Discussion Topic: Master Mode Operation Gear Drops

[teclado]

Bring back Expertise gear, place it at tier 230/236, place bolster at 224, and revert PvE gearing back to dropping one piece per boss, reliably, allowing PvErs who clear NiM to get NiM-gear. This really isn't difficult, the system ALREADY EXISTS.

When is the PvP gear with expertise coming out?

This feels like it's getting off topic, but it's really not. All gearing is tied together now, when IMO it really should not be.

 

I vote to bring back expertise and cheap PvP gear. The reason that PvP gearing has to be grindy in 5.0 is because expertise is gone. I think that NiM (aka Master Mode) operation clearing should give the best gear in the game, because it is the hardest content in the game. Casual warzones should not give the best PvE gear.

 

I know that a lot of people hated having two gear sets, but that really is the best solution. Maybe have some sort of "outfit designer" type tab system on which you can apply a PvP gear set and a PvE gear set. When you enter a warzone, your PvP tab is automatically selected. Give everybody a basic PvP set (like the Recruit gear back in the day) that will be the default. That way, anybody can just hop into a warzone without even having to think about PvP gear, unless you want to, and get full expertise. You could also remove bolster from level 70 PvP (the free gear sets your bottom threshold, and it effectively is your bolster). You could still have a PvP gearing progression, but it would be separate from the PvE gearing progression. For open world, whenever you are flagged for pvp, your pvp gear tab gets selected.

 

You could set the free default "recruit" gear to something like 224 rating (with 2018 expertise), then have 230 and 236 PvP gear sets (both with 2018 expertise). Make it so that only pieces with the correct amount of expertise can be applied to a given slot on the PvP gear tab (to avoid people accidentally screwing themselves over).

[Forren-Midosea]

One more thing Keith, you should make gearing slower a bit. People are already full of 248 toons.

 

The ideal thing would be making Story mode and Veteran mode not dependant on gear that much (entry lvl gear gathered in flashpoints, uprisings etc) for both, for vet augs required) and doing veteran mode would grant you with gear that would be good enough for doing mastermode + simplifying or clarifying the operation modes.

 

And remove gear requirement from pvp. One set of stats and that is all.

[OasisKid]

As a long time player and someone that has done Gate Crasher and From Beyond post 5.0 I have a very good grasp on loot. I have looked at this question and solution from a PVE and PVP aspect. So here goes. I realize that with the changes that have taken place since Galactic Command things have been rocky. So lets talk about the PVP side of SWTOR in its current reform. The grind for UA Components is very very grinding and not fair to the PVP community. the Nightmare bosses should all drop 248 token pieces and make them match the HM bosses loot table. I understand you want the new raid to be the place for BIS however it is just one boss until July and it wont be complete until maybe October if we are lucky. That said you have essentially rolled out 5.0 and with the introduction of UA Comps you have made that and Command Tokens the very thing you aimed to purge from the game "currency and accommodations" You really need to think long and hard as someone who wants to strike balance between the PVE and PVP community. You also need to realize that GC was introduced as a way to help casual players get BIS gear so you kinda put yourselves in a pickle .... In my truly honest opinion you can keep GC in place as supplementary but revert to the way gears worked in 2.0 with all due respect think about your player base and fix it

[heavysoldier]

I really like this option Eric. Thank you for really thinking about your customers (cough)!

 

 

3. We double the amount of drops awarded in both 8 and 16-player difficulties. This means there is a random aspect of what is dropping, but there will be more chances of receiving Tier 4 gear based on the number of players participating in the Operation. Additionally we will add Unassembled Components to each boss. This would mean that players running Master Mode would not only be receiving a chance at Tier 4 gear, but they are also working towards being able to upgrade/purchase the Tier 4 gear they need. We realize Unassembled Components have been attributed to PvP activities, but we could make that adjustment. Finally we will change all unassembled tokens to Bind on Legacy so that those alternate characters aren't neglected and you can spice up your gameplay by changing class and role besides your main character.

 

[Nebojsa_Maric]

The second option seems fine IF flue/purple tier 4 gear could be upgraded to Gold (248), not just upgrading 242 to 248 as in PvP...

 

Bottom line is - Master mode drop on any boss must beat Veteran drop by a SIGNIFICANT amount...

[blackopsranger]

these are both horrible, the first because there's only a very few bosses dropping the gear the second because you have to do a lower tier to get the shell to turn in the components from the harder tier.

