No more platinum lightsabers for the love of the force

[IIHawkerII]

The Peacemaker's Unstable Lightsaber, which I opened 3 hypercrates trying to get is now up to 175 Million on Ebon Hawk. Thank you BioWare for the middle finger to a loyal customer. Your cash grabs know no bounds... Cheers to EA.

 

Technically, Bioware doesn't decide how much an item costs on the GTN. If you have a gripe with server prices, don't direct it their way. While I agree that Platinum item rarity is absolute horse-crap, their price is down to the players.

[Theeko]

EAware shouldn't have even added a platinum tier. Their greed knows no bounds.

 

They got rid of platinum like 1/2 way inbetween platinum and platinum again, lol

[Bluelily]

Completely agree. Senya's Lightsaber Pike is such a profound disappointment. Such a downer. Incredibly way too low drop rates. Saving up over the cost of a guildship or two for a platinum weapon is god awful. This really needs to change.

You can only milk people so much for so long; what's next, double-platinum, then triple, etc.? The pack drop rates have gotten way too out of hand. Now Regens are way overpriced; come on.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Bluelily

[BlackSilverRoar]

I curse the day platinum weapons came in packs. No mainstream lightsaber pike weapon is ridiculous. Senya's shouldn't be our only option, the drop rate and GTN prices are horrible.

[shepardm]

I agree the whole platinum item drop rate is so rare and the gtn prices for item these days who has 100million and upwards for one item even if they fixed the ring so u have a increased chance to get one

[Cornerbug]

I agree. Give all players the opportunity to enjoy these additions.

[Anduhar]

How about no Platinum items at all? At least with Gold items you end up seeing at least 1 in each Hypercrate. Gold items are for everyone, even if you never see a Gold item from a pack the average player can still save up enough credits to buy what they want off the GTN at some point. With Platinum, most people never see one drop from a pack and due to low drop rates, the average player cannot save up eight or nine digits of credits to ever buy it. Platinum items aren't designed with the average player in mind, they are items that primarily benefit cartel whales and the 3-4% or less of the playerbase with enough credits to buy them off the GTN. Edited January 5, 2017 by Anduhar

[Nocturnalchemy]

How about no Platinum items at all? At least with Gold items you end up seeing at least 1 in each Hypercrate. Gold items are for everyone, even if you never see a Gold item from a pack the average player can still save up enough credits to buy what they want off the GTN at some point. With Platinum, most people never see one drop from a pack and due to low drop rates, the average player cannot save up eight or nine digits of credits to ever buy it. Platinum items aren't designed with the average player in mind, they are items that primarily benefit cartel whales and the 3-4% or less of the playerbase with enough credits to buy them off the GTN.

 

I'm a super-casual player - don't PVP, don't do OPs, almost never even group up - and I very comfortably and reliably hover around the mid-eight-figures, in terms of credits. If a player as comparatively lazy and antisocial as I am can get there, I feel like it's probably not a stretch to assume that most anyone can do it. I don't currently own any platinum items, but I like that they exist, and I think they're good for the game. People want tremendously rare things, so they shell out cash to play the odds for them on packs, and then others shell out monstrous sums of credits to acquire those items on the GTN. It's good for company profit (which keeps the lights on), and it's good for the people who're either lucky or driven enough to acquire these prestigious items.

[Anduhar]

I'm a super-casual player - don't PVP, don't do OPs, almost never even group up - and I very comfortably and reliably hover around the mid-eight-figures, in terms of credits. If a player as comparatively lazy and antisocial as I am can get there, I feel like it's probably not a stretch to assume that most anyone can do it. I don't currently own any platinum items, but I like that they exist, and I think they're good for the game. People want tremendously rare things, so they shell out cash to play the odds for them on packs, and then others shell out monstrous sums of credits to acquire those items on the GTN. It's good for company profit (which keeps the lights on), and it's good for the people who're either lucky or driven enough to acquire these prestigious items.

 

I wasn't referring to "casual" players, I was referring to the "average" player, specifically in terms of credits on hand at any given point in time. You might be "average" in relation to the amount of time you spend on the game comparatively to everyone else (since most people are casual players), but not everyone knows how to make credits through playing the GTN, crafting, or whatever else. I believe most players rarely, if ever, have 50+ mil on hand to buy your average Platinum item so you'd be above average in that regard. Also, personal anecdotes are not evidence of anything.

 

You also mention the two, often overlapping, groups who primarily benefit from Platinum items, those who shell out abnormally large sums of money to gamble on packs and the fraction of the playerbase who can afford to buy the most expensive items on the GTN. Yes, this is good for the game in the sense that it is good for making BioWare/EA money, but it is not good for the playerbase. The playerbase is a fundamental part of this game, especially since this is an MMO. Treating the playerbase as if they are a monolithic well of money to be drained through the implementation of various gambling mechanisms, this game's entire F2P model, as well as other things, only creates distrust and contempt between the company and the players. Platinum items are a symptom of this larger problem. The argument can be made that the use of such aggressive strategies to exploit some of the worst parts of human psychology solely to extract money from people is unethical.

 

Your last sentence also mentions that Platinum items are good for those who are lucky enough or "driven" enough to acquire them. This ignores that fact that Platinum items are utterly unobtainable by their very nature for most people. That's the entire point of Platinum items. If most people could afford a mid eight figure Platinum item (as you say you believe most could) then don't you think there would be a lot more people running around with one as popular as an unstable lightsaber? Most people don't have the luxury of being "driven" enough to acquire one due to real life constraints, time constraints, limited disposable income, or lack of knowledge on how to make credits. Expecting the majority of the playerbase to have sufficient amount of any/all of these things to acquire something as deliberately rare as your average Platinum item is simply unrealistic.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Anduhar

[ghostlywitcher]

I completely agree. I like the visual effects a lot, but the drop rate is next to nothing on these platinum items! On top of that, I haven't seen any nice looking weapons/effects for other classes. This is basically a double whammy, since saber users have a VERY small chance at receiving a sweet weapon, and other classes are just completely blocked out from cool weapons entirely. Either fix these drop rates, or maybe put some effort into those bronze/silver items that are rewarded from cartel packs.

[Nocturnalchemy]

Also, personal anecdotes are not evidence of anything.

 

I will absolutely cop to the fact that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." That said, I still believe extreme rarity is a good thing in a game. It's good that almost no one gets to have, say, Senya's lightsaber. People shell out money for the hope that they get to pull one from a pack, and they grind out credits for the hope that they'll have enough of them, at the right time, to buy one off of the GTN. Those are all positives.

 

There's all kinds of awesome stuff I'm never going to get to have in this game, but I can prioritize which of them I intend to work toward and, if one such item becomes unavailable, I set my sights on a different one. It's okay for players to be disappointed by an inability to acquire something.

[dxlolman]

They remove platinum grade out of the existing platinum grade weapons they are going to be the same price as they were before on condition they look cool (awesome blade design and extras and hilt movement and lazors and holo crosshairs). Doing this would not make a difference in price (account unlock is the same for gold). And don't forget before gold was the rarest out there and they put those on for basically the same price as platinum now.

But most people do make that much money some other than selling platinums and what are they going to buy ... Platinums (or SH stuff I fully brought tatooine, yavin IV and unlocks and unlocked rest of my nar shaddaa and my own guild flag ship(brought all by my self no help in buying it), tone of gold armors and weapons and toys and emotes).

Let's just say if you have a lot of credits you go crazy.