Gearing Changes in Eternal Throne

[Andryah]

Sorry Eric, I don't get it.

 

You basically confirmed that this feature is buggy else you wouldn't afraid exploits at this point.

Instead fixing it your fallback and workaround is a safeguard?

 

Is this EA quality standard? Really?

 

Humans are very clever creatures. They can and will find the cracks in any implementation and exploit it to personal advantage.

 

Putting in soft brakes to prevent an over-run though an exploit is actually good design practice... you know.. in case #$%^ happens.

 

Nice spin on slamming the studio though.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Andryah

[VeryMedium]

Sorry Eric, I don't get it.

 

You basically confirmed that this feature is buggy else you wouldn't afraid exploits at this point.

Instead fixing it your fallback and workaround is a safeguard?

 

Is this EA quality standard? Really?

 

Always was the EA vision behind this whole fail, they only think about money and this is one way to make you subs 4ever if you would like to be someboddy on SWTOR....

[Nordecke]

Is this EA quality standard? Really?

 

It's SWTOR, we haven't exactly had quality standards for a while.

[myrdinn]

Humans are very clever creatures. They can and will find the cracks in any implementation and exploit it to personal advantage.

 

Putting in soft brakes to prevent an over-run though an exploit is actually good design practice... you know.. in case #$%^ happens.

 

Nice spin on slamming the studio though.

 

Pretty much this. Hunams get into places and use systems in ways that no one (or small segment) of even the same species can imagine. It is an interesting trait of the species, and very, very, very, very annoying when building any sort of containment or supporting system for them. They just... get and do... everything in all available ways outside of mortal keen or foresight.

[gabigool]

If you are in an Operation you will get CXP for the following things:

• Killing any enemy which is "Gold" or higher (this includes any bosses).
  
• Killing the boss will grant each person in the Operation a BoP consumable which grants a burst of CXP.
  
• If you queued through group finder, you will receive bonus CXP for completing the Op.
  

 

Eric, you are asking us to buy into this system but from where we sit, the system is going to overshadow the gameplay.

 

If you want us to buy into this, you need to share your targets. Take all the time you need to disclose the accumulation rates by activity. But you certainly you must be able to share your practical targets.

 

Leaving aside the problem for a moment that RNG can legitimately screw a player (which you've yet to address) what are your expectations for how long it will take for a group of 8 to be geared enough to do current NM-level content, assuming nothing but running one or two Operations per week?

 

2 Weeks? 4? 12? 30?

 

You have all the data you need to answer this question.

 

Thanks

[Krazhez]

Problem with that is, when you do get all your set gear, what then? If by some miracle you get your entire set before the max level, what will keep you playing?

 

The only need for hm/nim rated gear, is to get back to progression, raiders that need to finish hm tos and ravagers or get through nim for the completion. There are people that only want the completions, and gear is just a means to an end for dps checks and what not.

You know, or new ops, which hopefully we get some good news in January.

[Tanitha]

The only need for hm/nim rated gear, is to get back to progression, raiders that need to finish hm tos and ravagers or get through nim for the completion. There are people that only want the completions, and gear is just a means to an end for dps checks and what not.

You know, or new ops, which hopefully we get some good news in January.

 

i am not hopeful any more. I don't think BioFail wants any more actual ccontent. They just want SOLO players, doing SOLO stuff. 2 years now and counting. January we'll get the smae crap: "We are working on something, we'll let you know in May".

[BenKatarn]

Yes, there will be a weekly cap. However this cap is not being put in place to halt or slow progression in anyway. The purpose of the cap is a safeguard should some exploit or bug crop up which allows people to gain CXP in an unintended way. I can assure that cap will be really, really high!

 

-eric

 

You mean to say it's there to keep the grind up for as long as possible.

[EnalisNailo]

If the motivation for the ops is the achievement of completing the operation, then what is the motivation for players who have completed these 2-5 year old raids. The hardcore raiders (what little are left) and even to an extent casual raiders, have done KP, EV on Hard and before it was removed NiM, we've done EC NiM, we've done TFB NiM, we've done Dread Fortress and Palace on NiM, we've done Ravagers on HM, we've done TOS on HM.

 

It just feels like you're removing the carrot dangling at the end of the stick and not replacing it with anything of substance. There should be some form of gear drop from raids, there should be some form of gear progression from pvp, outside of this random lockbox system. I'd like to see some gear, at least one piece, drop from a boss- having the best of both worlds will keep people happy! Why remove the com vendors for pvp? It was a decent system, utilize both comms and CXP to gear.

[JamieKirby]

Agreed.

 

Our dedicated tanks are already talking about how bad random gear would be based off AC and not discipline.

