Changes Coming in Tomorrow's (1/21) Maintenance

[TravelingNomad]

Do you honestly expect your purchase to be exclusive to real money purchases until the end of time? Or at least until the game is shut down?

 

One day, this will all end, there will come a day when the servers are turned off for the last time.

 

What then?

 

Perhaps as a going away present, for the last 60 days, every shiny is unlocked for everyone, free of charge, go nuts! Would that upset you?

 

If that happened, I wouldn't care. My character would look as silly as I could make him look.

 

As to whether or not the real money exclusive things time thing, they have clearly reskinned things from other things in the past with ease. Look at the items you can get with Recovered Relics in flashpoints. Reskinned battlemaster armor. Am I upset? No, because it is still different than the original item. Things should be exclusive until the game ends for some things. Again, I am perfectly fine with them charging for old packs again and having those things back in the mix of thing, my main issue is people are obtaining things that were previously bought by players that spent their money on. People have been buying stuff of the GTN without getting a single pack, and I'm fine with that since there is only so many of that item based on the amount of packs opened or sold.

 

I do fully expect certain items, like the Crate-O-Matic, my Champion or Battlemaster set, and other things you can't get anymore to stay that way until the end of the game.

[wolfyde]

That is true, but it is pretty thin at that...

While those do provide a nice boost while leveling, they aren't required or the end all, be all of stats...

P2W would be more serious if it was required to really play the game, or to have a fair chance at winning. The game is balanced to NOT require them in any form. They are just nice to have...

I think Bioware gets that, which is why they have said the +41 isn't changing and they aren't doing it again. It is a mild form of it, but nothing to get bent over.

 

^^this.

 

You can only speak of P2W when you have to spend real money to gain an advantage in a competitive environment.

The crystals that can be acquired in-game through game mechanics (crafting in this case) are identical in stats, hence no advantage.

Edited January 21, 2015 by wolfyde

[TravelingNomad]

My girlfriend spent something like $200 on City of Heroes, not like she got it back when it shut down to feed GW2 while it was hemorrhaging.

 

I don't expect my money back at all, I love playing the game, so I see spending money as feeding the dev team. If they shut down tomorrow, oh well, I lost a bunch of money on in game stuff.

[TravelingNomad]

I'll refer to my post above, and I did a quick count in-game as well; from the 147 items that were included int first wave of Cartel packs, a player with reputation and certificates can buy a selection of 10 from the reputation NPC.

That means 137 items are still as exclusive as they ever were and cannot be obtained by playing the machine.

 

That is true, however the rarest items are the things you can purchase, like the hover chair, Revan mask, Primordial Cannon, etc

[LordArtemis]

There are a few things that folks seem to be ignoring.

 

They basically, IMO, told all of the forum members on both sides of the fence to go fly a kite.....

 

First, they refused to remove Level 11 mats AND said they wanted them to be more common. So that was a pretty big screw u to those that wanted the mats gone or as rare as they were. Those days are gone. GONE.

 

Second, they also refused to keep things as they were, recognizing that the material flow would likely be TOO high over time, and reduce the cost/appeal of crew missions by too much in the long run. So, adjustments were made, screw u to the "keep it as it is" guys.

 

They instead likely ignored most of us, looked at the metrics and made up their own minds. The forum feedback probably alerted them to the problem, but past that it was likely noise to them on both sides.

 

I for one think that was wise, if that is what actually happened.

 

Also, and this is just opinion and unsubstantiated speculation, I think this will NOT reduce supply. It will only slow it down to make crew missions not quite as undesirable as before....but still suck. It will help oversupply in the short term, but the eventual effect will be the same....you can likely get the same amount of junk for the same close to neutral cost since they are raising the drop rate of rep items, but it will just take longer.

 

My guess is it will take 4 times as long if they nerf it as much as I expect.

 

2 to 3 months from now there will still be downward pressure on prices, as it should be IMO...it will just likely be more gradual.

 

Again, this is what I would have done had I been making the decisions with respect to the contraband slot machine....

 

Coin price increased

Green scraps stay the same

Blue and Purple scraps drastically reduced

Rep items increased substantially

Certificates increased

Walker, Rancor, black/black and white/white dye added as very rare drops, all BOL.

 

I am assuming that this factional mount will at least be BOL...it really can't be BOP since the wrong faction could get it, unless that is taken into account with the drop.

Edited January 21, 2015 by LordArtemis

[RiVaN_]

President's Day they almost certainly will be, that's a federal holiday too. Valentine's Day is a Saturday this year, so yeah probably won't be working then either. Oh, and Flag Day's a Sunday.

