Training Costs are a Thing of the Past

[Cernow]

Well this is super awesome and all, but I wish you had either made it effective immediately or held off until it took effect before announcing it.

 

Now I'm staring at half a dozen characters I could be leveling, but I don't want to throw away thousands of credits.

 

Same. I've parked all my characters until the next patch. No point spending millions of credits to train them. I'm not that desperate to play a buggy, laggy expansion anyway, I can wait until the issues are (hopefully) ironed out.

 

But essentially this means my headstart consists of not playing SWTOR much. And yes I know this is MY decision, I could pay to train if I wanted to. I could put up with the lag and bugs if I wanted to. But it's not a lack of credits or patience, for me it's a matter of principle.

 

I resent being taken for a ride, which is how I feel about the handling of this expansion. I feel like I have paid to beta test and been shafted for being a loyal early adopter. I'm not quitting and I'm not demanding a refund, but I will think very carefully about how I approach future content updates and service announcements. As the saying goes, fool me once .......

[khankar]

this is good news but i just spent several thousand credits on my trainer yesterday

[thejadefalcon]

Nope, just trying to get some simple answers to simple questions from someone who claims to hold consumer advocation in high regard. Still waiting for those answers.

 

Just like we're still waiting on why you're so against refunds.

 

Now should everyone (taken what is said above) receive equal recompense, or is it more fair to only refund people exactly what they spent on training costs for the week?

 

You know what would be great? If you could read the thread before asking things that I've already responded to.

 

Wow, that doesn't sound very consumer friendly now does it?

 

When your daughter becomes relevant to the discussion, I'm more than happy to include her in it. As it is, this discussion mostly focuses on those who own the expansion.

 

I believe I said she had mid-level toons - as in 30's-40's.

 

So, exactly what I said. Easily manageable.

 

And you are a fine one to be talking about how one spends credits its seems:

 

Say I keep at least 200k on me at all times (usually I have a lot more (so nice try trying to talk about my credit stash like you have any idea how I play the game), I just happened to enter the expansion with very little due to leaping at a very rare GTN deal). Any other level up, I would be more than covered (except possibly the one with speeder level 3). In this expansion, I had to spend 600k on one level. That is a ridiculous amount.

 

So, are you ever going to answer the question? What's your beef with refunds? What harm could it do to BioWare? We've already established time is not a factor in this as they already have most of the data they would need for basic refunds, possibly even advanced ones regarding what skills were trained. So what's the issue? You don't like other people getting nice things for Christmas?

[Kaywinnit]

People who keep using Eric's "no plans to change" post, as "proof" that BW somehow shafted us Early Access players, need to understand context.

 

The reply was specifically about having to re-train skills we had known pre-3.0, because they changed names, positions in the tree, etc.. it had NOTHING to do with the costs of skill training, that is (was) a separate issue completely.

 

Early Access players didn't get specifically targeted and "shafted" by the removal of training costs. Everyone has had to pay some level of training costs again post 3.0, and now, after Tuesday, everyone will not have to pay training costs for skills again.

 

Some of us Early Access people couldn't afford to train the new skills anyway, some could.. If you rushed all your alts to 60 (despite knowing that Early Access was going to be bug-ridden), then yes, you'll get minimal benefit from the change, until you level a new alt, or the next expansion hits... but for the majority of players.. this is a fair, and good change.

 

 

edit: It's also interesting to me, that some of the same people demanding a refund, are the same people who were all "It's super easy to make credits in this game, no one should complain about the costs"... so, which is it?

Edited December 7, 2014 by Kaywinnit

[FULONGAMER]

The discussion and the BUG in question has nothing to do with whether you were a Pre-Order, Sub, Pref, or F2P player. The BUG equally affects ALL players. The BUG is the fact that PREVIOUSLY owned/paid for abilities....everything that made your character PLAYABLE at whatever level you were on when you logged out BEFORE the patch. After the patch that implemented the Discipline system FOR ALL CHARACTERS/ALL PLAYERS you were now having to RE-BUY the skills you already trained for.

