252/258 gear for "pure" PVPers

[Lhancelot]

In 4.x 204 gear was all but "free" and getting 208 was so fast that you couldn't really label it a grind.

 

The funny thing is as easy as it was to gear your toons up, this showed just how PVPers really didn't care about too easy of a gearing up process. PVP was doing quite well from lowbies to mids to cap level.

 

PVPers do not care about carrots they just care about competitive matches in PVP. At least the majority do. I never once thought, "wow, gearing a new toon up quickly sure is too easy, this sucks! I sure hate how I can customize my mods with WZ comms and pass comms to and from all my toons via legacy! This is awful!"

 

This just tells me whoever is steering the boat has no clue who is on it and where they want to go.

[Totemdancer]

How I'd fix bolster....

 

Give everyone a customizable bolster menu as part of their character sheet. Every player has the same amount of unallocated stat points based on their spec. At any time while not currently in a warzone or arena, a player can go into that menu and assign or reassign stats as they see fit. X amount of points into mastery, Y amount of points into Critical, Z amount of points into Alacrity, ect.

 

In that system everyone is boosted to 252 or current top gear tier but players can still have their individual customized builds, like for example a high alacrity build. The playing field is leveled without negating player choice in how they want to customize their character to fit their playing style or preferences.

 

That’s an excellent idea

[Totemdancer]

The funny thing is as easy as it was to gear your toons up, this showed just how PVPers really didn't care about too easy of a gearing up process. PVP was doing quite well from lowbies to mids to cap level.

 

PVPers do not care about carrots they just care about competitive matches in PVP. At least the majority do. I never once thought, "wow, gearing a new toon up quickly sure is too easy, this sucks! I sure hate how I can customize my mods with WZ comms and pass comms to and from all my toons via legacy! This is awful!"

 

This just tells me whoever is steering the boat has no clue who is on it and where they want to go.

 

Exactly right.

[memerobot]

How I'd fix bolster....

 

Give everyone a customizable bolster menu as part of their character sheet. Every player has the same amount of unallocated stat points based on their spec. At any time while not currently in a warzone or arena, a player can go into that menu and assign or reassign stats as they see fit. X amount of points into mastery, Y amount of points into Critical, Z amount of points into Alacrity, ect.

 

In that system everyone is boosted to 252 or current top gear tier but players can still have their individual customized builds, like for example a high alacrity build. The playing field is leveled without negating player choice in how they want to customize their character to fit their playing style or preferences.

 

Thus making all the effort that 248 players did thrown to waste. All the hours they have spent (including me) gearing up multiple characters is now made for nothing. Anyone can just jump in empty shells even and go there and smack everyone.

And, as I said before, it can lead to some ****ed up stats that can be abused or never becomes what you like.

 

I am not saying the idea is bad. No, in a way, it is great, but honestly, removes all the sense of actually even bother in doing any sort of activity. Just grab empty shells and go into it. That if you're a pure PvPer. The grind was still some part of it. At least the one when Expertise was a thing. Not the current cra'p one.

[memerobot]

The funny thing is as easy as it was to gear your toons up, this showed just how PVPers really didn't care about too easy of a gearing up process. PVP was doing quite well from lowbies to mids to cap level.

 

What do you mean players didn't care about grinding gear?

If you mean new players, very often, they'd ask why they were dying so fast and upon being explained that there's PvP stats and after they actually bothered in grabbing gear to be competitive.

Veteran players already had the set pieces out of constantly stacking warzone comms (+70k comms in each of my +10 characters. Enough comms to gear up almost 100 toons) .

If I were to say myself, that 'feeling' was actually shared among the players that were mostly heavy PvE. "Hurrdurr, 2 sets, wth. Too much" Yeah, one gets the feeling that it is too much after doing PvE. It was a hassle to grind it all until the last Tier.

 

PVPers do not care about carrots they just care about competitive matches in PVP. At least the majority do. I never once thought, "wow, gearing a new toon up quickly sure is too easy, this sucks! I sure hate how I can customize my mods with WZ comms and pass comms to and from all my toons via legacy! This is awful!"

 

This just tells me whoever is steering the boat has no clue who is on it and where they want to go.

 

That's not PvP players' mindset. That's the PvE players' mindset. They had to waste an absurd amount of time to have the perfect gear out of drops or make insane comms grind. In PvP, you can just read many comments here and even in other topics. 1 week and you had full Ranked tier set and in the way you'd like. 1 week is not a grind. PvE took a month, in average to reach NiM level and sometimes not even at the level you'd want it to be.

Edited October 17, 2018 by memerobot

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

Thus making all the effort that 248 players did thrown to waste. All the hours they have spent (including me) gearing up multiple characters is now made for nothing. Anyone can just jump in empty shells even and go there and smack everyone.

And, as I said before, it can lead to some ****ed up stats that can be abused or never becomes what you like.

 

I am not saying the idea is bad. No, in a way, it is great, but honestly, removes all the sense of actually even bother in doing any sort of activity. Just grab empty shells and go into it. That if you're a pure PvPer. The grind was still some part of it. At least the one when Expertise was a thing. Not the current cra'p one.

 

You are correct. 248 gear should be higher than any other sort of gear, bolster or not. PvPers can obtain 248 gear through UC and crates so there's no reason not to reward those who do.

 

I think current bolster is fine the way it is, as long as 248 gear is the max. It rewards people with higher gear, but also gives you a boost at lower gear so you aren't too far behind.

 

See? Another reason why 248+ gear is bad for PvP and should be nullified 😊

[memerobot]

You are correct. 248 gear should be higher than any other sort of gear, bolster or not. PvPers can obtain 248 gear through UC and crates so there's no reason not to reward those who do.

 

Exactly this. Even though its obtainable through crates, it still takes a really long time to properly tweak around it. Hell, getting skank gear is even harder. You have to go through 2 sets of gears, really. And even more if you want to use high endurance mods/enhancements. These require you to actually either be absurdly lucky to drop(which doesn't happen) or you start to craft them, which involves spending a lot of time grinding the mats or spend a few Mil credits to get the same result.

In other words, atm, 248 is still already a headache to grind.

 

I think current bolster is fine the way it is, as long as 248 gear is the max. It rewards people with higher gear, but also gives you a boost at lower gear so you aren't too far behind.

 

Current bolster is what? 230? 236? 242?

I can't recall. The only thing I know is that it doesn't affect me that much because I've been stripping all the critical and alacrity enhancements of all 248 gear I drop and some 246 so I can gear future characters properly. They can have armor mods of 230 but as long as they have proper mods and enhancements to have good stats, I can do basically all sorts of content(in theory), except PvE NiM.

Obviously my DPS is still lower than full 248 but at least I have the Alacrity/Crit/Accuracy I wish to have.

 

See? Another reason why 248+ gear is bad for PvP and should be nullified 😊

 

Honestly, gear that is higher rated than 248 isn't the problem. What is actually bad is the fact they are gutting literally everyone from having access to said gear by limiting it to NiM PVE content. That is the massive problem here.

"But they are making it available to gear with UCs, hurrhurr." No, they did said you can only gear 1 or 2 characters before the exponential increase in price. That's just straight dumb. I doubt you are even capable of actually gearing probably 1 character due to the mods/enhancements you have to swap out and in to have the desired stats.

Edited October 17, 2018 by memerobot

[Mournblood]

Current bolster is what? 230? 236? 242?

