I have posted a streamlined solution in another thread, that should adress problems the new gearing fix would be creating (e.g. uprisings, GSF, FPs missing out on unassembled gear, doing lockouts on final bosses with multiple alts to wholly equip in one week), etc.) I think my solution is pretty elegant, someone in another sticky thread had an idea along similar lines. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9173597#post9173597 Please give it a try, it is a long read, but when it is about gearing it should be worth it. Devs, please also give this a thought. It is not a rage rant, it is a constructive solution with a lot of suggestions, where you can tweak to your liking.

I have posted a streamlined solution in another thread, that should adress problems the new gearing fix would be creating (e.g. uprisings, GSF, FPs missing out on unassembled gear, doing lockouts on final bosses with multiple alts to wholly equip in one week), etc.) I think my solution is pretty elegant, someone in this thread had an idea along similar lines. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9173597#post9173597 Please give it a try, it is a long read, but when it is about gearing it should be worth it. Devs, please also give this a thought. It is not a rage rant, it is a constructive solution with a lot of suggestions, where you can tweak to your liking.

I appreciate your intentions to fix the gearing system as detailed on live stream December, 15th. However, the new fix seems pretty clunky and "hammered on" to fix some problems tearing up new, other problems. Let me explain: It all comes down to what your design philosophy is. 1. Do you want players to play "any way they like, everything is viable for endgame"? If so, then your new fix will create new problems: the focus of the players will be more directed towards operations and PvP, because it will be the most efficient way to gear up. All other endgame content (GSF, flashpoints and your newly introduced uprisings and chapters, which are intended to be pretty hard on veteran or master mode) will still suffer from the RNG aspect of the command crates. No way to get unassembled tokens or components for playing them. People will flock to operations and PvP, abandoning GSF, uprisings and flashpoints. 2. Do you want to prohibit players from having a full story mode gear in week one on one character? If so, then your new fix will not do so: professional raiding groups will use one main and 7 alts per player (no trouble after DvL event), run every SM operation, and use lockouts on the final boss to down him 8 times. Unassembled token goes to main. 9 operations = 9 story mode set tokens in the first week on one character, not including tokens that could drop from other bosses (The command tokens needed are not the problem, if there is one in every chest and they are legacy wide). Really good groups will even do so with Veteran Mode Ops, they will mostly have their unassembled Tier 2 tokens in the bank until they have high enough command rank for the command tokens of tier 2 (if command tokens are tiered). 3. Do you want the command crates of your Galactic Command system to be the main aspect of gearing up? If so, then your new fix does not deliver. It degrades your Galactic Command system to the delivery of command tokens only with a slight offchance to get lucky on a piece of gear while collecting command tokens. The unassembled tokens and components will be the master of the show, not the command crates. I would not point this out without proposing a streamlined solution which could adress those problems. A legacy wide Galactic command system would help (esp. for those who want to change mains later on), but is not necessary for a solution. As you want to introduce unassembled components for PvP, let me call them commendations from now on. Having only one type of commendation (rather than four in the past: green, blue, purple, warzone) is a good thing, there is no real need to add more. 1. First part of the solution: instead of unassembled tokens dropping from final operations bosses and having chances to drop from bosses, let bosses drop the commendations instead. Commendations are also rewarded for PvP (e.g. 3-5, depending on winning/losing and performance). When a pvp game lasts between 6-8 minutes, we're talking about 1 commendation per 2 minutes time investment. Give out those commendations for bosses / final bosses of flashpoints and uprisings as well, and for completion of GSF, completion of chapters, even 1 commendation for a heroic mission. Number of commendations should scale with approx. time involved and difficulty level. Do not reward Daily or Weekly Missions if you fear an inflation of commendations (these only give command XP). Have a weekly cap and overall cap for those commendations per character, which increases with the command rank tiers (e,g, weekly / overall being 300 / 1000 for command rank 1-89, 600 / 2000 for command ranks 90 - 179, 900 / 3000 for command ranks 180 - 300). 2. Second part of the solution: the command crates do not contain specific items when regarding set items, they contain tokens. Based on how restrictive you want to be, you can make them slot-specific or not and class-specific (for the class opening the crate) or not. Get rid of the 228 green items, the 230 blue ones are a good starting point. Have a 50 % chance for a blue item (no tokens, theses are specific), and a 50% chance for a set token. Now if those tokens were legacy wide and not slot-specific, the gearing up could be a little fast for your liking, dunno. If you WANT to slow it down, make tokens class-specific and slot-specific (but combine 2 slots) and have a "joker" token (legacy wide, slot unspecific). For example, my Jedi Vigilance Guardian opens a tier 1 crate: 50% chance for blue 230 item (the 50% equally divided between all viable items for my class and discipline) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) body armor token (tradable for chest or legs) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) limb