5.0 Pro and Con (as perceived by me and inhabitants of the forums) and how to fix

[Hichitsuki-hime]

Well then. Welcome everyone to thread #8 by your truly.

I will try to talk about both good and bad things brought to us by BioWare in 5.0 of SW:TOR KOTET.

Let's start with the good things. What are those? well... let's see:

1. KOTET story (well, the chapters were very engaging the first time that's for sure... oh that reminds me, i should go and finish them:D)

2. GC as the general idea and i'm not the only one to think so, for example:

GC has the possibility to be good and interesting for all. Thats not a bad thing.

3. All those people who previously couldn't obtain BiS gear cause of such and such reasons (lack of time, lack of skill, lack of group, lack of interest, bad timezone and etc) now can eventually get it;

4. You can literally do whatever you want and still get some points towards your next gear box.

5. Has potential to be inclusive not only for raiders and pvpers but for new players as well.

 

And now it's time for the bad things.

1. Lack of content to go along with the CXP grind and the huge terror-inducing size of the said grind

Whoever thought RNG was some kind of Godsend to swtor was sadly mistake.

Combine that with no reason to run alts.

Massive grind just to see a "chance" at gear.

Doing most of that grind with extremely old content.

and all while any of those are terrible. Toss in RNG gearing crates and well the whole thing just stinks.

It's going to back fire on them. People are going to start to experience the grind/rng and give up. The only people that will be left are the few that will be able to stomach it or only play one character.

They are alienating a good % of their population. And no, it is not top tier players only. It's all levels from casuals to top tier, and frankly I find it odd (trying to be nice) that there is anyone that does not see this.

if you are doing solo content especially it starts taking hours between each new command crate pretty darn quickly. its a little faster if you can grind uprisings or whatnot, but we are still talking a gap that will ONLY get bigger. the expansion dropped a week ago for early acess and we already starting to see the gap. the gap will NOT get smaller. it will get WIDER. and newcomers or casuals? are SoL. because grind is all there is.

the Command Crates RNG system means a person can get a full set of the best Tier 1 gear in the first 15 levels of GC, another might not see any piece of it before entering Tier 2. They have enabled the operations path the fastest way to grind up the levels of galactic command, but your risk by doing operations to get tokens for CXP is not the reward v risk model.

2. here it comes. the thing most people certainly do NOT appreciate about 5.0 - change in gearing system. it now depends on... *drum-roll*.... RNG.

So after watching last night producers livestream i started to wonder about this what they said there - apparently Bioware like randomness when you play game and get rewards.

So i thought why not make Ben and other Bioware staff salary starting from next year each month as random surprise?

I think its quite EXCITING to work like this dont you think?

Its like christmas every month!

GC has potential to benefit all but RNG does not do that as part of gearing in GC.

Letting any gamer do whatever content they want for gear is pretty good but it's the RNG factor that is FUBAR. Stains the entire potential of GC.

The Command Crates has the potential to be a good system. The ability to get decent gear (or BIS even) from pure chance is a benefit, this allows those who do not do operations a chance of getting the great gear in the game plus a lot of other goodies, this is commendable. But, the best gear in the game should and always come from the performing the highest risk activities, I.E. Veteran (Hard Mode) and Master (Nightmare) Operations.

3. no catch up mechanic for new players and alt characters

this system makes it IMPOSSIBLE for them to catch up. prior to that - it was actually more inclusive, because no matter when you started playing, you could catch up and be on par with veterans. now? thanks to the time consuming grind that you CANNOT circumvent? new players will never. EVER catch up. casual players have no chance. this system is the exact opposite of inclusive.

4. no control on what gear you get. you might get set-bonus piece. but chances are it's not a piece you need.

Once I hit rank 50 with only two set bonus pieces I realized that my chances of getting a complete tier 1 set was slim to none. I wouldn't be shocked if I never got a complete set of any tier. Good thing I don't take this game seriously anymore. Lmao

Basically its not going to be possible to rely on GC crates to gear.

 

5. CXP boost on cartel market. While some people use it, we see it being called a scam quite a lot:D

Bottom line - the system is done only for the sake of artificially extending subscription times, and for BW to sell boosters for CXP. It serves absolutely nobody, not raiders and sure as hell not casuals, and is deliberately designed to hinder their progress in all ways possible. Bioware showed no desire to ease this ******** on us, as their instant-nerf illustrated. I wish they would be just as quick with bug-fixing. As such, system should be KILLED WITH *********** FIRE. And all the people white-knighting this system - how much are you guys getting paid?

6. lack of understanding / knowledge about what kind of time people need to invest in their gear.

this post really summed up pretty well:

1.2 : 1 day doing flashpoints the entire day (from 1.0 to 1.2, I was doing things solo and didn't gear up any toons.

This time is what it took me once I decided to gear it up)

2.0 : 2 weeks doing TfB and S&V with a raid group and pugging a bit with alts.

3.0 : 2 weeks between my main raid group and pugging with alts.

4.0 : 1 week, ran quite a few operations that first week and I got my full set.

5.0 : I don't have a full set bonus on 1 toon yet, my best is 4/7 after 70 ranks and spending a lot more time and effort to get that set piece than for any other expansions.

7. aaand of course there is also lack of communication, which admittedly is a ongoing trend:D:D but it does make people more annoyed than they already are.

 

And all that brings to my next point. (yes there is actually another one except make another RNG thread for forum PvP lol)

We're having a patch today. We're promised some rise in CXP gains from some stuff, such as uprisings (boring as they may be, but oh well lol). So who knows MAYBE things might start looking better at least on the account of how long you need to grind. But. In my opinion, and i'm sure i'm not the only one to provide such ideas / suggestions / etc is this:

 

honestly, the idea behind Galactic Command is pretty good. ...... but the thing that is not is lack of new content to go with it. as far as RNG and drops. i feel like this would fix it best:

---> instead of set bonus drop for a specific spec, let it be an unassembled token, level of token would be based on your galactic command rank.

---> let Set Pieces drop in HM & NiM ops again.

---> have PvP award you tokens that u can also turn in based on on your tier of galactic command, like comms used to be. for 2 tokens you can choose a belt or bracer, for 3, 4, 5 - something else and so on

 

just a thought really. i think it might work, not too sure though.... not that BW is gonna listen though. but i thought i'd throw it out there lol:D:D

 

now that i've said can we have a constructive discussion before it derails into post-count fluff? :D:D