Grand Chance Cubes and Pack designs

[Grindera]

Hey Everyone,

 

Prelude: I know there are already a few topics around regarding the new CM Pack design / Chance Cubes, but...

I'd like to be as objective as possible, exclude random ranting about the issue and try to come up with a solution. I don't expect any kind of feedback from the Devs and such as they don't tend to give their words on such things, but since they asked us to keep opinions coming... Well here you go!

I've read many posts about this topic already and tried to keep important points in mind when getting this together.

 

TL;DR Peeps: you can jump to the end conclusion and skip the rest.

 

Let's split up things a bit, shall we?

 

1. Grand Chance Cubes (GCC from now on):

Let me be straight: the idea itself is not from the Devil.

These GCCs - as the name says - are very nice opportunities for players to get something nice / rubbish / nothing special.

I have to admit that by opening up these cubes I find some nice thingies from time-to-time. So overall it's a good concept which should be kept, BUT...

 

2. New CM Pack Design (Anarchist & Disavowed packs):

...but not in the current condition.

First of all, why do people pay money (and good money, ~30EUR is not "that" cheap for a Hypercrate) for a new pack?

Because they want the new items, simple as that. Not something from the last batch, not from a year ago, nope.

Of course, there's RNGesus, and the chance that you'll still not get the new items you want, but hey, we all know this.

 

Then these GCCs kicked in with the last two packs and polluted peeps chances to get the new items. I understand they have removed bronze items (or those just became silver - with many recolors that should not be determined as silver items anyway) and instead we get these cubes.

But how do you feel, when you buy a normal pack, open it up and you get only 2 GCCs which contain some random Emote / Pet you already have?

Yes, you feel cheated. You spend your CC / money on the pack because you want the new stuff. Bait 'n switch as some would say?

 

I will not start with the Unstable Sabers, because that's a completely different topics (advertising something and dragging in people to buy stuff with ~0.1% drop rate is purely BS and anyone who had the idea should be ashamed for this ripoff).

 

Therefore, I would suggest the following...

 

End conclusion (pay attention TL;DR peeps):

Pack design from the next shipment should be something like this:

 

Slot 1: Random new item from the new shipment - Mount, Armor, Deco, Weapon, etc. (guaranteed)

Slot 2: 50-50% Chance on a random new item from the new shipment or a Grand Chance Cube

Slot 3: Companion gift of artifact quality at least (come on, leave us with those green / blue quality stuff)

Slot 4: Jawa Junk or Cartel Certificate (let's say, 5-10% chance)

 

This way the GCCs would have their rightful place.

I'm awaiting others opinion on this topic, just please keep the discussion civilized.

[XiamaraSimi]

 

Therefore, I would suggest the following...

 

End conclusion (pay attention TL;DR peeps):

Pack design from the next shipment should be something like this:

 

Slot 1: Random new item from the new shipment - Mount, Armor, Deco, Weapon, etc. (guaranteed)

Slot 2: 50-50% Chance on a random new item from the new shipment or a Grand Chance Cube

Slot 3: Companion gift of artifact quality at least (come on, leave us with those green / blue quality stuff)

Slot 4: Jawa Junk or Cartel Certificate (let's say, 5-10% chance)

 

This way the GCCs would have their rightful place.

I'm awaiting others opinion on this topic, just please keep the discussion civilized.

 

/Signed

 

I can (not happily of course) accept 1 per pack. But getting two per pack is like when your playing, see a purple loot beam, and click on it only to get one of those crappy Birthright/Inheritance tokens.

 

Might as well just have a monkey lizard pop out and laugh at you as well.

Edited March 10, 2016 by XiamaraSimi

[Xina_LA]

I bought full sets of the last two packs. Last pack, I received three new items. This pack, I received one new item.

The grand chance cubes last pack dropped mostly partial old armor sets. This time, mostly ugly dye colors.

None of them sold (or will sell) for enough credits to buy something I will actually enjoy or use.

Sure, it may simply be bad luck, but it shouldn't be possible to spend that kind of money and get so little in return.

 

I would much rather be receiving Cartel Certificates or any other kind of "token" that allows me to trade for items that I want. I wouldn't mind receiving a Grand Chance Token that would let me trade for a Grand Chance Cube for a specific category, such as Grand Chance Decoration Cube, Grand Chance Armor Cube, and so forth.

 

I completely agree that each pack ought to have a much higher chance of containing a new, pack-specific item.

