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

[Ner_idia]

As someone has pointed out, the adding of yet another tier is simply an indicator that 6.0 is being pushed back.

 

Again.

 

Enjoy the hamster wheel.

[Nightblazer]

I posted this in the other thread but this would resolve all gear issues for both PvP and PvE. It's simple and concise:

 

PvP - Make gear irrelevant and just always set bloster to Max gear level. Problem solved.

 

PvE - Top 3 tiers of gear come from normal, veteran or master mode respectively. Any tiers below should be purchased via vendor for credits. Bosses drop slot specific gear tokens to trade, 1-2 per boss and 2-3 for final boss. Problem solved.

 

Unless you do ops, no need to have stats from top 3 tiers of gear. Slight compromise maybe would be non-ops tasks like heroics, FPs, WZ, GSF, etc reward commendations to trade for the top 3 gear tokens to then trade to vendor for gear. Higher the tier, higher the commendation cost.

 

There now everyone is happy.

[Manjaca]

I like Ossus and i like that we have a new planet with much quests.

 

But the Gear grind is to much.

To much for Casual PVE Players

To much for Casual PVP Players

To much for Ranked PVP Players

 

To much grind for this content

 

This smells a little bit like Galactic Command

Now we have about 50 pages.......

 

Bioware need to buff the PVP Weeklys with much more UC or crafting materials or somthing else.

 

And doing with all possible Twinks the Ossus daily will possible burn out much players. And make the new planet Ossus fast boring. And i dont want that because Ossus is looking very well.

Edited November 7, 2018 by Manjaca

[KendraP]

The schematics at the vendor are for a full Armor piece. Not for the individual internal pieces. The only way to get schematics for mods/enhancements/etc is to pull them out of gear and RE them

 

There is a bug or it’s intended (we’ve no confirmation from the Devs) that enhancements are being locked to the armor slot they came from. ie. If you have an enhancement in a leg and you remove it, you can only put it into another leg slot (the same as bonus armoring).

 

I'm beginning to smell a grind within a grind. You need the gear piece for your toon --> you need another piece to get the enhancement/mod --> keep on grinding away!

Lol. What part of "i don't want to grind pve everyday in order to play pvp" don't you still get m9?

What the heck. I would think you are a troll if you didn't put so much effort in this...

10 weeks of pve grind to gear up for pvp. Kek.

 

I do the occasional casual pve... but i don't see the point in creating a grindfest. They aren't fun, they aren't bringing back new people, what is so complicated about making any new content they put out before the next expansion being good enough to support itself (without forcing it on people with a futless grind).

 

As someone has pointed out, the adding of yet another tier is simply an indicator that 6.0 is being pushed back.

 

Again.

 

Enjoy the hamster wheel.

 

Assume this is right. Are you going to stay because of a new gear grind? If i stay, it's in spite of an incredibly pointless new grind. I have 3 guildies (a shadow dps, slinger, and mando healer) who left because of the pvp changes... who have also indicated this is not bringing them back. Extrapolate as you will.

[Pietrastor]

As someone has pointed out, the adding of yet another tier is simply an indicator that 6.0 is being pushed back.

 

Again.

 

Enjoy the hamster wheel.

 

Which wouldn't be so bad, if this was 2013. New tier was added with DF/DP with the obvious intention to have the 'standard' expansion a bit later due to extensive workload on two feature-expansions (Starfighter and Strongholds).

 

Nowadays though... zero chance of anything like that happening. Ossus is likely all actual content we will get till late summer or fall when 6.0 releases.....

Edited November 8, 2018 by Pietrastor

[Khevar]

Which wouldn't be so bad, if this was 2013. New tier was added with DF/DP with the obvious intention to have the 'standard' expansion a bit later due to extensive workload on two feature-expansions (Starfighter and Strongholds).

My memory is shaky on that time, was there another tier of PvP gear added along side of the new PvE 186 rated gear that came from NM DF/DP?

[Ner_idia]

Assume this is right. Are you going to stay because of a new gear grind? If i stay, it's in spite of an incredibly pointless new grind. I have 3 guildies (a shadow dps, slinger, and mando healer) who left because of the pvp changes... who have also indicated this is not bringing them back. Extrapolate as you will.

