PvP and PvE Gearing in Eternal Throne

[KainrycKarr]

Are you guys complete idiots? Who's idea was it to bring back RNG gearing - which was REMOVED because of how godawful a design it was? What on earth are you guys thinking, Musco?

[Aowin]

I just want to make one slight clarification a lot of people are throwing around. This RNG is not nearly as bad as the battlemaster bags at launch. For those who actually remember, you had a 25% chance of getting a battlemaster commendation from the battlemaster bag, of which you needed multiple commendations for one piece of battlemaster gear. Otherwise, you'd get random champion gear from the battlemaster bag.

 

The reason this system was BAD is because you had a 25% chance of getting a battlemaster comm (meaning you could open a bag and likely get nothing) and then you'd be stuck waiting for the weekly to reset so you could test your luck again. What BioWare is doing in 5.0 is having random RNG to get a particular piece of gear. Yeah, there's the high chance you'll get duplicates. But, it's not even close to being as bad as the old RNG with battlemaster bags.

 

There also doesn't appear to be a limit to how many galactic command levels you can earn, so you won't have to wait a week just to see if you might get a gear piece you actually need. Also, if you get a duplicate you can just "disintegrate" that piece and accumulate more galactic command points as a result.

 

I'm not saying this system is by any means ideal or justified. However, I have to debunk this ridiculous notion that this is just as bad as battlemaster bags were. No, this is nowhere close. Will this be annoying? Yes. Am I at least guaranteed to get a piece of gear instead of getting nothing? Absolutely.

 

This is coming from someone who was the third person on my server (Shien) to become a battlemaster and it took me months to get one full set whereas a friend, who got battlemaster much later, had better luck with RNG and got multiple sets.

 

Be thankful we aren't getting that horrible system again.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Aowin

[TX_Angel]

This ^

 

Does BW not remember how bad the RNG gear was and how players hated it.

 

I'll dumbfounded at the ignorance of BW right now.

 

This goes beyond any terrible idea I thought was coming from BW. Far beyond terrible with RANDOM GEAR AT END GAME.

 

No one working on this game today was here at launch, of course they don't know anything about it... Nor is anyone working on the game today competent as to these issues, they are making a single player game and leaving the old stuff in for kicks.

 

Didn't you get the memo?

[BarrinMarshall]

I just want to make one slight clarification a lot of people are throwing around. This RNG is not nearly as bad as the battlemaster bags at launch. For those who actually remember, you had a 25% chance of getting a battlemaster commendation from the battlemaster bag, of which you needed multiple commendations for one piece of battlemaster gear. Otherwise, you'd get random champion gear from the battlemaster bag.

 

The reason this system was BAD is because you had a 25% chance of getting a battlemaster comm (meaning you could open a bag and likely get nothing) and then you'd be stuck waiting for the weekly to reset so you could test your luck again. What BioWare is doing in 5.0 is having random RNG to get a particular piece of gear. Yeah, there's the high chance you'll get duplicates. But, it's not even close to being as bad as the old RNG with battlemaster bags.

 

There also doesn't appear to be a limit to how many galactic command levels you can earn, so you won't have to wait a week just to see if you might get a gear piece you actually need. Also, if you get a duplicate you can just "disintegrate" that piece and accumulate more galactic command points as a result.

 

I'm not saying this system is by any means ideal or justified. However, I have to debunk this ridiculous notion that this is just as bad as battlemaster bags were. No, this is nowhere close. Will this be annoying? Yes. Am I at least guaranteed to get a piece of gear instead of getting nothing? Absolutely.

 

This is coming from someone who was the third person on my server (Shien) to become a battlemaster and it took me months to get one full set whereas a friend, who got battlemaster much later, had better luck with RNG and got multiple sets.

 

Be thankful we aren't getting that horrible system again.

 

I'm sure that your sizeable check from Bioware is in the mail. This is crap. People have been having to re-grind old content for 2 years now and, thanks to this Bull***t system are looking at a third year of having to do so.

