Loot Acquisition Feedback

[CherryFlight]

So, this needs some work!

 

It feels like the RNG bias is reversed from what it should be. As a tank (Immortal Juggernaut) I ran Hammer Station a total of six times. I got exactly nine relevant pieces of gear, and one from a renown cache gained along the way. Two were belts, so I could only use one. That still leaves the rest of the haul - nearly my entire inventory’s worth - as DPS and healer gear, and one very specific tactical for a class I don’t even play! On live, I’d imagine I’d send all the DPS and healer gear to my other characters, but it still feels weird that six runs on my tank geared all my others, but not him. I’d expect to be getting one DPS piece for every five tank pieces, instead of the other way around. Please weigh the RNG more heavily in favor of the role the character in question is currently running! Also, give us something to do with tacticals our entire legacy has no use for! Let the bind run out on a timer like CM items and let us send it to friends or put up for sale. Or let us deconstruct them!

 

If you do keep the current RNG weights (maybe even if you don’t?), for the love of the force please don’t turn off the level 70 gear set bonuses at 75, because any one player’s ability to get a level 75 set seems far, far lower than you made it sound. Punishing your more casual players for leveling faster than they earn gear isn’t great.

 

I loved the idea of Spoils of War when it was announced. I’ve been looking forward to it. But the protection against irrelevant rolls as it stands in PTS isn’t kicking in fast enough for the intended effect, and tech fragments don’t drop in high enough numbers to make up for it.

 

I’m still looking forward to tacticals and playing with amps and finding new gear! If you want some positive feedback, that part is working as intended! I went in with my 230 gear copied from live and the game INSTANTLY went “oh okay, you’re very behind the curve, I need to shower you in 270s” and I love that! I just wish more of it was something my tank could have actually used for himself instead of passing on to the rest of the legacy, you know?

 

I hope this feedback helps!

[Mubrak]

The thing with our current set bonuses is that they shouldn't be a thing. Class-specific stuff like "using X makes Y more effective" or "Reduces the cost of using Z" should be part of the discipline path. Set bonuses heavily influence the rotation. Without them our gameplay feels gimped, and this is why we want our set ASAP, and ignore gear without set bonus even if it would be a big upgrade stat-wise.

 

When set bonuses are just bonuses instead of a must-have it's okay to make them rare, IMO, but when you need to be lucky to get a piece of the set you want, every set piece should be equally valuable (i.e. grant bonuses at 1/2/3 or 2/3/4 pieces instead of 2/4/6)

 

Looking over at ESO, each zone and dungeon drops specific set bonus items, so if you want to farm the XYZ set, you go questing in the place where that set drops. This could be adapted to Swtor - instead of dropping a certain slot or quality make FPs/Ops and dailies drop gear of a certain set bonus.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Mubrak

[SkuldOMG]

Contrary to the previous poster I believe the rate at which gear drops is appropriate for flashpoints, even maybe a bit high - but I also believe I am on an end of the spectrum that follows the belief that you shouldn't be fully geared after a week of casual play after a new update hits

 

One thing though: Operations do seem like the far worse alternative for gearing up compared to flashpoints at the moment. I'm getting 4 or more gear pieces per Hammer Station run, but since loot in Operations seems to be roll only (no individual drops), and there are 8 players competing for it, the chances to actually get something (and something usable at that) are really low. In the one KP run I did yesterday, I didn't get a single equipment piece and, as stated, the technical fragment drops don't make up for it.

 

So as it stands now, flashpoints are the far better alternative for gearing and doing an operation does not seem to have much of a point. I believe operation bosses should at least drop one piece of individual loot for each player + rolls (and I thought that's how you initially described it).

 

Otherwise great work, I'm in love with the new system! I always thought SWTOR lacked gear variety and "fun" in the acquisition department - not anymore

[sifudies]

Otherwise great work, I'm in love with the new system! I always thought SWTOR lacked gear variety and "fun" in the acquisition department - not anymore

 

I bet this is the one post they'll bother to read.

[Flowwou]

I ran many Hammer station master mode and i get really quick to a full 270 green stuff ( cause each boss giving like 2 or 3 pieces ). Have the chance to get a tactical for my sin Deception.

