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

[ptwonline]

Wait...they are nerfing all Jawa scraps? Purple I can understand. Blue too since we don't need as much of it. But why nerf the greens?

[DarkSaberMaster]

Hahahaha!!!! Once again, EAware has shown that the cries of the minority trumps all. Thanks for proving to everyone that he who cries the loudest, matters.

[SebastiaanZ]

Also any PTS update this week?

[DarthDymond]

Bug fixes are of course always appreciated.

 

If the 'under the hood' math actually supported the conclusion that the Slot drops would put the average cost-per-mat below the point where it would be rational to do Crew Skill missions to acquire them (let alone sell them), then I'm glad they made this change. Adding a rare mount was a nice counterbalance.

 

If you are adding more slot machines over time (which I think was assumed) then I do hope they'll be limited to one-per-shipment so that they'll continue coming out at least a full year after the corresponding Reputation shipment was embargoed (Contraband Shipment's last pack was embargoed Jan 14, 2014, Contraband Slot Machine was in a pack released on Jan. 13, 2015 - which seems like a solid time-frame to keep the rep drops from the original run packs desirable).

 

I'm also more comfortable with the Slot Machines if the Crew Skill mats (which have actual gameplay function) are left as a minor piece in the loot table rather than the main purpose - CM rep, cosmetic mounts, and Cartel Certs fit much better as rewards from a CM item.

[dscount]

Hey folks,

 

First, as Tait alluded to we will be having a maintenance tomorrow, on Wednesday the 21st. We didn't have our regular Tuesday maintenance due to the federal holiday here in the states. I wanted to let you know a few of the things coming in tomorrow’s patch:

• Item rarity borders will now show properly
  
• No more getting stuck in Blood Hunt if someone dies to Jos or Valk Beroya
  
• The Underlurker will no longer rush extremely quickly back to his target after leaping
  
• There have been adjustments made to the Contraband Slot Machine (more on this in a second)
  
• There is also one other fix, check the final patch notes for more info
  

Let’s talk about the changes coming to the Contraband Slot Machine. When we were going into 3.0.2, we wanted to make Grade 11 materials more accessible to more players than they were at the time. As you know, we simultaneously put in the Contraband Slot Machine, which afforded you a fairly good chance to get Jawa Junk and other Jawa vendor scrap parts. This had two effects:

• It had the risk of taking the Grade 11 material costs in the economy, in the long term, to a price below where we would like
  
• It created a situation where it could be more profitable to completely ignore crew skills by use of the Slot Machine
  

With those in mind, we decided to make the following changes, which will be live tomorrow:

• 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

 

Thanks Eric!

 

Any chance 16 man Story Mode LOOT is getting fixed as the last item and dropping 2x Tokens like HM?

[Excise]

Good stuff.

 

Question: Is the Underlurker change expected to make the cross mechanic reliable?

[DanNV]

I am certainly glad I didn't pay the credits or cartel coins to get a slot machine. Nerfing them makes them worthless and rewards the people who cried because they couldn't WAY over charge for the purple materials. IMO, this was a bad choice on BW's part.

 

Unfortunately, it's always amazing that crying over something related to the cartel market gets fixed but lag and real bugs don't. *sigh*

Edited January 20, 2015 by DanNV

[Heal-To-Full]

The Jawa Junk drop rate was excessive and needed to be reduced.

 

Glad to see the machine isn't being nerfed quite into the Oblivion.

[Neglience]

I am certainly glad I didn't pay the credits or cartel coins to get a slot machine. Nerfing them makes them worthless and rewards the people who cried because they couldn't WAY over charge for the purple materials. IMO, this was a bad choice on BW's part.

 

Unfortunately, it's always amazing that crying over something related to the cartel market gets fixed but lag and real bugs don't. *sigh*

 

getting old CM reputations for a fair amount of credits is worthless?

Edited January 20, 2015 by Neglience

[darktyphoon]

So no mention about the cross mechanic not working properly, showing up in different locations at times. shoots lasers showing up and insta killing repair droid without a cast for the attack, the repair droids going to healers or just sitting where they spawn indeffinetly.

 

and dont forget cortanni bugging out and either resetting or not going to escape pod

[Lost-Savage-XIII]

So u take away the one thing that makes it not cost millions to level and you still have no fixes for underlurker or any of the other ops glitches. GREAT JOB!!!!

[Transcendent]

Or maybe they realized those *whiny little girls" A) weren't actually whining, B) had a very good point, and C) that they had miscalculated the effect the slot machine would have.

 

Or you could, you know, just keep dismissing the opinions of everyone who disagrees with you with pointless insults

 

"Whiny little girl" is an accurate assessment, because at no point were there comments based on the actual analytic information BioWare had. That was pure speculation and opinion.

