Masterwork Gear Changes in 5.10

[Jdast]

My read on this is...

 

They are making it easier to get 252 gear, but they are making it more difficult to get 258 gear unless they are significantly increasing the drop rate of MWS in T3 and T4 crates. And, frankly, since all my characters are T4, I don't give a rip about T3 drop rates.

 

I'm not going to sit around in fleet chat to do the World Bosses on Ossus for gear that is going to be replaced in 6.0 within the first couple hours.

 

But now they are adding 3-4 MWS AFTER you get the 252 gear. There is no other way to interpret this besides they are increasing the grind even further.

 

Dasty

Edited November 21, 2018 by Jdast

[teclado]

I don't do operations or group ranked. I'm trying to figure out how I would go about getting gear. Maybe I don't "need" gear then. However, if other people in unranked warzones will have a gear edge, then I actually do kind of "need" the gear. Yeah, I do unranked WZs.

 

Ossus Rep

If I understand correctly, everybody will have to get Ossus reputation points. I just came back to the game and have no idea what Ossus is (presumably a planet). Hopefully I can get to it without having to burn through some storyline. So in order to get Ossus reputation points, looks like I'll need to farm some PVE dailies. I'm not thrilled about that, but I find it acceptable. But why are these vendors on a planet and not the fleet? That makes zero sense to me. In fact, that seems unprecedented. Please tell me there is some way to quick travel to Ossus and back...

 

Masterwork Crystals

So this is the only currency that can purchase the new gear. Why do we need another new currency? How am I going to get them? World bosses or group ranked? No and no. Command crates? Uh, I'm not counting on that LOL. Turning in unassembled components? Ok, so now we're talking (assuming I can still get UC from unranked). But I fully expect it to be just as grindy as before. You know, like the reason why I only have one 248 character (actually, he's still missing one piece I think) where I had about ten geared back in 4.X during the glory days of cheap pvp gear. Is this a bad time for me to go on a rant about how I loved having geared alts that I could run through warzones and how I love variety and how playing the same one character for too long makes me quit? Sorry, nevermind.

 

252 Gear Drops

Ok, well that's kind of nice. I'd probably run the Daily Area once per week (per character) to get a piece. But do we really need to still have the RNG element on this for crying out loud?!?! Sounds like it's one random piece per lockbox of lower, tech, or upper. Somebody needs to slap whoever this person is that has the obsession with RNG.

 

Conclusion

Looks like I'll be able to run PVE dailies and unranked WZs and get the gear, eventually. Still seems very grindy, which is the theme of 5.0. Gear vendor is on a planet now for no particular reason. Reputation requirement added to endgame gearing for no bloody particular reason. Assumptions being made that pvp-ers needs will be met by locking things behind group ranked (as if even a small fraction of pvp-ers do group ranked).

 

Maybe I'm just a bitter old vet (started at launch) who now only really sees the game as a sort of first person shooter (without the first person, of course) and just wants to run casual warzones on a wide variety of classes while not feeling wimpy due to not have the most grindy of gear.

[Totemdancer]

I don't think they should be legacy bound. This would make it so that people who spend only part of the time playing their main would gear faster than people who spend more time on their mains but are limited by the throttle.

 

I think the player that spends more time playing their main should gear faster than someone who spends less time on their actual main doing the same exact content only. If a player only uses PVP to obtain MWC's, but another player does both PVP and PVE than that's a reasonable basis of earning more MWCs. Playing 5 alts only doing the same content as the one character it isn't a reasonable basis for a faster gearing experience on any given specific character.

 

It places people like myself who only play one character or two at a disadvantage. If the throttle dictates that I can only earn 2 MWCs per week, that's all I can get. If they make it legacy bound, that means people can earn a lot more MWC's faster as they would be able to pool all the MWC's they earned playing on alts and than funnel them their main.

 

Throtttle is there for a reason and I would imagine it's to do with limiting the amount that can be earned in a given time frame.

 

i.e. Solo player can only earn 2 MWC per week, someone with 4 alts can earn 10 MWC per week and have them to use on any given character when the solo player could not possibly earn as many MWC's because of the throttle. Essentially, it would be a loop hole.

 

I spend 25 hours per week play my main [and only character]. Some else who has alts spends only 15 hours on thier main will have their main geared faster than someone who puts more effort and time with their mains [and only] in.

 

Solo character players can't get around the throttle. I can't earn 10 MWC in a week, it's literally impossible so at the end of that week I'm not able to get any 258 gear with with only 2 MWCs, the person playing alts will have two new pieces of 258 gear on any given character they would choose to to my none.

