So... Let me get this straight... Your grand idea to make things better... is to essentially block what most F2P players probably start playing the game for to start with (story), force them to do group content, and basically be even worse off overall than they currently are? Have to say, over the years the SWTOR team really have done such a stellar job of embedding a strong core of hatred in their subscribers for any sort of F2P players. Truly, they have perfected the art of having subscribers who really do think themselves utterly superior to those lowly F2Ps who must be punished because how DARE they not pay. ----- Ahem. Regarding your first point. Cutting off class story content for F2P. I started as F2P. If I'd started under the model you suggest... Well... I wouldn't have stayed long at all. I would have probably played the planet stories on each side and then been done with it. 2 characters. I wouldn't currently be subbed with about 40 characters having played for several years. Bioware is known best for their single player RPG stories. So... what do you think most Bioware fans might expect when trying Swtor out? Even regular Star Wars fans, they've watched a movie, seen a great story, what would they like to see? What would impress them? Story perhaps? And... You want to basically take away the main selling point on what... the hope that they'll go 'oh but I know there MUST be an awesome story hidden behind this paywall! So of course I'll take a chance and pay, hoping it'll be something worthwhile!' Not being able to pick what individual Flashpoints I wanted to do would just make me not want to do them. It would stop me from being able to try and do them in order of story, or perhaps I only want to do the ones that I've done before so I don't screw up? Instead I'd get stuck with RNG flashpoints where they'll be in no sort of order, may be ones I have no idea how to play (and so might do poorly and get kicked out), and I might get stuck with the same ones coming up when I want to try different ones. This is a ridiculous idea. The visuals you mention show how little you've actually researched F2P restrictions and the current system. F2P AND preferred currently DO NOT get those heroic crates as you level, those are locked out under the no lockbox rewards restriction (aside from the alliance crates... which can't be opened unless you have done Kotfe). Command crates are also locked out already, because Pref cannot gain CXP and therefore cannot level up their Command ranks. Again, you're showing your ignorance of F2P restrictions. Currently someone starting as F2P already has fairly hefty restrictions on them. Those credit spammers you see? They get through because they play through those restrictions or pay a small amount to get preferred accounts. You don't think credit sellers can get sub accounts? I'll give you a hint: What kind of accounts do you think those spam in-game mails are from where they have 1 credit attached? F2P/pref can't send credits. With a karma system the credit sellers would just bump up their F2P accounts until they had the access they wanted and carry on as normal. On the other hand troll subs would have a field day with it being able to pick on anyone they came across that is F2P. Because I guarantee you that your trolls/griefers are not solely in the F2P population. Yes, almighty subs can be uncouth and vulgar too. The one thing I do agree on is that opening up say PVP and Ops to Pref or F2P players may help with queue times. If you haven't already driven most people away.

A few things... By restricting pure F2P to solo only flashpoints, you're taking away potential players willing to do grouped FPs. So you're narrowing the pool. Ideally what you want to do is open it up so you have more potential players doing it, thus slower wait times. So instead I'd suggest let pure F2P do group flashpoints, but have it similar to the current model: They can do it but with restrictions. Say they can only roll need and/or greed on FP loot a certain number of times. That way you're giving them a taste of FPs to see if they like it rather than just locking them out completely. Currently, F2P don't NEED access to top end gear or GC... Because they can't really do anything that requires that gear (Ops, ranked PVP etc). ----- Letting prefs have GC access would be interesting, though would have to not conflict with the whole prefs not being able to get crate rewards thing. Remember that already locks them out of any credit lockboxes and all heroic gear rewards. As for getting rid of the artifact authorization, what about people who already bought artifact authrization unlocks? Either per character or account-wide? Not to mention the fact that it still isn't even working properly in its current state as last I heard it was locking out normal RotHC items and random blues and greens too from prefs. It's supposed to only lock out purples. But I do agree that it would help open up the GTN market for purple items... that didn't sell above the credit cap. ------ I'm completely uninterested in the GC system so I don't really have anything to say about your proposed subscriber CXP changes. A credit cap increase/removal item would be great though. Only thing is from what I've read around, a number of people list (or used to list) that as the main reason they sub and don't drop to pref. I'm guessing with current prices if you put in a credit increase then you'd find GTN prices also increased with the new baseline. If you had something that removed the cap then you'd have some subs dropping to pref because of it.

