How I think they decided on the new gearing system

[MillionsKNives]

I think I can summarize how this whole thing went down.

 

Our tale begins way back during development of SWTOR with a young upstart intern named Frank. Frank was a pretty good kid and really interested in game development. It was his dream, and through great effort and perseverance he managed to snag an amazing opportunity to work at BioWare during their development of SWTOR. Now, like all young upstart game developers, Frank had ideas. Ideas which he thought were the best, most original and fantastic ideas for how games should be designed. It just so happened that his idea was that the best way to give gear to players is through random chance.

 

Somehow, through sheer force of will (and unceasing pestering) Frank's idea caught some traction in the dev team. Over time they warmed to his idea and they eventually settled on the system we now remember as the Battlemaster loot system from launch. A player would earn commendations from open world PVP or Battlegrounds and once they had enough they would purchase a loot crate of certain quality and get a random piece of PVP gear. The devs were quite happy with themselves once it was released and couldn't wait for the positive feedback to roll in. Unfortunately, that never happened. The system was universally panned.

. It created a lot of vitriol on the forums and BioWare had to scramble to replace it.

 

Undeterred, our young hero remained at BioWare working on SWTOR. But he never stopped loving his brainchild, his baby that perished before its time. He simply waited, and bided his time. He knew that if he waited long enough that one day he could revive it and grace the game once again with the loot system of his dreams.

 

And wait he did. While he waited he still remained busy, putting whispers in ears with the cartel market loot crates, and even the alliance crates. Over enough time, the developers who fought back against reimplementing the system either left or were fired. But finally, with the development of KotET underway he saw his opportunity and struck. There was no one left to resist him. He would bring his dead child back to life, this time stronger then ever. Frank would have his vengeance!

[DRMM]

This. I can't believe they don't remember the complete fiasco of that PvP system. Pretty much all my MMO friends left the game because of the their frustration with those original PvP crates and never came back. Yet BioWare doesn't remember that they went through this 5 years ago.

[Aowin]

Except this is nowhere as bad as battlemaster bags. Your explanation of how battlemaster bags makes me question if you even played the game at launch. I'll explain how they actually worked, since galactic command is much better in comparison.

 

In order to get battlemaster armor, you needed to acquire battlemaster commendations. You would need multiple commendations to buy a piece of gear. The only way you could get a battlemaster commendation was from the battlemaster bags and they had a 25% chance of dropping a battlemaster commendation (and a random piece of champion gear). Also, you could only achieve a battlemaster bag once per week due to the reward being tied to the PvP weekly.

 

Why was the battlemaster bag system worse? There was a 75% chance you would get NOTHING for the week. That is why RNG for gear at launch was idiotic. The chance of getting ONE battlemaster comm, which wasn't even enough to buy a piece of battlemaster gear, was horrifically low. I was one of the first players on my server (Shien) to become a battlemaster at launch and it took me MONTHS to get the full set.

 

We aren't grinding for battlemaster comms in 5.0. We are getting a GUARANTEED piece of gear every time we get a galactic command crate. Yes, it's random. However, at least we get SOMETHING. Also, we can disintegrate it and get more experience towards our next galactic command level. This system is VASTLY BETTER than what we had at launch for PvP. You are comparing apples to oranges, as is everybody else who actually never experienced the battlemaster bags at launch.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Aowin

[BarrinMarshall]

This. I can't believe they don't remember the complete fiasco of that PvP system. Pretty much all my MMO friends left the game because of the their frustration with those original PvP crates and never came back. Yet BioWare doesn't remember that they went through this 5 years ago.

 

They also don't remember how the game tanked after launch with its focus on story only.... and it wasn't until they scrambled and added endgame group content that the game stabilized. Since KOTFE was released theres been a steady stream of players leaving the game. Oh well, history doomed to repeat and all that.

[Quraswren]

This. I can't believe they don't remember the complete fiasco of that PvP system. Pretty much all my MMO friends left the game because of the their frustration with those original PvP crates and never came back. Yet BioWare doesn't remember that they went through this 5 years ago.

