Not adjusting the slot machine is the worst thing they can do.

[LordArtemis]

Would you be prepared to accept the forums as they stand, for the foreseeable future?

 

Several people said, "give it two days, everyone will have forgotten about it".

 

Well, it has been 5 days... and I don't see a lot of let up...

 

It is the principle of the matter, Bioware did wrong and needs to make it right, it is as simple as that...

 

---

 

Edit: of course, they could try SOE's trick with NGE and start deleting threads and banning posters... look how well THAT went...

 

I don't think this issue is going to simply "go away"....this goes deeper than just the machine. This is a pattern of screw ups and I think folks have just had enough.

[Staavis_SC]

It is the principle of the matter, Bioware did wrong and needs to make it right, it is as simple as that...

 

I'm not even sure they can "make it right".

 

What we paid for...isn't what we have anymore. They can't buff it, if it was having the Earth shattering effects they claim. And they certainly won't hand over Cartel Coins, since they can hide behind their EULAs and lawyers, since the thing came out of a damn gamble box. How can they make this right? There really isn't an avenue open to them.

 

So, from a business perspective, this is their move. To heap the loss and the swindle on their fans, ignore it till the forums die down and then go roll around like pigs in their money.

 

Welcome to Wall Street style business.

[LordArtemis]

I'm not even sure they can "make it right".

 

What we paid for...isn't what we have anymore. They can't buff it, if it was having the Earth shattering effects they claim. And they certainly won't hand over Cartel Coins, since they can hide behind their EULAs and lawyers, since the thing came out of a damn gamble box. How can they make this right? There really isn't an avenue open to them.

 

So, from a business perspective, this is their move. To heap the loss and the swindle on their fans, ignore it till the forums die down and then go roll around like pigs in their money.

 

Welcome to Wall Street style business.

 

There are some things that I feel they could do to mitigate the damage.

[lokimogor]

The drop rate being over nerfed is an issue, but not nearly as big as the fake forum uproar, looking at the OP for a lot of these threads, I've been realizing that the writing styles are very similiar and look like they were likely done by a small group of folks with multiple accounts. You cant even argue that was a bait and switch. There was no promise of a slot machine in any pack. Second, the rates were mentioned in the WAI post as being subject to adjustment and since so many of you claim to be long term players you should have been very familair with Bioware's style of adjustment aka al sledgehammer, and yes I did buy hypercrates with rl money for the slot machine so dont even argue that point.

 

The real issue here is that folks wanted to get the print money machine and when that print function was turned off as it should have been. They started whinning and spamming about how their greed lead them to buy packs for one item that was a random luck draw out of the entirety of the pack.

[LordArtemis]

The drop rate being over nerfed is an issue, but not nearly as big as the fake forum uproar, looking at the OP for a lot of these threads, I've been realizing that the writing styles are very similiar and look like they were likely done by a small group of folks with multiple accounts.

 

That is ridiculous. Too many long time account holders and well known posters have come out against this. This contention is just complete hyperbole.

You cant even argue that was a bait and switch. There was no promise of a slot machine in any pack.

 

There are only a select few that are making the bait and switch argument IMO. Most are complaining about it getting released in it's broken state in the first place, and then the excessive move to correct it, followed by silence on the issue.

 

Second, the rates were mentioned in the WAI post as being subject to adjustment and since so many of you claim to be long term players you should have been very familair with Bioware's style of adjustment aka al sledgehammer, and yes I did buy hypercrates with rl money for the slot machine so dont even argue that point.

 

Well, I think people are going to continue to argue any point they wish. I think trying to stop folks from doing that is an endeavor that is likely to fail.

 

The real issue here is that folks wanted to get the print money machine and when that print function was turned off as it should have been.

 

That is clearly NOT the real issue. That is just a dismissive statement to try and deride those with concerns IMO.

 

They started whinning and spamming about how their greed lead them to buy packs for one item that was a random luck draw out of the entirety of the pack.

 

As I indicated, the intent of the complaints is pretty clear. A LONG LINE of screw ups led to this point.

[Staavis_SC]

The drop rate being over nerfed is an issue, but not nearly as big as the fake forum uproar, looking at the OP for a lot of these threads, I've been realizing that the writing styles are very similiar and look like they were likely done by a small group of folks with multiple accounts. You cant even argue that was a bait and switch. There was no promise of a slot machine in any pack. Second, the rates were mentioned in the WAI post as being subject to adjustment and since so many of you claim to be long term players you should have been very familair with Bioware's style of adjustment aka al sledgehammer, and yes I did buy hypercrates with rl money for the slot machine so dont even argue that point.

