RNG is perfect for SWTOR and I'll explain why.

[Aowin]

Grinding elites was not an exploit. Farming KP was not an exploit. Just because it wasn't what BW intended doesn't make it wrong. Thus the "punishment" isn't really a punishment since there was no wrongdoing according to BW.

 

Something doesn't need to be an exploit for it to be wrong. Exploits are generally bugs that players "exploit" to their advantage in unintended ways (an example is the old relic bug that would grant six seconds on invincibility). This can be applied to game design as well, but obviously grinding mobs isn't "exploiting" per se. It is, however, unintended, which is why BioWare nerfed the CXP gain. Had it been a true exploit, those who had been taking advantage of it would have had their command ranks rolled back.

[curulz]

Something doesn't need to be an exploit for it to be wrong. Exploits are generally bugs that players "exploit" to their advantage in unintended ways (an example is the old relic bug that would grant six seconds on invincibility). This can be applied to game design as well, but obviously grinding mobs isn't "exploiting" per se. It is, however, unintended, which is why BioWare nerfed the CXP gain. Had it been a true exploit, those who had been taking advantage of it would have had their command ranks rolled back.

 

So then it wasn't a punishment as you called it. This was a change in CXP to modify behavior they wanted to curtail. Unintended, I will agree with, but not wrong.

[Alphasgimaone]

Not to mention the nerf is completely antithetical to how GC was promoted.

 

As I said in a different thread, it's a total case of "any color you like..."

[Vember]

The changes on the livestream sound promising.

[Morrolan]

Given the survey plus the changes just announced clearly RNG is not perfect for swtor. Edited December 15, 2016 by Morrolan

[Aowin]

Given the survey plus the changes just announced clearly RNG is not perfect for swtor.

 

There's nothing wrong with RNG, itself. That system is not being removed. What is happening is we are having an additional system placed on top in order to ensure players get certain gear pieces. That doesn't invalidate the purpose of RNG in any sense.

[Kurj]

Oh, come on dude. Your overlords just admitted they s**t the bed on this one and reinstated the old gearing system. It's over.

[Jamtas]

There's nothing wrong with RNG, itself. That system is not being removed. What is happening is we are having an additional system placed on top in order to ensure players get certain gear pieces. That doesn't invalidate the purpose of RNG in any sense.

 

That's not the stance you had made previously.

 

The real issue here is if BioWare allows progression raiders to gear up too quickly, then everybody else is left behind. It would not make any sense at all for you to have access to better gear just because you are doing progression raiding. Then, you would have a clear advantage over everybody else in the game, regardless of the content. That would definitely be a big "no no" in PvP.

 

Galactic Command with RNG is meant to stabilize gear distribution and keep the game relatively level. By providing any sort of "alternative path" for progression raiders or anybody else merely undermines the entire point of the system. You'll just have to make do like the rest of us with what you have until you get to a point in the tier system where you have access to better gear.

 

So with the proposed changes in January, will you now be against the GC/RNG system? Do you also disagree with Ben saying that harder content should reward better since you think it didn't think it should be rewarded differently?

Edited December 15, 2016 by Jamtas

[Aowin]

That's not the stance you had made previously.

 

 

 

So with the proposed changes in January, will you now be against the GC/RNG system? Do you also disagree with Ben saying that harder content should reward better since you think it didn't think it should be rewarded differently?

 

I'd suggest you re-watch that stream. You are guaranteed gear now, but we don't exactly know how fast that process will be. For one, how many command tokens are we going to need in conjunction with an unassembled gear piece?

 

Secondly, my concern was that raiders would outpace the rest, including PvPers, due to the nature of raiders wanting the best gear only in operations. That's not the case with this system. PvPers are going to get the best gear the fastest. Depending on the valor rank, this could make it very easy for someone like myself (valor 100) to get tier 3 gear in a short amount of time.

 

I still have concerns about how fast progression will be now, but hopefully we'll need a lot of tokens and it will slow things down to a respectable rate.

[DawnAskham]

I'd suggest you re-watch that stream. You are guaranteed gear now, but we don't exactly know how fast that process will be. For one, how many command tokens are we going to need in conjunction with an unassembled gear piece?

