Changes to Gearing through Galactic Command

[Sargrith]

1) No they are not. losing 30+ power for a minor increase to crit/alac per piece is not an improvement.

 

2) At launch you did not get a free set of Tionesse gear. that only came later. At launch we had to get our Tionesse gear from HM FP's, or do SM Operations in crafted purple gear.

 

3) you can do all of the content in the 220, 224 gear we already have, so 230 gear for Story is meaningless and the 224's will work until you get 230 purple's.

 

1). Your not right. Take set pieces away and every green piece you get is better then then 220 purple. Everyone blue way better. Even talking set pieces the enchant is always an upgrade green or blue. Its minor but it is an upgrade. And again I agree who wants greens and blues? Not me.

 

2) Yes at launch...well at launch with 5.0 they didn't give away 230 sets ether, but if they do now they can fix their mess and move on.

 

3) Not everyone has 220 and 224 gear. PvPer don't they have 208. New players don't. People who never ran ops don't. So some small fraction does....so now we lock people out because they didn't get in soon enough? That doesn't work and never will. Give away the 230 sets, call it a bad mistake and move on. Don't try and give mouth to mouth to a dead horse. Its dead, move on.

[Sargrith]

230 greens and blues are worse than 220 set bonus armor: Fact. 230 green and blue mods are worse than 220 non lettered mods: Fact. 230 green and blues are very slightly better than 220 piece. Fact. In my book 2 downgrades (armor and mod) and 1 very slight upgrade (enhancement) is overall a worse piece of gear.

 

Only for set pieces. For non-set pieces, Main hand, off hand, implants, ear, and relics...green 228 are better then 220. Also one of the set pieces the armoring is better because you only need 6 to have a complete set. So thats 8 pieces that are better outright and 6 that only get enchantment improvement if they have an enchantment, bracers and belt do not. So....in general 228 greens and certainly 230 blues are better.

 

I don't want either trust me. I don't.

[Toraak]

Only for set pieces. For non-set pieces, Main hand, off hand, implants, ear, and relics...green 228 are better then 220. Also one of the set pieces the armoring is better because you only need 6 to have a complete set. So thats 8 pieces that are better outright and 6 that only get enchantment improvement if they have an enchantment, bracers and belt do not. So....in general 228 greens and certainly 230 blues are better.

 

I don't want either trust me. I don't.

 

Actually no. earpieces, and implants the 220's are better. You lose to much power for the 228's to be an upgrade. Fact Artificat 220' token pieces are just plain better then the 228 green, and blue's. They are trash to be disintegrated nothing more.

 

I'll give it to you that if you had the Comm vendor earpiece, implants etc that the 228's are better. However the comm gear has always been garbage, so when people speak of 220's normally they speak of 220 token pieces.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Toraak

[StarkHelsing]

Snip

 

I certainly wouldn't mind at all if OPs gave drops, in fact i've been rallying for this in other threads. Having the Ops/Flashpoints drop their original loot works fine and dandy for me. I still think the current system wants editing however, so even if OPs and FPs did drop their gear, they would also be -unintentionally- levelling up their galactic command rank. For which they get an added bonus with crates.

 

Galactic Command payouts for activities still need to be changed as does the drop rates of purples to increase with player intervention - aka levelling. Raiders get their tokens and don't have to rely on Galactic Command. But I'm still guessing some will complain regardless. Casuals and co can use Galactic Command and still get their BiS gear and have it alt friendly with adjustments to the system.

 

The issue being if this happened Raiders will get their gear by raiding and some will likely complain that a 'casual' who grinded to Command Rank 300 is getting the same gear as them and are able to pass on sets to their alts if their was a legacy shared command stash. Because you know, there's always one.

Edited December 14, 2016 by StarkHelsing

[DanNV]

So the only one you don't like is the pvp one which I'm going to assume is what you mostly do, yes? Tell me, how is this going to add more 'cheating' to a system where people already cheat regardless? Considering that there will be other activities which to some would be much more rewarding and would fit their play style?

 

Already this system allows people to simply join in pvp and simply die, because the exp they gain from it is worth more than anything else. Are you actually saying that forcing people to actually 'participate and try to win' makes the current pvp scenario worse and will encourage cheating where people were already cheating in pvp beforehand? What?

 

Ummm... No. I don't like the majority of your suggestions. I just pulled out a couple examples. And, no I don't like PvP in the slightest. The GC system just makes it worse.

 

I am saying tying rewards to winning hurts PvP participation. We have historical evidence in the game to prove it. Yes, I am saying tying rewards to winning encourages cheating and that getting worse also hurts participation. We also have historical evidence in this game to prove that.

