Darth Hater

There is a way around the credit cap for savvy f2pers, simply purchase Molecular Stabilisers and use them to trade. Sure it isn't as stable as credits, but plenty of people would be willing to deal in that currency.

As a subscriber, I would certainly be willing to trade f2p people for Molecular Stabilizers. They are the closest we have in game to a "gold standard". On Jedi Covenant you can count on them to be worth ~200k.

I finally found the will to play again last night and got my last 2 levels to hit 50.

I was amazed to see that the basic level 50 PVP set quest reward was blocked to F2P players.

So why even give us warzone access? I have to PVP in non PVP gear?? The restriction to 5 per week is not enough for them??? Not only do they need to give me as little chance as possible to learn, but they also need to force the whole exercise to be completely and utterly pointless and unbalanced???? WTF????!?!!?!?!?!

Even if I subbed or purchased weekly WZ unlocks, I would still be wearing non-PVP gear..... They are gone forever now....

Speechless.....

BW/EA. I thought I had seen every type of stupid from you... and then ... POW!!! You blew my mind with moronics...

... Meanwhile... Back at the BioWare Cave ...

So far, the Cartel Market items seem to be 95% fluff i.e. as a subscriber I see very little utility in most the items. I purchased the Legacy bank slots unlock and would purchase something useful such as legacy weapons for transferring hilt/barrel, if they become available.

Shouldnt the question be:

Are p2p/subcribers buying more from the cartel shop than preferred status?

Since once they use the store they are preferred status.

I started by buying $70 in cartel coins in the first week of F2P.

Recently hit high 40's levels with my character and come to the inevitable realisation that at level 50, there is nothing for me to do but quit the game.

With no OPs, not enough FP's or WZ's, etc (and with such low caps) to give me somthing to do for a week, and no permanent way to unlock these said things - what have I got to keep playing (or buying CM coins for?).

But then, just looking at every comment here so far, I think we all realize this model is currently a joke.

what?  there are 4 ops and 5 warzones.   Thats a lot of stuff and more then enough to keep you busy for a week. 

Quote from bobdole1979 »

what?  there are 4 ops and 5 warzones.   Thats a lot of stuff and more then enough to keep you busy for a week. 

For premium theres 0 ops, 3 FPs and 5 WZs (or in this case suicides due to never being able to ever have enemy matching gear).

Purchased permanent unlocks would fill queues for everyone. Fixed caps would make the game fair for everyone. Regardless of if your an apple or an orange in terms of payment method.

Quote from uq1 »

Quote from bobdole1979 »

what?  there are 4 ops and 5 warzones.   Thats a lot of stuff and more then enough to keep you busy for a week. 

For premium theres 0 ops, 3 FPs and 5 WZs (or in this case suicides due to never being able to ever have enemy matching gear).

Purchased permanent unlocks would fill queues for everyone. Fixed caps would make the game fair for everyone. Regardless of if your an apple or an orange in terms of payment method.

 

Umm...subscribe then?  That $70 you spent on cartel coins would have given you a 6 month subscription, and not only would you have gotten almost all the unlocks you paid for for free, but you also would have received a ton of free coins to spend every month.

I am honestly at a loss over what your issue is.  You say the cartel market is a joke, and yet you picked just about the least efficient method of using it that I have ever seen.

1. This was sold as a F2P model, not a F2T model. I expected important stuff to be fixed, and not have them change the fluff instead. I had already purchased action bars, and that was never the issue with the model. The issue is zero endgame.

2. I do not always have the money for a sub. I prefer to purchase outright when I have money.

3. I expected through my experience with countless other games that F2P meant it would become nearly all unlockable.

I bet on EA/BW having a braincell and realising that a F2P model can only work if people can play.

Was I mistaken?

1. In 99.99% of the cases "F2P" is nothing more than an advertisement term. The payment model would be microtransactions or - like in this case - a subscription / microtransactions hybrid. Talking about those direcly would remove much heat from most "F2P / P2P" discussions.

2. Unlike subscriptions where 15$/30d is a safe bet, developers are still experimenting with "F2P". Selling vanity stuff and boosts seem to be the common denominator, but everything else varies - sometimes greatly. Through my experience with other "F2P" games i learned "not to expect anything" - especially not one-time unlocks for everything.

3. If a specific payment model is fine for me, is determined by the answers to the following questions: How much am I willing / able to pay (per month)? What do I want to do in this game - and can I do it without going above that limit? - In case of hybrid models the answer is very likely "Yes", because of the subscription "fallback" of 15$ (or in my case 13€) per month. In most other cases the answer would be "no".

Odd, I paid 7 dollars more for a 6 month subscription and 3000 cartel coins (actually 4200 because I bought the CE and have a linked security token). You would've been better off subscribing, although it's not to late. Act now and you can get Rise of the Hutt Cartel for 50% off LOL :p 

It's gonna be really funny when we see the results. As a f2p player so far my experience is not encouraging me to do anything with cartel market. I definetly would love to buy some Cartel Market stuff at GTN but at The Progenitor its close to impossible due two reasons. Some subscribers are not aware of f2p/preffered cap limits. There are people my server selling "Legacy name display" unlock for 500k, not only its way over cap limit its also 5k credits per single CC. I also have been very lucky to buy Inventory Slots and GTN slots for reasonable price of 500 credits per coin and if there was more offers like this I would go preffered and keep playing throwing 5$ every once in a while. Right now I'll enjoy the game until lvl 50 along with the storyline and then I'll probably keep logging in once a week for 5 warzones that will last probably 10 minutes like my last "adventure" there, taking spots from leavers. Im not complaining about the game, its quite good actually I really like it, yet it amaze me how badly f2p is designed which leads to fact that community see no interest in selling Unlocks on GTN.

They do that on purpose to make it difficult for gold farmers with the credit cap.

I would feel sorry for you if money was hard to come by... but normally, and many people have money for their hobbies, supporting a game with some money is... the normal thing to do. And there are several ways to do it that equate to less than $15 dollars a month while being a preferred status player.

Its as if you are asking for the best way to play the game without ever having to support swtor in any way. It almost sounds criminal to me.

While I sort of understand your point, on the other hand - if the unlocks are on the GTN then they are already payed for.

It really should not matter to EA/BW which wallet the money comes from, as long as it comes. It is in fact, smart, for them to make this option a priority so as to increase over all income (some people have more money then time, others have more time then money).

As for the cap, it should be raised to about 1.5m on preferred and maybe 500k on f2p (so people selling CM items on the GTN can get their item's true worth), or there should be an unlock to raise it. 200k/350k is way too low, and is, in fact, reducing company profits.

I think you will also find that only the spammer part of gold sellers are f2p accounts. Their grinders are all subs who can access the content to make the money to sell, and then actually use ingame money trade (not available to non-subs)