What I learned from the Third Galactic Seasons

[Zarahemla]

When I first saw that you got half as many cartel coins as the other Galactic Seasons (Battle Pass), I decided to unsubscribe (among other reasons) and was going to not even bother with the Third Galactic Seasons, as I was confident it wouldn't be worth my time, as the other two were not worth my time.  However, since I had already made a "What I learned from the First Galactic Seasons" and "What I learned from the Second Galactic Seasons" post, I figured I would do the Battle Pass without being a subscriber, in the off chance making this post would help someone out (or convince Bioware to hire me - LOL).  I could then resub for the last month of the Battle Pass and get all the rewards on the bottom track.  I had some time on my card after I unsubscribed, and got a few levels of the Battle Pass, enough to get cartel coins.  However, I am in the habit of not looting any rewards (beyond the companion you need to get, on the first level), and I learned that even though you earned the Battle Pass rewards on the bottom track, if you don't loot them before you unsubscribe, you can't get them after your subscription time runs out, even though you earned them while being a subscriber.  That was annoying to learn.

One of the Battle Pass objectives was to find some things with the Seeker Droid.  While wondering the sands of Tatooine, I found another searcher, and we grouped up for speed.  Sadly, when one person found it (them) the other person didn't get credit, and the Seeker Droid no longer detected anything.  IMO as this is an MMO, all battle pass objectives should be made easier in a group, this situation was also true, I found out, with the searching for cheaters at the slot machines objective.

This Third Galactic Seasons had half as many cartel coins, but the cost of unlocking the rewards from the battle pass (like the companion, weapons and armor sets) was significantly increased.  So the worst of both worlds.  However, I am sure white knights and the devs will point out that you got ultimate cartel packs (1/30 of a hypercrate) from the battle pass instead.  Sadly like the other battle passes, these are not a grab bag of every item in the game, there is a specific pool that the items will come from.  Even though I didn't keep track of weapons and armor (although I did notice duplicates) I did write down when I got duplicate decorations.  As stated above, I was able to keep track as I opened all the rewards from the battle pass, at the same time, after I completed the battle pass on every server.  

Here is that list of how many times I got duplicate decorations, see if you recognize ones you also got (this is how many times I got the decoration, not how many copies I got in a single pull):  
x3 Octagonal Computer Station 
x5 Minefield Marker
x2 Emergency Ceiling Light
x2 Starship Republic Striker
x4 Tuk'ata Research Table
x4 Selkath Chair
x3 Banner: House Alde
x3 Selkath Kolto Tank
x3 Planter: Large Mushroom
x3 Oriconian Standing Torch
x4 Engraved Reliquary
x2 Statue of the Serena Pilgram
x3 Czerka Ceiling Light
x2 Gigantic Crystal Cyan
x2 Temple Chandelier
x2 Segmented Lights (Purple)
x3 Corporate Lobby Rug
x2 Shackled Crystal Scone

I also learned that the achievement to get max reputation with the Battle Pass faction while the seasons is going on, is not worth it.  I finished the battle pass on my main server, and I was 77/100 for the completing weekly objectives, but only around 28,000/70,000 for the reputation achievement.  You can say I was playing hard core, since I was doing the battle pass on all five servers, but if you consider I didn't budget my time on one server, my results for a single server could be considered what a dedicated casual player could accomplish.  When I saw that I was so far behind in reputation, and I would have to resubscribe anyway to get the rewards on the bottom track, I resubscribed after finishing the battle pass on my main server.  I did this because I needed the extra reputation you get as a subscriber, as the extra reputation from just being in a guild was not enough.  I also was able to run operations, to get the tokens, used to buy the reputation items faster.  I also used the reputation boost buff that you get from log-in rewards.  I felt like I had to bend over backwards for this achievement, which I should get on the last week of the event, just in time.  However, at what cost? I had to resubscribe sooner than I planned on, and I had to run many operations to get the required tokens, and the opportunity cost, of not being able to use those reputation tokens for easy conquest points, once I am capped on reputation.  I was getting conquest on three alts, that I didn't enjoy playing, just from using the reputation items.  Those characters will not be getting conquest once I am capped on that reputation.  I recommend Bioware change the achievement to just getting capped on reputation with the Galactic Seasons faction, but not put a time limit on when you get capped.  That way I would not be pressured to farm tokens before the event ends, and alts can still get easy conquest.  (Tokens used to buy reputation still drop after the event ends, if you have the corresponding companion active, I learned).  I know I would rather have easy conquest on three characters for the next six months than to have a skin on a companion, that I will never use, forever while also having to pay cartel coins to unlock that skin for my account.

