Question about the intention of the slot-machine.

[OddballEasyEight]

So I have to ask.

 

Was the slot machine supposed to be a credit sink?

 

Becuase if it was, it's no longer a viable one.

 

Before, people would throw stupid amounts of money at it because of the stupid high drop rates of jawa junk and the chance of getting cartel certificates.

Now, however, the drop rates of anything good are so low (0.5% for all of them in total) that people will lose interest in the machine.

 

You need to take a lesson from real slot machines.

 

They'll have a return rate of 90%.

So when you're playing, you'll be getting back 90% of what you put in to keep you interested.

And that is achieved by regular minor wins and jackpots designed to give an overall return of 90%.

 

Now, since this is a computer game, you'd probably have to sweeten the deal since people don't play to lose money.

As it stands, we have a 50% return rate on the money invested.

And a 0.5% chance of winning anything of interest.

 

That would average out to about 1 interesting win every 200 spins.

That's way too low to keep interest in a computer game.

 

If you had increased the chances of winning low-grade jawa scrap (green) and mid-grade jawa scrap (blue) and kept the jawa junk and cartel certificates at a "reasonable" chance (say 1% or so), then people would still be throwing stupid amounts of money at the machine without unbalancing the game in any major way.

 

Green and blue materials are easy to come by in-game anyway, so there would be no "flood" of those.

Having a 1% win rate of the jawa junk would mean you'd get one on average for every 100 spins, which would be enough to get crafters to use the machine to supplement their crew skills, but it wouldn't replace crew skills and it wouldn't be unbalanced.

 

Anyway, that's assuming the slot machine was designed to be a credit sink in the first place.

 

If it wasn't. If it truly was designed ONLY as a way of raising the reputation level of the contraband rep, then I guess it works "as intended" but it will only be used for a very short time by those who need it and then be forgotten and unused.

Which seems kind of useless and contradictory to the way you described it earlier as "a fun thing".

[rockcrown]

I didn't find it to be much of a credit sink personally. I was getting roughly 70% of my credits back from selling the rep to a vendor.

[znihilist]

I didn't find it to be much of a credit sink personally. I was getting roughly 70% of my credits back from selling the rep to a vendor.

-nevermind-

Edited January 22, 2015 by znihilist

[Mowermanx]

IMO, it was set up as a rep tool, to give people a taste of those vendors, in turn possibly picking a few more sales for other reps that are there, as they regularly bring back the embargoed packs.

The jawa mats were included as a filler, as you say, to keep them interested and the certs were meant to be a pretty rare drop.

What happened? they got all the drop rates wrong, went to fix them and got it wrong again, but as I said in your other thread, if youre expecting the certs to drop anywhere near the rates of the original, you're going to be disappointed.

[DurdensWrath]

IMO, it was set up as a rep tool, to give people a taste of those vendors, in turn possibly picking a few more sales for other reps that are there, as they regularly bring back the embargoed packs.

The jawa mats were included as a filler, as you say, to keep them interested and the certs were meant to be a pretty rare drop.

What happened? they got all the drop rates wrong, went to fix them and got it wrong again, but as I said in your other thread, if youre expecting the certs to drop anywhere near the rates of the original, you're going to be disappointed.

 

Half would be fine.

 

Or double or triple the drop rate in the actual CM packs. That'd be a winner for everyone.

[AxeDragoneth]

I'd be fine with its current rates if it were atleast a random assortment of reputation items.

 

Maxed out Contraband before this was even a thought.

[Neglience]

It is, as stated, a fun item. Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[DarthDymond]

IMO, it was set up as a rep tool, to give people a taste of those vendors, in turn possibly picking a few more sales for other reps that are there, as they regularly bring back the embargoed packs.

The jawa mats were included as a filler, as you say, to keep them interested and the certs were meant to be a pretty rare drop.

^This.

 

Also to the extent that it was a credit sink, not all credit sinks have to be open-ended ones. Training costs, before they were removed, were an example of inherently finite credit sinks (with the exception of once every 18-24 months or however long between level cap increases). This is still a viable finite credit sink for those looking to max their Contraband Rep.

