Let’s Chat – Cartel Market and You: New pack design (Underworld Alliance)

[RButchie]

/signed.......Feeling like I've been mugged

[Mevan]

Er, may I ask how it was "unfair" to anyone? It was a major meal ticket for BW, especially since Legend Reputation was worth opening about 4-5 Hypercrates. Anyone could get that Rep as well, as long as they bought Crates of the GTN, then they didn't even have to pay CC! It was a reward for dumping that much cash.

 

 

What's more unfair is right now Cartel Reputation Vendor items are bugged and not bound, so you're seeing Crowns of Avarice up on the GTN for under 100k (and no 6 Certs that are required for the vendor version).

 

How isn't a paywall like that unfair? It was basically locking content to anyone who didn't have that kind of money to spend (and credits are not a viable way to grind to Legend, so don't even try to use that argument please). And just for context; I'm at Legend rank with every rep faction in the game.

[aidendakana]

Let me start by saying some of the cullings and consolidations were great and felt long overdue. No one needed a forty-seventh minor starfighter experience boost that would not stack with the other three, and moving to armor crates only instead of individual armor pieces was a great move as well. Both of these were great ideas.

 

However, the packs were over-simplified and they just don't feel as fun to open any more. Like previous posters said, the removal of Jawa junk is the most glaring offender - it was the one thing I literally could not have enough of, the one thing I knew was going to make the pack at least somewhat worthwhile no matter what items actually came with it. In the same vein, I miss getting reputation items and/or cartel certificates. All these were guaranteed tokens of value that one could rely on, however miniscule. With them gone, so is the incentive to amass packs.

 

If this is the new pack/crate structure going forth, I will honestly stop buying crates entirely and just get contents from the GTN instead. If you ask me personally, the ideal pack would contain:

 

 

• One crate of armor pieces
  
• One serving of Jawa junk of random rarity
  
• One rep item or one cartel certificate
  
• One of either a crystal, a weapon, a decoration, a mount, a pet or an emote
  

 

Four things, two of which are bound to character/legacy, seems like the best ratio to make contents appeal to both buyers and resellers. The sheer abundance of companion gift drops in-game since 4.0 makes including them in cartel packs fairly superfluous in my opinion.

 

That's my 2 cents. Thank you for reaching out and giving us the chance to consolidate feedback.

 

I agree very much with this. I have not purchased many of the packs in the past, a couple hypercrate, I personally never liked them, because I never hot what I really wanted, so I waited until they came on GTN, however, when Revan's armor set is 45 million credits on a good day it sucks the fun out of it.

 

I don't have a lot of money to spend on digital content after my subsription, let alone gambling content, so seeing I'm only going to get a chance at something that is overloaded on the market that I can buy for 3000 credit, not interested in the old, 2 items now no jawa junk no certificates, and no chance I'm going to get what I want, I'm not wasting my money hard earned money on it.

 

I would say increase Jawa junk give a good amount of all three say 30 of each.

2 armor sets, yes 2

1 of either a crystal, a weapon, a decoration, a mount, a pet or an emote or a dye

and rep and certificates

 

This is what would be enough for me to justify buying a pack but it needs to stay reasonable, under 300 per pack. you would see many more completionists buying packs. most of us would buy more if we knew the odds were in our favor we were going to get things we wanted. and if it helped the market prices fall on the gtn more would be able to buy it including F2P and Prefered they would help increase those sales and make a stronger overall demand at those cheaper prices which in turn means more Cartel items purchased.

 

just my thoughts. thank you.

[Costello]

They do feel a little on the light side but equally 200 coins is a lot less that we have been charged to get a green rep item, some worthless courting gift and a box with a couple of armour pieces you could purchase off the gtn for 5000 credits.

 

However far more than this is nothing to do with the packs themselves rather the wider game, before we had multiple characters and many fully customisable companions. Now we have one story with little incentive to go back and re-play (choice really doesn't matter) and companions that can't be customized. While they have a customization slot I don't see a place where such could drop in the new boxes. Unless you replace the gift with the customization which would be less that 1% if current trends persist so not worth the gamble (as you would probably get an unfavoured companion).

