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

[Furtled]

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
  

 

I can definitely agree with this, the jawa junk in previous packs was incredibly useful and made up the times you got five of the same cyborg bits or a pile of space mission xp boosts that is was easier to delete than try to sell.

 

Rep gave an added bit of fun to things, same with the cartel certificates - I would add to up the decoration drop to a slot all of it's own as the rates can be so low. Also what happened to the bonus gold item pack that was added to the more recent hypercrates? That was definitely an incentive to get them.

 

On the supercrates, nope, the value's not there so unlikely to buy them, same for any future hypercrates unless they change.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Furtled

[narau]

get an hypercrates = feel screwed, mixed with a little shame to not understand it before

i am subscriber for years, playing several mmos but there is a first time to everything...

[DirtyDiggler]

Hypercrates are a waste of money. I have opened two and both times 90 percent of the items are bronze with like 1 or 2 gold items each crate.

 

If this drop rate is working as intended, I won't be buying anymore crates/packs ever again..

[AlrikFassbauer]

Personally, I like that there is a Hypercrate containing 5 items for an moderate price - was it 900 CC ?

To me, this gives the possibility to have an HC as well - because I wouldn't buy HCs with higher numbers of included packs, since these are more expensive to me - too expensive for my taste.

 

1000 CC is for me - again, personally - the "breaking border" for packs. I don't buy anything over 1000 CC, and even 1000 C itselöf is very expensive for my taste.

 

I'm not making in-game money with re-selling the contents of the packs on the GTN. I'm merely buying them for my own pleasure & fun. From this point of view, my own definition of "pack item value" and of how expensive I feel a pack to be might be drastically different from the definition of other players, I guess.

Edited October 29, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

[Uncheesus]

Bought one of the new hypercrate packs. Got 1 gold, 2 silvers, and the rest was bronze stuff.

 

So yeah I am 100% NOT buying another hypercrate until this gets addressed. Simple as that.

[EnkiduNineEight]

Lack of Jawa Materials a big negative, especially with the new onerous Alliance System. Its like you took an in game credits sink and decided you'd make it a real world credit sink too.

 

Price has ALWAYS been bad. I'm decently well off so its less of a deal for me and I am also stupid so I spend too much for the value. But you would likely do _significantly_ more business if you were to lower the prices and make these truly 'Micro-Transactions' instead of what they are presently.

 

Your own data, when last shared with us, indicated your subs were purchasing 80+% of the cartel coins. That's because your packages are too expensive, what they buy too expensive, and so the casual player who isn't buying a 15$ a month sub certainly isn't going to spend more than that to dress their paper dolls.

 

Your development costs for these items, mostly reskins, is very low, your distribution price for making them available to customers, very low (they are virtual, you can create as many copies as you want with very very (fractions of fractions of a real world cent) low cost and instead you turn this into a markup that is insane.. Like some douchebag Martin Shkreli level of markup.

 

So, the popular perception is that you have significantly reduced the number of things received, while maintaining the same price which was already far too high realistically. It is and has always been an overpriced cash grab and I am ashamed I have participated in it as a customer.

 

Considering the fact as well that all of these items will go 'poof' at some time in the future when you finally run the game into the ground, their value is significantly low.

 

Do your players a service (and yourselves) and consider lowering the prices _significantly_ especially for receiving fewer items and see that maybe your casual preferred customers start considering more purchases. Needing to spend $20 for a virtual doodad that is functionally equivalent to in game doodads that already exist and cost 0$ is a bit extreme. Paying 2$ for that premium doodad is likely more in line with its actual value and that is still at a huge markup considering your costs. Abusing your customers because they are willing to pay is one of the worst aspects of capitalism.

[Avicii]

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 pretty much agree with this. I bought a hypercrate and even though it is 30 packs you receive less items and I only got 2 items that are any real value or rarity. Without the additional jawa junk, credit boosts or rep the perceived value to me is low and not worth the cost.

 

However if your luck was really good, like I watched KranitokoGames packing opening and he received 3 Akk dog licenses which are of real value, your perception on the changes might be different. Even though he received those his initial reaction was that the he didnt feel he received the same amount of items or value.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Avicii

[EnkiduNineEight]

Let me also make another suggestion.

