There have been a lot of posts recently of people who are upset about not getting the lightsaber from the new pack. Some were arguing that after opening x amount of crates they were supposed/entitled to get one of said items. Frankly put: That is not how probabilities/drop rates work. I want to try to explain why.

 

First let's make some assumptions: I think it is safe to say that a super-rare item like the lightsaber in the new pack has a chance to drop of somewhere around 0.5%, maybe even lower. So on average (if the player opens crates for all eternity) you'd have to open 200 crates to get ONE of them. We also assume normal distribution (with sigma = 200/3 = 66.67).

 

Following from those assumptions we can observe:

• Only about 6 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 30 packs (one hypercrate).
  

• Only about 18 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 60 packs (two hypercrates).
  

• Only about 50 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 90 packs (three hypercrates).
  

• 75% of the players will have to open 155 ore more packs to get the lightsaber.
  

• Half the players will have to open more than 200 packs.
  

• And 25% of the players will even have to open more than 245 packs.
  

 

BUT: Having opened a whole bunch of crates DOES NOT increase your chance. The chance to get your desired item from the next crate will still be 0.5%.

Also all the above numbers are AVERAGES! They are only true for an infinite number of samples! You might very well be the unluckiest guy in the world and open 2000 crates without getting a single new item but only chance cubes.

 

Now before you bury me in a pile of bantha pudu please keep in mind that the above numbers are very likely highly inaccurate because I do not know the real numbers BW uses. ALL of it is calculated on assumptions that I made purely based on intuitive guesses.

 

That being said I also want to give you my opinion on the current debate:

I do not think that a drop rate of 0.5% for an item that is supposed to be super-rare is in any way unfair. It is a gamble, but that was clear from the start. So complaining about not getting from the packs what you wanted is like complaining at the casino that you lost whichever game you were playing.

BUT: I do however think that a pack should always reward you with new stuff. Currently there is a pretty high chance of that not being the case. In another thread I read the suggestion that you should get at least one new item from the pack (which means removing the chance to get two chance cubes at once). I would definitely support a change like this.

 

I hope this helps to clear things up a bit and putting your "misfortune" into perspective.

Well written and lucid post on the topic.

 

It will of course be either ignored or discredited by the disaffected who just want what they want....want it now and...want it for almost nothing.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Andryah

Everyone is saying the same thing, they want the drop rate to be something reasonable or even better not be random at all.

 

Either a) drastically increase the drop rate on golds and all golds be equal (no super secret rarity)

or

b) direct sell items like the lightsaber

or

c) hypercrate = guaranteed 1 of each item. Keep in mind a hypercrate is similar in cost to an entire standalone videogame so yeah, that's paying plenty for 1 months worth of digital goodies.

Edited February 13, 2016 by annabethchase

deleted Edited February 13, 2016 by annabethchase

Everyone is saying the same thing, they want the drop rate to be something reasonable or even better not be random at all.

 

Either a) drastically increase the drop rate on golds and all golds be equal (no super secret rarity)

or

b) direct sell items like the lightsaber

or

c) hypercrate = guaranteed 1 of each item. Keep in mind a hypercrate is similar in cost to an entire standalone videogame so yeah, that's paying plenty for 1 months worth of digital goodies.

 

But the drop rate is reasonable, imo. Tobero's assumption is likely pretty close based on what has been reported, although it is more complicated than a simple % rate due to the way items are nested within crates. The rates are based on hundreds of thousands of these crates being purchased, so even those players reporting having opened hundreds are a drop in the ocean.

 

Now, do i think it would be a good idea to offer more guaranteed options from buying something like a hypercrate? Yes, but not to the extent you ask for everything from a pack - that's what the GTN is for, in part - sell the stuff you get duplicates of and buy the ones you are missing.

 

I do think the avid collectors have a view that everyone else is like them, that because they have everything from old packs unlocked so does everyone else and therefore those older items are worthless. Far from it.

The second, less scientific part is that RNG is a brutal and capricious lady who delights in whimsy and suffering.

Or simply;

 

1 - ( ( 1 - x ) ^ y )

 

Where x is the dropchance and y is the number of packs to calculate probability of getting a saber. Multiply by 100 and you have a percentage. This will never be 100%, as it's a probability and there is no guarantee of it dropping.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Defecter

Everyone is saying the same thing, they want the drop rate to be something reasonable or even better not be random at all.

 

Drop rate for the arbiter sabers appears, from just watching the GTN, to be similar to the first Rancor that was offered through packs. There is a full page of them on BC for prices ranging from 38 to 50M for the one hand saber. BC is by no means the most active server and that number of listings matches pretty closely to what happened when the much craved Rancors dropped. And Rancors were also priced very high for the first version that dropped via packs.

