Why is Bioware so silent on major gear issues from 5.10?

[NuSeC]

That was a very succinct response on Trixxie's part, I got to admit lol. I got great amusement reading that one. As someone already mentioned earlier, "forum PVP." rofl

 

Trix got a solo in forum PVP.

[Lhancelot]

Trix got a solo in forum PVP.

 

Indeed she did.

[NuSeC]

Okay maybe I am the minority

You are.

but I normally don't mix and match my mods and enhancements. When I want to increase something on my gear, I just make an augment and use them so for me (noticed I said for me ) I don't see this as a big deal.

 

Your post makes absolutely zero sense for anyone who actually cares about their gear/stats.

 

Augments do not remove useless stats. <- read again for clarity. If you have alacrity/accuracy in your enhancements but don't need them or have too much, adding an augment does not fix your gearing situation. You are still stuck with useless stats. Min/max is not attainable from augments alone.

[olagatonjedi]

Trix got a solo in forum PVP.

Yep, prolly best to stay away from solo so you dont keep getting pk'd

[Lhancelot]

Yep, prolly best to stay away from solo so you dont keep getting pk'd

 

I miss the days of being a PK. I played a necromancer on EQ1, on RZ then Zek and was in the guild called <Curse> which was the last real organized PVP guild left on the server(s). Anti-PVPers were offal and ruined all PVP on those servers with their stupid politics.

[olagatonjedi]

I miss the days of being a PK. I played a necromancer on EQ1, on RZ then Zek and was in the guild called <Curse> which was the last real organized PVP guild left on the server(s). Anti-PVPers were offal and ruined all PVP on those servers with their stupid politics.

Fun times running around on my monk pk'ing unsuspecting players and occasionally taking down entire raids on my own.

[Soljin]

Fun times running around on my monk pk'ing unsuspecting players and occasionally taking down entire raids on my own.

 

That is missing in games now... SWG if you built your toon right and farmed the right places for a crazy drop you could essentially take out half a dozen players by yourself...if not more.

 

These days it doesnt matter how much time you put in you get capped...

 

Honestly it makes games boring... People think they want balanced classes but honestly its not that great and has resulted in developers making boring class systems...

 

This game is the worst...If you take two of any class and give them max level gear they will be almost 100% identical in every way...maybe one or two different "Perk" choices tops...

 

That is balanced yes...and boring to a level that I have no desire to progress through the gearing system. No diversity in skills or gearing in this game makes it stink...then make the boring gear hard to get...wow.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Soljin

[olagatonjedi]

The other draw of PvP was also the ability to loot one item from your opponent if u got the KB. Nice surprise seeing an amulet of necropotence in my victims inventory slot ripe for the taking. If BW included items of true, rare value, it might bring interest to pvp.

[Lhancelot]

The other draw of PvP was also the ability to loot one item from your opponent if u got the KB. Nice surprise seeing an amulet of necropotence in my victims inventory slot ripe for the taking. If BW included items of true, rare value, it might bring interest to pvp.

 

I just miss the variation in classes from eq1. The CC was really amazing, all roles had very concrete abilities that made them great at their role.

 

As for monks, I never cared for monks on eq1, I hated pulling all the time, and as a monk your first responsibility in a group was to be the puller. In early PVP monks were nasty with the T-staff, remember that? 100 hundred blows ftw.

[battycoda]

The hilarious part of this situation is that they have now locked in mods, making it impossible to adjust your stats around properly, and by relying on RNG (still) to gear up, it's that much more frustrating trying to gear optimally..

 

This. If the mods are locked to a slot, then why even have mods to begin with?

[olagatonjedi]

This. If the mods are locked to a slot, then why even have mods to begin with?

People can still use old mods and enhancements.

[Soljin]

This. If the mods are locked to a slot, then why even have mods to begin with?

 

They want to dumb the system down as much as possible to bring the skill curve down to a small variance...this makes class balance much easier for them.

 

If you make all gear and every class as similar as possible but maintain the illusion of diversity then you have the perfect formula for a light Dev team with little resources.

 

People who should likely play mobile games but play PC will not complain about balance because everything is mechanically similar with a different skin.

