The major difference is that each new Recruit set eventually invalidates the other side of the coin: PVE gear progression, on a certain level. When Bioware was forced to give away Tionese because fresh 50s were only using the Recruit gear, this was basicly accepting their mistake and just giving equal gear to Recruit in PVE manner as well. Had they continued to increase this, they would have removed entry level gear grinding from PVE entirely. They clearly decided this was something they still want entry level grind for PVE, but don't want for PVP, where the playing field needs to be more equal. Bolster to 49 did that before as well for all level ranges (levels being more a PVE thing than a PVP thing anyway) and now this new system does that at entry level endgame PVP as well. And there is still a gear grind, as soon as it works as intended, there will be a grind from entry level bolster, to Partisan, to Conqueror. Agreed Augments are an important factor to consider. But I think you can understand why people barely in their 50s don't have enough money, or motivation, to augment a blue set they will replace with a week or 2 of PVP right? So you cannot expect every entry level PVPer to augment their Recruit gear. Also giving away empty augment slots wouldn't solve this. The augments themselves already are too expensive for people who are just starting the credit grind (something that is horrible if all you do is PVP anyway). Bolster streamlines the experience of entry level PVPers. And you need to have new people coming in to PVP to ensure PVP in a game doesn't, eventually, revolve around a 'circle jerk' of the same PVPers over and over until it dies out because of natural attrition because of other factors than how good the PVP is (like, ya know, Exams, marriages, deaths, out of money, whatever). Entry level free giveaway gear is not as streamlined as a well implemented Bolster system is. Anyone who claims that is just too much in hate of the current implementation of Bolster to even think straight about the subject.

So.. give F2P players a gear set that is so high when they ding 50 they will never need to buy the purple unlock? Yeah, that's good business.. Recruit gear was not a solution to a problem, it was merely a patch to stop it from bleeding.

So.. the numbers you post show there wasn't a problem? Please, look at more than just what you just did. The truly efficient people had gear well over what you posted compared to Recruit MK-2 unaugmented. Also, when talking about efficiency we are talking about what they can actually do within a warzone. Someone with less expertise, gets more damage, does less. Someone with less Endurance, dies from less damage (still gets more damage) Someone with less main stat, does less damage (and still does less damage because of less expertise) And within your entire figure, you completely ignore the green stats, which all serious EWH+augments PVPers maximized once they hit the Expertise efficiency cap. And those differences got a lot bigger a lot faster. More crit chance and more crit damage goes a long way of doing even more damage on the person who already gets more and can handle less. Count to that also the people with less gear die more and, because of that, can spend less time doing useful things for the team. You easilly saw a 60-80% difference on numbers you could pull out on gear alone. Finally, before throwing more useless math this way: If I have 20% less stats than someone else (say, he has 100 END, I have 80 END) that means he has 25% more stats than me. If someone has 50% less stats than me, I already have 100% more stats than he has. So depending on where you count from (from the guy on top, or the guy on the bottom) 60-80% efficiency difference is very quickly achieved. Or, more precisely: if I had gear that allowed me to do 40% less endgame results than you (all other things equal) regardless of what I do; you would have 67% more efficiency than me within the match. And 20% less here, 17% less there, 5% less here, etc.. all these things add up to each other one way or the other to quickly be a 40% less efficiency within the match. So, conclusion, your numbers actually prove my point more than they disprove them.

This happened to me at least 3 times a week, and I don't spend all my hours PVPing, only just enough to get the weekly done each week. So stop being an overly biased poster just to try and prove your point is the only truth Vampirus. Especially when you are so very clearly lying. Green geared new players who didn't even find the Recruit gear yet were a major problem ever since F2P launch. I can know, because I've spent literally hours in whisper with these people trying to help and educate them in a friendly way, regardless of the abuse I got in return half the time. Also, this same forum, and others, were full of screenshots of people in this kind of gear. Heck, I've even heard stories from PVP friends of guilds making premades of undergeared people on the opposite side to give their faction some free wins while fighting at a disadvantage giving them a challenge / change of pace. So don't come in here and claim people in below Recruit gear in level 50 PVP never happened. And seriously? All posts saying this was not the intention, the fact that 2.0.1 will enter a fix where people in high end non-Expertise gear will get less expertise from bolster to not make PVE gear better, and the fact there is still PVP progression from Bolstered -> Partisan -> Conqueror.. And you still spew this nonsense onto the forum? Shame on you for stating two very simple and very provable false statements one after the other. I, and I hope anyone else reading this thread, will never take any claim you make serious again. And people call those that feel Bolster is, in general, a good idea with a bad implementation the trolls? Really?

