The Importance of Player Feedback with the New Free-to-Play Option

[lordearth]

I'm a pre order pre launch subscriber and sick of reading in general chat free to play people complaining about all the limits put on them. I suggest a server just for free to play players and server for subscribers. Maybe different instance's on planets were one will be just for free to play and rest for subscribers.

[amaresch]

My complaint isn't necessarily because of F2P going live, but it is a contributor. Since the first server merger up through now, the social aspect of this game has increasingly gone sour. I turn off gen chat and use ignore as required- but why should that be the only fix? Anonymous players demonstrating a lack of maturity and respect make this the single most negative aspect of this game (for me) and it only seems to be getting worse. Again, reporting, ignoring, and shutting chat off doesn't fix anything. Now add the credit farming spam and whispers to the mix.

 

Result? For me- I am not in the mood to socialize often in this MMO anymore, and that has an effect on the core premise of this game- to group up and achieve goals through groups of players. I rarely have the urge to reach out to others now to form a team- which definitely affects others who could use my assistance to further their own game. I spend too much energy resisting the urge to tell everyone to shut up. Maybe a good way to vent, but it won't stop the annoying few- and ultimately only adds to the malaise of General chat.

 

BW, are you actively searching for a way to curb this behavior? Please- invent something. Shutting off Gen chat, using ignore, submitting reports only treats the pain but does not constitute a cure.

[librarygiant]

e) Then dig deeper

• New species like Wookiees, Ithorians
  
• Player housing
  
• Day night cycles (on new planets for start)
  
• 3d movement (climbing, force jump, grappling hooks, jet packs....)
  
• Pod/Swoop racing
  
• UI mods & addons
  
• Swimming and under water exploration
  
• Seamless maps
  

 

A minor suggestion in this vein... Pazaak. Both PvE and PvP. It has fairly simple rules, it would provide another things to sell in the cartel store ("Sure, you can play with your deck and rely on really rare pazaak card drops... we might even have a few cards you can buy for credits. But the really awesome cards? Those are Cartel exclusives."). It would also provide another source of social points. The only downside I can think of (and this may be a big one) is the gambling aspect, ESPECIALLY if you can officially gamble for things worth out-of-game currency.

[lordearth]

Lord of the Rings gives full access to the game world and first few area's quest's. Than the other area's in order to get the quest's you have to buy quest packs. For there free to play set up. BioWare should do the same give free to play the first 2 maybe 3 planets than they have to buy the next planets quest pack to gain access to those quest's but can still go to the planet and grind NPCs for exp.

 

Also reduce cartel market price's for subscribers to half what free to play pay. To make it more appalling to subscribe and stay subscribe. Also making it more rewarding to those players who have been loyal and bought the game. I bought the digital deluxe pre order game at $80.00 and paid monthly yet now you can get the game for nothing and complain about being limited how is this fair to those who paid for this game.

 

Also consider giving pre order players the value of the game in cartel coins wont cost you anything its all digital stuff but will make them feel rewarded for being loyal.

[xpactor]

remove the limit to warzones to f2p players, but:

a. limit the rewards( xp, credits, valor, commendation) they get.

b, give queue priorities to preferred and or subs(or give them a cooldown after every warzone before they can join another one).

[Deewe]

A minor suggestion in this vein... Pazaak. Both PvE and PvP. It has fairly simple rules, it would provide another things to sell in the cartel store ("Sure, you can play with your deck and rely on really rare pazaak card drops... we might even have a few cards you can buy for credits. But the really awesome cards? Those are Cartel exclusives."). It would also provide another source of social points. The only downside I can think of (and this may be a big one) is the gambling aspect, ESPECIALLY if you can officially gamble for things worth out-of-game currency.

Was in (c) but less detailed. So yeah, bring it on

[DarthTartus]

Just wanted to say thanks to those who agreed with me on the subject of FTP character customization restrictions. Personally, I am a subscriber so none of this FTP stuff really affects me in anyway but I do feel that FTP players were cheated out on that. Other than that, there seems to be some interesting suggestions made thus far that I hope are taken into consideration by the game developers.

[justinblight]

There's only two things that I've seen that need to be changed. This whole gaining less experience than VIP members has to go. And we also need a paid character transfer option.

