So what's the point of renown and it's crates ?

[Lhancelot]

if positive feedback is the goal, then BW scored for the opposing team...

 

here's what goes through my mind when I get another renown crate:

 

great more trash

do I even want to bother with the hassle of going through this ui?

oh yeah, and I got screwed out of a million credits per character to expand the renown stash

and I got screwed out of the missions of credits for the legacy unlocks

onderainian boots? and under level? dude f**k this.

 

 

at least before there were some companion gifts, and random armor shells that I could collect and/or use on companions, and renown boosts actually contributed toward conquest

 

Ironically they admitted the old system dropped far too much unusable garbage. They managed to implement a new gearing system that offers more garbage. The logic of BW dev game design can seem alien to me sometimes.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Lhancelot

[SteveTheCynic]

I'll bet the for-cosmetic-purposes empty shells that used to be in GC crates are gone, with no way to get again, right?

 

(That's really annoying)

There is, indeed, currently no way to get those shells, neither the armour nor the weapons.

[LeMage]

In a nutshell, there is not point to Renown/Renown Crates.

[Transcendent]

It's conditioning.

 

It is.

 

The only logical connection in your post is the word "crates"

 

It's not so much the crates themselves Dasty, as eluded to further down it's a feedback loop, one very similar in fashion to the Cartel Market packs. Perhaps less so now they have direct sale items.

 

ever more reliant on RNG.

 

You could pretty much say this about most rewards in the game bar the ones that have specific paths to earn.

 

Renown and crates are meant to contribute to that positive feedback loop, and that feedback loop has a name: maintaining player addiction.

 

Addiction or player engagement? I think there is a bit of both intended in there. Either way, all of it is useless which makes it even more surprising they removed the "fluff" from there which at least had some use for players, especially those who were using it to gain companion levels or try to collect certain looks in the game.

 

I'm not sure why they felt the need to remove that fluff.

[DarthSpuds]

I'm not sure why they felt the need to remove that fluff.

 

Because Players enjoyed it.

 

The pattern is clear.

If players enjoy it - remove / ruin it:- fluff in crates, Crafting

If players don't enjoy it - double down on it:- RNG and excessive grind, forcing players to engage with content they don't enjoy.

 

 

 

All The Best

[Shinian]

It is.

 

 

 

It's not so much the crates themselves Dasty, as eluded to further down it's a feedback loop, one very similar in fashion to the Cartel Market packs. Perhaps less so now they have direct sale items.

 

 

 

You could pretty much say this about most rewards in the game bar the ones that have specific paths to earn.

 

 

 

Addiction or player engagement? I think there is a bit of both intended in there. Either way, all of it is useless which makes it even more surprising they removed the "fluff" from there which at least had some use for players, especially those who were using it to gain companion levels or try to collect certain looks in the game.

 

I'm not sure why they felt the need to remove that fluff.

 

 

Yeah, the same could be said of the alliance crates. They even have the silly celebration animation when you open one.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Shinian

[IanArgent]

There is, indeed, currently no way to get those shells, neither the armour nor the weapons.

 

Bah! I was looking forward to a bunch of the shells in the higher-end GC crates.

[merovejec]

They didnt wanna ditch the system that Mr. Genius Irving left behind. The only thing that bothers me is that they implemented those crazy rank achievements.....

[Transcendent]

Because Players enjoyed it.

 

The pattern is clear.

If players enjoy it - remove / ruin it:- fluff in crates, Crafting

If players don't enjoy it - double down on it:- RNG and excessive grind, forcing players to engage with content they don't enjoy.

 

 

 

All The Best

 

Well now that you mention it....

[Jdast]

It's not so much the crates themselves Dasty, as eluded to further down it's a feedback loop, one very similar in fashion to the Cartel Market packs. Perhaps less so now they have direct sale items.

