December Producer Livestream Wrap-up

[merovejec]

So let me get this straight Raiders get from OPS which is on a weekly lockout and provides a certain challenge, while the rest can just afk in PVP for the same rewards??

 

GG Bioware!!

[JainiaDral]

ok so.... forgive me if its been asked or I'm getting it wrong but... are you basically saying that solo players are STILL a subject to insane rng and slow command level gain if they want upgrades? I mean.. you ARE adding all those master difficulty story chapters that ARE solo content and ARE supposed to be challenging and requiring better gear. but... you are NOT reintroducing ability to buy some sort of upgrades through vendors like you used to be able to before? you know with commendations, and then crystals.

 

I'm not even talking about tier gear here, just the sort of non bonus stuff you used to be able to buy with verpine commendations, or glowing crystals and such.

 

the fixes to the system are barely a good start.

 

Yep. And we get a trunk of useless tokens for all our previously earned command ranks, too!

 

I'm glad I uninstalled before my sub expired. There's no way I'm giving Bioware money or time again.

[BenKatarn]

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.

 

No, Eric. Just no. This will not do.

 

I am OK with tying redeeming gear to Galactic Command via Command Tokens, but RNG in OPs is a no-go. You said you wanted to simplify gear progression, and now you are still making it more complicated. Have each boss drop a piece of gear, like it has always been. What is so complicated about a fixed loot table?

 

We already had this issue with Nightmare Operations in 4.0 where bosses only had a CHANCE to drop 224 gear when they should have dropped this gear from the start. Don't repeat your mistakes. Again.

Edited December 16, 2016 by BenKatarn

[mpddispatch]

Oh for goodness sake... Why is it so difficult for you to understand that this stupid RNG trash is never going to work? Please listen and stop insulting us by pretending. Revert to the old Comms/crystals please! that worked so well, we were rewarded for ALL the effort we put in, ALL the time! We saved up and bought EXACTLY what we needed. We had incentive to do things, to team up. Its so sad to see how far this game has fallen

 

I beg to differ. PvP queues are shorter than they have been in a long time. I hear GSF queues are shorter than they have been since it was introduced. Group finder is popping faster that ever. My guild has this renewed sense of doing things as a guild again like FPs, OPs, and PvP. The story content may be single player drivin but the MMO part of this game seems to be better than it has been in a long time. Pre 5.0 you could ask in guild if anyone wanted to run a FP or team up for some PvP and you would get the usual excuses like, I'm running story or I'm crafting or I've got to log off soon. Post 5.0 you ask if anyone wants to run a FP or team up for PvP and BAM, all kinds of people speak up and say sure, lets do it. So, I dont believe for one second that returning to the crystal system is going to get more people involved in group content, from what I've seen before and after 5.0 it would be a step back.

[commanderwar]

Thank you Eric for listening the changes are certainly step. One thing I would like to change is for the drop rate for op bosses to be 100 percent for all not just one.

[LongLiveEric]

Hi,

 

I like the changes you mentioned and feel like you guys are headed in the right direction. However the changes you mentioned are not more simple than the pre 5.0 system and it is a bit narrow to limit them to PVP and operations.

 

Why have operations drop Unassembled Tokens and PVP reward Unassembled Components? Why do they need to be different? I thought your goal was a more simple system? Just do away with the Unassembled Tokens and have everything reward/drop the Unassembled Components. And why just PVP and ops? Why would I ever do a Flashpoint or Uprising that has no chance at dropping gear when I could do an operation that drops components used to buy gear? This can be solved by adding those Unassembled Components as rewards to other aspects of the game as well.

 

Example Rewards:

 

(PVP Rewards are per Completed Warzone/GSF Match)

Unranked Warzone/GSF Loss = 15 Unassembled Components

Unranked WarzoneGSF Win = 20 Unassembled Components

Ranked Warzone Loss = 20 Unassembled Components

Ranked Warzone Win = 25 Unassembled Components

Daily Mission = 50 Unassembled Components

Weekly Mission = 150 Unassembled Components

*If you want us to be able to play however we want I believe GSF rewards should be the same as Warzones. Let the player decide which to do.

 

(Operation Rewards are per Boss)

Story Mode Operation Bosses = 2 Unassembled Components

Veteran Mode Operation Bosses = 5 Unassembled Components

Master Mode Operation Bosses = 9 Unassembled Components

Weekly Missions = 100

 

(Uprising/Flashpoint Rewards are rewarded upon completion)

Story Mode Operation Bosses = 5 Unassembled Components

Veteran Mode Operation Bosses = 10 Unassembled Components

Master Mode Operation Bosses = 15 Unassembled Components

Weekly Missions = 50

 

Gear Cost Example:

 

Tier 1 gear could cost 200 Unassembled Components and 100 Command Tokens.

