Acquisition Changes: Next PTS Patch

[olagatonjedi]

Have you been on PTS today? You only get refunded credits, not tech fragments.

Yes i have. And kai wasnt available,.but the Agent vendor gave me all 3000 of my tech frags back upon refund.

[Templock]

Bioware: "You can now play whatever content you want and you don't have to worry about gear. We'll just throw it at you."

 

Forum: "BUT I CANT GET BIS 1 DAY INTO LAUNCH WAAAAH."

[KendraP]

Bioware: "You can now play whatever content you want and you don't have to worry about gear. We'll just throw it at you."

 

Forum: "BUT I CANT GET BIS 1 DAY INTO LAUNCH WAAAAH."

 

I am perfectly fine having a slower gearing process. What I do NOT want are:

 

-Tons of RNG

-Tons of gear thrown at me in general

-An overcomplicated (again, I can read Musco) gearing scheme

-Stats on gear for "min maxing" that supposedly don't make a difference in the end item that would require balancing

 

What I do want is a clear path to get BIS however slowly.

 

Maybe that helps clear up some confusion.

[Raansu]

Bioware: "You can now play whatever content you want and you don't have to worry about gear. We'll just throw it at you."

 

Forum: "BUT I CANT GET BIS 1 DAY INTO LAUNCH WAAAAH."

 

That is not the problem people are having. Its the fact that all content feels like a waste of time because everything is just random where as in the old system, before BW got hardcore into this rng crap with 5.x, you knew exactly what dropped where and you could set a goal to go get it. This new system is nothing but pure rng and money sinks. Its poor design. At the very least the vendor should not be rng and we don't need a million different mod types.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Raansu

[olagatonjedi]

That is not the problem people are having. Its the fact that all content feels like a waste of time because everything is just random where as in the old system, before BW got hardcore into this rng crap with 5.x, you knew exactly what dropped where and you could set a goal to go get it. This new system is nothing but pure rng and money sinks. Its poor design. At the very least the vendor should not be rng and we don't need a million different mod types.

There are still direct paths available, so goals are still available. Sounds like people arent adjustable to the type of change they are comfortable with, in a game that always changes. /shrug. Many people enjoy RNG loot systems. Many people dont. Nobody is right or wrong, its just preference.

Edited October 3, 2019 by olagatonjedi

[Raansu]

There are still direct paths available, so goals are still available. Sounds like people arent adjustable to the type of change they are comfortable with, in a game that always changes. /shrug. Many people enjoy RNG loot systems. Many people dont. Nobody is right or wrong, its just preference.

 

Right, people enjoy rng so much that every game that implements it has to do a full redesign because players leave in masses. I find it hard to believe anyone enjoys pure rng.

 

And buying an empty shell is not a direct path of gear upgrades. You still have to go and play the rng game with the mods and refunding doesn't give your tech fragments back, just your credits.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Raansu

[olagatonjedi]

Right, people enjoy rng so much that every game that implements it has to do a full redesign because players leave in masses. I find it hard to believe anyone enjoys pure rng.

 

And buying an empty shell is not a direct path of gear upgrades. You still have to go and play the rng game with the mods and refunding doesn't give your tech fragments back, just your credits.

Oh I know right? Like EVERY game, huh? And like everyone hates it, which is why millions of people gamble, buy RNG hidden packs at the convenient stores, and stuff, huh?

 

Sounds like a user error. Pro tip - if you buy RNG items (especially ones you cant refund), expect RNG. Stick to the vendors that you can dictate what you buy. You will pay more for that convenience, but ......oh yeah, its like RL where people pay more for convenience. Who woulda thought?

Edited October 3, 2019 by olagatonjedi

[IoNonSoEVero]

I am perfectly fine having a slower gearing process. What I do NOT want are:

 

-Tons of RNG

-Tons of gear thrown at me in general

-An overcomplicated (again, I can read Musco) gearing scheme

-Stats on gear for "min maxing" that supposedly don't make a difference in the end item that would require balancing

 

What I do want is a clear path to get BIS however slowly.

 

Maybe that helps clear up some confusion.

 

All of this. Right now, right side gear drops (in crates and Ossus) for my discipline. I neither need nor want a vast array of different armor and tactical and mods that I have to wade through to figure out what my character really needs, nor do I want to waste currency at a vendor that might give me absolutely nothing I can use.

