Loot Acquisition Feedback

[JattaGin]

[*]Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

 

Too slow.

 

[*]Do you understand what to do to get gear?

 

No. Where does it tell ingame? (I play since beta. If I don't get it, how will new players?)

 

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

 

So far, bad.

 

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

 

So far, very bad.

 

Like this, you cannot go live, sorry.

[TheDramaKing]

(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.

 

Preach it, brother!

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

Made my own thread but posting here as well for visibility.

 

I think it is evident from overwhelming player feedback that the gearing system on the current PTS build needs some addressing and there are massive amounts of complaints and partially overlapping feedback. I am writing this post in an attempt to clearly categorise and summarise major areas from a game fundamentals standpoint. I am hoping this highlights system-wide flaws rather than something highly specific and thus can assist in a larger scale and more impactful change. Naturally I recognise this is the first iteration of this gearing system and your team at Bioware is looking for feedback so I am understanding of the issues present. I am hoping that the playerbase and the dev team can have a good enough line of communication to ultimately create a fun and rewarding gearing system come the live launch of onslaught.

 

Issues

 

1. The sheer number of gear tiers. In prior expansions we have often seen something in the realms of 4, maybe 5 gear tiers from your entry level max level gear until you are at the highest item level gear and this progression (for the most part) has been ok. It has felt like an achievable number of tiers and thus players have been happy to grind out these 4 or 5 tiers until they are best in slot. In the current PTS system our entry level gear is 268 and the typical gear upgrade is a piece which is 2 item level higher than our character's item level. We as players have observed item level upgrades of 1 and up to 4 but these seem to be rarer cases and 2 is the norm. Now Onslaught's gear appears to go up to item level 306. This means that with each gear tier being only an upgrade of 2 item level for a player to go from entry level gear to the highest item level they must grind through a staggering 19 gear tiers. This is a grind that is far too extreme for most players and so daunting that many players I have spoken to feel so demotivated to gear that they do not even want to begin gearing. Proposed solution: increase the item level increments of gear upgrades; if your character is at say 268 item level they should have access to something like 274 item level pieces, this creates larger stepping stones and thus fewer tiers for a player to grind through.

 

2. Backwards and sideways gear progression. Currently a player can receive gear that is a drastically below their current item level and a player can receive gear that is their item level. This makes it extremely frustrating when trying to improve your item level. When a player has spent hours or days to reach a certain item level they do not want to be receiving pieces which are no longer relevant. Pieces of the same item level as a player's equipped gear a nuisance as well but a minor one and theoretically could remain purely for the purposes of min/maxing (a piece of your current item level could still be beneficial simply due to it granting you the power to choose between stat profiles). I understand this may be a bug as I believe it was mentioned in a dev stream that you should not receive downgrade gear. Proposed solution; do not award players gear that is lower than their item level.

 

3. Moddable vs non-moddable gear. This games history has shown moddable gear to be more useful to players due to the freedom of choice in controlling their stats. They can decide exactly which mods and enhancements they wish to run and it allows for players to utilise partial aspects of multiple acquired gear pieces to essentially combine them into a desired outcome. The current PTS gearing system retains moddable gear but at the same time awards massive amounts of non-moddable gear. This creates an extremely awkward disparity when upgrading your gear, swapping between moddable and non-moddable gear is frustrating, especially when you create situations where a player's moddable set bonus piece cannot be retained since higher item level non-moddable pieces are being obtained. Proposed solution; drastically increase the frequency of moddable gear pieces as gear rewards as opposed to non-moddable pieces.

 

4. Challenging content does not feel adequately rewarding. This opinion may not be fully fleshed out currently as we do not have access to loot drop implementation in all tiers of content. We do not know what nightmare operations or ranked PvP will give in relation to their story/hard and regular counterparts. However from comparing flashpoint difficulty tiers in Hammer station and comparing story and hard mode Karraga's Palace (the content the dev team has asked us to test for gear drops) it is quite apparent that the only reward for doing harder content is an increased probability in obtaining set pieces or tacticals. Now this is of course an incentive to run this content over easier content but I feel this is not the type of incentive the player base is looking for since you are still stuck upgrading your item level at the same rate as all other content in the game. Harder content is currently only aiding progression within a gear tier but not helping in any to obtain higher gear tiers. Proposed solution; more difficult content should either provide increased item level improvements over a players current item level (eg. a nightmare boss awards loot that is 2+y item levels above yours as opposed to the standard 2 item level gain) OR difficult content should drop a fixed item level of gear (akin to prior expansions) so it can be used as a stepping stone to pass lower gear tiers as a reward.

