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

[olagatonjedi]

You obviously do not know how to optimize your character for maximum DPS or heals or best tanking. Because with these limitations, this is almost impossible to do for months to go.

Wait, what?

 

You can optimize any set of gear you have available to you. Optimization of gear can occur at any point in the game, with any gear combination you currently have available to you.

 

There is no required timetable on optimized gear/stats unless you personally place the requirement.

 

And yes, there is a challenge for the many players who re-optimize their gear with every individual upgrade they make.

Edited December 22, 2018 by olagatonjedi

[olagatonjedi]

I'll not lie, Eric: finding out I can only upgrade a clicky 252 Relic into the same 258 clicky Relic and an accuracy piece into the same accuracy piece was... unpleasant. To say the least.

 

I think I'll stick to upgrading my 236s into 248s, thank you very much.

I had the same reaction when I learned about it, but inguess i adapt better than others. By no means is it the end of the world or game breaking.

 

Dynamic game remains dynamic. News at 11.

Edited December 22, 2018 by olagatonjedi

[aryss]

Wait, what?

 

You can optimize any set of gear you have available to you. Optimization of gear can occur at any point in the game, with any gear combination you currently have available to you.

 

There is no required timetable on optimized gear/stats unless you personally place the requirement.

 

And yes, there is a challenge for the many players who re-optimize their gear with every individual upgrade they make.

 

There's no challenge in this. There's only more and more grinding, but you go ahead and be "challenged", just do not presume to call those of us that do not agree with you idiots simply because you feel like it.

[DarthFixxxer]

Wait, what?

 

You can optimize any set of gear you have available to you. Optimization of gear can occur at any point in the game, with any gear combination you currently have available to you.

 

There is no required timetable on optimized gear/stats unless you personally place the requirement.

 

And yes, there is a challenge for the many players who re-optimize their gear with every individual upgrade they make.

 

As I said, you obviously do not know how to build a maximum DPS or heals set, with the pieces available to you in this game. If you knew, you would realize that you need a specific combination of pieces and augments to build one, based on the minimum Accuracy and Alacrity necessary, and then stacking on Critical Rating and Power.

 

This, cannot be obtained with the new 252/258 gear at the moment, unless you are willing to run the weekly more than 30 times, so that you can get the piece that will give you the perfect build. So, as I said, you cannot have an optimized set of gear for another 5 months on a single toon. Since you can run the weekly once per week on Ossus, that means 30 weeks of grinding for ONE set of gear.

 

This is done for a purpose, and the purpose is to justify lack of content from now to the summer.

Edited December 22, 2018 by DarthFixxxer

[Lhancelot]

This, cannot be obtained with the new 252/258 gear at the moment, unless you are willing to run the weekly more than 30 times, so that you can get the piece that will give you the perfect build.

 

Right. This is what they expect of you, friend. It's working as intended, the grind is, I mean. If you are not willing to partake, it's fine! They don't care, clearly.

[Dbohrius]

I had 5 toons ready to do Ossus without skipping the story. I figured I could do the weeklies on four of them and try the grind to 256 on my main. After learning each piece can only be traded by the corresponding piece -- that is, no exchanging accuracy implants for critical or alacrity -- I kind of gave up.

 

I'll go with my first gut feeling and skip this grind entirely.

[Talon_strikes]

You know, it's really sad that resources were wasted on this unnecessary and mind-numbing gear grind instead of, ya know, actual content to truly keep us engaged until 6.0.

[Sandrosw]

However for me, who likes to play tank with maximum endurance, there is currently no way to optimize. I have to stay at 246/248 mods and enhancements, as they have mods and enhancements with different distribution between endurance and defense. I can and will improve left side, as it will benefit me and I will get more endurance. I can use 252 hilt in weapon perhaps. But most of my gear will stay as it is, because changing to higher tier would not be optimal.

 

My tank dies to spike damage and perhaps wrong positioning, he does not die because of low defense stat. So anything that would give me less health would in fact make me die more often. I don't think that devs intended higher tier of gear to be actually *worse* than lower tier gear, but that's what it is for me now.

 

Healer and dps maybe cannot be 100% super optimal now, but it works even with a bit more accuracy and alacrity than lowest treshold and most importantly the mods/enhancements are improvements. So for those two roles I would say it is grindy, but still - there is way to improve gear and the higher tier is actually better. For tanks, it is not this way and I consider this a very big oversight. Higher tiers should never, ever be worse than lower tiers.

