Lower the cost of War Hero and other Higher end gear.

[SweetOldBob]

Haters gonna hate and probably say I am whining. These folks prolly already have their War Hero gear.

I don't think I'm a hater, but I don't like this idea. How does it not screw over folks "who already have their War Hero gear"??

 

I think a better solution would be to compose War Zones that had matched teams, matched opponents. What we need is a reverse seeding, so that the best play against the best, the good against the good, the mediocre against the mediocre. Pit newbies against newbies, at least until they get a few wins.

 

On my server ("Prophecy of the Five"), the WZ queues pop pretty fast. Slowing this down just a little to do a better job of creating PuGs would be worth it, if it could help avoid driving new 50s away from PvP.

[Polebreaker]

I think a better solution would be to compose War Zones that had matched teams, matched opponents. What we need is a reverse seeding, so that the best play against the best, the good against the good, the mediocre against the mediocre. Pit newbies against newbies, at least until they get a few wins.

.

 

That would be ideal, and was something I was hoping for with the introduction of solo rated cross-server warzones with 1.2 (lol.. I know...), to basically enable a far more robust matchmaking system that could even try to create teams with balanced class composition and ratings/gear. Surely there are enough players in the game to do a decent job of it... World of Tanks does it with not even 1/10th the concurrent population swtor has.

 

Anyways, keep in mind another facet of the gear grind... it's a bit of a training period for fresh 50's as well. Kinda pointedly illustrates that you cant just go solo john rambo style without getting totally smashed... but working as a team a recruit geared player can be 95% as effective as a fully augged wh player in this TEAM based pvp system.

 

Now... the new wz may be a different story, since it's apparently just a big deathmatch... so whatever on that... we'll see, but grats FOTM classes there... or is it FOTY given the pace of bioware changes?

[stringcat]

Either way. Double premade is rare. You're talking about 1 in 20 matches or more. So 95% of the time you should get 8 medals... the other 5% get 6.

.

 

On my server, half the matches against the Republic seem to be against double premades. Confirmation bias is a terrible thing.

Edited September 19, 2012 by stringcat

[AgentBS]

I have a fully augmented war hero and have another set for my companion. I know how long it takes to get. I agree it takes way to long for new people to get it. And I destroy people until they do.

When you compare it to black hole gear it takes way longer to get. I got my whole set of black hole in a month. I could probably do it faster if I did more pve.

I would like to see the next tier to be a little easier to get. I like destroying newbs as much as the next guy (num, num num!) but I would like to have a more competitive environment.

[PlagaNerezza]

Nah people started quitting when they heard about that fist big patch. I.3 I think it was. The decline started before warhearo gear arrived. They mad things easier to get..and people started to leave. Peploe logged on and saw folks running around with BM gear in about a day. Myself I heard about the patch and stopped playing. However, was still paying for a sub. I then logged back on and saw all these BM'S and blue sabers and again left for a while. Now I am back..but my friends are not.

 

On another note.... Getting WH gear is not to bad. I got my fist 2 pieces in one day. And, can pretty much easily get 1 a day when playing. For the best gear in game..that is not bad . If your just working on one character..its not hard to get WH gear. Problem is, people switch back between alts..and it takes them forever.

 

You cannot get 1 piece a day unless you que 15 hours.

 

10 rwz coms = 30 wz coms.

 

You need 140 * 30 = 4200 wz coms to get 1400 rwz coms.

 

That is roughly 47 matches if you get 90 wz coms per match or 30 rwz coms. That is about 15 hours if you play 20 minute per matches of warzone gametime. That doesn't take into account breaks and slow periods. Add in the dailies and weeklies if you want, but that is not enough to buy the 2000 rwz pieces let alone the chest or off-hand.

 

If you do your dailies and weeklies and pvp about 4-5 hours a day you'll get about 2 piece per week.

 

Is that a good rate?

 

Assuming you used the sub 50 bracket to get a WH mainhand do you think that is a fair pace?

