The Positives and Negatives of this New Gearing System

[supercometl]

So after going through and looking at the gearing system on PTS I am actually excited for what it will bring to the game. It might actually be a great step into getting rid of a pointless gear grind going further, specifically for 6.x as a whole. Now going over this there seems to be a lot of negative views on this new style of gearing but it does work very well in a few areas that leads me to have this excitement.

 

Positives

• The different ways to get modifications for your gear
  
• The diversity in the new set pieces that allow for customization
  
• The Tactical system that gives parity to that new set bonus system, and allows for unique play-styles
  
• Focusing less on the meta end of the game and more on the mid-level where a wider audience exists
  
• In practice you only need to grind to item rating once
  

 

Negatives

• The grind process in the lower item ratings is disjointed by lack of proper mod based gear (Ripping out mods from that gear to place inside your set-piece shells)
  
• The cutoff points for getting higher item rating gear to drops seems too low
  
  • (Though that might be more to do with the way I tested the rate of increase drops being the vendor)
    

  [*]Non-mod based gear works against your set pieces, making them "worthless" after you get a set piece for that armor slot

  [*]The gear grind to higher item ratings is extremely long

  [*]The lack of tokens for operations, it isn't due to the RNG, but rather the extremely large amount of possible drops, even if each fight is locked to a certain armor slot for set piece

  [*] The system does not have a default "set bonus", which in turn may confuse casual players as to what they should be going for first.

 

Now what does this look like in gearing? Well the idea is that you will be grinding for set piece shells, as they are the interesting part of the gearing system, and while you are doing that you are upgrading your gear with better gear drops, grinding away at that item rating. Once you get the max item rating you are now mainly farming for different mods and enhancements, which drop at a fairly common rate in FP from bosses in just vet so it is fairly easy to grind. This also allows you to get extra gear for your alts to start at so they also are at the max item rating and can grind for similarly more mods and enhancements. Along side this you will be challenging harder and specific content to find tacticals and specific slots of set pieces. Deconstructing items to get more shards to put towards a specific set piece slot that you are missing or a tactical.

 

This is where to 'fun' part of the gearing system is. Seeing different set pieces drop giving you new ideas as to how that might work. Tacticals that may change up your style or maybe differentiate how you play. Now there will most definitely be a BiS tactical and set piece set up for every class. That will never go away, but what about when you are doing dailies? Some tacticals might be worth swapping out for those moments, or set pieces to help your survivablility so you can set your comp to dps and run through them faster, or maybe a boost to your dps as a healer when doing sm-ops and flashpoints.

 

What needs to be changed?

What drops

Everything that drops needs to be mods based. EVERYTHING. Simply because your system is designed to be using shells. Now to keep it welcoming to beginners who don't get modding there still should be the standard drops, but let us tailor the amount we keep these drops.

 

Gear rating crawl

Along side this the crawl up should be a bit more wide in terms of possible drops. I shouldn't need to get fully 278 before I can start seeing 280s dropping. There should be a windows of possible drops that is 2-3 tiers above the player in all drops. So you will mostly get at item rating gear, but a few possible higher rated gear. This again will be mitigated a bit by having all modded gear since then you can rip stuff out and put it into other slots to increase your item rating a bit faster, but it needs to just be a bit faster.

 

Casual Player confusion

The lack of a standard 'armor set' will make navigating the options daunting for casual players. The best way to mitigate this is to have a standard armor set which has a set piece bonus that comes directly from the story of onslaught. It then leads the player into an understanding on the new system and allows for the player to move to better set piece bonuses. IDK what the best option for this would be. To me a renown xp boost set would make sense or something similar that is more of a way for players to jump start there progression through the item ratings.

 

Is the system broken?

No, it just needs some tender love and care to get it to a place where new players can enjoy getting new gear, but not inhibit older players from playing the hard content they already enjoy. The new system will need some getting used to, of course, however it may usher in a new way of adding gear during 6.x. Imagine instead of getting 2 new tiers of gear like in Ossus, we just get more armor set bonuses added to increase the diversity of play. That is the best part of this horizontal progression. It isn't about making more ways to play in NiM, but rather more ways to play in SM, solo, flashpoints, and if your good enough maybe even some HM ops.

 

(But what about amplifiers?)

They are fine. The RNG crawl is there, but as long as they don't impact NiM and PvP, and the content is not balanced around them it will just be a nice bonus. Though if you are crying about the credit crawl up, reminder that you will 100% have the option to just replace the specific mod in the armor set to "reset" the credit cost. You will be swimming in replacements once you get to the minmax stage.

Edited October 6, 2019 by supercometl

[dipstik]

they need to get rid of the 20 different versions of mods

 

we only need 4 mods really since not many use the A mods...