 

The real issue here is that folks wanted to get the print money machine and when that print function was turned off as it should have been. They started whinning and spamming about how their greed lead them to buy packs for one item that was a random luck draw out of the entirety of the pack.

 

Well...we could go down the gambling avenue.

 

Afterall, gambling is a highly regulated industry in America. It's regulated to ensure that it is operated as a fair business.

 

Let's say you are playing the slots at the Belagio in Las Vegas, Nevada and you win the jackpot. They give you your big time jackpot of cash. Then the very next day, they demand you hand back over a portion of that money, because of some reason, then the Nevada Gaming Control Board steps in.

 

So, since you advocate that this is a non-issue because it came from a lottery box, then I contend it's an issue that needs to go before whatever gaming commission resides in the state which Bioware operates out of.

 

Unregulated gambling in a for profit business is against the law.

[LordArtemis]

In this case we bought the slot machine expecting an adjustment, which I think most people figured would be reasonable.

 

Instead it was rendered next to useless.

[ekwalizer]

I'm not even sure they can "make it right".

 

What we paid for...isn't what we have anymore. They can't buff it, if it was having the Earth shattering effects they claim. And they certainly won't hand over Cartel Coins, since they can hide behind their EULAs and lawyers, since the thing came out of a damn gamble box. How can they make this right? There really isn't an avenue open to them.

 

So, from a business perspective, this is their move. To heap the loss and the swindle on their fans, ignore it till the forums die down and then go roll around like pigs in their money.

 

Welcome to Wall Street style business.

 

There are quite a few reasonable things they could do.

 

1. An official statement about what happened and why they went so far and what their intentions are moving forward.

 

2. Remove the Legacy scrap from the reward table altogether.

Disclaimer: Yes I am a crafter, yes I have several CSMs, yes I used them.

 

3. Revisit the drop rates of everything remaining in the reward table and adjust accordingly.

If the intent was to provide Reputation tokens, then those should be what you get on any non-jackpot winning roll.

[OddballEasyEight]

In this case we bought the slot machine expecting an adjustment, which I think most people figured would be reasonable.

 

Instead it was rendered next to useless.

 

^^^This!

 

It would have been fine if they had simply adjusted the drop rates to a reasonable level (one that wouldn't compete with crew skills but still be viable for use).

But instead they effectively turned the machine off.

[Reno_Tarshil]

I'm hoping for a slot machine buff, but I'm not expecting it.

[ivanhedgehog]

They said at the cantina they have no plans to change the SM again. Stop clinging to a lost hope.

 

this kind of bad decision making will eventually kill this game

[Reno_Tarshil]

this kind of bad decision making will eventually kill this game

 

Forever in motion, the future is.

[Heat-Wave]

I'm not even sure they can "make it right".

 

What we paid for...isn't what we have anymore. They can't buff it, if it was having the Earth shattering effects they claim. And they certainly won't hand over Cartel Coins, since they can hide behind their EULAs and lawyers, since the thing came out of a damn gamble box. How can they make this right? There really isn't an avenue open to them.

 

So, from a business perspective, this is their move. To heap the loss and the swindle on their fans, ignore it till the forums die down and then go roll around like pigs in their money.

 

Welcome to Wall Street style business.

 

Why can't they hand over CC? Forget the EULA, this has to do with taking care of your customers and doing the right thing. It buys a ton of goodwill.

 

If they came out on Monday and said:

 

"Clearly we totally went from left field to right field on this slot machine, we were trying to do something nice, but frankly we just didn't run the numbers enough and in our haste to "fix it", we went just as far the other direction. We've decided to change the machine to only drop rep tokens and the very rare speeder now, nothing else. In return, all purchases of the new pack that contained this slot machine before it was changed will have the CC refunded to your account regardless of what the packs dropped for you. We have decided to err on the side of customer service and assume that a majority of you at least had some interest in this item, and thus refund everyone. We are very sorry and take responsibility for our error and will work harder to not do this again."

 

So it costs them some digital made up CC currency, big deal? Do you have ANY idea how much good will that statement would earn?

 

Too many fancy pants companies don't know how to say, "we are sorry, we are responsible, we will make it right". They hide behind lawyers and frankly the average customer doesn't care about the legal issues, they just want to be treated right.

 

In my opinion anyway...

 

---

 

As a side note, does Bioware have a dedicated PR person? Not a "community team person hired to post on forums", I mean an actual PR person... You know, who has an ACTUAL DEGREE IN IT.

 

http://moody.utexas.edu/students/bachelor-science-public-relations

 

Yes, you can actually get a Major in Public Relations, it is a profession, and I suspect no one at Bioware has a degree in it. They might consider hiring someone who does, because their current communication with the customer sucks.

