With patch 1.2.2 on May 1st BioWare stated the following:

 

"Slicing

Premium Slicing lockboxes now yield the correct amount of credits."

 

Can we get a definition from the devs on what "correct" means?

 

Class 5 "Rich" lock box mission run this morning costing 1900 credits and change resulted in a "Premium" (ie. green) case that had 1662 credits in it. Roughly a 300 credit loss.

 

Did same 2 days ago with one Class 5 "Rich" mission and two Class 4 "Rich" missions for lock boxes resulted in three premium cases, all at anywhere from 150-300+ less than the mission cost.

 

While not to the extent it was borked previously, this seems still off as at worst case scenario you should roughly break even or make 5-10% (ie. on a mission costing roughly 2k, you should at least get back a couple of hundred.)

 

Is it the intention that lock box slicing missions be a risk rather that a worst case roughly break-even scenario?

I can confirm that the green and higher lockboxes now drop more now than we they had the bug. I only run the Class 6 missions (data race and plug the leak). Before the patch, I received several class 6 premium boxes that had between 800-1500 credits. The standard boxes drop roughly 1200-2200 credits. After the patch, I received 2 premium boxes that were 2400 and 2600.

 

On a side note, what the patch notes did not tell you was that they changed the drop rates for receiving crafting missions from crits. I used to receive a crafting mission or schematic about once in 5 runs. Since the latest patch, I have not received a single mission or schematic in approximately 20 runs this weekend.

 

Anval

The slicing mission I still feel are working as intended. Some missions are just riskier than others, the one you implied "fly on the wall" has a larger chance to have loss in the lock boxes, but larger gains inside when you do get them positive gains. In the end, it evens out to a net gain of credits.

 

Here is a spreadsheet I tallied up after the fix was put into place for all 5 of the grade 5 lock box missions.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AihKW3MpU3EZdE9LY0FRc3ZnT1BVUWktREFhQW1GakE#gid=0

 

Hopefully that will show some numbers similar to what you are getting from time to time, and indicate in the longer run... you do win.

 

 

Edit Note: Forgot to share doc (fixed) All data is with max affection bounty hunter companions.

Edited May 21, 2012 by DJAlleyKat

OP, are all your companions' affection max? Ive been reading many post saying how they barely get and schematics or missions from G5 or G6. What I found weird or maybe I just got super damn god loves me lucky, is that none of my companions are over 3k affection, but yet today, I manage to get 3 UWT 340 missions, 4 Diplomacy 340, 1 Slicing 340 and couple of 300 missions and schems. I've been wanting to max my comps affection, but having second thoughts with the results I've had.

This chart https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0All_c6kucoRHdGVBUXZPWGEzNGdjNHpvVDBIckJpWVE&output=html shows the results for every basic Lockbox slicing mission (20 samples each) since the patch 1.2.2. Should help a bit. It's all in which missions you pick.

This chart https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0All_c6kucoRHdGVBUXZPWGEzNGdjNHpvVDBIckJpWVE&output=html shows the results for every basic Lockbox slicing mission (20 samples each) since the patch 1.2.2. Should help a bit. It's all in which missions you pick.

 

Am I reading this correctly? Only chance to get a cybertech schematic is with "his home is his castle"?

No, it's just what I recorded. If you look, you'll find other bonus items with an S(for Schematics) from other missions. My chart doesn't guarantee what you'll get, but provides a decent set of averages. Obviously, having a larger sample set would make the averages more accurate, but I don't have time to do 100 of each mission. :-P I thought 20 samples was decent enough for each mission.

 

I'm not sure, but I REALLY think there is a 10%-15% chance that you'll get a bonus item no matter which mission you select. And when you DO get a bonus item, then there is another roll to determine which type of bonus item it is (Cybertech Schematic, Bioanalysis mission, Treasure Hunting mission, etc). So getting a schematic would probably be around 10% out of the 10% chance to get a bonus item... so you're looking at possibly getting a Cybertech schematic at a 1% rate (1 in every 100 slicing missions).