[Valandril]

If they put the slots at or about the drop rate (or even half) of a crit rich mission they would be fine. To balance it out and appease the crafters who don't realize just how useful the machine is and what opportunities it created put the machine on cooldown when it crits for an hour (purple mat, cert, walker lol).

 

You end up giving value back to the machines and with the cool down mechanic people will buy more, have made the short sighted crafters happy, made the long view crafters happy, and repaired the faith with the base that is either throwing an epic tantrum or a full on revolt. Haven't decided which it is yet.

 

It really isn't that hard of a fix IMO

[Neglience]

If they put the slots at or about the drop rate (or even half) of a crit rich mission they would be fine. To balance it out and appease the crafters who don't realize just how useful the machine is and what opportunities it created put the machine on cooldown when it crits for an hour (purple mat, cert, walker lol).

 

You end up giving value back to the machines and with the cool down mechanic people will buy more, have made the short sighted crafters happy, made the long view crafters happy, and repaired the faith with the base that is either throwing an epic tantrum or a full on revolt. Haven't decided which it is yet.

 

It really isn't that hard of a fix IMO

 

The machine was never designed to impact the game economy. A slot machine should not be "useful" . It is a deco item where you can spend some credits from time to time and maybe get a nice item back. Not a "i want to spend hours there to farm credits semi-afk item"

[OddballEasyEight]

I didn't find it to be much of a credit sink personally. I was getting roughly 70% of my credits back from selling the rep to a vendor.

 

Sure, but that kept you playing and spending more credits.

 

Why do you think real slot machines have a return rate of 90% and still make casinos tons of money?

 

You have to keep people interested in using the machine for it to be an effective credit sink.

 

If there's no point to using the machine, people will stop using it and then it won't be a credit sink at all any more.

 

It is, as stated, a fun item.

 

You keep saying that.

Are you using the machine at all?

Are you playing with it daily?

Are you having fun while using it?

 

Because if your rep with the contraband is maxed out already, then it's hardly a "fun" machine to use.

[Valandril]

The machine was never designed to impact the game economy. A slot machine should not be "useful" . It is a deco item where you can spend some credits from time to time and maybe get a nice item back. Not a "i want to spend hours there to farm credits semi-afk item"

 

Could I see the dev quote that states that please? And as far as "semi-afk farming" it is no worse than cycling toons and sending on missions. At least with the slots you are actually doing something rather than checking a timer.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Valandril

[OddballEasyEight]

The machine was never designed to impact the game economy. A slot machine should not be "useful" . It is a deco item where you can spend some credits from time to time and maybe get a nice item back. Not a "i want to spend hours there to farm credits semi-afk item"

 

if it wasn't supposed to be useful, it wouldn't be under the "utilities" section of decorations.

Pretty much everything there is useful.

It's not "just a decoration".

It's a utility.

 

Or at least it was supposed to be one.

Right now it's simply useless.

[DurdensWrath]

The machine was never designed to impact the game economy. A slot machine should not be "useful" . It is a deco item where you can spend some credits from time to time and maybe get a nice item back. Not a "i want to spend hours there to farm credits semi-afk item"

 

Oh, you mean as opposed to Slicing? I mean that's pretty much farming credits in one way or another, and is semi-afk.

[Neglience]

Oh, you mean as opposed to Slicing? I mean that's pretty much farming credits in one way or another, and is semi-afk.

 

The machine did let you farm at a speed maybe 5000% faster (or even more) then the actual gameplay way and at lower cost!

Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[Neglience]

Sure, but that kept you playing and spending more credits.

 

Why do you think real slot machines have a return rate of 90% and still make casinos tons of money?

 

You have to keep people interested in using the machine for it to be an effective credit sink.

 

If there's no point to using the machine, people will stop using it and then it won't be a credit sink at all any more.

 

 

 

You keep saying that.

Are you using the machine at all?

Are you playing with it daily?

Are you having fun while using it?

 

Because if your rep with the contraband is maxed out already, then it's hardly a "fun" machine to use.

 

Because Eric Musco did state it a as a Fun Idea. All that credit sink stuff was brought up by whiners like you, who could create wealth out of thin air in hours and tried to find arguments why this is totally fine.