[ajiehblr]

The idea that you could raid every operation, every week...

 

Do PvP, Uprisings etc.....

 

And have bad RNG never let you get a 6 piece bonus....

 

Is inexplicable.

 

How can this be a viable endgame gearing method? How does this make sense?

 

This! How the hell the RNG based system can grant you 100% that you will get 6 piece bonus? This is the BIGGEST issue right now.

[GythralSWTOR]

PvE & PvP with the same gear - very bad idea, just as trying to balance PvE skills for PvP, they are 2 separate games & should remain so

[SplitBolt]

They could not coordinate a pizza delivery 2 cubicles away from one another let alone fix this game or make proper changes towards it!

 

To be very honest it would not surprise me to see them or even hear of a story of them going to a flea market and buying a jar of "magic beans" for $40,000 in the hopes the beans would sprout/grow and they would be in the clouds!

 

 

 

Oh wait.... They are already there! :/

[Nebdar]

Hey folks,

 

As we talked about a bit on the stream, there are some gearing changes happening with Knights of the Eternal Throne. For starters, I recommend you read this thread where I have provided more detail on the changes. The purpose of this thread is to go over how these changes will impact PvE and PvP gearing. Here are some more of those details:

• Expertise is being removed from the game.
  
• Any color crystals which have Expertise on them will be converted to a new type of color crystal – Mastery.
  
• There is no longer an Expertise requirement to get into Ranked Warzones, this will be replaced with a Valor requirement.
  
• PvE and PvP will share the same gear in Eternal Throne.
  
• Crystals and Warzone Commendations will also be phased out in Eternal Throne, we will have more details on our conversion plans in the coming weeks.
  

That covers an overview of how the changes will impact PvP and PvE gear in Eternal Throne. Please let me know of any questions you may have and I will work with the team to get you answers.

 

-eric

 

1. Should we all start buying any non gear items from commendation/crystal vendors because some of them will be gone with 5.0?(F2P, Preferred players now is your last chance)

2. Since the no gear PvE, PvP, Companion gifts and other stuff that can be bought with crystal will have credit price.. *we will see commendation=credits refund?

*increase in credits rewards from GC activities?

3. No any F2P/preferred player can obtain 208 PvP gear through Artifact Item Unlock. After this change how can he/she obtain gear to be viable in PvP? if the possible materials for crafting will be locked away in content with high gear requirement activities?

4. What will happen with the players that stay lvl65? What can they do/earn?

5. Will the gear obtained by GC Crates will be bound to legacy, pickup or equip?

[Shipwright]

Wow.

 

Maybe for some people, this RNG method for getting your gear will have the appeal that gambling has for some, and keep them feverishly clawing for the next chance at maybe getting something they need.

 

I find it very discouraging and a disincentive.

 

As it is, I pretty much know what I need to do to get "gear piece A".....I know where I stand at any given time. I know what my time spent is going to return.

 

With this? It's just awful. Rather than encourage me to log in and play, it just saps my enthusiasm. Big time.

[jimmorrisson]

If coms/crystals are on the way out then we must be getting a new designer tab slot for pack and store-purchased weapons Edited October 18, 2016 by jimmorrisson

[ProWoJo]

All this (including the data-mined class changes, which I'm not going further into for obvious reasons - phase walk SRLSY???) looks incredibly bad for a veteran player.

 

No new "serious" content (chapters, uprisings... meh).

Well, uprisings might be interesting, but with all the things below it makes it difficult to thing of them this way.

RNG... do I need to comment on this? Serious time sink.

PvP and PvE gear is the same... same as above.

Lack of any incentive for veterans to stay, or in most cases rather come back.

 

I'll stay just to see what you' make Nathema like, but I still hope that most of this changes will (I know they wont) be scrapped.

[mydocs]

Fair point, but that isn't too dissimilar to how it works now. If you are someone who loves Operations, as an example. You may start in Story Operations to get your Command Rank up and gear up until your character is ready to move into Master (Nightmare).

