Gear, Renown XP, and vendor currency have to be earnable from character level 1. This has to happen...

Will Renown XP, new currency, and crates be earnable from character level 1? Asked another way, is there any XP/currency that's gated behind and arbitrary character level 70/75, rather than just item rating level? IMO this was one of the worst, if not the worst, parts of 5.0 -- gating gearing and GC behind an arbitrary level 70 wall. It essentially killed lowbies/midbies PvP and made re-rolling new toons serious drudgery for those who love replaying the vanilla stories. In short, please enable earning Renown XP, new vendor currency, and crates from character level 1. I'm so happy the devs are being empowered to recommit some resources to this game! Thanks for the updates...

^^ This is the answer....

I'm assuming this is joking, or just trolling...

Yes on geometric distribution. That's what I was thinking of. And I think you're referring to the law of large numbers (probability theory)?

This is partially what I'm getting at. "Randomizers," like RNGs aren't all created equal. I'd suspect the devs are using an open source ones for all their work (nothing wrong with that - often done) rather than wasting any time trying to perfectly optimize a custom ones for SWTOR. Still even "pseudo-randomness" is good enough for most applications (e.g. even gear drops, as painful as RNG can be). Technically though, what the randomizer is programmed to be is "unpredictable" rather than truly "random." But if your goal was to take a dataset (a, b, c, d) and have each variable in the dataset return with a 25% probability, you wouldn't want to use code that's programmed to be "unrepredictable" and then apply that pseudo-random/unpredictable code to a dataset of 4 variables and assume the output will be 25% for each. It almost certainly will not be. You'd instead want code that's programmed to be truly random (which is hard to get and which certainly isn't in SWTOR for reasons beyond here) and apply the truly random code to the 4 variable set and say "pick one" OR take the simpler and "cleaner" approach of just forcing the 4 variables to return 1/4 of the time each (this is a nuanced distinction btw). For a small dataset like this, IMO that's the preferred approach. (Again, this is conceptual, not the only way, etc...) So what I was really saying was that if the approach was more the latter, then we'd expect the probability of hitting "c" three straight times to be 1.5%. However, that probability is for just one attempt of 3 consecutive tries. If we actually took this probability (and I realize now that I write this that I made a slight error before, but the concept is the same) and applied over 6 months of attempts (so 8 sets (24 weeks/3), rather than 24 like I had in original - just too lazy to go correct it:o), I think the probability of seeing this happen once in that run goes up using: (1 - X)^8, where X = (0.25)^3. This means that after six months, the chance of seeing GSF hit 3x in a row (assuming 25% chance, properly programmed) goes up to ~15% (1 - result). (I think this is right, but I admit I'm not putting lots of effort into it)...

This is the right math if the question is "what's the probability of an event with 0.25 chance occurring 3x in a row?"* The question for me though is how do you achieve a 25% probability in code? Now, it's been a while since I've had to think about this, so others should weigh in where I'm off, but I see at least two ways (probably several, but for conceptual purposes and simplicity I'm focusing on two). One is, create a "randomizer" function and run that function against the 4 variables (a,b,c,d) you want to return. The randomizer picks any of the variables at random. In theory, "a" should return 25% of the time, "b" 25% and so forth... But another approach, and IMO the better approach, is to write a function that returns "a" "b" "c" and "d" with equal probability (i.e. 25%). In other words, write the function to force the 25% probability. You might end up in the same place as the first option. But the first option is more error prone in that it depends on this "randomizer" actually doing it's job properly and not getting bugged, etc. The second is also "cleaner" because you're not really looking for random chance - what you actually want is 25% chance for each possibility (I hope I'm being clear on this subtle distinction). If nothing else, the second approach would be easier to debug. All said, there could be some small bug somewhere in the code (I know Eric said there isn't), but also I think (in the footnote below) it may be more likely to see an event like this one time after the probability of occurrence in a single attempt is factored over multiple attempts. For example, 1.5% seems low, but if that was the rate of airline crashes daily (and for the sake of argument, the probability of crash was the same for all planes), we'd see crashes daily based on traffic volume (and no one would fly!)... *The right question might actually be: "what's the probability of an event with 0.25 chance occurring 3x in a row, out of, say, 24 tries (i.e. once a week, for 6 months)? So where X = (0.25)^3, I believe this would be (1 - X)^24 to get the probability of this not happening once in 24 attempts, or ~ 39% (or 1 - "result") chance of happening. In other words, over the amount of times this actually could happen, the more tries there are, the higher the probability that this could happen once. But this means at some point, there is >1 chance of this happening, which seems odd. Anyone else have thoughts?