 

Current Bolster is 242.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Exactly this. Even though its obtainable through crates, it still takes a really long time to properly tweak around it. Hell, getting skank gear is even harder. You have to go through 2 sets of gears, really. And even more if you want to use high endurance mods/enhancements. These require you to actually either be absurdly lucky to drop(which doesn't happen) or you start to craft them, which involves spending a lot of time grinding the mats or spend a few Mil credits to get the same result.

In other words, atm, 248 is still already a headache to grind.

 

 

 

Current bolster is what? 230? 236? 242?

I can't recall. The only thing I know is that it doesn't affect me that much because I've been stripping all the critical and alacrity enhancements of all 248 gear I drop and some 246 so I can gear future characters properly. They can have armor mods of 230 but as long as they have proper mods and enhancements to have good stats, I can do basically all sorts of content(in theory), except PvE NiM.

Obviously my DPS is still lower than full 248 but at least I have the Alacrity/Crit/Accuracy I wish to have.

 

 

 

Honestly, gear that is higher rated than 248 isn't the problem. What is actually bad is the fact they are gutting literally everyone from having access to said gear by limiting it to NiM PVE content. That is the massive problem here.

"But they are making it available to gear with UCs, hurrhurr." No, they did said you can only gear 1 or 2 characters before the exponential increase in price. That's just straight dumb. I doubt you are even capable of actually gearing probably 1 character due to the mods/enhancements you have to swap out and in to have the desired stats.

 

Clearly you are not illiterate or blind. Ya seem to have some experience with the current metas gearing process, and I cannot figure out for the life of me what you were clearly smoking when you read about the proposed gearing changes as related to PVE/PVP. To be fair, you are not alone in thinking the way you are and this really isn't directed at you, you as in [those people who have come to some wrongful conclusions. I'm not commenting because I want to offend anyone, but this has been covered a few times already.

 

It's not at all wrong that it will take someone 15x longer to gear all 15 of their alts than someone who is only gearing 1 character. So, no,that's not unfair, that's not unreasonable, it makes perfect common sense.

 

I understand that I am the odd man out in terms of alts I don't have any. But let me assure you and anyone who doesnt just have one toon, gearing in 5.x from 5.2 on, has not been bad, it has not frustrating, it hasn't taken long to gear a character, I was full 242, a week after it came out, I was full 248, 4 days after it came out. I did all of it just playing PVP and thru UCs. I'm not in progression raiding anymore, so I can assure you PVP was the better route.

 

* There is no gear that is rated higher than 248.

 

If you have a stock pile of UCs saved, it's going to be rediculously, stupidly, unjustifyable fast to gear. I will be full 258 BIS geared 10 minutes after 5.10 goes live. And, what's more, I could do the same thing on another Alt if I had one and still have UC's to spare. How can I do that? Because I wasn't trying to gear 15 characters at the same time and wondering why it's taking me so 'long' to gear, because, it wasn't taking me so long to gear, it was fast as hell.

 

I'm actually pissed that I am going to be full 258 in one day. Any system of gearing, that will allow players to max out multiple characters in FULL BIS gear 10 minutes after that gear is introduced in the game, cannot be called a hard long gearing process. That you think it is than it's obvious you werent around for 1x-3x when they ONLY way you could get BIS was in NiM. If you didn't do that, you never even touched a peice of BIS gear let alone had one. That was hard.

 

 

If you want to avoid a long hard drawn out gearing, take my advice, pick 2 or 3 character and just solely work on them because if you don't it's your fault that it takes a long time and not the fault of the system It's not a hard gearing system in the slightest. You're the reason it's hard.

 

The problem isn't with the gearing, the problem is that PVPers do not want to have to earn BIS gear which is the same exact problem they have all had since day 1 of 5.0 [ once the 1st month was over and they stopped the 250 bolster that everyone, including myself loved.

 

If you are smart and you havent already declared for the idea, every time you see Totem Dancer and other PVPers making the suggestion to return PVP gear to PVPers/the bolster idea so they don't need to gear at all, put your voice to backing those ideas because quite honestly, PVPers won't ever be happy doing PVP the Raiders way.

 

Lastly - The fastest way to gear in 5.10 will remain PVP because like 90% of the player base doesn have the skill to do NiM and that's speaking from personal experience when I was still doing it. NiM is digusting, it's impossible to like, you cannot have fun doing NiM unless you are a 5%er and there's like 6 of them left in the game. No one who isn't already a NiM capable person is gearing in NiM, and those that do, it will still take them longer than PVPers. Because they are not going to be clearing well, and its going to take a very long time with all the wipes and costs for them to gear. Try NiM, see how long it takes you before you start puking from the mindnumbing madness of perfection it requires and how unbelievably stupid hard it is. It's called Nightmare for a reason, because it is one. You couldn't pay me to do NiM again even if it was faster to gear, I still wouldn't do it.

[Rafiknoll]

The simplest alteration they can do to the original plan is to do things exactly as they intend to do but without any increase in the prices of using UCs. UCs are earned quite fast these days, to be honest. Playing PVP with a CXP boost means about 100 per hour (assuming you disassemble all 244s and 246s you get. Even if you keep the 248) which means 1 shard in 5 hours which means a piece of gear in 20. This will be even less played hours if you play only dailies and gain more in less active time. Gearing this way is still slower than the better times of 3.0 or 4.0 but it is not infinitely slow and is not anti-alts.

 

Before I am being hanged here, clarification: I am not saying it is the best idea or even a good idea. I am saying this is close enough to their original plans and thus I think there are greater chances it will happen. My personal guess is that they will see the backlash on release and 5.10.1 will be "removed the increase of UC cost for master shards per purchase. The price will remain at the base value".

[Rafiknoll]

I'm actually pissed that I am going to be full 258 in one day. Any system of gearing, that will allow players to max out multiple characters in FULL BIS gear 10 minutes after that gear is introduced in the game, cannot be called a hard long gearing process. That you think it is than it's obvious you werent around for 1x-3x when they ONLY way you could get BIS was in NiM. If you didn't do that, you never even touched a peice of BIS gear let alone had one. That was hard.

 

The thing that changed since is that expertise was removed and good PVE gear meant good PVP gear. Unless bolster totally takes over your stats, or alternatively, expertise gear is restored, we can't afford to have the best gear for PVP unavailable for players who solely PVP.

 

 

Now generally:

Another idea for bolster just occurred to me. There is a limited and fixed number of armoring/barrel/hilt/mod/enhancement/augments in this game. If my memory serves: there are 2 kinds of hilts, 2 kinds of barrels, 2 kinds of armoring (high ENDU or high mastery for each), 6 kinds of mods (lethal or warding, unlettered A and B) and 15 kinds of enhancements (crit/alac/acc/shield/abs and for each there is the default one, the one with more endurance and the one with even more endurance). All these exist at least from 230 rating and have their mirror 258 version. So all that bolster would need to do is to replace the stats of the existing gear with the stats of the 258 counterparts. That means an item with mixed ratings will not have bugged bolsters, missing mods or items will grant zero stats (or alternatively be considered as having the default piece in there. Depends how forgiving are we toward noobs or people who accidentally have empty slots), and since 230 is very easy to acquire, it is fair enough to simply say "gear below 230 will not be bolstered" (to force people to use only stuff that have a mirror 258 version and keep preventing more "wind relic" incidents). All the above is of course for lvl 70 bolstering only. Midbies and lowbies are unfair enough as they are due to the simple fact that higher lvls have more abilities and utilities. I think leaving the existing bolster there is harmless.