 

I tend to feel that 1 1/2 months is a bit excessive. I like using logic and making the debate with evidence. A lot of the opinions are expressing the view without using any sort of support.

 

Head, Chest, Gloves, Belt, Legs, Boots, Ear, Implant 1, Implant 2, Bracers, Relic 1, Relic 2, main weapon, Off-hand.

 

Even if you can get 2 per week and play pretty heavy I think the time frame could be reduced slightly by adjusting the conversion ratio from 3-1 to 2-1.

 

90 wz coms * 32 matches = 2880 wz coms.

in a 2-1 conversion 2880 wz coms would be 1440 rwz coms.

 

I don't think the 15 match difference between a 2-1 and 3-1 conversion rate is that significant. It does cut down the time about 5 hours per piece or about 60 hours of ingame time. Your still fighting 30 matches.

 

Check my math if you want. I've done it about 3 times. I didn't include the period you need to get the BM gear or the time it would take to get the proper stat pieces to stack crit/surge/power with the set bonus.

 

So In conclusion.

 

I support this thread and I support a conversion ratio of 2-1 for warzone coms to ranked warzone coms.

[Polebreaker]

I tend to feel that 1 1/2 months is a bit excessive. I like using logic and making the debate with evidence. A lot of the opinions are expressing the view without using any sort of support.

 

Sooo... you feel that it's too long a grind, but then go on to say that you like to use logic and evidence.

 

Well, I'm afraid you just expressed a view without using any sort of support besides your opinion that it takes too long.

 

Many people, it seems, do not feel this way. Pretty much cancels each other out, dont you think?

 

If you FEEL it takes too long, then fine. I dont feel it does. It takes a while, sure, but 6 weeks is not exactly an eternity! And a lot of those pieces are a marginal upgrade at best! If you cant commit to casually playing the game for a month in an effort to get better and get better geared, then I dont know what to tell you except that swtor pvp is not the game for you.

[PlagaNerezza]

Sooo... you feel that it's too long a grind, but then go on to say that you like to use logic and evidence.

 

Well, I'm afraid you just expressed a view without using any sort of support besides your opinion that it takes too long.

 

Many people, it seems, do not feel this way. Pretty much cancels each other out, dont you think?

 

If you FEEL it takes too long, then fine. I dont feel it does. It takes a while, sure, but 6 weeks is not exactly an eternity! And a lot of those pieces are a marginal upgrade at best! If you cant commit to casually playing the game for a month in an effort to get better and get better geared, then I dont know what to tell you except that swtor pvp is not the game for you.

 

4-5 hours a day for 1 1/2 months as a requirement is excessive. See the following documentation.

 

A report by the Council On Science And Public Health to the AMA cited a 2005 Entertainment Software Association survey[14][15] of computer game players and noted that players of MMORPGs were more likely to play for more than two hours per day than other gamers. In its report, the Council used this two-hour-per-day limit to define "gaming overuse", citing the American Academy of Pediatrics guideline of no more than one to two hours per day of "screen time".[16] However, the ESA document cited in the Council report does not contain the two-hour-per-day data.[17]

[Polebreaker]

4-5 hours a day for 1 1/2 months as a requirement is excessive. See the following documentation.

 

A report by the Council On Science And Public Health to the AMA cited a 2005 Entertainment Software Association survey[14][15] of computer game players and noted that players of MMORPGs were more likely to play for more than two hours per day than other gamers. In its report, the Council used this two-hour-per-day limit to define "gaming overuse", citing the American Academy of Pediatrics guideline of no more than one to two hours per day of "screen time".[16] However, the ESA document cited in the Council report does not contain the two-hour-per-day data.[17]

 

The quote you used says right there that the two-hour-per-day data didnt actually exist in the original source document, and is a number basically pulled out of the council's rear. Even if it did, it would have been a guideline for *children*... I dont think there's anyone here with a job that has less than 2 hours of "screen time".

 

In short... more opinion.

[PlagaNerezza]

The quote you used says right there that the two-hour-per-day data didnt actually exist in the original source document, and is a number basically pulled out of the council's rear. Even if it did, it would have been a guideline for *children*... I dont think there's anyone here with a job that has less than 2 hours of "screen time".