Tier 2 gear could cost 200 Unassembled Components and 100 Command Tokens and the corresponding Tier 1 piece.

Very similar to the way PVP gear worked pre 5.0.

 

Just a few examples, don't forget about chapters and heroics. The number of components rewarded can be adjusted later to balance out the rewards if need be.

 

The idea is that every aspect of the game (not just PVP and operations) rewards the same currency so you can do whatever you want and be working toward the same goal. The only difference is more difficult and more time consuming content rewards more.

 

To sum up, to get endgame gear you need two things, Command Tokens and Unassembled Components. You get both of these by doing anything you want since nearly everything in game will reward cxp and components. Once you have them go to the endgame gear vendor and by the gear you need.

 

 

Eric (Not Musco)

[DarthZaul]

That's a great idea above.

[ForjKlahaa]

Before my sub runs out in a few hours I just had to say that this doesn't help my main problem one bit because the game is still punishing me for playing alts. All the time I'm not playing my "main", I'm delaying myself from getting to tier 3. If I want to be competitive in ranked I have to play one character all day everyday and only do PVP or OPS to get the tokens or components in a timely fashion.

 

I'm already getting creamed by guys in tier 2 gear. The best thing about PVP in 4.0 as far as group content went was that it was easy to gear for and didn't feel like a second job. I realise regs have bolster but I want to play ranked too. Just not all day every day on the same character. If I don't though, I'll be quickly out-geared and not stand a chance.I guess ranked will be for the hardcore no-lifers only now then? or the super rich? or the exploiters?

[Wayshuba]

I beg to differ. PvP queues are shorter than they have been in a long time. I hear GSF queues are shorter than they have been since it was introduced. Group finder is popping faster that ever. My guild has this renewed sense of doing things as a guild again like FPs, OPs, and PvP. The story content may be single player drivin but the MMO part of this game seems to be better than it has been in a long time. Pre 5.0 you could ask in guild if anyone wanted to run a FP or team up for some PvP and you would get the usual excuses like, I'm running story or I'm crafting or I've got to log off soon. Post 5.0 you ask if anyone wants to run a FP or team up for PvP and BAM, all kinds of people speak up and say sure, lets do it. So, I dont believe for one second that returning to the crystal system is going to get more people involved in group content, from what I've seen before and after 5.0 it would be a step back.

 

I respectfully beg to differ as well. PvP queues were popping fine right after 4.0 launched as well. Give this expansion, just like the last one, three months to see if it has the retention effect first. I doubt it will as it is frustrating a lot of people. Once the short term subs run out, then we will see if those queues keep popping so fast. Once people gear their mains and don't want to subject themselves to the gear grind for alts, let's see what happens.

 

The first 30 days after an expansions drops is simply not a good time to judge if anything was fixed in this expansion.

[kopalame]

When you decide which token tiers drop where in operations it's very important you consider actual difficulty and not just the difficulty setting. For example veteran EV is significantly easier than veteran Ravagers. This was one of the big issues in 4.x. Those would drop same tier of gear so many would just farm EV and barely touch most of the operations in veteran mode. Even if you only guarantee drops in last boss, the random drops in other bosses will be enough for people to just farm EV/KP untill they get the right tokens.

 

The way you have distributed CXP packs is done pretty well, fitting the actual difficulty of ops. Try to take the same considerations. The most important thing is that EV and KP veteran should NOT drop tier 2 tokens, you can also consider to let veteran Master and Blaster, Coratani and Revan drop tier 3 as they're as hard as most master mode bosses. Likewise some first bosses in Master mode should maybe only drop tier 2.

[RobertFKennedyUS]

So, let me summarize what you propose.

 

You are adding extra rewards to the fastest method of leveling galactic command (PvP).

 

You are adding extra rewards to last bosses on operations, ensuring that last boss lockout is all that matters now and new players are going to struggle getting into operations.

 

You have done nothing for solo players, who still have to rely on a year of grinding per toon plus insane random luck if they get anything at all.

 

Also, again, next expansion. What do you do? If you add the next level of gear to the end of GC, so 301-400 level, you just put on level gear further away from any casual player and the gear disparity for new players will be insurmountable.

 

If you reset all galactic command levels, you remove any benefit of being a long term player and erase everything people have done.

 

Its a lose lose situation.

 

The system you have designed simply does not work.

 

The answer will be a hybrid, just like what they did with companion affection when I believe the max level was 10. I think they said keep your level 10, new max level is 50.

