New Augments in 6.1.4 - Feedback

[FlameYOL]

Lowering the costs is a step in the right direction HOWEVER IT DOES NOT ADDRESS ONE OF THE MAIN CONCERNS, WHICH IS THE WAY IN WHICH YOU ACQUIRE THE MATERIALS.

[Obroa-Skai]

Bioware,

We all have to be honest: if something new to grind and to farm for comes out, we are all to do whateva it takes.

 

We know it and you do as well.

 

I'm not a big calculator so I won't talk of the drop ratio, but the very clear message that has to be catched from the whole thread is that people want to play and grind the way the like.

 

As for me personally is also a matter of real life tbh: I don't have anymore the amount of spare time like when I was 20 years old for playing. I found the perfect balance of things, online and offline, between job, wife and dogs in order to include Swtor in the most proficient way as possible with the (not that much per day) time i can dedicate.

 

I mean, this sounds more as a casual mmo.

 

Otherwise I only feel forced to do something I don't like (PVE iny case) and that I would not participate so much due my short time for gaming.

 

I'm giving only my point of you, of course I know that is not like this for everybody.

 

Anyway friends, please just this little thing for your subz, PVE OR PVP.

 

Othawise, peace.

[Amunra-amunray]

The notion that your going to revert back to 2.0-3.0 type gearing where only certain content will allow players to have good gear for play is the most absurdly ridiculous and uncreative notion ever presented. The new influx of players and returning players all said this new style and type of play system post 4.0 pre 6.1.4 was a major reason they returned. The grind was vastly reduced, items were easier to acquire, people could play more casually and still have fun and didn't limit only a select group of elite Raiders to control the market with craftable items allowing a greater amount of people to be able to earn the credits to buy they things they would like.

 

This concept of only a few areas of the game yielding good gear for players is removing the best thing swtor has created and many would agree with me. This is a leap backwards to a time where people had wipe fests, spent hours and hours and hours trying to complete content and couldn't either because of latency, bad RNG, poor groups or just plain location to location response issues between raiders.

 

Ranked PVP and Master Operations should not be the only place people can get good gear. Now if you want to create a TIER of gear that is best suited for those higher level instances that could be acquired by doing Veteran Operations or Master Flashpoints or even ranked PvP this is understandable.

 

Ranked PvP would be fine if stats were not completely out of whack between classes. I could take a guardian or jugg on in Ranked or Open world PvP pre 4.0 but after a Bounty Hunter gets whispered at with a light saber wielder or any other type of melee class and they lose 30% -60% HP per tick... so requiring this instance means you would also force people to play classes they do not wish to play in order to acquire such gear. Amplifiers were added and even with Force Protection, Tech Aegis, Redoubt amps etc they chew right through range class armor. So unless you intend to balance the damage across all classes this again is a poor idea.

 

The only reason I feel that this is even being thought of is those that were making the big money from doing hard content are no longer making this money. It has dispersed across the populus and less are inclined to spend 4 hours doing one instance that yields 90% less than doing 10 other different types of content and yielding 200% more mission items rewards, materials and more...

 

The current system of gearing worked for a majority of the population, Raiding is only 1 of many areas of game play that can be accessed so this current system allows for people to play those areas for fun and still acquire what they need to succeed. Don't make the game about elitists again.

[Eriamea]

It is still the same issue: the few people that don't need augments and credits will get mats and sell them for more credits. If BW was looking at a credit sink for those that have too many credits, it misses the target as they will make more credits while everything will suffer from more inflation and new players or those that can't farm this stuff will have trouble getting enough credits to gear up.

 

Vet queen was pretty stupid as only those who had the chance of have a farming group (I did) made tons on money out of it while others spent billions and it was just 2 mats. When 6.0 came out, it allowed me to gear 10 specs perfectly with yellow amplifiers and bis mods in every slot in no time while making more credits selling the new mats and augments while many others are still struggling to get enough credits for one or two toons. These new useless augments will just create bigger discrepancies and encourage gold sellers.

 

I still don't plan on getting any new augments for my toons but rather just sell whatever mats I get from ops. No intent of getting back into ranked with all the toxic people around.

 

Can you fix bugs, scale content properly and add new content instead of spending energy, time and money on useless stuff?