Doing the Galactic Seasons on every server, did have the perk of helping me get the "Conqueror of the Galaxy" without having to join a conquest guild on my main server.  I was able to join conquest guilds on the other four, get the titles on them, then use cartel coins from the Battle Pass to transfer a low-level alt to my server, to get those achievements on my main server.

I learned that when you transfer a character to another server, it deletes all of your outfits in the outfit designer.  This means you have to rebuild all of those outfits, including dyes, if you didn't save them in your personal bank when you transferred them.

I also learned that the first PvP Seasons coincides with the Third Galactic Seasons, so I will include what I learned from that here as well.  I qued for PvP for both regular warzones (WZ) and arena (for faster que times) for two hours when I was F2P (preferred).  I got four regular warzones and one arena.  I won half the regular warzones and lost the arena.  Later, after I resubscribed, I qued for another half hour and got one arena and one regular warzone, where I lost both.  So queing and doing those seven matches cost me two and a half hours, and netted me 87 out of the required 7,000 points.  To compare that to the regular Galactic Seasons (Battle Pass), in two and a half hours, I could get five, six or even all seven weekly objectives done in that time.  For the PvP Season, I didn't get any weekly objectives done.  Because the PvP weekly objectives take so much longer than the regular season objectives, I would say that Bioware doesn't value the player's time.  Because F2P players have less weekly objectives than a subscriber, I would say that is prohibitively too difficult for casual F2P players to complete the PvP season.  

I was also sad to learn that players can only buy up to level 15 in the PvP season, as that would have offered another credit sink.  Since so many people hate pvp, there are many who would have taken advantage of buying more tiers.  

I decided to buy up to level 15 and see how hard it is to get the objectives done, now that I am a subscriber.  Getting 8 metals in a single match must be much harder.  I used to PvP before the changed the weekly, so losses didn't count towards the weekly.  But before that, I would frequently get 8 metals per match.  I have now done 9 regular WZ and 3 arena.  I only got 8 metals in one of those 12 matches.  I have captured the two doors in Voidstar, with 5m+ in healing, 7 metals.  I have thrown the huttball for a score, while healing - still 7 metals.  It seems to mee that they have made getting metals a lot harder.

I also learned that you need twice the Arenas as you do regular WZ, for the objectives.  16 matches played for arena, and 8 matches played for regular WZ.  8 matches where you get 8 metals in arena, but only 4 matches where you get 8 metals in regular WZ.  6 wins in arena, but only 3 wins in regular WZ.  

It looks like something is off with the PvP seasons points.  There are 20 tiers, and require 7,000 points, able to earn 1,000 points per week.  7,000 points divided by 20 tiers is 350 points per tier.  After buying 15 levels, and queing / playing PvP for 2 1/2 hours previously, and grinding / queing for PvP for another 5 hours on the second to last week, I am a little less than 1/2 way through tier 17, but have 4,663 points.  4,663 points divided by 350 points should be tier 13, so not sure what the math is per tier... maybe you need more points as the tiers go up?  Can't tell by mousing over the bar on the tier list.  However, because you can only earn 1,000 points per week, I know I will not finish the season in time, no matter how much I play on the last week, unlike the regular Galactic Seasons.  

It also appears that you can buy, with credits, in the regular seasons up to tier 95, then spend one week doing the objectives, and you will complete the regular seasons 100/100.  However, it looks like with PvP seasons, that you can't do that.  You can buy up to tier 15, then have to spend three weeks doing all the weekly PvP objectives, and earning another 600 points from grinding out matches, as there is a weekly cap of 1,000 points per week. I spent five hours queing and doing PvP in one day, before I realized that it was impossible for me to complete the 25 PvP tiers in two weeks, and in that five hours, I got one weekly objective done (win 6 arena matches).

I would say that the PvP seasons is not worth doing.  It took five hours to get one weekly objective.  That is over double the time it took to do all the regular Galactic Seasons weeklies.  

