Precisely, I love the Cartel Market and I want to see it be successful. I hope that by sharing my perception of the issues at hand, we can resolve the "problems" with this pack and make sure that the next pack is better. My hope is people will stop trying to rationalize my concerns and the concerns of others by thinking about their wallet. While I may choose to make my voice heard with my wallet in the future, for me, the issue is not about money, cartel coins or any of that. The issue is that things were not presented in a clear manner. I feel that one gold item (or in this case 2) not dropping at the same rate as other gold items is an issue. Simply, it feels like they are being dishonest. Some people hate the chance cubes, well, as a purchaser of multiple hypercrates, the chance cubes aren't a big deal to me. In fact, the bronze items out of them are going to be the only thing I can sell to make credits and hopefully purchase one of those sabers. I don't claim to have the answer to the issues at hand, but I do want to have the dialogue to see if, as a community, we can come up with some reasonable changes to help prevent this in the future.

I understand your sentiment entirely... now calling the saber "platinum" really doesn't address the issue to me. They have dropped bronze items, to only have two categories, which to me, would indicate that the new items in this pack would occur less frequently than in previous packs. I can live with that, and I can accept the chance cubes as well, despite the fact they rarely drop anything for me that I do not already have. The root of the issue for me is that if two items are both "gold" then they should have the same drop rate. The rarity of the item within a classification shouldn't be variable been 5% and .1%, as this feels disingenuous. I don't believe anyone item in a Cartel Pack should be "platinum" as all items within the pack should have a reasonable rate of dropping. This is not a NiM mount drop, I shouldn't be left hoping that maybe the next 12 hypercrates will have the item I want.

We are definitely still looking for Healers and DPS for our progression teams as well!

I didn't realize there would be such a dramatic change in drop rates with the new pack. I have loved the cartel market packs since they were released, and I took them at their word that the only change was that bronze items would be replaced with chance cubes. It is now my impression that what was once going to be bronze items are now silver, and a couple of those silver items became gold. Had they advertised the fact that the arbiter sabers that they premiered on the pack would drop at a rate below 1% up front, I wouldn't have bought as many hypercrates as I did, but it wasn't until I had burned through them that I thought something was wrong. I can definitely say that I will not be buying hypercrates for some time due to my feeling that this was blatant and disingenuous. What I initially attributed to RNG now appears to just be the new plan.

It seems you fell victim to the idea that your opinion is the same as everyone else's opinion. I have bought multiple hypercrates from every pack that has come out. While drop rates have sometimes been less than what I felt was justified, I have been able to collect the items from these packs with 6-7 hypercrates. If they truly did replace bronze items with a roll on bronze items from previous packs (and I have no reason to believe they did not), then the lack of success with acquiring silver and gold items speaks to either too many silver and gold items in the pack (possibly what would have once been bronze is now silver) or that the drop chances on the more prized items do not align with what we have previously seen in the Cartel Market. Additionally, no one could have prior knowledge of how bad this pack could be, and I sure that some of them (like myself) just assumed it was bad RNG so kept buying packs to try to get past that. When these players were still left wanting, they were jaded, and this will have a longer term impact on the cartel market. To put it simply, you can shear a sheep every day but you can only skin it once.

I think people are missing the point on the drop rate. If the cartel pack buying community feels that the drop rate is too low, then it is. Similarly, if they feel that there are too many chance cubes, they are correct. Bioware is monetizing a game with the Cartel Market and if you fail to please the majority of people paying for those Cartel Market items, they will stop paying. I usually by 6-7 hypercrates from every pack that comes out. I enjoy the cool things that I get. This time was the exception. This time I opened 14 hypercrates and was astounded that I could not get either arbiter saber. Additionally, I have also been left with a ton of items that I can't use and can't sell. I would be better off vendoring these items if that were possible. Before anyone says it, yes, I could buy any item I sought from the GTN, but I would rather support the Cartel Market program so that they continue to develop the new looks and items. For me, I have the money to spend, but I would be remise if I didn't question purchasing the next pack that comes out. Overall, I like the new hypercrate, it has great looks and the chance cube isn't a bad idea, but the drop chances on cubes needs to go down, and if you are going to showcase an item from the pack, it should have a fair drop rate.

I purchased 14 hypercrates as well, and actually came to the forums to see if it was a bug of some sort. I have multiples of all the items but did not get either arbiter saber. It seems to me that this should be almost impossible if all the gold items have the same drop rate, so apparently they do not. To add insult to injury, all the remaining items that I did get are essentially worthless due the flooding of them on the GTN. This is just poor form, and makes people like me who consistently buy 6-7 hypercrates each time a new one arrives not want to purchase cartel market items any longer.

I have another concern with the new packs. With the extreme rarity of the sabers, some people (me included) purchased a ton of hypercrates in the attempt to get one. These "extra" items are now flooding the GTN and dropping prices. This is the same thing we saw with the pieces that dropped in the pack with Havoc Squad Armor and those items are still practically worthless. Other people use the Cartel Market as a way to monetize credits and this has a negative impact on that as well. I think it was a poor choice to make these so rare, as it has obviously left a bad taste with a vocal portion of the player population.

We are also always looking for more raiders, either casual or progression.

Just a quick progression update: 5/5 HM EV, 5/5 HM KP, 5/5 HM TFB, 7/7 HM S&V, 1/5 HM DF, 2/5 HM DP

Of course two days after I move three characters the price drops.... There went 5400 cartel coins