Edited September 27, 2020 by Eriamea

[KendraP]

Can you fix bugs, scale content properly and add new content instead of spending energy, time and money on useless stuff?

 

seconded

[Amunra-amunray]

seconded

 

Third!

[Darittha]

forcing pve only people to do pvp in order to gather necessary mats and vice-versa is a recipe for disaster. its a recipe for instant win trading spike in pvp and constant wipes with unprepared grps farming nim ops.

 

give us alternatives that enable ppl to stick to what they like either pvp or pve. dont force this. remember the DvL event? forced me to play GSF after not touching it since trying it for first time when it came out - did 4 matches the first time, then for the DvL event i lost 6 more matches miserably just for the event and after i just proceeded to never touch it again - things like this never end well when u force ppl to do stuff they dont want. if u dont give alternatives for the mats, i guarantee you ppl will wintrade and wipe to hell and back.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Darittha

[AwesomeTacoCat]

I hate the idea of these new augments being a wickedly horrific grind and forcing people into content they don't like.

 

At the end of the day, these new augments (and even the ideas behind getting more people into high end content) can be salvaged entirely with two VERY simple fixes:

 

(1) Just make one required material that can be acquired either through ranked PVP or NiM operations. Do not force people into content they don't want to play. I hate ranked and would prefer to just farm NiM Dxun for augment materials. There are many others that don't want to raid and just want to do PVP for materials. Don't try to sell us this idea of a "robust trading economy". It's stupid and everyone clearly hates this idea so just make one required material that can be obtained from either ranked or MM operations.

 

(2) Further reduce the number of required materials for the new augments. It will make everyone much happier and ALSO makes sense from a business perspective for Bioware. It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but a faster grind will actually keep players invested in the game for a LONGER amount of time. If the grind to get augment components is fairly quick, then everyone will focus on gearing up alts as well as their main toons whereas if the grind is painfully slow, raiders will gear up their one main toon (or maybe two) and then stop. There's a reason that 286 augments are still in high demand: people have many alts that they still wish to augment even this far into the Expac. Rather than annoying your player-base with a ludicrously long and tedious grind for a minor stat increase, just make the augment process relatively quick and then people will still be HAPPILY working on augmenting things six months from now. How about augments require 3 of a new universal material to craft? That's still only 2 augment per nim raid, which will take people a good enough while to obtain, while not being a slog.

 

It's really an easy fix here, please don't be stubborn and just listen to the player base.

[Phoquer]

Ok, lets start with some background. So I have been playing TOR off and on since launch. Mostly off since I spend about 8-10 months at sea each year. But for the last 6 months I have been home and have been sub to the game.

I have been having a blast and have 11 characters at 306 and halve of them fully geared with tacticals and set items. I have been trying out PVP (not taking my mara back in there without a lot more training) and started moving into Master FPs and OPs. Now the following is based on my observation and opinion only. I do not have access to any data and as such cannot claim what I am about to say as fact.

 

For the most part I have noticed that you really don't need augments unless you are in a Ranked PVP Guilds or Progression PVE Guilds. But if you do want some augments you can buy the 228 off the GTN for really cheap to help boost your stats.

So who needs these new augments? It looks to me the only people who want/require these new augments are players who run Rank PVP or MM OPs. So in my opinion is makes some sense to have the mats drop from there. HOWEVER, lets talk quickly about progression.

Currently the progression system in the game is really good. You hit level cap at 75 and any gear you pick up or pull from a box is based on you item level. Almost every time you open a box or kill a boss you get a piece that gives you a boost. And the gear you don't want can be broken down into scrap, tech fragments, and have a chance at an ember. You can use the scrap to buy mats for crafting or selling on the GTN. The tech fragments can be used to buy set items, tacticals, or gamble for a piece of gear that will roll around your item level. And the embers are worth a good amount of credits on the GTN or you can use them for crafting. Either way you are always making progress on your character. This is an excellent progression system in my opinion. You always feel like you are getting better and making progress on your character. This is important. This is how you keep people around for long periods of time.

