Bolster Changes in Game Update 5.1

[wainot-keel]

I think it's a bad thing. Getting boosted from 115k to 140k hit points is ridiculous in my book. I want a goal to work towards besides improving my PVP skills. It gives me another reason to play. In that light, 4.0 gearing was too easy, because it was too fast. The problem is that the pendulum has swung waaaaaayyyyyy to far the other direction now.

 

PvP gearing in 4.0 was perfect, precisely because it was easy to get so what mattered the most was personal skill and teamwork. With little work you were competitive only with 204s. Upgrading to 208s was just a small bonus.

It made the whole pvp experience much better, you were able to easily explore, experiment and enjoy different classes and specs.

[SirUrza]

That being said, part of this issue is that we did not communicate this at all to you ahead of time. Not only that, it was similarly missed in the patch notes so you received no warning at all of this change or why it happened. We messed up communicating this to you and I apologize for that. It was never our intent to hide this from you, it was just missed. I have been talking with the team yesterday and today about the changes that were missed and what procedures we can adjust to ensure we don’t miss them in the future.

 

Do you know how many times you've had to do this though? How many times you've said that? Multiple things were missing from the 5.1 patch notes. It's time for a fresh answer.

Edited January 26, 2017 by SirUrza

[TrixxieTriss]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

The 4.0 gearing for pvp was perfect after 3 years of hard work getting it to that stage. You have wrecked all that hard work, alienated all pvpers and are now saying you are committed to improving the gearing experience for us.

THAT STATEMENT IS AN OUTRIGHT LIE AND YOU KNOW IT.

If Bioware were dedicated to improving the gearing experience you wouldn't have changed it for pvp.

 

You are so gear grind focused that you can't see the big picture, which is we don't even need gear for pvp. You could take gear completely out of pvp and we would enjoy it.

 

Seeing as CXP is your new baby and you don't want to throw it out the window, even though it is a mutant monster that should be put down, there are ways you could keep it in the pvp game, but still made pvp gearing viable.

 

1. have two currency's, one for pvp and one for CXP.

2. have dedicated pvp armor that is easy to obtain, but is never as good as the tier 3 gear and isnt even BiS for Tier 2 PvE content. It is only BiS for pvp.

3. people with higher lvl gear are bolstered down to the max pvp gear lvl so they never have a gear advantage in pvp.

4. CXP earned in pvp is minimal, but still there. People needing CXP will be pve people anyway and they will be able to acquire that in pve content.

5. PVPers could use their gathered CXP in WZs to spend on cosmetic items

6; then you can focus on balance and maps.

Edited January 26, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

[RiVaN_]

Are you frakin kidding me?

Seriously, this is one of those changes where community feedback and testing on the PTS BEFORE the change was put into place would have done your dev team a world of good. At the very least some early warning, a week, maybe two would have allowed you to be able to think this through before doing it.

 

Changes like this one and teh complete lack of transparency with the playerbase make it pretty obvious that the SWTOR team is out of touch with the player base and that you don't play your own game...

[Costello]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

Eric it seems that every element of the game that gave good (or the best) CXP was a mistake or not working as designed.

 

First we had gold elites 10 cxp so nerfed to 1 in a couple of days.

Then we have KP champions giving 20 cxp so nerfed to 5 in a week or so.

Now we have had PvP bolstering people so gear was not required while being the best source of cxp (so gear) nerfed so it seems bads and noobs are being mowed down. - Where this one is really bad is it took 2 months to fix and many of the people doing the ganking now probably benefited from the bugged bolster for the last 2 month. One rules for some different rules for others...

 

This does leave the question, given how badly gearing is going 'by design' is anything being done in the short term to address this. I.e. that can be talked about today. To say the system is not encouraging may be something of an understatement, anyone who has opened 3 or 4 crates in a row and disintergrated the lot will be asking what the point of the grind was. And we have some people that have opened 10 times that many and not gotten anything (allegedly). Making it seem unlikely this can be the plan to keep people subscribing and playing.

