Question about the intention of the slot-machine.

[Neglience]

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.

 

How long does it take you to get 22 Characters to farm for you ? probably month, how long does it take did it take you to farm with the machine ? maybe 5 minutes. As i said, out of thin air wealth generator. Oh, and you can not just press a mouse button when you use crew skills, you have actually pay full attention to the game

Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[Ashanor]

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.

 

How do you figure the drop rates were wrong when they specifically stated the slot machine was working as intended?

[Valandril]

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.

 

Create wealth out of thin air -- Slicing, gathering mats and then just dumping them on the gtn, sending comps on crew missions. All of these are creating wealth out of thin air. I might give you a little leeway with gathering after all that does require some attention to be paid. But all in all crafting is creating wealth out of thin air. Just because you don't like a new method doesn't make it any less valid.

 

I guess you just generally butt hurt over the mechanism that the thin air wealth is created.

[Halinalle]

How long does it take you to get 22 Characters to farm for you ? probably month, how long does it take did it take you to farm with the machine ? maybe 5 minutes. As i said, out of thin air wealth generator. Oh, and you can not just press a mouse button when you use crew skills, you have actually pay full attention to the game

 

Level up Slicing to 500 and run around Yavin IV.

No need to run dailies ever again.

[DarthDymond]

How do you figure the drop rates were wrong when they specifically stated the slot machine was working as intended?

I'm really fascinated by how this 'working as intended' phrase has spread throughout the various threads of this discussion.

 

It's interesting because it does seem to be a fair paraphrase of what Eric actually said (that it wasn't "bugged" and that it wasn't an exploit to use it). But using that paraphrase also makes it sound like Eric was saying they had no intention of changing things, when in that very same post he said they were looking at the drop rates with an eye to making adjustments.

Edited January 22, 2015 by DarthDymond

[DurdensWrath]

I'm really fascinated by how this 'working as intended' phrase has spread throughout the various threads of this discussion.

 

It's interesting because it does seem to be a fair paraphrase of what Eric actually said (that it wasn't "bugged" and that it wasn't an exploit to use it). But using that paraphrase also makes it sound like Eric was saying they had no intention of changing things, when in that very same post he said they were looking at the drop rates with an eye to making adjustments.

 

And YOU paraphrased it. They were looking at the drop rates BECAUSE of the giant amount of whining that occured.

[Neglience]

And YOU paraphrased it. They were looking at the drop rates BECAUSE of the giant amount of whining that occured.

 

No because of the numbers the machine gave were absolutly broken. If you compare the whining now with the whining before, well they must increase the drop rates sky high now!

Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[Tiffanitte]

As a role player, I said goodbye to the magic genie of happiness in the machine as I fed it one last coin, "servers going down in 10 secs" Then holding onto the machine I whispered, "I love you genie, I will never forget you." Then I wept. Then the server kicked me off.

 

You took something really fun and RUINED IT!!

 

I am not talking to Bioware/EA, I am talking to the cry babies who didn't have a slot machine or access to one, who flooded the forums with complaints. The ones who pressured the company into nerfing the slot machine and ruining other player's fun.

 

I hate to tell the community of this game, but many I know in the game, decided yesterday they will not be re-subbing, because they are tired of being shafted, not just the machine, that was simply the last straw for them. So thx to the cry babies, Bioware/EA just lost more consistent income.

 

______________________________________________

 

"I Play for the Decorations"

[Beltane]

Totally agree with everything you said.

 

The drop rates were too much originally, but they've nerfed it into total uselessness.

 

I bought a stack of 99 coins for 74,250 credits.

Sold reputation items back to the vendor for 42k credits.

Got 1 single green scrap.

Nothing else aside from those rep items (already legend rep).

That literally amounts to me getting a single green crafting material for 32,250 credits.

 

I won't be using mine again and am telling the rest of my guild there's no point in buying them now.

 

Also, can we talk about the logic of simultaneously nerfing the rewards into oblivion (0.05% chance, really?) while ALSO raising the price of the coins?

 

I'm a crafter, I'm one of those "price gougers" people on this forum love to tear apart who was selling purple hilts for 150k prior to the machines and for 50k after. But I still made millions off the machines. It was a nice break in the monotony of running crew skills on 5 characters at a time. Now the machines are worthless and I get to go back to making more money as GTN prices rise again... so in the end, the people who complained about this just hurt themselves by getting rid of low mat prices.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Beltane

[rockcrown]

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.