Instead nix both of those ideas. You can make the VotMG drop 248 on HM but make the old content NIM drop 242& Components for Everyone, with a chance for 248s throughout and 100% chance on last bosses. The reason I say for everyone is because it will push people to go for the hardest content.

[DarthSpuds]

The problem isn't the amount of drops. It's WHAT drops.

 

Hush now, that would mean re-thinking the lazy, cheap, decade-out-of-date, RNG gearing scheme that Bioware has "invested" in.

 

All The Best

[EzioMessi]

Option 2...but ideally option 3 where the drops are specific as all the other tiers. This imho shouldn't be a hard concept to grasp.

 

It really shouldn't be this hard to grasp. They even fully acknowledged that no one is complaining about SM/HM where drops are specific and predictable, but proceed to make no proper improvement to predictability of NiM drops.

 

They should at least temporarily let PvErs get full 248s from NiM, and ONCE they have released the entirety of the VotMG operations, they should make it BiS and do whatever else they want with the old NiM content.

[Dragondog]

Copy/Pasta error on my part from one of the older versions of the post. Consider it fixed!

 

-eric

 

Pasta. Well, now I'm hungry.

[Dzsewdow]

Considering you can get UCs just from AFKing out in a corner of a PvP map or repeatedly smashing your ship into rocks in GSF all day, getting a few of them per MM boss (which you can only take down once a week per character!) would be an almost insulting gesture at this point

.

Lemme just say that I always assign a kickvote to these merrygoeers

There cant be leeching rewards under my watch/batman

[EzioMessi]

Lemme just say that I always assign a kickvote to these merrygoeers

There cant be leeching rewards under my watch/batman

 

Yeah, but the devs haven't given us a working vote to kick function. All it takes is for them to hit one enemy and they don't get kicked.

 

Apparently it's okay to give players complete freedom for kicking other players in Ops and FPs, but in PvP you should only allow the dumbest of AFKers to be kicked.

[Dzsewdow]

As a more casual, lately crafter, doing fps and ops mainly for my guildmates' sake I can't say which would be better. But let me provide feedback on the unassambled components in general. In my view (what as my intro said might not be representative for most players, or maybe it might for many, I don't know) UCs have a dark aura. That means I kind of hate them ... It's just that they are hard to get. I don't agree that they are easy to get because pvp is afk-able. That is not my experience. My experience is that both warzones and GSF are much harder content than the casual nature of the breadth of the game which is still the story rich 1-70 leveling, for most returning and or new players. And afking ? I can't take a breath before I am kicked by the in-built inactivity timer. Warzones and GSF also require huge nerve durability because both need upgraded, good gear and skills to become competitive and by that getting the chance for the real reward: winning against other players. So as a result of all the above, the UCs I get on my main, poor vanguard tank, who suffers constant humiliation, focusing and elimination in WZs and for GSF noobships the situation is the same, I stick to them like crazy for their accumulated inventory number seems to be the only reward for a harsh and otherwise unrewarding activity. This, to the level that I actually feel quilty when I rarely spend them on a shiny upgrade what will result in an immeasurable improvement of my toon/ship. From my 8 toons, only my main has any UC's at all. So, I really hate them, I can't help it. Because of this, and only because of this, I am against rewarding the hardest PVE aspect of the game with UC currency. I don't know what the best solution is but getting a reward should feel like hitting the jackpot. Option number 2 would be like instead the gamorrean companion contract you would get 100 smuggler coins. Not epic, not a climax but a note: here, some pocket change so you don't leave empty handed.

[DanNV]

Eric,

 

I think your two options are another case of BW not actually listening to the paying customers. BW screwed up NiM drops in 4.0 big time and got a lot of flack for it. Cme 5.0 and GC and all teh negative feedback and you still screwed up MM gearing, again. (And why in teh world did you change the names from SM, HM and NiM? But that's another topic.)

 

My raid team stopped doing any MM content because the gear drops are random and not BiS. We don't care that your designers wanted the new Op to be the source for BiS gear. (Honetly, with 4.x and 5. x we've gotten to the pint we don't care what your designers want for much of anything since it doesn't match up with what we, as paying customers, want.)

 

Neither of your options cut it. Each MM boss should drop specific pieces of BiS gear. It's not a complicated theory.

 

More random garbage is not going to help the game. You've WAY over done it and it's cost you how many paying customers over the last 8 months? Has anyone started learning lessons from that, yet?

 

As to dropping unassembled, components, don't make the current FUBAR system any more confusing for players than it already is. If you're going to go to unassemled components, then drop them exclusively instead of specific pieces of gear, but drop enough that you get a piece every op or so. Just don't ix the two systems. The current gearing system is a mess, you don't want to make it worse.

