I'm wondering if anyone else has been experiencing the issues my guild has had over the last couple weeks. The last 4 raids we have run are Dxun SM x 1, TFB HM x 1 and EV HM x 2. For Dxun and TFB between the entire raid group we maybe got 1 or two upgrades total and no set bonus pieces or tactical. For EV HM, on both runs every boss dropped either a set piece or tactical for group loot and everyone was getting multiple gear upgrades. Small sample i know but the difference is glaring and substantial. Anyone else seeing this issue?

Are you going to address the insane amount of stat variation on the same type and item level for all mods and pieces of gear, and the fact that it is all RNG? It's been mentioned by quite a few of us.

I understand where you are coming from. Having different options for min maxing (particularly for tanks) could be interesting but ONLY if there were a vendor that allowed you to choose exactly which variation of a mod you want. It's the RNG upon RNG upon RNG that i find ridiculous. It also shouldn't be on every single item. Mods and enhancements are fine (and maybe ear and implant) but armorings, barrels, hilts and relics?

I think they are making a few big mistakes in this gearing system, like not having unassembled drops from ops bosses to choose the specific piece of gear you want, or have a separate pvp currency so pvp'ers can buy the specific piece they want. What you mentioned here though is what i find the most absurd. When i first heard about this i assumed it was restricted to mods, which i thought was ridiculous enough, only to find out that it applies to all pieces of gear. Last night my raid group went into the new op (which we very much enjoy, kuddos Matt) and i was playing the RNG wheel to try and get my item level up to see how a couple of the specs i play were performing. I stopped at level 300 and then purchased 25 302 versatile barrels just to see how much discrepancy there could be. The Mastery stat ranged anywhere from 432 on the low end to 451 on the high end. As you said, Insanity.

Thanks for the info, appreciate it. All things being equal i don't doubt you are right. It may be interesting to have all these options to fine tune your gear to that level, if you could specifically choose which mod you want. My issue is this sounds like its layering an absurd amount of RNG onto an already RNG heavy system.

I'd really like to know why all of this can't be supplemental and we can have the following: Ops/Fp's- Unassembled Tokens...I need a chest piece so i need to kill boss X, kill the boss then take token to my class vendor. Have never heard one complaint from anyone I've raided with about this system. You've already had to move back to this once after the disaster of 5.0 Pvp- Tech Fragments(or whatever currency) acquired through matches, daily and weekly PvP missions that i can then take to a vendor and buy what i need. I'm not a big PvP'er these days but most i know don't have any interest in running dailies, flashpoints or ops just to gear up so they can compete in PvP. I'd be totally fine with that flow chart you showed in the live stream you did for the new gearing system if it was supplemental to the above options. On a side note i have a question hopefully someone can clarify for me as i haven't been on the PTS for the last couple weeks. I'm reading people talk about the many different lettered mods (used to be just non lettered, A's and B's). Is that really a thing, how many different variations are there and what kind of stats do they have?

Agreed! Was fun testing the new op last night with him in there giving some assistance. Thanks Matt.

I think they said in the Live Stream yesterday that those terminals wouldn't be there for this round of testing. This round is meant for us to use the Character Transfer to the PTS.

Character copy is turned off for this phase of testing

Completely agree with this. Hope the devs read this and take note.

Another PVE perspective: Haven't really done a deep dive into the numbers so i'll give my impressions on what I have tested so far in regards to the feel of how they play. Set Bonuses Established Foothold- Interesting set bonus, not sure how viable it will be in a raid setting if you are needing to save entrench for certain fight mechanics. Precise Targeter- I was very interested in this set bonus but as has already been mentioned by Dracmor something seems off with the way the cooldown for this is working. I'd much prefer you get all 3 stacks on activation then you build back up 1 stack every x amount of seconds similar to how the new Warrior ability works. Beserker- As i mentioned i haven't done a deep dive into the numbers but as things stand right now i'm not sure how this set bonus isn't the only viable option for a dps. Tacticals: Virulence: Poison Choke-I share the same feelings voiced by Ryann and Laet regarding this tactical. I was very interested in this when i first read it but in practice it turns Virulence's rotation into a mess. Culling Shots-Considering the issues with Poison Choke this seems to be the only viable single target choice for viru. It's fine, if not a bit underwhelming. My issue is with the loss of the energy regen from Target Acquired you can't squeeze in as many lethal shots in your weakening blast windows without risking your energy going all to hell, that's a bit of a downer. Marksmen: Corrosive Followthrough-Need to do more testing with this but this is more underwhelming than i hoped. My first impression is damage wise, as Laet mentioned, there seems to be an issue (bug?) with corrosive dart and while i thought it was going to make the rotation smoother it actually seems to be worse than having to reapply corrosive dart. The rotation does not flow very well making you have to add in an extra snipe in places which will get you in energy trouble eventually (loss of Target Acquired set bonus issue coming into play again) or you throw in some rifle shots, which is always depressing to have to do. Engi: Ruthless Interrogation-I play engi the least of the 3 specs but i found this to be the most enjoyable of all the tactical items i tried and really enjoyed how the rotation felt.

Do we have an ETA on phase 1.5 yet?