 

I agree with you. maybe it didn't feel as much like a credit sink because the credits weren't leaving my inventory very quickly. i was getting 35-40k back for every 50k spent on coins. and with that i was also getting scraps and cm certs. 10-20k for those items was a very good deal

 

in its current state, I view the machine as a novelty item for my friends who need the rep.

[OddballEasyEight]

How long does it take you to get 22 Characters to farm for you ? probably month, how long does it take did it take you to farm with the machine ? maybe 5 minutes. As i said, out of thin air wealth generator. Oh, and you can not just press a mouse button when you use crew skills, you have actually pay full attention to the game

 

Actually it took more than 2 years to get the machine... if you want to be picky...

Sure, it takes longer to get 22 characters to farm for you, but that's not the point.

Technically you could buy an account that has that already (although that's illegal... but the people farming are often not intrested in what's legal or not).

Or you could just bot them up which would take alot less than a month.

As for getting the machine, well it cost either real money or a couple of million on the GTN.

So you'd either have to work for it in real life, or you'd have to work for it in-game.

It's not like everyone was just handed one completely free.

 

Naah, you don't have to pay much attention when picking crew missions.

You just take a quick look at the reward level and pick the one you want.

It's not like it requires any kind of concentration to do, I routinely do my crew missions while looking at the forums for example.

 

So no, it's no more a "thin air wealth generator" than crew skills are. Or the GTN. Or the cartel market. Or farming chests. Or farming gathering nodes.

[BuriDogshin]

As for getting the machine, well it cost either real money or a couple of million on the GTN.

Every single slot machine in the game was bought from BioWare using real money transformed into cartel coins. That some of the machines were then resold for credits is irrelevant. BioWare got real cash for these machines, and then altered them from being a valuable asset to being useless decos after baiting the players for 5 days by telling them "working as intended, not a bug that it drops mats, not an exploit to pour credits into it."

 

Has that every happened before in this game with something BioWare sold for real money?

[abercromb]

You used to have a sky high 30.5% chance of winning a version of Junk or a certificate.

 

To win any version of junk or a certificate now you have 0.365% chance.

 

Roughly once every 200'000 credits

 

 

 

 

Oh and the new walker 0.001% chance . So 1 mount every 100'000 clicks

[JattaGin]

It is, as stated, a fun item.

 

How so?

 

I agree that it will be fun for a very short while if you are not maxxed out on the reputation yet. But everyone will be maxxed out quickly. And then:

 

Tell me just one "fun" thing about the machine in it's current state.

[Neglience]

How so?

 

I agree that it will be fun for a very short while if you are not maxxed out on the reputation yet. But everyone will be maxxed out quickly. And then:

 

Tell me just one "fun" thing about the machine in it's current state.

 

Well, if you are in your stronghold you can use some coins and hope to get a rare drop (right now, only one, but i guess eric stated they will add more), that is was gambling is about. the thrill to maybe have luck and get something really nice.

[Neglience]

As a role player, I said goodbye to the magic genie of happiness in the machine as I fed it one last coin, "servers going down in 10 secs" Then holding onto the machine I whispered, "I love you genie, I will never forget you." Then I wept. Then the server kicked me off.

 

You took something really fun and RUINED IT!!

 

I am not talking to Bioware/EA, I am talking to the cry babies who didn't have a slot machine or access to one, who flooded the forums with complaints. The ones who pressured the company into nerfing the slot machine and ruining other player's fun.

 

I hate to tell the community of this game, but many I know in the game, decided yesterday they will not be re-subbing, because they are tired of being shafted, not just the machine, that was simply the last straw for them. So thx to the cry babies, Bioware/EA just lost more consistent income.

 

______________________________________________

 

"I Play for the Decorations"

 

As a role player you only get fun out of this machine when it grants you a gain every time you use it ? oh my, what has role playing come to.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[Neglience]

 

 

Naah, you don't have to pay much attention when picking crew missions.

You just take a quick look at the reward level and pick the one you want.

It's not like it requires any kind of concentration to do, I routinely do my crew missions while looking at the forums for example.

 

So no, it's no more a "thin air wealth generator" than crew skills are. Or the GTN. Or the cartel market. Or farming chests. Or farming gathering nodes.

 

You can use the machine with not even watching at the monitor. Try to do that with crew missions.^

 

Funny how all your other arguments are about cheating in some kind. Guess thats all what is left..

Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[OddballEasyEight]

As a role player you only get fun out of this machine when it grants you a gain every time you use it ? oh my, what has role playing come to.

