The Refer-a-Friend Program

[Grimfang]

Great news. Will not miss all the chat spam and toxicity...

[ShardTosk]

Very good change and long overdue! It encouraged scammers and was unfair to every regular sub who wasn't spaming his RAF link 24/7 on fleet.

 

I sincerely doubt they give a whomprats's butthole about scammers.

 

It was too easy to get Cartel Coins without giving EA money. Now your choice is pay them or GRIND like a mother, and even if you do it it's an insulting 2000 measly coins.

Edited April 19, 2021 by ShardTosk

[FlameYOL]

I sincerely doubt they give a whomprats's butthole about scammers.

 

It was too easy to get Cartel Coins without giving EA money. Now your choice is pay them or GRIND like a mother, and even if you do it it's an insulting 2000 measly coins.

 

4000 actually. And if you find the reward is not worth the stress, its an optional activity so you can always choose to not do it.

Edited April 19, 2021 by FlameYOL

[DarkMatterSlifus]

Gets rid of the weirdo's abusing it but it hurts new and returning players because now they have no other option to get free sub time and experience the game fully unless they pay up front and then decide if to keep the sub or not.

[DarkTergon]

Removed as my contributions appears to be unwanted Edited April 25, 2021 by DarkTergon

[mike_carton]

And that's why they did it, more money in their pockets. It's the way they do things, they don't remove the exploiters, just smash the system. Pvp, crafting, raf links, etc, etc, etc.

 

And that's also why it's dangerous to ask BW to tweak something that's working very well; instead of a scalpel they'll take a machete to it.

[Spikanor]

And that's also why it's dangerous to ask BW to tweak something that's working very well; instead of a scalpel they'll take a machete to it.

 

i think it was better to start first with a big warning and a new rule there going to use like:

if you sell your refer a friend code for credits in the chat then you risk to get a bann.

 

same go's for forums then that there easy can tell from: post's after 27 april that have refer a friend code in there signature can get a bann on there account.

 

but what there are doing now is like always more.

if some people abuse the system we all going to pay the price for it thanks to then.

[jimmorrisson]

I agree with this decision, of which should have been done years ago.

[Ardrossan]

I had planned to wait until May 4 / 6.2 to use my 7 day sub, but when I saw this I decided to smoke 'em while I got 'em. While I could've waited closer to the date, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't simply cancel people's 7 day subs right on the 26th. That would be irrational and petty but it's not as if BW has displayed good judgment up to this point.

 

The referral allowed prefs to periodically spend all their creds without worrying about the limit and do uprisings/ops/ranked, both of which HELP the rest of the subbed playerbase. It also allowed a likely vanishingly small minority of new players to try the game / become multimillionaires, and allowed sub Whales to earn more CCs per month. Everyone wins.

 

So of course, BW gets rid of it, one more change no one asked for. You're supposed to be working on CONTENT, not adding more popups in the UI and removing a vital way for players to collaborate with each other to mutual advantage.

[cyrusramsey]

A change nobody asked for? People have complained about this system for as long as it existed, and while I'll miss certain aspects of it, none of the arguments to keep it involve using the system for what it was made for. It's just weird that they waited so long to do this.

 

As for the CC thing. The CC-upgrade to Seasons has the potential to add a lot more CC to accounts than RAF ever did, since any random player will be able to see how to get them from within the game itself. I don't have any numbers, of course, but I think the people that most benefit from RAF CC gains radically overestimate how large a portion of the community they are.

 

Better that everyone get some extra CC, than a few people getting lots, a far as I'm concerned.

 

I'd like to see those 7 days of sub come back in one way or another, but even if they don't, I consider this the best decision BW has made in a while.

 

The forum might become a bit easier to follow too, with hopefully less people making seemingly random threads every other day, or responding to every thread whether they have something relevant to contribute or not, just to get their signature out there as much as possible.

[Ardrossan]

As for the CC thing. The CC-upgrade to Seasons has the potential to add a lot more CC to accounts than RAF ever did, since any random player will be able to see how to get them from within the game itself. I don't have any numbers, of course...

 

I bet players said the same thing when Legacies first came out and BW hinted that earning achievements may grant CCs. Oooh! And then players discovered that, at best, 1/100 cheevos had a measly 20cc reward.

[TrixxieTriss]

I bet players said the same thing when Legacies first came out and BW hinted that earning achievements may grant CCs. Oooh! And then players discovered that, at best, 1/100 cheevos had a measly 20cc reward.

 

Pretty sure I read somewhere that you’ll be able to earn up to 4000cc, which is a lot more than most people get from legacies or the referral program.

 

I’ve never sold referrals or do referral spam in the game. 99% of my referrals have been from my forums signature which I get around 1000cc’s a month.

