The Contraband Slot Machine

[Exquisitr]

I don't care one way or the other on the slot machine. I really don't. However, it wasn't handled well by BW or the player base. Players have already articulated several responses. Seems like something should be done by BW in response to the negativity. There was a message to the player base prior to the nerf that basically said it's working as expected, but they'd take a look at it. My guess is there was a lot of positive cash flow at that time to get one. Yes, it was a mistake to release it in its original form, yes it was premature to say it was working as expected; and yes it was a mistake to nerf it so drastically without better communication. Players also made mistakes like spending real cash on hypercrates thinking they'd get one (it's RNG based), not being careful about the BW wording ("working as expected, but we'll look at"), and abusing the heck out of it in the early release.

 

I know the forums represent a small segment of the population, the ardent supporters, the folks wanting to learn more about how to play the game, and the SW fans. However, we're also paying subs, buying CC and such. We may or may not be a representative cross section of the player base. That doesn't matter. The amount of complaining (at one point it was the ONLY topic on page 1 that wasn't stickied) warrants a response for customer relations.

 

Full disclosure: I have a CCSM. I bought it off the GTN. I got max rep, some cc coins and quit playing it pre nerf. It wasn't fun to me and I already made nearly 100 million credits from the SOR expac so I didn't want it for profiteering. I was after the hoverchair. I've unsubbed, but not over the CCSM.

[Jeweledleah]

Um, ok crazy person. You go sit in your crazy corner over there ---->

 

 

really? really?

 

so you have nothing productive to say, so you just resort to even more insults? don't bother replying to me, as whatever you may say is essentially worthless, I'm putting you on a ignore.

 

to the post quoting terms of service.

 

there is a difference between changing general parameters of the game balance and changing items that are sold for extra money.

to those of you who either have short memory or haven't been playing long enough - back in a day of early packs... you know the ones that slot machine is giving rep for nowadays? we had a bunch of cartel armor pieces, that apparently, bioware screwed up the look of. what they looked like on pack art was not how they looked in game. a few people complained about it

 

so they decided to "fix" them.

 

wanna guess what happened? its ok, I'll tell you. what happened is people who got those armors based on actual preview, not concept art got pissed off and complained on the forums. after all they paid for one thing, but had it suddenly changed on them into something that looked quite different.

 

and this is why we have two different sets of certain armors. regularly named ones and "classic" versions. because back them, bioware still cared about happiness of their customers, and the only solution that would please both camps that they could come up was - to add both types of armors to the game. and you know what else they did? they gave all the people who had those armors already bound? classic versions. for free. they were mailed in already BoP state, but.. people who liked their old look? could actualy keep it.

 

I wonder what happened to that bioware.

 

because the wrecking ball of a nerf they hit slot machines with? is pretty much history repeating itself. except for bioware response that is

Edited February 2, 2015 by Jeweledleah

[dscount]

Still suggesting return of CERT's to original drop ratio of 2.5%.

 

Rest can stay the same, but I do agree the NERF hammer here was more severe than what the exploiters got hit with.

[Draqsko]

Still suggesting return of CERT's to original drop ratio of 2.5%.

 

Rest can stay the same, but I do agree the NERF hammer here was more severe than what the exploiters got hit with.

 

Bioware is more likely to raise the drop rates on mats before the certs, considering certs affect their bottom line. It was obvious this was why certs were nerfed to begin with, when the original complaints were about mats. So we have two options, take it or leave it.

 

Personally I'm leaving it, and as it stands now it's a negative factor in my evaluation of future packs with them. It's taking the place of a better looking piece of decoration since I already have a bunch of non-functioning slot machine decorations, adding a bunch more non-functioning ones doesn't really appeal.

 

 

I honestly think the ball was dropped in the design process. The item was either handed to an intern for iteration or, and this is my best suggestion, the prototype item with inflated drop rates (to check the code) made it to the live servers.

 

Now, it would be harmful to openly acknowledge that the QA process fumbled the slot machine so badly, so they went ahead and told the community team it was 'working as intended' but would have a balance judged on metrics.

