How do you feel about your L75 gearing grind now that 7.0 has been announced?

[Zorii_Bliss]

Thanks to the implications of 7.0 there is no motivation to do current L75 content unless you're a completionist/achievement hunter who thinks they can get everything done by December OR you really want to have a go at the L70+ Ops at MM or NiM difficulties with the existing end-game gear and abilities that're soon to be obsolete.

 

How does the thought of all those tens of millions of credits spent and tens/hundreds of hours spent grinding being annihilated by the impending EA snap feel? (Stockpiles of mats, stores of augments and aug slots components...)

Come 7.0 your set bonuses won't work and your glorious gear will be less useful than the green drops from the L76 trash mobs set to bar your progression at T7.0 + 1 sec.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Zorii_Bliss

[Darth-Obvious]

Thanks to the implications of 7.0 there is no motivation to do current L75 content unless you're a completionist/achievement hunter who thinks they can get everything done by December OR you really want to have a go at the L70+ Ops at MM or NiM difficulties with the existing end-game gear and abilities that're soon to be obsolete.

 

How does the thought of all those tens of millions of credits spent and tens/hundreds of hours spent grinding being annihilated by the impending EA snap feel?

Come 7.0 your set bonuses won't work and your glorious gear will be less useful than the green drops from the L76 trash mobs set to bar your progression at T7.0 + 1 sec.

 

Aren't you just describing what happens whenever any MMO raises the level cap?

 

I'd imagine the answer to the "how will you feel?" type questions will be "the same way I felt the last time the level cap got raised."

Edited August 25, 2021 by Darth-Obvious

[Przemo_No]

Thanks to the implications of 7.0 there is no motivation to do current L75 content unless you're a completionist/achievement hunter who thinks they can get everything done by December OR you really want to have a go at the L70+ Ops at MM or NiM difficulties with the existing end-game gear and abilities that're soon to be obsolete.

 

How does the thought of all those tens of millions of credits spent and tens/hundreds of hours spent grinding being annihilated by the impending EA snap feel?

Come 7.0 your set bonuses won't work and your glorious gear will be less useful than the green drops from the L76 trash mobs set to bar your progression at T7.0 + 1 sec.

 

LOL, like it has not happened about 3 or 4 times already before :eek:

[RJWidowMaker]

It feels like standard MMO expansion gearing changes. New Xpac drops and its time to grind for those new sets. Is this something the swtor community isn't aware of?

[Banthabreeder]

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. ~ Pythia

[BRKMSN]

I hope many of the LVL 75 gearing principles are used in the upcoming one. I didn't mind it at all.

[Zorii_Bliss]

"End-game" always seems to make even more of a mess of the game balance, particularly for PvP. Why have 2 systems; levelling and end-game? Especially when the second makes expansion more complicated.

If you have ambition and faith in your product then why bake in extra grief and complications for the future you want to build out?

 

Why is it not possible to build out the game as tabletop RPGs are; more expansions at existing levels and build on top of the old limits with supplemental abilities and challenge. Level capping of lower level instances which temporarily disables higher abilities and caps damage of overly powerful weapons, so players can take their high level toons through new story for the adventure and the progression that enables (story triggers, repercussions) tie-ins in higher level expansions and forget about the loot having to be more powerful, it just needs to be new looks and new decos for space barbie and space house as well as new companions, mounts and pets.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Zorii_Bliss

[Ardrossan]

This is like the 4th anti-7.0 thread you've made. Can't you confine your leading questions and sneering passive-aggressive comments to one thread?

[Darth-Obvious]

This is like the 4th anti-7.0 thread you've made. Can't you confine your leading questions and sneering passive-aggressive comments to one thread?

 

"This thing really sucks right? You're upset about it aren't you? Validate the expressions I've put forth." (New Topic - On Repeat)

 

The attitude & overtly passive-aggressiveness of the topics makes it all very confusing. It's like "I want people to validate me but I want to ridicule them and their time spent on this game."

 

Weirdly not a lot of people in these threads seem to be like "Yeah, you're totally right TC!" I wonder why that is?

Edited August 26, 2021 by Darth-Obvious

[Ardrossan]

"This thing really sucks right? You're upset about it aren't you? Validate the expressions I've put forth." (New Topic - On Repeat)

 

The attitude & overtly passive-aggressiveness of the topics makes it all very confusing. It's like "I want people to validate me but I want to ridicule them and their time spent on this game."