What makes it even worse, is that I resubbed, and started running 10+ operations a week, to get enough G.A.M.E. modules to buy the purple reputation tokens, so I would just finish in time to max out the reputation to get the achievement for maxing out the Third Galactic Seasons' reputation faction before the event ended.  Because I was so focused on grinding PvP, to get as many weeklies before the second to last week ended, I forgot to max out the purple reputation tokens, and only used one token per day for the conquest.  Because I failed to remember to use all the purple reputation tokens on the last day of the second to last week, I ended up at 67,926/70,000 reputation.  I could have had easy conquest on three toons until the next Battle Pass, but because of one mistake, and focusing on PvP, I will once again miss out on that achievement.

I have once again learned that maxing the reputation during the event, is not worth the hassle.  One final thing that I learned is that if you don't collect your rewards that you earned in the battle pass, before the battle pass ends, you will never get those rewards.  They are not mailed to you in the mail box, like log-in rewards are.  They are lost, so make sure you loot your battle pass rewards.

My suggestion is to add GSF to the weekly PvP season's objective list, and allow players to buy up to tier 19 (Regular Seasons does not allow you to buy all the tiers, so I guess it is only fair that you can't buy all the tiers in PvP seasons either).  As well as to make getting metals easier again.  I know you get metals for winning, but there is already an objective to win.  Finally, I suggest that the arena objectives are the same as the regular WZ objectives.  I know that arenas are shorter, but some players do not que for arena, because they prefer objective based PvP (regular WZs).  I also suggest that on the PvP Seasons tab, that it says how many days are left, as some players will not know that it ends the same time as the regular Galactic Seasons.  Also, I suggest that Bioware changes the achievement to be that you max the reputation, not that you have to max it during the event.   I would also suggest that the countdown for when the pvp season ends, be on the pvp tab, so players don't have to go to 3rd party websites to find out when it ends.

As far as the breakdown of the stats for the servers, here it is:

The first server I finished the Battle Pass on was my main server, of Star Forge.  Because I have multiple alts, and I craft on that server, I was not able to determine how long it took me, or how many credits I earned from just doing the Battle Pass.

The Second Server I finished the Battle Pass on was the English European Server, of Darth Malgus.  It took 1 day, 1 hour, and 16 minutes of /played time.  I earned $2,853,808,861 credits, after selling all the tech fragments, and cartel market items I earned from doing the Battle Pass, as well as collecting credits from the guild I was in, as they paid you credits for earning conquest points, which I earned from doing the Battle Pass.  (This was the only guild / server that paid me for earning conquest points).  I had a gear score of 325.  Valor rank 34.  An unknown amount of achievement points (as I had transferred a character to my main server and back again to get the achievement points on my main server, and my heroic moment abilities / datacron stats on this server).

The Third Server I finished the Battle Pass on was the Satele Shan Server.  It took me 1 day, 8 hours, and 48 minutes of /played time.  I earned $4,609,566,184 credits, after selling all the tech fragments, and cartel market items I earned from doing the Battle Pass.  I had a gear score of 326.  Valor rank 38, with 5,570 achievement points.  This was interesting, as I actually earned more than the credit cap, and had to put 3 billion credits in my legacy bank before I hit the cap.

The Fourth Server that I finished the Battle Pass on was The German Server, Tulak Hord.  It took 1 day, 3 hours, and 50 minutes of /played time.  I earned $3,817,452,458 credits from doing the Battle Pass.  I had a gear score of 327.  Valor rank 33, with 5,310 achievement points.  

The Fifth, and final Server that I finished the Galactic Seasons on was the French Server, Leviathan.  It took me 1 day, 3 hours, and 20 minutes of /played time.  I earned $3,486,194,573 credits from selling all the tech fragments, and cartel market items from the Battle Pass.  I had a gear score of 326.  Valor rank 26, with an unknown amount of achievement points, as I again had transferred a character from this server to my main server, and then back again.

So why did I earn so many more credits during the Third Galactic Seasons, compared to the Second Galactic Seasons.  Was it all due to inflation?  I would say no, many of those additional credits were from selling the items that came from the ultimate cartel packs, which I got instead of cartel coins.  I was not able to use those cartel coins for my own purposes, like in the First and Second Galactic Seasons, because I was forced to get these loot boxes during the Third Galactic Seasons, which turned into GTN fodder. 