 

5. Stats and gear pieces obtained. Currently most loot boxes which are achieved through galactic renown and those bought from spoils of war vendors appear to award seemingly any piece of gear including gear that cannot be equipped by your class or stats that are for roles which you are not specced as or roles which your class cannot even do. This effectively renders a lot of gear received unusable. Proposed solution; loot boxes award gear based on discipline.

 

I hope this provides some sort of methodological explanation of many current player frustrations with the PTS gearing changes.

[BuzzyJr]

Hey folks,

 

This is the main feedback thread for all things loot acquisition in Phase 2! Phase 2 is really about getting loot, whether that is from drops in content, purchased from vendors, or crafted. We want your thoughts!

• Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?
  
• Do you understand what to do to get gear?
  
• How do you feel about the primary sources of getting gear? (playing content and Missions)
  
• How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)
  

Remember that for gear acquisition we want you to focus on Hammer Station or Karagga's Palace on any difficulty.

 

-eric

 

I've already stopped testing this aspect of the PTS, seems like the biggest grind ever, not sure if this expac will be ready or released before years end, very sad

[BenKatarn]

Personally, I feel like this system is going to be worse than Galactic Command was at launch, with the amount of RNG involved in gearing amped up to eleven.

 

I know this is probably not the feedback that you want, but I have to ask it anyway, and it is the same question I asked back with Galactic Command in 5.0:

 

Why do we even need a new gear system in the first place? For the love of the Force, you don't need to reinvent the wheel every time a new expanion rolls around.

[AW_Solo]

It feels like the loot system isn't working as it was on the livestream, I'm only getting like, one thing per boss rather than 5...This is from playing hammer station too.

 

I would tend to agree with this. Played Hammer Station veteran 5+ times. Only last boss seemed to drop anything of interest.

[ddttor]

• Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?
  
• Do you understand what to do to get gear?
  
• How do you feel about the primary sources of getting gear? (playing content and Missions)
  
• How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)
  

 

I ran through 3 VM Hammer Station flashpoints. Got a setbonus item ( from renown, to the setbonus I don't want) and tactical for different subclass. Guess it was OK speed, but I didn't got any meaningful personal loot, just useless green stuff.

 

However, primary source of getting gear should not be random. I need to be able to work to the item I want, not some random stuff. If you don't want vendors, as we had before - fine, then make specific flashpoints/operations drop gear for specific specs/classes.

 

Renown system is okay. Vendors are horrible. I don't want to buy RNG crates with my hard-earned currency. And I don't want to wait for Zykken week after week, until he finally has the item I want.

 

I'm prepared to pay more currency for getting the thing I want. I don't mind wasting whole 3k tech fragments, if I would be able to get what I want. I don't mind paying 5 millions to get amplifier I want, not some random rolled stuff.

 

Please, only supplementary systems should be RNG. Primary gearing system should have certainty.

[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.

 

All right, ran four more VM Hamster Station...

 

First, I am an idiot. Of course I am not getting Renown bonus tokens at levels below 75 - I'm getting XP again, not RXP. /slaps self in forehead.

 

But that is part of the problem I have with gearing as it is set up now. Since I'm not getting RXP, and I'm not getting actual gear improvements either, this system is execrable for players at current capped level. Since I was still at 70 on the second run (because see idiocy above - I wasn't running with a boost item for XP), the only gear drop I got was rating 38. Yes, rating 38. After I hit 71, on subsequent runs the gear was rating 210 Outlander gear - certainly not an improvement for a character in mixed 248/252. Since I copied a level 70, I do not know how negatively this affects sub-70 levels in terms of gear acquisition, but it is certainly a negative in terms of the auxiliary route to gear as it stand on live.

 

Edit to add: Did see two tactical drop, one each on two separate runs. Was running Republic side for all runs. What dropped? Marauder Fury tacticals, each time. I mean, can't it at least check the faction? Yeah, yeah, it's BoL, but I'd think the point was gearing the character you were actually playing...

 

TL; DR: If you think it's bad at 75, you haven't even contemplated how much worse it is before then.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Lyriel

[Syroe]

Hey folks,

 

This is the main feedback thread for all things loot acquisition in Phase 2! Phase 2 is really about getting loot, whether that is from drops in content, purchased from vendors, or crafted. We want your thoughts!

• Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?
  