 

While I wouldn't call it an exploit, I do see it as gaming the system. If the throttle doesn't effect everyone equally than it shouldn't be instituted in 5.10 at all IMO. That would in and of itself create gear gaps. I have no issue with the throttle otherwise.

 

This throttling won’t stop people buying items on Alts and transferring them in legacy gear. It’s not a hurdle for most people with lots of Alts, it’s only an inconvenience or annoyance.

Bioware should know this already. So it really makes no sense not to make them legacy, the same as they made pvp coms legacy tokens during 4.x. or made UCs legacy.

The grind in 5.x has been terrible for me with 30+ Alts. I got to the point that I just have one legacy set per “class/mirror” class that I just swap back and forth. That’s exactly what people will do with 5.10 because the grind will be even worse.

 

What I would like to know is where will we get 258 BiS Main/Offhand weapons.

This has been conveniently left out of Musco’s post after being constantly asked about in other PTS threads to do with gearing.

At this point, it’s the elephant in the room that Bioware are ignoring because I get the feeling they know we will be in a massive rage when they finally tell us or confirm what many of us have guessed, that they will only be available in MM op or buying from a crafter.

Musco was also very vague as to “where else”, other than MM, where will we be able to get the mats to craft.

crafted by gathering materials from a variety of sources, including Master Mode Gods from the Machine.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Totemdancer

[Totemdancer]

Feed back

 

MWS need to be more available for reg pvpers, as well as pvers.

(This feed back is from a pvp perspective)

 

1. Ranked players also play regs quiet a lot.

 

2. Ranked players will get gear faster if they can get more MWS doing ranked weeklies or achievements.

 

3. These ranked pvpers will be playing undergeared and in most cases less skilled players in regs and will not only have a skill advantage, they will have a gear advantage (not fun)

 

4. When ranked or better geared people play in regs against new or less skilled people, it makes it unbalanced and unenjoyable for new people to learn. This puts new people off pvp or trying it. Which means less people play ALL pvp.

 

5. Even the better geared people find it frustrating when people die so fast because they dont have better gear.

 

6. Encouraging or arm twisting those players who may not be ready for ranked to play it to get the rewards will make the ranked format irrelevant. You may as well rename it Arena queue and remove arena from reg queue.

 

7. If people are only queueing to get the reward to gear so they can go back to regs to play, it totally negates putting the MWS reward behind a ranked gate. This is exactly what objective players who hate arena will do. The. They’ll never step into ranked again.

 

8. Diluting ranked just to get numbers of people into it will upset everyone involved.

8a. It will upset the dedicated and competitive ranked players who are competent enough to play ranked

8b. It will upset the people who aren’t ready for ranked

8c. It will upset those who don’t like arena format

 

9. This system will encourage win trading and cheating. That means unscrupulous people will be selling these services for real money like they were doing last season on discord and other social mediums outside of the game. You will be lining their pockets.

 

10. If you are going to make a faster path for gearing in pvp, then it needs to be available to all pvpers in all pvp content.

 

11. You could still reward the same amount of MWS per week for doing reg content and make it require more matches or wins (or something).

But you would be limited to either obtaining them in ranked or regs. You couldn’t get double the amount by doing both.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Totemdancer

[Neulwen]

Oh no. This is really depressing.

 

I'm mostly worried about the quality of warzones. Ranked arena players will be able to get gear, but those who only do non-ranked warzones will have to do things we don't like... Why do you do this? The warzones in this game are amazing, and there are many of us who love playing them! Clearly you care because you gave us a new huttball recently. This system will just mean more imbalance in warzones! Worse games! Please don't do things that make wz players leave... That will also have an avalanche effect, as fewer players => worse yet games. Please reconsider when there is still time!

 

This whole problem stems from the fact that you decided to do away with PVP gear. Certain people may not have liked it and it may not have been perfect, but it served a purpose. It allowed people to gear up at a rate that was appropriate for that specific content.

 

Now however we're stuck with a system that relies heavily on RNG/time and takes far too long for PVPers to get their BIS gear. And yet for some reason you've decided to make this particular problem even worse by introducing a new tier of gear that was completely unnecessary for the large majority of the game. You could've made new obtainable set bonuses that are specific to the new raid difficulty instead. 8 Equipped = +8% stats while inside raids for example. But somehow you thought that disrupting other areas of the game was a better idea.

 

So now your only options are to either:

A - Screw over PVPers.

B - Screw over both PVPers and PVErs ast the same time.

C - Implement 258 bolster for PVP as a banaid fix.