 

That's not how this kind of stuff is tested, it's run through a simulation that does X number of pulls, or statistical analysis. They don't need to up any drop rates to test it because they don't have an intern sitting there clicking it like a monkey.

 

The ball might have been dropped in the design process but it was dropped from the outset, not because they let a "testing prototype" slip through. They doubly dropped the ball in how it was all handled. But please just stop thinking you have to make scale models when you program stuff for video games, you always test algorithms as they would exist in runtime.

[branmakmuffin]

Bioware is more likely to raise the drop rates on mats before the certs, considering certs affect their bottom line

Then I have to wonder why they made the cert rate as high as it was in the first place. And the cert rates were not the subject of player complaints, just the Jawa scrap (in particular the Junk) rate.

[eartharioch]

Then I have to wonder why they made the cert rate as high as it was in the first place. And the cert rates were not the subject of player complaints, just the Jawa scrap (in particular the Junk) rate.

 

There were complaints about the cert drop rate, just not many. And many of the posts detailing how much of a money maker the machine was clearly listed how much the certs were contributing. When the price for cert decos drops from well over 100K to 15K in a couple of days, you don't need an official post to know it's broken.

 

The machine was obviously broken on release. I don't care that the patch notes didn't mention certs, what I want to know is what basis Eric had for making his initial post -- did he have the wrong conversation with the wrong person, did somebody intentionally lie, or did a dev make a boneheaded error (like using 10 instead of 0.01) and not notice and just tell Eric everything was ok, or is/was there somebody so incompetent that they honestly thought that those rates were anywhere close to OK?

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter which is true, there's really no way BW (or almost any company) is going to come out and tell us what really happened.

Edited February 2, 2015 by eartharioch

[branmakmuffin]

The machine was obviously broken on release. I don't care that the patch notes didn't mention certs

You don't, but I do.

 

what I want to know is what basis Eric had for making his initial post -- did he have the wrong conversation with the wrong person, did somebody intentionally lie, or did a dev make a boneheaded error (like using 10 instead of 0.01) and not notice and just tell Eric everything was ok, or is/was there somebody so stupid that they honestly thought that those rates were anywhere close to OK?

I find the patch notes, as the more official communication, much more troublesome than Eric's post.

[idnewton]

the terms of service says it all.

IMPORTANT: BIOWARE MAY FIND IT NECESSARY TO MAKE CHANGES TO, OR RESET CERTAIN PARAMETERS TO BALANCE GAME PLAY AND USAGE OF TOR SERVICES. THESE CHANGES OR "RESETS" MAY AFFECT CHARACTERS OR GAMES OR GROUPS UNDER YOUR CONTROL AND MAY CAUSE YOU SETBACKS WITHIN THE RELEVANT GAME WORLD. BIOWARE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE THESE CHANGES AND IS NOT LIABLE TO YOU FOR THESE CHANGES.

This.

 

The machine was obviously broken on release. I don't care that the patch notes didn't mention certs, what I want to know is what basis Eric had for making his initial post -- did he have the wrong conversation with the wrong person, did somebody intentionally lie, or did a dev make a boneheaded error (like using 10 instead of 0.01) and not notice and just tell Eric everything was ok, or is/was there somebody so incompetent that they honestly thought that those rates were anywhere close to OK?

Also, this, likely the cause of the problem, but at the end of the day, you had to be pretty dense to think it was going to stay that way.

[Draqsko]

Then I have to wonder why they made the cert rate as high as it was in the first place. And the cert rates were not the subject of player complaints, just the Jawa scrap (in particular the Junk) rate.

 

Think about what wasn't changed.. The cost of mats on the Jawa vendors. The most effective nerf of Jawa Junk is simply increasing the cost of mats on the vendor, and that effectively nerfs all Jawa Junk in the system, now and in the future. But if they did that, they reduce the value of their packs since the packs contain JJ. Certs on the other hand.. with them on the slot machines, you actually devalue packs.