But after this all the other run of hammer station give me the exact same stuff just alternative stuff, if i had alacrity on my head piece i'll get one with crit. but no better stuff and always green 270 one maybe there is not better now ?

 

But for Operation it seems to get the worse way of stuffing you get if you are lucky enough maybe one 270 green loot for you and excepts the final boss there is no stuff dropping with set bonus. Even there it's a total randomly stuff that is dropping so you can run thousand of operations to get one piece amoung the 4-5 stuff per class and general one.

 

Way don't you make like ( the best system the game have ever have 2.0 like ) token from each boss to roll on every boss and then you exchange it to a pnj for the stuff you really want to have. and the level stuff depend on the difficult you run ops ( just like in the major MMO )

[Darthjantom]

I have been experiencing similar things, I ran a whole bunch of vet hammer stations, and on my Deception Assassin I got an overwhelming amount of Tank loot, I actually got a more useful 270 boots to drop from a random mob in the FP then from most of the bosses during my runs.

[Kanci]

I played PvP, Dxun story mode till the 3rd boss fight, some veteran flashpoints and Onderon dailies with a 258 item lvl char with the old set from ossus (stripped of the set bonus) with augmentations and good stats. All I've got in all that runs (split on two different chars) was a single tactical item for different class and bad green items of 270 item level. I couldn't event really update my old set with new mods as most of the stuff was items without mods, I got about two enhancements, one was acceptable. The best reward was daily pvp mission, as I've got upgrade to the left side, which is somewhat acceptable.

 

I would like to get some distinction for gear, that is balanced and has augments to a normal unmodded green gear, otherwise you have to play bolstered content to grind new equipment and accept every bad item that drops, as it increases your base item level and thus improves the drops.

[MrLuigiEW]

Tried buying a belt from the tech parts vendor on the fleet with my Telekinetics Sage but I didn't receive anything. Parts appeared to be removed. Other pieces of gear seemed to work fine. Edited August 31, 2019 by MrLuigiEW

[Ronyrone]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

In general for the most part it does feel a tad slow compared to CXP farming on Live. Acquiring the correct gear with stats that would be beneficial was VERY SLOW. Sometimes I would receive a TANKING Item on a SNIPER CLASS, while its great to have that tanking item legacy over for a tank but it is one less item drop for the Sniper the class that I was trying to gear up over a tank class.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

This is just self explanatory just do any content the speed of which you obtain the gear is on you.

 

How do you feel about the primary sources of getting gear? (playing content and Missions)

I don't like how you are forced do all types of content PvP and PvE in order to get gear in a fast way. While its ALWAYS ADVERTISED you can play anything you want and you'll be fine. The philosophy behind that statement is what the devs and players want but in practice you MUST do both sides of the content realm to get gear.

 

How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)

I have not yet touched crafting yet, but from what I've seen crafting in self seems like a extra job on top of everything. Vendors the one with 200 - 300 Tech Fragments is bugged atm but its a good extra place to get gear from.

Renowned is a SLOWER version of Galactic Command and is WAY more RNG than Galactic Command. IE if your IRating 278 you get a Renowned rank you can get a Green 270 item not even an upgrade.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I Have tested

I have done:

Duxn Operation 2 times up to Kephass Power Rangers. Received no loot from the bosses.

I LOVED the fact you have to listen to the conversation to understand what is going on. I also LOVE the 2nd boss fight where you are constantly in-combat that was so funny to watch. I do like you can get several Renowned ranks from just the first 3 bosses.

 

 

Gear

At Level 75 you start receiving random gear starting at Item Rating 270 with Stat number +290. With the gear incrementing each tier buy 2 and the Stat number increases by 7 points. There is 3 Tiers of Green gear 270,272, and 274 then it starts becoming Blue 276. I have not yet confirmed how many ranks Blue gear had but can confirm IRating 290 is Purple level gear. There is also 9 different versions of Gear Names that have the stats tailored to the name in the gears title these gear sets are non moddable. One generic gear set non set bonus that is moddable, and One gear set named tailored to have set stats that is made for your spec but with no set bonus.