 

Its pretty simple.

 

Make the game basic and its easier to manage and people cant complain because everything is essentially the same but is aesthetically different. Even better then take the aesthetic portion of the game and put it up for sell on an in game market...

 

It's a smart system if you want to put in little effort and funnel players towards your real money in game market and stop the complaining from the majority of players.

 

All Bioware has to deal with now is old school PC players that remember when "Gamers" (not the finance team) designed games and the sell point was an engaging game with depth and difficulty.

 

SWToR is an EA game and they have not been even remotely secretive about their intentions for the future of gaming.

[olagatonjedi]

They want to dumb the system down as much as possible to bring the skill curve down to a small variance...this makes class balance much easier for them.

 

If you make all gear and every class as similar as possible but maintain the illusion of diversity then you have the perfect formula for a light Dev team with little resources.

 

People who should likely play mobile games but play PC will not complain about balance because everything is mechanically similar with a different skin.

 

Its pretty simple.

 

Make the game basic and its easier to manage and people cant complain because everything is essentially the same but is aesthetically different. Even better then take the aesthetic portion of the game and put it up for sell on an in game market...

 

It's a smart system if you want to put in little effort and funnel players towards your real money in game market and stop the complaining from the majority of players.

 

All Bioware has to deal with now is old school PC players that remember when "Gamers" (not the finance team) designed games and the sell point was an engaging game with depth and difficulty.

 

SWToR is an EA game and they have not been even remotely secretive about their intentions for the future of gaming.

As players, we dont have to like it, but its hard to argue with the business logic of it.

[TrixxieTriss]

As players, we dont have to like it, but its hard to argue with the business logic of it.

 

There is no business logic, so there is definitely an argument there. Driving players away by making the game less fun for the majority is just illogical and stupid.

 

But I can see how you would think it’s logical because you seem to be one of the only people who consistently like all the bad changes Bioware make, while everyone else hates them. Either you are wired differently to the rest of us or it’s trolling. There are no other reasons why you consistently stick up for Bioware, derail threads or attack others giving constructive feedback in the face of overwhelming negativity to their changes. You are consistent too. Not just in a few threads or replies to some posts. It’s in 99% of them. If someone was to say Bioware are all oranges because they look and taste like them, you’d say they were apples just to argue.

 

Making paying customer leave or unsub is about as illogical a business decision you can make. Name one successful business that treats their customers as bad as EAware do and isn’t losing stock value or isn’t going to end up bankrupt.

There isn’t one. Even Apple are now losing their share value because their quality is dropping, their products are becoming too expensive (value for money), they are using underhanded tactics to make you upgrade and making perfectly good devices obsolete with no security updates.

 

EA, Bioware and even Apple have forgotten core concepts about customer loyalty and branding. EA have continuously driven down their own brands/IPs and mismanaged others till they are dust. Swtor is failing or not what it should be because EAware do not understand their customer base (players) or frankly just don’t care.

Loyalty comes from listening to your customer feed back and catering to them. That means the majority, not the minority. It’s obviously logical to keep the majority happy than keeping the minority happy at the expense of losing people from the majority.

 

There is zero logic to how this game has been handled by EAware. It’s been mismanaged from the top ever since EA took over Bioware and it’s trickled down to the dev teams. Who knows wether that’s by design or just not understanding the player base at all. Even when the they “ask the customers” to give constructive feed back they don’t seem to get it or engage with them enough to get it right. Half the time they do the complete opposite to what they are told.

 

Player confidence in the swtor team and EA is at an all time low. People don’t trust them because they are secretative about major changes or sneak things in and dont tell anyone (no patch notes) because they know it will be poorly received. ie moving the server locations and the current gearing system “stealth” changes come to mind. They don’t listen to feed back or admit when they make mistakes. Usually they double down and tell the player base they are the ones who don’t understand and are wrong. A bit like you do, but not as bad.

 

They put stuff on the PTS (which is great), but then ignore the players testing it and giving feedback or properly engage with those people using their own time to test.. They also omitt certain changes they know people won’t like and add them after the testing has finished. What was the point of the PTS if they aren’t going to listen. It’s completely illogical to do the opposite to what the feed back says.

