Weapon Tunings

[AlienEyeTX]

We don't know that at all! Let's say in the old packs we had a drop rate as follows

 

• Bronze - 60% chance
  
• Silver - 15% chance
  
• Gold - 5% chance
  

 

(obviously these numbers are made up but just used for example)

 

They then scrapped bronze items and replaced them with chance cubes

 

• Chance Cube - 60% chance
  
• Silver - 15% chance
  
• Gold - 5% chance
  

 

Now they introduce a platinum tier

 

• Chance Cube - 60% chance
  
• Silver - 15% chance
  
• Gold - 5% chance
  
• Platinum - 1% chance
  

 

So it doesn't have to put things back the way they were - it could make things even worse!

 

Fair enough. But at least they are separating items that have a significantly different drop rate. That's really all I mean by what I wrote. It's just giving us a heads-up that there really is a snowballs chance in heck that we could actually get the super-ultra-mega rare items.

 

It should, at the least, quiet some of the shouting.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

We don't know that at all! Let's say in the old packs we had a drop rate as follows

 

• Bronze - 60% chance
  
• Silver - 15% chance
  
• Gold - 5% chance
  

 

(obviously these numbers are made up but just used for example)

 

They then scrapped bronze items and replaced them with chance cubes

 

• Chance Cube - 60% chance
  
• Silver - 15% chance
  
• Gold - 5% chance
  

 

Now they introduce a platinum tier

 

• Chance Cube - 60% chance
  
• Silver - 15% chance
  
• Gold - 5% chance
  
• Platinum - 1% chance
  

 

So it doesn't have to put things back the way they were - it could make things even worse!

 

COULD being the operative word here but that is only if Bioware is sneaky and starts putting out more of these "platinum" items than already exist etc.

 

Point is the platinum drop rate already exists, you are using it now and have been for years most likely.

They are now going to separate it from the gold drop rate so you can see it more clearly and stop confusing the 2 as the same drop rate.

 

Thus nothing is going to get "worse" if they follow recent business practice and not start making more platinum items at the expense of gold etc. items than they have already done so in the past.

[Andryah]

Point is the platinum drop rate already exists, you are using it now and have been for years most likely.

They are now going to separate it from the gold drop rate so you can see it more clearly and stop confusing the 2 as the same drop rate.

 

Yep. Any player with any active interest in CM pack contents.... generally will also know shortly after players start opening them that not all golds are equally rare. And it's been this way since they started releasing packs. It was also this way for bronze and silver categories as well as some were more rare then others. This is what happens when you have an actual loot table with a spread of drop rates in it (probably a dozen or more), but only 2 or 3 labels to help players dial it in.

 

So yeah, the studio putting some form of notation to help players recognize the super-duper-rare golds without having to compare notes with other players is a good thing. It is the studio being a bit more transparent, and removing one facet of abusive complaints by players.

 

We don't need it, but it's good that they are looking at making it more clear what the rarest items in a pack are. I could care less what they call the label, as long as players understand where it fits in the label hierarchy.

 

Maybe somebody should start a petition for a "Once In A Blue Moon" rarity label for the CM.

[Rantank]

While I'm fine with the concept of Platinum items and their associated rarity I think it's a bit short sighted to apply that to weapon tunings. The slot is open on almost every weapon. If you wanted it to be that rare and not eligible for collections then it should have been able to be applied without a slot so we could ignore it if we weren't lucky enough to stand in the gods favour. And it should not have been promoted as a new thing we can enjoy and/or strive for. I'm fine with the rarity of the arbiters... but that and weapon tunings... not the same thing. What BW has done is say there is this wonderful new thing you have to have, oh but we're not going to let you have it. Someone in marketing might want to reassess how that is going to play out long term.

 

Rare drop.

Not eligible for collections.

Desirable class of item. (As opposed to a specific item like a light saber that can be replaced by other sexiness)

 

Pick two and take "ultra rare drop" off the table.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Rantank

[Tsillah]

Is the Weapon Tuning more rare than other rare items?

The Weapon Tuning's drop rate is on par with most other rare items found in a pack. At times there are rare items which are exceedingly rare, such as the Unstable Lightsaber, but the Weapon Tuning is not one of them. As a note, we are looking at more clearly designating that extra rarity as Platinum in 4.5..

 

I'd be interested how much support you'll get for this statement. I got 1 of them out of 2.5 crates and others have reported similar drop rates, so perhaps it's a bit better but not much.

 

The big difference of course is that the unstable lightsaber is something that can be unlocked for your account and this is not the case for the weapon tuning items.

