Stealth nerf or unintended?

[Holocron]

Hence the "/sarcasm" part of my post, I know, it's subtle!

 

 

 

Contraband Slot Machine........ oh wait.....

 

I know, I was just trying to give a straight forward addendum.

[Nothing_Shines]

He does have a point. I've made PLENTY just playing the game. From selling loot, decorations, to turning comms into companion gifts / mats, etc. there is money in playing the game. Of course, it doesn't beat just sending your companions off to craft and then just logging back in across 9 toons to sell what they did while you were afk. That shouldn't be the main way to make money.

 

This nerf was warranted

 

How about actually playing the game instead of playing the system? You know doing things like heroics, and FPs, and dailies, and conquest, and easy ops. There is so much to DO that generates credits in this game

 

Good to know the system the devs put in the game from the beginning (crafting/resource missions) isn't part of the real game all the special people like you, who are in the know, play. Never mind you have to actually invest time and credits to build up a useful stable of companions (which you unlock by playing the story) and grind out the schematic tiers, but whatever. It's not running a flashpoint or an op, so it doesn't count.

 

Flashpoints drop practically nothing for credits, especially if you have to repair - since BW nerfed loot drops across the board (which was also supposed to hurt the gold farmers - and yet, there's more now than ever). And good luck getting anything worth selling to drop, let alone an actual deco, all of which you have to roll for. But keep telling people the right way to play because you're worried someone else might just have more fictional money than you. I'm happy when everyone is making money, because it means I make even more.

 

Personally, I have 44 toons and counting, with every possible useful crew skill combo maxed out and rank 50 companions constantly on the move. I'm already established. The investment costs have been sunk, infrastructure established and all paid off. Everything I make now is pure profit. Go ahead and nerf Treasure Hunting. I'll just shift focus to something else. Short of removing crew skills completely, I WILL make more money than you do running flashpoints - and with less overall effort. While you're running your flashpoint to make credits (lol), I'm running one on my main for fun (passing on the drops so people with embarrassing gear can actually get rewarded),while my other 43 toons are grinding out BANK. That's me, though. I've been here forever. You get enough running flashpoints? Great, I guess. Some people would like to actually buy what they want, when they want to, off the GTN.

 

All these foolish, short-sighted attempts to curb gold sellers getting credits by gutting how regular players (playing a couple hours every other night) actually earn in game money, only empowers the gold sellers and their legions of bot accounts. Regular people buy from them to save time and effort and bootstrap their cashflow of in-game credits because, now get this, it takes more and more time and effort to earn credits by playing the game (running missions) and if new players want anything decent looking on their characters, they need to pay through the nose on the GTN, since nothing good drops from actually playing the game. If BW keeps cutting ways for new players to legit make credits, and puts everything decent looking behind a paywall, obviously, the illegit way to get it starts looking more appealing to them. BW's actions are feeding the gold sellers.

 

The last time I was on fleet (this afternoon, so not prime time), I counted 15 adverts by three different gobbledygook-named characters, 2 whispered adverts and 1 emailed advert in a single, ten-minute period. After that ten minutes, I ignored all of the bots' toons and within the next ten minutes, all three had been deleted (giving me the notice that I was no longer ignoring them) and replaced, to start the whole cycle over again. Bioware's tactic of burning down the forest to save it from the lumberjacks isn't working.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[JourrnoRush]

Good to know the system the devs put in the game from the beginning (crafting/resource missions) isn't part of the real game all the special people like you, who are in the know, play. Never mind you have to actually invest time and credits to build up a useful stable of companions (which you unlock by playing the story) and grind out the schematic tiers, but whatever. It's not running a flashpoint or an op, so it doesn't count.

 

Flashpoints drop practically nothing for credits, especially if you have to repair - since BW nerfed loot drops across the board (which was also supposed to hurt the gold farmers - and yet, there's more now than ever). And good luck getting anything worth selling to drop, let alone an actual deco, all of which you have to roll for. But keep telling people the right way to play because you're worried someone else might just have more fictional money than you.

