Commendations Gear & Grinding Comms Post 3.0 And Forward

[TorVER]

Hello, I don't post very often, but I would like some honest feedback (preferably from the game developers/community team) with regards to the Commendations Gear since this last Tuesday's patch and gearing going foward.

 

Before Update 2.0, you could get good (min-maxed/unlettered) mods, enhancements, earpieces, implants, offhands, relics, for commendations. Unavailable were set bonuses and mainhands basically, which were operations drops only, SM or HM.

 

Post Update 2.0, you could get good (min-maxed/unlettered) mods, offhand barrels/hilts...everything else min-maxed was operations drops only.

 

The earpieces/implants/enhancements became all high endurance (not min-maxed)/poor stats (crit alacrity). The relics, the ideal ones at least, became ops drops only.

 

Now this last week with the launch of Update 3.0, the min-maxed/unlettered mods are gone from the commendations gear as well (evidently all "A" or "B" mods now only).

 

Having checked through every vendor, it looks like the only "good" (min-maxed) item is now the offhand barrel/hilt/armoring.

 

This raises the question of whether or not there's a point in going through a grind for commendations at all, if now Every single piece of commendations gear is "bad" (with the exception of the offhand).

 

What bothers me is that it is not just the "Basic Commendations Gear" (which one would expect, given the large amount of basic commendations people have after the patch), but the "Elite Commendations Gear" and "Ultimate Commendations Gear" as well. Prior to the patch, there was some motivation to grinding a lot of ultimate/elite commendations, since some of the pieces would be okay, but now there doesn't seem to be a motivation to do so.

 

At this point it seems to be that the only way to get a full set of min-maxed gear is to 1. get a full set of gear from Operations drops, then 2. need on several extra drops just for the min-maxed mods/enhancements (since some of the actual unassembled operations gear drop pieces appear to have poor stats as well).

 

It just seems like a very poor design philosophy. It also makes me wonder about the recommended operations gear rating.

 

If the operations minimum gear rating is "192" is that the current base 192 commendations gear? with "A" mods and all high endurance pieces? or is that fully Augmented 192 commendations gear, with a boost in stats? or is that Fully augmented min-maxed operations gear?

 

This all just seems extreme, in that commendations gear previously more or less was a compliment to running operations, you could get Some gear from the commendations gear vendor (mods, basically), but for the rest of the items, you needed to run operations actively. Now it seems if you don't run operations/have poor RNG and don't win rolls, you're basically stuck in wholly inferior gear, which you still have to "grind" for.

 

I followed the live streams for the classes and heard that their intention was to reduce the overall damage potential from classes via class balance....but the poor gear itemization on the commendations gear and some operations drop gear as well feels like a double "nerf" to every dps/healer class.

 

Any insight into these changes to commendations gear would be greatly appreciated, again, preferably from a member of the community team/game developers.

 

Thank you!

[pauldevries]

This!

 

I don't understand the relative gear progression anymore either. It seems like the old 186 gear is very much better than the new 186 and actually better than the elite and ultimate gear as well.

 

Add to this that you basically cannot get anything better than 186 Basic gear from running anything other than the new hm 60 flashpoints and new ops suggest no reason to ever play old content (even hm TFB/SNV/DP/DF ops which drop basics)

 

progression advancement for any smaller guilds or non guild players through old ops is dead as the developers have stated that the old ops will actually be harder than before with same gear - but you cant get better gear until you have run new stuff over and over again???

[TorVER]

This!

 

I don't understand the relative gear progression anymore either. It seems like the old 186 gear is very much better than the new 186 and actually better than the elite and ultimate gear as well.

 

Add to this that you basically cannot get anything better than 186 Basic gear from running anything other than the new hm 60 flashpoints and new ops suggest no reason to ever play old content (even hm TFB/SNV/DP/DF ops which drop basics)

 

progression advancement for any smaller guilds or non guild players through old ops is dead as the developers have stated that the old ops will actually be harder than before with same gear - but you cant get better gear until you have run new stuff over and over again???

