lol bolster

[BoushhDC]

good to hear. but I would really like to know why BW isn't punishing the people who have been exploiting the augment bug in WZs. exploiting bugs for advantage is against TOS, isn't it? game will be better off long term if you ban cheaters out of the game.

 

If you punish players for benefiting from one unintended bug, you then must punish all those that benefited from ALL the bugs, in addition to the augment slot bug, such as:

 

**Those that fought "naked" to benefit from the "Naked Bolster" bug:

 

Hey everyone,

 

Our combat and PvP teams have been hard at work addressing the issues of naked Bolster and the itemization issues.... With that being said, we do not intend for naked Bolster to be better than wearing gear of any type. This is a bug with the system that we are adamant on fixing....

 

-eric

 

 

**Those that benefited from the Relic slots bug:

 

 

...We also corrected an issue where relic slots were being treated in our system as expected to give out more Main Stats than they were. This caused relic slots to be overly valued in adding to your DPS stats

 

 

**Those that benefited from empty modification slots bug:

 

The issue of empty Modification slots Bolstering incorrectly is a bug and will be fixed ....

 

-eric

 

**Those that are currently benefiting from wearing Arkanian & Underworld (PvE) gear bug in WZs:

 

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended....

 

-eric

 

 

Oh, but there are more! Those specifically named above and publicly acknowledged by the devs are only addressing the most "famous/infamous" as reported by the community. There are others that the devs are aware of on their end that they are ALSO working to fix w/o drawing any more attention to them:

 

 

In addition to these changes we fixed many underlying bugs in the Bolster system ....

 

I'm actually not surprised by the amount of bugs and problems that the devs have and are still encountering with such an over-ambitious, over-complicated system to address the following:

 

Hey everyone, I have seen a lot of questions about why Bolster exists at 55 given the issues we have been having....

 

 

 

And here is the broad stroke explanation:

 

...Before 2.0 we gave free sets of PvP gear, the Recruit (and Recruit Mk-2) sets, to players as they reached the max level of the game. This gear was intended to set the minimum power level of players inside Warzones, making sure that regardless of what gear you’ve managed to obtain as you were leveling, you were at “X” power level at the worst.

 

[...]Unfortunately, giving away physical gear ran into a number of problems: ...some players simply sold the gear for an immediate cash gain, and a large number of people either didn’t ever acquire the Recruit gear or simply didn’t wear it while inside PvP. The result was a rather harsh introduction to PvP for fresh level 50 players....

 

 

Okay, so the system was intended to make it "idiot proof" because, well, what can you say about players that sold their *free* pvp gear or refused to wear it thereby resulting in a "harsh" pvp experience? Seriously.

 

I'm going to hazard a guess that the reason you wish to "punish" people is out of some sense of fairness. Well, in the interest of fairness, you would have to either punish *everyone* that benefited from the unintended bugs or punish no one and get fixes in place as fast as possible, balancing haste against the very real possibility of making things worse/breaking 10 more things for each one "fixed." Somehow I think that fixing the problems is their priority. I say, the sooner they come up with viable fixes, the better.

Edited May 8, 2013 by BoushhDC

[MiaRB]

stop defending cheaters. good lord. people who abuse the augment bug are actively doing something to exploit the bug. its not like they just show up in a WZ and get boosted stats without doing anything. most people don't exploit the bug and play fair. but the group of people that do exploit it are bad for this game or any other MMO because they are always cheating is some form or another. BW should perma ban all of them. at the very least they should have some action taken against them. otherwise BW is telling everyone that TOS means nothing and if you can find a way to cheat them go ahead and do it.

[Khalhazar]

My operative gets 6 more endurance (and equal stats otherwise) when he wears a low-level green in PvP instead of unaugmented purple pve armoing/mod/enhancement 25s.

 

That's *weird*.

[BoushhDC]

Dear Delusional: who's defending anything?

 

If you are going to claim fairness, then apply it evenly. That's what that word means. Look up the word in the dictionary if you have to. Otherwise, it's just old garden variety hypocrisy. You're saying to apply it only to those that do things intentionally? Don't be naive. Do you really think people "accidentally" stripped down naked (actually, their dirty gray undies)? Or that they "accidentally" unequipped their two relic slots? Or "accidentally" removed their enhancements from their gear? Personally, I *intentionally* equip 3 pieces of Black Market (pve) gear (2 from drops, 1 bought w/ comms) while I add the other pieces of PvP gear as I earn them. *GASP*!! OMG!

 

Get real.

