Hi, I am a huge fan of this game and have been fully supportive financially since release. My first purchase was Alpha Squad and since then I have spent over an additional $200 in Station Cash. I recently realized my Alpha Squad bonus was gone and made a ticket to Sony about it. After 3 days I got a reply which I will quote below. "Greetings PsyStorm! Operative Raphael here to give you cover fire! Boosts don't stack, so if you replace one with another it will delete the original one. This is intended and is by design. I will return your Alpha Squad boost as a one time only gesture, but be aware if you equip it or any other boost and then replace it, it will be gone forever. Your boost will be returned to you some time later today or tomorrow so make sure you claim it on the right character as it will appear in your notifications window. If you ever need assistance from us again, please do not hesitate to ask! Valiant and Honorable even off world! Operative Raphael" Now I am a bit shocked here because nowhere was it mentioned we would lose that 6 month boost by simply paying Sony more money for temporary boosts. I petition that we are able to keep our Alpha Squad boost for the 6 month period and use it when we see fit. If we want to spend more money for another specific boost, what does it matter to Sony? Once my temporary boost are done I would like the option to use the Alpha Squad boost until I feel like purchasing another temporary. I think this is more than reasonable so please don't be greedy I am posting the wiki link for the Alpha Squad package which doesn't say anything about it being replaced FOREVER by another temporary boost. Please lets get real and fix this. http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Alpha_Squad Edit: I would also like to point out that I am happy with Raphaels service just not the decision Sony has made on this, as it's unfair. PsyStorm
This is nothing to do with Alpha Squad. It's simply how they designed the boosts to work. Problem is, they NEVER EXPLAINED HOW BOOSTS WORK until after release. I had the same problem as you. I got my alpha squad boost back, and I simply won't be using any other boost for the next 5.5 months.
I think it's very sad, that sony won't let people keep their alpha squad after purchasing a boost. You paid money for the 6 month boost, and it should stay for six months. I find these schemes very shady by sony, and just another way to rip people off. Sony can change it so you keep the alpha squad, but yet they don't.... Just wrong!
From a financial perspective, the lack of ability to stack, or at least swap, boosts was one of the dumbest things they could have done. It means that Alpha Squad members can't buy boosts. Okay, I guess I'll keep that money then.
I thought the Alpha Squad boost would be a passive, background boost like the membership bonuses before the game went live, I am disappointed too as I would like to buy xp boosts in the future but have the 10% ones equipped in the meantime.
Agreed. I feel like the people who are likely to purchase Alpha Squad are probably the people most likely to be buying boosts as well.
Good to see I am not alone in my thinking Please post your opinions. It might be that Sony didn't think this one through properly, so I am hoping they will adjust it somehow. They will lose a lot of money this way, as people with the Alpha Squad will not want to lose that 6 month benefit.
I don't have Alpha Squad, but here's my take on it. See a lot of you purchased this through the means of BETA testing, I assume. This was pretty much a $40 Kickstarter program for the game, lending you out time in BETA, SC to spend, and plenty of other added bonuses when you got on post-release. All on top of the 10% bonus for 6 months (25 weeks.) If you were really one of the few spending money on the game, you'll also be premium, gaining at least a 25% passive bonus as well, effectively making your overall bonus percentage come out to 47.5% over 6 months for just $117, or $4.68 weekly. (Remember as a premium member you also will receive 3000 free SC points as well over 6 months.) So I want to pose the question. Are you really getting screwed over getting 47.5% a week for $4.68/wk + 500 SC/month + BETA access + Free Camo & Unlocks instead of getting no BETA, no free unlocks, no free SC, and paying $5.41/wk for 50%? Here's some math: 6 months of Premium = $72 100 SC = $1 Unlocks from Alpha Squad = ~$70 7 days 50% XP bonus = $5 Without Alpha Squad: Premium + 25 x 50% boost = $197 ; Max % : 100% ; Avg. % : 87.5% ; Dollar/% Ratio : $2.25 With Alpha Squad: Premium + 10% boost = $112 ; Max % : 60% ; Avg. % : 47.5% ; Dollar/% Ratio : $2.36 4000 SC = $40 free Unlocks = $70 free Total overall costs = $222 So over the entire 6 months, with premium, you would be spending a whopping $.11 more for a 47.5% boost over that period, rather than 87.5%, but will have received $110 free in perks. The picture to me seems more or less equal depending on your preference of play. If you will be able to put a lot of time into playing the game, you could potentially do without Alpha Squad and end up gaining enough extra XP to more effectively unlock weapons and use the free SC each month to make up for missing camos. If you only are able to put in a few hours every so often during the week, using a 50% boost with premium will allow those players to continue to keep pace while lacking the time to grind. If you play a lot and have Alpha Squad, you may see that you aren't gaining enough XP to keep up in level, but if you spend your Certs wisely you will have plenty of attachments and weapons to use to keep competitive.
