Training Costs are a Thing of the Past

[Reno_Tarshil]

You're not getting a refund because it's Credits and not real money...

[Dbohrius]

Well, I pre-ordered to have the 12x XP and level up 5 toons from 1 to 55. On the day SoR went live I sunk about 1 million creds on ability training -- but I also got quite a fat loot on the Rishi chests.

 

So yeah, all things considered, I'm very glad this will happen, even if my Legacy could be about 1 million credits richer.

[Kirazy]

your dollar, but you just opened the door for "demand refund" threads. Oh well.

 

Uh, yeah? I have literally spent 2 million or more credits on training skills alone, since TUESDAY. And they just now announce, oh, we're going to make them free?

 

That's awesome! But I just halved what little credits I had to train up skills. :|

[Kirazy]

You're not getting a refund because it's Credits and not real money...

 

You're really not in a position to know anything at all about if there will or won't be one.

[FULONGAMER]

Thank you Eric for the consideration and elevation of the problem and the application of a fix. We know and admit that no solution would please every person across the board. At least some action in a positive direction has been taken.

 

Now, I won't join in the mass screaming for the "refund" of already spent Early Access "Retraining" costs....

..And I feel that this "solution" is almost a far over-correction, I won't look a gift bantha in the mouth. I don't have a problem from the standpoint of paying training costs from the "Existant" character going forward, just the RE-paying of training costs for already purchased content/abilities/whatever. (and yes, no matter how you skin it, the "structure" purchased to be a fully playable character as of the last instant before the servers shut down to update is reasonably expected to be just as fully functional at no "additional" cost after the patch completes) THAT was the lightsabre proctology we dropped our heels and balked at.

I will be playing just the 2-3 characters I updated at negligible "REtrain" costs (and the Commando that got completely fleeced) in the new content until Full Release date. Then flesh out the remainder of my 19 characters when this hotfix goes live. Once all of that is done with...THEN the rest of the crew can join in. Hopefully that will allow the needed patches to "other" expansion bugs to be resolved as well.

I would say that a more elegant move would be to just re-flip the "No Training Costs" plugin you were using during x12 XP so the Pre-Order contingent that brought this problem front and center for immediate Executive action could just get on with "Early Access" in its intended Spirit, rather than "Live Beta" as executed. But hey, this ain't Star Trek (No Time Travel allowed) and we have to deal with the remaining cards we've been dealt.

Edited December 5, 2014 by FULONGAMER
additional information

[ron_harmeling]

Now I just found out that training skills will be free from next week on, and that pre-orders are shafted AGAIN.

 

No refunds ... SERIOUSLY ? It's technically possible and even easy, so DO IT.

 

We had to deal with horrible lag, bugged missions, bugged skill training costs (commandos forked in 700K at level 55).

 

I ask you for a refund on all my toons over 55. It's the least you can do.

 

This is ridiculous. Maybe the last time I pre-order an expansion, as we always get screwed over one way or another.

 

Total damage picture : over 6 million over 5 toons, thanks a lot.

 

This has also been sent to CS. It's simply outrageous to treat the most loyal playerbase like this.

[DarthVitrial]

I obviously would appreciate a refund of the 400K I spent on training, but I'm quite happy that training costs are gone (and it's not exactly hard to earn 400K in this game ).

On the other hand, if training is no longer a credit sink, why make it a thing at all? Why not just autotrain abilities at level up?

[Horano_Heresy]

Great to hear!

[Siokai]

You're not getting a refund because it's Credits and not real money...

 

Except that I can buy credits with real money, soooo it is real money.

[TravelersWay]

So early access got us screwed? Well done...

 

The cost of being an early adopter. Been like that in the tech world for a decade. For instance, those who want to play a game on launch day will pay the premium price to do so. Those who wait will be able to buy the game on sale or at a reduced rate down the road.

[SaveTheMonkeys]

Good. A bit late for your early access players, but its always good to see things change as a result of feedback. I spent 600K on lvl 60 abilities alone, but eh, its imaginary money.