 

And since our set bonuses will be null and void at level 75 they aren't even giving us the option to avoid the new gearing and still retain any level of quality play.

 

Forget about BiS. Right now I'm looking into how to buy White Acute modules and planning on stopping play with my 70s so my characters will never hit 75 and be forced into this mess.

Edited October 4, 2019 by IoNonSoEVero

[Grymmjow]

Oh I know right? Like EVERY game, huh? And like everyone hates it, which is why millions of people gamble, buy RNG hidden packs at the convenient stores, and stuff, huh?

 

Sounds like a user error. Pro tip - if you buy RNG items (especially ones you cant refund), expect RNG. Stick to the vendors that you can dictate what you buy. You will pay more for that convenience, but ......oh yeah, its like RL where people pay more for convenience. Who woulda thought?

 

This person right here is reason why companies have loot boxes. No. Gearing shouldn't be RNG. If I'm going to waste a ton of currency I better get what I want. I shouldn't have to buy something expecting a Jugg item but get a sniper item.

 

Get out of here with this mess.

[Rion_Starkiller]

Oh I know right? Like EVERY game, huh? And like everyone hates it, which is why millions of people gamble, buy RNG hidden packs at the convenient stores, and stuff, huh?

 

Sounds like a user error. Pro tip - if you buy RNG items (especially ones you cant refund), expect RNG. Stick to the vendors that you can dictate what you buy. You will pay more for that convenience, but ......oh yeah, its like RL where people pay more for convenience. Who woulda thought?

 

Strange. I wonder why the UK government is calling for loot box regulation, and calling out EA in particular (they own BW and SWTOR). Perhaps because EA is borderline unethical with their RNG loot boxes? But hey, you can keep defending it Olag. I'm sure you are much more informed https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48701962

 

Loot box controversy:

• https://www.tomsguide.com/us/what-are-loot-boxes-microtransactions,news-26161.html
  
• https://kotaku.com/u-s-senator-introduces-bill-to-ban-loot-boxes-and-pay-1834612226
  
• https://www.cnet.com/news/ea-reportedly-calls-loot-boxes-ethical-compares-them-to-kinder-eggs/
  

 

BW needs to tread lightly with RNG stuff (if their EA corporate overlords will let them). There's some spillover happening. Even if "some people like RNG," there are many who are enraged. Is it worth it?

Edited October 4, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[silosaridious]

I've played some more on PTS 3.0. Compared to what I saw previously some things seem less atrociously bad, but I've found things I hadn't previously realized were as bad as they are as well. It seems like the vendors are tending to give much better ilvl gear than I had previously gotten, which is a nice minor improvement. Even with the infinite tech fragments we have it took a while to get from where I was (somewhere 290ish) to 306 ilvl, but that wasn't too bad. What was terrible was trying to find decent gear once I was 306. It seems that the gold pieces I got from the vendor with a few exceptions like the weapons were not moddable, so in order to use the set pieces we can buy (which for some reason don't come with mods despite the kindof absurd price) I had to buy mods, armorings, and enhancements. The variety in these is staggering and needlessly complex. I decided it was *FAR* too much effort to min-max gear and resigned (read: this was disappointing and I felt defeated) myself to just trying to get decent-ish stats. Even doing that took quite a few rolls and playing with mods a bit. I expect that this will be atrociously grindy when we don't have infinite tech fragments and that getting actually min-maxed gear for even one set of gear will be a massive undertaking. I had not expected from the previous PTS build how terrible this process would be. I hope this changes dramatically. If we had choice then the existence of the different mod, armoring, and enhancement types would be unnecessarily complex, but kindof nice. Given the RNG acquisition this is awful. I hope something is changed massively as this system is *incredibly* frustrating. I don't play the game for the gear, but the systems I've seen since I've started playing sometime a few years ago have been fine and rather non-intrusive to my goal of actually playing the content and raiding with friends. This system is awful and *strongly* detracts from a game I enjoy.

 

As far as amplifiers, I think the interface has improved a lot since last I used it. Rerolling was easy enough to do, though was rather frustrating in terms of the time investment required. Rerolling was also quite expensive after a short while, but that seems intended. It wasn't at all clear that the amplified champion pieces would not roll high tier amplifiers and I think that should be communicated (unless something weird was going on, but I rerolled one until it cost about a billion credits without seeing a gold other than unlucky). The life stealing one also doesn't seem to be functioning. I will play with these more later, but don't care as much about them as I do about how atrocious the primary gearing setup seems to be.

