Bolstering and You: A letter from the Combat team

[Chimerako]

Anyone complaining about bolster from a PvP vs Pve gear standpoint is mad that they aren't good enough to faceroll PvEers in fairly equal gear.

Thanks for the post even though it's old news at least you confirmed it. Please post more mathematical details.

[Crawelc]

What are these strange golden colored letters in the PVP forum? Is this the rapture? Take me with you Jesus!!!!!!!

[Joesixxpack]

What are they afraid some other MMO is going to steal this "proprietary" formula to make their game equally as terrible?

 

Dat facetious... lol

Edited January 10, 2014 by Joesixxpack

[Joesixxpack]

What are these strange golden colored letters in the PVP forum? Is this the rapture? Take me with you Jesus!!!!!!!

 

Swiiing loooowww....

[Suzina]

There are two quirks the formula reveled in this post.

 

1. When Bolster is used, PVE gear is always better than PVP gear of the same rating.

...This is because Expertise takes the place of a stat on the item. This system was designed so that you must sacrifice PVE survivability for PVP effectiveness. However, the Bolster system has the opposite effect. You will NOT get bolster of stats of gear with expertise on them, therefore it is always better to avoid expertise when the Bolster system is active.

 

2. Bolster system is less active on crystals:

This seems to indicate that if you were to use any expertise at all in your pvp gear, the crystal of your saber would be the place least likely to cost you an incredible bolster bonus (actual bonus numbers unknown). However, the wording of the post seems to indicate the entire item will not receive bonus expertise if expertise is detected, so even this might be a bad idea as you don't want to risk losing the bolster'd mainhand damage for most classes. We'd have to know how much extra expertise is added normally and how much less penalty crystals have to make any definitive statement about expertise crystals.

 

 

This post does clarify some of the workings of the Bolster system that cause the somewhat counter-intuitive system we have today. While we have a definitive answer that PVP gear resulting in less Bolster is working-as-intended, we would need to see the actual math to see just how bad of a mistake it is to wear PVP gear to PVP.

[Zoom_VI]

Please consider that you will need to run NiM ops for main/off hand in order to be BiS for PvP if bolster is removed. Your 67 hilt/barrel/armoring will look pretty bad next to the 78 or whatever you can get from PvE.

 

^^this

[windogie]

Can you please address the ability of players to get around the bolster system?

 

Many players claim that bolster is calculated while entering a match, and to gain an unfair advantage, un-equipping crystals and/or augments etc. prior to the match, then re-installing them after bolster has apparently been calculated will result in the stats of said re-equipped items being added on top of the already calculated bolster stats.

 

Is this true? or is the bolster calculation dynamic, making these claims unfounded?

 

Secondly, since the calculation of the skill tree is a factor, can you please elaborate on how this would apply to characters wearing full tanking gear but speced as DPS, or vice versa.

Will bolster add stats to these builds in a way that gives them an unfair advantage, as in effectively giving characters the power of both a tank and a DPS class to the player?

 

Thank you

 

 

You are catching on. No sadly bolster does not increase tank stats in dps gear that was fixed a while back. Now what about endurance heavy snipers ;D.

[ManiacDavis]

All we need is the formula. A simple string of code would put all questions to rest so we can actually see how bolster works (and why it doesn't work).

[Tankqull]

And it only took 9 months and the newest member of the community team to accomplish this.

 

thats the true sad point on this...

but welcome Tait! its not your fault

 

and why in heavans sake is a weapon with blue lvl 42 mods(belsavis plenetary vendor) and a purple 41power crystal absolutly BiS as a weapon under bolster?

 

All we need is the formula. A simple string of code would put all questions to rest so we can actually see how bolster works (and why it doesn't work).

the more i think a bout the system i come to the wild guessing that it is not one formula but severeal formulars for different lvl brackets [quite obvious when you compare your stats at 29 an 30] maybe even for each lvl itself, with different formulars for each item quality (A/P/B/G). otherwise you wouldn´t face such obvious bolsterspikes for specific items (lvl42 weapons, earpieces at bolster release etc.)

