Orange gear = motivation killer

[CanWolfShadow]

I'll be excited if they drop alternate crystals at high level.

And alternate stat hilts etc.

 

I dont want to be forced to wear cookie-cutter PVP gear.

I've found an awsome outfit that I like the look of. I'd like to be able to continue to use it, unless I find something that looks even MORE awsome.

I dont want to have to change to something else just because it's the standard gear.

[Enako]

Yes I do

 

Ultima Online wasnt about gear AT ALL. The best gear you got was crafted. Waht kept players playing (Like me for 7 years)? The FUN of the game, fighting other players etc. etc. doing dungon crawling

 

unfortunately recent youngest gamer generation (those who are 15 to 20 years old now) have not seen anything outside wow/everquest in general. they basically have grown up with it, and it seems we will have to endure a lot of conditioned/narrow minded approach to gaming until they discover that other stuff exists.

 

cant blame them - however, its still a problem.

[_Miranda_]

Getting better looking, better performing gear...

 

Except these things are almost always mutually exclusive.

 

Hence the need for looks to be divorced from stats. I find I am far more interested in the game when my character looks nice than when it doesn't. If my armor is bad, I tend to become detached from the character.

[Enako]

I'll be excited if they drop alternate crystals at high level.

And alternate stat hilts etc.

 

I dont want to be forced to wear cookie-cutter PVP gear.

I've found an awsome outfit that I like the look of. I'd like to be able to continue to use it, unless I find something that looks even MORE awsome.

I dont want to have to change to something else just because it's the standard gear.

 

imagine a female jedi consular kicking *** in pvp in that great looking elegant social gear set in battlezones.

 

i doubt any of these peeps have seen them. they look spectacular. it would be funny to dress up a female toon with them, mod the mods in, and then kick *** with it.

 

ah and yes - modding them works, increases armor and everything. tested and tried.

[Nazferiti]

For me, a very fundamental mistake has been made in ToR regarding loot. One of driving forces for continued play, is the upgrading of loot/gear. Getting better looking, better performing gear is one of the lynchpins of these types of games. Orange gear almost entirely destroys this process.

 

I've been wearing the same gear since my teens. All I do is upgrade the mods in said gear every couple of levels. What this has done, has made quest rewards and gear finds completely meaningless to me, what's worse, I know in advance of receiving the quest reward that it's going to be meaningless. This, for me, is a major derailment as far as motivation to level/gear up goes.

 

Orange gear is one of the most complicated attempts at a wardrobe tab in history, and it has the side effect of marginalizing one basic motivation for game progression. The genie is out of the bottle at this point, and I'm not sure there's anything that could/should be done, but for me, a large part of the appeal of the game has been gutted.

 

When I go into one of the character story line quest at this point, where some sort of legendary foozle is the carrot at the end of it, the first thing I'm aware of, is that foozle isn't going to be any better or as good as what I already have.....that's a huge motivation killer.

 

I strongly disagree, I like to find gear that I like and stick with it. You still need to upgrade the stats and upgrading takes the same effort. If you don't like the system, you can always take the green upgrades that are offered to you as loot rewards and go like that.

[Enako]

Except these things are almost always mutually exclusive.

 

Hence the need for looks to be divorced from stats. I find I am far more interested in the game when my character looks nice than when it doesn't. If my armor is bad, I tend to become detached from the character.

 

indeed.

 

for most duration of wow, people went around like giant, majestic peacocks in max level gear. it was really, really, utterly stupid.

 

you couldnt 'downgrade' either. you had to be a peacock, or no endgame.

 

tbc era was the worst - the color palette they used to design the armor, was like taken out of a delusional and highly intoxicated/high goat's droppings. i havent seen such crappy delusional colors used with that amount of incompatible other delusional colors. it was like a 8 year old's paintbook, yet, 8 year olds had more color/design sense.

 

and not to mention the shape design - even in wrath, shamans were running with practical volcanoes on their shoulders. exploding, and whatnot. it was like a circus. a very stupid, childish circus.

 

i dont want that here.

[Brebo]

indeed.

 

for most duration of wow, people went around like giant, majestic peacocks in max level gear. it was really, really, utterly stupid.

 

you couldnt 'downgrade' either. you had to be a peacock, or no endgame.

 

tbc era was the worst - the color palette they used to design the armor, was like taken out of a delusional and highly intoxicated/high goat's droppings. i havent seen such crappy delusional colors used with that amount of incompatible other delusional colors. it was like a 8 year old's paintbook, yet, 8 year olds had more color/design sense.

 

and not to mention the shape design - even in wrath, shamans were running with practical volcanoes on their shoulders. exploding, and whatnot. it was like a circus. a very stupid, childish circus.

 

i dont want that here.