[Dleone]

Hello SWTOR team, Im QA and Im working for Texas Instruments and Im currently playing. I really think that nobody will care about it but could be usefull for the information that Im gonna say about Free to play and other stuff related to SWTOR

 

The first thing is a great idea to give a free to play but too many stuff are beign hiden for them like example:Sprint that should be annoying very annoying but really that wont be enought to bought the game ITS ANNOYING think on that people dont buy stuff becouse they get angry, that I mean you guys should not hidde great stuff from your work to f2p players, there are curently usefull stuff that you guys are removing. Doing this will cause that people will hate the game before tinking on spending money,

 

You can look for other methods to bring people to this great game not only that, free to play can be given just for a 2 weeks with that people will have the amazing experience of star wars

 

But not the actual experiencie at all, you can give the oportunity to the users to level on diferent instances not only the based one becouse that is getting boored and as user you are obligated! to go there and get xp, so it will be nice and a the same level you can go to other place to lvl , preference other planet so people will enjoy the exploring is just like battlespace telling the people where to go and if not like you can quit, the point is the user should have the choice where to lvl and of curse you as a team you should offer the different places that the users can go

 

I mean the planet should not be based on levels, the planet should have diferent places, leveling places that people can be explore ddiferent places on the same planet, not diferent planet for diferent places

 

So there are alot of stuff that can be upgraded this game is unique and like a baby becouse have like 2 years? I just started playing and im dreaming working there its amazing job and have a great great future as i can see ideas will not stop

 

Really me as QA and talking as real user for this game thats my words and have many others, dont stop guys. becouse if you stop nothing will change and work is just starting guys

 

Thanks for reading this

 

Regards

Edited December 5, 2012 by Dleone

[ScarletBlaze]

Only thing I would suggest at least until the ship bug is fixed is you give the F2P a limited fleet pass as that is usually the only way they can get off the ships they are stuck on. It doesn't just effect them it effects a lot of people. If you are on your ship and in general chat you can hear a lot of people fussing at them to get off when they have tried everything but they do not have the fleet pass to enable them to do this.

 

Just an idea.

[beetz]

Please allow f2p players to purchase an unlimited warzone pass for at least one of their characters. Seven of my friends would come back to the game. I miss them =(

[migbot]

Also making it more rewarding to those players who have been loyal and bought the game. I bought the digital deluxe pre order game at $80.00 and paid monthly yet now you can get the game for nothing and complain about being limited how is this fair to those who paid for this game.

 

Also consider giving pre order players the value of the game in cartel coins wont cost you anything its all digital stuff but will make them feel rewarded for being loyal.

Totally agree. As an open/closed beta tester, pre-order & sub for a few early months it was a slap in the face to get zero cartel coins just cuz i didn't get the CE. I wanted the boxed CE but Origin didn't have it in stock anymore so I ordered the regular boxed game (so I could still preorder & have it in time for the launch) except that Origin goofed & I got the digital version (no box, manual, etc.). And now, I go through all of that & no cartel points for my effort.

 

The worst part, to me, was the initial server mergers because of one very important aspect of EVERY MMO: your character's name(s). The servers initially merged earlier in the year but lots of folks had already unsubscribed (hence, the need for the merges). However, the free/continuous trial (lvl 15 max) option had already occurred. What did this mean? That pre-orders & previously subscribed players who were unsub'ed couldn't login to grab a decent name in case yours wasn't available anymore. However, the free/trial accounts were able to login the morning of the merger & snatch up names at will.

 

So, ya, excuse me if I'm a bit cynical about your claims of listening to your community (finally?) after years of submitted bug reports that were never addressed. I guess we can blame a LOT of this on EA. After all, they were behind pushing this game out the door before we kept telling you that it was ready. The irony, of course, is that this same exact thing happened to me & the community of another game we all loved where we told the devs it wasn't ready yet, we weren't listened to & EA pushed that game out also: Warhammer Online.

[JefferyClark]

remove the limit to warzones to f2p players, but:

a. limit the rewards( xp, credits, valor, commendation) they get.

b, give queue priorities to preferred and or subs(or give them a cooldown after every warzone before they can join another one).

 

I like this option better. Warzones aren't like flashpoints/ops.

 

Also, how about some bug fixes, like the JK's big rear end? That has been in since launch... surely someone has looked @ it. If not, it's an easy bug to fix and would bring a lot of praise from the JK community.

[AshlaBoga]

I like this option better. Warzones aren't like flashpoints/ops.

 

Also, how about some bug fixes, like the JK's big rear end? That has been in since launch... surely someone has looked @ it. If not, it's an easy bug to fix and would bring a lot of praise from the JK community.