[DanNV]

What if, the gain of CXP would be legacy wide - all your characters would contribute to the xp gain like this: i do a fp on my tank I get 200, I do a wz on my healer I get 600, I do an ops on my dps I get 1000 or so...those CXP all add up at a legacy level. Your legacy gets a GC level and then all the toons that are level 70 or have participated in that level up get a crate..ALL of them!

 

This still leaves the entire RNG gearing problem. It won't fix the end game player problems. (Making GC legacy wide would be a good thing, but it doesn't fix the core problems.)

[Sargrith]

Actually no. earpieces, and implants the 220's are better. You lose to much power for the 228's to be an upgrade. Fact Artificat 220' token pieces are just plain better then the 228 green, and blue's. They are trash to be disintegrated nothing more.

 

I'll give it to you that if you had the Comm vendor earpiece, implants etc that the 228's are better. However the comm gear has always been garbage, so when people speak of 220's normally they speak of 220 token pieces.

 

In the end we're arguing for the sake of arguing. It doesn't matter. The system they created is broken. So broken people aren't playing the game anymore they are seeking to play the system. Farm teams, PvP afk'ers, snowballing, farming golds, they stopped playing the game. The story is nothing but background noice, the uprisings an after thought, the game isn't being played any more. All because the system they made has become the challange. They need to remove the roadblock to enjoying the game and allow us to get back to playing it. The easiest, most efficient way to do that is to remove the new system completely. Give away 230 set gear to everyone. Just give it away. Then add in tokens you collect from PvP, Ops, FPS. Uprisings, heroics, story chapters, whatever that you can use to further upgrade your gear. Do that and people will start playing the game once more.

[DanNV]

I'm going to say this right here and now 'tough *******, ' it's not going anywhere. You're going to need to grind. The ideas I put in place actually make grinding less tedious and more forgiving. Having it legacy wide means you don't need to do it on every alt. Having the stash legacy wide means you can pass duplicates to alts. Having resting experience means you can level up your command level at a quicker rate. Having every activity drop a certain amount of DvL tokens means you can gear up even more efficiently ONTOP of the crates you get.

 

No, actually I won't. I'll give my money to someone else.

 

And no, your suggestions don't fix the problems. As long as end game gearing is RNG based and getting tiers of gear is tied to the grind of GC, the problem isn't fixed.

 

You're welcome to like it, have at. I don't and I won't continue to pay for it. Based on the fact we are about to have the second stream since the expansion, I believe i have a lot of company in not paying for it and even BW has figured that out.

[Ryenke]

I'm going to say this right here and now 'tough *******, ' it's not going anywhere. You're going to need to grind. The ideas I put in place actually make grinding less tedious and more forgiving. Having it legacy wide means you don't need to do it on every alt. Having the stash legacy wide means you can pass duplicates to alts. Having resting experience means you can level up your command level at a quicker rate. Having every activity drop a certain amount of DvL tokens means you can gear up even more efficiently ONTOP of the crates you get.

 

I'm afraid that 'tough *******, ' is exactly what we think BW is telling us. And for many, the response is 'tough *******, I guess I just unsub'.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Ryenke

[StarkHelsing]

Ummm... No. I don't like the majority of your suggestions. I just pulled out a couple examples. And, no I don't like PvP in the slightest. The GC system just makes it worse.

 

I am saying tying rewards to winning hurts PvP participation. We have historical evidence in the game to prove it. Yes, I am saying tying rewards to winning encourages cheating and that getting worse also hurts participation. We also have historical evidence in this game to prove that.

 

Yes, we have a history of that. We have a history of people cheating in everything when it comes to gain and trying to have the advantage over another. That's life. Having a defence of 'it will encourage cheating' has no real weight behind it because people cheat in everything, games, sports, relationships, etc. That's just how the human mind works.

 

People will always cheat regardless of the system in place.

[StarkHelsing]

I'm afraid that 'tough *******, ' is exactly what we think BW is telling us. And for many, the response is 'tough *******, I guess I just unsub'.

 

You're not wrong, hence me saying it. It's not going to go anywhere. So solutions need to be thought up in how to fix the system. A lot of people are, most however are just stomping their feet and screaming 'revert it back' when they should know the chances of them doing that are extremely slim. They're sadly not helping the situation.

 

We either meet them halfway or it's yeah 'tough *******.

Edited December 14, 2016 by StarkHelsing

[DawnAskham]

I'm afraid that 'tough *******, ' is exactly what we think BW is telling us. And for many, the response is 'tough *******, I guess I just unsub'.

