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Commendation Conversions in Eternal Throne


EricMusco

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Correction: You didn't even get a 1 day notice about the incoming loss, since the cap was introduced only AFTER the comms became bound. 2 separate things happened here

1. We got a really short notice about comms getting bound without any idea what implications will this have as all we knew at the point was, that they were converted to credits (No info about the cap meant no info about pros or cons of moving the comms anywhere).

2. After comms got bound and we couldn't do anything about their location, they told us for the 1st time about the cap. Meaning, that even a player who sat near his pc (logged into the game and active) since we got the 1st warning about the incoming binding and until the 4.7.3 who made the binding, would get biowared and lose credits due to the cap, because he didn't find any reason to split the comms around. Not to mention the lot of players who couldn't, for any possible reason, log into the game in the 24h period before the binding, even if they could somehow foresee the need to split.

 

To make things even worse, here is a quote of myself in one of our site's forum (written before the cap came public):

***

It i really odd that they made a frequency bound just before they convert it to credits (which aren't bound, not even to legacy).

 

Don't forget that things are subjects for quick changes (gear granted for disp rather than advanced class, for example), so they might eventually decide wz comms become something else, or at least a little more (wz comms = valor + creds, maybe?). If they make such a change which will make their location matter, it will be after we can't move them and too late to make them movable before 5.0, so I would take precaution regardless.

 

Don't get biowared! 😉

***

 

As you can see I (and I can't be the only one), didn't lack imagination when thinking about odd changes bioware might suddenly and unpredictably make in the plans. But coincidentally I took it complete 180 degrees away from the REAL sudden, unpredictable change. And as a guy who followed my own advice (and whoever else that listened to me, unsuspecting, just as I was) I am going to suffer even more due to bioware giving warning and making changes in the wrong order... :w_evil:

 

Couldn't agree more.... Like Roman Moroni said: “I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of Bioware: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching game was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic gamers like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves.”

Edited by TekSevein
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And I will try it once more. If someone gave me 24 hours to move assets, I see this as a warning to NOT put all my eggs in one basket. To safeguard against loss. So would most investors in the world. You however saw a chance at greater gain which goes against conventional wisdom. People who take chances without knowing the facts can win big or lose big. Sorry for your loss.

 

You're either intellectually dishonest or trolling. No one was worried about putting all eggs in one basket. Without the announcement, there is literally no concern about this. And no one is talking about "diversification of an investment portfolio", lol. Strawman much? So I'm pretty sure you're just desperate at this point.

 

Look at what was ACTUALLY said:

 

Hey folks,

 

...In support of our new Galactic Command system, we will be removing Warzone Commendations from the game on November 29th when Knights of the Eternal Throne Early Access opens. As a result, any new Warzone Commendation Grants will become bound and will Bind on Pickup starting on Tuesday, with Game Update 4.7.3.

 

If you have a desire to move Warzone Commendations around or have a stockpile of Warzone Commendation Grants, please ensure they are on the character you want them to be on before Tuesday’s maintenance. Please note, Customer Service will not be able to assist with any Warzone Commendation grants after Tuesday.

 

...

 

-eric

 

So you read this as - "we better keep our stockpile of comms diversified on as many alts as possible"? You're being blatantly dishonest, or you cannot read. Sorry for your lack of comprehension.

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Hey folks,

 

As we have discussed previously, Warzone Commendations and Commendation Crystals are being removed from the game with Knights of the Eternal Throne. Our intention is that all of these currencies will be converted into credits on 11/29 when early access starts. Here are the conversion rates for each currency:

 

1 Warzone Commendation = 50 Credits

1 Common Crystal = 500 credits

1 Glowing Crystal = 1,000 credits

1 Radiant Crystal = 1,500 credits

 

Upon logging in on 11/29 each of these currencies will be completely removed from the game and the appropriate credits will have been granted to each character on your account. Note that there is a 2 million credit per character limit on this conversion. Please check the conversion table above, if you would earn more than 2 million credits on a character, we recommend that you spend the appropriate currency before that time so that it is not lost. If you have any questions about this conversion, let us know.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

I'm so glad I unsubbed. This conversion is piss-poor and all to the changes surrounding 5.0 are downright ******.

