December Producer Livestream Wrap-up

[Zhiroc]

Here's how you gear up alts. Run operations on your main, get unassembled drops. Use tokens from any character + unassembled pieces, take them to vendor, get piece. Pull armor / mod / enh from that piece, put it in a legacy gear piece, send to alt.

 

Maybe. It's unclear if you can trade in an unassembled gear piece with a token to buy gear for any advanced class or just your own. The statement was (paraphrased) "that they want the character who gets the gear to have played the op". Eric, if you're reading this, maybe you could clarify. Because this was how we geared alts (sometimes) pre-5.0. My Sage Seer (for example) would get the gear token, and go buy a Sentinel piece of gear with Sentinel set-bonuses.

 

Also, I have a question about how "trading in gear" for the PvP path will work. Because I very much doubt that anyone uses the set-pieces directly. They yank the mods out of it, and put them into the gear they are using, and usually not even putting all three into the same piece of gear.

[killershrike]

So in the end , they arent going to change the CXP reward ? Say for exemple how much you get from Heroic or Flashpoint or re-doing Kotfe and Kotet chapter ?

 

Not yet.

But I hope that they're doing a balance pass for CXP gains on all content in the near future, it's sorely needed.

Preferably even with differentiation within the content categories (i.e. different rewards for each FP / OP etc. , based on difficulty and /or average completion time or something similar).

[SerraShar]

Not yet.

But I hope that they're doing a balance pass for CXP gains on all content in the near future, it's sorely needed.

Preferably even with differentiation within the content categories (i.e. different rewards for each FP / OP etc. , based on difficulty and /or average completion time or something similar).

 

Yeah , I was surprised they gave same reward for every heroic (at least I think) . When some are longer , and others are shorters . Same with flashpoints . Some are very long to do .

[Andryah]

Adding a form of gearing to pvp and ops specifically is something people have been quite vocal about. And they are adding it.

 

Correct me if I am wrong here.. but I believe most of the vocal appeals for a return to gearing through OPs and PvP was to make it a parallel path to grinding crates. That is NOT what they did here.

 

Now you will have to grind for both... probably to extremes... but you do now have some certainty as to what you have to do to get specific items.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Andryah

[Lazaros_Chatzi]

Well.... I still would have liked a legacy wide GCP to be added too. Still these changes are an improvemnt from the current system. And a quick question, they did say that we will be able to upgrade the tier gear int T2 and T3 eventually, right? Did I understood that correctly? Edited December 16, 2016 by Lazaros_Chatzi

[DarthSpuds]

Casual players don't need nim gear a

 

It has nothing to do with "need".

 

It has everything to do with all players, whatever their playstyle, being treated as equally valuable customers.

 

All The Best

[Mevan]

It's getting to a point now where I cannot believe you guys are simply incompetent anymore. Nobody could be this out of touch with their customers without actively trying to work against their interests.

[Ceinwyn]

• Turn in an Unassembled Gear piece along with Command Tokens (which come from Command Crates) to get that piece of gear.
  

 

I notice the plural. How many tokens are required per piece?

 

General Notes

• Command Tokens are legacy-wide.
  
• Command Tokens will be retroactively granted to each character based on their Command Rank when 5.1 goes live.

 

Good.

[Krazhez]

Correct me if I am wrong here.. but I believe most of the vocal appeals for a return to gearing through OPs and PvP was to make it a parallel path to grinding crates. That is NOT what they did here.

 

Very true, but I think it's a good stepping stone.

[JainiaDral]

Yeah , I was surprised they gave same reward for every heroic (at least I think) . When some are longer , and others are shorters . Same with flashpoints . Some are very long to do .

 

I checked out the solo versions of flashpoints after the change, and the reward on a bonus day was a mere 120 CXP. For the ungodly horrors of Blood Hunt. Or the really long Battle of Ilum.

 

As usual, solo players get the shaft.

 

Re-installed Guild Wars 2 last night, and was pleasantly surprised. Being rewarded feels really nice. Like you're appreciated. And you can throw snowballs at whatever you want

Edited December 15, 2016 by JainiaDral

[Christie_Swift]

Gear still drops randomly in crates. Ops are just a way to guarantee pieces you want.

