Discussion Topic: Bolster Changes in PvP

[Icykill_]

Absolutely..... Everyone is entitled to one regardless..... The hilarity is that you don't seem to think so.

 

 

 

I don't see PVP'ers quitting now without a 250 bolster.... What's your point? PVP'ers aren't leaving the game in droves. And again, the gear difference in bolster, and full 248's, isn't REALLY that big of a difference anyway to a skilled player. Hopefully you know that. In fact, half the fun in PVP is trying to kill a player that's better geared than you are...... At least I enjoy it, it's a challenge. As per the PVP vs PVE conversation, live players make mistakes, op's bosses don't.... So PVP is perfectly competitive the way it is. And seeing as how the grind to 248's is in doing something you're there for anyway, what's the issue?

 

<< Long term (5 years) dedicated pvper ready to unsub because of gear gap. The same as many others I know in the dedicated pvp community, "who don't pve" and have already quit. All you need to do is scroll through the pvp section to find some of those people who have quit,

 

You may not have seen the others leave because you aren't in the dedicated pvp community who don't play pve content, but if you need one... I'm one and I'm ready to quit... I think that is their point... lots of us have already left and the last of us are close to walking too.

 

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but don't think you speak for the dedicated pvpers in this game, because you don't. I don't pve and I wouldn't dream of going to a pve thread and telling them anything about why they are wrong, even if I was a casual pve person I would realise that there were dedicated players to that part of the game who understand the situation better than me.

 

Incesently arguing with every dedicated pvper in this thread over and over again is just derailing this thread for us and for Bioware to get valid feed back. If that is your intent, then you've achieved it. Youve made your points, please stop.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Icykill_

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Or maybe it was due to PvP being the highest CXP earning activity at the time.

 

Nowadays HM FP's give 2 to 3 times as much.

 

Maybe people were stating they love 250 bolster because PVP earned the most CXP? Huh?

[Icykill_]

PvP is NOT the reason this game is losing players. It's because of the lack of content. Period. As someone who is part of two of the largest guild on The Ebon Hawk (each with 300+ unique members), not a single players complains that the reason that this game has collapsed is because of PvP. Everyone agrees that the lack of new end game content is what's causing this game to fail.

 

Everyone agrees that the gear grind in PvP sucks, but it's not the reason that they are bored of the game.

 

Please don't use the word everyone. I can tell you for a fact that it is the number one reason I'm bored with the game.

I can live with the lack of content. I have done so since launch and I've even lived with the removal of 8 man ranked which nearly made me quit.

I can even live without class balance, even though it's second on my list of reasons to Unsub.

Gear grind, gear gap, gear vs gear pvp are all the same thing for me. I will unsub if it isn't addressed, the same as many of my other pvpers.

 

The game may not just be failing because of it or because pvpers are leaving. But we have so few people left in the game that it can't afford to lose anymore. We are in a symbiosis now, if one part fails, it all does. Until people and Bio realise that, we will continue to bleed players and the game will continue on its downward spiral to oblivion.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

2 1/2 ops and tyth...... Do I need to link you the gear chart as well???

 

You don't know what PVE means clearly, you must be new or something.

 

 

Do dailies, FP's and sell the blue mats, op's and sell the purple mats.... yadda yadda yadda..... Your earning capacity is only limited by how much time you put into it, and the going rate of things on your servers GTN......

 

So you can't support your statement then with examples and math? Guess you were clearly either making up stories or plain wrong.

 

I just did...... ...... 2 1/2 ops and a tyth..... How many more times do you want me to answer the question for you??

 

That's not proving anything. That's literally just saying " 2 1/2 ops and a tyth" which has nothing at all to do with the nonsense argument you made in the first place.

 

Sure.... And if we gave every player a full set of min/max 248's just for hopping on, everyone would be happy.... right?? PVP and PVE alike.......

 

More would be happy than would not I'm sure but that's a strawman argument yet again, no one is saying do that. Stop making up stories.

 

Let's put it this way..... if you are putting in 4 hours a week..... which is pretty damn casual for an MMO..... You would already be T4 had you started in January...... If not, you're doing something REALLY wrong.....

