Those are decent reasons to *add* GC, but not to *remove* PVP/ops comms/tokens. GC isn't bad as *an addition* to the previous gearing system, it's bad as *a replacement*.

Yeah, guaranteed Nim gear for HMs (and not for NiMs at first) could easily have been removed w/out anywhere near the complaints about GC. And if GC had just been added (instead of removing guaranteed PVP/OPs gear for dedicated PVPers/PVErs, there would have been even less complaints.

We're talking swtor here, and other than the first year or so, Open-World PVP hasn't really been a thing. I did OWPVP during that first year, and while gear was important, it wasn't usually game breaking, and players often negotiated terms of engagement before committing time to major battles (which didn't actually give any rewards). But with instanced PVP, BW sets the rules (limited terrain/objectives, fixed number of players, fixed time, rewards based on performance, etc.), so it's much more important to have the sides as balanced as possible, which has from 1.x -4.x meant increasing stability in gear/bolster and less time to get to "PVP BiS". So in short, it's not fair for you to say "RNG good" for small-team-size instanced PVP by comparing it to *actually* massive open world PVP. TBH, I'm not really familiar with those games, but my understanding is that they support much larger-scale battles, and [mathematically], the more players in a battle, the less any individuals' gear should be outcome-determinative. But *how* it impacts us can change. Swtor started out with a barely-worse-than-GC gearing system and made solid improvements over the years, all of which have been undone. I 100% don't care that that BW *added* GC (there have been a few, but not many, players that want to keep "scrubs" away from BiS gear, but I am not in that camp). I care that BW took away WZ comm (low-end) set bonus gear and Operation Token (high-end) set bonus gear. Operations (and flashpoints) had "better than crystal" gear drops, and avid PVPers quickly maxed out PVP gear and had nothing to spend comms on other than consumables and vanity items, so if BW wants to move all that stuff into Command Crates instead of dropping it directly (or allowing comm/crystal vendors), and if casuals who don't ever run ops or pvp now have even a small chance at better gear, I'm totally cool with that. I just don't want them making it *harder* for the dedicated players to get the gear necessary for high-end (ranked pvp and hm/nim ops) content, especially when it's *currently* all several-years-old content. If BW had dropped a new operation with this, with an explicit caveat that the new gear system was necessary to make the op relevant enough to justify development time/effort/money, I think it would have gone over if not well than at least better.

Do you realize that this sentence makes no sense? It's like saying that if it wasn't for football you wouldn't be playing football today. FYI, there's a really good comedy sketch from the '80s that makes that point exactly...I can send you a link to it, if you'd like. And I don't know that I'd call the mid-late '90s (when MMORPGs started) "the early days of the internet" -- even the web had been around for years by that time, and the internet predates the web. I get that you don't think that there's anything wrong with gear-based PVP, but don't try to ignore the long history of skill-based PVP games just because they weren't all on "The Internet". Also, do realize that Doom (and other LAN-party) games used IP -- the Internet Protocol, which is the same network protocol we are using today. They weren't *massive*, but fyi swtor ranked pvp is 4x4, so eight players -- not exactly a huge leap from four player death matches from the early 90s.

Just so we're clear, I don't want to romance them, I just think they play off each other better. And c'mon, who doesn't want DS Chewie and DS Threepio?

/signed -- they're much better than Lana and Theron

"Scam" is a pretty loaded word with lots of "definitions". Nobody (that I've seen in this thread at least) is saying that what BW is doing is *illegal* (and that would vary by location). People *are* saying that it is dirty, underhanded, disingenuous, and discussing this particular business model as a scheme (and not in a neutral fashion). Just because the terms of a "scam" are obvious and any layman *should* be able to see what's going doesn't mean that people in the crowd shouldn't warn rubes/marks about what's going on, and the [English language] word "scam" is not an inappropriate description. It may not be the *best* word to use ("scheme" is probably better, but even it isn't without negative connotation).