 

My favorite were the Ahn'Qiraj 40 sets with the Hunters' Shoulder Pinatas, Paladin Crab suit and Druid Mega Man armor.

http://www.berare.com/data/201110/tier-2-andahalf-raid-armor.jpg

Edited January 4, 2012 by Brebo

[Enako]

My favorite were the Ahn'Qiraj 40 sets with the Hunters' Shoulder Pinatas, Paladin Crab suit and Druid Mega Man armor.

http://www.berare.com/data/201110/tier-2-andahalf-raid-armor.jpg

 

utterly stupid arent they ....

 

moddable armor is the best innovation in mmo gaming in the recent years.

 

however have to admit - it wouldnt work in any game that was a medieval fantasy rpg - you couldnt say 'hey, im just modding this plate armor with mod x, and putting in enhancement y and adding might armor insert z' - > medieval armor doesnt work like that.

 

it could only be pulled off in a game that was a sci-fi/modern or steampunk/technological mmo.

 

star wars is most suitable for that. there is technology, and moddable items were already many in even the movies.

 

thankfully due to that, we can see people looking VERY different from each other when they hit level 50. it wont be like wow - where all classes looked the same with their 'endgame gear'.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Enako

[Ethern]

For me, a very fundamental mistake has been made in ToR regarding loot. One of driving forces for continued play, is the upgrading of loot/gear. Getting better looking, better performing gear is one of the lynchpins of these types of games. Orange gear almost entirely destroys this process.

 

I've been wearing the same gear since my teens. All I do is upgrade the mods in said gear every couple of levels. What this has done, has made quest rewards and gear finds completely meaningless to me, what's worse, I know in advance of receiving the quest reward that it's going to be meaningless. This, for me, is a major derailment as far as motivation to level/gear up goes.

 

Orange gear is one of the most complicated attempts at a wardrobe tab in history, and it has the side effect of marginalizing one basic motivation for game progression. The genie is out of the bottle at this point, and I'm not sure there's anything that could/should be done, but for me, a large part of the appeal of the game has been gutted.

 

When I go into one of the character story line quest at this point, where some sort of legendary foozle is the carrot at the end of it, the first thing I'm aware of, is that foozle isn't going to be any better or as good as what I already have.....that's a huge motivation killer.

 

Not everybody needs to be motivated that way

Secondly your third sentence is wrong. The columi/rakata/tyonese gear does not look better at all. You look horrible just because devs artificially decided to give them better stats. Here goes the motivation...

Edited January 4, 2012 by Ethern

[BezerkerX]

I'll give you 3 good reasons why Epic (Purple) Gear is better than Orange Gear.

 

1. Epic gear has the ability to contain anywhere from 1 to 3 Additional (secondary) stats, Orange gear will only ever have 1 Secondary stat, usually given by the 'Enhancement' slot and it's usually something your character doesn't need.

When I craft my Epics, if it's a critical craft it will have +2 Secondary from reverse engineering, Then +3 From critical craft opening an 'Augment' Slot, Since augments give secondary stats as well thats 3 Total. Also...FYI these secondary stats scale REALLY well. Even just '10' Power is a conversion to +2 additional points of damage and if all your gear is socketed with this then you'll get something like 80 Power total in the teens levels, giving you a total of +16 Extra damage modifier, which is a lot of extra damage.

 

2. They are rarer and harder to come across, when you show off a piece of gear you 'found' or 'epic crafted' people are genuinly suprised to see how good it is and to know that you are unique.

The best example I have of this is my Epic crafted sniper rifle, I had spent a good 30-40 minutes reverse engineering and tinkering with this basic green sniper rifle and had eventually turned it into an Epic(Purple), Master Crafted(opening up an additional augment slot!) beast. It was the first of it's kind on my server I was sure of it. My friend was exstatic when I handed it to him and it lasted him about 8 Levels worth of content, not only that but it looked absolutely amazing.

 

3. Like you rightly stated, finding gear or indeed working hard to craft it promotes good feelings of success and accomplishment, also bragging rights.

[Eldren]

For me, a very fundamental mistake has been made in ToR regarding loot. One of driving forces for continued play, is the upgrading of loot/gear. Getting better looking, better performing gear is one of the lynchpins of these types of games. Orange gear almost entirely destroys this process.

 

I've been wearing the same gear since my teens. All I do is upgrade the mods in said gear every couple of levels. What this has done, has made quest rewards and gear finds completely meaningless to me, what's worse, I know in advance of receiving the quest reward that it's going to be meaningless. This, for me, is a major derailment as far as motivation to level/gear up goes.

 

Orange gear is one of the most complicated attempts at a wardrobe tab in history, and it has the side effect of marginalizing one basic motivation for game progression. The genie is out of the bottle at this point, and I'm not sure there's anything that could/should be done, but for me, a large part of the appeal of the game has been gutted.