I think it's a fair and balanced review. The reviewer clearly went and tried everything that was new about the expansion, and gave a good and complete view of the changes with his own view of it. Pointing out the clear negatives without ignoring the positives as well. A much better review than I am used to from IGN honestly, and the below 8 score is fair considering his personal views.

And this indeed.. This would completely fix Bolster. They said now they can see what PVP gear is because there are only 2 PVP sets left. Identify all items with Expertise as PVP gear and don't touch their stats. Every other slot just needs to be given the exact number of stats as just below Partisan would have, regardless of actual stats on the item (maybe only check if it's a end or main stat heavy item, and which secondary stats there are), and make that entry level PVP. Though they haven't said it specifically yet, it does seem they may be going that way now that they removed EXP from War Hero gear. So, let's see what is actually going to be announced for the patch of tomorrow.

The problem with this suggestion, is F2P players. You talk about reading Dev posts, but you clearly missed the one explaining why Recruit MK3 wouldnt have solved PVP disparity around 1.7. Battlemaster is purple gear, and a Recruit set on Battlemaster level would be well beyond what blue gear allows to have at those item levels, and therefore make Recruit MK3 by far the only gear set F2P players will ever need to do anything (and therefore remove the need for them to unlock purple gear, and through that hurt Bioware's income). This would repeat itself again after a new level cap and a new second set of PVP gear. And to avoid repeating the same mistakes and avoiding the same limitations of the past, they made a system where everyone, even F2P players, will have a certain level of efficiency in a warzone. Because really.. who wants to go into a warzone with even one undergeared player? That was one of the most common complaints pre 1.7. And that problem no longer exists thanks to Bolster. Is the system perfect? Heck no! But it sure is better than what we had, with less limitations.

Agree with your second point, disagree with the first. And only because the Devs themselves came out and said there was a 60-80% difference in efficiency from gear between Recruit and fully augmented EWH. That is a difference no amount of skill can beat, as experienced by many PVPers who rolled a new alt and had to go through the week or 2 of losing grind to get any efficiency back in their actions. Sure, you could roll a new Assassin and probably do useful stuff defending a side turret in Civil War or Novare long enough for reinforcements. But that is far from what you could do if you actually had gear.

Look better. I did this before in the past, but if you go through a 100 page thread about a subject like this, in the end there is not much more than 1 unique poster per page (usually around 1.2 / 1.3 unique poster per page on average). Also, if everyone agreed, the thread would not make 100 pages because there was no need to discuss anything. It would just be a 'petition' style thread where actually everyone agreed, and after about 100 posters the thread would be done with. People so often post page counts to prove their point right, but the only thing it proves is that the subject is alive in the community and is being deeply discussed, often with very different views on what is right or wrong. In no way is it proof of one point over the other, unless you make a deep analysis of posts and opinions and how they respond to each other. But, there are many in this thread and others who feel this current system, even if exploitable, is superior to the huge gear gap in 1.7. As long as Bioware fixes those exploits on a near weekly basis as soon as they become clear, they will still have my subscription. I've had more fun in PVP now than I had in all the months before. And to those claiming all those "10k+ more HP than me enemies because they are in PVE gear being more unbalanced than 1.7 was" you should probably have a better look at their other stats, and at your own stats. Pre 1.7, the guys with 8k more HP than you were actually fully optimized on all stats, not just HP.

Devs getting job security through creating bugs is nonsense is all I'm saying. Yes, short term they will have work to do, but long term making bugs is not what Developers want or get paid for. Same as jumping of a bridge. Short term, your movement speed is enormous! Long term, it can not end well.

