okay good info thanks very much! with schematics for things like exotech gloves, where the mod and enhancement can be removed, do you think it's worth speculating that in the next content patch the armouring mod will also be removable (as they're making that possible with pvp gear/operation drops)? if so, that might allow crafters a little more leeway with regards to their crafting and appearance.

it's not.

and where to reliably obtain them? this is especially in reference to things like belts, gloves, and boots which seem to be very rare.

i think you don't understand why it's currently a problem. vertical progression has always been and will always be THE WORST thing for pvp, full stop. the reason why expertise is in the game is because of a PERCEIVED need to equalise the difference between pvp and pve gear, a difference which is small at best right now. that said, i understand why people rationalise that need and why the devs responded by putting expertise in the game. except that's not what expertise is doing. expertise isn't countering pve gear, it's creating a vaccuum where players who rushed to 50 early and ground valor as fast as they could, reaped early benefits of a system which still isn't finalised. it's going to get harder and harder for new players to gear up because of that same system. older players have had the advantage of being able to take advantage of easymode pvp daily/weeklys (objective swapping) in the past, and are currently taking advantage of an equally broken system (kill based with little diminished returns). so when a new player hits 50, they have to complete kill quests against players who have ~15% damage reduction, and deal 15% more damage back. they also have to try to win warzones against these same players. that is why expertise isn't working as intended. because it's creating an unintended powergap in pvp, rather than equalising the gap in pvp/pve.

you don't understand how expertise works, so stop talking.

just want to point out something... there are servers in both EU and US, where the under populated republic side are absolutely 100% curbstomping the imperials on their server on ilum. i would be willing to put down some serious $$$ that those players are mostly ex-DAOC/WAR players. they know how to bomb, they know how to fight with small numbers vs many, and they know how to play on a large scale.

you can get more than one frozen water at a time, it's not unique. you cannot have more than one magenta crystal at a time, it is unique. if you are in a party that's set to master loot when you go to hoth, you will not get the frozen water.

cross posting this as it's relavent to the thread: i just made 2x rakata war leaders belt (schematic costs 8000 creds or there about, from trainer), RE'd them and got nothing (but some materials) back. that's not to say it can't be done, i'm just saying they can be RE'd at this point and a wider sample is required before we can conclusively suggest that you get no better schematic. what is known: if you find a blue level 50 schematic (primeval seekers headgear) you can RE it up to purple (redoubt primeval seekers headgear) you can FURTHER RE it up to a tier 2 purple (anti-armour primeval seekers headgear [superior]) which implies that at the very least, dropped schematics still follow the rules found here regardless of whether they started as green or blue schematics. since the rakata ones are purchased, and the materials to make them are quite costly, it would take a lot of work to get a sample size large enough to tell (i would start with at least 100). also, a schematic dropped for me in eternity vault last night that creates a bind on equip item (yay!), but again, i'm unsure if this would follow the same rules. i would like to believe it does (which would make crafting somewhat worthwhile) however the mats to make it are both inordinately rare, and expensive, so again finding a big enough sample size for a definitive answer will be hard.

i just made 2x rakata war leaders belt (schematic costs 8000 creds or there about, from trainer), RE'd them and got nothing (but some materials) back. that's not to say it can't be done, i'm just saying they can be RE'd at this point and a wider sample is required before we can conclusively suggest that you get no better schematic. what is known: if you find a blue level 50 schematic (primeval seekers headgear) you can RE it up to purple (redoubt primeval seekers headgear) you can FURTHER RE it up to a tier 2 purple (anti-armour primeval seekers headgear [superior]) which implies that at the very least, dropped schematics still follow the rules found here regardless of whether they started as green or blue schematics. since the rakata ones are purchased, and the materials to make them are quite costly, it would take a lot of work to get a sample size large enough to tell (i would start with at least 100). also, a schematic dropped for me in eternity vault last night that creates a bind on equip item (yay!), but again, i'm unsure if this would follow the same rules. i would like to believe it does (which would make crafting somewhat worthwhile) however the mats to make it are both inordinately rare, and expensive, so again finding a big enough sample size for a definitive answer will be hard.

absolutely.

rule 1 of the internet. all women are men until they prove otherwise.

oh i actually enjoy making things like these =]

yeah i'm an artist for computer games (freelance). so i get what you mean... there are times when i get off of a project, and think "do i REALLY want to do that "fun" project too?" haha.

surely it's at that point that pvp just begins? i mean, that's when you're on an actual even playing field (with other battlemasters) and that's what pvp players should be aiming for, an even playing field, not "moar lewtz". if you're pvping for anything but the thrill of the kill, you're causing more harm to mmo pvp than you realise.

i have a corsair M90, girlfriend got me it for christmas. it's pretty nice, comfortable, heavy, well built... yeah i like it.

actually the idea for this tool came about because i wanted to swap the vindicator mods out of vindicator gear, and into war leader gear, to keep the +5% damage while guarding set bonus, and also the superior offensive stats... wanted to see what kind of a difference it would actually make.

