PTS is now Live

[EricMusco]

Hey all!

 

PTS is now live with the acquisition changes we talked about last week. As a reminder loot acquisition is only implemented in the following places:

• Hammer Station
  
• Karagga's Palace
  
• Dxun
  
• Warzones
  

We are only another patch or two away from it being implemented everywhere so hopefully not much more Hammer Station. Thanks all!

 

-eric

[SparkySquirrel]

Yay!!!!!!!!!

[DarthBryn]

Ho Hum first thing i do is go to Takanna, buy a Unidentified Barrel for my Merc and get a Tank Barrel.

These dont appear to be dropping to current spec.

[Balameb]

As a reminder loot acquisition is only implemented in the following places:

• Hammer Station
  
• Karagga's Palace
  
• Dxun
  
• Warzones
  

We are only another patch or two away from it being implemented everywhere so hopefully not much more Hammer Station. Thanks all!

 

 

More hammer station???

 

Come on, we cannot properly test how would gearing will feel in live if we cannot get it from more content.

Right it will just feel like crap, because we are simply tired of doing HS over and over again. I want to do dailies, weeklies, different FPs (and the new FP), etc.

 

On top of it we have it combined with a level sync that works really bad and even makes the gear we gain pointless.

[Jdast]

Eric,

 

Seeing the word "Unidentified" at Takanna's Vendor Shop makes Dasty a sad, sad Hutt.

 

Sad Dasty

[EricMusco]

Oh, a known issue for this round of PTS. If you had an existing static main hand or off hand, you will find that it is now an empty shell. This is an unfortunate side-effect of the change to all weapons/off-hand being moddable. Please check your weapons and apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

-eric

[fushnchips]

Hey all!

 

PTS is now live with the acquisition changes we talked about last week. As a reminder loot acquisition is only implemented in the following places:

• Hammer Station
  
• Karagga's Palace
  
• Dxun
  
• Warzones
  

We are only another patch or two away from it being implemented everywhere so hopefully not much more Hammer Station. Thanks all!

 

-eric

 

Eric when are we going to see Phase 3 in testing for the rewards ?

[DragoshNashu]

Oh, a known issue for this round of PTS. If you had an existing static main hand or off hand, you will find that it is now an empty shell. This is an unfortunate side-effect of the change to all weapons/off-hand being moddable. Please check your weapons and apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

-eric

 

Also, seems armorings amplifiers threshold was lowered, so if you had any ammount over the new threshold, the piece is in a bugged state, and it cannot be rerolled. Not sure if it's the case for mods/enhancements, but armorings were certainly affected. Link to ss https://gyazo.com/fa323fcb99a4b9f31a59225f517b604a

 

P.S. If I'm on the amplifier subject, would be nice to see a summary of all amplifiers equiped, and not only a piece-by-piece like it is currently, i.e. if i have 2 of the same, I would like to see their sum in the general summary.

Edited September 25, 2019 by DragoshNashu

[EricMusco]

Eric when are we going to see Phase 3 in testing for the rewards ?

 

Phase 3 which will focus on balance testing is currently targeting late next week.

 

-eric

Edited September 25, 2019 by EricMusco

[fushnchips]

Phase 3 which will focus on balance testing is currently targeting late next week.

 

-eric

 

thanks eric for the quick reply

[FlameYOL]

Eric,

 

Seeing the word "Unidentified" at Takanna's Vendor Shop makes Dasty a sad, sad Hutt.

 

Sad Dasty

 

Mark me as a sad Sith Pureblood too.

[FlameYOL]

Phase 3 which will focus on balance testing is currently targeting late next week.

 

-eric

 

Personally I can understand being late next week but will that be enough time to address all of the community's concerns, and balancing issues, with Spoils of War? I don't mind if I have to wait until November or even December (Provided Onslaught's launch isn't as buggy as SOR's with issues not being addressed quickly enough) for it to drop but I'm not sure if that time is enough to fine-tune the system.

[Balameb]

Eric, are we getting an increase of the cap on tech fragments? You can't really think a good idea having a cap of 3000 while the target gear cost also 3000. That will mean wasting tech fragments trying to hit 3000.

3k was an OK cap for command token because cost of things in tokens were lower and we could also keep in stash. But with the inflation in tech fragments, 3k it just a joke.

 

Also, i personally don't like the prices. Direct purchase should be like 1,5k/2k per piece like Kay. And kay should be cheaper.

You keep increasing prices for RNG vendor too. And asking 300 for a single mod/enh is just too much. Either put back the 4 pieces per box or lower its prices.

 

Other problems is just a couple minutes testing:

* RNG of rating when getting moddable gear. Just make each hilt/barrel/armor/mod/enh be the same rating. Because geting the propr rating on one and getting very lower rating on the others puts all the piece rating down.

