CM Changes - Negative and Positive

[JediBoadicea]

I wanted to provide some feedback to the devs on the Cartel Market changes, speaking as someone who buys 1-3 hypercrates of each new pack and has done so for quite some time. (If you do the math, that's a hefty monetary investment monthly.) And as someone who compulsively unlocks almost everything in Collections, I feel comfortable saying I'm a heavy Cartel Market user all around (and a sub since beta to boot).

 

In the bad news / good news game, I will start with bad news first so as to end on a positive note.

 

The Bad, #1:

 

Cartel Packs: I am enormously disappointed by the changes to the packs, both single and in hypercrates. While I appreciate the effort to remove "junk" (a pox on those Space Mission XP boosts), and while I also appreciate efforts being made to insure that each pack has at least one good thing (as opposed to a randomized collection of XP boosts, companion gifts, and one toy or something), I feel the new model of 1 item + 1 companion gift is not at all in my favor or appealing. To prove that I actually gave it a try before knee-jerk outrage, I should say I bought a hypercrate of the Underworld Alliance pack yesterday, to see for myself what the results were before posting anything. The thoughts and results I came away with were:

• After opening a hypercrate, I didn't just have fewer items by count, I also had almost zero of anything I'd hoped to get. That was almost never previously true with hypercrates; you could usually count on getting half a dozen items you wanted. In this case, with fewer chances each pack, the RNG hit much harder when it worked against you.
   
  
• As a follow-on to having received numerically less items, another of the main draws of buying a hypercrate was removed: namely, that I won't have hardly anything to sell. One of the things that made gambling on the hypercrates work was that you were guaranteed an inflow of credits from your GTN sales, which you could then use to buy the items you wanted but didn't get. With this hypercrate, I have almost nothing to sell, and because my RNG happened to be bad, nothing that I got is a high ticket seller. For the first time ever, I feel my hypercrate was a net loss.
   
  
• The addition of 6 additional packs to the hypercrate did not help at all in these results. 6 more guaranteed items did not, in the real application of it, balance out the possibility of 48. Not even close.
   
  
• The fact that the price of a hypercrate has not dropped just feels like salt in the wound. (I hesitate to say it's insulting, because that sounds very emotional... but it's pretty damn close to insulting.) This game is my hobby, and so I have never previously hesitated to throw my recreational funds at it for hypercrates. But with these changes, it suddenly does feel like I am throwing my money away as opposed to investing in a hobby or taking a fun gamble. I fully understand the Cartel Market is crucial to keeping the game going and I am happy to spend money there - but this particular change, as regards the amount of items that drop in packs, feels pretty egregious and I find myself extremely resistant to the idea of throwing more money at this particular CM purchase.
   
  
• I fear that with the increased scarcity of drops from the packs the cost of these items on the GTN will just explode. If this adjustment to packs was meant to control devaluation of items in the economy I think it runs the risk of backfiring, in that it will dis-incentivize the purchasing of packs to begin with. Bringing the GTN into line won't matter if the game's actual $$ income suffers.
   
  
• Conclusion: I strongly feel that either the price of the new style packs needs to come down, or the packs should return to providing more than just one item. At least two, for pity's sake! Perhaps two tiers: one random Gold or Silver item and one random Silver or Bronze item. That way you're still gambling; no guarantee of a Gold, but at least a chance, along with a promise that you're not going to be stuck with nothing but 30 Bronze items (I got about four full sets of Overwatch Shield armor and little else) for your $40. $40 is no joke.
  

 

The Bad, #2

 

Gold (Armor/Mount/Etc) Packs: Let me lead off by saying that I don't mind the repackaging into Gold/Silver/Bronze packs. In fact, I rather like it, and likewise appreciate that I can now focus on the item category I want. That's all good, in my book. But I think the prices need to be reconsidered. 1,200-1,500 CC on a gamble is just too high. That's almost $20 for crying out loud (usually $20 directly due to the packages you can buy CC in)! I have spent that previously in the CM many times, but always to buy a specific item that I knew I wanted and was guaranteed to get. A direct purchase for 1,200-1,500 is fine. But I will never spend that on a one shot gamble. The previous Grand Acquisitions packs offered you more bang for your buck in the way of a couple other items, or a lower price. The only suggestions I can think of would be:

• Just bring the price down. Scaling with the Silver and Bronze packs wouldn't need to be too great, but the Gold packs definitely need to come down.
   