Hmm let me take a look... Hutta Guy who gives Hostage Situation is still there, also to give the follow-up Hostage Situation Cleanup. Twi'lek who gave Factory Recall isn't there anymore. Man with the Steel Voice questgiver is gone too. Korriban Armed and Dangerous came from a terminal anyway. The Hate Machine questgiver is still there. Tython Chamber of Speech questgiver is still there. Ord Mantell Cutting off the Head was from a terminal too. Buying Loyalty, Gizmel is still there. Destroy the Beacons questgiver is gone. Huh, so not as bad as I thought, I'd mainly been on Ord Mantell and Hutta. Still, I don't know why they got rid of those three questgivers completely, especially since others were left in. And of course I'd still love to be able to access the end conversations of all heroics somehow.

At first I thought that with the heroic overhaul of 4.0 they'd just taken out all the heroic conversations completely. However after investigating it seems that they took out the starting world questgivers completely, but other worlds still have those questgivers you can start heroics at, the heroics just end automatically when you hit an end objective, same way they do if you picked them up off a terminal. So! I propose that if you go out of your way to pick up a heroic from the questgiver and not the terminal... Then you should also not have it auto-completed once you've hit the last objective, and should be able to return to the questgiver the old way and actually get the full end conversation to the heroic. And while they're at it, put those starter world NPC questgivers for those heroics back so we can do the same with those ones too. Because it's already created and existing content, why not let people play it if they want to? Seems a waste to just not use all those heroic end conversations at all. Just to be clear: What I'm suggesting would leave heroics you pick up at the terminals completely as they are with their auto-completion.

Prior to the Dark vs Light event I'd never ever gone with a full group in a flashpoint beyond doing some with my friend before level synch where we were high enough level to have no problems. I got all the tactical flashpoints needed done on my DvsL character. First I found out which ones had solo mode and took them off my queue, then as I completed one of the ones I wanted I'd again take that one off my queue so I kept narrowing down what I would get. My character was already at 65. Of the tactical flashpoints I did I only had to drop out of one. That was Hammer Station where we were all DPS, everyone else low level and we just kept ending up dead on just the first mob. After two others dropped out I did too. That was my second flashpoint. In my first it was Czerka Meltdown and there was a 65 that just steamrolled through everything in a flash, speeding through with force speed. We has a 50 healer and died once on the last boss but everything was a breeze, I was just struggling to keep up with the frantic pace With all the others more often than not I would get all DPS results with group finder. Of those only ONE of the all DPS groups went through to finish the flashpoint (Athiss I think, we were all high level), with all the other DPS groups I would attempt the fights with the rest while patiently waiting for someone to get sick of it and drop out. As soon as one of those DPS dropped out I or whoever happened to have the highest influence comp could summon it on heal and we always progressed through the rest with 3DPS and a comp with no problems. Another time we had 3DPS and one tank in the Czerka Corporation flashpoint, the tank pretty much ended up healing us and using kolto for us (my mouse button can be unresponsive so I have trouble with kolto which meant someone using it for me helped a lot), And then on two other flashpoints I struck the same person who was kind enough to explain the boss mechanics to me. I don't think any of the people I encountered were unpleasant. One was a little difficult at first but that was due to the language barrier, once we figured out how to work together that turned out fine too. Point is, only ONE of all those flashpoints I did went through to completion with four DPS. Every other groupfinder result of all DPS needed someone to drop out so a healer comp could step in and fill the gap. So yes, I'd say there is certainly something not right with things as they are now.

Same thing happened to me with the appearance modification kiosk. Put everything in and clicked accept... Cartel coins used and no appearance change. I made a ticket 2 or 3 days ago now and still haven't heard anything back yet. I'm going to give them 5 days to a week before I try emailing support. Guessing they're a little busy because of the expansion release. It's important to note though that they don't respond to bug reports, so you should create a ticket as well as the bug report explaining what happened.

Slightly off, F2P, or rather, Preferred (because F2P haven't spent anything and so can't access any content past 50 without paying and becoming Preferred) can access any content that was available when they were subbed (if they subbed). So say I had a sub that ran out when chapter 14 of Kotfe had been released? Even if I haven't taken a character through that I can still play it. I mean if you made the current GC for Preferred and something less grindy for subs you'd still have only those Preferred who had been a sub when Kotet was released or later able to actually access it. Any other Preferred players will have level caps under 70 and thus won't be able to take part. So it's not a huge thing but would certainly be a nice gesture.

Hmm... You know a lot of those planet quests and sidequests reset at some point... I wonder if the starter planet ones did too. Might pay to take a look and see if those quests are available to you now. I know a number of quests on DK that I've done have been reset. Not sure when they reset exactly, but sometime within the past year or two I guess.

