so in the end we all going to pay the price thanks to the people that abuse yet again a system exploited so that we now all going to pay the price for it again?

 

so in this case you can tell more: that the problem that are selling there refer a friend link in the game to get free cartal coins and not wane pay for it its more thanks to that abuse more there going to chance it?

 

Well cannot disagree, in-effect yes all must pay the price for others abuse. This is BW after all. I not overly negative about BW but yep in this case.

 

Still as I said in my other post, won't miss the endless RAF link posts in gen chat. All in all, I can live with that.

Well I think it was predictable that would come. But I'm really interested what will happen with RAF prizes as the mount and some droid pets? Never happened to get all 5 of them but hoped that 1 day I could get 5 friends who don't mind to use my refferel code. Now it will be really sad if ppl never get the chance to get these items after 27th of April... Hope you still let ppl get them in collection though...

 

I don't need any more pets and I already have over 40 mounts. CC's are a better choice as those can at least be used by all.

I'm really not sad to see this go. I've always felt kind of "meh" about it. I was only able to get like three people to use my link since RAF launched, and only one of them subbed. And that only lasted like a month. Yeah boy! It didn't help that most people would only use the link of "famous" players. And those usually were the ones that would sub and stay subbed. If you weren't one of them, or didn't go out of your way to promote the link, it wasn't all that great. Great on paper, but not that great in use.

I did not feel the need, to use it + I did not feel the need, to promote it = I won't really miss it.

Sorry, I do not want it to sound harsh or anything, for those it matters, hope things get solved rewards wise.

I'm surprised it took this long. People have been exploiting the referral program for years. BioWare has been throwing money away for literally that long. It's good to see you guys finally came to your senses. This might help stem the inflation problem over the long-term. It's the first in a list of things that need to be done to fight it.

 

Anyone with questionable morals that exploited the system though has enough CC to last them probably until the game closes down. I fear that the discontinuation of the referral program will anger those that have unfairly benefited from it and they will in response not buy any more CC, because why would they when they were getting it literally for practically free? All they had to do was make enough credits or get a lucky loot crate score to be able to play the GTN game, to be able to make enough credits to buy off players, to keep the CC flowing in, to buy stuff off the CM to sell on the GTN and make gobs of credits, and once you had enough referrals, this was a self-sustaining system. Depending on when these people started playing, they may have already been set to exploit this program. I've seen ordinary players brag about being able to buy a hypercrate in a month or two just off of the CC they made off of referrals when asked. It's one thing for content creators to benefit just by including their link in the video description. They at least contribute to the community. It's another for ordinary players to prey on newbs to generate CC.

 

What I'd like to know now is how BioWare is going to handle the players that paid often unsuspecting newbs a one-time payment that was in no way fair for use of their referral code that would pay out indefinitely, as long as they were subscribed, and for what amounted to the referee a drop in the bucket in credits . Because exploiters should not make off with their illegally obtained gains when other people used the program in an honest fashion. And those people whining in this thread about the program's end are most likely those that greatly and unfairly benefited from the program by use of the aforementioned method.

 

I also look forward to having an actual signature on the forum again.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Tofu_Shark

everyone spamming forum threads with one-liners and their referral link in their signature seems to be really upset, i see most of them already posted here Edited April 16, 2021 by RikuvonDrake

in my opinion it wasn't bad system per say but indeed it was abused in many ways by some.

 

Only thing i say it was nice part of this system that in moment of need you could use friends ref link and get 7 days of sub time in case they couldn't renew sub atm or for some RL matter that was stopping them for time being.

 

Besides that it wasn't for me anything meaningful . I know people used it to accumulate insane amounts of CC, then buy of GTN sell and earn credits. . . is that abusing system not really imo but ref a friend was meant to be shared with friends and get them into the game. in the end we ended up ref links being spammed on fleet, DK, forums, discord servers etc etc

personally i don't think system was extremely bad, it had flaws but i don't think removing it is of any significances . Only thing is that 7 days of sub time that we are loosing unless i missed that its being addressed in some other way.

All in all its a nice change and its nice to see that game is getting attention it deserves.

Cheers and have a nice day !

Edited April 16, 2021 by lorddjole

Well cannot disagree, in-effect yes all must pay the price for others abuse. This is BW after all. I not overly negative about BW but yep in this case.

 

Still as I said in my other post, won't miss the endless RAF link posts in gen chat. All in all, I can live with that.

