No, an apology because the terrible timing of the combination of the launch of 3.0 to early access (introducing HUGE training costs for both leveling and purchase of skills you previously had for free) and announcing removal of the training costs AFTER a bunch of people have spent significant amount of credits on them. If they were already considering removing these costs, surely they could have seen that this would leave a bad taste in the mouth of the players that lose out because of this? For the sake of a few days, couldn't have come to this conclusion slightly quicker? And now that the mistake has be made, and turning back time isn't an option, at least acknowledging that they've upset the group of players who pre-ordered the expansion by apologizing.

 

I'm 99% sure this wasn't done deliberately, but it is hard not to feel victimized by this.

 

Not against free skill training at all, but I am annoyed by the handling of the situation.

I paid for training. I continue to pay for training. There is no bad taste in my mouth.

Credits are pretend. The game is fun. They're changing it in the future to make it easier. I couldn't be happier.

When you go to the gas station and fill up at $3.79 a gallon then tomorrow the price drops to $2.98 because oil is tanking, do you go ask for a refund?

Were I they, I would tell you all that I've reconsidered. Due to all the angst on the forums, it seems like the better course of action to have never removed the training fees. Had they never removed the training fees, nobody would be wailing or gnashing their teeth over refunds / compensation.

Y'all come off like a bunch of spoiled brat pre-teens. Stop it. Grow some self-respect.

Victimized? You have absolutely NO CLUE what victimization is. Can you breathe?

I paid for training. I continue to pay for training. There is no bad taste in my mouth.

 

Credits are pretend. The game is fun. They're changing it in the future to make it easier. I couldn't be happier.

 

When you go to the gas station and fill up at $3.79 a gallon then tomorrow the price drops to $2.98 because oil is tanking, do you go ask for a refund?

 

Were I they, I would tell you all that I've reconsidered. Due to all the angst on the forums, it seems like the better course of action to have never removed the training fees. Had they never removed the training fees, nobody would be wailing or gnashing their teeth over refunds / compensation.

 

Y'all come off like a bunch of spoiled brat pre-teens. Stop it. Grow some self-respect.

 

Victimized? You have absolutely NO CLUE what victimization is. Can you breathe?

Your analogy is flawed because that's real money and you expect the prices to change. Like you said this is pretend money, and while Bioware aren't required to give us a refund of the training costs it's just about treating some of your most dedicated players right.

I mean - in-game money is something VIRTUAL.

To me, it is just silly to be angry about bits & bytes that are basically nothing but electricity / current streams on magnetic or otherwise storage mediums.

If this was RL money, then it would be a totally different thing - but something in-game ???

Those who are complaining are acting as if this "training money" was RL money. And that's a point I just cannot understand ...

(And that's why I'm so much careful with Caretl Packs : I personally hate RL money getting into an virtual environment, in general ...)

You missed my suggestion for Hypercrates... I think a 24 pack Hypercrate would allow us to make up some of the credits spent

Is that a serious suggestion? it seems to me those things are FAR to expensive to be considered a reasonable trade for the credits lost.

If you are truly serious, I will add it to the list.

I paid for training. I continue to pay for training. There is no bad taste in my mouth.

 

Credits are pretend. The game is fun. They're changing it in the future to make it easier. I couldn't be happier.

 

When you go to the gas station and fill up at $3.79 a gallon then tomorrow the price drops to $2.98 because oil is tanking, do you go ask for a refund?

 

Were I they, I would tell you all that I've reconsidered. Due to all the angst on the forums, it seems like the better course of action to have never removed the training fees. Had they never removed the training fees, nobody would be wailing or gnashing their teeth over refunds / compensation.

 

Y'all come off like a bunch of spoiled brat pre-teens. Stop it. Grow some self-respect.

 

Victimized? You have absolutely NO CLUE what victimization is. Can you breathe?

Your analogy is flawed. A better one would be that they hike the price of fuel, while simultaneously draining your fuel tank. Sure, you can not fill up again, on the of chance that it'll be cheaper for free in the future. But what are the chances of that happening? Oh wait, three days later...

I'm all for removing the training fees. A great move - they're not a particularly effective money sink as they're no recurring. EXCEPT in this instance, where we had to pay for skills we had owned previous to the patch. Yes, it's virtual currency, but that takes time to gather. We pay for that time. It has value to us.

Finally, on to the personal attack. Don't you dare tell me that I don't know what victimization is. You have absolutely no idea what my background is, or what I've gone through. Please keep your condescension to yourself.

I mean - in-game money is something VIRTUAL.

 

To me, it is just silly to be angry about bits & bytes that are basically nothing but electricity / current streams on magnetic or otherwise storage mediums.

