Fair enough, but you still got an upgrade. As long as it upgrades something (while you aren't full 344) then it's still cool

This isn't a math question/problem chief lol, gear has been like that forever. But but before these recent changes the rakata gear drops I've gotten (some from Raids, but mainly Nef/Dash runs) were always 340 rakata stuff. I've never gotten a 342 or 344 piece (always had to upgrade to 344 with the ops comms).

Much appreciation for the screenshot; I went to my personal Rishi and that was there too, as well as one on the roof (where the Huttball arena goes) right outside the elevator door, as shown in first pic below. But there's no terminals in either place in the guild SH (pics 2 and 3). So I guess they meant specifically for the Rishi Guild stronghold. Weird choice, but that's what BW/BS are known for lol....

One potentially positive thing with these changes I wanted to mention. Once you do work your way up and buy one of the Rakata upgrade cache's, it appears that you not only get a purple rakata piece when you open it, but it will be 2 levels up than your lowest piece. I've done this a total of 4 times so far since they changed it to allow for Thyrisian/PVP crates to become Columi (PVP/GSF FTW lol!), and each time I got a 342 piece for one of the slots where I had a 340 modded gear piece. Not sure if this was just pure luck every time, or if this is how it works. If so then this is actually pretty dope considering 1) it's an upgrade, 2) it targets your lowest piece, 3) in the case like me where you are already all 340+, its' one less upgrade each (i.e. you are upgrading from 342 to 344, instead of a 340 that needs 2 upgrades). @BryantWood can you confirm if this is how its intended to work? Thanks in advance.

Really? The ticket response (pic below) just said "Rishi is not one of them" and didn't specify just the guild one, though my ticket (and this thread) were specific to the guild stronghold. So perhaps they just mistyped. Where is the box or button to set that on your personal SH? I'll check mine and then look in the same place on the guild one.

After you open the first door, turn the corner, and go down the steps to fight the 2 trash mobs (animals and then robots) in that big open room where you fight the first boss; you used to be able to rocket boots up the corner at the top of the stairs to get up on the ledge and could just run down it and skip the adds. They patched it so you can't get up there anymore. Again, not a big deal in theory, but 1) its been that way for a decade, 2) its one of the lowest level FP's so who cares, and 3) use that time/effort instead on any one of the millions of places that actually need it. One example from today I ran into; my companion is STILL naked in the intro cutscene of Chapter 1 in Eternal Thrown (note: I still run that for easy conquest points when I'm bored). How is patching the Hammer Station turrets or Athiss ledge trick more important than a weird flaw in the opening cinematics of an actual full on expansion to the game? How about kids who are playing that see naked companions? Priorities at BS are so out of whack....

FYI for anybody who stumbles on this thread in the future, I put in a ticket with Support. They replied and said Rishi is currently not one of the SH's that lets you set an alternative load in/spawn point. TLDR: You can't for the Rishi Guild stronghold (even though can for the Rishi personal stronghold).

I have actually been calling out this nonsense waste of their utterly limited development resources since it happened across various threads, glad somebody made an official thread about it. To the person with the 2nd or 3rd reply about how Speed Runner 80's ruined this for themselves. No, Broadsword did. They made queueing for super easy but repetative flashpoints a viable way to get end game gear and a needed method to get 340 blue mods unlocked. So new or returning end game players gear hunting are doing FP's we've done 2 trillion times over the years, again, because of this nonsense. Please stop wasting said limited resources on fixing things that don't need fixing, and make new content. Please and thank you.

^------ THIS -----^

Anyone? https://media1.tenor.com/m/lx2WSGRk8bcAAAAC/pulp-fiction-john-travolta.gif

Hi, We just bought and fully unlocked our Guild Rishi Stronghold, with the Huttball map for the top. Is there any way to set your spawn point be up here? I know you can change load spots for personal strongholds, but I don't see any terminals on the Guild ones? Note: Answer in 3rd post, you can't.

You were right, thank you so much! For all people who need specifics (note: You must own a Rishi Stronghold for this to matter): - Crew Skills Section of Fleet, inner circle right room - Martial Decoration Droid in the middle - Costs 6 Universal Prefab MK-4 kits to buy (they go for 250k each on my server) - Go to your Rishi Stronghold, load in and go up the ramp behind you and take the speeder to the middle option - Once there, run up the stairs to the right and take the next elevator - In that room go around to the left into the arena. Open edit mode click the big pink thing in the middle and set down your huttball map - To start a match, go click the terminals to pick a color and then the middle one to start the match (a few options) WOOT WOOT, HUUTBALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't find it anywhere. GTN, Cartel Market, no where. Help!