 

Agreed, I am just very confused about all this. I have not reached level 60 yet, but from other posts I have been reading, apparently level 55 hard mode flashpoints drop Elite Commendations, but level 60 hard mode flashpoints drop Basic Commendations?? I can only assume that this is a bug, otherwise I, too, cannot see any clear method of gear progression, other than bolstered group finder operations (for comms gear?) --> guild run non-group finder operations (for unassembled 192 gear drops) --> hm operations (for unassembled 198 gear drops) --> hm operations (for MORE unassembled 198 gear drops...but only for enhancements and now mods too??)

 

Just very confusing, thank you for the reply! I am glad that I am not alone in thinking that this was odd.

[LordHartigan]

I'm quite confused with the comm situation as well. I would have to do some close looking and am working on a table that clearly shows what awards what , but it seems the comm rewards are not quite scaled correctly with difficulty of the content. As noted above 55 HM FPS give betters comms than 60 HM FPs? The bonus bosses in the 60 HM FPs are not worth it from a rewards stand point. I would not look at it from a progression stand point. Hopefully it's simply an oversight and they forgot to balance the comms out with the new content. It makes zero sense to provide better rewards for old content than new content. Edited December 15, 2014 by LordHartigan

[heizluefta]

Totally agree. The game lacks of choices how you wanna play/grind. When saying that ill get hatred once more, but i do it anyway: ops are favoured. If u dont/cant/less time/underpopulated server/not enough guildies all time youre pretty screwed in gear progression ! Edited December 15, 2014 by heizluefta

[jedip_enguin]

Unless you're wearing old comm gear the new comm gear is utterly pointless for anything but companion gearing.

 

Or maybe if you're one of those tanks with a fetish for high HP and low mitigation.

[AelixVII]

Yeah I'm also finding the transition a little hard to get as it doesn't seem like a direct path up.

 

I'm not keen on them giving 55-59 players easier Ult comms in the group finder for the old Ops compared to lvl 60s only getting them from the new Ops.

 

Also I can't find anywhere where it states which Ops levels drop which comms. Do any of the old ones still drop Ult comms at all? or is that just the GF reward?

[DawnAskham]

Yeah I'm also finding the transition a little hard to get as it doesn't seem like a direct path up.

 

I'm not keen on them giving 55-59 players easier Ult comms in the group finder for the old Ops compared to lvl 60s only getting them from the new Ops.

 

Also I can't find anywhere where it states which Ops levels drop which comms. Do any of the old ones still drop Ult comms at all? or is that just the GF reward?

 

It's all buggered up right now.

 

Level 55 HM FPs still drop Elites while level 60 HM FPs drop Basics.

 

Level 55 SM 16 man Ops drop Ultimates (even for level 60s), while level 60 SM 8 man Ops drop Elites.

 

Level 55 and 60 HM Ops drop Ultimates, more in 16 man than 8 man.

 

Basically, if you want to maximize commendations (both Elite and Ultimate) at 60, it is far more efficient to run old level 55 stuff, and preferably in 16 man format.

 

Which IMO is total FUBAR.

 

Content below level 60 should not have Elite / Ultimate commendations as boss drops, and any Elite / Ultimate commendations for level 55-60 should be tied to Weekly 55-60 missions, such as [Classic Operations] (complete a level 55 Operation on HM / NiM).

 

All size formats of the same level / difficulty should award the same type and amount of commendations per player per boss, while level 60 content should always award better commendations than level 55 content.

 

It is beyond ridiculous that level 56 players running fail finder bolstered level 55 operations are getting Ultimate commendations while level 60 players doing the new operations without a bolster on 8 man are getting none.

 

And all of this is before looking at the commendation gear and realizing it is almost all junk, with very little actually worth bothering to pick up other than using for companions.

Edited December 15, 2014 by DawnAskham

[LordHartigan]

I would agree with most of this. Only disagreement would be that it should scale to difficulty, not necessarily to level. From what I've played so far, the 60 HM FPs are pretty tough. In Hard Mode I think the bosses should drop Elites instead of Basics.