And Galactic Command crates and the cartel slot machine...not sure what the drop rate is from GC (I got some green in one of the two crates I opened), and the CSM drop rate might as well be zero, but it isn't actually. I don't see Jawa stuff as being particularly P2W -- for $500 worth of packs, I'm pretty sure you could sell the items and just buy the mats (or whatever you wanted to craft with them) directly. The P2W factor would definitely be the strongest at release. Also, not adding the Jawa stuff to the vendors at launch makes early access more desirable and [properly] resets the market for the new tier of items, and tbh, crafting has never been more accessible in swtor than it is currently.

lolwtf? I started PVPing in the late 70s...on the Atari [2600]...in a game called "Combat"...which was the starter game that came with the system. I'm not claiming that it was the first, but it was way before MMOs were a thing. Newsflash: everybody that is complaining about GC and PVP knows this...this is *why* we are complaining. We want PVP to be about skill, not gear. Logically, the only people that would prefer PVP to be about gear instead of skill would be the people who have more gear than skill...and hey, guess what...BW is selling gear for cash....it's almost like they are making it so that people can pay to win...

What's a scam is: o Taking recycled content (from char levels 50-65) o Scaling the content up to level 70 o Taking away our abilities and tossing in a new gearing system that will let us -- eventually -- beat this old content somewhat like we used to do before the "expansion". The booster lets us get where we were before faster. So if your argument is "that's not a scam, it's just them pissing in our faces while feeding us **** souffle", maybe you have a point, I'm just not sure that it's a good one.

Well, that in and of itself would solve lots of problems I get what you're saying. I main a concealment operative, and spent a *lot* of time optimizing my PVP gear for 3.x -- which, if you followed Randall's thead(s) involved maximizing bolster for the 2-piece 1.x PVE set bonus. And then I had to deal with PVP "gurus" complaining that I wasn't geared properly (b/c expertise a little under max)...pro-tip: if you have to type in a PhD dissertation into chat to prove you have optimal gear, there *might* be something wrong with the gearing system. FYI, you = preaching to choir My sub runs out around xmas time, so if I stop chatting with you in a few weeks, it's not personal

No, it's been that way for *character* level, not *item* level. For most of the game's history, end game items have all been purple with different item levels for each tier. But while leveling (i.e., before end game), the best items you could use at a given char level were indigo (legendary, now gold, and not common) > purple (artifact) > blue (prototype) > green (whatever) > white/grey (trash).

Furthermore, items at the same level may have different stat distributions even if the "budget" is the same (and that can be reflected in the name, as others have mentioned). Usually (or at least "mostly previously"), a green item of a given level requires a higher character level to use than a stat-equivalent blue or purple (although this is largely meaningless at end game).

Just make PVP Bolster bump everybody up to Tier 3 equivalent pieces. That way OPs gear doesn't give raiders an advantage and PVpers still need to work for ops gear if they want to run ops.

That used to be true, but it really isn't anymore (at least for Grade 1) -- factoring in crits, it's a bit cheaper. But unless you don't have anything better to do with your comps, the low grade mats are cheap enough to justify just buying them.

This is what I was expecting from this thread. Time I had some time alone...in an MMO

There is no such thing as a legacy perk -- there is a Legacy menu item, and Character Perks and Global Unlocks are two of its submenus. You are correct that the Field Repair Droid is a Character Perk (a per-character) unlock and not a Global (per-legacy) unlock.

Also, just sold 10x Conductive Flux (CR 10 from vendor) for CR 7500...I don't think the F2P/Preferred markup is that bad.

Some crates only have 3 slots, so the 4th is RNG on RNG. Fun.

I'd say that 25% more isn't "nothing extra" but I know, maths iz hrd.

I just sold a Hanging Moss decoration (retail: CR 500) from the vendor I have next to my GSH GTN for CR 4500. The vendor that comes for free with your first GSH, so you have to have access to it in order to use any decos. I doubt the markup is in the neighborhood of 9x.

For the record, Excretion better sums up most of the 5.0 changes....

Maybe you can get 3 XP if you use a boost and it rounds 2.5 up...

It's flat out P2W. It's also flat out *really bad* P2W, as in you'd have to be really stupid or really rich (not mutually exclusive) to P 2 W with this scheme. And I do mean 'scheme" as in "scam" (so as to keep on point with the OP), especially with the 10>1 CXP nerf (making CXP boosters give +0 XP). I guess that makes it more like P2L, which is pretty much what a sub is now...

That would be nice.