you wanted feedback and comments, so here you go.

[DarthSpuds]

But Blizzard do RNG end game gearing and they said it was exciting.

 

Blizzard are also planning to introduce a "catch up" mechanic so that grinding AP (CXP equivalent) on Alts is made very, very significantly quicker. There's suggestions that the AP grind on Alts will be between 5 and 10 times quicker than on your "main".

 

All The Best

[Vaerah]

To be honest I have never had any issue getting BiS gear in WoW, neither in PvE (I was an hard core raider) nor PvP.

 

SWTOR has always been grindier when I played it (up to 2014) and with 5.0 it looks like it's only going to get much worse.

[RiVaN_]

If SWTOR wanted to make a progression system and a new gearing system they could modify what ESO is doing and it would be a much better progression system.

 

First the progression system.

These should ALWAYS focus on the player NOT the gear. Successful progression systems are about improving the quality of the character. Provide us with a progression system that allows us to buff our characters according to their role, PvE or PvP then Tank, Healer or DPS. Each command rank allows us to buff a stat by 1/10 of a % for example a healer, with 224 gear could have an alacrity rating of 8.5 with the first 5 ranks in galactic command I can put points into my alacrity and buff it up to 9. This system would allow players to buff the areas that they know, they as a player, need help in.

In ESO I know that I have resource management issues on my healer so I use the progression system to boost my resource pool, increase my rate of regeneration and improve the critical hit chance of my heals. This makes up for my weaknesses as a player and not be forced to buff aspects of game play that I don't have a problem with.

 

Now for gear, (lots and lots of text)

Make entry level gear, able to get a skilled group through a, Vet Mode anything, craftable. In ESO there are specific crafting station in specific zones that allow you to craft entry level, end game quality set bonus gear (there are a lot of other variables as well, but let's keep this post short shall we).

Since schematics are now an RNG drop they could use the crafting stations located on Odessan, Fleet and the starter world's able to craft generic, starter tier set bonus gear, but you have to already have the schematic for the 230 version.

 

Starter world crafts a DPS set bonus with generic buffs to Crit, health and damage per second. Very low level buffs, nothing overly significant, but helpful nonetheless.

 

Fleet Crafts generic Tank bonuses with generic buffs to Absorb, shield and health. Again low grade buffs, just enough to be helpful.

 

Obessan Crafts the Healing set bonus with general buffs to crit, resource and healing done. These low grade buffs should be just enough to give a helping hand in Vet mode.

 

Leave SM alone, but increase the rate of drop on schematics and give a currency that, once you have saved enough of it up, you can buy schematics and crafting supplies with it.

 

Vet mode would be a return to the old school loot drop system with token pieces coming from bosses, this would be the mid tier gear and bosses would have a chance to drop schematics for this tier of gear. Bosses would also drop the tokens that allow players to buy the Schematics and crafting mats.

 

Master mode is again the old school system, mixed with the above system, but drops the highest tier of gear. This gear is not craftable, but the pieces can be bought. All Legendary gear drops only as a token piece from the bosses

 

 

Each boss drops 1 tokens and completing an Operation rewards each team member with 3 tokens, Uprisings reward 2 tokens and Fps reward 1 token. Ops, uprisings and FP's are the only way to earn tokens Crafting mats cost 50 for blues, 75 for purples and the schematics for Vet tier gear are 100.

Purchasable items for Vet tier gear enhancements would be 200 and 250 for BiS mods, 300 for armorings and 350 for Set bonus Armorings.

Master mode items do not have purchasable Schematics and the Purple Mods and Enhancements and armorings would be 500 tokens, only the Purple set bonus Armoring is purchasable for 750 tokens. Gold, Legendary gear is ONLY a drop from the bosses or a super rare chance to get it from level 250+ command crates, but no set bonus on the Legendary gear in the crates.

 

 

Heroics and other activities that Solo players engage in would reward 1 token for completion of missions etc. PvP would reward 1 token per match unless you receive 10 or more medals than you would get 2 tokens. Each MVP vote received would be another token.

 

Galactic command will still come with crates and would still contain helpful gear, only add in pets, mounts and weapon tunings so that it is actually FUN to open a crate. Add in Decorations and sacks of credits too while you're at it.

 

 

 

For the LOVE OF PETE make the progression system about the character and put the gear on the bosses and in the playable content as a reward for playing the content provided!

Edited December 9, 2016 by RiVaN_

[blkdmnd]

Background: Played Asheron's Call, DAOC, Vanguard, LOTRO, WoW and a few others. Started SWTOR at release and got one character to 50, another to 40s. Had to take time off do to real life stuff. Came back full time around 2013. Until May of 2015, did not really do any raiding at all, since 4+ years of being a MT and raid leader in WoW burned me out. I played SWTOR just for the social and solo fun aspect. Since coming back I have 15+ characters at 65, completed all story lines (many multiple times) with almost legendary completion of DvL (dang HM FPs). I can play Friday and Saturday nights, my time is limited by real life, so I guess you would call me a focused casual player.

 

My guild has a progression group that runs on one weekend night for a few hours. I quite often sub for them, but those nights are not progression nights, just running HM OPs (or other stuff) so we can have fun. In all those runs, I was able to get enough 220 and 224 set and non-set gear to allow me to use different characters depending on the groups needs for a given night (fill in as healer, melee or range DPS). The great part was that if I needed a particular set piece, quite often we would go run the OP/Boss that had the drop and I could slowly progress. That last sentence is the essense of carrot/stick with a known outcome. A goal could be met via doing a known quantity and then resulting in a known outcome (assuming we completed it ).

 

I also ran lots and lots of SM and HM PUG OPS. Since I had gear and knowledge from our guild runs, I felt comfortable running PUG groups.

 

This same goes for many people in our guild. We also run fun nights 1-2 times a week where we'll go do SM/HM and other stuff, to teach people not in the raid group(s) about content and to just have fun.

 

Our guild is specifically based around non-elitism, so just because we have a progression group, does not mean they are a bunch or elitists jerks, far from it. Anyone is welcome to join, all they need to do sign up on the website and tell us about themselves, we don't go spamming fleet just to invite people.

 

I see all of this as the essence of MMOs and love it. One of the great things about SWTOR is you can play in groups and solo and have fun. Up until now you basically knew a path on how to progress gear-wise, be it via raids, or just doing content to get crystals.

 

I like the idea of GC, allow everyone to slowly progress towards the best gear, whether it is actually needed or not. My issue is that there is no path to move down to get said gear, just grind and hope. This is not carrot/stick, this is carrot/dice. To top it off the system is working in opposition to one of the best parts of SWTOR, being able to play tons of ALTs. SWTOR had this great thing going, where gear was not the end goal, IMO, it was just a means to get to the end goal (whatever that is for any particular person), with many intermediate steps you could use to move forward (crystals for tiers of gear was great).

 

At least in other games I played that had the RNG element, it was usually based on killing a specific MOB a million times and hoping for the drop. You knew what dropped, just not when it would drop. This new system is different, it's kill a million random stuff (whether it be PVP, PVE, GSF) and hope something drops and it is useful to you. That is a huge difference.

 

I don't know what the answer is, I just know I don't want to play a game that is reduced to gambling for loot. I may have progressed slowly before, but at least I knew where I was going and could plot my way there. Not the case anymore.