 

Not hard to do that with GC. Keep your level 300, new maximum level is 600. Levels 1-300 advance advance at 30 level intervals until you reach 300, then it advances by 1 per level. It takes 1.2 million cxp to get to 300, now make it 30,000 cxp.

 

New players won't necessarily struggle to get into operations. As people get more geared, GF operations will become common again.

 

Solo players still have the GC system which is not bad for solo play. If you're a solo player, what do you need BIS NiM gear for anyway? You'll get enough for Uprisings, HM FP, PvP to pug into SM ops and EV and KP HM.

 

The system is designed to get people to play more, to play different parts of the game and to thus prevent people from unsubscribing (because they finished gearing up quicker than intended). The question is if it effectively balances those objectives against the ability for raid teams to gear themselves sufficiently to clear content.

Edited December 16, 2016 by RobertFKennedyUS

[Wayshuba]

The system is designed to get people to play more, to play different parts of the game and to thus prevent people for unsubscribing (because they finished gearing up quicker than intended). The question is if it effectively balances those objectives against the ability for raid teams to gear themselves sufficiently to clear content.

 

This is a fallacy. People didn't stop playing because of gearing up too quickly. People stopped playing because they had exhausted what little new content there was and there hasn't been any meaningful group content in over two years now.

 

This is the SECOND gear reset on all of the same exact group content they have had for 2+ years. They falsely believe people play to just get the gear. End game is NOT about getting the gear. You chase gear at end game usually to be able to tackle new content that needs that gear. There is NOTHING, no a single thing, in this expansion that required us to go to level 70 and a gear reset. No, people are still going to unsub because why would they chase a gear grind reset a second time (the first one came with the cap increase to level 65), to do THE EXACT SAME CONTENT THEY WERE ABLE TO DO BEFORE THE GEAR RESET.

 

Uprisings and story do not need the new gear.... so what is the new gear even for?

[LordMairsil]

Most of this makes me happy. The only thing I still dislike is the fact that ops bosses (except the last boss) aren't guaranteed to drop a token. I can live with the tokens being random, even though I'd prefer a fixed loot table, but every boss killed causes a lock out, and every boss killed should drop some token.

[LyndaeshaFreykaa]

Thank you very much for the informative stream. I won't judge the changes until I've seen them live, but the fact that you're already actively changing things makes me optimistic that you'll listen to further feedback as well. For me as a PvPer it was frustrating to have my efficiency curbed like that just because new story chapters came out, and then having to rely on RNG to get back to former levels. But this looks like a step in the right direction to me.

[AlatarTheGrey]

Thanks for listening and making some changes BW, but the changes are still way too little and way too grindy. Nothing was broken about the old system when we could group up with guildies and do ops or PvP ("MMO") to gear our toons.

The excuse for changing the old gearing system was that it was "too complicated" yet this fix is completely convoluted. The old systems was predictable, and did not require months long grind to gear your main and alts - which is probably the main point of the new gearing system since there is no real new content. Sorry, uprisings (mobs, mini-boss, rinse-repeat) and cutscenes don't count. The new uprisings next months will probably be as different as the various star fortresses were.

Leaving the CXP grind in place and non-legacy while still having most boss and ops rewards be RNG randomness (but it's exciting like the CM crates right?) means I'll continue to let my 6-month sub run out in January.

[Godsfearme]

Just make CXP, command crates, and command stash legacy wide.

 

I barely play my alts anymore because any CXP you earn on one alt is wasted CXP that could have gone to leveling your main to the next teir. Getting four characters to level 90 would be the same amount of work as getting 1 to level 300. Why play alts at all when I could have 1 character with 7 or 9 legacy pieces of tier 3 BiS gear vs 4 sets of teir 1 gear.

 

Also consider the impacts to conquest rewards. I could get 20k on 5 or like I did last week get 100k on 1 toon. For rewards its much better to spread out the points.

 

Stop punishing people for playing alts and make CXP legacy wide.

[RagnarAugustus]

Hey folks,

 

Gearing Changes in Galactic Command

• You can work towards specific pieces of gear through endgame activities.
  
• Elements of working towards those pieces are legacy-wide.
  

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

 

Eric the devs were so close to fixing the raiding community's major objections to 5.0 but screwed up what the Operations Community has requested over and over and over! Progression raiders don't want RNG unassembeld operations armor tokens dropping from bosses - we want 4.0 type known boss loot tables with Operations bosses dropping a known type assembled gear tokens, no more no less. The SWTOR community at large does not want RNG, but the raiding community is especially against RNG because RNG completely torpedoes all of the planning part of gearing your main and alts.

