Training Costs are a Thing of the Past

[TravelersWay]

I understand why they're doing it. It makes sense. I think it's a good, etc., etc., but undeniably it is a bit of a slap in the face to those that subscribe and pre-ordered the expansion to have spent the credit we spent, on skill upgrades. You can have early access, but you have to pay for skills and those that don't want early access don't? I'm not saying going back to paying for skills, I'm just saying make it right with the people who spent those credits during early access. Ideally simply refund the creds.

 

What about all of those who paid for skills last week, before Early Access started? Shouldn't they get refunds as well?

[Max_Killjoy]

It's always interesting when you can't decide which side of an discussion you might support, because both sides are making arguments.

[MorgenBlue]

Right now this is the 8th most replied to thread in 2014 and it's not even 24 hours old.

 

If the expansion was out for a month or so, I would of agreed with no refund however I think it is appropriate to refund players because of the timing of it. Early access players ate the cost, people who didn't buy early access do not eat the cost and this is why the costs for 55 - 60 skills should be refunded.

 

Only a small population of the player base actively reads the forums, an even lower percentage of the player base reads outside of the dev tracker and known issues thread. The majority of players are going to be oblivious to the problem and that was reassured by Musco posting "working as intended".

[Grayseven]

I understand why they're doing it. It makes sense. I think it's a good, etc., etc., but undeniably it is a bit of a slap in the face to those that subscribe and pre-ordered the expansion to have spent the credit we spent, on skill upgrades. You can have early access, but you have to pay for skills and those that don't want early access don't? I'm not saying going back to paying for skills, I'm just saying make it right with the people who spent those credits during early access. Ideally simply refund the creds.

 

Thing is...and what people seem to fail to be able to comprehend...they didn't intend to "do away" with training costs.

 

You got exactly what you paid for with early access. You weren't promised anything else but what you were given. Considering the majority of sub's got early access, very few people are getting any benefit out of not purchasing the expac before Nov. 2.

 

Just be happy it only lasted a few days and be especially happy they told us about it before the weekend. You can easily hit 60 without paying for many skills so you'll save credits on any additional toons you level up.

 

I imagine it isn't as simple to refund credits as people seem to think. If they don't have some manner of tracking built into the system they'd have to manually check to see who spent what. That seems a bit manpower intensive.

[HazardousMatt]

I'm very happy to hear that this change is coming so soon. But I'm also disappointed that the devs have no intention of refunding the training costs spent by Early Access players this week. I realize there may be technical limitations on their end that make giving everyone the exactly correct refund amount difficult, and they may not have time to get it done with everything else they are working on at the moment.

 

In my mind a token gesture would be nice though. Maybe average up all the 55-60 training costs for all AC's, then give everyone above 55 that average? I'm one of those players that isn't exactly rolling in credits (I have an "outfit addiction" and like putting together neat outfits for myself and my companions). So for me, affording the exorbitant training costs this week has been painful. Giving everyone at least something would be nice. I'll live without it of course, but it would still be greatly appreciated.

 

At any rate, I hit 60 last night (yay!) but have no intention of training my level 60 abilities until after the patch. I'll just run older content dailies until after the costs are removed. And no way am I even starting to level anyone else until this change goes live. I'm not happy about doing that, but I simply cannot see paying that much for training knowing full well that the cost removal is coming next week, especially since I also know we aren't getting a refund of any kind.

Edited December 6, 2014 by HazardousMatt

[MorgenBlue]

Thing is...and what people seem to fail to be able to comprehend...they didn't intend to "do away" with training costs.

 

You got exactly what you paid for with early access. You weren't promised anything else but what you were given. Considering the majority of sub's got early access, very few people are getting any benefit out of not purchasing the expac before Nov. 2.

 

Just be happy it only lasted a few days and be especially happy they told us about it before the weekend. You can easily hit 60 without paying for many skills so you'll save credits on any additional toons you level up.

