You Guys Are Not Listening At All - Good Luck with the 5.0 Launch

[IanArgent]

and at the end of the day you are trying to base this off the old way gear worked at max level.

 

That will no longer be the case. It will be run a main and one discipline till the longest length you can to make sure you have really nice gear or mix the two and have what I'd bet is less than average gear.

 

I already play this way - run a character to max, gear them out to whatever level the resources I got in that run allow me to, switch to a different one, repeat. Occasionally drop in on the earlier characters to play them in repeatable endgame content, and slowly advance their gearing that way.

 

You can add in leveling another class that is your main in hopes to get both discipline sets roughly equally but then both will be behind the curve because of the time divided. I don't expect that to happen right away. I would guess most will try and get their mains to a high point before really tackling another alt. At some point we will learn of a plateau and that might be the cutoff for most to work on alts.

 

RNG gearing isn't there to help you. It's there to hinder you in gearing.

 

I agree there, to a certain extent. The RNG factor is there to allow a rapid drop rate of rewards while throttling gear advancement rates (at the high end). As an hour-a-night player, I'm thrilled to get a reward box every night. If that resulted in me having BiS gear in a week or two, as an hour-a-night player, I actually wouldn't be as thrilled. Those are the opposing design goals - reward the hour-a-night plyer every session, but prevent them from gearing up in a week.

[Quraswren]

As an hour-a-night player, I'm thrilled to get a reward box every night.

 

I think it odd you consider that a reward box given the entire RNG system is designed to not actually reward you as much as it can.

 

If that resulted in me having BiS gear in a week or two, as an hour-a-night player, I actually wouldn't be as thrilled. Those are the opposing design goals - reward the hour-a-night plyer every session, but prevent them from gearing up in a week.

 

Thats why I advise removing the RNG system but keeping in place the token system within the command ranks. There is still the treadmill but you get to choose the gear you actually need. You can limit how fast you get the token in the treadmill grind.

 

Then entire thing being random is not good for gaming or gamers.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Quraswren

[Soljin]

I think it odd you consider that a reward box given the entire RNG system is designed to not actually reward you.

This is not accurate, you will receive multiple rewards per box according to the stream...maybe not what you were looking for is the RNG issue...

 

 

 

 

Then entire thing being random is not good for gaming or gamers.

 

I have never experienced an RNG system I liked...that said they have made some serious modifications to counter part of the frustration factor...

 

Hopefully they will continue to listen to feedback on this matter and come up with a solution to the six belts scenario....

Edited October 21, 2016 by Soljin

[Quraswren]

This is not accurate, you will receive multiple rewards per box according to the stream...maybe not what you were looking for is the RNG issue...

 

If I don't need it. Not really a reward for my time and "effort".

 

I have never experienced an RNG system I liked...that said they have made some serious modifications to counter part of the frustration factor...

 

Hopefully they will continue to listen to feedback on this matter and come up with a solution to the six belts scenario....

 

I can only hope they remove the RNG element. There are much better ways to slow down gear acquisition at max level and the command ranks is a good way to do that without relying on a game of chance.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Quraswren

[IanArgent]

I think it odd you consider that a reward box given the entire RNG system is designed to not actually reward you as much as it can.

 

Because the box contains more than a statted gear item. The vanity items (pets, mounts, empty gear shells) are also rewards, *** are the mats, companion gifts, jaswa junk, whatever else fills the non-gear slots. For that matter, the non-armor-plate item mods in the statted item are also rewards as long as I need them to put into some armor someplace. It's not an "important" reward, because it drops every hour or less.

 

Thats why I advise removing the RNG system but keeping in place the token system within the command ranks. There is still the treadmill but you get to choose the gear you actually need. You can limit how fast you get the token in the treadmill grind.

 

Then entire thing being random is not good for gaming or gamers.

 

If the token is 1 token = 1 piece of gear, then the (apparently intended) gear rate throttle is destroyed. If its a currency (a la data crystals) then you force the player back to a vendor, and for a new player who doesn't speak the "design language" of MMOs (or even many old-school RPGs) the complxity of the current gearing via vendor scheme is actively user-hostile.

 

I want to see a backstop for RNG failure, but it's going to have to be more subtle than "remove the randomness entirely."