 

Also, you can keep dismissing the opinions of other people as well

[Infernixx]

So u take away the one thing that makes it not cost millions to level and you still have no fixes for underlurker or any of the other ops glitches. GREAT JOB!!!!

 

Did you miss the Underlurker mention? I mean, I agree with the other bugs, but they're at least trying with the Underlurker.

[DarthDymond]

I am certainly glad I didn't pay the credits or cartel coins to get a slot machine. Nerfing them makes them worthless and rewards the people who cried because they couldn't WAY over charge for the purple materials. IMO, this was a bad choice on BW's part.

 

Unfortunately, it's always amazing that crying over something related to the cartel market gets fixed but lag and real bugs don't. *sigh*

Right, because now the machine is only worthwhile for:

 

• Getting Reputation that's no longer readily available in the game.
  
• Getting Cartel Market Certs for credits which until now have required CM purchases.
  
• Getting a unique mount.
  
• Still getting a Jawa Junk, which since they are universal coupons will let you get items you don't have the specific Crew Skills to farm.

[Infernixx]

Right, because now the machine is only worthwhile for:

 

• Getting Reputation that's no longer readily available in the game.
  
• Getting Cartel Market Certs for credits which until now have required CM purchases.
  
• Getting a unique mount.
  
• Still getting a Jawa Junk, which since they are universal coupons will let you get items you don't have the specific Crew Skills to farm.

 

To be fair, I imagine the price on Slot Machines will drop significantly now that they're not a money-making machine. I'm glad I got out from under mine this morning.

 

But, you're right in that they'll still be highly valued, just not as much.

[TheGreatFrosty]

Right, because now the machine is only worthwhile for:

 

• Getting Reputation that's no longer readily available in the game.
  
• Getting Cartel Market Certs for credits which until now have required CM purchases.
  
• Getting a unique mount.
  
• Still getting a Jawa Junk, which since they are universal coupons will let you get items you don't have the specific Crew Skills to farm.

 

The machine should be an immediate, readily available access point to every facet of content in this game.

 

If I can't get gear, money and materials from single clicking a machine, then something is seriously wrong with this game.

 

I loved the machines because they never fought back. I could click them again and again and they just sat there. Now the game is ruined.

[Neglience]

"Whiny little girl" is an accurate assessment, because at no point were there comments based on the actual analytic information BioWare had. That was pure speculation and opinion.

 

Also, you can keep dismissing the opinions of other people as well

 

there were plenty of posts from players which rolled 500+ coins and analysed the findings. the amount of gain was ridiciulous compared with crew skills.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Neglience

[eartharioch]

D'oh. My bad.

 

I guess we'll see what the overall credit sink calc turns out to be tomorrow.

 

My guess is increase in Rep drops and the addition of the Walker will fill in the "gap" left by lowering JJ rates. Assuming the walker is BoL (like the nightlife rewards) or BoP, and has no vendor value, it won't have any effect on the slots as a credit sink. If all green, blue, and purple JJ was replaced with the equivalent color Rep item, it would have a vendor value of 400 (10% (500+1000+2500), and come close to making the chips "free". If they replaced all JJ with green rep drops, the vendor value would be 150, which would make the 250 price increase a net "gain" as a sink. Replacing the JJ with all purple rep would be a 750 vendor value, and thus pay players to use chips.

 

Since the devs said the JJ rates would be "drastically reduced" and not "eliminated", the actual paybacks should be lower than the ones I calculated. I highly suspect that the increased Rep drops will be weighted green > blue > purple, and that the net increase in return will be <= 250 -- i.e., that the change in token price will not sink less credits than before. While the devs may not have done all the math before the last patch (or may have simply misjudged how many people would use the mathematically more profitable option past the point where it gave better mats and the Rep was usable), I'd like to think that they noticed the number of times we calculated the expected returns this week and made sure that the price increase covered the increase in the number/quality of rep drops.

Edited January 20, 2015 by eartharioch

[Infernixx]

All the arguing is a moot point. What's done is done, and I imagine that all the Slot Machine owners are going to be spamming the hell out of their Slot machines for the rest of the day.

 

As for me, I spent a few million buying up the cheap Adaptives and Midlithe Crystals before the patch notes became widely known.

[Bruceme]

there were plenty of posts from players which rolled 500+ coins and analysed the findings. the amount of gain was ridicioulus compared with crew skills.

 

the only reason why someone would post an assessment like that is because they had something bigger to gain by seeing it go away. not to mention some of these dudes spent over 2million a pop. I don't think ive had 2 million on a toon ever.