 

In general the rule for CXP is that the more players that participate in content, and the harder that content is, the faster you earn it. Although it isn't as fast a Master Operation, doing a Story Operation is still worth more CXP then doing Heroics would be.

 

-eric

 

What exactly are you guys doing with the difficulty system of Ops? It sounds like you want to reduce them to two modes only.

So my question is, will the few Operations with 3 difficulty modes (Story Mode, Hard Mode, Nightmare) on it, still have them when 5.0 hits, or will you reduce them to two modes?

[Uruare]

I mightily approve of this.

 

I'll actually bother myself to go Pvping! Huzzah!

[DarthJimilingus]

Expertise was meant to accomplish a few things:

 

1. Have unique gear that balanced PvP and PvE.

2. Prevented PvE gear from being used in PvP.

3. Forced players to actually PvP in order to gain PvP gear.

 

How exactly does removing expertise and streamlining all gear resolve the issues SWTOR tried to prevent at launch? If anything, I see class balancing being even worse now and I see warzone quality dropping even lower since anyone can just queue regardless of gear.

 

I think your last sentence is the point. They want everyone to queue and not worry about having expertise gear. For example: You have a hardcore raider who has top gear but NEVER PVPs. If he's curious to go into a warzone he/she hesitates as they don't have the gear. NOW, this person can just hop in and reasonably be able to compete. I'm not defending it. I'm just trying to see where they were coming from.

[ReclaimerDonar]

I did not believe that I would see this day, when Bioware announces the implementation of cartel market rng system in the gear progression for pvp. Seriously, what are you guys smoking? I want that stuff too!

Why the hell is it a good idea to make pvp gearing or gearing in general to be based on rng? This is the same situation as pvp bags at launch.... I can already see it. I play dps classes and when I will force myself to grind few ranks, I will be given boxes and when I open them, I will receive tank stuff. Who cares that you can turn the crap into gc points and advance the rank further? Jesus christ do you even think about the creative decisions in this game?

[Tsetso]

I did not believe that I would see this day, when Bioware announces the implementation of cartel market rng system in the gear progression for pvp. Seriously, what are you guys smoking? I want that stuff too!

Why the hell is it a good idea to make pvp gearing or gearing in general to be based on rng? This is the same situation as pvp bags at launch.... I can already see it. I play dps classes and when I will force myself to grind few ranks, I will be given boxes and when I open them, I will receive tank stuff. Who cares that you can turn the crap into gc points and advance the rank further? Jesus christ do you even think about the creative decisions in this game?

 

And the reason is exactly the same. They don't have enough content ready and hope that rng gearing will give them some time to create it.

[ReclaimerDonar]

And the reason is exactly the same. They don't have enough content ready and hope that rng gearing will give them some time to create it.

 

It is really discouraging and sucks the enhusiasm from the game for me.

[ReclaimerDonar]

Allow me to quote reddit comment from Kre'a which you can find here:

 

"Thing about this is, it could take Player A 20 hours to fully gear in min/maxed gear while it takes player B 60-80 hours. It's all down to RNG" "Adding elements of RNG to the gearing phase creates an uneven playing field. If player A and Player B are of equal skill, but Player A got lucky and got his full ranked set + set bonus while player B has pulled 20 pairs of the same tank bracers, when they're a dps spec, it gives Player A an unfair advantage."

 

This summs the rng problem perfectly.

[LunaticFringer]

I know I'm posting some unhappy posts but this is one change I like.

 

For those of us that played SWG the PvE/PvP game were the same... we didn't really see gear separation, I don't think, till World of Warcraft did it in the industry and everyone copied it.

 

So, good job on this at least.

 

I still think you need to leave gearing alone as far as getting our gear from Quests, FPs, and OPs though. I don't want to do DvL Event styled "achievement" grinds to get my gear that I should be getting directly from the content. And I think that is a pretty reasonable complaint.