Edited May 21, 2012 by Kencussion

On a side note, what the patch notes did not tell you was that they changed the drop rates for receiving crafting missions from crits. I used to receive a crafting mission or schematic about once in 5 runs. Since the latest patch, I have not received a single mission or schematic in approximately 20 runs this weekend.

 

Anval

 

That does not mean that they changed the drop rates. It means that you were unlucky.

OP, are all your companions' affection max? Ive been reading many post saying how they barely get and schematics or missions from G5 or G6. What I found weird or maybe I just got super damn god loves me lucky, is that none of my companions are over 3k affection, but yet today, I manage to get 3 UWT 340 missions, 4 Diplomacy 340, 1 Slicing 340 and couple of 300 missions and schems. I've been wanting to max my comps affection, but having second thoughts with the results I've had.

 

Max affection adds 1% crit chance for each tier and there are 5 tiers.

Max affection adds 1% crit chance for each tier and there are 5 tiers.

 

Correct. And my understanding is that companion affection may alter the % chance I get for receiving a prototype (blue) case vs. premium (green) but does not affect the credit amounts found inside.

 

Only test the Rich class 4 and 5 boxes a handful of times. Got one crit and the premium case was okay, (around 5700 iirc) for a class 5 rich that cost around 2k to run. I had crits in the past be 7k+ though that was rare. However, more importantly ALL of the premium cases were below mission cost in rewarded credits.

 

My results are a small sample size so will have to do lengthier testing to check for a stronger indicator of the pattern. But, I'm mostly looking for a simple developer comment stating either that

"Yes, it is intended that slicing lock box missions be a risk and you won't necessarily get back the mission cost"

OR

"No, it's no intended that you should lose money by running those and we'll look into it."

I feel like its better from the bug time, but worse than pre-bug and post bug. :/

Heres a timeline:

 

-good - (bug) terrible - (repaired) good - (now) not good but not terrible either. Verry low income.

And my understanding is that companion affection may alter the % chance I get for receiving a prototype (blue) case vs. premium (green) but does not affect the credit amounts found inside.

 

Yes. Affection alters your chance to crit. It has no impact on the result of the crit, either in item composition or credits in the boxes. Crits are the primary source of blue boxes.

 

"Yes, it is intended that slicing lock box missions be a risk and you won't necessarily get back the mission cost"

OR

"No, it's no intended that you should lose money by running those and we'll look into it."

 

Slicing does not guarantee profitability in a microcosm. Any giving slicing streak can result in a credit loss or a credit gain. There's substantial randomness in the results of the mission and the results of the box. Each box has a +/- 30% variance on credit payout. That means the top end payout is nearly 2x (85% specifically) higher than the bottom payout.

 

Total profitability is also not just based solely on the box. The expected profits include a baseline crit result and composition of the results from those, some of which fluctuate in value depending on the market. Those profits are ratio'd between raw credits and trade-able goods.

 

I feel like its better from the bug time, but worse than pre-bug and post bug. :/

Heres a timeline:

 

-good - (bug) terrible - (repaired) good - (now) not good but not terrible either. Verry low income.

 

Unless you are going quite a ways back on the timeline, there should only be two values:

 

A (before the bug) --> B (during the bug) --> A (after the bug fix)

I am rather bothered by slicing as well. It's a rather dissapointing skill, and the lockbox missions in particular feel pointless.

 

The primary reward for a lockbox mission, is a box full of money. But with the mission costs the way they are, we don't realistically gain any money at all off these missions. Maybe a couple hundred credits here and there, when we are probably already dealing in hundreds of thousands if not millions of credits. The only real gain I am getting out of lockbox missions are the occational bonus missions that come back. Those at least I can mail to my other characters who can use them. But for the most part, lockbox missions really aren't delivering what a player would expect them to. The only monitary gain I get out of slicing is picking up the slicing nodes in the environment when I run dailys. And then, that's usually not very many.