 

DITCH PACKS ENTIRELY. Gambing crates are a mechanic, and you know this, designed purely to force multiple purchases of things from your players so they hope they can get the thing they want. It drives up your sales while not providing value. Its essentially 'evil' and a behavior that indicates you have a very poor regard for/respect for your customers.

 

Just make it a Cartel Store. Put everything in a nice Cartel Supermarket/Department store. Allow players to buy what they want, when they want it, at significantly reduced price (again, as above.. because your production and distribution costs are supremely low) and I bet you'll see significantly more traffic in direct sales to EA.

 

If the players could go to the Cartel Shops (make it a social experience even, fill the Promenade in Nar Shaddaa with the Cartel Markets.. and actual MARKET where you head to specific machines to buy specific items) and pick out exactly what they want, even if you charge significantly less for it I can virtually guaranty that you will see a larger monthly spend through by your players.

 

People like myself who have compulsions to complete collections would be a steady source of additional income, and while that (income per player) number may be reduced you'll have far more buy in from rational players who see they can complete collections without gambling. Again - virtually guaranteed - lower prices per item + ability to purchase al items individually, not from packs, would result in greater sales figured overall and considering your distribution and production margins are terrifically low, its all pure profit AND it _respects_ your players instead of abuses them.

[Transcendent]

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.

 

I already provided feedback on my thoughts to the changes prior to this thread, but I justed wanted to link a couple of points made previously.

 

On the subject specifically on the "extra items" such as companion gifts / experience boosts / Jawa Crafting Materials and Cartel Certificates.

 

I'm just going to quote myself;

 

• Armor or Mounts/Vehicles (Bronze / Silver or Gold)
  
• Decoration or Toy/Emote. (Bronze / Silver or Gold)
  
• Major or Minor Experience Boost.
  
• Jawa Junk Item (Green / Blue / Purple) or Companion Gift (Grade 5 rare or artifact)
  

 

I think that the better approach would be to have (in addition to Armour or Mounts) those last 3 points. Decorations or Toys / Emotes in one grouping (they either get used or sold), in another grouping Jawa Crafting Material or Companion Gift.

 

The last grouping would be either a Major or Minor Experience boost or a Cartel Market Certificate.

 

It increases the actual amount provided within the pack so it actually feels like you're opening something worthwhile, equally on the subject of the above, experience boosts as they were prior to 4.0 were quite simply a pain (because they rarely consolidated within the cargo hold for one thing) as well as the only useful ones were the generic experience boosts (+25% for either 1 hour or 3 hours regardless of content played). Those are useful to players who are not subscribers as they provide a benefit and they sold on the GTN.

 

Equally, Cartel Market Certificates - why did anyone think it would be good to remove them, considering they were a requirement for purchasing sets from the Bazaar Vendors? Or was the intention moving forward to release more "Cartel Slot Machines" with different reputation tokens? (That's a really bad idea if you are thinking about it by the way).

 

Whichever way you look at it, the pricing model for the new packs is off the mark, there is no way I would pay CC for what is currently on offer - with the RNG being set as low as it currently is. I know the idea is to get players to buy more packs in the attempt to get these items, I just think once people open a pack as it is now (with the RNG as it is now) they'll be put off from purchasing more due to the low amount of items in those packs (for the cost that they are).

 

Edit: Also what EnkiduNineEight just posted has merits. It would be nice to go to fleet, stroll along the promenade and use vendors to buy sets directly for CC (even mixed in with the option of buying packs it's a potential for extra revenue)

Edited October 29, 2015 by Transcendent

[fonmahamin]

The reduced content per pack really undermines the value of the pack. 2 items per pack just isn't enough:(

 

The removal of the XP waste of space in my inventory boosts was amazing well done:D

 

Whoa jawa scraps gone, why? these babies made a pack almost worth it when you got a bad roll

 

i really miss the rep items and cartel certificates, granted it was annoying the rep was bound and couldn't be sold cause once i hit max rep i stopped buying the pack off the GTN even though i still wanted some pieces from it having 10 rep items i cant do anything with was a big turn off so i just had to wait till the individual items were available on GTN

 

bring back rep but just not bound!