Want to add my concern about ability bloat with the additions of new abilities. Heidyn talked about the Madness rotation already feeling a bit bloated, which i agree with, but there are definitely other dps specs where this could be a problem also. Is this something the team is taking into account and keeping an eye on?

No mention of the Weekly Event: Star Fighter bug? We only get 3 crystals on a toon per week (4 if you pay the ridiculous cost on second UC purchase). Seems kind of important, any update or at least acknowledgement?

Is it too much to ask to at least get an acknowledgement that you guys are aware this is an issue?

I’m going to follow DanNV and quote this for emphasis also because it’s how my entire guild feels. We are a small core group of what I guess you would call casual nim raiders. We used to take it more seriously but real life combined with an overall apathy for what the game has become has most of the guild playing far less. The few of us that still play frequently have encouraged the group to log in and put a bit of effort into Ossus to help with nim gods when people get back from holidays. I was running with one of our guildies, that doesn’t have the time or desire to play as much anymore, a couple nights ago. We finish up the weekly and he picks the lower body piece. What does he get? A relic of Ephemeral Mending. You could here the disgust in his voice, which only got worse when we had to break it to him that even if he grinds the rep to upgrade to 258 he couldn’t trade it in for anything but that same relic. This is only one example of many similar instances in the first 2 weeks from a small guild I’m not sure what Keith was thinking signing off on one of the stupidest gear grinds this game has ever seen, particularly in the twilight of an expansion. Didn’t they just spend the past year trying to undue the ‘rng is exciting’ nonsense that Ben Irving brought us? We all know it’s to stretch out the grind because of the lack content but this seems so shortsighted to me. This is the kind of nonsense that pushes people to the exits.

The only thing that makes sense TUX is that they wanted to extend the gear grind as long as possible because 6.0 is a lot further out than anyone was hoping for. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. The fact that its an intended change and they didn't say a word about it says to me they knew full well this would piss everyone off but they didn't care. I mean this was no secret on the PTS forums and they were silent. To introduce a new and unreasonable level of grind at this stage of an expansions life without discussing it with the community is ridiculous IMO. Eric's post did absolutely nothing to explain why a big change like this was made out of nowhere. Bad form Bioware.

Eric, It's obvious you guys aren't going to address every issue the community has with 5.10 gearing, of which there are many, before the holidays. Could you at least do us the courtesy of explaining the mods and enhancements being locked to gear piece type? I understand wanting to extend the gear grind but this seems over the top and not something you have ever done before. Seems like a big change to not even acknowledge, let alone explain.

What about mods and enhancements being locked to specific pieces. Is this intended, and if so why?

I don't deny the forums consist of a minority of the player base. My issue is with you declaring that the people not satisfied with the product are over represented here. You have no way of knowing that. That's your opinion but you have nothing to back it up. It's certainly not my experience. My main guild moved to ffxiv after 4.0. None of us were happy with the direction Star Wars was going so we left. I'm the only one who posted anything about it on the forums, the rest just unsubbed without a word. If you don't think adding dev streams, sending out surveys and making big changes (sorry those are hardly minor adjustments) to a new system only a couple weeks after release isn't some degree of panic I don't know what to tell you.

Again with this vocal minority nonsense. How do you know that may I ask? It could be argued more convincingly the exact opposite. If it was just a vocal minority why on earth would bioware be in panic mode trying to bandaid this mess so quickly after its release? It's far more likely that they have received overwhelmingly negative feedback about the system and that's why they are rushing to change it. Also this Bioware line of "kotfe was our most successful expansion ever" seems pretty suspect to me. If that truly was the case why did they abandon the format with the very next expansion?

They may want inclusiveness in terms of it being possible for any playstyle to get the very best gear, but they clearly stated today people doing harder content will get it faster. If you don't do nim ops or lots of ranked pvp you won't get the top end gear anywhere near as fast as someone who does.

I just rewatched the section on ops bosses. The unassembled pieces drop off of each boss, with the final boss being the only one to have a specific piece drop. The others are random unassembled pieces.

Don't know what the OP is going on about. If it wasn't for the community backlash nothing would change, and I can hardly blame people for being skeptical about Bioware and what changes were going to take place. In terms of these changes i guess we'll have to see how they look when we get all the details but i can appreciate that they realize something needs to be done. What i did find particularly hilarious though is how both Bioware and the few people constantly defending the new system talked about Galactic command being about streamlining and simplifying gearing. Say what you will about what was announced but i'd hardly call that simplifying gearing. Its more convoluted than the straight up token/comm/crystal vendor system we had before.

Clearly it's a lot more than just a few people on the forums "crying" about this. Bioware would never move this quick to even acknowledge a problem unless they are receiving serious blowback from a large number of people. Now time will tell if they can come up with a solution that will satisfy everyone. I hope for the sake of the game they do. With the amount of time put in creating this galactic command system they aren't going to just up and abandon it any time soon. Lots of good ideas have been offered up, I personally think they should bring back some form of the token/crystal/vendor system to go along with the command crates. They also need to do a better job of balancing how much cxp you are gaining from what activities. I know they have started to work on this but they have a long way to go.