I have been a long-time supporter of the game and have invested a more than a few dollars but issues with the cartel crate system continues to frustrate me. I understand the model but this is something that should regularly be tweaked to keep players from feeling they are being abused by the system. I’m not talking about every little complaint but addressing broad issues that obviously reappear and are complained about regularly on the forums. Here are a few of my notes on current cartel crates and recommendations for improvement…

Cartel Box Ultra Rare Drops: Drop chance on some items needs adjusting. After opening 120 crates of one type I would expect to get at least one of every type of item within that set. I can say from experience, that doesn't happen. 120 crates represents $165.56 of investment into the game. For that investment I would expect to get a pretty complete set, instead I saw only 1 ultra-rare drop (a grand emperor statue). Unacceptable.

Cartel Crate Drop Randomness: The random drop generator for what a crate has seems to have a flaw in it. If you purchase a large number of boxes at once (say, one of the 24 packs), the items that drop tend to be the same few things over and over again from all 24 boxes. Open another set of 24 and you will get the same repeat times on that set of boxes. This is *not* due to the rarity; note I said this tends to happen (not always)/there is noticeable trend. With the exception of the ultra-rare drops, the other items will repeat across the various rarity chances. Example: a character opens 24 boxes and will generally see the same xp reward bonuses, a computer console, and the falcon sign drop repeatedly. The same character opens another purchase of 24 boxes and will get a different collection of xp reward bonuses, a statue, and a type of banner; those items will repeat for all 24 boxes. The trend here is that something is wrong with the generation of variance by rarity when you open a 24 pack of crates.

Box Reward Temp Binding: At this point bringing up the 2-3 day temporary bind on items from lock boxes is just beating a dead horse since it is obvious by now that it won’t be changed. However, can we at least get it changed to Legacy temp bound? It’s bad enough waiting to market stuff or drop it in the guild bank, but having to wait to send a choice random drop to one of your characters who could use it, is just plain wrong.

Cartel Reputation Grants: These are a pretty standard drop and take up part of your cartel crate rewards. Once you max out your reputation these become pretty much worthless and effectively deprive you of something usable that could have dropped in its place. They are bound and vendor for a pitiful amount of credits. I would recommend creating a cartel vendor that would buy them back for a reasonable amount of credits (for those who have max rep with that cartel faction).

Here we go again....

somethings are never truly random, especially when it comes to the rage of RNG.

granted..if I opened 120 CRATES (read not packs) and didn't get a few things I would be rather upset as well. 120 packs..not so much. I don't think any person who opens a box (36 packs) of cards would expect to get anywhere near a full set...

Here we go again....

...and again and again and again....if you don't continuously make your voice heard then you can't expect change.

Cartel Reputation Grants: These are a pretty standard drop and take up part of your cartel crate rewards. Once you max out your reputation these become pretty much worthless and effectively deprive you of something usable that could have dropped in its place. They are bound and vendor for a pitiful amount of credits. I would recommend creating a cartel vendor that would buy them back for a reasonable amount of credits (for those who have max rep with that cartel faction).

I would like to be able to trade reputation items for cartel market certificates. That would be awesome.

...and again and again and again....if you don't continuously make your voice heard then you can't expect change.

I can scream and scream all I want for sun to turn blue or for pigs to fly. Doesn't mean its going to happen.

When asking for something that doesn't make sense or is out right wrong, doesn't mean yelling about it is suddenly going to make it right.

If I came on here every day and 'demanded' that BW give me everything for free or 'demanded' that I get 1 million credits for logging in or some other meaningless diatribe doesn't mean squat.

The packs are designed the same as any other grab bag or collectable packs that you can buy pretty much at any retail store. They have a random distribution with pre-defined rarities. When purchasing said packs you get exactly what is listed (rare items, commons, etc. with 'chance' at super rare items).

protesting/demanding/arguing/complaining/yelling etc. doesn't change the fact that random is random and collecting is collecting and just makes the people who do seem ignorant.

I can scream and scream all I want for sun to turn blue or for pigs to fly. Doesn't mean its going to happen.

 

When asking for something that doesn't make sense or is out right wrong, doesn't mean yelling about it is suddenly going to make it right.

 

If I came on here every day and 'demanded' that BW give me everything for free or 'demanded' that I get 1 million credits for logging in or some other meaningless diatribe doesn't mean squat.

 

The packs are designed the same as any other grab bag or collectible packs that you can buy pretty much at any retail store. They have a random distribution with pre-defined rarities. When purchasing said packs you get exactly what is listed (rare items, commons, etc. with 'chance' at super rare items).