 

Results: No loopholes or anything to cheat the bolster like the wind relics. Min-maxing still enabled (but you need to do the scaling to 258 in your head if you wish to calculate your alacrity right or look up the sheet that probably already exists somewhere on the internet). 258 can remain hard to obtain without placing PVPers-only in a disadvantage and it should be a very simple switch-case to program.

[Raansu]

If you have a stock pile of UCs saved, it's going to be rediculously, stupidly, unjustifyable fast to gear. I will be full 258 BIS geared 10 minutes after 5.10 goes live. And, what's more, I could do the same thing on another Alt if I had one and still have UC's to spare. How can I do that? Because I wasn't trying to gear 15 characters at the same time and wondering why it's taking me so 'long' to gear, because, it wasn't taking me so long to gear, it was fast as hell.

 

I hate to break it to you, but unless you have a lot of alts you wont be full 258 in 10 minutes due to the fact that you're required to be heroic rep to buy anything. Also, UC conversion gets more expensive with every crystal/token whatever it is that you need to buy.

 

So no, you will not be full 258 in 10 minutes.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Raansu

[memerobot]

I understand that I am the odd man out in terms of alts I don't have any. But let me assure you and anyone who doesnt just have one toon, gearing in 5.x from 5.2 on, has not been bad, it has not frustrating, it hasn't taken long to gear a character, I was full 242, a week after it came out, I was full 248, 4 days after it came out. I did all of it just playing PVP and thru UCs. I'm not in progression raiding anymore, so I can assure you PVP was the better route.

 

If you have a stock pile of UCs saved, it's going to be rediculously, stupidly, unjustifyable fast to gear. I will be full 258 BIS geared 10 minutes after 5.10 goes live. And, what's more, I could do the same thing on another Alt if I had one and still have UC's to spare. How can I do that? Because I wasn't trying to gear 15 characters at the same time and wondering why it's taking me so 'long' to gear, because, it wasn't taking me so long to gear, it was fast as hell.

 

I'm actually pissed that I am going to be full 258 in one day. Any system of gearing, that will allow players to max out multiple characters in FULL BIS gear 10 minutes after that gear is introduced in the game, cannot be called a hard long gearing process. That you think it is than it's obvious you werent around for 1x-3x when they ONLY way you could get BIS was in NiM. If you didn't do that, you never even touched a peice of BIS gear let alone had one. That was hard.

 

All I can say is this, after reading this part. You have tons of free time to gear up this fast, honestly. Others, like me, don't have.

 

If you want to avoid a long hard drawn out gearing, take my advice, pick 2 or 3 character and just solely work on them because if you don't it's your fault that it takes a long time and not the fault of the system It's not a hard gearing system in the slightest. You're the reason it's hard.

 

Except it becomes horrendously boring after playing the same character all the time.

 

The problem isn't with the gearing, the problem is that PVPers do not want to have to earn BIS gear which is the same exact problem they have all had since day 1 of 5.0 [ once the 1st month was over and they stopped the 250 bolster that everyone, including myself loved.

 

If you are smart and you havent already declared for the idea, every time you see Totem Dancer and other PVPers making the suggestion to return PVP gear to PVPers/the bolster idea so they don't need to gear at all, put your voice to backing those ideas because quite honestly, PVPers won't ever be happy doing PVP the Raiders way.

 

Don't say PvPers don't like to earn the gear. I was damn lad whenever I completed Full Ranked sets when Expertise was a thing. Now? Just do Hard mode Operations and you got the damn tokens then do 1/2 weeklies and you got the gear. Perhaps not even needed out of the UCs you gained before. How do I say this... The work of grinding has become just full boring. It's not that its hard because it isn't but it is because its just f'ing boring.

 

 

 

Lastly - The fastest way to gear in 5.10 will remain PVP because like 90% of the player base doesn have the skill to do NiM and that's speaking from personal experience when I was still doing it. NiM is digusting, it's impossible to like, you cannot have fun doing NiM unless you are a 5%er and there's like 6 of them left in the game. No one who isn't already a NiM capable person is gearing in NiM, and those that do, it will still take them longer than PVPers. Because they are not going to be clearing well, and its going to take a very long time with all the wipes and costs for them to gear. Try NiM, see how long it takes you before you start puking from the mindnumbing madness of perfection it requires and how unbelievably stupid hard it is. It's called Nightmare for a reason, because it is one. You couldn't pay me to do NiM again even if it was faster to gear, I still wouldn't do it.

 

I only did 3 NiM ops in the whole 5 years of the game I've played and those 3 ops I haven't finished one yet fully. Why? I actually had a group where we did it FOR FUN and challenge. What challenge am I speaking of?

DF: 4 man Nim Nefra and 5 man Nim Rancor*

S&V:5 man Nim Dash'roode

TfB: 6 man Nim first boss (something something Horror, cba to look up)

 

Pretty much bosses that have no mechanics but still require DPS check

 

And despite a lot of wipes, it was fun to do it!

Edited October 17, 2018 by memerobot

[Monterone]

So, in a game with 8 classes and the same number of mirrors, it's comes down to -- "Well, your issue is you have too many alts. If you only played 1 or 2 characters, it would be very easy to gear!"

 

We went from being able to PvP with all your toons at top level to having to choose one or two, and then depleting ALL your years of earnings to just gear those one or two, and this is somehow ok?

 

People are rationalizing and making excuses for such poor execution and blaming the customer for wanting to experience more of the game? How can this be seen as normal?

[Rafiknoll]

So, in a game with 8 classes and the same number of mirrors, it's comes down to -- "Well, your issue is you have too many alts. If you only played 1 or 2 characters, it would be very easy to gear!"

 

We went from being able to PvP with all your toons at top level to having to choose one or two, and then depleting ALL your years of earnings to just gear those one or two, and this is somehow ok?

 

People are rationalizing and making excuses for such poor execution and blaming the customer for wanting to experience more of the game? How can this be seen as normal?

 

Its not only as bad as you describe (which surely is bad enough). It is worse:

"Sorry, you have to combine all the earning of all alts since forever to gear 1 or 2 chosen alts if you wish to PVP with BiS". Up to here is what you said... aaaaaand: "Oh, these guys? They can gear as many alts as they wish in that gear which is BiS in PVP because they play one game mode that you don't".

 

I play both modes myself, and still think that as long as there are 2 game modes dependant on the same gear, both should be able to acquire it eventually. ["Eventually" which is so long that you won't gear more than 2 toons until 6.0 is not considered "eventually"]

[Lhancelot]

So, in a game with 8 classes and the same number of mirrors, it's comes down to -- "Well, your issue is you have too many alts. If you only played 1 or 2 characters, it would be very easy to gear!"

 

We went from being able to PvP with all your toons at top level to having to choose one or two, and then depleting ALL your years of earnings to just gear those one or two, and this is somehow ok?

 

People are rationalizing and making excuses for such poor execution and blaming the customer for wanting to experience more of the game? How can this be seen as normal?

 

Thank you. ^

 

That's my sentiment too. I went from playing 8,10, 15 different characters a couple years ago to now only logging in 4 characters. 2 are in BiS while the other two are partially geared.

