Difference between FTP and Subscription

[Mulroin]

I know it is a minefield to talk about this subject but I do want to express my concerns here.

Also English is not my native language so sorry if I express myself not to the grammar needed.

 

In the process of making the game more attractive to new players they (management) made some very dubious decisions in my point of view.

All in all the game has been made more "accessible" by removing the "move to a location" option by opening all travel points. They are now available even if you have never been to a location. Using any travel point automaticly opens a large portion of a map hence the few blanked spaces. Not smart because players don't bother to move around the map any-more and just jump to there destination.

 

Should you decide you do want to move on foot or by personal speeder around the map, (Sometime needed to get to quests) they now dropped hostility off present beasts and such. And if there hostile's around mostly they are moved to the side to create a convenient travel space. Weird. Same for some quest Bosses

All of this lowers the attractiveness of the game on a drastic level. It has almost become a personal shooter game so to speak instead of a MMO. As a result FTP's are not exactly drawn to take a subscription just to discover the entire game. They do not need to fight there way around like we used to do. Simply board a speeder and your where you need to be. What is the fun in that?

 

All in al it is a delicate balance to get players to buy a subscription.

If you want to have an attractive game you must have a hard way to move around like the old days. That enhances determination to get the whole game finished. Same for the Heroics and such.

It does not matter that you never been to Voss or Alderaan etc. You can simply click on the H2+ button and, hey, you are smacked in the middle of a planet you never been before. H2+ should be greyed out for planets and locations you never been to avoid that.

 

Also there should be a much clearer difference between Subscribers and Free to Play. Subscribers have a point if they say that Free To Play gets way to much benefits compared to them.

Subscribers are the ones paying for the privilege to play this game to the max. and should be rewarded accordingly.

 

Free to Play should be something to taste the game. Nothing more. As for now you can do a full game except for KOFTE?

For me I should say let Free to Play be able to run the first 2 planets with all benefits, even all armor and nothing more. Block them on higher levels and planets. block them on all missions that are not linked to those 2 planets and such. Or make Free to Play limited on a time scale. You get 8 days free play time and after that you must pay and such.

 

Back to basic is the best way to get subscribers back to be interested in the game and to get Free to Play to subscribe.

As for now the difficulty of large area's has become a joke and Free to Play has become Free to Pay and that kills any game.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Mulroin

[SteveTheCynic]

Careful on the travel options thing:

* Quick Travel (where a "shuttle" is sent and you appear at the destination) does require you to have "discovered" the QT destination (but that's now easier than it used to be, because you just need to be somewhere on its map).

* Taxi travel is automatically unlocked when you arrive on a planet. (Or maybe when you create a character, or maybe the first time you click on a taxi droid. There's no way of telling which it is.)

[Mulroin]

Careful on the travel options thing:

* Quick Travel (where a "shuttle" is sent and you appear at the destination) does require you to have "discovered" the QT destination (but that's now easier than it used to be, because you just need to be somewhere on its map).

* Taxi travel is automatically unlocked when you arrive on a planet. (Or maybe when you create a character, or maybe the first time you click on a taxi droid. There's no way of telling which it is.)

Taxi travel unlock is new sins one off the previous patches. As old player you should know that but regarding your answer you are a "fresh" player/subscriber.

Before that patch you first had to discover an area with a taxi path on it to be able to use that taxi point.

Now there automatic unlocked for the majority of a planet. Only thing not unlocked is the Quick Travel option with the bowl. You need to have visited a travel point to unlock that.

Compared to the old days it totally removes all will to discover new areas by travelling on it and doing so to unlock them on the map. Together with that travelling came all difficulty's as in hostile NPC's and such.

Together with the total unlock they also removed almost all hostile NPC's or moved them to the side.

You just board a taxi and are done with it. And with that "they" removed a big part off the attraction off the game.

 

The "new" H2+ are a joke compared to the problems you had to face in the past. But that is all in the name of progress? To me its killing the game on a massive scale. "they" totally missed the point off the game here.

Like I said before. Its now free to pay witch will not happen soon sins new players get bored really quick if you only do those H2+ witch allot of newbies will do. As a result of that they will not going to pay to discover the rest off the game and that is a fail to.

 

This game needs to be more hard core like in the past.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Mulroin

[nepochop]

Excellent post!! Really!

 

This is so true, i mean the reason why most of my friends went preffered was that they didnt lose anything!! They can still play the game que for warzones etc. All they need is a few people that r subbed and thats it, they have their unlocks and can use 10s of characters anyway there really isnt anything bad about being a preffered.

 

As for free to play, its also true, they have almost everything the game has to offer, the first levels and i think Makeb too. Also, its enough to just sub for one month and then unsub right away! Really Bioware should rethink this strategy yet i think if you lower the conditions of F2P and Preffered then the game would die definitely!

[merovejec]

NIcely put, yeah its true that F2P have far too much rights! Its really silly to be a sub for the content we have. I mean the game is fine, but once you went through it all i dont feel like paying at all.

 

For me personally its no problem, since i have a job and enough money I dont even know im paying monthly for it. But if I look at it from a common persons point of view its a total rip off! They should follow the example of WoW where you only reach a certain lvl and then its over (let that level not be 50 ).

 

However as it was pointed out a lot of people are preffered and just buy a ops pass here and there, thats pretty much it. If the conditions for them would be more strict then the game would have population issues.

[SteveTheCynic]

Taxi travel unlock is new sins one off the previous patches. As old player you should know that but regarding your answer you are a "fresh" player/subscriber.

Before that patch you first had to discover an area with a taxi path on it to be able to use that taxi point.