 

Which leads to the question how many outfits do you think people really need for their main. With no option to change the look of the new story companions you have to hope the people that purchase packs are going to want that new set ever release. Rather than thinking Lord Scourge needs that Dark Legion set I shall get it for him.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Costello

[Jateshi]

The new packs. I decided to give them a shot, got myself a hypercrate. And... I felt utterly and completely ripped off. Sure, hypercrates can be a crapshoot anyways, but the amount of stuff I got for my massive investment? It felt like I was being rubbed wrong. I've been a long-time pack buyer, and the removal of jawa junk, no cartel certs, no pets, two items (only one of use, the other being a companion gift?) feels like a horrific rip-off and it's not an experience I'm going to repeat.

 

The markets are crappy because of how few people seem to be buying packs, which makes my normal desire to complete sets (armor, weapons, color crystals) honestly non-existent.

 

Summary? Unless packs change, I've decided to say "hell no" and just stop sinking anything into them. I'm rather cheesed off by the change and looks like I'm not the only one.

[Katiroth]

Worth it?

 

No.

 

Getting rid of the xp boosts was a good idea. One item and a companion gift? Not a good idea. The drop rates for the good things don't justify the similar price for much, much less.

[Jordalx]

I was lucky with the RNG gods. Meanwhile friends that opened 3 hypercrates compared to my 1 seemed to get nothing.

 

I was glad for myself but frankly, the RNG seems a bit too wonky. There should, indeed should, be guarantees that you will receive good things for hypercrates. That is a lot of money that people are gambling with. And mind you, not totally out of choice. (Sure you can choose to do it but this is the only way to get it with CCs) This gambling feels forced. Most people would rather buy outright.

[Fordbird]

I have not purchased any of the new Underworld Alliance packs so I can't comment on drop rates etc..but I can explain WHY I didn't buy any. Let me start by saying, that I usually purchase 1 hypercrate with each new pack release. I skipped this time because of the 60% reduction in items per pack with no price reduction. The price was way too high for the items per pack, stacked on top of the items always being a gamble in the first place. Many other games have sustained themselves quite well with direct market item purchases. Lately (for a long while actually) it seems that there are 2-3 items that everyone wants, and the rest is garbage. Guess what most players end up with?, yep you guessed it...the garbage that nobody wants. At least before this pack it felt as though we had a 20%-30% chance to recieve something cool. From what I've read, and based on the item decrease we can now divide that 20%-30% by 60%. What were left with is horrible odds. I don't like gambling in the first place, and certainly won't participate in a game so clearly stacked against me.

[Tarackian]

Removing reputation makes packs less attractive to buy. There's not much incentive because there's no additional benefit to buying one off the market rather than simply waiting for items to hit the GTN. Suggestion: bring back reputation but don't make reputation items count towards the item budget in each pack.

 

Was removing Jawa Junk an oversight or are you going to remove that feature from the game? It seems awkward older packs include Junk but new packs don't. Suggestion: bring back jawa junk but don't make junk count towards the item budget in each pack

 

Those are the only problems I have with the new style.

[azudelphi]

I think the decision to have all pack items fight for the same drop makes the pack not feel worth it.

 

I would personally make each pack have 4 slots:

Slot 1: Armor set or Mount

Slot 2: Decoration, Dye, Color Crystal, Emotes, Regen, etc

Slot 3: Cartel Certificate, Jawa Crafting Mats (10, 5, 3 for tiers respectively)

Slot 4: Companion gift

 

Raise the cost up to 250cc-300cc.

Edited October 28, 2015 by azudelphi

[AnirelVondoor]

When I read the notes on the changes to the Cartel Packs, I was glad to see the useless XP boosts removed (flashpoints, exploration, etc.). They were taking up too much space and the drop rate was way too high considering no one used them once the minor and major general XP boosts hit the stands. I also like the idea of all armor coming in crates instead of single pieces, especially since I'm a collector and completionist. That's about all I like about the changes.