 

protesting/demanding/arguing/complaining/yelling etc. doesn't change the fact that random is random and collecting is collecting and just makes the people who do seem ignorant.

...and I'm not doing anything you are ranting about. I gave clear indicators that I think their random/rarity generation may not be operating at 100% of what is intended. My suggestions are not unreasonable or insane. And your comparison to market card packs, while not far off the mark, is not completely the same thing. This is a digital product and with that comes limitations and restrictions that do not exist in real world goods, like CCG's. CCG's are also cut by sheet with a finite quantity of product. Digital packs such as this rely on code, which can produce different results. Feel free to disagree, that is your right, but I will continue to voice my opinion on the matter just as I would expect any other consumer of a product to do.

...and I'm not doing anything you are ranting about. I gave clear indicators that I think their random/rarity generation may not be operating at 100% of what is intended. My suggestions are not unreasonable or insane. And your comparison to market card packs, while not far off the mark, is not completely the same thing. This is a digital product and with that comes limitations and restrictions that do not exist in real world goods, like CCG's. CCG's are also cut by sheet with a finite quantity of product. Digital packs such as this rely on code, which can produce different results. Feel free to disagree, that is your right, but I will continue to voice my opinion on the matter just as I would expect any other consumer of a product to do.

so other than being cut from a physical sheet, there is no difference.

Card packs have a defined ratio of commons/rares/super rares based on their production runs. They only create what they think the market will absorb because the manufacturing process has actual production cost.

Where as the "code" simply can produce an item over and over again. As for your comment on produce different restuls. If given the same inputs, the outputs will always be the same. Typically it is at the hardware level or other external issue that causes "code" to seem to execute differently. But the set of instructions can not suddenly change and cause different results. So that is not entirely an accurate statement.

As for your statement on the RNG not being accurate. You are taking a sample of 120 packs that means nothing. There are near 1 million players in this game. If just 10% of them opened as many packs as you that is still 100,000 people opening 100 packs or more.

you represent then as part of that 10% a mere 0.001%. That is not anywhere near statistically relevant and is virtually ignorable.

for everyone of you that opened 100 packs and got not one "varactyl/statue/jutebox/bantha/walker" there are people that opened one and got 1 or even 2 in a single pack..first time out of the gate. Should they also assume that the RNG is off and that their super rare item is in fact supper common?

You can not take your small sample and make statements like " I should get one of everything" it just doesnt work that way.

Each pack has 5 categories.

with in those categories there are tiers of its available.

take the boosters for instance (warzone, class, flashpoint, explore, all XP, space, starfighter) and each booster is a major/minor. so roughly 14 options there to choose from for a single item. There is no logic to indicate which ones have been chosen previously (thats not how random works). Instead it randomly chooses one of the 14 to put in you are guaranteed at least 1 of the type, but WHICH one is randomly chosen. You are never guaranteed to get a Major XP boost (and in fact could get nothing but minor warzone boosts in every pack).

Take that to ALL the items in the pack as well as some of the items that have drop rates in the "lottery range" (1/500,000 or larger) you start to see that you will more than likely get LOTS of small random things before you start getting one special super rare item.

since there might be 4 or 5 super rare items in a pack all with drop rates in the 1 per 100,000 range one would not expect to get 1 or even more than 1 in a few hundred packs unless extremely lucky.

so no, the RNG is not OFF, Math doesn't work that way.

so other than being cut from a physical sheet, there is no difference.

 

Card packs have a defined ratio of commons/rares/super rares based on their production runs. They only create what they think the market will absorb because the manufacturing process has actual production cost.

So I only give you one reason rather than writing a thesis on economics, then that must be the only reason? I’m sure people have already written various articles and theses on this topic. There are dozens of differences. The economics is totally different. A digital good has no real value. I can’t sell you digital drops for real world cash. My digital *bound* drops will also not appreciate in value over years and then be resold for real money. This simple fact introduces an entirely different scale of value. To try and say a pack of CCG cards $5 then a digital pack should cost the same is just ridiculous. I know companies are doing this, but that doesn’t make it right for the consumer.

As for your statement on the RNG not being accurate. You are taking a sample of 120 packs that means nothing. There are near 1 million players in this game. If just 10% of them opened as many packs as you that is still 100,000 people opening 100 packs or more.

 

you represent then as part of that 10% a mere 0.001%. That is not anywhere near statistically relevant and is virtually ignorable.

 

for everyone of you that opened 100 packs and got not one "varactyl/statue/jutebox/bantha/walker" there are people that opened one and got 1 or even 2 in a single pack..first time out of the gate. Should they also assume that the RNG is off and that their super rare item is in fact supper common?

