The Contraband Slot Machine

[Chrisweaver]

This nerf is ridiculous.

 

Bw you changed this machine from a fun excuse to hang out in my stronghold to a complete mind numbing moneysink . Not only did you made the useful loot almost non-existent. I used 3 stacks on 99 coins and Got a total of 1 jawa scrap. 0 certificates, 0 green jawa scrap, 0 mount. I got plenty of worthless rep tokens that I had maxed out on last week.

 

I thought, this rate is terrible but I usually have bad luck I wonder how others are doing. What do I see when I check online? Over 50 pages of posts with thousands of posts with similar results that I had. Even the walker mount looks to be bugged after being rushed into the game?!

 

You guys made me so happy when you brought this into the game. This weekend I was thinking "man swtor has really improved is qol for its Subs this was a great way to start 2015 I'm looking forward to this year". That no longer seams like the case.

 

There are literally dozens of things that could and should be fixed/implemented into this game before the slot machines were nerfed into oblivion. You guys could have put the change in 3.1 when you had time to actually look at the drop rates and actually put the walker mount into the rewards correctly. That synthetic energy matrix being required for Dark Projects for example would have been a MUCH better fix to put into the patch( and a whole lot simpler I would imagine.

 

I makes absolutely 0 sense to implement the change so soon because obviously no one actually had time to look at the rates. The post came out on Friday afternoon, I assume you guys don't work Sundays, Monday was a holiday. So you had 2 maybe 3 days to look at it. Keeping in mind that this was said specifically that using this machine was not an exploit by the community manager, the community assumed that the drop rate would change slightly. not destroyed.

 

I can only hope that this was one of the many bugs that happen after a patch and your dev team are going to take a look at it and make changes accordingly

 

Ps. as a side note. If for some crazy reason these changes were intended then change the walker mount to a faction specific Rancor mount. I would pay millions for the chance at another of those. You guys have started to overdo it with walker mounts...

 

Also the lack of communication is terrible. I understand seeing the posts that Eric may want to talk to the dev team before getting back to us again but at least let us know that you checked up on the issue and are looking into it, instead of letting your community spend literally millions of credits for next to nothing in return.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Chrisweaver

[lokimogor]

This nerf is ridiculous.

 

Bw you changed this machine from a fun excuse to hang out in my stronghold to a complete mind numbing moneysink . Not only did you made the useful loot almost non-existent. I used 3 stacks on 99 coins and Got a total of 1 jawa scrap. 0 certificates, 0 green jawa scrap, 0 mount. I got plenty of worthless rep tokens that I had maxed out on last week.

 

I thought, this rate is terrible but I usually have bad luck I wonder how others are doing. What do I see when I check online? Over 50 pages of posts with thousands of posts with similar results that I had. Even the walker mount looks to be bugged after being rushed into the game?!

 

You guys made me so happy when you brought this into the game. This weekend I was thinking "man swtor has really improved is qol for its Subs this was a great way to start 2015 I'm looking forward to this year". That no longer seams like the case.

 

There are literally dozens of things that could and should be fixed/implemented into this game before the slot machines were nerfed into oblivion. You guys could have put the change in 3.1 when you had time to actually look at the drop rates and actually put the walker mount into the rewards correctly. That synthetic energy matrix being required for Dark Projects for example would have been a MUCH better fix to put into the patch( and a whole lot simpler I would imagine.

 

I makes absolutely 0 sense to implement the change so soon because obviously no one actually had time to look at the rates. The post came out on Friday afternoon, I assume you guys don't work Sundays, Monday was a holiday. So you had 2 maybe 3 days to look at it. Keeping in mind that this was said specifically that using this machine was not an exploit by the community manager, the community assumed that the drop rate would change slightly. not destroyed.

 

I can only hope that this was one of the many bugs that happen after a patch and your dev team are going to take a look at it and make changes accordingly

 

Ps. as a side note. If for some crazy reason these changes were intended then change the walker mount to a faction specific Rancor mount. I would pay millions for the chance at another of those. You guys have started to overdo it with walker mounts...