 

I have only slightly tested gameplay in the new patch, but intend to do so soon. Overall, I am glad that some of the changes implemented have been made, but the system still seems a *massive* step back from the perfectly decent system we currently have. It seems like an incredible amount of frustrating complexity is being added while reducing the avenues for clear gear progression for people that want to play the game instead of focus on gearing as a primary part of the game.

[Raansu]

I

I have only slightly tested gameplay in the new patch, but intend to do so soon. Overall, I am glad that some of the changes implemented have been made, but the system still seems a *massive* step back from the perfectly decent system we currently have. It seems like an incredible amount of frustrating complexity is being added while reducing the avenues for clear gear progression for people that want to play the game instead of focus on gearing as a primary part of the game.

 

And the system we currently have is a massive step back to what we had before galactic command. So ya, BW is right on track of doing the opposite of good design.

[TrixxieTriss]

Gear acquisition feed back. PTS 3.

99.99% fixed the drops for specs. ie, no more tank gear for dps. ( my wife got an generator for her Merc )

 

There is a lot of stuff dropping too.

 

BUT, horizontal gearing isn’t fixed or happening. 9 out of 10 drops are 2 or more lvls below your ilvl. They are completely useless to someone with higher gear.

 

Hardly even getting anything the same ilvl as me (306). I specifically wore gold 306 ilvl gear tonight, the non mod’able kind to see if horizontal gearing was fixed.

I didn’t get one set piece are mod’able piece except a light sabre with an accuracy enhancement

 

You can see all the items I picked up tonight while in 306 gear.

https://imgur.com/gallery/uSVoHmB

 

First 2 lines are all 302 gear

The next 4 lines are all 304 gear.

The last line is all the 306 gear that dropped (besides the 284 focus?)

Not one thing was a horizontal drop.

 

Eric, you guys mostly fixed the tank stuff dropping. So well done and thanks. But the horizontal gearing needs lots more work to make that a viable way to gear.

Edited October 4, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Darthjantom]

Why is there a tech fragment limit anyways?

Do they really expect people to fully gear a character in first week without a cap?

Putting a legacy wide cap on Tech Fragments just seems silly, and while tech fragments are easily spent, the high credit costs on most items requiring the most tech fragments will probably make people want to save up first before spending, not everyone has billions of credits saved up

 

The variations in stats for enhancements/mods/armorings per item rating are annoying as hell, just means more needless switching out of those (which also costs more credits) (on top of the amplifiers as well)

 

Also I noticed quite a few random item from Zyken I got turned out to not be for my class/spec at all

Edited October 4, 2019 by Darthjantom

[olagatonjedi]

Strange. I wonder why the UK government is calling for loot box regulation, and calling out EA in particular (they own BW and SWTOR). Perhaps because EA is borderline unethical with their RNG loot boxes? But hey, you can keep defending it Olag. I'm sure you are much more informed https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48701962

 

Loot box controversy:

• https://www.tomsguide.com/us/what-are-loot-boxes-microtransactions,news-26161.html
  
• https://kotaku.com/u-s-senator-introduces-bill-to-ban-loot-boxes-and-pay-1834612226
  
• https://www.cnet.com/news/ea-reportedly-calls-loot-boxes-ethical-compares-them-to-kinder-eggs/
  

 

BW needs to tread lightly with RNG stuff (if their EA corporate overlords will let them). There's some spillover happening. Even if "some people like RNG," there are many who are enraged. Is it worth it?

I see nothing except differing opinions. How human, right? Even stated in the articles, gaming itself (even without loot boxes) feeds addiction and, of course, life itself is a gamble as well. Might as well go all the way and ban games entirely, right?

 

Funny thing is that these players dont even own the money they are "gambling" with. All rights and ownership of items and currency collected in game belongs to the company who owns the game.

Edited October 4, 2019 by olagatonjedi

[cibacrome]

Actually I find gearing to be heading in the right direction now. The gear vendors selling bonus items need some work, but I'm sure that's pretty obvious. But getting a full set of bonus gear is now manageable from a choice perspective, though the grind still feels like it's going to be excessive. I do agree that boss drops are still to vertical and there is still way too much dropping below current ilvl. I'm 306 and getting pieces as low as the 280s way too often.

