Credit DECAY (The ultimate decay to improve the economy)

I'd say there is already "decay" via all the maint costs that are required for buildings, and in addition to any repeatable purchases they need to make. The creds were earned with either lots of grind or lots of time (usually both), so it would be unfair to see it frittered away if they don't keep doing stuff daily to cancel it out. Resto has brought in a good number of changes to speed a lot of things up, while still taking a reasonable amount of time/effort. I did lots of hard graft and time sinks 20 years ago back in the live game days, the last thing I would want are any changes requiring yet more of my time daily, my game time is limited enough as is.

I'm not sure why this is an issue for the economy if there are 10 or 20 super rich people on the server. It's not like they are blocking you from getting something. Prices of armor sets are still normal, you can still buy top tier weapons for a reasonable price. There is still a solid "middle class" that is doing well. I think pricing for decoration and appearance items up to 10 mil and more speaks for itself. If people struggle to get enough credits to buy a 3mil top tier weapon or armor set they wouldn't pay 10mil for appearance. So where is this magical number of 50mil coming from?
I'm pretty sure this group of players you mentioned is the group of people who run most of the player cities without charging guild members or citizens a single credit for shuttle, cantina, cloning facility, trainer, garage,...
Also the ones putting together welcome bags for new players in the guild with free stuff...
Offering the cheapest deals for guild members...
Or just host events with huge prices and give aways. Or donate Items to the price pool of such events...

I just can't see the real issue.

SWG is almost entirely a player-driven economy. So if folks want to just run x/y/z missions, that's their choice. Also, you'd be punishing the crafters/vendors who are providing services for the community that get up to this clip. I agree with Hmmurdock, there are enough passive credit sinks in the game. Many people have used up or are close to using their 10 lot limit, so the building maint cost takes care of that. And whatever they need to put into the building costs, they can make up in a few min of terminal missions. Don't think this is needed.

Banade said:

In talking to other players about decay, the state of decay and why we have it I had an idea. In the name of economics and for our good economy I think it should be passed. I mean unless the players that always bring up these reasons to decay everything I buy in game are just full of it. Lets hit the real problems, shall we?
I hear players brag about how much money they have and where on the list of the richest layers they sit, but never once have ti heard the brag about how many new players they brought in, what their city does to help new and old players, etc. The Flex of funds is a problem and it honestly brings nothing to the table of gaining, outside the brag itself.

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As a rich person myself - I understand what you're saying - but what you are proposing would have adverse effects. I'm fairly certain the fact that rich people sit on credits - among other things this server has implemented - is exactly why prices aren't out of control.

If more credits that are currently sitting..doing nothing..are immediately used to purchase items, resources, etc.. for no reason - there are less things on the market - more people have more money - so prices will go up.

The only people you'd be hurting are new players that start from scratch, or people with less credits - as now they will have to pay more for goods.

You also can't assume because people have a lot of credits aren't reporting the credits they give to people to help them out, the fact that they purchase things for other players to help them out and don't report directly to you - that it's not happening.

The purpose of component decay in game is to facilitate a recurring need for items - to include the resources that are used to make them - and not just for crafters to rely on new players as their primary market in a 20 year old game with a finite player base.

I have been to many events where some of the 'richest' on the server hand out millions just for answering trivia questions. I, myself, won a couple million credits at a Beast Tournament during a trivia thing.

At another event, I won a 60pt pet just for showing up.

You can't say that 'rich' players don't give back or just sit on their money.

Most of these players are those that invest in the appearance of their cities, stocking vendors with server best stuff, putting on events, and helping newer players.

If a tax is implemented, the rich will just store value in assets instead. This would greatly increase price due to reduced supply and the rich’s interest in maintaining that value.

This type of thing needed to happen at 1.0 when 99% of the economy was nerfed and there were hundreds of millions of credits left over from the old system across a handful of players. Unfortunately you won't see any credit sinks/taxes imposed on players while certain individuals are allowed premium access to devs.

Some brainstorming here to "force" players to spend their credits.

