Galactic Command Gearing Changes, 5.1 and Beyond

[FerkWork]

Sheesh, well true to what I said, I'll use the 7 days sub to try 5.1 out.

 

 

I know I'm in the minority on this, but honestly, I just wanted a green mods vendor, not blue nor purple, not 230-236 or 242 mods, just a 228 green mods vendor.

 

What if... there is no majority and we are all minorities? Or what if the majority just wants pants?

 

Mind=Tacos

[ZeroTypeR]

What if... there is no majority and we are all minorities? Or what if the majority just wants pants?

 

Mind=Tacos

 

Haha nice one

[Uzamakiuchi]

Musco does this mean lets say i get purple comand item from a crate but have puten it in my revan reborn armor or in my cool lighttsaber i cant upgrade it anymore due it isnt in the orginal amor or saber ???? thats kinda dispointing then i would have to re gear fully again also for boss i dint understand it drops 1 to 2 items the full ops wont u just then increase ninja looters and or make people fight over the items just my though Edited January 21, 2017 by Uzamakiuchi

[midianlord]

[...]

 

Mate, dear God already....

 

I'm sorry, but there's just no graceful way to put this:

 

Your bosses are wasting money and person-hours polishing a turd.

 

They're "fixing" completely self-inflicted problems with this complete travesty that no-one wanted, no-one asked for, and that only creates problems where none existed before.

 

Supposedly, it was all for the children --pardon: Casuals-- but this system is about as casual-unfriendly as its possible to get.

 

There is only one fix for this:

 

Reversion to pre-4.0 paradigms/mechanics,

 

(Just as an aside: What was so wrong with "Basic/Elite/Ultimate Commendations," anyway? Those "crystal" whatsits were also completely out of left-field, and completely un-needed.)

[Joonbeams]

Hey folks,

 

Since the launch of Knights of the Eternal Throne, we have received a lot of great feedback about the gearing changes we made through Galactic Command. In this post, I want to highlight the changes we are making next week. However, we know this will not address all of your concerns, so let’s also talk about additional changes we plan to make.

 

Our primary goal for Game Update 5.1: Defend the Throne was to allow players to work towards specific pieces of gear through PvP and Operations. Additionally, we wanted to provide a means to help players gear their other Characters. Here are the changes coming next week:

• New currency: Command Tokens - This currency comes from Command Crates. Each Crate will drop Command Tokens based on the Tier of the Crate (Tier 1 – 5 tokens, Tier 2 – 8 tokens, Tier 3 – 12 tokens). These tokens are a Legacy-wide currency and will be retroactively granted (based on your Command Rank) when 5.1 launches.
  
• New currency: Unassembled Components – This currency is a reward for playing Warzones and Galactic Starfighter and can be used to purchase Unassembled Gear Pieces.
  
• New currency: Unassembled Gear Piece - These drop from Operation bosses or are purchased with Unassembled Components and can be turned in along with Command Tokens for specific pieces of gear. The last boss of each Operation has a 100% chance to drop Unassembled Gear Pieces (2 pieces for 8-man, 4 pieces for 16-man). Each other boss in an Operation has an increasing chance to drop them (the second boss having a higher chance than the first boss, and so on). Refer to this forum post to see where each item slot will drop.

 

With these new currencies, players will be able to go to new vendors and purchase specific items. Here are some of the vendor details:

• Unassembled Component Vendor: On this vendor you can turn in Unassembled Components to purchase a specific Unassembled Gear Piece. You can only purchase Tier 1 Unassembled Pieces in this way. However, you can turn in Tier 1 pieces along with Unassembled Components to upgrade them to Tier 2 and 3 respectively. Refer to this forum post for more details on this vendor.
  
• Unassembled Gear Piece Vendor: With this vendor you can turn in one Unassembled Gear Piece for a specific slot (ex: Unassembled Helm Tier 1) along with Command Tokens for that respective piece of gear. Refer to this forum post for more details on this vendor.