 

So in the end, it will make these items more rare than the unstable lightsabers because a person will only ever need 1 lightsaber skin but will need as many tuning items as he has characters he wants to give them to.

 

And this is exarcebated by the fact that this is currently the only weapon tuning available. So all in all I expect that these tuning items will be very expensive and hard to get indeed.

 

Let's see what happens in the next couple of days.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Tsillah

[JamesLiles]

So far, I have opened 42 Plunderer's Packs. Not a single Tuning... I did get 3 of those Tauntaun, and 1 Stormcrest Vorn Tiger... but no tunings. I'm honestly disappointed. After dropping $50, I'd like to think I'd have at least 1 tuning. Just 1. I've learned my lesson. I won't buy packs any more, I'll just save my gold and buy them off the GTN. I genuinely feel ripped off. Edited May 4, 2016 by JamesLiles

[Rantank]

From a marketing point of view its silly. They create this item that is insanely rare that people will want on any character they play consistently. Then they make the item so rare that the availability will be so low that we are never going to be able to open up the Cartel Market/GTN and just get one because we want one. What's the first thing that will happen? Anyone who does get one and uses it, will never buy another weapon as they will lose their tuning (unless they break the mold and make them unbound to weapons when applied). You sure you thought that through? You've just created an entire class of something that is guaranteed to STOP people buying new things.

[Andryah]

Anyone who does get one and uses it, will never buy another weapon as they will lose their tuning (unless they break the mold and make them unbound to weapons when applied). You sure you thought that through? You've just created an entire class of something that is guaranteed to STOP people buying new things.

 

weapon tunings can be pulled and reused, just like other mods. Plus, Nico's Blasters are BoL and have the tuning slot, so a player should be able to freely move weapon tunings around in their legacy as well.

 

As for your marketing critique... marketing is about improving product revenue pull-through... and history has shown that putting extremely rare and desired items in cartel packs drives sales through the roof. This is real incremental revenue for the studio as most people buy coins to by hypercrates.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Andryah

[IanArgent]

From a marketing point of view its silly. They create this item that is insanely rare that people will want on any character they play consistently. Then they make the item so rare that the availability will be so low that we are never going to be able to open up the Cartel Market/GTN and just get one because we want one. What's the first thing that will happen? Anyone who does get one and uses it, will never buy another weapon as they will lose their tuning (unless they break the mold and make them unbound to weapons when applied). You sure you thought that through? You've just created an entire class of something that is guaranteed to STOP people buying new things.

 

They're item mods; they can be removed just like a barrel or a crystal, per dev statement

[Rantank]

They're item mods; they can be removed just like a barrel or a crystal, per dev statement

That makes it a little better I suppose. It still ends up with you buying weapons that look good with that particular mod and not wanting to buy anything that doesn't.

 

I suppose also this is something that will only ever be visible to people running on high graphics?

[Bugisttod]

That makes it a little better I suppose. It still ends up with you buying weapons that look good with that particular mod and not wanting to buy anything that doesn't.

 

Depends, they're always adding new weapon looks (usually to the Store, but occassionally in-game too). Several times I've thought 'Oo, I love this weapon / outfit / mount, I'll never use another' and then something I like even more turns up

 

A few years back I had 20 characters sharing about three looks, now I have 40-odd charac ters getting more unique all the time

Edited May 5, 2016 by Bugisttod

[Rantank]

While it's true that rareity does draw sales, that's only within a smaller group of people. The larger group are not going to be in a position to play that game. The premise behind micro-transactions was that if every one of your players/customers pays a small amount for something desirable then it adds up. Now I'm not suggesting they make these a small cost, but I think what they ended up with dyes works. The pure blacks and whites are rare enough and can sell for millions. Very occasionally people can part with real money to get them directly from the Cartel Market. I would pay real money for that, but it is a manageable amount and something I can live with.

 

I bought two hypercrates and no tuning. I have two ackleys, an arbiters, raptor and tauntaun but no tuning. There is only supposed to be one ackley mount that exists but I have two of them. There are multiple tunings but I got zero. This level of rarity shouldn't have it's own dedicated slot on a weapon that the vast majority of the time will go begging. People will see it and think their character slot is incomplete but.... no you can't have it. The carrot should be achievable. They might have reached a bit too far with this one.

[Tsillah]

I bought two hypercrates and no tuning. I have two ackleys, an arbiters, raptor and tauntaun but no tuning. There is only supposed to be one ackley mount that exists but I have two of them. There are multiple tunings but I got zero. This level of rarity shouldn't have it's own dedicated slot on a weapon that the vast majority of the time will go begging. People will see it and think their character slot is incomplete but.... no you can't have it. The carrot should be achievable. They might have reached a bit too far with this one.

