Hello everyone,

 

Please discuss the The Importance of Player Feedback with the New Free-to-Play Option blog in this thread!

 

The problem is in your phrasing, why is player feedback in relation to free to play important? Why was feedback through beta and on test server not deemed as important?

 

Why was the question not simply "the importance of player feedback"? At a stroke you are indicating you are focusing and listening only to a very small part of the game.

Your feedback request and how "important" it is, is a flipping joke. You really expect us to take you seriously after 1.4 bugs? Not to mention 1.5 bugs... if your listening, you sure as hell aren't showing your paying attention.

 

I hope you won't stay subbed for much longer as players like you is something TOR doesn't need. I am sure you won't be missed either

To repeat and sum up some what others have said, because despite (some of) these things being promised nearly a year ago and/or being request for nearly a year or so, nothing happens.

Except some random posts (this isn't the first one) where you ask feedback and explain to us how important it is.

(Yes, the +4 character slots for F2P is great. Someone actually reads these forums? Woah!)

Oh don't worry, I'll even toss something of my own into the mix.

 

1) Speech Bubbles.

When you were creating SWTOR, you kind of let us believe it would be a different MMO+RPG.

Instead you've just made it yet another MMOPVP, haven't you?

Oh yes, "but the storylines" you say? Well, all right, it's a good MMOPVP with KotOR'sque single player storylines.

You have ANY idea what the lack of speech bubbles is doing to other aspects of the game?

( If you had read this thread, you should have. There was a very good post with links about the topic. )

...And any idea what it does to RP? Sheesh.

And these have been promised & waited. Where are they?

 

2) Need more character slots, +4 ?

The Storylines, that I already mentioned above? Well there's 8 classes, each with their own storyline. Since day one some of have pointed out that you get different dialogue, and future dialogue options, depending if you take Light or Dark side answers & points.

So to enjoy ALL EIGHT storylines as BOTH Light and Dark, we would need 16 characters.

And because of Legacy and/of crafting profession reasons, I see no point in dividing these into multiple servers.

Just let us enjoy all the story content & dialogue on one server so we can also enjoy our Legacy perks etc while doing so?

 

3) It was poor design that the bars that disappeared (I let my sub run out so I could test F2P too, and then re-subbed) ...even when I got them back, they had lost all their configurations. The bother of going through my abilities and powers and verifying that I had all of my gathered abilities there and then re-placing them in a good order, not nice. Make sure that the bars - 5th & 6th in the future - even if disabled (when the sub runs out and no Cartel Unlock has been made), do NOT lose their buttons & order. Please? Thank you.

 

4) Carbonite!

Come on, we have a silly novelty carbonite block thing.

What about a genuine possibility to put your character in carbonite (save the character as it is, gear and key configurations and all, but remove it from being a playable character) ?

If you can't give us the +4 slots to make 12 into 16 (see #2), then at least give us 4+ Carbonite Freezers, yess?

 

Tip 1: Make sure you need a [Hutt Carbonite Freezing Services Ticket] to access the area where this freezing will need to be done. This should be purchaseable from the Cartel Market, and tradeable.

(As long as someone pays for it, it's all good?)

 

Tip 2: The freezing process. A character can only freeze him/her-self. You need to be in possession of the ticket to enter the area, and of course when you use the service - at which point it will be removed from your inventory and you will be disconnected. The character will instantly be carbonited and preserved for future use. (Imagine you have a level 50 something and need more room for another alt, want to try something else, etc?)

The price? A lot, of course. But not too much. Make sure you can pay it in Game Credits (forming a "money sink", because all MMOs need a few of those, right?) and/or by Cartel Coins (because you want to get our real money for Cartel Coins, right?). It should be a win-win service.

 

Tip 3: The thawing process. Another character goes into the area must be in possession of the above-described [ticket], to enter the area first and then also to use the Thawing Process - at which point the ticket will be consumed.

So you need a character at level X to be able to enter the Thawing Area (and have a ticket) to Thaw a Carbonited character out. (Hey, you can't thaw yourself, can you?)