 

The Post that claimed to describe the how/why of this exactly working was patently untenable. Their logic was illogical, the application was disastrous, and the rules they claimed were not followed between mirror classes, and were not applied in practice the way they were described.

 

The PROBLEM arises when a 'toon that worked before the patch now has to RE-BUY the abilities that previously made the character playable in the first place....without a SINGLE element of the new content (for early access) being used. EVERYONE has to eat the Discipline system as fielded, and they ALL have to pay the assorted unbalanced unfair, illogical, reprehensible RE-Train costs BEFORE they have the ability to even get on with their normal gameplay. Yes....we are talking 1-55 gameplay.

 

We expected to have training costs for the NEW levels. We expected to have training costs for any character we were still leveling. Many PPL did NOT farm out their entire stable of characters to 55. Many of us are still enjoying exploring all content, for all classes, for all in-game choices and are not powerleveling. We DON'T do dailies. We DON'T have millions of creds in the bank, and we DON'T appreciate being told we "are playing the game wrong".

 

That said, the requirement to RE-BUY the abilities is what makes this whole thing a wash and a very bad joke. Too many folks are unable to play the characters they want to play because the character is unable to execute ANY previous playable content without being fleeced at the class trainer just to get back up to baseline. What, are you calling the Homeworld/Starter World heroics Dailies for these people?

 

Every other game in existence has had a patch/update rollout that required a full spectrum respec as they change the ability math or skill system in one way or another. This is the first one that claims that historical character ability reconstruction was somehow expected to be at a COST to the character "As Intended".

 

THAT was the mistake. Everyone may have groused at the costs of 55-60 leveling but not significantly if they had just gotten this one thing right. DO. NOT. FORCE. CHARGES. ON. FORCED. RESPECS.

 

Your welcome for our Paid Beta efforts. Thank you for the decision to just pull the plug on the Training Costs from street date 3.0 patch forward. But please remember this lesson.

[TravelersWay]

I promised myself I would not do this but...

 

This is the kind of short sighted, tone deaf response we have sadly gotten used to.

 

I'm an older guy. My entire adult work life has had to do with some form or other of customer service. There are two basic tenants of customer service that have been drilled into my head for as long as I can remember.

 

The first tenant is that "Rule Number 1 - The customer is always right. Rule Number 2 - If the customer is wrong, refer to rule number 1." This one is so important that a man named Stew Leonard had it carved into a boulder and displayed in his flagship Connecticut grocery store.

 

The second tenant is that once you get a paying customer, you do everything within your power to keep them as your paying customer. You don't crap on, lie to, take advantage of, take for granted, your faithful paying customers. It is too easy for a customer to take their dollars elsewhere.

 

What Eric and his team has basically decided is that the faithful customers that pay their subs and preorder the new content are ok with being taken for granted. It was ok to release the expansion full of bugs. It was ok to have folks play through the buggy quests, missing boss loot drops, non-functional dead trees, rarely finishable final Revan fights. It is ok to gut the class systems in the name of streamlining just to make it easier for the developers, at the cost of player uniqueness and enjoyment. Wall bangers and and dot smashers and hybrids - well eff you. We have your money.

 

It is not the fact that the loyal player base supports this game only to get crapped on with an "Oh well this is a better approach" and so those that payed millions to level toons are left with bad feelings and being made to feel unimportant. It is more of the principle that it is ok to screw over the most important folks this game has - namely the subscribers. I'm willing to bet its the subs that not only pay their monthly fee, but also pay the vast majority of dollars into the Cartel Coin system.

 

Eric and team, I think it is in the best interests of goodwill and respect for your players that you retroactively refund training costs for early subscribers. I think it would send an important message that you are not taking those players for granted.