 

So, in short - Yes, they will be off those days.

 

I just chose this quote, but to the rest of you, fair enough. You made your points quite well. I have my opinion and you all have yours, we'll leave it at that. But before you try to accuse me of being a racist I'll tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

One person's comments was headed down that path, so just stop right there. You don't know me, nor do you have any basis to make that kind of claim.

 

 

I simply believe that they (Bioware) have a broken product on their hands and rather than taking the day off they should be burning the midnight oil till it is fixed. Where I come from if you have a broken product and your customers already have it in their hands you get it fixed NOW and make amends. You don't drag repairs out for weeks on end and treat your customers like dirt while they wait...

Only in the software and MMO world can a company get away with this kind of crap.

 

I'm Uber frustrated at BW and the SWTOR team for selling us a bugged and broke expansion and then constantly releasing more and more broken stuff every week. In the last 3 months I have gone from fanboy to hater really fast because they just can't seem to get their heads on straight down there at Bioware Austin.

Say what you will about me, I speak the truth. Call me a complainer and say I'm just QQing all you want, it doesn't make my statements false. They have made a lot of mistakes and they continue to make them with every patch the put out. SoR has SOOOOO much potential, but it has all been mired in what has happened in the days since the launch. Once this game is dead & gone, 3.0 SoR will be remembered as a good idea that was turned into a piece of garbage that took the Dev team 3 months to fix...

[Theeko]

My girlfriend spent something like $200 on City of Heroes, not like she got it back when it shut down to feed GW2 while it was hemorrhaging.

 

But she also got what she paid for, I also spent tons of $ on Swg and that also shut down, I got what i paid for it was never altered.

[Djiini]

There are a few things that folks seem to be ignoring.

 

They basically, IMO, told all of the forum members on both sides of the fence to go fly a kite.....

 

 

Mm, not me. I like literally everything about this change.

[Heat-Wave]

Nope. Take the Korrealis Baron for example. Its cosmetic, its a silly yellow and blue car mount. But its worth 300+ mil on any server. Why? Because you can't get it anymore. Will they bring it back? I hope not, and if they do the backlash would be monumental. My point is they charged money for the cosmetic stuff, I purchased it, as did many others, and they are now rendering us as worthless and letting people get things for free that other people spent a large amount of money on. If they brought the packs back, I wouldn't care anymore because people would have to buy into them in order to get items.

 

It is only worth 300M if someone will pay that today...

 

The Crate-o-Matic used to fetch 100M, it doesn't anymore... on my server one has been listed over and over for around there... A guild mate just bought it from the guy last week... for 15M credits...

 

There were just no takers at the crazy price...

 

That mount? Don't have it, don't care, wouldn't pay even 1M for it, much less that.

[Jrr_hypernova]

There are a few things that folks seem to be ignoring.

 

They basically, IMO, told all of the forum members on both sides of the fence to go fly a kite.....

 

First, they refused to remove Level 11 mats AND said they wanted them to be more common. So that was a pretty big screw u to those that wanted the mats gone or as rare as they were. Those days are gone. GONE.

 

Second, they also refused to keep things as they were, recognizing that the material flow would likely be TOO high over time, and reduce the cost/appeal of crew missions by too much in the long run. So, adjustments were made, screw u to the "keep it as it is" guys.

 

They instead likely ignored most of us, looked at the metrics and made up their own minds. The forum feedback probably alerted them to the problem, but past that it was likely noise to them on both sides.

 

I for one think that was wise, if that is what actually happened.

 

Also, and this is just opinion and unsubstantiated speculation, I think this will NOT reduce supply. It will only slow it down to make crew missions not quite as undesirable as before....but still suck. It will help oversupply in the short term, but the eventual effect will be the same....you can likely get the same amount of junk for the same close to neutral cost since they are raising the drop rate of rep items, but it will just take longer.

 

My guess is it will take 4 times as long if they nerf it as much as I expect.

 

2 to 3 months from now there will still be downward pressure on prices, as it should be IMO...it will just likely be more gradual.

 

Again, this is what I would done had I been making the decisions with respect to the contraband slot machine....

 

Coin price increased

Green scraps stay the same

Blue and Purple scraps drastically reduced

Rep items increased substantially

Certificates increased

Walker, Rancor, black/black and white/white dye added as very rare drops, all BOL.

 

I am assuming that this factional mount will at least be BOL...it really can't be BOP since the wrong faction could get it, unless that is taken into account with the drop.

 

A true compromise leaves everyone unhappy- some dead guy

 

And that mount better be Bol so I can transfers extras from my agent to the toons who don't have 800k of tokens stock piled.