 

Doesn't this kind of make skill trainers redundant, then? If you're not paying for it, then its just another trip to another vendor. Perhaps there's a way to allow you to get new/upgraded abilities directly through your abilities window? An automatic upgrade might work, but I think it'd be helpful to click on something, just so you can understand what's upgraded and by how much.

[ChroniKill]

So, the >1.5m credits I spent leveling my Sage and Sorcerer to 60 over the past 3 days as a result of me pre-ordering would have been avoided had I waited and not given BW my money upfront....... Seriously? That's just a kick in the teeth when combined with the excessive lag and buggy quests.

[KyaniteD]

This isn't something new that came out of no where. It should have been Dec 2. If they made this decision from SCRATCH between Dec 2 and today, I would be surprised.

 

Actually, I take that back- I wouldn't be surprised after this.

 

I understand your position. Several things should and shouldn't have happened. But once the cart is in the mud (as we say in German), it helps little to discuss where you took the wrong turn, you have to focus on how to get it out of there. And wishing for things that are not feasible, like I suspect refunds are, isn't helpful, either.

 

I'm not thrilled to pay the training costs on a couple of characters to play them over the weekend, but I'm thrilled I won't have to pay for the rest of them, so I take this as a peace offering and move on.

[justinplainview]

The cost of being an early adopter. Been like that in the tech world for a decade. For instance, those who want to play a game on launch day will pay the premium price to do so. Those who wait will be able to buy the game on sale or at a reduced rate down the road.

except that in the tech world if it's within one week you can go into literally any department store or best buy or target etc etc etc and return it or get the price matched within a 7 day span.

[Pagy]

i spent like 500k x2 for my characters this week

 

**** you people are cruel

[MokiDono]

This is an insult towards the players who pre ordered, and invested the time and money into this game to get themselves into raiding shape asap. I could have use those millions elsewhere.

 

Not as big of an insult as the fact that the last Operation bosses doesnt drop loot. Whose gonna compansate progression guilds for that?

Edited December 5, 2014 by MokiDono

[Phobokos]

Yet didn't spend millions of credits getting your characters leveled during 12xXP? You sure are grateful aren't you (so wish there was a sarcasm font), and I doubt it took you 2 million credits to retrain skills. Its not that much. Maybe 50k per character.

Level a toon to 60 and pay for retraining before tuesday. Lemme know if your figures are close even in a "cosmic" scale.

[DarthFamine]

Thank you,

[TravelersWay]

except that in the tech world if it's within one week you can go into literally any department store or best buy or target etc etc etc and return it or get the price matched within a 7 day span.

 

Except now, in a week, any future tech purchases are absolutely free until the end of time. Not that bad of a deal in the end.

[Tsillah]

Well I'm happy with this. Sure I blew 3 million creds on my first 3 toons to hit 60 this week but at least I know the remaining 17 will not cost me all that

 

As a sub who pre-orderd I do not feel insulted just happy.

 

Oh and btw Eric, off topic but I am so happy that you guys took care of the relic situation and that pvp relics now suck in pve in comparison to the pve ones now. I really am most pleased with that change as well

[Kirazy]

I understand your position. Several things should and shouldn't have happened. But once the cart is in the mud (as we say in German), it helps little to discuss where you took the wrong turn, you have to focus on how to get it out of there. And wishing for things that are not feasible, like I suspect refunds are, isn't helpful, either.

 

I'm not thrilled to pay the training costs on a couple of characters to play them over the weekend, but I'm thrilled I won't have to pay for the rest of them, so I take this as a peace offering and move on.

Refunds not feasible?