 

Fair point, Transcendent. I guess I was exposing my bias. In my case, I was able to 'sever' the loop for two inter-related reasons:

 

1) As you note correctly, direct sale items; and

 

2) I had so internalized that Renown Crates were Tech Fragment fodder so I didn't even make the connection to the Cartel Market. The only time I get remotely interested in them is when I'm nearing the 100 Dark / Light side token point so I can buy a crate that actually contains some decent stuff. I guess it's a very small plus that they made those tokens useful again.

 

To Merovejec's point: I had forgotten about achievements, again exposing my bias, b/c I don't pay attention to those at all.

 

My guess is that BW felt they had to keep some form of in-game crates available, not so much to please Monsieur Irving; rather, they knew many of us had spent over a million credits (forget cost) or real currency to purchase the original 10% CXP upgrade. Given the nature of gaming forums, I imagine there would have been a fair number of complaints and people demanding refunds, etc., etc..

 

In any case, killing one boss, any boss in a Flashpoint is on par with the rewards from a Renown Crate.

 

Mimosa Time!

 

Hugs,

 

Dasty

Edited February 28, 2020 by Jdast

[Lhancelot]

Bah! I was looking forward to a bunch of the shells in the higher-end GC crates.

 

I wonder where TUXs went I forgot about him! I don't recall seeing new posts by him anymore.

[Sarova]

Have you been pulling them into your inventory? There's a piece of fine design(1) that means that while gear pieces are in the stash, they don't show what gear level they are, so they look as if they are empty-shell junk with two or three "Unidentified mod" lines, and no stats to speak of. Once extracted into your inventory, they become less junky.

(1) Coded language for "inexplicably bizarre decision-making"...

^^This. I had to explain to a friend not to disintegrate her renown stuff while levelling gear but to claim it instead as due to that "piece of fine design"™ something that looks to be green quality in the renown stash quite often turns into gold quality once claimed into your inventory. I was disintegrating everything myself for ages after hitting 75 when 6.0 first hit and only realised this after I accidentally claimed my stash instead of disintegrating it.

 

OP is right though; renown seems to be another mostly pointless exercise now a bit like crafting. I want them to add command crates and crafting mats to renown drops. H2s I find really tedious lately so the chance of command crates for armours and alts alliance specialist rep from renown would be nice.

[Sareeph]

I deconstruct most of the items from crates now that all my characters have 306 gear (there is very rarely a set piece or tactical). You only get a few tech frags, but you get a decent amount of scraps that you can use to buy crafting materials. And, if you don't craft, you can buy crafting materials to sell. So, at the very least you get some income and tech frags for doing nothing more than you were already doing. It's not an exciting system, but it isn't horrible or worthless either.

 

The other thing you can get is the legendary ember which is a crafting mat. They sell for a fair amount and can be used to make gear such as the new tactical for Juggs only available through crafting.

[Joekidsoft]

 

In any case, killing one boss, any boss in a Flashpoint is on par with the rewards from a Renown Crate.

 

Mimosa Time!

 

Hugs,

 

Dasty

 

Thats not true, if you kill a boss in a flashpoint you can get lucky and the "crate" will drop some 256 orange item, some set item and other nice thing (at least with 6.0) from the 6.1 they probably have downgraded the drop, you can only get some 240 blue items (but when i first done the FP false emperor after killing malgus i have gotten a good 236 moddable orange lightsaber) but when i done malus the second time (after 6.1) the crate has dropped just useless items (and i was a 20 renowm

 

Edit: Now i think the only way to get nice item from crates is by doing heroics, maybe in all those purple crate that i have i can find some nice items

Edited March 6, 2020 by Joekidsoft

[Jdast]

Thats not true, if you kill a boss in a flashpoint you can get lucky and the "crate" will drop some 256 orange item, some set item and other nice thing (at least with 6.0) from the 6.1 they probably have downgraded the drop, you can only get some 240 blue items (but when i first done the FP false emperor after killing malgus i have gotten a good 236 moddable orange lightsaber) but when i done malus the second time (after 6.1) the crate has dropped just useless items (and i was a 20 renowm

 

Edit: Now i think the only way to get nice item from crates is by doing heroics, maybe in all those purple crate that i have i can find some nice items

 

I'm not certain we're talking about the same thing. I'm talking about when doing FPs at Ilvl 306 and opening Renown Crates at Ilvl 306.