 

I have never really bothered with the gear grind, no matter what the MMO was. I rarely do harder content (never done MM mode) so I don't really need anything more than what I have ... 230 gear with 228 augs.

[DavidAtkinson]

Tux,

 

Happy to oblige! The following is based on the current PTS. Obviously, this includes speculation on MH / OH, which are not yet available for purchase. It also assumes that they resolve the mod /enh swapping issue.

 

The analysis below will be tailored to my situation of having a veritable Scrooge McDuckian vault of Unassembled Components (UCs). Regardless, it is still arguably the fastest way to gear up even if you do not have that vault.

As of now on the PTS, some pieces of gear cost 4 Masterwork Shards (MWS), some 5. We do not yet know MH / OH. With 14 slots, and to make the math easy – let’s assume between 60 and 65 MWS to get all the pieces. Let’s go with 65.

 

Here is my strategy for the first 10 weeks:

The key is to maximize MWS shard acquisition across alts, while focusing on a select few characters because relics, implants, earpiece are not transferable by legacy. While I actually have 24 level 70s (yes, all at GC 300), I’m not psychotic and will focus on playing 10. You must not only have 10 alts for this to work, you must enjoy playing each alt a bit each week or this will not work.

 

Here’s how it works for me noting a few key points:

 

1. I have an average of 12-15 hours / week to play.

 

2. I currently have 50,000 UCs. When 5.10 drops in a month, I'll have roughly 55,000. For the past few months, I’ve had my 4 mains (1 tank, 1 healer, 1 melee dps, 1 ranged dps) at BiS, with the notable exception that I have 236 Augments in gear and 240 in Weapons. I do not suffer from BiS-its for alts. Having alts at Ilvl 242-46 was just fine.

 

3. Through disintegrating and doing the PvP dailies / weeklies (something Trixie’s analysis on Joonbeam’s thread does NOT take into account) I have pretty easily been accumulating about 2500 UC’s / week. Note: If you are not hoarding UCs now you are not the brightest bulb on the tree.

 

Let’s begin:

1. Each week on 10 characters, I will purchase ONLY the first MWS that costs 500 UCs. Thus, for 5,000 UC, I will get 10 MWS. This means that without even playing 1 New York Nanosecond of 5.10, after 10 weeks, I will have 100 MWS. Even though I have more alts at 70, I do not want to overextend and use all 24 alts because you have to actually be able to purchase a piece of gear -- and having 3 MWS on each character doesn’t cut it.

 

2. On each of those 10 alts, I will either complete the Ossus Heroic Weekly, which currently takes less than an hour, or I will complete the Weekly Event depending on my mood. Both of these currently grant 1 MWS upon completion, per character. Dulfy used the Weekly Event example of 4 Master Mode FPs, but presumably others will rotate, including, hopefully, a PvP one.

 

In so doing, for about 10 -12 hrs / week, I will accumulate another 10 MWS per character / per week. After 10 weeks, I will have accumulated another 100 MWS, bringing the total to 200.

 

3. For the remainder of the time, I will focus on PvP dailies / weeklies across a smattering of characters to increase UC production. The reason this is important is because I will probably want to buy on the first three characters I wish to gear that second MWS for 1000 UC. Why? Because relics, implants, and earpieces are not transferable across legacies, so I have to be sure for those pieces that I have the actual MWS shard on that character. Heck, on two or three characters I may even do both the Ossus and Weekly Event, increasing my MWS shard production even more!

 

4. The above analysis does not even assume the chance for MWS to drop from Command Crates.

 

Conclusion:

 

By utilizing 10 alts and playing 10 alts wisely I will have 200 MWS at the end of 10 weeks through just steps 1 and 2. Steps 3 and 4 are gravy and will only lower the time. Even if you do not have a vault of UCs, the above way works to gear up faster, though not as fast as moi because I saved up my UCs.

 

So, by combining PvE, doing PvP dailies / weeklies across alts, I can choose the first three characters I want to gear up reasonably quickly in comparison to the crafting method which currently is less pleasant than being locked in a vault with the Jawa Opera troupe. At 65 MWS to get BiS, that’s 185 total.