The cost? Again alot, of course. But not too much please. And once again as per same logic as above, probably wisest that you could pay for this in game-credits (the money sink) and/or cartel coins.

 

All of this would even allow "preferred status" or F2P gamers kind of enjoy "more characters" than the limit of 2 or 6. Even if they can only have less active at the same time, etc. Not to mention the credit sink and/or cartel coin sink functionality.

As the inventor / proposer of this idea I welcome a special item in my mailbox that is a [Reusable Hutt Carbonite Freezing Services Ticket] and goes to my "mission items" inventory and saves me the other of buying that ticket every time I want to freeze / thaw someone. The general price for the ticket could be so that it forms about half of the freezeing / thawing price, I don' t know?

 

5) Please allow us to sort the characters in our character list, change the order - or then make it automagically so that the last played character ALWAYS goes to the top, and when you play something else the other characters "slide down" a notch. At the moment there seems to be a random order completely unrelated to alphabetical order, order of creation, or order of last-played - except the one last played char that is at the top on first page. Pfft.

 

6a) Reply. When I press R to reply to [Friend], it shows that I'm typing to Friend. So I type. During my typing a [stranger] whispers me. On my input line, it still shows [Friend] as the target, so I finish up my typing. But when I press enter, somehow because it's a [r]eply, it actually goes to [stranger] instead!

This is dangerous, undocumented, there's no warning and no indication and yet it's an easily replicable BUG.

Please fix. Asap.

 

6b) R + Tab, would be nice if we could scroll the last 5ish people who have whispered us with tab, makes things faster and easier. Sure we could click their names on the chat but using mouse in turns with keyboard isn't ergonomical.

 

I'm sure I forgot to mention something but I can add more later. Cheers.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Dreamkeeper
Styling

The problem is in your phrasing, why is player feedback in relation to free to play important? Why was feedback through beta and on test server not deemed as important?

 

Why was the question not simply "the importance of player feedback"? At a stroke you are indicating you are focusing and listening only to a very small part of the game.

 

+1, good and valid questions and points.

 

 

I hope you won't stay subbed for much longer as players like you is something TOR doesn't need. I am sure you won't be missed either

 

What exactly is wrong in pointing out that we have PTR realms, where players test the gameplay and report bugs and then even if some things are changed (in terms of gameplay / balance), the actual BUGS aren't fixed or addressed when the patch is applied to live servers?

In your words: I hope players like you who can't tolerate valid and due feedback to something they seem to be a huge fan of, stop playing soon. You won't be missed. We'd rather have players who at least try to influence the quality of the game rather than just support a saga or a publisher no matter the obvious flaws. ;-P

I use to give lots of feed back, so did a lot of other people. It never actually got anything accomplished. All we get back for it is rehearsed responses and unfixed bugs.

 

People aren't going to make the time and the effort to let you guys know whats going on if its not going to accomplish anything. I don't know what EA's policies are but you guys can't ask for us to take the time to communicate when all the focus is going to "possible" bad press and pisssy shareholders.

 

Even if You guys cant fix a problem at least let us know why. The gaming community is a lot more understanding than they give us credit for.

 

Fix the problems, let us know whats going on, and we will start doing the same for you again.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Jrea

Sorry but ever since you started killing off every thing that would have made ToR unique back in the Beta people told you will end up F2P soon after Release did you listen NO you didnt and look where the game is now

 

People told you the way you are doing F2P is very strange did you listen once again NO

 

so why the heck would anyone believe a word you say know eh

Edited December 10, 2012 by Grmp

Same Gender Relationship ! please...

Honestly, I've got mixed feelings about F2P. I've only been a subscriber for about 6 months so take this with a grain of salt. From what I've seen, the restrictions on F2P are enough to make people want to subscribe. However, they're also enough to make me want not mess with F2P players. Many, many, many times I'm in a group to do Heroics and have to wait while some F2P person walks clear across Tatooine or some other huge planet because they're not allowed to have a speeder. You end up waiting 10-20 mins and then you get bored and you and the rest of the group go do the actual mission and when you're done, the person you were waiting one still isn't there. It sucks.