 

How does a gearing system that discourages you from logging in and playing more characters due to the gear grind being so time consuming seem like a good idea?

 

I log two of my geared toons in mostly because I can PVP on them and I am on level ground with others who are in BiS. My other toons are gimped, it's not fun spending so much time being gimped and unable to experience content fully. And yes, I consider PVP content.

 

Adding a more constrictive gear grind is going to push more players off the game. It happened with 5.0, and it's going to happen again unless they take into consideration adding more ways to efficiently gear up besides forcing people to have to run nightmare mode raids.

 

PVPers need BiS to compete with others in BiS. No one enjoys being a liability to their team and no one enjoys a long, slow gear grind especially when they have 10-12, 15, 20 toons they would like to play to each toons maximum potential in the WZs.

[Aeneas_Falco]

Thus making all the effort that 248 players did thrown to waste. All the hours they have spent (including me) gearing up multiple characters is now made for nothing. Anyone can just jump in empty shells even and go there and smack everyone.

And, as I said before, it can lead to some ****ed up stats that can be abused or never becomes what you like.

 

I am not saying the idea is bad. No, in a way, it is great, but honestly, removes all the sense of actually even bother in doing any sort of activity. Just grab empty shells and go into it. That if you're a pure PvPer. The grind was still some part of it. At least the one when Expertise was a thing. Not the current cra'p one.

 

I don't like that pvp was put on the gear treadmill but that is unfortunately where we are now.

 

That leaves Bioware with a few options in how to deal with PVP gearing going forward, none of which can be implemented without inconveniencing some players. That is a direct consequence of the changes made with 5.0.

 

The first option is the worst of the three, which is to keep the current system of gearing for PVP. That keeps us all on the gear treadmill, forever chasing that next highest tier to stay competitive. I think it is a safe bet that very few PVPers want that, even if they are reluctant to part with their current BiS advantage over players who aren't as well geared. That also makes it progressively more difficult for new players to contribute, as each new gear tier introduced is going to make their 230 set (or less) increasingly at a disadvantage. PVP should be about skill, not which gear tier you are in. The gear treadmill should be a concern exclusive to running PVE content.

 

The second is to remove gear requirements entirely via Bolster, though that would also need to be paired with some changes to Bolster. This is my preference but that isn't to say it is a perfect solution. A perfect solution doesn't exist sadly. As you said, it renders any effort people put into getting into 248 pointless unless they also do PVE, and while I do, many PVPers do not.

 

The final option is a return to some form of the Expertise system. Like the Bolster option it also inconveniences players who put effort into getting to 248 since that gear now becomes a PVE set that you need to replace to stay competitive in PVP. I prefer this option to current gearing but find it inferior to changing and using Bolster, as it then requires me to have two separate sets of gear for every character I wish to do both PVE and PVP on. It is alt-unfriendly, time consuming, and eats up cargo and inventory space. It is also slightly less friendly to newcomers than Option 2, which takes gearing completely out of the picture.

 

*If* expertise was going to return at all I'd hope it would be limited to something like relics. Give us all the expertise stat we need on new relics without replacing other stats like critical or power, so people don't have to gear swap if they then want to do a MM FP or an Ops.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Aeneas_Falco

[Monterone]

Thank you. ^

 

That's my sentiment too. I went from playing 8,10, 15 different characters a couple years ago to now only logging in 4 characters. 2 are in BiS while the other two are partially geared.

 

How does a gearing system that discourages you from logging in and playing more characters due to the gear grind being so time consuming seem like a good idea?

 

I log two of my geared toons in mostly because I can PVP on them and I am on level ground with others who are in BiS. My other toons are gimped, it's not fun spending so much time being gimped and unable to experience content fully. And yes, I consider PVP content.

 

Adding a more constrictive gear grind is going to push more players off the game. It happened with 5.0, and it's going to happen again unless they take into consideration adding more ways to efficiently gear up besides forcing people to have to run nightmare mode raids.

 

PVPers need BiS to compete with others in BiS. No one enjoys being a liability to their team and no one enjoys a long, slow gear grind especially when they have 10-12, 15, 20 toons they would like to play to each toons maximum potential in the WZs.

 

Agreed.

 

I'm just returning from about a year away but I am a beta tester and was a closed beta tester after launch, what were we called, Regulators?

 

Anyways, I hate the grind the game has become and I am not sure that I want to continue playing it this way -- it's just way too constrictive for those who enjoy PvP, and I cannot play all the characters I like, especially at the top level.

 

I am just going through this thread and learning about these proposed changes, but IF this is true and gearing becomes even more difficult, I am a 100% confident these will be the last dollars I put into subbing for this game.

 

After a year away it will be very easy to leave again. This is a game, dammit -- allow us to have some fun without having to sacrifice our children, families and donate limbs to the cause.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Monterone

[memerobot]

I don't like that pvp was put on the gear treadmill but that is unfortunately where we are now.

 

That leaves Bioware with a few options in how to deal with PVP gearing going forward, none of which can be implemented without inconveniencing some players. That is a direct consequence of the changes made with 5.0.

 

The first option is the worst of the three, which is to keep the current system of gearing for PVP. That keeps us all on the gear treadmill, forever chasing that next highest tier to stay competitive. I think it is a safe bet that very few PVPers want that, even if they are reluctant to part with their current BiS advantage over players who aren't as well geared. That also makes it progressively more difficult for new players to contribute, as each new gear tier introduced is going to make their 230 set (or less) increasingly at a disadvantage. PVP should be about skill, not which gear tier you are in. The gear treadmill should be a concern exclusive to running PVE content.

 

Well, they won't turn around, which is the worst thing ever. And don't say PvP should be exclusive to skill alone because gearing also has a big part in it.

Dot specs perform better with high alacrity and 'moderatedly high' crit. Faster ticks means more damage plain and simple.

Burst specs perform good in low alacrity and high/very high crit. Then there's the classes that have alacrity built into their specs. It changes much more than you think.

Tanks can opt between no alac/low alac/high alac, to allow faster GCDs to swap guard and have abilities to help the team win, and set of specific crit to play the way they want to deal more damage.

Or even stack very high health to icnrease survival.

Gear matters and it changes massively the gameplay.

 

The second is to remove gear requirements entirely via Bolster, though that would also need to be paired with some changes to Bolster. This is my preference but that isn't to say it is a perfect solution. A perfect solution doesn't exist sadly. As you said, it renders any effort people put into getting into 248 pointless unless they also do PVE, and while I do, many PVPers do not.

 

It's not the best option. Okay, let me explain this to you. If it goes that way, it will allow to enter in the warzone with full empty gear, with earpiece/relics/implants of, let's say, level 10, and still have the same stats(If not better LUL considering how buggy it would be) as someone who's fully geared to 248 + 236/240 augments.

It just removes the point of doing any content to bother with gear. Understand that.

 

The final option is a return to some form of the Expertise system. Like the Bolster option it also inconveniences players who put effort into getting to 248 since that gear now becomes a PVE set that you need to replace to stay competitive in PVP. I prefer this option to current gearing but find it inferior to changing and using Bolster, as it then requires me to have two separate sets of gear for every character I wish to do both PVE and PVP on. It is alt-unfriendly, time consuming, and eats up cargo and inventory space. It is also slightly less friendly to newcomers than Option 2, which takes gearing completely out of the picture.