 

Now this new system with the augments is counter intuitive to how progression should be done. Having a low amount of drops in MM where everyone will be fighting for it is a bad idea. Even worse with PVP since the boxes you get only have a chance to drop. No one (well at least most of us) don't like heavy GRINDING and/or low "HAMSTER" RNG drops. Most don't mind having some RNG with some GRINDING involved (like our current system). This adds some replayability to the content. But someone shouldn't have to run the same thing over and over again just in the hopes of getting a drop to happen. I think there should be a modification to the drop rate/chance. The drop chance/amount of drops is low and should be raise. Now BW did say they are changing the mat requirements to be halve of what they said with the exception of the embers. So this is a very small start but the drop rates still need to be boosted.

I would also recommend that these mats drop seldom from the next lower difficulty tier. This should help players slowly (and I mean slowly) prepare for the next difficulty stage. Now since I'm new to OPs and have very little experience I will leave it there and let more qualified players handle this.

 

Now for the big problem. The 2 mats required to craft the new augments drop in different content. One from PVE content and the other from PVP content. Now on paper this seems like a great idea. But for anyone who has played TOR and hit level cap knows that there is a huge difference between the two types of content. Each one usually requires different gear, playstyles, rotations, feats, etc... One should never force people to engage in content they don't want to do, especially when it requires such a huge change as stated above. People who attempt to go from PVP to MM OPs are going to fail and anyone going from PVE to PVP is going to get destroyed.

Now BW might be thinking that this is a good way to get people to sell the mats to each other and take some credits out of the game by using the GTN. But this is looking like a gold farmers dream. I hope BW rethinks this game plan and adds both mats to both types of content or changes it to only on mat type.

 

In closing, most of the player base will have no need for the new augments and will be perfectly happen with either nothing or with the 228s. Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

Thank you for reading.

 

I wish you the best.

[itcesar]

So answer me this, If I don't have millions of credits to buy mats from the GTN, cause let's face it ppl are going to over charge the **** out of those and I suck super bad at pvp, will I just won't be able to get the new augments? so basically you are punishing me for being poor and bad at pvp? sounds stupid

[Obroa-Skai]

Ok, lets start with some background. So I have been playing TOR off and on since launch. Mostly off since I spend about 8-10 months at sea each year. But for the last 6 months I have been home and have been sub to the game.

I have been having a blast and have 11 characters at 306 and halve of them fully geared with tacticals and set items. I have been trying out PVP (not taking my mara back in there without a lot more training) and started moving into Master FPs and OPs. Now the following is based on my observation and opinion only. I do not have access to any data and as such cannot claim what I am about to say as fact.

 

For the most part I have noticed that you really don't need augments unless you are in a Ranked PVP Guilds or Progression PVE Guilds. But if you do want some augments you can buy the 228 off the GTN for really cheap to help boost your stats.

So who needs these new augments? It looks to me the only people who want/require these new augments are players who run Rank PVP or MM OPs. So in my opinion is makes some sense to have the mats drop from there. HOWEVER, lets talk quickly about progression.

Currently the progression system in the game is really good. You hit level cap at 75 and any gear you pick up or pull from a box is based on you item level. Almost every time you open a box or kill a boss you get a piece that gives you a boost. And the gear you don't want can be broken down into scrap, tech fragments, and have a chance at an ember. You can use the scrap to buy mats for crafting or selling on the GTN. The tech fragments can be used to buy set items, tacticals, or gamble for a piece of gear that will roll around your item level. And the embers are worth a good amount of credits on the GTN or you can use them for crafting. Either way you are always making progress on your character. This is an excellent progression system in my opinion. You always feel like you are getting better and making progress on your character. This is important. This is how you keep people around for long periods of time.

 

Now this new system with the augments is counter intuitive to how progression should be done. Having a low amount of drops in MM where everyone will be fighting for it is a bad idea. Even worse with PVP since the boxes you get only have a chance to drop. No one (well at least most of us) don't like heavy GRINDING and/or low "HAMSTER" RNG drops. Most don't mind having some RNG with some GRINDING involved (like our current system). This adds some replayability to the content. But someone shouldn't have to run the same thing over and over again just in the hopes of getting a drop to happen. I think there should be a modification to the drop rate/chance. The drop chance/amount of drops is low and should be raise. Now BW did say they are changing the mat requirements to be halve of what they said with the exception of the embers. So this is a very small start but the drop rates still need to be boosted.

