[Bolster] Why are we made to farm 230 gears?

[TwoLekku]

okay Bioware please explain why you make new players slog through your awful RNG system when old 208 gear players are owning people with 230s. i just farmed 240 rating items and people with 208s are still performing better/close to 240s with your terrible bolster system. I thought 5.0 was meant to bring in new players and bring back players who have left. but this...this is just....

 

bolster is ****ed up.

 

RNG ****ed up.

 

Unsubscribing unless you fix this

 

Give me a break.

 

First, go read Hottie's thread on gearing. While there are differences in bolster depending on your mix of 208's and 230's, they're surprisingly minor when you look at the actual numbers that are posted.

 

Second, reconsider your statement. Small differences numerically don't lead to "getting owned". If you're getting owned, you're getting beaten by someone who's much better than you. Skill matters much more than gear in PvP; Hottie's thread is designed for people of mid-to-high skill who want to make sure they're checking even the small boxes on the preparation list.

 

Third, it's not even remotely new that set bonuses are worth more than generically higher-rated gear, especially in a bolstered environment INCLUDING pve. I have a sniper who just hit 70 and his 6pc set bonus is mostly 216's with some 208's and predictably doesn't get guarded in most SM pug ops...until he takes threat like candy from a vegan baby because i can play the virulence rotation with a blindfold on.

 

Lastly, the pursuit of better gear is about better performance in HM/NiM pve and in ranked PvP. Min/maxing for regs and SM ops has always been a little silly because skill matters much more than gear in any bolstered environment.

 

I'm good at pvp but not great. How do i know this? Because there are a small group of people out there who can beat me, but I make em #$%*ing work for it. I got owned in the past. Then i got better. Doesn't happen anymore.

Unsub if you want, but it's a skill thing. Otherwise you wouldn't be "getting owned".

[Kaedusz]

^ I don't give 2 sh its about what some guy calculated somewhere, bolster is ludicrous as an idea and design concept fundamentally

 

As i was gearing my jugg step by step i entered WZ after each new mod and item, my stats got weaker at some point and more or less became equal at the end to before i had any gear. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I also feel like an unstoppable god of war with my 208 geared merc. (no , not only cus the class is op and the set bonuses, it's cus of the bolster)

 

When you have a system in which getting better gear makes you weaker and having bad gear makes you stronger or equal with minor variations, then something is not right.

 

This is a RPG, not a third person action game, gear should matter strongly.

 

Either remove gear completely from the game or remove bolster in any shape or form. This is complete horse ****.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Kaedusz

[Lhancelot]

^ I don't give 2 sh its about what some guy calculated somewhere, bolster is ludicrous as an idea and design concept fundamentally

 

As i was gearing my jugg step by step i entered WZ after each new mod and item, my stats got weaker at some point and more or less became equal at the end to before i had any gear. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I also feel like an unstoppable god of war with my 208 geared merc. (no , not only cus the class is op and the set bonuses)

 

When you have a system in which getting better gear makes you weaker and having bad gear makes you stronger or equal with minor variations, then something is not right.

 

This is a RPG, not a third person action game, gear matters and should matter strongly.

 

Either remove gear completely from the game or remove bolster in any shape or form. This is complete horse ****.

 

Exactly what I noticed too. In no shape or form should any higher valued item bolster with equal or a change of stats for the worse and that's what happens.

 

You also shouldn't have to go through 2-3 tiers of ****** boxes full of ****** items for a month before you MIGHT get some gears that actually end up granting you an improvement to your stats in the WZ.

 

It's very discouraging, and that's why I said in a different post right now, the only reason to PVP is for the sake of PVPing, not for improving gears.

 

With the old gear set up, evrything was very linear and you understood that every item you earned from a higher tier of the pvp sets would improve your stats.

 

Even the very old extremely grindy pvp set days was better than this, because at least you were comforted knowing that EVERY piece above your gears would improve your stats in the WZ. Sure, it would take you weeks to get a set, but you got a sense of fulfillment knowing the set was the best and it gave you something to strive for.

 

Now, it's a big guessing game and that's because bolster has no truly consistent pattern as to how it bolsters.

 

These devs don't explain bolster, because they cannot.

 

There is no instructional on it, because there is no true formula that is working here. It seems there are multiple different formulas at work in the same system, and it's all ****ed up.

 

Bolster has always been wonky, now it's just *********** retarded.

[stoopicus]

Gotta disagree with you guys - Bolster is weird but in the end, given how CXP works, it is freaking amazingly great because it means that I only have to grind to Tier 2 and not Tier 3.

 

That's *priceless*.

Edited January 23, 2017 by stoopicus

[Lhancelot]

Gotta disagree with you guys - Bolster is weird but in the end, given how CXP works, it is freaking amazingly great because it means that I only have to grind to Tier 2 and not Tier 3.

 

That's *priceless*.

If they want to remove gear grind and make it so all gear bolsters essentially the same whether it's a green piece of junk or a 240 purple sparkly awesome piece of gearage, there's no point in having GC crates that drop gears then.