 

Also the lack of communication is terrible. I understand seeing the posts that Eric may want to talk to the dev team before getting back to us again but at least let us know that you checked up on the issue and are looking into it, instead of letting your community spend literally millions of credits for next to nothing in return.

What you and the countless ragers against the man fail to factor is time to fix the bugs, this was an easy fix, other bugs take significant time to resolve

[FCazares]

I rather enjoyed visiting a friends home in game for a few nights this past week to chill and play her slot machine while waiting in queue. I will agree the rewards seemed a bit much and I expected there would be a change (nerf.) What I did not expect was how drastic it would be. I understand how some people would be upset and I was disappointed that what made waiting in queue for a few days less painful became pointless. I do not have any extreme emotions either way but I do think there was a happy medium that was passed over as it went from one extreme to another. My hope is that it was in error and it is fixed and becomes something more reasonable and worthwhile.

 

It's sort of like the cantina qt waypoint on Rishi. I was hoping they would add one and when they did it was buggy and resets on logout and now needs to be fixed again. I know how unpredictable code can be between in house testing and live public servers and these tings happen. I do not believe the devs were at all malicious or trying to scam anyone. I know they are certainly aware of the problem and with a little patience it will be fixed and working as it should as will the qt point in the cantina on Rishi. Many other rebalancing or additions that don't work as hoped can be found as examples in any MMO or game that receives updates.

 

I know that to many this may seem more real because an exchange of very real currency occurred for this item in many cases. I know how frustrating this can be, especially in the current economy where so many feel like there is no upward mobility. It hurts when you feel like you might have been cheated and your feelings are valid no matter what anyone says. I doubt however that it was intentional on the developers part and am confident it was in error and will be repaired. In this light its best to just take a breath, and find a way to get some joy in the parts of the game you fell in love with before this issue. Your voices are clear and heard, I'm sure of it and there will be a response from the community relations team as soon as they meet with their bosses and the cm development team.

 

I know some may be too caught up in their feelings to pay attention to this and there are trollers who may distort it. I just wanted to share my perspective and ask for some calm no matter how futile it may be.

[Lyshar]

I ran through 3000 coins the morning before the patch.

 

I got almost exactly as many greens as I got blues or purples.

So they had the same chance of dropping.

 

That needed to change.

 

But it didn't need to be nuked like it was.

 

That's why I mentioned they could tweak it to the same amount of drops and just within those drops reduce the purple and increase the green. Just like they are keeping silent now they ignored the response of people after I mentioned that option.

 

They messed up big time, keeping quiet isn't helping them. I offered a new suggestion in that other thread, or was it this one. Well, not like they are reading either after the initial post.

[BuriDogshin]

... this was an easy fix ...

And from a health-of-the-game point of view, they managed to screw it up anyway.

Gives you real faith in the competency of the BioWare SWTOR team, doesn't it?

[Chrisweaver]

What you and the countless ragers against the man fail to factor is time to fix the bugs, this was an easy fix, other bugs take significant time to resolve

 

This wasn't an easy fix apparently because the walker mount is a 90% speed bugged piece of trash. my point being that this was not a issue that needed to be rushed. It was not even a bug!

 

The Contraband Slot Machine is not bugged.

It is 100% not an exploit to use the Slot Machine.

If you feel the desire to sell access to your Stronghold, that’s totally up to you. As a reminder, do not scam people as that is against ToS.

We added the Slot Machine as a fun idea based on the positive feedback from the Nightlife event, so spend those credits to your heart’s content!