 

I'll also add that the F2P people are completely ruining chat. I've never had to block/ignore so many people in my life. There are way too many complete idiots especially at the lower levels. To be fair, on the higher planets a lot of the riff raff is gone, but that may be because the F2P people haven't leveled that far yet.

It seems to me that F2P has changed the whole face and feel of the game. Its now set up so a F2P member will get hooked and then subs to get all the extra features so a ton of new stuff for him/her to make the game easyer and funner to play. Great marketing idea Im sure your making a ton of money. But as a sub already whats new for me? 50% of whats in your marketplace is F2P unlocks that as a sub I already get. Oh I see I get heavy servers, and lag. Nice marketing idea!

I understand the money involved with free to play but as a subscriber I feel they should open more server space with all the new players. On any given night the starting areas are so full it makes the gameplay unacceptable and the games loses the basic concept of enjoying the storylines. You have to continuously wait for respawns and chances to kill mini bosses. It has made the game useless to a free to play person as well as a subsciber. Part of what drew me to this game was the excelent story lines and activities which set this game apart from other mmos. Now it is a level grinding game just like the competition. More server space is needed to enjoy the game.

 

Every day now I have a lowbie F2P guardian/sentinel that gets stuck inside my smuggler ship and can't get out...

 

This bug has been around since launch I think.

 

It sure doesn't entice suscribing to the game...

 

Today I was talking by whispers to one, it's sunday btw... I had to comfort the guy, tell him to open a ticket and not let this cast a dark shade on the game. Since he was lvl 12, he must have installed this morning probably : first impressions you know....

 

I have the guy on my friendlist, he just logged on, he still is stuck in a XS freighter... That's almost 36 hours now...

 

F2P or not I'd say there should be a faster reaction to unblock customers, especially if you want them to sub eventually...

I will say that one thing that is good about f2p is that you can usually find a mob running heroics on the low level planets. That's a better experience than having to sit around and beg for help.

I'm sure I forgot to mention something but I can add more later.

 

...The list goes on as such, after tonights reminders:

 

7) Sitting on something?

Unless I remember incorrectly already during game testing it was proposed and also said that it will be done.

We're still waiting for click-and-sit stools and chair and whatnots at the cantina. It's not that difficult, you already hve the sittable chair in ship cockpits! Make it similar (with a better pose) and allow us to turn ourselves with RightMouse+moving the mouse, so we can deside the direction we're facing while sitting, and it works perfectly!

Or just make them work similarly to Cover-mechanic does, but with a mouse-over only and to any class of course.

Many don't care how, but it would be nice if you actually managed to make real a few of the made promises. Yes?

 

8) Sitting / Standing.

By default it's the X button, so I'll use that in the example. When you press X, you sit down. Press it again, you stand up. Everyone around sees this happening. It seems to be working, right? WRONG.

The problem is, that if you sit down, and then RP for an hour (for an example), and someone else arrives to the area (I don't know the exact range of how far the "stance status update" bit is transmitted to?) later - or logs in later, and is where he left off, in the cantina. To them, you are in the default stance: Standing.

Even though you should be sitting.

The way this "stance status bit" (as I now call it) is working needs to be improved. Make it a part of the appearance query. When a client request the appearance (gear) of my character, they also get to know my "stance status bit". With that it should fix itself. Thanks.

 

9) Make sure foremost window is foremost window. For an example, when I open map (it's big!) it partially overlaps with my chat window, which is fine - I'm looking at the map, not the chat. But when I try to click those little arrows in the outskirts of the map, leading to the next area, to get a glimpse of that, if that's the overlapping area then the mouse-click actually goes to the chat windows instead. This needs to be fixed for improved gaming experience.

I shouldn't be required to hide my chat window before pulling out the map, eh?

Here's a good memory rule: Foremost window is foremost. Mouse clicks go to the foremost window.