[Lundorff]

I fully believe that less than 5% of the player base prefer GXP to the previous model. I obviously have no metrics for this, but I can only find 2 types of people who might enjoy it:

 

 

• Old players who only ever play 1 character and never try ALTs
  
• New players who think they will only ever play 1 character and never try ALTs
  

 

The rest of the player base seems to find it.... oh what ever. I don't care anymore. This game is beyond repair, and I am so, so done and gone the second I find something even mildly interesting.

[Shirvington]

236 might have been a better bolster.

[verfallen]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

Thats what you guys said about 5.1, and what you delivered is just more grinding. Its totally against what the community told you, that the hard time based grind was NOT a good idea. The vibe we're all getting from each other is that we do not trust the devs, and most of your promises have been either broken, or the "fix" actually worsened the situation. The lenght and repetitiveness of the grind is a massive stonewalling, and making it "slightly shorter" for alts is STILL a darn boring and frustrating time grind. One of the thing many enjoy doing, is switching between alts to have different playstyle and not always play with the same character, especially in pvp.

 

A subbed player pays the same amount a month regardless if they play 10 hours a week or 50 hours a week. You have players that have demanding jobs, families, college and universities student who must devote a good chunk of their time to that, and their free time is precious. Sure they want to have to work for something, but they want to have fun doing it. Not get facerolled by the people who can play 50 hours a week for 8 months. And at that rate, you'll lose a good part of those players, if its not already too late. A lot of long standing and loyal players have left in the last 2 months, and those who remained and chose to trust you one more time just got a slap to the face AGAIN.

 

What we have now, is a totally broken trust between the devs and the majority of the player base. I'm currently staying because I'm a really big star wars fan, and I still enjoy raiding with some friends in game, but if those friend leave, I'm out the next month. Coming from a guy who didnt miss a month of subbing since launch...(yah I got the darn statue, ty for increasing the count to 50, but its not exactly a priority)

 

Its like you guys want the game to shut down before the end of the year....

 

 

But eh. We get "more accurate" AoE circle. I guess I'll go throw a party for that.

[AmarantKando]

The bolster in 5.0 was the best. No longer did you have to have the best gear in order to do max dps/hps. You could perform just as well with old 208 set bonus. But ofcourse they reverted this back, they want us to use their new grinding system in order to get the best performance.

 

I'm glad you're talking about it, but I'm sure no one asked for Bolster to change back to how it worked before.

[Psychopyro]

Well, at least I can thank them for giving me plenty of time to enjoy the Moogle Chocobo Carnival that was released yesterday for FFXV..... It may be childish, stupid, and corny... But at least it's fun.....

[AidenPryde]

Eric, I'm sorry, but 250 bolster was the only thing keeping PvP like it was in 4.0. In 4.0 you had expertise, and it meant raiders or people with too much time on their hands couldn't dominate.

 

Now that you've removed expertise, and given raiders/higher tier GC players a gear pathway advantage, PvP sucks. 230 geared tanks in Warzones are melting when facing DPS with HM raid gear/higher tier Galactic Command..

 

I'm sorry, but you screwed up, and this change, will likely be why I cancel my subscription. I was willing to deal with the grind, but I'm not willing to deal with players who have far more time than me beating me in PvP not because of their skill with their class, but because they outgear me.

 

That and the fact that Unassembled Components aren't legacy currency is a contributing, yet important factor why I'm thinking of canceling as I play multiple characters in PvP, and it's yet another slap in the face.

[lobstah_rofls]

Still, getting gear is important and the 250 Bolster made getting any gear virtually unneeded for PvP progression.

 

Why is gearing important for PVP? Why should gear give anybody an edge? Haven't other games gone in the direction of cosmetic rather than advantage based incentives?

[Vaerah]

I have officially unsubscribed now. Since 5.0 was released you have lost 3 subs in my household from people who love Star Wars and were passionate swtor players and who cared what happened to this game.

 

PS : I sent you a PM to explain why I'm leaving. Maybe you can match my account data to my message and forward it to the people making these dumb decisions.

I am only a drop in the water, but when all the drops are gone and you are left with an empty bucket, what will you do.

 

My fellow pvpers. If you end up unsubbing because if this, make sure you PM Eric and let him know why.

 

Yep. Unsubbing is a duty now, it's impossible to keep taking it into the face forever.

 

So, here you go: unsubbed.