armor token (tradable for gloves or boots) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) utility armor token (tradable for wrists or waists) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) head armor token (tradable for head or earpiece) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) implant token (tradable for implants, need 2) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) relic token (tradable for relics, need 2) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) weapon token (tradable for main or off hand) 15% chance for Legacy bound universal tier 1 (230) token (tradable for any other class and slot specific tier 1 token). So, if I need a specific set item, I always have a 20% chance to get what I want (5% for the token + 15% for the universal token). Plus, from any of my alts, I could use a universal token as well, if things go bad. If I still get some class-specific, slot-specific doubles, I could use them for my other discipline (e.g. tank equip) or to optimize sets for PvP / PvE (e.g. extra set of gloves without accuracy). For command crates tier 2, get rid of greens and blues and do: 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) body armor token (tradable for chest or legs) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) limb armor token (tradable for gloves or boots) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) utility armor token (tradable for wrists or waists) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) head armor token (tradable for head or earpiece) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) implant token (tradable for implants, need 2) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) relic token (tradable for relics, need 2) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 1 (230) weapon token (tradable for main or off hand) 15% chance for Legacy bound universal tier 1 (230) token (tradable for any other class and slot specific tier 1 token). 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) body armor token (tradable for chest or legs) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) limb armor token (tradable for gloves or boots) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) utility armor token (tradable for wrists or waists) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) head armor token (tradable for head or earpiece) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) implant token (tradable for implants, need 2) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) relic token (tradable for relics, need 2) 5% chance for Jedi Knight tier 2 (234) weapon token (tradable for main or off hand) 10% chance for Legacy bound universal tier 2 (234) token (tradable for any other class and slot specific tier 2 token). 5% chance for a Jedi Knight tier 2 legendary (236) specific item (no token, here we have the RNG in full effect, legendary should not be the norm and something special). Same method for command crates tier 3, scrap blues and greens and replace tier 1 with tier 2 and tier 2 with tier 3. So, how do I get my set piece? Easy: Tier 1: Take a tier 1 token from the command crates + 100 commendations to your tier gear vendor. Tier 2: Take a tier 2 token + 200 commendations (+possibly: your tier 1 set piece to replace) to your tier gear vendor Tier 3: Take a tier 3 token + 300 commendations (+possibly: your tier 2 set piece to replace) to your tier gear vendor Keep in mind, that the cap for weekly commendations increases according to my command rank tier. In my example, I would be able to buy 3 set items per week (of the tier my command rank represents). Making tier gear vendors only accessible by your class would mostly solve the problem of buying things with commendations from alts (if you see this as a problem). With this system in place, the command crates are the master of the show again, and the commendations only the support role, instead of the other way around. If you want the system to be even less restrictive, you can either drop the class-specification or the slot-specification from the tokens. To make it more restrictive would be the punishment that is RNG hell, I would not recommend. To sum it up: Pros: - every endgame activity is useful again, no bias towards specific content - command crates are the main source of your gearing again with commendations supporting it - the "fun part" of RNG is kept alive (if you are a person that can see a fun part in RNG) without having hellish low drop rates for the things you want. - character gearing progression is somewhat restricted, but not turned into a crazy grind with low RNG numbers (remember: command crate = 20% chance for what you need + universal tokens from alts). - the introduction of new operations does not increase the number of tokens dropped per week. Now you can start introducing the long awaited operations with no worries of gear inflation. Cons: - still contains RNG - ... (up for discussion) Example for commendation drops (assuming time invested) PvP Match: 3-5 (6-10 minutes) GSF Match: 3-5 (6-10 minutes, if it opens relatively quickly) Story Mode uprisings: 5 for final boss, 10 minutes Veteran Mode uprisings: 8-10 for final boss, 10 minutes (for people who can do it) Story Mode operation bosses: 5 (10 minutes per boss), 4 for Karraga / Eternity Vault Veteran Mode operation bosses: 8 (10-15 minutes per boss), 6 for Karragga / Eternity Vault Veteran Mode FP bosses: 3-4 (20-30 mins for whole FP) Master Mode FP bosses: 6-7 (20-40 mins, but higher difficulty) Heroic Mission: 1-2 (2-5 minutes) ... P.S.:From an aesthetic point of view, I would also suggest: Tier 1: Galactic command rank 1-100 (needing 1/6 of cxp total) Tier 2: Galactic command rank 101-200 (needing 1/3 of cxp total) Tier 3: Galactic command rank 201-300 (needing 1/2 of cxp total) As well as numbering equipment (MK-1, MK-2, MK-3, MK-4) in a fashion that is easily understandable (higher rank = worse or higher rank = better, but no mix as it is today). But that is just icing on the cake.