 

I am one of those people who will spend $99 a month on cartel coins. I usually get 1-2 hypercrates of whatever new pack is out, collect what I need to complete my collections, then give away the rest of my duplicates to guildies who weren't able to get what they hoped to or get any packs at all. It's become a guild tradition, and I love being able to help my friends and the sense of community that comes from it.

 

With the new style of packs there is no value anymore. You took out cartel certificates. So then why do we even have vendors in the Bounty area that still require Cartel Certificates as currency?

 

You took away Jawa Junk, something that I valued very much. Did you really think that because of your 'balance' to crafting and removing crafting as a viable way to complete conquests would make the Jawa Junk obsolete? That wasn't very smart on your part.

 

Each pack has two items. That's it. Just two. One of those items is already guaranteed to be a gift item. So that leaves you a 50% chance to get one thing you want from the new sets. With each new set of packs containing the same amount of new items as their predecessors, you have an even less chance of getting something you actually want. You have about a 20% chance of that 50% to get something you actually wanted.

 

I won't be spending money on cartel packs anytime soon. Make it worth my real money. You already take $160 a year from me for my subscription. I won't be giving you extra money for the privilege of maybe finding something in the packs that I actually like and want. Not to mention the affects this will have on the GTN. With such low drop rates even the stuff no one will want could spike up to 500k credits a piece.

 

My suggestion? Change them back. Take out the useless xp boosts and leave the rest of it alone. Why fix what isn't broken?

Edited October 28, 2015 by AnirelVondoor

[DarthScruffy]

The lack of reputation tokens and jawa junk hurt the ability to make a small amount back from hypercrates before the other items hit the market. Also, bring back the "platinum pack".

[Alericus]

sorry don't like the change, since we don't need to gear our companions anymore, really it just creates a huge surplus. No crafting so packs will likely take a hit in sales but Id say try this out for a few months, the numbers should prove it to you.

[TobyMcCall]

Thank you all for your responses. This is exactly the kind of dialogue I hoped for. Let me try to reiterate some of the issues you’re bringing up.

 

Firstly, I understand you feel that fewer items in the pack makes the pack feel less valuable. One of our goals in the 4.0 restructure was to consolidate the packs by removing some of the items that player feedback showed felt like clutter. I think it’s clear we may have over-tuned that and we will make changes based on the valuable feedback this thread is already providing.

 

Secondly, you feel the companion gift item isn’t as valuable as XP boosts, Jawa Crafting Materials and Reputation Certifications. So, if we add more items to the pack, you feel these items should be included.

 

Additionally, you feel that fewer chances, or “rolls”, on a Gold item feels like the pack has less value. The pre 4.0 pack structure provided two chances at a SuperRare (Gold) items. The post 4.0 structure combined those two chances into one. Mathematically, this one chance to drop a Gold item has more than the combined percent chance of both the pre 4.0 pack structure chances, effectively making it better for the buyer. However, no matter what the math is, if opening a pack feels less valuable, then we missed our mark and we will work to correct that.

 

I want to thank you guys for taking time to make your posts. They are well thought-out and constructive. I’ll continue to monitor them and communicate your feedback to the team, so keep it up. I also want to assure you that it is always our goal to make your Cartel Market experience a fun and exciting addition to Star Wars: The Old Republic. I truly believe achieving that goal is an iterative process that requires great communication like we’re having now.

[BrianDavion]

My thoughts.

 

1st: removing the rep items was a bad idea given that cartel certificates have their uses. partiuclarly there is a vendor that sells housing items for cartel certificates, if you're making us unable to earn certs you need to make those decorations accept other currancy. as others have noted, they and cartel rep served a useful function. they where basicly a loyalty reward, garenteeing that if I spent eneugh money I'd come out with something awesome.