  
• Perhaps another alternative would be to narrow down the range of packs from which a Gold item/set will be randomly drawn. Let's say I want to gamble on the Marka Ragnos armor set. My chances of that are better if the Gold pack I buy will only be randomly drawing from 2-3 shipments, as opposed to all 8. The former is a chance I might be willing to take for a high price; the latter is just stupid.
  

 

The Bad, #3

 

Cartel Market Certificates: I am updating this post to add an excellent question, as posted here by another player, about the Cartel Market Certificates. I can't believe I didn't think of this before. I was so focused on new item/gear drop rates that I didn't even think about the obvious: where are we supposed to get Certificates now? How are we supposed to buy anything from the Certificates decorations vendor or the reputation vendors ever again? (And if someone suggests the only place to get them now is the slot machine, I will howl; we don't need to resurrect the smelly corpse of that thing's impossible drop rates.) Certificates (and reputation rewards) were another thing that made the hypercrate gamble worth it; even if you didn't get an item you wanted, or an item to sell, you always got reputation, and you always had the chance of a Certificate which could also be profitable for you either in terms of getting you a deco or item you wanted or just to get a deco to sell.

 

The Good, #1

 

Collections: The collapsed categories, the filters, the search function - these are all just wonderful, wonderful QoL updates. Thank you!!

 

The Good, #2

 

"Grand" packs: Making these permanently available is great. This is particularly great for all of the weapons, dyes, toys, pets, etc - and the prices on those categories are reasonable (as opposed to the prices on Armor, Mounts, and Decos)! I think it's safe business sense to assume that people are more likely to gamble on multiple "small" gambles as opposed to one super big one. In the end, we probably end up spending the same amount of money, but with the lower prices you are more likely to catch buyers in the psychological compulsive trap as opposed to bringing them face first into the barrier of "Holy ****, that's almost $20 bucks for one thing. Uh... no."

 

Conclusion

 

All in all, I understand that the Cartel Market is crucial to pumping lifeblood through the game. I want it to succeed. I want to spend money there!

 

I can only hope that some of the recent changes will be re-examined, because as it stands I am resolved to find a new way to make credits (Slicing Mission grinding, here I come!) and get my vanity items, because I can no longer justify those hypercrate purchases.

Edited October 23, 2015 by JediBoadicea

[CarpeSangrea]

Bioware, please listen to this guy.

[Murder_Toys]

I wanted to provide some feedback to the devs on the Cartel Market changes, speaking as someone who buys 1-3 hypercrates of each new pack and has done so for quite some time. (If you do the math, that's a hefty monetary investment monthly.) And as someone who compulsively unlocks almost everything in Collections, I feel comfortable saying I'm a heavy Cartel Market user all around (and a sub since beta to boot).

 

In the bad news / good news game, I will start with bad news first so as to end on a positive note.

 

The Bad, #1:

 

Cartel Packs: I am enormously disappointed by the changes to the packs, both single and in hypercrates. While I appreciate the effort to remove "junk" (a pox on those Space Mission XP boosts), and while I also appreciate efforts being made to insure that each pack has at least one good thing (as opposed to a randomized collection of XP boosts, companion gifts, and one toy or something), I feel the new model of 1 item + 1 companion gift is not at all in my favor or appealing. To prove that I actually gave it a try before knee-jerk outrage, I should say I bought a hypercrate of the Underworld Alliance pack yesterday, to see for myself what the results were before posting anything. The thoughts and results I came away with were:

• After opening a hypercrate, I didn't just have fewer items by count, I also had almost zero of anything I'd hoped to get. That was almost never previously true with hypercrates; you could usually count on getting half a dozen items you wanted. In this case, with fewer chances each pack, the RNG hit much harder when it worked against you.
   