My sample size, while not great in quantity…I’ll give you that…does not matter if I can detect a trend. If I can detect a trend in fewer than 100 boxes, then the shuffle algorithm is skewing toward certain patterns. I have continued to open boxes and I can continue see the skewed trend in every set of 24 boxes.

You can not take your small sample and make statements like " I should get one of everything" it just doesnt work that way.

I absolutely can say that since this is not a tangible good that will appreciate and resell over the years that I can expect to get more for my money in a digital good. We as consumers should demand more value for what we are dropping into this real $ sink.

Where as the "code" simply can produce an item over and over again. As for your comment on produce different restuls. If given the same inputs, the outputs will always be the same. Typically it is at the hardware level or other external issue that causes "code" to seem to execute differently. But the set of instructions can not suddenly change and cause different results. So that is not entirely an accurate statement.

Each pack has 5 categories. with in those categories there are tiers of its available.

 

take the boosters for instance (warzone, class, flashpoint, explore, all XP, space, starfighter) and each booster is a major/minor. so roughly 14 options there to choose from for a single item. There is no logic to indicate which ones have been chosen previously (thats not how random works). Instead it randomly chooses one of the 14 to put in you are guaranteed at least 1 of the type, but WHICH one is randomly chosen. You are never guaranteed to get a Major XP boost (and in fact could get nothing but minor warzone boosts in every pack).

 

Take that to ALL the items in the pack as well as some of the items that have drop rates in the "lottery range" (1/500,000 or larger) you start to see that you will more than likely get LOTS of small random things before you start getting one special super rare item.

 

since there might be 4 or 5 super rare items in a pack all with drop rates in the 1 per 100,000 range one would not expect to get 1 or even more than 1 in a few hundred packs unless extremely lucky.

 

so no, the RNG is not OFF, Math doesn't work that way.

LOL! I understand how it works and the math can be broken! What you are talking about is not simple math. There are rather long and complex shuffle algorithms used to produce these results and it is *nothing* like planned cut sheets of the strictly controlled CCG production, which as the production level are not random at all. Note the finite production is also opposite of the indefinite production possible by the digital goods copying this pattern, thus depreciating value over time rather than appreciating it. Game designers have been struggling for decades to produce flawless shuffle algorithms and if you can produce one that will never, no matter how complex, skew toward certain patterns, then you should be able to get a *really* well paid job with these companies. The more layers and items they add to the algorithm, the more room for skewed or biased results. This happens all the time in games and many game elements, not just reward boxes. If you scroll through dev notes on any game you will find refrences to adjust drop rates and mathematical outcomes…this is tweaking the algorithm to change the how biased the outcomes are or how they skew toward a series of results (usually within a sub-layer of the algorithm).

There is a very simple formula you can use to "temper" your expectations on rare drops.

P = Number of Possibilities (so for an event with a 50/50 chance of occurring, P=2)

k = Number of Selections (essentially how many opportunities for the event to occur)

N = Total Number of Possible Occurrences

i = Frequency of the event

Ni = Number of Occurrences of Event i in the set N

For rare drops, we simply look at the chance of the event (the rare drop) NOT occurring. So i = 0. Lets use your original number from you first post for the number of possibilities. You opened 120 packs, and each pack has a chance for 2 super rare drops. So k = 240. This is another assumption, because there is likely an algorithm in place to prevent you from getting 2 of the same thing from one pack. This would only lower the odds further, but for a rare drop should not have a significant impact. P is unknown to us as this is the drop rate for the item. Lets assume the drop rate is .05% or 1/2000. I have no idea if this is right, but I think it's probably in the ball park. So P=2000.

N = P^k

N0 = (P-1)^(k-0)

So the chance of the event "0 drops" occurring is N0 / N. For this case N = 1.766847x10^792. N0 = 1.567006x10^792. Therefore the chances of you NOT getting the super rare drop are 88.7%.

The issue is not really how many packs you buy, it's that the number of packs you buy is MINISCULE compared to the total number number of packs EVERYONE is buying. That's why the drop rates have to be what they are, or "super rares" would not be "super rare".

Imo it's a good idea to reward people with something extra. Buying hypercrate (24 x normal pack) does not come with any discounts or extra drop rates. Normally when we have such offers we are being oferred some sort of discounts (buy 3 for price of 2 etc).

Imo a hypercrate should have keep its cost but come with some bonuses, like cartel coin pets. I am thinking of mounts (tradable!), armor sets etc.

-backs away from the thread slowly- math with letters instead of numbers, I'm out!

(Yeah yeah, I'll leave the fancy math to you guys ^_^)