[Highlandscot]

Reading the plans for the expansion, I've got to say I don't see a lot of things to give a player enjoyment of the game. The concerns I have are as follows:

 

SWTOR becomes a hamster wheel grind-fest for players interested in end-game content.

Since the new "level" structure is tied to the toon and not the server, players will have to constantly push one alt along, hoping the RNG favors them with the gear piece they need. This will affect raid teams and people that like to PvP, because playing multiple alts will only slow advancement and gear acquisition overall. The cynic in me thinks that you're (BioWare) hoping players will be so busy scrambling to get gear that while the hamster wheel spins, players (subscribers) won't be reminded that it's been a couple of years since there were any new operations added.

 

Raid and Flashpoint Teams suffer from a loss of flexibility.

Trying to defend the point that players can still respec as long as they only open their loot crates in their desired spec is a strawman argument. (Not to mention I could write a novel on all the potential issues that arise when a tired player forgets to re-spec back and opens a crate with the WRONG spec, and invariably gets that coveted gear piece with the wrong stats/set bonus) A player that goes from their "main" spec of say, DPS, to healing still needs to have a set of healing gear to continue playing. In the early stages of the expansion when teams will be doing story-mode content, prior gear from KOTFE will most likely suffice; however, once teams start moving into hard-mode and nightmare content, that will no longer be the case.

 

Continued trivialization of crafting in the game.

I'm not sure why this game even has crafting, to be honest. With the coming expansion, even augments are now gated behind hard mode flashpoints and planetary conquest, as materials from those activities will be needed to make augments in the expansion. (More hamster wheel! Only this time it's against three other players that will all need the same material drop for their own gear optimization needs) Instead of allowing crafters to at least make a BiS set of crafted pieces (or crafted armors, mods and enhancements with stats that aren't screwed up), crafters are once again an afterthought.

 

Loss of enjoyment from playing different classes

It's obvious that playing different classes and/or factions will be a deterrent to gearing up

 

I would hope that the genuine concerns of your players will spur the developer teams to re-think the process of gear drops, required materials, and overall usefulness of crafting, and then have the dev teams make the changes needed to provide players with less grinding and more fun.

[DarthDymond]

I want to see a backstop for RNG failure, but it's going to have to be more subtle than "remove the randomness entirely."

I wonder if the solution would be to leave the Command Crates system as-is, but add token drops (1 token = 1 piece) to the last boss or two in Veteran Mode Ops and all the bosses in Master Mode Ops (and, depending on what Uprisings end up being, perhaps include some commensurate drops to the higher difficulty modes there as well).

 

Progression raiders are the ones who could be taking a potential hit to their gearing prospects under the RNG system, so putting the tokens there would mitigate that, and it would only undermine the gear 'throttling' for a very small segment of the population (NiM raiders) many of whom appear likely to just jump ship without a change, so it's not like keeping their progress throttled would actually have the intended effect of keeping them subbed longer anyways.

Edited October 21, 2016 by DarthDymond

[IanArgent]

I wonder if the solution would be to leave the Command Crates system as-is, but add token drops (1 token = 1 piece) to the last boss or two in Veteran Mode Ops and all the bosses in Master Mode Ops (and, depending on what Uprisings end up being, perhaps include some commensurate drops to the higher difficulty modes there as well).

 

Progression raiders are the ones who could be taking a potential hit to their gearing prospects under the RNG system, so putting the tokens there would mitigate that, and it would only undermine the gear 'throttling' for a very small segment of the population (NiM raiders) many of whom appear likely to just jump ship without a change, so it's not like keeping their progress throttled would actually have the intended effect of keeping them subbed longer anyways.

 

Tokens still entirely subvert the RNG for new players. I'd rather see a one-time "boost" to CXP put in for existing high-end players (HM+ raiders, Ranked PvPers) via the crystal conversion rates.

 

To backstop unlucky RNG, maybe something like if a character disintegrates a statted item, remove that item from the drop tables for crates until they do accept a statted item, then reset the drop tables (still granting the CXP for disintegration). This would mean that at any point, you have a fixed maximum number of crates to go through before getting the item you want. Show a "disintegration counter" in the stash so this is known to the player, that they can never do worse than "x boxes from now." The drop tables for the boxes might have to be somewhat constrained (IE, not all types of ears/implants/relics potentially useful for your Discipline are in your boxes - at most you get a choice between 2 types for each of those slots, I'd guess; or some slots you'd have to go to crafters or vendors for), but the base idea should be workable. (And I've seen it work in other contexts).