• Do you understand what to do to get gear?
  
• How do you feel about the primary sources of getting gear? (playing content and Missions)
  
• How do you feel about the contribution of the supplementary systems? (vendors, crafting, Renown)
  

Remember that for gear acquisition we want you to focus on Hammer Station or Karagga's Palace on any difficulty.

 

-eric

 

See, this is why I have trust issues.

 

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

Actual progression feels too slow. And the issue is made worse by the fact that a. there is no point in optimizing your stats in any way shape or form(leading to a poor game-play experience) b. your damage output in content that is supposed to be the fast-track to better gear is on par with what you get when you're bolstered pre-level 70 on live.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

Yes. Do you understand how, once Onslaught goes live, off-putting it will be to grind 30-40 minutes only to have to roll the dice at the vendor and hope you won't get a tank off-hand as a marauder?

 

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

I very much look forward to running Hammer Station MM 845 times, in order to maybe get decent enough gear to run Karagga's Palace VM 357 times so that maybe, just maybe, as my nephews leave for college in 50 years, I can actually try my hand at the Dxun operation in VM.

 

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

I can't even pretend to be angry about the layers upon layers of RNG at the [uNIDENTIFIED PIECE OF EQUIPMENT] vendor or about the prohibitive cost of getting set-bonuses or tactical items that I need in order to play the content I want to(bonus points for making the mods inside of those random, too). At this point, I'm just disappointed.

[darthscotty]

I find this gearing system to be highly frustrating. In 5 runs of Hammer Station I got nothing that I would have equipped as an upgrade. The tactical that dropped off the last boss in one run was for a sniper, there were no snipers in the group. I want a concrete way to get what I am after, to get the tactical I want or the set bonus I am after. This whole system seems to heavily reliant on RNG, RNG is not fun. I understand I get gear doing all kinds of things in the game, but how do I get the one thing I am after? If your answer is RNG is fun, none of this is going to work like you think it will it will only anger and frustrate people.

[scardera]

Bioware didnt learn their lesson from 5.0 command system once again.... obcession with boxes and RNG. We know you dont have any long time contend in 6.0 that why you putting us on a gearing treadmill...im tired of being treated like a mouse in a wheel

[scardera]

seems odd that group finder reward for vet uprising is 175 tech frags and sm op is only 100. tech frags given for pvp daily and weekly but nothing for op weeklies...

 

put tech frags in renown crates... 1500 tech frags seems like too much for kai stuff... and a million credit... who has that much cash? seems like you want people top buy gold seller credits.

 

ive been stuck at 270... is that a bug? even the gold chest i got is only 270. i should be able to get at least 2 item rating better when spending tech frags for random loot.

 

 

they are desperate for people to play uprising contend since everybody hate it they boosted the drop rate i guess....good ol bioware lol....you know what gamers want? even MORE RNG AND LOOTCRATE (sarcasm off)

[Mubrak]

Basic level 75 gear should be available right from the start, and since we're used to moddable gear, and moddable gear is one of the major sources of your cartel market revenue, it's silly to expect us revert back to static gear. Just add a level 75 Vendor to fleet that sells rating 268 mods for credits and 272 mods for tech fragments, so we can at least start with a proper stat distribution and improve on that with regular drops.

 

When you want us to go with the flow and move away from the numbers determined by the theorycrafters, get rid of accuracy/dodge. 110% accuracy is a must have, because a 10% chance of completely missing an attack that could be essential for our rotation is not acceptable. In the end that means that dps have a lower stat pool than heals or tanks, because x points of tertiary stat are always reserved for accuracy. If you want to give us an actual choice between hitting harder on trash or bosses, change to a resistance/penetration system instead, where we still hit but do reduced damage on bosses when we don't beat their resistance.

 

 

When the new goal for set bonuses is to make them something you're envied for having, rather than being mocked for not having, you need to overthink how they work. On live, most set bonuses contain some power improvements (extra damage, auto crits) but also rotation defining things like reduced cooldowns and energy cost.

 

Removing the damage bonuses is fine, but to avoid making us feel crippled the moment we level up to 75 and lose our old set bonuses, give us a level 75 class ability that includes the old cooldown / energy set bonuses.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Mubrak

[Banthabreeder]

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

I very much look forward to running Hammer Station MM 845 times, in order to maybe get decent enough gear to run Karagga's Palace VM 357 times so that maybe, just maybe, as my nephews leave for college in 50 years, I can actually try my hand at the Dxun operation in VM.