 

2ndly. the changes to armor... theroeticly a great idea, but my problem is after buying more then a hypercrates worth, almost all my armor was supplementry boxes. the odds of getting upper and lower boxes must truely suck. and that needs to be addressed.

 

lastly: yeah I miss the Jawa junk, that said from an economic POV I can see arguements why it's proably not a good idea, I imagine it was a market killer

[MorgothPl]

I buy packs rarely - only when cool gear drops in it. I don't need dyes, mounts, materials, whatever. I just want the armour set. Nothing more, nothing less. Last time I did it, it was the great sale, when you offered all the packs - as I wanted XoXaan robes for my new sorceress.

 

Guess what, it was disappointment after disappointment when in whole hypercrate I got so few of that set - was missing belt and hands, which I had to buy on GTN. It's really frustrating, when you just want that item, and can't have it. Oh and having like 12 crates of same Enhanced Assailant lower body is frustrating too.

 

I'd rather you totally resign of the packs idea, and just introduce the mounts and sets directly from Cartel Market. Of course, you could keep the dyes/mats/whatever in smaller, cheaper packs. But right now, if I do buy pack, I won't open it - I'll sell it for credits and buy the set I want directly from cartel market.

[Count_Mario]

I miss the introduction of new weapons, even if some were bugged (the Starforged lightsaber still feature off center blades) and others looked weird to me (I prefer designs without special effects on the blade or open crystal chambers). Thexan's lightsaber looks great and I bought and unlocked one, but I would really like to get my hands on the Blademaster's lightsabers too.

 

And of course I also miss color crystals in the new packs. I am not a fan of the black core crystals or green, purple and whatever colored cores, so the Contraband packs were the last great shipment for me. I never gave up hope to get my hands on new shades of existing white-core color crystals. When crystals like the white-yellow-orange ones were introduced I was very hopeful, to get some nice combinations in the future.

[skippymchaggis]

I purchased quite a few packs in the sale that ended 10/19. I am not interested in purchasing any of the new packs given the change in contents.

[Beltane]

I love buying hypercrates, but I wasn't a fun of the changes at all.

 

I miss cartel certificates, reputation, and jawa junk. I'm especially not sure why cartel certificates were removed since you still need them to buy decorations and other things off the vendors.

 

Only getting one item feels like a worse value for your money. I actually loved the reputation items since it felt like you were still accomplishing something by building rep even if you didn't get any items you really wanted.

[JattaGin]

Hello Toby,

 

thank you for this thread. Here is my input for you. I hope that you will find it helpful.

 

I will not spend any CC on new packs if they are like they currently are.

 

In short: They are in my opinion overpriced.

 

Long version:

 

For me personally, I liked getting 6 (or whatever it was) items from opening a pack. I always expected worthless items like the upteenth cyborg bracer or whatever. But more items gave me nonetheless a positive feeling that I have a better chance of getting something/more. And I liked that. Opening the packs became a mini game for me and I enjoyed it. One hypercrate per shipment, sometimes two. Granted, I recently paid them all with credits only, but I did spend a good amount of real life moolah on crates in the past.

 

For me, I would have been fine if you take out the XP boosts and let everything else remain like it was. Of course, lowering the price would also always be appreciated.

 

For now, I am not interested in opening a pack to get 2 things. It is much, much, much easier, cheaper, faster and fulfilling if I just buy those items individually on the GTN now. I bought 4 new speeders for 100.000 credits in total today. Why should I spend CC if I can have these items for so low credits so easily? The joy of opening the pack is not there anymore, so that incentive is gone for me.

 

Also, I will not buy packs as long as they have no chance to drop cartel market certificates. There are decorations you can only buy with certs. And I am still missing a few reputation vendor items for which I need more certs. I can never buy these things if you don't add more certs to the game (I don't remember right now if there are still old packs available which could have them; but I would rather buy new interesting packs which include certs rather than old ones).

 

Another reason: no pets. I collect pets. No pets in a pack = less motivation for me to buy it.