 

The tech frag limit, though it's been raised a bit, is still an issue. Unless the game drops a lot more set bonus gear than I'm seeing now, and it's target to 'fill the gaps' in existing set bonus gear, it will be mandatory to use vendors to get complete sets. Not being able to buy 2 or more bonus pieces at a time is a frustratingly bad constraint that seems to serve no purpose other than to annoy players. Remove the limit or raise it to a MINIMUM of 12k (i.e. 3 pc of gear).

 

The other remaining issue is too many varieties of mods. IMHO this needs to be culled BIG TIME, because right now, unless you make a vendor where I can purchase the exact piece I want, it's an interminable RNG grind to get min/max gear. If there is a compelling reason why we have to have 20 varieties per piece, please do make your case. But the logic escapes me - I have a 1 in 20 chance of getting the right piece of gear when I buy from the rng vendor, and i have to do that 24-ish times before I'm min/max'd, that's 480 possible outcomes (or thereabouts) for a full set of min/max gear

[October]

The unidentified vendor says it's tailored to my current discipline. I'm running corruption sorc. I tried to get some enhancements and am getting quite a lot that includes accuracy. We don't use accuracy.

[Rion_Starkiller]

I see nothing except differing opinions. How human, right? Even stated in the articles, gaming itself (even without loot boxes) feeds addiction and, of course, life itself is a gamble as well. Might as well go all the way and ban games entirely, right?

 

Funny thing is that these players dont even own the money they are "gambling" with. All rights and ownership of items and currency collected in game belongs to the company who owns the game.

 

I don't see a difference of opinion. I see someone (or something?) purposefully saying the opposite of what another person is claiming in order to be obstinate for some mysterious reason, in virtually every post. So you can keep spinning RNG loot boxes, or you can inform yourself on the current loot box news. I even linked some articles for you to read.

 

See you at the Cantina Event tonight if you're human

Edited October 4, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[October]

...

Why would unidentified gear end up turning out to be something that requires Champion rank with X group? That seems like such a waste of resources to get a decent item only to not be able to use it if you don't have that rank.

[shockbaitmcp]

I see nothing except differing opinions. How human, right? Even stated in the articles, gaming itself (even without loot boxes) feeds addiction and, of course, life itself is a gamble as well. Might as well go all the way and ban games entirely, right?

 

Funny thing is that these players dont even own the money they are "gambling" with. All rights and ownership of items and currency collected in game belongs to the company who owns the game.

 

Gambling addiction is a socially engineered mental disease, the ONLY people on the planet who argue with such basic psychology are people who work in the predatory industry of gambling, or have a vested(read: financial) interest in such practices becoming more common, particularly weaponizing gambling against mentally vulnerable children.

 

And you immediately jump staight into the most obvious strawman argument; "well lets just ban all games, life is a gamble", NO, that's idiotic. You're being purposefully obtuse, and trying to obfuscate gambling with the traditional video game mechanisms of pulling loot from a predetermined table, which are nothing at all alike. Coding to distribute item drops is not equivalent to gambling, again we see you only deal in obfuscation and semantics.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2019/07/05/most-popular-video-games-of-all-time/39651661/

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/04/19/top-10-best-selling-video-games-of-all-time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

The only game on any of those lists with lootboxes is PUBG. There are INFINITELY more games without, than with, this ridiculous dopamine-based addiction training.

 

As for the actual gear acquisition: Let me make this clear, I'm not a BIS obsessed raider/pvper. I have very limited playtime, and as a Roleplayer/Decorator consider myself among the casuals. This method of "gear everywhere" with little weight towards specific objectives feels... demotivating. Along with the nonsensical cap on fragments we'll be acquiring from everything, it feels like I'll be forced to shuttle to the fleet after every other activity to make sure I'm not being wasteful, which seems an unnecessary anxiety to inject into the game.

 

And my stance on the random nature of acquiring items from a vendor should be obvious. Tokens should be direct purchases with no nonsense. If you're this dead set on RNG make a separate diablo 2 style gambling vendor that sells for greatly reduced prices.

