Response to dev post in "Training costs are a thing of the past"

[-Damask-]

You're not doing this simply because "players do not like training costs", that's total nonsense imo. There are hundreds of things in the game players "do not like" but they stay in because it equals more play time and by extension more profit for BW. Same thing with the 12x xp- that was nothing more than a great idea by the devs to get people to pre-order, and in turn to spend more time leveling that they would have not done otherwise, and now those people have X number of extra toons to gear which equals, you guessed it, more play time.

 

You're likely doing this because you feel having training costs might alienate an already transient f2p population and they may decide the game sucks and quit. That's really who this is benefiting. So many changes of late have been for the sole benefit of that class of player; you're motivations are so transparent! The game was already laughably easy before 3.0, so much so that only soloing 4-man content provided any real challenge. Yet you make more nerfs to leveling difficulty so its even easier now- instead of requiring that new players learn what an interrupt is and require they use it to pass their class bosses. 90% of the time when someone is on DK asking for help killing their class boss it is because they don't even know they can interrupt; and anyone who groups with them and helps them or kills the boss for them does them a huge disservice. How 'bout actually teaching players how not to suck, bioware? How about teaching players why they need to keep their hilt and barrel updated, and why they shouldn't be mixing strength and aim gear, and why they need to augment, instead of giving them ridiculous god mode Makeb bolster that supports non-existent skills and terrible gear?!?

 

The fact remains that this change in training costs is of little benefit to long time, loyal subscribers who have already leveled their toons before the change was announced, or for players who can afford the cost of training; or for someone who already has their character cap and plans on leveling no more toons. (I know people will respond by saying "You're wrong, Ive played for years and I only have 200k, I'm terrible at managing money, I waste all my credits on cartel junk" etc..., but all you would have had to do to remedy that would be lower the costs of training to a reasonable level. You could have simply said in the patch notes "we have lowered the cost of training to coincide with inflation" or whatever. )

 

What people are really upset about that you guys don't seem to understand is that it was the pre-order players, and some of your most loyal customers- who got the shaft! We spent our money to test your beta release for you, and the others who don't give enough of a crap about the game to pre-order and/or who just started playing yesterday are the ones who are seeing the rewards of this. That is not right!

 

Bioware needs to start adding more features for the player who has 8-16 max level characters. Everything in game currently supports low-character legacies and low skill levels. When I heard on the livestream that you were removing pushback because players having to know what channeled ability ticks were and how they worked was too difficult for most players- it made me sick! Instead of tailoring the game to people with Forrest Gump level of intelligence, how 'bout actually developing training missions that teach necessary skills! You started to do that but abandoned it on Korriban after the this is what mod stations are mission. Help players to make themselves better- don't keep dumbing down the game like you are now, until a monkey could play it!

 

Another prime example of the your abysmally low image of the player base is how you think 10mil credits is actually an achievement! You can make a million a day easily by simply doing dailies! Some players have over a billion ffs! The fact that you think 10mil is actually something to strive for is representative to how bad you think we all are at gaming! Its highly insulting! I know you guys don't play seriously (I have watched the streams), but just because you only have one or two toons and only play a few hours a week doesn't mean we do! How about adding some reasonable credit titles that actually give us something to strive for (100mil, 500mil, 1bil)???

 

You really don't want to lose your founder players in favor of gaining a few transient players who sub for a few months and move on. Or maybe you do. Perhaps you never learned how its much more expensive to gain a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

 

It's obvious that you don't expect players to have multiple characters- that's very clear to us. The way you re-use ability icons across classes and factions proves that. I could list a dozen conflicting icons right now and so could anyone else who has one of each 8 ACs. And while that's not a huge problem (unless you play all of those classes regularly), it shows the level of attention to detail you guys work with over there at BW. Currently there is nothing in game that you get as a reward for a full legacy that actually matters. Sure you get a cool-down on quick travel, a title, maybe something else minor, but really nothing decent; certainly nothing that comes close to 600k credits per toon. (Of course you guys have a totally fubar view of what constitutes a lot of credits- reminds me of the BH class mission when Mako says something like "more credits than you've ever seen in your life" , and then the mission rewards less than 5k" )

 

If I were bioware I would make a 5th, totally OP, dps class that you can only unlock when you hit max presence. Give people a tangible reason to level alts! As it is now you give people a reason not to level alts- specifically if they have and use HK

 

Do the right thing Eric- give us something free that we can actually use. Give us free extractions from legacy gear for ever for anyone who preordered! Give us something that shows that you actually care about the guy who has played the game religiously every week for two years, and something that we actually want (current CE and pre-order vendors are a joke). That's the only thing that will alleviate the high level of hostility I have for you guys after what you just did to those of us who showed our faith in you and bioware by pre-ordering Shadow of Revan.