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Folks, there is an easy explanation for all of this.

Bioware/EA are the Credit seller as has long been rumored..

Think about it. Bioware bans a bunch of credit sellers, that are you're typical run of the mill foreign or unsanctioned credit sellers. This leaves only Bioware/EA authorized credit sellers. Add this to the understanding that Cartel Market focus is already to get supplemental money from subs outside of subscription cost. This is why bioware spend such a substantial amount of resources focusing on aesthetics of gear and trinket companions as opposed to developing content and adding WZ's and operations.

Take into account DVL, which requires players to create new toons ( and assuming everyone wants to get to max level asap) this required Toon perks . i.e. Affection gain boosts, exploration exp, pvp exp boost. Companion Hk trek unlocks and so on. Only way for this to happen is either cartel comms or in game credits.

Add to this the rarity of the items/ decos , repeats of drops from packs reduced number of boxes to open, and so on.

Further is the ability for devs to award themselves things for sale on the gtn and control the market keeping prices extremely high... lately I've seen soo many items on the gtn for upwards of 100 mil it's rediculous. So now, instead of having at least some items that used to only be obtainable through individual effort( crystals, wz comms) which at least maintained some market stability , now EVERYTHING will be through credits.

They NEVER intended on giving their core base of players any chance at a leg up by prepping for expansion by collecting crystals or WZ comms to upgrade to the next Tier at launch. This also explains the insipidly low conversion cost. If they were serious about fair conversion then taking stock of the current credit value of purchasing a single item that is both earnable as well as purchasable from GTN would be fair. Example, Dark Matter Catalysts. Purchaseable for 300 radiant crystals or 1.25 ( average) Million each off of the GTN. Then taking that you can figure that 300 radiant crystals would equate 4167 credits each. Then you make glowing 50% of that and common 50% of that. And you leave open the amount of credits a person could have as it is their efforts which have earned them their current comm/crystal amounts.

basing pvp off of gear that is based completely of Pve type gear is insane, because there are people that have access to raids and so on and can get their gear substantially faster then everyone that is a solo or in a small guild . This means pvp will be even more unbalanced .... UNLESS you do what.... oh yeah that's it , Buy upgraded mods from the gtn using credits and by ensuring players have as few earned credits as possible, you ensure the crystal/commendation conversion cap is as low as possible...

In essence I imagine a meeting went something like this.

 

CFO-

Hey guys, we need to come up with some new ideas to monetize this game in order to fund development of Swtor 2

( or whatever game) . We need to do this quickly because our already thin subscriber base is dwindling and we are already shutting down server after server and consolidating so much due to population , that people are unsubbing due to repeated server transfers and transfer costs.

We expect there to be a flux of people subbing for a month or so to experience the new content but if previous expansion launches have been any indicator , they won't last long. This means that we need to get as much as we can prior to shutting this game down and moving on .

 

{ assistant} people sell credits , could we cash in on that actions,

 

-Dev- yeah if we made everything credit based and get the FTP folks to Sub..

then we get them paying us for Cartel market, appearance items., trinkets, decorations EVERYTHING on top of what they are already paying us for subscriptions.

 

 

CFO- There are a number of people making money off of our content by selling credits, how can we tap into this?

-Dev- Well, we could create our own credit seller accounts and ban all the unauthorized ones then everything credit related has to go through us. On top of that we make even more reasons for them to have to purchase items from us, like randomizing gear aquisition. Take away the boss drops and earnable drops where the player gets to choose what they want or need and instead make them have to earn the same thing over and over and over again until they get frustrated and just spend the cress to get it from the GTN ( which we control) or from our overpriced vendors or individual crafters .

Keep in mind , that we already diminish how much players can get from the gtn for sale of items through our "surcharge" for placing something on the GTN in the 1st place.. { those credits just disappear into the server anyway or get funneled to our credit selling accounts which then sell the credits BACK. To the players... it's selling credits skimmed off the top of every transaction back to the very people that earned the credits in the 1st Place...