[Exocor]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

I would suggest, to set Bolster to 236 oder 238, to not make the gap between high-equipped players and not-so-high-equipped to big.

 

In terms of gearing, I would suggest, to include 236-save-random-drops in NiM and 230-save-random-drops in hm, so that we don't finish an operation with just 2 pieces. In addition, I would suggest to increase the drop of pvp-components in all activities. It might also be helpful, to add component-drops to story-chapters, flashpoints and Uprisings. Maybe, it might be an idea, to let drop unassembled components from the first bosses in operations and to also include a chance of dropping components from Command Crates. (Maybe desintegrate armor-pieces into components?) Another idea might be, to increase the drop chance of legendary pieces from Command Crates.

 

In my opinion, it should be as difficult as doing nim-ops, to get 242-pieces. But the wall to 236-pieces is a bit to high for not-operation-players.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Exocor

[Lundorff]

I would suggest, to set Bolster to 236 oder 238, to not make the gap between high-equipped players and not-so-high-equipped to big.

 

In terms of gearing, I would suggest, to include 236-save-random-drops in NiM and 230-save-random-drops in hm, so that we don't finish an operation with just 2 pieces. In addition, I would suggest to increase the drop of pvp-components in all activities. It might also be helpful, to add component-drops to story-chapters, flashpoints and Uprisings. Maybe, it might be an idea, to let drop unassembled components from the first bosses in operations and to also include a chance of dropping components from Command Crates. (Maybe desintegrate armor-pieces into components?) Another idea might be, to increase the drop chance of legendary pieces from Command Crates.

 

In my opinion, it should be as difficult as doing nim-ops, to get 242-pieces. But the wall to 236-pieces is a bit to high for not-operation-players.

 

No.

 

PVP should never be about gear, and 4.0 was almost perfect in this regards. We could play alts and gather comms while leveling to 65 and be ready with BiS PVP gear right out the gate. A return to this system is a bare minimum to prevent people from leaving. We still have all the numerous old problems (hackers, wintraders, no balance or match making, FOTM classes, silly bugs, no new warzones etc.). I mean really. Rather than actually fixing some of this stuff, they managed to included gear disparity to the pile of problems that needs to be fixed.

 

Give us back the old gearing system (legacy comms, 2 sets, expertise) in update 5.2 and I will stay a bit longer. If not, I am done and gone.

[carbotron]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

Dear Eric,

 

give this feedback to your superiors, please. Consider it as a feedback of 3 of your customers.

 

As we were playing only warzones and story quests on multiple characters the 5.1 was the last nail to the coffin for us. The grind for competent PvP gear is absurd while the difference between people with 242 item level and set bonus and me with 228 - 230 ilvl gear and no set bonus (i got 1 set item in more than 65 boxes) is hillarious.

 

You wrote that you hear us. I dont think that you hear is loudly enough otherwise you would not release 5.1. IMHO you will lisen only if we cancel the subscribtion (I hope you will. You realy should). So after more than 5 years (i have payed you more than 800USD by now and im realy disappointed by your services atm.) i am going cancel my subscription along with my 2 friends and we will move to another game for now.

 

To be fair we had a blast in warzones through the years. The huttball and tanking in PvP was one of the best things in MMORPGs we played in the last 10 years. We loved that we could play WZs with low level alts and collect the WZ comms to be ready to get the PvP gear at endlevel. Right now the game is in a state that we cant be bothered to play it anymore.

[heavysoldier]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

In your message (above) you say there is a need to fix bolster (and that the dev-team is not averse to doing so). from this logic we can conclude that the bolster system is NOT working as intended.

 

You just got logic'd!

[Thaladan]

you just don't play your game, that is the point of your lack of efficiency..

 

all your new change are terrible, and more and more....

 

listen your customers if you want to stay at your seat !

Edited January 26, 2017 by Thaladan

[DRMM]

Eric,

 

In 4.0 the bolstered gear rating to 200 was fine because players were not required to grind forever to get on a level playing field. You could get enough comms in lowbie PVP to go straight into 70's in full 208 and comms were transferrable between alts. Grinding for months on end to achieve a level playing field is not in the best interests of the player base and it shows to you need to go back to 2 sets of gear (PVP and PVE). My only issue with bolster pre patch was TTK on players was too high and not enough people were dying but the nerf needed to be down to 232 for everyone (making 242 gear redundant for everything bar operations and master solo) or nerf it down to 242. Gear should not be a determining factor in PVP.