[Heat-Wave]

But your walker is still different from the walker everyone can get. Like with my Champion set I have for my commando, they released a reskinned version of it. Do I care? No, because it isn't the same as a true Champion set. If they released that same walker people had to get to some ridiculous ranked PvP rating, I bet you might have a few words to say on the subject. And yes, I do enjoy having a bash at people now and then

 

Meh... I fully expect there to be a vendor or slot machine or something for the Rancor/Walker from the summer nightlife packs...

 

Reskinned, recolored, or original, meh... I don't care. I also think you over estimate the backlash, these forums are a poor reflection of the gamer playing in general.

[TravelingNomad]

It is only worth 300M if someone will pay that today...

 

The Crate-o-Matic used to fetch 100M, it doesn't anymore... on my server one has been listed over and over for around there... A guild mate just bought it from the guy last week... for 15M credits...

 

There were just no takers at the crazy price...

 

That mount? Don't have it, don't care, wouldn't pay even 1M for it, much less that.

 

They can sell at that price pretty easily. You don't want a mount? Great, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a pretty damn hard to get collectors item. They came out in 1.1 for a short time and after they took it out, they can't be obtained anywhere, therefore they fit what I was talking about perfectly.

[TravelingNomad]

Meh... I fully expect there to be a vendor or slot machine or something for the Rancor/Walker from the summer nightlife packs...

 

Reskinned, recolored, or original, meh... I don't care. I also think you over estimate the backlash, these forums are a poor reflection of the gamer playing in general.

 

I'm realizing just how many people are casuals on here, or F2P people that have no understanding of the game...

[Theeko]

They can sell at that price pretty easily. You don't want a mount? Great, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a pretty damn hard to get collectors item. They came out in 1.1 for a short time and after they took it out, they can't be obtained anywhere, therefore they fit what I was talking about perfectly.

 

Won't surprise me if they actually do bring "Embargoed / Not obtainable items" back again, cause everyone complains way to much and everyone needs to have the exact same things every day.

[TravelingNomad]

Won't surprise me if they actually do bring "Embargoed / Not obtainable items" back again, cause everyone complains way to much and everyone needs to have the exact same things every day.

 

Embargoed items are still there in the Cartel Bazaar.

[Heat-Wave]

It would for me most definitely cause I and others have used real $ to purchase that service and if they change it, then that is not what we paid for and then selling content that was altered and not what you paid for is extremely shady and bad business.

 

Ok, fair enough...

 

So you'd prefer they just shut the game down without giving anything fun to everyone as a going away present? If that is your opinion... well, fair enough, you're entitled to it. I don't agree, but that's ok.

[Theeko]

Embargoed items are still there in the Cartel Bazaar.

 

Yeah but the packs go away but also come back later on, also the CB doesn't have every single item the CM has

Edited January 21, 2015 by Theeko

[Heat-Wave]

My girlfriend spent something like $200 on City of Heroes, not like she got it back when it shut down to feed GW2 while it was hemorrhaging.

 

Yep... I've spent thousands on this game... at some point it will all go away...

 

The money is for the temporary enjoyment of a fun game... In 20 years I highly doubt any of us will be playing it.

[Heat-Wave]

I do fully expect certain items, like the Crate-O-Matic, my Champion or Battlemaster set, and other things you can't get anymore to stay that way until the end of the game.

 

Fair enough... perhaps to you that is reasonable...

 

Does Bioware agree with you? That is perhaps the important question... because what you or I think probably matters less than what they think.

[Lyshar]

[*]The drop rate on all Jawa scraps, has been greatly reduced

[*]The drop rate on Contraband Reputation items, has been increased

[*]To insure that the Slot Machine is still an awesome item to strive for, we have added a faction specific walker mount as a very rare drop

[*]Lastly, we have increased the cost of each Slot Machine coin from 500 to 750 credits. It was always our intent that the coin cost would increase over time as we add more Slot Machines that accept the coin

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

Some concerns, mostly too much change in a single patch rather than tweaking carefully in controlled steps.

• I was hoping the purple Jawas would have been decreased and the green increased
  
• More rep items doesn't feel like the correct offset
  
• The coin cost increase doesn't feel right, you want people to use it to gradually sink credits into it
  
• The mount... that one gives me shivers as I'm expecting it to be worse than the event mounts...
  

 

Then there is the old casino event

• The casino event had mounts that were legacy based (annoying)
  
• The casino event had mounts with 0 vendor trashing value (REALLY annoying as you couldn't even trade them)
  

I expect the slot machine mounts to be worse just because they are faction specific... expecting ugly bind on pickup mounts with 0 vendor trash vendor.