 

Now you see, this is a very well articulated statement, though it still does have a little bit of hyperbole tossed in there - it seems not all subscribers feel shafted in the least at this point.

 

I do have to have take a bit of an issue with those tenants you stated there. You see, having been a business owner myself, there are a few other axioms I learned along the way to help me ensure I was running a business that was profitable and friendly not only towards the consumer, but to my employees as well:

1) Treat customers with respect, but don't let them walk all over you

2) Sometimes it is better for business to let a customer walk out the door than to try to keep them as a customer.

The second one in particular I had to follow through on on several occasions, and my business became better because of it - not only for my employees, but also for my other regular customers, and ultimately for the bottom line.

Edited December 7, 2014 by TravelersWay

[enigmacypher]

just to mention that I think everyone knows it isn't JUST the preorders and max levels (I preordered even though I have nothing beyond 40th level at the time).. IT is just that their numbers look more impressive ..

 

what is failed to be noticed is that 30k for a low level character can be a HUGE amount as well as the 1+ millions posted by max levels..

 

sadly when posting we all have a habit at times of generalizing from or own perspective

[Kaywinnit]

The discussion and the BUG in question has nothing to do with whether you were a Pre-Order, Sub, Pref, or F2P player. The BUG equally affects ALL players. The BUG is the fact that PREVIOUSLY owned/paid for abilities....everything that made your character PLAYABLE at whatever level you were on when you logged out BEFORE the patch. After the patch that implemented the Discipline system FOR ALL CHARACTERS/ALL PLAYERS you were now having to RE-BUY the skills you already trained for.

 

The Post that claimed to describe the how/why of this exactly working was patently untenable. Their logic was illogical, the application was disastrous, and the rules they claimed were not followed between mirror classes, and were not applied in practice the way they were described.

 

The PROBLEM arises when a 'toon that worked before the patch now has to RE-BUY the abilities that previously made the character playable in the first place....without a SINGLE element of the new content (for early access) being used. EVERYONE has to eat the Discipline system as fielded, and they ALL have to pay the assorted unbalanced unfair, illogical, reprehensible RE-Train costs BEFORE they have the ability to even get on with their normal gameplay. Yes....we are talking 1-55 gameplay.

 

We expected to have training costs for the NEW levels. We expected to have training costs for any character we were still leveling. Many PPL did NOT farm out their entire stable of characters to 55. Many of us are still enjoying exploring all content, for all classes, for all in-game choices and are not powerleveling. We DON'T do dailies. We DON'T have millions of creds in the bank, and we DON'T appreciate being told we "are playing the game wrong".

 

That said, the requirement to RE-BUY the abilities is what makes this whole thing a wash and a very bad joke. Too many folks are unable to play the characters they want to play because the character is unable to execute ANY previous playable content without being fleeced at the class trainer just to get back up to baseline. What, are you calling the Homeworld/Starter World heroics Dailies for these people?

 

Every other game in existence has had a patch/update rollout that required a full spectrum respec as they change the ability math or skill system in one way or another. This is the first one that claims that historical character ability reconstruction was somehow expected to be at a COST to the character "As Intended".

 

THAT was the mistake. Everyone may have groused at the costs of 55-60 leveling but not significantly if they had just gotten this one thing right. DO. NOT. FORCE. CHARGES. ON. FORCED. RESPECS.

 

Your welcome for our Paid Beta efforts. Thank you for the decision to just pull the plug on the Training Costs from street date 3.0 patch forward. But please remember this lesson.

 

 

The overall cost of training (and this thread), has absolutely nothing to do with the change that required us (the intentional change, which makes it not a bug), to repurchase skills we already knew pre-3.0. This thread is about the overall cost of training, and the pending removal of that cost. Two different issues.

[FULONGAMER]

The overall cost of training (and this thread), has absolutely nothing to do with the change that required us (the intentional change, which makes it not a bug), to repurchase skills we already knew pre-3.0. This thread is about the overall cost of training, and the pending removal of that cost. Two different issues.

