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Quarterly Producer Letter for Q2 2024 ×

PvP and PvE Gearing in Eternal Throne

EricMusco

By EricMusco
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DarthValtrix

DarthValtrix

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This is truly unfair to the playerbase, it is as if you do not care about those of us who might only like to do PVP content or might only like to do PVE content. Now PVE players will have a serious advantage over PVPers and that is a real big slap in the face. I have been playing this game since launch, I joined this website in 2009. I have never been more disappointed in this game then I am right now.

 

To top it all off, the crates are RNG. There is no way to purchase an individual item. PVPers will have to grind out PVE content and then pray to the RNG gods that they don't get horrible drops. The only other option is to go into Ranked prematurely and tank the rating just to hope they can get enough conquest to front better gear.

 

I really hope you see the grave error you are making during testing and that this is changed. I fear for this game, I really do. I hope you hear your playerbase out.

 

I am begging you, reconsider this change. Please, think about what you are doing to your loyal subscribers.

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Jadescythe

Jadescythe

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I really need to stop saying "pugged" when I mean "pugged via GF."

 

GF has a severe case of diminishing returns as difficulty level and coordination required scale up. HM FPs can easily be completed even if you have no idea what you're doing. Operations are not the same and can cause huge headaches when even a single person isn't fulfilling their role. I would highly suggest taking the extra time to find a group for your 8 man content than relying on the GF lottery for SM Ops.

 

Unfortunately, I think you will have a hard time finding an operation group via fleet chat or GF come 5.0. With no need to do any sort of Operations, I think they will pretty much only be run by players who enjoy the content with premade groups. If people are looking to gear up, the amount of points you get for an Operation that takes 1-3 hours depending on experience and gear would be extremely high compared to doing every heroic in that time span.

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IanArgent

IanArgent

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GF has a severe case of diminishing returns as difficulty level and coordination required scale up. HM FPs can easily be completed even if you have no idea what you're doing. Operations are not the same and can cause huge headaches when even a single person isn't fulfilling their role. I would highly suggest taking the extra time to find a group for your 8 man content than relying on the GF lottery for SM Ops.

 

Unfortunately, I think you will have a hard time finding an operation group via fleet chat or GF come 5.0. With no need to do any sort of Operations, I think they will pretty much only be run by players who enjoy the content with premade groups. If people are looking to gear up, the amount of points you get for an Operation that takes 1-3 hours depending on experience and gear would be extremely high compared to doing every heroic in that time span.

 

The 2-3 GF ops I've done, which were all pugs, went smoothly enough, even though it was clear less than half the group was familiar with the mechanics, from what came across in chat.

 

If it can't be pugged via GF, then you won't get enough casuals interested in tasting the content.

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Jadescythe

Jadescythe

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The 2-3 GF ops I've done, which were all pugs, went smoothly enough, even though it was clear less than half the group was familiar with the mechanics, from what came across in chat.

 

If it can't be pugged via GF, then you won't get enough casuals interested in tasting the content.

 

I think you're statement assumes all casual players are the same. I think it ranges from "died during KotFE missions" to "could complete NiM, but doesn't have or doesn't want to commit the time". There is a large audience of players who don't want to raid regularly, but would be happy to do SM ops occassionally with a competent group and leader that GF has no capability of offering. You might get lucky and have enough to make it through or not. It also helps that some guilds frequently queue into GF with 4-5 people and just pick up a half a group to help them through.

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Transcendent

Transcendent

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Posted
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

 

A fair few questions Eric. If you want to wait until the blog to answer these, I'm fine with that.

 

  • You say expertise is being removed from the game in 5.0. What is being done to address the stat inbalance between someone with 208 PvP gear vs. someone who has done the HM Operations and has a full set of 224 PvE gear? Bolster doesn't objectively take into account tertiary stats, so the playing field will be badly imblanced between 65-69 (and 70 until players have earned enough CXP to get a full set). Essentially months of gameplay where it will not be fun for the PvP orientated part of this community.
  • Currently, someone who does PvP frequently will probably have enough Warzone Commendations to get a full set of ranked gear when hitting 70 (20600 Warzone Commendations without min/max). Will the conversion ratio of Warzone Commendations be equal to being given enough CXP to actually get a full set of the top tier new gear? Or will those players be in the same position as the previous questions players, and be at a severe disadvantage for months in Ranked PvP versus HM Priority Operations players / NiM Raiders?
  • Currently I can gear a character easily within a few days of playing PvP, for starter gear, will there be a massive disparity between CXP earned doing normal regular PvP vs running SM / HM / NiM Operations? Essentially 204 PvP gear currently with level sync is as far as a tend to go with the gear grind due to level sync. The CXP system makes it sound similar to 1.0 PvP RNG or the current 4.0 Heroic Boxes (while levelling) RNG system (I have opinions, however I'm being objective with my post here).
  • Will the gear that we gain from the 5.0 RNG gear crates be moddable gear? I see no mention of this anywhere.
  • Will crafters be able to craft the top end gear (non set bonus) without having to reverse engineer items? If so, will the high end materials also be provided for this via the CXP system solely? Or will Slicers (and other gathering skills) still have a place in 5.0 for gaining materials required for crafting?
  • Will the gear from Command Crates be tradeable within a group, or is it solely for the player themselves? Currently players within a raid group can help gear other players in the group by doing so. If not, is this going to be addressed to help cater to those players?
  • Will the vendors currently carrying 4.0 gear be removed from the game, if so will they be replaced by new vendors to exchange duplicate items for items we actually require? Or can we only get the new sets of gear via RNG? If that is the case, how is BioWare going to address the disparity of gearing speeds for all types of players due to the RNG element?
  • Will players be able to earn Valor through other activites aside from PvP in 5.0? If not, will Valor become retroactively Legacy based in 5.0?