^^ This This is exactly why I'm kicking against all those people complaining about it. Not because they don't have some valid points (they do!) but they are calling for changes which are just never going to happen, and a little patience goes a long way in things like this. Bugs exist in software, a bug being fixed within a few weeks time is a VERY good timing. Especially if it is a complex one.

- A Sage/Sorc pops their immunity power and people just keep attacking them and not the targets around them. - A Sage/Sorc pops their immunity power and lets it run the full 10 seconds, giving their enemy a nice little timer saying when exactly they can stomp his face again.

Ah yes.. because liking the fact that I can't just randomly pwn newbs who didnt pick up Recruit gear yet makes me a biodrone. Gotta love people putting that 'title' on anyone who doesn't agree with them without question. Bolster > Recruit gear 'solution', that is my entire point. It's not perfect, but it's better.

You know what grinds my gears? When I am casting my auto-crit Turbulence on a Guardian/Juggernaut and he casts his Reflect ability making me kill myself instead of him. Reflect is op, please remove. All the new skills are strong when used correctly. A 10 second self stun that also makes you immune is not the strongest new ability there is. It's even the weakest I'd say, as it can be used badly in so many ways. A 3 min cooldown ability that is really only good when used as a Node defender or as a second stun removal is NOT an OP ability.

And you think a new gear set can be added without any testing of it's metrics at all? And that doing such also had no impact on other aspects of the game, like PVE? I think I am glad you were not involved in any decision making when it comes to development in this game. Bolster itself is an imperfect system at this time, I completely agree with that. But I still prefer it over risking the same ridicilous things happening when it came to endgame gearing as that happened between patches 1.0 and 1.7. Recruit sets are HORRIBLE ideas, not great ideas. Best example here: Level 50 people who never touched a warzone before, and didn't even do the recruit gear pickup quest yet, have ruined more Warzones for me than I can count. I was friendly to all of them, let them know where they could get gear that meant they wouldn't get two-shot by everyone else in the warzone, and helped them that way. But still, having 1 person that, besides not knowing the warzones, also is nothing but free kills for your enemy because his attacks do nothing and it takes barely any effort to kill them is a one way trip to losing a match. Bolster makes sure this never happens. And just because of that, I applaud it. The fact that it is also a system that, as soon as 69 and 72 item level gear is added to the PVP vendor can just be scaled up to be just below those numbers without needing another new Recruit set, is just more bonus to everyone. Once the system works, balance will be easier to maintain stat-wise. I'm just patient and see these long term upsides, instead of being blinded by a few points of endurance and main stats i can trade here for having a few less points of crit or surge there, and the trade not being 100% fair at this time. Because push comes to shove; Developers have posted that between Recruit and EWH fully augmented there was a 60-80% gap of efficiency through gear alone, and the efficiency to non-PVP gear from the Warzone newbie player I said above is even bigger. Not to mention that because of F2P, you can't give away purple quality sets as startup PVP gear, so once gearing goes up, at one moment, a new recruit set can't be made because it would overstretch blue quality item budgets. This current system, with all it's flaws, has greatly closed that gap of efficiency through gear, while removing the need to keep making new "free gear sets". I call that something else than a fiasco, especially considering how rapidly the known issues are being pointed out, accepted and solved by the Developers at this time. Don't forget; this will be the second week in a row where a patch will be made specifically to fix PVP and Bolster issues. Smash Monkeys were allowed to go about their idiotic unbalanced spec for months, and this gets solved in a matter of weeks now.

Yes.. And Elvis never did no drugs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lb52oT1kA0Q#t=68s Yeah, because there is already a level 55 recruit set! Oh wait.. Not to mention the myriad of other issues being created by giving away an entry level gear set to all new players (See: "PVE players using recruit gear as entry level PVE gear, making Tionese so useless Bioware eventually admitted defeat and just gave Tionese away for free as well")