 

No, the entire reason this post exists (Removal of all future training costs) is because of the pudu-storm created by the 3.0 patch that implements a requirement to re-buy the already bought skills for a character. That pushed the tide over in the Backroom discussion they were apparently having up in BioWare about "Training Costs = Yes/No?"

 

Until they stepped on their collective cranks with that bug, they were NOT going to revoke training costs. They were NOT going to corrent the problem, and they were EXPECTING (for some unearthly reason) that the populace would not notice and meekly choke down the bitter pill of Skill Re-Purchase.

 

The Intentional change for skill purchase was the claimed intent. The factual implementation (unbalanced costs across mirrors, not paying for skills their OWN RULE says should be paid for, PAYING for skills their OWN RULE says should NOT be paid for) clearly shows that the code written to translate "Old Skill System" to "Discipline System" skills was BUGGED. We caught it. We complained about it. And they are fixing it with an "officially" unplanned counterstroke by electing to just drop the training costs for class skills as a whole.

[TravelersWay]

Just like we're still waiting on why you're so against refunds.

Where have I ever stated I was against refunds? Please quote me any part of any of my posts that said I think players should not get refunds. In fact, I think at least on one occasion, I said I was all for it. What I am against, and will continue to call out on the forums are people using conjecture, false logic, asinine hyperbole, and unsubstantiated rumor or feelings passed off as fact, among other things to try to defend an argument. In fact, in this post: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7854388#post7854388 I actually provide an example of a post that can be used to defend your position and ask for refunds in a very articulated and thought out manner.

 

You know what would be great? If you could read the thread before asking things that I've already responded to.

I did, and all it seems to show is the hypocrisy of your statements in terms of putting the consumer first, as it appears that you only value that segment of consumers to which you belong...

 

When your daughter becomes relevant to the discussion, I'm more than happy to include her in it. As it is, this discussion mostly focuses on those who own the expansion.

... as evidenced right here. My daughter is a consumer of BioWare and EA by playing this game and spending her allowance to buy things in the CM. She is very relevant to the discussion when the terms involve being a loyal consumer of the game.

 

So, exactly what I said. Easily manageable.

Ahh, OK so ....

 

Say I keep at least 200k on me at all times (usually I have a lot more (so nice try trying to talk about my credit stash like you have any idea how I play the game), I just happened to enter the expansion with very little due to leaping at a very rare GTN deal). Any other level up, I would be more than covered (except possibly the one with speeder level 3). In this expansion, I had to spend 600k on one level. That is a ridiculous amount.

... easily manageable, just like you said. You see, all things are relative. If you truly planned ahead and didn't blow those creds on the GTN deal, you would have been fine ... just like my daughter it seems, oh, but that's right, the best interests of the consumer only go as far as you, I see.

 

So, are you ever going to answer the question? What's your beef with refunds? What harm could it do to BioWare? We've already established time is not a factor in this as they already have most of the data they would need for basic refunds, possibly even advanced ones regarding what skills were trained. So what's the issue? You don't like other people getting nice things for Christmas?

I have answered the question. Now it's your turn.

Edited December 7, 2014 by TravelersWay

[ThatBithGuy]

I want a refund on all the creds I've spent training 55+ skills since SoR release.

[Kaywinnit]

No, the entire reason this post exists (Removal of all future training costs) is because of the pudu-storm created by the 3.0 patch that implements a requirement to re-buy the already bought skills for a character. That pushed the tide over in the Backroom discussion they were apparently having up in BioWare about "Training Costs = Yes/No?"

 

Until they stepped on their collective cranks with that bug, they were NOT going to revoke training costs. They were NOT going to corrent the problem, and they were EXPECTING (for some unearthly reason) that the populace would not notice and meekly choke down the bitter pill of Skill Re-Purchase.