 

It's bad enough knowing it was random gear but now seeing that they could get nothing for their main role in the group isn't going to sit well.

 

Well, when i play any AC that has a tank/dps capability, i ALWAYS get tank gear from places like Black Talon....i might have gotten a single piece of dps gear for my juggernaut....once.....out of 100s of times doing it in tactical mode, on my own.....if only it was tradeable, i could give you the tank stuff i get, you can give the dps stuff you get. :-) lol

 

I looks like overall, i will be going to Marauder or Sorcferer...i personally HATE dual-wielding, but i guess their system doesn't really care.

[acidburncpt]

If current command point distribution doesn't change then people running ops are **** out of luck. Your better off doing dailies or heroics or gsf. Edited October 19, 2016 by acidburncpt

[KnightOfTython]

Humans are very clever creatures. They can and will find the cracks in any implementation and exploit it to personal advantage.

 

Putting in soft brakes to prevent an over-run though an exploit is actually good design practice... you know.. in case #$%^ happens.

 

 

A good design practice is proper server implementations including security and anti cheat mechanisms but not a workaround for dealing with invalid client data ...

 

However, off topic.

[Tanitha]

You mean to say it's there to keep the grind up for as long as possible.

 

Exactly, and noone believes them when they say that the weekly cap will be high enough. I bet that 3-4 ops per week and you have reached level cap. Especially if 2 of those are S&V and TfB which have the most bosses, if each boss awards more points as per previous announcements.

[santafaye]

First off, keep the posts coming everyone! I am still going to try to answer as many questions as I can and I am continuing to pass your feedback on to the dev team. Now, for your questions:

 

1) You can get gear that has your set bonus as early as the very first Command Crate you receive at Command Rank 1.

2) Bolster will still exist in SM. If someone under level 70 is in an Operation they can still loot gear from the boss as they did before. It is when they hit level 70 that they will begin earning CXP instead towards Command Crates.

3) That is a fairly complicated question to answer, so, a few caveats. First, how many Command Crates you would earn from playing an Operation, for example, is dependent on a few factors. What is your current Command Rank, what difficulty is the Op, how many players are in the Op, etc. It is faster to level from Command Rank 1-2 than it will be at higher Command levels. The team is still turning the dials on CXP, but as we get closer to launch I will try to provide a more exact example of how much CXP you could earn in an Op/how many Crates.

 

-eric

im not sure yet have to try it first .but seems your going down WOWs path heres a few more things you can do that wow does there mounts are legacy and or account wide as well as pets they have pet battles .i guess i feel torn a little i mean you took our old companions away still 19 left to go.and in your first stream you said we never take anything away from you took the inter action with our companions is gone.then you replace them with companions we cant even customize there gear so you took that away.and you never said if the gear in the GC crates are modable or there have them i guess i feel like the gear from opps bosses and or FPs world bosses well it was earned and i think the GC crates should be we should be able to pick from if we area tank heals or DPS anyway im not giving up on the game i still love the story and im willing to give it a try but everything has pros and cons

[Sareeph]

The only need for hm/nim rated gear, is to get back to progression, raiders that need to finish hm tos and ravagers or get through nim for the completion. There are people that only want the completions, and gear is just a means to an end for dps checks and what not.

You know, or new ops, which hopefully we get some good news in January.

 

The quote you are responding to is where someone wanted a different piece of gear every box. No repeats. My reply was to note that with such a system, there would be no need for a high CXP level as every possible piece of gear you could need would have already been received and thus taking out the motivation for most players.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Sareeph

[Eloi_BG]

It's probably been asked a couple times already but: what happens with the operation that don't have a NiM version right now (ToS, Rav, EV,KP, Tc, Mono), will they have a master mode in 5.0?

[Costello]

I think the new system has some amazing potential. It offers an end game progression system that isn't simply about getting gear that often becomes junk with any level increase and gets trashed. While at the same time is tied into the game in a way reputation, legacy and most other token based end game advanced lacked. Just looking at the interface it looks star wars like, a feeling of being a commander of a galaxy power. Do have some questions.

 

1) Are there any gameplay advantages to a high Galactic Command rank outside of changes to lock boxes? - As a form of end game progression I would suspect that each rank 1 to 70 would offer something above a lock box. As due to the random nature of lock boxes after 70 levels you could end up with 70 wrist guards/cosmetic/pieces of junk. While someone else who got lucky might find no reason to get to level 70 if they had a full set before they got there. By tying it to some real advancement beyond the box it makes getting to 70 worthwhile and finding a 244 mainhand weapon just that much better.