 

Did he say that?

No, he didn't.

 

You can use the machine with not even watching at the monitor. Try to do that with crew missions.^

 

Funny how all your other arguments are about cheating in some kind. Guess thats all what is left..

 

Actually, you were the one that claimed that running crew missions needed full attention.

It doesn't. It requires a quick temporary glance at the screen, is all.

 

And that's only for a few seconds every 30-40 minutes.

Running the machine would still require you to take a look at the screen every now and then to buy new coins.

And that would take about the same effort that clicking on the crew missions would take.

[OddballEasyEight]

Well, if you are in your stronghold you can use some coins and hope to get a rare drop (right now, only one, but i guess eric stated they will add more), that is was gambling is about. the thrill to maybe have luck and get something really nice.

 

No, that's not fun.

 

It would be fun if the chance was bigger than getting struck by lightning... but it's not.

[Neglience]

No, that's not fun.

 

It would be fun if the chance was bigger than getting struck by lightning... but it's not.

 

Good, maybe the will raise the chance for the walker a bit, but another thread points out, peoples are using the machine to get the walker already.

 

 

Actually, you were the one that claimed that running crew missions needed full attention.

It doesn't. It requires a quick temporary glance at the screen, is all.

 

And that's only for a few seconds every 30-40 minutes.

Running the machine would still require you to take a look at the screen every now and then to buy new coins.

And that would take about the same effort that clicking on the crew missions would take.

 

I did and i still do. Youre numbers show me, that you have no idea what you are talking about. If you have 22 chars on a server running crew missions on all toons take you about 10-15 minutes. 10-15 you constantly have to look at the screen to do what you are doing. And i still want to remind on the effort it took you to get 22 chars to that point.

 

The machine on the other hand: stack up coins - get in position - right click until your finger breaks and watch tv.

 

Your QQ is not about the bad chances on the walker it is about the fact, that the machine is no longer a money generator you have to put little to no effort into.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Neglience

[Vhaegrant]

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

 

Except that's not what Eric said at all...

 

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

-eric

[Vhaegrant]

I've read the whole of the 'Intention' post made by Eric several time now.

 

Hey folks,

 

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

 

It clearly states in the first sentence the original intention was to make purple grade 11 mats more available to the community.

They clearly got the drop rates wrong for Jawa mat tokens wrong.

The chance for any Jawa token felt about right.

The fact that it was an equal chance between the green, blue and purple tokens was crazy.

 

Green and Blue materials are easy to come by in game, either through running crew missions (for both) or going out into the game world and harvesting nodes/ killing silver/gold mobs (only for bioanalysis and scavenging).

On the GTN Green mats of top grade are kept viable as they are the base material of crafting used to get the parts required for making augmentation kits.

Blue mats of top grade are the unwanted redheaded stepchild of the materials world, the supply is saturated as they are an unwanted side product of running crew missions for the purples. Most of the time I see them listed on the GTN the cheapest are only just above what they can be sold to a vendor for.

Purple mats hold a premium because of the scarcity of supply (critical crew missions, conquest guild in top 10, cartel market packs). Basic supply and demand equation will raise the market as high as any one wants to pay for them.

 

Introducing the Jawa mat tokens on the Contraband slot machine was not a bad idea, just badly implemented.

 

A key point to the above declaration of Eric's is that there was no mention of the reputation tokens and their desire to open up the Contraband Rep vendors to non-cartel pack using players. This was an obvious intention, maybe it didn't need stating, it is certainly an aspect that has less impact upon the economy. Unless you are one of those traders sat on Masks of Revan and trying to get 10 million credits for them.

Reputation tokens are only valuable as an item while your reputation sits below legend, as soon as that rank is reached they offset the credit sink of the slot machine.

 

What is interesting is the psychology of the winning animations:

Loss :- Spinner flashes red.

Win, small (chip refund, Jawa mat token) :- Spinner flashes green

Win, large (Reputation token) :- Spinner flashes green, credit signs

Win, Jackpot (Cartel Certificate) :- Spinner flases green, confettis, descending disco ball.

 

The band of animation the Jawa mat token was placed in was deemed a trivial win, not worthy of a fuss, while that of the reputation token was more worthy. In light of how the machines were used this is obviously the reverse. Again, just to state the obvious, once reputation is maxed the reputation drops are functionally similar to the chip refund win state.

 

I am hoping that the devs are using this 'nerfed' state of the Slot machine to try and get the material market normalised before reintroducing a more balanced drop rate of jawa junk.