 

Pretty much spot on - it is their game and they can damn well do what they please with it, but if I don't like it, I damn well won't pay for it.

[Toraak]

In the end we're arguing for the sake of arguing. It doesn't matter. The system they created is broken. So broken people aren't playing the game anymore they are seeking to play the system. Farm teams, PvP afk'ers, snowballing, farming golds, they stopped playing the game. The story is nothing but background noice, the uprisings an after thought, the game isn't being played any more. All because the system they made has become the challange. They need to remove the roadblock to enjoying the game and allow us to get back to playing it. The easiest, most efficient way to do that is to remove the new system completely. Give away 230 set gear to everyone. Just give it away. Then add in tokens you collect from PvP, Ops, FPS. Uprisings, heroics, story chapters, whatever that you can use to further upgrade your gear. Do that and people will start playing the game once more.

 

I disagree with you however. The system itself isn't the problem.

 

1) Fact 4.0 gearing to 224's was to easy. This system slows it down. That is good.

 

2) Fact: the reason people are having an issue with the RNG is because people aren't getting Set bonus pieces from it for Operations, or PvP. By removing green and blue gear. This would make it a lot easier for people to get the set pieces even with it being RNG.

 

3) Swtor like all MMO's needs a grind. The command system does that nicely. (tho they do need to increases what certain activities give out, such as operations). If you look at all of the MMO's out there they all have grinds, so if your not willing to do any grinding, you are playing the wrong genre.

 

The only real problem is that we're getting useless garbage almost every bos by getting the green, and blue gear. remove that and only have artifact/Legendary gear sets in the crates it'll fix a lot of the issues this system has.

[Voblat]

I have another concern about this system that I'd like to see clarified.

 

What happens when you up levels to 75 at the next expansion?

 

You add more GC levels that work the same?

 

Suddenly, a new 70 has to do 400 levels or whatever to get gear to do end game stuff, be it PvP or group content, because the stuff they get along the way to 400 will be largely obsolete.

 

Or you reset everyone and start 0 to 300 again. And all those hours are wiped out. Gear being made obsolete is part of the game, but 300 hundred hours + of playtime to get gear that is then made obsolete? And the answer is to start again grinding 5 year old content?

 

Have you even thought of how to build on this system at all?

[DawnAskham]

I disagree with you however. The system itself isn't the problem.

 

1) Fact 4.0 gearing to 224's was to easy. This system slows it down. That is good.

 

2) Fact: the reason people are having an issue with the RNG is because people aren't getting Set bonus pieces from it for Operations, or PvP. By removing green and blue gear. This would make it a lot easier for people to get the set pieces even with it being RNG.

 

3) Swtor like all MMO's needs a grind. The command system does that nicely. (tho they do need to increases what certain activities give out, such as operations). If you look at all of the MMO's out there they all have grinds, so if your not willing to do any grinding, you are playing the wrong genre.

 

The only real problem is that we're getting useless garbage almost every bos by getting the green, and blue gear. remove that and only have artifact/Legendary gear sets in the crates it'll fix a lot of the issues this system has.

 

There are a lot of problems with the system and simply removing some of the trash doesn't solve them.

 

The most glaring issue is that progressively difficult content - content which is tuned based on stats which are driven by gear - does not reward progressively better gear.

 

Similar to that is the issue that the system doesn't actually reward playing the game, it rewards mindless grinding.

 

But hey, I guess you are one of those 'everyone gets a trophy' types and feel awarding a chance at better gear based on who can spend the most time farming trash, crashing ships into asteroids, running around half afk in warzones, or tossing snowballs makes sense.

 

Otherwise, yes gearing in 4.0 was way too fast (not the players fault), though returning it to something much more akin to 1.0, 2.0, 3,0 would have been much, much better than GC.

 

And yes MMOs need time sinks / grinds / treadmills - for most that seems to be continued release of new content tuned a bit higher than the last content with multiple difficulties as well, which keeps players engaged as they master new challenges, gear up, and move on to more difficult content.

 

Simply put, creating ongoing progression content creates its own time sinks / grinds / retention without artificial grinds and RNG - but sadly that requires investing in the game, so we get the cheap way out - stick everything inside an RNG box gated by a time grind to mask the lack of content.

Edited December 14, 2016 by DawnAskham

[Toraak]

There are a lot of problems with the system and simply removing some of the trash doesn't solve them.

 

The most glaring issue is that progressively difficult content - content which is tuned based on stats which are driven by gear - does not reward progressively better gear.