 

2) How are veterans going to be treated? - I note that one of the reasons for this system is to give new players an easier way into end game without 3 different types of token. Which is great and while there is little evidence to suggest it was 3 types of token that drove new players away I hope that it does make things easier for new players. However much of the content has been completed by vets up to 5 years ago, it may have been repeated again in the DvL event, so to then have the 'new' content repeating old content no matter how many times you have done it seems a little painful to vets. So how are they going to be treated in the new system.

 

3) How much weight is being given to grouping vs solo content? - In the old days it was possible to burn through an op or flashpoint very quickly, pre-arranged guild night, everyone knew what they were doing. Sadly with no new ops for 2 years many group orientated players have left to play games with new raids. I fully applaud new group content but as in point 2, much of it is very old and running it is not the problem finding a group is, while sticking some kolto stations into the game does very little.

 

4) How are tokens (comms included if you like) that were previously for end game gear going to be treated? - Most obvious is the eternal championship, but includes event tokens, Ziost etc. are they going to be redeemable in the same way basic commendations are as I'm fairly certain by the time people get enough to purchase the equiment with them they will be level 70, so making them how you get level 60-68 gear would make them utterly pointless.

 

5) Is Dark vs Light in effect Empire vs Republic? - The example given of dark winning and seeing more Sith about makes it seem like it is Empire vs Republic. If that is the case can we call it Empire vs Republic. Most of my Sith Characters are Lightside because they work for the good of the Empire, where the majority of Lightside choices make the empire strong and darkside choices are Darth Emo having a hissy fit. Likewise many Republic characters choose Darkside because those choices seem to benefit them or the republic more than lightside choices. I really can't stress enough that if Light and Dark is tied to the factions I'd like know before I find that while thinking I was doing the best for my faction in the galaxy I actually sucked and was helping the enemy.

 

6) With the removal of Expertise is this a prelude to open world PvP? - I was never a great fan of expertise when it was brought in as it meant having a PvE set of gear and a PvP set of gear, so I saw this as killing open world PvP. The removal seems to free this up.

 

7) Where are my lost companions? - I miss Jaesa very much.

 

8) I heard a rumour, it may not be true,

that Koth ends up stealing the gravestone in KotET

regardless of anything you have done. I hope this is not the case but would this not invalidate the Only Choice that was made that had any consequence and makes the posts defending a choice which use this example to be invalid as well.

 

9) Will I get to Torture SCORPIO to death as I promised at the start of Chapter 16?

 

10) Finally, will the command system allow the utilization of companions. Just don't seem much like a commander if I have to do all the work myself or with other commanders.

[myrdinn]

The quote you are responding to is where someone wanted a different piece of gear every box. No repeats. My reply was to note that with such a system, there would be no need for a high CXP level as every possible piece of gear you could need would have already been received and thus taking out the motivation for most players.

 

From the phraseology of "better rewards with higher Galactic Command" statements, I am fairly certain there are tiers of rewards. So, only when you are in the last "end game tier of GCR levels" would this statement hold true.

[Krazhez]

The quote you are responding to is where someone wanted a different piece of gear every box. No repeats. My reply was to note that with such a system, there would be no need for a high CXP level as every possible piece of gear you could need would have already been received and thus taking out the motivation for most players.

 

Ah, i see your point. It would defeat the purpose of the command system.

But, that is what a fair bit of people are used to, though, at least ones with raid teams. You go do x op or x and y op, to get different pieces for your raid team. You get everyone their set bonuses and you get back into progression.

 

This system is trying to create longevity on content, though, I do understand that. I just don't like it. My team is working on Revan Hm and master blaster, which is behind the uber raiders. To take weeks, maybe longer, just to get back into what we were doing, is a bit disheartening. A lot of my team wants nothing to do with solo or pvp content. This may kill my team depending on how difficult it is to rank up, and the rng of the drops.

[Sareeph]

From the phraseology of "better rewards with higher Galactic Command" statements, I am fairly certain there are tiers of rewards. So, only when you are in the last "end game tier of GCR levels" would this statement hold true.

 

Yes, but if there are only 14 possible rewards for each tier with no repeats and 3 tiers as there is now, the previous statement of rapid progression at lower levels would make my statement very valid.

[LordTurin]

Will there be a way to transfer CXP to alts? Some of us run a couple toons as our main, but have alts so we can switch to them if the boss calls for it, or if another group is looking for some help and needs a specific class/roll. Not to mention, everyone put a lot of time in creating alts for the DVL event, it'd be nice if we could make use of those (especially for after we get out mains up to 100).