 

I imagine it isn't as simple to refund credits as people seem to think. If they don't have some manner of tracking built into the system they'd have to manually check to see who spent what. That seems a bit manpower intensive.

 

If it wasn't early access I would completely agree with you but the fact is that this is punishing the most loyal customers SWTOR has. We all understand they didn't intend to do away with training costs but they did have these costs for early access players and do not have these costs for non-early access players, and it was not something that was announced at the start of early access that would be changing after the early access period.

[Heal-To-Full]

but they did have these costs for early access players and do not have these costs for non-early access players

Not true. They had these costs for everyone. Non-early-access players (are there any really? everyone's early access) and even ones who didn't buy the pack, even f2ps that don't even have RotHC, all have to pay these costs, because they "forgot" so many of their old 1-55 abilities.

 

The only difference early access makes is it lets you push past lvl 55, so in addition to unintentionally being charged for 1-55 costs, you can get charged for extra 56-60 costs as intended.

 

At least you get something for your money. Non-early-access people paid these costs to get zilch: no new planets, no new levels, and getting back to 10% less dps than they had in 2.10. They should be at least as angry as you are, and actually even more. Yes, they lost a bit less, but without the xpac got nothing for it, literally just got slapped with a bill.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Heal-To-Full

[MorgenBlue]

Not true. They had these costs for everyone. Non-early-access players (are there any really? everyone's early access) and even ones who didn't buy the pack, even f2ps that don't even have RotHC, all have to pay these costs, because they "forgot" so many of their old 1-55 abilities.

 

The only difference early access makes is it lets you push past lvl 55, so in addition to unintentionally being charged for 1-55 costs, you can get charged for extra 56-60 costs as intended.

 

At least you get something for your money. Non-early-access people paid these costs to get zilch: no new planets, no new levels, and getting back to 10% less dps than they had in 2.10. They should be at least as angry as you are, if not more.

 

I have a couple of people in my guild that don't have early access. Retraining the forgotten abilities at 55 costs about 50k while the 56 - 60 abilities are costing ~800k+ depending on class. Personally I think people should be compensated for the lost 1 - 55 abilities they have to retrain but the cost is rather miniscule in comparison.

[enigmacypher]

I have skilled up 3 or 4 of my characters and though I am only in the mid 30s to low 40s I know what you guys at the higher end are feeling what with the costs being even higher BUT lets think about this..

 

once this expansion is out and about it will possibly be a while before another major change so all your characters are going to be making coin of the realm and at some point there will be little or nothing to really spend it on .. when it goes free to train you will be able to purchase skills you haven't yet and/or save a large amount of credits..

 

No it isn't exactly fair the players waiting till after head start will have this fixed but mind you it isn't an impossible thing to overcome either.

 

I agree that it sucks but this is why I have always though head starts were a bad idea for any game as it really is a matter of you are helping with a final beta on a live server..

 

sucks gas yes .. reality is the alternative is worse for you and everyone else since the only way to keep it fair is to make everyone continue to pay and pay so we are all equally bankrupt ..

 

also I don't know how drops are up that end myself but I will bet there are drops the players in lower brackets are going to want and right now you have farming rights which means you will for the time being be selling this stuff for a premium till more hit the higher levels..

 

I was mad (mad in the meaning of insane) for the for 2 days after the discipline changes as 2 of my favorite characters had become unplayable and it was only by testing during a quiet time I discovered that the games was suffering with extreme lag...

 

this free training at least is a step from DEVs to make our gaming experience better and a sign that at least they are listening and TRYING..

 

no you shouldn't stop 'trying" to see what also needs fixing but at the same time we have to realize we have to have give and take.

 

YES I paid for early access so I could get the xp bonus (which in hind sight was a bit useless to me since I still had to grind low level missions for comms anyway) so I paid the extra but for the extra stuff and yet I am not getting to try the new content till it is probably the old content..