 

 

i think the best improvement has already been mentioned

 

 

In my opinion this is the perfect pack that you could give us :

 

1 Reputation Item OR 1 Cartel Certificate

1 Influence Item OR 1 Set of Jawa Scraps

1 Primary Item (Armour Set / Mount / Other Character Cosmetics)

1 Set of Decorations (For example 3 Chairs or 1 Damaged Republic ATV)

 

Except i would change the 3rd option to be just Armour set or mount. Get rid of cosmetics stuff. i don't mind if the Armour is in upper, lower, supplemental just make sure all 3 parts have equal drop rates

[Saul]

The last few hypercrates have only gotten worse. The value is no longer there, the newest especially reinforces this issue. I may not have always gotten the items I wanted but I did like the older packs where I had to completely empty my inventory just to make room for all the items I would get from a hypercrate. There use to be so many items it could fill up one entire bank box and a quarter of another box. Now barely half of one and yet the price is still the same.

 

If the packs are going to continue to be like this then I won't be buying hypercrates. The best option would be to just make it so we can directly buy the items (armor, weapons, decorations and everything else) from the collection menu.

 

Also decorations shouldn't come in singles. They should grant you the full amount of each different one you unlock or at the very least since you guys are going full on EA money hungry let us unlock the full amount of decorations for cartel coins.

[corcode]

The last few hypercrates have only gotten worse. The value is no longer there, the newest especially reinforces this issue. I may not have always gotten the items I wanted but I did like the older packs where I had to completely empty my inventory just to make room for all the items I would get from a hypercrate. There use to be so many items it could fill up one entire bank box and a quarter of another box. Now barely half of one and yet the price is still the same.

 

If the packs are going to continue to be like this then I won't be buying hypercrates. The best option would be to just make it so we can directly buy the items (armor, weapons, decorations and everything else) from the collection menu.

 

Also decorations shouldn't come in singles. They should grant you the full amount of each different one you unlock or at the very least since you guys are going full on EA money hungry let us unlock the full amount of decorations for cartel coins.

 

I agree. The new packs feel like they are not worth the cost. I feel as others do that the old packs were over-priced as it was and now with the reduced contents for the same price it really feels even more so.

 

if it stays as is I will not be buying any more packs. It's just not worth it.

 

Another bad side-effect of the over-priced packs with way too low chance of getting anything of value is that the items on the GTN are now really expensive because they are so rare, so now not only are you gouging us if we buy packs but you are contributing to a horrible in-game economy if we decide to just get what we want from the GTN.

 

I also agree with what others have said that I think it would be better to just have the items available for direct sell in the Cartel Market. You could even offer the option to buy individual armor pieces in addition to an option to just buy the whole set. This way people could finish up old sets that they already have a piece or two of. Personally I wuld be much more likely to just go buy the armor, weapons, mounts, etc. that I am interested in than I am to take a very slim chance at getting them in these packs.

 

I hope BW takes all of the feedback in these threads seriously and fixes this. I think this is a change that will cause people to buy less in the long run and that means less money for the game which is bad for BW and for the players since it means less money for development of this game that we all love.

[McBobber]

The new pack was highly disappointing, especially with the horrendous stronghold pieces. Blaster mark? Really? The companion gifts are nice with the new companion leveling, but they're not worth being 50% of the pack's content.

 

Anyway, looking forward to improvements

Edited October 29, 2015 by McBobber

[DuckKing]

I miss the old packs. From here on out I'm never purchasing and spending money on any of these new packs or hypercrates again. All I got was a bunch of junk and worthless crap. No good decorations, No good armor pieces and No Akk Dog.

 

I did how ever get 4 Kai Zykken's Unparalleled Log Mount which are an absolute joke, 3 Destroyed Ceiling Lights, 2 ugly Korrealis KL-1F and a bunch of horrendous Dune Stalker Armor pieces that I'll never use. Worst experience ever opening up a hypercrate. I will no longer be supporting cartel packs.

Edited October 29, 2015 by DuckKing

[Beyorn]

I LOVED the packs before the change. I had bought quite a few. I feel cheated now just getting a couple of items. For me they are not as fun to open. I loved scrolling thru the list to see what I got and now just a few items come in packs ;(.

 

I want my old packs back ;(

 

Oh and THANK You for listening ;D

Edited October 29, 2015 by Beyorn

[Tsillah]

• 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?
  