 

The nerf is perfectly logical, it protects their product. Everyone else worried about the in game economy was told to stuff it when they left the mats costing the same on the jawa vendors. They just haven't picked up on that yet.

[branmakmuffin]

This.

 

 

Also, this, likely the cause of the problem, but at the end of the day, you had to be pretty dense to think it was going to stay that way.

Very few thought it was going to stay that way, at least in terms of Jawa Junk. You have to be pretty dense to think otherwise. And again, you are missing the issue of the patch notes, regardless of what the EULA says. Sure, they can make any changes announced or unannounced, but it's a matter of good customer relations to let people know when a big change is coming. This was a gigantic change to the slot machine and the patch notes made it out to be a fairly minor one.

 

TCerts on the other hand.. with them on the slot machines, you actually devalue packs.

 

The nerf is perfectly logical, it protects their product. Everyone else worried about the in game economy was told to stuff it when they left the mats costing the same on the jawa vendors. They just haven't picked up on that yet.

You didn't even come close to addressing my point, but there in no way anyone other than an employee could.

Edited February 2, 2015 by branmakmuffin

[eartharioch]

Also, this, likely the cause of the problem, but at the end of the day, you had to be pretty dense to think it was going to stay that way.

 

I agree. I had 0 expectations that it would stay the way it was, and I while I'm disappointed that BW just gave it the Old Yeller treatment instead of trying to make it something other than a source of shame, I got exactly what I (and everybody should have) expected, so I'm not losing any sleep over it.

 

I'm just curious (in a detached, clinical way, not looking for vengeance) how the machine (as released) could ever have been characterized as "working as intended". I also said I fully understand why I'm unlikely to learn the truth; but again, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

[eartharioch]

I find the patch notes, as the more official communication, much more troublesome than Eric's post.

 

I thought Tait wrote the patch notes...how is that *more* official that Eric?

 

I'm not saying I wouldn't *like* some sort of explanation, but it was mishandled from step one. People threatened lawsuits, and (if I read correctly) at least one person filed a formal complaint in his country. Once stuff like that happens, people tend to stop writing things that may be used against them.

 

There is no way that anything that they can do that will make everybody happy, all it would do is change which people are happy/unhappy. Some people have said that they would just like a "final answer" and that that would make it better. Unfortunately, everybody isn't like that. If BW says something, some people will try to "continue" the dialog, and if BW doesn't respond, we'll be right back where we are now.

 

Would I *like* BW to say something? Sure. But, TBH, I can't imagine that it would change my opinion on anything that's happened. Unless they tell me what they're doing to try to prevent things like this from happening in the future, it really doesn't matter.

[DarthDymond]

I'm just curious (in a detached, clinical way, not looking for vengeance) how the machine (as released) could ever have been characterized as "working as intended".

To be fair, it was never characterized as "working as intended". It was characterized as 'not a bug' and 'not an exploit', and it never was either of those things. In the same post where they said "not a bug & not an exploit" they also said "we're going to look at drop rates" so in this context "working as intended" isn't really a fair paraphrase.

 

As for why the drop rates were ever what we saw in the initial release, you're probably right and we'll never get an actual answer, I have a couple of suspicions, but suspicions are all they are:

 

(1) The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing vis-a-vis the Jawa Scraps - the original plan for the Slot Machine was probably close to what we have now, that it was primarily a means of getting otherwise unavailable rep. They probably threw in the various Jawa Scraps to 'fill out' the drop table, but were not thinking of them as a significant aspect of the item (the same way they've just kind of fluff for the CM Packs). BUT at around the same time, the Grade 11 items were added to the Scrap Vendors. If the two teams weren't communicating, they might not have accounted for how that change would make the Junk a lot more valuable.

 

(2) They seriously underestimated how long people are willing to stand in one place and click the mouse over, and over, and over, and over again without any more interaction than a win/lose/draw message popping up, just for the chance at getting a digital cookie. They may have had a target number of Cartel Certs they were comfortable with the machine introducing into circulation each week, but that total number would have been based on [Drop Rate] x [Number of Clicks per Week]. If they found that [Number of Clicks per Week] was way higher than they expected, then they would have to reduce the [Drop Rate] to get back to their target total.

