What is going on with this game?

[Soljin]

I agree with you.

 

What we actually have here is an instilled belief that all alts should be max geared.... mostly because in 4.0 they made the ability to do so fairly easy (which in the context of general MMO approaches to gearing, was simply too casual and too friendly, and players became spoiled by the low hanging fruit approach).

 

Bioware is in a fix of their own making. Once they had made gear acquisition simple the model would have made sense in a regular content release game. They were not able or unwilling to render the content required to sustain the community in that model.

 

Now Bioware clearly became aware of that issue and decided to create an artificial buffer in gearing. Unfortunately BW made the gearing change to a community that was already accustomed to the previous gearing of which many liked.

 

Once again they likely could have avoided this entire outcry if they would have just focused on new and innovative content.

 

Ironically they are now trying to push out diverse game content and what do you know that is where the majority of their positive remarks are coming from...

Edited April 12, 2017 by Soljin

[Chelz]

We told the dev's back in 5.0 beta that the RNG system and no new ops would not work and they would lose at least half of their subs. They pretty much told us to go F*** ourselves. Now we are sitting here 4 months later, or so, and it has happened as we predicted, and now they are scrambling to put things back the way they were. That is what is happening to the game. The dev's don't listen or learn from their previous mistakes.

[Valceanu]

Bioware is in a fix of their own making. Once they had made gear acquisition simple the model would have made sense in a regular content release game. They were not able or unwilling to render the content required to sustain the community in that model.

 

Now Bioware clearly became aware of that issue and decided to create an artificial buffer in gearing. Unfortunately BW made the gearing change to a community that was already accustomed to the previous gearing of which many liked

 

I agree that BW shot themselves in the foot. For me the bigger mistake was in 4.0 ... Gear is an important part of character development (notice I say character not legacy here) at end game in MMORPGs... They should never have handed out gear like it was nothing. They are now trying to correct their original error. I don't think CXP is the best way to do it... In fact I don't think getting BiS from anything other then the hardest content should be possible... But I guess their RNG system is meant for solo players who this way at least have a chance of getting something.

[Tsillah]

We told the dev's back in 5.0 beta that the RNG system and no new ops would not work and they would lose at least half of their subs. They pretty much told us to go F*** ourselves. Now we are sitting here 4 months later, or so, and it has happened as we predicted, and now they are scrambling to put things back the way they were. That is what is happening to the game. The dev's don't listen or learn from their previous mistakes.

 

It would've been one thing if this was the first time they did something incredibly stupid like this, but sadly this has been the story of BWA since the get-go. The failing of the game from the first month of release is entirely to blame on their rosey-eyed opinion of themselves.

 

The weird thing is that by now the devs have come and gone but this attitude has lingered. I understand they can't listen to everything the player base says but there's gotta be a point where you can recognise some ideas as just plain bad ideas. When it comes to worst decisions made in MMOs ever, 5.0 should be at least in the top 10 if not somwhere in the top 3. It's one of the biggest mistakes I've ever seen in games so for me personally it might be on number 1.

 

And I just don't get that they didn't see it and when the feedback exploded well before release nobody apparently thought that they might want to rethink their strategy here.

 

Currently I'm hanging between giving 5.2 a chance or just giving up on MMOs in general as it stands. I was leaning towards giving 5.2 a chance but the patch notes revealed that the NiM bosses don't persistently drop BiS tokens and that makes me wanna give up again. Our guild is not the best but we are doing a lot of wiping on some NiM bosses and Revan HM. It's not very rewarding but if these bosses don't even drop BiS gear then it's going to take forever unless you go PvP. Some of us do, some of us hate PvP. So some people will have full BiS gear and the other half won't. That sucks because it makes NiM less important for half of us and the other half feels crappy for not being up to par of the rest. It still doesn't sit right for progression raiding.

 

The thing is, it would've been ok like this if you wouldn't have been able to get this BiS gear so much easier in PvP. That's just all wrong cause some hate PvP with a passion and are at a disadvantage because of it in PvE.

 

That just makes zero sense.

[GalacticKegger]

I agree that BW shot themselves in the foot. For me the bigger mistake was in 4.0 ... Gear is an important part of character development (notice I say character not legacy here) at end game in MMORPGs... They should never have handed out gear like it was nothing. They are now trying to correct their original error. I don't think CXP is the best way to do it... In fact I don't think getting BiS from anything other then the hardest content should be possible... But I guess their RNG system is meant for solo players who this way at least have a chance of getting something.

Unless I heard wrong, didn't they announce in one of the January Livestreams plans for adding a solo Ops track running in parallel with the group Ops track? Bah ... They turned the game into a solo RPG until folks raised cane in December and are now simply trying to make the solo system work for multiplayer. I don't think there is any way they can correct their original error unless they go back to where the error occurred, get back on the path that preceded it, and don't make the same mistake again.

 

Galactic Command has its merits as a single-player leveling system. But it has zero merit as a MMO progression system, and its Command Level crate reward system should have never been allowed outside of the solo leveling rewards experience. They got away with replacing leveling and elder game loot tables with Alliance crates in 4.0, so they probably figured they could get away with finishing the job by replacing end game loot tables with Command Crates.

 

Oops ...

 

Crates need to either stay in the Cartel Market or at the very least be removed from the gearing process. RNG has no place is a merit-based content progression system.

Edited April 12, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[CKNORTH]

Unless I heard wrong, didn't they announce in one of the January Livestreams plans for adding a solo Ops track running in parallel with the group Ops track? Bah ... They turned the game into a solo RPG until folks raised cane in December and are now simply trying to make the solo system work for multiplayer. I don't think there is any way they can correct their original error unless they go back to where the error occurred, get back on the path that preceded it, and don't make the same mistake again.