Now there automatic unlocked for the majority of a planet. Only thing not unlocked is the Quick Travel option with the bowl. You need to have visited a travel point to unlock that.

I can't raise the will to be annoyed by your tone here. I've been playing this game for more than three years now. I played when there were still per-planet commendations, ffs! I remember when those were unified into planetary commendations, and when planetary commendations and some others were unified into Basic Commendations.

 

I also remember (with some relief) the demise of free-format skill trees. And I remember having to trek all over hell and gone before I could take taxis to places, and occasionally getting taxi routes into the unknown for new quests, and the surprise when I got one of those on Republic Taris only to find that the quest highlight erroneously showed a different one. And I remember having to click on ALL QT terrminals to unlock them rather than just the ones that didn't exist before 4.0 came out. And consequently I remember when there wasn't a QT terminal in the Senate Tower.

 

So please keep your condescending attitude to yourself.

[Mulroin]

I can't raise the will to be annoyed by your tone here. I've been playing this game for more than three years now. I played when there were still per-planet commendations, ffs! I remember when those were unified into planetary commendations, and when planetary commendations and some others were unified into Basic Commendations. So please keep your condescending attitude to yourself.

 

I know it is a minefield to talk about this subject but I do want to express my concerns here.

Also English is not my native language so sorry if I express myself not to the grammar needed.

As said before English is not my native language so my grammar is not what it should be I guess. Your first answer suggested, (to my point of view), that you where reasonably "fresh" to the game. Apparently not so I apologize for that.

 

That still leaves open you think some stuff was good. I do not.

 

The moment the game changing new patches hit the game, where it all became so much easier, (just before KOFTE?) population dropped on a massive scale. Now they try to draw us back in by giving away goody's? Sad, really sad. It confirms that any imagination to truly enhance the game is dead. What "they" should not do is listen to people that know nothing off the original storyline (Disney) but stick to the hard core fans and what they have to say. You cannot say I hired a pro on MMO games and now we are fine. Hell, we get answers from a producer now and he is defending himself by saying he is backed up by the investors??

 

Disney has it in his blood to create stuff for children. They have no real knowledge or affection for hardcore MMO games that shows killing and bloodshed.

 

That only means our producer has a pure a financial interest in the game. Basicly he says "if the investors are happy he is happy" and what the players think comes not in question. So that limits his interest (and credibility) substantially.

Lets face it, the financial managers have taken over and they are not known for anything else but for there interest in hard core cash. Its only so sad to see that as usual they picked the wrong path to achieve that goal at the expense of the fans.

 

It shows very clearly on all new planets that are here now. They are small and very short on any story line.

Story lines are done in a matter of ours.

Where are the times you needed to really put an effort in getting around and finishing story lines?

Those days are gone just like the respect for the efforts players put in. As for example gear on companions.

Its changed for affection without any regard for your status to them from the old system. There simply reset to 10???

 

I can put it simple. ZERO respect for subscribers and especially the long term subscribers from way back.

We do not need goody's handed out because you are still subscribing. We need challenges.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Mulroin

[Rolodome]

Taking stuff away from FTP players makes no sense. You, as a subscriber, gain nothing and FTP players lose something. It's a total loss of a decision. Nobody gains anything.

 

Being subscribed for a long time could have better incentives. That's something you could benefit from. But seeing as how a lot of profit most likely comes from the store and not sub money, I'm not betting on good odds that anyone is jumping at improving sub perks. As it is, as far as FTP MMOs go (and I've played several) TOR has a lot of in-your-face restrictions. The difference in having a sub is starkly noticeable for me.

 

If you are coming from the age where most MMOs were sub-based, then I can see you thinking that FTP players have too much. But if you've played around with other modern FTP MMOs, you can see that while TOR does give a lot, it's not really giving anything more than most others on the market.

 

I think that what you want is a more distinct feel that subbing is worth the money and separates you from the FTP player. Taking away stuff FTP players get isn't a good way to accomplish that.

[Mulroin]

I made a list of pro's and con's and decided to cancel my subscription.

Its just not worth to keep paying just for that mediocre "reward" when we get the She Visla update.

The game itself is so heavenly downgraded it lost its attraction.

 

Been paying for a long time now with a year subscription.

I just follow the way the game is designed now. Free to Pay.

I am going to spent my money on other games that still offer a real challenge.

Am already spreading my credits to all my chars to the cap of 350k so at least I won't loose to much.

Probably donate the rest to the guild I have been in for years now.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Mulroin

[Soul_of_Flames]

There is only a very small handful of things that subs have over free players that free players can never get.

 

-No credit cap.

-No chat buffer.

-No mail and trade restrictions.

-Full XP and reward benefits (free players have a 50% reduction).

-Cheaper vendor prices.

-No looting restrictions.

-No limit on operations and warzones.

 

Now, depending on how you play, those things might not be of any value to you. And if they are of no value, then all you have to do is pay ~$40, one time, to unlock all the other benefits you need from the CM. Then never have to pay another cent to play this game. Unless, of course you are a pvper or raider, then you'll need to keep up with passes.

 

But aside from that, everything else really doesn't benefit the majority of players.

Crafters benefit the most from being subbed. Since they require the unlimited credit cap as well as unrestricted trade.

Behind them, PvPers and Raiders would benefit from not requiring passes every week. But, depending on your schedule for play time, buying passes might actually end up being the cheaper solution to subbing.

 

Any other type of player has no real incentive to sub because there isn't really any other benefit they'd be given that they just can't buy at a one time price.

Edited May 31, 2016 by Soul_of_Flames