 

With all this to get better gear your personal loots is tailored to your IRating. RNG asaide to go up the next tier of gear you need to be about 11/14 - 13/14 of a tier to start getting higher gear sets. This is a VERY big problem. The Items show you if its an upgrade for you or not even if its not the correct stats you should be having. There will be all times of players playing dps and heals classes where tanking gear because "it was an upgrade".

 

The Gear you get from personal loot should be tailored to the ADVANCED CLASS AND THE SPEC you are currently playing.

 

Overall I feel like the gear is BLOATED with very non moddable gear and really grindy. When it goes Live id beat that the grind might faed off from more player base all trying to gear fast but the BLOATED gear with NO SET BONUSES really needs to be taken down a notch.

[teclado]

I ran Hammer Station on Veteran 5 times with my Deception Assassin. Here are some random notes:

 

 

• XP pack drops and high end crafting loot never appear in inventory after looting them.
  
• My first (and only so far) Renown crate dropped a moddable Focus offhand. It showed as having no mods, but mods appeared after claiming it.
  
• After getting my moddable Focus, bosses in HS started dropping 270 armoring, mod, and enhancements. I got 1x armor, 1x mod, 2x enhancements. ALL of them were tank mods. Lame...
  
• 5th run of HS Kreshan dropped an IO Merc Tactical (lame), implant (nice), and tank enhancement (lame).
  
• Getting green (not moddable) 270 pieces from HS seems plenty fast, which I like. I got everything except gloves, ear, 1x implant, 2x relics after 5 HS runs. Also got 9 "side-grades" or items not for my class or spec. At least they are Legacy bound.
  

 

How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)

Renown is really slow at 160k per. I'm not sure how lucky I got with my Focus offhand drop from the crate, however. Based on prior Command Crate drop rates, I feel extremely lucky and feel like it won't be much help at all for gearing.

[benmas]

This loot system feels like command crates all over again just rather than opening a crate you kill a boss.

 

The RNG in incredible. I've run hammer station quite a few times now and in those runs i have received (as a DPS mercenary):

1 equip effect tank relic

1 on use tank relic

2 tank implants

a PT shield tank offhand

a tanking mainhand pistol

2 focused retribution relics

1 alacrity earpiece

1 tanking helmet

2 DPS helmet

1 DPS pants

1 DPS gloves

variety of mods and enhancements.

 

as for the tactical items, only seen 3 drop so far and all of them were for a class that wasn't even in the group.

 

the 4-5 DPS pieces I've had drop for me also aren't even better, sure the little green arrow says so but in fact only the armour, endurance and main stat are better (and only slightly better at that), the stats that actually matter are lower than my current 258 gear.

 

then there are the renown crates, Which are terrible as well, just one piece of gear from those and tank pieces can come out of them even when in DPS spec. also i got a belt and blaster pistol both of which didn't have mods.

[GamingCrimes]

In its current state, the new loot system is very grindy and annoying.

 

Me and my guildmates ran 8+ hours of Hammer Station MM over 2 days and we came to the conclusion that there is too much useless gear and that the progression of your gear feels too slow. Currently, you get gear that is 2 ilvls above your current ilvl. This is really annoying, because a lot of the time your are stuck at a certain ilvl and you are only getting sidegrades. My suggestion is that the range of gear you can get should be bigger, like 6 ilvls (for example 270 - 276). This makes it more enjoyable to acquire gear because this makes it possible to get a big upgrade and not just small ones.

 

Most of the gear you get isn't spec specific or even class specific. You can get tank relics as a sorcerer or generators with tech power as an assassin. I know that everything is legacy bound now, but please, a lot of the players aren't playing every class and every spec. It's just annoying to get gear you don't need in any way except for deconstructing it, especially when it comes to tacticals which you can't even deconstruct. My suggestion is that you make loot spec or class specific and that the loot at the end of the flashpoint should only be from the loottable of the classes that are in the group.

 

Right now there is too much "fixed" gear without any armorings, enhancements or mods. I don't know if this will get better once you have a higher ilvl, but most of my guildmates are around ilvl ~290, and the items still don't have armorings, enhancements or mods. Most mods, etc. that drop thus are useless, you can only place those in setbonus gear and that is currently too expensive to quickly acquire, so you just end up deconstructing them.