 

The Intentional change for skill purchase was the claimed intent. The factual implementation (unbalanced costs across mirrors, not paying for skills their OWN RULE says should be paid for, PAYING for skills their OWN RULE says should NOT be paid for) clearly shows that the code written to translate "Old Skill System" to "Discipline System" skills was BUGGED. We caught it. We complained about it. And they are fixing it with an "officially" unplanned counterstroke by electing to just drop the training costs for class skills as a whole.

 

 

I'm going to have to disagree. Needing to re-train at 55 (or, lower) is a separate issue from the over all issue of costs being insanely expensive this time around. You can see that BioWare even seems to consider them different issues... we still have to re-train... we don't have to pay the crazy expensive costs.

 

Trying to treat them as the same issue, is why some people are getting bent out of shape (at least, in my opinion). Different, but related issues, and people need to treat them as such.

[LordArtemis]

It is interesting to me to watch how the discussion molds the viewpoints on either side of the fence as it progresses.

 

A few possible realities here. I bet these things are true.

 

1) Bioware did not likely do this to make folks angry or in some conspiracy to gather credits before they planned the announcement.

 

2) A refund or recompense of some sort is not out the question....they have done so in the past, obviously when they felt it was warranted. Also, I imagine most folks would be happy to get something, whether or not the training costs are/were a concern.

 

3) Most folks would likely be happy just knowing the training costs are going away. That does not mean the concerns over the training costs that were INTRODUCED with early access is an invalid concern. They are new costs, and those new costs, as well as the old, will be removed after tuesday.

 

4) The "Just spent around 50k at the trainer for skills that I already earned." thread stands in evidence that Bioware does consider the feedback of the community and factor it in when making decisions, and can do so quickly. The "ETA on Advanced Class change" thread stands in evidence that they do not always cater to player demands no matter how long a discussion has been going on, nor how many folks have rang in.

 

5) Some folks will stand against any change that makes the game easier, or argue a point simply because they are enthralled with the argument, when in reality they would likely accept the outcome they stand against.

 

6) Some folks will likely come to peace with the idea of the costs prior to the removal even if they are upset at the moment.

 

Though a few folks have pointed out the fact that it is not the community that has to be convinced this argument is likely to continue for a while. IMO that is unfortunate, since it drowns the responses of newcomers that want to chime in on the matter.

 

It is my hope more folks come to this thread and add their voice to the debate.

Edited December 7, 2014 by LordArtemis

[Lotharofxev]

Here's my voice - for those of you upset at 3.0, vote with your wallet.

[BAPACop]

The overall cost of training (and this thread), has absolutely nothing to do with the change that required us (the intentional change, which makes it not a bug), to repurchase skills we already knew pre-3.0. This thread is about the overall cost of training, and the pending removal of that cost. Two different issues.

Having to pay a second time to train skills that had already been paid for obviously factors into the overall cost of training.

Edited December 7, 2014 by BAPACop

[wilsonstone]

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

 

Just asking...was this really an issue? I've never really had a problem with training costs. Just curious.

[FULONGAMER]

Just asking...was this really an issue? I've never really had a problem with training costs. Just curious.

 

Yes, it IS an issue, especially when a Game induced change makes your previously playable character unplayable because you are expected somehow to RE-BUY things you already paid for just to return to baseline. Because of the uproar, they are going forward with a previously unannounced backroom plan to just dump Class training costs from the game.

 

I never had a problem with training costs either....it is RE-TRAINING costs that broke the bantha's back. Especially when characters working their way forwards to prepare for the expansion and update already broke the bank getting ready, but now cannot afford to play even old content until they can retrain their old skills back.

[DisIzMe]

It is interesting to me to watch how the discussion molds the viewpoints on either side of the fence as it progresses.

A few possible realities here. I bet these things are true.

1) Bioware did not likely do this to make folks angry or in some conspiracy to gather credits before they planned the announcement.

Change like removing costs of training is not something that just pops up. This will influence the game profoundly,and it is a good change,imo. But it needs to be discussed,planned,prepared and tested in advance.