 

Nobody really trusts Bioware anymore to make this game fun because they are following a business model that both you and they seem to think is logical. It’s only logical if they are purposely trying to sabotage the game.

 

Hardly anything Bioware have done since 5.0 has been logically thought through properly (except getting rid of Ben “RNG is exciting”). At every point they have taken 1 step forward and 2 steps back because they don’t follow things through to the logical conclusions. They jump from one project to another like the last one doesn’t matter. They had this pvp of summer and then negated it all with a poor matchmaking system, more bugs, more desync, a bugged HB map and have destroyed the gearing ability for pvpers with 5.10. All the good stuff they did was basically over looked because of the bad. What they should have done before moving to a new project is fixed the last one and also considered how the next one would affect the last one (ie this poor gearing design).

 

I know you will come back and argue every single one of my points. I expect it because you can’t help yourself. But just realise that these are my opinions and points of view. The logic I have used is evidence based by how much this game continues to decline in population, how the bugs multiply and the excessive and boring grind is constantly getting worse (which the majority don’t like or find fun). You are of course allowed to have your own opinion on what you find enjoyable.

Edited January 7, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[kodrac]

EA, Bioware and even Apple have forgotten core concepts about customer loyalty and branding. EA have continuously driven down their own brands/IPs and mismanaged others till they are dust. Swtor is failing or not what it should be because EAware do not understand their customer base (players) or frankly just don’t care.

Loyalty comes from listening to your customer feed back and catering to them. That means the majority, not the minority. It’s obviously logical to keep the majority happy than keeping the minority happy at the expense of losing people from the majority.

 

Service in general is a forgotten art. Used to be, if you had an expensive product or maybe not the best product, you retained customers by keeping them happy, providing fantastic service, and even made new ones by word of mouth of how well they treated you. Today it's all about the bottom dollar and they could care less if you're pissed off. With a global marketplace there's always another sucker to make a quick buck off of.

[TrixxieTriss]

Service in general is a forgotten art. Used to be, if you had an expensive product or maybe not the best product, you retained customers by keeping them happy, providing fantastic service, and even made new ones by word of mouth of how well they treated you. Today it's all about the bottom dollar and they could care less if you're pissed off. With a global marketplace there's always another sucker to make a quick buck off of.

 

The sad but honest truth.

[olagatonjedi]

There is no business logic, so there is definitely an argument there. Driving players away by making the game less fun for the majority is just illogical and stupid.

Ill be honest with you. I didnt read past this because its your opening statement and doesnt provide any proof (or link of proof) that the game is less fun now than at any point in the past. Fact is you are making your argument based on something that is unmeasurable from a metric standpoint and has so many variations that its impossible to meet from a companies standpoint. Fun is something that cannot be predicted by a company, and can only be implemented when you have a solid idea (read: not a randomly scattered spectrum of thousands of players) of what the majority of your playerbase finds fun. Time has told us that MMOs, and the grind that is innately a part of it, is fun enough for people to buy an MMO and pay a sub and play for hours and hours, years and years. So that is the MMO definition of fun, or expected fun from the general playerbase. Its about as detailed as it can get from a general "what is fun" question.

 

I find text based MMOs and sport simulators fun. Do you? How many other people do? Some people find fairness to be fun. Do you? Fun is completely relative to whoever you ask, and therefore impossible to determine what will be fun for an entire MMO audience, or even 50% of them. Devs can only expect to pitch their own version of what is fun. You are naive if you think they can truly take input from thousands of differing sources and conclude that 51% or more of their consumer base will definitely agree that its fun.

 

I will be more than happy to review the rest of your post if you are able to provide the data showing that Swtor is less fun the way it is now. Ill be waiting.

Edited January 8, 2019 by olagatonjedi

[TrixxieTriss]

Ill be honest with you. I didnt read past this because its your opening statement and doesnt provide any proof (or link of proof) that the game is less fun now than at any point in the past.

 

This alone demonstrates Olegs contribution to nearly everythread he posts. Total 180” degree point of view to the majority (or all the posters in the thread) and asking for proof without reading further into the post he’s replying too after reading two lines of an opening statement.