 

Now bring on the idiot teenage trolls who say "umadbro" or "If you dont like it leave" and mindless bioware fan-boys who disagree with my entire post but fail to address a single point.

Edited December 14, 2014 by -Damask-

[Frybert]

*Points at horse you are beating* Its dead Jim.

[-Damask-]

Precisely the kind of intelligent conversation I was hoping for. I'd be amazed if you read past the first paragraph. Thanks for proving my point about how bioware is developing for the player with a short attention span.

 

I must disagree with your assertion however; simply the fact that the last dev post was on page 3 of a 90+ page thread proves that the issue is very much alive. It will remain so until they do something about it.

[Silverspar]

Precisely the kind of intelligent conversation I was hoping for. I'd be amazed if you read past the first paragraph. Thanks for proving my point about how bioware is developing for the player with a short attention span.

 

I must disagree with your assertion however; simply the fact that the last dev post was on page 3 of a 90+ page thread proves that the issue is very much alive. It will remain so until they do something about it.

 

Well when you make an intelligent post that actually discusses a point of view, you might get an intelligent response. Reading through your main body of rage induced histrionics, you didn't come anywhere close to a rational idea or thought. Sounded more like I want and I deserve in the end.

[swtorsuxballz]

umad? cos u sound mad

[-Damask-]

LOL so basically your response is "TLDR, but I disagree with all of it"

[Beakertanks]

Have played since original pre release. Have a ridiculous amount of time played. Do a bit of everything in this game. So I am the exact kind of person you are speaking for. and.....

 

I DISAGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU SAID.

 

I won't go line by line, because I have a life, I will just say RELAX bro. The game is fine. The things that are supposed to be hard are hard, the things that are "make work" are easy, and the F2Pers saved the game. So please, drink a beer, or hit a bong and go do some questing and chill the hell out.

[Khevar]

You have a phenomenally long post, and I don't have the energy to discuss it at length.

 

I will instead comment on one part of it.

The fact remains that this change in training costs is of little benefit to long time, loyal subscribers and dedicated players who can already afford the cost of training; or for someone who already has their character cap and plans on leveling no more toons.

I'm a player just as you describe.

 

Been here for almost 3 years. I haven't quite hit character cap, but I'm close. I have no plans to level any more toons.

 

But I certainly didn't get all of them to level 60 in the three freaking days between start of early access and the announcement about free training. So I'm going to save PLENTY of money for any of these I choose to take to 60.

 

You're trying to present this weird scenario describing someone who was "hurt" by free training, and I'm just not seeing it.

 

Edited December 14, 2014 by Khevar

[jedimessiah]

Well if you don't like it you can just.. oh wait you covered that.

 

Kidding aside I couldn't agree more. Been playing the game since early beta and while I really like the expansion in some ways (the story, the ambiance, overall flow) I'm counting down the days till my Aunt Wilma sends me a friend referal link along with all her other candycrush farmville garbage.

 

/Standing ovation

[-Damask-]

Khevar, what we are talking about is the 5 day period where pre-orders leveled from 55 to 60 and had to pay around 600k per character, only to be later told it would be free for everyone who did not preorder.

 

Of course free training is a good thing. We are upset because the most dedicated players who preordered and then leveled multiple toons right after 3.0 launch are the ones getting screwed.

 

Many many people spent millions on this, many of my guildies leveled one toon per day from 55 to 60 before the announcement. Personally I don't even look at the cost of the training, I just click and go. However I am trying to speak for others who leveled many alts right after 3.0 and now do not get a refund. We should not have to pay millions of in game credits to test a beta release if it will be free for everyone else later on. It has been said that it would not be possible to refund those costs accurately, all I'm saying is they should give us something else as thanks.

 

Beaker I'm guessing you haven't fought the emperor recently.

Edited December 14, 2014 by -Damask-

[Beakertanks]

Khevar, what we are talking about is the 5 day period where pre-orders leveled from 55 to 60 and had to pay around 600k per character, only to be later told it would be free for everyone who did not preorder.

 

Of course free training is a good thing. We are upset because the most dedicated players who preordered and then leveled multiple toons right after 3.0 launch are the ones getting screwed.

 

Many many people spent millions on this, many of my guildies leveled one toon per day from 55 to 60 before the announcement. We should not have to pay millions of in game credits to test a beta release if it will be free for everyone else later on. It has been said that it would not be possible to refund those costs accurately, all I'm saying is they should give us something else as thanks.

