Gearing Changes in Eternal Throne

[Sareeph]

They said in the livestream that raiders will get CXP faster than other types of content. So you're still getting the best gear at a good rate, it's just others can get it too without stepping into a raid (albeit slower).

 

How much slower or faster, I don't think has been specified.

 

Using the current Conquest system as a basis for the mindset of the Devs, even though the " Ops" will be the way to get the most points at a time, PvP will still be the fastest way to progress because there are zero lockouts for PvP. You can do the harder Ops one time each but RPvP unlimited times with a lower point rate. Back to the Conquest Boards, I can earn more Conquest each week doing PvP over PvE (with the exception of crafting bombs) in a game which has PvP as a sidebar. Now add into the mix of the random boxes. Hopefully the Dev's will look at the current Conquest model and realize what will happen if they stay with a similar formula.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Sareeph

[Icykill_]

I heard something about converting them to credits but can't be positive.

 

If that's the case, I'll just stock up on med packs.. lol... don't know why I even bother sometimes.

[caronome]

What about B2L and mirror alts?

 

Will the crate gear (or crafted gear) be something that I can pull the mods from? Or just BoP gear?

[Firolas]

This pretty much sums up what endgame SWTOR is and will be for the future.

Rinse and repeat old content over and over and over and be rewarded with RNG packs.

Dark vs light 'event' was the beta test for this system.

 

Why create new and original content when you can coax gullible players into PAYING to redo content they have already completed 40 times over.

 

Stick a shiny addon interface on it and call it NEW --> pure evil genius stuff bioware.

[VegasTheLost]

Seen the stream and the recap in the morning, gave it a day to process, before commenting on it. At this point I'm currently in the middle. As I see it now, the big problem is that still no new massive(8-16) group content at launch. This is the main issue. The gearing side of things I'm not that doom and gloom. Not fully sold on it either. We have to see how it goes, and frankly it can work out well once we get to used to it. Let's face it, there is no point having BiS gear exclusively from NiM. Yeah, this is a thing that bugs quite a lot, but with level sync and the seemingly paradigm shift, we can't really justify it. With this GCXP stuff, we still get to get the best gear out there. Yes it will be slower and RNG can mess up some stuff and yes casuals can have it at some point. Personally I could give 2 ***** about it. Let them have it. As for the RNG, I know that in my guild there will be at least 1 person able to craft what I will need, so there's that. Bear in mind that by running HM and NiM ops we get to gear up faster than everyone else and also bear in mind we don't need BiS gear to beat a NiM raid. It was just a reward in the so called old era, I think it's safe to assume it that we are seeing a shift. The one thing I really hope for is that the vanity items, the really cool stuff will be extended and truly be NiM exclusive(aka boss drops).

 

As for the PVP gear side. Requiring Valor instead of expertise means it will be a grind for those who are serious about it AND wan't to have some new toons to PVP. We don't know the limit for ranked, but let's face it, leveling by WZ's can net the required valor to enter ranked at cap level. So this can be a step in the right direction. Not the best one, but oh well. For the casuals it has zero effect. Removing expertise actually helps them. They can participate in the regs and they won't be gimped because of their gear, they less likely will be the fodder.

 

But enough of me white knighting, believe me I'm far from being one, I just think we should wait a bit, gather some more info and think about these stuff with a clear head, before we go raging. Best case scenario, we get to be used to it in a couple of months. Just like having Utilities instead of skill tree.

[KyaniteD]

Don't worry : after several months of finding only dps gear in your tanks and healers crates, you won't even manage to reach Brontes NiM.

 

You have to let them have that much: it's a creative approach to problem solving.

[NemuriKyoshiro]

What I'd really like to know, is if that random-dropping endgame gear will have mods. It would be really bad if they make it unmoddable (like the crafted gear) with a set bonus slapped on.

[gabigool]

What got me in this whole announcement was that pretty much everything they discussed in no way represents what I've seen people ask for here on the forums, reddit, in the dev stream chats.

 

How did, "Please, can we have new ops, new flashpoints, PvP revitalization, a return to class-specific stories with in-depth companion interactions, a return to vanilla-style planets, etc. etc...?" get translated to "Please, can we have a character specific legacy system, and do away with commendation-style gear system so that we can go backwards a RNG gear system?"

 

I'm fairly certain I've seen no one ask for anything remotely resembling this Galactic Command system and I really wonder exactly where they're coming from on this. It certainly doesn't seem like it's from their loyal players and fans.

 

While I agree with the entirety of what you've written, I think part of it is simply looking for a way to get casual players raid gear. I'm not sure why they seem to think this actually is important but from that standpoint, I don't have much of a problem with the concept. It's actually neat.