 

unlettered and B mods for power and defense... thats 4 mods.

 

and the fact that mastery, power and endurance do not matter for anything except 2 areas and 1 op now.... i think those are the biggest issues which they have done nothing about... despite having time.... and if they were going to change it they should have said somethjing by now about how they see what we are saying and will be pushing X at time T etc.

[Lhancelot]

So after going through and looking at the gearing system on PTS I am actually excited for what it will bring to the game. It might actually be a great step into getting rid of a pointless gear grind going further, specifically for 6.x as a whole. Now going over this there seems to be a lot of negative views on this new style of gearing but it does work very well in a few areas that leads me to have this excitement.

 

Positives

• The different ways to get modifications for your gear
  
• The diversity in the new set pieces that allow for customization
  
• The Tactical system that gives parity to that new set bonus system, and allows for unique play-styles
  
• Focusing less on the meta end of the game and more on the mid-level where a wider audience exists
  
• In practice you only need to grind to item rating once
  

 

Negatives

• The grind process in the lower item ratings is disjointed by lack of proper mod based gear (Ripping out mods from that gear to place inside your set-piece shells)
  
• The cutoff points for getting higher item rating gear to drops seems too low
  
  • (Though that might be more to do with the way I tested the rate of increase drops being the vendor)
    

  [*]Non-mod based gear works against your set pieces, making them "worthless" after you get a set piece for that armor slot

  [*]The gear grind to higher item ratings is extremely long

  [*]The lack of tokens for operations, it isn't due to the RNG, but rather the extremely large amount of possible drops, even if each fight is locked to a certain armor slot for set piece

  [*] The system does not have a default "set bonus", which in turn may confuse casual players as to what they should be going for first.

 

Now what does this look like in gearing? Well the idea is that you will be grinding for set piece shells, as they are the interesting part of the gearing system, and while you are doing that you are upgrading your gear with better gear drops, grinding away at that item rating. Once you get the max item rating you are now mainly farming for different mods and enhancements, which drop at a fairly common rate in FP from bosses in just vet so it is fairly easy to grind. This also allows you to get extra gear for your alts to start at so they also are at the max item rating and can grind for similarly more mods and enhancements. Along side this you will be challenging harder and specific content to find tacticals and specific slots of set pieces. Deconstructing items to get more shards to put towards a specific set piece slot that you are missing or a tactical.

 

This is where to 'fun' part of the gearing system is. Seeing different set pieces drop giving you new ideas as to how that might work. Tacticals that may change up your style or maybe differentiate how you play. Now there will most definitely be a BiS tactical and set piece set up for every class. That will never go away, but what about when you are doing dailies? Some tacticals might be worth swapping out for those moments, or set pieces to help your survivablility so you can set your comp to dps and run through them faster, or maybe a boost to your dps as a healer when doing sm-ops and flashpoints.

 

What needs to be changed?

What drops

Everything that drops needs to be mods based. EVERYTHING. Simply because your system is designed to be using shells. Now to keep it welcoming to beginners who don't get modding there still should be the standard drops, but let us tailor the amount we keep these drops.

 

Gear rating crawl

Along side this the crawl up should be a bit more wide in terms of possible drops. I shouldn't need to get fully 278 before I can start seeing 280s dropping. There should be a windows of possible drops that is 2-3 tiers above the player in all drops. So you will mostly get at item rating gear, but a few possible higher rated gear. This again will be mitigated a bit by having all modded gear since then you can rip stuff out and put it into other slots to increase your item rating a bit faster, but it needs to just be a bit faster.

 

Casual Player confusion

The lack of a standard 'armor set' will make navigating the options daunting for casual players. The best way to mitigate this is to have a standard armor set which has a set piece bonus that comes directly from the story of onslaught. It then leads the player into an understanding on the new system and allows for the player to move to better set piece bonuses. IDK what the best option for this would be. To me a renown xp boost set would make sense or something similar that is more of a way for players to jump start there progression through the item ratings.

 

Is the system broken?

No, it just needs some tender love and care to get it to a place where new players can enjoy getting new gear, but not inhibit older players from playing the hard content they already enjoy. The new system will need some getting used to, of course, however it may usher in a new way of adding gear during 6.x. Imagine instead of getting 2 new tiers of gear like in Ossus, we just get more armor set bonuses added to increase the diversity of play. That is the best part of this horizontal progression. It isn't about making more ways to play in NiM, but rather more ways to play in SM, solo, flashpoints, and if your good enough maybe even some HM ops.

 

(But what about amplifiers?)