 

So hope this is true. OPS/PvPs alienate casual players and not very friendly. I hope there is still a way to get "good" gear regardless of those two.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I notice the plural. How many tokens are required per piece?.

 

Exactly this - none of this system can be called beneficial until we know that.

 

If it's something stupid like 20 tokens it means you would need to do 20 levels of GC just to be able to cash in your unassembled gear piece.

 

That means for casual players it's pretty much still has **** as it was before as we are still forced to grind out stupid **** we don't want to do just to get gear we need to use for progression raiding.

 

I withhold judgement until those numbers come in.

[MetrotownSimon]

Hey folks,

In PvE

• Unassembled Gear pieces are a guaranteed drop from the last boss of each Operation, with specific drops on a boss (Ex: Soa dropping chest).
  
• Each other boss in an Operation has a chance to drop any token. Bosses that are later in an Operation have a higher chance then those early in the Op.
  
• Turn in an Unassembled Gear piece along with Command Tokens (which come from Command Crates) to get that piece of gear.
  

-eric

 

Could we please have some sort of support like this for people doing STORY -- lots of people are quite new and haven't even gotten through a fraction of story, much less reached KotFE.

[DarthZaul]

This is a big improvement. It's good for people who like both PVE and PVP, less so for people who only like one or the other. Alts will be completely viable again.

 

My only real problem with it is that the specific token on the last boss encourages last boss farming (like guilds do for conquest). Farming the last boss on all your alts isn't raiding. The tokens should be on the 3rd or 4th boss or something, some way of distributing tokens and CXP to encourage doing full raids instead of farming last bosses.

 

Another point, don't listen to the babies who say this is too confusing. They are wrong. Just like before all you need to know is the name of your class set e.g. eliminator for mercenary, its that simple. In fact to help them out why have 'eliminator's set bonus' why not just call it 'mercenary damage set bonus' and 'mercenary healing set bonus'.

Edited December 16, 2016 by DarthZaul

[SerraShar]

I checked out the solo versions of flashpoints after the change, and the reward on a bonus day was a mere 120 CXP. For the ungodly horrors of Blood Hunt. Or the really long Battle of Ilum.

 

As usual, solo players get the shaft.

 

Re-installed Guild Wars 2 last night, and was pleasantly surprised. Being rewarded feels really nice. Like you're appreciated. And you can throw snowballs at whatever you want

 

lol I would follow..but GW2 main story bore me to tears......

[Tessie]

The command tokens still won't encourage use of alts.

 

The problem is that playing an alt means you are refocusing on a lower tier's grind and taking time away from your main character's progress toward tier 3.

[Christie_Swift]

How can this be an improvement?

 

Originally, 1 event was equal to 1 gear directly.

Then , they added RNG and still 1 event was equal to 1 gear but was "RNG"

Now, you have to do "OPS/PVP" + Command Tokens (from crates) or at least TWO different events if you want ot have guaranteed gear. Is this an improvement or you guys have been given the finger and made to believe they "listen" to you? This is NOT a solution but more GRIND.

[AlCiao]

All I want to know is: Will we still get max-tier set bonus gear from command crates like we can now?

[DarthZaul]

All I want to know is: Will we still get max-tier set bonus gear from command crates like we can now?

 

Yes, the new system is in addition to the current system.

[btmart]

Suggestion: Give some love to Ears, Implants and Relics. Make only those tokens legacy bound. Or something that would work similarly. Or just make those items themselves legacy bound.

 

By the way, I absolutely love the proposed changes. Good job team!

[Blakinik]

Few questions from the live stream since I got confused on some comments:

 

From comments by Charles Boyd:

• Could you please explain to me what you meant about crafting being a 'route' to 'catch up' your alts on GCP? Sort of misleading since you nerfed the heck out of crafting to force GC.
  

 

In terms of the tokens, what was the game plan for this? First you state that the crystals and tokens were 'confusing' since you eliminated them YET now it is back to tokens again in an even more confusing manner? Please explain to me why the original removal wasn't a bit disingenuous.