Edited February 2, 2015 by DarthDymond

[LordArtemis]

I'm just curious (in a detached, clinical way, not looking for vengeance) how the machine (as released) could ever have been characterized as "working as intended".

 

This is the big issue for me, mainly because it seems quite a few decisions lately have been pretty much "hands off the wheel", this one included.

 

A pattern has emerged since the release of 3.0 that has me concerned.

 

One of the most disturbing things to me is that the folks that communicate with us do not seem to even know the proper terms for items in the game....like jawa junk, jawa scraps, etc.

 

They are scraps. Jawa junk is one type of scrap.

Edited February 2, 2015 by LordArtemis

[eartharioch]

To be fair, it was never characterized as "working as intended". It was characterized as 'not a bug' and 'not an exploit', and it never was either of those things..

 

Semantics. Whether or not it was an actual coding error or a higher level design error is irrelevant. As I said, what I really want to know is how it happened. They had the information necessary to determine that it was broken when they said it wasn't a bug, so there was some sort of internal breakdown. Again, I don't expect to find out, I'm just saying that that's what interesting to me. Other people want to know about the "missing gun" in the patch notes.

[JattaGin]

One of the most disturbing things to me is that the folks that communicate with us do not seem to even know the proper terms for items in the game....like jawa junk, jawa scraps, etc.

 

Have you watched their PvP livestream a few weeks ago? They don't know the terms, they don't know how to play. I still feel embarrassed when I think of what I watched there. As if they played for the first time. I don't necessarily use the products / services of a company I work for either, but at least I know how they work / what they are. So yes, what you mentioned is disturbing to me as well.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I'm more curious how the recent cantina tour has Eric noting the machine in it's current state would only come out as a "slight" loss to the user over time. This based off the small transcript I read somewhere on here.

 

It's a bloody huge loss in it's current form which still make me think there are decimal points in the wrong place.

 

Hopefully lesson learned by BW, keep gambling stuff for vanity items. P2W items like the original slot machine just cause far too much grief.

[Jeweledleah]

incidentally, before I leave this topic for good.

 

yes, I was expecting a readjustment of droprates. I was expecting that jawa scraps will drop a lot less often. it seemed like a fair enough trade to still get certificates and a possibility of a new mount. however - what we got is nearly NO jawa scraps, nearly NO certificates and extremely low chance of getting a mount that is a very basic recolor of existing much cheaper mount.

 

and I was expecting that when adjustments were made, they would have been listed in patch notes. and then.. people tried the machine post "adjustment" and have shown, over an over that its major loss for anyone not still looking for rep and what does bioware do? stay completely silent.

 

but its not all. they are staying silent on a lot of issues, completely silent, not even "we are looking into it" they had to say and do something about ravagers exploit becasue it was just that huge, but even then, they took their sweet SWEET time doing anything about it.

 

I accept bugs on release of new content. but this goes far beyond usually expected bugginess, I mean... we have bugs in new content, that were supposedly fixed in older content, so you'd THINK they would know what to watch out for, but nope!. these bugs, were fixed before, so you'd THINK they would just use the same fix they used before and patch them quickly, but NOPE. reports sit in bug forums for WEEKS.

 

I promised myself that I wouldn't get angry. I might sound a bit angry, but the truth is...I'm tired. I'm so very very tired of giving this team benefit of a doubt, defending them because I have developer friends and I know how hard they usually work. I don't know what's going on with bioware as a company, at least SWTOR team. but whatever it is - it seems to be going downhill. big time.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Jeweledleah

[Transairion]

I'm more curious how the recent cantina tour has Eric noting the machine in it's current state would only come out as a "slight" loss to the user over time. This based off the small transcript I read somewhere on here.

 

It's a bloody huge loss in it's current form which still make me think there are decimal points in the wrong place.