Edited January 10, 2014 by Tankqull

[KhalDrogoe]

Tait, you've just jettisoned up to the position of my most favorite Community Team member! Congratulations!

[Ancaglon]

imo bolster should check if a piece of gear has expertise

 

if gear has expertise --> do nothing

else --> Set stats to set piece of "recruit" gear REGARDLESS of stats on the item.

 

This would fix all the problems of pve gear being better than pvp gear.

 

Nice idea, and it would work for the non-Moddable pieces but how would this account things like a full 78 MH/OH but with an Expertise crystal? or a single PVP mod or enhancement? "Just" losing 100 or so Expertise vs. having a ton of extra damage/force power/stats is probably still no good...

Edited January 10, 2014 by Ancaglon

[ParagonAX]

An even simpler suggestion would be:

 

IF character has = 2018 expertise, do nothing

ELSE set all stats to pre-defined values (full Conqueror but un-optimized)

 

There is still a huge incentive for people to buy Conq/Obroan and optimize the stats as they see fit, but this way no1 would be a roadkill.

 

Did I mention much simpler to code and to explain as well?

Edited January 10, 2014 by ParagonAX

[cycao]

An even simpler suggestion would be:

 

IF character has = 2018 expertise, do nothing

ELSE set all stats to pre-defined values (full Conqueror but un-optimized)

 

There is still a huge incentive for people to buy Conq/Obroan and optimize the stats as they see fit, but this way no1 would be a roadkill.

 

Did I mention much simpler as well?

 

So basically bolster would be recruit gear that you don't equip? Yeah id be fine if they could figure out a way so that if you have any PvE gear on at all it kills bolster.

[Evuo]

 

and why in heavans sake is a weapon with blue lvl 42 mods(belsavis plenetary vendor) and a purple 41power crystal absolutly BiS as a weapon under bolster?

 

Thanks,

 

I went ahead and did a few bolster comparisons based on your info:

 

http://imgur.com/a/UdHAS

 

In the order of the images in that album:

 

 

1. 69,63,61 - 904.7 bonus damage
   
2. 41s - 906.5 bonus damage
   
3. 43s - 908.4 bonus damage (had to use an accuracy/high power enhancement since I didn't have a surge one)
   
4. 45s - 909.6 bonus damage (had to use an accuracy/high power enhancement since I didn't have a surge one)
   
5. 47s - 892.1 bonus damage
   

 

According to this experiment level 47 mods is were you the bolster gain starts to drop off.

 

The 45s weapon vs. the 69,63,61 weapon gives:

+95 endurance

+4.5 bonus damage

+0.69 ranged % crit (will vary depending on other gear)

- ~.20 surge (I didn't have the enhancement to find the number in my case but it will also vary depending on the amount of surge on the rest of your gear)

 

I did do experiments with the offhand generator as well. It might have boosted up my main stats and ranged bonus damage but dropped my tech bonus damage by 135 so I determined it was not worth it. I am not sure if that is just the case with classes who use offhands like the vanguard or it would be the same for those who dual wield.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Evuo

[Vodrin]

So basically bolster would be recruit gear that you don't equip? Yeah id be fine if they could figure out a way so that if you have any PvE gear on at all it kills bolster.

 

Under her system the bolster would actually nerf the "PvE" stats of PvE gear while giving it expertise. Pretty much if you would use any non-PvP gear the bolster would convert it to basic Conqueror gear for the class.

[MotorCityMan]

Thanks for a more complete picture of bolster. I am all for the concepts. I have not tested every combination of itemization but I suggest that you continue to monitor and adjust.

[Souliena]

Please remove the bolster system from Ranked Arena or change the bolster.

 

All the time I ask myself, why I should buy 65 or 67 PVP gear, if a combination of 69/63/61 PVE-Gear is so much better because of the bolster.

 

I think I'm speaking for most of the real PVP-players, if I say, that it isn't logical, that PVE-Gear in Warzones and in Rated Arena is better than the PVP-Gear.