 

Personally, I have 44 toons and counting, with every possible useful crew skill combo maxed out and rank 50 companions constantly on the move. I'm already established. The investment costs have been sunk, infrastructure established and all paid off. Everything I make now is pure profit. Go ahead and nerf Treasure Hunting. I'll just shift focus to something else. Short of removing crew skills completely, I WILL make more money than you do running flashpoints - and with less overall effort. While you're running your flashpoint to make credits (lol), I'm running one on my main for fun (passing on the drops so people with embarrassing gear can actually get rewarded),while my other 43 toons are grinding out BANK. That's me, though. I've been here forever. You get enough running flashpoints? Great, I guess. Some people would like to actually buy what they want, when they want to, off the GTN.

 

All these foolish, short-sighted attempts to curb gold sellers getting credits by gutting how regular players (playing a couple hours every other night) actually earn in game money, only empowers the gold sellers and their legions of bot accounts. Regular people buy from them to save time and effort and bootstrap their cashflow of in-game credits because, now get this, it takes more and more time and effort to earn credits by playing the game and if new players want anything decent looking on their characters, they need to pay through the nose on the GTN, since nothing good drops from actually playing the game. If BW keeps cutting ways for new players to legit make credits, and puts everything decent looking behind a paywall, obviously, the illegit way to get it starts looking more appealing to them. BW's actions are feeding the gold sellers.

 

The last time I was on fleet (this afternoon, so not prime time), I counted 15 adverts by three different gobbledygook-named characters, 2 whispered adverts and 1 emailed advert in a single, ten-minute period. After that ten minutes, I ignored all of the bots' toons and within the next ten minutes, all three had been deleted (giving me the notice that I was no longer ignoring them) and replaced, to start the whole cycle over again. Bioware's tactic of burning down the forest to save it from the lumberjacks isn't working.

 

Why are you pooping your pants over this? With your army of alts it is expected that combining all of your crew skills you can make a lot of money, with nearly no effort. That alt army did require a lot of dedication I guess. Nobody cares that crafters make more money than raiders, so I'm not sure why you feel you need to point that out. We are just saying that you can make money just playing the game and have fun doing so. If you have fun boasting on the forums about how how easy you make your money with your alt army, then do it bud the majority of players don't care or as you pointed out will just move on to other stuff.

 

The fact is that treasure hunting was paying out in a way that was not intended.

Edited August 11, 2016 by JourrnoRush

[Tsillah]

You guys are hilarious with all the angst, hate, and conspiracy theories.

 

Step back and think about it for a moment...... how in any way does the change being or not being in the patch notes affect anything? Anything at all.

 

In game it doesn't.

 

But it does damage, again, the relationship between BW and their customers. Don't forget that many small mistakes end up making a big one. As usual, it won't tick everybody off and make everybody leave the game, but why do it when it's avoidable?

[Rolodome]

The fact is that treasure hunting was paying out in a way that was not intended.

Lol, you don't get to call something "not intended" when it's been a feature for months or years.

 

It's obvious what's going on here. People *****ed on the forums nonstop about treasure hunting lockboxes and inflation. BW then proceeded to nerf heroics for some reason. They then unerfed heroics with an apology for not putting it in the patch notes and nerfed treasure hunting, again missing the patch notes.

 

BW has loads of data, people called attention to inflation nonstop, and BW probably agreed, silently, that it's a problem. Only whoever they have working on it is not a trained economist. Probably just a game dev being pulled off some other assignment to make some nerfs.

 

So far, their nerfs are stupid. There's no other way to put it. They are not going to make a dent in the problems people are having with this change or the heroic payout one that they have now reversed (or at least, have supposedly reversed... I haven't checked it yet). In the short term, as others have pointed out, they are pushing people to buy from credit farmers.

