MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 The slot machine was a perfect mini game after a long working day. It was fun and easy and not a waste of time. If there would be pazaak in the game, I would surely prefer this, but the slot machine is better than no mini game. What was fun about it? The ridiculous amounts of materials you could get and then flip on for guaranteed profit? I am just personally not seeing what was "fun" about it before that isn't "fun" now except basically being paid to take on jawa junk. Everyone thinks gambling is fun if they are guaranteed to win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfyde Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Also how is clicking a slot machine over and over and over less tedious than crew skills? Get real. That is entirely subjective; you might think that, I might think that, but that doesn't make it so for anyone else. There's an entire entertainment industry based on the very concept of playing slots. A rural town in Nevada comes to mind as an example... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 That is entirely subjective; you might think that, I might think that, but that doesn't make it so for anyone else. There's an entire entertainment industry based on the very concept of playing slots. A rural town in Nevada comes to mind as an example... I thought that also someone might try make that stand point hence why I added in that nothing in the regard of clicking the machine has actually changed. You can still click it and watch it spin weeee, no need to complain about it here. More to the truth people are butt sore their money tree turned into a highly loss based slot machine. Hopefully it will become a regular "slightly" loss based slots machine. In the future they should just leave materials alone and not try add in "new" ways of obtaining them. Play with the crew skills, crit rates etc. if need be but don't blatantly add in a market changing force. If you want something fun for people to use in the vein of slots then copy the night life slots and bring in more vanity BOP items for people to spin for. Both camps couldn't whinge at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruceme Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 I In the future they should just leave materials alone and not try add in "new" ways of obtaining them. Play with the crew skills, crit rates etc. if need be but don't blatantly add in a market changing force. signed "GTN Whale" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiVaN_ Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 In the end the folks that I know who we're getting big rewards were using multiple machines and farming the thing with thousands of coins. So let's look at it like this: my guildie sat in front of his computer and spun a total of 10000 coins which means he spent 5 million credits for all those spins. If someone is willing to drop 5million on slot machines then more power to them for the rewards they get. I think the nerf was totally uncalled for personally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfyde Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) nothing in the regard of clicking the machine has actually changed. You can still click it and watch it spin weeee, no need to complain about it here. Not true, something essential has been changed; the return rate. Slot machines all over the world are operated at a return rate of about 90% for what you put in, because decades of research, data and experience by people who are presumably a little more knowledgeable about it than a random BW dev setting return rates with his d10 dice, have shown that to be the sweet spot that keeps people playing at a maximum rate, which leads to optimal enjoyment of the player and optimal profit for the house. Oc course there's no real 'house' here, but the basic psychology of playing the machines remains the same; the return rate has dropped to a point where it is no longer enjoyable for a large number of people to play them. Your assumption that every person who is complaining about slot machines is doing so motivated by greed is as ungrounded as the assumption that all crafters are price gougers. edit: Btw I'm not disputing that putting items with an in-game economical value as part of the return rate was a massively bad idea, but they did, and they did it on an item that requires real money to purchase, giving it an initial inherent 'value' and appeal, prompting people to make hypercrate purchases, and then a week later they removed that inherent value. And that's what I find unacceptable about it. Edited January 22, 2015 by wolfyde Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 signed "GTN Whale" Or non lazy player who actually is capable of clicking a few buttons to send his companions on crew skills a few times a day. Mad Skillz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdmaha Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Or non lazy player who actually is capable of clicking a few buttons to send his companions on crew skills a few times a day. Mad Skillz Geez where have you been? Didnt you know that crew skills suck and are worthless? I mean ask Art the next time he is on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottocamp Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Also how is clicking a slot machine over and over and over less tedious than crew skills? Get real. Point is you don't NEED to have materials or to craft in this game, you choose to do so. It's been this way since launch and only now are people dropping the "fun" excuse after the slot machine was removed. Slot machine did not require logging in and out of the game, it was faster, it had flashy lights and wacky noises, you could win other stuff besides mats, I could hang out with friends while I played the slots, a disco ball popped out of nowhere on occasion, I could build a casino in my stronghold and so on. But to address your main point - I certainly don't NEED to craft to play the game. And for the most part I did not craft because