 

Bolster to 2018 expertice is nice, but I think, it shouldn't be possible to get better stats with PVE-Gear than with PVP-Gear in Warzones.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Souliena

[DarthOvertone]

For the most part this seems to confirm what the community theory-crafters had determined

 

Yep. While I appreciate that someone from the community team was finally able to come up with some direct feedback from the Devs, that Dev feedback didn't tell us something we didn't already know. Coincidence? I think not.

 

[*]As discussed in this thread, Bolster creates an environment where certain combinations of PvE items are Best-in-Slot weapons; why are PvP-specific items getting beaten at their own game?

 

And this remains the main issue at this point. Not only are PvE items BIS, but someone just demonstrated in the referenced thread that level 45 mods are the best way to roll. lol

 

 

Remove bolster from ranked

 

Please. Just remove Bolster from Ranked until you guys figure out how to make it work correctly in all cases.

 

 

Just being confident that the PvP gear would for sure be BIS would be enough for me. Problem is, it isn't.

 

Only makes sense that PvP gear would be BiS for PvP. Why it hasn't been for a year now makes zero sense.

 

 

Secondly, since the calculation of the skill tree is a factor, can you please elaborate on how this would apply to characters wearing full tanking gear but speced as DPS, or vice versa.

 

This was the one new bit of information I don't think most players were aware of. I have a very bad feeling about this. Exploitable ACs incoming. lol

 

 

It was PvP'ers who was doing the _justified_ crying about people in bad gear that brought bolster around, if anything..

 

No it wasn't. It was the QQers too lazy to prepare for level cap who cried about getting wrecked in Recruit gear that brought Bolster around.

[TonyDragonflame]

Bolster is nice conception in theory, like communism, but it cannot help for bads stop being bad... probably you need unify all gear - remove expertise from pvp gear and make rwz commz = ultimate commz or something. Edited January 10, 2014 by TonyDragonflame

[_Miriya_]

A question to Devs:

 

" You say that the intention is for equal-rating PvP gear to be better in PvP than PvE gear, yet level 50 PvP gear is considerably worse than level 50 PvE gear.

 

So much so that it is in many cases better to wear *nothing* than to wear a piece of 50 PvP gear, and always better to wear green or even white gear.

 

Is this intended behavior, and if so why is it intended, and what is the math behind it? "

 

Thank you.

[kelkreath]

bumped Edited March 4, 2014 by kelkreath
Incorrect post.. irrelevant

[K_osss]

Combinations of item modifications such as hilt 69/ mod 63/ and enhancement 61 bolster to higher damage than Obroan weapons. This can be seen in the thread by L-Randle HERE. For DPS character types this is BIS.

 

Is this intended? If yes, I'd like some guidance in relation to the details of why so that it can be better understood and if not then do you have any plans to address the issue?

[EzioMessi]

Combinations of item modifications such as hilt 69/ mod 63/ and enhancement 61 bolster to higher damage than Obroan weapons. This can be seen in the thread by L-Randle HERE. For DPS character types this is BIS.

 

Is this intended? If yes, I'd like some guidance in relation to the details of why so that it can be better understood and if not then do you have any plans to address the issue?

 

Of course it shouldn't be intended. But for all intents and purposes, I can't see Bioware changing it. The only real solution to it is to get rid of Expertise Crystals (distribute that expertise among the other mods, or just plain get rid of it from the hard cap).

 

But if they got rid of it, that would mean losing a lot of money which they get from people who waste their CCs/Credits buying Expertise crystals of their favourite colour. So yeah, I don't see it happening any time soon.

[General_Aldo]

Remove bolster from 55 warzones.

 

Is there a reason for it to be at endgame? By the time people are 55, it's time they learn their class.

 

Why isn't PvE bolster? I want to wear level 55 greens and be competitive in nightmare mode ops.

[abhaxus]

As Somnax has said, this is the best solution for bolster:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=635206

 

Posted many months ago, still the best solution.

 

A quick fix, however, would be for them to change bolster so that it ignores weapon crystals, for all gear (whether PVP gear or PVE) and only bolsters up to 1936 regardless of what gear you have. That way, if people want full expertise, they HAVE TO run PVP crystals. This would instantly solve the problem of PVE weapons being superior to PVP.

Edited January 14, 2014 by abhaxus