 

 

Yeah, I really can't comprehend this ever being true... I can find no way to break even with the machine period, using it is just burning credits: at the most I won less than 10 Jawa items, no Certs, no mounts from like 25+ stacks of 99 tokens over a few weeks or so.

 

The old machine, even if horribly skewed at least had the fun enjoyment that I got to see the jackpot like every 5 spins, which I didn't get to see much during Nightlife of course. I've yet to see a disco ball from the new version of the machine, so now I'm just cutting my losses and never using it again.

 

I already had max Reputation when I bought it, so it literally just sits there eating credits and spitting out.... less credits than went in really.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Transairion

[eartharioch]

so it literally just sits there eating credits and spitting out.... less credits than went in really.

 

It's a slot machine. That's it's job. That said, a good slot machine would at least make you feel good about it. I hereby christen the nerfed CSM the "Private Cowboy Slot Machine".

[Transairion]

It's a slot machine. That's it's job. That said, a good slot machine would at least make you feel good about it. I hereby christen the nerfed CSM the "Private Cowboy Slot Machine".

 

 

If that were true, then nobody would every play a slot machine ever because you'd always lose money no matter what. There's a reason they have a jackpot of like a million dollars with the tiniest chance possible of hitting.

 

 

Current machine has nothing like that, you just put in a token and basically lose it or get less credits than the token was worth. If your super lucky, you'll get some kind of scrap.

 

If you're super super lucky, you'll get a Cert that requires Rep of some kind to use.

 

If you're super duper obnoxiously lucky, you'll get a reskinned mount of which about 6 other variants exist.

 

 

The machine would be better, IMO, if the chance to get your token back was like 75% lol. As it stands, there's a 45% lose rate, and I've hit that more than 5 times in a row quite a few times.

 

Nothing fun about playing something like that, especially when my "win" is either the token back or Reputation.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Transairion

[Draqsko]

I'm more curious how the recent cantina tour has Eric noting the machine in it's current state would only come out as a "slight" loss to the user over time. This based off the small transcript I read somewhere on here.

 

It's a bloody huge loss in it's current form which still make me think there are decimal points in the wrong place.

 

Hopefully lesson learned by BW, keep gambling stuff for vanity items. P2W items like the original slot machine just cause far too much grief.

 

You can tell its entirely intentional because the loss rate is a perfect even number. When you program an algorithm like the slot machine has, the loss rate is your catch-bin so to speak, you actually program the other numbers first, and anything that doesn't fit those cases is a loss. Because of that, if the loss rate is a whole number % while you have a fractional rate on some items that would make it impossible without actually calculating those numbers prior to inserting them into the algorithm.

 

As for why it happened like it did, maybe everyone is more or less right. Basically it happened for all the reasons everyone thinks, it was worked on and rushed over a long holiday with the need for filler items so jawa scrap got picked, miscommunication between various teams so jawa scrap now able to buy current tier crafting mats, and completely not understanding how their playerbase would torture themselves over a minute advantage. The last part they should have known given the Nefra exploit and how it worked.

 

But I think we all need to move on at this point, it's obvious it isn't going to change.

[eartharioch]

If that were true, then nobody would every play a slot machine ever because you'd always lose money no matter what. There's a reason they have a jackpot of like a million dollars with the tiniest chance possible of hitting.

 

It is true, and lots of people play slot machines. You missed the point where I said "and feel good about it." Go to Vegas and play slots -- on average, you lose money. Some people win big, but enough other people lose small that the players *as a whole* lose. Yet people keep playing.

 

So how does that work? Well, a lot of people like to go out with friends, have drinks, socialize, or whatever. A casino offers a place to do that, and (at least in a lot of casinos) they pay people to dress up, walk around, and give out "free" drinks. So, if I had a budget of $50 for going out, I don't care if I lose it in a slot machine while getting free drinks or if I go somewhere else and pay for each drink. And at the casino, some times I win something.