 

I don't get how its an inconvenience, honestly. Full Expertise gear only takes 14 slots of your inventory of 80 slots. What the hell do you roam around with in your inventory?

And how come its considered a grind or alt unfriendly? If you mean 1.0 or 2.0, yeah, it was a hellish grind but I believe I SPECIFICALLY said that the grind should be the one from 3.0. Super fast. Only takes 1 weekly and 2/3 dailies + rewards from the warzones you competed, to have regular full set of PvP. That's super alt friendly. You log into a char, spend 3-6 hours and you got yourself a full set.

That's between 10-30 matches. And even faster in Ranked(considering how games now are based on RNG and not real skill if you mean Solo Ranked, you can end up having top teams all the team or just have pure trash).

Don't say its alt friendly. What isn't alt friendly is what we have now and what I'm forced to do to stay competitive. Grind the already 300 CXP Level chars for all the mods/enhancements from spare parts, strip them, swap to other alts and put them with 230 armor mods. THAT is unfriendly to alts, since it takes forever to gear.

 

*If* expertise was going to return at all I'd hope it would be limited to something like relics. Give us all the expertise stat we need on new relics without replacing other stats like critical or power, so people don't have to gear swap if they then want to do a MM FP or an Ops.

 

You don't understand what this does, do you? If you make only the relics, healers will be abusing in PvE content. Understand that Expertise used to give an increased 20% - 30% healing. 208 PvE gear healing was crap but 208 Ranked Gear healing was on Par with 220 (NiM Gear) PvE healing(if not higher actually). And same with previous patches too.

Full gear is the only option.

Edited October 18, 2018 by memerobot

[Aeneas_Falco]

Well, they won't turn around, which is the worst thing ever. And don't say PvP should be exclusive to skill alone because gearing also has a big part in it.

Dot specs perform better with high alacrity and 'moderatedly high' crit. Faster ticks means more damage plain and simple.

Burst specs perform good in low alacrity and high/very high crit. Then there's the classes that have alacrity built into their specs. It changes much more than you think.

Tanks can opt between no alac/low alac/high alac, to allow faster GCDs to swap guard and have abilities to help the team win, and set of specific crit to play the way they want to deal more damage.

Or even stack very high health to icnrease survival.

Gear matters and it changes massively the gameplay.

 

It matters, but shouldn't.

 

If it were up to me I'd change bolster so that every player had a modifiable bolster menu as part of their character sheet, where players could allocate stats into Mastery, Critical, Alacrity ect as they see fit. It would allow for customizing builds to suit individual preferences in PVP gameplay while removing entirely a need to stay on a gear treadmill to remain competitive.

 

I'm in full BiS by the way on my PVP toons and will remain in BiS regardless of what system is introduced, as I also do MM FPs and Ops. I just don't think it's fair that a new player starts with a gear disadvantage. That isn't how PVP should work in my opinion. If it were up to me PVP would be structured to be a skill-based game as much as possible rather than one where gearing matters.

 

I realize Bioware isn't going to that route. It doesn't change that I believe it is the best way to go.

 

 

It's not the best option. Okay, let me explain this to you. If it goes that way, it will allow to enter in the warzone with full empty gear, with earpiece/relics/implants of, let's say, level 10, and still have the same stats(If not better LUL considering how buggy it would be) as someone who's fully geared to 248 + 236/240 augments.

It just removes the point of doing any content to bother with gear. Understand that.

 

I fully understand that it negates gear advantages and previous effort put into gear. I do not care. The playing field should be equal, not titled toward veteran players who've had more time and resources to fully gear their toons. Each additional tier of gear added also widens the gulf between veterans and newcomers. You know what happens when PVP becomes too unfriendly to newcomers? It dies. The gear treadmill should never have been introduced to PVP and needs to be scrapped, the sooner the better.

 

 

I don't get how its an inconvenience, honestly. Full Expertise gear only takes 14 slots of your inventory of 80 slots. What the hell do you roam around with in your inventory?

 

I run crew skills daily, craft, and play the GTN.

 

 

And how come its considered a grind or alt unfriendly? If you mean 1.0 or 2.0, yeah, it was a hellish grind but I believe I SPECIFICALLY said that the grind should be the one from 3.0. Super fast. Only takes 1 weekly and 2/3 dailies + rewards from the warzones you competed, to have regular full set of PvP. That's super alt friendly. You log into a char, spend 3-6 hours and you got yourself a full set.

 

That's between 10-30 matches. And even faster in Ranked(considering how games now are based on RNG and not real skill if you mean Solo Ranked, you can end up having top teams all the team or just have pure trash).

Don't say its alt friendly. What isn't alt friendly is what we have now and what I'm forced to do to stay competitive. Grind the already 300 CXP Level chars for all the mods/enhancements from spare parts, strip them, swap to other alts and put them with 230 armor mods. THAT is unfriendly to alts, since it takes forever to gear.

 

I'm not in favor of the current gearing system for PVP and clearly stated in my post that keeping the current gear system for PVP is the worst option Bioware should take.

 

Switching back to Expertise gear however would also render effort put into getting current BiS pointless however, unless one also does PVE, as current BiS would be converted into a PVE set that isn't useful in PVP due to it's lack of expertise. I'm okay with that particular tradeoff as I don't think there should be a geat treadmill with PVP, I just find it odd that people in favor of a return to Expertise argue against gear differences being negated entirely by Bolster on the basis that it renders current gearing pointless. So would a return to Expertise gear.

 

If Expertise gear were to return a full set should also be obtainable on a vendor on Day 1, without any previous requirement at all to have PVPed. The newest of new players should be able to obtain a full set without even stepping into a single warzone. They're already at a skill and experience based disadvantage. They don't need a gearing disadvantage stacked on top of it, even if it's only for a duration of a week or two.

 

PVP should be skill based, as much as can be made possible, without exceptions. If I encounter an opposing player while we are travelling between nodes, and I beat him or her, I want it to be because I outplayed that player...not because I'm in 258s or whatever and they've just recently picked up their 230 set.

 

You don't understand what this does, do you? If you make only the relics, healers will be abusing in PvE content. Understand that Expertise used to give an increased 20% - 30% healing. 208 PvE gear healing was crap but 208 Ranked Gear healing was on Par with 220 (NiM Gear) PvE healing(if not higher actually). And same with previous patches too.

 

Full gear is the only option.

 

If Expertise returns it is likely to work differently than the system that was previously scrapped, other than being a stat you need to be competitive in PVP.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Aeneas_Falco

[Totemdancer]

So, in a game with 8 classes and the same number of mirrors, it's comes down to -- "Well, your issue is you have too many alts. If you only played 1 or 2 characters, it would be very easy to gear!"

 

We went from being able to PvP with all your toons at top level to having to choose one or two, and then depleting ALL your years of earnings to just gear those one or two, and this is somehow ok?

 

People are rationalizing and making excuses for such poor execution and blaming the customer for wanting to experience more of the game? How can this be seen as normal?

 

Exactly, you wont get any argument from me. I’ve 75 Alts across 3 servers. When we had the old system, 25 of them were in ranked gear and I could swap around for a change of scenery when ever I wanted. My “new” content was swapping classes for a while.