 

Not helping. And slowing inflation a bit is not going to do anything to fix the glut of credits that already exists in the economy. Nor would fixing inflation (which is a lot more complicated to do than it appears) do anything to change the fact that rare items are hard to get because they're so rare.

 

It frustrates me to see people repeatedly miss this point, especially: The sell price of a rare item is always going to be proportional to 1) the seller dictating it, 2) how rare it is (e.g. supply), and 3) demand.

 

Inflation is largely a red herring problem and I'm frankly stupefied that BW seems to be falling for the red herring argument. In the main, complaints about inflation pertain to people not being able to buy what they want to buy. But the real reason they can't is invariably because what they want is in limited supply, high demand, and there's a few sellers who are dictating the floor of what it gets sold for because they hold most of the remaining supply.

 

You can't fix this problem by nerfing a few sources of credits. You're just pulling a magic trick and waving your magic wand. It's a distraction. The real problem is something BW can control, but they have good reason not to... they can bring old stuff back and refresh supply, they can make super rare new stuff slightly less super rare. There's nothing preventing them from doing it. But if they do it too much, or too often, it can hurt their long-term profits, so they won't. Instead, apparently, they will wave the nerf wand and pretend like they're helping people out.

 

And then hordes of people who don't understand the first thing about economics will eat it up and assume that the game is going to be better now.

 

The ideal move with treasure hunting would have been to do some kind of clever interface randomizer, or some such thing along those lines, aimed at making it nigh impossible to bot it. This would leave active use of the skill largely untouched, slow profiting way down since it has to all be done manually, give farmers a friendly black eye, and everybody goes home happy.

 

That said, I don't have a huge problem with the nerf itself. I've seen worse decisions and I've come to expect that easy sources of anything in games, especially when called attention to, usually get nerfed. But I do have a problem with repeating the same stupid mistake of missing patch notes and also not even explaining the nerf.

[JattaGin]

I will not engage in the discussions going on in this thread, but I would like to know one thing:

 

Why would anyone use TH for lockboxes now when the chance is high that you make a minus with a mission? And the items you get are all vendor trash. I really don't see a point in these missions in their current form.

 

As usual (seeker droid, slot machine, slicing, heroics, TH lockboxes), the nerf is exaggerated up to a point (not in all cases) of complete uselessness. There has to remain an incentive for players to do something. I get it, credit bots are a problem. But if the solution always hurts the normal player, this is not very nice.

 

At least let TH lockboxes be somewhat worthwhile. Otherwise, just take TH lockboxes out of the game. There is no need for them in this form.

[peter_plankskull]

I will not engage in the discussions going on in this thread, but I would like to know one thing:

 

Why would anyone use TH for lockboxes now when the chance is high that you make a minus with a mission? And the items you get are all vendor trash. I really don't see a point in these missions in their current form.

 

As usual (seeker droid, slot machine, slicing, heroics, TH lockboxes), the nerf is exaggerated up to a point (not in all cases) of complete uselessness. There has to remain an incentive for players to do something. I get it, credit bots are a problem. But if the solution always hurts the normal player, this is not very nice.

 

At least let TH lockboxes be somewhat worthwhile. Otherwise, just take TH lockboxes out of the game. There is no need for them in this form.

Their if of course a solution for players to make money... the cartel market!!11!!

 

The only other lucrative thing I can think of that makes credits without being a GTN god is heroics ... but come on. Give us multiple outlets to grind for credits, their shouldn't be this one holy grail until it gets nerfed to move onto another, their should be a variety of activities to earns ones way in the world.

Edited August 11, 2016 by peter_plankskull

[DarthSpuds]

It frustrates me to see people repeatedly miss this point, especially: The sell price of a rare item is always going to be proportional to 1) the seller dictating it, 2) how rare it is (e.g. supply), and 3) demand.