 

It's just - as usual - it's poorly designed and horribly executed. It destroys the enjoyment of the game for me, and everyone I know. And - it appears we are far from the minority here, on Reddit, and within my own guilds.

 

The fundamental problem is there's no one at the table that actually raids or PvPs as a primary style of gameplay. Because if there were, this sort of thing wouldn't make it past the wall of stupid.

 

This game continues to bleed potential and it's pretty clear why.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

As a solo player.... what do I even need the best gear for?

Yes, I know there's going to be some different difficulty levels (as in, I can replay KotFE and KotET chapters on a harder difficulty, ....yaaay...) but seriously.

 

The raiders and hardcore PvPers are the ones who need the best gear. Not us more casual players. Why should I be given BiS gear for doing casual stuff? To do the casual stuff slightly faster?

The poor raiders don't even get any new content to use their new gear in. The PvPers don't, either, but at least they'll get a "new" challenge from other well-geared players. (Except when all us scrubs farm PvP for CXP. Apologies in advance for all my derpiness.)

 

Still. It's kinda cool that I, as a casual scrub, will be able to eventually obtain the best gear. BUT I shouldn't. The best gear in the game should absolutely be reserved and rewarded for the most difficult challenges, not because I bothered to run some heroic missions three thousand times. I don't need the gear to own those heroics anyway, so .... WHY?

 

I just wanted to thank you for your response as a "representative" of that section of the player who does not engage in end game raiding/ PVP and speaking out for those of us that do, and who feel we are getting a raw deal on both ends now [no new operations/BIS gear obtainable outside of the hardest content in the game]. It was very refreshing and even more so appreciated. Thank you.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Command Rank... is this bound to the character or to the Legacy?

 

Character, which means having to do all that crap on every toon if you want the toon to have the "benefits" max level command rank affords.

[Vhaegrant]

It's not as simple as you put it, especially for PvPers.

 

Look at this from my point of view: I play on 2 different servers. I log in for the purpose of playing PvP, and don't really raid or run heroics, or anything like that. On 1 server, I have a Jugg and a Guardian tank, mirrors so that they can share gear, and a sage. On the other server, I have another jugg and guardian, and the pub/imp mirrors for the operative, PT, merc, and sorc.

 

And I play them all. I run the daily with a couple of them when I log in, and this past ranked season I played at least the 10 required matches with all of those toons, because it's fun for me. I like playing all those different toons.

 

Now, with this system, it's going to take me "a long time" to gear up just 1 toon, and even sharing gear is going to be a nightmare, because just to share gear with mirror classes is going to take more RNG-luck to get the earpieces/implants/relics that can't be sent.

 

Then there's the multiple servers. Last ranked season I was able to log into my toons on the second server to find matches if the queue wasn't popping on my server. Now that it's going to take a huge grind just to get a single toon in shape to play ranked, how am I going to do this on 2 servers?

 

In the Dev's own words from the livestream, if all I play is PvP regs it's going to take a "really long time" to gear up just 1 toon.

 

Saying that ranked is the fastest way to level your command is a little backwards to me too, since you don't want to play ranked without the best gear, but you need to level command before getting the best gear.....

 

I hate to say it, but if this system goes live, that may be it for me. I was around for 1.0 and the battlemaster bags, and I really don't want to go back to an RNG system that has already proven to have failed in this game.

I suspect that the changes are being implemented for the casual player that has one character and fails to progress from levelling/story content to endgame.

 

I can't see anything at the moment that says the changes are there to reward the long time player that has spent time and money building up their rota of characters.

 

With the minimal information available the choice seems to be pick a character you like and forget about the rest.

[TUXs]

With the minimal information available the choice seems to be pick a character you like and forget about the rest.

This is exactly as I see it too...which is sad...especially in a game that has promoted alts as much as this game has.

[Tsetso]

With the minimal information available the choice seems to be pick a character you like and forget about the rest.

 

And yet one of the requirements for DvL was to level up 8 different toons!

[Vhaegrant]

And yet one of the requirements for DvL was to level up 8 different toons!

Only if you were attempting to get the Legendary tier.

And one of the suggestions was to delete the characters as you went along so as not to use up too many character slots.

Seems the status of alts now is disposable

[Vhaegrant]

This is exactly as I see it too...which is sad...especially in a game that has promoted alts as much as this game has.

Yeah

I'm hoping there's a silver lining to be gleaned from the continuation of Galactic Command info in the Thursday stream, or from some of the other features.