I would also recommend that these mats drop seldom from the next lower difficulty tier. This should help players slowly (and I mean slowly) prepare for the next difficulty stage. Now since I'm new to OPs and have very little experience I will leave it there and let more qualified players handle this.

 

Now for the big problem. The 2 mats required to craft the new augments drop in different content. One from PVE content and the other from PVP content. Now on paper this seems like a great idea. But for anyone who has played TOR and hit level cap knows that there is a huge difference between the two types of content. Each one usually requires different gear, playstyles, rotations, feats, etc... One should never force people to engage in content they don't want to do, especially when it requires such a huge change as stated above. People who attempt to go from PVP to MM OPs are going to fail and anyone going from PVE to PVP is going to get destroyed.

Now BW might be thinking that this is a good way to get people to sell the mats to each other and take some credits out of the game by using the GTN. But this is looking like a gold farmers dream. I hope BW rethinks this game plan and adds both mats to both types of content or changes it to only on mat type.

 

In closing, most of the player base will have no need for the new augments and will be perfectly happen with either nothing or with the 228s. Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

Thank you for reading.

 

I wish you the best.

 

All true. But, talking about myself ofc, if i still play a lot of regz and wanna get ready to enter ranked sooner or later, i wanna play regz with the best gear around to make my calculations and parses, or because i want my gear to be as much competitive as possible.

 

I see your point, froma mathematical point of view those augments are important for the hardest contents but it stil forces people to play what they don't like. At this point, why not letting people obtain them the way they like? And play whateva they want in the difficulty setting they prefer?

 

I'm with you mate except for the fact that is up to the player to decide what gear he/she wants.

[Darittha]

forcing ppl into content they dont want/like doing will result in wintrading in pvp becoming rampant because itll clearly be the best, most efficient way to get the mats. Edited September 28, 2020 by Darittha

[dfgfssdf]

Hi Devs,

 

This thread has a lot of info here so I'll try and keep it short. Now like many people here I do agree this is probably the worst way to implement the new augments. Having said that I do think adding them, in general, would be good but maybe in a different way. Let me explain myself here.

 

Firstly - many people are complaining from both ends about now having to step into Ranked or NIM's. We got ranked players saying you are locking this behind NIM's and NIM players saying ranked is now being forced upon them. I understand that you are trying to mix the communities so I would suggest the follows:

 

1) Keep the drops from ranked and NIM and maybe make them slightly more frequent.

 

]2) Then introduce them to HM and regs. Don't make them a regular drop but maybe make a low drop chance from regs and HM ops. If you make the drops too frequent tho people will farm this and not play properly in the regs. So what I would do is make these a lower drop than ranked and NIMS but enough to keep the player base happy. Maybe 1 mat in 20 games (with loses for PVP)? Maybe one Mat from LB on every third OP run (as make it a 33% drop chance only from LB in hm)? These are only proposed ideas but making it also obtainable from other content may be a good idea. This doest take away from the players grinding ranked and NIM and could make the drops for frequent for them. This would also sort out the hyper inflation problem that the mats would currently have as more of them will be flowing through the game.

 

I have seen the idea from people on here to make the MATS only drop from PVP or drop from NIM. As in have to separate ways to make the augments but one way through PVP and one way through NIM. I think this is a bad idea. The point here is to get more players to play each mode and although you guys not he forums are upset currently I think its about how much of the ranked or NIMS you'd have to do if you don't play either. You wouldn't mind having to play some regs a few times a day for a few mats. So I think the issue here is the amount that Bioware expects us to play both ranked and NIM's. Me myself and I, I play ranked and have a prog raid team. So in theory Im sorted. The issue I see for some of my friends is that they play regs and do NIM's or they play ranked and do some HM ops here and there. Majority of players don't have time to do both like the no life I am . I think making the mats drop at a lower rate from other content is a good balance while also keeping the higher drop rates from Ranked and NIM.

 

In terms of how the augments feel - I have played the PTS and they do allow me to more freely stat myself up and use stats in other places. So think the stats are pretty balanced. I didn't craft them as I cba sitting on the PTS and doing that so I can't comment on the crafting side of things.