 

In short... more opinion.

 

This game is rated for teens. They did not seek an adult only flag. It should attempt to design its systems around the childern it wants to play its games. PVP being a system in that model. Childern are not recommended to play for more than 2 hours a video gaming system per day. However, there is other things that you could use that shows that requiring anyone to play 4-5 hours per day is excessive. When you take 8 hours for sleep and 8 hours for work as an adult that leaves 8 hours. If you spend 4-5 of those hours playing a video game every day that leaves you 3-4 hours for everything else in your life. That is an inappropriate amount of time and would probably classify the behavior as an addiction. Designing a system that seems to feed that addiction is not being a good steward of the gaming community that this company is suppose to serve.

 

As to my opinion, I've given you the games sources, health professionals, and addiction professionals assessment methodologies. I believe fully in my opinion that going from 3-1 on pvp to 2-1 on ranked warzone coms is good for the communities overall health, the games overall health and will give back significant portions of time to the playerbase, while not harming a single player. So my opinion is supported by fact. Here's some more sources below.

 

Star Wars: The Old Republic received Teen rating from ESRB. This means ESRB believes that the title is suitable for ages 13 and older. Upon review they found the title contains Blood and Gore (combat with lightsabers – what can you do), Mild Language, Sexual Themes( companion lovin’ FTW), Violence (I think this relates to the Sith Warrior – he feels to be so violent). Getting an ESRB rating also means that release is in sight, because for ESRB to give a rating, the product they are reviewing must be very close to the final, release version.

 

Video game and Internet addiction are not actual Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV classifications, although the American Medical Association is reviewing research in order to determine whether they should be included in the next update of the manual in 2010. Many mental health professionals feel that video games are similar to gambling as an addictive process. By some estimates, as many as 10 percent of gamers exhibit addictive behavior.

 

Here are some symptoms of game addiction - the more of these symptoms you can identify, the greater the need to get professional help:

 

•Most non-school hours are spent on the computer or playing video games

•Falling asleep in school

•Falling behind with assignments

•Worsening grades

•Lying about computer or video game use

•Choosing to use the computer or play video games, rather than see friends

•Dropping out of other social groups (clubs or sports)

•Being irritable when not playing a video game or being on the computer

There also are physical symptoms that may point to addiction:

 

•Carpal tunnel syndrome

•Sleep disturbances

•Backaches or neck aches

•Headaches

•Dry eyes

•Failure to eat regularly or neglecting personal hygiene

[coerCez]

The quote you used says right there that the two-hour-per-day data didnt actually exist in the original source document, and is a number basically pulled out of the council's rear. Even if it did, it would have been a guideline for *children*... I dont think there's anyone here with a job that has less than 2 hours of "screen time".

 

In short... more opinion.

 

I think you are in denial of your addiction... just saying.

[Hokum]

Ranked Warzones are a thing the of the past on the Progenitor.

 

The only side that tends to field premades of any kind is the Imperials. As a result of being farmed your lucky if you see any Republic guilds forming for Pvp. Heck, people on the Rep side don't even seem to try as they expect to lose.

[Uggen]

I did the math for how many warzone comms it would take to buy the full set of warhero gear. It totaled around 75k. Divide that by 140 comms per win ( my average ) and it totals to 500 games. A bit rediculous. Now, we're not counting the times that a player would not do so well or it is just a plain loss with 8 medal requirement earned. I would imagine it would be somewhere from 700-800 warzones if it was straight losses. On average a player can do four warzones (assuming that each Warzone lasts the average 15 minutes). If a player grinds warzones for eight hours (the hardcore gamer with no life), that will be 32 warzones in one day - on average. Which in effect will take him seventeen weeks to complete the required amount of commendations to have his gear. 17 weeks is four months and one week. There are dailies and weeklies to assist in shortening the time. But... These numbers alone.. really?