I struck a bug a couple of days ago where I used the appearance modification kiosk... and although the 320 CCs were taken from my account, it didn't actually change my characters appearance at all. Created a ticket when it happened and still haven't heard anything. I just assume they're pretty busy at the moment what with an expansion having just been released and all the bugs, exploits etc that came with it. If I don't hear back from them in 5 days to a week I'll send an email to support about it. Just be patient and work on another character maybe? You could also try the stuck command too perhaps, see if that helps.

Making them Legacy bound would work, similar to how I think I ready they made starter class quest weapons legacy bound recently?

As the title says, I was intending to change the appearance of my character, popped everything in, clicked confirm... Nothing. My 320 Cartel Coins have been taken but my character still looks exactly the same. I've opened a ticket, but figured I should post here about it too. I was using the appearance modification station in my stronghold to do this. Needless to say the other characters I wanted to change will have to wait until I know this is working correctly again.

Spreading out 300k to everyone is a good start. As preferred you will have a limit of 350k. Now you can use escrow transfers to use above your limit (the way they work is you reach cap, use one, and it will allow you to use the credits in your escrow up to the amount they specify. So say you were at 350k cap and had a 600k escrow transfer you'd have 950k available to use. And apparently you can use more than one at a time.), but they tend to not be worth the cost that they go for on the GTN these days. There isn't a lot that goes for under 350k anymore, so really the best thing to do is spend it on anything you want now, and when you've gone pref just let it save up in escrow. It will be annoying because you get glaring red text reminding you that you've reached the credit cap every.single.time you gain any credits from something. But you get used to it after a while. Now the point of saving, is that you can use those 7 day referrals once every 3 months. Which means you get a 7 day sub once every 3 months. And with that, you can go on a spending spree with your escrow credits during that 7 days. As for alts, the base preferred amount is I think 8, and the maximum you can get with extra character slots is up to 26. So depending on how many slots you have unlocked, it might be worth trying to spend that 20mil on GTN character slots. Before you do though, there is currently a sale on character transfers for 90cc. So it might pay to quickly level a character to 10 on some of the more popular servers to check out their GTNs to see what the character slots are going for. If they're cheaper than your current server you might consider transferring a character over with the credits to buy them there, instead. You don't need to transfer the character back because character unlocks are account-wide. When I did the above I was able to find character slots going for 2.6mil instead of the 5mil on my own server. When you go preferred you'll be able to select what characters you want active. You can't change that selection. However if you activate another referral over 3 months from your last and get the sub from it, that will open up all your slots again and allow you to reselect what characters you want active when the 7 day referral ends again. Hope that all helps

Probably already been said, but I didn't see it in the first few pages. Also newly relevant what with Kotfe now being repeatable (and at various difficulties too). This shows that they have a system in place that can let us repeat the content, even if the choices from your first playthrough are the only ones that get locked in permanently. There is a lot of content in those class stories with many choices people could swap around to have a look at. So... Why not do the same with the original class story chapters as they just did with Kotfe?

I was invited once, declined, and had the person spamming me with constant group invites and following me around harassing me with AOE attacks until I managed to go somewhere they couldn't follow. Ugh. Generally if I've just started a Heroic or if there are very few of the creatures needed to kill like irradiated rakghouls on Taris, I'll accept. If I'm over halfway done already then I'll decline. If I get an invite in the middle of combat I automatically decline to get the stupid thing out of the way But I agree, sending a quick whisper would work well to... I guess show that you're not rude. Though understandably sometimes you'd have to be quick to let the person know before they've already churned through most of the heroic on their own.

I have to enter mine every time I turn off or reset my computer, and 1 to 4 times a day when my connection decides to reset itself Siiighh. So just three times a week sounds pretty good to me!

So that's why there are so many corpses everywhere all of a sudden! I've got screenshots but haven't uploaded them anywhere. Savrap Island on Ord Mantell looks like someone went and culled all the beasts Likewise the Tython Heroic is full of dead droids. Pretty much any Heroic that isn't in an instance is full of corpses XD It's a rather morbid sight. And yes, in the Shadow Spawn DK heroic I spent ages just trying to find one of the quest objectives because it was hidden under so many corpses.I was considering calling for someone with bioanalyzing or logging in with another character to clear the place out before I finally saw a hand. They should have done this for Halloween