[Tsetso]

Tokens still entirely subvert the RNG for new players. I'd rather see a one-time "boost" to CXP put in for existing high-end players (HM+ raiders, Ranked PvPers) via the crystal conversion rates.

 

To backstop unlucky RNG, maybe something like if a character disintegrates a statted item, remove that item from the drop tables for crates until they do accept a statted item, then reset the drop tables (still granting the CXP for disintegration). This would mean that at any point, you have a fixed maximum number of crates to go through before getting the item you want. Show a "disintegration counter" in the stash so this is known to the player, that they can never do worse than "x boxes from now." The drop tables for the boxes might have to be somewhat constrained (IE, not all types of ears/implants/relics potentially useful for your Discipline are in your boxes - at most you get a choice between 2 types for each of those slots, I'd guess; or some slots you'd have to go to crafters or vendors for), but the base idea should be workable. (And I've seen it work in other contexts).

 

If that's the system, then why even consider random system - it'll be 14 different pieces from 14 boxes. Tokens would do the same without all the complexity.

[PlasmaJohn]

Tokens still entirely subvert the RNG for new players. I'd rather see a one-time "boost" to CXP put in for existing high-end players (HM+ raiders, Ranked PvPers) via the crystal conversion rates.

Unfortunately that doesn't help when a raid or pvp team needs to bootstrap a new toon for a seasoned player. The need for role flexibility extends far past what can be achieved by one or two characters. Just working one spec of one character through this mess is going to push the tolerance of people already more than fed up with Austin.

 

If there was new content to work on, then I'd be all in for the traditional do the content to get the gear because that's part of the experience. And no I don't hate casuals. This cycle I'm gonna be a Story Mode Hero, yo.

 

Because everything's so stale slapping a lengthy grind on top of an unnecessary gear reset is just petty. Oh well, Austin's choices matters, I hope they can accept the consequences

[TX_Angel]

Yeah, that post was yesterday before I knew that.

 

As long as RNG stays, it's a broken and foolish system. Any time they need to say "I know if may seem punishing...", it should be nixed!

 

TUXs, lets be honest about this... they need the RNG system to drag out the gear grind for longer than a month or two, to hide the lack of any real content...

 

I know you're not quite as salty as I have become, but do you really disagree that we're getting more solo play dressed up as a MMO with a few bits of fluff to keep the faithful happy and saying "but, but, uprisings, see, new content!"?

[IanArgent]

If that's the system, then why even consider random system - it'll be 14 different pieces from 14 boxes. Tokens would do the same without all the complexity.

 

No, it won't. If there are 14 items in the drop tables, the minimum is 14 boxes to get 14 items, the maximum is 105 boxes, and it looks like the average is 56 boxes.

 

incidentally, if there are 2 items for each of the ear/implants/relic slots, the numbers change to 14/121/231. Which are actually awful numbers; so I hope they don't put them in boxes. 7 armor pieces, a main hand and an off hand work out to 9/25/45 if the chances are bounded.

 

The binomial distribution of 9 items is more math than I care to do right now.

[IanArgent]

Unfortunately that doesn't help when a raid or pvp team needs to bootstrap a new toon for a seasoned player. The need for role flexibility extends far past what can be achieved by one or two characters. Just working one spec of one character through this mess is going to push the tolerance of people already more than fed up with Austin.

 

If there was new content to work on, then I'd be all in for the traditional do the content to get the gear because that's part of the experience. And no I don't hate casuals. This cycle I'm gonna be a Story Mode Hero, yo.

 

Because everything's so stale slapping a lengthy grind on top of an unnecessary gear reset is just petty. Oh well, Austin's choices matters, I hope they can accept the consequences

 

We're going to have to agree to disagree on whether that's a compelling enough use case to allow new players to short-circuit the gearing grind going forward.

 

Edited to Add: We're assuming (probably rightly) that Command Crate gear will carry a C level requirement. I don't think that's been confirmed, though. And also that the Command Crate stash is not legacy accessible (that one I'm not assuming to be true, incidentally).