 

I don't know where to begin with the problems going on with gears atm.

 

The pseudo gear grind is stupid.

 

The fact POS gears MIGHT bolster better than some higher rated blues or purples is stupid.

 

The RNG with GC crates is stupid.

 

Removing WZ comms was stupid.

 

They basically have wrecked one facet of PVP which was leveling and gearing purely through PVP and having resources from PVP grinding that would allow us to customize countless endless sets of gears with mods and armor pieces for fun.

 

This was fun for me in the past. Guess I must be the minority though.

[Banderal]

If they want to remove gear grind and make it so all gear bolsters essentially the same whether it's a green piece of junk or a 240 purple sparkly awesome piece of gearage, there's no point in having GC crates that drop gears then.

 

I don't know where to begin with the problems going on with gears atm.

 

The pseudo gear grind is stupid.

 

The fact POS gears MIGHT bolster better than some higher rated blues or purples is stupid.

 

The RNG with GC crates is stupid.

 

Removing WZ comms was stupid.

 

They basically have wrecked one facet of PVP which was leveling and gearing purely through PVP and having resources from PVP grinding that would allow us to customize countless endless sets of gears with mods and armor pieces for fun.

 

This was fun for me in the past. Guess I must be the minority though.

 

Yes to most of this. I don't think a single "customer" (i.e. us ) asked bioware for a random box gear grind. There is such a thing as "giving the customers what they don't know they want yet", I suppose in every industry, but definitely in software. But this random gearing BS wasn't that. It was giving customers what they already know they don't want, since we had it way back when and hated it.

 

I actually liked that they removed "pvp" gear, and the expertise stat. I never saw a good reason for the gear to be different. Yes, I heard the whole "we don't want pve'rs coming in with their uber gear and doing well just because their gear is better". But I was always in the camp of, "give us all the same gear, and I don't give a flying -fk how the hell you got it".

 

And getting rid of WZ comms was not what stopped us from gearing for PvP relatively easily, and as we leveled. That was the stupid random box thing they replaced it with, and the fact that you can't even start the process until level 70.

 

However, I think bolster was a good idea, just a really bad implementation. If gear made a strong difference, like someone else in the thread suggested, then basically we'd be expected to enter PvP and lose over and over just to get to the point of being competitive. That's not a gear grind. That's hazing.

 

In PvE, your gear grind does not consist of entering the hardest mode, and knowing your group is going to wipe, over and over, as you slowly get gear. Right? You enter easier-modes first, which you can actually complete with your lower gear, and that earns you the higher gear you need to do the harder modes. But there is nothing analogous to that in PvP. You get dumped in with the highest difficulty (gear wise) right away, so I'd rather have bolster.

 

That said, bolster should not be so complicated that it requires a 6 page thread to discuss and evaluated how it works. And it should not be so screwy that the most obvious gearing rule (if it has a higher number, put it on) is no longer true. Bolster should basically put you at a level right below top gear, and stop trying to figure out what your stats *should* be based on all your individual gear pieces. Just make it a set value based on if you are a tank, dps or heals. Something simple like that.

[Lhancelot]

....Just make it a set value based on if you are a tank, dps or heals. Something simple like that.

 

Instead of trying to improve upon a working system already in place, they throw the ENTIRE thing away, and push in a NEW system and it's no wonder it doesn't work as intended!

 

Now they keep adding **** on top of **** here only making the mess more convoluted and a bigger mess. There is no "simple" to anything they do.

 

Why would anyone take a working anything and throw it in the garbage, and then stick in a new something and expect it to be even better than the old thing without any subtle change into it, or testing?

 

Who does that? Seriously, who does that? Just FSMH.

[Alec_Fortescue]

Totally not broken.

 

Keep defending it.

 

Remove bolster. Just do it.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Alec_Fortescue

[Groncho]

Totally not broken.

 

Keep defending it.

 

Remove bolster. Just do it.

 

So u are in tank stance using dps gear and gives u that max damage? or there's a particular armor/item that pushes you there with bolster?

[stoopicus]

So u are in tank stance using dps gear and gives u that max damage? or there's a particular armor/item that pushes you there with bolster?

 

Horrible Damage Reduction and Armor value if so. No armorings? Or lowbie ones?

 

I saw something similar wearing the DvL XP suit. That thing bolsters like crazy sauce, at least on pre-70s.

Edited January 24, 2017 by stoopicus

[Kaedusz]

 

However, I think bolster was a good idea, just a really bad implementation. If gear made a strong difference, like someone else in the thread suggested, then basically we'd be expected to enter PvP and lose over and over just to get to the point of being competitive. That's not a gear grind. That's hazing.

 

Good enough gear for PvP (230) for characters that are created after 5.0 can be bought from GTN and cxp can be earned with fps and hm fps, before a person decides to start pvping. As a pvper in general, i am perpetually poor and i still managed to buy full 230 gear.

 

In other words removing bolster won't effect newly leveled characters much.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Kaedusz