 

All these options are undesirable, but C seems to be the only one that can solves this issue without causing more trouble. I agree that some gear should be present in the PVP enviroment, but there is no other way you can salvage this without reintroducing PVP gear in under a month or handing out the new 258 gear like candy.

 

And can we please get away from these convoluted gearing methods? No one asked for gear to be this confusing.

 

Exactly. Good post. You need to increase bolster to 258, at least for normal warzones. Please. This has been suggested before in other threads. Just let us have our objective-based pvp fun .

 

And for the future, pvp gear, with a bolster that bolsters non-pvp gear very close to pvp gear. There has been a lot of discussion on this as well in other threads.

 

Edit:

Threads like these:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=955593

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

Edited November 21, 2018 by Neulwen

[Totemdancer]

My read on this is...

 

They are making it easier to get 252 gear, but they are making it more difficult to get 258 gear unless they are significantly increasing the drop rate of MWS in T3 and T4 gear. And, frankly, since all my characters are T4, I don't give a rip about T3 drop rates.

 

I'm not going to sit around in fleet chat to do the World Bosses on Ossus for gear that is going to be replaced in 6.0 within the first couple hours.

 

But now they are adding 3-4 MWS AFTER you get the 252 gear. There is no other way to interpret this besides they are increasing the grind even further.

 

Dasty

 

Exaclty. None of it seems like good news.

[mentalmackem]

Hey folks,

 

For those of you who are familiar with current Masterwork gearing plans from PTS, you will notice some changes. Otherwise, this may be an introduction to how all of this will work in 5.10. Throughout this post when I refer to Masterwork gear, I am referring to the new 252 and 258 item rating gear being introduced in 5.10. Based on our initial implementation there were a few key things we wanted to address:

• Getting Masterwork gear solely from PvP was more difficult than we would like.
  
• The implementation encouraged working directly to 258 while skipping 252. We don’t have a problem with this, but it made getting any gear upgrades more challenging and expensive than desired. By “stair stepping” up to 252 and then 258 there can be constant progression that isn’t as expensive as trying to jump straight to best in slot.
  
• We needed more opportunities for players to get Masterwork Data Crystals and gear overall.
  
• Players had no long term value in getting 252 since they could not be upgraded to 258.
  

 

Before we dive into the way MW gear acquisition will work in 5.10, just a reminder that 258 gear can be crafted by gathering materials from a variety of sources, including Master Mode Gods from the Machine. This ensures that the new MM in 5.10 is a very valuable source for progression Ops players. Outside of crafting, there are two ways of acquiring MW gear, by turning in MW Data Crystals to a vendor for 252 / 258 or by receiving 252 gear directly. Let’s cover each of these methods and within each, the separation of PvE and PvP where applicable.

 

Masterwork Data Crystals

There are two places where you can purchase MW gear:

• Lord Fural / Major Pucenisco on Ossus – 252 Gear
  
  • Requires Ossus Reputation rank between Outsider and Hero, depending on gear piece
    
  • Each piece costs 2 Masterwork Data Crystals
    

  [*]Lord Bay’lor / Captain Anfel on Ossus – 258 Gear

  • Requires Ossus Reputation rank of Champion or Legend, depending on gear piece
    
  • Each piece costs 3-4 Masterwork Data Crystals and a matching piece of 252 gear
    

Here are the ways in which you can acquire MW Data Crystals per week:

PvE

• 1 Crystal – [Weekly] Masterwork Data Crystal – This Mission is to defeat both world bosses -or- earn 50 Group Ranked Arena Points
  
• 1 Crystal – New rotating Weekly Mission (50% chance of being a PvE objective)
  

 

PvP

• 1 Crystal – [Weekly] Masterwork Data Crystal – This Mission is to defeat both world bosses -or- earn 50 Group Ranked Arena Points
  
• 1 Crystal – New rotating Weekly Mission (50% chance of being a PvP objective)
  

Both

• Rare chance of MW Data Crystals dropping out of Command Crates at Tier 3 and up
  
• 1-2 Crystals – Turning in Unassembled Components
  

252 Gear Drops

In addition to being able to purchase gear for MW Data Crystals, there are a two places where you can outright acquire 252 gear.

• [Weekly] Daily Area Ossus will allow you to choose one of the 3 Artifact Lockboxes:
  
  • Artifact Lockbox (Lower Body): Waist, Legs, Feet, or Relic
    
  • Artifact Lockbox (Tech): Main Hand, Offhand, Head, or Ear
    
  • Artifact Lockbox (Upper Body): Chest, Wrists, Hands, or Implant
    

  [*]Once you are in Tier 3 of Galactic Command there is a chance that an Artifact Lockbox containing one random 252 piece can drop from Command Crates.