 

Secondly, my concern was that raiders would outpace the rest, including PvPers, due to the nature of raiders wanting the best gear only in operations. That's not the case with this system. PvPers are going to get the best gear the fastest. Depending on the valor rank, this could make it very easy for someone like myself (valor 100) to get tier 3 gear in a short amount of time.

 

I still have concerns about how fast progression will be now, but hopefully we'll need a lot of tokens and it will slow things down to a respectable rate.

 

Where did they say PVP would be the fastest way to gear?

 

I heard them say it is more likley players successfully running operations would gear faster, especially in the higher tiers of gear, because they must organize and successfully run a group, not just hit the 'queue now' button.

[Jamtas]

Let me quote you again and then suggest you re-watch the stream as well.

 

By providing any sort of "alternative path" for progression raiders or anybody else merely undermines the entire point of the system. .

 

BioWare has provided a path for PvPers and raiders exclusively to guarantee gear. If you do not run operations or warzones/arenas, you still have to deal with the RNG crate system.

 

 

So in watching the livestream, raiders will get unassembled tokens (those doing uprisings and fps, chapters do not)

This would be as you put it, an alternative path for raiders. So I am assuming you think this undermines the entire point of the system making things level across the board and not rewarding those who do the tougher content getting gear quicker.

 

Or since you play pvp and that was given an alternative route as well , was that more the issue you meant when you were speaking for the entire playerbase on fairness? PVP having the fastest route (Assuming this is the case) is acceptable, just not raiders?

Edited December 15, 2016 by Jamtas

[Aowin]

Where did they say PVP would be the fastest way to gear?

 

I heard them say it is more likley players successfully running operations would gear faster, especially in the higher tiers of gear, because they must organize and successfully run a group, not just hit the 'queue now' button.

 

Think about how the system works. Where raiders have a slight advantage is they can get unassembled gear pieces off the last boss (don't need components) in an operation (previous bosses have a chance to drop tokens). However, the last boss will only one one or two pieces of the same unassembled gear piece. This means raiders will have to constantly grind operations over and over if they want to gear out their entire raid group. It's going to take a long time.

 

Whereas with PvP, all PvPers will need to do is convert unassembled components into a unassembled gear piece and trade that in with tokens to get a gear piece. PvP functions similar to how progression used to where PvPers will trade in lower tier gear for higher tier gear. It comes down to how many tokens we ultimately need, but PvP definitely has the likelihood of being a much faster path to the best gear in the game.

 

To be quite honest, that actually makes sense considering what BioWare does not want to do is allow raiders to get the best gear the earliest and then come into PvP with an unfair advantage.

[Jamtas]

Think about how the system works. Where raiders have a slight advantage is they can get unassembled gear pieces off the last boss (don't need components) in an operation (previous bosses have a chance to drop tokens). However, the last boss will only one one or two pieces of the same unassembled gear piece. This means raiders will have to constantly grind operations over and over if they want to gear out their entire raid group. It's going to take a long time.

 

What you are describing is the exact gearing method Raiders have been using the entire time. Grind the operation over and over again to get gear for entire team. And now they can also use anything they earn and buy from pvp vendor to supplement. Can even take raid gear and upgrade it at the pvp vendor.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Think about how the system works. Where raiders have a slight advantage is they can get unassembled gear pieces off the last boss (don't need components) in an operation (previous bosses have a chance to drop tokens). However, the last boss will only one one or two pieces of the same unassembled gear piece. This means raiders will have to constantly grind operations over and over if they want to gear out their entire raid group. It's going to take a long time.

 

Whereas with PvP, all PvPers will need to do is convert unassembled components into a unassembled gear piece and trade that in with tokens to get a gear piece. PvP functions similar to how progression used to where PvPers will trade in lower tier gear for higher tier gear. It comes down to how many tokens we ultimately need, but PvP definitely has the likelihood of being a much faster path to the best gear in the game.

 

To be quite honest, that actually makes sense considering what BioWare does not want to do is allow raiders to get the best gear the earliest and then come into PvP with an unfair advantage.