 

That's all I can think of for the moment. I went away and mulled on it for a while.

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IanArgent

IanArgent

Posted
Posted
I think you're statement assumes all casual players are the same. I think it ranges from "died during KotFE missions" to "could complete NiM, but doesn't have or doesn't want to commit the time". There is a large audience of players who don't want to raid regularly, but would be happy to do SM ops occassionally with a competent group and leader that GF has no capability of offering. You might get lucky and have enough to make it through or not. It also helps that some guilds frequently queue into GF with 4-5 people and just pick up a half a group to help them through.

 

No bet - I know better; I've seen what can happen in TFP GF pugs. The thing is, though? Those terribly incompetent players? They're a minority even in TFPs.

 

Also, one of the reasons I have been historically willing to bet lunch money that new group ops would be differently formatted than the existing FPs and Ops is that the difficulty models aren't matching the current population. I mean, look at TEC. The difficulty is almost all mechanical, not statistical. Respect the mechanics, breeze the content. I mean, you can brute force it with better gear than awarded, but that's not the point.

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TUXs

TUXs

Posted
Posted
A fair few questions Eric. If you want to wait until the blog to answer these, I'm fine with that.

 

  • You say expertise is being removed from the game in 5.0. What is being done to address the stat inbalance between someone with 208 PvP gear vs. someone who has done the HM Operations and has a full set of 224 PvE gear? Bolster doesn't objectively take into account tertiary stats, so the playing field will be badly imblanced between 65-69 (and 70 until players have earned enough CXP to get a full set). Essentially months of gameplay where it will not be fun for the PvP orientated part of this community.
  • Currently, someone who does PvP frequently will probably have enough Warzone Commendations to get a full set of ranked gear when hitting 70 (20600 Warzone Commendations without min/max). Will the conversion ratio of Warzone Commendations be equal to being given enough CXP to actually get a full set of the top tier new gear? Or will those players be in the same position as the previous questions players, and be at a severe disadvantage for months in Ranked PvP versus HM Priority Operations players / NiM Raiders?
  • Currently I can gear a character easily within a few days of playing PvP, for starter gear, will there be a massive disparity between CXP earned doing normal regular PvP vs running SM / HM / NiM Operations? Essentially 204 PvP gear currently with level sync is as far as a tend to go with the gear grind due to level sync. The CXP system makes it sound similar to 1.0 PvP RNG or the current 4.0 Heroic Boxes (while levelling) RNG system (I have opinions, however I'm being objective with my post here).
  • Will the gear that we gain from the 5.0 RNG gear crates be moddable gear? I see no mention of this anywhere.
  • Will crafters be able to craft the top end gear (non set bonus) without having to reverse engineer items? If so, will the high end materials also be provided for this via the CXP system solely? Or will Slicers (and other gathering skills) still have a place in 5.0 for gaining materials required for crafting?
  • Will the gear from Command Crates be tradeable within a group, or is it solely for the player themselves? Currently players within a raid group can help gear other players in the group by doing so. If not, is this going to be addressed to help cater to those players?
  • Will the vendors currently carrying 4.0 gear be removed from the game, if so will they be replaced by new vendors to exchange duplicate items for items we actually require? Or can we only get the new sets of gear via RNG? If that is the case, how is BioWare going to address the disparity of gearing speeds for all types of players due to the RNG element?
  • Will players be able to earn Valor through other activites aside from PvP in 5.0? If not, will Valor become retroactively Legacy based in 5.0?

 

That's all I can think of for the moment. I went away and mulled on it for a while.

These are all excellent questions!!! I hope we get a few answers...

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Jadescythe

Jadescythe

Posted
Posted
You get the feeling it's going to be something like

1 CXP

2 CXP

3 CXP

 

& maxed out will get you 1/10 of the first level :rolleyes:

 

Considering a fully maxed companion prior to KotFE got you 10 of the 50 potential influence levels, which was really only about 10% of the way there, I wouldn't expect more than that.

