LordArtemis Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I really don't have a lot of previous MMO experience, and I consider myself to be a casual. I am primarily a single-player game person, and I was drawn here because of KOTOR (and the Infinity Engine games). I liked launch swtor, but I was a bit disappointed because I thought the single-player parts were lacking compared to the games that brought me here. I haven't been dissatisfied because this game is catering to casuals (since I am one), but because the devs seem to think casual = EZ mode. I'd like a middle ground between "being able to beat anything with my eyes closed" and "I'll never be able to beat this because I haven't watched 50 videos and spent 200 hours parsing fights with the op dummy". TBH, I don't think the encounters *as intended* are necessarily bad, it's just that the huge number of bugs combined with poor engine performance make much of new content unpalatable if not outright unplayable. And instead of fixing the bugs or revising the encounters to play well within the engine's limitations, it seems like the devs are trying to take the easy way out and just toss out better gear so that we can brute force our way through things. FYI, I like the major change that 3.0 brought -- Disciplines, which a lot of the detractors said dumbed down the game. IMO, the devs could have postponed the 56-60 content a few months for polishing and just introduced Disciplines and left 12x on and I'd have been a happy camper. Fair enough. At any rate, I enjoy our interactions, even when we are on opposing sides...ok, perhaps most when we are on opposing sides Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DorthVoder Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 (edited) Because the whole slot machine issue caught my attention I bought a slot machine today. I spent 150k on coins and gambled for a bit while watching TV. Needless to say the only things I got were rep-items. in its current state the machine feels like a huge waste of potential, since it could be a fun item with which to kill some time every now and then. Of course I have looked up the initial drop-list and drop-rates (as well as the current ones) and I am quite frankly baffled how this whole fiasco wasn't prevented in the first place. What absolutely makes no sense to me is how any lead/senior-designer worth his salt would greenlight the slot machine in its initial state to be deployed on the live servers. They had to know that: 1. adding jawa junk to the drop-lists would affect crew missions / the crafting based economy 2. adding cartel certificates could/would affect pack sales Considering that they should have full access to all the metrics (among them: CC bought, packs bought, CC spent, credits in game, credits created /destroyed etc.) it should have been easy to at least roughly estimate what would happen if they introduced the machine in its initial state. After all someone has had to come up with the initial balancing-values for the drop-rates. Also keep in mind that the cartel certificates could (afaik) only be acquired from packs, which means that the designer responsible was allowed to design items which could affect real-money-purchases. Stuff like this is usually NOT done by junior designers, but rather by experienced seniors and then either approved or rejected by a leading designer and/or project manager. How the devs could **** this up so hard is beyond me. And how they "fixed" the machine also leaves a lot to be desired, and feels like an extremely rushed emergency "fix". Not to mention how poorly they handle the (justified) community outrage on the forums. My suggestion to the devs: rethink the droplist of the machine and introduce some fun items which do not harm your CC sales and do not strongly affect the ingame economy. Make it a fun item to have and play with, otherwise it'll remain an (almost) complete waste of space. Edited February 4, 2015 by DorthVoder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minigal Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 And how they "fixed" the machine also leaves a lot to be desired, and feels like an extremely rushed emergency "fix". Not to mention how poorly they handle the (justified) community outrage on the forums. My suggestion to the devs: rethink the droplist of the machine and introduce some fun items which do not harm your CC sales and do not strongly affect the ingame economy. Make it a fun item to have and play with, otherwise it'll remain an (almost) complete waste of space. ^ this, definitely this. Every day I rush to the forums when I wake up to see if there is communication and/or if the item has been fixed. Every day I am disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 All these tears are so delicious! PLEASE MORE, MORE, MORE, I NEED YOUR QQ Particularly delicious are the tears of people posting in threads covering topics they purport to be disinterested in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Djiini Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Particularly delicious are the tears of people posting in threads covering topics they purport to be disinterested in. And you're only posting to attack people for doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neglience Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 (edited) And you're only posting to attack people for doing so. No, he is doing it all the time himself. Only difference now is that he feels affected by the slot changes. Edited February 4, 2015 by Neglience Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 (edited) And you're only posting to attack people for doing so. But I'm not crying about it. No, he is doing it all the time himself. Only difference now is that he feels affected by the slot changes. My issue is with the patch notes more than with the slot machine per se. I find the whole issue somewhat annoying. Not gonna ragequit over it, but annoying nonetheless. Edited February 4, 2015 by branmakmuffin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gronkagin Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Subscribers deserve the drop rates to be returned to the way they were at the beginning. We should get awesome stuff like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSeventhJedi Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Subscribers deserve the drop rates to be returned to the way they were at the beginning. We should get awesome stuff like that. Deserve? Why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muljo_Stpho Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I don't think I've looked in on this particular topic since early on when it was maybe 4-5 pages long. I've looked instead to some of the many other topics that were floating around. Have they merged all of that chatter into this one topic or has there seriously been 166 pages of continuous discussion / arguing going on in this one specific topic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Deserve? Why? My guess? The first word in the sentence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotorCityMan Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) 1000 coins, 1 certificate. 1 jawa junk. 3 droid parts. 3 scrap. 