 

If this was RL money, then it would be a totally different thing - but something in-game ???

 

Those who are complaining are acting as if this "training money" was RL money. And that's a point I just cannot understand ...

 

(And that's why I'm so much careful with Caretl Packs : I personally hate RL money getting into an virtual environment, in general ...)

It's a virtual item yes, but it still takes time (or money if you just get credits with CCs) to earn them. Whole businesses are built around selling virtual things on the internet.. I mean this game is a virtual item that you pay for and people get upset about games all the time (ME3 ending anyone?).

What happened to the fair and equitable treatment of all consumers? Or are you saying that only certain "special" consumers deserve fair treatment from the company? Who are you to determine which costs are outrageous and which ones are "miniscule"?

Seriously? Are you being this aggressive on purpose or were you just born dense? The re-training hit everyone equally. The 56-60 skills did not. I don't care about your daughter. If you didn't pre-order, why are you now crying about her training costs? If she couldn't afford the skills before, by the way, she handles her credits very poorly as low-level characters do make far more than the skills cost.

This is more regarding the extreme costs of the 56-60 skills than the pre-3.0 ones. Everyone was hit by the pre-3.0 skill changes, only early access was hit by the costs of the others.

.

the extreme costs were not only limited to levels 56-60. i spent a lil over a million credits when i logged in to my toons to check out how their skill trees have changed. my two level 55s, a level 46, and a couple of mid 30s. i ran out of money to do the rest. the prices were extremely high no matter what level my toons were, they were so high i didnt even bother trying to level anything until i could make some more money.

Actually Jade, this one part is not entirely accurate. I didn't even realize that it effects everyone, even those that didn't preorder, as long as they logged in after dec 2. They had to retrain just like the early access folks.

yea it affects everyone. the prices were crazy high on other level toons as well. like i said above the prices affected me so much i couldn't go out and try and level my 55s because i couldn't afford to gear them up after learning their skills and if i did level up i wouldn't be able to learn any new ones.

Your analogy is flawed because that's real money and you expect the prices to change. Like you said this is pretend money, and while Bioware aren't required to give us a refund of the training costs it's just about treating some of your most dedicated players right.

Treating your most dedicated player right... by giving them a week's worth of early access to content?

The prices of course were going to change. Training costs at each tier higher have always increased. That's exactly what they did this time.

Now you're complaining because they're removing the training cost altogether. They should not have removed the training costs if all it would do is make children whine and complain for yet more free stuff, or because they think they're being treated unfairly by being given stuff for free in the future.

That attitude is pathetic.

Were I they, I would tell you all that I've reconsidered. Due to all the angst on the forums, it seems like the better course of action to have never removed the training fees. Had they never removed the training fees, nobody would be wailing or gnashing their teeth over refunds / compensation.

Or, they could have announced some form of apology for those who wasted their credits and this thread wouldn't be 60 pages long. We're not asking for hypercrates (well, one guy is), just some sort of acknowledgement. The vast majority of us would be happy with any form of recompense. Hell, an apology would be a start. Just a "sorry, i know this sucks, guys" isn't too hard, but they haven't even done that.

You missed my suggestion for Hypercrates... I think a 24 pack Hypercrate would allow us to make up some of the credits spent

That's not even remotely realistic. Not only do I disgagree that anyone should get anything but the money you could make of a hypercrate would be grossly more than you spent. Stop asking for a handout.

And for the rest of you asking for compensation...it would set an extremely bad precedence and people will continually point back to this situation and say "HET, BIOWARE GAVE US OUT MONEY BACK WHEN THIS HAPPENED" warrrrrrrrrgghhrrrrrbblllleeee

I understand why people feel like they "lost" virtual money but you can't be compensated when Bioware changes money sinks because if they did, every situation where they change in game monetary policy would be open to scrutiny. How far back do you compensate? 1 week? 1 month? 1 year? You can't say what is right and wrong.

Could they come in here and say they will do something? Sure. You should expect it won't be enough for you and if they do anything, get ready for there to be clear explanations about why it won't ever happen again.

If this was a situation where Bioware flat tricked people into losing money I would be on board but this a game design change (and its during pre-release).

the extreme costs were not only limited to levels 56-60. i spent a lil over a million credits when i logged in to my toons to check out how their skill trees have changed. my two level 55s, a level 46, and a couple of mid 30s. i ran out of money to do the rest. the prices were extremely high no matter what level my toons were, they were so high i didnt even bother trying to level anything until i could make some more money.

True, but that's over multiple characters, so that's a bit more understandable (again, not condoning the re-training costs themselves, I think that was pretty dumb too). 56-60 is 1 million per character.