 

So you are saying someone can get to tier 4 in around 100 hours of gameplay then? Not to mention since January is 6 months lol ... yay it only took me 6 months to be able to play PVP on a level playing field! What fun. /s

 

 

 

It's simply a balance..... smh...... I can jump into regs on any alt that's completely un-geared right now and put up a decent fight and have fun. Regs are full of a mixed bag of players that aren't working together half the time with tons of easy targets to pick off (knowing your toon being a requirement), so why couldn't you have fun?? Having no gear tier to strive for at all is just ridiculous.

 

I'm competitive at what I want to do. I don't want to go in with a stat disadvantage and grinding is *********** boring to remove it.

I'll strive to increase my skills knowing I'm doing it against a level playing field.

I'm sorry you're so afraid and possibly lacking in skill that having to fight against a level playing field is so scary for you but that's no reason to not have ACTUAL balance in PVP.

 

 

Then why not simply pay a guild for a gear run...... Go straight to 242's in one night...... And then PVP your pretty little heart out. If the stat difference between 242 and 248 is too rough for you, then it's more an L2P issue than anything else.

 

Why ... because ...

 

However I am interested in the overall health of the game and what will attract more players to PVP. Thus any argument around credits and gearing needs to be taken i nthe context of what the average and casual players can do and afford.

 

You literally quoted me and then asked why? Come on ... reading is fairly fundamental don't you think?

 

PVP is no more causing the death of this game than any other element..... Just stop... lol

 

Who said it was killing the game? I want to improve it ... cut the strawman crap.

 

 

No.... it's not.... but it's the one part of PVE in the game that almost EVERY PVE guild is working on..... hence..... the majority......

 

What does every PVE guild have to do with anything? There are and will be more players doing class story than all ops put together but even that has nothing to do with PVP gearing ... nonsense

 

Do feel free to tell me where I've stated something that isn't factual, or is "nonsense".

 

Pretty much your entire post ...

[ufasach]

The fact that a bolster thread has devolved into an endless whine about the effort required to get to Tier 4 is pure comedy to me. The majority of people complaining ground out the original class stories when that took literally months, and claim to PVP purely for the joy of it. If that's the case, a 5 to 6 week grind to Tier 4 via PVP should be pure pleasure, and everyone griping about the need to do that must have some other reason for waging this histrionic crusade. What that is, I have no idea.

 

It's simple really. There are a large portion of those in the game that don't want to put any effort into getting geared and just want the Devs to hand them a full set "in the interest of the game" so they don't have to bother. They always claim to be dedicated to PVP etc but if that were true they wouldn't have any gear gap. The nettle that nobody wants to grasp is that without gear progression, there would be increased Queue Times due to less participation.

 

Madness Sorc puts head down and walks through hell to get Bis so that they have some chance.

Bioware contemplates handing every Merc & Sniper bolster to full gear "so they can compete fairly"

Bioware Devs shake their heads thinking what do we have to do? when chaos and unsubs occurs in the aftermath.

This game will live or die by balance but they obviously have a model designed around giving every class a period where they are Gods amongst children. I say this because after what is it 7 years now? They have never gotten even close to class balance. This could not have possibly happened other than through design. I suppose if players are constantly switching toons and re-gearing they will be less likely to focus on lack of new content/ warzones Operations etc.

[lolplayerLP]

It needs to be higher than suggested, 246 is my opinion. High enough for a fair fight until PvP Gear is back ?!

And low enough so that high end BiS gear is worth at least something in PvP.

[Icykill_]

It needs to be higher than suggested, 246 is my opinion. High enough for a fair fight until PvP Gear is back ?!

And low enough so that high end BiS gear is worth at least something in PvP.

 

A BiS geared player will still have higher stats at 250 Bolster than someone with lower gear. Prime example, the old ranked 208 gear used to still Bolster above 208 and give higher stats than 204 gear or lower.

This is why Bolster should be above the highest gear. BiS people will not lose out, but the gear gap will be smaller than it would be if Bolster is lower than 248.

What people don't realise is that's the way it was pre 5.0 and we had no problems.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Icykill_

[NogueiraA]

BOLSTER TO 250 RATING IS A GOOD THING.