[Brewski]

I have to agree to being slightly disappointed in the scale of the changes to commendations gear. Frankly, they did need to slow down gearing a bit, so I would have been okay with commendation gear having more of a mix of mod and enhancement types. For example, maybe a couple pieces in the set have the best mod variant, while other have the high endurance versions, meaning you have to farm more for the better piece twice. Or maybe having the individual mods and enhancements available for comms so you could tweak your gear after getting the base pieces.

 

However, the complete removal of the best variants from commendation gear means there's very little incentive to do dailies and weeklies, which is kind of the opposite of the intended effect I would think. Why farm dailes for weeks when you can craft the same gear or get better from ops?

 

So yeah, I agree they overshot the mark a bit, and need to adjust the gear mods back a little to make comm gear worthwhile in the long run, even if it takes longer to get it.

[T-Assassin]

I am highly disappointed with the itemization, as well as, the comms drops in 3.0.

 

Lvl 60 Bonus Bosses drop basic comms???!!!

Completing 3 lvl 55 FP's completes the lvl 60 [Weekly].

4 pieces of alacrity gear on VG DPS, only 3 accuracy.

anything 55 dropping ultimate comms.

WB on Yavin kills not counting (3 kills, 0 updates)

2 HM 60 FP's (REALLY??!!)

 

and much, much more.

 

The itemization is garbage, and the devs really dropped the ball on rewarding new, more difficult content.

 

While I really enjoy the new content, "skill trees", and abilities, the lack of foresight, imagination, and common sense of itemization and lvl 60 comms rewards really takes the wind out of my sails.

 

I truly hope this can be fixed in an upcoming patch, but I'm pretty sure it won't.

 

Give me incentive to play and content, and I will keep giving you my money!! Or, give me this nonsense, which is itemization and terrible comms rewards, and i'll be FTP in no time

Edited December 16, 2014 by T-Assassin

[itsmymillertime]

They fixed the WB Yavin today. Have you killed it yet?

[DawnAskham]

I have to agree to being slightly disappointed in the scale of the changes to commendations gear. Frankly, they did need to slow down gearing a bit, so I would have been okay with commendation gear having more of a mix of mod and enhancement types. For example, maybe a couple pieces in the set have the best mod variant, while other have the high endurance versions, meaning you have to farm more for the better piece twice. Or maybe having the individual mods and enhancements available for comms so you could tweak your gear after getting the base pieces.

 

However, the complete removal of the best variants from commendation gear means there's very little incentive to do dailies and weeklies, which is kind of the opposite of the intended effect I would think. Why farm dailes for weeks when you can craft the same gear or get better from ops?

 

So yeah, I agree they overshot the mark a bit, and need to adjust the gear mods back a little to make comm gear worthwhile in the long run, even if it takes longer to get it.

 

This is the issue in a nut shell.

 

It is one thing to increase the time to obtain items by increasing their cost or reducing a player's earning potential - it is something else entirely to make the items unobtainable (e.g. any useful mods or enhancements).

 

Add in level 55 content (which in most cases is trivial to 60s) providing higher rewards at a faster pace, and you quickly shake your head and wonder just what the person responsible for this mess was thinking.

 

I know I for one am not bothering with anything other than the level 60 Operations (which still have the issue with 16 SM bolster GF providing better rewards than non-bolstered 8 SM and on par comm wise with 8 HM).

 

I also feel I will quickly grow bored of just the few new Operations and probably start cutting back my time in game, which usually leads to me dropping my subscription until the next major content patch.

Edited December 16, 2014 by DawnAskham

[ForceWelder]

This may be considered a side bar issue or it may be just as appopriate here as the discussion of gear progression in PVE. But I am scratching my head with the PVP gear. Take away the expertise and all the PVP gear has worse stats than the basic level PVE gear you get from grinding out story mode.

 

I can kind of understand entry level 60 PVP gear being worse (kind of understand but not really as the PVE gear is intended for pre-60 and the PVP gear can only be gained at 60) but at some point you would expect to see that the highend tier PVP gear would be a shade lower in stats as some of the above entry level PVE gear. Instead of being lower, stat wise, than pretty much anything you can get your hands on.