 

-CFO

My goodness that's brilliant.. you literally make everyone start over every single expansion and force them to purchase everything in one currency, the. Control that currency and force everyone to come to you if they want to compete or participate in the end game content... and you get them to do it on as many toons as possible...

 

But how do we get them to make more toons..without all the effort on our part of adding content?

 

-Dev-You mean get them to repeat content they have already completed....Well let me tell you about an idea called Dark Vs Light.. players Have to create new toons, grind out the achievements all over again and all for trinket appearance stuff and ... get this , the ability to level toons faster.. but what's great is that most people are already maxed out on how many toons they can have per server so they'll have to get new slots . To get new slots, we make them buy me from is with real money...

Then after all of that, we give them their trinket useless stuff ( like they will ever want to level another toon ever again after this) which will do nothing for them in the long term and we get to pocket more money and such for whatever project we want to focus on while we drain resources from our defense team... hey, Doesn't Mass effect Andromeda need more people? Then there's that Mass effect online idea we've been kicking around...

 

-CFO-

Brilliant! Make it happen !

 

< and so the next day>

" Hey guys , you have 24 hours to move/ transfer comms".....

Tell me this seems too far fetched,

Ahhh.. at least it was miy entertaining.

 

I wonder how long this post will last, let alone whether or not Bioware creates a reason to ban my account...

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Folks, there is an easy explanation for all of this.

Bioware/EA are the Credit seller as has long been rumored..

Think about it. Bioware bans a bunch of credit sellers, that are you're typical run of the mill foreign or unsanctioned credit sellers. This leaves only Bioware/EA authorized credit sellers. Add this to the understanding that Cartel Market focus is already to get supplemental money from subs outside of subscription cost. This is why bioware spend such a substantial amount of resources focusing on aesthetics of gear and trinket companions as opposed to developing content and adding WZ's and operations.

Take into account DVL, which requires players to create new toons ( and assuming everyone wants to get to max level asap) this required Toon perks . i.e. Affection gain boosts, exploration exp, pvp exp boost. Companion Hk trek unlocks and so on. Only way for this to happen is either cartel comms or in game credits.

Add to this the rarity of the items/ decos , repeats of drops from packs reduced number of boxes to open, and so on.

Further is the ability for devs to award themselves things for sale on the gtn and control the market keeping prices extremely high... lately I've seen soo many items on the gtn for upwards of 100 mil it's rediculous. So now, instead of having at least some items that used to only be obtainable through individual effort( crystals, wz comms) which at least maintained some market stability , now EVERYTHING will be through credits.

They NEVER intended on giving their core base of players any chance at a leg up by prepping for expansion by collecting crystals or WZ comms to upgrade to the next Tier at launch. This also explains the insipidly low conversion cost. If they were serious about fair conversion then taking stock of the current credit value of purchasing a single item that is both earnable as well as purchasable from GTN would be fair. Example, Dark Matter Catalysts. Purchaseable for 300 radiant crystals or 1.25 ( average) Million each off of the GTN. Then taking that you can figure that 300 radiant crystals would equate 4167 credits each. Then you make glowing 50% of that and common 50% of that. And you leave open the amount of credits a person could have as it is their efforts which have earned them their current comm/crystal amounts.

basing pvp off of gear that is based completely of Pve type gear is insane, because there are people that have access to raids and so on and can get their gear substantially faster then everyone that is a solo or in a small guild . This means pvp will be even more unbalanced .... UNLESS you do what.... oh yeah that's it , Buy upgraded mods from the gtn using credits and by ensuring players have as few earned credits as possible, you ensure the crystal/commendation conversion cap is as low as possible...

In essence I imagine a meeting went something like this.

 

(...)

Tell me this seems too far fetched,

Ahhh.. at least it was miy entertaining.

 

I wonder how long this post will last, let alone whether or not Bioware creates a reason to ban my account...

 

Actually this COULD be one possible explanation. One which requires quite some proneness to conspiracy theory... but sadly, it would not be all too surprising to me anymore. As I conferred earlier from what happened over the past 3 years, this game is only generating revenue nowadays, it is not about investment or growth at all anymore, they have a fraction of the budget and personnel they used to have at launch, and now EA is filling up their pockets with cash as quickly and thoroughly as they can. Making everything come down to credits and then taking control of the credit seller market in-game... it'd feel morally reprehensible since it gives so many players the feeling of being cheated on... but economically speaking it makes sense; since this game is gonna get a shutdown timer the very day it stops being profitable for EA, mark my words.