They are fine. The RNG crawl is there, but as long as they don't impact NiM and PvP, and the content is not balanced around them it will just be a nice bonus. Though if you are crying about the credit crawl up, reminder that you will 100% have the option to just replace the specific mod in the armor set to "reset" the credit cost. You will be swimming in replacements once you get to the minmax stage.

 

I missed this post. So are some gear upgrades still unmodded, meaning you cannot pull mods out in 6.0? Also, what is your take on the crafting in 6.0?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Lhancelot

[OlBuzzard]

So after going through and looking at the gearing system on PTS I am actually excited for what it will bring to the game. It might actually be a great step into getting rid of a pointless gear grind going further, specifically for 6.x as a whole. Now going over this there seems to be a lot of negative views on this new style of gearing but it does work very well in a few areas that leads me to have this excitement.

 

Positives

• The different ways to get modifications for your gear
  
• The diversity in the new set pieces that allow for customization
  
• The Tactical system that gives parity to that new set bonus system, and allows for unique play-styles
  
• Focusing less on the meta end of the game and more on the mid-level where a wider audience exists
  
• In practice you only need to grind to item rating once
  

 

Negatives

• The grind process in the lower item ratings is disjointed by lack of proper mod based gear (Ripping out mods from that gear to place inside your set-piece shells)
  
• The cutoff points for getting higher item rating gear to drops seems too low
  
  • (Though that might be more to do with the way I tested the rate of increase drops being the vendor)
    

  [*]Non-mod based gear works against your set pieces, making them "worthless" after you get a set piece for that armor slot

  [*]The gear grind to higher item ratings is extremely long

  [*]The lack of tokens for operations, it isn't due to the RNG, but rather the extremely large amount of possible drops, even if each fight is locked to a certain armor slot for set piece

  [*] The system does not have a default "set bonus", which in turn may confuse casual players as to what they should be going for first.

 

Now what does this look like in gearing? Well the idea is that you will be grinding for set piece shells, as they are the interesting part of the gearing system, and while you are doing that you are upgrading your gear with better gear drops, grinding away at that item rating. Once you get the max item rating you are now mainly farming for different mods and enhancements, which drop at a fairly common rate in FP from bosses in just vet so it is fairly easy to grind. This also allows you to get extra gear for your alts to start at so they also are at the max item rating and can grind for similarly more mods and enhancements. Along side this you will be challenging harder and specific content to find tacticals and specific slots of set pieces. Deconstructing items to get more shards to put towards a specific set piece slot that you are missing or a tactical.

 

This is where to 'fun' part of the gearing system is. Seeing different set pieces drop giving you new ideas as to how that might work. Tacticals that may change up your style or maybe differentiate how you play. Now there will most definitely be a BiS tactical and set piece set up for every class. That will never go away, but what about when you are doing dailies? Some tacticals might be worth swapping out for those moments, or set pieces to help your survivablility so you can set your comp to dps and run through them faster, or maybe a boost to your dps as a healer when doing sm-ops and flashpoints.

 

What needs to be changed?

What drops

Everything that drops needs to be mods based. EVERYTHING. Simply because your system is designed to be using shells. Now to keep it welcoming to beginners who don't get modding there still should be the standard drops, but let us tailor the amount we keep these drops.

 

Gear rating crawl

Along side this the crawl up should be a bit more wide in terms of possible drops. I shouldn't need to get fully 278 before I can start seeing 280s dropping. There should be a windows of possible drops that is 2-3 tiers above the player in all drops. So you will mostly get at item rating gear, but a few possible higher rated gear. This again will be mitigated a bit by having all modded gear since then you can rip stuff out and put it into other slots to increase your item rating a bit faster, but it needs to just be a bit faster.

 

Casual Player confusion

The lack of a standard 'armor set' will make navigating the options daunting for casual players. The best way to mitigate this is to have a standard armor set which has a set piece bonus that comes directly from the story of onslaught. It then leads the player into an understanding on the new system and allows for the player to move to better set piece bonuses. IDK what the best option for this would be. To me a renown xp boost set would make sense or something similar that is more of a way for players to jump start there progression through the item ratings.

 

Is the system broken?

No, it just needs some tender love and care to get it to a place where new players can enjoy getting new gear, but not inhibit older players from playing the hard content they already enjoy. The new system will need some getting used to, of course, however it may usher in a new way of adding gear during 6.x. Imagine instead of getting 2 new tiers of gear like in Ossus, we just get more armor set bonuses added to increase the diversity of play. That is the best part of this horizontal progression. It isn't about making more ways to play in NiM, but rather more ways to play in SM, solo, flashpoints, and if your good enough maybe even some HM ops.

 

(But what about amplifiers?)