 

Ok, the new structure doesn't feel right to me. I open a pack and get two items. It automatically makes me feel like I've been had. The price per pack is lower, but not that much lower to warrant going down from 5 to 2 items.

 

I no longer get a kick out of opening the crates. I do like the idea of supercrates but at this moment I do not feel they are worth the cost and instead of buying 3 hypercrates, I opened about 1 (mostly supercrates) and I do not feel like I want to buy more. After opening almost 30 packs I got NOTHING that excited me. Just bronze crap and too few decorations.

 

I will no in fact stop buying them in the current format altogether because I feel it's totally not worth it to me.

 

All in all, this is the thing. If I spend 35 bucks to open a hypercrate, I am already spending too much money. I know this but I made the conscious decision to spend 100-150 bucks a month to support the game and because I generally get some fun stuff out of it.

 

The old packs gave too many useless items. I have tons of crystals, dyes, and armour sets sitting in my inventories of multiple characters because I need to buy lots of stuff to get some good stuff. The excess stuff is unsellabe so I am torn between saving them with hopes of selling them later or just deleting the crap because I can't vendor it. If I could sell CM items for 1k to vendors I would be able to make 500k easily. That's how pressure the CM stuff is putting on my inventory space.

 

So I welcomed the idea of the new packs, but I still get stuck with unsellable crap but now I don't have any of the goodies.

 

End conclusion is that the fun factor is gone and the down side of losing inventory space is still around. So why in the world would I buy them?

 

I don't have a good reason for it. I would still like to support the game and gladly spend real cash on the game, but not like this.

 

That's my honest opinion on this.

[OddballEasyEight]

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.

 

In other words, people want the old packs back but with boxed outfits instead of individual pieces of outfits.

 

At least, that's what it sounds like.

 

(Ps. don't be discouraged. I think you did a great job... people just don't like change, is all. Wouldn't matter if you set it up so that anyone who bought a hypercrate got the full content of the pack in one go, they'd still be complaining)

[roachfex]

The only items I've never had a use for are the various specific XP items - the general XP boosts have come in handy tho.

 

Getting roughly a third of the items at a similar price = not worth it.

[DOHboy]

In other words, people want the old packs back but with boxed outfits instead of individual pieces of outfits.

 

At least, that's what it sounds like.

 

(Ps. don't be discouraged. I think you did a great job... people just don't like change, is all. Wouldn't matter if you set it up so that anyone who bought a hypercrate got the full content of the pack in one go, they'd still be complaining)

 

not so much that, just making sure there is sufficient value. for example I used to buy 3 or 4 hypercrates at a time. I would end up with a few hundred companion gifts (full affection at the time, a few credit boons (sitting at over 10 million credits) and then fill in with the rest of multiple collection armor sets (well not really I might have nothing but lowers for a set, nothing but uppers for another), and still not have a full set from the individual sets (3 belts, 5 boots, 6 pants, but never a helmet or a chestpiece).

 

nothing more devastating than opening a pack and getting your "rare" item to be a 70k credit boon or a cartel certificate (got a full stack of those as well), or worse yet a companion gift that would sell for at most 15k

[jrwellworth]

I really have to give it up to Toby. This thread and the other were top notch. He asked for feedback, received it, obviously he read it all or someone did and he got a summery. He then replied in a good timely fashion, letting us know we have been heard and that our feedback may actually go towards changing somethings some of us do not like. Now all that is obvious, but it seems to me that a lot of the problems folks have here is that they don't feel that BW cares. That no matter what they post, no one is listening, and you have to be lottery lucky to get a response.

 

I think if the community team and devs acted more like this, people would have more trust and faith in bw. Who knows, there may be no change whatsoever but this thread really made it seem like someone over in Austin gave a sht. The fact that it was for the cartel mart not withstanding, lol. Anyway, just my observation.

[Saito_Hiraga]

• 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?
  