 

* Naming of mods/enhacements is inconsistent. I bought a mod, it just said "mod item rating 284", no lethal no other variation indicated.

 

* Changing mods on shells gets a really behavior. Stats disapear, it shows in some tooltips, not in other and makes a mess calculating upgrades.

 

* Also, working filters for class/specialization in vendors would be nice.

 

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

Side note. PTS 3.0 focused on balance for next week? This is still a mess, only a tiny portion implemented. What about crafting? You said before that crafting will be relevant and even will have specific set that will require crafting BUT right now we have a practically non functional system, and no real changes announced.

[LD_Little_Dragon]

Eric, are we getting an increase of the cap on tech fragments? You can't really think a good idea having a cap of 3000 while the target gear cost also 3000. That will mean wasting tech fragments trying to hit 3000.

 

This is my main concern. Why is there a legacy wide cap on a currency that's not easy to get in the first place?

 

Otherwise gear acquisition seems alright. I was getting mod/ehancement dps drops when in tank spec, but most of the actual gear drops were for the right role.

 

I ran Hammer with a level 75 who was deliberately running with very low gear (iRating 68) and they were getting level 270 drops. Is this intended? I hope so since that means new players will be able to get the lowest level 75 gear fast.

 

Pros:

1. gearing is fast, so long as you don't worry about set bonuses

2. the weekly gear boxes were dropping a lot of moddable gear. More moddable gear is always good.

3. not really gearing aquisition related, but I love the new outfits. Playing Space Barbie will be fun.

 

Cons:

1. the vendor pricing still seems too high, especially with the legacy cap on the tech fragments. With a heavy RNG system then some people will be getting extreme bad luck. The vendors need to be a non-frustrating way for the RNG impaired to keep up with the RNG lucky.

2. I could do without all the stat variations on everything. Why can't a critical implant just be a critical implant?

[Balameb]

Run Vet HS, with average iRating 282. Mix of 280, 282 and 284.

Before boss: two non moddable, no dye slot, low rating green. Why is that even there?

First Boss: 2 downgrades gear pieces (280)

Second Boss: 3 downgrade mods/enh and 1 downgrade piece (all 280)

Third Boss: 2 Upgrades (284) gear pieces and 2 sidegrades (282) enhacements.

 

So, still not working as promoted.

 

 

One other thing i noticed. I have one set piece "Boots of dying precision" that i got on one of my last test before last week shutdown. Turns out this will be a set for reputation vendor and while i obtained it with direct loot it will not let me use it because i need to be champion rep in oderon. If like you said, set pieces behind new content will still be available as rng loot, the reputarion requirement should not be there. One thing is to gate its direct purchase requiring reputation, another is its usage.

[jaingskiratanuul]

Eric- I'm getting "cannot use while in stealth" errors when trying to attack with both a juggernaut and a marauder. the basic, No rage abilities are usable when these errors come up on other abilities, and will restore other abilities to being usable. Some abilities require 2 uses of that ability to unlock. Any ideas as to why this is happening? I was not previously on PTS in previous phases.

[ZionHalcyon]

Can anyone tell me if there is a credit cap yet on amplifier rolls?

[FlameYOL]

Can anyone tell me if there is a credit cap yet on amplifier rolls?

 

Unfortunately there isn't.

[Solarmind]

3000 tech. fragments + 1 mil. credits per item from a new vendor ? Are you trying to force people into buying credits or something ?

[TrixxieTriss]

Hey all!

 

PTS is now live with the acquisition changes we talked about last week. As a reminder loot acquisition is only implemented in the following places:

• Hammer Station
  
• Karagga's Palace
  
• Dxun
  
• Warzones
  

We are only another patch or two away from it being implemented everywhere so hopefully not much more Hammer Station. Thanks all!

 

-eric

 

Thanks Eric.

 

Any news on if or when we will get an update on the crafting feed back that’s been provided before the expansion goes live?

[TrixxieTriss]

3000 tech. fragments + 1 mil. credits per item from a new vendor ? Are you trying to force people into buying credits or something ?

 

All this will do is promote credit selling sites to sell 3rd party credits to time poor players. That is unless Bioware have plans to introduce their own p2w currency exchange on the CM.

[Exly]

Phase 3 which will focus on balance testing is currently targeting late next week.

 

-eric

 

Are you talking class balance or balancing ops boss encounters or something else?

 

How are you doing class balance in 6.0? Are you using the same logic that you explained in your post on 6/15/2017?