  
• As a follow-on to having received numerically less items, another of the main draws of buying a hypercrate was removed: namely, that I won't have hardly anything to sell. One of the things that made gambling on the hypercrates work was that you were guaranteed an inflow of credits from your GTN sales, which you could then use to buy the items you wanted but didn't get. With this hypercrate, I have almost nothing to sell, and because my RNG happened to be bad, nothing that I got is a high ticket seller. For the first time ever, I feel my hypercrate was a net loss.
   
  
• The addition of 6 additional packs to the hypercrate did not help at all in these results. 6 more guaranteed items did not, in the real application of it, balance out the possibility of 48. Not even close.
   
  
• The fact that the price of a hypercrate has not dropped just feels like salt in the wound. (I hesitate to say it's insulting, because that sounds very emotional... but it's pretty damn close to insulting.) This game is my hobby, and so I have never previously hesitated to throw my recreational funds at it for hypercrates. But with these changes, it suddenly does feel like I am throwing my money away as opposed to investing in a hobby or taking a fun gamble. I fully understand the Cartel Market is crucial to keeping the game going and I am happy to spend money there - but this particular change, as regards the amount of items that drop in packs, feels pretty egregious and I find myself extremely resistant to the idea of throwing more money at this particular CM purchase.
   
  
• I fear that with the increased scarcity of drops from the packs the cost of these items on the GTN will just explode. If this adjustment to packs was meant to control devaluation of items in the economy I think it runs the risk of backfiring, in that it will dis-incentivize the purchasing of packs to begin with. Bringing the GTN into line won't matter if the game's actual $$ income suffers.
   
  
• Conclusion: I strongly feel that either the price of the new style packs needs to come down, or the packs should return to providing more than just one item. At least two, for pity's sake! Perhaps two tiers: one random Gold or Silver item and one random Silver or Bronze item. That way you're still gambling; no guarantee of a Gold, but at least a chance, along with a promise that you're not going to be stuck with nothing but 30 Bronze items (I got about four full sets of Overwatch Shield armor and little else) for your $40. $40 is no joke.
  

 

The Bad, #2

 

Gold (Armor/Mount/Etc) Packs: Let me lead off by saying that I don't mind the repackaging into Gold/Silver/Bronze packs. In fact, I rather like it, and likewise appreciate that I can now focus on the item category I want. That's all good, in my book. But I think the prices need to be reconsidered. 1,200-1,500 CC on a gamble is just too high. That's almost $20 for crying out loud (usually $20 directly due to the packages you can buy CC in)! I have spent that previously in the CM many times, but always to buy a specific item that I knew I wanted and was guaranteed to get. A direct purchase for 1,200-1,500 is fine. But I will never spend that on a one shot gamble. The previous Grand Acquisitions packs offered you more bang for your buck in the way of a couple other items, or a lower price. The only suggestions I can think of would be:

• Just bring the price down. Scaling with the Silver and Bronze packs wouldn't need to be too great, but the Gold packs definitely need to come down.
   
  
• Perhaps another alternative would be to narrow down the range of packs from which a Gold item/set will be randomly drawn. Let's say I want to gamble on the Marka Ragnos armor set. My chances of that are better if the Gold pack I buy will only be randomly drawing from 2-3 shipments, as opposed to all 8. The former is a chance I might be willing to take for a high price; the latter is just stupid.
  

 

The Good, #1

 

Collections: The collapsed categories, the filters, the search function - these are all just wonderful, wonderful QoL updates. Thank you!!

 

The Good, #2

 

"Grand" packs: Making these permanently available is great. This is particularly great for all of the weapons, dyes, toys, pets, etc - and the prices on those categories are reasonable (as opposed to the prices on Armor, Mounts, and Decos)! I think it's safe business sense to assume that people are more likely to gamble on multiple "small" gambles as opposed to one super big one. In the end, we probably end up spending the same amount of money, but with the lower prices you are more likely to catch buyers in the psychological compulsive trap as opposed to bringing them face first into the barrier of "Holy ****, that's almost $20 bucks for one thing. Uh... no."

 

Conclusion

 

All in all, I understand that the Cartel Market is crucial to pumping lifeblood through the game. I want it to succeed. I want to spend money there!