This is so, so frustrating. I don't know how many times I've reset this quest and looked for Tormen now. Probably at least 8. I've tried the fleet reset, it doesn't seem to be working for me. Since it seems to be working for others I'll ask some questions so I can try to do things exactly the same way. 1. To get to the fleet did you use the fleet pass or stronghold transport? 2. So did you stand IN the cantina on that lower level to reset it, or at the top of the stairs, on the higher level? 3. When you reset it did it still show just the greyed out 'get in the escape pod' objective when you looked in the quest log? 4. Did you get to your ship from the fleet or use the stronghold transport? 5. Did you travel to the Tyrant from the Corellian Orbital station thing or just fly to the Tyrant directly on your ship? 6. Am I right in assuming that for this to have worked when you get on the Tyrant it should not be all damaged? 7. Where exactly is Tormen? First level when you exit your ship, right? No taking any elevators? Just the furthest top point on the map, to the right where there's a security door that you can't open if it's still the damaged Tyrant? Also, do you have that bugged empty companion quest in your log 'All work and no play'?

Same issue here. Arrived at the Tyrant with no quest objective. Looked around, no Tormen. Exited the area and reset the quest, now there's a greyed out quest objective that tells me to get in the escape pod. Except even when I go back to the Corellian Orbital Platform and take that ship it still just takes me back to the Tyrant. No way of progressing any further. Even tried resetting the quest on the fleet as someone had suggested to fix it in a thread from 2012, that didn't do anything either.

If you had 22 that means you've used ten unlocks so you should have access to the full 16 And nope, it stays at 16. While Bioware gave subs 2 free extras and increased their limit to 40, they didn't open anything new in terms of character slots up for pref or F2P. Yeah, GTN prices for any sort of unlocks are just stupidly high... Another thing to note: When you're pref you won't be able to get any lockbox rewards at all. This includes Heroics, so if you want the gear from those do it while your sub is still up, because once you go pref you will only get the crystals, not the lockboxes. I'm not entirely sure about the Alliance lockboxes that you get past level 61 for Heroics, but I'm assuming it's probably the same, so chances are you won't be getting any of those from Heroics either.

Yeah that's pretty much why I dislike the change too, it takes away all context so players are now mindlessly doing missions without even knowing why they are doing them story-wise. And they have no choice in the matter short of going to youtube to try and find the original mission. It's not that hard for people to spacebar through cutscenes or they could have just left the NPCs all as they were and had start and ending cutscenes only show up if you went directly to the NPC. So that if you used the terminal you got the shortened version, used the NPC you get the longer version.

Just to clarify on what everyone else has said: Prefs have 6 characters, plus you can use 10 unlocks to get 16. So if you've used 10 unlocks you'll have 16 characters available. When your sub lapses you'll be able to choose which ones you want to keep active, the rest will go inactive so you can't use them. You cannot switch characters between active and inactive after you've picked them all. And yes, everything over 350k credits will go into escrow. You get this really annoying bright red message in your chat every single time you gain cash over 350k that goes in your escrow (and you cannot hide or stop the warning), and a warning that you're nearing your limit when you reach 280k. Escrow transfers can be used to spend above your limit and use some of those escrow funds, like everything else now they're sold at insanely expensive prices on the GTN.

I don't think story is king anymore here, I think 'make people play the endgame stuff and then stay subbed to see every new chapter' is what is king now. They took away Heroic and FP NPCs, cut out almost all ending conversations with said NPCs (bye bye dark/lightside choices and points, flirts and companion influence that would have been gained). Some Heroics even have the starting questgiver removed completely too so they're just selected on a terminal (two of the Heroics on Ord Mantell had this happen). Seems the Bonus Quests have been moved up to being only level 60 to 65 content from what I've heard. And of course multiple quests have also been shortened, and their bonus missions cut down significantly to one or two things (such as The Thing that Czerka Found' on Tattooine, no more big spooky underground base to explore and the chance to run into and kill long-dead NPCs).

Every piece of that gear is legacy bound EXCEPT the offhands... Yup, I find it ridiculous too.

Personally, I can live with the way companions currently are. I'll just never use any in the healer role. But I would very, very much like to see the old geared pre-4.0 companions back (and no level synch and everything else that changed along with it). Ah, to get the pre-4.0 days back...

Mine that got a repair was a level 60 trooper. Will check it on one of my 65s and see if they get any repair bill. Edit: Just ran my level 65 bounty hunter around agroing as many mobs as I could And nope! No repair bill after death. I did transport straight back to the medical droid, whereas on my trooper I raised on the spot... Will give it another try with the 65 and try raising on the spot. Edit: Nope, still no repair bill for the 65.