it was too tedious. But the slot machine and more available level 11 green mats made crafting a more appealing option. My preference would be to participate in as much of the game as possible. But I'm not going to spend my entertainment time doing chores. And I would think a video game company would want to make most aspects of games offered as enjoyable as possible. Why play otherwise? So my question to you - what is the point of making crafting a time-consuming in-game challenge? What harm is there in allowing me to craft 186 gear more easily? Is your experience diminished because I can get this gear with less difficulty? Just curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Your assumption that every person who is complaining about slot machines is doing so motivated by greed is as ungrounded as the assumption that all crafters are price gougers. Perhaps not every person but I am fairly sure I can make an educated guess that many are. I wouldn't be surprised if there was quite a bit of outrage over this had it been a 90% loss factor as you eluded to either. Again I can't support it by much more other than my opinion ( which is what I always strive to point out is the case ). As for price gouging that is factually incorrect by the definition of what gouging is. You couldn't even call it a monopoly as it's so free for everyone else to participate in. It's quite simply a free market and these high prices that people are complaining about are set as such, if no one could afford to pay them then no one would and it would come down thus the credits people pay for high priced items must be coming from somewhere for them to be able to afford them and thus there is no reason whilst no one can afford to pay them. Basic reasoning being - prices aren't too high if people are buying them up like candy ( as was the case with grade 11 purples at launch ). nd they did it on an item that requires real money to purchase, giving it an initial inherent 'value' and appeal, prompting people to make hypercrate purchases, and then a week later they removed that inherent value. And that's what I find unacceptable about it. I can see this point of view also and it's quite accurate but what errors were made here? Eric mentioned Jawa Junk drop rates would most likely be reviewed thus he has neglected to mention Cartel Market Certificates also. He never also mentioned the price might go up. Minor oversights in my eyes but oversights none the less. Now let's look at the item in particular. What is the ACTUAL in game description of it? It wasn't even announced by Eric or bioware that this item was being put into the game in any state or form ( well some website they post to might have mentioned it actually ). The hype came from word of mouth from the community once people realised it was more or less a license to print money. Anyone who thought that that was going to stay as is and based their purchase decision on the words of the community are foolish imo. Yes Eric said it was working as intended but I think that in my view refers to the point of you pay 500 coins and click it spins and you might win something. This whole s***storm is over the fact he neglected to mentioned the above 2 points and I think it's all very much over hyped. Add to this not ONE person so far has been able to show they bought this machine for the initial drop rates and actually managed to make a loss on it ( or their hypercrate being that you get more than just a slot machine in it ) and I really fail to see any major basis for the outrage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Geez where have you been? Didnt you know that crew skills suck and are worthless? I mean ask Art the next time he is on. What's an art? *looks at his in game balance and storage lockers* news to me though. Slot machine did not require logging in and out of the game, it was faster, it had flashy lights and wacky noises, you could win other stuff besides mats, I could hang out with friends while I played the slots, a disco ball popped out of nowhere on occasion, I could build a casino in my stronghold and so on. I'll just have to point out that your idea of tedium and mine obviously differ as that is the point I was making not what the slot machine did or did not do on that particular point. As to the rest of your point ... it still does all that stuff. But to address your main point - I certainly don't NEED to craft to play the game. And for the most part I did not craft because it was too tedious. But the slot machine and more available level 11 green mats made crafting a more appealing option. My preference would be to participate in as much of the game as possible. But I'm not going to spend my entertainment time doing chores. And I would think a video game company would want to make most aspects of games offered as enjoyable as possible. Why play otherwise? So my question to you - what is the point of making crafting a time-consuming in-game challenge? What harm is there in allowing me to craft 186 gear more easily? Is your experience diminished because I can get this gear with less difficulty? Just curious. First let's revisit the fact I run 2 toons and am fairly game wealthy I believe. Now, what was tedious about crafting before the slot machine that isn't tedious now? It's the same process. The slot machine barely dented the green material market, the drops were considered pretty inconsequential in terms of how easy/fast green mats can be bought into the game via crew skills ( even off 1 toon ). It was the purples where the slot machine shined. So if it is the mat gathering you find laborious well I don't see how in comparison to the slot machine. My 2 toons ( that can and always have easily fully funded my crafting wants/needs to get me where I am now ) takes me a mere few minutes to send off on crew skills for me to carry on doing what else I would like. This was enough, as I said, to make and keep me rich and use crafting to any purpose I saw fit. The slot machine though would require me to sit there and click a button over and over for say 15 minutes