 

Not trying to be mean, but I literally don't understand your post. Clarification please? What content / Ilvs are you talking about. The ones you mention in your post haven't been relevant for over a year.

 

Hugs,

 

Dasty

[DavidAtkinson]

I see this thread is ongoing....

 

When I started this discussion I was low renown on my main, but now I am over 400 close to 500 , and the drops are still a joke and totally useless - only usable for a small of amount of tech frags.

 

I understand the fact that this was introduced to replace command crates, BUT those crates were actually much better and the companion gifts they dropped people could use to raise influence with companions quite significantly and they also contained some useful cosmetics from time to time. Why did they have to drop that and give us instead ?

 

They could have easily kept that system and just call it renown . This change makes no sense at all.

 

I fairly convinced that even renown 900+ will be the same in drops.

[Phazonfreak]

I fairly convinced that even renown 900+ will be the same in drops.

 

Since renown does not have tiers and only considers your IRating and class spec to adjust drops, you should be fully convinced. There is no inherent difference between a lvl 5 or 500 drop.

[Storm-Cutter]

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I haven't found gearing too tedious in the new system. All my mains and half-a-dozen characters are all in 306s now.

 

And I mainly PVP and GSF for an hour or two average a day. - 3-4 characters to 50K conquest points every week.

 

As for the crates, the 100 Tech Frags is okay, since you can do almost anything to increase your rank.

 

OTOH what's the point? IMHO it's a supplemental ( gear currency ) gearing system: Earn poor rewards to disintegrate into currency to buy better. I keep most things that are part of a set bonus, and any 306 mods that drop - everything else gets deconstructed.

 

Again though, it's ringing the bell in the hope you'll get something interesting - but 95% of the time it's nothing you want or need.

 

I don't buy the 'same or better' i-rating. I may have misread/mis-understood that bit.

 

It may be exciting at first, but after 5-10 levels and nothing great drops, it's just tedious. - Just give us the Tech frags instead of having to clear inventories every few levels. - And FFS increase the TF cap - you can easily earn 10K in a week.....

 

Now if renown actually contributed to something, it might be worth having. - But 140 or 150, 300 or 900 makes sod-all difference, it's meaningless churn for churn's sake.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Storm-Cutter

[DavidAtkinson]

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I haven't found gearing too tedious in the new system. All my mains and half-a-dozen characters are all in 306s now.

 

And I mainly PVP and GSF for an hour or two average a day. - 3-4 characters to 50K conquest points every week.

 

As for the crates, the 100 Tech Frags is okay, since you can do almost anything to increase your rank.

 

OTOH what's the point? IMHO it's a supplemental ( gear currency ) gearing system: Earn poor rewards to disintegrate into currency to buy better. I keep most things that are part of a set bonus, and any 306 mods that drop - everything else gets deconstructed.

 

Again though, it's ringing the bell in the hope you'll get something interesting - but 95% of the time it's nothing you want or need.

 

I don't buy the 'same or better' i-rating. I may have misread/mis-understood that bit.

 

It may be exciting at first, but after 5-10 levels and nothing great drops, it's just tedious. - Just give us the Tech frags instead of having to clear inventories every few levels. - And FFS increase the TF cap - you can easily earn 10K in a week.....

 

Now if renown actually contributed to something, it might be worth having. - But 140 or 150, 300 or 900 makes sod-all difference, it's meaningless churn for churn's sake.

 

Yeah, it's annoying until you hit your first 306 and get your first set bonus... One alt becomes your 306 supplier for your other alts and then the 2nd gets full 306 and 3rd and so on until all your chars are 306 and you are pretty much farming/getting bis on every character you play.

 

As for renown, yes I get it.. it's a supplementary way of obtaining tech frags, but they could have made it more useful than it is... Maybe make it drop something else in addition to the gear.

[IanArgent]

I wonder where TUXs went I forgot about him! I don't recall seeing new posts by him anymore.

 

No idea. I took last year off myself.