All fair points. Thanks for posting this. I could have approached this differently I suppose. I realize that frameworks like the one I laid out just inherently aren't comprehensible by some people -- especially if the focus in on the "conclusions" rather than the algorithm itself (which necessarily forces those conclusions). So I guess now is as good a time as any to say again for the record, I AGREE with the points above. I got the rewards. I would have subbed anyway. I've maintained my sub since joining. Personally, I wouldn't want to see the promotion rewards returned willy nilly. I've made this point repeatedly. And so I admit that I have a bias in favor of preserving the exclusivity (never denied it - I've posted on it extensively). I would like to see new rewards for those who subbed. The very arguments I'm being accused of stifling are the ones I personally am most sympathetic too. Still, to be clear, I want others who missed out (in particular those who weren't here or otw couldn't sub during the promo) to also get a chance at these rewards (especially the story part). And I truly don't believe that those who intentionally chose not to sub, should have at shot at these (especially HK). Still, my thinking is (and I won't change my mind on this) that the most persuasive opinions will come from those who subbed intentionally only for the promotion. I truly believe that group will be the one BW factors in the most. So my attempt was to help make sure that group's arguments took the forefront, away from all of the other noise. If I was in charge, I'd be most swayed by those voices (and I think that's outright stated, if not heavily implied by Eric's post). But I'm going to abandon the crusade on this -- the passions are too strong. And if my efforts were unhelpful (regardless of my intent), it's a failure anyway...

Agreed...

I'll try one more time. Then after that, we'll just have to go our separate ways. You continue to think I'm "dismissing" folks and arguments. You continue to look at this personally. It's not personal. As I said in the very passage you quoted, I'm in the group of people who's being "dismissed." I've weighed in strongly on this topic many times in the past (you can check my post history), but for consistency here (and to be helpful), I've silenced even my own "opinion." As I've said many times, I laid out a framework. It's math. In that framework, if you accept the "harm" metric as being a valid filter metric, then everything else follows logically. So when I say that "other opinions should be disregarded", that's not an opinion or personal preference--that flows naturally and logically from the algorithm. It's not personal. It has nothing to do with my personal feelings. I don't actually believe that no one else's opinion (including mine) are valid. But under the framework, they logically have to be disregarded--there's no choice here, it's math (and note: not entirely eliminated. If you see group 4, the framework allows for these opinions, under the same "harm" metric--but in this case, it's a "general" harm to the game, and in a discounted way). I'm actually glad you posted Eric's post. You highlighted some parts. Let me do the same. We see what we want to see I suppose. What I see here is the team's concern about being "fair". What I see is a real concern from the devs with making sure that people who "subbed for a number of months to get it" are treated fairly. They want to make sure that players who actually "went through" something get fair treatment. And, they're concerned for those on the other side who missed out. I suppose we could read that to be "anyone who would have subbed regardless" and argue this is about "fairness" for them. Or "anyone who intentionally didn't sub, but could have" and argue that the devs are concerned about fairness for that group. Or we could even argue that "anyone, anywhere, even non-players" are who the devs are concerned with hearing from. I suppose all those readings are possible. I just, personally, find them less credible than the reading that's tied to a "fairness" toward those who actually "went through" something they wouldn't have done to get the rewards. And, on the other side, those who couldn't have gotten the rewards because they weren't around (or maybe glitched). So this is where this all comes from. I'm not playing Sith Lord. I'm not just making up stuff that fits my agenda -- I don't have an agenda (though for the record, I advocate for new rewards for previous subs who got this). I'm taking my read of the devs words and the OP and trying to bring some organization to what's become a very cluttered debate...