 

Similar to that is the issue that the system doesn't actually reward playing the game, it rewards mindless grinding.

 

But hey, I guess you are one of those 'everyone gets a trophy' types and feel awarding a chance at better gear based on who can spend the most time farming trash, crashing ships into asteroids, running around half afk in warzones, or tossing snowballs makes sense.

 

Otherwise, yes gearing in 4.0 was way too fast (not the players fault), though returning it to something much more akin to 1.0, 2.0, 3,0 would have been much, much better than GC.

 

And yes MMOs need time sinks / grinds / treadmills - for most that seems to be continued release of new content tuned a bit higher than the last content with multiple difficulties as well, which keeps players engaged as they master new challenges, gear up, and move on to more difficult content.

 

Simply put, creating ongoing progression content creates its own time sinks / grinds / retention without RNG - but sadly that requires investing in the game, so we get the cheap way out - stick everything inside an RNG box gated by a time grind.

 

I agree they definitely need more CXP for harder content. Personally I think HM/NiM content should get Far more CXP then PvP due to the Time it takes, lockouts per week, and that it is actually difficult, where you can basically suck at PvP get 8 medals rinse, and repeat all day long every day.

[ZeroTypeR]

Forgot to give Feedback:

 

I'd just like some Green mod vendors for lv 70, max gear isn't something I feel I need immediately. I also feel that 20 cxp for side-quests is WAY too low, and should be upped to anywhere between 100 - 200 cxp per quest.

Edited December 14, 2016 by ZeroTypeR

[Psychopyro]

Great. Now, do they require you to pay a monthly sub for that? No.

 

They have a monthly sub that gives 100 crystals/day for 21 days. Random character crystals, which you can grind in game, run at 80 crystals randomly distributed across characters. So every single day for your sub, you at least get something. So at least you will get 26 character RNG distributions for that.

 

This is where what they are doing here falls down. In GoH, if you want to grind, you can and NOT PAY A SINGLE CENT FOR THE GAME. SWTOR is requiring you to pay $15/month for a F2P grind. In fact, in this game if you stay F2P you won't be exposed to that grind. Better yet, you won't have access to the content that requires that grind. So you are doing a terrible job monetizing the F2P players.

 

Stop adding requirements... You asked me what game had RNG and Grind... I gave you one... It's where they got the idea that RNG was "Exciting"...

 

And it would not be the least bit shocking if they did a monthly/daily sub type for crystals in that game as some point. There are a couple other games that do that already on mobile.

[DanNV]

Stop adding requirements... You asked me what game had RNG and Grind... I gave you one... It's where they got the idea that RNG was "Exciting"...

 

And it would not be the least bit shocking if they did a monthly/daily sub type for crystals in that game as some point. There are a couple other games that do that already on mobile.

 

Yes, it does that, and I stopped playing it months ago.

[LudhaninRolgge]

RNG needs to go. But since you don't really want to listen to your community when it clearly disagrees with your choice and it most likely won't go I'll try to offer some ideas that could ease the pain.

 

We need choice ! Badly ! The implant I just got in my crate might be nice, but what if I don't want accuracy but alacrity ? I'm stuck with an accuracy piece I won't use because my gear is balanced in another way. Give us a way to choose what kind of ear piece, implant and relic we receive.

 

It has already been said countless of time, but harder content needs to give more CXP, like way more. The time put into a NiM or even HM ops is not worth it for the meager amount of CXP it gives. And once again it makes raiding seem like a subpar part of the game. You spent money to design those raids, don't you want us to do them ? Make it attractive. Unless it won't match with your vision of the game and screw with your precious metric you'll show to EA.

 

Anyway, you tried to fix something that was not broken. The reason is obvious and truly denote a lack of consideration for your community. Maybe if you didn't disappointed it so much the game would have lived to its expectancies.

 

We also need a way to gear for off-specs. As it is now, you can't choose and it disastrous for some people that played 2 roles with the same character.

Edited December 14, 2016 by LudhaninRolgge

[Sargrith]

I disagree with you however. The system itself isn't the problem.

 

1) Fact 4.0 gearing to 224's was to easy. This system slows it down. That is good.

 

2) Fact: the reason people are having an issue with the RNG is because people aren't getting Set bonus pieces from it for Operations, or PvP. By removing green and blue gear. This would make it a lot easier for people to get the set pieces even with it being RNG.

 

3) Swtor like all MMO's needs a grind. The command system does that nicely. (tho they do need to increases what certain activities give out, such as operations). If you look at all of the MMO's out there they all have grinds, so if your not willing to do any grinding, you are playing the wrong genre.