 

I'm assuming that the Expertise to Mastery Crystals will be updated and applied for the Collections/existing crystals? Prior pvp rewards, special crystals, just the entire system so there are no surprises? Ooops, we forgot about that crystal?

[midianlord]

Hey folks,

 

[...]

 

• Expertise is being removed from the game.
  
• Any color crystals which have Expertise on them will be converted to a new type of color crystal – Mastery.
  
• There is no longer an Expertise requirement to get into Ranked Warzones, this will be replaced with a Valor requirement.
  
• PvE and PvP will share the same gear in Eternal Throne.
  
• Crystals and Warzone Commendations will also be phased out in Eternal Throne, we will have more details on our conversion plans in the coming weeks.
  

 

[...]

 

-eric

 

Soooooo....

 

...

 

"Raid or Die," basically?

 

Could you please ask the team why, after 5 years, they are still Hell-bent on repeating almost every mistake that has been made in the MMO genre, yet other MMO developers have actually learned from? Yes, even Blizzard.

 

In what MMO-historical vacuum are these people living?

 

What next, days-long camps perma-farmed by the biggest raiding guilds for that one mob with a 0.00...01% drop-rate for the piece that everyone needs to progress to the next tier?

[Gray]

Hey folks,

 

As we talked about a bit on the stream, there are some gearing changes happening with Knights of the Eternal Throne. For starters, I recommend you read this thread where I have provided more detail on the changes. The purpose of this thread is to go over how these changes will impact PvE and PvP gearing. Here are some more of those details:

• Expertise is being removed from the game.
  
• Any color crystals which have Expertise on them will be converted to a new type of color crystal – Mastery.
  
• There is no longer an Expertise requirement to get into Ranked Warzones, this will be replaced with a Valor requirement.
  
• PvE and PvP will share the same gear in Eternal Throne.
  
• Crystals and Warzone Commendations will also be phased out in Eternal Throne, we will have more details on our conversion plans in the coming weeks.
  

That covers an overview of how the changes will impact PvP and PvE gear in Eternal Throne. Please let me know of any questions you may have and I will work with the team to get you answers.

 

-eric

 

I'm open for a change with this Galactic Command thingy but remember remember patch 1.0 the RNG system that was in place back then with random bags was pure cancer and the community didn't respond well to it thats why the old devs trashed it and changed it.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Gray

[MisterBlackJack]

Fair point, but that isn't too dissimilar to how it works now. If you are someone who loves Operations, as an example. You may start in Story Operations to get your Command Rank up and gear up until your character is ready to move into Master (Nightmare).

 

In general the rule for CXP is that the more players that participate in content, and the harder that content is, the faster you earn it. Although it isn't as fast a Master Operation, doing a Story Operation is still worth more CXP then doing Heroics would be.

 

-eric

 

Hey Eric, would it be possible to do any trading at least within a guild? This could alleviate a good portion of the problem. If there is something I get that I don't need but another person in my guild needs it, then I can see about trading it within a certain time period.

[Ligurio]

Disagreed.

 

How are BioWare going to stop the hardcore PvE players coming into normal PvP and simply rofl stomping players due to better gear? Is Bolster going to adjust all players to the same level? Or are you just going to let this happen (it's one of the reasons why we have Expertise after all, to stop end-game raiders simply destroying PvP orientated players due to gear differences).

 

Has this issue been addressed? If so how has it been addressed?

 

Do you really think hardcore PvE players are going to keep playing the game ?

[Gray]

Hey Eric, would it be possible to do any trading at least within a guild? This could alleviate a good portion of the problem. If there is something I get that I don't need but another person in my guild needs it, then I can see about trading it within a certain time period.

 

That would be a cool thing to do if they're gonna stick with the RNG system, let us trade away pieces we don't need for pieces that we do need with friends.

[ReclaimerDonar]

Do you really think hardcore PvE players are going to keep playing the game ?

 

Excellent point.