Everything you said here misses all my points completely. I'm only referencing new/returning players specifically because gear ratings haven't gone up in a while so longstanding players who haven't left and come back have already had their full gear sets for a long time now. But even when the last of the changes rolled out, the immediate to-do for players was to unlock the 340 mods vendors so you could buy and make 340 gear and weapon sets (and before that 336, and even before that 330). The fastest way to do that each time? Grind FP's to get a 340 blue that you can destroy quickly to complete the Hyde & Zeek quests. So to my larger point, what equates to Easy mode 4 player group content - and relevant to the Hammer Station talk, the fastest and easiest which is essentially the lower level ones (HS and Athiss). So again essentially making us repurpose the oldest of the old content for the one millionth time as part of getting the highest level gear, which is counterintuitive to how acquiring the best gear works in most MMO's, and then the added kick in the butt with silly patches like this 10 years later that make doing it take just an extra bit longer. I'm actually someone who kills the turrets anyway. They aren't hard and I don't like jumping off the edge after I beat the boss. But my point remains. Either way Broadsword doesn't listen to anything we say so we're all in here arguing for no reason, so I digress 🤷‍♂️

I mentioned it briefly in a post above, but want to double down on this point re: Hammer Station. The biggest problem in this game IMO is after 12 years, the most viable way for a new or returning player to get END GAME GEAR is to spam quick and easy flashpoints that have existed since the game launched. This makes absolutely no logical sense in any way, shape, or form. Why are these conversations not being had at Broadsword? I volunteer to work for your company, for free. The only thing that needs to happen is that you throw every idea at me that gets thumbs upped before you waste time and resources. I guarantee that 75% of the time (and that's rounding down to be friendly) my answer will be "yeah that makes no sense, don't do it". Because that's how most of us hardcore players who been rocking with you since beta/launch have felt about most decisions in this game. You internals are too deep, and too invested in the way you do things. You need a new voice to help.

At this point most of us are numb to it since they have changed how gearing works 2754010 times in 10+ years. It's hilarious to me though that after all that, we are back to the original names from launch (tionese/columi/rakata). That said though, changes like this should be to make things better/easier. That's what they pitched it as, but not how it actually came to pass. And to my earlier point, the communication on these changes has been a disgrace. Wrong details provided first, and minimal instructions on the actual "how" things work. 90% of people who play this game are not on the forums or reading patch notes, they just want to play the game. Video games should be fun, not work, not a job. It's sad tbh Meanwhile though, dev resources being spent to ensure we kill the 2 Turrets in Hammer Station MORE THAN A DECADE LATER. Why? Because people grinding FP's for the gear are just running hammer station x infinity since it's so fast and easy. How about instead, Broadsword takes a look internally at how messed up their systems are where players are actively running the same garbage low level FP over and over and over to get END GAME GEAR. Something ain't right.....

These changes - both rounds - make absolutely no sense considering all these upgrade boxes are bound. Let's look at it from a practicality standpoint for just regular players (who don't do Vet/NiM raids): PVP'ers looking to upgrade: You need NINE (9) Thyrisian cases to get 3 columi cases to turn into 1 rakata case Story Mode raiders: You need NINE (9) Tionese cases to get 3 columi cases to turn into 1 rakata case Do you know how much playing that is on ONE character? Also consider how you have all taken the approach going back to at least 7.0 that all gear would become legacy bound, why on Vitiate's green earth would these cases be bound? Somebody make it make sense.....

Continue to spend your limited resources fixing "bugs" that are 10+ years old that nobody cared or needed fixed. Last time you got rid of the "glitch" to jump up on the edge in Athiss, allowing groups to skip 2 trash mobs. Now you are removing the ability to run through the cannons towards the end of Hammer Station. Just spitballing here, but instead of wasting efforts here, HOW ABOUT YOU MAKE SOME NEW CONTENT?????????

There's already a website that has dropdowns showing every gear set piece for every slot. I don't know if we can freely link here so I will DM you the address. It was super helpful in helping me get my last few pieces on alts!

Add on that this is a what, 12+ year old game that hasn't released meaningful MULTIPLAYER content in a long time. And unless you are doing Prog raiding for the newest raid, you can clear almost all the content in this game with 336+ gear if you are a decent enough tank, healer, or DPS. I have a million alts. I was happily rocking 340 modded gear for all my toons for a while before finally joining the Nefra/Dasher + Upgrades grind. Now I have 1 344 DPS set that I share across all my toons and half complete healling & tank sets. But no rush to finish them....especially now that new other SW game out taking up my time!

It is. And you are correct, its not (worth it). Still waiting for someone at Broadsword to explain why DPS sets don't have the same stats for the same slots for the same specs. Like if a DPS set has 2 accuracy pieces, they should be THE SAME gear slot on each set (i.e. every gloves and every pants). Drops are still RNG so its bad enough, needing to hope for 1 slot on a misc alt with the spec you need for the stat you want is infuriating 😠

This is a good point, though people get offended if you ask in advance. You can no longer just look at their item rating and history either because its fairly easy to get to 343 and be carried. Majority of the people I have seen struggle in Nef/Dash who are properly geared have only done Nef/Dash from those 2 raids in NiM (and were probably carried).

You are certainly right. Dasher in particular is rough with even 1 poor DPS or Healer...

That seems like how it should work. And if so, how on earth is this a more efficient way of getting a random rakata then just doing Nefra and/or Dasher lol? Let me do some math real quick. Carry the 7. It's not. It's not even close.

Does anybody have an explanation for the upgrade cache thing. Let's say I use 3 Columni upgrade boxes and the credits to get a rakata upgrade case. Do I just open it and get a random Rakata piece that would be equal to my item level? Or can you use the upgrade case to turn a blue piece of gear into a purple piece of gear? The latter would be very useful since they decided to mix and match the 3rd stat that goes into each gear piece across all the gear sets (i.e. Accuracy, Crit, Alacrity in different slots for different sets).