 

As long as they leave the ability to have a big butt in as an option. I like watching JK's dance on fleet, helps the Force flow:p

[migbot]

Please allow f2p players to purchase an unlimited warzone pass for at least one of their characters. Seven of my friends would come back to the game. I miss them =(

 

Agree 1000%!!! Better yet, allow folks to buy monthly warzone passes but make them account-wide, not just on one character. That alone would get a ton of the old folks who unsub'ed but who loved the warzone pvp. I thoroughly enjoy instanced pvp because of the built-in parity of it (in terms of #s). Honestly, having done TONS of instanced pvp in other games, SWTOR probably has the best, most-balanced instanced pvp out there. It's a shame f2p/preferred players aren't able to truly enjoy it.

[migbot]

Quote: Originally Posted by xpactor

remove the limit to warzones to f2p players, but:

a. limit the rewards( xp, credits, valor, commendation) they get.

b, give queue priorities to preferred and or subs(or give them a cooldown after every warzone before they can join another one)..

 

Ya, I like that option the best also!

Edited December 5, 2012 by migbot
didnt quote properly

[SithInitiate]

No, no, a thousand times, no!

 

What you are saying is "all casual players should be able to be free-2-play and get all casual content" because they don't play very often? No way. If you want access to everything, subscribe.

 

news flash TOR is no longer a subscriber based game its F2P. therefore, you need a system that reflects that.

 

i think TOR is coming close to that.. they just need to market a little better.

 

encourage sub players to gift licenses to new players (like the purple gear license).

 

emphasize the fact that f2p players can buy the licenses they need off the GTN (like the purple gear license).

 

etc.

[SithInitiate]

i disagree with you in order for people to want to buy the game there has to be restrictions like that

and i hope there is more restrictions like level 30 cap or something like that

but thats just my personal opinion

 

and thats fine.. but if they do that.. they mind as well well go back to the subscription model with free trial

[deeterblast]

Boost the credit cap a tad everything else is fine

[Andryah]

news flash TOR is no longer a subscriber based game its F2P. therefore, you need a system that reflects that.

 

Incorrect.

 

Newsflash... it's still a subscription game, with the option to play a subset of it for free, and to unlock select portions via coin purchases. It's designed like other dual access MMOs, to give advantage to the full subscriber.... because it provides carrots to convert to subs from free, full time or part time.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Andryah

[Andryah]

Boost the credit cap a tad everything else is fine

 

Yeah, I think so. OR give a simple coin unlock to expand it... that would be fine too.

 

I'd hard lock it at either 500K or 1M.

 

/2-cents

[Atrimentus]

I was beat to it while I was typing

 

Credit Cap unlocks.

There could be a maximum number of unlocks and each unlock would increase the cap by an amount. For example, a maximum of 5 unlocks and each one gives you 1 or 2 million (whatever you feel is reasonable).

But price them reasonably (ie. not 2000 coins but more like 350 per unlock, per character and 1000 each or so for account). By increasing the limit, you're allowing players to do much more. You're allowing players the opportunity to purchase unlocks via GTN with their hard earned credits. You'll have a group of players buying unlocks (to profit) and this other group of players who spend a bit on credit cap unlocks and possibly other things. Both sides are spending.

 

It doesn't look like you're nickel-and-diming if you're allowing players the option, the alternative to acquire more with credits. These unlocks would be Bound of course.

 

There's a ton of ideas being thrown around since the beginning of F2P and I recognize how difficult it must be to in your position. It's a tough crowd to please . What I think you guys should do is pick a few ideas of what you think is reasonable and maybe we could dissect them, improve on them and give you feedback. It would probably make your job easier and you'll end up with a more pleased community (I just imagined a 50 page thread with everyone agreeing with you --- pure bliss).

Edited December 5, 2012 by Atrimentus

[Emrich]

Let me transfer my characters from the other server to the server I'm currently on. This has been and will be my as well as many many others biggest complaint. I understand you want to monitor server populations but I can only play one character at a time. You say you listen to your players so listen good.

[Timarick]

that takes care of the gameplay slots. Now for the stupid things like titles, legacy, and hiding head slot/unify colours. Take those away and we'd be in business. You're halfway there swtor!

[xNYROx]

Honestly this fixes the main two problems I had with the free to play option- the character and skill limits. Everything else is primarily cosmetic in my opinion. Those two things allow free to play to be the full experience. Is it perfect? Maybe not, but I think it's incredible for being able to play a game like this for zero cost. Keep up the good work!

 

Smartest answer from a F2P player I have seen. Sure there are a few cosmetic tweeks that could make it easier for you guys but the story is the best part of the game and you guys get that for free.