 

i also not going to miss then since now there need to buy cartal coins when there need a item from the cartal market if the GTN price is to high for then.

and thats the main reason why people are selling there referral link in the general chat more since there wane not pay with real money to get cartal coins to get something from the cartal market since the GTN price is to high for then.

 

 

everyone spamming forum threads with one-liners and their referral link in their signature seems to be really upset, i see most of them already posted here

maybe the reason is for the people to add there referral link in there signature is about the bonus items you get more.

since you get 4 pets and 1 mount only by the refer a friend system and there are people that wane collect stuff in there collections or use as decorations for there stronghold to show there pet collections or mount collections.

there are a lot off people happy that bioware is doing something but the way there are doing it now is diffrend since there is no plan from then how to get the mount and the 4 pets after April 27th thats something a lot off people are missing for new players more that there cant get it any more after April 27th.

Does this mean the people who have referred others will continue to benefit from the monthly CC?

 

This is actually a solid question. My personal take is :

If we are removing ref a friend system remove all parts of it included used ref links that grant CC.

 

If that is not done, yes u cant get new ref links, but many who abused the system will have significant cc grant from remaining active ref links + CC grant from Galactic Seasons system. I think thats a bit too much and imo doesnt really fix abuse it just freezes ability to acquire more links.... makes no sense

if system is to be removed , removing all CC grant from it is logical step . i understand that ref links will last and expire but it might take 2 weeks or 5 or 6 months and then new players are in sort of disadvantage compared to those who have ref links still active from previously acquiring it.

Edited April 16, 2021 by lorddjole

Personally, i thought the whole system was just silly. It had "future maintenance mode" all over it. Besides allowing new players to get a little free time to check the game out....the rest of the system was just a huge obvious exploitive mechanic from the start. Im a bit shocked that this system made it this many years without being touched on at all....until now.

 

Ive already removed my referral link from my sig. I never liked it being there but my thought was if a new player just happened to skip by and click it then great. I never ever offered creds for people to click my link....so i guess thats why the system just didnt do anything for me.

 

Im glad its gone...and to never return in any similar form or fashion. There are other ways to pull new players in and for the existing ones to keep getting their collectables....besides a silly exploitive referral system.

good change.

I'm not one of those people that are going to be overly affected, but it's a shame that it's going away. Most mmos have a refer a friend program of some sort.

 

Personally as someone who is not a constant subscriber (I sub for new story content or when I know I'll be playing a lot and want to do Operations) this was a nice alternative if I wanted a soft lift to the restrictions for a limited time. It also allowed you to create a character in a locked race if you hadn't leveled them to level 50. But the one that hurts is the credit limit. I always had on the back of my mind that if I'm not subbed and I just saved up enough credits for an item in the cartel market i really want, I'd use a refer link to lift the limit and buy it that way. I wish the credit limit was lifted for preferred.

 

I wonder if the mail you get for every new character with the refer rewards will still continue?

Will there be CC compensation for withdrawn Cartel market Unlocks items, as it was with weekly passes years ago?

I just hope the mount and 4 pets will still be obtainable. I already have them, but I hope other players will still be able to acquire them.

everyone spamming forum threads with one-liners and their referral link in their signature seems to be really upset, i see most of them already posted here

 

I haven't.

 

At least, not until now replying to you.

 

p.s. If peeps are gonna get "upset" (your word) about SWTOR, get upset about stuff like THIS--> http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=989705

 

---

Personally, i thought the whole system was just silly. It had "future maintenance mode" all over it. Besides allowing new players to get a little free time to check the game out....the rest of the system was just a huge obvious exploitive mechanic from the start. Im a bit shocked that this system made it this many years

 

QFE ^

 

I never liked it [referral link] being there [in my sig] but my thought was if a new player just happened to skip by and click it then great. I never ever offered creds for people to click my link....so i guess thats why the system just didnt do anything for me.

 

Same yep, although i'm probably just gonna wait to remove mine on April 27th.

 

---

There are other ways to pull new players in and for the existing ones to keep getting their collectables....besides a silly exploitive referral system.

 

QFE x 2 ^

 

And i can think of one simple small way real quick that certainly couldn't hurt--> http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9933949#post9933949 ...as a gesture to guilds and their "collectables" .

Edited April 16, 2021 by Nee-Elder

I didn't mind the program at all, until I started hearing from guildies and others who were suckered by the scammers in-game to click for xxxxx amount of credits only to get stiffed. There was no incentive for the person getting the free CC to follow through on their credit offers. Maybe if it had been handled somehow like COD, I still wouldn't mind. There are so many credit-poor players in-game that that "pittance" to most vets could have gotten them more excited to continue playing since they could buy cooler cosmetics or whatever. It would have made up for how one-sided the RAF program was to the spammers/scammers.