 

I feel like there should be a way to get gear through tokens, just like in 4.0. Doing harder content should reward you with something, not just a higher chance at something. Give us fixed loot tables in master mode ops and something similar for ranked pvp and you will see a lot of peepoHappy people.

[Banthabreeder]

Not sure if what I say fits into this category but this is the scenario I just encountered.

 

Starting with a fully geared 258 character with old set bonuses, I jumped to level 75 but received no new upgraded gear and lost all my old set bonuses. Fine. I understand that set bonuses have been moved to gear. I would run a bunch of Hammer Stations and now I got all new Green 270 level gear. None of which allows me to pull mods or have new set bonuses. How am I to get my new set bonuses I ask?

 

I know, using the Deconstruct Medpacs method, I was able to get 3000 Tech Fragments over and over so that I could buy a complete set of 270 level gear with new set bonuses. cost me 10,500 Tech Frags and 7 million credits. Hurray, I now have my set bonuses. This will be short lived.

 

I run a bunch more Hammer Stations and what drops is more 270 green gear, occasionally a green 272 piece of gear, or surprise, a blue 274 piece. Well, they're upgrades so I swap them in and oh, I just went from 6 piece set to 4 piece set to crap, I only have 3 pieces of gear that gives me a 2 set bonus.

 

So all that money and time spent purchases the 270 gear with set bonuses are now just gonna sit in my inventory until when? None of the green or blue gear that is dropping allows me to pull the mods out and put in my set gear. There are no vendors that sell upgraded mods, enhancements, etc. I wonder if when that day comes I get a piece of purple gear. Will it have mods that I can pull and put in my set gear?

 

TLTR - We have set gear before Onslaught. When Onslaught goes live we lose it all. We get it again only to lose it. Is this the way were supposed to play this game for now on?

[ProbablyNotGabe]

There are a lot of improvements that can be made, but it's not terrible.

 

I like the idea that doing anything can get you the best gear rating, but things like NiM OPS drop the best gear the fastest.

 

I like the idea of spending more time experimenting at max level then getting the max gear rating, and I like the idea of tactical items.

 

However, there are a few things that, if they make it to live servers, will cause a lot of controversy.

 

I shouldn't be getting tank gear as a merc. It's great that I can move it across my legacy, but what if I don't play tank at all? Feels like too much RNG.

 

Kai Zykken is way too expensive. I know there's hyperinflation going on right now but 1 million is just too much.

 

If we're going to be getting a lot of green gear, at least make it moddable. If I paid credits/cartel coins for a premium lightsaber, it doesn't make sense to not let me use it while gearing up.

 

There seemed to be a lot more loot dropping on the live stream. I've only gotten 1-2 pieces of armor per Hammer Station run. Not sure if that's intentional or not.

 

If tacticals are meant to be rare items, all of the ones dropping for players should be for there class. I've seen instances where the tactical that drops isn't usable to anybody in the group, that shouldn't be happening.

 

I think Spoils of War has potential, but there are a few aspects of it that are concerning. I just hope we see more tweaks in the future.

[NavGator]

Way too slow for solo

[nkarapinha]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

It feels okayish, i have a bug were i don't get the normal boss loot like renown trophy.

But if i could loot everything as normally i think its ok, because the combination of gear plus the renown crates i could get a cool income of gear. I made a few master flashpoints and already have a gear rating of 271.

Just didn't get a chance for my class tactical but it dropped in many of my master fp runs just not for my class.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

Yes

How do you feel about the primary sources of getting gear? (playing content and Missions)

It feels okay. I like every type of content and i normally just don't do ops that much. So receiving gear while doing all types of content feels good. I don't care if I need to do the latest ops a few times or do fps,heroics, dailies, conquests, pvp, starfigter or story every day during 1 month to get the same. As long as i can do the content i want when i want.

 

How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)

I feel that they are important and that as a whole it improves the system. As long as this supplementary system have fair prices/mats.