4 stacks of purple. blue,. green rep tokens. This game could use more fun slot machines. The possible drop list is endless. Seems a shame to kill the whole idea just because a couple of mistakes were made initially. Of course for a great many people, they aren't so fun I guess. They just use Auto Mouse Clicker programs. But maybe there could be a 4 hour CD after 100 coins to foil those and keep people from using those bot programs effectively. . Edited February 5, 2015 by MotorCityMan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Seems a shame to kill the whole idea just because a couple of mistakes were made initially. Exactly. It was fun, now it's pointless (once you quickly max rep). If they want to fix it (and I'm convinced they think it's fine as is), they need to make it fun again, and that does not mean they have to put it back the way it was. But since I am convinced they think this is the way it needs to be, what they really should do is issue an apology, do something to make amends, never introduce another slot machine and then hope everyone moves past the entire sordid failure they morphed the Contraband Slot Machine into. For many, including me, "slot machine" = "bad juju" in TOR, and it always will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DorthVoder Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Exactly. It was fun, now it's pointless (once you quickly max rep). If they want to fix it (and I'm convinced they think it's fine as is), they need to make it fun again, and that does not mean they have to put it back the way it was.... If they really think the machine is now fine as is, they need serious help. I guess everyone who played the slot machine in its current state will agree, that the gambling experience is totally unrewarding and boring. If "bland, boring, pointless" is the new Bioware-mantra, then obviously the machine is fine. If they however (as every sane game dev should) strive for, "fun, exciting, worthwhile" they need to fix it. Simply extending the droplist with bound items that have no or very low vendor value and lowering the loss rate would be a first step. Just to name a few items they could add: consumable jawagrams, fireworks, xp-boosts, stims, medpacks, lockboxes (like the ones from treasure hunting missions), the list is basically endless. But I guess ruining the item and not communicating with the community is much easier. And since so many people on the forums actually don't care or even defend such lazy behaviour, I also think it is not very likely that the devs will do anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raphael_diSanto Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I don't think I've looked in on this particular topic since early on when it was maybe 4-5 pages long. I've looked instead to some of the many other topics that were floating around. Have they merged all of that chatter into this one topic or has there seriously been 166 pages of continuous discussion / arguing going on in this one specific topic? Oh, no, this isn't a merged thread. This one's its own beast, baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Exactly. It was fun, now it's pointless (once you quickly max rep). If they want to fix it (and I'm convinced they think it's fine as is), they need to make it fun again, and that does not mean they have to put it back the way it was. But since I am convinced they think this is the way it needs to be, what they really should do is issue an apology, do something to make amends, never introduce another slot machine and then hope everyone moves past the entire sordid failure they morphed the Contraband Slot Machine into. For many, including me, "slot machine" = "bad juju" in TOR, and it always will. Good post bran - I agree with it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Djiini Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 never introduce another slot machine If I miss out on free cartel rep because people flipped out about the slot machines I'm going to be sorely disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nitblade Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 They just need to put on their Big Boy pants and come explain themselves. So we will finally know if it was just a humongous mistake, an insanely borked idea, a data entry error or a well thought out reaction. 2nd hand account from a excessively restricted event does not constitute an explanation. Whatever their justification for the nerf are, come tell it straight. The more you delay the worse/completely incompetent your whole management team is (I assume there is still someone managing there). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielearley Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Is it me or are they totally ignoring this issue now, whilst I understood the need to reduce the Jawa Junk drops, I'm still totally confused by the complete and utter destruction of the slot machine. From saying working as intended to basically not working at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSeventhJedi Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Is it me or are they totally ignoring this issue now, whilst I understood the need to reduce the Jawa Junk drops, I'm still totally confused by the complete and utter destruction of the slot machine. From saying working as intended to basically not working at all. Yeah, at this point in time, I'm pretty sure they have no intention of ever discussing it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielearley Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Yeah, at this point in time, I'm pretty sure they have no intention of ever discussing it again. I have to say, I've been fairly happy with the communication from the team here, but this one item has had a massive following and comments, this is still a hot topic yet they are ignoring it. In my eyes this shows a lack of respect for the players at worse contempt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VelRathis Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Fully agree, given that bioware `monitored statistics around the slot machine's usage' Id be interested to know if anyone is still using it since the Nerf rendered it less use than a grey trash item. It hasnt got a credit from me since they changed the drop rates...... is anyone actually still playing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azudelphi Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Fully agree, given that bioware `monitored statistics around the slot machine's usage' Id be interested to know if anyone is still using it since the Nerf rendered it less use than a grey trash item. It hasnt got a credit from me since they changed the drop rates...... is anyone actually still playing it. It is more useful than a grey trash item. Grey trash items don't give you reputation. So I would imagine players who still need that reputation are using them for a bit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pietrastor Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) Yeah, at this point in time, I'm pretty sure they have no intention of ever discussing it again.Then they should cancel Friday stream again, 'cause we all know what gonna be the #1 question there Edited February 5, 2015 by Pietrastor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDymond Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) If I miss out on free cartel rep because people flipped out about the slot machines I'm going to be sorely disappointed. I agree on principle (I'm already Legend on everything up to the Shadow Packs). A new CM-acquired means of obtaining old CM reps is a nice addition. A slot machine isn't a terribly interesting mechanic in the grand scheme of things, but it is better than just having a vendor straight-up selling the old rep tokens. I'd very much like to see them releasing these Slot Machines around the one-year mark after the associated Rep packs were embargoed, and I think they're perfectly fine as being solely a method for getting that rep, with a very rare 'jackpot' chance of a walker or cartel cert or something like that. I wouldn't be opposed to BW adding another trivial 'fluff' item type on the machine's win table just to give players that many more 'success' rolls to make it more enjoyable, (the green jawa scraps might even work for that) but it doesn't need such a change - the machine isn't broken as-is. Edited February 5, 2015 by DarthDymond Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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