 

Additional Changes

There are some other changes to help support Masterwork Gear (mostly targeted at PvPers). They are:

• We increased the current 252 disintegration rates from PTS. 252 gear will disintegrate into 175 Unassembled Components in 5.10 (up from 9 to 45).
  
• To help PvPers get the required Reputation for the MW Data Crystal vendors, we are adding Rep rewards to Ranked PvP Missions:
  
  • [DAILY] Arena of Death!: 2 Geonosian Power Cell
    
  • [DAILY] My Kind of Scum: 1 Geonosian Power Cell
    
  • [WEEKLY] Go Berserk!: 4 Encrypted Data Disks
    
  • [WEEKLY] Time for Pain!: 2 Encrypted Data Disks
    

TLDR – If a player simply does two Weekly Missions of their chosen playstyle they will be able to acquire a minimum of two 252 pieces per week (or upgrade one 252 piece to 258). This does not include crossing over into both PvP and PvE, any MW Data Crystals or drops from Command Crates, or purchasing any crafted versions of this gear, which can speed up your acquisition rate of MW gear.

 

Let us know your thoughts on the changes to acquiring Masterwork gear in 5.10!

 

-eric

 

I don’t know where to start really. I’ve been here since wave 1 early access but this I just can’t get behind and it’s making me seriously consider my sub.

 

Ranked PVP is already full of undergeard players who don’t try and people who /stuck because they are only there for the Charged Matter Transubstantiator and now your putting in more reasons for people to go in and do nothing to get a reward ruining it for people that play ranked for the challenge and the rank rewards flairs titles etc. On top of that we are talking best part of 6 months per character to gear up so anyone with more than 1 character played regularly has a insane grind on there hands which will last brain numbinly for months.

 

It’s like you don’t know your player base at all, you don’t learn and it really seems like you have no idea what your doing when it comes to running a game.

 

As others have if Snaves quitting then you know you messed up bad.

 

This is bad real bad.

[IoNonSoEVero]

It's pretty much confirmed that I'm not even going to try for the gear. Or even bother with the Ossus dailies. I'm imagining it's going to be a zoo of overcrowding and ninjas with everyone trying to get the reputation and shards.

[ivanhedgehog]

they are going to have to put something in like light vs dark or something similar this spring to try to avoid another exodus. 6.0 will probably be here this time next year. That is too long to do nothing but weeklies.

[Totemdancer]

It's pretty much confirmed that I'm not even going to try for the gear. Or even bother with the Ossus dailies. I'm imagining it's going to be a zoo of overcrowding and ninjas with everyone trying to get the reputation and shards.

 

I hope there is a pvp instance

[IoNonSoEVero]

I hope there is a pvp instance

 

That won't help me, I'm afraid.

[KendraP]

i wish to ask, once again, why, if we insist on adding another stupid, pointless, and maddening tier of gear, it can't be attainable in the same way as present.

 

another 100 levels of cxp grind would be preferable to the infuriating stupidity the gear in 5.10 is going to be.

 

I also wish to make it so abundantly clear that not even Mr Musco or Mr Kanneg can claim my participation implies my enjoyment that I do not ENJOY pointless grinds.

 

I also wish to point out that, owing to the uselessness of currently optimal tank stat distribution, this change is yet another in a series of changes that screws tanks in particular, since the vendor obviously does not have the enhancements or mods with high endurance on them.

 

Thanks for nothing, Musco.

[Stellarcrusade]

Ok, who here can give a one sentence detailed description how to get top BiS gear to a new player who just hit 70. It can only be one sentence, and less than 10 words, and has to explain everything the player would need to know such that he will not have any questions nor any trouble. Because, afterall, the description of how to gear should be simple.

 

(I'm fighting to produce this description without 100 pages and a 24/7 call line to answer questions)

Edited November 21, 2018 by Stellarcrusade

[MandFlurry]

Oh boy, it seems Bioware can't win heh:)

 

Well good luck Bioware, i'm glad you guys are doing this and not me:cool:

[Sundown]

Hmm.... that kind of blows all my plans to shreds. From previous reads I thought I might just convert 500 Unassembled Components into 1 MWS and get one piece of gear for it (per week and toon). That sounded ok for me.

 

Now they reintroduce the gear steps and make it pretty grindy. Not new, the same was done earlier with all those crystal grinds, but back then you had more things to do. I have no clue how big the Ossus-Daily Area will be, but I suspect it will not be more than a Ziost to Oricon range. I will pretty much burn out on the content if I really go for MWS, seeing most of my alts are T4 and a mix of 240-248 BiS.