 

There is also a great benefit to playing all classes and specs. You get to learn all their strengths and weaknesses. This makes you a better pvper. The more people doing this, the higher the skill cap becomes in the game and makes for better quality pvp. It also reduces people calling others out for cheating because they don’t understand the class.

 

I use to know all the classes and specs two years ago. Now I have to ask people how to play half of them or look it up on google. I started to play my Operative again this week and I feel like a complete noob again. I’m nearly going to stop playing it because I’m so bad.

 

What adds insult to injury is just before 5.0 was released, Bioware had a DvL event where we all needed to roll new Alts if we wanted to participate. A lot of people even had to spend real money to open up new character slots. Then 5.0 gets released and those Alts become useless and Bioware pockets the money and ignores the fact they rorted everyone.

[memerobot]

It matters, but shouldn't.

 

It is a process that requires more skill than you think. Adjusting Alacrity/Crit/Power to your gameplay is massive. I know PvE is to be run with high alacrity but honestly I find like some encounters it is better to have low alac to have higher crit/mastery. The ones with short burst phases and add phases.

 

If it were up to me I'd change bolster so that every player had a modifiable bolster menu as part of their character sheet, where players could allocate stats into Mastery, Critical, Alacrity ect as they see fit. It would allow for customizing builds to suit individual preferences in PVP gameplay while removing entirely a need to stay on a gear treadmill to remain competitive.

 

As I said before, doing this change, will lead to some exploitation from players. Or it will just be completely garbage. And the thing is, you can't give too much stat due to how damage can scale up to in this game, if its the first case.

In case of the second, well, you'll end up being screwed. Healers run 2nd Tier alacrity and 1800-2000 crit. Imagine being gutted in one of those two stats by 400-600. It changes massively the gameplay. This can also happen to DPS and tanks, of course..

Changing things around a 'personalized' bolster is just too tricky and too much effort. Plus, you'll be getting PvE players crying about how PvP players don't have to grind gear because they have bolster so later they'll also want it, thus just making things worse(I think)

 

I'm in full BiS by the way on my PVP toons and will remain in BiS regardless of what system is introduced, as I also do MM FPs and Ops. I just don't think it's fair that a new player starts with a gear disadvantage. That isn't how PVP should work in my opinion. If it were up to me PVP would be structured to be a skill-based game as much as possible rather than one where gearing matters.

 

I realize Bioware isn't going to that route. It doesn't change that I believe it is the best way to go.

 

Gearing, as I said before, also is a process of learning. You adapt your gear to your playstyle. Simple as that. It is a skill, as well.

I knew this person back in Progenitor that was running full alacrity with barely any critical rating (300 at most I'd say) in PvP and all I could think of was that "She's crazy" but the actual DPS impact she was having, you'd not expect it for sure. And funny enough, she was also running Lightning Sorc. For some reason, it worked pretty well.

It's something crazy that you'd not think of trying but she did and was paying off.

 

Also, I'm full BiS in around 7 or 8 characters.

Every Dot class/spec that I play, I just need to swap my stim and 3 gear pieces to play between PvE and PvP. Pretty much optimized for my playstyle with them.

For every Burst class/Spec (3) , I need to swap 8 pieces and stim to play between PvE and PvP.

Every healer (2) comes with the same setup. High alacrity and 1800-2000 crit.

For my tank, I need to swap all gear and stim to do both contents.

 

Anyway, with this, all I need to say is that gearing matters more than you think.

 

 

I fully understand that it negates gear advantages and previous effort put into gear. I do not care. The playing field should be equal, not titled toward veteran players who've had more time and resources to fully gear their toons. Each additional tier of gear added also widens the gulf between veterans and newcomers. You know what happens when PVP becomes too unfriendly to newcomers? It dies. The gear treadmill should never have been introduced to PVP and needs to be scrapped, the sooner the better.

 

Again, the Expertise gear grinding was super friendly to the players.

 

The new players would go into the games with a gear low enough for the expertise to not be affected. And yes, this was a mechanic. You already had full expertise as you enter but only below a certain armor rating. After that, the higher it was, the more Expertise you'd lose. I believe back when gear as 208-220/224(208 was 'Story gear', 216 was 'Vet gear', 220/224 was NiM gear), the 'threshold' to lose Expertise was 204, which matches the regular PvP gear. In 208 gear, you'd lose, at most, 200 expertise. Veteran players would feel the impact but newbies wouldn't but after a while they'd see that Expertise was important, thus working for it.

 

Only the players that went full hardcore on PvE would get beaten hard. I remember a few ones crying about how its stupid to have PvP gear. Why is it stupid? It is a completely different content, why should it be the same? I mean, it is now and look at the state of the PvP. People just grind through PvE content all the way to 70 and then either grind PvE for fast drops of gear or go to PvP.

Low/Mid PvP had a role which was to teach the basics of PvP and classes/specs in the environment and you could already store warzone comms along the way. It was a win-win situation which was removed with the disappearance of warzone comms.

Now you can only gear AFTER you reach level 70 since it is where the grind starts. No player will go through low/mid warzones now during the leveling process because there's no point doing it. You can't store anything that helps later.

 

Get what I am trying to say here?

 

I run crew skills daily, craft, and play the GTN.

 

Cargo/Legacy bay is your friend. I also run craft and GTN but I have no issues in storing things in cargo bay, specially Cartel Market things, since some items stop selling. When that happens, "into the cave you go and wait until the day comes where I find use to you".

 

I'm not in favor of the current gearing system for PVP and clearly stated in my post that keeping the current gear system for PVP is the worst option Bioware should take.

 

Everyone acknowledges that.

 

Switching back to Expertise gear however would also render effort put into getting current BiS pointless however, unless one also does PVE, as current BiS would be converted into a PVE set that isn't useful in PVP due to it's lack of expertise. I'm okay with that particular tradeoff as I don't think there should be a geat treadmill with PVP, I just find it odd that people in favor of a return to Expertise argue against gear differences being negated entirely by Bolster on the basis that it renders current gearing pointless. So would a return to Expertise gear.

 

Of course all would become PvE gear, I have no problem with that. Everyone is to be in the same plane, after all, so it is fair.

 

If Expertise gear were to return a full set should also be obtainable on a vendor on Day 1, without any previous requirement at all to have PVPed. The newest of new players should be able to obtain a full set without even stepping into a single warzone. They're already at a skill and experience based disadvantage. They don't need a gearing disadvantage stacked on top of it, even if it's only for a duration of a week or two.

 

Gear would be obtainable through UCs but at a much, much cheaper cost than what PvE costs. It was always this way, after all. And the gear should be 2 or 3 tiers below NiM level. NiM is now 248 so PvP gear should be 230 or 236.

With the new gear coming out, PvP gear should be 242 at most.

Oh, btw, talking about the new gear... I'm damned sure devs will tweak not just Gods of Machines but also all other Opses around 258 gear. So yeah, 248 will be nullified.

 

PVP should be skill based, as much as can be made possible, without exceptions. If I encounter an opposing player while we are travelling between nodes, and I beat him or her, I want it to be because I outplayed that player...not because I'm in 258s or whatever and they've just recently picked up their 230 set.

 

Again, PvP is all skill, in every way. Both gearing and the way you play. You beat your opponent, you could be lower gear or higher but think that your skills with the class along with the way you tuned your char that helped. And there's also adaptability to the situation. Every player is different in the way they play. Class and specs can be the same but every player plays differently.