 

And then of course you have the issue with crafting items. Regardless of whether you learn blue or purple recipes, you end up with gear rated for a character level 56. Which makes me believe that the crafting is pointless as any item you make is going to be worse than any item you can receive at 60.

[Ivy_Blackrose]

heres the thing though, the 186 gear is definetly good enough to play through ALL content currently in game excluding ops, so your argument is pretty much invalidated, I have put a full set of basic gear on my comps and to be honest they are pretty beast. between us we can pretty much do what we want

[LordHartigan]

From a big picture perspective, I'm thinking they just didn't take the time to make sure gear and obtaining comms balanced out properly. I have talked to some players who tested 3.0 on a closed test server. Arguably the greatest change in 3.0 is the change to disciplines from skill trees and the level cap increase. Someone has to make sure the classes balance with these changes and I doubt that is a small task. I would guess that is what the bulk of development time was spent on because from what I've heard when disciplines were first released for testing to those that tested on a closed basis, the classes were pretty much broken. As in they didn't initially get it even close to right. Come release balance is not terrible, but some things still need to be tweaked (i.e. surge and crit seem broken at the moment). I'm guessing those issues are going to be addressed first. Balance in comms I'm guessing we could be waiting a while. Edited December 16, 2014 by LordHartigan

[LordHartigan]

heres the thing though, the 186 gear is definetly good enough to play through ALL content currently in game excluding ops, so your argument is pretty much invalidated, I have put a full set of basic gear on my comps and to be honest they are pretty beast. between us we can pretty much do what we want

 

True, but you can also arguably, do most of that content in 180 gear too. I think the point is there isn't a significant boost in stats until you get to the 192's and my toon still loses Power even in those.

[DarthEccen]

To add fuel to the fire, let me tell you about Sorc healing Implants. I have 192 healer's implant that I traded in from an Ops drop. It's pretty *********** fantastic. So *********** fantastic, in fact, that it puts the 198 Implant that you can buy with Ultimate comms to shame. Like, it's vastly superior. Thus, it's, of course, leagues ahead of the Elite comms equivalent, despite it being the same rating. That's when I noticed that the Elite Implant for Sorc healers was basically nerfed, compared to the sin implant and the dps implant. Every single stat, except for Alacrity, is significantly lower on the healer Implant compared to the tanking and dps one. Just as an FYI, don't pick up the sorc healer Elite Implant.

[DawnAskham]

heres the thing though, the 186 gear is definetly good enough to play through ALL content currently in game excluding ops, so your argument is pretty much invalidated, I have put a full set of basic gear on my comps and to be honest they are pretty beast. between us we can pretty much do what we want

 

Here's the thing though, many of us have characters and alts and companions already wearing 180 / 186 gear from DF / DP, which is superior to the 186 comm gear (even some of the old 180 comm gear is better than the new 186).

 

Then we look at things we can craft at 186 and see many of them are superior to Elite / Ulitmate commendation gear.

 

Then we shake our head when we kill the bonus boss in HM 60s and get two Basic comms for our effort versus getting Elites for 2 manning 55 HM bosses, or beat the last boss in the two new Operations on 8 man and get a few Elites while getting Ultimate comms for running 55 HMs we can do short manned in our sleep.

 

Both where commendation drop and what they can buy are all screwed up right now leaving little to no reason for many players to bother trying to obtain either.

 

So yeah, if you just returned or played so casually you didn't have any 55 gear past what one picks up leveling through Makeb, then the new stuff probably has appeal.

 

But if you have existing 55 180 / 186 gear and / or plan to focus on doing the new Operations, you quickly find most of it to be junk, while the effort required to obtain the currency for said junk is all out of whack (55 stuff being better to run for comms than 60).

Edited December 16, 2014 by DawnAskham

[DarthEccen]

On a more neutral note, I wanted to add that the reason why some of the stats are so out there on a lot of the gear is because Bioware might be pushing for min-maxing. People complain all the time that content isn't pushed out fast enough. Well, if you making acquiring the correct gear/stats harder to get, people may not be geared as quickly, thus decreasing the fervor about no new operations after 6 months, for example, because most people will still be min-maxing, in preparation for hard modes.