Edited October 21, 2016 by IanArgent

[Tsetso]

No, it won't. If there are 14 items in the drop tables, the minimum is 14 boxes to get 14 items, the maximum is 105 boxes, and it looks like the average is 56 boxes.

 

incidentally, if there are 2 items for each of the ear/implants/relic slots, the numbers change to 14/121/231. Which are actually awful numbers; so I hope they don't put them in boxes. 7 armor pieces, a main hand and an off hand work out to 9/25/45 if the chances are bounded.

 

The binomial distribution of 9 items is more math than I care to do right now.

 

The numbers don't really matter. They could just give random number of tokens. The whole point is that it's either random - meaning that there will be some poor guy, hated by the rng gods, who never completes his set(which btw Eric confirmed is the current implementation) or you're guaranteed to get your set after x amount of time.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Tsetso

[Transcendent]

We are talking as if this stupid system is already implemented - it isn't. What they have works. What players are telling them is not to change what works. What MassivelyOP and MMORPG have written is basically "What are they even thinking?". The old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies well here.

 

I don't know about you, but if I was a Product Manager on a product about to make changes where both the customers and press were universally saying, "Do not do this, it is stupid." I would seriously reconsider my position on the whole thing. How anyone, in any business, can think upsetting a good portion of your customer base and getting bad press is a good thing is beyond me.

 

BW should not make the mistake of implementing an end game RNG gear system in any form period (other than maybe as an additional to what exists today like Alliance Crates). It was a disaster in v1.x. It was a disaster with the Battlemaster boxes. And it will be a disaster if this goes live. Einstein's definition of insanity is a good bit of advice to heed here.

 

It's been a disaster in other RPG titles as well. If BioWare can't listen to feedback now on how bad an RNG gearing system is, along with not learning from the mistakes of the industry and how it destroys a playerbase within a few months, then they deserve the consequences of those decisions.

 

What makes it even worse than other RPG titles is that this game is heavily alt-friendly, and the system being introduced is heavily alt-unfriendly.

[IanArgent]

The numbers don't really matter. They could just give random number of tokens. The whole point is that it's either random - meaning that there will be some poor guy, hated by the rng gods, who never completes his set(which btw Eric confirmed is the current implementation) or you're guaranteed to get your set after x amount of time.

 

Well, sure, you could do it with tokens as well - hand out a token every time someone disintegrates an item, accumulate 7, or 9, or 14 (or whatever the devs choose for the backstop) tokens and turn them into a vendor for a specific gear. The math works out slightly differently than for my scheme, but it ends up being the same thing in the end, there's a backstop to the RNG that doesn't remove it entirely. Since the announced design reason is that "vendors for statted gear are confusing," the token scheme goes against that. OTOH, it makes the math better if there are more than about 10 items in the command crate drop table. I am for a guarantee that you get your set bonus after x amount of time, with a chance to get it earlier. I just think that X shoudl be longer than a few hours of playtime in casual mode. Disintegration by itself doesn't address this; there needs to be an actual "you opened this many boxes and didn't get something new, here's a guaranteed new thing" mechanism. Tokens or disintegrations counter, either way puts a dial in to set that hard cap on boxes opened before gearing out.

[Lendul]

How is that good? Now the DPS Sage won't switch to heals because he doesn't want healing gear, he wants DPS gear...how does this help us?

 

It's determined when you open the box. So you can switch to whatever spec you want before you open the box.

[Aldael]

so with a rank up of about every hour or hour and a half you get a crate. RNG to stronk? 7 hours in swtor a night yields 7 crates and your worried about RNG wow.

 

I think you don't know what RNG means.

 

Here is an explanation.

 

I get a crate, i open it, I got bracers (YAY, new piece), i got another crate, i open it , i got "another" bracers (i dont want it, as i already have), i transform it to points so next crate wont take as long (lets say 1h each, with the transformation is 45min), i got another crate, i open it i got bracers AGAIN? and repeat.

 

 

Yes, you can be extremely lucky and open just 1 crate for each piece, or completely awfull and never get the piece you want(or miss). That is the RAGE against RNG.