 

Honestly, I do not expect 6.0 to still take place. Making KotET Ch.9 the "epic last battle to end all battles", and after that coercing the players to grind those CXP thingies for as long as they can before being presented with a post that goes something like "This game has come a long way, but the time has come to pass the baton on to {EA Star Wars Game XY, maybe SWTOR2, doesn't really matter, as long as it's about Star Wars}. Support and updates for this game will be shut down in 4 weeks, the servers will be shut down in 3 months. Thank you for all the tremendous support, we hope you'll stick around and experience some more insanely great SW content with {EA Star Wars Game XY} which is scheduled for closed beta by {date not too much in the future}. Thanks, Tait&Eric"

 

Prove me wrong, please. Because this would be the *******st shutdown in history and a slap in the face for all the players who have founded this game and have been sticking around until now. If this proves true, I'm done with Bioware and EA.

 

Pretty please, Eric&co, prove me and IamPolaris wrong on this. Don't screw your player base like that.

Edited by force_fortytwo
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People do all the math and then miss the real reasons. (Not speaking directly to you Romanicide)

Add one more line and the reason for the cap is Obvious.

 

Warzone 200,000 x 50 = 10,000,000

There is no possible way someone who solely plays PvE could match someone who solely plays PvP.

They had to make a cap like this. I don't even know why the WZ cap was so high in the first place. At cap you could fully outfit 9 toons in BiS PvP gear and have change. You can't even come close to outfitting one toon in BiS PvE gear with all the crystals combined. The only way they could avoid that credit cap would be to have the WZ's convert at a rate of 10 cr/WZ which would put you at 2mil cr's and you would still be ahead of the total crystal exchange.

 

No worries, i just supplied the math someone was asking for :)

But to be honest, the whole PvP against PvE stuff is just weird. Everyone has to work for the currency of their choosing and in the end we are all playing the same game.

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Folks, there is an easy explanation for all of this.

Bioware/EA are the Credit seller as has long been rumored..

 

It's been awhile Merzerken, but im glad to see you again. Sorry to say however that you will never beat my #1 idol which is the tracer missile animation guy, but don't let that stop you from trying.

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It's been awhile Merzerken, but im glad to see you again. Sorry to say however that you will never beat my #1 idol which is the tracer missile animation guy, but don't let that stop you from trying.

 

No, imo the most persistent guy is Alex Fortescue and his quest for traditional jedi robes and hood up/down option. I believe his earliest post on one of these topics was probably 5 years ago.

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You're either intellectually dishonest or trolling. No one was worried about putting all eggs in one basket. Without the announcement, there is literally no concern about this. And no one is talking about "diversification of an investment portfolio", lol. Strawman much? So I'm pretty sure you're just desperate at this point.

[Eric's quote]

So you read this as - "we better keep our stockpile of comms diversified on as many alts as possible"? You're being blatantly dishonest, or you cannot read. Sorry for your lack of comprehension.

 

It is a common mistake which makes people think that things that are obvious in retrospect have always been obvious. Add to that the fact it is quite safe to infer from all the above that the guy isn't a PVP player and never faced the commendation transfer dilemma himself.

 

It is same as watching 2 people playing chess and then after one's queen is killed, the spectator is the smart guy who has long seen it coming, while the player who just lost the queen looks like a short-sighted fool... [The spectator mostly then plays for himself and gets crushed by this short-sighted fool. That's because while in the field, and while the dilemma is present, before all the smart retrospect conclusions, different decisions are made.

 

And even if we had a year's notice, I would still stack all my comms (Due to the quote of Eric Musco you brought up), and wouldn't worry about putting all eggs in one basket, since till the announcement I trusted bioware enough to believe they won't be predators trying to harm our eggs... Disappointed indeed there....

 

How many pages should this thread stack to finally get a damn response and/or action from the developers? Maybe we should spread all posts to 20 threads as well???