 

Haters gonna hate and probably say I am whining. These folks prolly already have their War Hero gear. But think of it this way... Do you wanna do this entire grind over again once there is a new season - each season? Or each level cap that is raised? Gonna compare to WoW here - it didnt take me nearly as long to get my arena gear...

 

I went from full recruit to full battlemaster and then 11 war hero pieces( total of 14) in 22 days. And my win/loss ratio has been about 50/50. So no, doesn't take 17 weeks. If i had kept on going after the rest I would've easily managed to earn the 3 pieces in addition in under a month.

 

You cannot withdraw the dailies and weeklies from the calculation, btw. It's an opportunity for you to earn more commendations and it must be taken into consideration.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Uggen

[PlagaNerezza]

I went from full recruit to full battlemaster and then 11 war hero pieces( total of 14) in 22 days. And my win/loss ratio has been about 50/50. So no, doesn't take 17 weeks. If i had kept on going after the rest I would've easily managed to earn the 3 pieces in addition in under a month.

 

You cannot withdraw the dailies and weeklies from the calculation, btw. It's an opportunity for you to earn more commendations and it must be taken into consideration.

 

How many hours did that mean you played in the 22 days time span as hours more accurately reflect just how much time you spent. The average cost of a WH piece is

 

2.225 + 2.425 + 3.475 + 2.000 + 3.200 + 2.000 + ( 1.425 x 4 ) + 3.475 + 1.250 = 25,750

 

Or 77,250 Warzone commendations. Divided by an average of 90 wz commendations per match you played 859 matches.

 

During those 22 days if each match took 20 minutes to play complete and start another match you logged 17.180 minutes. You spent 286 hours in game out of a possible 528 hours of time.

 

In the course of 22 days you spent 54% of your day playing swtor. If you take out the 8 hours a day for sleep you spent 286 hours out of a possible 352 playing swtor. Meaning you spent only 66 hours on other activities.

 

meaning collectively you could have worked 8-8.8 days.

 

That is not a good model you should be extoling or bragging about to anyone. If you don't work like this poster you to can have WH gear in 22 days.

[Uggen]

How many hours did that mean you played in the 22 days time span as hours more accurately reflect just how much time you spent. The average cost of a WH piece is

 

2.225 + 2.425 + 3.475 + 2.000 + 3.200 + 2.000 + ( 1.425 x 4 ) + 3.475 + 1.250 = 25,750

 

Or 77,250 Warzone commendations. Divided by an average of 90 wz commendations per match you played 859 matches.

 

During those 22 days if each match took 20 minutes to play complete and start another match you logged 17.180 minutes. You spent 286 hours in game out of a possible 528 hours of time.

 

In the course of 22 days you spent 54% of your day playing swtor. If you take out the 8 hours a day for sleep you spent 286 hours out of a possible 352 playing swtor. Meaning you spent only 66 hours on other activities.

 

meaning collectively you could have worked 8-8.8 days.

 

That is not a good model you should be extoling or bragging about to anyone. If you don't work like this poster you to can have WH gear in 22 days.

 

Of course. It only shows how much time I have spent within that time period. Same goes with the OP? I wasn't bragging, I was only proving what you told me. You can't say how many weeks, days or months it would take to reach full WH gear with an average win time. You can say how many hours spesific you have spent over that time period in reaching ur goal. And how I prioritate my spare time (summer vacation for your information,) have nothing to do with this. I mean, what's your argument here? "Only those who play much get gear, it's unfair." I feel sorry if you want(rather doubt it) to have enough spare time to reach that goal. But then you can't have it either. Do not make the mistake believing you are the only one in Swtor With a job. And it's not unusual for them having full WH.

[Polebreaker]

Apparently his argument boils down to "Please, someone, think of the children!", because he doesnt want children spending more than 2 hours a day playing a video game and, by extension, spending 3 months to get a full set of war hero gear, because he "feels" that's too long to work for something.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I dont think that's a problem. I'm sorry if the children who play the game wont be able to get their gear quicker, but as you keep pointing out, maybe they should be doing something else instead of worrying over a +3 stat increase here and there in a video game, and in the mean time learn a lesson in patience. (And lets not even get into the whole ESRB ratings thing which have more to do with price points and avoiding crazy restrictive bylaws than the actual target demo of a game... talk about a straw man argument.)

