Cartel Market Certificate Drop rates and Alternatives suggestions

[DarthVampirous]

So, was doing a little research folks, and the CM certs has been a long standing point of contentions with about 3-6 posts about them in the suggestions box every year. A couple noteworthy threads point out what you all already know: The drop rate is for them from the contraband slot machine is incredibly low, at 0.05% chance.

 

The original poster of this thread did some very nice empirical evidence of cost to return on this and how nonviable the slot machine decoration is as a way to acquire the certs. So the first suggestion would be to rollback or re-adjust the drop rates of the certs within the contraband slot machine decoration.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=913995

 

While this next recent thread is unfortunately a bit inflammatory initially, there are a couple constructive suggestions on how to bring back the certs, as well as a god point that the slot machine decoration being the only viable way to aquire the certs is incredibly unfair to new players to the game.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=923990&highlight=cartel+market+certificates

 

While the suggestions of putting the certs themselves up for direct sale in the CM for coins isnt a bad idea, I'm guessing that the coon value for them would be difficult to appraise and the fact they are already a legacy bound item may add to the difficulty of putting them up for direct sale, since direct sale items thus far have all been bind on equip and then unlockable for additional coins through collections.

 

The SWTOR Team has periodically brought the old CM packs back for limited runs, allowing the player base to purchase the old packs again to get the certs and reputation and so on. However, this seems to be about once a calendar year, making it a long time to wait, and while the drop rates are better, not everyone has the real life funds to shell out for the packs in significant quantity.

 

The main issue with the Certs being such a scarce item at this point is that there are a large number of vendors that require them. All the CM reputation vendors, many of which provide items only obtainable from those vendors (or as lucky drops from chance cubes) as well as the decoration vendors that provide a wide array of popular npc decorations like bartenders and dancers and medical droid vendors and so on.

 

So I have some additional suggestions to alleviate the problem, some of which have probably been mentioned in other threads or on fan sites.

 

One option is to do away with them completely, although this would further invalidate the contraband slot machine deco as a method for reputation farming and nothing more.With the teams recent purge of most of the commendation currencies from the game (data crystals etc) in favor of making everything for credits, however, this might be a viable alternative. Either the vendors that sell items for Certs sell them for credits only, or they sell the item for two different ways, either credits + certs as they do now, or strictly credits. Obviously purchasing for credits only would be much more expensive credits wise but having two purchase options would open up the availability of the items locked behind the certs, and with the move to strictly credits having already caused inflation on the economy the risk of further inflation related to such a move would be minimal.

 

Another option is to add the certs into the pool of drops from Grand Chance Cubes, or introduce them back into the pack drop pools on their own as a possible item that shows up as a drop instead of a jawa scrap drop (a legacy bound item already) or in substitution of a companion gift. Such a move would let the SWTOR team control the drop rate to maintain some rarity while providing an alternative to a less then half a percent chance from the slot machine decoration. Jawa scraps are great ways for acquiring crafting mats, but adding the certs in as a chance to show up in place of scraps, maybe with the same drop rate as the artifact quality jawa scraps, would add in a more viable way to acquire the certs and obtain the items they are used to purchase.

 

What is NOT being suggested here is the removal of the reputation vendors themselves. Those vendors provide a plethora of unique and rare items that are almost as difficult to obtain as the certs themselves, and are a valuable service if you have a cert or two for things like primary or secondary black dye and so on. We lost so many skins when the planetary comms vendors were removed, I am in no way advocating or suggesting we do such a thing with the certs vendors.

 

TL;DR: To alleviate the scarcity of Cartel Market certificates, suggestions are to

a)Revamp or roll back the drop rate nerfs of the Contraband Slot machine decoration to drop CM certs more reliably

 

b) Put the certs up for direct sale, with a regularity perhaps similar to the black and white dye sales

 

c) Bring the old packs that dropped the CM certs back more regularly, perhaps a bi annual instead of annual rotation

 

d)Replace the Certificate requirements from the costs of items from the vendors that currently require them, similar to how the data crystals and other commendation currencies were removed and liquidated into credits values

 

e)Keep the certs as part of the item costs from the vendors that require them, but offer a second price for those items form those vendors based on credit value so that the items can be purchased for a combo of certs and credits or just credits, with the credits cost being higher then the combo of course.

 

f)reintroduce the certs as drops in the new packs, as part of the same table rotation as jawa scraps or the companion gifts. Or add them as drops from chance cubes.