Discussion Topic: Bolster Changes in PvP

[Icykill_]

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!

 

LoL, so not only do you want a gear gap advantage over others, you are waiting to see which next FOTM to play so you have an even bigger advantage.

I'm sorry I just can't ever take anything else you say about pvp seriously. 😂😂😂

[Icykill_]

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?

 

Id just stop responding to them, they're just baiting now.

[merovejec]

LoL, so not only do you want a gear gap advantage over others, you are waiting to see which next FOTM to play so you have an even bigger advantage.

I'm sorry I just can't ever take anything else you say about pvp seriously. 😂😂😂

 

I will always PVP on my sentinel, but its fun to play the FOTM that is up, i have all classes leveled, I know them all and all specs so I just play what I like and what will be fun, nothing wrong about that.

[merovejec]

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.

 

So you are saying people are getting their butts kicked by noobs in 248s?

 

The difference is OPs people have a choice, they can do lower difficulty OPs until they get the right gear.

 

This shows how you dont follow PVE stuff too. You see there was something like world firsts etc where the new and most difficult ops was done by people on the first day it was released! Those ppl didnt have a week or 2 to gear up. They defeated the operation bosses with their SKILL!! Even in 5.0 the NiM guilds quickly killed all bosses with old gear they had, not 242s. Its not about gear, gear makes it easier to do, but you dont need it, you need skill just like in PVP. Therefore PVErs could also ask for bolster and no gear as only skill matters. SM operations give you bolster, but people still wipe, cause they dont have the skill.

 

By your philosophy Bioware can remove all gear and just apply bolster to everything thats just enough to beat the bosses and for PVP so that no gear is necessary!!

[Eli_Porter]

It's important to remember why gear exists in the first place. That it's not just a progression system, gear is also a crutch to help people get into difficult content.

 

So if you're a terribad or a low confidence player, you can get a gear advantage if you need one or feel like you need one. In other words, it makes PvP less intimidating to PvE players. Which in turn brings more players into PvP.

 

So that's one positive argument that hasn't been addressed much in this thread. The other one is encouraging PvP players into PvE. The new system already does that, seeing as if you're not confident in your raiding skills you can now get NiM gear from PvP which will make it easier to get into raiding. But what 238 bolster does is encourage PvP players to diversify their playing experience into PvE in order to hasten their gearing process.

 

This does cause an issue with newbies, but there are other ways to address that such as bolstering them into 220 overkill augments if they have none equipped.

 

Now I'm not saying the current reward structure is fine. Progression for PvP players is too slow, which makes PvE feel forced rather than encouraged. Likewise PvE'ers reaching the near-BiS mark feel forced into PvP as that's by far the best way to progress. As I said before, I'd add a CXP pack to PvP dailies, a random 242 piece to PvP weeklies, and UC's to operation bosses (1-20 per boss depending on difficulty) to make up for it.

 

tl;dr

 

1. 238 Bolster helps PvE'ers get confident in PvP

2. 238 Bolster encourages PvP'ers to PvE

3. No Expertise helps PvP'ers get confident in PvE

4. PvP rewards should be buffed

5. Bolster should give augment stats if none are equipped

Edited July 2, 2017 by Eli_Porter

[Icykill_]

It's important to remember why gear exists in the first place. That it's not just a progression system, gear is also a crutch to help people get into difficult content.

 

So if you're a terribad or a low confidence player, you can get a gear advantage if you need one or feel like you need one. In other words, it makes PvP less intimidating to PvE players. Which in turn brings more players into PvP.

 

So that's one positive argument that hasn't been addressed much in this thread. The other one is encouraging PvP players into PvE. The new system already does that, seeing as if you're not confident in your raiding skills you can now get NiM gear from PvP which will make it easier to get into raiding. But what 238 bolster does is encourage PvP players to diversify their playing experience into PvE in order to hasten their gearing process.

 

This does cause an issue with newbies, but there are other ways to address that such as bolstering them into 220 overkill augments if they have none equipped.

 

Now I'm not saying the current reward structure is fine. Progression for PvP players is too slow, which makes PvE feel forced rather than encouraged. Likewise PvE'ers reaching the near-BiS mark feel forced into PvP as that's by far the best way to progress. As I said before, I'd add a CXP pack to PvP dailies, a random 242 piece to PvP weeklies, and UC's to operation bosses (1-20 per boss depending on difficulty) to make up for it.