 

Please note: I’m not saying I will actually do the above because I play for fun, and will sometimes want to level alts, etc. The above is just a possible pathway given the current PTS maximizing efficiency, not necessarily enjoyment.

 

For those who only PvP, I can only recommend that you emphasize doing dailies / weeklies across alts to maximize gains. You do yourselves no favors, however, when you distort UC acquisition time by ignoring dailies / weeklies / disintegrations. And complaining about hero rep? Give me a break.

 

Dasty

 

Totally agree with this....

 

That's my tactic as well. I will have over 100k UC's by then.. So I am not worried at all about this gearing. Also, I am stacking up some mats that might be used in crafting the parts.. Either way, they are worth hundreds of millions of crtedits on the GTN...

 

Most people here have an unrealistic sense of entitlement when it comes to gearing . Like if they are PVP*ers they somehow should gear their alts in one week.

 

Maybe just enjoy the game and chill out and play like everyone else does.... Work for the bis and maybe in 3 weeks you will have your main geared.

 

Sure... this gear grind sounds fishy to me, but I don't know how it will play out when it goes live, BUT I am preparing myself to fight it and make my gearing as fast as possible.

 

It's better than complaining all day on the forums.

[Joonbeams]

Tux,

 

Happy to oblige! The following is based on the current PTS. Obviously, this includes speculation on MH / OH, which are not yet available for purchase. It also assumes that they resolve the mod /enh swapping issue.

 

The analysis below will be tailored to my situation of having a veritable Scrooge McDuckian vault of Unassembled Components (UCs). Regardless, it is still arguably the fastest way to gear up even if you do not have that vault.

As of now on the PTS, some pieces of gear cost 4 Masterwork Shards (MWS), some 5. We do not yet know MH / OH. With 14 slots, and to make the math easy – let’s assume between 60 and 65 MWS to get all the pieces. Let’s go with 65.

 

Here is my strategy for the first 10 weeks:

The key is to maximize MWS shard acquisition across alts, while focusing on a select few characters because relics, implants, earpiece are not transferable by legacy. While I actually have 24 level 70s (yes, all at GC 300), I’m not psychotic and will focus on playing 10. You must not only have 10 alts for this to work, you must enjoy playing each alt a bit each week or this will not work.

 

Here’s how it works for me noting a few key points:

 

1. I have an average of 12-15 hours / week to play.

 

2. I currently have 50,000 UCs. When 5.10 drops in a month, I'll have roughly 55,000. For the past few months, I’ve had my 4 mains (1 tank, 1 healer, 1 melee dps, 1 ranged dps) at BiS, with the notable exception that I have 236 Augments in gear and 240 in Weapons. I do not suffer from BiS-its for alts. Having alts at Ilvl 242-46 was just fine.

 

3. Through disintegrating and doing the PvP dailies / weeklies (something Trixie’s analysis on Joonbeam’s thread does NOT take into account) I have pretty easily been accumulating about 2500 UC’s / week. Note: If you are not hoarding UCs now you are not the brightest bulb on the tree.

 

Let’s begin:

1. Each week on 10 characters, I will purchase ONLY the first MWS that costs 500 UCs. Thus, for 5,000 UC, I will get 10 MWS. This means that without even playing 1 New York Nanosecond of 5.10, after 10 weeks, I will have 100 MWS. Even though I have more alts at 70, I do not want to overextend and use all 24 alts because you have to actually be able to purchase a piece of gear -- and having 3 MWS on each character doesn’t cut it.

 

2. On each of those 10 alts, I will either complete the Ossus Heroic Weekly, which currently takes less than an hour, or I will complete the Weekly Event depending on my mood. Both of these currently grant 1 MWS upon completion, per character. Dulfy used the Weekly Event example of 4 Master Mode FPs, but presumably others will rotate, including, hopefully, a PvP one.

 

In so doing, for about 10 -12 hrs / week, I will accumulate another 10 MWS per character / per week. After 10 weeks, I will have accumulated another 100 MWS, bringing the total to 200.

 

3. For the remainder of the time, I will focus on PvP dailies / weeklies across a smattering of characters to increase UC production. The reason this is important is because I will probably want to buy on the first three characters I wish to gear that second MWS for 1000 UC. Why? Because relics, implants, and earpieces are not transferable across legacies, so I have to be sure for those pieces that I have the actual MWS shard on that character. Heck, on two or three characters I may even do both the Ossus and Weekly Event, increasing my MWS shard production even more!