 

I would keep Jawa mat token drop rates reasonably high, but there needs to be a different rate of return on them.

While I haven't worked through the full maths I would propose a 10 green : 4 blue : 1 purple ratio , that seem fair and in keeping with how easy they are gained from other routes.

 

Before the nerf I spent just over an hour sat feeding the slot machine tokens, a total outlay of 250,000 credits (and an hour+ of my life I will never get back) for that I was rewarded:

 

175,500 credits worth of reputation tokens, redeemed against the initial chip cost = 74,500 credit cost to gain

 

68 Green Jawa mat tokens

65 Blue Jawa mat tokens

57 Purple Jawa mat tokens

and

15 Cartel Market Certificates (I would argue this is too high a drop rate for certificates, I would suggest 1% is a better return)

 

74,500 credits for the above rewards whether you are going on to sell them on the GTN or use them is your own crafting is obviously ludicrously low.

 

Using the 10:4:1 ratio and 1% return on Cartel certificates would reward:

 

126 Green Jawa mat tokens

51 Blue Jawa mat tokens

13 Purple Jawa mat tokens

and

5 Cartel Market Certificates

 

If we take the new cost of 750 credits per chip it would have cost 375,000 for 500 chips, less the175,500 from reputation token sold back to vendor, for a grand total credit sink of 199,500 credits.

 

So the drop rate feels fine at that point, I like seeing the winning animations, but the cost/reward ratio still feels on the high side.

 

Raising the cost of the token to 1,000 credits per spin comes out at 324,500 credit sink for the above.

 

I'm not sure if that works out competitive with crew missions but if 'feels' a fairer break even.

 

 

And bear in mind that all the other ways of earning the Jawa Mat tokens do not require the player to sit idle. After you have sent your crew members off on the missions you can carry on playing the game, when you purchase a cartel pack it is a single GCD to open the pack, aiding your guild in conquest means you will be completing content (unless you do it solely through crafting)

 

The Slot machine requires you to do nothing else other than feed chips into it. The rewards from wins are not offset by you killing mobs or running flashpoints while your crew members complete the resource gathering for you.

 

TL;dnr:

 

Original loss rate was fine.

Original return coin/ reputation token win was fine.

Original Jawa mat win rate was fine but ratio needs to be altered to 10 green : 4 blue : 1 purple (not the 1:1:1 it was)

Original Cartel Cert reward needs lowering from ~3% to 1%

Cost of chips should be raised to 1,000 credits.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Vhaegrant

[Banegio]

The actual intention....some politicians would be proud of it... the news cycle management.

 

It created another controversy to take the Ravangers exploit away from people's mind and flush the news cycle.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Banegio

[Draqsko]

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"

 

You can't farm credits on the slot machine. By it's nature it's a credit sink, not a generator.

 

You sunk 30% of your credits used on the slot machine (even the best return rates were 70%).

You sunk another 6% of everything you got from selling the mats and decos you obtained through the machine.

The credits you earned in the sale, got pulled from the existing pool of credits already existing in the game.

 

Let me show you..

 

Assume you spent 100k on the machine, got 25 of each jawa scrap, 4 cartel certs, and sold the rep chips to get 70k back. Well you say you spent 30k to make 25 Purple mats you sold for, let's use today's price of 40k, and 4 cartel certs you sell decos for 250k each.. So you spent 30k, and made back 2m in GTN sales.

 

Here comes the kicker..

 

That's 30k sunk directly from you, plus another 120k sunk through GTN sales tax. All of which required you to sit at the machine not generating credits in any way within the game. That's 150k credits sunk from the game economy, merely by encouraging someone to sit there and cycle through 200 tokens.

 

The slot machine doesn't generate credits, it sinks them. The bigger the sales on the GTN (and hence the strongest argument for nerf), the bigger the credit sink effect in game (thereby negating the amount of credits you can make through sales). That is a self-regulatory system but all the whiners wouldn't give it a chance in hell to reach that point.

[Draqsko]

You can use the machine with not even watching at the monitor. Try to do that with crew missions.^

 

Funny how all your other arguments are about cheating in some kind. Guess thats all what is left..

 

I do that all day long. Log in, stay logged in, just click the buttons when they return and send them back out. In fact, I don't have to even look to see when they come back (versus when you run out of tokens), since they politely inform you via audio.

 

If using the machine was cheating because you could gather mats while not looking at the screen.. Using crew missions to gather mats is even more cheating because you can do it while logged out.