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IanArgent

IanArgent

Posted
Posted
I am bookmarking this idea!!!! Brilliant suggestion :)

 

That's my plan, especially since they have not (quite) said if the high-level companion gifts will still be purchaseable.

 

The only caveat I have is, if you like the looks of some piece of comms crystal gear available on Odessen, buy it now.

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Lazaros_Chatzi

Lazaros_Chatzi

Posted
Posted
What will this mean for the PVP weapons vendors on the fleets that sell orange weapons for 900 Warzone commendations? Will they be removed from the game as well? If that is the case, certain weapons will complete vanish from the game.

 

Maybe they will still remain but the stuff may require common commendations instead of WZ comms

 

 

My referral link: http://www.swtor.com/r/Hgxtl5

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Lazaros_Chatzi

Lazaros_Chatzi

Posted
Posted (edited)
There is a however of course :)

 

Right now as a guild we know which gear will drop and we can divide it and make sure all are geared up so we can hit the next difficulty mode.

 

In the new set up each individual is dependent on RNG and people might get left behind because of it. Also it looks like it will be harder to gear up alts, so if one of the healers can't make it the group is screwed because others have not been able to gear up their alts properly yet.

 

It looks like it will slow things down to the point that with some bad luck in RNG, the group content like HM operations can't progress because of RNG keeping people from being geared enough.

 

Add to that that the ops are all old, a lot of people are not gonna want to do EV and KP HM for a long time again in the hopes of getting gear that's good enough for other ops.

 

I do see this as a weakness in this system, though I will say that I do see a lot of positives in it as well, but I would hate for guildies to be left behind because of RNG and the rest of the guild being unable to do anything about it like we can do now with gearing runs.

 

That is indeed a good point. Unless they intent to drop boxes in a similar way to CM. I mean, for example, upper, lower or supplementary body armor but with 1 random gear in each one. And as already stated from a lot of people

it would help if the gear remain moddable.

 

My referral link: http://www.swtor.com/r/Hgxtl5

Edited by Lazaros_Chatzi
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Inexistt

Inexistt

Posted
Posted

This must not happen. The current gear system for pvp is actually quite good. Max gear takes some time to get, but not too long. You can buy the gear in whatever order you choose, easily customize, and send comms to your alts. This makes it possible to play and stream all the classes without making the game a full time job. I already have one of those, and have been saving warzone comms for a long time on all my toons in preparation for buying the new pvp gear when 5.0 releases, because I know that I won't have time to grind out 14 toons worth of gear from scratch. You have made your game very alt-centric, and I like that. If I had to focus on only a few classes/toons, I would've left out of boredom long ago. What keeps me here is being able to have all the classes, across multiple servers, most with both the pub and imp mirrors, max geared and cycling through warzone dailies. This change will kill that, and it makes no sense. You can't make your game cater to altoholics for so long, and now come and say "nevermind, now you have to grind pve and pvp for these item levels and pray for good rng and you'll eventually have max gear on one toon".

 

Also, PvP is not about gear progression in the way PvE is. You're just supposed to get the gear and then play. Getting rid of expertise is also a huge mistake. Being able to gear up for pvp by doing pve is unacceptable. If this gearing revamp goes through, I might have to finally have to unsub and leave. It's a shame, I've really been enjoying streaming this game.

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Icykill_

Icykill_

Posted
Posted (edited)
What WZ Comms and data crystals covert to is left provocatively unspecified.

 

My money is they will be converted to credits... which is not something I want to happen... I would rather they convert it to command XP... at least then all the Comms I have been saving for my alts won't go to complete waste.

But as usual, it's a wait and see situation, even though they already have the information... all the waiting does is cause anxiety, rage, arguments and reasons to stop playing... you would think they would have learnt that by now... sometimes I think they must be masochistic and enjoy people raging at them...

 

Eric, Bioware... what's wrong with full disclosure all at once instead of dribbling it out and continuing the rage

Edited by Icykill_
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AlienEyeTX

AlienEyeTX

Posted
Posted
My money is they will be converted to credits... which is not something I want to happen... I would rather they convert it to command XP... at least then all the Comms I have been saving for my alts won't go to complete waste.

But as usual, it's a wait and see situation, even though they already have the information... all the waiting does is cause anxiety, rage, arguments and reasons to stop playing... you would think they would have learnt that by now... sometimes I think they must be masochistic and enjoy people raging at them...

 

Eric, Bioware... what's wrong with full disclosure all at once instead of dribbling it out and continuing the rage

 

I would think CXP, except that they did mention gear that used to be sold for crystals will now be sold for credits. So, the conversion to credits is probably right. It also gives them a great chance to shortchange us.

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