Hope the time I spend doing this research, and writing up this report was helpful to you, and others.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Zarahemla
To include the PvP seasons

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, Zarahemla said:

all battle pass objectives should be made easier in a group,

How exactly would the ones for crafting or sending companions on crew skill missions be made easier in a group?

Also: suddenly switching from "Galactic Seasons" to "Battle Pass" does not aid comprehension.

[Farlo]

I can definitely confirm that I received multiple stacks of all of those exact items as well. BioWare's really narrowed the pool on those "Season Pass" Cartel Packs. Certainly not the same pool as standard Ultimate Cartel Packs. If I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, they probably did announce that they were different loot pools somewhere in their Season Pass notes, but it still seems dubious to label them as "Ultimate Cartel Packs". The average player would expect it to be the same pack as the ones sold on the CM.

As for the other info - that's all very interesting! It's good to know that the Season Pass was even less worthwhile this time around, as well as the rep requirement for the achievement being almost impossible for a F2P/Preferred player. I still think that limited-time achievements are massively counter-productive to retaining long-term players. There's nothing more discouraging to an achievement hunter than starting a game and seeing dozens of timed-out achievements that will never be obtainable again.

I also take issue with the fact that they added a PvP Battle Pass. There are already PvP objectives on the regular Galactic Seasons objective list, so why create a dedicated PvP one, other than to force PvE-centric completionists to play content that they don't want to...? It's a bit of a slap in the face to people who put the work in to finish the main Galactic Season IMO. "Oh, you finished our Battle Pass? Well here's another one that you definitely won't be finishing. Get rekt."

Edited February 27, 2023 by Farlo
Grammar fix

[Zarahemla]

46 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

How exactly would the ones for crafting or sending companions on crew skill missions be made easier in a group?

Also: suddenly switching from "Galactic Seasons" to "Battle Pass" does not aid comprehension.

Crafting is made easier by being able to buy mats off the GTN from other players... if you don't know that Galactic Seasons is a Battle Pass by now, I don't know what to tell you.

Oh yes, @Farlo, I will have to edit my original post about the PvP seasons, as that is also ridiculous for a F2P player.  I qued for PvP for both regular warzones (WZ) and arena matches for two hours, while I was F2P.  I got four regular warzones and one arena.  I won half of the regular WZs and lost the arena.  After subscribing, I did another regular WZ and another arena, where I lost both. Quing and doing those seven matches took me two and a half hours and netted me 87 points, out of the required 7,000.  Because F2P has less weekly objectives, I would say it is prohibitively too difficult for a casual F2P player to complete the PvP season.  Remember, F2P players have a cap on how many WZ and Flashpoints (FP), Galactic Star Fighter (GSF) and regular space battles they can do per week. 

I was sad to learn that you could only buy up to level 15 for the PvP seasons, as that would have offered another credit sink, and so many people hate pvp, that would have taken advantage of paying credits.

My suggestion is to add GSF to the weekly PvP season objectives, and allow players to buy up to tier 19 (Regular Seasons, you are unable to buy all the tiers, so I guess you shouldn't be able to buy all the tiers for the PvP seasons either).

[Zarahemla]

34 minutes ago, SoontirMorillo said:

This is wrong.

F2P are free to do as many WZ as they want. That was a recent change.

And honestly i'm quite shocked how long this statement about F2P can only do so many FPs in a week is circulating on the internet till this day. It's also just wrong. Since years. F2P are restricted in looting the Endboss Drop. They can only do it 3x a week. Since it is a purple gear drop, it doesn't even matter, because they can't wear it anyway. Nonetheless... F2P could always run as many FPs as they liked. They only can loot the Endboss 3x in a week.

Edit: I have to correct myself... F2P is limited on 10 Endboss Rewards per week. Not 3. They still have unlimited access to as many flashpoint runs as they want though.

Do you mean they can do as many WZ as they want if they are grouped with a subscriber?  If so, I was going off of solo players, as there are many solo players.  My understanding is a solo F2P player can only do 10 WZ per week, unless they are grouped with a subscriber.  If that is not the case, please link your source.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Zarahemla

[DWho]

8 minutes ago, Zarahemla said:

Do you mean they can do as many WZ as they want if they are grouped with a subscriber?  If so, I was going off of solo players, as there are many solo players.  My understanding is a solo F2P player can only do 10 WZ per week, unless they are grouped with a subscriber.  If that is not the case, please link your source.