 

And finally, jawa junk (green, blue, purple) is missing.

 

How I would prefer a pack to be? This would definitely get my attention, probably even with the current prices:

 

- 2 items (speeders, armor, pets, emote, heal etc.)

- decoration or companion gift

- cartel certificate or reputation item (if no rep exists for this pack, then: or bonus deco or bonus gift) *

- jawa junk (green, blue or purple)

- a (small) bonus chance for a credit rain (or whatever it was called)

 

* To be honest, I would be happy if there would come NO further reputation. The area in the bazaar is already very crowded and with the new individual packs, the reputations vendors are now partially obsolete. Instead add certification items to the current (or a new one) vendors, like you did with the decoration vendor. I quite like that method. And then, if you make it that e. g. 34% chance of a cert drop, 33% of a bonus deco drop, 33% chance of a bonus gift drop, I think this would be great.

 

On a more general note: Thank you for this (and the other) thread. I appreciate that you did this. And as you can see, in both threads all replies have been polite and on topic so far. It shows that the community is willing and able to discuss properly - if Bioware enables a proper environment for this. I think all other parts of this game should take the recent cartel market communication as a very good example about how to communicate with the players. Kudos for that, Toby!

[Gwena]

I opened 10 of these new packs and was quite dissatisfied. They feel like a poor value compared to previous packs, as overall you get less bang for your coins/credits. Points to consider:

 

- Jawa Junk wasn't particularly great, but it was a good "consolation prize" if you got lousy items otherwise. If it poses a problem economically, perhaps include similar tokens that could be exchanged only for companion gifts?

 

- The lack of reputation is probably off-putting for your biggest spenders. Even I miss it a little, and I don't often open a ton of packs. I liked the rep items like dyes and companion customizations that required low/mid reputation; it made it feel like opening the packs was worth it even if I didn't get any rare items.

 

- I liked the idea of CM certificates, though unless more items are added to vendors that don't require high reputation, I think it is best that they are not in the new packs. I have a lot of them stashed away but nothing I want to spend them on as I don't have high reputation with any one of them.

 

- For a pack with only one CM item plus a companion gift, I thought it was really lame that the gift wasn't at least guaranteed to be one of the new "legendary" rank 6 ones.

 

- Gold items seem much rarer (and GTN prices indicate that they are) which I think makes the "one CM item per pack" even more painful.

 

- I miss "fluff" like companion customizations, color crystals, and pets!

 

- One thing I do enjoy: the lack of inventory clutter. I can open several packs without turning my inventory/cargo bay into a disaster area. xD

 

If future packs are done the same way as the Underworld Alliance pack, I will likely not be buying more.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Gwena

[scottocamp]

I have also always purchased 1-2 hypercrates per release and will absolutely not purchase any more cartel packs under the current format. It felt like a complete waste of money.

 

I agree with the decision to consolidate armor in crates and remove experience boosts. Companion gifts as the second item are not particularly attractive to me.

 

If BW prefers the 2 item format - then my suggestion would be more targeted packs. A decoration only pack with one guaranteed decoration per pack, an armor only pack with a guaranteed armor crate in each pack and a pet / mount / emote only pack. The second item should be a cartel certificate, jawa junk or reputation item. Something better than a companion gift. A more targeted pack would allow people to at least gamble on the items they *really* want. My preference is always for mounts and pets - so getting zero mounts and zero pets out of a hypercrate irritated the hell out of me.

 

This new format is not good.

[Daewan]

Hi everyone,

 

• How does the new Underworld Alliance pack structure feel? What are your thoughts on the pack consolidation? What suggestions do you have?
  
• What are your thoughts on the changes to Hypercrates and the addition of Supercrates? Do you feel they are worth their cost? Do you enjoy opening them? If so, what do you enjoy most? If not, what do you like least?
  
• Are you more or less likely to purchase packs from the Market and why?
  
• Can you share any experiences or first impressions you’ve had with the new pack structure?
  