 

Inflation is largely a red herring problem and I'm frankly stupefied that BW seems to be falling for the red herring argument. In the main, complaints about inflation pertain to people not being able to buy what they want to buy. But the real reason they can't is invariably because what they want is in limited supply, high demand, and there's a few sellers who are dictating the floor of what it gets sold for because they hold most of the remaining supply.

 

Precisely.

 

If Bioware want to fix/combat inflation they have one, and ONLY one option open to them. Increase the supply of the items driving inflation. And the easiest way to do that is to totally do away with the RNG Cartel Boxes and just put ALL items on the CM for a fixed price. Chances are many of us would spend MORE on CC if they did this because many of us simply will not spend CC on a chance to get a chance cube, to get a chance to get nothing we want.

 

Bioware's recent actions may - if we follow the forum blurb that surrounds those actions - seem to indicate they care about inflation in the in-game economy. However an examination of the more pertinent facts - CM RNG Boxes - demonstrates entirely that they really do no give a damn.

 

Tinkering around the periphery with credit rewards from X, Y or Z will do precisely nothing to fix inflation. Slowing or reducing the normal channels of supply for credits does only one thing as long as Item Prices remain as they are - it incentivises people to use gold sellers. The ONLY way to fix inflation is to address the real driver of inflation - the supply of desired items.

 

Inflation doesn't happen because there is a surfeit of currency, it happens because there is an insufficient supply for the things that currency is spent on. Even if everyone in the game was 90% poorer than they are now there would still be inflation driven by desire for low supply, high demand items.

 

All The Best

[Ruletide]

Another nerf; Star Fortress bonus mission rewards were cut to 20 credits about the same time the Heroic mission reward cuts were made. Later, when the Heroic mission issue was resolved in favor of restoring rewards; the Star Fortress bonuses were not mentioned. Failure to disclose the Star Fortress bonus reward cut at onset (and the failure to fix it Aug 9th) just leaves the door open to more unfavorable speculation. It is becoming difficult to believe that undisclosed credit system nerfs are anything but some kind of tomfoolery method of dumping bad news - anything to avoid being upfront about it. T&A (transparency and acknowledgement) seem to be fading guys; a potent sign of decay of the business model and of corporate integrity.

 

Peaches

[clearsighted]

Hey folks,

 

I checked into this and you are correct, Treasure Hunting lockboxes are no longer dropping credits. This is an intended change to bring Treasure Hunting in line with other Crew Skills.

 

This was missed in the patch notes, which I will have corrected today. I apologize for any confusion this caused.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

I'm sure we all appreciate you letting Treasure Hunting stay in its ridiculously broken shape for over six months, and destroy the game's economy. That'll teach us for not buying cartel market crap directly.

[Kheld]

Its along overdue nerf.

 

I saw a Youtube video on how to do it, the guy was earning billions of credits from this.

 

Macroed unattended gameplay should be prevented wherever possible. If the reward window appeared randomly to prevent macroed mouse click accepting we wouldnt have had this problem originally.

[ivanhedgehog]

Its along overdue nerf.

 

I saw a Youtube video on how to do it, the guy was earning billions of credits from this.

 

Macroed unattended gameplay should be prevented wherever possible. If the reward window appeared randomly to prevent macroed mouse click accepting we wouldnt have had this problem originally.

 

and as of today, he is earning billions some other way. they didnt nerf macroing, just a crew skill. net result: players screwed, botters win

[Rhumple]

I will not engage in the discussions going on in this thread, but I would like to know one thing:

 

Why would anyone use TH for lockboxes now when the chance is high that you make a minus with a mission? And the items you get are all vendor trash. I really don't see a point in these missions in their current form.

 

As usual (seeker droid, slot machine, slicing, heroics, TH lockboxes), the nerf is exaggerated up to a point (not in all cases) of complete uselessness. There has to remain an incentive for players to do something. I get it, credit bots are a problem. But if the solution always hurts the normal player, this is not very nice.