 

The changes listed above are really focused on allowing players to work towards a specific piece of gear. However, we also wanted to allow players to level their alts a bit quicker and so here are some of the changes coming for that:

• New Character Legacy Perk: Increase all Command XP Earned by 2/4/6/8/10%.
  
• New Command XP Boost: This can be purchased with Command Tokens and provides a 15% boost (this boost stacks with the Legacy perk but not the MTX boost). This boost only works per Tier at the following costs:
  
  • Tier 1 – 20 Command Tokens
    
  • Tier 2 – 28 Command Tokens
    
  • Tier 3 – 44 Command Tokens

 

The above changes are coming next week with Game Update 5.1! Additional concerns you have raised are listed below:

 

Operations Lacking for CXP

We have been looking at all of the places that players can earn CXP and although our intent is that Operations (especially Veteran/Master) would be the best source of CXP, that is not true currently. We have been working to rebalance the CXP gains of Operations across the board so that they are at least on-par with the best sources of CXP in the game. We plan to include these changes with Patch 5.1.1, but we will give you more information on scheduling once we lock it down.

 

Galactic Command Gearing Alt-unfriendly

One of the biggest concerns expressed is Galactic Command forces a player into working only on one character. Although that wasn’t our intention, we agree with you. For starters, in 5.1 we are implementing the Legacy-wide currency of Command Tokens, legacy bound boosts you can purchase with Command Tokens, and the legacy perk to speed up leveling. We know that isn’t enough, so we are exploring additional options so that when you are playing any character, there is a way to potentially provide benefit to all other characters in your legacy as well. I have no specifics to share at this time, but I am working to have more details available for our January 26th Livestream.

 

Command Rank Leveling Speed

We monitor Command Ranks across the game, along with player feedback on the rate at which players are leveling. The Legacy perk and additional boost will help speed up leveling, but we will continue to review. Let’s see how it feels after 5.1. We’ll discuss with you and make further adjustments, if needed.

 

New Endgame Content

We know addressing the gearing concerns is only half of the equation. Whether it came from the forums, social media, or even focus groups, the feedback is that you want more large group and MMO content such as daily areas and Operations. We will be discussing these very topics in our Livestream next Thursday, January 26, 2017, so come join us!

 

We want to thank all of your for your continued feedback about Galactic Command. Please keep it coming!

 

-eric

 

See? That wasn't so hard. Thank you for listening, and more importantly, communicating!!

[midianlord]

You had to navigate through vendors and four different forms of currency to get your gear. That's much more time consuming than opening a crate.

 

1/10.

 

Dude, it's over. Just stop.

[Jerba]

Here is a question i don't think anyone has asked yet. So i know Command Tokens will be granted retroactively based on your command level, but what about any unopened crates you have on Tuesday?

 

Say i have a Command Level 5 character, and i have not opened any of the crates i have gotten yet. On 5.1 i should receive 25 command tokens just for being command level 5, but will i still get tokens in the crates if opened after 5.1?

Maybe the Command Tokens will be granted upon Command Rank Up (like the Dark/Light Tokens), and not when you open the crates. But that's hard to tell for sure at the moment. It's probably better to not open any crates until Tuesday if you want to be on the safe side.

 

I'm not sure if I missed it but wasn't their a thread about alternative things to buy with those tokens like decoration etc.? Or am I mistaken? Thanks for replies!

In the livestream, they said they were thinking about it, but at no point did they say it would come. They settled on CXP boosts; maybe a cosmetic vendor was too much work, who knows.

 

However, the system is completely hitting my type of gameplay. I am doing pvp (~30 games a week, sometimes more), I'm an endgame-raider, a crafter and I was also a grinder in the past weeks. The system looks much better, when you stop comlaining about it, trust me.

I get where you're coming from, I'm in a similar situation. My raid group is in full 240 crafted gear and we can now be in full 242 in around 10 weeks.

I hate that I sold all my empty shells since I didn't know at the time that we should keep them, but I can live with that.

 

However, we are the absolute minority in this game. For most players, these changes won't fix the issue of not getting gear. Most players don't grind, they don't put in hundreds of hours of playtime.