 

They also forgot that story alone would never carry the game and they tried that again to very limited success if you can call it success at all.

 

BW seems to have a tendency to forget lesson they have already been taught.

 

How do I think this new gearing system came into play?

What better way to carrot every single player in a game to grind really old content and with only the possibility of actually getting the carrot on mains or alts.

 

Put in random end game loot. Even when you think you win. You actually lose because of useless gear and have to start over. The few times you actually do win will pale in comparison to the number of times you lose. Man that sounds like gambling.

[DRMM]

Except this is nowhere as bad as battlemaster bags. Your explanation of how battlemaster bags makes me question if you even played the game at launch. I'll explain how they actually worked, since galactic command is much better in comparison.

 

RNG is still RNG. Much more recent reference -- Alliance Crates. I wanted to get a certain agent chest piece to put my one and only black/black dye in. I have opened hundreds upon hundreds of crates. I'm drowning in glows, boots, bracers and whatever else there is, but no chest piece. It's been almost a year now. There is no certain path to getting a missing piece of gear and you can do nothing about it.

 

With Alliance it's only cosmetics -- it's not a big deal. But when you can't get on a level field with more lucky PvP players for example -- it becomes game-breaking.

Edited October 18, 2016 by DRMM

[gabigool]

...

 

The fact that the battlemaster bags were a bit worse is not in any way to be construed as a positive for this system.

 

You still have the same problem, you can go weeks/months of gameplay without getting items you need to not be at a competitive disadvantage.

 

We are talking about essentially the same system in the sense that equal effort in =/= equal reward out. this is fine for things like mounts and shells but for actual stats it's stupid. That it is less stupid than some other stupid thing doesn't mean it isn't stupid.

 

So what's your point? You do not see this reward system having the exact same downside as before? The difference in degree is irrelevant.

[Aowin]

...

 

I think there's a significant difference between having a 75% chance of getting nothing (again, you need multiple commendations just for one piece of gear) versus being guaranteed a piece of gear, whether you need it or not.

 

Yeah, I think the new system is significantly better than battlemaster bags. That doesn't mean I like RNG, but it's very unlikely to take as long to gear in 5.0 as it did in 1.0 for PvP.

 

Unless you just have absolutely horrible luck where you get the same piece for months and nothing else, which is unlikely to happen, I believe this system won't be nearly as frustrating as many are claiming.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Aowin

[Andryah]

I think there's a significant difference between having a 75% chance of getting nothing (again, you need multiple commendations just for once piece of gear) versus being guaranteed a piece of gear, whether you need it or not.

 

Yeah, I think the new system is significantly better than battlemaster bags. That doesn't mean I like RNG, but it's very unlikely to take as long to gear in 5.0 as it did in 1.0 for PvP.

 

Unless you just have absolutely horrible luck where you get the same piece for months and nothing else, which is unlikely to happen, I believe this system won't be nearly as frustrating as many are claiming.

 

/agree with this assessment. Especially since you can fill empty gear slots with crafted items that will be nearly as good while you wait to get lucky on gaining perfection.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Andryah

[Andryah]

I think I can summarize how this whole thing went down.

 

Our tale begins way back during development of SWTOR with a young upstart intern named Frank. ...

 

....

 

.... Frank would have his vengeance!

 

Personally, I think you are giving Frank way too much power and credit.

[Aowin]

/agree with this assessment. Especially since you can fill empty gear slots with crafted items that will be nearly as good while you wait to get lucky on gaining perfection.

 

This is another great point. You can make competitive armor via crafting that doesn't have set piece bonuses. That, alone, invalidates the RNG as being a major issue. Most players will probably just craft armor sets and RNG will be a secondary concern.

[Quraswren]

The fact that the battlemaster bags were a bit worse is not in any way to be construed as a positive for this system.

 

You still have the same problem, you can go weeks/months of gameplay without getting items you need to not be at a competitive disadvantage.