 

The thing is ,one does not have to be a genious to see that demographics of people who are likely to preorder the game early are mainly subs that invested in the game, with more money then the rest.

Add to it huge sudden rise in training prices,one has to be the opposite of genius if they think that new player that will level his/hers only character from 55 to 60 can pay that kind of credits. You cant think Bioware devs are that disconnected from the game.

So it is perfectly sensible to assume that it is just removing money from economy from players that would otherwise use those credits to bypass the grind needed otherwise.

[BAPACop]

I never had a problem with training costs either....it is RE-TRAINING costs that broke the bantha's back. Especially when characters working their way forwards to prepare for the expansion and update already broke the bank getting ready, but now cannot afford to play even old content until they can retrain their old skills back.

This. I always felt they were a bit silly (why is a Jedi Master charging me $6,000 to teach me how to swing a lightsaber?) but it's suddenly having to repay credits that had already been paid that is annoying. It seems like it's worst for very low and very high level characters. In the middle the prices aren't that bad but for either extreme it takes quite a sizable chunk out of your balance percentage-wise (note that this was the case for my characters and may not apply to everyone).

[Hyperlobic]

Now you see, this is a very well articulated statement, though it still does have a little bit of hyperbole tossed in there - it seems not all subscribers feel shafted in the least at this point.

 

I do have to have take a bit of an issue with those tenants you stated there. You see, having been a business owner myself, there are a few other axioms I learned along the way to help me ensure I was running a business that was profitable and friendly not only towards the consumer, but to my employees as well:

1) Treat customers with respect, but don't let them walk all over you

2) Sometimes it is better for business to let a customer walk out the door than to try to keep them as a customer.

The second one in particular I had to follow through on on several occasions, and my business became better because of it - not only for my employees, but also for my other regular customers, and ultimately for the bottom line.

 

 

Man, I do so love a real discussion and not the typical flame wars that usually ensue any controversy. I loved your response to my original post.

 

I would agree with your sentiments about how you do have to eventually distance yourself from a particular customer based on circumstances. I've seen belligerent customers, plain dumb customers, customers with that angle designed to take advantage of the owner. I think what I would argue in return, though, is that Eric and the Bioware team are not being faced with the post-customer service aspect. They are, in my opinion, either willfully or negligently sticking their thumb in the eyes of the pre-order crowd over this refund thing. Personally, being a long time forum lurker I would vote negligence. Historically there has not been much evidence to suggest that longer term changes such as this one have come about with possible consequences understood - and most importantly articulated defensibly. In fact, I would continue to argue that the way this team operates is in an almost never ending cycle of change > damage control.

 

Ironically, it seems that the Bioware team would be able to collect so much good will, and increased player support if they seemed to be able to look beyond the here and now when making these kinds of changes. An acknowledgement beyond the easy fix. This continues to amuse and baffle me. The answers are so obvious and yet, so tantalizingly just out of reach of these folks.

 

I don't think they are bad people. I do think they lack some of the necessary foresight required of a true customer-centric approach to this game.

 

By the way, occasional hyperbole is enjoyable. It's like the unnecessary exclamation point at the end of this sentence!

[Edzew]

True, but that's over multiple characters, so that's a bit more understandable (again, not condoning the re-training costs themselves, I think that was pretty dumb too). 56-60 is 1 million per character.

 

i think you are missing the point... it cost me the same to retrain 5 of my toons that it cost you to level up your one toon 5 levels. difference is that my money got drained out all at once where as you had time to rebuild up your in game cash flow. stop thinking of just your self and think about everyone that was hit with this... because of this i haven't gotten to experience any of the new content even though i had early access to it. if one person gets compensation then EVERYONE should.

[LordArtemis]

Training costs existed before 12XP.

 

The training costs after it ended, though certainly high, were not out of line with what could normally be considered standard costs on a rising curve.