With that being said, we do hear the concern from many of you around the effects of the Jawa Junk’s drop rate on the economy. We are going to take a look at it and make changes accordingly. I will let you know once I know more. In the meantime, have fun

 

So this was not a bug and not an exploit yet it was nerfed so hard that the Jawa scrap may as well not even be a prize. I spend $222750 credits and had a single blue Jawa scrap to show for it as apposed to last night when I would receive 1 certificate, 3 purple jawa scrap, 3 blue jawa scrap, and 5 green jawa scrap from $50000 worth of tokens. It is unbelievable the size of this nerf.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Chrisweaver

[Shomori]

I agree with most on here. Knee jerk reaction to the inevitable top dog players has made something that was fun now un-fun. dropped 1200 coins tonight. 3 scavenged scrap, 1 droid parts, 1 jawa junk. No sign of walker or certs. Worse than credits wasted was the 2 hours wasted to see if there was any hope of getting anything fun. Waste of time? I don't have enough to waste. Back to Yavin for the rinse and repeat there. Sad. With a measured response, I could have spent time in SH, multi-tasked crafting, GTN, and slots. Back to mediocrity I suppose.

[Lyshar]

This wasn't an easy fix apparently because the walker mount is a 90% speed bugged piece of trash. my point being that this was not a issue that needed to be rushed. It was not even a bug!

 

The Contraband Slot Machine is not bugged.

It is 100% not an exploit to use the Slot Machine.

If you feel the desire to sell access to your Stronghold, that’s totally up to you. As a reminder, do not scam people as that is against ToS.

We added the Slot Machine as a fun idea based on the positive feedback from the Nightlife event, so spend those credits to your heart’s content!

With that being said, we do hear the concern from many of you around the effects of the Jawa Junk’s drop rate on the economy. We are going to take a look at it and make changes accordingly. I will let you know once I know more. In the meantime, have fun

 

So this was not a bug and not an exploit yet it was nerfed so hard that the Jawa scrap may as well not even be a prize. I spend $222750 credits and had a single blue Jawa scrap to show for it as apposed to last night when I would receive 1 certificate, 3 purple jawa scrap, 3 blue jawa scrap, and 5 green jawa scrap from $50000 worth of tokens. It is unbelievable the size of this nerf.

 

Indeed, his message before lead me to believe we'd get a tweak, not a nerf. Where tweaking it means making a reasonable adjustment to make things more balanced, which can be both up and down. Where a nerf is just crippling it into pissing people off and making it worthless.

 

A tweakwould have been same amount of Jawa drops, but within those adjusting the individual drop rates, like suggested by the community.

 

They disregarded the issue with people still having a stockpile of jawa junk they also had a use for that was separate of the slot machine. That was the main cause of the inflation at first at least. Taking that and the possible earlier suggested tweak they could have upped the material cost a little for the grade 11 materials to keep it available but more expensive than the other materials.

 

Why do they need to do a hard fix for an easy problem. If it really was a problem, they didn't let the market get stable after it, they had to jump to the nerf.

[rytye]

Hey folks,

 

We know that there have been many questions about the Contraband Slot Machine and its intent. Here are a few notes on it:

• The Contraband Slot Machine is not bugged.
  
• It is 100% not an exploit to use the Slot Machine.
  
• If you feel the desire to sell access to your Stronghold, that’s totally up to you. As a reminder, do not scam people as that is against ToS.
  
• We added the Slot Machine as a fun idea based on the positive feedback from the Nightlife event, so spend those credits to your heart’s content!
  

With that being said, we do hear the concern from many of you around the effects of the Jawa Junk’s drop rate on the economy. We are going to take a look at it and make changes accordingly. I will let you know once I know more. In the meantime, have fun!

 

-eric

My over night chip count...just saying

Today's chip count 1400 : 4 Jawa junks, 1 Cartel Market Certificate, 47 Confiscated Artwork, 107 Prohibited Medical Supplies, 122 Banned holovids, 4 scavenged scrap, 0 Assorted droid parts. 109 FREE Spins

 

Last night chip count 1400 : 208 Jawa junks, 44 Cartel Market Certificate, 109 Confiscated Artwork, 219 Prohibited Medical Supplies, 160 Banned holovids,156 Assorted droid parts, 176 Scavenged scrap! please note : i do not have the data on FREE Spins from last night

 

I'm just wondering why nerf it to the point no one will ever use it again, I mean come on 0-Zero Assorted droid parts out of 1400 spins, 4 Scavenged Scraps? LOL>? I wont even mention the thought of a walker mount that isnt even rare..btw

[Menolley]

I decided to give it one more try. Here is an exact breakdown. I bought 2 stacks of 99 chips for a total of 148500 credits.