I think you need to calm down a bit. I get this is an emotional topic. But I'm not claiming some superior, moral authority here. I think in algorithms--that's how my mind works. This all looked disorganized to me, which made it hard to follow the arguments. So I proposed a framework that is (tries to be) objective. It has one core assumption, which is that "harm" is the right filtering metric. And if that's accepted as the filter, then everything else I laid out flows logically -- no opinion, no moral authority other than logic. But maybe "harm" isn't the right filter. I'm open to other filtering metrics as well. Feel free to propose them. I posted in response to a request from the OP to organize the debate: But we can also continue with an open, unfiltered, disorganized, free-for-all. That's up to you. I can't force anyone to do what they don't want to do (and didn't try to). But I don't (personally) think that will be helpful to anyone, and especially so if the goal is to be persuasive and get the devs to pay attention...

Thanks Trixx. This is all I'm trying to do here...

I'm not sure what you read, or what you're responding to. But it's not the post I made. The 'clutter' is that there are numerous "generic" arguments of contract breach, ToS, ethics, fairness, etc. being made. Some are strong, others not so much. The debate is now muddled. But by generic, I mean the ones that are not tied to someone actually harmed by this. In other words, those arguments that anyone can make - even non subs, non-players, and space aliens:D. And no one is saying that there is no place anywhere for generic arguments. It's just that this thread it getting cluttered with arguments that are all over the place from people who have no greater interest here than the space alien. What I have attempted to do is clean up the debate a bit by prioritizing arguments from people who are actually (or potentially if there is a change) harmed by this: a) people who subbed in reliance on this being one-time only and b) people who missed out and now want the rewards (to be clear, for now, I didn't explicitly include people who could have done the promo but chose not to at the time either). The idea is to percolate the arguments from the "harmed" groups up to the top of the debate where they belong. All other groups don't have an argument that's based on harm, and IMO in this framework, their arguments (which include my own arguments) should be heavily discounted (which is what the algorithm tries to do)...

Sigh. Except I actually agree with many of the arguments I'm allegedly "silencing." For example, I agree with new rewards for those who already met the requirements. I also believe that those who felt this was one time only have a legit basis for feeling that based on the promotion. Also feel free to look at my post history elsewhere on this topic. But none of that matters here. So try a little harder not to jump straight to negativity, and actually read the framework and logic. The point is pretty simple: those who made decisions relying on exclusivity should have the more prominent position in the debate than those (Group 4) who did not. Nothing is hard about this...

As much as I agree with wanting new rewards for those of us in Group 4 who already got these (that's my long-standing position w/r/t loyal subs, and I've agreed with you on this in the past) and as much as I agree with any other concerns you might have (what these rewards represent, etc.), the framework I've laid out is still valid and inescapable. It's just fact that we haven't/and won't suffer any harm from this or any decision that they choose to make, as members of Group 4. So there's no reason to factor our concerns into any future analysis (other than the limited caveats I laid out earlier)...

Isn't the reason to regrind events so that you can get rare items like mounts, legacy offhands, legacy weapons? I can't imagine spending a second extra on this event for these rewards after doing it once or twice. This is a head scratcher for me (in what otherwise seemed like a turn of the page for BW, after Anthem, toward trying to understand and entice the SWTOR playerbase)...