No restrictions for non-subscribers

All players, regardless of account type, can participate in PvP. During previous seasons, non-subscribers were restricted on the amount of matches they could play. With 7.2, free-to-play accounts will be able to participate in PvP; however, they will earn PvP points at a slower pace than Subscribers.

from: https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20221209

[GeneralGyro]

lets hope season 4 has original amount of ccs again

[Zarahemla]

5 hours ago, DWho said:

No restrictions for non-subscribers

All players, regardless of account type, can participate in PvP. During previous seasons, non-subscribers were restricted on the amount of matches they could play. With 7.2, free-to-play accounts will be able to participate in PvP; however, they will earn PvP points at a slower pace than Subscribers.

from: https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20221209

Oh perfect, that will give F2P players something to do.  Sadly F2P has less weekly objectives, and as I pointed out, you really need to do the weekly objectives to progress the battle pass.  

[fabsus]

10 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

[...]

I also can confirm your observation regarding the cartel packs.
Also i talked to many guild members about their loot and we all got the same.

It feels a bit like you got betrayed, but actually i don't care at all. 
Some others also unsubscribed because of that. 
 

Thanks for your contribution. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by fabsus

[Stradlin]

23 minutes ago, fabsus said:

I also can confirm your observation regarding the cartel packs.
Also i talked to many guild members about their loot and we all got the same.

It feels a bit like you got betrayed, but actually i don't care at all. 
Some others also unsubscribed because of that. 
 

Thanks for your contribution. 

 

This was such  a deceitful move from their part, wrapping RNG based rewards in such an intentionally misleading covering.  Special Seasonal Champion's Nerfed Bundle Pack of Mild Joy  with same item list? That's fine! Offering reward crates that appear identical with  cartel packs giving much better items? That's just nasty. Maybe next season, give 50000 cartel coins as reward for reaching lvl 100. Just that, despite having identical name to cartel coins, they aren't really cartel coins but  an actual fun in game item, that can be sold to a vendor for 50000 credits.

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Stradlin

[vianiel]

I have multiple stacks of the same items I've gotten from previous Seasons "cartel packs" such as the overabundance of Frontier Hunter weapons and Walkhar speeders, across multiple servers. The decos are pretty much what OP listed above. I rarely get gold tier items from the Ultimate Packs. Mostly jawa junks, reputation item, companion gift, a deco, and companion customization. Sad.

Edited February 27, 2023 by vianiel

[eabevella]

I suspect there are two kind of "pools" for the packs.

Most of the time you get the limited pool with small choices of items.

And very rarely you'll get a "jackpot" pool with actually rare items.

I suspect it because most of the things I got were limited items like everyone else, but I did pull a Mischief/Anarchy pack from 1 cartel pack of S3

[SteveTheCynic]

10 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

Crafting is made easier by being able to buy mats off the GTN from other players...

But that is not "in a group".  The existence of other players can help, but there's nothing to be gained for crafting by grouping, but your initial statement implied that there was.

10 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

if you don't know that Galactic Seasons is a Battle Pass by now, I don't know what to tell you.

You used two different names for the same thing, which made it sound like you were talking about two different things when you weren't.  That does not aid comprehension.  (And above all, the specific names aren't important.)

[JediQuaker]

What the heck is this BS about "not worth your time"? SWTOR is a game - it's not worth anyone's "time". That's not the point - the point is to enjoy the 'game' not the 'rewards'. 

For instance, I don't do any "Swoop Rally" stuff because I don't enjoy it. It wouldn't matter how 'shiney' the rewards are. It's not a matter of being 'worth' my time, but rather just a lack of interest.

Edited February 27, 2023 by JediQuaker

[GeneralGyro]

1 hour ago, JediQuaker said:

What the heck is this BS about "not worth your time"? SWTOR is a game - it's not worth anyone's "time". That's not the point - the point is to enjoy the 'game' not the 'rewards'. 

For instance, I don't do any "Swoop Rally" stuff because I don't enjoy it. It wouldn't matter how 'shiney' the rewards are. It's not a matter of being 'worth' my time, but rather just a lack of interest.

thats your point not anyone elses. i play for the rewards

[Balameb]

21 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

So why did I earn so many more credits during the Third Galactic Seasons, compared to the Second Galactic Seasons.  Was it all due to inflation?  I would say no, many of those additional credits were from selling the items that came from the ultimate cartel packs, which I got instead of cartel coins.  I was not able to use those cartel coins for my own purposes, like in the First and Second Galactic Seasons, because I was forced to get these loot boxes during the Third Galactic Seasons, which turned into GTN fodder.

