Eric Musco, Lead Producer for SWTOR, Responds to Community Feedback on Economic Inflation Solutions

In case you missed it, BioWare is going to be making a bunch of changes to help fix Story economy and lower inflation. We still don't know what their long-term strategy is, but they have announced the first batch of modifications that will be can be found in 7.2.1 consisting of:

BioWare is fully conscious that these are tiny changes that will do nearly nothing on their own. They have actually done this deliberately in order to prevent crashing or otherwise ruining the economy. Eric stressed it is really important that the modifications are made slowly which the impacts are monitored closely.

He also particularly resolved some other typical themes in the feedback including the truth that the existing batch of modifications will not affect the abundant at all, that we need more credit sinks, Amplifiers as a solution, and charging credits to travel to your SH.

• Quick Travel now has a credit expense associated, with a minimum cost of 100 credits and a maximum cost of 5000. The cost to take a trip is dependent on the range took a trip.
• Concern Transportation Terminal now costs the original planet travel expenses to move between day-to-day locations.
• Travel to Fortress now costs the original planet travel costs to transfer between planets.
• Repair cost formulas have actually been adjusted throughout the entirety of the video game so that repair work costs increase in relation to product level.
• Toughness of devices need to now be lost at a LOWER rate on death, but a somewhat greater rate in normal gameplay.

Here's Eric's full statement:

Hey folks,

We wish to begin little and in targeted ways. More modifications are being available in future updates.

Let me offer you some specifics based upon ideas I am seeing in the thread. We understand that players exchanging high value items will often trade outside the GTN. Either because of its sale cap, or to avoid getting taxed at all on the deal. This is likely the place you will see a number of changes coming after 7.2.1 to stop the loophole, and to start effectively taxing high worth trades.

These changes are insufficient! You are correct, and we understand that, but it is a beginning point. It is extremely crucial that we make these modifications slowly and that we monitor their impacts closely. There are some outstanding suggestions in this thread for more modifications that are currently in the works. As we stated up front, you ought to expect to see modifications that concentrate on the economy throughout the next couple of updates.

To begin with, thank you all for the feedback here in the thread and especially for those who have gotten on PTS and experimented with the modifications. There are some fantastic points of feedback and concerns in the thread and I want to react to some of the themes we are seeing.

You're Not Hurting the Rich!

The goal of these modifications is to present passive, small credit elimination to the game. By doing this 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 decrease credit inflation (although it is a crucial part of it), and might not replace this kind of passive removal.

Well, we aren't trying to, not particularly. Inflation in its simplest form has to do with the quantity of credits getting in the economy versus the amount coming out of it. In time, we have shot ourselves in the foot a bit as we have actually gotten rid of or minimized most regular credit sinks (removing training costs, etc.).

We Required Credit Sinks

To help stabilize this, we have actually been steadily adding credit sinks over the previous year or two. A lot of plainly would be the catch-up mechanic in both Galactic and PVP Seasons. The credit costs in those catch-ups can end up being quite significant.

We hear you that it would also be terrific to have some more invest a great deal of credits to get something specific but one factor to consider is that a number of the suggestions being made are one time purchases which do not continuously lower credits. As we have lots of systems that constantly present credits, we need more things that decrease credits frequently and not on a one time basis.

Could You Revive Amplifiers?

The concept would be to simply let the fire burn while you select brand-new fire-retardant materials and reconstruct the home from the ground up with those brand-new materials.

This is simply pure conjecture, I presume that BioWare prepares to introduce credit sinks slowly up until the measured inflation rate is at a level they are comfortable with while, ideally, mitigating lifestyle (QoL) concerns that will likely return as a result of the introduction of credit sinks.

It is really important that we make these changes gradually and that we monitor their impacts carefully. As we said up front, you should expect to see modifications that focus on the economy throughout the next couple of updates.

BioWare is fully conscious that these are incredibly little modifications that will do nearly nothing on their own. Eric highlighted it is very essential that the modifications are made slowly and that the effects are kept an eye on carefully.

In short order, no. Our items are not built to have Amplifiers on them considering that we eliminated the system. Nevertheless, the belief of this question is strong and is in alignment with what I said earlier, this is another example where we have removed some credit sinks.

Here is what we are going to try to change it to. Instead, we would simply use a travel expense to using Exit Location.

• Eric. Source: SW TOR Forums.

After they have a system they're delighted with, I think they may reduce the hammer by carrying out a bigger change to accelerate the procedure of bringing the economy back down to Earth.

When I state larger modification, I mean something like doing a credit revaluation or possibly changing the currency completely and have the galaxy run that new currency rather.

The objective of these changes is to introduce passive, little credit elimination to the game.

Thanks all! Keep the feedback coming.

That said, I am not a financial expert, but there is certainly some merit to their most likely method because the economy isn't broken totally except for the most costly products.

In my viewpoint, BioWare can manage to be significantly more aggressive with the modifications given that the economy is already rather inefficient. Your house is currently swallowed up in flames, you don't need to stress over water damage from the fire pipes.

Again, this is simply speculation. BioWare might have a various strategy that could work much better. Ideally sought advice from a real economist about this and pay closer attention to not shoot themselves in the foot again in the future.

Note that this is not how it is implemented presently, so it will need a little 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 execute the proposed credit cost as noted above in the future.

It's possible that such a change might be accompanied by the upcoming revamp to the crafting system. Integrating such a significant change with a brand-new crafting system would definitely help to get money flowing quickly again, though its unclear if the timing will line up.

The Stronghold Change Especially Sucks Yeah, lets talk about this one and our goal. As we are introducing a variety of passive expenses to take a trip, gamers will undoubtedly look to discover a way to subvert it, even if it is a small cost.

One method gamers might do this is to use the SH travel to a planet and after that Exit Location. Our issue here isn't really for taking a trip to the SH, it would be a player trying to use that as a stepping stone onto the world itself.