Training Costs are a Thing of the Past

[Fractal_Eye]

Your assumption people complaining did something blindly is is made in ignorance. Plenty of people got an explanation before spending credits, it said this:

 

True, they did post that...

 

A day and a half after the expansion launched.

 

Also, I find it funny that they said there were no plans to change it, but in this thread, he says they've had 'internal discussions' about it for awhile. I wonder which it is.

[Dokar]

Actually I do based on the responses that I'm reading here. As to the majority versus large majority, yeah that was a stupid way to write it out on my part.

 

The forum is a tiny fraction of the player base. unless you have actually polled all pre-ordered players you have no idea.

[LordArtemis]

were refunds given anytime anything was dropped or lowered..by ANY MMO company?

 

Did we get refunds on what we spent when they lowered the cost of removing mods from orange gear?

 

Did we get refunds when they lowered the cost and level of speeder training?

 

I don't care "who" you're asking for..the fact you're asking shows complete greediness and the typical "entitlement" attitude present in more resent generations.

 

Just because things change doesn't make you a special snowflake and deserving of any return.

 

good god...and it's even the first friggin reply. you people are unreal.

 

Suromir, maybe you should take a breath.

 

It is an understandable irritation IMO. However, I personally see it this way...and this is just my perspective mind you...

 

I had to pay, and participate in a rather fiery discussion on the forums in order for this issue to finally get traction. The end result was the final end of training costs for abilities.

 

To me that is a small price to pay for having this happen.

 

I also feel that no matter how much I spent, I will earn it back many times over with future savings as a result of this change.

 

Now, i do not expect everyone to see it this way, and I would welcome any kind of compensation that would be provided to those that feel slighted.

 

There is no reason, IMO, to campaign against a recompense, just like there was no reason to campaign against moving training costs to zero....this is something that some players seem to want, and I fail to see how it hurts anyone.

[ShatteredVision]

This game is such a fking joke.

[Cernow]

I'm a pre-order player and I wasn't effed. Pre-order has nothing to do with the matter - Disciplines is a global system that went live and affected all players. However, there have been many players such as myself that didn't go blindly into something as soon as we logged into our first characters because there was obviously something wrong with the implementation of the skills, and therefore weren't going to spend the vast amounts of creds until some explanation was forthcoming.

 

The problem with your argument is that players were NOT entering into this blind. The issue was raised about the skills charges and there was a yellow post confirming that everything was working as intended:

 

Hey folks,

 

Ok so I have an update on the training/re-training of abilities with the launch of 3.0. With all of the changes that hit with 3.0 to Disciplines, it is intended that there are abilities that need to be trained/re-trained. Here are some of the criteria that could cause this to happen:

• If an existing ability changed, in name or functionality. This could especially affect Disciplines which used to share an overlapping name and set of abilities, such as Lethality Sniper/Operative.
  
• We adjusted at what level you would acquire certain ranks of skills. If you are a character pre-55 you may be training skills at ranks that were previously unavailable.
  
• In some cases we moved abilities from the Base Class to the Advanced Class or vice-versa. This technically means you could have to retrain an ability you already had, since it changed where/how you got it.
  

I had not realized the scope of abilities that would need to be trained or I would have been more proactive in alerting everyone to this prior to 3.0. With this in mind, the need to train/re-train abilities in 3.0 is intended and therefore we are not planning on making any changes at this time. I apologize sincerely for the inconvenience this has caused.

 

Thank you for your understanding.

 

-eric

 

Personally I remained cynical and only trained skills on my main, to get up and running with the expansion. But given that the devs posted that this was all working as intended I'm sure a lot of players reluctantly paid to train their legacy of alts.

 

It's a horrible PR mess that should never have happened. I can't envisage how they can arrange refunds now, but I hope they do something to compensate those most affected.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Cernow

[Fractal_Eye]

The forum is a tiny fraction of the player base. unless you have actually polled all pre-ordered players you have no idea.