 

But we'll see. If I get a mount and it's as bad as I expect I'll probably have to send in a few tickets. 1 as bug report one to try and have the bound removed manually?

[ToMyMa]

Some concerns, mostly too much change in a single patch rather than tweaking carefully in controlled steps.

• I was hoping the purple Jawas would have been decreased and the green increased
  
• More rep items doesn't feel like the correct offset
  
• The coin cost increase doesn't feel right, you want people to use it to gradually sink credits into it
  
• The mount... that one gives me shivers as I'm expecting it to be worse than the event mounts...
  

 

Then there is the old casino event

• The casino event had mounts that were legacy based (annoying)
  
• The casino event had mounts with 0 vendor trashing value (REALLY annoying as you couldn't even trade them)
  

I expect the slot machine mounts to be worse just because they are faction specific... expecting ugly bind on pickup mounts with 0 vendor trash vendor.

 

But we'll see. If I get a mount and it's as bad as I expect I'll probably have to send in a few tickets. 1 as bug report one to try and have the bound removed manually?

 

That's not how it works...

[wolfyde]

That is true, however the rarest items are the things you can purchase, like the hover chair, Revan mask, Primordial Cannon, etc

 

One of the three hover chairs, one of the three thrones that those packs introduced. (and no cannon that I can see )

If you own another of the hoverchairs or thrones, those are just as rare and unobtainable as before.

So yes, 10/147 items are not as exclusive as they once were, the rest still are.

 

I get (I think?) that you look at cartelpacks through the eyes of a collector, like another might stamps, comic books, etc. and you purchased a limited edition at price X and feel it's value somehow diminished by them printing additional copies.

 

I'm not dismissing your point of view or arguing that it's 'wrong', I'm simply trying to argue that having such a tiny fraction of the items being less exclusive is maybe not worth it letting diminish your enjoyment of the exclusivity of the rest of items you own from the collections.

[TravelingNomad]

One of the three hover chairs, one of the three thrones that those packs introduced. (and no cannon that I can see )

If you own another of the hoverchairs or thrones, those are just as rare and unobtainable as before.

So yes, 10/147 items are not as exclusive as they once were, the rest still are.

 

I get (I think?) that you look at cartelpacks through the eyes of a collector, like another might stamps, comic books, etc. and you purchased a limited edition at price X and feel it's value somehow diminished by them printing additional copies.

 

I'm not dismissing your point of view or arguing that it's 'wrong', I'm simply trying to argue that having such a tiny fraction of the items being less exclusive is maybe not worth it letting diminish your enjoyment of the exclusivity of the rest of items you own from the collections.

 

I am looking at it as both a collector and someone that spent money to obtain the items. The exclusivity of those items may be diminished because they can be bought with CM Certs, but having the reputation to buy them was another matter entirely. I was already Legend with the first rep pack because I bought so many damn things, and now people are easily getting there with no effort on their part. It is more of a frustration that the money I spent is now meaningless and Bioware is completely ignoring customers that purchased these packs to begin with. If more of these slot machines come out, as they seem intent on doing, they are making a statement that you shouldn't buy the packs because you can get items for free from them, and get the reputation stuff as well.

 

Also, the cannon does exist on the Republic side at one of the vendors. Its a big chaingun.

[Taw_Kobalt]

You are nerfing this item based on materials decreasing in value when the real culprit is the people with hundreds of jawa junk already stockpiled from conquest/cartel packs sudenly able to get G11 materials from the Jawa Traders.

 

Prices are going to rise again which will reward the people that bought low, to sell high, this is a slap in the face to all casual gamers. The rich get richer and these changes remove any chance for people to craft their own gear without paying the insane GTN prices for materials.

 

I am very dissapointed in this decision. Instead of waiting to see where prices normalize, you make a knee jerk reaction to a very vocal minority.

 

Based on this, I will not be getting whatever the next slot machine is until you release one for a cartel rep I havent maxed yet. Otherwise its just a waste of time.

[Heat-Wave]

I'm realizing just how many people are casuals on here, or F2P people that have no understanding of the game...

 

I'm casually serious... how about that?

 

I have spent thousands of dollars on this game... I have lots and lots of shiny... I have 21 alts... (saving 22 for a Togruta)

 

Yet... I don't personally get upset when someone else has a copy of digital 1s and 0s that I have... I was ok to pay the price at the time I paid it, what is offered 6 months, or 6 years later, doesn't affect me.

 

I might not even be playing the game then, why would I care?

 

It is JUST a game...