 

I felt very disappointed with the first set of 30 packs I ever bought, but decided to give it a second chance. Now I've been burned twice. It's going to take an official announcement that packs have been improved before I will buy them again.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Xina_LA

[Theeko]

Someone streamed opening like 20 packs and got the unstable 1h on the 8th pack I was surprised, might've increased droprate who knows

[Grindera]

Someone streamed opening like 20 packs and got the unstable 1h on the 8th pack I was surprised, might've increased droprate who knows

 

Must have been a lucky one... I've opened a Hypercrate and got 34 GCCs (made a screenshot too), 3 packs threw double GCC in a row.

Which was kinda disappointing. Same as with the Anarchist pack where I got around 32-33 of these.

And as Xina_LA said above, the range of the drops from GCCs are very wide. Sometimes you get lucky and loot goodies. Many times you get basically worthless stuff like emotes / dyes / bronze weapons (Socorro yeah) which already floods the GTN.

 

Getting around 25% GCCs from a Hypercrate would be acceptable I guess, but more than half of a Hypercrate is totally not.

They should really adjust the rate at which GCCs drop.

[Theeko]

What they should've done was made the chance cube just a chance of getting after the original pack contents, like how the revan champ armor was

[Capella]

Pack design from the next shipment should be something like this:

 

Slot 1: Random new item from the new shipment - Mount, Armor, Deco, Weapon, etc. (guaranteed)

Slot 2: 50-50% Chance on a random new item from the new shipment or a Grand Chance Cube

Slot 3: Companion gift of artifact quality at least (come on, leave us with those green / blue quality stuff)

Slot 4: Jawa Junk or Cartel Certificate (let's say, 5-10% chance)

 

I strongly support this. Although I'd like to see the companion gift removed (we have so many other ways to get those) in favor of a 25% chance of: a.) another Grand Chance Cube ; b.) Jawa Junk ; c.) Cartel Certificate ; d.) reputation token from prior pack.

[Xina_LA]

Slot 1: Random new item from the new shipment - Mount, Armor, Deco, Weapon, etc. (guaranteed)

Slot 2: 50-50% Chance on a random new item from the new shipment or a Grand Chance Cube

Slot 3: Companion gift of artifact quality at least (come on, leave us with those green / blue quality stuff)

Slot 4: Jawa Junk or Cartel Certificate (let's say, 5-10% chance[/color])

 

This would strongly encourage me to buy packs in the future. However, I would still like to see specialized Grand Chance cubes -- IE: Grand Decoration Chance, Grand Armor Chance, etc. That way, we can trade for a cube in the category we're interested in.

 

The companion gift would have to be extremely high quality to be of any value to me. As other people have stated, you can get them from a number of different sources.

 

I read in more than one place that the odds of getting a Bronze item were supposed to be reduced and low. From what I've seen, they're not at all what I would consider "low".

[WHTJunior]

I've been boycotting the packs ever since I discovered that the armor packs had a chance to drop armor that was available to purchase on the Cartel Market. As I read update after update, I grew less and less interested in the new version of the packs. Rather than complain about something I hadn't tried, I decided to buy two of the new Disavowed packs. I might possibly never buy another pack from the market, based on my abysmal results.

 

1st pack: Commemorative Statue of Aric Jorgan, GCC (Pale Red/Pale Brown Dye), Purple Companion Gift (which, as mentioned, can be obtained regularly throughout the game), Scavenged Scrap (which I never use)

2nd pack: GCC (an emote, which I honestly didn't even read, since I was quite disappointed), GCC (Holographic Tree (Green) decoration), Green Companion Gift (even worse), Scavenged Scrap

 

I would heartily support any method that would prevent me from getting unwanted junk that I will never use, which is why I thought the Gold Armor pack was the best idea so far, aside from the oversight of adding armor sets that you can already buy outright. If they'd bring those back with only the armor sets from Packs, I'd buy those a lot. That could apply to all of the specific packs they released before, as long as they don't con you into buying a pack, just to get an item that you could have bought already.

 

To whoever came up with the GCC idea, or to anyone who has the power to change it: Imagine that you are standing at the vending machine in your break room. You want Cheetos, so you buy the item that says Cheetos, but when it comes out the bottom, it has been replaced with a Mystery Variety Pack that could contain Cheetos (1% chance), or may contain Ruffles, Sun Chips, Lays, or one bite of Beef Jerky). Guess which item you're getting most of the time? That is what we are getting from Cartel Packs, as they are currently designed.