 

tl;dr

 

1. 238 Bolster helps PvE'ers get confident in PvP

2. 238 Bolster encourages PvP'ers to PvE

3. No Expertise helps PvP'ers get confident in PvE

4. PvP rewards should be buffed

5. Bolster should give augment stats if none are equipped

 

Pvpers do not all want to pve... unlike pve people, trying to make pvpers go and play pve when they don't want to will only ever result in one thing... we unsub.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Icykill_

[Glocko]

5. Bolster should give augment stats if none are equipped

 

 

Good one

[Icykill_]

5. Bolster should give augment stats if none are equipped

 

Good one

 

I hate to brake it to you guys, but it sort of does depending on what gear lvl you have on and what lvl your toon is.

 

ie, if you are below lvl 70 and don't have augments equipped you will have extra health. If you equipe augments, it may lower your health even though you are adding endurance. It does this to balance out the secondary stats you get on the Augment.

But it is finicky and doesn't always happen because it comes down to wether you go over a certain amount of stats that Bolster thinks you should have,

If you don't believe me, augment some gear on a lowbie toon and go to the Bolster terminal on the fleet, then add augments and watch all of your stats change, even ones that have nothing to do the stats you are adding.

99% of the time it is beneficial not to have any augments equipped below lvl 70. Even at lvl 70 you can get weird results from having augments equipped depending on the armor lvl of the item, your total gear score and if you have mixed internal lvls in that particular gear item. Most of the time you are 100% safe with augments at lvl 70, but you still do sort of get a little bit of a health Bolster if you have none equipped.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Icykill_

[Gebrakstkasten]

Eric,

Thanks for the opportunity to take part in this discussion. The solutions offered in the original post does not address the root cause of why so many people dislike the 5.x gearing. Bolstering to Tier III still requires a significant amount of grind just to gain a competitive advantage. The old system with expertise was great.

 

I know how it goes... there is a perceived problem... lots of data and media analysis... someone comes up with an idea and gets approved to spend 100s of man hours on it...and finally the work to do the update. I have no doubt this made a good empirical sense to a people smarter than me, but 5.x simply made the game not as fun to play.

[merovejec]

The old system with expertise was great.

 

Yes, I agree on that. I had no issues with getting gear for pve and for pvp. I never understood why they removed expertise.

[Glocko]

One thing that I did fail to mention is the sheer mechanics of buying the gear......

 

Explaining to a new player how to get through the process of buying gear....

 

Ok go to supplies find the tier 2 vendor use the drop down to find the class u are interested in and buy the token

Now run over to the other side and turn in that Token for a piece of gear use the drop down for right spec

Now run around back to the other ice and turn in that piece for a tier 3 token

Now take that piece and go to the other side and get the actual piece of tier 3

Now go back to the other side and turn it in to the ire 4 vendor, wait are you still following me? Do I need to slow down?

New PLAYER: Nevermind I uninstalled

 

2 vendors tier 1 and 2' no tokens, tier 1 buy with anything, tier 2 require trade and UC that's it, make tier 1 drops a plenty increase UC a tad and we are done and add a tier 2 mod/enh vendor we don't need to go back to expertise but the mechanics of purchasing gear should revert. And with these changes everyone is in 246 vice a 240 bolster.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Glocko

[merovejec]

One thing that I did fail to mention is the sheer mechanics of buying the gear......

 

Explaining to a new player how to get through the process of buying gear....

 

Ok go to supplies find the tier 2 vendor use the drop down to find the class u are interested in and buy the token

Now run over to the other side and turn in that Token for a piece of gear use the drop down for right spec

Now run around back to the other ice and turn in that piece for a tier 3 token

Now take that piece and go to the other side and get the actual piece of tier 3

Now go back to the other side and turn it in to the ire 4 vendor, wait are you still following me? Do I need to slow down?

New PLAYER: Nevermind I uninstalled

 

2 vendors tier 1 and 2' no tokens, tier 1 buy with anything, tier 2 require trade and UC that's it, make tier 1 drops a plenty increase UC a tad and we are done and add a tier 2 mod/enh vendor we don't need to go back to expertise but the mechanics of purchasing gear should revert

 

They did wanna make it more simple cause it was too messy before

[Pearlie]

The gear gap in warzones/arenas should be minimal. Item level should be a single tier below BiS if not equivalent. The "progression" earned for the best pvp gear should be min-maxing tertiary stats.

 

Just my two cents.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

I hate to brake it to you guys, but it sort of does depending on what gear lvl you have on and what lvl your toon is.