 

Erm the Ackley and Raptor are from the previous cartel pack...are you sure you're opening the new packs?

 

And there is only one tuning item in the new pack, not multiple.

[Rantank]

Erm the Ackley and Raptor are from the previous cartel pack...are you sure you're opening the new packs?

 

And there is only one tuning item in the new pack, not multiple.

Multiple tunings exist, therefore there is multiple rolls for a tuning to take up that rare slot over something else. My point with the ackleys etc is comparing the rarity. They are not the same. If you bought a few hypercrates you would end up with at least a couple of the rarer mounts but maybe not the specific one you wanted. There are multiple tunings that exist, so while you are unlikely to get a specific tuning, the odds of you getting at least one from the pool should be similar to the pool of rare mounts. But apparently it isn't. My anecdotal experience is that these are rarer than arbiters... but arbiters don't have a dedicated slot in our character screen that we all have an interest in filling.

Edited May 5, 2016 by Rantank

[Tsillah]

Multiple tunings exist, therefore there is multiple rolls for a tuning to take up that rare slot over something else. My point with the ackleys etc is comparing the rarity. They are not the same. If you bought a few hypercrates you would end up with at least a couple of the rarer mounts but maybe not the specific one you wanted. There are multiple tunings that exist, so while you are unlikely to get a specific tuning, the odds of you getting at least one from the pool should be similar to the pool of rare mounts. But apparently it isn't. My anecdotal experience is that these are rarer than arbiters... but arbiters don't have a dedicated slot in our character screen that we all have an interest in filling.

 

Well multiple ackleys do exist, it just can be circumvented by unlocking it for your account. The pack's content are RNG completely so in essence every pack you open has a chance to drop any item. The fact that you need more tunings didn't seem to stop them in making it rare. With these packs you cannot expect a hypercrate to give a reliable result. That's just the nature of them.

 

Also the arbiter's dropped in the last 3 cartel packs, so currently they are a lot cheaper on the gtn than they were before. But we already had lightsabers and mounts before...we didn't have tunings before so it's a bit sad that there is only an expensive hard-to-get version to start with.

[AussieAlan]

IF?, no Eric not if, it's yes we will ad them to collections, it's bad enough dyes are not in collections but these need to be in collections, and now not in 2 years time.

[YlliyaXor]

Yep. Any player with any active interest in CM pack contents.... generally will also know shortly after players start opening them that not all golds are equally rare. And it's been this way since they started releasing packs. It was also this way for bronze and silver categories as well as some were more rare then others. This is what happens when you have an actual loot table with a spread of drop rates in it (probably a dozen or more), but only 2 or 3 labels to help players dial it in.

 

So yeah, the studio putting some form of notation to help players recognize the super-duper-rare golds without having to compare notes with other players is a good thing. It is the studio being a bit more transparent, and removing one facet of abusive complaints by players.

 

We don't need it, but it's good that they are looking at making it more clear what the rarest items in a pack are. I could care less what they call the label, as long as players understand where it fits in the label hierarchy.

 

Maybe somebody should start a petition for a "Once In A Blue Moon" rarity label for the CM.

 

Exactly

 

Eric's post is pretty misleading because quality and rarity are different values, there are silver and bronze items that are rarer than gold ones.

 

You have to remember that bronze/silver(gold label was added recently, it didn't exist when the packs were first released.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

While I'm fine with the concept of Platinum items and their associated rarity I think it's a bit short sighted to apply that to weapon tunings. The slot is open on almost every weapon. If you wanted it to be that rare and not eligible for collections then it should have been able to be applied without a slot so we could ignore it if we weren't lucky enough to stand in the gods favour. And it should not have been promoted as a new thing we can enjoy and/or strive for. I'm fine with the rarity of the arbiters... but that and weapon tunings... not the same thing. What BW has done is say there is this wonderful new thing you have to have, oh but we're not going to let you have it. Someone in marketing might want to reassess how that is going to play out long term.

 

Rare drop.

Not eligible for collections.

Desirable class of item. (As opposed to a specific item like a light saber that can be replaced by other sexiness)

 

Pick two and take "ultra rare drop" off the table.

 

No one said tunings will all be as rare as the lightning tuning is. The lightning tuning is as rare as the lightning tuning is and others will have whatever rarity assigned to them when they release, this doesn't mean tunings get all the same drop rate just like all mounts don't.

 

I personally like it this way because if they made it something like silver you would literally have almost every player in the game running around with the same effect ... at least keeping it rare for more popular effects keeps it more unique and sells them a ton more packs as everyone strives to get their hands on it.