 

I play this game since beta and we had 2 moments of completely PEACE about pvp in this game:

1 - When bolster was bugged and people could be naked + mainhand and have full stats, we had all kinds of memes and video parody in the forums, the community was literally having fun.

2 - When bolster was 250 rating.

 

I really don't remember people complaining or UNSUBBING or saying "nothing to do, i'm gonna quit" when bolster was 250 rating.

People want to log in and... PLAY the game, the less you have to worry about gear/min max or grinding CxP for main or alts the better.

 

There's always those saying "but pvp'ers will gear up faster" or vice versa... You have to understand that it's two separate game modes with different mentality. Pvp should never be about gear, the pvp progression is about skill knowing every single mechanic from other classes and the pvp map.

Pve progression is all about skill, gear and knowing every single mechanic from the boss.

 

@Eric increase bolster to 250, the MAJORITY will thank you a lot and the minority will complain but at the end they'll settle and adapt.

[NogueiraA]

A BiS geared player will still have higher stats at 250 Bolster than someone with lower gear. Prime example, the old ranked 208 gear used to still Bolster above 208 and give higher stats than 204 gear or lower.

This is why Bolster should be above the highest gear. BiS people will not lose out, but the gear gap will be smaller that's it would be if Bolster is lower than 248.

What people don't realise is that's the way it was pre 5.0 and we had no problems.

 

This is exactly true and we saw it happening.

[merovejec]

Exactly, 250 bolster was awesome even I jumped into PVP and had fun as I had the time, good times.

 

Pops were regular and most regular PVP players in fleet seemed to love how quickly PVP was popping comapred to previous. Many thought at first the 250 bolster was a new unannounced awesome change by BWA only to be let down when it was removed. I hear many people complain about no more 250 boslter, almost no one saying "yay" or complaining when it was in effect.

 

You are missing a lot of things, when 5.0 popped it was the new CXP system, ranked gave way too much CXP and was easy to do cause of 250 bolster, there were many biases that influenced the PVP pops!! People also farmed CXP at start so you cant compare 5.0 launch with if the same situation happened now!

[merovejec]

Also the people who were already capped were the ones that have the 40 hours a week to grind.

 

I play 12 hours a week and was capped and had few thousands in stash waiting to be "claimed"

 

I dont know what you are doing in the game but you are doing it wrong!

[merovejec]

Neither can I... I also don't remember people saying they were going to unsub because they didn't have a gear gap

 

As I said before, that 5.0 launch, new gear system, CXP farm etc, people had other stuff to worry about than that people were happy about 250 bolster.

[Icykill_]

As I said before, that 5.0 launch, new gear system, CXP farm etc, people had other stuff to worry about than that people were happy about 250 bolster.

 

Sorry I'm not sure what your point is with this post. Are you agreeing with me or saying people weren't complaining about 250 Bolster because they had other things to worry about?

[Icykill_]

I play 12 hours a week and was capped and had few thousands in stash waiting to be "claimed"

 

I dont know what you are doing in the game but you are doing it wrong!

 

Why do you assume people are doing it wrong because they don't play like you?

I don't get fast pops because of my time zone and not everyone else can either.

People also have alts and don't spend those 12 hours playing just the one toon.

 

I also don't understand why this is even relevant when we are discussing Bolster?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

You are missing a lot of things, when 5.0 popped it was the new CXP system, ranked gave way too much CXP and was easy to do cause of 250 bolster, there were many biases that influenced the PVP pops!! People also farmed CXP at start so you cant compare 5.0 launch with if the same situation happened now!

 

What is it with you strawmen lately? I'm missing nothing - I literally reported what I saw and witnessed from palyers during the 250 bolster period. Were there people complaining? I can't recall ONE.

This has NOTHING to do with CXP rates, people weren't going "wow I'm loving this 250 bolster because the completely unrelated CXP is also high!" - it makes no actual sense.

 

I'm not even sure why a few of you are so vehemently defending the concept of a gearing system in PVP anymore, either it's strawman arguments around PVE or just other nonsense that has anything what so ever to do with the arguments people are putting forward in favor of doing away with gear based PVP.