 

That's the spirit! Nice to see someone has something positive to say about all this.

[JamaicanCastle]

My thoughts in no particular order:

- I thought the overall rate of getting gear felt good in FPs. I also ran some of the new Onderon dailies and while they helped out renown and conquest, it felt like there wasn't much value to doing them vs. veteran FPs. Maybe if dailies had a tech fragment reward, they would feel more immediately helpful? Random gear drops were also frequent enough to be helpful.

- However, the system seems to believe that my Arsenal Merc is a tank, which is obviously less than ideal. I was seeing a lot of defense- and absorb-rating items that I have no real use for.

- Renown didn't feel all that rewarding. I got crates at an okay pace - about one per a normal day's activities if I was just playing normally, plus a conquest crate. But with only the one item they weren't all that exciting to get, and they felt very slow in comparison to gear from FPs. I get that they're a supplemental system, but renown is still the main reward of dailies and other missions. (Maybe dailies could drop tech fragments, and/or "complete X daily" missions could drop random items?)

- Tech fragments felt okay but not great. Most of the time it seemed like I was just breaking down the items I got anyway, which felt like a waste. Renown and tech fragment yields from disintegrating and disassembling were unimpressive, and between the two, I can't see why I would disintegrate an item instead of turning it into fragments and crafting mats.

- I actively dislike jawa junk as a reward. As somebody who doesn't craft, it's difficult to actually derive anything useful from it, like gear or credits. (I used to disintegrate whatever I got out of renown packs.) If there were ways for non-crafters to capitalize directly on jawa junk I'd be much more amenable to having it crop up everywhere. Perhaps it could be traded (presumably at some steep cost) for tech fragments, or just vendored?

 

Overall, gear from primary sources (FPs, drops) feels good, but gear from secondary sources is very slow, unreliable when you do get it, and doesn't feel rewarding to break down.

 

Some other, minor notes:

- Renown amounts seem rather high. 160,000 renown per level just feels like a lot, even if it's a totally arbitrary number.

- The conquest reward seemed a lot harder to get than on live, but that might just be an artifact of not having my usual stronghold bonus.

- The random item from tech fragments costs more than the slot-specific ones; surely it should be the reverse?

- Random group drops of at-level green gear in FPs are rather annoying, especially when you think they're going to be personal drops of scaled gear.

- Tech fragment drops are treated like credits (shared equally with the group and you get the remainder) even though they're also personal drops (everyone gets their own stack). Not really an issue but it could be confusing to people.

[well]

Loot? The only thing I have seen in this PTS that was good were the QOL. I ran a Commando and got Sage/Sor gear. One piece with accuracy gear out of 8. My Commando doesn't have legs to wear a dress. Even if he shaved his legs. What part of this is for the player? It just seems likes time sinks and credit draining.

[LorcaGneditch]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

- Astonishingly slow. One bug preventing my Nauto Pyro from getting gear and I just can't equip her.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

- Grind, as regular play won't give me enough?

 

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

- I wish there was some moddable weapon as I like the weapons of my choice and now I have to use those I receive.

 

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

- Er. It's horrid? This whole random stuff and no ability to buy anything from the get go? At least Tokens stack quickly and are Legacy-bound. Those parts are a pain.

- Renown is maliciously slow.

 

Also, I have a bad feeling that to gear up to play on Ops level one now needs to play Ops because, well, how else would they acquire proper gear? Crafting? Requires components you can't get unless you have decent gear. GTN? Milliarders may line up, sure.

[Incipien]

The loot acquisition needs work. Spending tons of time buying random, green, un-moddable gear pieces from a vendor is boring and frustrating. Having more expensive gear that is at least blue and moddable that we can choose without an RNG would be so much better. Having Kai Zykken only available on the weekends is, quite frankly, a terrible idea. What if I can't log in on the weekends, only on weekends? Then I don't get access to good gear?

 

There also seems to be an issue with the spoils of war vendor. The gear doesn't always go into my inventory when I buy it. I spent 6000 tech fragments on unidentified belts and didn't get a single one.

 

Here are some ideas:

-Avoid green un-moddable gear, it is trash.

-Avoid complete randomness. Let us pick what gear we buy and give drops based on role (or spec) and class.

