For the long-term health, the game needs purchasable, easily afforded gear that's at most a step or two down from top level gear so new players can get to he endgame without having to grind through obsolete content and gear. That goes for PvE, even more for PvP. Otherwise you will lose new players as soon as they realize how much time they have to grind before playing the endgame, and they will go play a game here they can enter the endgame faster, and without as much hassle - especially in pvp, where you are at a disadvantage until you get the top tier gear, and will face mostly people in top tier gear. Crafting could solve this by providing new 50s with third- or second best gear, allowing them to join the endgame at a reasonable rate. And I don't mean loot "crafting", which is basically twinking with an additional step. Back in EQ1, we simply gave looted gear to our twinks, here in TOR we have to run the loot through a crafter first, but it's still not real crafting, but simply loot processing. I want to be a crafter, not a loot processor.

Crafting should provide second or third best gear, not best. But crafted gear should be buffed each time a new tier of gear comes out, so it remains relevant.

I can also buy loot on the GTN. The idea that you have to raid to craft is wrong, and only serves to stress how raiding kills crafting.

I've had champion gear on two characters prior to the patch. And no, one has to wear the gear alot longer than a week.

I don't understand why they offer so much loot and vendor gear, and so little for crafters. Anything you can buy at a vendor you should be able to craft, for starters, that would open up a lot of options.

For the last time: I said second to thrid best gear should be crafted, not best. Raiding is looting, not crafting. There is no difference between looting a token you turn in at an NPC for a bracer and looting a rare material you turn into an item with your companion. You're not crafting, you're looting in raids. As long as raiding is the be all end all of gear aquisition, crafting will always be useless.

Playing a few hours a day it takes longer than a week to get full BM - a lot longer.

No, we haven't. Tionese and Collumni blow crafted gear away - even more so once you can augment them. Recruit-level gear for pvp gear can't be crafted at all. I stress again: If you have to loot a rare component in a raid to craft an item, then that's not crafting, that's looting.

Not the highest tier gear, but crafting should always offer third or second-best gear. Otherwise it'll be utterly obsolete one or two more tiers down the road. And no, a crafter should not have to do raids to be able to craft.

Anything that needs raid drops is not real crafting, just an added time sink on raid loot. I am talking about crafting without having to raid.

Leveling is still the best I've seen in an MMOG, but after half a dozen characters even that gets boring. I level my alts through pvp now, and do the class quests. But it's true, all the fun the game delivers when you level up, with crafting delivering good stuff to use, and pvp being decently fun, stops at 50, when crafting is suddenly useless, and pvp turns into a gear grind, and you're told "raid or quit" in PvE.

I sell orange level 20 weapons - a byproduct of making augmented weapons - for the default price, and they don't exactly fly off the shelves on my server. I am actually stockpiling most of them so I can reverse engineer them for mats once that patch gets fixed.

I don't understand why pvp is so neglected. For MMOGs, pvp done right is the most cost-effective content there is since players provide the content. All you need is to make it easy to get into, and fun to play. But Bioware has the pve raider mentality ruining pvp. Instead of fun competitive WZs and/or epic RvR we have another stupid gear grind. Even leveling through PvP is not well done since the credit rewards are far too low to pay for gear and skill training.

The agent recruit/BM armor is kind of decent looking. And the level 40 pvp gear is amazing for some classes.

There is no diversity in the holy trinity. It guarantees button smashing, and often with the same build and same classes in a group.

Having taunting skills reduce damage to others like it does in TOR pvp is a way to make tanks work.

If only some recruit gear was not so (censored) ugly. They really should allow crafters to craft expertise gear on a recruit level, with some better skin. Or let Cybertech produce expertise mods.

It all comes down to pvp being fun, or a gear grind. Ranked pvp matches won't appeal to those not geared up, and may even drive them out completely if there's no fast way to gear up. Without cross-server queues or rewards for wzs that make people play (much more comms, credits, experience) I think pvp will die.

If they stopped making gear matter and just gave everyone the same stats in pvp (aka, GW2 style) then this would be possible. But as long as bioware is trying to treat pvp as pve, aka gear grind, it won't ever happen.

We need cross server queues. We need better rewards for WZs, exp, credits, comms. We need to get less stupid grind, and more pvp fun. The cap on comms needs to go, then at least you could save up for war hero while leveling up through pvp. But as it is? Hit 50, and see a stupid, pointless, non-fun grind before you can play on even footing. That's bad design for a pvp game.

The Endgame kills crafting. While leveling up to 50, crafting is great. Whatever skill you have, you can use it. Armormech, synthweave, artifice, cybertech, arsmtech, biochem - all produce useful items for any character or their companions. You'll usually wear a mix of loot, reward and crafted pieces. But as soon as you reach 50, crafting is rendered useless. Yes, there are a few niches, like augments, or crit crafted gear - soon to be replaced with augment kits - and maybe vanity armor, but that's it. No one who has been 50 for a while wants the non-orange armor suits you can make. No one wants the purple weapons you can craft. Even the consumable market, usually a halfway decent way to earn money in games, is dead since everyone is biochem already for the reusable stims and med packs. The only way to save crafting - meaningful crafting - is to stop protecting low-level raid gear. Bioware needs to boost crafted gear so it's competitive with at least third-best raid gear (Recruit, Collumni at the moment), and adjust that as soon as a new tier of gear comes out. If you really want people to keep running the flashpoints, make it so people can convert old comms and crystals and whaever to comms for the new tier. But unless you get off the "raiders über alles" trip and finally boost crafted gear past tionese loot, crafting will remain a bait and switch, lots of fun and use from 10 to 49, and suddenly worthless when you hit 50.

Crafting is useless as long as BW caters exclusively to raiders. If they cared about crafting they'd give us schems so crafted gear would stay competitive with looted gear. Crafters should be able to make recruit-level gear for pvp, and collumi-level gear for pve. As it is crafting is pointless, even the consumable market, usually a halfway decent way to earn money in games, is shot here with reusable stims and med packs and everyone being biochem since any other crafting skill is useless. It's really a pity, crafting was very fun while leveling, one could always use what one made, but once one hits 50... Bang, crafting's dead. The Endgame kills crafting.

You really want to drive away new players from pvp by setting them against WH-geared premades? That's a sure way to ruin pvp completely. We need cross-server queues so we don't always fight the same premade. We need better rewards for wzs (credit, exp) so more people will queue up. We need better rewards for wzs (comms) so the grind to WH won't drive people away. As long as gear plays a role any pvp played before you are geared up is simply a grind, not good pvp.

You only need one medal to get rewards now, not three. Usually even if you're camped you can get one medal.

I use the crafted (armormech) medium headset (level 29ish) and take the hit on stats for companions.