Re: Color Crystals Now Require Artifact Equipment Authorization

Tuesday patch I hear, if it's an intended feature expect lots of people to leave swtor. EA, there's only so far you can go to push people for money...

Given that they've said they're investigating the issue, I honestly doubt it's an intended feature.

Just copying and pasting what I had posted earlier yesterday without seeing this thread.

After updating my game to 4.0 I went to look onto my character (and my companions) character sheet where you can see all equipped gear. Obviously because of the update all of my companions gear was sent to me via in-game mail. When wanting to re-equip some armor pieces my game would give me an error stating I cannot re-equip the items because I need equipment authorization. That should not be what it says, it should say, "previously authorized by subscription" like some of my other gear does, but all of my "artifact" gear that was equipped to my companions now says that. 

On my personal character, I have a color crystal in my saber, that says "previously authorized by subscription". However, my Focus generator slot with the same color crystal stated that my stats would not count because I need equipment authorization to use it. 

Have they actually said that they are investigating it in writing somewhere? I was told they were looking into it but by someone in customer service who also said that she didn't really know and it wasn't her department.

Well this would be less of an issue if preferred players had SOME way to contact Bioware.  We get no message board, no tech support, no in-game tickets, they've even closed the off-topic board on the Bioware forum, and they don't even let us report bugs!  It's like we don't even exist!  And on the extremely rare occasion that someone on the official forum speaks for us, they're quickly dismissed and ridiculed by elitist subs.

EA_David said earlier in this thread that the issue is being investigated (page 2 of the thread in my browser).  Speaking personally, I was gratified by the prompt response.

Well... we will see.

Hey, EA... I think some of the reader's (me too) would be pleased if you could give some more feedback. Is there anything for us?

I would expect the patch notes will be posted to this post over the next 24 hours , hopefully it will be listed there

Patch notes are up; looks like this will be fixed tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed!

The patch notes state...

"Cartel Market

• Artifact items purchased from the Cartel Market no longer require Artifact Authorization."

Lightsaber crystals purchased from the Cartel Market may now not require AA, However the Blue Barrels and Hilts traded for data crystals from "level" vendors are not Cartel market items. Nothing is stated in reference to those items that "became" AA required with 4.0. I say became because they appear to be the blue barrels and hilts we used to get from the Mod vendors just now with Mastery instead of [Stat]. We could install these before 4.0 easily, now we need Artifact Authorization to do so.

Some things seem will be fixed, a good thing indeed, others may not be (going by the Patch notes). At least some problems solved. A positive result in part.

(I can hope that Bioware's Patch notes this time are incomplete.)

The announcement post says:

Additional notes will be added during maintenance tomorrow.

So we can hope, anyway . . .

Despite the title of this topic, I hope tech support reviews the posts in enough detail to realize that the issue is NOT isolated to crystals, as shown in my previous post with screen shots. To me it would appear ANYTHING blue/purple might be affected. Several folks, including myself, have various items we can't use anymore - such as earpieces and implants, all the way up to mods and armor, hilts etc. 

Let's hope this new patch does it, cuz i havne't played since this happened. Don't think id' come back either frankly. 

And compensate fairly any of us who spent either in-game or Cartel coins to try to make our characters actually PLAYABLE while the fix is being done,  I spent a bunch of in-game money on a relatively lowbie character just to pull the crystal out of her saber to play her, plus some Cartel coins to purchase an alternate crystal...only to find out THAT wouldn't work either.

And I have another teaming event Friday where I'm going to have to spend a bunch more on a higher level character to be able to play HER on Friday (if not fixed before then).

Do you think this will also apply to rewards offered by purchasing the Hutt expansion pack?  That's where my beautiful crystals came from!

Ok so, did the patch and logged in and... still the same problem.  Character icon has that big red sign above it indicating problem/unauthorized items.  Checked weapons, same issue, the ones with Cartel crystals are not authorized (if I CTRL-Right Click to modify the weapon/item I can see that it's the crystal).  Some purples also have the same issue (earpiece etc).  Doesn't look like anything in this patch fixed the specific issue we are having (or at least that I'm having).

Well, this really sucks.  I really like this game, but right now I can't play it at all after the 4.0 update.  I've sunk over $500 into this game this year alone, and even if I'm not a subscriber I think I deserve a bit more customer service than the silence we are getting right now.  If I can't play this, I'll have to play something else, and if I start spending money on another game I'm not going to go back and forth.  C'mon EA, help us out here!  Don't push us away!

Well the "fix" for the authorization didn't seem to work at all. Most of my Cartel crystals still require authorization including "fresh" ones that I claim after the patch. Really disappointed.

I just logged with a character to Republic Fleet... level 22 Mod vendors still show Barrels and Hilts as requiring Artifact Authorization to install/use. These are the exact same barrels and hilts(blue items) that were sold on Mod vendors prior to 4.0 and they did not require AA then.

I can only assume then that since there is no change in the situation this Artifact Authorization requirement is WAI. It wasn't a bug after all. Even ea_David thought it was a bug. Curious.

THIS is one change I won't play under. I am a preferred player, been here off and on since Beta, sometimes I subscribe, sometime I just buy Cartel Coins. I am done being a customer (both subscription and/or Cartel Coin purchases) and done playing the game until this change is reverted. I will watch here and on future patch notes to see if Bioware decides to change this back.

Color Crystals appear to be fixed for me.

Barrels and Hilts from Comm Vendors are unfortunately still flagged as requiring Artifact Authorization despite being green items.  This puts a bit of a crimp in leveling a character.

I would put in a vote, though, for getting a hotfix when the issue is finally actually resolved.  I was hoping to try out the 4.0 leveling changes when 4.0 came out, not a month or two after. 🙂

Some of the unbound crystals and gear  in my possession are no longer showing arti equip req, but anything I reclaim and anything on the gtn still show it.

Loaded the new patch, Crystals are still requiring Artifact Equipment Authorization. I also completed a Flashpoint in the main storyline and was rewarded a lightsaber that apparently needs the Hutt Cartel Expansion to be purchased. Why? That doesn't make sense since I am not even at the level where it should matter. What gives?

Since we can't post on the forums, we can't submit bug reports in game, and they don't want us to call CS I am personally resorting to questioning Musco, Tait, and the main SWTOR account on Twitter to hopefully elicit an actual response. I recommend others try the same. The squeaky wheel and all that.

This patch didn't fix any of my problems!  Bioware, just drop the whole artifact authorization system already.  It's extremely overpriced anyway.

Copied from this post:  http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8560897#edit8560897

Hey folks,

After investigation, we found an issue with patch distribution that occurred during maintenance this morning. Some players will be getting a new patch later this evening (roughly 6-8 hours from now). There will be no downtime associated with this, and you will be able to play the game up until that point. Players using the streaming client will not download anything further.

Some of you have noticed that there are certain fixes that are listed in the Patch Notes that only some players have. Tonight’s patch will resolve that issue and ensure that all the fixes in the patch reach everyone.

Thanks!

-eric

And after a day of patching, barrels/hilts from comm vendors still require artifact authorization.  Perhaps a separate thread for that problem is in order . . .