 

•PvP gearing should be slower than PvE gearing since you can just queue yourself but both should feel rewarding. They are working on balancing that.

 

You are assuming you have any idea how many components you need to get a Gear Piece. You don't.

 

I'll go off what they mentioned in stream as opposed to your deliberate belligerence.

[Aowin]

So in watching the livestream, raiders will get unassembled tokens (those doing uprisings and fps, chapters do not)

This would be as you put it, an alternative path for raiders. So I am assuming you think this undermines the entire point of the system making things level across the board and not rewarding those who do the tougher content getting gear quicker.

 

Or since you play pvp and that was given an alternative route as well , more the issue you meant when you were speaking for the entire playerbase on fairness? PVP having the fastest route (Assuming this is the case) is acceptable, just not raiders?

 

Raiders will get one or two unassembled gear pieces on the last boss as well as command tokens. All content provides command tokens, which are legacy-wide.

 

What I was stating previous was players wanting a system that would invalidate GC. This does not invalidate GC, but merely provides more certainty in the system. We can still get gear from GC, but this gives more of a determined path to specific pieces of gear. We don't know how long the gearing process will take as it depends entirely on how many command tokens, and for PvP command components and tokens, are needed to obtain set piece gear. As long as gearing isn't as ridiculously fast as it was in 4.0, which does not appear to be the case, BioWare seems to have found a happy medium.

 

The issue with raiders getting gear faster than PvPers is that would have a much greater detriment on PvP due to the competitive nature of it. PvPers are unlikely to go into Master Mode Operations in droves and negatively impact the progression raiding scene. Thus, it makes sense that PvPers have a more rapid approach for gear.

[Jamtas]

Raiders will get one or two unassembled gear pieces on the last boss as well as command tokens. All content provides command tokens, which are legacy-wide.

 

What I was stating previous was players wanting a system that would invalidate GC. This does not invalidate GC, but merely provides more certainty in the system. We can still get gear from GC, but this gives more of a determined path to specific pieces of gear. We don't know how long the gearing process will take as it depends entirely on how many command tokens, and for PvP command components and tokens, are needed to obtain set piece gear. As long as gearing isn't as ridiculously fast as it was in 4.0, which does not appear to be the case, BioWare seems to have found a happy medium.

 

The issue with raiders getting gear faster than PvPers is that would have a much greater detriment on PvP due to the competitive nature of it. PvPers are unlikely to go into Master Mode Operations in droves and negatively impact the progression raiding scene. Thus, it makes sense that PvPers have a more rapid approach for gear.

 

so you don't think the changes constitutes an "alternative path" anymore since PVP is protected? with their own path?

Those that don't do operations or pvp have a tougher route for gear - and you seemed to be advocating against that in many earlier posts.

[Aowin]

What you are describing is the exact gearing method Raiders have been using the entire time. Grind the operation over and over again to get gear for entire team. And now they can also use anything they earn and buy from pvp vendor to supplement. Can even take raid gear and upgrade it at the pvp vendor.

 

You can't actually access the PvP vendor unless you have a specific valor. If it's 70+ valor required, that would likely prevent most progression raiders from taking a short cut and getting gear faster.

[Kurj]

The changes completely destroy GC as an end game gearing mechanism. We now basically have what we have before. Yes, it will slow down gear progression, but they could have done that before by adjusting the commendation costs or rewards in the old system. The GC RNG is useless now. Heck, they even said they are trying to figure out what the reward will be for casuals, because as of now, there is nothing for them to get unless they run ops or PVP. That is exactly how the system worked before.

[WhiteOsprey]

Raiders will get one or two unassembled gear pieces on the last boss as well as command tokens. All content provides command tokens, which are legacy-wide.

 

What I was stating previous was players wanting a system that would invalidate GC. This does not invalidate GC, but merely provides more certainty in the system. We can still get gear from GC, but this gives more of a determined path to specific pieces of gear. We don't know how long the gearing process will take as it depends entirely on how many command tokens, and for PvP command components and tokens, are needed to obtain set piece gear. As long as gearing isn't as ridiculously fast as it was in 4.0, which does not appear to be the case, BioWare seems to have found a happy medium.