 

But just realise that these are my opinions and points of view. The logic I have used is evidence based by how much this game continues to decline in population, how the bugs multiply and the excessive and boring grind is constantly getting worse (which the majority don’t like or find fun). You are of course allowed to have your own opinion on what you find enjoyable.

 

When trying to sink another person’s argument, it helps if you read the post first. Not doing so often makes the point for them.

Edited January 8, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[olagatonjedi]

This alone demonstrates Olegs contribution to nearly everythread he posts. Total 180” degree point of view to the majority (or all the posters in the thread) and asking for proof without reading further into the post he’s replying too after reading two lines of an opening statement.

And i clarified why in my post, which it sounds as though you didnt read either.

[Khevar]

Based purely about what I've seen here in the forums and on the r/swtor subreddit, it's rare for anyone to express any indication that they DO find the 5.10 gearing changes fun.

 

I've seen plenty of complaints. I've seen plenty of people indicating they're skipping the 258 grind. I've seen plenty of people who have indicated they're working around the gearing restrictions and will be gearing up anyways. Nothing in these posts indicate that it is "fun".

 

I've also seen people who are critical of other people complaining, but those posts don't really say "I find it fun", they say some variation of "you're wrong for complaining because ______"

 

I'm sure I've missed a post here or there, but off the top of my head, I wouldn't be able to link to any specific post that clearly states they find the new 5.10 gearing system fun.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Khevar

[olagatonjedi]

Based purely about what I've seen here in the forums and on the r/swtor subreddit, it's rare for anyone to express any indication that they DO find the 5.10 gearing changes fun.

 

I've seen plenty of complaints. I've seen plenty of people indicating they're skipping the 258 grind. I've seen plenty of people who have indicated they're working around the gearing restrictions and will be gearing up anyways. Nothing in these posts indicate that it is "fun".

 

I've also seen people who are critical of other people complaining, but those posts don't really say "I find it fun", they say some variation of "you're wrong for complaining because ______"

 

I'm sure I've missed a post here or there, but off the top of my head, I wouldn't be able to link to any specific post that clearly states they find the new 5.10 gearing system fun.

Has anyone stated they truly found gearing and/or grinding to be fun, in the first place? And if so, what's different between that gearing/grinding that was previously fun, but isnt anymore? In the big picture, not much has changed from gearing system to system.

[Khevar]

Has anyone stated they truly found gearing and/or grinding to be fun, in the first place? And if so, what's different between that gearing/grinding that was previously fun, but isnt anymore? In the big picture, not much has changed from gearing system to system.

I can say personally that I enjoyed the PvP gearing in 4.0. It was fast, straightforward, and allowed me to get past the activity of 'getting ready for PvP" and move straight onto the activity of "doing PvP". Other eras of PvP gearing less so. For me (and many many others), gearing is the least enjoyable part of PvP.

 

As far as PvE gearing goes, I actually did find it fun in the early game.

 

1. I did SM flashpoints to get familiar with how they worked, and received Tionese gear.

2. I then starting doing HM flashpoints and received Columi gear, which increased my overall power level.

3. I then started doing SM operations and received more Columi gear.

4. I then started doing HM operations and received Rakata gear.

 

It was relatively straightforward. What I didn't like was the RNG aspect of how gear would drop for a random class. Occasionally, we'd even see gear drop for a class that wasn't present. This was annoying and stupid.

 

Later on, this was changed so that a "token" would drop for any class. Suddenly, the only RNG you had to worry about was "did I win the drop". It also allowed you to gear up alts easier.

 

Then, 1.3 introduced the group finder, black hole gear, and back hole commendations. This currency allowed you to purchase the EXACT piece of gear you were looking for. Further reducing RNG.

 

This continued through the 2.x and 3.x eras. PvE gearing was relatively straightforward, and generally (for me anyway) enjoyable.

 

PvE gearing in 4.0 was weird. The idea that "featured" HM operations dropped better gear than NM operations was a mistake. It was the era of players doing EV/KP over and over and over. I didn't play much during this area.

