more credit sinks, Amplifiers as a solution, and charging credits to travel to your SH.
Here’s Eric’s full statement:
Hey folks,
First off, thank you all for the feedback here in the thread and especially for those who have jumped on PTS and played around with the changes. There are some great points of feedback and questions in the thread and I want to respond to some of the themes we are seeing.
These changes are not enough!
You are correct, and we know that, but it is a starting point. It is very important that we make these changes slowly and that we monitor their impacts closely. There are some excellent suggestions in this thread for further changes that are already in the works. As we said up front, you should expect to see changes that focus on the economy throughout the next few updates.
We want to start small and in targeted ways. More changes are coming in future updates.
Let me give you some specifics based on suggestions I am seeing in the thread. We know that players exchanging high value items will often trade outside of the GTN. Either because of its sale cap, or to avoid getting taxed at all on the transaction. This is likely the place you will see a number of changes coming after 7.2.1 to stop the loophole, and to start properly taxing high value trades.
You’re Not Hurting the Rich!
Well, we aren’t trying to, not specifically. Inflation in its simplest form is about the amount of credits entering the economy against the amount coming out of it. Over time we have shot ourselves in the foot a bit as we have removed or minimized most regular credit sinks (removing training costs, etc).
The goal of these changes is to introduce passive, small credit removal to the game. This way we have credit removal a bit more in line with our credit generation. Removing singular batches of credits from a subset of players would not lower credit inflation (although it is an important component of it), and could not replace this type of passive removal.
We Need Credit Sinks
We hear you that it would also be great to have some more “spend a LOT of credits to get something specific” but one consideration is that many of the suggestions being made are one time purchases which do not continually reduce credits. As we have many systems that continually introduce credits, we need more things that reduce credits often and not on a one time basis.
To help balance this, we have been steadily adding credit sinks over the past year or so. Most prominently would be the catch-up mechanic in both Galactic and PvP Seasons. The credit costs in those catch-ups can become quite substantial.
Could You Bring Back Amplifiers?
In short order, no. Our items are not built to have Amplifiers on them since we removed the system. However, the sentiment of this question is solid and is in alignment with what I said earlier, this is another example where we have removed some credit sinks.
The Stronghold Change Particularly Sucks
Yeah, let’s talk about this one and our goal. As we are introducing a variety of passive costs to travel, players will inevitably look to find a way to subvert it, even if it is a small cost.
One way players could do this is to use the SH travel to a planet and then Exit Area. Our concern here isn’t actually for traveling to the SH, it would be a player trying to use that as a stepping stone onto the planet itself.
With that said, we hear you on the sentiment of this one feeling especially punitive, paying to travel to something you paid for. So here is what we are going to try to change it to. We will not charge you to travel to a SH. Instead we would simply apply a travel cost to using Exit Area.
Note that this is not how it is implemented currently so it will require a bit of time to switch. If we can’t make this change in time for launch we will likely do NO charges for SH travel in 7.2.1 and implement the proposed credit cost as noted above in the future.
Thanks all! Keep the feedback coming.
-eric
Source: SWTOR Forums.
In my opinion, BioWare can afford to be significantly more aggressive with the changes since the economy is already quite dysfunctional. The house is already engulfed in flames, you don’t need to worry about water damage from the fire hoses.
That said, I am not an economist, but there is definitely some merit to their likely approach since the economy isn’t broken completely except for the most expensive items.
This is just pure conjecture, I suspect that BioWare plans to introduce credit sinks gradually until the measured inflation rate is at a level they are comfortable with while, hopefully, mitigating quality of life (QoL) issues that will likely return as a result of the introduction of credit sinks.
After they have a system they’re happy with, I think they might bring down the hammer by implementing a bigger change to accelerate the process of bringing the economy back down to Earth.
When I say bigger change, I mean something like doing a credit revaluation or perhaps replacing the currency altogether and have the galaxy run off that new currency instead.
The idea would be to just let the fire burn while you pick out new fire-retardant materials and rebuild the house from the ground up with those new materials.
It’s possible that such a change could be accompanied by the upcoming revamp to the crafting system. Combining such a significant change with a new crafting system would definitely help to get money flowing quickly again, though it’s unclear if the timing will line up.
Again, this is just speculation. BioWare could have a different plan that could work better. Hopefully consulted an actual economist about this and pay closer attention to not shoot themselves in the foot again in the future.