 

I also like the idea of a Collections Voucher that allows you to go into your collection and unlock an item that you WANT, rather than trusting your luck to get you something NOT entirely made of *****.

[IAmFurious]

For myself, I can say that I got 8 of the last pack. Out of those 8 packs, 2 had only GCC's in them - no pack items at all.

 

Of the remaining 6 packs, only 1 had 2 items from the pack, the rest had 1 pack item and 1 GCC.

 

So out of 8 packs, I only got 7 items from the actual pack, and 9 GCC's. and those GCC's are usually not worth opening. All in all, I'm glad that all I used was my complimentary CC, because ... yikes.

[CrazyCT]

To whoever came up with the GCC idea, or to anyone who has the power to change it: Imagine that you are standing at the vending machine in your break room. You want Cheetos, so you buy the item that says Cheetos, but when it comes out the bottom, it has been replaced with a Mystery Variety Pack that could contain Cheetos (1% chance), or may contain Ruffles, Sun Chips, Lays, or one bite of Beef Jerky). Guess which item you're getting most of the time? That is what we are getting from Cartel Packs, as they are currently designed.

 

At no point does it say anywhere that you are guaranteed to get "Cheetos". You buy a pack (or hypercrate) that you know only has a chance of giving you what you want, but it may also contain another pack, that gives you a second chance, albeit a slimmer chance, of getting what you want. The key word there, in case you missed it, was 'chance'. Like Ronseal say, "It does exactly what it says on the tin", that you misread the tin is your own fault.

 

If you had said it's like standing in front of a vending machine and you want Cheetos. You can see there is only 1 packet of Cheetos in there, and 2000 packets of various other things you might eat, but it's not exactly what you want. You then put your money in, blindfold yourself and randomly press buttons, hoping to get the right combination that gives you the Cheetos. When you realise you ended up with that one bite of Jerky (I'm guessing you don't like it, but I wouldn't mind it - you can't get real jerky over here) you put more money into the same machine, and try again. And again. And again. Till you have no more money. Then you go on the forums to complain about it, because you seem to think they forced you to put your money into this machine

Edited March 11, 2016 by CrazyCT

[WHTJunior]

That would only be true if it didn't sometimes replace your one new item with another GCC, which it does. It does it a lot.

[Bearodactyl]

I bought a hypercrate for the alliance one and the new disavowed pack. Mostly got GCCs which all gave me garbage. Things I don't want, or need, and don't even sell well. Honestly, I'm not buying anymore packs until GCCs are removed or completely retooled. Really the GCC should be a standalone really cheap purchase since it's just random crap from every pack. 50CC you buy straight from the Cartel Market itself, not in the packs themselves. Until then, no more money from me Bioware/EA. Sorry. I've personally found it to be not worth it.

[Yomitako]

I bought a hypercrate for the alliance one and the new disavowed pack. Mostly got GCCs which all gave me garbage. Things I don't want, or need, and don't even sell well. Honestly, I'm not buying anymore packs until GCCs are removed or completely retooled. Really the GCC should be a standalone really cheap purchase since it's just random crap from every pack. 50CC you buy straight from the Cartel Market itself, not in the packs themselves. Until then, no more money from me Bioware/EA. Sorry. I've personally found it to be not worth it.

 

And yet I've been able to sell the GCC's themselves without opening them, for about 300-325K apiece. So far both crates I've opened (both bought off GTN for 12M each), had 34 GCC's in them. That recoups about 95% of the crate costs just on the cubes alone.

[klucius]

100 packs opened

143 chance cubes

0 arbiters

 

the guys who designed this should work for the lottery commission

 

/unsub

/uninstall

[CrazyCT]

100 packs opened

143 chance cubes

0 arbiters

 

the guys who designed this should work for the lottery commission

 

/unsub

/uninstall

 

You got to admit, they are really talented - after the 15 bazillion posts about this, they STILL got you to buy.

 

/nosympathy

[klucius]

At no point does it say anywhere that you are guaranteed to get "Cheetos". You buy a pack (or hypercrate) that you know only has a chance of giving you what you want...

 

lol, when did the devs hire a forum troll?

[berelinde]

I don't mind the GCC, as a concept. It's a chance to get out-of-circulation gear, and some of it is really nice. But I do wish they would either add Cartel Certificates to the mix somehow. Either that or add items purchasable only with Cartel Certificates to the rotation.

 

Lots of good ideas in this thread!

