252/258 Gearing System not viable for Casual/PvP players

[Jdast]

The question is, are Bioware listening?

 

Ack, now I'm forced to be mature!

 

As you and every one else knows, my previous reply to you was sarcastic.

 

But, as I have noted repeatedly -- I was stunned they didn't answer the bolser question in the livestream. Or after repeated requests here in the forums, including from the likes of me (PvPs 20%) vs. you (PvP's much more).

 

It really should just take 15 seconds. They should bite the bullet.

 

Dasty

[Totemdancer]

So I got on PTS today to look at the new gear. They haven't asked for feedback about it yet, not sure if they ever will, so I'm still hoping maybe the costs aren't accurate but it's so absurd. The only thing from the Ossus dailies that gives a shard is the Weekly. And you only get one. You can also get one from the timed duration Weekly. The one currently up is to do 4 Master Mode FPs, again for one shard.

 

By the way shards seem to be character specific. They go in your currency tab but are not shared between legacy. So if you want to buy the cheaper 500 UC shard you really can only buy one once a week per character and you can't transfer them.

 

Also there were no main hands or off hands on the 258 vendor. Only 252 had them. I'm really hoping that won't stay that way. That would mean you either have to spend big money or raid to get them.

 

Even the implants cost 24 CMTs to craft. The Ossus Assembly Component is relatively cheap though, for Biochem it was 3 refined isotopes, 4 blue crafting mat, 2 blue grafts, and 2 purple mats for 1. RE'ing 252 gear doesn't give you anything good at all.

 

I haven't been able to get a piece yet to see how well the mods can be transferred but I fear the worst.

 

Oh and by the way not all pieces are only 4 shards. Three were 5. So that's 51 total shards for everything MINUS main hand and off hand since they're not on the vendor and who knows if they will be. So about 20 weeks if I assume I get 3 shards every week so 4ish months for a character to not even get all gear pieces if I don't want to overspend UCs a lot. And I will likely never get main hand and off hand if they're really not on the vendor. I suppose I can run all alts at the same time though, except not all my alts are caught up on story yet and I really don't want to be forced to rush through it just to gear them up.

 

I'm also not sure I have it in me to grind the same dailies on multiple characters for that long. I guess I can overspend UCs sometimes but this whole system is pretty bad to me. Especially If the mainhand and offhand aren't put on the vendor. That would be the last straw for me. I'm really hoping that's not intentional.

 

Also on PTS the daily and weekly PvP ranked missions win requirement is increased. But wins now count as 5 so if you're winning it's the same amount as before, just more if you're losing. I suppose to try and combat people queuing but not trying to win but lol with the CMT requirements for crafting those prices will go up, you'll get more mat farmers, and they'll just be in queue longer now.

 

Edit: I will say that the ossus weekly only requires you to do 4 particular missions at the moment. They are the heroic ones, so they're tougher, but I've been able to solo them (although I'm in full 248 with 240 augs and a 50 companion). So that's not too bad after you get the rep grind done.

 

So, I just want to confirm what you said.

 

1. The 258 Main and Off hand are not available at the vendor to buy with crystals

2. Three gear items required 5 crystals to buy from the vendor.

3. To buy all available gear from the vendor, it will cost 51 crystals.

4. We do not know where 258 Main and Off hand will be acquired outside of MM Ops,

 

Would you be able to post what items require the 5 crystals.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Totemdancer

[kukumburr]

So, I just want to confirm what you said.

 

1. The 258 Main and Off hand are not available at the vendor to buy with crystals

2. Three gear items required 5 crystals to buy from the vendor.

3. To buy all available gear from the vendor, it will cost 51 crystals.

4. We do not know where 258 Main and Off hand will be acquired outside of MM Ops,

 

Would you be able to post what items require the 5 crystals.

 

Legs, Helm, and Chest: https://i.imgur.com/YInmwHn.png

 

Yes 258 main and off hand are NOT on the vendor. The 252 vendor has 252 main and off hand and the crafting recipes for 258 weapons are available to purchase.