 

Peace all and be safe out there

[SBR_QuorTek]

Hey folks,

 

Let’s talk a bit about training costs for your characters abilities. One thing has become clear from the player feedback in not only this thread, but since launch: players do not like training costs. It is a situation where every level you will see your hard earned credits go to a holographic Hutt doctor in order to make yourself a bit stronger. We have been talking about this topic internally for quite some time and when you add player feedback to the mix one thing becomes clear… We should make training costs a thing of the past.

 

Since launch, you have spent millions of credits training skills across your characters. As of our maintenance next week all ability training costs will be completely removed from the game, forever!

 

What does this mean for you? This means that starting next week, instead of spending your credits on training skills, you can now spend them on literally, anything else you want. Note that this only affects ability training, you will still need to spend credits to training schematics for Crew Skills, etc.

 

Thank you again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Sorry man you are so wrong, just leave them as they are, just because that some few people dislike something this trivial does not mean that you guys should give in for it, rather look upon other more important things.

 

Look at it like this you gain credits from doing stuff and selling trash loot and such... and even by that when you spend the credits on some few skills... if it is a pain in the endgame for starters, then well point them towards that there is dailies to do in this game and would more than enough to support getting a few skills, rather slightly increase the gain of credits or put in by doing the bonus series quests to places would cover all cost for skills meaning that people should actually work a little bit for reaching some kind of archievement or extra bonus.

 

Would rather look into increasing performance on the game, maybe even give us a 64 bit option for this game instead, that would be something usefull to add in, also look into other things, eg. for ops the things that drop implants and relics make those drop 2x so it does not take so many more extra weeks to fully gear out on something that trivial.

 

Got my point?

[Gokkan]

You just lost a subscriber. You realize this is a major slap in the face to your most loyal customers right? This is BS that basically all of us with early access got the added bonus of being robbed of all our in game money. How is that the type of message you want to send to your best and most loyal customers?

 

Fair question azudelphi! Since the change we are making is a global one, affecting all players and skills, we felt this was a better approach to the overall cost to players. As a result, we will not be providing refunds for the cost of training.

 

Hope that clarifies our thoughts on the situation.

 

-eric

[thejadefalcon]

Your reward for early access is...well, early access. If you came into this thinking there wouldn't be bugs or changes then you haven't done MMO's before apparently. Anyone who has spent any time playing MMO's knows stuff like this will happen.

 

No-one expected no changes or no bugs, however, I think people were under the reasonable assumption that the main quest would work and that they wouldn't be entirely ****ed over on the credit sinks. And this is a massive "**** you" to the early adopters. If they can't refund credits for some technical reason, that's totally fine, but they need to a) explain that and b) find some way to restore customer happiness. Right now, we literally have paid for a buggy beta, not a mere mildly buggy early access, and that is not acceptable.

 

How about this then,

They refund you the credits.

 

But they also remove the remainder of Early Access from your account as well.

They also remove access to the Rishi and Revan statues as well.

They also remove all that bonus XP your account got with 12x XP

They then charge you for all the skills you trained for free during the 12x XP event.

 

Wouldn't that be fair as well?

 

Don't be ridiculous. We supported it early, we as consumers have a right to not be ****ed over for that. Also, even if they charge me for all those skills, that's 250k worth (most of that speeder training mark 3) compared to the million I spent in two days in SoR that people who didn't adopt early are getting out of.

 

If this was announced two months down the line, sure, no worries, I don't care. But to do it so soon is just a slap in the face and absolutely insulting.

 

Honestly, as others have said, this might cost them a subscription from me as well. It's not just this, it's the fact that they released a blatantly defective expansion and have barely even commented on the fact that the final boss is utterly broken. I don't want to stop subscribing, I love this game, but my trust in it has been severely shattered right now and there's no word of any fixes or any compensation for the many ways BioWare have utterly wasted our time.