Also, I'm concerned that the devs don't appear to have a plan. I'm not talking about "we have received a lot of great feedback about the gearing changes", that's their typical statement when they can't admit a mistake. But when you look at how the system was originally intended (you get gear from a random discipline, and it was supposed to simplify the 4.0 gearing), or if you look at which operation endboss drops which slot, it is messed up. To me, it seems like the devs don't have much of a clue, and we expect them to be able to develop a new operation?

Edited January 21, 2017 by Jerba

[Screaming_Ziva]

Here is a question i don't think anyone has asked yet. So i know Command Tokens will be granted retroactively based on your command level, but what about any unopened crates you have on Tuesday?

 

Say i have a Command Level 5 character, and i have not opened any of the crates i have gotten yet. On 5.1 i should receive 25 command tokens just for being command level 5, but will i still get tokens in the crates if opened after 5.1?

 

Any clarification is much appreciated,

Why would you not have opened any of the command crates yet?

[SithSkereKaan]

Galactic Command system is not entirely that bad (as stated many times since 5.0, just needs a few fixes) but doesn’t this feels like an “overdoing – overcomplicated – increase math headaches” implementation?

[DanNV]

They simply don't have the budget for that.

 

Also the budget they have was wasted changing the classes and building the RNG.

 

Don't forget the blur trailer. Those cost a great deal of money. That's money that could have been spent on actual content development. For marketing they'd do better with gameplay trailers that showed the quality of the new content (assuming they actually have quality worth showing off, of course.)

[Eli_Porter]

Galactic Command system is not entirely that bad (as stated many times since 5.0, just needs a few fixes) but doesn’t this feels like an “overdoing – overcomplicated – increase math headaches” implementation?

 

This is a supplementary addition to the current system, which favors saving the new currency over spending it right away. Newbies can just ignore it and get most of their gear from crates, saving the tokens and components for later use.

 

So the system still achieves its purpose of being an easy bridge into endgame gearing.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Eli_Porter

[DanNV]

This IS part of the problem... They only invite raiding guilds for the most part... So guess what, nothing actually gets tested. They hand out free gear and then tell them to bash their heads against the bosses without telling them what the mechanics SHOULD be.

 

The raiders don't know if they are doing it right because they are not told. So they can't even LOOK for a bug to begin with. And the non raiders they have come in to test the other stuff are getting free top end gear, so balance gets screwed...

 

They don't even invite a good number of raiding guilds. And people who have been critical of BWs ability to actually fix things found on the PTS don't get invited back. It's pretty short sighted, but fits the BW MO to a tee.

 

Actually didn't they try this with TOS or one of the other past operations? The biggest problem was the raiding guilds cleared the pts easy but they were in the top 2% of raiders when the other 98% came to try it they found it completely undouable and the op had to be nerfed?

 

TOS had bugs found on the PTS that are still there. It was tuned for groups like ZORS, not for regular players. The general opinion I have seen is it should be rated and HM and NiM. They never really did a SM version of it.

 

A few of these changes do seem to improve a liitle bit the system but still...I don't understand; is it so hard to make GCP legacy wide? And instead of beibg more simple it gets even more complicated and a nuisance. Just reading the changes made me have a headache .

 

You don't really want GC legacy wide, it just means it will take way longer to earn the crates since the cost goes up with each crate. The entire system is poorly conceived and implemented in a manner that makes it even worse.

 

I think you are wrong. In 4.0 you could check the gear price, and play for the crystals, or loot, that you needed to buy it. It could take you more or less time, but you could make plans and work for a progression. In the meantime, you could feel that you were "working" for something. Actually, for the same effort, you don't know if you are being rewarded somehow. Yes, you raise your GC levels, but rewards are a random mistery.

 

The old system had flaws, but mostly in how gear was named. Lots of people didn't know what to buy because the names didn't mean anything. That could have been fixed easily., The new gearing has nothing to do with making it easy. It's just to keep you paying so you can grind for the next year hoping you'll get gear you can use.

