So we will get no new items with low unlock costs? That really cuts down my desire to collect mounts and armor sets Edited January 27, 2016 by Damask_Rose

So does this mean we will get less of the new pack items with this change? If so I am not liking it so much as when I usually buy a pack, I want the new stuff, not a chance to get the old stuff from previous packs.

Now you are asking, what is the Grand Chance Cube? Think of it as the ultimate Grand Pack. Inside a Grand Chance Cube you have a chance to receive any available Cartel Market Pack item, including from the current Pack. Also, the Grand Chance Cube acts as a Grand Pack in that if you open an Armor Lootbox, it will contain the entire armor set, not just a few pieces.

 

Yo Dawg, we heard you like lockboxes in your lockboxes!

 

This change allows us to place more emphasis on the Silver and Gold items in each pack, as we are no longer building new Bronze items. Now, in place of Bronze items you will receive a Grand Chance Cube. This Cube can contain the rarest of Cartel Market selections, giving you a second chance at highly-desired items.

 

No more bronze pieces? Were the collection unlocks too cheap? Now that you bumped the unlock prices for gold items you are discontinuing the cheaper to unlock bronze sets?

 

I often unlock bronze mounts or armour for my legacy. A silver or gold items really have to be good to get an unlock so the fact you aren't making any more bronze ones sucks.

Edited January 27, 2016 by GoldenHornet

So basically;

 

"I heard you like to gamble? We put a lottery box inside your lottery box!"

 

So when buying scratchcards at the Cartel Market, you now have the chance to get a scratchcard in a scratchcard?

 

Yo dawg...

 

/e: THE HIVEMIND HAS SPOKEN!

Edited January 27, 2016 by Sigvaldson

I just would like to know what's happened to the Research Alliance Pack? Are we not getting it at all now? There was an item in that that appeared in Collections briefly that I wanted so much.

So does this mean we will get less of the new pack items with this change? If so I am not liking it so much as when I usually buy a pack, I want the new stuff, not a chance to get the old stuff from previous packs.

 

I already have almost everything of old. If I buy a new pack I want new items. I understand that new players/casuals do not have much of the old. Then offer an old pack for them. DUH. Do not force old stuff for those wanting new stuff. DUH. Really who the f----- comes up with this s----!

 

BRING BACK THE F------- CERTS!

Why not just keep it the way it is or even used to be? It was awesome back then

Instead of all these new machinations for CM packs, how about the Cartel Market team start to pay attention to the feedback asking for simplified armor sets that are more true to iconic Star Wars attire.

 

For example ... I'm just pulling this out of thin air ... how about TAKING THE STUPID BACKPACK OFF OF THE EXILED JEDI MASTER SET!!!!!!!

When will we be able to customize the armor on the "new" companions? I have quite a bit of the armor from packs unlocked in collections, but considering I can only use it on. new alts (which I'm not making many of now), vanilla companions (all of whom are already wearing what I want), or our characters (most of whom are already wearing. augmented versions of what I want).

 

So yea....how & if y'all decide to answer that question will determine my interest in the new packs

I have to agree. Simple armor sets. No backpacks, lunchboxes, flaps, flashlights, snickers bars on boots, 80's shoulder pads gone wild, shower caps, chest pieces with table legs. Seriously.

 

Reputation items would be nice. Certificates would be great.

 

I used to buy quite a few packs back in the day, but the changes have been kinda poopy.

I'm going to have to give this a thumbs down. This seems to reduce the probability of getting items from the current pack while still not adding cartel certificates. Also the reduction in bronze items means that it would be even more expensive to unlock items across legacy.

 

Frankly, this constant fiddling with the cartel market has about put me off of the whole thing. This latest series of changes seem to indicate that the team is just flying from the seat of their pants and just throwing up ideas and seeing which ones stick. What is so wrong with having stuff available on the market in a predictable fashion? This current series of packs was ridiculous. One pack was available for only three weeks while the current pack is on its seventh(?) week? Too. much. random.

This is a terrible change. We get forced to get a second item that could be from a 2 year old pack. I am done buying from the CM. I will just rely on the GTN.

 

Did you cut the CM dev team now as well? This smacks of "we cannot create enough new items so we will give you old stuff and market it as an advantage."

 

Give us some armors without pads and backpacks.

 

If you really want to make money, then have a costume shop and sell armors directly rather than chance cubes. I spend a lot more on games like tera where I can buy what I want.

If this change was to entice people like me who have spent a few thousand dollars on packs to buy more, then you were mistaken. These changes have made sure I never buy packs again.

So put simply you get less items from the actual current pack instead you get a chance at a old set of gear?

 

For what these changes are worth you may as well have stuck with the current way its run, the current pack and a BSG packs at least that way you kind of know what you are gambling on.

If I buy a pack It's because I want the items specifically from that pack. Not because I want a random item from another pack that I may already have.

 

Stop making these bad and unwanted changes. It's really simple actually - most people just want something along the lines of this :

 

2 Pack Items

1 Decoration

1 Scrap or Reputation Item

1 Companion Gift

 

So please reconsider before putting this up.

Edited January 27, 2016 by micnevv

We have heard in the past few months a lot of feedback from players that they really like the functionality of the “Grand Packs.”