[RagnarAugustus]

Well, when i play any AC that has a tank/dps capability, i ALWAYS get tank gear from places like Black Talon....i might have gotten a single piece of dps gear for my juggernaut....once.....out of 100s of times doing it in tactical mode, on my own.....if only it was tradeable, i could give you the tank stuff i get, you can give the dps stuff you get. :-) lol

 

I looks like overall, i will be going to Marauder or Sorcferer...i personally HATE dual-wielding, but i guess their system doesn't really care.

 

I'm with you, I play a Sorc healer and I almost exclusively get DPS gear on any of my healer classes from the current heroic lock boxes or random pre-assembled Ops boss drops.

[Nebdar]

So why the gearing change some may ask... my theory

 

1. It looks like the Devs don't like that you stock pile the comms before the release of the next expansion/ lvl cap increase:

2. You are geared way to fast and you start doing harder content to early... so you are bored faster.. you should start at normal mode and then get the gear and start harder and so on

3. Current system eliminates crafting as source of gear. Even when i haven't stockpiled the comms before latest lvl cap increase the ratio to crafted/bought trough crystals gear is like 5%/95%

4. Current system rewards with BIS gear to less then 100% subscriber. I paid for both expansions just so some raiders can have BIS gear and OP's that i don't have access to( and nobody thanked me )

5. Current system didn't restricted the crystal/comms gain for preferred/f2p allowing them (with little help from subscribers, and proper CM unlocks) to play endgame content and have access to all its benefits

6. Current PvP Gearing system allows th easiest way to obtain the bonus set gear(for everyone, with little help from subscribers, and proper CM unlocks)

7. Exotic Isotope Stabilizers, Dark Matter Catalyst price in crystals blocked the gearing by crafting for some/many/lot of players

8. Less then 100% subscribers had access to craft the BIS gear

9. Two types of gear to grind Pvp/PvE

 

A. New system resets gear for EVERYONE.

B. All Gear can be obtained by EVERYONE

C. RNG in the Crates makes crafting important to fill the holes (everyone forgets about it seems)

D. You DONT HAVE TO do OP's/PvP to get the BIS gear.

E. You are free to play anyway you want. Every gaming activity counts towards your gear progression (except GTN traiding)

F. Slowing the pace for you to gear makes them time to create content(hopefully

G. The 3 day Early Access gains more value as you can 'gear faster'

H. Endgame activity gear/rewards premium players only

I. Jawa Purple Scrap can be viable more for crafting

J. Exotic Isotope Stabilizers, Dark Matter Catalyst and the new 10 lvl exotic material should now have price in credits So any game activity that brings you credits allows you to buy mats to craft any gear

G. One type of gear for any activity (except GSF)

 

 

* Devs and BW workes are casual players so changes for casuals are natural path

* The Expansion and lvl 70 Gearing is prepared for new players influx so that a newbie and 5 year sub will start with the 'same gear' at lvl 70 activities

[jbuncher]

Eric,

 

First, thanks for the info you've confirmed so far, it's appreciated. That being said, we NEED an answer to the following question, just so we are aware that the devs have thought about this:

 

1.) You have confirmed that the gear drops in command crates are tied to the character's Advanced Class, and NOT the Discipline. How will the devs prevent Tank/DPS and Heal/DPS ACs from being unfairly disadvantaged? For example, all three Sentinel Disciplines are DPS and have the same set bonus, while a Jugg has 2 DPS disciplines and 1 Tank discipline (so 2 set bonuses). As far as we know, gearing a Jugg will take TWICE as long as a sentinel, since they could get gear for either the tank spec or the dps spec in the random drop. Is there something in place to mitigate this? Will it be like the heroics now, where you pick a "discipline" crate (tank or dps, heal or dps) and that determines the type of random gear that drops?

 

2.) I know you mentioned that we can deconstruct duplicate gear pieces to get CXP towards the next crate to mitigate some of the RNG aspects, but an additional method in place would be HUGELY appreciated. Even if it was only to catch *really* bad luck (e.g., turn in 20 CXP "burst" tokens from ops bosses to be able to select the exact piece you need), it would help those of us that seem to have eternally bad RNG (I can't tell you how many relics I've failed to RE even at a 60% chance......).

 

As always, thanks for the clarifications,

 

--Mop

[Vhaegrant]

Yes, there will be a weekly cap. However this cap is not being put in place to halt or slow progression in anyway. The purpose of the cap is a safeguard should some exploit or bug crop up which allows people to gain CXP in an unintended way. I can assure that cap will be really, really high!

 

-eric

 

I'm not going to really comment on the content of this answer as I don't think I've ever hit a weekly cap.

 

But can I just say I really appreciate the fact that a bit of the design considerations has slipped into the answer. The cap is there as a soft ceiling incase an exploit is discovered. I'd really like to see some more of the intentions discussed as this allows a better insight into what problem the devs feel RNG reward crates fix.