[LordArtemis]

I dont think that this incident alone will kill the game. I think quite a bit more would have to happen before the game would be in trouble.

 

But I do think they are going to feel it. But only because they have been on a consistent losing streak since losing their minds for the last 6 months.

[Draqsko]

The drop rate being over nerfed is an issue, but not nearly as big as the fake forum uproar, looking at the OP for a lot of these threads, I've been realizing that the writing styles are very similiar and look like they were likely done by a small group of folks with multiple accounts.

 

Conspiracy much?

 

Alot of these people, I've seen on the forums for years and not once have I ever seen them agree on every single topic. So they either have split personality disorder, or your conjecture is wrong.

[Draqsko]

I got to the conclusion that they put live a testing Slot Machine, with higher rates to check results faster and easily. Rates were balanced overall, so it was added to the pack without the needed rate adjustment (maybe something like the Nightlife Event machines).

 

I agree kinda, here's the math...

 

You only need 2 machines to avoid the lockout. The machine has a 3 second lockout. Your GCD is 1.5 seconds. Click first machine, wait GCD, click second machine while first machine is on lockout, wait GCD, rinse and repeat. So mathematically the maximum rate is 40 per minute with 2 machines, and 20 per minute with one machine. Yes I tested it with a mouse macro by adjusting the timer until it would miss a click, then adjust up until it didn't. 3 seconds delay between clicks. For the record, the maximum statistical rate of gain of Jawa Junk specifically with the old drop rates, is 240 per hour with 2 machines. With 1 machine you can only make half that. Any additional machines won't increase it beyond 240 though because of the GCD, you can't physically click a machine more than 40 times per minute.

 

Total number of alts on a server is 22, each alt can have 6 companions gathering, that's 132 crew missions in 1 hour (well it's less than an hour, more like three quarters of an hour but for argument's sake). Of those 132 crew missions, 26.4 will crit, and each produces 3 purples roughly. That's one person running crew missions for one hour with 22 alts will produce 79.2 purple mats.

 

Adaptive Circuitry is 3 Jawa Junk per unit, therefore with a 3 second lockout the most that could have possibly been produced from a series of machines is 80 Adaptive Circuitry per hour. This aligns exactly with how much a slicer could produce running 22 alts on slicing so the only advantage was credits cost per unit which the slot machine would be balanced if one used the rep chips (12 JJ per 50k) but got out of balance as soon as one could get the credits from the rep chips (12 JJ per 12k).

 

What threw the economy into tilt was the sheer number of uses on the machine versus crew missions. I think BW looked at their crew missions data, seen how much was run there and figured that's about how much the slot machine would be used for mats. They didn't realize people weren't running crew missions because they didn't want to craft or gather mats, but because it just sucked as a system. When they introduced another system that sucked slightly less, because let's face it, the slot machine does suck to use, you can't do anything else while you do it, well EVERYONE flocked to it, even people that never RAN crew missons before.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Draqsko

[Citruzz]

The lockout is 5secs. If your server is at bad performance, it raises up to 5.5secs. So there was room for 3 machines to reduce the whole downtime. Got this information by listening people using macros.

 

Max crit rate for mission and gathering professions is 22% (20 at max affection + 2 companion bonus) and granting 2 epic mats. A double crit has a aditional 1 epic material (chance = 4%). Wealthy missions cannot double crit, they spend 3 without and 5 with normal crit.

 

Adaptive electronic get the worst ratio in credits per jj.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Citruzz

[lpope]

What threw the economy into tilt was the sheer number of uses on the machine versus crew missions. I think BW looked at their crew missions data, seen how much was run there and figured that's about how much the slot machine would be used for mats. They didn't realize people weren't running crew missions because they didn't want to craft or gather mats, but because it just sucked as a system. When they introduced another system that sucked slightly less, because let's face it, the slot machine does suck to use, you can't do anything else while you do it, well EVERYONE flocked to it, even people that never RAN crew missons before.

 

That was the underlying issue with the slot machines pre-nerf. It essentially gave mats out at or below the cost of crew missions at a much faster rate. The funny thing is "free" mats were introduced with strongholds with the gathering nodes, yet they didn't have any impact on the cost of mats. Why? Because BW put a rate limit mechanic on them - after a few uses you are locked out from using any gathering node for 4 hours.

 

What BW should have done is put a similar mechanic on the slot machines. After every 10 clicks or so, you get a stack of Unlucky, dropping your win chance by 50% that lasts for 4 hours with a maximum of 5 stacks. BW could adjust the number of clicks, the maximum number of stacks and the falloff time to whatever they felt was necessary to balance the system. That way you can limit the impact of the slot machine, address the macroers and keep most everybody happy.