 

Well, truthfully, unless you have polled all the players, then you have no idea, either.

[Kadin]

The forum is a tiny fraction of the player base. unless you have actually polled all pre-ordered players you have no idea.

And neither do you. My initial response you replied to was regarding this thread and this thread only. Maybe try reading it again and you'll see I never made a claim that the majority meant all buyers; only posters in this thread.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Kadin

[Karkais]

I'm...honestly shocked and speechless. All I can say is: well done, Bioware, well done.

 

Yes, I did not expect this either. Thanks Bioware.

 

Although the training costs were never more obvious than during this latest level cap increase. I don't remember did I forget to update something previously or was it the bug discussed elsewhere but I had 10 skills to upgrade during last levelup and I did not have money to do so..

[Jeweledleah]

I was on a side of "they are not really obligated to refund anything, until in conversation with guildie, he linked this

 

http://www.morewithlesstoday.com/get-a-refund-when-the-price-drops/

 

in other words. there IS a precedent, fairly large one for companies issuing refunds to early adopters, if the change in pricing was close to their original purchase time.

 

people, as far as I can tell - are not asking for refunds of ALL training costs. people are asking for refunds of credits spent during the last 3 days.

[Pegazuss]

In fact you order the game in advance....and for rewards you have lags in Yavin 4 and you have to pay extra credits for your spell ..... For next extension I will become free to play and not order the game in advance, like that I will have no lag, no extra credit expenses !!!!

[Dokar]

nevermind Edited December 6, 2014 by Dokar

[LordArtemis]

I agree it should not have happened. However, I think, personally, that has more to do with how much they were trying to do here and not so much a lack of professionalism.

 

As I said earlier, the timing was the problem. Had disciplines been released separate from Revan, this might have been avoided.

 

However, I do feel this is a huge step to remedy the situation. I expect this will soften the "blow" of disciplines for the players after the expansion hits.

 

For those of us that went early access, we lost a substantial amount of credits with this, but saved a substantial amount during 12XP and will continue to do so from tuesday forward.

 

To me that is a big deal.

 

I do think this remains unfair to some players, and would welcome some kind of compensation to those players if it is offered.

At this point, however, I think working toward some kind of addition of 12Xp to the game would be far more beneficial to all, including those slighted by this.

[Kadin]

I was on a side of "they are not really obligated to refund anything, until in conversation with guildie, he linked this

 

http://www.morewithlesstoday.com/get-a-refund-when-the-price-drops/

 

in other words. there IS a precedent, fairly large one for companies issuing refunds to early adopters, if the change in pricing was close to their original purchase time.

 

people, as far as I can tell - are not asking for refunds of ALL training costs. people are asking for refunds of credits spent during the last 3 days.

Correct. That's all I'm trying to get. The only reason this happened, I feel, is because of the thread that was made here on Tuesday which really highlighted this issue. They then made the choice to change it and just dismiss those of us who already paid the prices yet next week, the rest of the players get it all at no cost. Asking them to refund the costs to the players who created that thread and everyone else in this early access is not asking for too much. It's pretty simple to see why people are a tad irked about it.

[Pagy]

last time i preorder anything from these bioware clowns

 

here's my money in advance, what i get?

 

a week of lunplayable ability lag

a final boss that's broken in about 10 different ways

an expansion of two tiny planets that can be finished in a cpl of hours

now you're punishing me by making me pay an extra million credits for abilities

[TziganeNZ]

I haven't lost too many credits as only looked at my lvl 40 sorc who I am levelling at the moment, and haven't touched my 55 GS, BH or IA yet. I'm not fussed about getting the credits back - these things happen. I'm just pleased I found this thread before logging in to my high level characters. I will have a break from the game until after Tuesday and then redo everything for all characters.

[RADD]

Well played, BW. I'll be sticking around.

[Fractal_Eye]

For those of us that went early access, we lost a substantial amount of credits with this, but saved a substantial amount during 12XP and will continue to do so from tuesday forward.

