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Date Written: 9/10/14 Last Updated: 2/10/17

Intro:
In my first experience playing as preferred I wanted to look at the rate of experience gain and to see how playable the game was with all of the unlocks, but as a preferred player.  I also wanted to look closely at how the two play styles compared in detail.

The conclusion was that with all of the unlocks the game was quite playable and enjoyable, but I ended up resubscribing in order to take advantage of some of the subscriber perks again like reverse engineering discovery bonus and early access to new content.

This time I am trying preferred again because I wanted to enjoy the decreased experience gains so that I can role play and not feel such a big hurry to make it to level 55 and missing out on all of the story based content.  To this end I am not going to do any flashpoints or space battles to boost my experience gains or use any xp boosts.  I want to see how playable the game is for me that way.

I won't be listing the differences like I did in part one except to note some differences from the last time I tried this experiment.

• The decreased xp starts at level 20 now as opposed to 10.
  
• There is no limit to tactical missions.
  
• There are no operations allowed unless you buy the weekly passes.
  
• Traditional flashpoints are still 3 per week though for the boss loot otherwise there is no limit to flashpoints.
  
• Speeder training level 1 starts at level 20 as opposed to level 10 for subscribers.

The first 20 levels played out almost exactly the same as a subscriber so I will skip that part and begin at level 20 and describe my experience every 10 levels.

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Level 20 – 30

9/10/14 I hit level 20 on Taris and got a message saying my experience would be at a decreased rate as compared to subscribers.  Since my xp gains are decreased I know I will be spending extra time on each planet and need to do most every mission I can find.  At later levels I am looking forward to having more of a challenge and will need to put more time into keeping myself and my companion well geared.  I love Taris and am enjoying it a lot right now.

9/16/14 I decided to re–roll my character as a female gunslinger as opposed to a male knight because too many people assumed my character was female and I wanted to keep the name.  I am level 21 and just arrived on Nar Shaddaa.

1/31/17 Yep!  It is 2017!  I decided to resubscribe after my last go at free to play.  There were too many perks that I couldn't pass up.  One of which was the 50% bonus xp armor with great defense stats.  I am also using + 25% xp boosts when they are available.  Currently my character is level 16 and I am only doing the main storyline.  Since last I played, the xp multiplier for the class and world storylines went up to 6X experience.  I am also playing the trooper and this is my last character on this new server that I have not completed the class storyline on.  I should mention that the game play has changed greatly since last I played.  My character's name is Canteel.  I notice that my speeder training starts at level 20 as opposed to level 10.

2/10/17 I have to restart my character again.  I hit a bug in the system where my character's storyline can't progress without help from the developers and I can't petition for help unless I am a subscriber.  I did make it to level 30 without much difficulty and doing primarily the main character's storyline.  I did do a little bit of extra stuff, but only a little and it only caused me to go up maybe two levels.

In other words leveling as a non-subscriber with the 50% gear and the major xp buffs that you get just from doing the main storyline make playing as a non-subscriber very doable and that is without the bonus character experience perks that you can purchase/unlock for your character or the bonus xp events spread throughout the year.

Let's see what happens.

TAGS: games, star wars