Set Bonus and Tactical Effect Feedback - Spoils of War

[Neulwen]

If you manage to balance with them in mind, it could theoretically work, but seeing as balance is and has traditionally been tricky, I am sceptical that making it more complex will be beneficial. But we will see. Will have to see all the actual effects.

 

Generally I don't quite see the point of tacticals, as they are basically like talents? Why not instead add more talents & points and let us readily choose our playstyle that way? Why not have rewards be more cosmetics-focused?

 

A concern is that apparently some of these tacticals will be obtained mainly from specific content. As with talents, I assume there will probably end up being a few BiS selections for certain purposes. Say a tactical for a spec comes from ranked arena, and a player who wants it doesn't play ranked arenas. It's good that there will be a reverse engineering system that lets us buy the specific items we want, but I'm worried this will be very expensive, i.e. will require tons of REd items to buy one?

[AronisContar]

I also want to second (third? fourth? whatever...) the sentiments several previous posters expressed about shells being used for anything other than purely being a shell.

 

I've been playing the game since launch, and I've accumulated several not-so-easy-to-get items that I've grown really fond of. This includes the original "Lightsaber" lightsaber I forged way back in 2011, my offhand (a "Shield Generator of Vigilance" which dropped in some low level instance, and fits nicely with me being a Vigilance Guardian - and no, it's not actually a shield generator, it's a focus ) as well as a full set of "Jedi Battlelord" armor, which isn't all too common.

 

So far, I was able to just keep using all of these items, switching out the mods over the years, and I've grown really attached to them. I don't even use tunings (since the old, character bound lightsaber doesn't have a tuning slot). I definitely don't want to change over to using the outfit designer to be able to get set bonuses and amps. I use the outfit designer exclusively for its god given purpose - to show Karagga's bell on my head when I'm tanking.

 

Therefore, please consider some ways that would enable us to keep using our existing shells. Separate mods that hold only the set bonuses, for example, or a way for transferring the amp from one shell to another (you could breathe some additional life into the item modification stations for example).

 

Ciao, Aronis!

[sharkfishman]

Thank you for the stream and for being so open to feedback before you implement these new systems.

 

I think you are making a mistake tying the set bonus to the shell.

 

It is true that you only need to get the set bonus once, instead of on every tier of gear that you get,

And that is a nice feature.

 

However, If you keep set bonuses locked to slot, with so many new sets introduced,

it is going to be a nightmare trying to obtain and keep track of gear sets.

 

My proposal is this:

Leave the set bonus on the armoring, but make the armorings not bound to slot, allowing us to move the set bonus to whichever slot (head, chest, gloves etc) we want.

 

this will serve 3 purposes:

1. RNG protection.

No more frustration for rolling for one piece (say boots) over and over (like those uber frustrating 252 loot boxes).

I want boots and get pants instead? No big deal, just move the armoring to the boots.

This is going to be even more important now that we have an extra layer of rng, as we are not only rolling the slot, we are also rolling the type of bonus.

 

2. Less Loot/Gear waste.

Say I get a new pair of gloves with A sorceror specific set bonus. But I have already gotten a pair of gloves with a different set bonus that I like. I would like to use them together, but cannot because I can't move the set bonus.

So I am faced with deconstructing the gear and returning a fraction of its worth.

 

3. Organizing and keeping track of your gear sets.

Let's say that I have a base class 2 pc, dps specific 2 pc, and discipline specific 2 pc bonus that I want to keep track of, and wear at the same time as that is my preferred meta .

I want to put my base-class specific 2 pc set bonus on bracers and belt.

dps specific bonus on chest and glove, and discipline specific bonuses on legs and boots.

 

If I want to change from sorc to assassin, I change everything but bracers and belt.

If I want to change from sorc heal to sorc dps, I change chest , gloves, legs and boots.

If I want to change from lightning to madness dps, I change legs and boots.

 

If you tie set bonus to armoring, and make armorings not bound to slot (so we can move the bonuses around),

I will be able to organize all of my gear sets exactly how I want them, without an unfathomable amount of extra farming.

It will also allow me to have to move less gear around because I can arrange the pieces that I need to swap out and take only those with me, and to create a system that works for me across all of my different characters.