Edited December 6, 2014 by thejadefalcon

[Atsoyo]

I have a lot of characters and havent really trained all of their skills untill the 12x xp boost which also made the training free. It is a big dissapointment to see tha we dont get at least some compensation. At least compensate people who got early access.

[Heal-To-Full]

Retraining the forgotten abilities at 55 costs about 50k while the 56 - 60 abilities are costing ~800k+ depending on class.

50k for nothing vs 800k for a week of early access.

Who got a better deal?

 

I actually trained some abilities even after the announcement - new ones, not worthless ranks - because even these few remaining days of early access are worth it for me.

 

But to do it so soon is just a slap in the face and absolutely insulting.

So others must suffer because you have?

[TravelersWay]

If it wasn't early access I would completely agree with you but the fact is that this is punishing the most loyal customers SWTOR has. We all understand they didn't intend to do away with training costs but they did have these costs for early access players and do not have these costs for non-early access players, and it was not something that was announced at the start of early access that would be changing after the early access period.

 

Did you get everything that was advertised in the pre-order package?

 

What's that?

 

Oh, you did in fact get everything advertised in the pre-order package...

 

So it looks like they do respect the "loyal" customers by providing exactly what they advertised.

 

Couple of questions though:

 

1) How are you more "loyal" than the player who did not pre-order the expansion for whatever reason, but has maintained a subscription to this game from day one? Or more "loyal" than the person who spends $25, $50, or $100 every single month in the CM?

 

2) If those who are playing the game this week are due refunds for skill training costs, what about those who paid for training last week? Aren't they just as deserving of refunds to those costs? What about two weeks ago, or even a month?

 

I have a couple of people in my guild that don't have early access. Retraining the forgotten abilities at 55 costs about 50k while the 56 - 60 abilities are costing ~800k+ depending on class. Personally I think people should be compensated for the lost 1 - 55 abilities they have to retrain but the cost is rather miniscule in comparison.

 

Miniscule to whom? Maybe not to you who can afford 800k to training, but remember everything is relative. Maybe those "miniscule" costs to you are much more hefty to that lower-level player than you seem to think.

Edited December 6, 2014 by TravelersWay

[thejadefalcon]

So others must suffer because you have?

 

Who asked anyone to suffer? I just want fair treatment. Either refund the early access players in some fashion or keep the damn training costs. Personally, I think this is a good change, I just hate the fact it's screwing over those who had enough faith to join up early.

[varietasplus]

This came as a surprise, I have to say a great milestone in customer relationship, I did not expect it based on previous experience. After all the negative stuff, this is a huge affection gain for you.

 

I understand it might be unjustified work to refund all training cost from level55-60.

However, it would not seem to be much to refund the training cost of level60, 13-15 skill multiplied with 43.000 credits.

Any characters to have reached level60 before the patch on Tuesday gets that refund.

 

Is that a fair compromise?

[MorgenBlue]

1) How are you more "loyal" than the player who did not pre-order the expansion for whatever reason, but has maintained a subscription to this game from day one? Or more "loyal" than the person who spends $25, $50, or $100 every single month in the CM?

 

People who bought early access bought it without any reviews or a full list of the changes coming in the expansion. People with early access trusted Bioware to deliver a good product without hesitation.

 

2) If those who are playing the game this week are due refunds for skill training costs, what about those who paid for training last week? Aren't they just as deserving of refunds to those costs? What about two weeks ago, or even a month?

 

Everyone has had to pay for the 1 - 55 costs outside of 12x EXP, while only early access players have paid the 56 - 60 costs. They should refund people because it targets a specific group of loyal players.

[TravelersWay]

I have a lot of characters and havent really trained all of their skills untill the 12x xp boost which also made the training free. It is a big dissapointment to see tha we dont get at least some compensation. At least compensate people who got early access.

 

You did, just as you yourself pointed out. You got free training during the 12x XP period.