 

My opinion of this gear system is that a lot of people are afraid of the randomness of the gear here maybe because of the past implementations. (I was not playing at the time so i don't know how it was)

So as long as there is a way to grind for a specific set like doing a specific boss in ops, doing bonus activities or weekly rolled set's per class that we can get by doing content specific or not. I think everything will be okey.

[ottffsse]

Gearing is gonna suck for advanced/nim players who want to do the new op in master mode because item rating drops are synced to hear irating and there is no way (I think) to bypass a tier by doing hm ops because rewards are turrible.

 

I also assume deconstructing stims for tech parts will be nerfed/ destroyed to make sure you can't just "buy" your top gear for like 20-30mil by rng.

[DarthBryn]

I have been though Ops, HS Vet and MM. All giving a very poor retun on Gear, I thought it time to try the vendor route and this is what I got from "Takanna Spoils of War Vendor"

 

Tried to upgrade a chest with him, went throogh 147 Random Chestpieces purchased and got from a green Level 270 piece which dropped in a HS to a Green 270 Piece.

 

The numbers are just off on the return here, I gave up trying to improve what I had and wont be back on the PTS until after next patch. Gearing currently is a total waste of time.

[Hayden_Davies]

This loot system is fundamentally flawed in many ways. the primary of which being it solely based on RNG.

 

Lets have a look at how to fix loot drops.

 

From running hammer station and even KP, Myself and a great many others are heavily dissapointed in the systems in place. so for example. after running several flashpoints as a sniper i ended up with gear stats for other classes. if there is going to be a personalized loot system have said loot you gain be class specific. if i want absorbtion mods i'll hop on my sin tank and go for it on a class that can actually make use of it.

 

as for the randomized loot drops from bosses that spawn on occasion in veteran mode this should instead be a token currency. after collecting a certain ammount of said tokens then you will be able to purchase a shell, item mod or tactical, no RNG at all. you pick whatever you want on the vendor instead of feeling like youve just wasted your time if you say, get something with absorbtion stats and your trying to gear a sorc healer.

 

(seeing as your all hellbent on making us grind like societal rejects for months on end heres a way you can do that without annoying people nearly as much!)

 

Have said tokens drop from boss (ditch personal loot for this system btw!). player takes tokens to vendor. Player uses tokens to buy armor fragments lets say it takes 50 of these uncommon tokens to purchase 1 of 12 required pieces. once all pieces are collected similar to how we have the deconstruction button have a recombiner button on the side of the inventory window. armor fragements in this scenario, all 12 of which have to be matching belt fragments get slotted (have them stack btw!) you click recombine and upon clicking this button you allow the player to choose the set bonus they want attached to this piece or in this case where RNG would be acceptable charge the player 1mil credits per reroll on set bonus.

 

As for the item modifications themselves (armoring, enhancement and mods) have those available from the vendor for direct purchase as having the recombiner system slows down gearing and means you dont have to worry about people gearing so fast so throw each item up for 100-300 tokens! (dont forget to lock said item mods to these specific types of shells! not slots in shells just the shells themself! so they cant be put in old shells and completely devalue the recombiner system)

 

**edit**

 

For clarification all 7 pieces for set bonus, relics, implants and earpiece will use recombiner system in this scenario

Edited September 2, 2019 by Hayden_Davies

[dracmor]

Loot Feedback, Part 2:

 

So I did solo veteran Hammer Station 5 times and I did enough stuff to finally get Conquest.

 

The one almost positive: I did like having a gear loot box tied in with the Conquest reward, if the reward would have matched my class. I got a nice 276 polesaber for a Merc dps. Conquest is much slower now (higher cost plus with running around in lower gear with lower stats killing stuff for weeklies or Conquest is a slower process) and it would have been much nicer at completion to actually get something I could use.

 

Bugs:

• When I bought the box that specifically stated it would give me gear for my current discipline, one time I got nothing and another tank gear on a Merc dps. Just doesn't work at all.
  
• When I ran Hammer Station I got some random level 16 loot from the mobs - even if it is weak loot, shouldn't everything that drops technically be level 75 loot? Bug or working as intended?
  