 

Just wanted to say the same thing after reading Eric's post. I'm not sure how developers don't see the difference that seems so obvious.

 

Even before top level PvP gear was made cheap the lower rank was easily obtainable by anybody who cared. You were still 4 levels below, but had a clear path to the top.

 

If you want the grind to matter set bolster to 240. Give those at the top some advantage at 242, and give the rest the reason to get there.

 

At 10 lelvels of difference will put more and more people off. And no pops = no fun for anybody.

[Jedi_riches]

Hey folks,

 

That being said, part of this issue is that we did not communicate this at all to you ahead of time. Not only that, it was similarly missed in the patch notes so you received no warning at all of this change or why it happened. We messed up communicating this to you and I apologize for that. It was never our intent to hide this from you, it was just missed. I have been talking with the team yesterday and today about the changes that were missed and what procedures we can adjust to ensure we don’t miss them in the future.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

I'm sorry Eric, but that does not cut it, it's always the bigger and more controversial items that get missed off such as heroic credit nerfs, it's almost like you know what will annoy the community and keep it from us as long as possible. That cannot be pure coincidence.

[TechTheHic]

I don't buy that bolster was broken. I'm pretty sure I remember them saying when asked what the point was of grinding out gear to higher levels with bolster, they said the advantage was being able to customize stats or something along those lines.

 

Reality is; they want you to grind. They want that to be the "content" while they run a thin staff and need some extra time to develop anything and keep an income stream to try to maximize profit. Their gamble is that people will be fool enough to do so and a lot will be.

[DanNV]

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

Eric, on top of bolster, the gearing has to change, drastically, and you have to announce it today or your customer base is shrinking even more, I expect right after the stream. My suggestions are here http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=911737 . That is what I expect is a minimum you have to announce today to have any change of getting people to stay and maybe come back.

 

Just for interest, how many of your staff have played the game, on live servers, since 5.0 dropped? How about people like Ben, Michael and Charles? Did they have fun? have they tried doing end-game with no dev cheats, but starting with a brand new 70, no old gear, no set bonuses and tried playing Ops and PvP? If they have, I expect they'd have figured out how badly they've screwed up the game. If they haven't, they should.

[Ottoattack]

Just wanted to say the same thing after reading Eric's post. I'm not sure how developers don't see the difference that seems so obvious.

 

Even before top level PvP gear was made cheap the lower rank was easily obtainable by anybody who cared. You were still 4 levels below, but had a clear path to the top.

 

If you want the grind to matter set bolster to 240. Give those at the top some advantage at 242, and give the rest the reason to get there.

 

At 10 lelvels of difference will put more and more people off. And no pops = no fun for anybody.

 

I estimate the difference between level 232 with no set bonus and 242 with set bonus to be between 12-15%. That is not a tolerable gear gap.

 

This will sound like a broken record, since majority of the posters pointed that already, PvP is about COMPETITION not PROGRESSION.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Ottoattack

[jedcjedcjedc]

I just don't get these people. "top gear is so hard to get" yet "all these people are beating me because they have the top gear and have such a huge advantage". you can't have both, you've got to pick one or the other. Does everyone have 242's or is it too hard to get?

 

Also what is the difference between 200 and 208. Correct, the answer is 8. Now try counting from 232 to 242. Correct, the answer is 10. 10 is very close to 8. the difference everyone is crying about is extremely minimal. Combine this with the fact most people don't even have full 240's and that god knows how many people can craft 234's and the gap is even smaller yet.

Edited January 26, 2017 by jedcjedcjedc

[Psychopyro]

I just don't get these people. "top gear is so hard to get" yet "all these people are beating me because they have the top gear and have such a huge advantage". you can't have both, you've got to pick one or the other. Does everyone have 242's or is it too hard to get?

 

The problem is, it became much easier after this change for people who raid... Also the fact that people were able to spend 2 weeks getting gear from exploiting fractured....