 

I think any fallout from this possibly speeding up your intended rate of gearing will be mitigated by the fact that people will have to grind for higher tier set bonuses instead of getting a low level shell and filling it with crafted armorings (which is probably how I'd play it to be honest). It will also be a further incentive for people to try harder content for better gear.

 

I think if you had done this in Ossus it would have been much better received and people would have been less frustrated. I don't want to fathom how many 252 pieces I disintegrated for 1/6 of their value.

If I didn't have at least 4 of each mirrored advance class to power through the RNG I probably would have given up within the first month.

 

If you did this, I would also change generators/shields/focuses from using armorings to using hilts/barrels (which is probably a pretty good idea anyway).

 

The problem is armorings are now going to have AMPs attached to them. Amps will vary in what they do. So it's really best not to tie a set bonus to something that also has an additional layer of RNG added to it.

[SDSupraTT]

Like others in this post, I really really really dislike the thought of having set bonus tied to shells. I personally use at least 2 sets of shells for each job. Healers have their set legacy set that looks a certain way for a certain job. Tanks use 2 different shells for for each for each with different stats in them for PVE and PVP. My PT has 3 sets of armoring, My mercs have 2. That means bounty hunters have 5 sets of armorings. If you tied set bonus to the shells I get them with I would need to have 5 sets of identical looking armoring. It would be very hard to keep track of all that gear. Warrior class uses 4 sets, Agent uses 3 sets, sin/sorc 5 sets. Total of at least of at least 17 sets of legacy armors.

 

Please don't tie me down to 4 sets of armorings that look identical in my inventory.

 

Adding another slot to the shell for set bonus would be ideal.

Edited June 2, 2019 by SDSupraTT

[Lakemine]

I second most everyone elses opinions, do not tie the set bonus to shells again. I didn't like much before 2.0 and when 2.0 removed it and added it to the armoring, I was glad because then I wasn't locked into a specific look. (Mind you, pre2.0 didn't have the CM sets nor outfit system, but still.)

 

Have it tied to another slot? Just like your adding a new slot for tactical items, have a slot for set bonuses?

[matthaxian]

The problem is armorings are now going to have AMPs attached to them. Amps will vary in what they do. So it's really best not to tie a set bonus to something that also has an additional layer of RNG added to it.

 

I think for the most part this is not true, as set bonuses should mostly be synergistic with armorings, as long as the re-roll thing works as intended and the RNG is removed from amps.

 

The one exception might be that for base class set bonuses, the amp you want for heal isn't going to be the same as the one you want for dps. But then again maybe there will be a choice available that works for both?

 

I am not averse to a separate slot for set bonus, as long as it is not bound to slot.

[Sareeph]

Like others in this post, I really really really dislike the thought of having set bonus tied to shells. I personally use at least 2 sets of shells for each job. Healers have their set legacy set that looks a certain way for a certain job. Tanks use 2 different shells for for each for each with different stats in them for PVE and PVP. My PT has 3 sets of armoring, My mercs have 2. That means bounty hunters have 5 sets of armorings. If you tied set bonus to the shells I get them with I would need to have 5 sets of identical looking armoring. It would be very hard to keep track of all that gear. Warrior class uses 4 sets, Agent uses 3 sets, sin/sorc 5 sets. Total of at least of at least 17 sets of legacy armors.

 

Please don't tie me down to 4 sets of armorings that look identical in my inventory.

 

Adding another slot to the shell for set bonus would be ideal.

 

As this poster appears to be using the word armorings instead of armor, I would say I have to agree with him/her. Unless the Dev's plan to have different looking skins for each type of set bonus for all the classes and spec's, This could quickly become confusing and could cause a myriad of problems. They did say in the stream that some set bonuses could be 2, 3, 4 or even 6 piece bonuses. Trying to keep which bonuses you want to pair with others could quickly become a nightmare in tracking when you switch spec's/roles if the shells look identical/similar. His/her suggestion of adding a 4th slot in each shell to house set bonuses seems to me to be the best and least confusing solution.

[sharkfishman]

I think for the most part this is not true, as set bonuses should mostly be synergistic with armorings, as long as the re-roll thing works as intended and the RNG is removed from amps.

 

The one exception might be that for base class set bonuses, the amp you want for heal isn't going to be the same as the one you want for dps. But then again maybe there will be a choice available that works for both?

 

I am not averse to a separate slot for set bonus, as long as it is not bound to slot.