[olagatonjedi]

Because, like 5.0 with GC, and now with 5.10 and Gearing Under Siege, it HAS significantly changed from the past. We can no longer min/max our gear. How are you failing to realize this when it's being plainly illustrated for you in numerous ways?

If you cant min/max, its user error. The game still allows it, so its not an issue with the game itself.

[DanNV]

Right. This is what they expect of you, friend. It's working as intended, the grind is, I mean. If you are not willing to partake, it's fine! They don't care, clearly.

 

Which is why I'm not interested in runnig the grind fest. I'll just play more ESO and spend more money there. Easy.

[Opiklo]

White knight alert on a fishing expedition

 

Guys don’t bite... he does this everytime to bait you all and derail the thread so Bioware won’t read it... the more you argue with him the more off topic and derailed it becomes... he will literally make 10 posts a page till you stop responding.

 

so much this... i have a feeling hes working for bioware.....

[mrphstar]

so much this... i have a feeling hes working for bioware.....

 

just ignored him and the thread it 2 pages shorter than before. great

[PennyAnn]

P.S. Why did I take you off ignore? Silly me. Back on.

 

I did it, too! It must be the Holidays messing with my better judgement or something...

 

This has now been corrected! Though I LOL'd when he offered to help me gear. Honey, I've been gearing characters in this game and killing NiM bosses for years, I don't need your help with a single dang thing. Oh no.

 

Anyway: APOLOGIES to all. I forgot who I was talking to for a minute, but I've come back around to my senses and am in my right mind once again. Please carry on the conversation and let the developers know that useless gear GRIND is not content. (Meanwhile, I'm going back to WoW - peace to all and Happy Holidays!) <3

 

.

Edited December 23, 2018 by PennyAnn

[Ner_idia]

It's become apparent to me that BIoware doesn't really care about what their customer base thinks. If they did, they'd have scrapped Galactic Command altogether and gone back to the 4.0 gearing system. They're hoping that people will continue to stick with it, and pay for their mistakes.

 

So...I'm taking my money elsewhere. I advise everyone else to do the same.

[ShinLunaAzure]

These are good questions, so let me try to address them.

 

1 - This is an intended change. That being said, we know there is definitely some friction from this change and so keep raising your concerns/feedback which I can pass to the team. We have made no secret of the fact that we know we are due for some big itemization changes to address a variety of issues around gearing. Please keep telling us what you would like to see in the future from gearing in SWTOR. We will continue to gather feedback and as we get into the next year, we will have active conversations with you about future gearing plans.

 

2 - This is a bug, I acknowledged it here. The reason we didn't fix it with today's patch is that addressing this issue is actually pretty substantial from our side. It will involve us not only fixing the items to work properly going forward, but we need to actually "change" the gear already in the wild to work together. That is the part that is challenging as we need to touch armorings that players are wearing without impacting the rest of their gear. We are working on a solution for this, but it is not something we could turn around in time for 5.10a.

 

Thank you all for your continued feedback. Bigger itemization changes will come and we will definitely talk through them with you when they get here (not soon™). Thanks all.

 

-eric

 

Here's your feedback: we don't like the gearing, we don't like the abundance of bugs, we don't like broken quest sharing/group finder, textures disappearing since 5.10, and don't like paxton and other companions that just turn up in your mail instead of at least making people do the achievement to earn him.

 

But on the side of doing things to earn them, we also hate these intended changes, and generally hate the trend towards just falling back on making the game grindier because the value of a sub has only become more and more dubious over the last 2 years and the only thing what's left of the team seems interested in is changing things that weren't broken while ignoring the myriad things that are.

[PiiTarr]

Please keep telling us what you would like to see in the future from gearing in SWTOR.

 

I would like to see an end to RNG-based gearing. I do not find it "exciting." For me there is no "thrill of the hunt" to be experienced in such a system. More than anything else I find it to be frustrating. It is what drove me away from Galaxy of Heroes without ever spending a cent on that game. It continues to threaten to drive me away from this game and has reached the point where I've decided to opt out of this new gear grind entirely. I like Ossus and the Jedi Under Siege story, and I'll grind the rep because I like what the vendors offer in terms of decorations. However, I'm done with any RNG-based gear grinds.

[MrRuck]

Arguably worse than the overwhelming negative feedback is the sheer amount of development time that is wasted overhauling systems only to arbitrarily ditch them. You created the CXP system to justify a massive increase in grind, only to create a worse grind that completely bypasses the whole system. What was the point? Creating & encouraging players to use a modding system then locking it down. What was the point?