 

The issue with raiders getting gear faster than PvPers is that would have a much greater detriment on PvP due to the competitive nature of it. PvPers are unlikely to go into Master Mode Operations in droves and negatively impact the progression raiding scene. Thus, it makes sense that PvPers have a more rapid approach for gear.

 

I just rewatched the section on ops bosses. The unassembled pieces drop off of each boss, with the final boss being the only one to have a specific piece drop. The others are random unassembled pieces.

[Aowin]

so you don't think the changes constitutes an "alternative path" anymore since PVP is protected? with their own path?

Those that don't do operations or pvp have a tougher route for gear - and you seemed to be advocating against that in many earlier posts.

 

I do not believe that this next phase is ideal or complete or ideal. Obviously, anyone who doesn't PvP or do Ops is left behind. I think that issue needs to be resolved and the team already said they are looking at ways of supplementing that.

 

I do believe inclusiveness is the goal. Part of what can undermine Ops and PvP is if the amount of command tokens required is a lot per gear piece. That would help prevent PvPers and raiders from getting gear far too fast and leaving everybody else behind.

[Quraswren]

Given the survey plus the changes just announced clearly RNG is not perfect for swtor.

 

No kidding. RNG isnt perfect for any game much less this one.

 

Just have to keep hammering away at bw to get it removed. Hopefully the survey will reach better ears than bw has and unlike bw maybe they can understand the message. RNG sucks and needs to be removed. I know thats what our guys put in the survey.

 

Changes are indeed coming. Too bad it was bw that implemented a more complicated gearing system to and already screwed up RNG system thast way more complicated then the crystals we were just using. Now the only thing bw needs to do to make this a really screwed up addition is specific pieces needs a whole lot of command tokens to get.

 

its like they really dont have a good grasp of things over there.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Quraswren

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I do not believe that this next phase is ideal or complete or ideal. Obviously, anyone who doesn't PvP or do Ops is left behind. I think that issue needs to be resolved and the team already said they are looking at ways of supplementing that.

 

I do believe inclusiveness is the goal. Part of what can undermine Ops and PvP is if the amount of command tokens required is a lot per gear piece. That would help prevent PvPers and raiders from getting gear far too fast and leaving everybody else behind.

 

No they're not because for the most part players who don't do either aren't doing to need the better gear.

[Aowin]

The changes completely destroy GC as an end game gearing mechanism. We now basically have what we have before. Yes, it will slow down gear progression, but they could have done that before by adjusting the commendation costs or rewards in the old system. The GC RNG is useless now. Heck, they even said they are trying to figure out what the reward will be for casuals, because as of now, there is nothing for them to get unless they run ops or PVP. That is exactly how the system worked before.

 

Command crates still exist. Crates still have a chance to drop gear, which means you could potentially still get it faster. That wasn't possible with 4.0 where casuals had no path to endgame gear. They still do, but PvPers and raiders have a guaranteed path. I still think more needs to be done for casuals in order to be more inclusive, but this is just phase one.

[americanaussie]

No they're not because for the most part players who don't do either aren't doing to need the better gear.

 

Yeah thry will need the gear for solo master mode levels. But they'll have to get it via rng. If thry want it more efficiently then they'll have to do ops or pvp.

[Dunderheid]

I do not believe that this next phase is ideal or complete or ideal. Obviously, anyone who doesn't PvP or do Ops is left behind. I think that issue needs to be resolved and the team already said they are looking at ways of supplementing that.

 

I do believe inclusiveness is the goal. Part of what can undermine Ops and PvP is if the amount of command tokens required is a lot per gear piece. That would help prevent PvPers and raiders from getting gear far too fast and leaving everybody else behind.

 

It is an improvement for PVP and raiders, who were the 2 groups being hit hardest by the changes. For the rest who don't PVP or raid, it could be extended to vet/master Uprisings. If you don't do those either, there is no urgency about getting BiS gear, or a real need for it.