[Jamtas]

Few questions from the live stream since I got confused on some comments:

 

From comments by Charles Boyd:

• Could you please explain to me what you meant about crafting being a 'route' to 'catch up' your alts on GCP? Sort of misleading since you nerfed the heck out of crafting to force GC.
  

 

In terms of the tokens, what was the game plan for this? First you state that the crystals and tokens were 'confusing' since you eliminated them YET now it is back to tokens again in an even more confusing manner? Please explain to me why the original removal wasn't a bit disingenuous.

 

Here's the deal:

 

4.0, they level synced each operation to make them all "relevant" to end game. The problem was now instead of 2 operations to farm the current gear, you now had 9 operations dropping the same level gear. They then compunded that error by making "priority operations to drop NiM equivalent gear in HM operations.

The result? End game gear incredibly easy to get and people were getting NiM equivalent gear running KP and EV HM both of which are easier than a FP like Blood Hunt.

(Let's just forget that during this same time they decided that NiM operations should only have a chance to drop NiM gear b/c they didn't want people getting NiM gear too quickly.)

 

So in 5.0, as BW does, they swung themselves to the opposite end of the pendulum since middle ground is so hard to reach. Now gearing would be slowed down. The problem is that slow down was complete RNG. Some got sets quickly, others went 40-50+ creates with no set pieces.

 

So their ultimate goal was to slow down gear progression which this new system still will do. The gearing of 4.0 was too easy and too quick. Pre 4.0 was probably a good apce, but they have built this GC system and are determined to find a way to make it work rather than scrapping it. That is why we now have an even more complex gearing system than we had previously. They had no intention of making it this complex, they just couldn't drop GC after a few weeks in an effort to find some sort of justification for spending time and resources in building it.

[JainiaDral]

lol I would follow..but GW2 main story bore me to tears......

 

Yeah, I can totally see that For me, it's kind of relaxing, unlike the last couple of SWTOR xpacs which were adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline all the time.

 

I'm probably not going to play for much more than a few days this time around, TBH. It's a pleasant diversion until the SWTOR bitterness fades away, and I have the mental wattage for Pillars of Eternity.

[HyperAxiom]

The new gearing system proposed is a little confusing and sounds a tad complicated but feels like a step in the right direction. I think. Something still feels iffy about it.

 

So, pre-5.0 was "Hey collect these, kills those, get that". Easy, simple. Do the content, get the gear.

 

Post 5.0 is now "Hey do these, collect these things, open those things, kill this, kill that, might get that, might not but with those and these together you can now get that, oh and with pvp you also get these which when you match with those and these other ones you will definitely get one of that"?

 

I'm going to let my sub expire as planned in early January. I'll check back in February to see how this is going and consider a re-sub based on feedback. I still think that even with these changes to the new gearing system, historically, this is still the worst I've seen in this game.

 

Just curious, if my sub expires and I re-sub a month later will I get tokens for the CXP gained whilst subbed?

 

Also, will the pvp vendors be selling individual mods and enhancements again to help with character and stat optimisation (e.g. pvp tanks don't need defence mods, will I need to waste extra time grinding for dps gear to optimise properly for pvp)?

Edited December 16, 2016 by HyperAxiom

[RandomNobody]

Um, I guess its good that they're doing something? Still not renewing my sub, but I'll at least keep following the news to see how this turns out. Still miss the old vendor system and sounds like even raiders still have to put up with a horrible grind. Its good that ops will actually have a reward (more than just some minor CXP), but not like I have time (or the patience or the guild or the skill) for ops.

 

Still seems more complicated than before, when we just had commendation/data crystal vendors as a good standby for anyone looking to get into ops. I don't like ops or have time for them, but I did like to go for the gree ops boss occasionally at least, which is one reason I tried to get ops-level gear (as well as I just like keeping my characters in decent gear at least). Not much point to try that in 5.0, the amount of time required compared to possible reward is way out of balance. But guess they're just trying to waste time these days.