 

Weirdly not a lot of people in these threads seem to be like "Yeah, you're totally right TC!" I wonder why that is?

 

Especially because the thread titles give the misleading impression that they're like research questions or something, like actually wanting to elicit feedback from different points of view in order to write a qualitative essay: "Divergent views of combat mechanic upgrades in semi-popular MMORPGs: A comparative analysis." But it's just clickbait because the OP is more like "herp a derp, nothing you do matters, how does that make you feel?":rak_02:

[eabevella]

It makes me feel less guilty not wanting to spend the time to craft and put augments on my tanks lol

 

Just not really sure what they mean about the set bonus/tactical items change. Should I buy Grit Teeth and grind Apex Predator now in case it doesn't drop in the future? Or will they not be working at all in 7.0?

[xordevoreaux]

Thanks to the implications of 7.0 there is no motivation to do current L75 content unless you're a completionist/achievement hunter who thinks they can get everything done by December OR you really want to have a go at the L70+ Ops at MM or NiM difficulties with the existing end-game gear and abilities that're soon to be obsolete.

DANG and here I was doing L75 content because I liked it. Silly me.

[Zorii_Bliss]

It makes me feel less guilty not wanting to spend the time to craft and put augments on my tanks lol

 

Just not really sure what they mean about the set bonus/tactical items change. Should I buy Grit Teeth and grind Apex Predator now in case it doesn't drop in the future? Or will they not be working at all in 7.0?

 

Official statements so far indicate that all L75 set bonuses will not work (since abilities involved may be changing, their current synergies breaking or they're being removed to achieve new balance). Tacticals similarly won't work for the same reasons.

 

So unless you want any L75 armour sets for their looks, their "special" utility only lasts until 7.0 drops.

[Zorii_Bliss]

DANG and here I was doing L75 content because I liked it. Silly me.

 

Sorry, you're quite right, the "sh^tz and gigz " factor always applies but now there's no attendant anxiety about what drops or have you wasted tech frags or what to buy with tech frags (unless you want to max out before Dec for the sense of achievement). So, in fact, the s&g quotient should be greater for these few limbo months.

 

Given the absence of detail about what the new end-game currencies and mats will be you can either just stop worrying about collecting anything or you can keep collecting optimally for L75 endgame in the vain hope that it will still be worth something meaningful for levels 76-80.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Zorii_Bliss

[JLazarillo]

I've felt the same way since the very first time they increased the level cap, more or less. Raising the "cap" by making the old stuff weaker and the new "cap" the same as what you were before is just...I dunno...dirty. I've never liked it. In 7.0, gearing was generally easy enough that I went for stuff for a while, but I'm basically done spending Tech Fragments on anything I can't convert easily to credits, more or less. I've got enough to last me a couple months, and trying to work in new set bonuses or even further tweaking stats now when I haven't needed them yet, would be a waste.

[Galbsadi]

Thanks to the implications of 7.0 there is no motivation to do current L75 content unless you're a completionist/achievement hunter who thinks they can get everything done by December OR you really want to have a go at the L70+ Ops at MM or NiM difficulties with the existing end-game gear and abilities that're soon to be obsolete.

 

Or, get this, and I know this is bizarre to some detractors...maybe you do it because you want to enjoy the content. I enjoy the content. See how simple that is?

 

How does the thought of all those tens of millions of credits spent and tens/hundreds of hours spent grinding being annihilated by the impending EA snap feel? (Stockpiles of mats, stores of augments and aug slots components...)

 

Tens of millions of credits, you say? Over the course of how many years? Darn, such tragedy. Nevermind that I, a relatively poor player, am literally sitting on billions of credits (with a 'b'). I think I can spare a few tens of millions.

 

Come 7.0 your set bonuses won't work and your glorious gear will be less useful than the green drops from the L76 trash mobs set to bar your progression at T7.0 + 1 sec.