 

5.0 was horrible as far as gearing goes. Everything became RNG. Nothing dropped from any content at all, and there were no currencies that could be used to purchase gear. The only thing you could do is grind grind grind out points for a chance for a random piece of gear. I'm going to guess that more gear was "disintegrated" during the 5.x era than loot drops were sold at a vendor during the entire time of 1.0-4.x.

 

But changes were made over time, and by the time 5.6 rolled around the GC gearing system had been adjusted to be a more workable system that as near as I can tell, many people seemed to be fine with.

 

1. Gear actually dropped from the hardest content.

2. UCs could be used to purchase gear.

3. Disintegrating gear gave UCs.

4. UCs were legacy currency.

5. There was a clear upgrade path from 230-236-242-248.

6. A wide variety of content in the game could assist one in their gearing path.

 

Now we have the 5.10 system. Which added another layer of RNG. Another currency. No upgrade path from 248. Requires players to focus on specific content. Has significant restrictions (e.g. 2 MWCs purchasable per week). No legacy currency. Slot-bound enhancements. Outrageous crafting materials requirements.

 

So I hope this answers your question:

And if so, what's different between that gearing/grinding that was previously fun, but isnt anymore?

Edited January 8, 2019 by Khevar

[Lhancelot]

 

I've also seen people who are critical of other people complaining, but those posts don't really say "I find it fun", they say some variation of "you're wrong for complaining because ______"

 

I'm sure I've missed a post here or there, but off the top of my head, I wouldn't be able to link to any specific post that clearly states they find the new 5.10 gearing system fun.

 

Man. Thank you for writing this. ^

 

This is exactly my sentiment, and biggest issue with those who want to criticize those of us that have criticized the new gearing system, conquest, and other parts of the game that simply have been made far less enjoyable than they were in the past with the most recent changes.

 

These people who want to criticize the ones who are critical of the new system not once have said, "the new system is great, your complaints are way off the mark!"

 

Instead, what we get is, "you guy's shouldn't complain there are other reasons to enjoy SWTOR," or offer up other diversions that turn into personal attacks instead of an honest discussion of how these recent changes are NOT enjoyable and have actually hurt the game.

 

The defenders here on the forums can rationalize the changes all they want, but not one of them have proclaimed the changes have been in the best interest of the game, nor have any of them said the changes have improved the gameplay and made the game more enjoyable. That says a lot about the most recent changes to the game.

 

 

I can say personally that I enjoyed the PvP gearing in 4.0. It was fast, straightforward, and allowed me to get past the activity of 'getting ready for PvP" and move straight onto the activity of "doing PvP". Other eras of PvP gearing less so. For me (and many many others), gearing is the least enjoyable part of PvP.

 

And this! Gearing was FUN during this period of time, you knew what was needed to gear up, and there was a very solid route to get your gears, added bonus was you could customize your gears so many different ways it was actually enjoyable.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Lhancelot

[NuSeC]

Ill be honest with you. I didnt read past this because its your opening statement and doesnt provide any proof (or link of proof) that the game is less fun now than at any point in the past. Fact is you are making your argument based on something that is unmeasurable from a metric standpoint and has so many variations that its impossible to meet from a companies standpoint.

 

I am going to go with the 180 version here.

 

It is obvious by the posters that they are less happy with the changes. The fact that people have left the game in droves after updates that they were warned not to release but did anyways... 5.0 is an excellent example.

 

You again seem to be playing to an extreme version of an extreme minority.

 

The stated example of massive player loss... measurable by fleet population alone (so much so they have merged servers like 4 times), it is easy to see that YOU would need to prove that more are happy than unhappy about those changes.

 

People have complained, they didn't listen, and now many if not most of those people are gone.

 

I am not going to argue with you here. All the evidence anyone needs is in the server merges and fleet population... or for folks like me who have been around from pre-launch - just looking at empty friends lists. Those players are now playing other games. I am more on the forum now than the actual game - I am actually playing something else as well and have been for over the past year.

[Stellarcrusade]

Everyone should just put the forum spammer (troll) on ignore. I find that it cuts a thread like this down from 7000 pages to only 30 pages.