So the experiment was to make the upper and supplementary armor boxes super rare? I can understand the Lore chest pieces being rare items, they always were, but boxes have generally had the same all around drop rate and rarity. To say this is a massive disappointment is an understatement. It feels like a bald faced lie, and I can only imagine that if you told it to me face to face you'd have one of those grins that tell me you know I know you are full of ****.

I had already stopped buying packs after realizing exactly how much money I'd spent on this game.

 

This doesn't inspire me to reverse that. Quite the opposite.

If I knew this was all messed up before I bought packs I would have saved my money, now I know for the future.

 

I have seriously been considering reversing the charges. this was not what was advertised.

I'll add my dos pesos: I *was* going to buy a crate for a chance at the walker in the next pack.

 

But I want you to see my part in a hopeful drop in expected revenue, so, I won't.

Can't believe the first hypercrate I buy was this pack. What a load of ****. Well I can promise I won't be buying another hypercrate and probably another pack again. I will just wait for the gtn if I really want something that isn't another reskin. I'm usually very happy with the game but this a bloody joke.

 

^I did the very same thing and feel the same way. That is last hypercrate I ever buy, same goes for my sister (who thankfully didn’t buy one yet). Why take the chance they decide to do another experiment, without a warning? If it had been just some strange bug, I would have understood, even knowing nothing could be done for those who already opened their packs.

 

And the new collection price are outrageous, if this become normal, I am done buying items to unlock. Well, I guess, their helping me save money. In truth, most of the time, I like this game but things like this really put me off it.

@Eric and @Tait:

 

You know this is wrong. I understand that your corporate responsibility probably won't allow you to admit it, but this is wrong and you know it.

 

Please ask your bosses to consider properly addressing this issue by giving people who purchased hypercrates some sort of compensation for this frankly outrageous mistake.

 

As it stands, I will have to seriously reconsider my purchasing habits in this game unless this issue is corrected and not repeated in the next few packs.

Hey folks,

 

I want to add some clarity around what was wrong, what is intended, and what is being changed. First off, the what is wrong. There was a little confusion around things when we last talked about this issue. It appears that the current rarities in the pack are correct, however, the tooltips and rarity icons for those items are not. Just to reiterate, the rarity of the items that you have been seeing in the packs is correct and is not being changed. What is being changed are the tooltips and rarity icons to make sure that this is accurately represented. Our current target is to get those adjusted in Game Update 2.8.1, it should be noted that the Star Cluster pack also becomes embargoed in that same update.

 

Another thing that I know was questioned was the collections unlock prices. Those prices are intended. Collections prices are something that is not completely static from one pack to another and can shift. Similarly, many of you might notice that in the Star Cluster pack there are different amounts of items at different rarities than normal (more rares, less commons, etc). With the Star Cluster pack, we were trying out some new things. I can tell you that the team has heard your feedback around both the rarities and the collections pricing and will adjust accordingly in future packs.

 

I apologize for the confusion around this and I hope this clears things up!

 

TLDR – Rarities and collection costs are right. Item rarity icons and collections tooltip rarity are not and are targeted to be fixed in 2.8.1.

 

-eric

 

Not a good move Mr Musco, not a wise move at all IMO. ESPECIALLY without any forward notice.

 

Rarity of items is one thing. Not a great move IMO, but passable. Lack of notice would have been the issue here. But to add to that the adjustment in unlock price as well with no notice was a double whammy.

 

The point is players did not expect this.....and perhaps if they did they could have made an informed choice when purchasing the packs.

 

Come on guys. By now you should have a reasonable idea on how your playerbase will react to a lack of notice for things like this. Now is not the time to anger members of your playerbase. How can people trust purchasing packs if the chances change without notice, as well as the unlock prices? How does that foster sales?

 

This was easily preventable, regardless of the bug. I would STRONGLY recommend you consider some insight in providing notice before making changes like this in the future, to avoid these kind of PR issues.

Edited June 20, 2014 by LordArtemis

The experiment must be to see how many people will continue to buy bugged packs if we just call it a feature.

What is being changed are the tooltips and rarity icons to make sure that this is accurately represented. Our current target is to get those adjusted in Game Update 2.8.1

 

Its our fault for assuming that because you released the pack under the same price point and in the same system of 24 pack hypercrates, with the same introductory discount, and a similarly worded tooltip, that they would function with any similarity to earlier packs.

 

... it should be noted that the Star Cluster pack also becomes embargoed in that same update.

 

Does that mean the Club Vertica pack that you've been advertising in the cantina tours is something that will appear the next time you run the Festival of Splendor event or whatever incarnation it takes?