 

Either put up a valid argument and counter argument or stop wasting peoples reply with strawman nonsense.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

A BiS geared player will still have higher stats at 250 Bolster than someone with lower gear. Prime example, the old ranked 208 gear used to still Bolster above 208 and give higher stats than 204 gear or lower.

This is why Bolster should be above the highest gear. BiS people will not lose out, but the gear gap will be smaller than it would be if Bolster is lower than 248.

What people don't realise is that's the way it was pre 5.0 and we had no problems.

 

Whilst in regards to this I beiieve that's because Bolster was more or less bugged I still say I prefer a completely level playing field.

 

Yes there were no problems but there were still many players who wouldn't go near PVP solely because there was stat based gear. Many of us had that same argument back then too, overall it seemed like many were in favor of stat gear removal then also - instead though BWA made it even worse as we currently have it (go figure eh?).

 

So yes I agree it was much better back then but still not as good as it could be.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Why do you assume people are doing it wrong because they don't play like you?

I don't get fast pops because of my time zone and not everyone else can either.

People also have alts and don't spend those 12 hours playing just the one toon.

 

I also don't understand why this is even relevant when we are discussing Bolster?

 

It's not relevant, these sort of posters are going to any and all lengths to secure their gear advantage that the arguments they put forward have actually stopped making sense to the discussion at hand.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

 

Your gear grind and effort also does not need to be invain. If you were to skip back a few pages to my OP you will seeit says people with the highest gear would "still have" the highest stats even if a Bolster was above 248.

This is the way it was pre 5.0 and would be the same if they put Bolster back to 250. You would still have higher stats as a small reward for putting in that effort. But it wouldnt be a huge advanatge and would allow a more even playing field.

 

Excellent point. Being fully BIS geared in PVP bolstered to 250 would still leave a player in a better position stat spread wise [higher levels of crit, alacrity, crit multiplier, etc.]

 

Futhermore if someone PVPed but they didn't have a full set bonus, the bolster to 250 would in no way compensate them for the lack of the set bonus. Bolster to 250 doesn't mean gear wouldn't matter at all, it just wouldn't matter as much in terms of gear gap differences.

[merovejec]

Sorry I'm not sure what your point is with this post. Are you agreeing with me or saying people weren't complaining about 250 Bolster because they had other things to worry about?

 

5.0 was 250 bolster situation but what im saying is that if that would have stayed till now, PVPers would be crying for new stuff cause of boredom! But they didnt complain cause of boredom since they had the CXP grind at the start.

 

I dont agree with such a high bolster cause of what that guy mentioned! PVPers will go preffered and just group with subs for PVP since there is no need to be sub!

[merovejec]

Why do you assume people are doing it wrong because they don't play like you?

I don't get fast pops because of my time zone and not everyone else can either.

People also have alts and don't spend those 12 hours playing just the one toon.

 

I also don't understand why this is even relevant when we are discussing Bolster?

 

I mention it cause of gear, with my reduced play time I have 4 248 toons and working on 2 more, I have the 242s but stopped upgrading them to 248 cause of the class nerfs, ill just gather 1000 components on 2 toons and will await for the next FOTM

 

Im saying that bolster is OK, cause gearing is easy now!

[merovejec]

Either put up a valid argument and counter argument or stop wasting peoples reply with strawman nonsense.

 

What I dont like is what the game has become, you now have bolster everywhere! You have level sync, you can go in naked into lower planets and kill stuff without gear, you can do FPS and other stuff without gear (even Master FPS have been done without people equipping gear, only with MH and OH, videos r on youtube).

 

You now want to make another part of the game totally not needing gear? WHy? then we have just PVE left, can make that not need gear as well!!

[Icykill_]

Whilst in regards to this I beiieve that's because Bolster was more or less bugged I still say I prefer a completely level playing field.

 

Yes there were no problems but there were still many players who wouldn't go near PVP solely because there was stat based gear. Many of us had that same argument back then too, overall it seemed like many were in favor of stat gear removal then also - instead though BWA made it even worse as we currently have it (go figure eh?).

 

So yes I agree it was much better back then but still not as good as it could be.