 

When I go into one of the character story line quest at this point, where some sort of legendary foozle is the carrot at the end of it, the first thing I'm aware of, is that foozle isn't going to be any better or as good as what I already have.....that's a huge motivation killer.

 

This is a valid point, and you presented it intelligently and without whining. For that alone, you, sir, get +1 Internets from me.

 

But I don't agree with your point.

 

Gear is a major motivator in any MMO, I agree there. The thing is, the orange gear serves one primary purpose: to let players who managed to assemble a set of gear whose aesthetics they like to keep that gear, and keep it relevant with slotted upgrades, instead of having to wear patchwork clown gear til they hit the level cap and can start looking at the sets that come out of Operations. In short, it lets you look cool (however that looks for you personally) while leveling instead of making you look like an acid-tripping clown yarked on you before you got sent out to save (or subjugate) the galaxy. Given the amount of time we spend in cutscenes showing our characters (at least aside from those players who spacebar through everything so they can get back to treating this like an FPS), I think it's really cool that BioWare lets us look the way we want (in general) for as long as we want.

 

If you want gear upgrades instead of slot upgrades, don't worry: the quests eventually drop gear that's a full upgrade from whatever orange piece you're wearing. When I start seeing those upgrades showing up, I realize it's time for me to hit my faction's homeworld and buy some new mods for my orange gear, which I very much like the look of.

 

This game, however, wants you to have a motivation other than just gear upgrades: it wants you to be motivated by story. If you spacebar past all the story, then yes, this is little different from any other A-class MMO on the market right now (though I can honestly only think of two that would really earn that title aside from this one). But if you don't, you get drawn into some pretty engaging stories, and that's what keeps me coming back night after night.

[Drudenfusz]

I like games that have an appearance tap or something similar, I want to stay with a look for my character. I enjoy modding my gear in SWTOR, I craft and I try to get them in flashpoints and operations, for me that's just fine the way it is in the game (even though, I wish there where more different orange gear, still not happy with what I found so far).

[Wren_Atticus]

I am a fan of the orange gear as well. I have gotten some really ugly chest pieces on my Smuggler. I love being able to swap the mods from those into a piece I do like the look of.

[Geawiel]

Sorry, but I didn't want to read the entire 17 pages (migrane coming on.) I wanted to comment before I forgot about the thread.

 

Anyway, I love the OJ gear. Its a very good mechanic to help give more flexability to make a style of your own and not be foreced into the "clown puke" zone. That said though, the OJ gear DOES eventually become less the nominal for your level. I've experimented on a hunch with the PvP OJ stuff. I found that once you get about 10 or so levels above the gears originating level, then you run across a wall where the armor/dps isn't even close to the same "new" level OJ stuff. So, for example, a lvl 20 OJ chest, bolstered up to 35 would have around (this is a complete guess b/c I can't remember the actual numbers) 40+ LESS armor protection then a base lvl 35 OJ.

 

After seeing this, I experimented with more OJ stuff and had the same results in every case. So, eventually it is a good idea to drop the old OJ stuff and replace it with a higher base level set of OJ.

 

This is probably done on purpose but, kind of defeats the entire system imo. In fact, it would be nice to go further and be able to change the color pattern on the armor. I currently have the lvl 40 PvP armor set on for dps BH and, I'm not a fan of the white on orange color pattern. I like the shape/look of it, but the color change would be nice.

[stealthrider]

Don't worry, the best gear in the game isn't moddable.

 

It also looks like crap.

 

 

So enjoy spending your time grinding for crappy looking gear that you can't mod.

[FourTwent]

I think I need to get my eyes checked. This gear looks red to me XD

 

I kept reading thinking, man. . .when will I get to find some of this orange gear. I dunno why the names look Red to me. . .then again I had this issue in a different game too. :/

[VicSkimmr]

The only problem I have with orange gear is what if you don't like the look of the orange gear? I mean, I understand orange gear is usually moddable for cosmetic reasons, so you don't have to waer some ugly poece of equipment to upgrade your gear. But has anyone run into any ugly orange gear?

 

That's like saying you hate all of the gear in the entire game. Supposedly every piece of armor/weapon has an orange equivalent somewhere in game. You find orange gear in comm vendors, flashpoints and pvp gear.

 

The only gear that wouldn't have an orange equivalent are the raid sets.

 

 

 

 

also, ITT people hate customization and options. Apparently they also hate change and things they don't understand.

[Matte_Black]

I find that occasionally throwing on quality drops that exceed my orange gear and work with my look and skipping a few levels of mod upgrades in that item slot saves me some creds and keeps things fresh for me stylistically. I also have to admit to being surprised that you haven't found any new orange gear that is an improvement stylistically through your levelling process. Ultimately, the stagnation seems to be a self-inflicted problem.