[Totemdancer]

Ack, now I'm forced to be mature!

 

As you and every one else knows, my previous reply to you was sarcastic.

 

But, as I have noted repeatedly -- I was stunned they didn't answer the bolser question in the livestream. Or after repeated requests here in the forums, including from the likes of me (PvPs 20%) vs. you (PvP's much more).

 

It really should just take 15 seconds. They should bite the bullet.

 

Dasty

 

But I don’t think they will. This is them effectively doubling down by staying silent on the whole topic.

Bolster would certainly be the most elegant and easiest (dev cost) solution for them to implement.

 

At the moment, Bioware can’t or won’t even answer one really basic question that pvpers have been asking since the Vandin HB was released.

“Has the stun ability been nerfed on purpose when you have the ball or is it a bug”

 

The change was never on the PTS or tested and it wasn’t listed in the patch notes. Musco has said in the past, “if it’s not in patch notes, it’s not intended and is a bug”.

How simple would it be to just make a quick yellow post to say :

“It is intended. Sorry it was mistakenly left off the patch notes”

Or

“It’s not intended. Thanks for letting us know about the bug. It will be addressed in a future update”

 

But we’ve had complete silence about it. Zero communication and it’s makes most of us think it was intended and they didn’t tell us before hand because they knew we would all hate it. So they are essentially doubling down on a bad decision they made by staying silent and hoping it goes away.

[Totemdancer]

Yes 258 main and off hand are NOT on the vendor. The 252 vendor has 252 main and off hand and the crafting recipes for 258 weapons are available to purchase.

 

Wow, that really sucks.

 

As Lando once said “This deal is getting worse all the time”

[TUXs]

The good news is there is only 1 White Knight in this thread. Every single one of us has said that changes should be made.

 

Dasty

Agreed Dasty! We need to focus on the things we agree on more than the things we disagree on. Very few times has there been this amount of agreement among us.

[phalczen]

It is possible that they don’t want to put the main hands and offhands on the vendors yet because they don’t want people testing the balance changes in all difficulties of the op with 258 MH/OH which would throw off their data.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

I've heard that some players get a lot out of Ops, but they definitely do seem very time-intensive. I've also heard the repairs can cost a lot. It all seems like adding the mats to all the Ops would be reasonable.

 

For me, they're not my thing - aside from my social anxiety about interacting with others, I have a very slow system, I can't do any voice chat (which I know is big in Ops) and I get distracted and overwhelmed by a lot of different things happening on screen. My own companion and the God-bot are enough extraneous motion on screen to make me lose focus and get distracted sometimes.

 

Ops can be extremely timing consuming. If you like them though, it can be blast. It's really a great way to test yourself, earn some really good experience, and improve your game play. The problem is that once you start getting into HM, many of the HM Ops live up to their classification. Hard means exactly that. But with some experience and skill it's doable and you can still have fun with it. Even with that said, NiM is literally a nightmare to play. I absolutely hated NiM, at least to me, it was impossible to have fun doing it. Many of the fights require near perfection. Anyone making one mistake one time at the wrong time, and it's an instant wipe, everyone get's one shoted.

 

Even more to the point, NiM isn't something you can just say, I'll bite the bullet and just do it. If you don't already have considerable HM experience, there's no way you're getting through NiM. There is no 'carrying' in NIM. If you can't make the DPS checks, everyone suffers for it. And people won't want to continue to have their time wasted if someone can't meet the checks. And it doesn't even mean that the person is a bad player, they could be very good, it's just that NiM, even that's not good enough. It's very hard to get NiM worthy, it takes a ton of time and experience. If you are starting out, I'd say chances are you're not going to be ready to try NIM for 9 months - Year and maybe not even than depending on what kind of time you have to put towards getting the experience you need. Ops are very - Crawl, Walk, Run [sM/HM/NiM].

