I saw in the patch notes that the credit boom option has been removed from the encrypted date cubes, does anyone know why? Was it exploited? I'm curious, it was pleasant surprise when I saw the option.

That probably is the reason why. I noticed right away how it could be after testing it out with the collections tab on an Alt.

Because the only one allowed to make money in SWTOR is EAware.

I saw in the patch notes that the credit boom option has been removed from the encrypted date cubes, does anyone know why? Was it exploited? I'm curious, it was pleasant surprise when I saw the option.

 

My first thought on this...

 

Buy datacubes. Unlock them from collections for 60 CC. Make new character. Collect credit boom. Mail to someone. Delete character. Repeat.

sadly this means that the encrypted datacubes are worthless now

cause your getting a lower then rare item from a artfact grade item

meaning its stealing a slot from the random luck factor in the cartel packs

 

i get it that it can be used to dupe cash troug collections

but they could also have changed the item to give the quest once and after that youl be unable to use the item to get the quest again

thus halting the abuse glitch

instead they remove the one thing that made up for the datacubes taking a artifact slot from your packs

with how it is made now the item is no longer artifact rank worthy and should be lowered to prototype grade rank

 

(p.s. you can also make it so that you cant unlock it for all characters anymore like hte equips with mods in them or the legacy cartel gear)

Edited June 18, 2013 by darkbadeo

sadly this means that the encrypted datacubes are worthless now

cause your getting a lower then rare item from a artfact grade item

meaning its stealing a slot from the random luck factor in the cartel packs

 

i get it that it can be used to dupe cash troug collections

but they could also have changed the item to give the quest once and after that youl be unable to use the item to get the quest again

thus halting the abuse glitch

instead they remove the one thing that made up for the datacubes taking a artifact slot from your packs

with how it is made now the item is no longer artifact rank worthy and should be lowered to prototype grade rank

 

And people may have bought the packs specifically to get those cubes into their collections to use them as intended (for a choice of three items) and BW just screwed them over.

sadly this means that the encrypted datacubes are worthless now

cause your getting a lower then rare item from a artfact grade item

meaning its stealing a slot from the random luck factor in the cartel packs

 

i get it that it can be used to dupe cash troug collections

but they could also have changed the item to give the quest once and after that youl be unable to use the item to get the quest again

thus halting the abuse glitch

instead they remove the one thing that made up for the datacubes taking a artifact slot from your packs

with how it is made now the item is no longer artifact rank worthy and should be lowered to prototype grade rank

 

(p.s. you can also make it so that you cant unlock it for all characters anymore like hte equips with mods in them or the legacy cartel gear)

They're also now pretty worthless to level 55 characters who don't need/want Valor boosts. :/

 

It'd be at least a little handy if the XP boosts were bind-on-legacy, but I don't think there's any precedent for that, so I won't hold my breath. Could the former credit boom be replaced with something else BOP/BTL that would be moderately useful to level-capped characters? (Scratching my head to think of something, here...)

 

I don't think I would have put these in collections to begin with, TBH; it's like putting credit booms/boosts themselves in collections. :/

My first thought on this...

 

Buy datacubes. Unlock them from collections for 60 CC. Make new character. Collect credit boom. Mail to someone. Delete character. Repeat.

 

Don't you need a ship to be able to enter someone else's ship?

If so, you would have to level each toon to that level(14-15?) before being able to take advantage of that as you need to be able to get to nar shaddaa to claim the rewards.

Unless someone found a way around it.

My first thought on this...

 

Buy datacubes. Unlock them from collections for 60 CC. Make new character. Collect credit boom. Mail to someone. Delete character. Repeat.

 

Actually you have to have a ship to get to Nar Shaada, so getting past Coroscant or Kaas City was mandatory. (Meaning it's not something that could have been exploited.)

 

I made 1.2 million off those credit boxes so I can see why they removed them, but making the major experience bind on pickup was a bad move. There's literally no reward for level 55's to use them. (The conversations certainly aren't interesting.)

Don't you need a ship to be able to enter someone else's ship?

If so, you would have to level each toon to that level(14-15?) before being able to take advantage of that as you need to be able to get to nar shaddaa to claim the rewards.

Unless someone found a way around it.

 

Noone said anything about a ship. There are mailboxes right as you start each character which you can use to mail items if you have a character just for that.

Noone said anything about a ship. There are mailboxes right as you start each character which you can use to mail items if you have a character just for that.

 

You're not making any sense. Take it from someone who has actually used them.

 

You can only use datacubes once. After that, clicking on the same datacube (there are four fyi) will tell you that you have nothing more to learn from it.

 

This means that, per character, you can only study 4 datacubes. To turn them in, you go to Nar Shaada. To get to Nar Shaada, you need a ship. This means that you need to hit level 15-16 to gain access, unless you had someone running you through your class quests, which would still take a good 4-5 hours.

 

Can you mail a datacube to an alt that's not bound? Sure... but the best method to exploit them was to legacy them. For someone like me with a ton of alts I was able to get a ton of credit booms and get about 1.2 million credits. I guess they didn't want to reward people with alts and decided to also make the experience boost BoP to screw long-time players over even more.

Noone said anything about a ship. There are mailboxes right as you start each character which you can use to mail items if you have a character just for that.

 

I know that, but to use it as an exploit as suggested, you still have to go to nar shaddaa to claim the reward, the cubes are worthless by themselves, so unless someone found a way to get to nar shaddaa without owning a ship, the make millions of alts and deleting them exploit simply wouldn't work.

You need to at least get a ship to gain the benefit of these cubes.

I obtained a set of 4 and looked at it as a nice 200k(ish) per new alt i rolled once they got to Nar Shadaa.