 

So I will miss the referrals as it’s helped me with a small continuous stream of CC’s to open up all my collections when I buy new things on the GTN. That’s what I will miss about them because I don’t use my CC’s to buy direct from the CM.

Edited April 21, 2021 by TrixxieTriss

[ShardTosk]

The CC-upgrade to Seasons has the potential to add a lot more CC to accounts than RAF ever did

No, god no, what a ludicrous thing to say.

Even for someone that just occasionally throws out their link in chat it's a huge downgrade I've made 2k this week just popping around each starter planet and DK/Cor in the morning posting my link once.

 

What I find most funny is the people who think this will fix the economy, this is great for credit sellers

"Come to SuperCreditFarmDudeguys.derp, and for the price of a trip to McDonalds or one good items's worth of CC we'll give you enough credits to buy 2 hypercrates! That's 60 items! ROLL THE DICE BABY!"

 

Pretty sure I read somewhere that you’ll be able to earn up to 4000cc, which is a lot more than most people get from legacies or the referral program.

 

I’ve never sold referrals or do federal spam in the game. 99% of my referrals have been from my forums signature which I get around 1000cc’s a month.

.

"Stocks aren't worth all that much, I sold my shares of Bupkis Inc. and only made $20"

You don't make much off referrals because you don't really do referrals and I'm not talking about spamming it. Your experience is not a reasonable measurement for how much referrals are worth or how much more (it's way less) we'll get from seasons.

 

Let me remind you this is an EA game guys. Things do not get better.

Edited April 20, 2021 by ShardTosk

[cyrusramsey]

No, god no, what a ludicrous thing to say.

Even for someone that just occasionally throws out their link in chat it's a huge downgrade

 

It's not ludicrous at all. I'm certain the vast majority of swtor players has never thrown out their link in chat. I'm also certain that the amount of swtor players that does not post on these forums (let alone have a referral code in their signature) also qualifies as 'vast majority'.

 

I fully understand that a lot of people are disappointed about what this means for their monthly CC income, but ten thousand people earning a single free cartel coin adds more free coins than one person earning a thousand. Using the RAF system isn't hard or complicated, but if I look at my own surroundings--friends, guildies--I see lots of people who never use these forums, who almost never use general chat, who either don't know about how referrals work until I tell them or simply don't care to know... and yet all of these people will be completing conquest objectives every week, because there's a convenient system presenting them with various options every time they're logged in.

 

The only question is exactly how much will be involved in earning any amount of CC (not even the full 4000 would be required to off-set the mass-earners of RAF CC, as long as there are masses earning them), but the potential to drown out RAF earnings is absolutely there, with up to 4k per Season.

[ShardTosk]

Your argument is basically "anything is more than zero." Don't like "ludicrous"? How about "asinine"?. It's also moving the goalpost. You've apparently realized that there is no way in hell that you can claim this is an increase so you're adding randos that make no coins, do you see me trying to use the insane amount of coins spammers/streamers make as justification?

 

and who cares if they're "completing conquest objectives every week"? Even if you do every little thing in the season there's a cap and that cap for the entire season, which appears to be 100 days based on screenshots, is less than what someone that uses their referral link with any regularity will make in 2-3 bloody weeks (or 2-3 days if you're a heavy spammer or a streamer)

 

How can you say it will "drown out RAF earnings" with a straight face? It's obviously less than what people that use RAF make and the people you tried to drag in that don't use RAF don't use RAF so you can't use them as a comparison.

Edited April 20, 2021 by ShardTosk

[cyrusramsey]

Your argument is basically "anything is more than zero." Don't like "ludicrous"? How about "asinine"?. It's also moving the goalpost. You've apparently realized that there is no way in hell that you can claim this is an increase so you're adding randos that make no coins, do you see me trying to use the insane amount of coins spammers/streamers make as justification?

 

It's not moving the goalpost when that had been my original point: "The CC-upgrade to Seasons has the potential to add a lot more CC to accounts than RAF ever did, since any random player will be able to see how to get them from within the game itself."

 

I suppose you may have misunderstood "more CC to accounts", which I phrased like that by lack of a better term for where the CC end up at (I opted against 'in-game economy', though it might technically qualify), and refers to the total sum of all CC and the total sum of all accounts, not one account, which the next part of the sentence might have clued you in on.

 

My point was not that Seasons has the potential to earn one account more CC than RAF, my point was that Seasons has the potential to generate a higher total amount of CC than RAF is doing now, because the system makes it much easier for every player to participate, and only a relatively small portion of players are using referrals to begin with.

 

This thought was a direct result of having read DarkTergon's line "But there will be consequences about this that people don't see yet. Items on the gtn are going to go up, as there will be less around. ". I didn't feel like going back to make a proper quote.