to burn a stack ( distractions force me to miss the optimum 10 minute time ) to get my materials detracting from anything else I could be doing that is fun in game. I just fail to see how spending a few minutes sending companions out on crew skills could be considered laborious and slots not unless it was solely for the reasons slots were basically a guaranteed winning lottery. Now let's look at an EVEN simpler method to participate in crafting. You go to GTN, you buy materials, you craft. In almost all cases you can buy materials for a rate that will ensure profit on selling the crafted item if that is your choice. Thus you can participate in the game for less laborious effort than either method without losing any money at all providing you want to put that upfront investment in. If you want to do it for your own toons but don't want to pay any money then fine you revert back to crew skills traditionally, again far from time consuming, and build up the mats required. I would also point people towards mission discoveries which will give you guaranteed purples for your crew skills which you can buy from the GTN often for less cost than the materials currently sell for. Failing that it's the old method. Now I get people were enjoying getting purple items to craft their own toons gear and I think that is great and I will fully support that and a return to the old Jawa Junk drop rate on one condition ... Jawa Junk is BOP and so is anything you buy with it and anything you craft with the BOP mats. Oh and the cartel market certs don't get any better than a 0.5% drop rate if not removed altogether, those just ruined it for other players like me who were saving up our rare certs from packs we bought ( one could argue we were screwed just as much as those who bought crates just for the slots ) Thus you CANNOT make a profit from it. You can craft to your hearts content nice and cheaply if you are happy to do so for yourself but the slot machine doesn't impact open the market in terms of being able to flood the market with mats. Yes it would still affect the market but it wouldn't have the effect it did this time around as people will still want to buy mats and the only way to sell mats for them would be to use crew skills. Sounds like a fair solution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DurdensWrath Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 tl;dr Is there a reason you're trolling these threads, other than to just stir up things? I mean sure, you have every right to put your opinion, but damn dude. You're being willfully obtuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krisknife Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 slots still broke, bump for love:p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Hey kharThos there are about 20 other threads about the silly slot machine go post on one of them Arts busy here you guys take your bromance seriously. remember to kiss and make up!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottocamp Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Thus you CANNOT make a profit from it. You can craft to your hearts content nice and cheaply if you are happy to do so for yourself but the slot machine doesn't impact open the market in terms of being able to flood the market with mats. Yes it would still affect the market but it wouldn't have the effect it did this time around as people will still want to buy mats and the only way to sell mats for them would be to use crew skills. Sounds like a fair solution? Sounds like a very good solution to me. Though bound to legacy would be better. And I appreciate your thoughtful comments and observations. How I see the situation: Some games make gearing your character rather fun and enjoyable. I don't feel SWTOR is one of those games. The crafting and gearing process in SWTOR seems arduous and boring to me. As a consequence I believe a number of people don't craft at all - which creates a profitable opportunity for people who are willing to craft. People willing to craft tend to see non-crafters as lazy. Those not willing to craft cannot understand why anyone would spend their free time doing virtual chores. But either way a market now exists because of the current dynamic. The slot machine disrupted the market and the status quo. I would certainly grant that the slot machine is hardly an ideal solution to the tediousness of crafting in SWTOR. But it seemed a step in the right direction for many. I believe the game would be best served by making all aspects of the game enjoyable and accessible. Best if everyone wanted to participate in crafting. Certainly a barrier of entry to crafting does create financial opportunities. But is that really important to the health of the game? This is a game and not real life. Money can actually just rain down from above. Or the game can be brutally hard. I understand that some people prefer hard. I personally prefer the games I play to be fun escapes from the daily grind. Green mats everywhere I stepped on Yavin and a slot machine that exploded purple mats was awesome in my opinion. But I can appreciate disagreement on the needed level of game difficulty. I don't however understand the need to protect an existing market. This isn't Wall Street. This is Star Wars. And hard or easy - all parts of the game should be fun and enjoyable. It should not be a chore. Slot machines or something else - I don't really care. Just make it better than it is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Or non lazy player who actually is capable of clicking a few buttons to send his companions on crew skills a few times a day. Mad Skillz or a gold farmer that was using massive markups to make his quota....entirely possible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadHoneyBadger Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Not true, something essential has been changed; the return rate. Slot machines all over the world are operated at a return rate of about 90% for what you put in, because decades of research, data and experience by people who are