 

Results stack 1 :

 

119 spins

20 replacement chips

72 non winning spins

22 Banned Holovids (rep)

16 med supplies (rep)

9 artworks (rep)

 

Investment: 74250, sale of rep items (I am maxed out) 39500 LOSS 34750

 

Results stack 2:

18 replacement chips

72 non winning spins

1 artwork

12 med supplies

21 holovids

1 Jawa Junk

 

Investment 74250. Sale of rep items 25000 LOSS 48250

Return for investment 1 Jawa Junk, 0 Assorted droid parts, 0 Scavenged Scrap, 0 mounts

 

Invested 148500 total. LOSS 83000 total, earned 1 Jawa Junk

 

I've played slot machines in casino's and clubs with consistently better results.

[Ilhares]

Yep. Once Eric Musco loses the trust of the players, they might as well just have Server Droid make the posts.

This makes me laugh, because I've had some pretty good exchanges with the 'droid' personalities. They'e never shafted me.

[Neglience]

And from a health-of-the-game point of view, they managed to screw it up anyway.

Gives you real faith in the competency of the BioWare SWTOR team, doesn't it?

 

froma health-of-the-game view it was absolutly needed, maybe even to late. Now they have all this QQ about it. A fix the same day the broken mechanic was brought up, should have let them fixed it.

[DurdensWrath]

froma health-of-the-game view it was absolutly needed, maybe even to late. Now they have all this QQ about it. A fix the same day the broken mechanic was brought up, should have let them fixed it.

 

Horse. Puckey. Only the gougers were up in arms about people getting cheap mats.

 

Augment Kits went down in price to what was reasonable. Around 45K. They were up around 250k before that.

[Shiggins]

Tell me in which casino where you hit the jackpot and it gives you an item worth only 66% of the total investment of the stake, completely nerfed. Reddit & Dufly comments showing the new drop rates in visual comparison is just mind boggling how this could of been approved as an appropriate nerf.

[Khevar]

Augment Kits went down in price to what was reasonable. Around 45K. They were up around 250k before that.

Which server? They were 60k-70k on Begeren Colony for the first two weeks of January.

[Menolley]

Augment Kits went down in price to what was reasonable. Around 45K. They were up around 250k before that.

 

I have 11 slicers. I spend all day flipping from one to another to send people out on rich and bountiful slicing missions. Some days I do ok, never really well, sometimes I go days with no purples. On average each purple costs me 30k. I need 2 to make an augment, plus the other mats. So it costs me around 65K to make an augment. Please explain to me how it is reasonable for me to lose 20K on each item I sell. When I sell for more it is usually for around 70K .. that gives me a 5K profit for all the time and effort put in. That is not price gouging!!

[achwas]

300 Grade 11 mats ( lets take augments) will give you 150 augments if you get zero crits. So even at a 75% reduced drop chance you can fully augment nealry 9 chars within 10 hours of using the slot machine.

 

First you are slightly clueless since "adaptive circuitry" does cost 3 jawa junk/material (a conversion rate they could most easily have adjusted to fit their needs), and second, if purple mats are the problem, just why nerf the other materials (scraps and droid parts) as well as the certificates ?

So I highly doubt that you put much research into your numbers and came to them by some rough rule of thumb.

[TheCardinal]

But crafters are the evil overlords of the SWTOR universe, pressing down their vengeful thumb on the shoulders of the poor and destitute.

 

If only there was a way for everybody to pick a crew mission and run missions, so they too could sell the resources they deem to be 'overpriced'.

 

If only...

 

You made me smile even before I had my morning coffee.

 

Ain't that true, we Evil crafters ruin it all, Odd tho I've never overpriced a thing in this game.

 

More fun is history reapeat it self.

I had this issue back in SWG days then craft was true crafting and Combat char whine over crafters getting rich and we over priced items, flip side to that was, we needed items only combat char could get for us and they charged huge amounts for some items and thus we wanted our money back plus the other cost and small profit.