 

4. The above analysis does not even assume the chance for MWS to drop from Command Crates.

 

Conclusion:

 

By utilizing 10 alts and playing 10 alts wisely I will have 200 MWS at the end of 10 weeks through just steps 1 and 2. Steps 3 and 4 are gravy and will only lower the time. Even if you do not have a vault of UCs, the above way works to gear up faster, though not as fast as moi because I saved up my UCs.

 

So, by combining PvE, doing PvP dailies / weeklies across alts, I can choose the first three characters I want to gear up reasonably quickly in comparison to the crafting method which currently is less pleasant than being locked in a vault with the Jawa Opera troupe. At 65 MWS to get BiS, that’s 185 total.

 

Please note: I’m not saying I will actually do the above because I play for fun, and will sometimes want to level alts, etc. The above is just a possible pathway given the current PTS maximizing efficiency, not necessarily enjoyment.

 

For those who only PvP, I can only recommend that you emphasize doing dailies / weeklies across alts to maximize gains. You do yourselves no favors, however, when you distort UC acquisition time by ignoring dailies / weeklies / disintegrations. And complaining about hero rep? Give me a break.

 

Dasty

 

Perfectly valid approach (no surprise Dasty) for someone with 50K UCs already and 12 Hours a week to play. I don’t have either. But that’s still secondary. Just keep in mind, I’ve said many times that the current state of the PTS is NOT CONSISTENT either the dev goals of amount MM GFTM + crafting the fastest method. I’ll grant (haven’t tested) that this is not the case I the PTS. But players should be prepared for longer grinds if devs stick to their stated goals and re adjust the PTS data to line up with that. Also this still doesn’t get at the main issue. Yes,gearing is doable with some

Effort and time. But PvPers (specifically for 5.10) shouldn’t need to grind this gear for PvP since tne devs have made it clear that this isn’t PvP or even general player gear. It’s MM ops gear. And only for that. Just bolster PvP to BiS and let it be. Keep the gearing system for MM ops...

[ultimarb]

I have never really bothered with the gear grind, no matter what the MMO was. I rarely do harder content (never done MM mode) so I don't really need anything more than what I have ... 230 gear with 228 augs.

 

You must be one of the rare self reflected players left in this times of video gaming

[Jedi_riches]

Perfectly valid approach (no surprise Dasty) for someone with 50K UCs already and 12 Hours a week to play. I don’t have either. But that’s still secondary. Just keep in mind, I’ve said many times that the current state of the PTS is NOT CONSISTENT either the dev goals of amount MM GFTM + crafting the fastest method. I’ll grant (haven’t tested) that this is not the case I the PTS. But players should be prepared for longer grinds if devs stick to their stated goals and re adjust the PTS data to line up with that. Also this still doesn’t get at the main issue. Yes,gearing is doable with some

Effort and time. But PvPers (specifically for 5.10) shouldn’t need to grind this gear for PvP since tne devs have made it clear that this isn’t PvP or even general player gear. It’s MM ops gear. And only for that. Just bolster PvP to BiS and let it be. Keep the gearing system for MM ops...

 

I agree, the new gear was designed with only master mode operations in mind so it would be fair to completely disregarded it when it comes to pvp bolster and just have it at max.

[TUXs]

Lol. What part of "i don't want to grind pve everyday in order to play pvp" don't you still get m9?

What the heck. I would think you are a troll if you didn't put so much effort in this...

10 weeks of pve grind to gear up for pvp. Kek.

Dasty wasn't suggesting YOU should do this - he was replying to my request asking how HE planned to do it. I can't do what he's going to attempt either...I simply don't have the alts or the time to commit 20 hours a week to grinding it...but I will commit time to it.

 

It's still a horrific system and Bioware's silence on it is maddening.

[casirabit]

Lol. What part of "i don't want to grind pve everyday in order to play pvp" don't you still get m9?

What the heck. I would think you are a troll if you didn't put so much effort in this...

10 weeks of pve grind to gear up for pvp. Kek.