For PvE there's no skill in gearing, honestly, and I'd say the same in dps'ing. You're either low geared or high geared, doesn't matter and you just have to know your rotation and not lose energy. Simple as that. It's a rinse and repeat process that you 'master' after 2 minutes. *Clap* Such skill. Of course, you, after, learn mechanics in boss fights but you adapt your rotation to those mechanics. The skill, in PvE, is pretty much do as much DPS as possible and learn the fights. After the fight has been learned, its a *press button repeatedly to do task* stuff.

 

If Expertise returns it is likely to work differently than the system that was previously scrapped, other than being a stat you need to be competitive in PVP.

 

Well, as long as it becomes very similar to what it used to be, I'm all fine. And full gear. Not just 2 pieces.

Edited October 18, 2018 by memerobot

[Rafiknoll]

It's not the best option. Okay, let me explain this to you. If it goes that way, it will allow to enter in the warzone with full empty gear, with earpiece/relics/implants of, let's say, level 10, and still have the same stats(If not better LUL considering how buggy it would be) as someone who's fully geared to 248 + 236/240 augments.

It just removes the point of doing any content to bother with gear. Understand that.

 

I made a suggestion that doesn't change the fact that grinding gear becomes useless (I doubt people will object) but does keep your choice of gear meaningful while not opening any "bolster loopholes" such as the wind relics.

 

There is a limited and fixed number of armoring/barrel/hilt/mod/enhancement/augments in this game. If my memory serves: there are 2 kinds of hilts, 2 kinds of barrels, 2 kinds of armoring (high ENDU or high mastery for each), 6 kinds of mods (lethal or warding, unlettered A and B) and 15 kinds of enhancements (crit/alac/acc/shield/abs and for each there is the default one, the one with more endurance and the one with even more endurance). All these exist at least from 230 rating and have their mirror 258 version. So all that bolster would need to do is to replace the stats of the existing gear with the stats of the 258 counterparts. That means an item with mixed ratings will not have bugged bolsters, missing mods or items will grant zero stats (or alternatively be considered as having the default piece in there. Depends how forgiving are we toward noobs or people who accidentally have empty slots), and since 230 is very easy to acquire, it is fair enough to simply say "gear below 230 will not be bolstered" (to force people to use only stuff that have a mirror 258 version and keep preventing more "wind relic" incidents). All the above is of course for lvl 70 bolstering only. Midbies and lowbies are unfair enough as they are due to the simple fact that higher lvls have more abilities and utilities. I think leaving the existing bolster there is harmless.

 

Results: No loopholes or anything to cheat the bolster like the wind relics. Min-maxing still enabled (but you need to do the scaling to 258 in your head if you wish to calculate your alacrity right or look up the sheet that probably already exists somewhere on the internet). 258 can remain hard to obtain without placing PVPers-only in a disadvantage and it should be a very simple switch-case to program.

 

As for the "so why do any content to gear"?

I gear to play, not play to gear. The ultimate goal in doing PVP is doing PVP, not getting the rewards. Most parts of the rewards (gear especially included) are merely assets to improve future PVP, the goal is still PVP. If PVPers PVP only to get gear, then what would they do when they got full BiS? Switch character and shelve the BiS forever?

In short, there shouldn't be a gearing incentive to play in order to make people play. If that was the case, any player who would take 5 seconds to realize what he is doing will realize how pointless it all is.

 

And about the "making 248 equivalent to 230 might make those who grinded 248 feel as if they wasted their time" let's remember the alternative: make EVERYONE grind again as if anything they did up until now didn't matter, and that includes all these 248 owners. It is like the guy who got one arm cut demands everyone get their arm cut too (and that includes him and his second arm) because he doesn't want to feel as if only he lost an arm. If the need of grinding remains, those who grinded will have double the grinding done anyway.

[unless they add ANOTHER method to get 252 which involves selling shells of 248 and converting them up for UC like what we currently do with 236-->242 and 242-->248. This way the grinding is not restarted but is continued from where you are currently standing]

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

It is a process that requires more skill than you think. Adjusting Alacrity/Crit/Power to your gameplay is massive. I know PvE is to be run with high alacrity but honestly I find like some encounters it is better to have low alac to have higher crit/mastery. The ones with short burst phases and add phases.

 

 

 

As I said before, doing this change, will lead to some exploitation from players. Or it will just be completely garbage. And the thing is, you can't give too much stat due to how damage can scale up to in this game, if its the first case.

In case of the second, well, you'll end up being screwed. Healers run 2nd Tier alacrity and 1800-2000 crit. Imagine being gutted in one of those two stats by 400-600. It changes massively the gameplay. This can also happen to DPS and tanks, of course..

Changing things around a 'personalized' bolster is just too tricky and too much effort. Plus, you'll be getting PvE players crying about how PvP players don't have to grind gear because they have bolster so later they'll also want it, thus just making things worse(I think)

 

 

 

Gearing, as I said before, also is a process of learning. You adapt your gear to your playstyle. Simple as that. It is a skill, as well.

I knew this person back in Progenitor that was running full alacrity with barely any critical rating (300 at most I'd say) in PvP and all I could think of was that "She's crazy" but the actual DPS impact she was having, you'd not expect it for sure. And funny enough, she was also running Lightning Sorc. For some reason, it worked pretty well.

It's something crazy that you'd not think of trying but she did and was paying off.

 

Also, I'm full BiS in around 7 or 8 characters.

Every Dot class/spec that I play, I just need to swap my stim and 3 gear pieces to play between PvE and PvP. Pretty much optimized for my playstyle with them.

For every Burst class/Spec (3) , I need to swap 8 pieces and stim to play between PvE and PvP.

Every healer (2) comes with the same setup. High alacrity and 1800-2000 crit.

For my tank, I need to swap all gear and stim to do both contents.

 

Anyway, with this, all I need to say is that gearing matters more than you think.

 

 

 

 

Again, the Expertise gear grinding was super friendly to the players.

 

The new players would go into the games with a gear low enough for the expertise to not be affected. And yes, this was a mechanic. You already had full expertise as you enter but only below a certain armor rating. After that, the higher it was, the more Expertise you'd lose. I believe back when gear as 208-220/224(208 was 'Story gear', 216 was 'Vet gear', 220/224 was NiM gear), the 'threshold' to lose Expertise was 204, which matches the regular PvP gear. In 208 gear, you'd lose, at most, 200 expertise. Veteran players would feel the impact but newbies wouldn't but after a while they'd see that Expertise was important, thus working for it.

 

Only the players that went full hardcore on PvE would get beaten hard. I remember a few ones crying about how its stupid to have PvP gear. Why is it stupid? It is a completely different content, why should it be the same? I mean, it is now and look at the state of the PvP. People just grind through PvE content all the way to 70 and then either grind PvE for fast drops of gear or go to PvP.

Low/Mid PvP had a role which was to teach the basics of PvP and classes/specs in the environment and you could already store warzone comms along the way. It was a win-win situation which was removed with the disappearance of warzone comms.

Now you can only gear AFTER you reach level 70 since it is where the grind starts. No player will go through low/mid warzones now during the leveling process because there's no point doing it. You can't store anything that helps later.

 

Get what I am trying to say here?

 

 

 

Cargo/Legacy bay is your friend. I also run craft and GTN but I have no issues in storing things in cargo bay, specially Cartel Market things, since some items stop selling. When that happens, "into the cave you go and wait until the day comes where I find use to you".