I understand why people feel like they "lost" virtual money but you can't be compensated when Bioware changes money sinks because if they did, every situation where they change in game monetary policy would be open to scrutiny. How far back do you compensate? 1 week? 1 month? 1 year? You can't say what is right and wrong.

A couple of days back would be a decent compensation, since 3.0 came out. I can't think of a single other case they've made such sweeping changes to a core part of the game, so I'm not sure anyone else would have any footing to stand on at all.

True, but that's over multiple characters, so that's a bit more understandable (again, not condoning the re-training costs themselves, I think that was pretty dumb too). 56-60 is 1 million per character.

1 million per character. By the time I get characters to the end of Chapter 3 in their class quests, they have 2-3 mil. Makeb would make it bigger. A mil 55-50 isn't even challenging. That is, for players who can manage to avoid spending like drunken sailors on shore leave in Taiwan.

Or, they could have announced some form of apology for those who wasted their credits and this thread wouldn't be 60 pages long. We're not asking for hypercrates (well, one guy is), just some sort of acknowledgement. The vast majority of us would be happy with any form of recompense. Hell, an apology would be a start. Just a "sorry, i know this sucks, guys" isn't too hard, but they haven't even done that.

Nobody wasted credits. They just played the game the way it was designed. Later, the design changed. Happens every day.

BioWare is not going to apologize for eliminating training costs, any more than a car dealer would apologize for throwing in upgraded rims or a gas station would apologize for offering a free car wash with 20 gallon fill-up.

Get over yourself.

If I have missed any, or need to add any new suggestions let me know. I will expand the list and repost it when needed.

Here's my suggestion: Ess Tee Eff You, crack the whip on your companions, and crank out some level 56-60 items (MK-10 kits, purple augments, and item mods come to mind) -- or just gather sh*tloads of Grade 11 mats. Then, when Early Access ends, get down on your knees and thank Bioware for giving all of your potentials customers hundreds of thousands of credits that they can give to you instead of their trainers.

Does it suck that I had bought all of my characters' low level skills and then had to "rebuy" them because BW renamed them or moved them from the Skill Trees to base class or AC? Yes.

Does it suck that I paid for some of my characters' 56-60 skills? No -- we've had to pay for new skills every level since launch, so it's just the way things work.

Does it suck that after Tuesday all skills will be free? No -- the amount of credits I save by not buying the 56-60 (and all future higher level) skills more than offsets the credits I paid to "rebuy" low level skills.

Does it suck that I will end up spending more than people without Early Access? Not really -- Early Access always has *some* sort of risk, but the #1 reason people pay for (and use) early access is to get access ASAMFP. Everybody (early access or not) had a big download, and the new areas had some initial slowdowns, but I was up and running within 6 hours, and I'll probably have at least one lvl 60 char, as well as chars with every crafting/mission/gathering skill at 500 by the time Early Access ends. I paid $20 for the expansion the day it was announced and got everything that was advertised. If the price was $20 + 4 Million in-game credits (more than I spent on training so far), I still would have ordered.

Oh, and did I mention, the money I spent went to trainers; the money other people saved will be going to me.

All of you complaining, saying and trying to make the point "we aren't asking for so and so we are just asking for them to acknowledge the fact about this." Well that is what they are doing with the patch in a couple days. They have probably seen there have been people spending lots of credits on skills and decided to completely remove them for the future stability of the players and game. That's their acknowledgement of the situation here. They are making it so you do NOT have to pay a single credit for ever having to level up a skill at all! If you don't take that as recognition for what happened here, then you have to start looking further instead of just being overly emotional and critical about something that already happened.

They are making skills free forever. I think people would be a little more optimistic about that and happy. Stop making so many things into negatives here guys. It's unfortunate some of you had to spend all those credits but just be happy about what they are doing.

There is a lesson i got from this - never preorder SWTOR expansions.

How can anyone (besides trolls) defend this behaviour is a puzzle to me. Decision to make the trainers prices go pooof are not made in one day, Bioware released the expansion to people that preordered early enough with its huge costs of skills while they planned to completely remove prices week later.

If it was real money it would be a scam. Since it is ingame credits only,it is just an insult.

They are making skills free forever. I think people would be a little more optimistic about that and happy. Stop making so many things into negatives here guys. It's unfortunate some of you had to spend all those credits but just be happy about what they are doing.

4 alts levelled to lvl 60 = price of one top craftable barrel. This is a lot to majority of SWTOR players. Having poorer gear is a disadvantage,so preordering and being at disadvantage because of this can make few people happy.

1 million per character. By the time I get characters to the end of Chapter 3 in their class quests, they have 2-3 mil. Makeb would make it bigger. A mil 55-50 isn't even challenging. That is, for players who can manage to avoid spending like drunken sailors on shore leave in Taiwan.