all discussion will now be continued in this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=240685

yeah the energy/force cell management is going to be a huge hurdle to overcome. i'm a math guy at best, not a programmer or anything. but it's something i'm sure i can figure out in time (or with help). for the time being though, what do you think about being able to put in a "time to kill" function based on current dps vs hp values?

it's additive in that it adds 15% to your current expertise. it also allows you to bypass the 20% expertise hardcap which is imposed on the actual stats. if you have 12% expertise on your paperdoll, the stim will bump you to 27%

well, to be fair... anyone who came to SWTOR expecting it to be the next big pvp game was a bit silly. however, many proper oldschool pvpers (my self included) came here just because it's something new. it's okay for us to be disappointed with the current stat of the game, however we shouldn't go out with pitchforks just yet. there are many things they could do to fix pvp in the game, removal of expertise is just one of them, although by most counts it's probably the most important one. the game has a long ways to go... and if i'm honest, i doubt it'll ever get there because after all, PVP is not the games primary concern, it never was, it never will be. it was built around PVE, and because of that it will always have PVP limitations. sad but true. the days of real pvp MMO's is gone, and that's largely because it was a niche within a niche, and when everyone wants to win, nobody likes to lose, and if they keep losing because the pvp is purely skill based (ultima/daoc etc.) that's a bigger hit to their ego than "i lost because i'm undergeared... so let's grind some more gear!".

I am not going to name any classes. i'm not going to name specific abilities or trees. this post is literally about balance as a whole and peoples understanding of it and more importantly "how they THINK it should be done". bear in mind here that everyone's perception of balance is different, and more often than not is clouded by bias (nobody thinks their own class is overpowered, because they always see the flaws more prominantly). let me also start by saying: i do have some small background in this, no i'm not part of some pvp development team, rather i was class lead for disciple of khain in WAR when GOA were in charge of the EU players, and i then moved on to being a core tester when merged into the US. i was privilaged to a lot of inside information, and my opinion held weight with some of the developers of the game (along with some other core testers). and while WAR will always be plagued with percieved AND real balance issues, i can put my hand on my heart and say i was as unbiased as possible, i was even responsible for some very heavy nerfs to my own class... because they were needed, for the good of the game. i also reverse engineered a lot of the combat mechanics, providing the community with a working damage calculator which factored in attacker/defender levels, renown ranks, weapon dps, stats, mitigation etc. for better or worse (as i know some people will see the negative), that is my background knowledge of balance. so let me introduce to you a concept, this isn't rock paper scissors, this isn't a way in which one class should be strong against one and weak against another. i think that's actually a BAD way to balance. instead, balance should revolve around the following theory: As a class's potential utility and/or survivability go up, their potential damage output should go down. but why is this an important concept? why use this instead of rock paper scissors? well... for a start it would solve a lot of problems, it would introduce some new ones too for sure, but ones which are far more manageable. it would mean there is a lot less of "x class is OP because they kill me non stop", when in reality they were designed to be that way due to rock paper scissors, it would in contrast also stop the "x class is OP because i can never even scratch them!". instead, it would allow both developers and players to understand how and why certain things happen... to know that their class can't put out huge damage because they instead have access to healing/armour/group utility. or to understand that their class can put out a lot of damage but they have little or no access to crowd control, or armour. or that while they can stealth, giving them a great advantage over most people, they only have a couple of seconds window to put a target down before their damage becomes heavily normalised. TL;DR you may have any two of the following, but never more: healing utility survivability damage so there we go. this is MY idea of how balance should work. i'm curious to read other peoples opinions or ideas.

discussion thread here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=205981

no... he's pretty consistant with his results among matches, takes a dip in huttball but that's to be expected. i'll get some screenshots for you when we next roll out, okay? although there are already some from other players floating around...

well, to be fair... anyone who came to SWTOR expecting it to be the next big pvp game was a bit silly. however, many proper oldschool pvpers (my self included) came here just because it's something new. it's okay for us to be disappointed with the current stat of the game, however we shouldn't go out with pitchforks just yet. there are many things they could do to fix pvp in the game, removal of expertise is just one of them, although by most counts it's probably the most important one. the game has a long ways to go... and if i'm honest, i doubt it'll ever get there because after all, PVP is not the games primary concern, it never was, it never will be. it was built around PVE, and because of that it will always have PVP limitations. sad but true. the days of real pvp MMO's is gone, and that's largely because it was a niche within a niche, and when everyone wants to win, nobody likes to lose, and if they keep losing because the pvp is purely skill based (ultima/daoc etc.) that's a bigger hit to their ego than "i lost because i'm undergeared... so let's grind some more gear!".

so what you're saying is... me being able to beat players up to and including 49, who have all but ONE of their total ability list, just by using a 4 ability rotation is irrelivent to class balance? i think you need a reality check. FYI, the main healer in my premade is a sage, he can knock out 700k heals and still pull out 2-300k damage at the same time. even he knows the class is OP.