TAKE AWAY CREDIT TRADING

Retro · Apr 9, 2018

The more credits that come into the game, the less value they have, the more an items price rises.

shel050 · Apr 10, 2018

I think its more like the more items that are in the game, the less value they have. For an example, we saw the value for blue hoodies drop drastically over the span of the easter event because more people accumulated blue hoodies and demand decreased. They started going for about 200k and then dropped down to 50k by the end of it.

Also, you have to account for the fact that new items are constantly being added to the game. So if we had a stagnant economy with no influx of credits, people wouldn't be able to afford the new items that come out in shops or during events.

Fruits · Apr 10, 2018

McQuack said:

I don't necessarily think credit trades were the issue, before the feature existed there were gift cards (an item that had a 10,000 credit value) and the economy wasn't changed significantly at all. Even in the original game, traders frequently traded credits using Quest Kiosks, which barely had any effect on the overall economy.

I'm not a big trader so you can take my opinions with a grain of salt, I just always had an interest in item values and where the current market was going. I think there was a combination of issues that led to the economy being to where it is now. For one, I agree that double credits every weekend really led to the big inflation that the game has now. Include that with the way POTC is being exploited with the abundance of friendly games, it makes the overall value and worth of credits really subjective now.

Someone brought up how firewalls were used as currency back then and that brings up a good point about how and why it worked. Unlike credits, items like firewalls were retired from the game, there was only a specific number of them that existed in the market and they had a specific set value created by the community (I can't remember, was it 40k?). This worked well because the value almost always stayed the same, and because there was a set number of them in existence and they were rarely re-released, it made for a stable currency to base the economy. Unfortunately the same can't be said for credits, there's always more credits being put into the game and it's very easy to grind and hoard them.

That said, the others are right and it's really too late to go back to the old way. I hate double credits but even if it was taken away at this point, I don't see any change happening considering it was going on every weekend for the past (2? 3?) years. I think the best choice of action is to try and create a new item/currency/thingamajig that worked the way Firewalls did - distribute a set number of them in game, have them be heavily controlled, and it can't be something that can be farmed or obtained easily. Most games these days seem to have a main currency that can be earned easily and a premium currency that is heavily controlled (usually because you need to buy with $$$ but in this case it just needs to be heavily controlled and be given out sparingly). That's what I think would benefit the economy here. Would just take some work and careful planning.

I believe that ‘premium currency’ will hopefully be the new Magic Band Points they are implementing in the new game. A controlled currency hopefully. We will see.