 

Then don't do it. He was responding how he was going to do it.

 

Did you notice that he was responding to a specific question how he was going to do it? He didn't say for anyone else to do it. The way he does it works for him because he has plenty of alts and time to do it. It will not work for everyone but he also didn't say you should do it.

 

I could do the alt suggestion and for the most part I already do that minus pvp since I don't pvp but that is the way I have geared my toons in 248 without the need to pvp or do operations but it will take me longer as I don't have the kind of time he does.

[KendraP]

Dasty wasn't suggesting YOU should do this - he was replying to my request asking how HE planned to do it. I can't do what he's going to attempt either...I simply don't have the alts or the time to commit 20 hours a week to grinding it...but I will commit time to it.

 

It's still a horrific system and Bioware's silence on it is maddening.

 

I will be doing more or less the same thing dasty is doing, but what I want made abundantly clear is: I am NOT staying because of their ridiculous new super grind. It is a massive turn off, that has chased 1 guildie off and failed to bring back 3 others.

 

They should have learned 2 years ago - super absurd randomness or prolonged gear grinds are NOT effective in attracting and retaining players. I and my guildies who stay are doing so for each other and in spite of this absurd grindfest being pointlessly added.

 

Do I need to be more blantantly obvious, Musco? There are 4 players in my 15 player guild (at its peak/heyday, now down to like... 10). That you have NOT retained because of adding gear for no reason.

[akdonkey]

Personally I gave up on gearing long ago. Every time they raise the bar. They gave us a set that will get you by. Its not the best but will do. Same for augments I augmented one suit long ago. By the time I got one suit done they upped the gear. With having so many alts here. Gearing just did not seem important any longer.

[Andryah]

Cross coupling this post from Eric in the PvP forum this morning.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=956074

 

Hey folks,

 

Whenever we introduce new gear to the game, there is an inevitable conversation about what changes will be made to Bolster. As I mentioned in this thread, our original intention in 5.10 was to take Bolster and move it to 248. That thread along with the rest of the forums led to a lot of great feedback from all of you on how you feel about the state of Bolster, should it be higher, or lower, etc. That brought us to sit down and really look at what we want from Bolster now and going forward and so we are going to make an additional change. Let’s talk about why we originally landed on 248, where we are going next, and why.

 

Addressing Master Work Gear and 248 Bolster

Simply put, in order to make Master Mode Gods From the Machine as terrifying as it should be we needed to have a larger item rating jump than usual for our new gear. As many of you likely know, typically a new tier of gear means a 6 item rating differential. In this case, since we wanted to balance against a higher target we opted to introduce two item ratings of growth at 252 and 258 as a part of a single tier. Historically, we have moved Bolster to be equal to the previous tier’s best in slot item rating. In this case, that makes it 248 (which is what we chose). However, since this tier jump was different it also meant that we couldn’t be 100% consistent. By choosing 248 it means there is a 10 item rating differential, where normally this is only a 6 rating difference. Even though it is a “one tier” jump, it actually creates a larger item rating differential than there usually is. To address this, we are going to be increasing Bolster in Game Update 5.10 to item rating 252 (previously planned to be 248).

 

Also, as a reminder we are not only adjusting Bolster on gear, but also on Augments. We are increasing Augment Bolster from 208 to 236. This will additionally help in closing the gap between BiS players and those being Bolstered.

 

Bolster Beyond 5.10

A number of players have brought up the idea of having Bolster be at the highest item rating available. Effectively making gear in PvP irrelevant, where skill is the only deciding factor. Although we understand the desire from players on that side of the debate, it does introduce some issues. If there is no gear chase from PvP that removes all progression from PvP gameplay and it also removes a part of the reward structure.

 

However, we do know that there has been unhappiness with PvP gearing in general in the 5.0 era, especially with the removal of Expertise. To make large itemization changes to PvP like that will require an equally large update, so this is the type of issue we will have to wait until an expansion sized update to tackle. We will consider a variety of options including reintroducing PvP specific stats/gear, Boslter changes, etc. and we will make sure to talk through planned changes with all of you when we get to that point.

 

Let us know your thoughts.

 

-eric

[mhobin]

Cross coupling this post from Eric in the PvP forum this morning.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=956074

 

Good change

[Totemdancer]

Good change

 

Yes it’s a good change.