 

I get that people want what they want.... but if that is truly the case, then wait and buy one off the GTN from someone who is selling. But the fundamentals of loot drop chance for super rare Golds (not all golds are equally rare, never have been) appears to be normal.

 

Now.. what is not normal and what is clouding so many peoples emotions right now is all the Chance Cubes dropping in lieu of the old bronze drop rates. Why? Because most people want new stuff not old stuff.. and so the latest packs disappoint..... but not because of % chance to drop but rather what is dropping on the high% end of the loot tables for the pack. Back in the day.... people complained that the drop rates on bronze were too high and squelching drop rates for golds.. which is nonsense... but predictable from sore losers.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Andryah

tl;dr version

 

Lots of people want the new lightsaber.

 

Bioware decided to make it an extremely rare drop from their New Craptastic Packs!

 

No one will get the new lightsaber unless they spend a ton of credits.....or even better....spend tons of $$$ on packs!

 

Genius way to make these people hate your guts, Bioware.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Darklighter

tl;dr version

 

Lots of people want the new lightsaber.

 

Bioware decided to make it an extremely rare drop from their New Craptastic Packs!

 

No one will get the new lightsaber unless they spend a ton of credits.....or even better....spend tons of $$$ on packs!

 

Genius way to make these people hate your guts, Bioware.

 

Yup. A lot people dont understand that Bioware gambles themself in house changing EACH ITEM drop rate for EACH pack differently depending how they see fit (how rare item should be). I assumed after first day when people started opening packs and reports that new lightsaber that was deliberately promoted on twitch tv live show and on twitter that this item drop rate is around 0.5-1%. Hard to tell exactly but it is not over 1% as in past with some ultra rare mounts ect.

 

So if you see some item hardly gets on GTN and pack itself is popular and sells well then you know Bioware messed with chance drops and they will never admit those odds are not fixed but change in each pack pretty much.

Happy gambling against odds.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Divona

What I refuse to believe is that this method of making the lightsaber a 0.5% chance drop in a pack makes them more money than if they just made it a direct sale item from the Cartel Market.

 

Seems like a no brainer to me.

Item can be sold at some point with direct sale still. Same as it was with Ziost Lightsaber that had huge price tag.

So on top of those hypercrates buyers who wont get that item there will be a lot people who get it later when its on direct sale. EA will make even more money, thats the business plan if item is most requested or desired.

What I refuse to believe is that this method of making the lightsaber a 0.5% chance drop in a pack makes them more money than if they just made it a direct sale item from the Cartel Market.

 

Seems like a no brainer to me.

 

Really? Because I felt the exact opposite makes perfect sense to me, and catering to whales is more profitable than giving players choice.

 

Think about it. Let's say we have 100k players who want the Arbiter's saber. How much will they make it cost? $5? $10? Not more than that, no? A lightsaber wouldn't end up being costlier than a month's subscription. So they'd make $1 million from selling it directly. But now if you see all the posts of people with too much money and time to spare, and you'll realize that there's actually a minority of "whales" buying 100s of the packs. Even just a couple of thousand whales can easily outspend the hundreds of thousands of one-time buyers.

 

Of course, the best way to make profit would be to do what they're doing, make drop rates absurdly small and try to leech the whales for however much money they're gonna throw at BW, but I have a feeling that's a short term strategy that won't last more than a few months before people stop buying. Then, 6 months from now, they're gonna be all benevolent and make reskins of the most popular items from the pack (such as the saber) available as a direct purchase from the CM.

 

Then we'll all cry about unfairness and keep buying their packs.

You want the secret to unlocking the numbers for this? Do you want the keys to the kingdom? Do want an advantage?

 

 

Zipf's Law

The drop rate would be reasonable if the items in question were obtainable by merit (defeating bosses, raids, etc). The problem is that unlike other, more successful MMORPGs, SWTOR is not about playing the game to get the items you want, it's about sitting in the fleet, taking out your wallet, and gambling without moving a muscle in game, and without using more than a handful of neurons in your brain.

If players want things to change with packs, STOP buying them. It's that simple. If no one buys and everyone says it's because the drop rates are terrible, they'll change the packs, again. If people buy them and they are profitable when the drop rates a garbage, they'll keep making them that way. The packs (and the entire cartel market) aren't about making players happy, they are about making EA money. If it doesn't make money, they'll change it so it does.

Well OP you totally missed the point of everyone of those threads.

 

It has nothing I will repeat that NOTHING to do with what the drop rate is now, or how it works, or what the odds are of getting an item is.

 

Player's are asking for the drop rate to be changed. Not what the drop rate is. Not the same thing!