[TheSeventhJedi]

This would strongly encourage me to buy packs in the future. However, I would still like to see specialized Grand Chance cubes -- IE: Grand Decoration Chance, Grand Armor Chance, etc. That way, we can trade for a cube in the category we're interested in.

 

The companion gift would have to be extremely high quality to be of any value to me. As other people have stated, you can get them from a number of different sources.

 

I read in more than one place that the odds of getting a Bronze item were supposed to be reduced and low. From what I've seen, they're not at all what I would consider "low".

 

I can get behind this suggestion 100%. I'd also like to see the drop rates tweaked a little in those GCCs - maybe 60 bronze, 30 silver, 10 gold? Or even 55-35-15. I actually like the chance at the old items, and judging by how much GCCs go for on my server, I'm not alone. I sold the GCCs from a full hypercrate and made about 15mil. I enjoy having other people opening them too, because it allows me to go back and buy older items at less of an insane markup. I just want to be able to get the new items TOO. In the last hypercrate I bought, I got ONE gold item. Total. In the whole crate. (Thank goodness it was one I wanted!) Those odds are why people are unhappy, and I really don't think it has anything to do with the GCCs.

[CrazyCT]

lol, when did the devs hire a forum troll?

 

I wish they would hire me - I'm doing it for free but I've got bills to pay

[Wayshuba]

I bought 5 of the new packs and got jack squat. What little I did get went right to the GTN.

 

That being said, I hope these are doing well for BW because I, for one, am completely done with buying any packs at all. While I was originally dumping another $50 a month into cartel coins (in addition to my sub fee), I have decided to stick to my CC allotment and wait until I can buy something direct.

 

To be blunt, these new packs stink. The Grand Chance Cubes are a complete an utter joke and a rip off.

 

BW, you need to have someone spend some time with GW2 and/or LOTRO and look at the store there. While I understand you are probably doing okay in revenue with what you had now, I bet you could do a LOT better if you looked at those. Diminishing the chances of getting what people want so you hope they will buy more packs will probably work in the short run but most likely bite you big time in the fanny when people begin to swear off the packs altogether like I (and a few other members of my guild) have.

 

In a nutshell, I went from about $65 month before to $15 month (sub fee) now as a result of these packs. But I am sure there a lot of other that are making up for the monthly loss from me (or others like me).

[Grindera]

Theorizing a bit:

 

While datamined information is of course not 100% reliable, it gives a nice glimpse of what can we expect.

It seems after the last two packs they will introduce a batch of silver quality lightsabers, which could mean that the "Unstable" series will stay as gold quality weapons through the whole shipment.

 

Wthether this is due to the ridiculously low droprate or as an "oops, we messed up but it would not be fair to adjust now" thing is unknown.

What is sure that they don't haste the "fine tuning" of packs as they did in the past with the "Explorer" series.

At least some feedback would be nice to know what can we expect in the future - will these packs change or stay this way?

 

The additional player feedback they asked for due to the fact that "pack reviews have been mixed" are coming their way - I certainly hope they will address this topic in the next VLOG before 4.3 hits.

 

Anyway, please also keep up posting your experiences here and opinions too.

I will also do the same once the next shipment hits the CM.

[Calsetes]

I like the proposed idea - a guaranteed item from the new pack, a shot at getting either another new item OR an item from an earlier pack, and a decent gift at the very least.

 

I opened up 10 packs this past week - 5 from each of the two packs on-tap - and I think I got maybe 8 GCCs out of those 10. I had one or two good items from those things, but the vast majority were pretty lackluster. Notable exceptions were a rancor mount and... actually, I think that might be it.

 

Anyway, I think that's way too few items from current, on-the-shop packs for buying 10 boxes' worth of stuff. I'm buying current packs of items, not packs of items from two years ago.

[nanamaryjj]

What annoys me with GCC is that they can take up to two slots

Opened a pack last night, got two GCC, green jawa scrap and a purple comp gift

Opened both GCC and got blasters that sell for 800 credits on GTN

Yeah I get its random, but can't remember a single nice thing coming from GCC for me personally

I'd rather they took up one slot

So you got

1 comp gift

2 jawa scraps

3 item

4 chance of item or GCC

Edited March 21, 2016 by nanamaryjj

[Calsetes]

Yeah I get its random, but can't remember a single nice thing coming from GCC for me personally

 

I think I got a Swamp Rancor from one of those cubes. That's the only memorable thing, though.