 

We are talking about essentially the same system in the sense that equal effort in =/= equal reward out. this is fine for things like mounts and shells but for actual stats it's stupid. That it is less stupid than some other stupid thing doesn't mean it isn't stupid.

 

So what's your point? You do not see this reward system having the exact same downside as before? The difference in degree is irrelevant.

 

For some reason, there are a few that think BW will simply do better in the RNG loot crates but given the nature of RNG and loot and what BW hopes to get gamers to continue to do for longer lengths of time.

 

How anyone can have hope in BW creating a RNG loot system that is better for the gamer and not lopsided into making you grind longer than needed (like the old PVP RNG system) is a bit crazy to me.

 

It's pretty clear BW wants to make it hard to get gear even if you're clearing content. The hurdle is no longer can you clear content.

 

It's can you deal with Random loot crates and random gear with the added bonus of how long are you willing to put up with it?

[FlavivsAetivs]

This is another great point. You can make competitive armor via crafting that doesn't have set piece bonuses. That, alone, invalidates the RNG as being a major issue. Most players will probably just craft armor sets and RNG will be a secondary concern.

 

I don't think people here get how much of a difference a set piece bonus makes.

 

For Infil Shadow, we don't get the additional 20ish seconds of cooldown on Force Cloak until we have our 6-piece set bonus.

 

That's a MASSIVE DPS difference for us, because force cloak resets force potency which gives us our hardest hitting version of Force Breach, gives us force regen, and resets blackout for force regen.

 

Set bonus is hugely important for tanks too. And crafted gear without a set Bonus, with crappy mod and enhancement stat combinations, does not fill the gap.

 

~ Eudoxia

[Aowin]

...

 

You are missing the point. Everybody is claiming RNG will prevent them from getting geared. Wrong. You can get gear that is comparable to the best gear in the game via crafting. You won't have a set piece bonus, but that's obviously where the galactic command crates come into play. Clearly, having a set piece bonus is better than not having one. The point is you can still be competitive until you get that better gear. You aren't completely negated from participating in content because you can't get a certain gear rating at all.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Aowin

[LordTurin]

This is another great point. You can make competitive armor via crafting that doesn't have set piece bonuses. That, alone, invalidates the RNG as being a major issue. Most players will probably just craft armor sets and RNG will be a secondary concern.

 

Not really. Do you have any idea how many mats it takes to make a 220 non-optimized mod? Takes 2 DMCs, 3 Exotic Isotopes, and about 25 total assorted other mats. Now when you need a total of 9 mods (and the same number of mats for armorings/enhancements), plus 3 DMCs each for Implants, earpieces, and relics, why on earth would that seem scaleable to actually gear people up? You would have to run EV or KP a total of 15 times to gear exactly one person up to full 220 gear.

 

Now I'll grant that they haven't released any info on what will change with crafting (maybe they will make it so everyone gets all the mats they want for free, who knows, in which case sure, crafting will work), but given crafting from 3.0 and 4.0 that seems unlikely, and shouldn't be suggested as an answer when they haven't released that info yet, you're just speculating.

Edited October 18, 2016 by LordTurin

[Aowin]

...

 

You are also speculating that crafting won't change. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but every major update for SWTOR has been for streamlining the game and making it more casual. With how endgame progression is completely changing, I'm 100% positive the materials for crafting will also change. Again, all gear is the same now. You really think BioWare is going to make PvPers do flashpoints or operations to get specific materials just to craft competitive gear? You are fooling yourself.

 

We'll have to wait and see how BioWare is overhauling crafting, but that's a given it won't be the same as it currently is.

[SplitBolt]

At least you can get a hat!

 

[Transcendent]

Except this is nowhere as bad as battlemaster bags. Your explanation of how battlemaster bags makes me question if you even played the game at launch. I'll explain how they actually worked, since galactic command is much better in comparison.

 

 

In order to get battlemaster armor, you needed to acquire battlemaster commendations. You would need multiple commendations to buy a piece of gear. The only way you could get a battlemaster commendation was from the battlemaster bags and they had a 25% chance of dropping a battlemaster commendation (and a random piece of champion gear). Also, you could only achieve a battlemaster bag once per week due to the reward being tied to the PvP weekly.