I would have thought there would be more stickiness to the game if it rewarded you, the player, for every moment you spend playing, rather than putting up artificial barriers and making you focus down on one character.

[otisjerek]

These gearing changes have caused a fair number of concerns in my guild. As an ops based guild which has been around since launch, we are already seriously starting to struggle at times- maintaining people's interest in such old group content is challenging. The 10 minutes of tedious and uninspired storyline combined with 15 mins of killing skytroopers each month is no longer enough for many people to pay a sub.

 

The general view in the guild is this is just an attempt to thinly hide the fact that we'll be regrinding new gear for the same operations. We'll simply be regrinding in a new way. Opinion is this time would be much better spent actually creating new MMO content rather than creating a 'new' system for something old. As they say, "Don't fix what ain't broke" and the gear system is one of the few things in this game which isn't particularly flawed

 

There are number of notable concerns which need to be addressed:

 

1) The packs appear to be RNG based. RNG was removed from the Battlemaster pvp gear era for a reason. It's awful. RNG for any sort of gear is just, awful. There are absolutely no reasons to bring RNG back which would benefit the player - it's just another way for the devs to drag out the collection of gear, just as the priority ops slowed 224 (although this was a much better idea).

 

2) Apparently there will no longer be a way to quickly gear a new player in the guild - with people leaving all the time due to general boredom with the game, it's essential to be able to gear someone up quickly so we can get the group going again as quickly as possible. Currently we can run 2 ops and someone could almost full 220/4 in a night. Impossible to see how this will be the case now.

 

3) We need to know how CXP is awarded for ops. For completing the ops, or per boss? At the moment we have certain teams who can clear say, 4/5 in TFB HM/NIM, but they'll never get 5/5 unless we move some people around. Previously that would be 4(8) bits of gear, what now?

 

4) The system *seems* to require a lot more work on individual characters to get gear. We have many guildies with numerous alts in regular use. Currently they can just legacy gear over to a toon they'd like geared, but can't necessarily use that often. Will it be possible to earn enough loot on one character to create set bonuses for several other toons?

 

5) Loss of priority ops. At the moment, this is actually quite useful to the guild - it 'forces' us to alternate between a new ops every week, making things seem a little bit less stale than it really is. Presumably we'll just have to continue this rotation unofficially. A 'nominated' CXP ops every day doesn't very helpful, some OPs like SV need more than one day if we start late, etc etc.

I've been subbed continuously since launch. These changes concern me a lot, they seem ill thought through - like many decisions in this game - just to string more out of the same old stuff. Combined with the ongoing saga of ridiculously easy to play/ overpowered sage/sorcerers everywhere, it starts to make me question why I am here. Quite honestly, it's the friends I've made in my guild which are keeping here, certainly not the game itself these days.

[Tanitha]

Anoher question that came up to my mind:

 

You have reached the end point of Galactic Command, so you don't get any more Galactic Crates as they are tied to each level you have attained. What if, I don't get that 6th set bonus? Not in low, mid or higher tier gear? What happens then? How can I get that piece of gear? Will there be crates after you reach the GCX cap? Or remain without set bonus?

[Tsetso]

Anoher question that came up to my mind:

 

You have reached the end point of Galactic Command, so you don't get any more Galactic Crates as they are tied to each level you have attained. What if, I don't get that 6th set bonus? Not in low, mid or higher tier gear? What happens then? How can I get that piece of gear? Will there be crates after you reach the GCX cap? Or remain without set bonus?

 

You'll still get crates, just don't rank up.

[Sareeph]

Only if you were attempting to get the Legendary tier.

And one of the suggestions was to delete the characters as you went along so as not to use up too many character slots.

Seems the status of alts now is disposable

 

Was that a suggestion from another player or an "Official" suggestion? Officially suggesting wasted effort for cosmetic rewards wouldn't be advisable knowing that the projected course would be to focus on one toon. Games are an outlet from reality and remain such only if they continue to entertain. No fun = Zero Subs/Zero Cartel Coins.

[Tsetso]

Was that a suggestion from another player or an "Official" suggestion? Officially suggesting wasted effort for cosmetic rewards wouldn't be advisable knowing that the projected course would be to focus on one toon. Games are an outlet from reality and remain such only if they continue to entertain. No fun = Zero Subs/Zero Cartel Coins.

 

That was suggested by Eric personally

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

As said in another thread, this gearing change means no more 8 man raids will be coming.

 

Given this new development about being able to get BIS gear doing virtually any content [ you could do solo FPs with companion AND droid companion] and even solo casual playing would eventually get you geared out in BIS gear.

