For starters here is my current example of bad RNG luck:
I recently finished grinding my arse reaching rank 300 on my main - at rank 300(+10 over 300) I still don't have all set pieces of at least 230 rating, I still have 4 pieces of only 230 purple quality and the rest are mixed 236/240 ... BUT ONLY ONE 242 piece of gear. So I would say, very bad RNG luck...
And finally in 5.1 comes my salvation ... or does it?
First of all, I would like to say, I think these changes are step in the right direction, but there is one big problem. It really does not solve the RNG unfairness.
The idea - gearing for all game activities - it is not bad in its core - the bad thing is its governed by RNG - which is and cannot be fair for many reasons. To address this unfairnes new ways to obtain the said gear is on its way and should arrive in the form of the patch 5.1. The biggest problem there is, it does not solve the unfairnes of RNG governed system, it adds another layer of unfairnes this time based on playstyle preference.
New features in 5.1:
Command Tokens - based on all game activity - would add more fairnes if it would be the main ingredient to gain gear (sadly, it is not the case). As stated in the livestream, you ll only need like 2-3 ranks worth per piece ... so once you reach rank 300 you can buy 100 pieces of any gear ... ouch you can't because of...
Unassembled Gear Pieces - as I understand (from the last livestream) these will be Tiers based, i.e. you only get Tier 3 from NiM (master) OPS or from Unassembled Components from PvP - hence this will bring only more unfairness to those who only play PvP or OPSes casually and/or are not part of experienced teams / guilds. Also the quite low drop chance on all but last bosses means it reinforces the RNG luck element even more. To actually be able to get a single piece of such gear it would mean to go on average to 8 NiM runs with one character (2 months) and yet, you dont really have the certainty ... also for majority of people it's the same as impossible (as there are servers where doing NiM runs is next to impossible)
Unassembled Components - get enough of them from PvP and make any tier of Unassembled Gear Pieces - this will be, in the end, the only viable way to get your gear - which only means all other activities like GSF, Uprisings, Flashpoints and even Operations will be neglected and every one will be grinding WZs like crazy to finally get the gear that luckiest of us already got long ago from the command crates.
Solution - suggestion:
So I would suggest to reverse the roles of the new currencies - in the name of greater fairness and rewarding all players for all of the activities the price of the gear should really rely on the Command Tokens instead of the Unassembled Gear Pieces - make them just like a molding form - to decide which piece you ll be getting and leave the TIER COST on the Command Tokens which represent the most fairly the amount of time invested in the game (of course the character who buys token should have the appropriate TIER rank). Make the endgame 242 be worth like 20-50 ranks worth instead of 2-3 but remove the discutable need of NiM tokens - because it would only alleviate the good RNG luck to high player skill which really is not the right way to go.
Thanks for reading this mess through ...
That sounds like an effective and easy to implement solution - but thats what they DON'T WANT ... else they would make the stuff purchaseable for command tokens in the first place ... which would solve the inequality caused by RNG clustering and all the discord in the players community. But as should be obvious to EVERYONE NOW - IT'S NOT THEIR GOAL TO HAVE FAIR SYSTEM, they need to make inequalities in gearing as a grind motor to keep players busy ... at least for a while, until they finally snap and unsubscribe ... IS IT THAT HARD TO DROP A FRIGGIN TOKEN FROM COMMAND CRATE AND LET THE PLAYER DECIDE WHICH PIECE HE NEEDS? OR TO GIVE HIM CHANCE TO EXCHANGE THE VERY RARE DROP OF THE SAME 242 RELIC HE GOTTEN 3 times in a row and thats totally USELESS? - no it isn't hard, they simply don't want to. Instead they try to confuse everyone with another layer of overcomplicated stuff that only made everything worse. 350+ RANK and only ONE PIECE of top tier gear IS NOT a FAIR SYSTEM!!! And to solve it with a 300+ hours grind is really really low