 

I can tell you that the team has heard your feedback around both the rarities and the collections pricing and will adjust accordingly in future packs.

-eric

 

I would prefer whoever genuinely came up with the idea of making pants and boots drop as filler in addition to less desirable sets like the Euphoric Corellian, be getting a good spanking. I hope any future pack buyers are significantly more cautious now, too.

Okay, hold the holocom.

 

Are you serious in saying that the boots/leggings onslaught in this pack is working as intended?

 

So much so that the market for these items has tanked like the Iraqi navy, to the point that you're best off just destroying them, since you can't sell them to a vendor?

I mean, seriously. You already roll the dice bad enough for the money you put up for a crate, especially if it's a hypercrate, what with the crafting items (which are worthless) and the companion gift items (which aren't really that worthwhile anyway). I mean, hell, I didn't even have the satisfaction of CC rep items in the packs this time.

 

So if the notion is to make HALF of the set items completely worthless, to where you can't even give them away if you wanted to, then what's the value of the packs?

 

I'm seriously confused at this point.

Yeah, I'm canceling my subscription. I was having a hard time trying to convince myself to resub at the end of this month, but this little stunt helped me make up my mind.

Hey folks,

 

I want to add some clarity around what was wrong, what is intended, and what is being changed. First off, the what is wrong. There was a little confusion around things when we last talked about this issue. It appears that the current rarities in the pack are correct, however, the tooltips and rarity icons for those items are not. Just to reiterate, the rarity of the items that you have been seeing in the packs is correct and is not being changed. What is being changed are the tooltips and rarity icons to make sure that this is accurately represented. Our current target is to get those adjusted in Game Update 2.8.1, it should be noted that the Star Cluster pack also becomes embargoed in that same update.

 

Another thing that I know was questioned was the collections unlock prices. Those prices are intended. Collections prices are something that is not completely static from one pack to another and can shift. Similarly, many of you might notice that in the Star Cluster pack there are different amounts of items at different rarities than normal (more rares, less commons, etc). With the Star Cluster pack, we were trying out some new things. I can tell you that the team has heard your feedback around both the rarities and the collections pricing and will adjust accordingly in future packs.

 

I apologize for the confusion around this and I hope this clears things up!

 

TLDR – Rarities and collection costs are right. Item rarity icons and collections tooltip rarity are not and are targeted to be fixed in 2.8.1.

 

-eric

 

So what you are basically saying is if I want to complete these sets and have the items I want then I should just buy credits off gold seller sites and not piss the money down the drain buying your overinflated drop rigged packs?

 

Okie dokie, duly noted.

 

This was a scab move worthy of SOE itself. I'm sure Smedley and his marketing cronies have given you a standing ovation for this complete BS move.

 

Wow, just wow.

The issue here is something that could be twofold. If this was indeed working as intended, it was rather bad form to just drop this pack, wait for a storm to brew up and then mention it.

 

Then again, if this is merely used as an excuse, something went quite awfully wrong with the release of this pack. Telling us that would possibly be even worse marketing.

 

However, the answer given here hasn't made me happy either way. How can you defend an item like Ceremonial Mystic lower dropping infinitely more than the upper or supplementary? I've seen this on the GTN of 3 separate servers...

What this really boils down to is the fact that Bioware wants players to spend the CC they have saved up from their subscriptions so you have to buy more CC for the housing when it is released. Remember they gave subs X amount of CC for being a sub on whatever day then have a CM sale a few days later so people would burn through them, now they do this.

I still don't think this is intentional. The evidence suggests they messed this pack up and because money is at stake they need to claim it's working as intended.

 

A change in drop rates for rares would be something they would experiment with, but I just don't see them changing the ratio of chests to legs, it makes no sense.

Hello everybody, especially you guys and gals from Bioware.

 

I stated earlier in this thread, as answer to your last dev post, that this was not a bright decision (either if it was intentional or a cover up of a mistake). IMHO I would offer some sort of compensation for everybody, who has bought at least one of these packets. This is not simply because were are entitled to it as we are paying you monthly for allowing us to play the game, this is for the additional money almost everybody invested in your game and in your business. Letting these thing going down quietly is just the wrong thing to do. Trying to keep things under the rug will only foster resentment instead of clearing things up and give out some sort of compensation. Either you forgot to mention these changes to the cartel market, which would imply that people bought the packets under false presumptions or you made a mistake. The first case would be a very, very bad business decision as it would hurt your sales in the future. The second case can happen to everyone, as long as you own up to it and at least make an attempt to stand by your mistakes.