I'd really like to see that feedback because I have heard the opposite. Players want a 100% chance to receive a specific item, not gamble on a chance to get it.

 

On topic, I fear that the Grand Chance Cube will in most cases contain a bronze item, in which case it will feel like a punishment to receive it because I already have everything from the older packs that I wanted to get. Once again, you're focusing on new players and ignoring veterans.

I'll continue buying most items from the GTN, I may buy a Firebrand hypercrate but I'm not sure yet if I should.

 

I just would like to know what's happened to the Research Alliance Pack? Are we not getting it at all now?

^ Also this. We can already see the Research Alliance Pack in Collections, so will you remove / skip it?

 

BRING BACK THE F------- CERTS!

^ This times 100. I always see new players in chat asking how to get certificates. They see the vendors in the Cartel Basar and want to get the items on them, but the only thing I can tell them is: "You can either get the old discontinued packs from the GTN, or play on the slots for a .05% chance."

Edited January 28, 2016 by Jerba

At this point I really have to ask:

 

You guys at Bioware Austin delight in making terrible changes to this game, don't you? The stuff from the old Cartel packs has absolutely NO BUSINESS being in newer shipments. If I want stuff from old packs, I buy the old packs.

Thanks for the update.

 

1. Can you describe where, if at all, the bind on legacy stackable artifact Cartel Market Certificates will come from?

 

2. How do you plan to address the apparent dilution of items as more and more packs become released? That is, as time progresses, the pool of possible drops from the Grand Chance Cube will increase, further reducing the chance that you will get something you want.

 

3. What is the cartel market "color" of the items that can appear in the Grand Chance Cube? Bronze through Gold, just Silver and Gold, etc.?

 

4. Will there still be occasional old shipments available, or gold (insert subcategory/theme, like armor or weapon here) packs from time to time, or are these being eliminated completely in favor of the Grand Chance Cube?

If this change was to entice people like me who have spent a few thousand dollars on packs to buy more, then you were mistaken. These changes have made sure I never buy packs again.

 

Your comment makes me wonder if any player that is similar to yourself has ever been contacted directly by BioWare to get their feedback on what they like.

 

I mean, in my own business, if I had a single customer that was literally worth 100x the typical customer, I would probably make it a point to reach out to them now and again and see what makes them happy, how can I make their experience better, and what would disappoint them.

 

I would imagine, SWTOR has approximately 1000 such customers that are really heavy CM spenders. If every month, they sampled just 10% of those 1000 "best" customers, something tells me a response like yours above wouldn't be found on the forums...

I'd really like to see that feedback because I have heard the opposite. Players want a 100% chance to receive a specific item, not gamble on a chance to get it.

 

On topic, I fear that the Grand Chance Cube will in most cases contain a bronze item, in which case it will feel like a punishment to receive it because I already have everything from the older packs that I wanted to get.

I'll continue buying most items from the GTN, I may buy a Firebrand hypercrate but I'm not sure yet if I should.

 

Exactly I have almost all I want from older packs apart from a few items (which are likely gold anyway so I would have like 0.0001% chance of getting anyway).

 

I think its time that Bioware opened up all sets for direct purchase as this gamble pack for 0.0001% that you will even get a single items you want let alone the full set is starting to get a little old.

Dear Eric,

 

I am pretty big on decorating. I know the stronghold forum is not a bustling place but there is a market for decorations and that market's average prices have gone up considerably. Can't really find anything decent under 300-400k these days anymore. Even bronze items can be pricey like that.

 

So now you take out the bronze rarity. Well, I hope that it means that the cartel packs will only bring out more special decorations then and not still make people dependent for a lot of basic items that you need many copies of to be in this category.

 

Point is, it was already too expensive to collect enough of various decorations for them to be viable for proper decorating in Strongholds. It sounds like you guys are going to make it even harder for us decorators.

 

Please understand that wall lighting, banners, carpets, etc. are basic items that people don't need 3 or 4 of but 10 or 20 and you've been unable to create a good supply of such basic items.

 

So here's my question: Will you be bringing out more generic items available via vendors in game or are you going to make it even harder to collect enough of a given decoration to make it viable? Because at the moment it certainly sounds like the CM team is going to make things worse for decorators with this move.

 

I'll tell you what I am going to do. Once I see what's in the packs I am going to see if there are items in there that I really like. Nothing new there.

Then I am going to wait and NOT buy any packs to see what sort of rarity it will have on the GTN a couple of days later and what sort of prices are asked.

Then if the either the rarity is too low or the prices too high I will NOT buy any cartel packs because I will know from the rarity that the packs won't drop enough of them and buying them off the GTN is too expensive and it will therefore stop me from redecorating Strongholds because there will be no point for me to pursue it.

 

Hope you guys get this. Not gonna quit the game but I hope you get that at least from my point of view you are not handling decorations properly and for me it feels that this move will make it worse instead of better.

FYI, my previous comment was made, because I sincerely understand the benefit the CM has made to the overall health of the game and the game's viability for EA/BioWare. It's been shown that a healthy CM helps make the overall game better, so I want the CM to be the most successful it can be.

The new chance cubes inside the pack seem to penalize your customers who spend the most on the packs, as instead of a guaranteed new item you are giving them an older item that if they wanted, they would likely have acquired when it was first available.

 

Please cancel this change.