 

Beaker I'm guessing you haven't fought the emperor recently.

 

Two weeks ago.

And I would like to point out the logical fallacy of saying money is really easy to make and that 10 mil is nothing and then complaining that you spent 10 mil.

We got a week of early play. We got 12x xp. That is all we were ever promised. If you didn't like that deal then you shouldn't have pre ordered.

[TheSupaCoopa]

Khevar, what we are talking about is the 5 day period where pre-orders leveled from 55 to 60 and had to pay around 600k per character, only to be later told it would be free for everyone who did not preorder.

 

Of course free training is a good thing. We are upset because the most dedicated players who preordered and then leveled multiple toons right after 3.0 launch are the ones getting screwed.

 

Many many people spent millions on this, many of my guildies leveled one toon per day from 55 to 60 before the announcement. Personally I don't even look at the cost of the training, I just click and go. However I am trying to speak for others who leveled many alts right after 3.0 and now do not get a refund. We should not have to pay millions of in game credits to test a beta release if it will be free for everyone else later on. It has been said that it would not be possible to refund those costs accurately, all I'm saying is they should give us something else as thanks.

 

Beaker I'm guessing you haven't fought the emperor recently.

 

You said you could make 1 mil a day by just doing dailies. 600k shouldn't be a problem then.

 

-Duran'del

[-Damask-]

Ok well that should arguably be the most difficult fight in the game. It is easier than many other intermediate class bosses that come way before your final ch3 quest. It is 1/3 the length of other final class bosses. I don't think they should be nerfing the Emperor fight so f2p can beat him without proper gearing, tactics, etc...

 

Again, the cost of training is not a burden to me. It is the fact that only pre-orders had to pay it that got everyone upset.

Edited December 14, 2014 by -Damask-

[MillionsKNives]

I congratulate anyone who waded all the way through that wall of butthurt. I couldn't make it past half way through the second paragraph. Dude needs to get over himself.

[Beakertanks]

Ok well that should arguably be the most difficult fight in the game. It is easier than many other intermediate class bosses that come way before your final ch3 quest. It is 1/3 the length of other final class bosses. I don't think they should be nerfing the Emperor fight so f2p can beat him without proper gearing, tactics, etc...

 

Again, the cost of training is not a burden to me. It is the fact that only pre-orders had to pay it that got everyone upset.

 

You have a point that the training cost thing was a snafu. However, having been with this game from the beginning, the snafu barely rates a 3 on the richter scale of BW screw-ups in this game.

[Kaywinnit]

Played since Beta, pre-ordered all the expacs (so, just the playerbase you're trying to speak for).. and you know what?

 

I totally disagree with you. I think this was a good thing for BW to do, and it benefits pre-orders just as much as it does players who didn't pre-order (with the possible exception being someone who does only have one character, and had leveled it to 60 by the time this change was announced -assuming they paid for all their skills along the way).

 

 

edit: Also, you keep using "everyone"... I don't think that means what you think it means.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Kaywinnit

[-Damask-]

Why do you think it was a good thing for bioware to do? How does it benefit pre-orders as much as others?

 

Also Beaker, I agree it was a minor snafu; it was how they handled it that got people upset. If you read the other thread you will see just how many were upset. I chose not to post there because I know there is no chance any dev would see it on page 93.

 

Also you tell me the game is fine, but at the same time you care enough to post about the terrible tank earpices/implants. You obviously do not think the game is fine. Your wanting to punch them in the throat is not at all unlike my feelings here.

Edited December 14, 2014 by -Damask-

[tdmaha]

Oh cute another "Im entitled thread" just what we needed....

[-Damask-]

You should work on your self esteem if you do not believe that you are entitled to receive a certain level of value for your money.

[DarthTHC]

Precisely the kind of intelligent conversation I was hoping for. I'd be amazed if you read past the first paragraph. Thanks for proving my point about how bioware is developing for the player with a short attention span.

 

I must disagree with your assertion however; simply the fact that the last dev post was on page 3 of a 90+ page thread proves that the issue is very much alive. It will remain so until they do something about it.

 

I already know it's not worth reading. You spewed 10,000 words on a topic that has been dead and buried since it was announced. Do you feel better for typing all that, at least?

 

You should work on your self esteem if you do not believe that you are entitled to receive a certain level of value for your money.

 

I believe that I receive the value that I pay for with my pre-order of the game, pre-order of RotHC, pre-order of SoR, and $15/month since December 2011. If I did not feel I received entertainment value equal to what I've paid, I would stop paying.