 

People who bought early access bought it without any reviews or a full list of the changes coming in the expansion. People with early access trusted Bioware to deliver a good product without hesitation.

And again, you got exactly what was advertised. They never advertised that one would be completely satisfied with the product or that it would be bug free. In fact, to expect that is extremely naive, to put it as nicely as possible.

 

Everyone has had to pay for the 1 - 55 costs outside of 12x EXP, while only early access players have paid the 56 - 60 costs. They should refund people because it targets a specific group of loyal players.

And how would that have been different had this occurred without an Early Access period. How would it be any different than had they announced a change to the skill trainer costs in the future (or any different than how they already did it in the past)?

 

In the end, perhaps not enough "loyal" players consider this a slap in the face and are perfectly fine with the solution as announced by BioWare to warrant changing their stance on it at this point.

 

This came as a surprise, I have to say a great milestone in customer relationship, I did not expect it based on previous experience. After all the negative stuff, this is a huge affection gain for you.

 

I understand it might be unjustified work to refund all training cost from level55-60.

However, it would not seem to be much to refund the training cost of level60, 13-15 skill multiplied with 43.000 credits.

Any characters to have reached level60 before the patch on Tuesday gets that refund.

 

Is that a fair compromise?

 

Only to those with level 60's. How about the player who leveled 5 toons to level 59, and haven't reached level 60 yet?

 

See, this is the problem with the demand to refunds of this nature - someone will always feel slighted or screwed over.

Edited December 6, 2014 by TravelersWay

[Scinald]

Still going strong I see. I'm not sure if the people attacking folks who want a credit refund refund are just bored or if there is actually some systemic problem having a refund would cause. If it is the latter, I'd love to hear it. If it is the former, well, get a life.

[DarthDymond]

BW received feedback from dissatisfied customers and responded in a timely (even quick) fashion by making a change to address their concerns. Nothing in that change harmed customers, broke any ToS, or deprived anyone of anything they were entitled to.

 

BUT this valid change to the game, as implemented, resulted in a discrete and identifiable section of the population becoming the only players to ever be subject to certain in-game costs, and several members of that group feel unhappy or disrespected as a result of that side-effect of the change.

 

While BW is under no obligation to adjust the way they are implementing this change, it would probably be a good business move to 'throw a bone' to that discrete and identifiable section of the population - be it a CC grant, a unique item, whatever - in the interests of good will/PR/etc, particularly because that section of the population is defined specifically by an instance of financial support for the game.

[MorgenBlue]

You did, just as you yourself pointed out. You got free training during the 12x XP period.

 

 

And again, you got exactly what was advertised. They never advertised that one would be completely satisfied with the product or that it would be bug free. In fact, to expect that is extremely naive, to put it as nicely as possible.

 

 

And how would that have been different had this occurred without an Early Access period. How would it be any different than had they announced a change to the skill trainer costs in the future (or any different than how they already did it in the past)?

 

In the end, perhaps not enough "loyal" players consider this a slap in the face and are perfectly fine with the solution as announced by BioWare to warrant changing their stance on it at this point.

 

I'm not arguing they should refund the real money for the expansion or anything like that. We got early access as advertised. Changing the training costs without advanced notice for early access players in a time frame that makes it so that early access players had this cost but non-early access players do not is just a slap in the face to the most loyal customers of the game.

It's not a legal issue, it's not that we aren't getting what we paid for, it's just a matter of Bioware not treating it's most loyal customers right.

 

If we had no early access period all players who bought this expansion would of ate the cost rather than only a portion of them, the portion being the most loyal customers Bioware has for this game.

[Gokkus]

I am bummed out about this as well. Altogether it must have cost me about a million creds which are largely wasted.

 

Anyone who is against a refund is just being provocative for no good reason. You cannot possible have a good reason against a refund. Unless I am missing something and it will be very difficult to do so.

