Nar Shaddaa Nightlife has always been my least favourite of the seasonal in-game events, because I think playing the slots is honestly kind of boring, and it has always freaked me out a bit how nonchalantly people will brag about just how many millions of credits they've already wasted on the machines. I know it's only virtual money, but I've definitely seen it encourage some players' compulsions in a bad way (if you catch my drift).
That's not to say that it hasn't evolved to be somewhat more involved over time. Personally, I hit a bit of a low point with the event in 2020, when the game started heaping free chips on me faster than I could use them up, and it felt like I was being funnelled into hours of dull clicking just to claim some freebies. Fortunately that problem was eventually addressed in 2022, with the addition of the "max bet" machines and vendors that would allow you to convert a large number of chips into fewer special chips with better odds to get over the finish line more quickly.
I was therefore rather curious when developer Joe Stragmalia took to the forums a few weeks ago to announce further changes for this year. Players quickly latched on to what they perceived as nerfs and got grumpy, but to me, "reducing the amount of time it takes to play and win prizes with the slot machines" was only ever going to be a win. Remember, people, simply getting your chip back counts as a "win" but actually gains you nothing and just means that you wasted precious seconds of your life listening to a boop sound! Though on further consideration, didn't the max bet machines already address this problem to some degree?
I found that reading about the changes in bullet point form didn't really convey their impact very well, but after a bit of playing the slots myself it became clear very quickly that there's a new intended "strategy" to it all, which is to play the Kingpin machines until you get the (new?) Good Karma buff which lasts ten minutes, then play the Smuggler's Luck machines until you get the Feeling Lucky buff (lasts two minutes), and then go play the Emperor's Grace machine with both buffs - which will guarantee that you don't lose - and rake in prizes until the buffs either time out or you hit a jackpot, which also removes the buff. (This is somewhat contrary to what was said on the forums by the way, where the post claims that any win will remove the buffs, which is currently not the case.)
Now, I think this is an interesting concept, but the thing that bugs me about it is that it requires you to have sufficient numbers of all three chips to effectively follow the recommended strategy, and naturally, I found that a lot of my characters had huge numbers of just one or two of the chips but none of the third type. You can compensate to some degree by buying what you're missing from the vendors, but I for one don't actually want to spend money on these gambling adventures!
Joe kind of buried the lede in a follow-up post in my opinion, where he stated that they are looking into finally making the gambling chips legacy-wide as well but it's kind of complicated and definitely not happening this year. If they do manage to pull it off for next year, I'll happily come back with a vengeance and with piles of what's likely to be hundreds of chips of all three types, which just happen to be spread out across different characters in a very inconvenient way right now.
For the time being I'll just play a little, for a reason that hasn't received much attention on the forums... they actually added Conquest objectives for the event! Specifically a pretty meaty daily one to win five times (getting your chip back on Smuggler's Luck counts) and a big weekly one that requires you to play (not win) the Emperor's Grace machine twenty times. I've been trying to complete the former objective most days because it's such easy points, similar to increasing your influence level with a companion. The latter I've also done twice, though that one's a bit tougher to do because having twenty Emperor's Grace chips to hand does require some work or luck, and if you can't get the other buffs before playing them, you might end up just losing and feeling bad...
I'm actually less fussed about the prizes themselves though and will simply take whatever I can get. Remember the High Roller Shades which I so coveted and failed to get in 2021, and finally got just before the event was about to end in 2022? This year I got two more of them during the first week of the event... naturally. The new helmet doesn't excite me quite as much - I'd probably try to use it in an outfit if I did win it, but I won't cry about it if I don't.
My biggest complaint about the event has always been that clicking the machines is hardly engaging gameplay, and my first reaction to the changes was that to get a better chance to win I had to click MORE machines? But with both buffs, hitting jackpots on the Emperor's machines is much fast this year, so I think it's a positive change. Like you, I think I worry that there is an addictive element to the event and I have never advocated to players to spend credits on chips, but one hopefully unintended result of the changes is that Kingpin chips are much rarer now, both from the smuggler's machines and as drops from bosses or PVP. Many of my characters have dozens if not hundreds of Kingpin chips left over from when they were "prizes" from the Emperor machines, but other characters have only a handful, so it's easier for some of my characters to farm up both buffs that others, and if this is your first time trying the event or first time doing it on a new server, I think there is too much pressure to spend credits on chips.
ReplyDeleteI get bored pretty quickly with the Night Life event. I'll play for several days and then come back sporadically throughout the event. This year I've hardly played at all but every time I do I get prizes within minutes. Still don't have the High Roller Shades yet.
ReplyDeleteI finally got everything from the Nightlife event. The increased drop rate helped with the Emperor slots. Though I got some duplicates I had enough success to get everything.
ReplyDeleteI did spend a chunk of credits on Emperor tokens, but since I'm not trying to buy gear or augments all that currency just builds up. I figured I might as well 'sink' it ;) going after some cosmetics and achievements.