 

I had a Bolster gearing thread to help people from 3.x till just before 5.0 launched.

Bolster did have some bugs, but very small ones and more to do with it being confused by different item ratings in the same gear pieces.

I spent over a hundred hours and hundreds of thousands of credits testing things for people and posted the info.

My aim was to help people understand it and expertise because Bioware never did.

There really wasn't much of a gear difference between 204 and 208. It was so small in fact that it only really helped you if you were in a fight with someone of nearly exactly the same skill. It was only then that it stood out at all. Which was why it was so important for Ranked because more people with higher skill were closer together in skill.

You actually got bigger advantages by knowing "exactly" what stat mix you needed to min max the gear. Often you would have a bigger advantage in a set of 204 with the right stat mix over someone in 208 gear who had the stats "Bio thought they should have" (not something common, but it was tested to satisfy our curiosity)

I think where a lot of the animosity about pvp and gearing came from was expertise. Bioware never fully explained it or how it worked when combining it with Bolster. They left it up to community members like myself and others to do the testing and then explain it to our fellow players.

Unfortunately lots of our fellow players wouldn't listen when we tried to help them in game and not enough came to the forums to read our gearing stickies.

This meant that we had pve guys with epic gear come into pvp and take a beating because they had no expertise, This could have been avoided if Bioware had either told them to only wear gear up to a certain lvl so it bolstered with full expertise or they could have reduced the epic stats to 204 lvl pvp gear and added expertise.

We (the testers) would work out the max lvl pve gear you could wear to get max expertise and max Bolster. This was 190 gear before 5.0 and it still gave good stats (but without gear set bonuses). It allowed people to play pvp and not be very far behind the 204 gear. After a few weeks the casual pvper could probably get a full set of 204 gear and ranked with in a month.

But as I said, people refused the help of many people who offered this basic information and who spent the time and energy to help the community with this knowledge.

 

Back to our situation now and it's more complicated because of all the tier lvls and also no expertise (which is funny because expertise used to cause the most confusion).

Making Bolster 250 will still not be as good as pre 5.0 or close to the same playing field we had (even as it could be), but it would help and make it much closer and fairer than it is now.

 

I would love nothing more than all gear to be bolstered properly to the same gear lvl and you only need to decide the mix of stats you want, ie more crit or more alacrity. To me that would be the most pure form of skill based pvp in this game.

[Glocko]

BOLSTER TO 250 RATING IS A GOOD THING.

 

I play this game since beta and we had 2 moments of completely PEACE about pvp in this game:

1 - When bolster was bugged and people could be naked + mainhand and have full stats, we had all kinds of memes and video parody in the forums, the community was literally having fun.

2 - When bolster was 250 rating.

 

I really don't remember people complaining or UNSUBBING or saying "nothing to do, i'm gonna quit" when bolster was 250 rating.

People want to log in and... PLAY the game, the less you have to worry about gear/min max or grinding CxP for main or alts the better.

 

There's always those saying "but pvp'ers will gear up faster" or vice versa... You have to understand that it's two separate game modes with different mentality. Pvp should never be about gear, the pvp progression is about skill knowing every single mechanic from other classes and the pvp map.

Pve progression is all about skill, gear and knowing every single mechanic from the boss.

 

@Eric increase bolster to 250, the MAJORITY will thank you a lot and the minority will complain but at the end they'll settle and adapt.

 

 

This would make sense if we had 50 PVP maps....... we have 6 basic map layouts so there is nothing to think about there... Rotations are simple and basically unchanging..... What is left to think about - gear.....

 

If they increase bolster I would rather they just make us like the companions where gear is taken out of the game for all and not just PVPers. Let's do that and see how much that improves the game for everyone. Everyone will be so happy that everyone has the same exact stats. I doubt you will hear any complaining at all. I guess all MMOs should go with the concept of no gear progression because that is what the majority of people want. I guess every MMO in the past 30 years has gotten it completely wrong.

 

There are a million ways to close the gap but doing it by bolster won't add to the game. I want the gap closed.. If they make it a bit easier to gear a toon in full 248s or 246s for the casuals I am all for it... Those of us who subscribe and put a little effort in it should be able to enjoy tinkering with the gear on all our alts.. If all the PVP casuals stop pvping I honestly don't really care casuals is just a synonym for fodder gear or no gear.