 

Not really. I mean, do you really want to go through 15 chests to finally get the set bonus you want, only to discover it gives you extra mastery instead of armor piercing? Or accuracy instead of crit chance? Or any number of other DPS-related stats?

 

Same for tank. Finally got that perfect set bonus, but every piece you get seems to lean towards defense chance rather than absorb rating?

[sharkfishman]

As this poster appears to be using the word armorings instead of armor, I would say I have to agree with him/her. Unless the Dev's plan to have different looking skins for each type of set bonus for all the classes and spec's, This could quickly become confusing and could cause a myriad of problems. They did say in the stream that some set bonuses could be 2, 3, 4 or even 6 piece bonuses. Trying to keep which bonuses you want to pair with others could quickly become a nightmare in tracking when you switch spec's/roles if the shells look identical/similar. His/her suggestion of adding a 4th slot in each shell to house set bonuses seems to me to be the best and least confusing solution.

 

I agree. 4th slot in each shell FTW.

[TrixxieTriss]

I agree. 4th slot in each shell FTW.

 

Yep, that’s a good idea. Although that just means more grind and work. Please don’t give Bioware anymore grind ideas

Edited June 3, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Drenovade]

Tacticals seem like a copy of WoW's legendary system in Legion: A rare, extremely powerful piece of gear that alters one's playstyle/rotation. The issue with that system was that the power gap between different legendaries made some much more desirable than others(despite all being acquired the same way), and when they're super rare and the one you get is completely left up to RNG, that easily became frustrating.

 

It sounds like different tacticals will be needed for different situations, like using one for AoEing, another for single-target DPS, another for survivability, and so on.

 

That may all work out fine, it just depends on how much RNG there will be in acquiring these new items. The more RNG, the worse this is going to go, because having certain tacticals be super powerful in one area that you want it for, but having no control over which tactical you end up getting, would not be fun at all.

 

According to the stream, an 'elusive' vendor will sell a changing selection of tacticals at the cost of the new currency and credits. Why elusive? It's not fun acquiring gear in this manner. Lootboxes and crates are not fun. Elusive vendors whose current inventories are left to chance are not fun. Why does SWTOR have to be a casino game like WoW and every other game that gets trashed by gamers for being that way? This is not what MMOs should be like.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Drenovade

[OlBuzzard]

Tacticals seem like a copy of WoW's legendary system in Legion: A rare, extremely powerful piece of gear that alters one's playstyle/rotation.

 

[/snip-snip-snip]

 

 

I sort of wondered about this.

1. Each player was initially limited by the number of legandary pieces of gear.... BUT that number could also be increased. I forget what was necessary.

 

2. And yes you are right. They were VERY powerful.

 

3. I also believe that what we are seeing here is somewhat different. As I understand it the tactical is a seperate slot.

 

4. Additionally these drops can be passed through our legacy. You can't do anything like that in WoW. IMO.. that means what might not work for one of our characters we can put into our Legacy vault ... and use it on another one !

 

5. The one thing that I think we might be missing is how those Tactical pieces drop. From what I understand there will be several way that these pieces can be obtained.

 

6. Set bonus.. I just hope the sets have a little more style to them. Regardless ... I know we have our custom slots we can fit them into. It would be nice though to see a little more class in the over all scheme of the wardrobe.

 

7. Over all I do believe that some progress is being made toward some of the things SWTOR is needing. Hopefully as we see more details released PvP changes will restore confidence for that part of SWTOR once again.

[Drenovade]

4. Additionally these drops can be passed through our legacy. You can't do anything like that in WoW. IMO.. that means what might not work for one of our characters we can put into our Legacy vault ... and use it on another one !

 

If tacticals alter a class ability, wouldn't that make them only usable by the same class that acquires them? So only alts of the same class would be able to benefit from it. I don't know though, does the class ability change when sent to a character of a different class? Even if it does, we should be able to know which tactical we're grinding for so we can target the ones we need.

 

5. The one thing that I think we might be missing is how those Tactical pieces drop. From what I understand there will be several way that these pieces can be obtained.

 

Same place you acquire any other gear it seems, but tacticals are rare, and will also be sold by an 'elusive' vendor with a changing selection of them. So as it stands, there doesn't seem to be any reliable way to target your BiS tactical, much less target the one that suits your playstyle even if you're not going for max combat performance.