 

removing the benefit from an item once people have paid real life cash to obtain it is a dodgy move.

Without the credit boom it's completely useless to a level 55 player.

 

Most people who get these cubes will be 55s since lower level players will not be able to afford them on the GTN.

 

They need to find some other means of giving a player at max level something back that they can use. To just take the credit boom away as a quick fix without considering what that does and trying to replace it with something else useful to a level 55 player is just lazy.

 

Now these cubes are literally just paying for minor story content since there's nothing else useful from them.

Edited June 18, 2013 by SweetsPatogga

Without the credit boom it's completely useless to a level 55 player.

 

Most people who get these cubes will be 55s since lower level players will not be able to afford them on the GTN.

 

They need to find some other means of giving a player at max level something back that they can use. To just take the credit boom away as a quick fix without considering what that does and trying to replace it with something else useful to a level 55 player is just lazy.

 

Now these cubes are literally just paying for minor story content since there's nothing else useful from them.

 

Standard operating procedure for BW. Zero planning, knee jerk reaction that breaks part of the game and they most likely plan on "fixing" this at a later date which will never come. There is now no reason to by crates, too much broken content in them, that will not be fixed.

As for the whole 'exploit'. I think it was a very small subset of people doing it and I don't see it as a huge deal because you are paying 60 cartel coins just to get ONE CREDIT BOOM PER CHARACTER so it's not unlimited. Yes people can delete and make new characters but it takes a lot of time and effort to level a character to be able to get to Nar Shadda and there are WAY better and quicker ways to get 30-80k than that. I really don't see many people doing that at all. It's more effort than it is worth.

 

That being said, if they are that worried the better fix would have been to just remove unlocking them from collections. Do they really NEED to be unlocked? On my sever they sell for like 50-80k anyway so it's not any huge deal to buy them again on another character if I need to.

Without the credit boom it's completely useless to a level 55 player.

 

What about story content? Why can't this item be a fluff story item rather than a fluff vanity item?

 

By offering a credit boom that reduces the value of the credit, you're ruining the credit economy. If this continued, credits would be reduced to next to nothing (causing a new currency to be established) or item prices would become inflated.

Edited June 18, 2013 by Truami

Hey folks,

 

As some of you have already guessed, we made this change to address exploitive behavior. Players were able to create new characters, and with some craftiness, fairly quickly and repeatedly acquire the Credit Booms from the Encrypted Data Cubes.

 

Hope that explains the decision. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

I think this was understood and didn't really require further explanation.

What does need further clarification is just waht you define as exploitative behaviour here.

 

My example

I obtained all 4 cubes, wit the primary objective of using them to obtain a nice credit bonus on any alts I created.

I did not create any new alts just to get the credits. I did run through my existing characters (all who where of a level to go to Nar Shaddaa and quest)

I planned on using these on any further characters i produced in the same manner (but, did not plan to make alts just to get the credits)

Is this exploitative?

I cannot see how it is as its just using the items in the manner which they are designed.

 

And, a further question

As I purchased packs just to obtained these, and spent cc on unlocks to use them across my account. Will there be refund/compensation as I cannot now use them in the intended way?

I understand people being angry at the loss of the credit boom, but the "intended way" was never for you to get 30-60k credits with every char for every cube. The "intended way" when you unlock was for all chars to get access to the "collect all 8 and win a prize" story. As far as I can tell, that's still going on. Whether or not you care to do this is up to you, but that's what you are paying CC for in the store. Yes, that's not what everyone *meant* to pay CC for, but it's still the text on the icon you clicked. I don't know what the bonus is, so I have no way of knowing if it's worth it, and I don't think they should be 'super rare' items, either, because it is kind of lame unless the end result is SUPER AMAZING and I doubt it. However, the level of hate this is getting for a few cutscenes that really don't amount to much more than you've already learned on other quests, I think is ridiculous.

And, while this doesn't necessarily make it much better, for 55s who don't want the valour boosts, there are always going to be expansions that give you the opportunity to level higher. I'd rather they make the xp boosts BoL, but it's still not absolutely worthless forever.

Hey folks,

 

As some of you have already guessed, we made this change to address exploitive behavior. Players were able to create new characters, and with some craftiness, fairly quickly and repeatedly acquire the Credit Booms from the Encrypted Data Cubes.

 

Hope that explains the decision. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

So in other words you didn't think it through that players with 12 Characters would take a item that can be traded via the collection and use it on all of their characters?

 

Players weren't being "crafty or using "exploitive behavior", they were simply using the system that you have in place.

Edited June 18, 2013 by Ceasaigh

Hey folks,

 

As some of you have already guessed, we made this change to address exploitive behavior. Players were able to create new characters, and with some craftiness, fairly quickly and repeatedly acquire the Credit Booms from the Encrypted Data Cubes.

 

Hope that explains the decision. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

How many patches will we have to wait for you to drop the quality level of data cubes down from epic to rare? Data cubes shouldn't have been a part of the rarest list to begin with.

^ data cubes shouldn't be in the CM in the first place.

How many patches will we have to wait for you to drop the quality level of data cubes down from epic to rare? Data cubes shouldn't have been a part of the rarest list to begin with.

 

they shouldn't be part of CM to begin with.

 

Could somebody writing yellow explain how do they plan to fix the fact that story cutscenes are obtainable via packs?

Edited June 18, 2013 by zzoorrzz

they shouldn't be part of CM to begin with.

 

Could somebody writing yellow explain how do they plan to fix the fact that story cutscenes are obtainable via packs?

 

It only needs a fix if it is a problem.

 

And if they don't consider it a problem, it won't be fixed.