 

 

Why was the battlemaster bag system worse? There was a 75% chance you would get NOTHING for the week. That is why RNG for gear at launch was idiotic. The chance of getting ONE battlemaster comm, which wasn't even enough to buy a piece of battlemaster gear, was horrifically low. I was one of the first players on my server (Shien) to become a battlemaster at launch and it took me MONTHS to get the full set.

 

We aren't grinding for battlemaster comms in 5.0. We are getting a GUARANTEED piece of gear every time we get a galactic command crate. Yes, it's random. However, at least we get SOMETHING. Also, we can disintegrate it and get more experience towards our next galactic command level. This system is VASTLY BETTER than what we had at launch for PvP. You are comparing apples to oranges, as is everybody else who actually never experienced the battlemaster bags at launch.

 

On the flipside of this point, and it is a valid point. When players have run their chosen form of content (raids perhaps) and gained a lockout and not received that last couple of pieces of gear they needed, due to RNG. Or that player who has ground out 5000 heroics, only to be given the same piece of gear again. Or that PvP player who has been subjected to months of being beaten on by better geared HM Prioirity operations players just to gain that last piece of gear.....

 

Let me ask you a simple question? Which would you prefer to see?

 

• Gearing based on RNG?
  
• Gearing based on progression, and being able to select the items you need to improve your character, so you feel like you are progressing?
  

 

I've played quite a few RNG loot games. The only one I do enjoy to an extent is Diablo 3 since they refined it and improved upon the terrible iteration it was given at launch. This game isn't Diablo 3, it doesn't have half the things such as set bonuses to improve your drop chances, or to increase your gold drop rate (in this case it would be credits), or to mix and match set bonuses to do various things, or a varied way of crafting and gaining crafting schematics. Essentially the RNG system in this game is inferior by far to Diablo 3 and the way you gear by RNG. You literally only have the Galactic Command system to progress, and that in itself is limited by comparison.

 

I can only hope BioWare can look at other developers and see how they've handled RNG loot based systems and survived poor iterations of RNG loot based systems. They have to be fun, as well as ensuring that players feel like they are progressing at a decent rate. What we're currently being told doesn't even come close

[LordTurin]

You are also speculating that crafting won't change. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but every major update for SWTOR has been for streamlining the game and making it more casual. With how endgame progression is completely changing, I'm 100% positive the materials for crafting will also change. Again, all gear is the same now. You really think BioWare is going to make PvPers do flashpoints or operations to get specific materials just to craft competitive gear? You are fooling yourself.

 

We'll have to wait and see how BioWare is overhauling crafting, but that's a given it won't be the same as it currently is.

 

I think you missed something, but they really did not streamline crafting during 4.0, in fact they added an extra step that everyone had to do in order to create endgame gear. And the crafting requirements for the highest level gear (220) was basically the exact same as it was in 3.0.

 

Oh, and in fact, they are trying to force PVPers to do other things to get better gear. That's why they are going to be giving daily bonuses to different activities to try to get people to focus on one group activity each day; so yes, they are going to be forcing PVPers to do FPs and operations if they want to get the best gear as fast as possible.

[CrownofGold]

RNG is still RNG. Much more recent reference -- Alliance Crates. I wanted to get a certain agent chest piece to put my one and only black/black dye in. I have opened hundreds upon hundreds of crates. I'm drowning in glows, boots, bracers and whatever else there is, but no chest piece. It's been almost a year now. There is no certain path to getting a missing piece of gear and you can do nothing about it.

 

With Alliance it's only cosmetics -- it's not a big deal. But when you can't get on a level field with more lucky PvP players for example -- it becomes game-breaking.

 

I agree with you, to a degree. Alliance Crates, however, have 40 different armor sets to try to complete with 280 different armor pieces that may generate from a single crate.

 

With this system, there are only 14 different armor sets, if my Math is correct?