 

I can only hope that some of the recent changes will be re-examined, because as it stands I am resolved to find a new way to make credits (Slicing Mission grinding, here I come!) and get my vanity items, because I can no longer justify those hypercrate purchases.

 

:rak_04::rak_04::rak_04::rak_04:

this guy knows what hes talking about !!! "

 

:rak_04::rak_04::rak_04::rak_04:

[wolfyde]

I agree with the OP, especially on the negative points.

I used to buy 1-2 hypercrates with every shipment, but as they now have essentially doubled the price on them by lowering the yield by so much, I simply can't justify to my wallet buying them anymore.

Edited October 22, 2015 by wolfyde

[Dbohrius]

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment, OP. I almost bought the new hypercrate on impulse, but held that in check and bought a single pack. Got a Decoration and a Blue lvl 5 gift, which I thought was a bit too little for 200 CC.

 

Of course, I fully understand the nature of the RNG, and I'll never say I was ripped-off. The rules were there, and I always knew it would be a gamble. But 5400 CC for an extended gamble, knowing this is the kind of thing that can happen? Yeah, not my idea of fun.

 

I might try the new armor packs, though. Let's see.

[JediBoadicea]

[*]I fear that with the increased scarcity of drops from the packs the cost of these items on the GTN will just explode. If this adjustment to packs was meant to control devaluation of items in the economy I think it runs the risk of backfiring, in that it will dis-incentivize the purchasing of packs to begin with. Bringing the GTN into line won't matter if the game's actual $$ income suffers.

 

I'm going to risk being pretentious by quoting myself in order to follow-up on the above point, given what I've seen since last night, now that items are going up on the GTN. And so far, my fears appear to have been validated. Even Bronze items are going up for millions. And frankly, I can't blame these sellers. I'm putting mine up in a similar price range as well, because that price range is reflecting the genuine scarcity of the object.

 

Whether prices stay in this range or drop, we lose. If they stay in this range, fewer people can buy and enjoy the items, resulting in less incentive for people to spend CC and sell them, and resulting in less distribution in the game to catch attention and whet people's appetites. If the prices drop, then the people who paid CC for the items are taking the hit, due to getting much less return on their investment, resulting in less interest in buying the hypercrates at all.

 

And ultimately, I still don't have my Akk Dog Companion, because a >10 million price tag is just too much. Which, at the end of the day, is really what it's about, right? (Customer happiness, I mean... not Akk Dog Companions...) Previously, at this point, I would have gritted my teeth and thrown another $40 at a hypercrate to try again. But with these new odds? No way.

 

Time to find a happy medium, please!

[Mubrak]

The current GTN prices have more to do with the GTN flush, though. Just like Bioware in the cartel market, GTN sellers are trying to find the sweet spot where profit is still good while people still buy the stuff. Or well, they're just outright greedy and hope someone rich really wants that item they sell.

[Dbohrius]

Question: the armor that drops from the new Hypercrate packs is a whole boxed set, or just individual pieces?

[JediBoadicea]

Question: the armor that drops from the new Hypercrate packs is a whole boxed set, or just individual pieces?

 

The armor now appears to come solely in boxed pieces, but not the whole set. These are the same boxed pieces as before: Upper, Lower, and Supplementary.

 

I had actually wondered if the elimination of single armor piece drops in favor of only the three boxed pieces would help balance out the 1 item per pack change, but in practice I do not feel that it did. Golds appear to have had an equally low (or lower, perhaps?) drop rate chance, with the net result still being that a reduction to only 1 item landed you significantly less bang for your buck.

[Aldenhawke]

Question: I thought the gold pack said it gives one FULL set of armor plus a bonus Armor piece is this not the case?

[JediBoadicea]

The current GTN prices have more to do with the GTN flush, though. Just like Bioware in the cartel market, GTN sellers are trying to find the sweet spot where profit is still good while people still buy the stuff. Or well, they're just outright greedy and hope someone rich really wants that item they sell.