[T-Assassin]

Here's the thing though, many of us have characters and alts and companions already wearing 180 / 186 gear from DF / DP, which is superior to the 186 comm gear (even some of the old 180 comm gear is better than the new 186).

 

Then we look at things we can craft at 186 and see many of them are superior to Elite / Ulitmate commendation gear.

 

Then we shake our head when we kill the bonus boss in HM 60s and get two Basic comms for our effort versus getting Elites for 2 manning 55 HM bosses, or beat the last boss in the two new Operations on 8 man and get a few Elites while getting Ultimate comms for running 55 HMs we can do short manned in our sleep.

 

Both where commendation drop and what they can buy are all screwed up right now leaving little to no reason for many players to bother trying to obtain either.

 

So yeah, if you just returned or played so casually you didn't have any 55 gear past what one picks up leveling through Makeb, then the new stuff probably has appeal.

 

But if you have existing 55 180 / 186 gear and / or plan to focus on doing the new Operations, you quickly find most of it to be junk, while the effort required to obtain the currency for said junk is all out of whack (55 stuff being better to run for comms than 60).

 

My thoughts exactly!!

 

On a more neutral note, I wanted to add that the reason why some of the stats are so out there on a lot of the gear is because Bioware might be pushing for min-maxing. People complain all the time that content isn't pushed out fast enough. Well, if you making acquiring the correct gear/stats harder to get, people may not be geared as quickly, thus decreasing the fervor about no new operations after 6 months, for example, because most people will still be min-maxing, in preparation for hard modes.

 

Min/Maxing the same 2 FP's/OPs is not what I consider content, or even enjoyable, and I'm a OCD min/max'r.

 

Having the stats on gear not match up (VG for example 4 pieces of alacrity, 3 accuracy, and boatloads of crit) makes little to no sense, and is quite frustrating.

 

I would rather the OPs/FPs be overwhelmingly hard, rather than grind gear that was itemized by a dolt.

 

Maybe my idea of content is the problem...

[AdrianDmitruk]

There's a difference between the ability to gear quickly and the ability to gear at all. And I highly doubt I'll bother with PVE since Bioware fubared this up so badly, at least until we go through another tier or two of PVP gear that will allow for entering PVE content with properly itemized gear.

 

Once upon a time, we could earn the PVE set bonus from 4 man content, but that was long ago taken away. (I'm in a small guild, so this matters to me). As I didn't have the ability to get 8 friends in the proper role online at the same time then (we all have different schedules), I pretty much went to PVP only.

 

I only returned to PVE around the time Bioware made pugging ops/GF/etc "worth it" for people who were severely behind the gear/mechanics knowledge curve to learn. I think that was somewhere around 2.6ish. I managed to get one of my toons decked out in min-max 180s (save only Arkanian level set bonus armorings, and Underworld left side), and a second toon close, before 3.0 dropped.

 

Now that Bioware standardized the PVP and PVE set bonuses, I LOLed. Back to PVP, because PVE comm gear is so worthless! (I literally spent my overcapped basic comms on my companions, and only bought the offhand for myself). I probably will wait for PVP gear to hit 180 before PVEing any group content again, as properly itemized 180>crap 186. For 174s that might still hold true, but I'm not a theorycrafter and I haven't done the math.

 

Oh yeah, and this brings us to the whole issue of PVErs in warzones to get better gear than they could get from the PVE content they are capable of running for one reason or another (first we had molecular stab REing, which was nerfed, then in the 2.0 patch cycle we had the PVP relics which were damn close to BiS, probably 3rd best and damn sight better than anyone who didn't HM/NiM raid DP could get). Fortunately I've been more a PVPer than PVEr since 1.2, but I have to deal with all the PVE scrubs in my warzone who just want a set bonus and something without high endurance on it now...

 

Congratulations Bioware, you've driven this casual PVEr away from all that content you worked so hard to write (save the solo modes that will at least allow me to see the expansion in the meantime). But hey, in the meantime, by making PVE so crappy, I guess you at least saved PVP.

Edited December 16, 2014 by AdrianDmitruk