 

Sadly though, BW doesn't seem to have the capacity to think creatively when addressing issues and immediately goes to "just adjust the numbers".

[Scyllia]

Look, we all know that the original drop rates for the slot machine were wrong.

The chance of getting a purple jawa scraw was exactly the same as getting a blue or green one.

And it was way too high in general.

 

But the nerf was a knee-jerk reaction to the outcry on the forums.

 

Now the machine is essentially useless to many people.

People who payed alot of money (real or otherwise) to get it.

 

That has created alot of ill-will towards bioware.

 

If they adjusted the drop rates one more time to more reasonable rates that still don't compete with crew missions, but are at least somewhat useful, it would go a long way towards fixing some of the ill-will.

 

I'm not talking about raising the drop rates to anything significant, but right now, it's massively more expensive to get ANY mats from the machine than it is to buy them at already inflated prices on the GTN.

So there really is no point to using the machine.

 

 

They should have just done what they said, lower purple mat rate and leave the rest as it was.

[ghoul_drool]

I don't see why this thing can't be made to cough up randomized mats. 750 credits might be uneconomic for five desh or five dielectic tendrils, but roll a Midlithe crystal and you've got a happy player.

[Draqsko]

The lockout is 5secs. If your server is at bad performance, it raises up to 5.5secs. So there was room for 3 machines to reduce the whole downtime. Got this information by listening people using macros.

 

Max crit rate for mission and gathering professions is 22% (20 at max affection + 2 companion bonus) and granting 2 epic mats. A double crit has a aditional 1 epic material (chance = 4%). Wealthy missions cannot double crit, they spend 3 without and 5 with normal crit.

 

Adaptive electronic get the worst ratio in credits per jj.

 

Lockout is 3 seconds.

 

I have a 25-30 ms ping usually, 3 seconds between clicks on a mouse macro was all that was needed to keep tapping one machine repeatedly on lockout, and the timing was tight enough that the cursor would barely even blink over to a hand icon, sometimes it wouldn't even do that if the server hitched.

[LordArtemis]

I don't see why this thing can't be made to cough up randomized mats. 750 credits might be uneconomic for five desh or five dielectic tendrils, but roll a Midlithe crystal and you've got a happy player.

 

I just dont think that having mats on the machine is the answer. They should be in crew skills where they belong IMO.

 

They should up the returns and crit rate on crew skills. That would be improvement that all could benefit from in my view.

[OddballEasyEight]

I just dont think that having mats on the machine is the answer. They should be in crew skills where they belong IMO.

 

They should up the returns and crit rate on crew skills. That would be improvement that all could benefit from in my view.

 

As long as the drop rate isn't higher than that of crew skills, there wouldn't be a problem with having the machine drop mats (or jawa scrap).

Sure, it might take a little less time than crew missions (unless you have plenty of alts, which many, if not most, "farmers" have) but it would still be more expensive.

 

It's not hard to figure out a decent drop rate per hour compared to crew skills.

I've done it in more than one thread (possibly even this one, I forget) so I'm not going to do it again.

[LordArtemis]

As long as the drop rate isn't higher than that of crew skills, there wouldn't be a problem with having the machine drop mats (or jawa scrap).

Sure, it might take a little less time than crew missions (unless you have plenty of alts, which many, if not most, "farmers" have) but it would still be more expensive.

 

It's not hard to figure out a decent drop rate per hour compared to crew skills.

I've done it in more than one thread (possibly even this one, I forget) so I'm not going to do it again.

 

Sure, I see what you are saying, but hear what I am saying....

 

The only source for mats should be gathering and crew missions IMO. Those sources should be so plentiful there should be no desire or need to get mats from any other source.

 

If mats are provided anywhere else, and that includes packs, the machine, conquest, etc they should be universal mats that are bound to you and, when used, the things you craft as well.

 

That is only my opinion, but if I was in charge I would remove ALL mats from sources other than crew missions and gathering, increase returns from both substantially, and then replace all prior mats from other sources with a universal bound mat.

 

THAT IMO would be the best way to handle it for everyone.

Edited January 25, 2015 by LordArtemis

[ZETA_SCORPII]

I've spent absurd amounts of CC's and credits obtaining rare items in this game that once I get, I never use. It's the chase that is fun. People should just let this slot machine issue die and quit worrying about "losing" RL $, especially those who bought and opened Hypercrates! I mean, it's not like you didn't get anything else out of the crates.