 

Good thing *some* people aren't in charge. I'm often critical of the decisions and implementations of the devs, but at least I don't think they are mercurial, arbitrary psychos out to intentionally screw as many people as possible.

 

Omg, I gave just BW some credit. I think I need a drink now.

Edited May 8, 2013 by BoushhDC

[dcgregorya]

If you punish players for benefiting from one unintended bug, you then must punish all those that benefited from ALL the bugs, in addition to the augment slot bug, such as:

 

According to whom exactly? They can choose to enforce as selectively as they want. I think a warning would be a good start. And a ban if people keep doing it.

[BoushhDC]

According to whom exactly? They can choose to enforce as selectively as they want. I think a warning would be a good start. And a ban if people keep doing it.

 

Indeed. How does one make it fair, is the question. Do you punish some people for doing some things intentionally, but not others for doing different things equally as intentionally? What criteria would you come up with to draw the distinction, I wonder?

 

Since all of the above mentioned unintended bugs were BW's fault (they broke their own game), and not the product of players utilizing 3rd party software to "hack" the game to unfair advantage, I predict they will handle it similarly to how they did the mega-levelling bug on Ilum during the Gree Event.

 

They call that "precedence."

Edited May 8, 2013 by BoushhDC

[stephenalandavie]

You cant punish people for taking advantage of something Bioware left in and left it to run for weeks. people will take advantage of it, its called human nature.

[Pistols]

What's the over/under this actually gets fixed?

 

[BoushhDC]

What's the over/under this actually gets fixed?

 

 

hehe.

 

I'd like to think that if they'd just scrap "LolBolster 2.*" it could be fixed tomorrow, but since they decided to trash everyone's WH/EWH gear, I fear they have passed the point of no return on that one.

[Kegparty]

over under for a fix in 2 weeks lol house is going to win that one. I give it 1 month for a semi solid fix

[Psychopyro]

Hey everyone, I have seen a lot of questions about why Bolster exists at 55 given the issues we have been having. I talked to Rob Hinkle and here is his explanation on why Bolster exists as a system at level 55.

 

 

 

This is a lame excuse... a BETTER fix would be to let us actually BUY the gear while we level up so at level 55 we actually HAVE the correct gearset... All problems solved... IDK how many times I've had to blow commendations on garbage I would never use or just let them rot from the WZ because I can't use them on anything worthwhile.

 

Or better yet, on top of it, make the gear BIND to LEGACY instead of BIND to CHARACTER. That way a character could buy them for an alt, because at some point, the commendations become worthless again.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Psychopyro

[Chaqa]

Why are we making this so complicated. Bolster is broken and favors the PvE player in a PvP enviroment.

 

Simple solution would be to turn level 55 bolster off and allow players to start buying their level 55 PvP gear prior to being level 55 and bank it until they reach endgame PvP. Once they hit that level 55 requirement they can reach into their inventory and start using what they have earned ( I couldn't even guess how many comms I have burned on medpacks because I was capped ).

 

I understand about wanting to make things fair, however if someone hasn't taken the time to plan ahead whose fault is that. My PvP gear doesnt become bolstered in Operations and I understand that, but under this bolster system why shouldnt it, if were talking about being all inclusive and fair.

 

Hey everyone, I have seen a lot of questions about why Bolster exists at 55 given the issues we have been having. I talked to Rob Hinkle and here is his explanation on why Bolster exists as a system at level 55.

 

 

[DeiVias]

Simple solution would be to turn level 55 bolster off and allow players to start buying their level 55 PvP gear prior to being level 55 and bank it until they reach endgame PvP.

.

 

I don't understand why this is so hard to do, keep your ****** bolster system in for sub 55 if you want but take it out at 55.

 

Other games when you earn gear you feel more powerful, PVP in TOR at 55 i don't give a crap when i get a new piece of gear.

[Princz]

So much analysis....

 

Well i think they know that pve gear is better ....

 

I got full conq .... my friend with almost 72 gear on (that is comparing 2 sages) has way better stats than me

 

I have 5% more damage reduction but he has 5K HP more than me and he definately hits higher than me and heals better than me. I can provide screenshots when i ll get home.

 

I think they know and they will probably fix in upcoming patches.

Till then i dont bother with end game pvp in my eyes is broken.

I just level some alts and enjoy lowbie pvp.

[_Kayko_]

So much analysis....

 

Well i think they know that pve gear is better ....

 

I got full conq .... my friend with almost 72 gear on (that is comparing 2 sages) has way better stats than me

 

I have 5% more damage reduction but he has 5K HP more than me and he definately hits higher than me and heals better than me. I can provide screenshots when i ll get home.