[olagatonjedi]

I don't see a difference of opinion. I see someone (or something?) purposefully saying the opposite of what another person is claiming in order to be obstinate for some mysterious reason, in virtually every post. So you can keep spinning RNG loot boxes, or you can inform yourself on the current loot box news. I even linked some articles for you to read.

 

See you at the Cantina Event tonight if you're human

The presence of someone posting in disagreement on a few topics does not indicate purposeful objection to all topics. If a topic, or representation of a topic is something I happen to disagree with, im well within my right to voice my equally important opinion and view to offer a differing perspective that others may have never considered. There are plenty if other posts on these forums that i havent once posted in disagreement, but the loot system is something i feel needs to be represented correctly.

[JainiaDral]

Just a note on running solo mode Esseles on a level 17 Shadow: drops are really weird.

 

I got some kind of adaptive level 75 polesaber that I can't see the mods on. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. I had a couple of blue-level drops that were a decent upgrade over quest rewards on Tython. Plus a tanking shield with far better stats than the focus I was using. Slapped it on my toon for the stat boost, but *shrug.* I also got about 40 of those tech fragment thingies-- what happens when you hit the max on a leveling toon? Plus, four of those renown XP packs that seemed to vanish into nothingness when I picked them up.

 

Those gear arrows are useless. I picked up a techstaff with far better stats than my modded, low-level weapon from Tython but because a couple of those mods had amplifiers (is that what those bonuses are called?) that I couldn't use, the saber has a persistent blue arrow on it. It screams, "Look at me! I'm shiny! You can collect more Biochem mats with me even though you're specced as a synthweaver!"

 

Gear drops on Tython seem to be a lot less frequent than on live. My best gear came from quest rewards, rather than kills and security chests.

[FlameYOL]

While the RNG lords have been kinder to me in my last 5 runs of Hammer Stations, praised be RNGesus, I'm still having difficulty doing mini-maxin stuff due to the random nature of the vendor. Nevermind the fact I can't for the live of me get a set bonus or a tactical item to drop... please lower the price of the direct-vendors as well as add specific mods and enhancements instead of having us play a gamble, there isn't a point in mini-maxing if I don't know what I'm getting.

[Templock]

So how do you expect to remove RNG without just handing players gear?

 

Just a note on running solo mode Esseles on a level 17 Shadow: drops are really weird.

 

I got some kind of adaptive level 75 polesaber that I can't see the mods on. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. I had a couple of blue-level drops that were a decent upgrade over quest rewards on Tython. Plus a tanking shield with far better stats than the focus I was using. Slapped it on my toon for the stat boost, but *shrug.* I also got about 40 of those tech fragment thingies-- what happens when you hit the max on a leveling toon? Plus, four of those renown XP packs that seemed to vanish into nothingness when I picked them up.

 

Those gear arrows are useless. I picked up a techstaff with far better stats than my modded, low-level weapon from Tython but because a couple of those mods had amplifiers (is that what those bonuses are called?) that I couldn't use, the saber has a persistent blue arrow on it. It screams, "Look at me! I'm shiny! You can collect more Biochem mats with me even though you're specced as a synthweaver!"

 

Gear drops on Tython seem to be a lot less frequent than on live. My best gear came from quest rewards, rather than kills and security chests.

 

Is SWTOR your first MMO?

 

While the RNG lords have been kinder to me in my last 5 runs of Hammer Stations

 

Do you think running Hammer Station over and over again is what Bioware wants for the players?

Edited October 5, 2019 by Templock

[Jdast]

 

Do you think running Hammer Station over and over again is what Bioware wants for the players?

 

Why should it matter which FP FlameYol runs?

 

There is one - I repeat one - FP that has dedicated drops, and that is the new Corellia FP.

 

Your ignorant trolling of FlameYoL shows you have no idea what you are talking about. His (or her, sorry Flame, I don't know nor need to know your gender) point (obviously lost on Templock) was about how there is still RNG for the Mod vendor.

 

It's really not that complicated.

 

Now to insert my own viewpoint. November 2017, 5.6, was the pinnacle of SWTOR gearing. Play what you want. Sure, if you got lucky with crates, more power to yah. BUT THERE WAS PURE RNG PROTECTION SINCE IF YOU SAVED UP ENOUGH UC'S YOU COULD PURCHASE THE ITEM YOU WANTED.

 

/salute FlameYoL

 

Dasty

Edited October 5, 2019 by Jdast