 

My point is that while many individuals will definitely have less CC to spend, I do not believe that there will be less CC going around, and as such I don't believe less free CC will be spent, in total.

[ShardTosk]

Boss: "We've decided to cut your pay to $1 an hour and quintuple your workload but everyone in town is also getting a dollar. Aren't we nice?"

Employee: "No? I'm getting a fraction of what I did before and doing way more work for it now."

Boss: "There will be more money in circulation overall. Quit being ungrateful!"

Employee: "Don't think that's how economics works..."

 

My point is that while many individuals will definitely have less CC to spend, I do not believe that there will be less CC going around, and as such I don't believe less free CC will be spent, in total.

 

Gonna have to disagree. How much stuff do you think a referral-user buys in 100 days? Even with more people having CC, and last I checked only subs get the CC, it's only 4000cc every 3 and a half-ish months and that's if you do everything.

 

EDIT: Oh and to bring up something nobody seems to be mentioning, do you think the items from Galactic Seasons will be account wide? Hell nah, so if you want to use those things on more than one character pretty much all of that 4000cc is going down the toilet.

Edited April 20, 2021 by ShardTosk

[cyrusramsey]

Boss: "We've decided to cut your pay to $1 an hour and quintuple your workload but everyone in town is also getting a dollar. Aren't we nice?"

Employee: "No? I'm getting a fraction of what I did before and doing way more work for it now."

Boss: "There will be more money in circulation overall. Quit being ungrateful!"

Employee: "Don't think that's how economics works..."

 

I don't know if you're trying to make some sort of point there. I never argued how individuals that use the RAF system would be affected either way, because it's not terribly important to me. As far as I'm concerned they got immense gains that they wouldn't have gotten if the system functioned like a RAF system ought to have functioned. Good for them.. and I'm sure they won't like the change. I don't really care.

 

 

Gonna have to disagree. How much stuff do you think a referral-user buys in 100 days? Even with more people having CC, and last I checked only subs get the CC, it's only 4000cc every 3 and a half-ish months and that's if you do everything.

 

Like I said, I don't have any numbers to back it up, I can only look at what I see here on these forums and among the people in the game I interact with, and I believe the masses that don't use RAF links but are sensitive for conquest-like incentives will churn out more combined CC than the relatively small group of people with very large amounts of monthly RAF CC. I could be wrong. We will probably never know. Inflation will happen regardless, as it always has.

Edited April 20, 2021 by cyrusramsey

[DarkTergon]

Removed as my contributions appears to be unwanted Edited April 25, 2021 by DarkTergon

[FlameYOL]

Pretty sure I read somewhere that you’ll be able to earn up to 4000cc, which is a lot more than most people get from legacies or the referral program.

Correct, in this very thread Keith says it as much.

 

Although this system is not perfect, we do understand that it has provided benefits which players have enjoyed. The first of those benefits was the ability to acquire Cartel Coins in-game without purchasing them. To account for the fact that this will no longer be possible through new referrals, we are bolstering the amount of Cartel Coins players can earn through Galactic Seasons in Game Update 6.3 from its current value of 2,000 this season to 4,000. This will give you a clear path to acquiring a few thousand Cartel Coins, just by playing SWTOR regularly!

I'm looking forward to getting 4k free CC, certainly more than I ever earned with referral system, which is 0.

[Ardrossan]

Let me ask you this

 

How many weeks/months will it take to 'earn' those CC's, how much do they have to do, and how much content that people don't like that they will be forced to do. And are the cc's piecemeal, or only awarded when all the content is done

Going by the PTS, you can skip up to a certain point with credits, but the last 20 levels or so can ONLY be skipped with CC's. So basically at those levels you either have to do content you don't like, or can't, or use CC's, to skip them

 

This is nothing but a shameless and cynical excuse to cut out as many free cc's, while forcing people in to content they don't like. And worse, it's forcing you to PAY to skip that content.

 

 

As I said before, this is going to have some unintended consequences and fallout.

 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but DarkTergon is 100% right.

[DarkTergon]

Removed as my contributions appears to be unwanted Edited April 25, 2021 by DarkTergon

[Ardrossan]

lol, we had to eventually find something we agree on

 

 

*Maybe it really is the end of days* lol

 

Admittedly, that pop-up thing also sucks, so that's two.

[DarkTergon]

Removed as my contributions appears to be unwanted Edited April 25, 2021 by DarkTergon

[MadDutchman]

Well, at least I have a large nest egg of CCs built up...

 

If it requires me to play any kind of PVP or group content, I'll never see any of those free CC

 

Honestly GSs just seems like another misguided attempt to get people to play content they don't want to play