 

They did say more powerful tacticals could be obtained from harder content though, like from ops bosses or something. I don't know what "more powerful" means though. Does it alter an ability the same way, but does it slightly more effectively? Ex: One tactical causes Force Shroud to also apply to any ally you're guarding. The more powerful version does the same thing, but the effect lasts 0.5 seconds longer on the guarded ally. Tacticals that directly affect damage or healing could simply have that damage or healing raised further.

 

Or, does "more powerful" mean tacticals exclusive to harder content will alter abilities in a unique way that's really strong, making any player who doesn't run ops out of luck for getting that specific tactical-type?

 

They did seem to suggest the same gear would be obtainable by anyone though, "For the most part". Story-mode FPs can still drop the best gear in the game apparently, but unranked WZs won't earn the highest item rating? They seemed kinda vague about this subject, but it seems like they want to follow the philosophy of GC, which was to make the best gear available to anyone who spends enough time grinding any content regardless of its difficulty.

 

Can't say I agree with that philosophy. The best gear should only be available to players who do the hardest content. The best rewards ought to require overcoming the most difficult challenges, rather than good RNG while opening a CXP(soon to be RXP) crate.

[commanderwar]

I like how I no longer need to take out all the mods and put it in a legacy shell, but there are some people that disagree so I suggest that you keep it all legacy wide just add a set bonus slot into all the gear and put the set bonus there. I glad you are going all out by adding more set bonus I like having options, it's makes it more fun, so I hope you can add as much new set bonuses as you can. Also love the idea of non combat set bonuses Edited June 3, 2019 by commanderwar

[Costello]

I'm with not having bonuses on shells.

 

Not so much for a good reason as others have but because Its nice to actually ware the armour I look like I'm in as opposed to the outfit designer. At some point things should look like what they are meant to be, which in the case of an MMO, if I look like I'm wearing a certain set of armour I should be in it.

 

Perhaps this all goes back to the old days of D&D where you had the men playing female characters that were in +5 full plate but in fact looked exactly like a chain mail bikini. As crazy as it sounds a small piece of realism and appearance matching gear would be nice. As opposed to what we will have which is everyone in the most ugly assortment of mismatch pieces to get the tactical while using the holo outfit designer to make it appear otherwise.

[OlBuzzard]

I'm with not having bonuses on shells.

 

Not so much for a good reason as others have but because Its nice to actually ware the armour I look like I'm in as opposed to the outfit designer. At some point things should look like what they are meant to be, which in the case of an MMO, if I look like I'm wearing a certain set of armour I should be in it.

 

Perhaps this all goes back to the old days of D&D where you had the men playing female characters that were in +5 full plate but in fact looked exactly like a chain mail bikini. As crazy as it sounds a small piece of realism and appearance matching gear would be nice. As opposed to what we will have which is everyone in the most ugly assortment of mismatch pieces to get the tactical while using the holo outfit designer to make it appear otherwise.

 

I can understand your concern .. but IMO a bigger issue is that these shells .. Are they really shells if they are already loaded with locked in stats ? I've got a ton of crap (all of it legacy) that is unusable because of low stats. At one time they were great .. but now useless unless I create another character starting from scratch. Nothing wrong with that. BUT .. IMO some how the idea of a "shell" means it's empty and we need to fill it.

 

I have (since my return) figured out how to use the Outfit Designer to keep the look to suit my personal taste for each character. So that part I think is good to go as long as that aspect does not go away (kind of like our companions ...)

 

IMO... the shells need to be filled as we need or desire. The components that go inside don't need to be something that takes 6 months of grinding per character to fill one piece. (OK yes.. that is something of an exageration but not by much.)

 

Rare drops ... well they are exactly that. I think that Eric has made it clear that there are several different opportunities for this to happen. By that I mean rare drops. Those rare drops seem to be surrounding the topic of "Tactical" components ? Am I right ? Hey if not ... that's cool. I'm not posting this to go thermal on someone who dissagrees. Just trying to clarify some things ... and add my thoughts to some of the things that I can.

 

I hope this makes sense. If not ... that's cool. I'll try it again ! No biggie !

[Iryfindel]

Overall I am pretty happy with the changes that are coming with 6.0. The one notable exception is that set bonuses will be on shells instead of armorings. This is an awful idea, IMHO, and I fail to see why this change has to be made.