 

 

 

Everyone acknowledges that.

 

 

 

Of course all would become PvE gear, I have no problem with that. Everyone is to be in the same plane, after all, so it is fair.

 

 

 

Gear would be obtainable through UCs but at a much, much cheaper cost than what PvE costs. It was always this way, after all. And the gear should be 2 or 3 tiers below NiM level. NiM is now 248 so PvP gear should be 230 or 236.

With the new gear coming out, PvP gear should be 242 at most.

Oh, btw, talking about the new gear... I'm damned sure devs will tweak not just Gods of Machines but also all other Opses around 258 gear. So yeah, 248 will be nullified.

 

 

 

Again, PvP is all skill, in every way. Both gearing and the way you play. You beat your opponent, you could be lower gear or higher but think that your skills with the class along with the way you tuned your char that helped. And there's also adaptability to the situation. Every player is different in the way they play. Class and specs can be the same but every player plays differently.

For PvE there's no skill in gearing, honestly, and I'd say the same in dps'ing. You're either low geared or high geared, doesn't matter and you just have to know your rotation and not lose energy. Simple as that. It's a rinse and repeat process that you 'master' after 2 minutes. *Clap* Such skill. Of course, you, after, learn mechanics in boss fights but you adapt your rotation to those mechanics. The skill, in PvE, is pretty much do as much DPS as possible and learn the fights. After the fight has been learned, its a *press button repeatedly to do task* stuff.

 

Well at least now we know you haven't ever done HM/NiM operations ever.

 

PVP takes a great deal of skill and there is no question it has it's chllanges, but, if you sent the best pure PVPer ever with little to no HM/NiM experience into DP/DF NiM, Raven HM, Coritani HM, Master/Blaster HM, SNV/TFB later bosses, not only would they not clear one single boss,they would have the lowest numbers out of the entire group.

 

When you raid in Progression everyone logs into the same parsing program which provides live time stats that everyone can see the whole time, DPS, HPS, etc and they do that because they need to know that every player there is carrying his weight in his role because there is no such thing as carrying in Progression Raider [ Most HMs/NIM] If everyone is not meeting the numbers required at all times, with everything else going while theyre DPSing, mechanics that can kill the entire group in one second. [One shot mechanics] the cannot beat boss. If they cant meet the numbers, the boss enrages at a certain point and everyone dies without exception. It's really not the numbers that get you persay, it's the raid mechanics, because in a number of instances in a raid, there are mechanics that essentialy are, If 1 person, makes 1 mistake, 1 time during that mechanic, everyone dies.

Raiders haveexpensive repair bills at death which can cost 40k per death in 248 gear which will rise with 258.

 

Pure PVPers without raid experience, they can't DPS as well as they think they can but that's because they don't even know whart there own DPS is and they think total damage is DPS [ and that the dps at the end is about the whole matcg when its only about the players last 'combat state' ]and that's their guide, so it's understandable. Good Raiders will out DPS pvpers by miles. It wouldn't even be close. But, they would die fast against a PVPer in a 1v1, they wouldnt stand a chance. In fact good Raiders would be very surprised at just how ineffective that higher DPS would be against PVPers who know how to fight, slow, stun, use their DCDs more effectiently and they would be humbled fast.

 

I'd challenge any boastful PVPer who thinks they could do the harder raid content w/o experience to the following

 

 

Take screen shot of Operation clears on a PVPer and wherein they don't have much raid experience but still think that they are better than any PVEers and could breeze thru HM/NiM, give them a week to try as many times as they like to clear DP/DF NiM Revan HM, TOS HM, Many bosses in SnV and TfB [most certainly the end bosses] and than at the end of that week have them come back and take screenie that now shows they have cleared that content. - No chance. Not even a little.None.

 

 

W/O experience, they will be the worst players in the group, they will fail the DPS checks, they'll make enrage a forgone conclusion if they even last nearly that long and mechanics havent 1 shoted every already. They will feel like crap because everyone in their saw his numbers.

 

PVPers need different skills than PVEers and vice versa and I'm not saying all Raiders are better than PVPers that's rediculous, but in terms of raw skill needed NiM requires more. Near perfection or bust.

 

IMO, I don't think NiM raiders will not be gearing either faster or as fast as PVPers because theres like 10% of players who have the skill to do NiM and of those maybe 5% could farm them.

 

You can go 2 weeks, 3weeks at a time and not get a clear, and without a clear, you get nothing but a ton of repair bills. And even when you do drop one, that means, one person out the 8 will get a piece gear for their efforts.

They also have weekly lockouts. NiM is nothing short of the lowest plane in Hell, only difference being you can have more fun in hell. I dreaded NiM. You can't have fun doing that stupid crap, hard is one thing thats another.

 

PVPers get UCs win or lose, skilled or not.

This is why we need seperate gearing systems because the Raider/PVPer mentality are irreconcilable. So -

PVP gear or Bolster, there will never be peace between Raiders and PVPers regarding the subject, you must seperate them.

 

I'm in favor of PVP gear over bolster as PVP gear will allow easier class balancing that won't undeservedly hurt one area of play for reasons stemming in the other area of play. Thats why people are always ************ about buffs and nerfs being the fault of then other area of play.,

 

I don't care either way personaly, but I would back whatever the general consensus of PVPers feel is best, we want to keep as many people happy and playing as possible, so whatever that is, I'll back it.

[Lhancelot]

Agreed.

 

I'm just returning from about a year away but I am a beta tester and was a closed beta tester after launch, what were we called, Regulators?

 

Anyways, I hate the grind the game has become and I am not sure that I want to continue playing it this way -- it's just way too constrictive for those who enjoy PvP, and I cannot play all the characters I like, especially at the top level.

 

I am just going through this thread and learning about these proposed changes, but IF this is true and gearing becomes even more difficult, I am a 100% confident these will be the last dollars I put into subbing for this game.

 

After a year away it will be very easy to leave again. This is a game, dammit -- allow us to have some fun without having to sacrifice our children, families and donate limbs to the cause.

 

Hey welcome back. Sad to see you having to be acquainted back to the forums on this topic. I remember Regulators and REGULATORS haha. Both PVP guilds in the past ran with some when I got invited to PVP groups. I played a PT named Overpowered-PT mostly back then.

 

As a PVPer there's no question the game is far worse than say during 3.0-4.0. I quit after 5.0 for a long time, I had a lot of resentment to get over before trying the game again. I read that they had walked back some of the grind so I decided to come back after my replacement game got stale after nearly two years.

 

My point is, why would they add more grind and more restrictions to those who focus on PVP after they already did that with 5.0, and had to walk back some of that grind due to a serious sub loss?

 

What makes them think this added gear grind will not have the same effect on PVPers that 5.0 had?

 

Either they are dumb, delusional, or have absolutely no common sense or respect for history (which in my mind is pretty close to being dumb.)

 

Well, they will have plenty of old posts to go back to when they implement a more grindy gear system and the game suffers yet again due to utterly suffocating design changes to the game, design changes that punish alts and PVPers.

 

As usual they been greeted with tons of negative feedback and unhappiness from PVPers and even some PVE-players who simply don't want a deeper gear grind, and as per the past they have not commented one time to assuage the concerns their playerbase has about the proposed changes to gearing.

 

GG BW, well played.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Lhancelot