• So on one of my Hammer Station runs I got a Tactical! Yay! Except it was for a Sin and I was on a Merc dps. Nor do I have a Sin as a toon. Nor could I trade it to someone which also means I would not be able to put it on the GTN. 100% totally worthless. Aren't the loot tables supposed to look at my gear and "know" what I need? And does this mean that all loot is bound to my characters or is this a bug? - i.e. if I did not equip the tactical should I have been able to trade or sell it?
  

 

Suggestions:

• Tech Fragments drops from bosses should be more like 100 per boss than 10.
  
• Tech Fragments should be added to Heroic completions, weeklies completion, Renown drops, etc.
  
• Points needed to complete a Renown level should be reduced by at least 25%.
  
• Renown loot just doesn't feel satisfying, probably because GC dropped more items like scraps or maybe a pet, etc. Maybe add these kind of things into the Renown crates? Also, disintegrating items rather than claiming them seemed rather pointless - either the point value needs to be vastly increased or just get rid of the option to disintegrate entirely.
  
• Get rid of the non-modded gear. All gear that drops should be modded.
  
• If you don't do the above then at the very least get rid of the slot requirement for mods. Example: Say I have a 252 chest piece with an accuracy enhancement but then get a non-modded 272 chest piece with alacrity. I would like to have the option to equip the 272 chest piece and then move the 252 accuracy piece to another piece of gear - but currently since it is forever a chest enhancement, that option is not available. This limits what I can do with my gear for no particular good reason at all.
  
• Gear, whether from Renown, Tech Fragment Vendor, Conquest, etc should match my Class. No more opening something on my Merc dps to get a tank piece or a force focus or a polesaber, etc.
  

 

Overall, loot is just abysmal and is a huge drop-off from the loot acquisition of Ossus. Please rework and fix this.

[Lyriel]

Ran Hammer Station as a level 70 with level 75s. Got zero loot aside from a couple tech fragments and a random low level companion gift (the only thing on which I won the roll - we were all rolling greed). Bosses dropped nothing for me. Oh, and since I am at Renown 300, didn't get much progress (and no bonus Renown tokens like currently drop on live for bosses in FPs).

 

If this is functioning as intended, suffice it to say that I think it's a gigantic step backwards.

[MaximusRex]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

 

It doesn't seem as described on the Twitch Stream. No personal loot at all in KP SM, Hammer Station was better, but the loot was all green an unmoddable, which makes me question the point of moddable shells. FP loot should be moddable at the very least, and probably should be no worse than Blue quality overall. Ops Loot also should be moddable, and should be at minimum Purple Quality. Green loot is fine from heroics, uprising, and story, but again, all loot need to be moddable if the set bonus is on shells.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

 

Based on the twitch stream we should be getting better quality loot faster in harder content, but that didn't seem to be the case. It looks like the current PTS system isn't working as described, so its hard to tell.

 

How do you feel about the primary sources of getting gear? (playing content and Missions)

 

I like this in concept, but the PTS implementation leaves a lot to be desired. The idea that harder content gives you better gear faster is good, but it's not noticeably happening on PTS currently.

 

How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)

 

My guild ran 1 SM KP and 5 VM Hammer Stations. I got one Renown Crate and maybe a couple dozen Tech Fragemnts. KP didn't drop any Tech Fragments, and each VM Hammer Station Boss only dropped 2-4. As a supplementary system with random loot as a reward this is a pretty poor acquisition rate.

Edited September 2, 2019 by MaximusRex

[Loubibou]

Getting from 252 to 270 green gear was actually pretty fast, but getting better gear and set bonuses? Didn't even got close to It. The amount of the new currency that we get is really low compared to what we currently have in the game and, even though Galactic Command is being replaced and turned into a supplementary system, we're still trapped with RNG. Like a lot of people said here, we don't want to spend most of our playtime grinding for gear, we want to actually play and enjoy the game. I really hope they make more changes to this system to make the gearing process more bearable.

[LtGeneralGezlin]

TLDR: RNG sucks, and the way we have it now is even worse.

 

Disclamer: I know that the full loot/Gearing system hasn't been fully implemented yet, and I'm not really negative about the game (As anyone who follows me on twitter will say), and hopefully it's early enough that our posts will actually change something, because... the way it is now is... horrible.