I had the following guidelines in mind:

1. It should cost a huge amount of credits, say 100M+, but depends on the "cut-off" point where the devs define someone as going from "rich" to "too rich".
2. It should not be an investment; there should not be a way to make more credits out of it, directly or indirectly. ( ie more lots for an account would not work as they can then gather/sell even more resources).
3. It can be a pure credit sink (aka tax), or be distributed among the less wealthier somehow.
4. It should be offered "by the game" using for example Etinoca Auction House, or PAAS, or something similar. If you have dev time you could even make quests out of it.
5. It should not even resemble the idea of "pay to win". Ie, if you offer a good weapon, it should not be better than what current crafters can do, it should just be different.
6. It should stay within the Star Wars Lore, we wouldnt want pink Bantha's with angel wings running around in Theed do we?

Some idea's of "products" that should come with a hefty price tag:

• Introduce rare, high-end items. These could include
  • unique weapons and armor, but only craftable by other players such that the rich player puts it back to the community. These should look fancy, but the DPS should be similar to regurarly crafted items. (It shouldnt give an advantage).
  • iconic vehicle/swoop skins, like the Sorosuub Yacht.
  • ships
• Offer luxurious housing options like
  • Unique visual features such as spires or dungeons with extra rooms to decorate
  • Allow the player to place items around the house (but within the lot range), or on the roof/balcony.
  • Larger storage, such that they can spend even more on items to put in their house.
  • Properties in prime locations that can only be bought by the wealthiest players, is something im a bit skeptical about. Because it gives an extra benefit of prime location. Oasis in Mos Eisley for example is nice, untill you notice that new players just go to Oasis to buy weapons/armor for ease of convenience. it negatively impacts other (new) crafters who dont have the network/luck to get a spot in Oasis. Something they cant really compete with.
• Introduce badges to buy. 10M for Wood badge, 100M for Platinum badge, 1B for Duralloy badge
• Introduce resource "names" to buy. Everybody knows the name "Ditwafese" because its the best steel for years. Lets say you spend 500M credits to name the next big resource name "Aconite". You can not dictate that it should spawn but when such a material spawns it will bear your chosen name.
• Introduce titles,
  • create new titles, ie: "Team Ornj" title will cost 150M, or "Ewok Ambassador" costs 450M credits.
  • let the player "buy" their own created title (within ethical limitations ofcourse).

Regularly introduce limited-time offers and auctions for these rare items. Wealthy players will be more inclined to spend their credits if they know the opportunity is fleeting and highly sought after.

elchapodan said:

This type of thing needed to happen at 1.0 when 99% of the economy was nerfed and there were hundreds of millions of credits left over from the old system across a handful of players. Unfortunately you won't see any credit sinks/taxes imposed on players while certain individuals are allowed premium access to devs.

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Name names

Stroopwafel said:

Some brainstorming here to "force" players to spend their credits.

I had the following guidelines in mind:

1. It should cost a huge amount of credits, say 100M+, but depends on the "cut-off" point where the devs define someone as going from "rich" to "too rich".
2. It should not be an investment; there should not be a way to make more credits out of it, directly or indirectly. ( ie more lots for an account would not work as they can then gather/sell even more resources).
3. It can be a pure credit sink (aka tax), or be distributed among the less wealthier somehow.
4. It should be offered "by the game" using for example Etinoca Auction House, or PAAS, or something similar. If you have dev time you could even make quests out of it.
5. It should not even resemble the idea of "pay to win". Ie, if you offer a good weapon, it should not be better than what current crafters can do, it should just be different.
6. It should stay within the Star Wars Lore, we wouldnt want pink Bantha's with angel wings running around in Theed do we?

Some idea's of "products" that should come with a hefty price tag:

• Introduce rare, high-end items. These could include
  • unique weapons and armor, but only craftable by other players such that the rich player puts it back to the community. These should look fancy, but the DPS should be similar to regurarly crafted items. (It shouldnt give an advantage).
  • iconic vehicle/swoop skins, like the Sorosuub Yacht.
  • ships
• Offer luxurious housing options like
  • Unique visual features such as spires or dungeons with extra rooms to decorate
  • Allow the player to place items around the house (but within the lot range), or on the roof/balcony.
  • Larger storage, such that they can spend even more on items to put in their house.
  • Properties in prime locations that can only be bought by the wealthiest players, is something im a bit skeptical about. Because it gives an extra benefit of prime location. Oasis in Mos Eisley for example is nice, untill you notice that new players just go to Oasis to buy weapons/armor for ease of convenience. it negatively impacts other (new) crafters who dont have the network/luck to get a spot in Oasis. Something they cant really compete with.
• Introduce badges to buy. 10M for Wood badge, 100M for Platinum badge, 1B for Duralloy badge
• Introduce resource "names" to buy. Everybody knows the name "Ditwafese" because its the best steel for years. Lets say you spend 500M credits to name the next big resource name "Aconite". You can not dictate that it should spawn but when such a material spawns it will bear your chosen name.
• Introduce titles,
  • create new titles, ie: "Team Ornj" title will cost 150M, or "Ewok Ambassador" costs 450M credits.
  • let the player "buy" their own created title (within ethical limitations ofcourse).