 

AS this RNG is not conditional on items you have, always has the same chance (%) to get a piece. if a chest has a 5% to drop, you have a 95% not to drop it (even if it that means you get another piece, at starting is easy to get the different ones, but when you miss few ones, it becomes more and more rare to get the ONE you really want)

[PlasmaJohn]

We're going to have to agree to disagree on whether that's a compelling enough use case to allow new players to short-circuit the gearing grind going forward.

But I'm not talking about new players. I'm talking about existing players with the skill and motivation to function at the higher level with new toons. Or heck, even their existing alts with other AC's.

 

Not having any sort of reasonable catch up mechanism is a colossal mistake IMO. Does it enable folks to short-circuit the gear grind? Of course. IMO that's a far smaller issue than blocking an entire team from playing what small part of the game they're interested in.

[gabigool]

These two points jumped out at me from separate posts, I didn't realize until I'd pasted them together they were both from the same individual.

 

I don't know about you, but if I was a Product Manager on a product about to make changes where both the customers and press were universally saying, "Do not do this, it is stupid." I would seriously reconsider my position on the whole thing. How anyone, in any business, can think upsetting a good portion of your customer base and getting bad press is a good thing is beyond me.

 

The problem is it's too far along. There's no way they'll back off RNG at this point. I imagine they've already reskinned the CM Stash for this purpose and they just don't have the time to redo everything before a 12/2 launch. Not that they would anyway though.

 

Don't get me wrong, they should redo it. I would be fine with them pushing out the launch a month or two to do it properly. Maybe release chapter 1 on time or something. But the idea of removing RNG is certainly not something I suspect they even consider.

 

If I have learned anything about this studio, it's they are married to their ideas, players be damned. They might even make one more tiny concession. It's just ballast to them. RNG is here to stay. My only hope is that small concession impacts my area of concern. I doubt it will, but I feel I need to try.

 

I truly do not believe they expect people will quit over this. They are that out of touch.

 

At the end of the day, I am beginning to believe that is the big switcharoo. Make the in game grind for end game gear so tedious that you can get around it by buying Command Crates in the CM. Then you, of course, need a subscription to equip what comes from these Command Crates. Or maybe, with Command Crates in the cartel market, this is how they will extract cash from F2P/Preferred players who will now have to BUY end game gear.

 

You know, a guy on my team said this last night. He's convinced this is the first step towards pay-to-win. And as much as I want to trust my first reaction, which was "no way, never", he made a very convincing argument.

 

And the more I think about it, the point that keeps coming back around in my mind is "Why wouldn't they do it?" and I don't have a good answer for that.

Edited October 21, 2016 by gabigool

[IanArgent]

But I'm not talking about new players. I'm talking about existing players with the skill and motivation to function at the higher level with new toons. Or heck, even their existing alts with other AC's.

 

Not having any sort of reasonable catch up mechanism is a colossal mistake IMO. Does it enable folks to short-circuit the gear grind? Of course. IMO that's a far smaller issue than blocking an entire team from playing what small part of the game they're interested in.

 

I follow the argument you're making. And, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument that you've been there and done that, just let me bring a new alt along. But, how do you distinguish between a new alt of a veteran player and a new player's first character?

 

The reason I said we'll have to agree to disagree is because you've mentioned you've seen my previous posts about relative importance and size of the veteran player pool for whom a boost is "fair" and the new player pool for whom it is not; in a context that suggested you don't agree. And that's fine, I can't prove my point with hard data. But I really don't want to have that argument again because there's no way to "prove" either side is right without access to data we don't have.

 

I throw out questions like that to illustrate points where we've reached the end of available data. We really don't know how much importance BWA should put on each in-game consistency; and we can only guess by reading the patch notes and Dev Posts how much importance they are putting on each constituency. I think it's really cool that they're catering to my playstyle. I will think it's decidedly less cool if by doing so they tank their player base and have to shut down this year. (That just happened to my other timewasting computer game hobby, incidentally; another game in the House of Mouse's portfolio, as it happens).

 

I try and put myself in your shoes, but at the same time, I'm wearing mine; it's a lot easier for me to explain why a decision that benefits me more could be more important than the opposite decision that benefits you. I use more forceful language than I ought, sometimes, too.

 

All I'm trying to do is explain what it looks like the developers are thinking when they make a choice. When I can - I can't explain what they were thinking when they are saying there's no "stop loss" or "backstop" to the RNG gear acquisition process. That's going to bite their backside hard.