 

As a PvPer you spent years listening to feedback, overhauling gear again & again, each time making it fastest & easier to get min-maxed. You almost had it prefect. Then you did the biggest 180 in MMO history then doubled down on it. Again, what was the point?

 

We have no clue what you'll do next. Will the next expansion make modding more complex for the dedicated players? Or remove it entirely for the casual players? It seems the odds are 50/50. And that's messed up.

[battycoda]

These are good questions, so let me try to address them.

 

Please keep telling us what you would like to see in the future from gearing in SWTOR. We will continue to gather feedback and as we get into the next year, we will have active conversations with you about future gearing plans.

 

 

Please stop requiring PvP to get mats to make gear for PvE content. PvE gear and/or mats should drop in PvE and be able to make PvE gear. Likewise for PvP.

 

[snark] At least we don't have to do space missions and starfighter for mats. [End Snark]

 

We should be able to gear for the content format we play, not play all formats to gear for the format we play.

[Sareeph]

I, for one, neither need nor desire you to do the math for me. Why? Because it's been done.

 

Your platitudinal posturing about how there is a larger stat pool is 100% wholly irrelevant. The math has been done. You continue to make assertions that are 100% true (e.g., larger stat pool) that have absolutely nothing to do with the conversation.

 

Why? The issue, quite simply, is that it is harder to achieve optimization because you cannot switch out mods and enhancements. Ergo, it requires you to (wait for it) farm more, largely pointless gear for classes and specs that are not your main (or one of your primary alts).

We know the road to take. The road is now just much, much longer. As Eric asked for our feedback, we are letting him know we don't really like that <<sings>>Long and Winding Road.

 

It's really not that difficult. All of your posts are theoretical philosophical waxing about the need to adapt and information assymmetries. You can tell us to adapt all you want. Meanwhile, we will, per Eric's suggestion -- provide him the feedback he requested.

 

Dasty

 

P.S. Why did I take you off ignore? Silly me. Back on.

 

So you at least know that optimization is possible by your statement but do not like the amount of time or required methods involved. Not sure if you were around before the face roll gear fiasco that was 4.0 but before gear was separated into PvP and PvE, there was gear only attainable from doing Nightmare op's. It took a lot more time and effort to acquire than this very easy but tedious method we are getting now. Now that gear is all the same, we have a choice. Dedicate the time and effort to do the Master Mode operation or, spend less time and way less skill than it takes to gear yourself up in an 8 man op learning how to defeat the new mechanics that are harder than any other previous operation per Matt.

 

1 - This is an intended change. That being said, we know there is definitely some friction from this change and so keep raising your concerns/feedback which I can pass to the team. We have made no secret of the fact that we know we are due for some big itemization changes to address a variety of issues around gearing. Please keep telling us what you would like to see in the future from gearing in SWTOR. We will continue to gather feedback and as we get into the next year, we will have active conversations with you about future gearing plans.

 

-eric

 

As the one role that can not be totally reworked to pre 5.10 standards using the "largely pointless" method, I believe that tanking is one of the things he is mentioning here. The dev's made a mistake and gave defense roughly half of the value it should of had. It is my belief that seeing this from all the varied responses from other threads, they intend to address this among other issues. Of course many people took advantage of that mistake and started using mods that were probably not intended to be used. Long ago the Devs made it clear that they wanted to discourage or simply end the use of hybrid roles which is why they took away specializing in multiple trees. Using Lethal B's seems to me to fit under that same category. If I am correct, we will see the values of defense change in 6.0 making the use of the Lethal's a very unhealthy choice for raid groups/fp groups.

 

Of course I fully expect to see mountains of complaints and "the dev's don't understand their players" posted throughout these forums but remember, contrary to what many like to believe, we pay to play an established game. Our sub money does not give us the luxury of having a custom built to our personal ideals, game. The ideals of the players are varied too much to do so. I know many of like mind come here and on reddit to post but they are but a fraction of the total base. My personal experience is that I meet an overwhelming amount of people who don't even realize these forums exist or if they do, they do not post due to the toxicity here and on reddit. The terms "troll" and "white knight" have taken on the meaning of anyone not agreeing with my point of view.