 

ie, if you are below lvl 70 and don't have augments equipped you will have extra health. If you equipe augments, it may lower your health even though you are adding endurance. It does this to balance out the secondary stats you get on the Augment.

But it is finicky and doesn't always happen because it comes down to wether you go over a certain amount of stats that Bolster thinks you should have,

If you don't believe me, augment some gear on a lowbie toon and go to the Bolster terminal on the fleet, then add augments and watch all of your stats change, even ones that have nothing to do the stats you are adding.

99% of the time it is beneficial not to have any augments equipped below lvl 70. Even at lvl 70 you can get weird results from having augments equipped depending on the armor lvl of the item, your total gear score and if you have mixed internal lvls in that particular gear item. Most of the time you are 100% safe with augments at lvl 70, but you still do sort of get a little bit of a health Bolster if you have none equipped.

 

If anyone knows about that stuff Icy, it's you.

 

To the poster this response is to, you can take this to the bank.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

One thing that I did fail to mention is the sheer mechanics of buying the gear......

 

Explaining to a new player how to get through the process of buying gear....

 

Ok go to supplies find the tier 2 vendor use the drop down to find the class u are interested in and buy the token

Now run over to the other side and turn in that Token for a piece of gear use the drop down for right spec

Now run around back to the other ice and turn in that piece for a tier 3 token

Now take that piece and go to the other side and get the actual piece of tier 3

Now go back to the other side and turn it in to the ire 4 vendor, wait are you still following me? Do I need to slow down?

New PLAYER: Nevermind I uninstalled

 

 

It really doesn't need to be so complicated, new players are totally perplexed by it I'm sure.

2 vendors tier 1 and 2' no tokens, tier 1 buy with anything, tier 2 require trade and UC that's it, make tier 1 drops a plenty increase UC a tad and we are done and add a tier 2 mod/enh vendor we don't need to go back to expertise but the mechanics of purchasing gear should revert

 

LOL yeah, I gotta say, that's some convoluted mess right there! hehe. I was clueless for like 2 weeks straight trying to figure that crazy shzt out heh

[Kalarie]

It's hard to tell what the majority is leaning towards after 47 pages, but I think it's setting at 242, given the options BW gave.

 

At this point though, is it fair to say that the community views ranked and unranked differently such that ranked could have gear grind and unranked not, or are we aiming for the same bolster rules to apply to both?

[Dharcan]

Maybe Bolster is a bit low right now but, if you make it to high, there will not be really big reason to farm gear. Why are you farming gear so you can do more damage and have higher and better stats and more hp. If you remove that , there will be not really a big reason to farm gear. People are farming gear because of all these reasons and you can allredy buy full t1 only for command tokens. So I think it's ok when you bolster low geared lvl characters but there should still be a progression like bolster about 240 is totally fine so there is a reason to farm your gear, so you can feel the progression. Bolster should never be 242 or 248, why so you can progress your gear. It is fun farming your gear, that's why people actually gear alts.

[Lahandra]

Without having to scan through this thread to read all your posts, can I ask some pretty simple questions of you.

Are you a dedicated pvper.

Do you care about pvp in this game

Do you like to have a gear advantage when playing other people

Do you only pvp to min max for pve content

Would you even pvp if you didn't need to.

Do you think pvpers should have to do pve to gear faster

 

Edit : I've read more of your posts since I made this one. I think we can all see you aren't a dedicated pvper.

 

Define dedicated player.... I go through phases of PVP almost every year, as do almost all the players I know. Sometimes playing daily for months, then get bored with it, and don't play for months. Does that make my opinion any less valid for you?? Care to know the reason for the boredom??? Content..... It has never, since the beginning of the game been an issue of gear discrepancy. There is absolutely nothing keeping anyone from enjoying pvp as it is now. If your getting wrecked because of the gear difference, then I'm sorry if it's hard to accept for you, but it's not the gear (which, as I have pointed out multiple times, is easy to get yourself into 242's anyway).

[Lahandra]

<< 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,

 

I'm so happy for your 5 year contribution to the game...../sigh Welcome to the club. Many of us have been here since launch.... So here we go again..... Had you actually read all those posts you said you scanned you would see this issue has already been addressed. Firstly, both PVP AND PVE are losing players, and it isn't the bolster. The issue is content, or lack thereof....

 

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.

 

Same in both communities.... People get bored with it, plain and simple. What I don't see, is people leaving due to getting "wrecked" in regs and ranked because of a "gear" issue. And even then, they all know it's more due to class imbalance and FOTM stacking than anything having to do with bolster.....