-Maybe sell individual armorings, hilts, barrels, mods, and enhancements so we are more free to customize our stats. Customizing stats is nearly impossible with un-moddable gear and hard with an unforgiving RNG. Jedi Under Siege allowed for very little customization with the random drops from crates, leaving us with mostly just augments, implants, and earpieces to play with. We didn't have the option of using the lettered mods at 252 and 258 (unless I missed something), and changing enhancements around required buying whole other gear pieces.

-Make operations relevant. The worst part of Jedi Under Siege (worse than the Ossus grind and random gear crates) was that ops didn't matter in terms of gearing, unless the weekly was story mode ops. Ops and MM fps should help with gearing and if higher tiers are implemented later on in Onslaught, the loot for those should be updated.

[Drew_Braxton]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

Too Slow.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

Pray? Grind? I did 4 vm hammer stations, 1 mm hammer station, CZ-198 daily, the new planet missions (all but 3 of them). Ended up a few hodge podge green items (non-moddable) and 1 blue head piece that appears to be a non-optimized version. I was disappointed that I got nothing from mm hammer station I could use.

 

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

Discouraging to say the least. You would think as a default you would add one item drop to the weekly of the new planet similar to Ossus. Did not get any moddable gear, but did get several unusable mods (for other classes). I have no idea after all the years why such a large change was planned? It's like the person driving the gear bus there just yanked the wheel to the left into oncoming traffic.

 

 

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

Leveling crafters was on par with prior expansions. I did not want to run KP just to be able to craft.

 

 

New Planet is well done as far as visuals though there are still some graphics to clean up in a few areas. It was well done and quite large. The weekly mission is just too long and the reward is not worth the effort. Weekly should take 20 - 30 minutes to complete to make it like other planets of similar size. There should be a gear piece drop like you added to Ossus. I also hope you made the missions more like the imperial dam mission on dantooine where players don't have to stand around waiting for respawns. I could see the temple area with the several bonuses for clicking items would take hours to complete if the temple is full and you have to keep circling that huge place.

 

Summary

Disappointed

Why? Why such a huge gear change? I don't recall anyone asking for anything like this and except the full time altaholics this expansion is not going to be received well. Somehow you were able to make random even worse with numerous layers of random. I truly wish you would have just invested that developer time into more story, pvp, SH's, of multiplayer content.

 

It is probably too late to stop the corporate steamroller, but I think it would be a more positive experience if you just release the new planet and content without the changes to the gear and related stuff. All the nice work you did on the new planet and the most memorable thing that stands out to me is how disappointing the gear grind was. We ended up with the current gearing because you wanted it to be simpler. Now you swing the other way - way the other way.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Drew_Braxton

[Vesi]

The fact that I can progress my gear on any of my characters is great. Because of this I think it is fine that the initial gearing is a bit slow. After all once I'm done with one character I can skip right to the end with other characters too.

 

One thing that really annoys me though is getting wrong stats while gearing. Tanks should not get dps statted gear and dps should not get tank stats. Same goes for the main and offhand random boxes from the fleet vendor. Please make these spec and class specific. Also I think the random boxes should never offer downgrades. Sidegrades and upgrades only.

 

Please also add a small chance to get an upgrade that skips a tier or two.

 

 

I think tech scrap cap is too low. Actually I don't think they should have any practically reachable cap at all.

 

Also, since defense stat remains fairly weak and most tanks will probably want to change their mods to lethal B mods, please make some way to obtain them that doesn't require almost twice the effort that dps go through to minmax. Either make kai zykken randomly sell them or a rng mod box. Same thing for high endurance versions of enchantments.

[Pallais]

Let me be upfront: I'm not fond of the new gearing system.

 

1) I'd like to see a return to the traditional boss drops, that is, I know Boss X drops a chest piece I'd like, Boss Y in another FP drops a main hand I'd like. It feels good to be able to build *and* finish a set of gear. When you can't reach a goal of getting your personal 'Best In Solt' (different for the various play styles) you tend to burn out faster because the treadmill gets wearying quite fast. Trust me, I'd had to deal with this in another MMO and it isn't fun after awhile.

 

Now, having the gear that drops scale up with me is nice. That gives me a reason to keep running group content over time. I like that, though I would like to see an improvement in gear. Getting greens in group content isn't satisfying. Greens are what you expect from some random mob in the open world or a leveling quest. It would be nice to see blue quality gear drop and maybe a purple at the end boss of, say, a Flashpoint. I could see veteran mode FPs give green gear and the last boss always drop blues. Master mode FPs could drop blues and then a purple at the end boss.