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9333043#edit9333043

[Banderal]

Oh, a known issue for this round of PTS. If you had an existing static main hand or off hand, you will find that it is now an empty shell. This is an unfortunate side-effect of the change to all weapons/off-hand being moddable. Please check your weapons and apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

-eric

 

Am I missing something, or did this maybe break the free 268 gear we get when we boost to 75. Because I just this morning, transferred a level 70 over to the PTS. Then I boosted, and equipped all the new gear. My stats plummeted compared to bolstered 258s, and investigation showed that the free 268 main and off hands were just empty shells.

 

Is it supposed to be like that (and in which case, what good are they? Is there somewhere I missed where I can get the mod/enh/hilt?)? Or is it bugged?

[LordCamTheGreat]

With the small amount of time I've played on the new patch, some things are better, many of my previous issues are still here and some are worse now than ever.

 

1) I am still getting duplicates of items I DON'T NEED. I played 2 hammer station runs and received 3 of the same lightsaber. THREE. I also received 2 implants and 1 earpiece and a load of mods that I don't need because I have 3 lightsabers.

I'm item rating 258 on this character, I still need gear for my head, chest, wrist, legs and both relics. I would buy from a vendor but this brings me onto the second point that is still frustrating and now even worse.

 

2) Random item tech fragment costs are way too high. 300-450 for a single piece is waaaaay too high.

Now you might argue that we are given so much loot that deconstructing gives us all the tech fragments we need!

Wrong. You get a whopping 3 or 4 tech fragments per piece, sometimes you get 0. This is a terrible amount and when combined with the fact that you get 90 fragments per flashpoint, you need to do 4 flashpoints to get a single piece of RANDOM gear. So if I want to fill out the rest of the gear on my character, I'm going to have to run the same thing over and over and over again, getting the same pieces that I don't need while having no effective way to gear on the side. This brings me onto point 3.

 

3) Renown is a joke still. Until the amount of xp needed to gain a level is reduced by at least half, there is no point talking about it. It is useless and shouldn't exist at this point.

 

Now, something I've really wanted has been added to the game so thank you to the devs for this: There is now a series of vendors that you can buy set bonus and tacticals from. This is amazing. Or at least, it would be if it weren't for the same issue as point 2 which brings me onto point 4.

 

4) Set piece and tactical vendor item prices are disgustingly high. I take issue with the rng gear pricing, so the pricing on these vendors is honestly disheartening and disappointing. You need over 3 times as many tech fragments for one gear piece here. You need 3,000 tech fragments. That's 1/3rd of the total legacy wide tech fragment capacity which NEEDS to go up a lot. 10,000 minimum. That, or cut the rng gear vendor prices in half, and massively reduce the tech fragment costs of tactical and set piece gear. Oh, I forgot to mention that there is also an extra cost of 1 million credits per set piece and tactical item. If I want to gear a toon, it's going to cost me more credits than I own. I don't buy CC items and play gtn and have no wish to. The credit cost needs to disappear completely from this vendor imo.

 

I just had to edit this point as I misread the tech fragment cost as 1,000 which is already disgusting, but no. It takes 3,000 tech fragments, which just so happens to be the capacity of the legacy wide main currency used in this expansion... I don't even know what else to say about the price inflation at this point. I won't be playing the game if this stays, grind for the sake of grinding isn't fun.

 

 

 

TLDR:

Gear drops are still too random and I can't complete a full set of 270 gear because of duplicates and stupidly high tech fragment costs compared to how many tech fragments you get.

Thank you devs for listening and adding tactical and set vendors, but the costs are obnoxiously high.

[ottffsse]

The good from my few hours of testing:

 

-looks like ability changes in some of the sets and tacticals and abilities are going in the right direction - I know you made changes to at least PTs and Sorcs there.

-all sets except amplified champion got some cheesy ampflifier boosts removed and are now more evened out and class sets are now actually viable instead of just some general sets for dps - good job

-speaking of amplifiers - good job in tuning some of them down as it was getting silly and unbalanced of what you could do previously with them. but there are still pretty problematic ones in game like 5% life leech stacking and 1% of health pool passive hp regen stacking which will probably be not a good idea.

 

the bad:

-3000 cap of tech fragments - needs to be 10K

-tech frag gain rate - a bit slow in PvE, very slow in PvP

-cost of items from special vendors - no mods in the shells for 3000 tf? (From item vendors not Zykken)? No Thank You! Also Tactical for 3000 tf per piece? Are you kidding, should be like 2000 at most and 1200 from Zykken.

-How exactly are we ever we gona be able to craft anything new esp augments - too few mats for them

-Takanna - srill my most hated merchant. I was a dps spec and buying hilts - I would say 50% of the hilts I got were RED (correct) and 50% were Blue (wrong). That is that? Should be like 80/20% if not 100% red. Same with Armorings/ Enhancements and Mods. Enhancements are particularly bad to buy from Takanna because there are so many suboptimal version ones.