 

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.

 

"Because me say I be an elitist, which make your opinion B worthless compared to mine". Gee, never heard that ridiculous argument before. Hate to break it to you, but some people are dedicated players to both, and I know this might come as a shock to you, but at different times even. Personally it's how I keep a stale game fresh to 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.

 

As have you, yet you keep on going. What I find quite funny about it is, that while you're under the illusion that every "dedicated" PVP player in this thread agrees with you, and that poor little me is arguing with all of them, there are posts upon posts that seem to disagree with you. Guess they all aren't as "DEDICATED" as you are, right??.....

Edited July 2, 2017 by Lahandra

[Lahandra]

Pretty much your entire post ...

 

You could have just saved yourself the time and just said.....

 

TLDR: I refuse to accept there is a simple solution to my problems. Your wrong because..... well.... reasons.....

Edited July 2, 2017 by Lahandra

[Lahandra]

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

 

Oh.... the irony...... LMAO

[MagaleyMoses]

But it is the fastest and cheapest of the solutions. Bio have no intention of removing RNG, CXP or introducing expertise or dedicated pvp gear.

As much as we would all like those things to happen, they have invested too much time and money for that to happen. It would also cost a lot of resources to now remove it from the system as it is an integral part of the game.

If they were going to make changes like this it would have to be during an expansion, it will not happen mid production cycle.

Raising Bolster is cheap and fast. They could do it in a patch by just reversing what they did when they lowered it. If I had to guess it would only require a very small change in an algorithm and as they already have that algorithm from the start of 5.0, they could essentially cut and paste it in.

Low cost, no resources, problem bandaid over till next expansion.

 

I absolutely agree that it's a bandaid solution. But this isn't some kind of irritating scratch; this is more properly described as a hemorrhaging wound. I mean, the point of RNG was just to stall people from reaching the top of their class' HPS/DPS potential and to keep people from leaving. They even introduced a shinny 4th Tier just to make us think that they really appreciated our frustrations, but the end result was the same, and we were left with the same crazy making product. Nobody really thought it would actually keep them from leaving, but it was a fairly effective but costly stall. Remember those earlier stalling short-sighted strategies, like increasing the XP rate and introducing instant 60 tokens so that WZs were (and still are) full off people trying to score on their own team. Did they really care that this was going to piss people off in the long run?

 

Bolstering is just a bandaid on top of another bandaid, for something that needs to be surgically removed. We're right back to where we started years ago: people leaving because the end game has become boring and because servers are dead. And once people start pushing for server mergers, which the devs pretty much ignore, then populations just spiral into the drain.

 

I honestly don't know how they're going to mitigate the increasing loss of players. Yeah, removing RNG would cost them a bit. But it might actually be an effective way to win a lot of players back. Bring back OPs passes, release the 2nd part of Valley of the Machine Gods, and remove RNG and you'll have an uptick. Spend x number of hours making it so Theren can wear a fancy bra, spend tons of time creating a new world that hardly anyone spends any time on and fine tune a bolster system and maybe they won't lose as many players as they know they will.

Edited July 2, 2017 by MagaleyMoses

[MeNaCe-NZ]

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!!

 

Why? Read the thread - it's been mentioned many times why both myself and others.

 

To simplify though - for the games greater good. Numbers continue to decline so any change that can stabilize or even bring these back up has to be good - the status quo isn't working.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

One thing that I did fail to mention is the sheer mechanics of buying the gear......

 

Explaining to a new player how to get through the process of buying gear....

 

Ok go to supplies find the tier 2 vendor use the drop down to find the class u are interested in and buy the token

Now run over to the other side and turn in that Token for a piece of gear use the drop down for right spec

Now run around back to the other ice and turn in that piece for a tier 3 token

Now take that piece and go to the other side and get the actual piece of tier 3

Now go back to the other side and turn it in to the ire 4 vendor, wait are you still following me? Do I need to slow down?

New PLAYER: Nevermind I uninstalled

 

2 vendors tier 1 and 2' no tokens, tier 1 buy with anything, tier 2 require trade and UC that's it, make tier 1 drops a plenty increase UC a tad and we are done and add a tier 2 mod/enh vendor we don't need to go back to expertise but the mechanics of purchasing gear should revert. And with these changes everyone is in 246 vice a 240 bolster.

 

New PLAYER: Nevermind I uninstalled

 

Lol love that part, post of the thread.

[Paeronhierta]

Option 3, of course. Anything else'd be ludicrous.