 

Augments used to be the domain of slicers as well, but that's been butchered up. All we needed were for Augment slots to become more commonplace, which they finally are. However, Augments are no longer the product of Slicing. Now we purely produce the blue and purple materials for other people to craft augments. But let's face facts here, the blue materials are largely pointless. Augment crafters only need blue materials until they RE the purple scematic. Purple augment materials are all anyone realistically cares about, and as usual, purple materials are time consuming and costly to obtain due to the need to score a crit. This of course leads to stacks and stacks of blue materials that no one wants. Honestly, I think I liked the old way better where we simply produced a finished product.

 

As far as lockboxes go, something really should change with the lockbox missions. It makes no sense to do a mission that costs 1450 credits, primarily to obtain a locbox containing ~1450 credits. Thats stupid. These missions should offer a wider variety of rewards. What if these missions had a chance to reward commendations in addition to the lockbox?

 

Grade 1 - 5 lockbox missions would reward planetary or fleet (space combat) commendations . These could then be used to purchase the random item boxes that the com merchants offer. In the very least we could save them up to obtain a random purple item. Grade 6 lockbox missions could sometimes reward tionese coms/crystals, or have a rare chance to produce columi or black hole coms.

 

As for the Augment materials, something should change with those as well. Blues are not useful enough. We really need a way to up-convert blue materials to purples. Give us some way to craft or trade 20 blue mats for 1 purple. Actually, this can be said for all crafts. I recently vendored about 1000 grade 6 blue medical supplies (biochem materials), because they were completely useless to me and wasting bank space.

Yes. Affection alters your chance to crit. It has no impact on the result of the crit, either in item composition or credits in the boxes. Crits are the primary source of blue boxes.

 

 

 

Slicing does not guarantee profitability in a microcosm. Any giving slicing streak can result in a credit loss or a credit gain. There's substantial randomness in the results of the mission and the results of the box. Each box has a +/- 30% variance on credit payout. That means the top end payout is nearly 2x (85% specifically) higher than the bottom payout.

 

Total profitability is also not just based solely on the box. The expected profits include a baseline crit result and composition of the results from those, some of which fluctuate in value depending on the market. Those profits are ratio'd between raw credits and trade-able goods.

 

 

 

Unless you are going quite a ways back on the timeline, there should only be two values:

 

A (before the bug) --> B (during the bug) --> A (after the bug fix)

 

it was better before the massive nerf, now it is barely worth having

Slicing is hardly pointless. It is critical to get the mats needed to craft augments, which will become even more important in 1.3, and is the limiting factor in my augment production today. Or I just sell them on the GTN for about 4x what it costs to gather.

 

FYI, I just leveled slicing on two alts (one imp, one rep) from 0 in preparation for 1.3. Slicing is the easiest/cheapest skill to level, since it pays for itself with the lockbox missions. Running only those, my imp gained 15k, while my rep lost about 10k. Any other skill would have cost 300k-400k to level.

I agree with Blackmink. Those blue materials are a complete waste as well the even money is worthless on lockboxes. At a minimum we should break even and then some. (I've lost money on some).

 

Maybe decrease Blue Count from the (4) Subelectronic and increase the CRIT ratio for ADV Neural Aug. I would even be happy with only (2) Advanced Neural Augmentors if they happened like every 4th or 5th mission. Right now I swear the ratio is <10% CRIT. I run ten slicing missions (All 10k Affection Companions) and get roughly 1 on average return, sometimes 2-3 in twenty missions.

 

When 1.3 hits this will become a very PAINFUL issue for those slicers trying to keep up with Augment creation and drive prices even further upwards for Adv Neural Augmentors as well Actual Augments already run $50k++ each.