[thejadefalcon]

BW received feedback from dissatisfied customers and responded in a timely (even quick) fashion by making a change to address their concerns. Nothing in that change harmed customers, broke any ToS, or deprived anyone of anything they were entitled to.

 

BUT this valid change to the game, as implemented, resulted in a discrete and identifiable section of the population becoming the only players to ever be subject to certain in-game costs, and several members of that group feel unhappy or disrespected as a result of that side-effect of the change.

 

While BW is under no obligation to adjust the way they are implementing this change, it would probably be a good business move to 'throw a bone' to that discrete and identifiable section of the population - be it a CC grant, a unique item, whatever - in the interests of good will/PR/etc, particularly because that section of the population is defined specifically by an instance of financial support for the game.

 

This post exactly. BioWare doesn't have to do anything, but it is in their best interest to, as it keeps customers happy and playing. This sort of change, no, there's nothing players can do about it (the main quest being broken will probably have some legal recourse though, if you want to seek a refund), but as a PR move, what harm would it do, exactly? None. What good would it do? A lot.

[TravelersWay]

Still going strong I see. I'm not sure if the people attacking folks who want a credit refund refund are just bored or if there is actually some systemic problem having a refund would cause. If it is the latter, I'd love to hear it. If it is the former, well, get a life.

 

Or perhaps it's just that we've grown tired of all the asinine hyperbole used to try and justify someone's outrage, whether right or wrong like "slap in the face", "loyal players", and all the other rhetoric, when we have just been presented with one of the greatest and most positive changes to this game in the three years it has been up and running.

 

If you want to feel slighted, go ahead and feel slighted. If you think you are entitled to compensation, despite the fact that you got what you paid for, and in addition to that got the bonus of not having to pay for skills for a full month, then go ahead and ask for it. But just don't be stupid when trying to make up an argument to justify it, and be surprised when you are called out on it.

 

BW received feedback from dissatisfied customers and responded in a timely (even quick) fashion by making a change to address their concerns. Nothing in that change harmed customers, broke any ToS, or deprived anyone of anything they were entitled to.

 

BUT this valid change to the game, as implemented, resulted in a discrete and identifiable section of the population becoming the only players to ever be subject to certain in-game costs, and several members of that group feel unhappy or disrespected as a result of that side-effect of the change.

 

While BW is under no obligation to adjust the way they are implementing this change, it would probably be a good business move to 'throw a bone' to that discrete and identifiable section of the population - be it a CC grant, a unique item, whatever - in the interests of good will/PR/etc, particularly because that section of the population is defined specifically by an instance of financial support for the game.

 

What about all those in the past who suffered the same side-effect from other similar changes? Are they not equally due some compensation as well?

 

I'm not arguing they should refund the real money for the expansion or anything like that. We got early access as advertised. Changing the training costs without advanced notice for early access players in a time frame that makes it so that early access players had this cost but non-early access players do not is just a slap in the face to the most loyal customers of the game.

It's not a legal issue, it's not that we aren't getting what we paid for, it's just a matter of Bioware not treating it's most loyal customers right.

 

If we had no early access period all players who bought this expansion would of ate the cost rather than only a portion of them, the portion being the most loyal customers Bioware has for this game.

 

And how is it BioWare's fault for not forseeing an unforseeable problem and correcting it as quickly as possible. One could say that this issue would never had arisen had they had a proper testing environment in place for patches, but then again, if that were the case, we most likely would not have received the benefit of getting a permanent removal of training costs in the game. This is hardly a slap in the face to the most "loyal" subscribers (again, you have not proven how you are more loyal than someone that gave BioWare 5 times as much as the cost of the expansion in the Cartel Market last week).

 

This is simply a game developer who was made aware of a problem with a part of the game and worked very quickly to rectify that problem. BioWare should be thanked for acting in such a fast and player-friendly manner when many other developers take much longer to do so, if they end up doing so at all.

Edited December 6, 2014 by TravelersWay