 

The idea behind it is great: play the way I want, and get the gear, I love that the new gear will be Bind to Legacy (As it should have been years ago), and I REALLY love that old gear set appearances are coming back at the Kai Zykken vendor (Especially since the stretchy armor bug that plagues the Remnant Underworld Smuggler's jacket and the gears that look just like it is finally fixed). But, attaching the set bonus' attached to the shell isn't great (Especially for those of us who are using Legacy Gear with the set bonus mods on Live servers now), but it isn't the worst thing about the gearing system.

 

That brings me to what is the worst thing about the gearing system... The RNG. I would have thought we'd move away from RNG gearing after Galactic Command. The fact that it is back is disappointing. I have no problem with the Kai Zykken vendor, as stated above, but the current RNG Spoils of War shouldn't be giving me Focus/shields/generators as a Gunslinger.

 

I am eagerly looking forward to the Onslaught story (As always), but the gearing system really doesn't make me want to try and gear up for group content, especially if I have to pray to the RNG gods that I get the good gear I need. I feel like the system we have on the live servers is much better: Go to Vendor, Buy gear for your class/discipline, and either use them or rip out the mods and put them into Legacy armor. Using Tech Fragments as the new currency is good too, but the limit needs to be increased from 3000 to something higher, especially since they seem to be the new "Command Token"

 

Are Alliance Crates intentionally removed from heroics now? This is a bit of a nerf to them, honestly.

 

Also, I noticed this with my Level 75 characters. I know they had them with my Level 70 when I transferred him to the PTS, but if this is a change that is intended... this makes doing the Heroics less worth it.

[Metthew]

(I have edited this post since first writing it. It now has suggestions.)

 

I'll section this post into three main parts: my experience, the questions that arise from it, and suggestions.

 

PTS 2.0 Experience

 

So, I've tried Hammer Station VM/MM, KP, unranked Warzones, Kai Zykken vendor & the Tech Fragments vendor up so far. Here are the parts which aren't worth that much mention for now:

 

1) Hammer Station VM gave very meh gear. It is fast, there are some who claim that farming it solo between warzone pops may be good. It yields around 4 pieces per 15 minutes or so, I'd say.

2) Hammer Station MM actually gave me a lot of improvements in gear, and a tactical for my character (the entire group rolled on it). We were 3 DPS + 1 healer doing the flashpoint. I'd say that the number of rolls seems -ok-, and an organised group would benefit more from farming it than the veteran mode.

3) Warzone and KP loot seem to both be not implemented yet. It was a waste of time.

 

As for the Kai and the TF vendor... well, I could write about how bad it was for me, but I actually streamed the agonising experience of dealing with those vendors. Here are the important part:

 

00:00 - I buy fat stacks of medpacs like everyone and their mother in the PTS.

02:15 - Realising that I'll need something entertaining, I turn on some music.

02:35 - The process starts.

07:00 - I spend 3250 (not 3750) TFs for a +2 iLvL improvement on my chestpiece.

07:11 - Kelevra suggests I just buy the chestpiece directly instead of keeping rolling on it. Little does he know.

09:00 - I remark that the gear from Kai seems to be empty shells. Curious.

09:20 - I make the silly guess that maybe each slot is just rolled upon purchase. Turns out it wasn't silly.

12:25 - Not being able to locate the Marksmanship tactical I know I want, I go back to my beloved Takanna.

13:05 - I remark that mainhand / offhand is not tailored. At least I hope that is the case.

15:26 - I remark that I've hit 278 iLvL, so I should be able to reliably get 280 gear. I am shown immediately wrong.

16:35 - Kelevra, hopeful, asks if this stuff would be subject to change. (I hope so)

17:32 - Nightrain tells me that I should be just buying the pieces directly, so naive.

18:17 - I show Nightrain how direct buy from Kai works. His response has quite a lot of letters.

20:25 - Kelevra asks if you guys had really said this would be the easiest gearing ever. Because it doesn't seem so.

21:14 - I get a Marauder glove tailored to by spec, Marksmanship sniper -.- Nightrain asks if RNG is such that a very lucky person could get a full gear set, I respond that the system is such that you can only inch forward +2 iLvL at a time.