 

The costs that existed for pretrained or specced abilities were an anomaly IMO. I personally do not feel there was some kind of underhanded intent there.

 

This change was likely brought into the game at this point to address the training anomaly, since it existed throughout the training chain. I believe they were talking about removing costs as an ongoing discussion (probably noticed it was a great feature of the 12XP event at that folks reacted rather positively to it) and this brought it to a head.

 

As a result, some folks feel it was unfair to them considering they already paid the high training (and perhaps retraining) fees.

 

IMO I am not sure if it is unfair, but I can certainly see how it would be frustrating to some, especially those that went broke over it.

[TravelersWay]

Man, I do so love a real discussion and not the typical flame wars that usually ensue any controversy. I loved your response to my original post.

 

I would agree with your sentiments about how you do have to eventually distance yourself from a particular customer based on circumstances. I've seen belligerent customers, plain dumb customers, customers with that angle designed to take advantage of the owner. I think what I would argue in return, though, is that Eric and the Bioware team are not being faced with the post-customer service aspect. They are, in my opinion, either willfully or negligently sticking their thumb in the eyes of the pre-order crowd over this refund thing. Personally, being a long time forum lurker I would vote negligence. Historically there has not been much evidence to suggest that longer term changes such as this one have come about with possible consequences understood - and most importantly articulated defensibly. In fact, I would continue to argue that the way this team operates is in an almost never ending cycle of change > damage control.

 

Ironically, it seems that the Bioware team would be able to collect so much good will, and increased player support if they seemed to be able to look beyond the here and now when making these kinds of changes. An acknowledgement beyond the easy fix. This continues to amuse and baffle me. The answers are so obvious and yet, so tantalizingly just out of reach of these folks.

 

I don't think they are bad people. I do think they lack some of the necessary foresight required of a true customer-centric approach to this game.

 

By the way, occasional hyperbole is enjoyable. It's like the unnecessary exclamation point at the end of this sentence!

 

I do not disagree. Unfortunately, BioWare has suffered from the perpetual PR problem when it comes to SWTOR - though I do not believe 100% of it is entirely their fault.

 

I personally found their method of treating the PTS in the manner they are following 1.2 or 1.3 rather foolish - for the very reason the issue in this thread exists. TBH I do not blame the closed Beta testers. If the PTS acted in any way like it did in previous testing sessions, then 12x XP and free training were automatically implemented on the PTS because they were active on live during the closed test. As a result, none of the testers (presumably who all would have pre-ordered the expansion) would have known the issues with re-training and 56-60 training costs. That of course, rests entirely on BioWare's shoulders, and hence why they need to rethink their testing policies in the future.

 

However, the irony is, had a thorough and proper test of SoR taken place, we likely would not be getting free skill training for life, merely a reduced cost of training the new skills. Quite the quandary.

 

i think you are missing the point... it cost me the same to retrain 5 of my toons that it cost you to level up your one toon 5 levels. difference is that my money got drained out all at once where as you had time to rebuild up your in game cash flow. stop thinking of just your self and think about everyone that was hit with this... because of this i haven't gotten to experience any of the new content even though i had early access to it. if one person gets compensation then EVERYONE should.

 

Again, I do not disagree. You see, I can be a consumer advocate, but unlike other people in this thread, I am an advocate for all consumers of the service - not just a select few I deem worthy.

Edited December 7, 2014 by TravelersWay

[TheSeventhJedi]

Thank the maker I checked this thread before logging in - I'm about to hit 60, and this just saved me half a mil! Thanks BioWare!

[eartharioch]

It is interesting to me to watch how the discussion molds the viewpoints on either side of the fence as it progresses.

 

A few possible realities here. I bet these things are true.

 

1) Bioware did not likely do this to make folks angry or in some conspiracy to gather credits before they planned the announcement.

 

2) A refund or recompense of some sort is not out the question....they have done so in the past, obviously when they felt it was warranted. Also, I imagine most folks would be happy to get something, whether or not the training costs are/were a concern.