 

Eric RNG has killed raiding on Harbinger and RNG unassembled tokens is only a partial band-aid to the problems that we've voice since before 5.0's launch -- it's better but will still have an adverse effect on raiding. In 4.0 and below I could queue on Harbinger as an Imperial healer and almost immediately pop to raid in the GF operation on nights that I'm not raiding with my Guild. Since 5.0 I have not had a single GF raid actually pop from GF and I have had to manually gather members for the Operations group for the GF daily operations on fleet each time. This is a strong indication of the huge net negative effect that 5.0's RNG has had on end game players.

 

I want to repeat, we are not asking for the removal of Galactic Command or the GC RNG for non-raiders, we are asking that we are allowed to raid once again like we did in 4.0 so we can get back to our HM\NM progression raiding in a normal amount of time.

Edited December 16, 2016 by RagnarAugustus

[Rindo_Zunner]

Love the changes you guys are planning. Can't wait for January! The live streams are great, the stream dream team is amazing! Please keep them going.

 

Would you guys consider adding Uprising to the conquest system. Uprisings are fun but I play in a conquest heavy guild and feel like I'm not contributing when I play this part of the game.

[Exocor]

Love the changes you guys are planning. Can't wait for January! The live streams are great, the stream dream team is amazing! Please keep them going.

 

Would you guys consider adding Uprising to the conquest system. Uprisings are fun but I play in a conquest heavy guild and feel like I'm not contributing when I play this part of the game.

 

What about earning Conquest points when reaching a new Command Rank?

[Markark]

....... And I still think GC needs to be legacy wide, the legacy system is made for something like GC.

 

While I'm certain almost everyone here agrees, this isn't appealing to EA's C-suite as they review a shareholder report that states something to the affect - "Bioware has revamped it's SWTOR game to strongly encourage subscribers to retain their subscriptions for longer periods, which will likely increase revenues...".

 

Before the KP grind was nerfed, it allowed a single toon to be leveled to tier 3 in as "little" as 90 hours.

 

But now, we're back to a rate of one level per hour played, as long as queues pop non-stop.

 

If we played SWTOR like a full time job, 40 hrs/week, it'll take nearly 5 weeks, provided all queues are immediately popping....all to regain the ability to rerun the same content we were already geared to run in 4.0.

 

Again, this isn't about us, it's about EA shareholder reports, keeping us "engaged" as subscribers for as long as possible with the minimum invested.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Markark

[MetrotownSimon]

Disappointed to see there was nothing for solo / STORY players who have the invest THE MOST time commitment and consistently get THE LEAST amount of XP and CXP gain by following the STORY (not grinding repeated limited content like FPs or Ops). How are they going to even try Veteran or Master mode?

[MetrotownSimon]

When you decide which token tiers drop where in operations it's very important you consider actual difficulty and not just the difficulty setting. For example veteran EV is significantly easier than veteran Ravagers. This was one of the big issues in 4.x. Those would drop same tier of gear so many would just farm EV and barely touch most of the operations in veteran mode.

 

Unfortunately this is a sort of laziness that BW hasn't stopped to address, possibly because it would lead to spending a lot of time coming up with an actual system to scale rewards.

 

For example, Heroics pretty much give out the same rewards no matter which one you do. For literally just TALKING to someone on Hutta doing the Man with the Steel Voice quest, you can COMPLETE that Heroic for full rewards. Doesn't get easier than that. If you do the alternative ending you just need to run around for an extra minute or two. No fighting involved unless you deliberately run into a mob.

[Costello]

I don't think you have fully understood the nature of the problem. That being you have created a grind that requires hundreds of hours of grinding out old content.

 

You have offered nothing new in the way of operations and flash points which has resulted in many many people that enjoy this game leaving, I know of my friends and guild list most have left going to other MMO's. The idea of repeating opps again (we did them in 4.0) to regrind the next tier of gear is not appealing or likely to bring any of them back.

 

You have a horribly imbalanced class system, show me a group of 4 sentinels doing Revan on Hard Mode and I'll accept you have over come the issues. But its never going to happen.

 

You now seem to be wanting to turn the game into a PvP focused experience. Currently PvP awards points for participation, it will soon reward points and parts that can be traded in through the system for the top tier gear. If you want a parallel then Ops should be rewarding points every 5 to 15 minutes along with a number of gearing parts regardless of if you do anything. Only you must allow ops to be run with any make up of team with no requirement of any co-ordinations as waiting on a tank is utterly pointless.

 

If you are going to opt for a PvP focused game now, can you please bring in open world faction specific persistent PvP areas with resources and installations to capture. I'm all for this game being PvP focused but for the love of all that is holy don't make that focus meaningless PvP warzones that are simply a means of rewarding participation. Or at least don't act surprised when people start grinding them and then using /stuck as soon as they have enough medals to speed up the grind.