 

The best thing you could do is go to 3.x or 4.x gearing and get rid of GC totally. However, I expect someone's career is hanging on GC so we're stuck with it.

 

Personally, I like the gearing in ESO better than what SWTOR has now. (I prefered mot of the previous SWTOR gearing system, but not all of it.) The best part of ESO being that you can craft gear as good as any drop in the game including set bonuses. BW might give that some thought.

[DanNV]

But to be clear, that's only if it was actually a decent amount of components. I'd suggest a sliding scale, where something like Nefra gives only a few (8) and then increasing by 4 or 8 each subsequent boss.

 

But if it would be an insulting low amount (like 2 or 4 per boss) I'd rather take my chances with the double drop.

 

At the price of buying things with unassembleed components, I'd consider anything less than 15-20% of the price of piece of gear, per boss, to be an insult and insufficient.

[Exocor]

1. We leave the amount of gear drops as is, but we add Unassembled Components to each boss. This would mean that players running Master Mode would not only be receiving a chance at Tier 4 gear, but they are also working towards being able to upgrade/purchase the Tier 4 gear they need. We realize Unassembled Components have been attributed to PvP activities, but we could make that adjustment.

 

When you are changing something, please don't double the rng. Noone needs random tokens, that have nothing to do with the classes of your raid members. So, if we have to choose between two options, please add unassembled components to MM bosses.

 

Another suggestion: Return to the system before 5.2 and add a chance drop for random unassembled tier 4 legendary pieces. We can understand, that you don't want to give us unassembled tier 4 legendary gear with each boss, but what about some random pieces with the same drop chance we had previous to 5.2?

[jimmorrisson]

Which ever is closest to pre-5.0 is what you go with.

 

Also dumb down/nerf/streamline all other ops to EV and KP level.

[DarthSpuds]

Personally, I like the gearing in ESO better than what SWTOR has now. (I prefered mot of the previous SWTOR gearing system, but not all of it.) The best part of ESO being that you can craft gear as good as any drop in the game including set bonuses. BW might give that some thought.

 

Pre GC (which I now believe means Gigantic Cluster&^%$) I would have disagreed with you.

 

Dropped Gear in ESO is just way too random - skewed towards the rubbish stuff no one wants having much higher drop chances.

 

But now, with GC, I'd love an ESO style Gearing/Crafting system - something straightforward, and streamlined; by which I don't mean hand it all out on a silver platter, I mean do away with all the "make work" that has been added to gearing and crafting.

 

Make work filler is NOT a proxy for actual content.

RNG is NOT a proxy for genuine excitement.

 

All The Best

[DarkSaberMaster]

There is a thread in the PvP forums, don't think the posters agree, most PvPers want expertise back.

 

The devs reasoning for taking it out, that people would not need 2 sets of gear, was false.

 

All the current system is doing is giving PvP advantage to PvE raiders.

 

Pretty much because the attributes you need in PvP are different than PvE. You don't need accuracy in pvp while you need it in pve. Then you have the classes that are part healer and part tank. They use totally different attributes. Even the pure dps class Mara needs two different sets not just from pve and pvp. Because you gear Fury different than you do Carnage.

 

So yes. The whole mantra of getting rid of expertise so you don't need two gear sets is a cop out. The only people who think that are those who don't care about gimping themselves or have no clue how this game works.

[Rion_Starkiller]

.......

 

Look, I'm not sure what the best solution is but:

 

1. Players shouldn't be penalized for running NiM ops, which is how it feels right now by lack of gear drops.

2. We are 7? months into 5.0 and Galactic Command. We're geared now.. thank you, but too little too late. SWTOR lost a great many raiders because it took months & months to gear up back to where we were in 4.0.

3. The best thing SWTOR can do is to not make the same RAID GEAR mistake in 6.0.

4. Nightmare Mode sounds better than Master Mode. You don't have to be a salesman, or have a marketing degree to figure that out.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Rion_Starkiller

[dscount]

Option 2 - UC seems the better of the two options, but needs to be worthwhile and maybe SCALE as you progress each boss (First Boss is always a push over). DO NOT PUT any UC's on SM/HM bosses.

 

Option 3 - Suggested by others. In NiM remove all the BLUE gear and Drop 248 Tokens (NONE on 1st Boss)

 

I hate even having it suggested we put UC's on SM/HM even. If you must then attach to the WEEKLY for each Operation and make it equal the PVP Weekly UC Drop.

