SWTOR: F2P workarounds

[crayehal]

F2P Workarounds


These are workarounds to overcome some F2P restrictions by buying Cartel Items on GTM with credits. I list estimated sell price by single and account.  If an item costs more than your limit (200k or 350k), you need a subbed buddy to buy it for you.  Most guilds have folks willing to help a F2P out and buy the item for them.

See Category: Cartel Market, Subcat: Unlock

2 character slots per server - buy server slot unlock, about 60-100k

No access to Emergency Fleet Pass - buy fleet pass, 4k-10k

No access to Cargo Hold - buy cargo hold unlock, 60-100k single / 180k-320k account
Note that this is different from Cargo bay, which is an addition tab in Cargo Hold

No access to Guild Bank - buy guild bank unlock, 30-60k single / 150-300k account. Restricted to items, can't deposit/withdraw.

Cannot expand inventory tabs by credits - buy inventory slot unlock, 30-50k single / 100-200k account

No access to Section X - buy section x unlock

Cannot equip purple/artifact quality gear - buy artifact authorization unlock, single 150-200k / 600-900k account

Cannot equip event gear - buy event unlock

Limited to 3 Space Missions/week - buy weekly space mission access

Two quickbar/hotbars - buy quickbar unlock, 30-60k single, 80-120k account

No Unify Color - buy unify color unlock

no Hide head slot - buy headslot unlock

No title - buy title unlock

no legacy name display - buy legacy name unlock

Two active GTM sale slots - buy 10 GTM slot unlock

Add crew skill - buy crew skill unlock 50-100k single / 200-300k account

companion customizations - buy customization unlock

Emotes & Moods - buy unlocks

Limited to 5 warzones/week - buy warzone pass

3 Loot rolls per week - buy flashpoint pass, 40-150k

No operation access - buy operations pass, 70-150k


About passes
Sometimes passes can be as high as 150-200k. If you want to do flashpoint or warzone for gear, ask yourself whether it is worth getting the pass and farming gear drops, or better to just use the credits for buying gear from GTM.

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Upgrading from F2P to Preferred removes the following restrictions:
No trading with other players
Chat timer
Can not send mail
No /who usage

If you play SWTOR a lot, I highly recommend upgrading to preferred.  How to upgrade:
- Buy $5 in cartel coins
or
- Buy a cheap unopened swtor game box and use the code. Can be as low as $5-10 on ebay. The code gives 30 days sub and drops you to preferred status after 30 days. A game code can only be used once per account.

[Rust]

TOR is a great experience. But it's not $15 a month great, nor is it worth putting up with the hassle of "work arounds" to their atrocious F2P system.

If they'd dropped the MMO requirements completely and just threw on the Warzones as Multiplayer Content, it would have been *the* RPG experience of a generation.

[Turjan]

I played a couple of months paid sub when it came out, then popped back when it went F2P.

Preferred status wasn't as restrictive as I'd feared it might be...until I ran into the "limited to 3 space missions/week" thing.

Seriously? THREE missions PER WEEK?!

That was the dealbreaker for me. I have some high level toons there from days long past, but I'm afraid they're going to stay mothballed so long as silliness like that exists in the game. It's bad enough that non-sub players automatically get less XP and face higher vendor prices than subbed players, but to cripple space combat too? Even when I was subbed I found that sometimes the only way to bridge a level gap between a character and his occasionally OP story arc boss enemies was to grind a few space gigs for the XP. That simply isn't going to happen on 3 missions per week.

Bio said at the outset that the way they'd used space missions was essentially as an entirely optional feature, to capture a key element of the Star Wars universe, but not require players to run space missions if they didn't want to. So limiting an optional feature to 3 missions/week is mind-boggling.

Oh, the other thing is, that's 3 attempts per week - if you fail the mission, it still counts as one attempt. And if your ship isn't equipped properly (with gear that's expensive and/or grindy to acquire) then you won't last long on higher level space missions.

In my book that counts as a pretty heavy mark in the FAIL column.
A pity really.

*puts SWTOR back on the shelf again*

[srmalloy]

Bio said at the outset that the way they'd used space missions was essentially as an entirely optional feature, to capture a key element of the Star Wars universe, but not require players to run space missions if they didn't want to. So limiting an optional feature to 3 missions/week is mind-boggling.

As long as fleet commendations would be usable only to purchase starship upgrades, then it could remain as an unlimited sideshow for everyone. With character gear purchaseable with fleet commendations, allowing F2P players to perform an unlimited number of space missions created a hole that would allow F2P players to get around some of the limitations that they had imposed on the F2P players (and kept beating you over the head with, what with the Cartel Market icon splashed all over your UI and the "You can't do that, but you could if you bought the unlock from the Cartel Market, and all the restrictions would go away if you became a subscriber" notifications you get when you try to do something you're not permitted to as F2P -- it's almost as annoying as your ship droid).

[Xieveral]

Emotes & Moods - buy unlocks

Seriously?

I was a beta player and had collector's edition at launch, I had high hopes for the game and it was fun for a while but I also got burnt out fast. Recently a friend has been asking me to go back and play but I'm really put off by the treatment a freebie gets and how forced microtransactions are. Why would I want to give the game another chance when I'm treated that poorly as a free player. Not very welcoming or enticing.

[eabrace]

Unless something's changed since I last checked, the fact I can't even display titles I've earned (including the one I got for buying the game early and taking part in beta) without forking over cartel coins was all the discouragement I needed to say, "Meh."

[Rust]

Heck, it's a microtransaction just to hide your helmet.

[Dollhouse]

I went ahead and subbed after I realized the only way I was going to get to game with my "usual suspects" crew from CoH Pinnacle days (at least until more TSW content arrives) was to play SWTOR. So I guess  their heavy-handed approach to F2P worked, in my case. =/

I don't really care for the game that much, although it has some very good points. But playing with friends matters...

[crayehal]

the fact I can't even display titles I've earned (including the one I got for buying the game early and taking part in beta) without forking over cartel coins

You can fork over game credits, which you earn in-game and buy an unlock for the title for around 10k credits.  A heroic or flashpoint can award as much as 20k credits, and it's not that hard to make game money with crew missions.  All of the above unlocks can be purchased thru GTN with game credits, so a f2p doesn't need to spend real money.

[eabrace]

You can fork over game credits, which you earn in-game and buy an unlock for the title for around 10k credits.  A heroic or flashpoint can award as much as 20k credits, and it's not that hard to make game money with crew missions.  All of the above unlocks can be purchased thru GTN with game credits, so a f2p doesn't need to spend real money.

Oh, I get that.  It was the fact that everyone in the beta was granted a special title to say thank you and can't even display *that* title without having to unlock it.  Don't get me wrong:  I'm not irate about it or full of nerdrage because I couldn't display my title, or anything.  That just seems to me to be indicative of the lack of thought that really went into the cash-grab F2P model they went with.

[JWBullfrog]

And, for me, it wasn't the fact that I could work around things. I'm happy enough doing that in other games. And, I kind of respect a F2P game that has thought about that. It was the fact that they seemed to go out of their way to remind me how much of a second class citizen I was. Get to lv 10 (?) 'you will earn less xp unless you pay us'. Want to craft? "pay usfor doing all but the most basic stuff.' Ect. Ect. ect.
 
I still have the game on my computer, but I've largely given up on it.