 

You're not doing NiM without being a member of a HM/NiM progression group, and there aren't all that many people who are NiM worthy to begin with anymore. Most of the better ones are long gone. Getting into such a group isn't easy and they tend to have fairly strict requirements for perspective new members and a high expectation of performance. Voice chat is mandatory as is being in a Parsing program so everyone can see how everyone else is doing in live time because you need to know how you are doing and if checks are being made so you know where you need to work on things.

 

I was never one of the better NiM raiders, I did clear 75% of the bosses, but, that took a really really long time and there were bosses we just couldn't get down and at a certain point you are wasting so much time working on a single boss week after weeg after week and all you are getting for it [besides experience which is never a bad thing persay] is really big repair costs and you get no gear, no decos, no nothing from wipes. My team took 2 and half months to down Styrak on NiM, on one boss.

 

Now we weren't the best most expeirenced NiM raiders, that's for sure, but that is more symptomatic of what you will probably find these days than not. We didn't even ever make it into DP NiM to even try it because so long was taken on other things. That's exactly why they call it "progression", it's a progressive process that you have work and work and work when you have alot of trouble.

 

Revan HM, we spent months on that and we never cleared it. [That has NiM level difficulty tho].

 

I've been out of raiding for over a year now, god only knows how long it would take me to get back into reason form to even attempt it. But the truth is, I don't ever see myself doing NiM again because it's just a disgusting experience. Challenging is one thing, near perfection is another. Plus, you need to have people who are not only capable but really willing to laugh at themselves and not get flustered. You need to have a bond with your group, not be afraid of ridicule or the mistakes that will definitely be made.

 

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from trying, nor am I claiming that I was ever one of the better ones in NiM, I wasn't. It's just not a realistic option for most players. If it's something you really want, you need to be dedicated to it, you need to be willing to work hard at it and on your own skills, and you need to put most of your game time to that goal. Even than it will take you a very long time to get ready for NiM if you don't already have a good amount of HM experience. There isn't a lot of toxicity in raid groups, they simply can't function well under those conditions, but there is a good amount of Elitism. There's only one real reason people do NiM, and it's because they want to be seen as the best of the best, and while there is a great sense of accomplishment when successful, there is a lot of time questioning ones self, and doubt, and the feeling of whether or not it is really worth all that you have to do to get there. I hated it with a passion, but, it's what my groups wanted to do, so I did it.

 

There's a reason why they are putting the mats behind NIM walls, and that's because you need to offer something as a draw if people are really going to be willing to put themselves through what it entails and quite honestly, those that are capable, they deserve something for it, it's that hard, IMO at any rate.

 

Try it if that's what you want, just be realistic about what it will entail and be willing to devote the time to it that it will necessitate. It isn't only about the time in the raids, it's also about uping your skill and practicing whatever it is you need to over and over again until you get to where you need to be. Time consuming for sure.

[TUXs]

There's a reason why they are putting the mats behind NIM walls, and that's because you need to offer something as a draw if people are really going to be willing to put themselves through what it entails and quite honestly, those that are capable, they deserve something for it, it's that hard, IMO at any rate.

But...they are also the players who least need the boost in stats.

[Andryah]

It is possible that they don’t want to put the main hands and offhands on the vendors yet because they don’t want people testing the balance changes in all difficulties of the op with 258 MH/OH which would throw off their data.

 

It's more likely they either have not finished them yet (or have some problem with them), or have but have just not patched them into the PTS, or the vendor is bugged in it's itemizations. All reasonable assumptions at this point in time for where they are with PTS for 5.10.

 

PTS... Public Test Server, where there are more bugs and omission then even the worst complaint list by any player about the live servers.

 

They said right up front that this was a phased series of tests on PTS in preparation for 5.10 release. The one thing we clearly will not get access to is the story... but everything else was planned to be on PTS for players to test.... just not all at once in one patch.