 

I understand what you mean, about there always being a window of time right at the beginning where people are trying to find the sweet spot. As I have played the GTN for well over a year based on cartel packs, I hear you.

 

But what I'm seeing this time is different. Bronzes (i.e., what would have been Rares in the past, or "trash" such as the ubiquitous cybernetic armors) going for 2-4 million, even in the first day or two, has never been previously common. At least, not on my server. My assumption is that this based entirely on the drastically reduced number of items each hypercrate buyer got for their money. A) The items, by the drop numbers, are just more rare, and hence more pricey. B) Buyers of hypercrates want to recoup their investment, and they are passing that along on the GTN.

 

Even if the GTN prices eventually drop because no one will buy until they are cheaper, then what that means is that the hypercrate buyers really don't recoup. So why spend your real money? That, specifically, is one of the biggest negatives (as I see it) that I was trying to point out with my initial post. I want the Cartel Market to succeed to the utmost, because I want my game to succeed and continue. And as a long time, regular hypercrate buyer, I wanted to bring to the devs' attention what I feel are the negative impacts of some of the changes they are trying out right now.

[JediBoadicea]

Question: I thought the gold pack said it gives one FULL set of armor plus a bonus Armor piece is this not the case?

 

Although I haven't bought a Gold Pack to confirm, you are correct that the tooltip there says it gives a full set of armor. That's for the Gold Armor pack specifically.

 

The previous poster was asking about what drops in hypercrates, which is not a full set but the boxed pieces.

[Aldenhawke]

Yeah I bought a Hyper Crate and the best thing I got was supplementary gold armor and a lot of influence items.

[MotorCityMan]

I am not buying any more hypercrates. Not worth it.

[Fordbird]

If the items I want are not direct sale (like Thexan's armor) I won't be buying anything from the gtn. Drop rates were horrible before, and they'll be even more rare now. The price of the gold pack would be reasonable if you/I could choose which hypercrate pool the gold item was pulled from. Having every "gold" item from every existing pack be a possibile drop is not worth the dollars. If I'm going to spend that much, I want to have a much higher chance of getting something I actually want. I hope bioware/EA sees their folly here and either reduces the prices of packs/hypercrate a or places 3-4 more items in each one again. Until then I won't be gambling against odds so steep.

[JediBoadicea]

Added an edit to the original post about Certificates.

[Treeba]

Just wanted to throw my support behind the OP. The new hypercrates feel very underwhelming. I like that I don't have to deal with a ton of jawa junk (all 3 qualities) and experience boosts, but only getting 1 item and a gift feels so depressing. I liked getting decorations AND armor AND mounts in the same pack.

[MotorCityMan]

I am not paying 40 bucks for a handful of crap decos and armor and some mounts no one wants. I need more value for my money than what current hypercrates offer.

Perhaps the OP stated it more eloquently, but for me, suffice it to say I think they are a rip off and won't buy any more, period. And I don't care to buy random armor packs either. Most of the armor in this game looks like it it was chewed up by a gerbil before it was issued. Ugly stuff.

They still aren't making decos you can interact with. Bioware needs to step up their game.

 

And by the way, I liked getting the jawa junk and scrap.

Edited October 23, 2015 by MotorCityMan

[Clarian]

But what I'm seeing this time is different. Bronzes (i.e., what would have been Rares in the past, or "trash" such as the ubiquitous cybernetic armors) going for 2-4 million, even in the first day or two, has never been previously common.

I'm seeing the same thing, and yes, it's really unprecedented.

Even if the GTN prices eventually drop because no one will buy until they are cheaper, then what that means is that the hypercrate buyers really don't recoup.

Yeah. I usually wait from prices to drop some, but on the other hand, it's in my interest that the sellers to feel like they're getting a good price, otherwise they stop opening packs and posting stuff. Since I'm not going gamble myself, I want them to keep doing that.

 

But this time...by the time prices drop to a place I find halfway reasonable, I think the sellers are going to feel ripped off.

[Wayshuba]

I love the expansion and game changes in 4.0 - all except for the cartel store changes.

 

Over the last month, I have spent almost $200 in the store alone. Of course, much of it on the old packs. With the new Bronze/Silver/Gold thing I have only spent money on Decorations (packs with a clear list of what they come with).