Well, I'll miss the occasional random bits of extra ccs, but I've got the pets and mount, which were the main things I was after. (Due to a sense of completionism.) Hopefully, they'll figure out a way to keep them available for people. Possibly the Galactic Seasons thing that's coming.

I'm surprised that it took this long. I think people using the system to benefit from getting their friends to play has been the exception rather than the rule. The entire way it is set up never made sense to me to begin with.

 

I will reserve judgment of whatever comes instead of it for when I've been able to experience it myself, but at first glance I'm expecting rewarding people via Seasons to be more fair. Also, I will not miss the begging for referral clicks.

Edited April 17, 2021 by cyrusramsey

I've never spammed my link in gen chat. I've just had it in my sig here on the forums.

 

Depending on the month, I get anywhere between 4k to 6k in cartel coins. So, Keith is saying they'll introduce somewhere between 2k and 4k for this (this) season of GS, but that's over the course of 5 months.

 

Without doing some tedious math, I estimate I'm getting that minimum 4k a month from just 100-per grants for old sub referrals, meaning over those 5 months, I'm going from a minimum of 20k to a max of 2 to 4k, and that's if I log in consistently.

 

Big hit, especially over time as people drop their subs and my current cartel coin rate slows to a trickle.

 

(EDIT: Having done the tedious math, looking at just the 100-per grants between 3/11 to 4/11 for old referrals still subbed amounts to about 3.6K, so I was close. Still a big hit).

 

I also see where Keith said "begin sunsetting" which begs the question what is the end of that sunset, meaning at some point will there be a cold hard stop in cartel coin grants from old referrals?

 

At least I can look back at my collections, strongholds, and character transfers I've purchased over the years and be grateful for that.

 

C'est la vie.

Edited April 17, 2021 by xordevoreaux

SWTOR should really do a twitch event like Rust did. Reach out to a bunch of streamers, both big ones, and faithfull SWTOR streamers. Add in some twitch drops or some reward codes, and a little bit of online marketing.

 

Could make for a big boom of new players and return of old players, like refer friends was supposed to do.

This is long overdue. However, I think giving away CCs for referrals was completely fine.

 

Also my opinion. IMHO #f2p & #prefered players should be included in the new version, since they will be lured into subscribing for at least 90 days, when they feel the benifits of the unlocked game.

 

I subbed for multiple intervals of 90 days when a *friend* gifted me my 1st subscription.

 

It was a birthday gift from myself to myself

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

Good radiance, finally. Goodbye ref-link-spam in the chat, you will not be missed. Shooting down people who tried to screw over new players got tiresome years ago.

 

On the other hand, does that mean that does of you who got screwed over as new players who hadn’t had a plan of how this game works, can now get out of these links and the people feeding cartel-coins of us for years without having to have our subscription lapse for 90? Meaning that a 1-day lapse would now be enough?

 

As Customer support said they (sadly, oh so sadly) couldn’t do anything in that regard like, oh, cancelling the link-account-connection for example.

(I have a Guild-leadership and a raid-group to take care off and therefore can’t just pause everything for 3 months, but would really, really, REALLY love to finally get out of that link)

Edited April 18, 2021 by Gamemaron

SWTOR should really do a twitch event like Rust did. Reach out to a bunch of streamers, both big ones, and faithfull SWTOR streamers. Add in some twitch drops or some reward codes, and a little bit of online marketing.

 

Could make for a big boom of new players and return of old players, like refer friends was supposed to do.

 

I believe they sometimes do that, give out subscription or cartel coin codes for influencers who then pass onto their audience usually through a giveaway of some kind.

I've seen people recently offering new subs as much as 60,000,000 credits to use their link. I'd bet most of those never actually pay people, and I'm personally glad this particular spam will end. Full disclosure... I've got all the pets/mounts, and usually get between 2000-4000 extra Cc's a month. I only have my link here in my sig, and never directly asked anybody to click it.

 

I've always felt there should have been a cap on the number of free Cc's you could get every month. Maybe maxing out out at somewhere between 3000-5000 would have solved the spamming issue.

 

But... It is what it is. Maybe y'all can add the rewards to the vender that shows up around Christmas. That'll give those who don't have em an opportunity to get em.