 

Honestly... (not commenting specifically about you here phalczen, you have been very objective in your posting in my view)..... catastrophizing over a missing item or two on a vendor on the test server, where they are not even yet really testing this part of the patch, is completely absurd.. and speaks volumes about those making an issue over it. I guess no soapbox is too small with today's MMO complainers.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Andryah

[TUXs]

It's more likely they either have not finished them yet (or have some problem with them), or have but have just not patched them into the PTS, or the vendor is bugged in it's itemizations. All reasonable assumptions at this point in time for where they are with PTS for 5.10.

You honestly believe they just haven't finished these yet? They were able to do every other piece of gear, accounting for every possible spec played, all set bonuses, and you think they just haven't had time to get to the MH/OH yet huh? Realizing that MH/OH's don't have set bonuses or anything of course...just a simple stat change...and you think it's too soon to assume that what we see isn't what we'll have right?

[kukumburr]

It's more likely they either have not finished them yet (or have some problem with them), or have but have just not patched them into the PTS, or the vendor is bugged in it's itemizations. All reasonable assumptions at this point in time for where they are with PTS for 5.10.

 

PTS... Public Test Server, where there are more bugs and omission then even the worst complaint list by any player about the live servers.

 

They said right up front that this was a phased series of tests on PTS in preparation for 5.10 release. The one thing we clearly will not get access to is the story... but everything else was planned to be on PTS for players to test.... just not all at once in one patch.

 

Honestly... (not commenting specifically about you here phalczen, you have been very objective in your posting in my view)..... catastrophizing over a missing item or two on a vendor on the test server, where they are not even yet really testing this part of the patch, is completely absurd.. and speaks volumes about those making an issue over it. I guess no soapbox is too small with today's MMO complainers.

 

The weapons exist. You can craft them: https://i.imgur.com/G32e5e5.png. You're catastrophizing as much as anyone, just over other people's posts instead of gear. I'm not saying I'm quitting over it because I'm fully aware it's still PTS and it can change. I'm just saying if it stays that way that's going to be the last straw for me. By the way in their list for what's being tested, gear wasn't included. So I'm gonna talk about what I see now instead of waiting for them to ask about it, which they may never do.

[Jdast]

My personal belief on the MH / OH not being available yet is that you will be able to buy them with MWS but...(isn't there always a but...)

 

It will require higher reputation levels with Ossus. So everyone is clear, I have ZERO actual evidence to support this view but my curiosity was piqued by what Charles meant during the Cantina when he said...

 

"There will be reputation breakpoints."

 

Look, from the perspective of BW, they want Ossus to be an active, thriving hub. They also know that MH / OH will be the most sought after items.

 

Dasty

Edited October 26, 2018 by Jdast

[kukumburr]

My personal belief on the MH / OH not being available yet is that you will be able to buy them with MWS but...(isn't there always a but...)

 

It will require higher reputation levels with Ossus. So everyone is clear, I have ZERO actual evidence to support this view but my curiosity was piqued by what Charles meant during the Cantina when he said...

 

"There will be reputation breakpoints."

 

Look, from the perspective of BW, they want Ossus to be an active, thriving hub. They also know that MH / OH will be the most sought after items.

 

Dasty

 

That could be. I would think they'd want to change the rep requirement for pieces a bit more than it is now. Currently it's Hero for everything except bracers and belt, which only require Newcomer. Hopefully they'll split them up a bit more and (please) add MH and OH as Legend or something.

[phalczen]

You honestly believe they just haven't finished these yet? They were able to do every other piece of gear, accounting for every possible spec played, all set bonuses, and you think they just haven't had time to get to the MH/OH yet huh? Realizing that MH/OH's don't have set bonuses or anything of course...just a simple stat change...and you think it's too soon to assume that what we see isn't what we'll have right?

 

Well, to be fair, there are a lot more variables, specifically, the animations, sound effects, interaction with tunings, etc., involved with weapons than armor. But, as kukumburr wrote, the weapons are craftable. Recall, however, that the actual maninhands/offhands drop from Izax and Scyva, respectively, which no one has been able to get to yet on PTS. Assuming that the same bosses drop the "Forgotten" somethings, which in this case is a pair of Forgotten Transformers, then I suspect it will be some time before we could actually craft the 258 MH/OH.