[Transcendent]

I truly do not believe they expect people will quit over this. They are that out of touch.

 

I have zero desire to pay a monthly subscription for a game with RNG gearing. I can play those for free, with access to much better set bonuses compared to just the SWTOR standard as well.

 

Once the KotET part of the story is done for one character, I'll take a small pop on that one character to see how gearing goes, if it goes as I suspect and takes too long to gear just that one character so I can enjoy end-game content? I'll unsubscribe and move on to other games.

 

It really is that simple. I have zero desire to pay monthly for RNG gearing.

[buzbuz]

Seriously, what the **** was wrong with the current token system?!

 

Hasn't Bioware ever heard of the old adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?

[Andyhipkiss]

I fully expect to see CXP boosts available on the CM store, costing Cartel Coins, increasing the rate you earn CXP and by extension, gear.

 

The slippery slope to P2W...

[Wayshuba]

You know, a guy on my team said this last night. He's convinced this is the first step towards pay-to-win. And as much as I want to trust my first reaction, which was "no way, never", he made a very convincing argument.

 

And the more I think about it, the point that keeps coming back around in my mind is "Why wouldn't they do it?" and I don't have a good answer for that.

 

The more I have thought about things, the more this is making sense to me. I have wondered why BW would do something that is so obviously upsetting so much of their players base. I thought about how this system is going to increase the grind we have today by an average of ten-fold and will be made even worse by having each character do it. Finally, I remembered that this is EA and thought about what has transpired over the last year. That being said, it finally all made sense to me:

 

Step 1.) V4.0 - Introduce companion system so players can have unlimited number of companions. Real purpose is to sell them more stuff.

 

Step 2.) Begin selling companions in Packs on the CM.

 

Step 3.) Introduce an event in game with Cartel style packs for rewards to see if players will grind the same old content for some superfluous rewards.

 

Step 4.) Four-six weeks after the event, add said packs that contain nothing but old stuff from the CM market for sale.

 

Step 5.) Introduce new system that gates group content behind sub wall and add new F2P style grind to it (but charge sucke... um, subscribers for it. Make it extremely painful (like 90 hours of grinding painful) to get top tier 244 gear

 

Now, with the hint at group content going to be their focus next year, follow the rest...

 

Step 6.) Rapidly introduce new group content only available through the Galactic Sucker System that requires this new gear to successfully compete.

 

Step 7.) Release Command Crates on Cartel Market under the guise of allowing F2P/Preferred Players access to gear knowing full well that the following will also be suckered into buying crates - 1.) Players who have 11 of 14 pieces and have ground through 98 levels and have their eyes bleeding (Solution: Buy a Hypercrate) and 2.) Players who have already ground through 180 levels to gear two toons and just can't stomach doing it again on a third toon (Solution: Buy 10 Hypercrates).

 

Step 8.) Along with the release of Command Crates on the CM, open up the GCS to Free/Preferred players.

 

When you think about the above, their stubbornness now makes sense (and sounds much more like how EA likes to treat their customers - like pieces of basement dwelling garbage with wallets). They are trying to give everyone an F2P Grind (but get you to pay for it) and also get you to pay to make the grind more tolerable. The thing is, there are dozens of games any one could go to to get the same FOR FREE.

 

Now, I don't how successful that would be. I know LOTRO tried it with the update after the Angmar expansion and it went over so well it lasted less than a week and caused Turbine to issue an apology to their customers. But this is EA we are talking about. They have never cared about their customers just have always worked on how little they can do to extract as much from people as possible (Hey, let's create a new event that grinds all the same content... then, let's create a new interface that makes them grind that content again).

 

I do know this, if I happen to be right about the above, the very minute a Command Crate with end game gear hits the Cartel Market will be the minute before I leave SWTOR for good. This is the kind of stuff I do not tolerate from any business (that is treating customers like people to be fleeced). The other thing to consider is this is so typical of EA to do this right before they shut down or discontinue support for something. Grab as much as they can on the way out, I mean.

 

Now, I only spend about $400/year on this game ($164 in sub and rest in Cartel Coins), so it won't be a big loss for them - that is unless thousands of others also do the same thing. Hope there are enough whales left to make up the difference should that happen.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Wayshuba