 

The only real problem is that we're getting useless garbage almost every bos by getting the green, and blue gear. remove that and only have artifact/Legendary gear sets in the crates it'll fix a lot of the issues this system has.

 

No, you are totally missing the issues.

 

Why are people now grinding and farming? Why are people now doing everything but actually playing the game? They are looking for ways to game this broken system is why. The game is no longer the point beating the system has become the players' goal. That turns everything else to junk. New story, who cares it doesn't help beat the system. New uprisings, who cares doesn't help beat the system. PvP gear removed, who cares we need to beat the system so we will now AFK in battlegrounds....great that makes it so much more fun.

 

The system is the root issue. Without it being removed all else fails. Remove the broken system and the game can once again live. The story can matter, the uprising can be fun, anyone can hop in a PvP match who wants to play PvP and enjoy. No one will be doing content they don't want to just to fight the system, they will be doing what they want to enjoy the game.

 

Green and Blue gear being removed can't happen and isn't enough of a fix. How do you compensate the guy with command rank 50 who only got greens and blues? He has to kill 10 times as much for his next box as the new 70 does....that isn't fair to him at all. But give everyone 230 purple set gear and now everyone can be happy, Sure the guy who did the grind and got nothing isn't getting anything special here either but at least he can stop grinding. Now can he can start collecting tokens doing the part of the game he likes and purchase the upgrades he wants.

 

Drop this broken system. Give everyone a fully 230 set with set pieces on hitting 70. Have everything you do grant tokens that allow you to eventually purchase the gear you want from that point on.

 

Why build the game to grind. People come here to experience a different kind of game, not WoW in space. The grind being something that takes a while would be collecting tokens and buying your upgrades with them. Not random chance boxes that just frustrate and waste your time. Sure if all you do is solo content it will take you a long time to get all the upgrades. But its there if you want to. And if your a HM/NiM raider your grind will be much slower but you need it to be so you can do the content you enjoy doing.

[MollyDresden]

Please offer more ways for solo CXP leveling that don't feel like an endless slog. I've got characters who are like Command Level 3 or 4 and already CXP gains for the solo stuff I do is incredibly dull and tedious. Better options for mostly-solo players, please.

[Tsillah]

The issue being if this happened Raiders will get their gear by raiding and some will likely complain that a 'casual' who grinded to Command Rank 300 is getting the same gear as them and are able to pass on sets to their alts if their was a legacy shared command stash. Because you know, there's always one.

 

Well that is the current situation already and of course as you say there will always be someone who's unhappy. Now going by the viewpoint that BWA are now promising change because too many people are having a problem, I think we can state that the current situation is about more than one or two.

 

If along my suggestions there are one or two not happy with it, that would be an extremely good result. What I'm trying to do is look at all the grievances and looking for a solution that allows a lot more people to be happy at the same time without throwing GC out the window, because GC is too big a set up to just throw out now. I get that.

 

So I am going for a wider spread but have no illusions everybody will be happy. That's not an achievable goal.

 

The difference between raiders and casuals who use one skill (to use an extreme, not all casuals are like this of course) is too big to bridge with one system. I think that's the core of it. Also what should make GC fun or exciting is negated by the fact that it's also the endgearing system and that's why I am a proponent of giving progression raiders their own system to gain endgame gear minus the legendary gear (that way GC stays relevant but is a bonus not a necessity as raiders perceive raid gear). Of course raiders will still gain GC just not as much from ops and if they're bored with raiding or wanna do something in between they still have GC to keep em busy and potentially drop endgame gear as well. That way the drop rates don't have to be changed in GC gearboxes either as they are a supplement, a bonus. Of course for non ops content the GC rate should be faster to keep it fun for those who don't do ops.

 

Then if tier 1 endgame gear is relatively quick to get, tier 2 slower and tier 3 even slower in the progression system, there is still not a progression that is too quick like the priority system in 4.0

 

To me it's a win-win situation that way.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Tsillah

[Captain_Zone]

EA is bleeding subs. That's the ONLY reason they're even making an attempt to listen to the community.

[IamMarcel]

The gear grind now is unsatisfactory, we all can't spend all day and night playing to happen on something we can use. I agree with a previous comment of keeping gear drops in the Ops. I also am sick of undergeared, non mechanic players able to Q thru GF for the harder FP's. It chasing the endgames out of there. So much GF content is not completed now due to too many inexperienced player able to Q. Its frustrated the endgamers to the point they don't want to run them.

My subs up next month.. will not be resubbing, I'll likely join the rest of my guild who have moved to FF14.