 

10) /who parameters

Sure, you could implement parameters into the who-command, that some of us have familiarized ourselves on other games. You know, need to ask a question from a level 28+ Bounty Hunter? Easy! Just type /who l-"28-50" c-"Bounty Hunter", for an example. Z for zone, g for guild, etc. Even r for race would be nice, at least for RP purpose. Need to find a Mirialan Sith Inquisitor? /who r-"Mirialan" c-"Sith Inquisitor" and boom. Both of them get listed if they are online.

But if you can't do that, at least fix the bugging search parameter system!

The problem is that if I want search for "Spathi" in the who-list, and I type "/who Spathi", the social / who-window pops up as expected. It even shows the word "Spathi" in the search field, as expected.

It does NOT, how ever, filter the results, as one might expect. (Instead it just de facto lists the people on my current planet.)

I still need to manually press the "search" button again (at least the search term is in place ready for me!), and only then it searches for Spathi. See the problem? You're halfway there, the search word goes to right place. Now finalize it make it actually start filtering without me needing to command it doing it again. Please? Thanks.

I noticed that on the SWTOR home screen one of the "rotating" pictures is one that says it is free to play up to lvl 50! Does that mean they will be increasing the level cap with the new patch? Or will it be the same just if we didn't subscribe we could get to level 50 but would not have all of the options of a subscriber. I hope there'll be a level increase.

Here is some feedback for you guys. Nerf the Rage spec and Nerf the Blinding bubbles!

I just want to say that I love the way you guys do F2P... I'm a fairly new member to the SWTOR community and I played F2P until level 20 until me and my friends decided to subscribe and others to be preferred. I loved how there was no level cap and how the restrictions weren't too bad to make me stop playing. If it wasn't for F2P and the way it's being done, I and many others wouldn't have been attracted to this game as we are now. I'm not entirely sure how many people will subscribe from the way F2P is implemented on SWTOR, but I definitely know they got me and my friends hooked.

If battle master gear shows up on the cash shop in any form, you're done.

This is a joke thread right?

Here is some player feedback for you:

 

I will never again purchase a product associated with EA or Bioware.

I do like this free to play option because I can now at least get my friends to come online and do some Flash points and at least level with me, but it just seems to hard to do with this XP restriction I understand your restrictions with the flashpoints, Warzones, operations, space battles and other stuff but this is an "MMO" we are meant to at least play with other people and the game isn't fun without your friends. I just feel leveling would be more fun and you would attract people back if this XP restriction was removed.

I am a Pay to Play guy, and for a few days I was a free to play guy....I've been here since near day 1, and I am glad to see that there is now a free to play system....The only problem is that I believe these free to play guys should not be limited to the amount of times they can go into warzones. How they cannot trade and cannot join guilds.....I strongly feel the only restrictions should be the reduced xp and the 2 character max creation.

Long time subscriber and player as well as a guild leader of a very active guild committed to SWTOR and I hope you seriously reconsider the way you handled Life Day because this is very sad. I am a huge supporter of this game and I desperately want it to be successful. I am however disappointed that you have basically made all the cute holiday stuff only purchasable for cartel coins, which means that as a subscriber I still have to pay EVEN more to get the cute little things.

 

I can actually even live with that, but what really bothers me is that you don't even have an event for Life Day. That is what people really want is a little event to celebrate things. If you want to pay attention to player feedback I would start there. I do want to wish you Happy Holidays and a great New Year to all of your staff because I still enjoy the game but this just seems like trying to milk a cash cow and that you have no vestment in the game, but EA wants to get as much money from this before it collapses. I am kind of sad.

I feel the need to write something for you guys far across the Atlantic. So... I returned to this game almost a year later. I tried the f2p option. I don't mind the restrictions, they are understandable from a business point of view. But I subscribed.

 

A whole YEAR is passed away and nothing has changed! Yes, you put in some extra playgrounds for endgame, some extra options, quickbars, and a few "new" items. But in general, the game is still the same, with additional bugs. Lots and lots of bugs everywhere I go. for example: Kira's lightsaber issues, the taxi on Coruscant vanishes, my character is floating in the air, really annoying. hard mode Foundry flashpoint is utterly unplayable!!!