 

With Boss 2 coming next month and a roll out likely NOT finished by end of 2017 I highly suggest NiM gets 248 tokens. Maybe Boss 4/5 scale up once the next move to gear level shifts.

[Kaveat]

Hey folks,

We have been discussing two ideas to address this issue and would like your feedback:

 

1. We double the amount of drops awarded in both 8 and 16-player difficulties. This means there is a random aspect of what is dropping, but there will be more chances of receiving Tier 4 gear based on the number of players participating in the Operation.
   
2. We leave the amount of gear drops as is, but we add Unassembled Components to each boss. This would mean that players running Master Mode would not only be receiving a chance at Tier 4 gear, but they are also working towards being able to upgrade/purchase the Tier 4 gear they need. We realize Unassembled Components have been attributed to PvP activities, but we could make that adjustment.

 

So what do you think? Do you like or dislike option 1 or 2 above? Is there something you are concerned about with either idea? What idea was not mentioned that you think could solve this? Let us know!

 

-eric

 

In line with the original question:

#2 - add Unassembled Components to each boss

 

This has been requested since this new system was put into play, and as others have mentioned, needs some expanding on to include more PvE activities, not just NiM/MM OP's. However, in its current form, this option needs some more foundation as to the spade work being done to allow this to work:

1) UC's are stated to be going legacy (vs per character), but last I saw there was no set date for this change.

- I will also throw in a request to make the command stash a legacy wide container as the other stash containers already are. If you need to ask why, I have a back of the head slap in my pocket with your name on it..

2) UC cap? 1000 is not realistic for a legacy cap, so what are you talking about here, 3k, 5k, 10k?

3) What sort of 'per boss' reward weight are you considering?

 

In a similar direction, but yet completely different from what has been done so far, and for NiM/MM OP's ONLY:

 

First, throw out the current gear reward system entirely. Instead of random pieces or even unassembled tokens, create an entirely new loot/reward system somewhat similar to the cartel market armor 'sets' where a TBD token drop gives you an option as to what you want at a vendor:

• TBD1 = Head or Ear
  
• TBD2 = Chest or Leg
  
• TBD3 = Glove or Implant
  
• TBD4 = Boots or Relic
  
• TBD5 = Belt or Mainhand
  
• TBD6 = Bracer or Offhand
  

 

The drops can be fixed or randomized per boss (except final), and stay at their 8/2;16/4 levels, but for an added spice should also include random mob drops with a smaller percentage to drop relevant to the mobs difficulty level (trash 1%, Elites 3%, Champions 5%, etc).

 

Also, to address another issue with 'BiS' gearing, there needs to be a vendor with 248 Mods and Enhancements where we are able to obtain their lettered variants. The requirement would be akin to the shell trade in where the player would have to have the 'base' Mod a/o Enhancement, already extracted, on their character or in that characters cargo hold:

ie: in inventory

• Lethal Mod 52 = Lethal Mod 52a or 52b
  
• Warding Mod 52 = Warding Mod 52a or 52b
  
• Adept (Crit) Enhancement 52 = Discipline (Crit) Enhancement 52 or Efficient (Crit) Enhancement 52
  
• etc
  

 

The catch? Said vendor is only accessible to a character that has a current lockout to 2nd (or higher) Nim/MM boss.

 

[end of line]

Edited June 16, 2017 by Kaveat

[casigarian]

Currently all players (PVE and PVP) have a chance at BIS gear from crates...the question asked is how do you motivate PVE players to do the most challenging content in game. With that said, I suggest that you:

 

1. Make unassembled components legacy (this beneffits both PVE and PVP)
   
2. Drop at least 1 248 unassembled token and 2 246 gear pieces from each MM boss.
   
3. Find a way to allow players to exchange duplicate 248 pieces they receive from cxp crates. (I personally have received 4 248 initiative ear pieces and 3 relics of Primevel Fatesealer (totally useless).
   

[Rryla]

Can someone confirm that 248 gear is still dropping from the cxp crates I've opened like 70 crates and have not got one 48 piece Edited June 16, 2017 by Rryla
Typo

[Gyronamics]

Can someone confirm that 248 gear is still dropping from the cxp crates I've opened like 70 crates and have not got one 48 piece

 

Yes.

 

Open more crates. 70 is not a lot. I disintegrated 4 leftside 248 this week.

 

Best gear in the game from RNG crates is how the developers want it to be.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Gyronamics

[chaharbagh]

Bring back Master Mode for Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace.