Darth Hater

I just posted this in the Bioware forums, and thought I would extend the discussion to the Darth Hater crowd, to see what everyone else thinks.

Cheers!

A long time ago in a Galaxy far far away, I had the expectation that SWTOR would not allow players to "pay to win".

When Free to Play was announced, I was fine with the idea.  Afterall, allowing new players to experience the storyline of SWTOR might very well hook them on the game and increase subscriptions.  The Cartel Market never worried me because I had seen similar ideas in other subscription MMOs, and buying from the online cash only store never affected your game play.

What I didn't expect was the ability to purchase items on the cash only store that could be sold on the GTN.  In some games, even that would not have had as big an impact as in SWTOR, because in those other games there's an extremely limited amount of gear that is useful in end game content that can be purchased for in game currency.

In SWTOR, PVE content is completed using gear that can be purchased, in its entirety, from crafters selling on the GTN.  What about the set bonus?  Well, in other games with an armor set bonus, this would be a problem.  In SWTOR, you are given commendations enough to purchase a complete set of Tionese gear at level 50, all of which can be upgraded to the latest standard of gear while maintaining the set bonus.  Or you could get the same from running a week's worth of flashpoints and operations. 

To summarize, in game currency is now sufficient to purchase the highest tier of gear for all PVE content.   Since you can sell Cartel Market items for outlandish sums on the GTN, it is very easy for someone to turn real money into in game currency and then into in game items that improve their performance.

This is, of course, what is meant by Pay to Win.  The only thing worse, and less subtle than the route Bioware has chosen to follow, would be to include the highest tier mods in the armor they sell on the Cartel Market.  Bioware has chosen the smarter route, which is to allow players to handle the exchange themselves, thus avoiding the immediate ire of everyone who hates pay to win.

Bioware understands very well that if they were to make the cash shop items Bind on Pickup, rather than Bind on Equip, their revenue might drop.  A significant portion of the purchases made on the Cartel Market go straight to the GTN, and that would no longer be possible.  That said, as a counter argument, even more real money purchases might arise, because players in the game wouldn't be able to spend their in game credits to purchase them, and might actually want a lot of what is being offered, and therefore be forced to pay real money for it.

The Pay to Win practice pushes away players who play for the love of the game.  It is especially disheartening when you see introductions to the GTN like the new speeder with protection against falling off that exceeds speeder piloting III.  Only an incredibly small portion of the SWOTR population can receive a mount with a similar ability by playing the game (the NiM Denova Tank Mount), and even that is a matter of luck, since it is a rare drop.

As it now stands, you can purchase everything used for space content and PVE content using either directly or indirectly purchased goods.  Only PVP gear is sacred at this point in time (other than the expertise crystal), and it would not surprise me to see the introduction of a Cartel Market item that allowed players to get around the valor limitation as well.

Furthermore, Cartel Market items tread on the corpse of Legacy, allowing players to purchase Legacy only unlocks using cartel coins instead of credits.  I wouldn't mind this particularly if it wasn't for the fact that in doing so they also eliminated the requirement of Legacy Level to use these perks, and have not bothered to introduce any Legacy Level perks over level 25.  Nor have they kept any of the Legacy level perks sacrosanct to Legacy.  If you have money, rather than time, you can simply purchase them with cash and ignore the effort level normally required to earn such rewards. 

This wholesale approach to this game via the Cartel Market has left a bitter taste in my mouth.  I'm not ditching my subscription just yet.  I've enjoyed previous Bioware games, and respect the quality they normally bring to the table.  However, I am becoming more and more certain that the long time players, those who would pay a subscription for 10 years straight in return for quality, are not the players Bioware is currently catering to. 

I could go on to list bug fixes left undone since launch, UI features that are so basic that they should never have left Beta without them, etc, but in reality, my chief complaint is the Cartel Market.  I'm not interested in Pay to Win.  The rest of the stuff, even a ready check, I can improvise around.  I'm having difficulty coming to terms with a subscription game where you can simply buy your gear with real money.

What do you think?

I think a 6 week schedule will be a good idea, if only because it will allow Bioware to focus on one area at a time and, hopefully, avoid releasing 2 bugs for every feature.  

I think that more players will try out the new content in its entirety, rather than spend their time playing the one portion they are most interested in and ignoring the rest.

Kephess Hardmode Imperial Seige Droids in 8 man are now calibrating until immune.  They cast a buff on themselves every 5 seconds or so that causes them to increase damage by 12%, and decrease damage taken by 12%.  After 8 stacks they are completely immune and it's a wipe.  In 8 man, this requires at least two interrupters on the two droids not being killed, in addition to full dps and interrupts on the one being killed.  It's a little rediculous, since to interrupt every single cast (which have been reduced from a 1.5 to a 1 second cast time) would require 9 people in the 8 man op.  Missing casts is easy, since any lag whatsoever guarantees a missed interrupt.  Also... no mention whatsoever was made in the patch notes regarding this change.  Guilds with exceptional dps and excellent coordination (not to mention classes with short cooldown timers) can still beat the boss, but many guilds that have been killing Kephess HM have stopped trying altogether (including mine).  I'm getting really annoyed with these "features".

Imo, the best legacy purchase for leveling alts is the speeder training (allowing you access to speeders WAY before you could get them otherwise).  Although expensive, the legacy perk includes the cost of the training, so you don't have to purchase it seperately.  Seen like that, it's a very reasonable price to pay.  That's an individual perk though.

The other really awesome perk, even better than the speeders, is the rocketboost.  These come with a hefty pricetag (4.5 million credits for all three ranks, I believe), but being able to pop up to 110% speed for 15 seconds out of every 30 is really nice, especially since they can be used in doors.  Even better, you only have to pay once, and all your characters can use it.

The flashpoint, warzone and space mission xp bonuses are all useful, but only if you intend to spend ALL your time doing only that type of content. 

Some other perks I like are the companion affection gain (completely worth it if you intend to level your companion's affection with gifts off the GTN) and the crafting crit bonus, assuming that you intend to craft (it does not affect missions or gathering crew skills).

Finally, the repair droid and mailbox are exceedingly useful. I also like the ship's repair droid since it offers crafting augments at 100k each for your ship's droid (making it the most versatile crafting companion in the game).

I assume that you have no concept of what F2P means. 

Subscribers will continue to get full access to the same content that they've always had access to, with no additional costs.

F2P players will gain limited access to content, with access to additional content dependent on how much extra they wish to purchase.

Nothing is being said that isn't 100% obvious.

No where does he state that Subscription players will have to pay money above and beyond their subscription to play the game.  If in fact expansions do cost additional money for subscribers, then that is no different than MMOs like WOW.  However, the amount of content typically invested into an expansion is, in MMOs such as WOW, absolutely huge.  Sometimes as much or more than in the original game by itself. 

I really don't see the purpose of your forcast of Doom & Gloom.

You know that we're lacking for new content and info when this post makes the front page =P

I kept getting "Taxi Death" after being dropped off on the platform with the jar in this last quest. 

If it happens to you, people are landing on a regular basis and you can whisper one of them to ask for a rez. 

Unfortunately, the medic probe isn't an option, so your only other option is to start all over.

SWTOR will be getting a store, but everything to date has indicated that it will be cosmetic only, with no pay to win option.  In that respect, SWTOR is still fine for you.

Crafting definitely has a ways to go before it can be considered an essential part of the economy.  While it is possible to be a crafter and make decent money, none of the crafting professions have consistently made more money than what you could make from just farming and selling materials on the GTN.  Unless you can be the first to corner a specific niche market, chances are that you aren't making a ton of money as a crafter.  Hopefully this will change in the future and Bioware will reward dedicated crafters with ways to make money that do not rely on random luck of the draw reverse engineering.

I personally have a maxed out crafter for every single profession other than investigation and armstech (still working on those), and thus a vested interest in this particular aspect of the game.  I would love to see a better crafting system implemented, but I'm not holding my breath.  At this point in time Bioware has bigger concerns looming.

As for the social aspect of the game, and running into terrible people, I would suggest what many have suggested before.  Look for a like-minded guild.  There are quite a few people in my guild who refuse to group up with non-guild members because of all the issues you mentioned.  If you can find a good guild, they won't mind if you want to watch every cutscene, or take your time on content.  They will probably also offer you the opportunity to participate in Operation level content, even if it's only after they are easily clearing it, thus granting you access to another aspect of the game that you wouldn't otherwise experience.

I rarely take the "general chat" or forum rage as anything other than the bile that invariably expresses itself when you place immature children and adults alike in an anonymous setting and allow them free reign to say whatever they wish without consequence.  For every loud, obnoxious person using these forums and chat mediums there are a dozen mature players who shake their heads and stop reading.  Find those players and you'll be set, regardless of the game you choose to play.

Cheers!

I was referring more to the fact that if you had someone who wanted to be a douche, they could just sit there clicking the quest items (the turret crate, the droid crate, the race console etc), not do the quest, and then click it again... and again... and again.  Just to make people wait. 

If no one beat them to the click, they could hold up a lot of people.  This appeared to be happening at several of the quests I went to, but it's impossible to tell who was doing it.

I ended up leaving and returning several hours later when the madness was over

I really don't understand why Bioware isn't instancing a lot of these quests.  All you need is one person who wants to be an @$$ and some of the puzzles become completely undoable. 

That, or actually design puzzles that encourage interaction between players, but doesn't allow them to hinder their own faction.