 

For a new player, everything is new, so he can enjoy playing the game while getting random things, but for a veteran that has experienced the same game content in the same places against the same enemies until being fed up, this new system makes you feel like wasting your time as you can't see and feel instant reward (a few crystals, or "coins") for your gear progression.

 

For a veteran, this system manes they can't play the content they want until they grind for hundreds of hours. It's just not worth it.

 

Of course, the lack of enough new replayable content mixed with the old one makes the game a deja-vu less interesting (and boring). New players will not complain until they reach the veteran stage.

 

The newer players will start complaining as soon as they realize they can't complete the content they found until they get gear suitable for the content for player without the skills to play their class. And there will be very few veterans around to teach them, what they need to know to do the content. BW has spent 2 years betting that churn will keep the game going without realizing why they need the veteran players to stay. Now the population is dropping and they don't understand why.

 

anyone saying this 5.1 token system is better than Pre-5.0 gearing is drinking too much BW kool-aid

 

Ain't that the truth.

 

For new players, crates are likely to drop useful gear. For you and other veteran/savvy players it's less dependable, and that's what 5.1 is for. And due to the way it works, new players don't need to concern themselves with it.

 

One of those kool-aid drinkers. 5.1 is not a fix and by it's design isn't meant to be. It's just smoke and mirrors to try to convince people to stay and keep paying.

 

In no way do I buy into the idea that it is not possible to rebuild the Operations community. Not for a moment.

 

Certainly, putting that mission into the hands of a management team that has zero interest in the MMO aspect of their MMO is a dubious proposition. But I certainly believe draining the swamp and putting the right people in place would make this a straightforward venture.

 

True. Like Iv'e said, EA needs to either clean house at BWA or move the game to a studio with a clue and have a lead publisher who understands working with the customers.

 

Your bosses are wasting money and person-hours polishing a turd.

 

They're "fixing" completely self-inflicted problems with this complete travesty that no-one wanted, no-one asked for, and that only creates problems where none existed before.

 

There is only one fix for this:

 

Reversion to pre-4.0 paradigms/mechanics,

 

Yep. Exactly. Unfortunately, BWA (Ben and crew) seem to be very proud of their turd.

[ExxarVos]

"Since the launch of Knights of the Eternal Throne, we have received a lot of great feedback about the gearing changes we made through Galactic Command." - I'm sorry Eric Musco, but it takes a lot of nerve to say these words. Under your direction this once amazing game has been losing the great Raiders/PvPers that once had at a great speed. The most powerful guilds have lost more than half of its NiM raiders. I should know, i'm one of them, and i talk with a lot of the NiM raiders in this game, that because of your management are fewer and fewer. You've made useless changes in this game, like the new and idiotic gearing system, instead of bringing new content like new operations. You've created a game that favored the creation of alts and now with this new gearing system you have rendered those alts useless and you have turned this once Elite game into a casual one. You have allowed this game to become a pay to win game with its Cartel Market. This game had the potential to replace WoW, but under your management it has become a game for casual gamers. Have you no shame Eric? Why do you do this? I've been a subscriber since day one and this is how you repay gamers like me and MANY others? I'm a 35 year old man. I have a wife, a job and other responsabilities, and when i come to this game with the purpose of relaxing (which i have earned it putting thousands of hour in it for the last 4 years) instead i get stressed with things like slow gearing process, loss of VITAL members of my raiding core, and a frustrating recruitment process since in the last 2 months the highest % on Ops that i got from new recruits was 20%! THIS is the result of the changes that you have made with your dev team. Why couldn't you be like any normal dev and leave the game as it was and just added a new operation (or 2 since its been two years since you brought a new raid) and a new warzone? You should be ashamed of yourself and be held accountable. You are not worthy of your position in this game. I really don't want to be rude or start a conflict, but i have to voice my frustration, and i've done it without swearing, which is more than you deserve. I've put hundreds of Euros in this game to see it turn to something REALLY bad. Edited January 21, 2017 by ExxarVos

[Costello]

Some people seem to think that returning to the old system of gearing would be for the best.