 

Keep in mind, asking for input does not mean they will use every suggestion or even the ones that are most popular. The devs already had a system for loot in place with the 5.0 release and that people expected them to just scrap all that work was just unrealistic. They did however alter it over time to make it less of a grind and totally exempt from rng. We are given gear with usable stats but they are not optimized and if we wish to pursue optimal stats, then that is on us and we must endure the "largely pointless" methods to do so. You want the best, then you have to work for the best. The world is replete with examples of this.

[Jdast]

Sareeph,

 

I don't disagree with anything you wrote per se, largely because it is more philosophical in nature. At the end of the day, people will value time spent gathering gear in a video game differently. To each his/her own.

 

I do feel pretty comfortable saying though that if BW does (and I assume they do) have 'big plans' to change the nature of gearing, then it might have made sense to announce those changes before they started actually implementing it.

 

And while we do pay to play an established game, we also have the privilege along with paying for a subscription to give feedback. My feedback is twofold:

 

1) We are going to get ossified on Ossus because drop rates for 252 gear / MWS are too low in T4 crates, particularly since they are introducing new levels in 6.0 and this gear is just a placeholder until then.

 

2) I like playing with different builds and stats and one of two things will happen: a) BW's goal of pigeonholing and reducing hybrid builds will still fail, but it will just take longer and annoy the player base; b) people will find the extra grind too long and move on to greener pastures (i.e., other games).

 

Regardless, if BW wants to make big changes to gearing, I don't see why they are hiding those plans since they already began implementing it and know what is in the plan.

 

Dasty

[Batwer]

I'm still convinced that they did that to drive players out before Christmas. For whatever reason.

 

I mean .... can they really be that stupid? They have been told a thousand times that most do not want to grind. It's clear that it has to be. It's the same in every MMOPRG. But instead of reducing it, at least a little bit, it will increase.

The question is, if they do the extra to get rid of the people or if they have been hit with the shovel on their heads.

[Sareeph]

Sareeph,

 

I don't disagree with anything you wrote per se, largely because it is more philosophical in nature. At the end of the day, people will value time spent gathering gear in a video game differently. To each his/her own.

 

I do feel pretty comfortable saying though that if BW does (and I assume they do) have 'big plans' to change the nature of gearing, then it might have made sense to announce those changes before they started actually implementing it.

 

This is not an unrealistic expectation. Then again they may have a base plan but are willing to work with us to the degree that all the work towards 6.0 will allow. I was posting some of my speculations after all.

 

And while we do pay to play an established game, we also have the privilege along with paying for a subscription to give feedback. My feedback is twofold:

 

1) We are going to get ossified on Ossus because drop rates for 252 gear / MWS are too low in T4 crates, particularly since they are introducing new levels in 6.0 and this gear is just a placeholder until then.

 

2) I like playing with different builds and stats and one of two things will happen: a) BW's goal of pigeonholing and reducing hybrid builds will still fail, but it will just take longer and annoy the player base; b) people will find the extra grind too long and move on to greener pastures (i.e., other games).

 

Regardless, if BW wants to make big changes to gearing, I don't see why they are hiding those plans since they already began implementing it and know what is in the plan.

 

Dasty

 

1) Once you get past the initial questline, which I can complete in half an hour once I get on planet, the only real thing is the two world boss quest and the rep. I already have enough tokens to take me to legend using alts as you mentioned earlier in another thread. My grind is finished. The other shards are obtained from doing things other than on Ossus. PvP. FP's (supposedly, the PvP has been in place for both weeks), GSF. These are the things people like to do.

 

2) You can still use differing builds/stats. If you wish to run around in tank spec but use dps stats, you can do so. Just don't expect to be able to actually tank anything challenging. If you want accuracy on your heal spec, it's possible. You won't be able to function as well at higher levels of content though. Dps without accuracy, sure, you will just have to deal with missing your target at times and wish your interrupt actually hit when it was most needed.

 

 

As for the last, neither I nor anyone else knows and can be a question put forward in another thread. This one has degenerated too much to expect the devs to actually see such a question.

[Khevar]

Not sure if you were around before the face roll gear fiasco that was 4.0 but before gear was separated into PvP and PvE, there was gear only attainable from doing Nightmare op's. It took a lot more time and effort to acquire than this very easy but tedious method we are getting now.

Do you remember that PvP and PvE gear used to be kept separate? Making PvE gear restricted to NM ops had no impact on the ability to PvP.

 

Had a new 258 tier of gear been added with 5.10 that could ONLY be obtained by NM ops, and were PvP bolster made to 258, I imagine that there wouldn't be as much negative feedback.