 

Ultimately, you just dont want to wait, you want it now now now, you dont want to put in the time to earn it just like everyone else has. Special snowflake syndrome at its finest, and you keep manufacturing "arguments" which are purely based on your opinion that it takes too long. There is no argument you can make to prove that your opinion is in any way more valid than anyone else's.

 

The bottom line is, that's the game, you are impatient = game not for you.

[Pvtcarnage]

I don't think answers like "We did it, just do the same and shut up" are constructive in any way. What I can see is that among the persons I know who actually got their full war hero gear, most of them ended up leaving the game since they were tired to wait for something more interesting in swtor pvp.

And I also know a lot of people that gave up on the WH gear since it was too long for them to get it.

 

Finally every passing day there are less people in WZs between those who are full and leave and those who give up on pvp. But there are still egoist people that grinded their equippement and want to keep winning easily not because they are good, but because they have a good gear. But you should understand that if the situation stays as is (like you want it to), you are only penalizing yourself since in the end there won't be anybody playing pvp in your server.

 

So I would rather agree with the OP and make the gear more accessible, or even I would ask that everybody gets the best set for free, so that everybody has equal chances to win and not only the guys who grinded for monthes

 

PvP is not slowing down on my server and just because I have WH does not mean every game is a face roll because other people have WH to. So go take your tale of doom to justify welfare somewhere else.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Pvtcarnage

[Russkiier]

I think it is important to realize that this is an MMORPG. As a mostly recruit, with a couple BM pieces (I dont pvp on my main), I don't feel like gear makes a killer difference. The best thing to do is run with a couple of your guildies and enjoy the pvp. Sure you might not win every or even most 1v1s but thats not what the game is about. Its about objectives!

 

Besides, I don't think the gear gap between battlemaster and war hero (even fully aug'd) is so great. Sure its nice to have those extra stats, but its not game breaking or even ruining pvp for me at least

[Jadescythe]

How many hours did that mean you played in the 22 days time span as hours more accurately reflect just how much time you spent. The average cost of a WH piece is

 

2.225 + 2.425 + 3.475 + 2.000 + 3.200 + 2.000 + ( 1.425 x 4 ) + 3.475 + 1.250 = 25,750

 

Or 77,250 Warzone commendations. Divided by an average of 90 wz commendations per match you played 859 matches.

 

During those 22 days if each match took 20 minutes to play complete and start another match you logged 17.180 minutes. You spent 286 hours in game out of a possible 528 hours of time.

 

In the course of 22 days you spent 54% of your day playing swtor. If you take out the 8 hours a day for sleep you spent 286 hours out of a possible 352 playing swtor. Meaning you spent only 66 hours on other activities.

 

meaning collectively you could have worked 8-8.8 days.

 

That is not a good model you should be extoling or bragging about to anyone. If you don't work like this poster you to can have WH gear in 22 days.

 

Assuming a conservative estimate of 4 hours a day, 3 days a week (may be less time more days and the daily would just carry over), you would get 1080 comms from games (your 90 comm average at 20 minutes per game) plus 800 for weekly and the 3 dailies. At this pace, you will hit full WH in 13.7 weeks. And this is assuming you didn't have any ranked comms from pre 50. You'll be halfway to WH in a month and a half at this extremely casual pace. This is SWTOR's end game PVP grind, it's not supposed to happen overnight. Honestly, if this is too long for you, this probably isn't your type of game and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm going to start playing GW2 along with SWTOR for this specific reason.

 

As for many people who play 5 days a week for 3 hours, that would be 10.66 weeks. For the more committed players who play 7 days a week for 4 hours on average, that would be 6.86 weeks. So we're looking at between a month and a half to just over 3 months from hardcore play to casual play. BM is more than capable of making anyone competitive, espcially if you augment parts of it that you plan on obtaining the WH replacement for later.