 

I definitely do not need the game to hand me MORE credits on top of the hundreds of millions it already has to feel better about paying my sub.

 

Yeah, it's incredible how those credits accumulate if you can somehow manage to not spend them the second you get them.

Edited December 14, 2014 by DarthTHC

[WSRB]

I think this is brilliant. I think that EA and BioWare need to step up and start compensating everyone who's had to deal any of the stupid crap and/or minor inconvenience that once existed prior to any policy change that has ever been made. Loyal paying customers have been getting slapped in the face with this stuff since before the game launched, and I think that it is time that we said enough is enough.

 

 

I demand compensation for every character that I leveled up to 50 before guild XP boosts were available in the game.

 

I demand compensation for the hours lost grinding endgame gear before it was invalidated by a new tier and/or level cap raise.

 

I demand compensation for the idiotic decision at launch to make players have to be level 15 before they could even sprint.

 

I demand compensation for the time I had to spend running on Taris/Balmorra/Nar Shadda/Tatooine prior to the speeder training level being lowered to level 15.

 

I demand compensation for the thousands of in game credits spent on speeder training at level 25.

 

I demand compensation for the failure to launch with any type of SGR conversation options.

 

I demand compensation for the failure to give us an option to turn off flirt options in NPC conversations.

 

I demand compensation for the failure to promptly take action in offsetting the enemy NPC density on Makeb.

 

I demand compensation for the all of the Daily Tactical FP rewards I received prior to the reward being upgraded from Basic comms to Elite.

 

 

It's time for us to stop accepting "things change" as an explanation from EA and BioWare and time for them to start giving us stuff for ANY retroactive inconvenience that we may or may not have endured prior to any changes that have ever been made to the game. I may have to accept that "things change" in the real world, but I'm sure as hell not going to have to deal with it in my video game.

[NeroTethras]

 

You're likely doing this because you feel having training costs might alienate an already transient f2p population and they may decide the game sucks and quit. That's really who this is benefiting. So many changes of late have been for the sole benefit of that class of player; you're motivations are so transparent! The game was already laughably easy before 3.0, so much so that only soloing 4-man content provided any real challenge. Yet you make more nerfs to leveling difficulty so its even easier now- instead of requiring that new players learn what an interrupt is and require they use it to pass their class bosses. 90% of the time when someone is on DK asking for help killing their class boss it is because they don't even know they can interrupt; and anyone who groups with them and helps them or kills the boss for them does them a huge disservice. How 'bout actually teaching players how not to suck, bioware? How about teaching players why they need to keep their hilt and barrel updated, and why they shouldn't be mixing strength and aim gear, and why they need to augment, instead of giving them ridiculous god mode Makeb bolster that supports non-existent skills and terrible gear?!?

 

 

I completely agree with you on the point of showing players the importance of things interrupting and gear upkeep, however I believe the removal of training costs could be of some benefit in that department. Training costs can get steep for a new player around level 30, between that and upgrading their gear it'll end up stretching them too thin and if they can manage to get by without upgrading one or the other they view it as acceptable. I also think that not having to worry about finances while going through the first three chapters will allow them to pay closer attention to their classes combat mechanics.

 

 

The fact remains that this change in training costs is of little benefit to long time, loyal subscribers and dedicated players who can already afford the cost of training; or for someone who already has their character cap and plans on leveling no more toons. (I know people will respond by saying "You're wrong, Ive played for years and I only have 200k, I'm terrible at managing money, I waste all my credits on cartel junk" etc..., but all you would have had to do to remedy that would be lower the costs of training to a reasonable level. You could have simply said in the patch notes "we have lowered the cost of training to coincide with inflation" or whatever. )

 

 

Lowering the costs would have worked, however long time subscribers still gain from this. You may not have any intention of creating more toons, but each expansion comes with new abilities as well as upgrades for current abilities that they'll now get for free which, again, gives that player the ability to focus on new additions to the rotation as well as their newly purchased expansion.

 

What people are really upset about that you guys don't seem to understand is that it was the pre-order players, and some of your most loyal customers- who got the shaft! We spent our money to test your beta release for you, and the others who don't give enough of a crap about the game to pre-order and/or who just started playing yesterday are the ones who are seeing the rewards of this. That is not right!

 

Bioware needs to start adding more features for the player who has 8-16 max level characters. Everything in game currently supports low-character legacies and low skill levels. When I heard on the livestream that you were removing pushback because players having to know what channeled ability ticks were and how they worked was too difficult for most players- it made me sick! Instead of tailoring the game to people with Forrest Gump level of intelligence, how 'bout actually developing training missions that teach necessary skills! You started to do that but abandoned it on Korriban after the this is what mod stations are mission. Help players to make themselves better- don't keep dumbing down the game like you are now, until a monkey could play it!