 

My personal opinion - I won't be spending a dime on the Bronze/Silver/Gold stuff. First, as the OP said, I don't like that things have been decreased in item count while price remained the same. Secondly, I haven't the foggiest clue what is in any of these packs at all. How the heck can someone know what sets are bronze armor versus gold armor. Nowhere does it show - in the store - what you are getting for the money.

 

My suggestion - you should have left the old packs and just cleaned up the RNG to have less garbage. From my perspective, I will just be avoiding the packs since they only give one item (except for armor which gives you one set) and they are ridiculously priced (1200 coins for ONE decoration?!?!?!?).

[Newyankalt]

Bought a gold decoration pack and got a Shae Vizsla statue which sells for around 3-4 million on my server. Worth it for 800 free CC.

 

I'll probably just stick to those gold single item packs in the future, pretty hard to get something that's not work a decent penny at least with the Decorations

[Fordbird]

Bought a gold decoration pack and got a Shae Vizsla statue which sells for around 3-4 million on my server. Worth it for 800 free CC.

 

I'll probably just stick to those gold single item packs in the future, pretty hard to get something that's not work a decent penny at least with the Decorations

 

I think all of us have had a lucky drop here and there, but that's kinda the point. Think your luck is better if you have 5 items to choose from or two? And what is considered "gold" armor? Share Visalia set?, because stuff like that may be considered super rare, but a lot more people got those kinds of drops compared to safely Shans, for example. The price is way to steep to most likely end up with a "rare" or "gold" armor that everyone has and no one wants anymore.

[StrangeDais]

OP summed it up perfectly. Cost/benefit of the packs feels really out of sync now.

[JediBoadicea]

So, after watching the GTN for several days on my server, I've noticed that prices for the items from the Underworld Alliance pack have plummeted, and are now down to where you would expect them to be under previous "normal" circumstances. Silvers are selling for 100-200k, and Bronzes for 50-100k. Just because the items became more rare doesn't mean that the players can afford higher prices.

 

And this, to me, just further underscores why the hypercrates are no longer a worthwhile purchase. I got substantially less for my money, and what I did get can't be sold at prices that reflect its rarity.

 

So, recapping:

 

1. Prices on the packs and hypercrates need to drop, or the amount of items they provide need to be increased (either back to previous levels, or fewer items but with drop rates adjusted to incorporate the new three rarity tiers).
    
   
2. Please restore Cartel Market Certificates! Howe else are we supposed to get them??
    
   
3. Although I didn't mention it in the original post, a reputation vendor for the new pack shipment would be nice. That kind of goes hand-in-hand with the Certificates, and has always provided an extra incentive to buy those packs.
   

Edited October 26, 2015 by JediBoadicea

[Emersyn]

My goodness - can this thread be stickied? Seriously - I would state that you didn't even receive a net-loss - you just received a LOSS for a hypercrate. I purchased a hypercrate before the 19th when they were all on sale and had quite a lot of fun shifting through the massive amount of items I got out of those 24 packs.

 

Did I get any of the 3 items I had hoped for from those 24 packs? No. Did I get any other high-credit items that I could flip on the GTN? No. I got a bunch of armor, common color crystals, common mounts, and random other things. But I had quite a few of those random things sell for 100-500k. Total profit? Maybe 2 million altogether or so? Either way - I completely struck out on what I was hoping for, but I had something to show from it with the 50 some auctions I ended up selling.

 

I dont really mind the gold packs for armor or mounts - but they are indeed expensive. You could easily end up with a armor set that only sells for 100k too -

 

I was really hoping that all cartel packs would be on the store front for a longer period of time. It makes it much easier to Zero in on a set. Say someone now want's to collect the Revan Reborn outfit without spending Credits - are they just supposed to throw 1500 CC after 1500 CC in the hopes that their 1/50 chance or whatever it is will hit big?

 

And yes - rebuff the drop rate for Cartel Certificates from those Slot machines to the 2% it used to be. That was never taken advantage of - just the Jawa Junk - Don't make it suffer too