They are fine. The RNG crawl is there, but as long as they don't impact NiM and PvP, and the content is not balanced around them it will just be a nice bonus. Though if you are crying about the credit crawl up, reminder that you will 100% have the option to just replace the specific mod in the armor set to "reset" the credit cost. You will be swimming in replacements once you get to the minmax stage.

 

Good stuff to review. It'll take a bit (old age thing) for me to sort through. But over all good points except the comments about FP's. Most of them are OK .. aside from three or four … but the rest .. Yeah!! Good to go !!

[MK-ULTRA]

I couldn't even finish Dant pirate event to get my walker. sigh

[DeannaVoyager]

Negatives

• The system does not have a default "set bonus", which in turn may confuse casual players as to what they should be going for first.
  

 

Your observations were really detailed and I agree with all you said, but I wanted to comment this bit:

 

I'm not a casual, but it's confusing a.f. to me too. I want to play the content, not gear roulette, and I definitely don't want to spend my time trying to find out what set bonus I need to get for the content I'm playing. There's way too many of them now, and not enough space to store the pieces I don't need for my main. There is no need to over-complicate things. Same goes for the hundred versions of mods.

[speedphlux]

I'm struggling to find positives to be honest. It's extremely frustrating for me personally.

 

I'm not the usual hardcore grinder. I like a challenge, up to a point. I mark myself as "equally terrible at all specs" and I do actually re-spec and re-gear myself on a regular basis. I get bored beyond common sense playing one class and one spec only. One of the reasons I haven't progressed with all my toons thru KOTFE/KOTET yet. I have over 40+ lvl 70s spread around DM and SS servers.

 

For someone like me, the new system is a nightmare. 3 sets with bonuses per spec, per advanced class, means that I'll prolly never be able to play like I used to play prior to 6.0. I initially liked the way they were saying that you'll be able to play your own style, but let's be honest - some of the sets (and tacticals) are utter rubbish. Which means that noone will ever use them. Which begs the question - why are they in the game in the first place ? Strange stuff IMHO.

 

Ignoring all those 3 sets per spec per advanced class, we're left over with over 20 variants of a simple Lethal Mod as an example. Just the "simple" Verastile Armorings have at least 12 versions from what I've gathered from the vendor. I get it - better min-maxing for the hardcore players and whatnot. Why waste points in Accuracy going over the 110% limit, when you can be exactly at the limit and invest those extra points into Power or Mastery. Sure, but I'm not the kinda player that has a calculator next to him when playing. Makes no sense to me at all.

 

And as someone who is "equally terrible at all specs", min-maxing every single set, just because I can't stay still and play just one for an extended period of time, means months and months of lost game time in mindless grind for gear, instead of just having fun. Why ?

 

Thank God that at least they are going to clear my Legacy bank from all the materials I've been gathering, so I can have 3 pages worth saved up for gear set bonuses ! Don't get me wrong - the system we currently have, with one set per advanced class is sorta boring. Boring, but working ! Having 3 sets just per Spec is making my brain hurt. And to be honest, to my surprise, most of them don't even do what I wanted them to do. There are few exceptions, but those are rare and usually not particularly exciting anyways. Tacticals on the other hand seems to be game breaking at times. Or just replacing old talents, which is just "meh". I sense great disbalance in the game at the moment. And gear seems to have a huge part in it.

 

I usually get the Star Wars bug nagging me around Christmas time, when I usually sub to SWTOR, go kill 2-3-4 months and then chill again till the next winter. Now I jumped the gun way earlier, just to show my support for a game that I love, after I've heard about the big upcoming expansion. But after what I'm seeing at the PTS at the moment, I don't think there is a high chance of me staying subbed till April. I think it'll be a miracle if I extend past December with this mess. Yeah, I'm also a crafter in my free time, so you'd forgive me for feeling doubly crossed.

[SureDeadAlot]

The biggest Con is the STUPID implementation of the worst RNG possible, getting gear for other classes when your not even on that class. I absolutely despise when developers think this is a good idea when it's NOT. I don't want stupid juggernaut tank gear or juggernaut/marauder dps gear when I'm on my sorc. I don't want lightsabers when I'm on my agent either. When I'm on my sorc I expect the only rng that's acceptable, class specific rng. I don't care if I get two pairs of corruption gloves in a row when I'm speced as madness because I can at least USE it. But getting gear I can't even use on that class is just ridiculous and developers need to stop using that stupid idea. It does NOT create longevity in the game, in fact it makes me NOT want to keep playing if I'm never getting better gear while everybody else is already fully geared after say two weeks and I only have one piece of new usable gear. It makes me want to quit, not continue playing.