Pre crafting Solution: Comments and questions **MEGATHREAD**

"CG_JohnSalera;47334" wrote:
Hi all –

I wanted to address a topic which has been a frequent topic of discussion on the forums – and frankly something we’ve been discussing internally for the past few weeks.

It has come to be known as the “pre-crafting” issue, and it was something done by less than half of one percent of level-eligible players.


WHAT IS PRE-CRAFTING?

In case you are unfamiliar with the topic, the basic idea is that up until April 14th, it was possible to both see the recipes for as well as actually craft gear items which were beyond the current level cap.

After April 14th, we made it so you can no longer see or access the recipes for gear items above the current level cap. EA_Jesse posted about this change here: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/26898/game-update-4-14-2016#latest

The reason we made this change is because the recipes beyond the level cap were considered placeholder and not final. Since the gear items couldn’t be assigned, we didn’t focus too much on them. However, based on the pre-crafting activity, we needed to prevent access to these non-final recipes moving forward.


WHAT CHANGED?

As we were finalizing the update which raised the level cap from 70 to 80, which launched on March 31st, we updated the recipes and gear assignments for characters at level 71-80. These items and their crafting components were designed to drop only from the Raids.

Leading up to the March 31 update, we had gotten into the habit of pre-announcing information about updates.

On March 30th at 5:53pm, Pacific time, EA_Jesse posted release notes announcing among other things the level cap increase and the gear recipe / assignment changes: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/23789/game-update-3-31-2016#latest

For players who were on the forums (or saw the information reflected elsewhere) and had the necessary components for the old / invalid versions of the recipes, they were able to “pre-craft” the items which were changing.

Specifically, the items in question are:

• Mk 5 Arakyd Droid Caller
  
• Mk 5 CEC Fusion Furnace
  
• Mk 7 Nubian Security Scanner
  
• Mk 6 Nubian Design Tech
  

HOW WIDESPREAD IS / WAS PRE-CRAFTING?

Frankly, not very widespread. Less than half of one percent of level-eligible players pre-crafted.

The average number of items pre-crafted was less than 1.5.

In other words, a very small percentage of the players pre-crafted, and by far the majority of those players crafted only one item.



WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

Several updates happened. Most relevant to this discussion:

• On April 24th (and 25th) we released the Guilds and Raids update. Players were able to earn components and items as rewards from Raids and purchase some of them from the Cantina Shipments.
  
• On April 28th, we increased the rewards for Raid Tiers 5, 6 and 7 and also added the salvage
  
• On May 5th, we added “salvage” items for the (previously) Raid-only items to the Guild Store
  

WHAT IS THE SITUATION NOW?

At this point:

• the number of “naturally” acquired and crafted items well exceed the pre-crafted item count
  
• the number of players who have these items similarly exceeds the pre-crafting player count
  
• the average number of naturally crafted items is over 2
  

WHAT WILL BE DONE?

This is a very tangled and complicated situation and we have discussed numerous options internally, but none were viable or totally fair.

What we have decided to do, and this has been a frequent request from players, is to make full versions of all four of the Raid-only gear items available in main Shipments. These will be added on a rotating basis every two weeks adding one and removing another. They will each have a random chance to appear, similar to how other items are handled in Shipments.

We started this process today with the first item being the Mk 5 Arakyd Droid Caller.

We know this has been a source of frustration for a number of players, and we’re sorry this situation arose. As more and more players continue to naturally acquire the gear items, this situation should resolve itself.

Thank you.