 

Also, let me add, gear that drops in group content needs to be for the class I'm playing, if not for the spec/class I'm playing. I don't mind a mix of both generic class and spec-specific gear in an FP. I can make that work. Getting gear that I can't use on the class I'm playing just feels bad. If I want gear for an alt that plays a different role then let me do group content in that role on that alt. I shouldn't be able to gear all my alts by playing a single class! It defeats the purpose of playing my alts to do so.

 

 

2) The Spoils of War vendor could use some love. I'd suggest changing it a bit. The random nature of the tokens is fine if you add in the ability to buy specific pieces. Make the specific pieces be, say, 10 times the cost of a random piece token and then folks have choices. Gamble on getting what you want from a token, or wait longer, but get exactly what you want. You could even add in a couple of item levels of tokens

 

Example list (number are made up, just for comparison)

Item level 270 Chest RNG Token: 250 currency

Item level 280 Chest RNG Token: 2,100 Currency

Item level 295 Chest RNG Token: 9,000 Currency

Item level 295 Specific Chest: 25,000 Currency

 

Again, the numbers are just to give an idea of the possible spread of values. If you need a piece of gear now, the RNG token is the quickest way of getting something now. If you need/want a specific piece then you put in the time and save up the tokens. The specific pieces aren't fast to get, but they are a certainty. That's the trade-off.

 

 

3) The Galactic Renown crate can stay the way it is. Pure RNG and you get something. It might be useful for that character or it might be good for an alt. This system stays as a pure, potential supplimental gearing method for your entire legacy. You don't depend on it, but sometimes it can deliver something really nice, if not for the character opening the crate, then hopefully an alt.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Pallais

[ZionHalcyon]

After really diving in this weekend on a ton of things involving looting, crafting, Hammer Station and KP, I have a thread that sums it all up:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=967943

 

Please give it a look. I think where we started is awful, but the systems are good - just the values are horrid. It can be salvaged (from a player perspective).

[sithvrix]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

 

It it's too slow, I really think thik this change you guys are doing is like going backwards

 

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's a good idea but improve the RNG.

 

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

 

Too slow...I spent a couple of hours and I couldn't pass 274 because I was getting pieces lower that the current piece I had or piece that are not for my class, come on, at least give our own class. By the way I couldn't access Kai Zykken, don't know why, but I was trying on the weekend (and is supposed this vendor works friday to monday).

 

Please swtor team, you have time to fix it, I been playing swtor since beta, from time to time I leave the game because all the bad decisions, I can see this is a very bad decision, if you guys don't improve I will only play the story and leave the game again until you fix it. There is no point to spend time in the game with this crazy changes. Beware that this may be the nail in the coffin...

[Pallais]

I want to add that Kai Zyken’s merchandise should be available every day on the PTS. It’s a problem when you want to check things during the week. We all can’t test over the weekend.

[AireStyx]

Does acquiring gear feel too fast? Too slow?

Too slow.

 

Do you understand what to do to get gear?

Yes, and its a worse system then was in place in the 1.x era. I don't need everyone getting loot on every boss especially when the gear isn't really beneficial. In 1.x by doing the top version of flashpoints we were able to get a set bonus piece dropping from the final boss and we knew which one, either boots, pants, belt, all dependent on the flashpoint. The problem with it was that it could drop a set piece that would be for a class not present, which is what happened everytime I ran Hammer Station last night for the amplifier.

 

In an operation keep the loot system the way it is, aka 1 boss = 1 piece of set gear to roll on for the group. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken.

 

2.x had the best gearing system in the game so I don't get why we aren't looking back at that era to draw gearing ideas from to improve the system. In pvp within a week of playing it I would have a full set of basic gear set bonuses included for any character I wanted. This is essential to keeping a thriving pvp community as it allows quick gear by playing the way that they choose.

 

This system is just as much of a grind if not more then 5.0 with the launch of galactic command. Do everyone a favor including keeping the game alive by not launching this gear system, especially the way it is on the PTS.

 

Gear the way you want should mean that I don't have to equip new green gear because I am forced by the dev team as you took away my set bonus and the only way to get better gear is to wear the gear that you are forcing on me so it can then give me gear that is the same or maybe slightly better item level wise but doesn't have the stat distribution that I want.

 

If my group and I are that good that we can jump right into HM operations at lvl 75 with a mix of 252s and 258s and clear bosses we should be rewarded with set bonus drops from the bosses that will give us gear to allow us to play Nightmare operations immediately if that is what we want to do when playing the game.