 

Would this really encourage people to return or even stay, redoing the same operations some of which are five years old to replace the top tier gear, so as to... there I've no idea. All the recent story mode content can be completed in basic blue gear, while uprisings are more about class and group make up than the difference between 230 or 240 gear. In short if you have already beat then ops in 4.0 or 3 or 2 or 1 is having people do them all over again to regrind the gear really going to make 5.0 an amazing success.

 

So really given the incredibly constraints of having to get people to replay 5 year old content, what else could they do. Whats strange in this 'solution' is focused on NiM ops players and PvPers, hardly groups that they have looked to support for the last 2 years. So its hard to see how many people this will actually help. But then given the very limited budget the development team seem to be working to if any solution would work as if there is no new content the gear grind is always going to be repeating stuff people have done to distraction.

[kimiko_tomiyama]

The 'new' system on the first 3 passes seemed really confusing to me, but it might well be simpler in practice.

 

On the surface it seems like a decent start to addressing the concerns of many in the community. I'm not sure it will do much to help the altaholic casual completionist sort that I am, but anything that reduced the crap shoot that is RNG is a step in the right direction.

 

Still, I cannot shake the general feeling that this is just a cover patch to try and make people 'feel' better without actually addressing the depth of resentment that continues to build.

[PallyHk]

The problem is that casual players no longer have any way to get non random drops.

 

You have to either pvp or ops. I don't do neither nor I want to do so. I'll be dropping my subscription when it expires.

 

I want a system where command levels give you a token that you can exchange for gear you want. Nothing more, nothing less. Let Ops and PVP gives the most CXP , I do not care. But let me earn my gear without having to play them, or no more money from me.

[ChristophersonC]

Why would you not have opened any of the command crates yet?

 

Before this 5.1 details i thought command tokens were gonna come from opening crates. Not by level. So i've been saving them since the stream.

[DanNV]

Still, I cannot shake the general feeling that this is just a cover patch to try and make people 'feel' better without actually addressing the depth of resentment that continues to build.

 

That is exactly what it is.

[CooperReagly]

I'm so disappointed. The grind and RNG have sucked my desire to play. Cut it out and make GC the secondary system it was designed to be. Dang.

[Theobias]

Just a little bit of feelings from me.

 

I have played this game since ver 2 to 3. Then unsubbed due to the never ending of repeated activities such as operations which has gone stale. Some best memories always stays and those were the times.

 

Swtor environment was back then inspiring and very encouraging which i recalled. Thats the reason why i returned in version 4.

 

The GC cannot please everyone i assume. It was due to the fact that feedbacks was not taken such as many suggestions was not considered. However, the main pain now is this endless grinding has made the general community angry and full of resentments. Please do not seek to appease us. Please commiserate our feelings. Go log on a toon in the game your kind self. Get a group get around to trying to get loot. You will most defintely hear grievances and able to tailor the game correctly. Now we seem to be forced to do pvp because there is no more efficient way to get cxp. u can keep the current system, just handout a good cxp at the end of every ops, fp, pvp etc.

 

im now on gc 150 and this system works okay for me. As a matter of fact, i love operations but due to the current situation in server, progenitor, is very very hard to getting invited to HM ops. Past years i only get to do EV and KP. Only once or twice in years to DP and SNV.

 

If you intend to only use gc then please make it legacy wide. Improve the rates of cxp and rng.

Do not seek to cover a mishap by using another complication. Didn't someone said " go beyond expectations"?

I wish u and your team tweak on improvements and may swtor legacy never die out

 

Halvas: my main xD

[fire-breath]

So players above Command Rank 300 will have their additional effort wasted, e.g. someone who got 310 Command Crates will only get tokens for 300 ranks?

 

Mr. glass is half empty

 

Let me tell you a story.

 

Once upon a time there was a landowner who was in need of workers to work his land.

At 6:00 in the morning the landowner went off to town to hire workers. He offered them 1 piece of silver for an entire day of working.