 

It's great marketing regardless of how salty people get about it.

[RandyL]

At times there are rare items which are exceedingly rare, such as the Unstable Lightsaber, but the Weapon Tuning is not one of them. As a note, we are looking at more clearly designating that extra rarity as Platinum in 4.5.

 

If I have to buy more than 1-2 hypercrates to get an item, it's frankly, too rare. I think energies focused toward making a new level of rarity classification would be better directed toward making items a bit less rare. I say this particularly since cartel market revenue generation is the predominant development focus of Bioware. You don't want to make things so rare you discourage your past customers from buying, which is the situation I think you have right now on some level.

 

And while we're on the subject of rarity and Bioware's penchant for overtuning odds, please fix the slot machine odds so that they're worth playing again. It was a bit too generous when it launched but it was one of the best items you added in game until you destroyed it. Please hire someone new to manage your RNG - someone that has a clue. Thanks!

[Rantank]

No one said tunings will all be as rare as the lightning tuning is. The lightning tuning is as rare as the lightning tuning is and others will have whatever rarity assigned to them when they release, this doesn't mean tunings get all the same drop rate just like all mounts don't.

 

I personally like it this way because if they made it something like silver you would literally have almost every player in the game running around with the same effect ... at least keeping it rare for more popular effects keeps it more unique and sells them a ton more packs as everyone strives to get their hands on it.

 

It's great marketing regardless of how salty people get about it.

 

Except that isn't what they've done. They've made the entire class at least as rare as an arbiters. So it's not a matter of only the popular effects being super rare... all of them are super rare. And yet we still all have open slots on our weapons we can't do anything about. Taunting us.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I'd be interested how much support you'll get for this statement. I got 1 of them out of 2.5 crates and others have reported similar drop rates, so perhaps it's a bit better but not much.

 

The big difference of course is that the unstable lightsaber is something that can be unlocked for your account and this is not the case for the weapon tuning items.

 

So in the end, it will make these items more rare than the unstable lightsabers because a person will only ever need 1 lightsaber skin but will need as many tuning items as he has characters he wants to give them to.

 

And this is exarcebated by the fact that this is currently the only weapon tuning available. So all in all I expect that these tuning items will be very expensive and hard to get indeed.

 

Let's see what happens in the next couple of days.

 

1 in 2.5? Wow from my perspective it's already about 10 times more common than the arbiter saber then

 

I've had 1 saber and 1 staff in somewhere around 40-50 crates if I were to guess ( I stopped trying to count ) - oh I also got 1 saber from a chance cube originally and the staff I got the other night from THREE packs I bought of this new shipment with excess CCs I had ...

 

Ties in without about what I was getting form the anarchist pack too ( which I think had more gold items in it mind you? ). I was getting a different gold drop every 2-3 packs on average i.e. I wouldn't get a rancor in every pack but on average every 2-3 , - some I would get 2 though and other none in 5 etc. etc.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Multiple tunings exist, therefore there is multiple rolls for a tuning to take up that rare slot over something else. My point with the ackleys etc is comparing the rarity. They are not the same. If you bought a few hypercrates you would end up with at least a couple of the rarer mounts but maybe not the specific one you wanted. There are multiple tunings that exist, so while you are unlikely to get a specific tuning, the odds of you getting at least one from the pool should be similar to the pool of rare mounts. But apparently it isn't. My anecdotal experience is that these are rarer than arbiters... but arbiters don't have a dedicated slot in our character screen that we all have an interest in filling.

 

There is one tuning. Please check your facts before wasting your time with such misinformed posts.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Exactly

 

Eric's post is pretty misleading because quality and rarity are different values, there are silver and bronze items that are rarer than gold ones.

 

You have to remember that bronze/silver(gold label was added recently, it didn't exist when the packs were first released.

 

Rare or more sought after?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Except that isn't what they've done. They've made the entire class at least as rare as an arbiters. So it's not a matter of only the popular effects being super rare... all of them are super rare. And yet we still all have open slots on our weapons we can't do anything about. Taunting us.

 

Stop talking such nonsense, it's nowhere near as rare as an arbiter based on those that are getting them to drop and at rates that aren't overly different to the usual gold drops.

[Rantank]

There is one tuning. Please check your facts before wasting your time with such misinformed posts.

 

Well aren't you just the charmer. I misread a post. Yes there is only one tuning. I thought there was a lightning and an audible. I guess we can hope more will be introduced as they increase the drop rate. What they'd currently done is just absurd and won't be winning too many over.