 

The following are known:

1. What skills a player has access to.

2. What they cost to train at the various levels and ranks.

3. What skills a player has actually trained and paid for.

 

With that information it would be possible (perhaps not EASY, but absolutely possible) to essentially do the process in the reverse direction, adding up all the various ability costs and refunding that amount. Essentially all you would be doing would be zeroing out ability costs going forward, and then a script that reads player data to determine what skills you have, comparing it to a database of skill costs, tabulating that information and refunding it. You could even have cutoff points, as I rather expect they have logs that would indicate WHEN you trained a particular skill. So December 2nd forward (since the last two months ability costs were 0, it'd be odd to receive money for those) all abilities trained could be tabulated and refunded. The costs aren't dynamic, they're static and known.

[PavSalco]

I expect you to come out with some kind of additional reward (anything, like a unique toy or pvp terminal for strongholds, or additional days of subscription, anything will be good). Just acknowledge that your service during Early Access wasn't great and your customers deserve a fair deal. A token of appreciation for your loyal customers that experienced a great deal of hardship while playing in Early Access.

 

Blizzard decided to give players 5 days of additional subscription for their poor Early Access. Here, in SWTOR we could at least join servers and play, but that doesn't change a fact that a reward would be appreciated.

 

It's a great thing that the training skills are going to be free. It will help new players or those who don't make money. I bet Bioware noticed in their statistics that lots of players didn't learn skills in 3.0 because they simply hadn't enough credits.

 

BUT

 

(I apologize for harsh words) You screw your loyal customers over and over again. Cartel Packs missing decorations that turned out to be moved to future packs. Bugs that are not addressed (e.g. the infinite loading screen wasn't fixed for months) and now Early Access that turns out to be Screw You Access.

 

Early Access is supposed to be a reward for people that support this game the most. By spending money without hesitation we want to enjoy the story earlier and receive some kind of bonus, not being a lab rats that play on the worse terms than the players that are going to play it later. That's not a deal that we wanted to get. This is not how customers should be treated.

 

Early Acess instead of being a reward, it's just screwing people all over the place.

 

1. The final mission is bugged. The most important mission is barely doable. I've done it and I didn't complain about it...but now too many things are WRONG, so I won't turn a blind eye to Revan bug.

 

2. Enormous number of credits wasted for skills while others get it for free next week.

It would be okay if it was the other way around, so players from Early Access would get it for free, but no. We're lab rats, mere testers.

 

3. Decorations disappearing after picking them up and missing from the list. I'm an active housing player and I can't redecorate my houses at this moment. I want my decorations back in the same number as they were.

 

Do you have any idea how many hours I've spent to get where I am in terms of credits? I'm not a big GTN player. I don't craft things that are worth millions. For me it's NOT a matter of a few seconds to make good credits. I spent a lot of time doing dailies and operations to get that number. So spending 300/500/700k on the training skills is still a great lost because it will take a while to recover them back. So much for being an Early Access player. Thanks.

 

Yeah... That's pretty cold. Great way to treat your most loyal customers. On my 16 characters, I'm in it over 4.5 million credits I won't get back. So, thanks for that. I mean at 60, there are more than a dozen abilities to train at over 43k a piece.

 

You guys need to work on figuring out your market before you get them all upset.

 

+1

Edited December 5, 2014 by PavSalco

[Kirazy]

Except now, in a week, any future tech purchases are absolutely free until the end of time. Not that bad of a deal in the end.

 

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm pleased and will wait patiently for the change to go into affect.

 

But I'm totally smarting too, having spent several million credits on training in the past three days, and if I had been slower, or waited three days, not even a week but three days, I could have saved millions.

 

I'm not wealthy in-game, I have a modest sum of credits. I spent a not-insignificant proportion of my total wealth on skill training that in a few days would have cost me nothing.

[BrianDavion]

I think a refund might be a bit much, and hoenstly it's proably for the best the money was sunk from the economy anyway. but in light of this and all the bugs we've ahd to contend with, it might not be a bad idea to gift pre-orderers with something to soften the blow, even if just a pet or title or something

[Mariojediwookie]

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

I really appreciate how fast this decision was made. It limits the damage to my bank account. I actually held off from training so I'm not complaining at all. I do feel for those who have already trained though.....those new skills were uber expensive.