[Tolunart]

Or maybe they realized those *whiny little girls" A) weren't actually whining, B) had a very good point, and C) that they had miscalculated the effect the slot machine would have.

 

Or you could, you know, just keep dismissing the opinions of everyone who disagrees with you with pointless insults

 

It's good to have options.

 

But, really, although it would deflate quite a few egos if they could ever process the realization, what people complain about on the forums has little to nothing to do with the devs' decisions. It's just one of many ways to collect data, and generally so full of meaningless noise that it doesn't represent an accurate sampling of the player base in the first place.

 

When a decision lines up with a minority/majority opinion on the forums, it's more likely to be a simple coincidence. Further, the months or even years of demands/requests/suggestions that never appear in game (Jedi robes?) are evidence that simply yelling about stuff on the forums will not lead to change.

 

In other words, sure dude, those grapes were sour anyway.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Tolunart

[phalczen]

Look, based on this thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=782798&highlight=analysis+grade

 

We know that the return rate of artifact grade 11s is close to the advertised 20% chance.

 

That's one in five missions.

 

Each bountiful/rich mission is around 3745 credits. A crit result yields around 3 units of artifact grade 11s.

 

So, on average 18725 credits nets you around 3 units, or 6242 cpu.

 

On my server, artifact 11s were selling between 20-40k CPU. That's at least a 220% markup!

 

The only people "suffering" from the pre-nerf slot machines were the people price gouging on artifacts anyway. Instead of making 13000- 33000 credits profit they'll only make 1-2k profit. Those people crying about how crafting is dead don't seem to be bothered by the preponderance of Cartel Market armors, mounts, weapons, color crystals, dye modules. Or how artifice still can't craft an orange custom focus, generator, or shield shell. They don't seem to be bothered by the joke that is crafting in SWTOR compared to the amazing crafting that was in SWG. They cried enough to cause the nerf, and now, we have what we have coming tomorrow.

 

Sending companions on missions costs time, but they're unused companions anyway. No seriously, how many people use Tanno Vik, Vector, Andronikos Revel, their ship droid? The only class truly negatively affected by this might be Agent, because of Kaliyo, and the agent in need of a tank to replace Kaliyo off on a UT mission can use Scorpio to tank or Treek to tank, which ends up not being a loss at all.

 

Standing at the slot machines is active time, time that I can't spend doing anything else other than waiting in queues or sending crew members on missions. For 20k credits net I got 4 jawa junk ... a result on par with missions. Not to mention the fact I had to buy two hypercrates to get my two slot machines.

 

If people were exploiting and macroing on the slots, the solution is to fix the exploits, not nerf the slot machine.

 

That's the math, people. 13k profits down to 1k. Still a profit, if I understand mathematics correctly with my doctorate-level education.

 

The only positive to come out of this nerf is that Bioware listens to some of their playerbase some of the time (i.e., complainers on the forums.)

 

Bravo.

Edited January 20, 2015 by phalczen

[calypsissmexy]

They served their purpose in the short term by crashing the markets, now they will work in a less dramatic capacity to maintain. No surprise here. But I will be rollin them slots for a couple hours tonight I think (though r-clicking/wait 5 seconds has gotten pretty old so I doubt I have the stamina to really milk it before the nerf).

 

Someone suggested requiring crew skill level to purchase mats from jawas but that basically gimps FTPers who don't have those crew skills, so never gonna happen I think.

[Tolunart]

the only reason why someone would post an assessment like that is because they had something bigger to gain by seeing it go away. not to mention some of these dudes spent over 2million a pop. I don't think ive had 2 million on a toon ever.

 

It's not that hard to make money. I decided to buy a slot machine Sunday, listed some stuff left over from crafting and opening a couple hypercrates a long time ago, and made 3.5 mil by Sunday night, bought a slot for 3.1. By the time the listings expired I made another 2.5 mil.

[Infernixx]

They served their purpose in the short term by crashing the markets, now they will work in a less dramatic capacity to maintain. No surprise here. But I will be rollin them slots for a couple hours tonight I think (though r-clicking/wait 5 seconds has gotten pretty old so I doubt I have the stamina to really milk it before the nerf).

 

Someone suggested requiring crew skill level to purchase mats from jawas but that basically gimps FTPers who don't have those crew skills, so never gonna happen I think.

 

The prices on JC have already jumped back up...albeit with a little help. Adaptives are back up to 50k, Mid Crystals back up to 30k.

 

For now, you'll have a portion of the playerbase selling their JJ-gained artifact mats at below market value and quickly bought up. But with the change to the Slot Machine drop rates, that's a finite supply and then the prices will return to where they were once the JJ stockpiles are depleted.

 

All I can say is: buy low, sell high.