Interesting conversation. I’m gonna try to declutter the positions here a bit. And I’ll start with this: generic arguments about fairness, contracts, and broken promises need to be disregarded. The only points BW should consider are those that come earnestly from people actually affected by this. The following algorithm is the one I'm applying here. IMHO, it will be helpful for others and BW if the algorithm is applied to responses so there can be some clarity as to where the weight of the debate really is. Also, I’ll deal with the special case of "Group 4" at the end. But until then, if you would have subbed anyway, there is no reason at all whatsoever for anyone to factor in your opinion here. (For the record, I’m in this camp). I cannot emphasize this enough – you have no legit basis whatsoever to state a grievance here, since you have not and will not suffer any harm from any decision here. (Except maybe group 4 below, which is a special case for the end). Step 1: Which Group Are You In? GROUP 1: Subbed only because of the promotion; wouldn’t have subbed without it GROUP 2: Tried to sub/intended to sub during the promotion and ran into a "glitch" GROUP 3: New to game, didn’t meet promotion requirements, but now want it GROUP 4: Subbed, and would have subbed anyway, but earnestly feel this decision has broader impact on the overall health of the game* If you're in Group 2 or 3, proceed to Step 2. Group 1, should skip to step 3. *Group 4, see paragraph at the end. Step 2: What Do You Want (and why)? (a) Access to Story/No Access to Companion (b) Access to Companion/No Access to Story © Both Access to Story and Companion (d) Neither, but I generally like to complain about things Step 2A: What Is Your Compromise (and why)? (a) I'd favor new/different rewards for those who already with any re-opening of the promotion (b) Gate the promotion behind any of: length of time, cartel market, or other gate © I'd favor both, or either, of (a) and (b) (d) I don't think any additional compromise is needed Step 3 is for Group 1 only. Step 3: What Is Your Position (and why)? (a) In favor of Access to Story/opposed to Access to Companion (b) In favor of Access to Companion/opposed to Access to Story © In favor of both Access to Companion and Story (d) Opposed to both Access to Companion and Story Step 3A: What Can Change Your Opinion/What's Your Compromise (and why)? (a) If I get the option for new/different rewards with any re-opening of the promotion (b) If the new content is gated behind any of: length of time, cartel market, or other gate © I'd be cool with both, or either, of (a) and (b) (d) It cannot be changed; I'm dug in Special Case of Group 4 This "special" group really only has one argument worth considering in this debate. At that is if you have strong beliefs that the game as a whole (and your sub with it) will suffer because of one of these decisions. The argument is that one of these decisions will harm you because the broader game will be harmed. Still, these general “health of the game” arguments are really "blue on black" and should only be considered as feather on the scale arguments because the harm is tangential only. Also, for the record, there is a credible argument that Group 4 should be able to get new/different rewards with a new promotion. It’s a fair discussion. But it really shouldn’t be factored into this specific debate here because this debate because again, you (we) have not been harmed since you (we) were subbing anyway... EDITED TO ADD: just in case it isn't obvious, I didn't include the group of people who were around, could have subbed during the event, and made a conscious choice not to. IMO, they don't belong anywhere on the framework at all. But to avoid confusion, I'm making this explicit now.

I very much agree with this topic. I think it's tough to balance all the various interests though. My suggestion for leveling would be to: Buff the boss fights at the end of each planet and chapter substantially. These should require some skill/tactics and offer some challenge. Leave NPCs for the most part as is, so that ppl who want to power level can race through trash mobs still Drop usable end-game/pan-game stuff (like decos, mounts, rare shells) randomly throughout leveling. Keep best/rarest stuff for highest-difficulty end game Ops and PvP. If possible, add story/veteran modes where the better stuff drops from veteran, but story players can race through if they want. Slow XP gain at higher difficulty modes Tune the best drops/drop rates to the higher modes, so that gear (including crafted) matters at lower levels [*]Enable earning of end-game currency while leveling, so that people have a reason to do low level content (including PvP) Bottom line is, there has to be some reason to "play" lower level content besides just rewatching cutscenes...

Actually, shouldn't it be: De gustibus non disputandum est? Verb at the end? (Runs and hides)

I think he was actually agreeing with you. Read the post again...

^^. And don't assume all "undercutters" know about or care about your prices. I've made this point a few times in the past. High volume crafters don't care about the prices others are selling at. I almost never ever look at what the prices of other items are. If you've done this long enough, you will have a system and you'll know what a steady stream of profits should look like. When I'm active, I'm often selling pages and pages of items on several toons. I know what my costs are and what my margins need to be -- and that's all I use in setting my prices. It's only on the very rare occasion that I'm selling CM items that I bother to see what the other prices are. Otw, I have a general sense of how fast things should go and what the state of inflation is. And that's it - craft, list, collect, rinse, repeat....

Lol, no. Actually take everything in this post and reverse it. There you will find the truth. Disney is killing it with Star Wars - and faster than anyone expected.

Signed. Note, there have been a couple of these over the years here (I signed one a few years ago for PvP). I don’t have the time to dig them up now. Nothing happened. Still always worth trying again...

Keith* *(Sorry to be glib, but this is the reason the devs themselves gave)...

I agree with most of your post. Let me just highlight the above here (which I also agree with). I think the reason here that things are different is the really peculiar way 258 even came into being. And, the admittedly bad communication/follow up from the devs on their stated aims. Let me just, again, point out why this is different. Because in past situations, devs have at least pretended that the goals where to apply to multiple different areas of content. The post below goes through the livestream (this was pre-launch) and highlights what the devs stated they wanted. We don't need to agree (and probably much of this has failed in implementation). But this is the backdrop we have to view 258 gear against - we simply cannot just point to past situations in isolation...