 

Let's see, right now it sounds like: not gonna bother too much.

[giorgo]

Ok, who here can give a one sentence detailed description how to get top BiS gear to a new player who just hit 70. It can only be one sentence, and less than 10 words, and has to explain everything the player would need to know such that he will not have any questions nor any trouble. Because, afterall, the description of how to gear should be simple.

 

(I'm fighting to produce this description without 100 pages and a 24/7 call line to answer questions)

 

Something something grind, something something Ossus, something something RNG. There ya go, 9 words.

 

Fan fact : if play a mix of solo ranked and regs I am not considered a pvper according to eaware, but if I belong to one of those endless LF2 more ranked mats groups I am! It's like you guys don't even know what is going on in your servers lul.

[casirabit]

I have supported you in the past but not this time. I pve only (heroics and dailies mostly) and even though I am in a guild these changes you might as well have shot your foot and this is not something I normally have said. If they are not given out like on the PTS, for weekly missions then you are making a mistake.

 

Yes Pvp players need a way to get them but do me a favor don't try to force players that don't pvp into pvp just for the crystals.

 

As some pvp players have said they didn't like to pve well the same is with pve (or story people).

[Syal]

simply NO. it's too much farm for just a 10% increase gear !

 

Sorry, but you are wrong with the mechanic to acquire this stuff !

 

It were so simple to add a 5th vendor on the fleet and on osus, and allowing player to get T5 just by OP drop and unassembled materials.

 

Once again, you are making error on your gameplay choices.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Syal

[albeva]

Reading all this ... I won't bother with new gear at all. No thanks. I think I'll have much better time playing the game this way

[merovejec]

Currently on the PTS you could go to 258 directly, now it's the same cost except you have to have a 252 piece to trade in. So it's worse for 258 than it is on the PTS.

 

I still dont get it, even now you have to get 242 to get 248 and people (that know how to gear) pretty much skip 242s, they just farm UCs and then get 242s to upgrade directly to 248. You basically can get 230s and then upgrade to 248 directly! The same will be possible now, so I dont see what the fuzz is about.

 

Sure its slow, but not like 6.0 will come in summer!

[giorgo]

I still dont get it, even now you have to get 242 to get 248 and people (that know how to gear) pretty much skip 242s, they just farm UCs and then get 242s to upgrade directly to 248. You basically can get 230s and then upgrade to 248 directly! The same will be possible now, so I dont see what the fuzz is about.

 

Sure its slow, but not like 6.0 will come in summer!

 

Look mate, not everyone has bots and not everyone multiboxes so people will have to actively grind for months for this gear. Shocking for you I know. Grats for your solo kills achievements in Yavin and Vandin wz's btw. You must be a great multi...errr...pvper.

Edited November 21, 2018 by giorgo

[Flame_Ya_One]

Can we have Last Bosses on MM drop 258, please? I see no reason why the drop 246 now

[DzastinBiberi]

I'll just leave this here from few weeks ago.

 

Plot twist

 

You need 4 crystals for 252 piece and another 4 to upgrade it to 258 piece.

 

Exciting™

[Paulsutherland]

Whatever story comes from 5.10. I feel as with 5.0 it will be completely overshadowed by the backlash for the new gear grind.

 

Why did you put this in for 5.10? Wouldn't it have made more sense to wait until 6.0?

[fabsus]

my opinion about that:

 

pve:

- new gear as a defacto nerf of every operation to revive the mm operation

(crystals are not an option for the most and actually way to expensive)

- many ppl like to grind for gear, even if they never would need it

 

... but the changes remind me to the introducing of the 242 gear. this was

fixed and fixed again, because of the insane high grind needed. so welcome

back these ****** times. the time when i stopped my sub and left swtor.

 

so there is a need to improve and increase it.

 

_____________________________________________________________

pvp:

- setting a 2 classes system for pvp players, because there is no 8ppl ranked

- even worse gearing situation and insanly stupid decision. you need BIS to play ranked,

otherwise you will get flamed out of every arena. but you need to play ranked, to get BIS.

--> this maybe okay in the first weeks when everybody is grinding, but not for returning players

and not for ppl with other hobbies and not able to spend 8 hours a day to grind in swtor.

 

... do you remember the times, when 242 was introduced? yeah! team ranked wintrading at it's best.

welcome back guys. your time again! thanks to the holy wintrading god bioware, who gives a fck about.

 

 

as we could see now, there is a way the most could accept. but here we start at the worst time of

gearing again. i really don't get, how anybody could be that stupid to do the same failures again...

 

sorry about my wording, but now i feel better.

so have a nice day