Regularly introduce limited-time offers and auctions for these rare items. Wealthy players will be more inclined to spend their credits if they know the opportunity is fleeting and highly sought after.

Click to expand...

Just reinforcing something you’ve pointed out - this server absolutely does not need more prime location buildings such as Oasis or Haven. Those buildings, imo, are in contradiction to the anti-competition principle in the community standards:

Collaborating with player competitors in a manner that limits or harms the competitive economic marketplace or the ability for new market entrants (“anti-competition”).

The space in those buildings is completely invaluable not just because of the convenience of shopping location, but because it’s controlled by the ultra wealthy and allows them to offer a one stop shop experience by that no one can compete with. There is a reason why everyone rich and connected has a vendor there - because it gives an unfair advantage.

These properties are an investment for the ultra wealthy, not a credit sink. That is something that should be avoided in future.

I wish that the Portable Bazaar Terminal could be offered at some price without the insane 3000 credits that are needed to buy it. At the current rate I still have another year to 1.5 years to get that many credits. But could buy one with just funds much sooner.

Definitely support this!

Is this because you are broke

Disagree with the tax on wealth, I have like Chewiejdh stated been the recipient of very generous wealthy players when I first started, I do know entertainers will be effected mainly because the most wealthy generally tip the highest because they have disposable income. As stated if this was going to be implemented may ways to hide wealth to keep you under the threshold like puting credits into a vendor and then with drawing them out as needed or piles of Resources (Hording) (shortage) but this can be spread out over Char's ,factories or friends.

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It has been proven that taxing the wealthy has negative effects on an economy. Why would a crafter continue to make goods for credits that are going to be taken away? That's punishing success. The crafter then refuses to craft, punishing the people who already are struggling to make credits. The only fair tax is one that is implemented equally.
Decay of equipment is the answer.
If you want to keep with the lore of the game you could argue for the implementation of docking fees for ships. Fees would be based on size, planet, and possibly even port. I could see Bestine costing more to launch from than Mos Eisley because of regulations and refueling costs. It wasn't uncommon in the canon to have ships impounded due to unpaid bills.

I don't think there is a way to "tax the rich" without it affecting everyone by causing inflation of prices.
Because this is a game, the devs can "sell" things that remove credits from the economy. I've never understood how that benefits the players who don't have the money to spend?

The true problem lies in the creation of credits to begin with. Every time someone runs a mission, the game is essentially printing money out of thin air. The only true way to end inflation is to stop creating more wealth. Once you do that, you'll have people who hoard the existing wealth, leaving everyone else poor. You then end up in a barter system. However, since resources are infinite in the game, even that becomes unmanageable as a trade system.
Players are very careful with accumulated wealth. If you're printing currency from thin air, the only viable solutions are to remove them the same way ( i.e. decay and maintenance fees) or creating a system of risk vs reward, where the players are forced to invest credits in order to make them, with a chance of winning or losing. The crafting system does this very well while the combat system doesn't. There is little risk in running missions as failure doesn't have immediate losses to wealth.
In fact, I always thought that the mission system should have a penalty for failure. If you drop a mission, you should be fined for "wasting the time" of the NPC that gave you the mission.
Beyond that, I always thought that the bounty system should play a bigger role in the game as well. In the lore, Jabba was very fond of Han. However, he had no qualms about putting a bounty on his head when he failed to meet his expectations. I don't understand why I can have a -5000 reputation with Jabba, but nothing is done about it. If you reach a certain threshold in negative reputation with a certain faction, it would make sense for them to put a bounty on your head. You could be notified of the bounty, and choose to pay it off at a local government structure. As long as you refrain from losing faction with them any further, you don't get additional bounties. Make yourself a menace again, and you're once again a target. You can be given a specific amount of time to make good on your bounty, but if you fail, you get placed on the terminals for player bounty hunters to come collect on your misdeeds.