presumably a little more knowledgeable about it than a random BW dev setting return rates with his d10 dice, have shown that to be the sweet spot that keeps people playing at a maximum rate, which leads to optimal enjoyment of the player and optimal profit for the house. Oc course there's no real 'house' here, but the basic psychology of playing the machines remains the same; the return rate has dropped to a point where it is no longer enjoyable for a large number of people to play them. Your assumption that every person who is complaining about slot machines is doing so motivated by greed is as ungrounded as the assumption that all crafters are price gougers. edit: Btw I'm not disputing that putting items with an in-game economical value as part of the return rate was a massively bad idea, but they did, and they did it on an item that requires real money to purchase, giving it an initial inherent 'value' and appeal, prompting people to make hypercrate purchases, and then a week later they removed that inherent value. And that's what I find unacceptable about it. So after reading all the post I experimented myself and bought 99 coins and the results were, Rep Items: 22 green, 15 blue, 5 purple scraps: 1 blue, 1 green Now I sold the rep items back to npc and got tier 11 items and sold them back and this is the figures: scrap resale - 220 credits rep resale - 38500 total - 38720 38720/75000 - 51.5266% Now that is 1/2 a return on your investment not considering you have a chance at a walker and cartel certs without buying a pack I don't think its all that bad. Maybe a slight increase in jawa scraps sure or maybe add more items or even add different types of reputations instead of one. When you go to a casino does the machine throw out a certificate for an item to the gift shop or a free buffet? No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 s there a reason you're trolling these threads, other than to just stir up things? I mean sure, you have every right to put your opinion, but damn dude. You're being willfully obtuse. Hey I back everything I say up with as much logic as I can, most do not and just make their tired blanket statements ( much like yours ). Not my fault if I'm not part of the popular opinion crowd in this instance. However if you can't actually show where/how I am wrong in anything I've said and only have rather unintelligent posts to make like the one above ... maybe don't bother? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Sounds like a very good solution to me. Though bound to legacy would be better. And I appreciate your thoughtful comments and observations. Yes BoL would be fine, no point in not being able to share crafts/gathers amongst toons and use it in legacy storage, either way people couldn't sell them which is the main point. Good point. Some games make gearing your character rather fun and enjoyable. I don't feel SWTOR is one of those games. The crafting and gearing process in SWTOR seems arduous and boring to me. As a consequence I believe a number of people don't craft at all - which creates a profitable opportunity for people who are willing to craft. People willing to craft tend to see non-crafters as lazy. Those not willing to craft cannot understand why anyone would spend their free time doing virtual chores. But either way a market now exists because of the current dynamic. As a crafter I actually agree to most of this. Firstly the gearing in this game is utterly mind numbingly boring. Having played single player RPG's for most of my life this is really at the bottom of the barrel in terms of gearing in my opinion ( though perhaps it's MMO's in general? Have played very few to comment ). I guess it comes from the need to augments/enhancements/mods/armorings that overly complicate the matter and that there is no really sort of "awesome" gear you can get dropped randomly that is without the need to go down the path of adaptive gear. I wasn't around pre F2P beyond the beta trial I gave a shot to ( but wasn't at that point willing to actually buy the game ) but I guess the cartel market is to blame for this? My view being crafting could have been all about vanity items and amrorings etc. and made it all a bit more simple to understand and use but once the CM came along they couldn't adapt a concept of crafting being about vanity items as that would detract from the CM. Likewise they couldn't switch and have the actual items that give power/stats because then that's P2W. Outside of the OPS drops there is very little to no gear where you really think "hell yeah, stoked about that drop" and that's a shame because that's always been a big part of RPG's for me. It makes the grinding even more grindy too. I don't see all non crafters as lazy at all, most know there is a market for them to buy materials if they choose and anything generally runs in balance as the market dictates. It's the people who try go off and moan about the GTN and the regular crafted goods/ materials as being too expensive and those selling them as "gougers". Those people are lazy to me because they have the time to whinge about it but won't do anything about it by helping drive prices down or what not. The slot machine disrupted the market and the status quo. I would certainly grant that the slot machine is hardly an ideal solution to the tediousness of crafting in SWTOR. But it seemed a step in the right direction for many. I didn't mind it, I just didn't think the drop rates put on it were overly "wise". Either way I was still going to make profit and even if it was less profit then everyone was making less profit meaning anything I spend my credits on would also have to drop in price to meet the new normal. What did annoy me was the cartel cert drop rate and only because I had spent months to build up 50 of these puppies waiting for a full stack at which time I would aim for a cool 10-15 million in item sales from it ( I've had more but used them to get reputation gear ). It wasn't enough to make me rage about it but it still annoyed me that it hit the market in that regard so hard as