 

They may not have decided on a price yet. After all, all the gear was 4 MWS on the first iteration of PTS. Now, there are legs/chest/helms for 5 shards. Perhaps the MH/OH will be six shards?

 

Maybe it will be strictly gated behind MM ops content, just like the 204 mainhands were gated behind VM Colossal Monolith.

 

Anything's possible at this point.

 

Also, in case people missed it:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9661806#edit9661806

Bolster is currently planned to go up in 5.10. Let me work on confirming exactly to what item rating it is going to shift and I will let you know.

 

-eric

 

Yay!

[TUXs]

Well, to be fair, there are a lot more variables, specifically, the animations, sound effects, interaction with tunings, etc., involved with weapons than armor.

Yeah, that really seems to slow down the CM team too...right? It's not like they release a new entire set of weapons every month or so.

[casirabit]

The question is, are Bioware listening?

 

Depends on what you mean by listening.

 

Listening/Reading the posts-most likely

 

Listening--Making the changes-That is a different question and really not the same as listening. I can listen to a person all day long but I don't have to do what they request or agree with them, so that is a different subject.

 

Just for the Record: (Should they make changes--yes some need to be made)

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

But...they are also the players who least need the boost in stats.

 

If you're a NiM right now and being that the difficulty levels aren't increasing in the content itself, yeah, I would agree, NiM raiders don't need that boost in stats, they're capable of doing all that content that they have cleared already.

 

That isn't to say it's not benefical to them, it most certainly is. Even when you have cleared NiM content, just because you have doesn't mean that content is now easy to you, it can still be hard as all hell, and it isn't uncommon to have instances where you may have dropped a NiM boss once or twice already but than the next two times, you just can't get it down.

 

In my experience, NiM never becomes easy and doesn't always remain hard. There maybe be a few bosses that are simply easier than many others. 1st bosses in Operations tend to be among the easiest. But they are the exception and not even always the case.

 

But considering that the gear increases, in the case of Operations, that increase is times 8. Every person in the group will have better stats and added together all the 8 people with the improved stats could certainly make the difference of clear or a wipe. 4 DPS having their DPS increased even by 100 thats x4 = 400. Individually, that's not a huge amount of damage, but when you are hitting a boss 500 or 600s or what have you that makes a huge difference in the end. That's a lot of extra damage they are putting out against a foe who is no stronger than they ever were. Even a couple of seconds because of an increased health pool can make the difference of meeting the DPS check and not resulting in enrage.

 

I would however agree, in the case of PVP that difference may be even more important because unlike the situation in raiding where the opponent you are fighting hasn't gotten any more powerful, in PVP people fighting other people can find themselves facing an opponent who is more powerful than he had been and that gear advantage of some definitely can make a difference and is more necessary in order to level the playing field and not be at a greater disadvantage than their opponent.

 

As difficulty of opponents will increase in PVP but won't in PVE, I'd saying it is probably more important for PVP than PVE given the differences in difficulty increase between them.

 

 

If there was no difficulty increase in opponents faced in PVP I would be of the opinion that it would be more important for NiM than PVP given that the content difficulty margin between NiM and PVP compared to each other innately is so significant. NiM is without question the hardest content in the game by a mile IMO. It isn't so much that the DPS checks are so hard, it;s that the mechanics can make uptime on the boss extremely difficult, and even if a player is capable of reaching a DPS level that the check is, without the necessary uptime doesn't matter how good someone's DPS is if they are unable to apply it enough of the time. It's the mechanics that get you. I was never one of the better NiM raiders. My DPS was rather good, but it was my raid awareness that left something to be desired as I suffer from quite possibly with the worst case of Tunneltis on record. I have at times been a healer's worst nightmare.

 

[phalczen]

Yeah, that really seems to slow down the CM team too...right? It's not like they release a new entire set of weapons every month or so.