[PlagaNerezza]

Assuming a conservative estimate of 4 hours a day, 3 days a week (may be less time more days and the daily would just carry over), you would get 1080 comms from games (your 90 comm average at 20 minutes per game) plus 800 for weekly and the 3 dailies. At this pace, you will hit full WH in 13.7 weeks. And this is assuming you didn't have any ranked comms from pre 50. You'll be halfway to WH in a month and a half at this extremely casual pace. This is SWTOR's end game PVP grind, it's not supposed to happen overnight. Honestly, if this is too long for you, this probably isn't your type of game and there is nothing wrong with that. I'm going to start playing GW2 along with SWTOR for this specific reason.

 

As for many people who play 5 days a week for 3 hours, that would be 10.66 weeks. For the more committed players who play 7 days a week for 4 hours on average, that would be 6.86 weeks. So we're looking at between a month and a half to just over 3 months from hardcore play to casual play. BM is more than capable of making anyone competitive, espcially if you augment parts of it that you plan on obtaining the WH replacement for later.

 

I don't think that is an invalid argument. Do you think lower it from 3-1, to 2-1 and having it go from about 833 matches to 556 is something that really affects that timeline? Your still talking about approximately 185 pvp hours to get WH armor instead of 277 hours.

 

Your talking about a 3 hour a day player getting WH in 8 weeks under my plan instead of 13 weeks.

[Larry_Dallas]

While it's unsurprising that the OP basically got flamed for this idea, the reason it's so tough to get a variety of ranked matches is pretty much that it takes too darned long to prepare a ranked team gear-wise. And his 17 week figure is actually pretty light, since the teams that sit in the ranked qs when nobody is queing are frequently to the point of optimized their warhero, not using the junk base mods. To be on equal footing, a guild starting with 8 fresh 50s would need to buy multiples of a bunch of pieces.

 

 

Edit: Should point out that I had no problem with the gear grind for war hero before the introduction of ranked.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Larry_Dallas

[SneiK]

In my opinion, they should change the normal/rated comm trade ratio to 1:2.

 

LoL at people who think they worked for their WH set when you got instant rated pops and dozens of rated pugs going 24/7 a while back. Now the queue dies at 9GMT. Gear matters, and it's harder to get now than it was before, so they need to tweak it. And, unless you got 8 full WH characters on both sides, why would you even care?

 

P.S. Kudos for those who grinded their gear on an empty server before rateds even hit tho.

[Morrolan]

Besides, I don't think the gear gap between battlemaster and war hero (even fully aug'd) is so great.

It is if you want to play ranked.

[Morrolan]

Pretty sure we'll be able to find 15 other players for a pvp match once x-server hits no matter what happens with the game.

 

At any rate, no. Prices are fine. Want-it-now generation needs to suck it up

It would be nice if you and others actually address the argument rather than trying to make up that it is all about laziness or 'want it now'.

 

As for x server I'll believe it when it happens.

[DarthBloodloss]

What is the basis of this thread? Lower the cost because "I feel its too high"?

 

You are going on an MMORPG forum and complaining that it takes too long to get something? Makes me wonder if some of these people have ever played an MMO before. If I want everyone to be equal and everything to be fair, I'd just play KOTOR or CoD.

 

Some of these guys are lucky they are just now getting into MMOs. I don't think many of them could have handled playing EQ. That whole game was nightmare mode compared to what we have today.

[Russkiier]

It is if you want to play ranked.

 

If you want to play ranked, get a group of 8 friends, guildies, whatever together and play ranked.

I played my first three ranked warzones in a mix of mostly recruit and BM and my team won 2 out of 3 and lost the last one (Novare Coast) 6% to 0

 

The system is designed for players to play ranked, get ranked comms, then buy war hero gear with said comms. If you lose, you lose. You can't just play because you want only the best chance of winning every time. That will come after you get your gear, but the gear isn't the almighty messiah that will transform your play from average, or good, to GODMODE UBERL33T.

 

Play to have fun, win or lose.