In terms of general loot tables i got a similar experience.

I have not counted how many credits i made from selling stuff. On my secondary servers i only sold decos and a couple dyes and then proceded to burn those credits on catch up. And i even sold decos i got from season 2. I think i made a lot more than 1 billion but still probably less than 2 bill in each server. I did keep most of the stuff that i may use if i ever want to unlock in collections.

And the loss of 2000 CCs not only it can be compared in not being able to use in watever we want. If we translate those in Cartel Packs for raw credit value, it is 10 packs (not bound), that could be sold for 3 billion; much easier than going trough each item or opened with complete loot tables.

[Zarahemla]

4 hours ago, JediQuaker said:

What the heck is this BS about "not worth your time"? SWTOR is a game - it's not worth anyone's "time". That's not the point - the point is to enjoy the 'game' not the 'rewards'. 

For instance, I don't do any "Swoop Rally" stuff because I don't enjoy it. It wouldn't matter how 'shiney' the rewards are. It's not a matter of being 'worth' my time, but rather just a lack of interest.

So worth your time, is referring to opportunity cost, and rewards.  Would you rather spend two and a half hours doing seven of the regular Galactic Season (Battle Pass) weekly objectives, which would progress you several tiers on that track, or would you rather que for PvP and do five regular warzones, and two arena matches, earning you 87/7,000 points in the PvP Season.  For casual players who only have three hours a week to play, I would hope that you would agree that at the end of the Seasons, getting the rewards from all 100 tiers of the regular battle pass (even if it is less cartel coins than last time) and billions of credits are more worth that player's time than completing three out of 20 tiers, as the rewards are less (no cartel coins) and less credits from doing the PvP seasons.

That is what I mean by Bioware valuing our time.

[Darev]

It did seem that the available loot from the packs was very narrow compared to any packs you may have purchased via the CM with CC.

Across all 5 servers and both of my subscriber accounts, I got the same thing for each reward pack at least 20% of the time.

Yes, I did complete it all the way to 100 on 10 servers (5 servers each account).  This wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, just consistent logging in for conquest points and doing stuff I was pretty much already going to do.

I think the only things I've claimed have been the decos.  I could compare the servers and see just how similar they were (except for Star Forge...way too much unclaimed stuff there).

[Darev]

I just cycled through the servers and looked at the claimed loot.    Not as many duplicates as I thought.

A high % of assault cannons & sinper rifles.  yay... 

A wasteland Rancor...pretty sure I didn't have one of those before.

a set of Huttball armor  (I had tons when they came out and were dirt cheap...so....no biggie)

Basically, having taken this second look, I'm not as annoyed as I was when I made the post above.

[Samcuu]

I got some nice gold armor sets from the packs. Got both the new Obi Wan armor set and the Anakin armor set. So im not hating the cartel packs. Plus I love the decos cuz those are expensive on the gtn and if u get duplicate it's fine for me cuz I have plenty of strongholds to use them in. Less cartel coins does suck but can't argue all that much from their reasoning as it just contributes to the inflation in the economy. Still tho if ur smart about how u play u can still gain around 6k coins with minimal effort if ur smart and plan accordingly. 

[Zarahemla]

20 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

But that is not "in a group".  The existence of other players can help, but there's nothing to be gained for crafting by grouping, but your initial statement implied that there was.

You used two different names for the same thing, which made it sound like you were talking about two different things when you weren't.  That does not aid comprehension.  (And above all, the specific names aren't important.)

Alright, I changed the first sentence to explain that the Galactic Seasons is also a Battle Pass for people like you.  Let it not be said that I don't try to make others happy.

6 hours ago, Samcuu said:

I got some nice gold armor sets from the packs. Got both the new Obi Wan armor set and the Anakin armor set. So im not hating the cartel packs. Plus I love the decos cuz those are expensive on the gtn and if u get duplicate it's fine for me cuz I have plenty of strongholds to use them in. Less cartel coins does suck but can't argue all that much from their reasoning as it just contributes to the inflation in the economy. Still tho if ur smart about how u play u can still gain around 6k coins with minimal effort if ur smart and plan accordingly. 