I’m glad they have made this compromise before 5.10 goes live. Maybe this will stop too many pvpers from leaving because of the grind.

It still doesn’t address how bad the grind will be for 258 gear. But at least you won’t get destroyed in the process.

[Ghost_Spectre]

Dasty wasn't suggesting YOU should do this - he was replying to my request asking how HE planned to do it. I can't do what he's going to attempt either...I simply don't have the alts or the time to commit 20 hours a week to grinding it...but I will commit time to it.

 

It's still a horrific system and Bioware's silence on it is maddening.

 

I have 1 toon that completed everything. I have 5 or 6 at various stages with one need to complete the last update. I calculated using Dasty's information for my one toon to obtain all that gear using his method and it would take me 8 months to gear up completely! And I'm laughed at for saying that this game is not using NCsoft's gear grinding template?

Edited November 10, 2018 by Ghost_Spectre

[Totemdancer]

I have 1 toon that completed everything. I have 5 or 6 at various stages with one need to complete the last update. I calculated using Dasty's information for my one toon to obtain all that gear using his method and it would take me 8 months to gear up completely! And I'm laughed at for saying that this game is not using NCsoft's gear grinding template?

 

The gear grind in the game will definitely be harder for people who only have one Alt maxed in Story or level.

It will be extremely hard for people who are new to the game and may put a lot of them off.

It will be hard for returning players who may leave quickly when they realise the grind requirement.

It will be harder for people who don’t have a mountain of UCs or no UCs.

It will be slow and tedious for a vast majority of players who only play pvp.

 

The gear grind will be exceptionally easy and fast for MM ops players who play pvp, have lots of UCs and lots of credits.

The grind will be easy and fast for people like Dasty who have lots of UCs and lots of Alts

The grind will be the easiest for people with Billions of credits because they can just buy the crafted gear or craft it themselves with bought mats (it may not be as fast as Dasty because they will need to wait for people play enough MM to craft or list mats)

 

At the end of the day, the gearing will only seem fine and reasonable for a minority of the player base. (Like Dasty)

The casual players like yourself, new players or pvp focused players are going to be the worst off.

Personally I’m not going to take exception to Dasty and others in his position. If they have the time and UCs to by pass a lot of the grind it’s because they’ve played a lot of PVP. Thousands of hours of it to get those stock piles,

What I do take exception to is them telling casual players how the system is fine or that it’s not that bad. They aren’t in our position and they should be more sympathetic because this system will hurt them too as more people leave the game. That means less people for them to play with too.

 

The only saving grace for pvpers is the announcement that Bolster will now be 252 instead of 248. While this isn’t fanatasic because the grind to 258 will still be terribly slow, it will allow people to gear and not get completely annihilated in pvp.

I’m not sure it will stop some pvpers from leaving the game, but it will stop a massive amount from leaving.

 

Let’s just hope that Bioware come to their senses and make more changes to the 258 gear grind and the crafting system before they go live with 5.10.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Totemdancer

[chompi]

The biggest argument against returning the experise and the pvp comms is reducing the player base. this days a lot of casual and pve players filling the ranks because pvp is another alternative to grind gear overall, if situation will go back pre 5.0 a lot of them will stop pvp cuz the gear won't be the highest tier anymore. sure a lot of clueless people will stop play pvp and the overall level might go up, but than again pops rate will go down drastically because the total player base is low, and the pvp player base is even lower. now days on DM you have most of the days pops and you see a lot of casuals playing it, if it will go back we will sit for hours in Q with no pops. you can argue that you prefer better games and more challenge in less time, not sure if this argument will hold if you will need to wait 20-30 mins for a pop or not at all depending on the time of the day.

[Totemdancer]

The biggest argument against returning the experise and the pvp comms is reducing the player base. this days a lot of casual and pve players filling the ranks because pvp is another alternative to grind gear overall, if situation will go back pre 5.0 a lot of them will stop pvp cuz the gear won't be the highest tier anymore. sure a lot of clueless people will stop play pvp and the overall level might go up, but than again pops rate will go down drastically because the total player base is low, and the pvp player base is even lower. now days on DM you have most of the days pops and you see a lot of casuals playing it, if it will go back we will sit for hours in Q with no pops. you can argue that you prefer better games and more challenge in less time, not sure if this argument will hold if you will need to wait 20-30 mins for a pop or not at all depending on the time of the day.