that's not necessarily a commonly available item that was suddenly made commonly available. My other huge concerns were first the macro users who could non stop farm by not really doing anything and also it tended to ruin the current game balance in terms of crafting/gathering. By this I mean before it wasn't overly much of a challenge for a person with only a few toons to login into each and send their members off on crew skills each day. You could comfortably do this every few hours and if you worked/had family it wasn't that big of a deal if you only did it 2-3 times a day comapred to those who camped it, you would still do ok. Now come the slots it suddenly throws the bulk of the wealth ( ignoring macro users ) into the parts of the community who have the time spend far more hours than most in game. This was a tad disjointed to me because generally those are going to be people who don't work or have a family or what not ( granted there are exceptions and I'm not grouping everyone together in that regard, just generalising based on my own opinion ) so that ideally far more than before would really widen the gap between rich and poor simply because of activity levels. Before people were limited by the time put on the crew skills missions ( which are there for that very reason, to slow supply ) - now they were only limited by how fast they could click and how much time they spent doing it. Again, nothing I raged about but it's still a fair point I feel. I believe the game would be best served by making all aspects of the game enjoyable and accessible. Best if everyone wanted to participate in crafting. Certainly a barrier of entry to crafting does create financial opportunities. But is that really important to the health of the game? The thing is in my opinion it's still easy to craft/gather. The only thing affected is how much you can craft/gather really compared to the next person. That never really changed and got worse with slots imo. Not too sure what you mean on the barrier being it creates financial opportunities? Creating them to me is more of a lure than it is a barrier? Slot machines or something else - I don't really care. Just make it better than it is now. Yup and even those of us who argue against this massive influx of whingers have put up what would be fair alternatives. If you look through my posts you'll note I few times I've put through Khevar's observation that the slots seem to have a coding error in the the decimal point was palced wrong, if you move that one place to the right for the jawa items and cartel certificates ( probably walker too but leave the trophies ) it ( the drop rate ) suddenly becomes what would seem much more reasonable for all parties concerned. Not a guaranteed money tree but you do have an alternative way of getting mats ( at a cost just as gathering is a cost ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeNaCe-NZ Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 or a gold farmer that was using massive markups to make his quota....entirely possible I would think the gold farmers would be pro putting it back how it was ... macro macro macro macro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krisknife Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 it's disappointing really, there has been no word if these changes are "intended" lulz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleurdelis Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 it's disappointing really, there has been no word if these changes are "intended" lulz Agreed, the lack of response from the Devs is deafening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beasthunt Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) So after reading all the post I experimented myself and bought 99 coins and the results were, Rep Items: 22 green, 15 blue, 5 purple scraps: 1 blue, 1 green Now I sold the rep items back to npc and got tier 11 items and sold them back and this is the figures: scrap resale - 220 credits rep resale - 38500 total - 38720 38720/75000 - 51.5266% Now that is 1/2 a return on your investment not considering you have a chance at a walker and cartel certs without buying a pack I don't think its all that bad. Maybe a slight increase in jawa scraps sure or maybe add more items or even add different types of reputations instead of one. When you go to a casino does the machine throw out a certificate for an item to the gift shop or a free buffet? No. You are an extremely lucky individual. If you consider your return luck. 600 coins. 1- cert 0- jawa scraps of any kind. But let's cover something else, which people fail to see in this game, shall we: "When you go to a casino does the machine throw out a certificate for an item to the gift shop or a free buffet?" When running down the street, do you ride on your Rancor? Do you pull out your skiff from your pocket? Do you pull out your lightsaber and show your neighbors or perhaps you send your comps to do your work for you? Do you head to the international space station and take a priority transport to Saturn to run some dailies? No. This game is a fantasy game. It's not real world, so trying to base facts on a fantasy world is not a very good argument, my friend. Edited January 23, 2015 by beasthunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pietrastor Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Agreed, the lack of response from the Devs is deafening. Or telling. Theories of an intentional pre-planned nerf to trick people into buying more packs than usual at first because of the machine's gnerosity are already gaining in popularity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mowermanx Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Or telling. Theories of an intentional pre-planned nerf to trick people into buying more packs than usual at first because of the machine's gnerosity are already gaining in popularity. What a ridiculous notion. The flicking nutcases are out in force now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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