 

You have done your best to ignore PvP and operations for the last 2 years, you have an incredibly unbalanced class system and now you want to encourage people to use these systems to get gear to avoid reliance on RNG on command crates. A system you brought in because supposedly crystals were too complicated.

 

And for what come 6.0 (though the more I see the less likely that seems) it will all be trash and worse than basic crafted gear. Do you see a small problem here?

[Transcendent]

Hey folks

,

 

Thank you to everyone who tuned in today. Here is a wrap-up of what we talked about:

 

New Chapter 1 KOTET Trial

• For preferred players - http://www.swtor.com/trial
  
• For subscribers - Chap 1 trial and additional benefits added to refer-a-friend - http://www.swtor.com/friends
  

In-game events live in December:

• Life Day: Dec 13 – Jan 10
  
• Relics of the Gree: Dec 6 – 13 and January 3 – 10
  
• Rakghoul Plague: Dec 13 – 20
  
• Bounty Contract Week: Dec 22 – 29
  
• All details http://www.swtor.com/info/in-game-events
  

Gearing Changes in Galactic Command

• You can work towards specific pieces of gear through endgame activities.
  
• Elements of working towards those pieces are legacy-wide.
  

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.
  

In PvP

• Playing any Warzone will earn you Unassembled Components. You earn more based on medals, match outcome, etc.
  
• Turn Unassembled Components into a PvP vendor with a Valor requirement to get an Unassembled Gear piece.
  
• Turn in an Unassembled Gear piece along with Command Tokens (which come from Command Crates) to get that piece of gear.
  

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.

 

My interview with SWTOR Central -

 

Our next livestream will be in January!

 

 

-eric

 

Now I've had a chance to see the proposed gear changes and watch some of the LS, some additional feedback to the suggested changes.

 

CXP gains really still need to be addressed, either lower the requirements per CXP rank or increase the CXP rewards for running various content accordingly. Equally said, I think it would help if you had a set amount of CXP required per tier, so for example;

 

1. Tier 1 would be 1000 CXP per rank.
   
2. Tier 2 would be 2000 CXP per rank.
   
3. Tier 3 would be 3000 CXP per rank.
   

 

It's a small adjustment, however it makes it more feasible to go for gearing through purely Command Crates if you don't play PvP or Operations (thinking of the solo players here who don't have an army of alts or legacy to fall back on).

 

I know it's been said previously that the design goal was to earn 1-2 crates per hour, but currently it feels like it's a much more glacial pace than that, even at lower ranks. It's something to dread as you progress, especially if relying purely on the RNG method of gearing. This is meant to be an exciting system after all, so increasing the amount of times you get to open the crates per hour would be beneficial to this goal (in my opinion).

 

Generally though, the suggested changes do help to mitigate the RNG. Nothing in there for solo content players, and it would be remiss to exclude them in the proposed changes. Hence the suggestion above.

 

With regards to Valor requirements for the PvP aspect of gearing proposed;

 

1. Tier 1 - 20 Valor requirement.
   
2. Tier 2 - 40 Valor requirement.
   
3. Tier 3 - 60 Valor requirement.
   

Edited December 16, 2016 by Transcendent

[PlasmaJohn]

Guess you can have a couple points for making an effort. Sadly you still aren't seeing the big picture. There are three fundamental problems with the New Gearing Experience.

 

 

1. No new engaging group content [1]. We know this. You know this. We know you know this so no need to dance around it.
    
   
2. Non-deterministic gear path. Your changes barely mitigate this. Raid teams able to no-life for a week or two will be well into Tier 3 gear if not have the team in full set bonuses and mainhands. PvP will still be the more efficient means of gaining gear without having to game raid lockouts. In other words: Don't you dare play what you want to on who you want to, only play what is the most grind efficient on your main.
    
   
3. The Insane Grind. I know there's been a lot of noise around the RNG aspects. That's the harsh insult heaped on top of the grave injury of the grind. I finally slogged thru another rank and all I got was a companion gift and 2-3 pieces that when disintegrated gave me 10% of the next level. And I'm only rank 28.
   

 

The Grind is discouraging people from participating. The Grind is what's making this game alt-hostile. The Grind is going to make non-twink fresh 70's so painful to play two or three months down the road.

 

You didn't just need to fix the RNG, you needed to fix the grind. Your "solution" pretty much says you guys still don't get what it's like to play this game.

 

[1] Don't abandon Uprisings like you did The Eternal Championship, Star Fortresses, and GSF. Stop introducing new modes until you fix or salvage the old ones.