 

That's the problem with the PCSM - there's no "fun" factor to balance the average net loss. In a real casino, *somebody* has to win occasionally. When you are playing by yourself (which most people are, you can't take your machine with you and group up with other players, so unless you installed multiple machines or go some place where somebody else did, you can't really do it "socially") you don't see other people winning (and given the odds, you probably won't see it a lot in a group setting, either). So you can't even really take pleasure in seeing a friend win.

 

The kingpin machines avoided this two ways -- first, the machines were public, so you did get to see people winning. Second, there were a lot of prizes that didn't have a cash value, so you could still win things while losing money.

 

To make the machine "work", it needs to be a net loss money-wise, but they need more "winning" drops (that don't generate money), or they need to accumulate money server-wide and pay it out as a jackpot (so that at least *some* players could get a win). As it is now, each individual player is like a private casino, and everybody ends up being a loser.

Edited February 3, 2015 by eartharioch

[Vhaegrant]

That's not how this kind of stuff is tested, it's run through a simulation that does X number of pulls, or statistical analysis. They don't need to up any drop rates to test it because they don't have an intern sitting there clicking it like a monkey.

 

The ball might have been dropped in the design process but it was dropped from the outset, not because they let a "testing prototype" slip through. They doubly dropped the ball in how it was all handled. But please just stop thinking you have to make scale models when you program stuff for video games, you always test algorithms as they would exist in runtime.

 

I was trying to be generous and think of ways in which the CSM made it into the live servers which didn't make the people behind it look totally incompetent. And thinking of a previous prototype slipping through was about the only way I could imagine it happening I never thought they'd make a scale model, but you may end up with several variants of scripts for objects laying about, forget to update one and you end up with the wrong values slipping through. The thought that a developer actually considered the initial release of the CSM had acceptable values for drop rates suggests that they put someone on the task with no prior experience of their own game or MMOs in general.

I'm fully aware of automated procedures for running up big numbers for metrics. I've spent enough time in front of basic spreadsheets that allow you to do such things fast and dirty and would throw up the issues with about 5 minutes worth of effort. That the developers didn't think a basic check wasn't worth such a small amount of time has me worried. They should have been even more careful as they were introducing something new to the cartel pack that could effect other ingame aspects.

There were glaring balance issues that suggest that somehow the CSM managed to drop through several quality checkpoints.

The over reaction the other way, complete removal of Jawa token drops, when it was a stated the initial intent was to find a fun way to introduce garde 11 materials into the game, suggests someone got their knuckles slapped and had their pet project thrown in the bin.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Vhaegrant

[Vhaegrant]

To make the machine "work", it needs to be a net loss money-wise, but they need more "winning" drops (that don't generate money), or they need to accumulate money server-wide and pay it out as a jackpot (so that at least *some* players could get a win). As it is now, each individual player is like a private casino, and everybody ends up being a loser.

I don't know if the machine has to be a net loss money-wise.

 

Don't get me wrong, it certainly has to be a credit sink, but I feel as long as the items it drops are bound to the character/legacy playing and not able to be easily sold on the GTN you limit the damage.

 

One issue with the Cartel Certificates is that they were so easily monetised into credits by purchasing one of the Personnel Decorations and then selling it on the GTN. Kaching, instant profit.

 

The rate of Purple jawa tokens that dropped was ridiculously high (almost the same as the chance of getting a green or blue jawa token) and again could be traded in at the Jawa vendor and then sold on the GTN. I'm not so sure it was the direct impact of the CSM that caused the crash of prices but rather the fear of the imminent resource glut made material hoarders try to off load their stocks as quickly as possible.

 

So it should be a fairly easy calculation to work out the drop rates if you want to keep it 'balanced' with regards to credit-sink. And that relationship isn't really a time factor, each stack of 99 slot-chips will generate a certain return. However, over time having a fairly fixed return of materials can cause an accumulation. That's why I made my original suggestion of limiting the number of times a legacy can use a slot machine. It throttles back that accumulation and allows you to place drop rates on the slot machines that are more attractive.