22:21 - Nightrain asks two questions, whose answers he won't like.

26:26 - Nightrain asks a question whose answer he likes - that everything is Legacy.

27:05 - I explain how Legacy gear improves the loot box odds - one can just equip the 306 gear and roll the crates after. I then ponder if the odds are bad to specifically deny this.

28:33 - I get an assault cannon tailored to my Marksmanship sniper.

30:19 - I roll a +2 iLvL improvement on mainhand, except it's a polesaber now.

31:52 - SupaHsuB mentions I can keep rolling belt from Kai Zykken. Since Kai refunds the currency upon returns, I realise that I can reroll his gear until I get what I like. But then why is his gear RNG in the first place?

33:20 - SupaHsuB tells his secret for getting to 306 gear in the PTS (It's Netflix).

... and so on.

 

Later on, to my horror, I learned of two more things:

- Gear rolls from Kai do not only have RNG with relation to the iLvL but also to type, I probably have a bunch of unoptimised mods / armorings in them.

- The RNG for iLvL improvements get worse over time, I needed around 20-30 chestpieces to go from 302 to 304, for example.

 

Another thing of note is the lack of customisable gear. I guess we should be swimming in modification drops by doing PVE / PVP? I could not test it so much, though my MM flashpoint adventure didn't leave me with a noteworthy amount of modifications.

 

Finally, deconstructing just doesn't really seem to be worth it that much. At least I wouldn't deconstruct for Tech Fragments, unless I was literally swimming in the loot.

 

Questions:

First thing I am wondering is, how are we PvP'ers supposed to gear up in this system? I know that warzone loot acquisition is not implemented yet - is it the case that we will be given crates after each unranked / SR / TR game? If the number of TF's from the unranked arenas in PTS is any indication, it looks like Warzone gearing is going to be very slow. Even with bolster, we actually do need some minmaxing, since bolster never really fully worked.

 

Also, what is the reason that people can roll downgrades to their items? It just makes no sense, especially since there is so much lateral variance - I had to roll like 30 relics until I got a Serendipitous Assault 306, for example. When you cannot even guarantee you will roll the stats you want, what is the point of also giving people lower iLvL items?

 

I noticed that a greater portion of my MM Hammer Station loot were improvements to my gear than the things I've rolled in VM or from the RNG boxes. Are the loot distributions for the two cases different, in the sense that MM flashpoints and operations will guarantee gear improvement at a higher chance? Can we expect such a thing for warzone rewards too?

 

I did notice that, while mainhand / offhand rolls seem to be bugged, I do actually semi-consistently get sniper rifles and vibroblades. Is rolling gear from other specs (with some lower but non-zero probability) intended for the Tech Fragments vendor? I really hope not.

 

Remarks

As of the moment, getting a downgrade simply sucks. Arguably, getting one character geared up could get all others geared up quickly (as long as you gear up your DPS / healer first), but that is not a reason to have downgrades at 274 iLvL. Maybe when you get to some number, you can start rolling items down to at worst that level (say at 306 gear, I can roll between 298-306) - that would still disallow -instant BiS- while still allowing people to gear quickly.

 

However, one should simply not roll downgrades while getting greens, it is EXTREMELY disheartening. You could keep some at the top (I would say that beyond 294, rolling >= 294 is worst case ok scenario), but there is a lot of lateral variation so I am unsure if it's ever needed. It will still take time to get the optimal mods / enhancements, the way mod rolling works right now.

 

In case Warzone / Operations / MM flashpoints do have a higher chance to roll gear improvements, you should outright tell us so. Same for the mainhand / offhand (hopefully) bugged rolls - are the actually bugged? They better be, there is little more infuriating than spending hard-earned Tech Fragments and rolling a mainhand you can't even use.

 

I know that us PvP'ers need BiS sooner - maybe if you could detach stats in warzones from stats outside, it would also be nice (fixed stats, or selection of stats). I guess a new PvP stat system would be on the wall of crazy - but I think it should eventually be considered.

 

P.S. Currently you cannot Unify Colors on companion outfits in the PTS. Something to fix.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Metthew