 

I think they know and they will probably fix in upcoming patches.

Till then i dont bother with end game pvp in my eyes is broken.

I just level some alts and enjoy lowbie pvp.

 

Want to know the best part of this? Both of you use an Adrenal, you stay at cap damage reduction in your full Conq while your friend with the already better stats goes from ~25% reduction to cap.

 

Pair this with classes that have a short duration damage mitigation and 72 PvE gear makes Conq look like the original recruit gear. Your damage output goes down while they stay going full out.

Edited May 8, 2013 by _Kayko_

[Devlonir]

Thanks for posting Rob's words Eric.. though one part made me wonder.. specifically this:

 

To that end, we reworked the Bolster system to not function off player level (as it did pre-2.0) and instead use the power level of the items a character currently has equipped.

 

Why was this solution chosen and not more simply looking at the fact if an item has any expertise or not? I asked this before, and I'll keep asking until that design decision is explained.

 

This sounds like a very complicated thing to do, when a PVP item can also simply be defined by "does it have expertise on or not?" and if not, just give it a set of pre-defined base stats instead of it's actual stats. It solves the same issues, but a lot more simple. At least at level 55.

 

Now, I do understand that pre-55 you need to give lower levels slightly better stats than higher levels because they simply have less powers and less skill points to spend in the skill tree. But couldn't this also simply be solved by changing the Bolster stats for each level instead of for each item itself?

 

Finally, I see a certain risk with "side" stats like Crit and Surge when giving a base amount of stats. Some specs simply favor one or the other, or even some playstyles within a spec do. But this can also be solved by simply giving the same balance of those stats to items that already exists, right?

 

My point is: many of the problems and exploits seem to be found when playing around with power level of the items equipped. Either by removing augments, using low level augments, or by simply going for lower power level items over higher ones to get better stats. And when I read this line I quoted, I saw this main source of exploits also seems to be the basis of the entire system.

 

Therefore the question: Why was power level of items equipped chosen to be the basis of the system? And not a combination of level of the character and already existing 'side' stats, while taking into account if an item is already PVP item or not (and then not changing anything).

 

Please find it in yourself to be open on decisions like this as well.. and not just the logical ones where you answer the "remove bolster plox" trolls. Because every reasonable person can see why it can't be removed now.

[Laurreth]

The bug that players are experiencing in relation to augments in certain armor slots will be fixed in Game Update 2.1

 

And on that occasion, please ban all accounts of frequent abusers, and report their credit cards stolen.

 

What, one can dream!

[Kirtastropohe]

It just amazes me that a large part of the 2.0 mess was apparently caused by a desire to idiot-proof the game for fresh max levelers going into PvP. So...because some people were too stupid to buy a set of recruit gear and *gasp* found themselves totally destroyed in PvP until they started to get enough comms for the regular PvP gear, they decided to scrap that quite simple system in favor of an incredibly complex system designed to save people from themselves... .a system that is so convoluted and complicated that it can't be implemented without contorting the very innards of the game mechanics.

 

How does that ever get off the ground as a viable plan of action? If someone is so foolish as to sell the gear intended to give them the way to start the pvp gear grind, that's their problem. Instead, BW decided to screw EVERYONE in the name of saving these idiots from themselves. Ridiculous. How much simplier can it get than to have a set of gear that everyone gets for FREE and BW can tweak the stats they provide quite simply.

 

Get rid of the stupid bolster and put it back to the system it was. Put out a better set of recruit gear. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and use the wheel that was working.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Kirtastropohe

[SomeJagoff]

It just amazes me that a large part of the 2.0 mess was apparently caused by a desire to idiot-proof the game for fresh max levelers going into PvP.

 

[...]

 

If someone is so foolish as to sell the gear intended to give them the way to start the pvp gear grind, that's their problem. Instead, BW decided to screw EVERYONE in the name of saving these idiots from themselves.

 

[...]

 

Get rid of the stupid bolster and put it back to the system it was. Put out a better set of recruit gear. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and use the wheel that was working.

 

Yup, I agree 100%. If a player decides to pvp in pve gear instead of their Free recruit pvp gear because they don't like the look, then they deserve to get their butt kicked. At the very least, people who do that have no right to complain, especially when it's well within their power to not get their butts kicked.

 

Most importantly, I agree there should be a new BETTER set of recruit gear, all moddable, blue mods if necessary, but equal expertise to partisan/conquerer, just lower primary/secondary/tertiary stats.

 

If they did that, people could just throw their recruit pvp mods into whatever gear they like and maintain their look.

 

PVP is one of the few things this game has going for it, keep bolster in place and that will change. That's a promise.

