In today's AO economy, the value of the credit is rapidly decreasing.
There are a two reasons for this:
a) Ease of monetary generation
b) Need or desire for rare and special items
The first is almost a non-issue. At lower levels, it really isn't easy to mass produce credits, but there are low quality items that can be farmed and sold on the open market. At higher levels, it is much easier to notice when one person can produce 50-100 million credits in a day if so inclined, without any interaction with the open market.
The second case is a bit more delicate. At the higher levels, there is little to do except camp for rare or special loot. The rarity of certain items, combined with the fact that most of this sort of loot is not of the nodrop creates an interesting problem. These items are often farmed and stockpiled... The credit value of these items tend to rise as more and more credits are generated, reflecting the devalued worth over the entire economy, until credits become worthless and the only form of trade that is accepted is in bartered items. We are beginning to see this now.
Is the AO economy broken? Some would say no, but then again when someone says "Blitz yourself 500mill and you are game... I for myself wanted 2 Ga4s for a friend and my fixer and got them" you can see the state of the economy.
Is there a way to mend the economy? I believe so, but it is something that cannot be achieved without a great amount of work. The main obstacle is that there are too many items which negatively impact the economy, so that 'mundane' items are essentially worthless. This is the thing that needs to be handled first.
Here are my suggestions:
a) Fix the UNIQUE item code to scan all layers of a player's inventory, including equipped and bank slots (as well as bags within a player's bank).
b) Make all special loot NODROP. This includes Shades of Lucubration, Heavily padded coats, ELLTSes (unless they drop again), etc. The combination of suggestions A and B will remove these items from the market, as well as make it easier for players to obtain them for themselves since they will not have to compete with players who want or or feel the need for duplicate items.
c) Since the public opinion of disc-only nanoformulas (Grid Armor and Nullity Sphere) is that they are uber, remove them from the drop tables and institute quests for these nanos in NODROP form. The questswill cost a large, yet reasonable amounts of money to take, and may need to be accomplished by a team or two. This will ensure that every one of those professions has the chance of gaining these items, but it will be hard.
d) Alter the shop inventories to sell all armor, weapons, medical supplies, implants and nanos (except quest or boss-only) up to quality level 200. Basic shops will sell up to quality level 50, Advanced shops up to 100 and Superior up to 200. This will serve as an additional money sink. Those who wish to mission for thier equipment will still have that option, and those who wish to sell on the shopping channel will have to compete with shop prices.
e) Alter team mission Boss and Chest loot tables to have a small chance of dropping select special loot (and, NODROP), or quality level 200+ items to help distribute some of these.
This was all that I could come up with at this particular time. There are certainly other things that can be done to help the ailing economy back to it's feet.
~Hoopspro