The amount of unbased whining in this thread is so big by now, I applaud Eric for still coming here to post updates. 1) Gear does still matter, grind Conqueror gear to make a difference 2) All issues concerning empty slots and endgame PVE gear being better are being handled as known bugs, and next Tuesday there will be a patch that fixes a number of these bugs again. That's 2 weeks in a row of PVP bug fixes then, so.. 3) Anyone claiming Bioware isn't giving priority to solving this and making it work as it was designed (Conqueror > Partisan > non-PVP gear), is an idiot and should learn to actually take in what's happening to the game and read the Dev tracker more. 4) Anyone claiming Developers make bugs because it gives them job security should jump off a bridge because that gives them more speed than walking. 5) Anyone asking for them to remove bolster entirely and just add Recruit gear again should look in the mirror and wonder "Am I now not asking them to remove a tested system with known issues they are attempting to solve, with a completely untested system?" Because you are. The moment they do what you ask, we will have a much more unbalanced PVP game than we have right now. 6) Cows go "Moo", Dogs go "Woof", MMO players go "The PVP is unbalanced."

My point is, that this specific issue was fixed just before 2.0 went Live. This had the unforseen side effect that the underperformance of WH/EWH became the most clear issue at hand. When it comes to QA, what often happens is that one issue arises when another is solved, or the presence of one issue overshadows the presence of another and therefore makes that less visible. What also happened a lot on PTS was people in their mains, just going for the 55 insta boost and Partisan gear gaining route to 'test' endgame PVP. The route towards that will be less tested in a PTS environment while it will be more tested in an actual Live environment. Therefore, the issue of the route to Partisan (which is where WH/EWH exists) was undertested because people were able to insta 55 for testing purposes. And these are bugs, no matter what you claim it to be. Also, 2.0 had to have Bolster because no other way of having PVP with the current talents was tested. So yes, gearing is a bit skewed now, but having removed Bolster just before Live would have created an even more untested and therefore a lot more unbalanced situation than we have now. Yes, there are silly situations like endgame PVE being better than endgame PVP. But the inbalance of these weird situations is not nearly as big as the inbalance in PVP in general was pre-2.0. There is no 60-80% power difference that can be gained through abusing the Bolster bugs. And because of that, it is already superior to pre-2.0 PVP. And, as I pointed out a few times already, it are the same people that are now gaming the system for maximum efficiency as those that did the pre-2.0 system by using PVE gear in certain slots, or mixing WH and EWH mods to get that Expertise sweet spot but maximizing other stats. It's not like raiders suddenly all started playing PVP. And their advantages are now still smaller than they were 3 weeks ago.

Combination here. I have all abilities I use in a warzone keybound, but also made sure my UI allowed for easy clicking. This is mostly done for those situations where you need to do multiple things at the same time. My go to action is using the keybind, and almost all my important abilities are bound to the left side of my keyboard and mouse. But when having to change the way I have my hand to hit a bound key, I have learned I have enough of a twitch aim from years of shooters that I can more effectively click.. I'd probably never need to click again if I could use a non standard mouse. But I have big hands and the amount of buttons on a gaming mouse cause me to misclick too often. Currently, I have a mouse with 5 buttons as that is what I can still do well with my big hands.

You do realise the major complaints were: "Naked outperforms my WH/EWH gear" right? This had as much to do with Naked boosting too much still (because of empty slots needing to give stats for low level characters), as well as WH/EWH underperforming stats wise. The issue on PTS where naked was better than Partisan was solved before 2.0 hit Live.

