[2023] 7.3 Credit Economy Initiative: Updates and the GTN

Hello everyone! I’m Joe Stramaglia and I’m a Systems Designer on Star Wars: the Old Republic. Today I am bringing you some of our planned changes for the Credit Economy coming in 7.3 and giving you a hint at some of the changes in the pipeline. 

First off, I want to say thanks to everyone who provided constructive feedback to our initial changes we introduced in 7.2.1. We’re reading your feedback and looking at data for each phase of these releases as we want to be careful and considerate of each change’s effect. The changes we introduced in 7.2.1 were smaller scale than the ones we’ll be introducing in 7.3 and the upcoming patches, but no one change is looking to solve every problem. They each have a specific intention related to our goals that were shared in that previous post.

When we open up 7.3 content on the PTS, players will be able to see the following adjustments:

• We’re retiring the Tax Evasion Guild Perk, it will no longer be available in future rotations.
• Secure Trade, Mail, and Collect on Deposit will now have an associated transaction fee based on the value of the transaction. The fee is aligned to the Galactic Trade Network Commission Fee at 8%.
• Some items will adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee.
• Many items will have adjusted Vendor sale values.

These changes are largely motivated around reducing GTN tax avoidance and adjusting credit inflow from item sales. However we’ve got a suite of changes that rely on these coming in our next phase, which I am going to reveal a little bit earlier as there will be further adjustments to these numbers as a result.

We’re actively exploring a complete overhaul of our Galactic Trade Network system! This will include a lot of things I cannot talk about yet as they will come after 7.3 but am very excited to reveal soon. Make sure you check out our livestream on May 3rd at 1pm CT / 6pm UTC and follow here on the forums for more information as we get closer.

When this overhaul happens we’re going to be converting the GTN Commission Fee to a Progressive Tax starting lower than our current fees but reaching a higher threshold than our current fees. The exact numbers will be released at a later time, but the Transaction Fees implemented in Secure Trade, Mail, and COD are a flat tax meant to mirror the highest bracket in the GTN to encourage using the network. Whenever Taxes are updated in the GTN those changes will be applied accordingly here as well.
 

We want the Galactic Trade Network to be the premier place for trade. Given we’re exploring the GTN as a place to improve the experience and make participating in our player market more enjoyable for everyone, we'd like to get your feedback on the current state of the GTN in terms of usability.

• What do you like about how the GTN currently functions?
• What do you dislike about how the GTN currently functions?
• Is there anything you wish you could do on the GTN that you cannot do currently?
• Are there any specific filters, searches, or ways of finding items you particularly like or that you wish existed?
• What kinds of information do you use to decide when to make a purchase? If you could have more information what would you want?

It’s important to note that the changes we’re currently planning are going to take place over multiple phases and releases so not all changes will come online at once. We look forward to sharing the current plans and taking your feedback into account!

May the Force be with you
 

Hey everyone! First of all, we love the feedback and ideas. Please keep them coming! If you like a particular suggestion make sure you voice your opinion or drop the poster a like! 

I hope you had a chance to catch the stream to see a few more tidbits of information related to these changes. If you missed it, check it out on YouTube!

I wanted to touch on some of the points I made there and clarify some of the questions raised so far in the thread.

 

Can We Remove the Quick Travel Costs?

We do need small sinks in the game just like large ones. I know this one is a bit divisive, and it's something we’re monitoring closely. I can say that we’re open to making adjustments to it, but do not have plans to remove it at this time.

 

Trade/Mail Fees - who pays?

The party responsible for all fees is the one who is sending the credits or taxed items. If an exchange is occurring that has taxed items or credits on both sides, then both parties would be paying a fee depending on the value of their side of the exchange.

So if I am sending you a mail with credits, the amount you enter is the amount the receiver will get, but the amount you will pay to send it will be that amount + 8% (plus the normal postage fee). This does mean that if you were to gift someone credits they will receive the amount you are intending to give them, but it will cost you that amount plus the associated fee.

If you are sending items or mail between your own characters there will not be any additional assessed fees currently. Receivers of items and credits will not pay a fee.

 

How do Item Transaction Fees work?

Some items initially will have a value associated with them, this is based on their average value on the GTN and some other conversions based on the current economy. Eventually, this will be completely driven by the GTN.

The primary reason we need to have items that have fees is to limit tax avoidance through the use of barter-only trades and prevent folks from moving off of credits entirely to facilitate transactions.

 

Buy Orders!?

Yes! We will let you know more about this feature in the future as it's going to be a bit until we can unveil that functionality, but I did want to mention it as one of the reasons to be excited about this overhaul.

 

Exceptions to Trades Under a Certain Value

Unfortunately, any exceptions leave room for abuse. Even if most folks would use it for altruistic means such as gifts, it creates a loophole for those looking to dodge the system. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how folks behave under this system with the existing exceptions to see if we need to make further changes.

 

Adjusting the Buyout Price Limit

This is the cap on prices in the GTN. We’re looking to increase this so that most items except potentially the rarest can be sold easily but details will come later when we unveil the overhaul.

 

Lore/Naming

Yeah, when we talk about these things out of character a lot it makes sense to refer to these as “taxes”, but the more appropriate name for them is Fees. The GTN has Commission Fees, the Mail and Trade will be Transaction Fees. So while we might use them interchangeably they will be displayed in game as those names!

Just now, jedimasterjac said:

Is that part of the 7.3 overhaul, or the upcoming, later overhaul?

The GTN Changes will be in a later patch, 7.3 contains only the updates mentioned in the original post. Stay tuned for more information - I'll definitely be posting about it as we get closer to release. 🙂

Hello folks! With 7.3 now live, I wanted to answer a couple of questions that we saw on the forums in regards to the access cooldown we’ve added to Guild Banks. 

The original Guild Leader will still have access starting at guild creation, this change only applies to new members in that guild, including the ones that help form it.

Repairs and summons should remain unaffected by this change. The guild membership in this case should be looking at your legacy to determine if you have access, so your alts should remain unaffected. In terms of giving things to new members during this period, you may still trade or mail the item or credits as necessary to the new member.

This restriction was largely added to reduce the need for taxation at the guild bank level, but there were some additional behaviors we saw during a review of guilds that this helps to discourage. We’ll continue to monitor behavior to help us determine if we need to make other changes.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this thread, so please continue to offer your feedback here. 

Hey there!

These are correct in this instance. We left the tax on these items as they are non-consumable, high value items and thus function differently in both the economy and gameplay. I realize that what is and isn’t taxed is sort of hard to tell right now. My plan is to make a list of items that will be purposefully not taxed when we start sharing about 7.3.1 to remove some of that mystery.

As always, we’re open to your feedback on this! As for why they have different values, that is completely due to the market for these items.