 

Through the years I have painstakingly organised all my different sets in my legacy bank in specific legacy-bound shells, so I know exactly which armour is for which class and role, and for what purpose (PvE/PvP). With the upcoming "mix-and-match" set bonuses it will be twice as hard, if not harder, to keep track of all the gear that we acquire and the different bonuses/stats for each. This is something I can live with though, since we also get a lot more options to optimize gear for specific purposes and playstyles in return. However, if you take away our ability to put armorings with bonuses in another shell, you basically take away our ability to organize our gear across our characters. It will be an enormous pain in the *** to manage gear across characters in 6.0 already, but imagine having all these different sets with the exact same shells. Most people play multiple roles/specs on a single characters, as do I. Please don't make us run around with an inventory that has 4 sets of armor (st dps, aoe dps, heal, pvp) that look exactly the same, and a legacy bank with 30+ different sets that only has 8 unique shells (if not less).

 

Please, I urge the team to reconsider this change. Let us keep the ability to organise our gear as we see fit, and to our own liking. Moreover, it allows us to use all the BtL shells that we have acquired over the years, amongst which I especially value all my ranked PvP armour and weapon shells.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Iryfindel

[JediBoadicea]

I am optimistic about all the changes you guys are planning, and look forward to seeing how it rolls out. I'm sure there will be bumps, but as long as they get worked through in a reasonable amount of time that's just to be expected.

 

I've been following the information you've been putting out since the Celebration announcement, including all the feedback threads you've posted. I watched the livestream too of course, which did a very good job in explaining what your intentions are. I'm sure that I'll have thoughts once I see the actual bonuses and items in play, but that's the sort of feedback that will have to come via mucking about in PTS.

 

There is one issue however that I am concerned about right away: Attaching set bonuses to armor shells.

 

I love the idea of set bonuses coming in various sizes (2, 4, 6). But I think the mix/match appeal of this good choice directly clashes with attaching a bonus to a specific gear slot. If you are designing set bonuses specifically so that they can be mixed and personalized, then they must be slot-free or attached to something that is movable between gear slots (Chest/Legs/Feet etc).

 

What if I really want to combine a 2 piece set bonus for X ability with a 4 piece set bonus for Y ability to make my perfect, personalized spec... but both of those sets have a piece bound to a Chest shell? This is almost guaranteed to happen, and it's going to be frustrating. If it's just a case of "them's the breaks you have to make your choice" then so be it, but you seem to be pushing for the opposite "you have total flexibility" feel.

 

I can understand not wanting to tie set bonus to Armoring mods anymore, because Armoring mods have stats associated with them, and those have vertical progression in item rating, and you don't want people to have to reacquire a set bonus. It's admirable to want to separate those two things. But you're just blocking versatility if on the other hand you create set bonus conflicts based on the shell they're attached to.

 

I don't know how huge of an ask this is or how much it would break things (having to retroactively change every piece of gear in the game), but what about a fourth item modification slot in a shell that confers just the set bonus and, like Mods and Enhancements, isn't locked to a gear slot?

 

Or, similarly (but without having to recode every piece of gear to default add a fourth item modification slot), have set bonuses still be a separate item but one that can be added to a shell in the same way an Augmentation Kit adds an augment slot?

 

I realize these are quite possibly bigger asks than they may seem, and maybe there are other reasons you want to tie set bonuses to shells. At the minimum, if you are going to keep set bonuses tied to shells no matter what, then please make sure some careful thought is put into which bonuses you are tying to which gear slots, and looking at that across the board for all set bonuses for a Discipline, with an eye to minimizing conflicts. (ie, not leaving in anything so obviously egregious as "Hey, look, every single set bonus regardless of size has one piece that is attached to a Chest shell." Ugh.) And absolutely absolutely absolutely do not make RNG determine which shell (Chest/Legs/etc) a set bonus gets attached to, not unless we have some means of transferring it to a different shell.

[Jevnaker]

How will all this effect the xp bonus set?

[MingusPho]

Will there be a way to make individual weapons functionally unique? I.e have one blaster rifle that enhances tech damage or another with +10 meters to ranged abilities like high impact bolt? I like having different gear for different flashpoints but right now its just cosmetic fantasies I use to get through the boredom of Mandalorian Raiders for the one billiinth time.

[UlaVii]

It would be neat if healers could regen some of the energy/force of the person they are healing as a tactical effect.