 

Also, now here I could be wrong. But I don't recall BW ever saying what the drop rate is for any item or rarity. If they have I must of missed that post. So where did you get the drop rate of 0.5 for the lightsaber.

Did BW tell you this? If they did and it is indeed 0.5 I am not saying your maths is wrong because it's not. Its just not what players were asking.

Edited February 14, 2016 by DreadtechSavant

The only way to win is not to play.

 

... and throwing those down on GTN for 50M feeds gold spammers. People buy gold from them.

Yup. A lot people dont understand that Bioware gambles themself in house changing EACH ITEM drop rate for EACH pack differently depending how they see fit (how rare item should be). I assumed after first day when people started opening packs and reports that new lightsaber that was deliberately promoted on twitch tv live show and on twitter that this item drop rate is around 0.5-1%. Hard to tell exactly but it is not over 1% as in past with some ultra rare mounts ect.

 

There is no way in heck this is dropping at 0.5 to 1%. The stats I'm seeing from people opening dozens of crates are closer to 0.01-0.05%.

What I refuse to believe is that this method of making the lightsaber a 0.5% chance drop in a pack makes them more money than if they just made it a direct sale item from the Cartel Market.

 

Seems like a no brainer to me.

 

I've seen a person yesterday on TRE's DK open up 6 hypercrates trying to get a saber. Got nothing and started raging in general chat for our pleasure.

 

And there are a lot of other people opening at least 2-3 hypercrates each trying to drop one without success.

Edited February 14, 2016 by JeKoCZ

Everyone is saying the same thing, they want the drop rate to be something reasonable or even better not be random at all.

 

Either a) drastically increase the drop rate on golds and all golds be equal (no super secret rarity)

or

b) direct sell items like the lightsaber

or

c) hypercrate = guaranteed 1 of each item. Keep in mind a hypercrate is similar in cost to an entire standalone videogame so yeah, that's paying plenty for 1 months worth of digital goodies.

 

So much this.

 

There is nothing more unsatisfying than paying to play a game and paying even more on top of that yet not being able to enjoy all the game has to offer because they make all the best weapons, gear, mounts and decorations close to statistically impossible to get for the vast majority of players and their bank balance.

 

Bioware has created something awesome, especially compared to all the "questionable" items released on the CM. They advertised it, dangled it in front of our noses and then said "remortgage your house or no lightsaber for you". I spend about 50 quid a month on this game and that is already too much. Is that not enough for me to enjoy everything the game has to offer? How much more money would I have to pay to say I deserve the damn lightsaber? I'm trying to save up for a new PC and I think I need to start sticking to my sub only. No more packs, no more direct sales, no more unlocks, no more money than the £1000+ I have already spent... on a game.

 

Or I could make my life much easier and go back to modding single player games. I'll admit I've become a bit addicted to SWTOR and it needs to stop anyway.

There have been a lot of posts recently of people who are upset about not getting the lightsaber from the new pack. Some were arguing that after opening x amount of crates they were supposed/entitled to get one of said items. Frankly put: That is not how probabilities/drop rates work. I want to try to explain why.

 

First let's make some assumptions: I think it is safe to say that a super-rare item like the lightsaber in the new pack has a chance to drop of somewhere around 0.5%, maybe even lower. So on average (if the player opens crates for all eternity) you'd have to open 200 crates to get ONE of them. We also assume normal distribution (with sigma = 200/3 = 66.67).

 

Following from those assumptions we can observe:

• Only about 6 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 30 packs (one hypercrate).
  

• Only about 18 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 60 packs (two hypercrates).
  

• Only about 50 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 90 packs (three hypercrates).
  

• 75% of the players will have to open 155 ore more packs to get the lightsaber.
  

• Half the players will have to open more than 200 packs.
  

• And 25% of the players will even have to open more than 245 packs.
  

 

BUT: Having opened a whole bunch of crates DOES NOT increase your chance. The chance to get your desired item from the next crate will still be 0.5%.

Also all the above numbers are AVERAGES! They are only true for an infinite number of samples! You might very well be the unluckiest guy in the world and open 2000 crates without getting a single new item but only chance cubes.

 

Now before you bury me in a pile of bantha pudu please keep in mind that the above numbers are very likely highly inaccurate because I do not know the real numbers BW uses. ALL of it is calculated on assumptions that I made purely based on intuitive guesses.

 

That being said I also want to give you my opinion on the current debate:

I do not think that a drop rate of 0.5% for an item that is supposed to be super-rare is in any way unfair. It is a gamble, but that was clear from the start. So complaining about not getting from the packs what you wanted is like complaining at the casino that you lost whichever game you were playing.