I do, Bolster is still a generally good idea that has some issues that need to be resolved. Speaking of, to all those saying "These issues have been reported on PTS and nothing has been done about it!!!1111one!!!111eleven!!!" You deserve a slap in the face and a reality check. There have been multiple iterations of Bolster on the PTS. Tweaks and improvements have been made to the entire system with the data that was available (which was a lot less information than they have now). In the last build before Live there were more tweaks and changes to Bolster to touch on issues. So, then 2.0 went Live in pre-release, with the information available and the bugs fixed and issues resolved that were possible to fix and resolve before Live. Then, within the first week they got a ton of information. Because it is Live, I think you can safely say they got 100 times more information than any week in the PTS. Not to mention that most people on PTS were max levelled immediately anyway, meaning the main issue shown and solved in week 1 (Naked Bolster in sub-55 brackets and WH/EWH gear being worse than greens in those same brackets) actually had very little data on the PTS. But they went Live anyway, why? Well, to start; to get 100 times more information in a week of pre-release than they would get in a week on the PTS. To actually have real data to work with, and quickly resolve issues. Right now, they solved two major issues within a week time. One with a real fix (Naked Bolster) one with a 'quick fix' because another fix would mean reworking the system entirely. That is a very impressive feat so far, and if they keep fixing PVP issues in that same rate, then by the mid May all these complaints we have now will have come and gone like the winter's snow. So, do I think people don't have a right to complain about these issues? Not at all. You feel the issue, let it be known. But do I think people have the right to demand Bolster to be removed? No. The idea of Bolster is good "to reduce the difference between new PVP players and fully geared PVP players in their gear efficiency." This difference was about 60-80% efficiency difference between Recruit and fully augmented EWH pre 2.0. I agree people that invest in PVP should have slightly better gear than those who do not. but 60-80% makes endgame PVP about gear only, and not about skill at all. The new system, will balance it more in the 55 bracket. Furthermore, people that think all problems will be solved if Bolster is removed tomorrow are delusional and, frankly, stupid. In one line you blame Bioware for releasing content they "have not tested well enough" (FYI: you mean, they have not bug fixed well enough, don't blame QA testers for things they have no control over please), while in the next you are calling for them to immediately implement another untested system of level 55 Bolster-less PVP. Something about pot and kettle comes to mind.. So, TL;DR.. Bolster is a good system in it's concept, which still has a lot of issues that need to be resolved. Issues that come to light 100 times better on Live than they would on PTS. If we just keep reporting the issues we have in a serious manner to the developers, through things like bug reports and threads with clear examples, we will all be able to more quickly have a more balanced system than we had pre 2.0. PS: Posts that basicly say "You are an idiot for making a development decision" as a reply to a yellow post are the most destructive thing you can do. We all begged for months for Developers to come out and be open about decisions and why they were made. Now they are here, they are reminded again why they didn't come out before. It's okay to disagree, but at least add more than "You are wrong".

Let me see.. You said about Blasterproof when he said, among other things: So technically, maybe you did not do the actual lying yourself, but you did agree with a lie. No I'm not, and thanks for misreading my words. I agree it is an issue that using lvl 33 greens being possibly better than endgame gear. But, newsflash, WH/EWH isnt endgame anymore, it's levelling gear now. And in that aspect: All PVP performance below endgame level PVP gear should basicly be equal, that is the goal of Bolster. The goal is to also remove twinks from lower brackets. If WH/EWH is about as good or possibly a little bit worse than level 33 green gear it's actually a good thing. Because that level 33 that queues for the same bracket will only have that level 33 green gear, and not all the tricks and talents you have to boost your performance. I would consider it a bug if level 33 gear worn by higher level people has better performance than level appropriate gear though. But that's also on the level of 'tweaking the numbers' and not a, specifically, broken issue. Now, removing augments boosting stats.. thats a broken issue. Endgame PVE gear being better for PVP than endgame PVP gear, that's a broken issue. Two different levelling gear sets having different results in stats when boosted, is at best, a minor issue.

Ah yes, because people being pwned for 'a few days' is an acceptable learning curve for PVP.. He is a troll. Bolster is not garbage, in most situations it works completely good, but there are still bugs and unexpected features that need to be worked out. And we being humans, especially geeks, have a way of always finding the quickest way to success. So the best way to test it is, actually, on Live. The amount of bugs with clear and multiple reports being spotted these last 8 days since early access will be a lot higher than in the same time on the PTS. The system is close, but not there yet. But it is far from garbage. In general, it levels the playing field. At least a lot more than it was pre 2.0. And pre 2.0 PVP was a game of haves and have-nots. And for the haves, that was fine! for the have-nots, it was a horrible experience.

Funny how you missed that while losing 300 expertise, you gained 2200 expertise worth of item budget in all your other stats. A huge tunnel vision there.

My point was that you lied about 'random green drops from Makeb'. This is very specificly using very low level gear on max level. Yes, it's an issue, but it's not a major issue. Also, did you notice he also lost stats doing that? Or did you just look at main + end and though "This sux!" It's not perfect, it has to be tweaked further. But it's no reason to remove bolster entirely. Especially because full Partisan still outperforms this. And full partisan with a bit of Conqueror (something you'll get when grinding Partisan itself as well) outperforms it even more.