 

3) Most folks would likely be happy just knowing the training costs are going away. That does not mean the concerns over the training costs that were INTRODUCED with early access is an invalid concern. They are new costs, and those new costs, as well as the old, will be removed after tuesday.

 

4) The "Just spent around 50k at the trainer for skills that I already earned." thread stands in evidence that Bioware does consider the feedback of the community and factor it in when making decisions, and can do so quickly. The "ETA on Advanced Class change" thread stands in evidence that they do not always cater to player demands no matter how long a discussion has been going on, nor how many folks have rang in.

 

5) Some folks will stand against any change that makes the game easier, or argue a point simply because they are enthralled with the argument, when in reality they would likely accept the outcome they stand against.

 

6) Some folks will likely come to peace with the idea of the costs prior to the removal even if they are upset at the moment.

 

Though a few folks have pointed out the fact that it is not the community that has to be convinced this argument is likely to continue for a while. IMO that is unfortunate, since it drowns the responses of newcomers that want to chime in on the matter.

 

It is my hope more folks come to this thread and add their voice to the debate.

 

(1) is almost certainly true. Here's an abbreviated timeline of what I think likely occurred:

 

Dec 2011 -- The game is released.

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All characters have a similar number of skills, and gain at least one every level. When a player loads a character, the game checks a table of abilities, and based on the character's class, AC, and level, determines if the character has any trainable skills. If so, trainers will show a little plus sign. If the player visits a trainer, it shows the abilities available for training, and the associated cost, which is a constant based on the level at which that skill (or rank) became available).

 

So, somewhere deep in the engine is a table listing all possible skills for each class -- each entry would have at a minimum a Name and the level at which the skill becomes available. I'd "guess" that for skills with multiple ranks, each rank gets a separate entry. i'd also "guess" that each entry *doesn't* contain the cost to train, but rather that the system calculates the cost based on a simple formula.

 

In order to avoid breaking things, it's likely that devs don't remove (or even edit) existing entries. So, to change the name of a skill, change it's level, or whether it's a base class or AC skill probably requires that the devs simply add entries for the new versions of the skills and recode the parts of the engine that reference the skills to use the new ones. There is probably a mechanism for marking skills obsolete (so that they don't show up in a character's Skill UI).

 

Launch to SoR

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Few changes were made that involved creating new skills, but I do recall occasionally having to buy the occasional skill.

 

SoR

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Lots of changes were made. As I mentioned, the engine likely doesn't support custom pricing of skills, so having to [re]buy a variable number of skills is just the way the system works. I'm guessing that the risk/cost of changing the underlying skill training system (which was always separate from the Spec/Discipline part) was determined to be worth more than the "bad will" generated by leaving the costs as is.

 

Obviously, BW miscalculated the amount of "Bad Will" that the costs generated, but that doesn't mean that the devs were wrong in determining that it would be costly (time and risk) to make the modifications necessary to support custom pricing for skills. Furthermore, it wouldn't help people who already purchased the upgrades. While BW probably could write some queries to figure out who had been "mischarged", and by how much, it would take time to implement, and even then, some people would complain.

 

So, given that BW had the ability to remove *all* charges (it's a lot easier to make the trainer always charge 0 Credits than to change it so that certain skills are 0 and others regular cost), the easiest solution would be to remove all future training costs. The future savings should easily dwarf any amount of "unfairly" charged credits for retraining, as well as making it so that the issue wouldn't come back the next time changes are made.

 

None of that had *anything* to do with the expected (if not appreciated) costs for training level 55-60 skills, which were all new. The fact that some people had been buying skills for four days doesn't make eliminating those costs from future purchases unfair, it just means that some people save more than other people. Asking BW to refund credits for "fairly" purchased skills is asking them to do some of the same work (refund skill costs) that they sought to avoid by making all future costs free.