BUT: I do however think that a pack should always reward you with new stuff. Currently there is a pretty high chance of that not being the case. In another thread I read the suggestion that you should get at least one new item from the pack (which means removing the chance to get two chance cubes at once). I would definitely support a change like this.

 

I hope this helps to clear things up a bit and putting your "misfortune" into perspective.

 

Did you think before posting, the low as **** drop rate is what people are complaining about.

 

And its the CM isnt the casino, all other "super rare" items in other packs were 10 times more likely per crate/pack to drop. THATS THE PROBLEM. They reduced the drop rate of the good stuff. And if it is like a casino, then ****, they better make hypercrates $1 each worth of CC, because thats what the drop rates are like atm.

 

I could go buy *********** CS:GO with the amount a hypercrate costs, A WHOLE *********** GAME, and the hypercrates dont give me a whole game worth of content to me do they? Nobody is forcing me to buy it, and i didnt. But for all the god damn people who bought hundreds of dollars worth of hypercates and got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING worth hundreds of dollars, or anything new at all, is absolute ********.

Edited February 14, 2016 by ebbehhm

Did you think before posting, the low as **** drop rate is what people are complaining about.

 

And its the CM isnt the casino, all other "super rare" items in other packs were 10 times more likely per crate/pack to drop. THATS THE PROBLEM. They reduced the drop rate of the good stuff. And if it is like a casino, then ****, they better make hypercrates $1 each worth of CC, because thats what the drop rates are like atm.

 

I could go buy *********** CS:GO with the amount a hypercrate costs, A WHOLE *********** GAME, and the hypercrates dont give me a whole game worth of content to me do they? Nobody is forcing me to buy it, and i didnt. But for all the gosh darn people who bought hundreds of dollars worth of hypercates and got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING worth hundreds of dollars, or anything new at all, is absolute ********.

 

It's pretty obvious at this point that the whole pack was designed to take advantage of the playerbase in the worst possible way. Everyone buys a few extra crates hoping for the LS to drop, EA makes a ton of extra money in the short-term, and absolutely destroys the trust of the playerbase.

 

Typical EA.

Well written and lucid post on the topic.

Here it is even more well-written and more lucid: when spinning a roulette wheel, past results have no effect on the current spin.

Edited February 14, 2016 by branmakmuffin

There have been a lot of posts recently of people who are upset about not getting the lightsaber from the new pack. Some were arguing that after opening x amount of crates they were supposed/entitled to get one of said items. Frankly put: That is not how probabilities/drop rates work. I want to try to explain why.

 

First let's make some assumptions: I think it is safe to say that a super-rare item like the lightsaber in the new pack has a chance to drop of somewhere around 0.5%, maybe even lower. So on average (if the player opens crates for all eternity) you'd have to open 200 crates to get ONE of them. We also assume normal distribution (with sigma = 200/3 = 66.67).

 

Following from those assumptions we can observe:

• Only about 6 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 30 packs (one hypercrate).
  

• Only about 18 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 60 packs (two hypercrates).
  

• Only about 50 in 1000 players will get the lightsaber from the first 90 packs (three hypercrates).
  

• 75% of the players will have to open 155 ore more packs to get the lightsaber.
  

• Half the players will have to open more than 200 packs.
  

• And 25% of the players will even have to open more than 245 packs.
  

 

BUT: Having opened a whole bunch of crates DOES NOT increase your chance. The chance to get your desired item from the next crate will still be 0.5%.

Also all the above numbers are AVERAGES! They are only true for an infinite number of samples! You might very well be the unluckiest guy in the world and open 2000 crates without getting a single new item but only chance cubes.

 

Now before you bury me in a pile of bantha pudu please keep in mind that the above numbers are very likely highly inaccurate because I do not know the real numbers BW uses. ALL of it is calculated on assumptions that I made purely based on intuitive guesses.

 

That being said I also want to give you my opinion on the current debate:

I do not think that a drop rate of 0.5% for an item that is supposed to be super-rare is in any way unfair. It is a gamble, but that was clear from the start. So complaining about not getting from the packs what you wanted is like complaining at the casino that you lost whichever game you were playing.

BUT: I do however think that a pack should always reward you with new stuff. Currently there is a pretty high chance of that not being the case. In another thread I read the suggestion that you should get at least one new item from the pack (which means removing the chance to get two chance cubes at once). I would definitely support a change like this.

 

I hope this helps to clear things up a bit and putting your "misfortune" into perspective.

 

Thank you for at least trying to get people to understand what's going on and how terrible their actual odds are.

 

Shame that some people are now misdirecting their anger about not getting what they wanted at you.