 

I also love hearing the Overwatch comparison.... What a great PVP community that is... it has really brought the best of the best kind of gamers together in some sort of PVP Utopia. Based on the posts throughout this thread I am thinking that. several of you are a perfect match for Overwath.

 

Everyone should thank the gods that it is simple gear progression. Many MMOs go with stat progression... where changes in the game require countless hours adjusting strength, intelligence, stamina, etc via repetitive tasks - chopping wood, fishing. Swtor allows you to build out while pvping a much better alternative. Make 246 drops plentiful and just end the debate

Edited July 2, 2017 by Glocko

[Transcendent]

Command tokens are easy af to get xD

Most people were at cap by the time they finally introduced a way to spend them on 100% boosts.

2 hours of pvp should earn you more than enough to cover another boost. Cry more please.

 

Well, clearly they're not because I hardly have any at all. Define "most people" please? Most people who have time to grind and play the game 4-5 hours per day perhaps? Instead of attacking other players how about bringing something constructive to the discussion?

[Icykill_]

5.0 was 250 bolster situation but what im saying is that if that would have stayed till now, PVPers would be crying for new stuff cause of boredom! But they didnt complain cause of boredom since they had the CXP grind at the start.

 

I dont agree with such a high bolster cause of what that guy mentioned! PVPers will go preffered and just group with subs for PVP since there is no need to be sub!

 

I don't think you understand the psyche of dedicated pvper. Boredom is from lack of playable content or bad balance or FOTM. People don't get bored because they can't grind gear.

Player progression for pvpers is sharpening our skills and improving them against better players. That is how we gauge our abilities. Unlike raiders who gauge their abilities on if they can clear certain Operation bosses. Raiders need specific gear to do that and they know what that gear is before they enter certain rated operations.

Pvp is not like that because we aren't fighting an AI, so gear is irrelevant, it comes down to how good the other player is. When you add a variable like a gear gap, you are artificially giving some people a buff to play others who may not have that buff. This means it's not skill based anymore and people who want to be real pvpers can't really gauge how good they may or may not be.

Because people gear at different rates due to many factors, it's not really fair that some people can spend all the time in the world gearing to have a distinct gear advantage (artificial buff) over others. Those people with that gear will also never really be able to know "if" they are as good as they think they are because they are playing lower geared people. Sure some will be able to test their metal against others in similar gear. But we are talking regs here and not ranked, so the average pug team is going to have mix of geared players and it's not going show anything except they can kill lower geared players.

Being killed by higher geared players with a distinct advantage is not fun. Nobody likes to lose, the same as no one likes to wipe in a raid, so if you are losing match after match because of gear you won't be having fun and neither will your team if you are the weak link because of gear. It is no different to someone being in an operation and the team is wiping because of their gear. The difference is OPs people have a choice, they can do lower difficulty OPs until they get the right gear. We do not have that option in pvp.

Here's a good analogy, when you go into a certain difficulty lvl OP, you know how powerful the bosses will be based on their stats set by Bio before the fight. Now imagine you go into a story OP and the boss is supposed have "x" stats, but Bio decide to just throw in a NiM Boss for laughs or everytime you go into an OP you don't know how hard the boss will be because his stats change everytime, I'm pretty sure people would soon stop doing OPs because that wouldn't be fun, it would be frustrating and infuriating. Well that's how a lot of pvpers feel when there is a noticeable gear gap.

Unlike raids we never know how hard our "bosses" will be because player skill isn't an AI with predictable patterns and static stats. Our challenge is to beat the boss (players) by using skill alone, there is no need to make it even more random than it already is, which is what a gear gap does.

Im not sure how else to explain it to you so you can understand that pvp doesn't need a gear grind and doesn't need a gear gap to stay interesting. Every match is different and that is where we get our enjoyment. If you want to add boredom to pvp, add a gear grind. If you want to make pvp unenjoyable and frustrating, add a gear gap. If you want pvpers to stop pvping, then put both of those into the game.