 

And there are the other minor stuff that the community is begging for a year now.

 

VASTLY distinct and different "good" looking arms and armor for all classes. On GTN and all together in the game I came across like 5-10 different models! Unbelievable that under a year you couldn't make some really good looking armors for the classes across all levels, not just for the higher levels. (Note: a few legacy armors look great but still no significant model changes made here, and care to elaborate the bounty hunter level 10 legacy armor???? REALLY? THAT was the BEST you can do???..... WOW! just wow...

And stop recoloring and reusing the same models! I'm looking at you Cartel market armors. Why should anyone want to by anything from that market anyway?

 

HOOD ON/OFF OPTION! PLEASE!!!!

There is no need to further elaborate this. Make it happen! (Or at the very least, let the Jedi Knight wear the Sith Warrior armors)

 

Let every item bind to legacy instantly. I don't see any reason why it would be a bad idea not to do this. The "bind to character" is outdated.

 

EXTRA stuff, just some ideas: PAZAAK!!! pvp and pve even tournaments! A great side activity, like dueling. I don't understand why a computer game always needs to be focused around killing each other.

OR SWOOP RACING again PVP and PVE. Amazing way to earn some credits, race against each other.

OR REAL SPACE COMBAT! PVE and PVP. How amazing could have been to actually fight in groups in SPACE! And go wherever I want to go with it, sure in a reasonable playing arena of course, but you get the idea. Forget this scripted boring missions. They are just not worth the time.

 

More CLASS STORY MISSIONs ON BRAND NEW PLANETS!!! I don't really care about the planet missions, they are basically the same on each planet. You talk with the guy yeah there is some problem with Imps or Reps, yeah you do that, you do this, then the planet is saved and you move on! BORING!! WE NEED REALLY, I REPEAT REALLY UNIQUE MISSIONS in the game. (Puzzles, exploration, quests without shooting a bunch of people, like diplomacy missions etc.etc)

 

And a few extra just to feel that the world you're in is exists without boundaries:

MAKE additional side activities for the Classes. Like: let Bounty hunters "hunt for bounties", Smugglers smuggle goods, and spices across the galaxy, Jedi Consulars discover hidden secrets about the force gaining unique abilities for themselves, or for their companions, let Assassins do some assassinations in the galaxy, maybe infiltrate Coruscant to take out the target. etc-etc. (I'm thinking specifically here the Bounty hunter Belsavis class quest part, where I had to take out 8 targets, but give more details about the targets, you don't even need voice over, just text, and make it to feel like you are in a huge galaxy not just on a planet between lvl 24-30 and then move on to the next.

-Character customizations option in-game of course

-dye armors

-character respecialization: I should have the option to change advance class, maybe give it a limit, like once or twice

-and of course I absolutely understand that implementing new things into the game takes time, but nothing really happened in this year since I left. Well it's even worse now considering the alarmingly increasing rate of bugs. If nothing else please focus on fixing these, DON'T ADD ANYTHING UNTIL at least 90% of the known bugs are fixed and they will mostly never occur again!

 

And lastly: This game is a good one, but it needs a lot of improvement. I can wait but not forever. Give me something so I can say this one is worth it. The small gifts are nice but that's not going to make me stay. Thanks

I bought the game, subscribed, quit, and subscribed again for a month, now I'm trying F2P. I'm okay with all the limitations, though the lesser experience is a pain. My main actual beef is with the constant reminders: look, I get it that I earned less experience or didn't get a reward option - reminding me every time doesn't make me want to subscribe, even if you use exclamation points (i.e. "subscribe for more!"), it just irritates me.

 

I'd consider subscribing again, but there are some things about how F2P is handled that just bug me, and result in me having stubborn feelings about not wanting to pay for anything. F2P should feel like playing the game, but I just want... this thing to make it easier... and then this thing... and this thing... oh, hell, I may as well subscribe. Instead, F2P feels kind of like a mix between a shake-down and a constant, nagging voice.

Here is some player feedback for you:

 

I will never again purchase a product associated with EA or Bioware.

 

this. You have earned my personal distrust and disdain.