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Yup! Fleet Commendations will remain in the game, unchanged.

 

-eric

 

Frankly Eric, if any type of commendation should be phased out and goods purchased through them should become purchasable through credits instead, it should be Fleet Commendations. For the record, we're not talking about Starship / Fleet Requisitions here.

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Yup! Fleet Commendations will remain in the game, unchanged.

 

-eric

That seems like a strange decision; it would make sense to get rid of the Currency tab entirely if you are removing all other commendations.

So come 5.0, I suppose you will only have the Fleet Commendations, Rated PvP Tokens, and escrow (for F2P players) in the Currency tab?

Not that it matters too much, but I'd have hoped that you cleaned up the interface and removed clutter like that. Any relics of old game mechanics will confuse new players, and run contrary to your goal of making the game more beginner friendly.

 

OK< so what happens to our Operations gear tokens in our inventory with 4.0?

Hope we can get an answer to this question, it has been asked a number of times already. My guildies and I have a couple unassembled tokens stored up and would like to know whether to trade them in or keep them.

Edited by Jerba
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200+ posts of righteous indignation about an outrageous commendation transfer cap exacerbated by a shockingly shady bait and switch maneuver on the part of Bioware and all we get is a post about STARFIGHTER, the one feature of this game ignored even harder than end game PVP and PVE?

 

Is this actually happening right now?

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200+ posts of righteous indignation about an outrageous commendation transfer cap exacerbated by a shockingly shady bait and switch maneuver on the part of bioware and all we get is a post about starfighter, the one feature of this game ignored even harder than end game pvp and pve?

 

Is this actually happening right now?

 

^^^^^^^

Lmao

Edited by kissingaiur
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I can easily see a lot of nice and highly anticipated answers from Bioware in this thread. Yeah! :rolleyes:

 

If you have any questions about this conversion, let us know.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

:rolleyes:

 

Hey folks

 

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Edited by Glower
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I think in some ways we are missing the woods for the trees.

 

The Cap as it stands only effects PvP, due to the awful conversion and other peoples sums (I'm not going to check their homework) a PvE player with full crystals can not hit 2 million credits.

 

For PvPers its a travesty, but all you have to do is purchase decorations and you will make more credits selling them on the GTN than you will get in the conversion.

 

What is galling is that the hardest achievements in the general game (give or take some rng drops) are being converted into less than 2 million credits. Suggesting the work involved in getting crystals is comparable to getting something dropped by non hostile level 1 mobs.

 

How is this anyway to treat veterans players (yet again) where doing content today is going to be worth considerable less than after 5.0 where anything that dropped crystals now would be worth GC points but is not being treated as such.

 

It seems the development team loath veteran players and are convinced that the players they really want aren't currently playing the game, haven't managed to understand the crystal system and will come flocking in so they don't need to do anything to make Vets feel like the last year or so of grinding was worth while.

 

Since Eric, you are taking the time to talk about various coms etc, what is going to be done with command crates which currently factor into the end game and therefore something that must be factored into galactic command. Hell the clue is in the name. Or are they another grind that is going to be forgotten where level 20 influence with each commander resulted in nothing past level 10 and then only in star fortress?

 

Shall they be chalked up with Ziost coms, EC coms, Space PvE, seeker and binocular missions, GSF etc etc etc as things that are just ignored and hoped to be forgotten as exercises in wasting vets time.

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Yup! Fleet Commendations will remain in the game, unchanged.

 

-eric

 

No offense Eric, but among all subject in this thread, you responded to the only 1 who didn't cause any drama here. Which brings up the question: Are developers intentionally reading but ignoring all the rest said in this thread?

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What are fleet commendations? *searches on google*

 

Those are staying? One of the oldest and most useless things in the game, you're leaving alone, when you're throwing out the main commendation/crystal system, that everyone in game uses, at least a little, even if its just to start a character and get them to lvl 10 to pvp?

 

Typical, break what's not broken (or is at least working reasonably well), and then leave alone something that could seriously use a fix (might as well convert those things to credits too). Most of my characters have never even touched that system, ever.

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