I didn't say it was completely pointless, but it can feel pretty meaningless sometimes. The only truely useful / valuable things slicing produces are purple augment materials and bonus missions. Both of which are rare finds. The more common items that slicing produces (lockboxes and blue materials) are not very useful.

 

I can easily log onto any of my scavenging characters and send all five companions out on missions for grade 6 metals and compounds because I need them. I need lots of them, all that I can get, I eat them up quickly. I am not looking for a critical success to give me some rare item. I actually want the basic mission reward. The same can typically be said about most skill missions.

 

For Underworld Trading, I do not yet have a need for luxury fabrics, but I happily collect stacks of companion gifts for use on future characters, and I get a good amount of use out of both the blue and purple underworld metals.

 

Diplomacy is similar. I am happy to gain light or dark side points. I am happy to obtain more companion gifts. For materials, it's iffy. Blue grade 1-5 materials are very useful to me. Grade 6 blue and any purple materials are not so much. But the baseline rewards are for the most part valuable to me.

 

The point is, slicing is the only skill I can think of where I am not looking to obtain the baseline mission reward. It's rare rewards or nothing. With lockboxes I just hope to break even. I will never make any real money off of them. With augment materials I already have more blues than I will ever know what to do with.

It seems that with the chance to fail lockbox missions, and an average reward, that you are (ever so cheaply) paying for the gain in Slicing skill and the opportunity to take Slicing materials from the environment. I'm curious as to why it is ONLY credits that are found in slicing boxes in the world... why not the occasional empty box, or bomb? Why not find augments and can-only-be-found-wandering-in-the-environment items/schematics/stims?

In the end, I'd say slicing is certainly useful - if you're interested in credits, fashion, roleplaying concept, or augments.

I make about 50-100% as much in credits at the end of a day running tandem w my roommate, seen it from 15th-35th level. Treasure hunting is awesome with its relic rewards, why not mix 'em up between the two?

 

Anyway, I'm having a blast and trying to ask why anyone WOULDN'T take slicing on EVERY character.

 

Well, except I can't reverse engineer to save my life, getting a 1 in 15 result over 100's of attempts...

Slicing is hardly pointless. It is critical to get the mats needed to craft augments, which will become even more important in 1.3, and is the limiting factor in my augment production today. Or I just sell them on the GTN for about 4x what it costs to gather.

 

That is simply server dependent.

 

If 1.2 was any indication for the usefulness of Slicing on the server I have my slicer, 1.3 will look like this;

1) The market for augments will crash within five days of release.

2) Slicing will be a complete waste of time and credits afterwards.

 

I am not saying this will happen with all servers. But on my server, the Advanced "X" Augment 22 are selling for less than 2000 credits a piece. And there is only a smattering of lower level augments even listed. (Only about 2.5 pages of augments [of every level/quality] listed on the GTN.)

 

So, rating Slicings usefulness based on augments, on that server, == slicing is useless.

 

Speculation on why slicing is that way on that server:

1) One of the highest population servers.

2) Probably one of the highest concentration of slicers /population.

3) Most / all of those slicers are willing / able to crank out augments.

Edited May 25, 2012 by Blattan

I guess I'm on a different server economy. I see Aug 22's going crazy on prices after 1.3 release. Do the math: Most players have at least 2-3 level 50's if not at least 3-4 toons.

 

Each one needs 5-7 Level 22 Augments to fill the newly created / bought Aug slots on most gear.

 

I can barely get Adv Neural Augmentors on the market w/o paying $10k+ each. I've eight slicers running missions to bring them to me as fast as possible, but the CRIT factor is ugly on them (even with 10k Affection for all).

Edited May 25, 2012 by dscount

Here's the primary point that most people miss. Bioware designed slicing as a gathering skill to farm in the actual game world. Not a get rich via sitting on fleet and send out companions. On average, while completing dailies, (on low population times), I make around 30k extra from collecting slicing nodes.