At about 09:00 he went off to town again and he saw other people in need of work. So he hired them too and offered them 1 piece of silver for the entire day.

At 12:00 the landowner went to town again and he hired new people once again for 1 piece of silver. At 17:00 he went again.

 

When it was evening the workers stood in line to receive their pay. The people who started working at 17:00 received their piece of silver as agreed. The workers who started earlier in the day saw what happened and thought by themselves: “If they get 1 piece of silver for only a few hours of working, surely we will receive more as we worked the whole day”. But …. Also those who started at 12:00 received 1 piece of silver, as did those from the 9:00 and 06:00 shift.

The people from the 6:00 and 9:00 shift started to complain as they had worked so much longer. Surely they should have received more pay than those who only worked a few hours on the land.

The landowner than said to them: “Haven’t you received what we agreed upon? Are you that envious because I am good?

 

I hope you see the point of my story here. Anyone who has reached rank 300 reached this rank with the knowledge they would get 1 crate per rank(up). Back than it wasn't made clear yet we would receive tokens per each rank too.

I do see why the disgruntlement but it goes to far to call the work 'wasted'. We got what we agreed to. If anyone didn't agree (s)he could have stopped playing or go a bit more casual.

 

A bit a moot point as there will be additional rewards coming for people over rank 300 but the point still stands. Feel free ofc to disagree with me. Most likely a lot of people will.

 

Those changes are not nearly enough; for players to stop complaining, the CXP rate needs to be increased 3x to 5x, not just 10-20%.

 

Agreed here. The current system is quite grindy. Even with the 5.1 changes it still is.

However ..... there is one light imo.

Its very easy to craft your way into 240 gear as the warzone dailies and weeklies have chances on purple mats too. This means the situation isn't as dire.

 

You can just craft 240 gear for any alts that you really want to play.

Edited January 22, 2017 by fire-breath

[abigfishy]

Used to log on virtually every day for two years. Haven't been on for a week, what is the point?

[DakotaDoc]

In short, CXP should be a Legacy Stat. Not per alt character

[Costello]

Legacy wide would do nothing to help. You will still only be getting one box per level and that has a low chance of gear, now if I have to split the getting of boxes (if not levels) between 2 or 5 or 23 characters it will slow the acquisition of gear by this number.

 

I am interested to know from the devs if they feel a wait and see approach to fixing this issue is going to work. Given how many people have stopped playing after completing Kotet, can they continue to sit by as more and more people call it a day on replaying old content in what may be a grind to rival anything in a Korean MMO. Just looking at the grind on one character if you wished to do it in 6 months you would would have to put in 20 hours a week and thats if you hope you can get to level 300 in 520 hours and by level 300 you will have completed the gear grind. Evidence suggests both of these are being generous, and says nothing about stopping to enjoy any part of the grind.

 

But lets say a solution can be found to make 5.0 work, which I am hoping for though in my head it is more along the lines of the Elder Scroll Crafting/Gear/Set Bonus/loot system where gear is not such a massive thing I don't know what the development teams views are. Should a fix be in whats the plan to get people back. Now I fully supported the continued story, my guild has all left so group content is no longer my thing but I found the plot hole mess that was Keeping up with the Valkorians a mess, and hell not that many people returned for season 2 (even though it was better written with decent length chapters it was still all about the Valkorians). So what is the lure to get people back when you have static lifeless worlds, cartoonish graphics (do you know most items have a set shadow regardless of lighting), content that is over 5 years old being rehashed, incredibly limited space combat, PvP mini games and horrible ability bloat with a combat system that favors rotations over actually playing the game making a macro the ideal way to play.

 

So 2 Months after launch a band aid is applied after the hype from Rogue One has died down, if in another 2 months a real solution is found (and you don't piss off all the people that ground out for the last 4) what are you going to do to get people to come back and try the new system?

[Diukess]

My sub will end at 25 january and im not planning to continue, i completed story, nothing more to do - i tried this galactic command thing but im tired after 90 levels with only one piece of purple gear, sorry. I will be looking for better mmo Edited January 22, 2017 by Diukess