 

To me that is a big deal.

 

While I respect your post (and pretty much all of your posts), the above is only true if you didn't already have all your characters at max level (like I did) before the pre-order offer. I pre-ordered mainly for the early access, and also because I really do love this game (the team? not so much sometimes). I do agree with saving the substantial amount from next week on, though.

 

(Again, as I've posted in this thread, I'm not grabbing pitchforks and torches over no reimbursement. I truly appreciate them eliminating the costs in the future, but I do feel something should be given to people who did spend credits on skills these past few days.)

[XyonicS]

Thanks for dropping the fee for skills, still a shame we spent so much already, but I spose it a win in the long run and sure as hell a lot better than nothing being done at all. I will wait until next week to play again so I don't spend any more on skills.

[Malorey]

Awesome news...thank you!

[Viraxis]

Its not early access, its paid open beta.

[Andryah]

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

 

Nicely done. It's the correct solution (because it largely solves the issues players are having, and it's a simple thing to do on Bioware's end of things).

 

Also...it will continue to benefit players moving forward... which IMO makes up for any expenditures done before this goes in to effect.

 

One clarification, in advance, Eric .. does this apply to all players, including F2P and Preferred?

Edited December 6, 2014 by Andryah

[enigmacypher]

Waiting for the post that says because it would be unfair to give free training to some and not those already paid we are going to make everyone pay and pay and pay..

 

I agree it was sad and in some ways (many ways) unfair but think of how hard it would be to "fix" the amount you get back ..

 

I spent 30k on one but some are posting as much as 1 million credits for training..

 

They could bankrupt the game and give all characters a one to one look over and then after everyone gets their credits bring down the servers and let everyone know SWTOR is broke and can no longer continue service..

 

I know it ISN'T fair but sadly there really isn't much of a solution save to return to pay for training for everyone .. which is probably why it took so long for them to say anything about this..

 

Please let's all try to be fair to everyone.. Christmas is coming and Yoda knows if you have been naughty or nice.

[LordArtemis]

While I respect your post (and pretty much all of your posts), the above is only true if you didn't already have all your characters at max level (like I did) before the pre-order offer. I pre-ordered mainly for the early access, and also because I really do love this game (the team? not so much sometimes). I do agree with saving the substantial amount from next week on, though.

 

(Again, as I've posted in this thread, I'm not grabbing pitchforks and torches over no reimbursement. I truly appreciate them eliminating the costs in the future, but I do feel something should be given to people who did spend credits on skills these past few days.)

 

Its a fair point. I do realize that my situation is just my own, and certainly it will not apply to everyone. There are those that are still slighted, and certainly it would be nice if they were compensated.

 

I would support such a move if they made it. I am not one of those that would stand against it, considering it doesn't hurt the game in any way I can see. So I see no reason NOT to do it.

 

I will only say this....I truly believe, deep down, that this change came about based on positive constructive discussion. I also believe that any movement to engage Bioware in recompense will be hindered by hyperbole.

 

That doesn't mean I do not think some players are still slighted...they obviously are. But insulting Bioware or its devs directly is not the way to move this forward. Criticizing their actions...that is fair game IMO.

 

Criticism is welcome and perhaps warranted. But those that choose to discuss this passionately should remember that the ears they are touching make the decisions, and folks are less likely to have empathy for those that deride them.

 

Just my take. Certainly not directed at your post BTW. Just a general statement.

Edited December 6, 2014 by LordArtemis

[kumiorava]

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

 

Again those who pre-ordered are getting ****ed. I spent well over a million training skills during the early access, and now you decide to drop the training costs completely! Weekly missions are bugged and can not be completed. Ops bosses are not dropping the loot they're supposed to. We're like guinea pigs testing a defective game. Last time I pre-order anything from EA/Bioware.

 

:mad:

[Xzerofour]

So they wanted best of both worlds my money for early access and all my credits lol to good!!!