 

I hope this was constructive rather than negative and hope that we can get a balanced sort of arrangement for these new augments.

 

May the force be with you.

 

PLEASE NOTE: I can see my idea on 33% on HM boss could be abused in KP or EV so make the chances different on each boss. EV and KP can have a 1% drop instead... Something along these lines

Edited September 29, 2020 by dfgfssdf

[Decallom]

I don't think just lowering the amount of materials helps much. The issue still is that you both try to force people to do content they really don't want to, and the new augments being really only obtainable for people who don't need them in the first place.

 

I don't think it's healthy for pvp side that some people can get a clear gear advantage this way (sure, there are gear differences now as well, but at least now you can farm outside ranked just fine to catch up). For pve side it matters less, except that few endgame raiders actually want to run ranked.

 

I still don't think new augments are even necessary, but if you really want to add them, you really should have it so that you can earn the materials for them from ANY content, sure, master mode ops and ranked pvp can earn them faster, but I and most other players I've talked have quite enjoyed the Onslaught gearing system in general. While there are optimal ways to gear up, you can pretty play the content you like and still be able to earn endgame gear just fine.

[EHKodiak]

I think it's fine so far. Most won't bother with the new augments, it's a tiny increase over the last. It being available to ranked and NiM raiders will at least spur the economy for trading between the two. Not entirely sure why people are complaining about having to do either when you can just buy the bits...

[KendraP]

I think it's fine so far. Most won't bother with the new augments, it's a tiny increase over the last. It being available to ranked and NiM raiders will at least spur the economy for trading between the two. Not entirely sure why people are complaining about having to do either when you can just buy the bits...

 

Because the prices will be ridiculous and, more importantly, There is no new content to justify new gear

 

I mean honestly, their endgame design is stupid enough without adding more gear grind to partake in a mostly downscaled endgame. The whole design is frankly ridiculous.

 

But the big point is, at least for me: New gear is not new content!

[ytrenor]

My simple input: If you don't PVP, you don't "need" the new augments. They are the ones who can complain they "need" to do content they don't like (PVE)

Apparently, people were able to do most if not all of master mode ops with the currently available gear and augments.

The reason people do master mode instead of vet, is (mainly) for the challenge/difficulty level (+maybe the reward boxes). Some people (not all) complain when the content get too easy, so for these people what is the point of gearing up? If you want challenge, lower your gear.

 

I'm still burned from Ossus grinding, and I'm happy atm with the i306 with no augments (except maybe 1 single accuracy 73 to reach 110%... while I could even use Accuracy Augment 45...) i have on all my lvl 75 toons. The grind is over, and I'm not complaining. It was a mistake to grind for gear I didn't need on Ossus. I learned my lesson, and I'm now having fun playing instead of grinding.

 

Anyway, there are certainly as many opinions as there are players.

[WoRei]

Hello everyone!

 

Following Chris Schmidt's announcement of new Augments, they are now available for testing on PTS. This will be a new tier of Augments that can be crafted by Cybertechs.

 

- How do the augments perform?

- How does the inflow of materials from PvE and PvP feel?

- Are Cybertechs happy with the CM-1337 material?

- Do the schematics take too long?

 

Let us know your thoughts!

 

 

My feedback is very clear:

Every time i start playing SWTOR again, the game is quite cool, then something really stupid gets implemented and i just quit again for the next year (or two).

This time you hit the jackpot with those new "grind-fest" augments including forced (ranked! lol) pvp. So i will quit as soon as you release this crap (even considering those conquest changes which result in more time to spend doing them).

 

Feedback regarding pvp:

In other games i played alot of pvp but thats no fun in swtor because of too many things to write them here. so you wont be able to force me into your crap pvp - just rework it completely then we can talk again. Maybe thats why nobody wants to play pvp.

 

General feedback:

Dont listen to pro pvp- or pve-players, listen to the unexperienced players and you will get more players playing. I declare myself as casual player and want a game to play in my free time (and that includes being able to do all the content with a small amount of my time) and not a second job!

[ytrenor]

General feedback:

Dont listen to pro pvp- or pve-players, listen to the unexperienced players and you will get more players playing. I declare myself as casual player and want a game to play in my free time (and that includes being able to do all the content with a small amount of my time) and not a second job!