 

Galactic Command has its merits as a single-player leveling system. But it has zero merit as a MMO progression system, and its Command Level crate reward system should have never been allowed outside of the solo leveling rewards experience. They got away with replacing leveling and elder game loot tables with Alliance crates in 4.0, so they probably figured they could get away with finishing the job by replacing end game loot tables with Command Crates.

 

Oops ...

 

Crates need to either stay in the Cartel Market or at the very least be removed from the gearing process. RNG has no place is a merit-based content progression system.

 

I think for me to sum it all up is, once I am done with Coruscant I pretty much fade out, delete toon, and reroll. most of my enthusiasm is done at the point of the second planet. I just don't see playing any character over the length of the entire game.... but that's just how I feel.

[Valceanu]

It would've been one thing if this was the first time they did something incredibly stupid like this, but sadly this has been the story of BWA since the get-go. The failing of the game from the first month of release is entirely to blame on their rosey-eyed opinion of themselves.

 

The weird thing is that by now the devs have come and gone but this attitude has lingered. I understand they can't listen to everything the player base says but there's gotta be a point where you can recognise some ideas as just plain bad ideas. When it comes to worst decisions made in MMOs ever, 5.0 should be at least in the top 10 if not somwhere in the top 3. It's one of the biggest mistakes I've ever seen in games so for me personally it might be on number 1.

 

And I just don't get that they didn't see it and when the feedback exploded well before release nobody apparently thought that they might want to rethink their strategy here.

 

Currently I'm hanging between giving 5.2 a chance or just giving up on MMOs in general as it stands. I was leaning towards giving 5.2 a chance but the patch notes revealed that the NiM bosses don't persistently drop BiS tokens and that makes me wanna give up again. Our guild is not the best but we are doing a lot of wiping on some NiM bosses and Revan HM. It's not very rewarding but if these bosses don't even drop BiS gear then it's going to take forever unless you go PvP. Some of us do, some of us hate PvP. So some people will have full BiS gear and the other half won't. That sucks because it makes NiM less important for half of us and the other half feels crappy for not being up to par of the rest. It still doesn't sit right for progression raiding.

 

The thing is, it would've been ok like this if you wouldn't have been able to get this BiS gear so much easier in PvP. That's just all wrong cause some hate PvP with a passion and are at a disadvantage because of it in PvE.

 

That just makes zero sense.

 

Wait... I thought 5.2 was supposed to make bosses guarantee drops as opposed to now. If it's NiM it makes sense if it's BiS and each raid drops specific pieces. What exactly do you mean that they won't guarantee drops? So you mean 1 for each person?! That's normal... The way I remember raiding we use to have an internal guild ranking thingy with points and people would spend them for rolls... And so forth. Can you detail what you mean... Now I'm worried that something has escaped my notice...lol

[Tsillah]

Wait... I thought 5.2 was supposed to make bosses guarantee drops as opposed to now. If it's NiM it makes sense if it's BiS and each raid drops specific pieces. What exactly do you mean that they won't guarantee drops? So you mean 1 for each person?! That's normal... The way I remember raiding we use to have an internal guild ranking thingy with points and people would spend them for rolls... And so forth. Can you detail what you mean... Now I'm worried that something has escaped my notice...lol

 

Read the patch notes. There will be guaranteed drops in NiM but only the final bosses will drop BiS. The rest of the bosses will drop prototype and artifact level gear. Prototype is blue and artifact is purple btw.

 

Again, read the 5.2 patch notes. The patch is delayed but the patch notes were posted.

[merovejec]

I'm am writing this not a a rant but mainly because I am a bit confused as to why are things going this way, or how is this supposed to make sense?

 

1st we get an expansion that the story was good. (I enjoyed it) But nothing new to it for several months.

2nd in That expansion the broke My main character. (Sith Sorcerer) Making it playing with it as a healer/or DPS not a s fun as it used to be.

3rd The gearing up system is by far the worse I have seen so far.

4th because of the gearing up system being so bad, Alts are pretty much unplayable.

 

Now it might sound as complaining, or whining, but I'm a paying customer.

I was hoping to finally start playing this game properly today. Now another week we have to wait but meanwhile we keep paying for this.

The more I keep thinking about this the more I can't help to think as to why am I paying for them to deliver me a broken experience. Can somebody explain this to me. Or if somebody relates to this I would love to read their input. Thanks.

 

The problem is that the game didnt meet expetations right at the start, 5 years ago. Since then they have been downsizing. Now the game runs with minimal personel and that is evident in many areas. We have bugs, fixes that cause bugs, few annoucements, little communication, no content, delayed content etc.

 

All this may not be the fault of BW but EA and management. They many have decided to make swtor just a cash maschine with low investment and high earnings.

[Valceanu]

Read the patch notes. There will be guaranteed drops in NiM but only the final bosses will drop BiS. The rest of the bosses will drop prototype and artifact level gear. Prototype is blue and artifact is purple btw.

 

Again, read the 5.2 patch notes. The patch is delayed but the patch notes were posted.

 

oh yeah i got it now... well, that actually makes sense if you think about it. If every boss dropped a piece of BiS then a player could potentially be fully geared in 2,5 runs or so... which ofc would be far too low a number for end game progression. Im assuming that since all tier 4 items will have set bonuses and allegedly be better then tier 3s that you can still improve your gear as you go, and eventually reach BiS.