[Halinalle]

Only reason to use it is the walker mount currently. But chance to get one is...

 

Let's put it this way:

You had higher chance to get Rancor during Nightlife event with buff than you now have chance to get Jawa Junk. Walker? Multiply that.

 

Because Eric Musco did state it a as a Fun Idea. All that credit sink stuff was brought up by whiners like you, who could create wealth out of thin air in hours and tried to find arguments why this is totally fine.

 

Only way to generate credits was if you sold the Jawa stuff to vendor too.

But since you mentioned "create wealth out of thin air in hours" let's talk about Slicing and Yavin IV. You do know that "get this crew skill and you can ignore dailies!" crew skill?

Edited January 22, 2015 by Halinalle

[OddballEasyEight]

Oh, you mean as opposed to Slicing? I mean that's pretty much farming credits in one way or another, and is semi-afk.

 

Or crew missions... those are very much a "farming credits while completely afk" and yet nobody seems to have a problem with those.

 

Let's do an experiment.

 

Say I have 22 characters (max per server), all with maxed out slicing crew skills.

That's 132 grade 11 crewskill missions that can be run every 30-40 minutes.

The average cost of those crewskill missions is 3500 credits (running the normal ones, not the bought missions).

That's 462.000 credits.

Say you'll get a 10% chance of failure (sounds high to me, but let's operate under that assumption).

That's 13 missions lost, leaving 119 missions that are successful.

Maby 10% of those will give purple mats.

That's 12 missions.

So you'll get at least 24 purple mats per 30-40 minutes then.

 

Not to mention that all the green and blue mats you'll get from the other 107 missions will more than make up for the cost of running the missions.

 

That's some pretty fine AFK farming right there.

 

Of course, you'll have to keep switching characters and you'll have to grind those crew skills to that level, but neither of those are particularly hard and definately not harder than clicking on a slot machine.

 

And just like the slot machine, it will effectively hinder you from playing the game (since switching back and forth between 22 characters and sending out 6 crew missions on each one would take around 30-40 minutes anyway so by the time you're done on the last one, your first one will have returnde from their missions.)

 

But for some reason, everyone thinks this is completely acceptable, and yet the machine isn't.

[DurdensWrath]

Because Eric Musco did state it a as a Fun Idea. All that credit sink stuff was brought up by whiners like you, who could create wealth out of thin air in hours and tried to find arguments why this is totally fine.

 

And whiners like you who advocated for a nerf. Which happened to include the thing I enjoyed most out of it, the cartel certificates.

[OddballEasyEight]

Because Eric Musco did state it a as a Fun Idea. All that credit sink stuff was brought up by whiners like you, who could create wealth out of thin air in hours and tried to find arguments why this is totally fine.

 

So it's fun because Eric said so?

 

Wow... solid argument there.

[DurdensWrath]

So it's fun because Eric said so?

 

Wow... solid argument there.

 

Funny thing that. Eric said that only the Jawa Junk was getting adjusted.

[OddballEasyEight]

Because Eric Musco did state it a as a Fun Idea. All that credit sink stuff was brought up by whiners like you, who could create wealth out of thin air in hours and tried to find arguments why this is totally fine.

 

I'm no wealthier now than I was before the machine came out...

[Valandril]

The machine did let you farm at a speed maybe 5000% faster (or even more) then the actual gameplay way and at lower cost!

 

If you look at the thread, you will see no one is advocating restoring it to the pre nerf functionality. Additionally, the concept of credit sink is nothing new -- Strongholds, guild ships, decorations are just some of the more recent efforts by the devs.

[OddballEasyEight]

The machine did let you farm at a speed maybe 5000% faster (or even more) then the actual gameplay way and at lower cost!

 

Not if you have 22 characters with maxed out slicing (or other gathering skill).

[DurdensWrath]

If you look at the thread, you will see no one is advocating restoring it to the pre nerf functionality. Additionally, the concept of credit sink is nothing new -- Strongholds, guild ships, decorations are just some of the more recent efforts by the devs.

 

Hell, most people are pissed about the Certificate nerf. WHICH WAS NEVER COMMUNICATED.