A million for five levels is ridiculous, not to mention severely punishing for the F2P/preferred players. And lucky you, you have lots of money to spare. Some of us don't horde, others keep what we think is a manageable amount on hand, use the rest on stuff we want/need. Turns out, that manageable amount wasn't even close come SoR.

-EVERYTHING IS CARS-

Will you stop with the stupid car analogies? They're not comparable and every time something like this comes up, it's always about the gawddam car industry analogies.

They are making skills free forever. I think people would be a little more optimistic about that and happy. Stop making so many things into negatives here guys.

You know people can hold two different opinions about something at once, right? No-one but the trolls are saying this is a bad decision. What is a bad decision is how they've handled it.

Nobody wasted credits. They just played the game the way it was designed. Later, the design changed. Happens every day.

 

BioWare is not going to apologize for eliminating training costs, any more than a car dealer would apologize for throwing in upgraded rims or a gas station would apologize for offering a free car wash with 20 gallon fill-up.

 

Get over yourself.

You clearly lack the ability to understand what you are reading. Having training costs removed is not a problem. Expensive training costs isn't the problem. It the combination of the two and the terrible timing of them.

You clearly lack the ability to understand what you are reading. Having training costs removed is not a problem. Expensive training costs isn't the problem. It the combination of the two and the terrible timing of them.

Pretty much this, the cost was isolated purely to early access players which is why they should (IMO) issue a refund for the skills bought.

Well this is super awesome and all, but I wish you had either made it effective immediately or held off until it took effect before announcing it.

Now I'm staring at half a dozen characters I could be leveling, but I don't want to throw away thousands of credits.

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

I promised myself I would not do this but...

This is the kind of short sighted, tone deaf response we have sadly gotten used to.

I'm an older guy. My entire adult work life has had to do with some form or other of customer service. There are two basic tenants of customer service that have been drilled into my head for as long as I can remember.

The first tenant is that "Rule Number 1 - The customer is always right. Rule Number 2 - If the customer is wrong, refer to rule number 1." This one is so important that a man named Stew Leonard had it carved into a boulder and displayed in his flagship Connecticut grocery store.

The second tenant is that once you get a paying customer, you do everything within your power to keep them as your paying customer. You don't crap on, lie to, take advantage of, take for granted, your faithful paying customers. It is too easy for a customer to take their dollars elsewhere.

What Eric and his team has basically decided is that the faithful customers that pay their subs and preorder the new content are ok with being taken for granted. It was ok to release the expansion full of bugs. It was ok to have folks play through the buggy quests, missing boss loot drops, non-functional dead trees, rarely finishable final Revan fights. It is ok to gut the class systems in the name of streamlining just to make it easier for the developers, at the cost of player uniqueness and enjoyment. Wall bangers and and dot smashers and hybrids - well eff you. We have your money.

It is not the fact that the loyal player base supports this game only to get crapped on with an "Oh well this is a better approach" and so those that payed millions to level toons are left with bad feelings and being made to feel unimportant. It is more of the principle that it is ok to screw over the most important folks this game has - namely the subscribers. I'm willing to bet its the subs that not only pay their monthly fee, but also pay the vast majority of dollars into the Cartel Coin system.

Eric and team, I think it is in the best interests of goodwill and respect for your players that you retroactively refund training costs for early subscribers. I think it would send an important message that you are not taking those players for granted.

Seriously? Are you being this aggressive on purpose or were you just born dense?

Nope, just trying to get some simple answers to simple questions from someone who claims to hold consumer advocation in high regard. Still waiting for those answers.

The re-training hit everyone equally.

So everyone should be equally compensated for their losses to maintain that consumer friendly atmosphere, right?

The 56-60 skills did not.

Indeed you are correct. Some people did not train their characters at these levels at all, for one reason or another, including their thoughts at the high cost. Some people went ahead and trained every single one of their toons, despite what some might consider to be exorbitant costs. Some people did something in between, choosing to see how the scenario would play out. So not everyone from 56-60 was affected equally. Now should everyone (taken what is said above) receive equal recompense, or is it more fair to only refund people exactly what they spent on training costs for the week?

I don't care about your daughter.

Wow, that doesn't sound very consumer friendly now does it?

If you didn't pre-order, why are you now crying about her training costs?

Because, just like you and many other people, she would have waited to train all those characters until after December 9th. Fair and equal, right?

If she couldn't afford the skills before, by the way, she handles her credits very poorly as low-level characters do make far more than the skills cost.

I believe I said she had mid-level toons - as in 30's-40's. And you are a fine one to be talking about how one spends credits its seems:

Some of us don't horde, others keep what we think is a manageable amount on hand, use the rest on stuff we want/need.