 

A fair point, but I would argue that platinum rarity CM weapons occur pretty infrequently (look to the example of the Holstered pistols, its been a year since they came out and the only hint of new ones is in the PTS dwarven yield), and these weapons would presumably be pretty epic, think like Kell Dragon (rating 174 from the original NiM TFB/S&V), or ranked season weapons. Plus, you already know the canned response to this, "They're two separate teams." Still, you make a reasonable counterpoint which may make the other explanations more likely (like, they don't want people balance testing with 258-level weapons.)

[Andryah]

Also, in case people missed it:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9661806#edit9661806

 

 

Yay!

 

Yep.

 

All this angst and catastrophizing... and I could not find a single instance of anyone actually asking them about bolster.

 

So.. I asked.. and got this preliminary answer within an hour from Eric. Just need to keep on him so he does not forget to come back and fill in the number.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Andryah

[Andryah]

The weapons exist. You can craft them: https://i.imgur.com/G32e5e5.png. You're catastrophizing as much as anyone, just over other people's posts instead of gear. I'm not saying I'm quitting over it because I'm fully aware it's still PTS and it can change. I'm just saying if it stays that way that's going to be the last straw for me. By the way in their list for what's being tested, gear wasn't included. So I'm gonna talk about what I see now instead of waiting for them to ask about it, which they may never do.

 

BS. I am simply pointing out that the vendor is on PTS and as such.. could very well just not be added to the vendor yet. You have plenty of time to conflate needlessly here as do some others.. just to keep worst case drama going .. but no time to actually ask the question in the PTS forum about the weapons?

 

I got tired of all this nonsense from PvPers here and just asked Eric this morning in the PTS forum about bolster.... because apparently none of the doomsday crowd could be bothered to request any factual information. Would not want anything that took the drama pedal off the forum I guess?

Edited October 26, 2018 by Andryah

[DzastinBiberi]

And PVPers got tired of not being listened to, hence the smaller population today than it was over the past few years.

 

Nerfs and buffs nobody asked, changes to wz's nobody asked, certain bugs not being fixed for years etc.

 

So yeah, they got tired of the same old constant BS.

[kukumburr]

I got tired of all this nonsense from PvPers here and just asked Eric this morning in the PTS forum about bolster.... because apparently none of the doomsday crowd could be bothered to request any factual information. Would not want anything that took the drama pedal off the forum I guess?

 

Bolster doesn't mean anything as far as gearing for ranked goes unless it's 258+ which would be surprising.

[NeoBlakkrstal]

Will have to see how bad the final implementation is and feels like.

This gear update has a good chance to be something that makes me quit the game though.

 

The new system is not viable for anybody. The daily restrictions will make it take over a year to gain a full set of gear. A useless waste of time and resources.

[Jdast]

Bolster doesn't mean anything as far as gearing for ranked goes unless it's 258+ which would be surprising.

 

How did I know this would happen? Is it because I'm fabulously brilliant? Well, yes, but I digress. <<takes sip from martini -- well, it is a day ending in 'y' after all and it's 3 p..m. on the West Coast>>

 

As soon as it was announced that bolster was going up, these threads would turn into a "bolster must be BiS" fest.

 

Prepare to be disappointed. BW has always had the view that there should still be a gear progression element in PvP. Keith flat out repeated it again last year.

 

They know the arguments on both sides. None of us can stop you from changing this into a full-fledged Bolster should be BIS thread, but can't you at least be happy that Andryah elicited a response that bolster is at least going up? The irony is that Andryah has LLOONNGGGG advocated that bolster should be BiS. I happen to disagree, and side completely with BW on this one -- hence the reason I support bolster going to 252.

 

As it is six levels below BiS now, I think that it is a pretty good guideline to suggest moving forward. Alternatively, we can continue to have the exact same bolster debate that has gone on ad nauseum for decades in MMORPGs (note: Overwatch, Fortnite, various MOBA's are not MMORPGs). But for you to say "it doesn't mean anything" is hyperbolic and simply mathematically incorrect.

 

Give a mouse a cookie...

 

Dasty

Edited October 26, 2018 by Jdast