 

So please consider your current PR debacle and give us an honest answer on what to expect with the next packs. If you do not do this, I can guarantee you that the sale numbers of future packs will drop as the people are not sure anymore what to expect. Be a little bit transparent as you want our money and we may be willing to give it to you.

Ok so the pack is going away in about 10 days. So when do we actually see what the new pack is going to look like? Things like the Rholan Dyre’s Armor Set still have a placeholder image.

 

at this point do you think anybody would buy it? EA is going to need to do some damage control.

Well something about this shipment has always been weird.

Like the fact that instead of there being 4 packs listed in collections there was only 2.

There was no smaller pack.

 

Honestly I am leaning towards this being the plan originally and this smaller shipment being a bit of an experiment.

 

I think the Nightlife packs are just promotional packs for Galactic Strongholds. I've found it weird that they're not under the Shipment 5 tag in the Collections, even though Shipment 4 was concluded some time ago. In other words, a bit of an extra, one-time cash grab before they launch the next Cartel Pack shipment. This would explain the absurdly high unlock prices.

Edited June 20, 2014 by CommanderKeeva

I still don't think this is intentional. The evidence suggests they messed this pack up and because money is at stake they need to claim it's working as intended.

 

A change in drop rates for rares would be something they would experiment with, but I just don't see them changing the ratio of chests to legs, it makes no sense.

 

I agree, this must be some design error or oversight but either they're afraid to admit it or it's just more convenient to switch the tags on the items and call it intentional. Easier than redesigning the packs at any rate. (What would even be the rarity of an armor set whose chest and head pieces are five-to-six times more rare than its leg and feet pieces? Would it be a rare item with super rare pieces? How would that even work!?)

 

But personally, I don't have a problem with the developer team making occasional(?) mistakes. I'd rather they didn't, but everyone makes a mistake now and then, so that, in itself, is not the problem. That is not to say they wouldn't benefit greatly from an actual bug-testing and quality assurance team.

 

The problem is that they attempt to ignore the issue entirely, hoping that the players won't notice it. When they do, they lie about, call it intentional and remove the pack altogether in order to sweep the problem under the rug. Granted it is their game and not ours, they can experiment with whatever the hell they want, they can mess up drop rates, raise unlock costs or lie about it as much as they want. They're not obliged to even communicate or explain anything. But I would think that it would be in their best interest to treat customers with respect.

Edited June 20, 2014 by CommanderKeeva

............................Eric, can you please explain the logic that was behind this change? And more importantly, why was the change not communicated to the community prior to implementation?.......................

 

The answer clearly is that if they have told people prior to the pack being launched, you can bet nowhere near as many people would of bought them.

 

The next pack will be interesting. People buying them will have zero cause to moan as they know in advance that the pack is screwed up.

 

Next pack comes with a set I actually like for once, first one in a long time, Temple Guardians, although I am prepared to miss out on this as I will not be exploited by these people, not to mention I would never wear it as it is bound to glitch on all but standing mounts.

Edited June 20, 2014 by ThorgrimLutgen

The next pack will be interesting. People buying them will have zero cause to moan as they know in advance that the pack is screwed up.

 

Not quite, as they have now come out and stated that the drop rates in the next pack will be "more in line with previous packs"... which is pretty vague according to me, but at least people know what they should expect.

 

EDIT: and what I mean by that is that if the drop rates are still way off and the unlock prices are still loopy, then people will certainly have cause to moan.

 

Included the quote for ya if you didn't see it in the other thread:

My understanding is that rarities and collections costs will be more in line with previous packs.

 

-eric

Edited June 20, 2014 by OddballEasyEight

I still don't think this is intentional. The evidence suggests they messed this pack up and because money is at stake they need to claim it's working as intended.

 

A change in drop rates for rares would be something they would experiment with, but I just don't see them changing the ratio of chests to legs, it makes no sense.

 

120% Agree.

I still don't think this is intentional. The evidence suggests they messed this pack up and because money is at stake they need to claim it's working as intended.

 

You don't think them capable of intentionally setting lower armor parts to drop more regularly, as pack filler?

 

It would save them the time of copy/pasting some random piece of armor and giving it an ugly recolor to make a pack specific filler item. Maybe they ran out of armor parts with easily removable sideboob panels.

Bioware is very good at making bad decisions *cough*horribleendingforMassEffect3*cough* and saying that's the way it was supposed to be...

 

As soon as the "what the..." threads about the pack started up in my head I immdiately thought of ME3 and that lead dev guy going on about "speculations" or whatever BS reason they went all Deus Ex Machina

Edited June 21, 2014 by XiamaraSimi