One way to make the GTN prices for cartel market items go down, is to increase the supply of cartel market items.  By giving players more cartel coins, the supply of cartel market items will go up, and with demand for those items staying the same, the price will go down.  Glad you got some good things from your packs.  

[Samcuu]

2 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

Alright, I changed the first sentence to explain that the Galactic Seasons is also a Battle Pass for people like you.  Let it not be said that I don't try to make others happy.

One way to make the GTN prices for cartel market items go down, is to increase the supply of cartel market items.  By giving players more cartel coins, the supply of cartel market items will go up, and with demand for those items staying the same, the price will go down.  Glad you got some good things from your packs.  

Don't necessarily agree tho it sounds good in theory. However ppl were making billions by playing the gtn. How do you play the gtn? How about an endless supply of ccs that u never had to spend money on? Ppl that were actually spamming their referral links were making like 20k ccs a week or more. Once they've made a boat load of credits then they could go and buy other ppls cc items from the gtn and jack the price up. It's not just the ccs tho, there have never been a ton of big money sinks in game so pair that with there being trillions of credits in game, to then having an influx of cartel market items jump onto the gtn it was a bad mix to get credits flowing from player to player just changing hands but never leaving the game. 

One of the most exploited items used to be augments. You'd see the same 4 or 5 ppl with all the augments for sale. Ppl who'd bought them cheaper and then set the market price. Even with 4 pages of augments you'd see them all within about 1 to 5m credit difference because yes there was undercutting but not very much because like I said if u undercut by a lot you'd find your augments bought and put right back up on the gtn by the guy with the higher prices lol.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Samcuu

[JediQuaker]

15 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

So worth your time, is referring to opportunity cost, and rewards.  Would you rather spend two and a half hours doing seven of the regular Galactic Season (Battle Pass) weekly objectives, which would progress you several tiers on that track, or would you rather que for PvP and do five regular warzones, and two arena matches, earning you 87/7,000 points in the PvP Season.  For casual players who only have three hours a week to play, I would hope that you would agree that at the end of the Seasons, getting the rewards from all 100 tiers of the regular battle pass (even if it is less cartel coins than last time) and billions of credits are more worth that player's time than completing three out of 20 tiers, as the rewards are less (no cartel coins) and less credits from doing the PvP seasons.

That is what I mean by Bioware valuing our time.

I'd rather spend 2.5 hours doing things I enjoy, rather than worrying about what imaginary 'rewards' and 'credits' I would get. For sure, the possible rewards might be a factor, but not 'THE' factor. I mean, would you switch to WoW or FFIV if the 'rewards' were better, or would you simply rather play Star Wars?

In any case, you must be a real hoot during family game night. *"Let's play Millionaire because the rewards are better than Monopoly's"* 😂

Edited February 28, 2023 by JediQuaker

[DawnAskham]

What I learned...

Bioware still can't let players play the game how players want AND get rewarded, nope, players must play the Bioware way.

Bioware has done a great job conditioning some players to be good little pets that perform tricks on demand for a chance at a pat on the head and a 'good boy / good girl'.

 

[microstyles]

On 2/26/2023 at 3:48 PM, Zarahemla said:

However, I am sure white knights and the devs will point out that you got ultimate cartel packs (1/30 of a hypercrate) from the battle pass instead.  Sadly like the other battle passes, these are not a grab bag of every item in the game, there is a specific pool that the items will come from.

Uh are we sure about this? Because this seems like a pretty serious accusation to me.

Let me clear up a few things first, since a lot of people chimed in on this point and I want to make sure we're all on the same page. 

1) The non-ultimate packs from GS do not claim to have every item in the game. Those are the bronze, silver and gold packs with decos, mounts, and armor sets. They claim something like a selection of retired items are in there. The pool seems very small, and you see the GTN on every server flooded with them. Nearly all of those duplicates you posted are from those pools.

2) The Ultimate Cartel Packs from the GS track are called the same thing as the ones in the CM shop, and claim to have the same pool of contents. I'm pretty sure bioware has claimed they're identical except that you can't trade them. I haven't personally seen any difference in these packs to the non-GS packs I've opened.

This distinction is important since you can buy Ultimate Cartel Packs and GS season levels for real money. If they claim they're the same and they're not I'm pretty sure that's fraud.