 

So in the end those that did combat ruiend for them selfs. Not crafters, and I belive same happening here, we that do craft and don't play the GTN game do make money but not as much as the ones who abused a broken slot machince does.

 

I'm not poor, but I'm far from rich either in this game, I don't run around doing dailes everyday, nor Ops or FP's, I do all then I feel like it tho, I never have or going to play GTN game, since to me that's something wrong.

 

In SWG I did like here but on a far far lager scale, I paid for 5 accounts to have all crafters, wasted countless hours crafting and sold cheap and good items so ppl came back for more and in the end I got filthy rich without abuseing ppl.

 

Same here, those that whine aren't true crafters that want all for free, I use around 40 Comp normaly to harvest mats for crafting, that cost money and I know most of the time I'm at a loss then they return, part of the game.

Slot machince made it so did send out ZERO comp since there was no need, buy coins, and click the mouse.

 

In the end, Grade 11 Mats become so cheap there was longer no reason to craft at all, since with free fall it was a waste of time in the end.

 

So, let the slot machince stay as it is BW, change drop rate on crew missisons some.

Crafting is about harvest mats or sending out on missions, not sit in a SH flipping a machine, yes I have one too and I don't really care, cost me a few Packs of the CM, I made MY choice to buy them, I get to live with MY choice and there is only one to blame here and that's ME not BW what so ever, I made the option to buy it, they diden't force me too.

[OddballEasyEight]

There are some morons out there who claim the market would collapse.

 

Tell me exactly how the market would collapse.

 

The current theory thrown around is that people would keep getting more and more purple mats and flooding the market with them constantly.

 

Now, there are a few problems with that theory.

1: This assumes that people would simply keep using the machine instead of playing the game for months on end.

2: Even if they did this it also assumes that they would keep flooding the market with the same materials even after those materials have plummeted in price and are selling at a loss for the person using the machine (remember, you'd get 10 purple mats per 100 coins on average. That's at least 10-20.000 credits that you'd have to pay to get those 10 mats. Selling them for less than 1000 credits each would be a loss).

 

Thats not how markets work though.

Markets tend to balance out.

 

People would get over the initial rush of using the machine and start playing the game, only using the machine occasionally to gain some new mats for selling/crafting when needed.

And the market would stabilise because when one material plummets in price (and remember, this doesn't have to be down to a non-profitable level, just lower than whatever else is rare and expensive) the sellers tend to switch to another material for profit. Especially sellers who are as flexible as those using jawa scrap would be. So once the price of say Midlithe was down to 20k each (which is still profitable for someone using crew missions or the machine), those using jawa scrap to get mats would switch to something else and the supply of Midlithe would go down again causing the prices to go up again.

 

Would this machine have had an effect on the market? Yes, definately.

But it wouldn't have "crashed" it or killed it.

 

All that said, I don't think the drop rates for jawa scrap was ok in the first iteration of the machine.

But this nerf completely removed any usefulness this machine may have ever had.

[Jeweledleah]

and there I thought crafting was about MAKING things. while mission skills and running around in a while, was GATHERING.

 

machine wasn't spitting out ready made augment kits, armorings, mods etc. it just allowed people who crafting things, who MAKE things - make more of them, bringing the price down, which in turn invigorated the market through making CRAFTED items more accessible to wider public.

 

you know what you all sound like? Luddites. they didn't like machines becasue machines expedited the process, because machines allowed to produce more, cheaper stuff. and never mind that it also made all of those things accessible to more people, improving overall quality of life. machines - BAD. they ruin economy, kill crafting blablablah.

 

somehow... not only economy survived but it thrived.

[Rehtiz]

But crafters are the evil overlords of the SWTOR universe, pressing down their vengeful thumb on the shoulders of the poor and destitute.

 

If only there was a way for everybody to pick a crew mission and run missions, so they too could sell the resources they deem to be 'overpriced'.

 

If only...

 

lol

 

I find it amusing that people seemed to level a few chars up during 12* xp but did not bother to do any crew skills, then conplain about the price of mats. Doesn't take long to level up slicing.