 

That said, and I didn't believe this before, despite a majority of my fellow progression raiders who have been saying this, I no longer believe that BW will ever put out a new Operation ever again. Simply put, it would be a waste of thier resources to invest in new operations because either no one is going to have any need to do them if they want the best gear and because in a rather short span of time raiders are going to become extinct in this game. There is simply nothing keeping them here anymore.

 

Seeing everyone running around in BIS gear many of whom will not have ever stepped foot in an Operation, will be more than most raiders can bare. It was bad enough that we have no new content for the last two years and none was ever really in sight, making BIS gear available to players who don't even need to learn the rotations of their class/specs is the biggest slap in the face to raiders in this game that has ever been seen.

 

I have never been a doom and gloom person, I have never said and fought those that have that "this game is dieing", or that they would never put out new operations.

 

But I'm saying it now. I will try this new total trash, after which I very likely will leave the game over this. I don't expect anyone to care [and yes, you can have all my stuff =] ], but this is beyond the pale and really the only thing I can do to "take a stand" against BW's complete and utter disregard for the raiding community is with my wallet, which is really too bad, because despite everything up til now, I still loved the game. I honestly thought that would never happen. I was wrong.

[ivanhedgehog]

This is exactly as I see it too...which is sad...especially in a game that has promoted alts as much as this game has.

 

wow just got done doing this. coincidence? I think not. I have 27 65s currently on my main server. why bother doing this on all of them?

[Kai-Del_Serromis]

Given this new development about being able to get BIS gear doing virtually any content [ you could do solo FPs with companion AND droid companion] and even solo casual playing would eventually get you geared out in BIS gear.

 

That said, and I didn't believe this before, despite a majority of my fellow progression raiders who have been saying this, I no longer believe that BW will ever put out a new Operation ever again. Simply put, it would be a waste of thier resources to invest in new operations because either no one is going to have any need to do them if they want the best gear and because in a rather short span of time raiders are going to become extinct in this game. There is simply nothing keeping them here anymore.

 

Seeing everyone running around in BIS gear many of whom will not have ever stepped foot in an Operation, will be more than most raiders can bare. It was bad enough that we have no new content for the last two years and none was ever really in sight, making BIS gear available to players who don't even need to learn the rotations of their class/specs is the biggest slap in the face to raiders in this game that has ever been seen.

 

I have never been a doom and gloom person, I have never said and fought those that have that "this game is dieing", or that they would never put out new operations.

 

But I'm saying it now. I will try this new total trash, after which I very likely will leave the game over this. I don't expect anyone to care [and yes, you can have all my stuff =] ], but this is beyond the pale and really the only thing I can do to "take a stand" against BW's complete and utter disregard for the raiding community is with my wallet, which is really too bad, because despite everything up til now, I still loved the game. I honestly thought that would never happen. I was wrong.

 

This. Every bit of this. Since when did this game become a theme park? I miss 2.8

Edited October 18, 2016 by Kai-Del_Serromis

[Krazhez]

Given this new development about being able to get BIS gear doing virtually any content [ you could do solo FPs with companion AND droid companion] and even solo casual playing would eventually get you geared out in BIS gear.

 

That said, and I didn't believe this before, despite a majority of my fellow progression raiders who have been saying this, I no longer believe that BW will ever put out a new Operation ever again. Simply put, it would be a waste of thier resources to invest in new operations because either no one is going to have any need to do them if they want the best gear and because in a rather short span of time raiders are going to become extinct in this game. There is simply nothing keeping them here anymore.

 

Seeing everyone running around in BIS gear many of whom will not have ever stepped foot in an Operation, will be more than most raiders can bare. It was bad enough that we have no new content for the last two years and none was ever really in sight, making BIS gear available to players who don't even need to learn the rotations of their class/specs is the biggest slap in the face to raiders in this game that has ever been seen.

 

I have never been a doom and gloom person, I have never said and fought those that have that "this game is dieing", or that they would never put out new operations.

 

But I'm saying it now. I will try this new total trash, after which I very likely will leave the game over this. I don't expect anyone to care [and yes, you can have all my stuff =] ], but this is beyond the pale and really the only thing I can do to "take a stand" against BW's complete and utter disregard for the raiding community is with my wallet, which is really too bad, because despite everything up til now, I still loved the game. I honestly thought that would never happen. I was wrong.

 

Every bit of this.

The funny(sad) thing, is if they leave the bolster in the game, all these new people with bis gear are just wasting it doing their simple solo content. Bolstering 90% of the game was a huge negative stepping stone for them, they may as well get rid of gear.

[DentMasterson]

Will the Command Rank system be legacy linked?