 

I dont think that’s necessarily true. Expertise gear was exceptionally easy to get. The only people I can see getting upset about it are people who pvp to get gear for pve.

 

The problem all along with expertise and Bolster was Bioware never explained it properly. That was the main contention with the system.

All pvers needed to do was wear 190 pve gear into pvp and it gave full expertise and bolstered them to about the same stats as reg pvp gear. The only difference was the lack of set bonuses.

Then playing pvp casually allowed them to collect the pvp gear rapidly and they could swap out 190 gear with 204 pvp gear.

 

The issues arose because people in epic pve gear (with much higher stats than ranked gear) would come into pvp and they wouldn’t have any expertise because their gear was so much higher.

If Bioware had explained this properly and put a gear check mechanism in place, the whole thing would have been less painful for everyone, including pvpers.

 

The only other option would have been to make the epic gear reverse Bolster and be capped at the 204 level with nearly a full amount of expertise.

The expertise pvp gear idea worked really well to balance the pvp geared players against the epic pve geared players. But there weren’t any other systems in place to explain how it worked properly.

 

When they look at a new system, they should take those things into consideration.

 

I cannot see people leaving because there are two systems. More people left the game when they made it one system.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Totemdancer

[chompi]

you assuming that the fact that more people left prior to 5.0 got anything to do with moving to one gear system, that assumption is not correct at all, they left for many reasons that regards the mistakes and failures that Bioware made over the years and it is not the thread to discuss them all over again. I am a pvp player for the last 7 years, 90% of my game time that is high is pvp , I know much of the pvp community on my home server DM ( and I know many of the pvp players who left ) the bottom line is the pvp community is dying regardless of the gearing system and if you will push out the pve players who come to grind the unassembled components, we will sit in the Q admiring our pvp gear and waiting long long time for a pop.

 

anyway as Eric hinted expertise is probably back in 6.0 and we can see who was correct about it, I wish it will be you, but sadly I sure we will all cry about it, you can't hold the pvp scene alive with current pvp players only. and if pvp won't give the chance to get the highest tier of gear ,the casuals and pve players won't have any motivation to fill the ranks.

Edited November 10, 2018 by chompi

[Ghost_Spectre]

Let’s just hope that Bioware come to their senses and make more changes to the 258 gear grind and the crafting system before they go live with 5.10.

 

First, I'm far from a casual player. I spend 4 to 6 hours a day playing. I have 40 characters, of which 28 or so are level 70 that I'm grinding through GC to 300 before I push them into KOTFE and beyond.

 

Second, I left the game for a year because of the previous Senior Producer and returned in January after Keith took over and what he said he was going to do.

 

I'll grind out as needed. I'm semi-retired and play this game, FFXIV, and Neverwinter. However, I never imagined that I'd be forced into a NCsoft paradigm again for gear progression in this game, as Keith and company are doing. Think how a new player starting out from the beginning and sees what is required of them for gear progression. They will spend copious amount of time grinding through weekly missions and everything else to get to 248 only to find that the method they were using to get there is now null and void. How long do they think a new player will stay with it?

 

Lastly, we both know, based solely on their past record of decision-making, they refuse to really address our concerns. However, they did announce they'll bolster to 252 gear; yet, they're not going to change process to obtain the best gear in the game. They've made up their minds, this is what they are going to do, damn those who don't like it. I'm betting they lose close to 50,000 subs over this because people are fed up with their convoluted way of obtaining gear. If not, I'll be surprised. Again, I base this comment solely on the track record of this game's past, lackluster decision-making process, and the inability of those developing it to learn from past mistakes.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Ghost_Spectre

[Totemdancer]

'm betting they lose close to 50,000 subs over this because people are fed up with their convoluted way of obtaining gear.

 

I doubt there are even 50000 subs still in the game. Last Primetime I checked on SS only had 3682 people on the whole server.

With only 3 active servers and 2 dead servers, there is probably about 12000 people online for the whole day and not all of those are subs.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Totemdancer