 

Hi Toby!

 

• I opened a hypercrate. I enjoyed being able to fit all of my loot in my already packed cargo hold. I would, of course, appreciate more stuff for the same price, but given what I got compared to the stacks of useless XP boosts clogging up my mule's storage bays, I think it is fair.
  
• I love opening crates. I also love collecting armor and trading for missing pieces and playing on the GTN. I have the most required essential required to play that side of the game: Patience.
  
• I am just as likely to buy crates now as I was before. Nothing except completely running out of space to store clothes will stop me. Suggestion: MORE STORAGE SPACE FOR CLOTHES.
  
• I understand that people were horribly confused by the change, but my guild, as always, made a night of it. We opened packs, set aside things to trade, and played with akk dogs. SUGGESTION: MORE TRICKS FOR CREATURE COMPANIONS. For me and my friends, the fun is in the process, not the profits.
  

 

Overall, I think it is a positive change. Less junk and more stuff people actually want.

[Siddalee]

I really do not like the new packs. I liked the old way packs worked with multiple items within. I feel ripped off after opening these and won't be buying any new ones.

 

I understand removing the boost (these were mostly worthless, though I might change my tune if I ever run out), and if there's no reputation to gain, then I understand not having an item there.

 

But why remove the scrap metal and extra item? Basically, we went from 1 boost, 1 companion gift, 1 scrap metal, 1 rep item and 2 bonus items. Now we have 1 bonus item and 1 companion gift.

 

The old packs were 300cc and held all that. If you consider the boost and rep items as extra goodies, we still had 4 chances to get some really great items, so 75cc per item. If you consider those other items worth something, then we were paying 50cc per item.

 

Now we're paying 100 cc per item as the packs cost 200cc. Why wouldn't we feel ripped off?

 

My suggestion is go back to the old way.

 

The only suggestion I would make there is to change it so that the rep items can be traded in for each other. For example, if you max ICE rep, but still want to open packs and get thus lots of extra rep items, then you can turn them in for Bounty Supply rep items at a 10% penalty, or whatever.

[TheSaamun]

I used to love opening hypercrates, in particular I liked to spread out my openings. It felt like a little reward at the end of the day, opening 5-10 packs and having an inventory full of new treasures to sift through. Even if most of it was junk, the sheer amount was pleasurable to look at, both on a per pack basis and when looking at the haul at the end.

 

Now that there is only one item per box it doesn't feel as fulfilling to open a pack. It is far more about whether or not the single item inside will be a good one or not. Having extra junk inside the packs served a logical purpose. The good junk, such as jawa scraps, cartel market certificates and reputation items, made you feel like you'd gotten something out of the pack, even if the main item you got a weapon that you'd just trash or sell on the gtn for rock bottom prices. The junk that was for 99% of people useless, like starfighter experience boosts and companion gifts, made whatever main item you got look slightly better in comparison. No matter what junk you got, it made the main item more palatable, no matter what it was.

 

Because the chance of getting the 'good' items in the pack is still so poor, and there is no junk to disguise your bad luck, the packs feel a lot less valuable, and more importantly they aren't fun to open.

 

A comparison I've made in my head is if you collected marbles. Imagine that there is a marble shop in town. Sometimes that marble shop sells very nice marbles, but they are quite expensive. More frequently they have a service where you can pay to put your hand in a jar to fish out random marbles. There are two options, both for the same price, you can either take one marble out of the left jar or five marbles out of the right jar. Now you know that the left jar has some very nice marbles in it, and even the bad ones are alright, but the best marbles in the right jar are just as nice as the ones from the left jar, and even if you don't get a good one, you still get a handful of marbles.

 

It is far more exciting to get five marbles of mixed quality than it is to get one marble when you know that you could have got one a lot better.

 

I personally won't put more money in to buying hypercrates, I'd rather just use my credits to buy a couple of the good items from the pack. Far more satisfying than the experience of buying a new hypercrate.