Save yourself some frustration. You most probably don't need this piece of equipment.

Unexperienced and casual players have so much contents to play without the need of high end gear. Any content level 70 and below are likely to be cap for many stats, making the augments useless.

In this particular case, this augment IS directed for PVP and (maybe) end-game multiplayer PVE.

Read the very first post again http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=9881638&postcount=1

[HaiHy]

If you force this upon me, I am gonna unsubscribe and go play something else. You guys are making the same mistake that World of Warcraft did, forcing PVP on me is buil****, aloty of other people who have not voiced thier opinion on the forums, but feel the same way.

[Eriamea]

Because the prices will be ridiculous and, more importantly, There is no new content to justify new gear

 

I mean honestly, their endgame design is stupid enough without adding more gear grind to partake in a mostly downscaled endgame. The whole design is frankly ridiculous.

 

But the big point is, at least for me: New gear is not new content!

This at 200%.

 

Not only the grind and the augments are pointless but given the little money and time invested by BW in the game it is even worse. Fix bugs, get rid of level sync which messes up stats in some cases and renders a lot of gear useless and add real new content.

[Decalin]

You know, over in the conquest thread there is a lot of discussion and feedback which the Dev's are listening to and acting upon.

 

If we could have the same here, the consensus is that we don't want these added in this way, people like "Play your way" and do not want to be forced into content they do not enjoy.

 

Implementing these augments in this way will do more harm to the game than good, please consider either scrapping the idea, or just adding them in the same way that all the other crafted items progress, i.e. learn by deconstructing the current augment, higher cost to produce.

[ohshutup]

This mat requirements are utter joke, nobody is going to craft it, only some whales who are willing to make Chinese gold farmers rich will buy the mats and craft them. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it.

In my opinion true mat grinding for high end gear should involve every game content with varıous difficulties, even the rotational events.

As an example:

mat from rotational event(gree, bounty, corona etc)

mat from master chapter solo.

mat from random drops of planet mobs with low chance.

mats from PVE weekly's

mats from hm and nim ops(balanced drop rates with respect to difficulty)

mats from mm fp's

mats from regular pvp low chance, ranked pvp guarantied* chance.

tons of solid resource and legendary embers + prev gen. augment

etc etc

+

____________________ = New augment

 

Thats what I would call incentive recipe, allows player to do what they want with various difficulties. Gives people reason to do different game contents. Furthermore players who aren't capable of doing nim ops or ranked pvp, should have access to this, although albeit with lower chance as the difficulty drops.

That would make hardcore grinder farmers and hardcore endgame players happy at the same time. Given the requirements are still high in terms of time, would also give you time to slack on making new content while we are busy on grinding.

[fraitl]

My cybertech will never learn the schematic, as I don't know anyone who runs the high end raids or is serious about ranked PvP.

 

The aim of this seems to be adding a new grind to keep people occupied for a while, but realistically only a small percentage are going to ever obtain these, the rest will at best ignore them and at worst get pissed about "Play your way" being thrown out the window by adding gear they can never hope to obtain.

 

Exactly. With all that stress on "PLAY YOUR WAY" way back when, you know bring this down on us. This new augments is BS. I don't do operations and ranked pvp. I just do reg pvp, i.e., "PLAY YOUR WAY". Way to go Bioware.

[Storm-Cutter]

Exactly. With all that stress on "PLAY YOUR WAY" way back when, you know bring this down on us. This new augments is BS. I don't do operations and ranked pvp. I just do reg pvp, i.e., "PLAY YOUR WAY". Way to go Bioware.

 

 

Pretty much where I'm at. - My guild mates, and a lot of friends too. We like to do various content and a bit of PVP - But the thoughts of being in the second division ( of regs) coz we rarely do Operations and don't do Ranked will probably be the end of the guild and the end of playing SWtTOR altogether. I can already sense a lot of rants about PVP becoming lop-sided coz ranked and Ops players go online to stomp casual PVP-ers with their shiny upgraded Augments.

 

OTOH if you're gonna bolster all Augs to max level for reg PVP - What was the point in introducing them in the first place?

 

Content please. Not tinkering with stuff that ain't broke. TY.