Of course I fully expect to see mountains of complaints and "the dev's don't understand their players" posted throughout these forums but remember, contrary to what many like to believe, we pay to play an established game.

Do you remember how the 5.0 gearing method REMOVED gearing by doing NM content and replaced it with an RNG madhouse of "what gear am I going to destroy today? It took months and months before they finally improved the gearing to something more palatable with 5.6.

 

And going back further, do you remember how 4.0 made the two easiest HM operations drop better gear when they were "featured" than the most difficult NM operation? On what planet was that a good decision?

 

My point being that with 4.0, 5.0 and now with 5.10, we've seen the developers doing weird things with gearing.

 

They're getting push back from players because their implementations are illogical and don't result in something that's actually fun.

 

These recent changes seem to exist for the sole purpose of "give the hamsters something to do because 6.0 is a very very very long way off". This is, of course, just a guess. But I can say with certainty they weren't trying to make a "more fun game" with these changes.

[olagatonjedi]

So you at least know that optimization is possible by your statement but do not like the amount of time or required methods involved. Not sure if you were around before the face roll gear fiasco that was 4.0 but before gear was separated into PvP and PvE, there was gear only attainable from doing Nightmare op's. It took a lot more time and effort to acquire than this very easy but tedious method we are getting now. Now that gear is all the same, we have a choice. Dedicate the time and effort to do the Master Mode operation or, spend less time and way less skill than it takes to gear yourself up in an 8 man op learning how to defeat the new mechanics that are harder than any other previous operation per Matt.

 

 

 

As the one role that can not be totally reworked to pre 5.10 standards using the "largely pointless" method, I believe that tanking is one of the things he is mentioning here. The dev's made a mistake and gave defense roughly half of the value it should of had. It is my belief that seeing this from all the varied responses from other threads, they intend to address this among other issues. Of course many people took advantage of that mistake and started using mods that were probably not intended to be used. Long ago the Devs made it clear that they wanted to discourage or simply end the use of hybrid roles which is why they took away specializing in multiple trees. Using Lethal B's seems to me to fit under that same category. If I am correct, we will see the values of defense change in 6.0 making the use of the Lethal's a very unhealthy choice for raid groups/fp groups.

 

Of course I fully expect to see mountains of complaints and "the dev's don't understand their players" posted throughout these forums but remember, contrary to what many like to believe, we pay to play an established game. Our sub money does not give us the luxury of having a custom built to our personal ideals, game. The ideals of the players are varied too much to do so. I know many of like mind come here and on reddit to post but they are but a fraction of the total base. My personal experience is that I meet an overwhelming amount of people who don't even realize these forums exist or if they do, they do not post due to the toxicity here and on reddit. The terms "troll" and "white knight" have taken on the meaning of anyone not agreeing with my point of view.

 

Keep in mind, asking for input does not mean they will use every suggestion or even the ones that are most popular. The devs already had a system for loot in place with the 5.0 release and that people expected them to just scrap all that work was just unrealistic. They did however alter it over time to make it less of a grind and totally exempt from rng. We are given gear with usable stats but they are not optimized and if we wish to pursue optimal stats, then that is on us and we must endure the "largely pointless" methods to do so. You want the best, then you have to work for the best. The world is replete with examples of this.

Intelligence portrayed very nicely. Knowledge for those willing to accept it.

[olagatonjedi]

I do feel pretty comfortable saying though that if BW does (and I assume they do) have 'big plans' to change the nature of gearing, then it might have made sense to announce those changes before they started actually implementing it.

 

And while we do pay to play an established game, we also have the privilege along with paying for a subscription to give feedback. My feedback is twofold:

 

1) We are going to get ossified on Ossus because drop rates for 252 gear / MWS are too low in T4 crates, particularly since they are introducing new levels in 6.0 and this gear is just a placeholder until then.

Do you even see the contradiction here?

 

You want BW to alert you ahead of time of changes they plan to make, before they implement the changes

 

But you criticize them unforgivingly when they do let you know ahead of time.

 

By you own admission, you understand BW has hinted that 6.0 will have a new gearing system, which means that they have essentially told you ahead of time (as requested) that 5.10 gearing is only a temporary gearing upgrade (which you criticize).

 

This tells me that the root of your concerns isnt that they arent being transparent about upcoming changes, but more that you personally dont like the changes or the paths they have chosen to take. You, as in one person.