 

 

Like I said earlier, these changes benefit longstanding players as well. They removed training costs because believed it was doing more harm the player than good; if a mechanic in the game truly does harm the player then they shouldn't keep it in the game just because longstanding players had to suffer through it.

 

The addition to the introductory missions would definitely be preferable to dumbing down though. I think they abandoned it because they figured players would get bored and what to continue their story. I think the best way to handle that would to somehow incorporate it into the story somehow or offer player incentive such as cosmetic gear for sticking it out and learning the ropes through a series of side missions.

 

Complete agreement about the treatment of mechanics like pushback. Simple mechanics like this are easy to learn by merely playing the game and I find it a stretch to believe players actually struggled with the concept.

 

 

Another prime example of the your abysmally low image of the player base is how you think 10mil credits is actually an achievement! You can make a million a day easily by simply doing dailies! Some players have over a billion ffs! The fact that you think 10mil is actually something to strive for is representative to how bad you think we all are at gaming! Its highly insulting! I know you guys don't play seriously (I have watched the streams), but just because you only have one or two toons and only play a few hours a week doesn't mean we do! How about adding some reasonable credit titles that actually give us something to strive for (100mil, 500mil, 1bil)???

 

 

This is just incredibly nit-picky. You raise a lot of good points in this thread, however raising a fuss over this will make people think you're just on a rant and ignore the valids points you make. You're also making a lot of assumptions based off one achievement. Sure, lots of players have easily made more, but for most players 10m is most certainly a benchmark worth celebrating. 100M and 1B should have their own achievement though there's no need to do away with the 10M mark.

 

 

You really don't want to lose your founder players in favor of gaining a few transient players who sub for a few months and move on. Or maybe you do. Perhaps you never learned how its much more expensive to gain a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

 

Still no reason to continue to support a game mechanic that could potentially do more harm than good.

 

If I were bioware I would make a 5th, totally OP, dps class that you can only unlock when you hit max presence. Give people a tangible reason to level alts! As it is now you give people a reason not to level alts- specifically if they have and use HK

 

 

You don't want the game to become too easy, but you support the release of an OP dps class? Granting incentive to level alts and max out legacy is something that Bioware sorely need to do, however they should add more practical benefits.

[-Damask-]

10m should still be an achievement, for sure, but I have many guildies who have had the wealthy title for ever a year. So many people have it now they dont even bother to display it because its not unique. I also have guildies who do dailies on 5+ toons every day (I cant stand dailies myself), so they have exceeded 10m dozens of times over. From a coding standpoint it would take maybe 10 minutes to add more titles; just have to copy and paste the relevant code segments.

 

Currently the only thing you get for leveling every base class is a galactic mastery title and legacy abilities if you level to the end of ch3 (only usable during heroic moment) that people cant even fit on their bars, and presence buffs if you level your companions. This is sorta like the power-ram on your ship in Assassins Creed:Black Flag in that you're pretty much at the end of the game by the time you get it and therefore it is of little use. But OK, if you choose to level one of each 16 ACs you can use them- but what do you get when you get one of each 16 ACs to max level? Nothing? All I'm saying is that they should give you something commensurate with all the time you've put in. The level 50 legacy level thing is usually achieved by your 5th toon or so, and the rewards are not super great. Bioware does want people to have a reason to crank up their /played time right?

 

Many people are still here simply because there isn't any better sci-fi MMO currently. When something else comes along those people will be gone. All that will remain are the many bioware apologists and die hard fanboys who think anything SW is infallible. I do not look forward to that.

Edited December 14, 2014 by -Damask-

[Kaywinnit]

Why do you think it was a good thing for bioware to do? How does it benefit pre-orders as much as others?

 

Also Beaker, I agree it was a minor snafu; it was how they handled it that got people upset. If you read the other thread you will see just how many were upset. I chose not to post there because I know there is no chance any dev would see it on page 93.

 

Also you tell me the game is fine, but at the same time you care enough to post about the terrible tank earpices/implants. You obviously do not think the game is fine. Your wanting to punch them in the throat is not at all unlike my feelings here.

 

 

All our alts will not have to pay for training, and anyone who didn't level (or, at least, didn't train all their skills) to 60 also gets the savings... just like the folks that didn't pre-order. Equal benefit to all (going forward from date of announcement).

[Savej]

So much text... it's only a few credits