[Reno_Tarshil]

and there I thought crafting was about MAKING things. while mission skills and running around in a while, was GATHERING.

 

machine wasn't spitting out ready made augment kits, armorings, mods etc. it just allowed people who crafting things, who MAKE things - make more of them, bringing the price down, which in turn invigorated the market through making CRAFTED items more accessible to wider public.

 

you know what you all sound like? Luddites. they didn't like machines becasue machines expedited the process, because machines allowed to produce more, cheaper stuff. and never mind that it also made all of those things accessible to more people, improving overall quality of life. machines - BAD. they ruin economy, kill crafting blablablah.

 

somehow... not only economy survived but it thrived.

 

Hopefully we get some more balance tweaking to where the drop rates are more reasonable.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Reno_Tarshil

[Jeweledleah]

lol

 

I find it amusing that people seemed to level a few chars up during 12* xp but did not bother to do any crew skills, then conplain about the price of mats. Doesn't take long to level up slicing.

 

I have 500 slicing on 5 characters.

 

I also have Diplomacy on 2, underworld trading on 3, treasure hunting on 2 and investigation on one (mainly for completion's sakes because typically, investigation mats are dirt cheap on GTN)

 

none of my characters were leveled during 12xp. I was actualy in a process of major rl changes and didn't have a chance to do much in game.

 

I also have every single crafting profession maxed out - in some cases several times over. to allow myself to maximize crafting items to RE for augment kit production. (that and a few characters with no self healing had biochem for reusable medkits)

 

and I say price of mats was ridiculous. I understand why though, having all these gatherers myself. drop rate on purple mats from missions? SUCKS. it sucks buckets. blue mats were always worthless becasue in search of purples, people would end up with cargoholds full of the damn things. I mentioned it in a different thread, but I literally used to check GTN for various blue mats, becasue almost daily you could bet someone would post them UNDER vendor price - that's how bad flooding and undercutting would get.

 

you had to run missions nonstop to get anywhere. and then when you crafted something? it was too expensive to actualy use on alts.

 

its not about how easy it is to level mission skills. its about how atrocious the rng is. even before machine - all you did was gamble. it just took longer and had worse results.

 

but I guess some people enjoy when a video game becomes a second job :/

 

Hopefully we get some more balance tweaking to where the drop rates are more reasonable.

 

I hope so. but at the same time.. I have already braced myself for continuing disappointment. the saddest part is one of the guildies donated machine to our guild ship, so that the rest of the guild could have acess. now I wish he has sold it. those few millions could have paid a few repair bills instead of sitting there, being worthless and useless.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Jeweledleah

[Jeweledleah]

I have 11 slicers. I spend all day flipping from one to another to send people out on rich and bountiful slicing missions. Some days I do ok, never really well, sometimes I go days with no purples. On average each purple costs me 30k. I need 2 to make an augment, plus the other mats. So it costs me around 65K to make an augment. Please explain to me how it is reasonable for me to lose 20K on each item I sell. When I sell for more it is usually for around 70K .. that gives me a 5K profit for all the time and effort put in. That is not price gouging!!

 

30k cost per purple wasn't reasonable. jawa junk reduced that cost, so that you could technically buy those mats instead of running missions and still make profit on augments, while selling them for less.

 

and of course knee jerk reaction is - machine is broken!. when in reality, what's broken is mission skills, specifically purple mat acquisition.

[Shoraan]

I have 11 slicers. I spend all day flipping from one to another to send people out on rich and bountiful slicing missions. Some days I do ok, never really well, sometimes I go days with no purples. On average each purple costs me 30k. I need 2 to make an augment, plus the other mats. So it costs me around 65K to make an augment. Please explain to me how it is reasonable for me to lose 20K on each item I sell. When I sell for more it is usually for around 70K .. that gives me a 5K profit for all the time and effort put in. That is not price gouging!!

 

Well, you should file a ticket if you have an average cost of 30K per unit - perhaps the game ignores the base crit rate (15%) in your case. The math has been done on several occasions: the crew mission cost for one purple grade 11 is about 5K in average.