 

Warrior/Knight: 2 DPS Sets, 1 Tank Set..................3

Inquisitor/Consular: 2 DPS Sets, 1 Tank, 1 Heal.....4

Agent/Smuggler: 2 DPS sets, 1 heal set..................3

BH/Trooper: 2 DPS Sets, 1 Tank, 1 Heal.................4

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Total Armor Sets.....................................................14

 

That means that we have only a 7 in 98 chance to get a piece that our character can actually use!!!

 

We better pray to the RNG Gods!

[LordTurin]

I agree with you, to a degree. Alliance Crates, however, have 40 different armor sets to try to complete with 280 different armor pieces that may generate from a single crate.

 

With this system, there are only 14 different armor sets, if my Math is correct?

 

Warrior/Knight: 2 DPS Sets, 1 Tank Set..................3

Inquisitor/Consular: 2 DPS Sets, 1 Tank, 1 Heal.....4

Agent/Smuggler: 2 DPS sets, 1 heal set..................3

BH/Trooper: 2 DPS Sets, 1 Tank, 1 Heal.................4

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Total Armor Sets.....................................................14

 

That means that we have only a 7 in 98 chance to get a piece that our character can actually use!!!

 

We better pray to the RNG Gods!

 

It won't be quite that bad. It's going to be based on Advanced Class, so pure dps classes (Sentintels/slingers) will always get a piece they can use, and the other classes have a 50/50 chance of getting something they can use. The RNG most people are concerned about is getting duplicate pieces, and it taking a long time to get the last piece you need. So for most people, the last piece they are going to need they are going to have a 1 in 14 chance of getting that piece (and thats after working their way back from the 2nd to last piece being 1 in 7, 3rd being 3 in 14, etc.). so chances are good there will be a lot of repeats for most people.

[Bonzenaattori]

Are you refering to this Frank?

Would make a whole lot of sense!

Edited October 18, 2016 by Bonzenaattori

[DRMM]

Total Armor Sets.....................................................14

 

I agree that chances are higher here. However you have to include 7 other pieces of gear (relics, etc) that are not part of Alliance Crates. So a ton of chances to end up with a ton of dupes.

[MillionsKNives]

For some reason, there are a few that think BW will simply do better in the RNG loot crates but given the nature of RNG and loot and what BW hopes to get gamers to continue to do for longer lengths of time.

 

How anyone can have hope in BW creating a RNG loot system that is better for the gamer and not lopsided into making you grind longer than needed (like the old PVP RNG system) is a bit crazy to me.

 

It's pretty clear BW wants to make it hard to get gear even if you're clearing content. The hurdle is no longer can you clear content.

 

It's can you deal with Random loot crates and random gear with the added bonus of how long are you willing to put up with it?

 

Completely agree. They wouldn't change to a system like this if it wasn't to inconvenience players. Plus, given their history of random loot boxes of different kinds it's bound to be as bad or worse than people fear. Have they yet implemented a loot crate that people actually like?

 

Most responses to things like the cartel crates and alliance crates is that they hate the RNG, but they put up with it because it has what they want. And that's fine, because it's optional and cosmetic. Actual gear, yeah that's a problem. As much as some people want to deny the similarities to the old PVP sets, it's the exact same problem and just gives another example of them failing to learn from their own mistakes, even mistakes they've acknowledged in the past.

[Primarch_PWnD]

/agree with this assessment. Especially since you can fill empty gear slots with crafted items that will be nearly as good while you wait to get lucky on gaining perfection.

 

I don't know, I see the whole "wait to get lucky" as the actual problem. Right now we have full control over how, when, and why we gear our toons. With this system, every bit of that control is taken away and we have to "wait to get lucky".

 

With this new RNG system I could play 100 warzones on my tank and have 3 tank pieces, 4 dps pieces, and 5 duplicates of any of those, whereas right now any player that plays 100 warzones will be in a full set of gear with an appropriate set bonus, with comms left over to customize and optimize. That means more people that are able to play to full effect, which means more happy people.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Primarch_PWnD