[Arlanon]

^^

 

Recruit MK-3 plz

 

If idiots refuse (REFUSE!) to wear it, that's their own fault and their own problem

[Covaltage]

^^

 

Recruit MK-3 plz

 

If idiots refuse (REFUSE!) to wear it, that's their own fault and their own problem

 

I agree 100%. The whole argument for bolster was that the newer players weren't "competitive" due to them not wearing their gear, but consider this: if a player isn't good enough to know how bad they are gimping their team by wearing PvE gear to PvP, how useful are they going to be in your WZ anyways?

 

Imagine a player who doesn't know enough about PvP to equip his recruit gear, do you think that player knows how to play the objectives in a WZ and help their team win?

[Technohic]

I agree 100%. The whole argument for bolster was that the newer players weren't "competitive" due to them not wearing their gear, but consider this: if a player isn't good enough to know how bad they are gimping their team by wearing PvE gear to PvP, how useful are they going to be in your WZ anyways?

 

Imagine a player who doesn't know enough about PvP to equip his recruit gear, do you think that player knows how to play the objectives in a WZ and help their team win?

 

Good point. And with the one without at least the starter gear; you can spot it and tell them to go get some before you count on them as the guy going to "home" node.

[Devlonir]

I agree 100%. The whole argument for bolster was that the newer players weren't "competitive" due to them not wearing their gear, but consider this: if a player isn't good enough to know how bad they are gimping their team by wearing PvE gear to PvP, how useful are they going to be in your WZ anyways?

Yeah, we don't want those scrubs in our glorious PVP! We only need our own group of people who DO know what to do.

/sarcasm

 

The amount of entitlement because you do know how it works in this thread is mind boggling to me. Let me put it this way:

Right now, that scrub only has their lack of experience causing them to not be effective. Not their lack of gear, or their bad decision in selling something because they needed the credits to *gasp* buy their level 50/55 skills. The issue with Recruit gear is very clear in that it is a great solution, to a certain group of people.

 

Also the point of: "yeah but just grind a week or two and you have full partisan" just proves how little people understand how new people come to enjoy an activity (hint, it isn't by getting their ***** handed to them for 2 weeks before they can even become marginally useful).

 

The system is designed to cater to the new, without damaging the experienced or removing their incentives entirely. Right now, the system works perfect for the new, but still has issues for the second group. Those issues need to be resolved. Going back to Recruit only solves it for the experienced, not the new.

 

Or, to put it this way: I am 100% happy that since 2.0 I have not once had to inspect someone's gear and then whisper them in a friendly manner about the fact that they did not have Recruit gear and were therefore not having the best possible PVP experience. The reactions always go from honest thank you's to getting called any curse name under the sun. Why should I have to burden myself with that?

[Technohic]

Yeah, we don't want those scrubs in our glorious PVP! We only need our own group of people who DO know what to do.

/sarcasm

 

The amount of entitlement because you do know how it works in this thread is mind boggling to me. Let me put it this way:

Right now, that scrub only has their lack of experience causing them to not be effective. Not their lack of gear, or their bad decision in selling something because they needed the credits to *gasp* buy their level 50/55 skills. The issue with Recruit gear is very clear in that it is a great solution, to a certain group of people.

 

Also the point of: "yeah but just grind a week or two and you have full partisan" just proves how little people understand how new people come to enjoy an activity (hint, it isn't by getting their ***** handed to them for 2 weeks before they can even become marginally useful).

 

The system is designed to cater to the new, without damaging the experienced or removing their incentives entirely. Right now, the system works perfect for the new, but still has issues for the second group. Those issues need to be resolved. Going back to Recruit only solves it for the experienced, not the new.

 

Or, to put it this way: I am 100% happy that since 2.0 I have not once had to inspect someone's gear and then whisper them in a friendly manner about the fact that they did not have Recruit gear and were therefore not having the best possible PVP experience. The reactions always go from honest thank you's to getting called any curse name under the sun. Why should I have to burden myself with that?

 

You're right. Now you can just focus on looking to see how that new piece of gear actually works in a bolstered area that you had no idea what it would be like until you queued up. At least now you don't have to worry about people being rude.

[Zadtro]

This bolster stuff is getting really annoying. 55 tank guardians running around 37k hp in WZ with expertise even though they are wearing full pve gear is getting very annoying.

 

I agree with the bolster system being a good idea but i think expertise should be removed from bolster at 55 so players would have to wear pvp gear to get expertise and if they weren't wearing any pvp gear there would be a noticeable difference to how much damage they do and take etc...