 

I'm guessing this is your first MMO with a changing level cap. WoW does this, more often than once per expansion too, FFXIV does this (again, more often than once per expansion). It might not be compared to lv76 green drops, btw. Historically, based on my experience in this game and others, it's more likely to be roughly the 78 blue drops that will outlevel the stats, so you'll get a couple levels, then you re-gear, just like always. That's not new, it's part of the game. It's less relevant in SWTOR because of content scaling, but that great 'reset' is normally how new players are given an opportunity to be on equal footing with the hard-mode raiders at the start of a new expansion, so they don't have to have raided since 1.0 to have a shot at finding a raid team.

 

None of this is a bad thing. In fact, it's all normal, and not worthy of criticizing Bioware for.

[xordevoreaux]

I'm guessing this is your first MMO with a changing level cap. WoW does this.

Exactly, lots of games do. Everquest 1 and 2, the next expansion always retired the gear of the last. It's the way of things.

[Zorii_Bliss]

Or, get this, and I know this is bizarre to some detractors...maybe you do it because you want to enjoy the content. I enjoy the content. See how simple that is?

 

Tens of millions of credits, you say? Over the course of how many years? Darn, such tragedy. Nevermind that I, a relatively poor player, am literally sitting on billions of credits (with a 'b'). I think I can spare a few tens of millions.

 

I'm guessing this is your first MMO with a changing level cap. WoW does this, more often than once per expansion too, FFXIV does this (again, more often than once per expansion). It might not be compared to lv76 green drops, btw. Historically, based on my experience in this game and others, it's more likely to be roughly the 78 blue drops that will outlevel the stats, so you'll get a couple levels, then you re-gear, just like always. That's not new, it's part of the game. It's less relevant in SWTOR because of content scaling, but that great 'reset' is normally how new players are given an opportunity to be on equal footing with the hard-mode raiders at the start of a new expansion, so they don't have to have raided since 1.0 to have a shot at finding a raid team.

 

None of this is a bad thing. In fact, it's all normal, and not worthy of criticizing Bioware for.

 

Not my first MMO with this evolution pattern, not the first time I'm looking at what's being proposed in a new release of something I've spent years with (and considering "what else can I play?").

 

Bully for you you're a billionaire, many players aren't and amassing millions let alone 10s of millions isn't so easy if you aren't buying speculatively from CM or prowling GTN for steals to flip and prices to inflate.

 

Setting the broken economy aside, as it takes so little time to level to 75 anyone "new" to the game could be in the position of wanting to gear an L75 within days of starting in the game. Assuming they don't then cheese it via a few emails and some hard currency to a credit seller they're going to have to grind for creds to nab a full set of 286s or 300s, perhaps considerably longer than it took them to hit 75, especially if they don't have access to some charitable crafters who can do it for free/cheap.

So the experience for those that may have struggled/laboured to equip their collection of toons may well be a lot less blase than your "I can buy anything so wahey pay-2-max for me!".

 

Yes, the "nuke the old end-game, here's the new end-game 5 yds along" has played out repeatedly before both here and most everywhere else but why does it need to be done that way? They can make us spend our time grinding all manner of things which don't become useless come the next expansion, and they're the things often monetised, so why invent a mechanism that requires so much effort and frustration, passed off as "challenge", for the paying customers only to then snap it out of existence without acknowledging what was involved in those achievements/acquisitions?

 

Agreed, 306/286 will hopefully overlap the trash mob drops for the next few levels but then if we're losing our set bonuses does it have to, it's just "ordinary" armour now? We'll be collecting new sets or new tacticals or new doodads to bring the magic back.

 

Why should noobs be fast-tracked to "equal footing" with veterans of many hours of practice and effort invested?

 

Past norms don't pardon the poor concepts involved and invalidate the criticism for not coming up with something better when you're paid a good wage to do so.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Zorii_Bliss

[Darth-Obvious]

Yes, the "nuke the old end-game, here's the new end-game 5 yds along" has played out repeatedly before both here and most everywhere else but why does it need to be done that way? They can make us spend our time grinding all manner of things which don't become useless come the next expansion, and they're the things often monetised, so why invent a mechanism that requires so much effort and frustration, passed off as "challenge", for the paying customers only to then snap it out of existence without acknowledging what was involved in those achievements/acquisitions?

 

The short answer is because the idea of numbers going up is appealing to people, stats, damage, money, etc.

 

Why do they need to add more armor sets, weapons, locations, etc? Why can't people just be fine with everything that's there?