 

At least let TH lockboxes be somewhat worthwhile. Otherwise, just take TH lockboxes out of the game. There is no need for them in this form.

 

I agree TH lockboxes need to be some what worthwhile. Add some rare items perhaps that would have people continue to run them.

[DarthSpuds]

I agree TH lockboxes need to be some what worthwhile. Add some rare items perhaps that would have people continue to run them.

 

They could add the various versions of Jawa Scrap to make TH worthwhile.

 

At the moment giving out random gear that you can't even learn a new crafting solution from has made TH totally useless.

 

All The Best

[AlrikFassbauer]

"Stealth Nerf" because it wasn't mentioned in the patch notes.

 

Treasure Hunting Lockbox Missions no longer reward credits.

 

Source : http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/892016/game-update-4.7-battle-odessen

[Tsetso]

Source : http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/892016/game-update-4.7-battle-odessen

 

They updated it after people started complaining

[rklontz]

Source : http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/892016/game-update-4.7-battle-odessen

 

It was added into the notes 3 days after the patch went live.

Show you how much they pay attention to the player base

[DethEater]

I feel somewhat sorry for EricMusco... (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.)

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=891500&page=3

 

Yet another stealth "fix" that he has to come by and say sorry for... Despite what someone has said earlier in this thread... There is a pattern of stealth nerf/fixes by Bioware. Whether it is intentional or not is irrelevant.

[Tsetso]

I feel somewhat sorry for EricMusco... (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here.)

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=891500&page=3

 

Yet another stealth "fix" that he has to come by and say sorry for... Despite what someone has said earlier in this thread... There is a pattern of stealth nerf/fixes by Bioware. Whether it is intentional or not is irrelevant.

 

I don't. That's his job - giving explanations for devs screw ups.

[AngFour]

Source : http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/892016/game-update-4.7-battle-odessen

 

Hey folks,

 

I checked into this and you are correct, Treasure Hunting lockboxes are no longer dropping credits. This is an intended change to bring Treasure Hunting in line with other Crew Skills.

 

This was missed in the patch notes, which I will have corrected today. I apologize for any confusion this caused.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Source: This thread. After I made the post you felt the need to correct me on three days later, lol.

[DethEater]

I don't. That's his job - giving explanations for devs screw ups.

 

True, but you know it's gotta suck...

 

EricMusco sit's down at his desk, "Let me check the forums and see what the playerbase is up to... Oh $h17 not again... D@*% it devs!"

 

Thread 1: "Sorry guys."

 

Thread 2: "My apologies"

 

Thread 3: "Oops our bad."

 

It has to be frustrating.

[AngFour]

True, but you know it's gotta suck...

 

EricMusco sit's down at his desk, "Let me check the forums and see what the playerbase is up to... Oh $h17 not again... D@*% it devs!"

 

Thread 1: "Sorry guys."

 

Thread 2: "My apologies"

 

Thread 3: "Oops our bad."

 

It has to be frustrating.

 

Even worse is that he's saying, "OUR bad," when often times it's personally not his fault.

 

In essence, he's the messenger and it's open season to shoot him. I know it's his job; that's what he signed up for. But, yeah, it's probably a very thankless job. One that I could never do.

[Tsetso]

Even worse is that he's saying, "OUR bad," when often times it's personally not his fault.

 

In essence, he's the messenger and it's open season to shoot him. I know it's his job; that's what he signed up for. But, yeah, it's probably a very thankless job. One that I could never do.

 

Same. Thanks God i'm a code monkey

[rklontz]

Even worse is that he's saying, "OUR bad," when often times it's personally not his fault.

 

In essence, he's the messenger and it's open season to shoot him. I know it's his job; that's what he signed up for. But, yeah, it's probably a very thankless job. One that I could never do.

 

I feel sorry for him. Having to constantly apologize for others blunders has to be infuriating sometimes.

I will give him props he has lasted longer than all the others we have had over the years

[grayblux]

Thanks. Good change.