You can do all the math in the world, it still comes down to a 40% difference in potential experience gain..which directly translates into 40% more cert gain. A lot of us were veterans and were already in beta...I was...had been for months, the weapon unlocks we didn't get to choose...it really doesn't matter, and I only play 1 faction with my outfit...so it's honestly only 4 unlocks as far as i'm concerned. The camo and founder title I don't give a crap about. What sold me was the experience boost. I figured with the 4000 station cash it was the only free bonus I really cared about. Game came out and found out there were 50% boosts which were better than my 10% boost, and they didn't stack, nobody knew exactly how it would work because they never told us. But then to add insult to injury, on Friday the 23rd, a whole 3 days after release, Sony had a double station cash day. so if I had waited I could have got 8000 SC with my $40 Got the weapons unlocked that I actually wanted. Using your math I could get the 6 month membership + 26 boosts (yes 26 weeks is 6 months not 25) for $137 if I bought the SC on the 23rd. And the point is more or less the lack of communication from SOE on this whole deal, this all should have been explained ahead of time. If boosts weren't allowed to stack we should at least have the ability to unload them. Or add an extra boost slot that cannot contain 2 identical boosts. I
I bought Alpha Squad before the +10% XP and resources was advertised as a boost and I have the email to prove it.
The only thing I am asking is to be able to use the Alpha squad boost when we want instead of destroying it when we BUY a larger boost for a week or so. I don't think this is unreasonable as we weren't informed about this. I don't think I use any of the weapons from Alpha Squad and have bought many others with SC.
I also would like this so that when I purchase the 6 month sub for myself for XMAS I would like to stack that premium with a purchased 50% boost so that I can be at 100% XP boost and plow thru them Battle Ranks.... I also would like to keep that alpha squad boost for later on once I have finally reached a high or capped battle rank so that I can stop wasting cash on cert boosts and just use the 10% for the remainder of the unlocks.... Is that so much to ask? You know it aint hard to do. Just let it store a max amount of boosts in storage that stops the timer when removed. Then Allow for selection of another one in that boost storage area. The one replaced gets put back in the boosts storage for later use. Simple and Fair.. Please fix this..
It was pretty bad of SOE to not allow the 10% alpha boost to be re-equipable. Typical SOE, why i had't played a game they owned in over 5yrs. Then the 40.00alpha for 4000SC would have been 12,000 SC a couple days later (but on closer look) got the 4 weapons i use (2800-4000) camo crap, 10%x6 is <= 60% for 1 month. 4x50% boosts couple thousand. So 6000 left vs 4000 so really only 2000SC difference and if i play VS/TR on other servers(i don't) it was a decent deal.
What a BS that u cant swap them simply out. You ******* payed for the boost for 6 months! So imo you should be able to use the item till the expiring date. Srsly im happy I did not buy any boosts besides my Asquad. Thanks for sharing this! But srsly fix this SOE its just a ripoff like this.
you could get boosts in beta, and im pretty sure you could only have one at a time then also... but yeah i see your point, one boost for 6 months is kinda weird
A shame this wasn't addressed with this update. Not holding my breath to seeing any kind of fix for it. Definitely a major disappointment that they can't address such a simple problem that was created in the first place because they didn't think it through very well. Oh well.
i recently read somewhere about the issue and remember a moderator answering that they are thinking about ways to solve the issue. Like for example make the alpha boost passive. If somebody remembers where the thread im talking about was I believe OP would like to see it...