 

• It feels really sad considering my experience with previous packs. My thoughts are that removing reputation items was a complete failure in the new pack structure, I don't mind if we are no longer getting experience boosts (People don't really use them aside from the global XP boost and the Major global XP boost) yet the scrap peddler items were a vital part from the packs, also since the Shadow packs I feel really sad that I'm not assured to get a decoration item anymore as it used to be on the stronghold packs. 80% of the reasons I buy the latest packs is to get my hands on the new decorations for my stronghold.
  Suggestions:
  - Keep the reputation items and cartel certificates they were a key part of the packs and they shouldn't get removed like this.
  - Make it so we are always assured to get a decoration item on the pack just like you did with the stronghold packs.
  - Also don't remove the scrap peddler items, those were really useful items just as companion gifts.
   
  
• I think you are still selling us the same for the same price; You increased the number of packs per Hypercrate yet you considerably increased the price of it as well. I don't really see where are the benefits on that change. I think you should add some special features to those Hypercrates in order to make it worth it to buy them instead of the supercrates or the single packs (Some ideas might be that two packs are assured to come with all Gold rarity items or something like that). As for the supercrates they are nice I suppose yet they are worth 1000CC and single packs 200CC I'm not saving nor getting anything extra from buying them. They got a 5% discount I know yet 50 coins are not really helping the cause. it would be better if they were worth 1000CC but we are getting an extra pack for free, that would be a more awsome deal for buyers or let us pay the 1000CC of the 5 packs and we get one of those special packs you introduced on the explorer packs that grants you an extra item of at least gold rarity from the list.
   
  
• Less likely due to the missing reputation system and that we are getting less items while we are paying the same as we used to for more useful stuff. I would be more likely buying if you correct that and even more if we get those assured decoration items per pack.
   
  
• Yeah. I logged the first day of 4.0 and was eager to get my first supercrate of the newest pack, I was just aiming for decorations or for either the Akk Dog companion and the log mount regen item; That since the rest of the items on the pack weren't really of my liking. When I opened the packs I was terrified with the lack of reputation tokens for this set of packs, also the few items I got after paying something around what I was used to pay for previous packs, and as if it couldn't get any worse: I didn't got any decoration nor any of the items I was looking for. Definitely one of the worst pack opening experiences on my SWTOR history. Not buying any of those Underworld packs again.
  

[Fordbird]

In other words, people want the old packs back but with boxed outfits instead of individual pieces of outfits.

 

At least, that's what it sounds like.

 

(Ps. don't be discouraged. I think you did a great job... people just don't like change, is all. Wouldn't matter if you set it up so that anyone who bought a hypercrate got the full content of the pack in one go, they'd still be complaining)

 

Please don't pretend to speak for what "people like." PEOPLE are explaining what they/we like quite adequately for ourselves, thank you. You've posted that YOU got great rolls on the goodies in the new packs and you like the structure...that's great, sincerely, I am glad to read that someone had the good fortune of getting good stuff. But it is painfully obvious by reading the majority of these posts that this was the exception and not the rule. We were asked if WE FEEL that the new structure was an improvement to US. Most of us do not. Arguing about our perception is unwarranted and obnoxious. If you dig the new setup, great! But don't impose your accusations on the rest of us and imply that you know better what we feel/think than we do please.

[Tatanka]

I know I chimed in earlier in the thread, but I want to bring up this point again.

 

From the blog:

Better quality items in each pack – The baseline pack items will now primarily be Armor, Mounts/Vehicles, Decorations, and Toys. We will add other item types as well, but only when they are high-demand items

 

Weapons, crystals, companion customization, emotes, and titles need to make a return in the monthly packs. As a weapon collector, the underworld alliance pack held little interest to me.

[stockmks]

Hello.

 

I might have gotten lost here. But i represent one of those players that buys all your spares on the gtn and makes you credit rich.

 

Anyways. The current pack sucks, there was hardly anything from the shoppers side to go for. 2 mounts and i was done. The recolored santa sleigh sucked. The little red taser car was the best.

 

This was probably the worst pack since.. the last pack with only that many items in it.

 

Bioware keeps wanting to eat their cake too. I mean they change the packs around, make them better, cheaper etc, but then they themselves put less effort into the packs as well. That's the state of the world we live in. How to achieve "growth" instead of charging more but by jiggling things around so people don't notice, rehashing past work, and cutting costs... their development cost of the gamble pack would have been heaps less...

[Saregon]

Horrible horrible results, never buying a hypercrate again. There's my feedback.