 

If this is your issue with things why not put all the information you just posted in the first post? Why do you keep making these topics trying to disguise what it is you're doing/saying like you're trying to conduct a survey when you really just want people to tell you that 7.0 is bad?

 

"Hey so what do you guys think of this? It's bad right?"

 

(after several people reply)

 

"No, see here's what the actual problem is and why you are all dumb."

 

Why bother with the pretense? You already know your own views and issues so why not post those from the get-go? People aren't validating your passive-aggressive questions from the get-go so you might as well be more upfront from the get go.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Darth-Obvious

[eabevella]

Official statements so far indicate that all L75 set bonuses will not work (since abilities involved may be changing, their current synergies breaking or they're being removed to achieve new balance). Tacticals similarly won't work for the same reasons.

 

So unless you want any L75 armour sets for their looks, their "special" utility only lasts until 7.0 drops.

 

Ouch that hurts. And I'll never complete the set bonus collection achievement in time.

But it means I'll have more Legacy Cargo space.

It's like making a wish to a fae and they fulfill it with an evil twist lol

[Tsillah]

Sorry, you're quite right, the "sh^tz and gigz " factor always applies but now there's no attendant anxiety about what drops or have you wasted tech frags or what to buy with tech frags (unless you want to max out before Dec for the sense of achievement). So, in fact, the s&g quotient should be greater for these few limbo months.

 

Given the absence of detail about what the new end-game currencies and mats will be you can either just stop worrying about collecting anything or you can keep collecting optimally for L75 endgame in the vain hope that it will still be worth something meaningful for levels 76-80.

 

You get level 75 gear mostly from doing level 70 content. All expansions had the level cap raise and new gear tiers. I do understand the new tiers of gear because it keeps people busy in an MMO that doesn't have a whole lot else to offer to veteran players, but the new levels are completely and utterly pointless. It's just so people can feel good about a meaningless higher number. It's not as if you become more powerful from the levels themselves. It all comes from gear and there are no new skills, they just spread the skill acquisition over more levels.

 

And now they're pruning the existing skills, which is ok by itself, but it does mean there will be more levels and fewer skills. And no more utilities to select either. I really can't wait till they do the same thing as in WoW, reducing the levels back to the original levels. The levels are "like butter scraped over too much bread".

[mike_carton]

Why is it not possible to build out the game as tabletop RPGs are; more expansions at existing levels and build on top of the old limits with supplemental abilities and challenge.

 

I know the question is rhetorical, but this is another opportunity for me to mention Guild Wars favorably. NCSoft did exactly that - very successfully. The game's level cap is 20 and you would reach it easily half-way through the first chapter. In that game, you have to earn/capture your abilities as you progress, long after hitting level cap. You also can only take 8 abilities (out of 100+) into combat, everything is instanced (except for "towns" (combat-free safe zones)) and you can only change your available 8 abilities while you are in the "towns." You can also wield weapons of 2 classes (called professions) and use the corresponding abilities.

 

For those that play GW: I main a Warrior/Ritualist carrying "Sundering Rhino's Charge" (a hammer) or a longbow or a staff, with 31-51 Energy, and Luxon "Signet of Spirits", "Ebon Vanguard Sniper Support" among other abilities.

 

All that is to say: Yes, these things have been done very well by other MMO developers - years ago - and done quite well. That includes - as I mentioned above - allowing characters to mix and match classes, weapons, and abilities. It helps that they had planned that right from the design stage of the game.

[phalczen]

How do I feel about my L75 gearing grind now that 7.0 has been announced?

 

Relieved. Now, I know its not worthwhile spending my tech fragments on spares of BiS set pieces to transfer to alts on a different server. Now, I know to focus tech fragments on the tactical items and set bonus pieces to finish off the achievements. Admittedly, the achievements will probably be going to the Feats section and not count for any points, but its something I can work on. Now, once I get the equipment achievements I'm capable of earning, I can opt to finish out the decoration stacks from Ossus that are bought with tech fragments. Now, those stockpiles of 306 item modifications can be safely deconstructed. Now, I know that it doesn't matter if I can't complete the Perfect Form set in time for 7.0 since PTS showed Descent of the Fearless won't work for any Guardian anymore, because NO set bonuses will work at level 80.

 

Now, I can finally complete the story on my characters, because I've finished Galactic Season 1 on two servers, and I don't have to fixate on the gear grind quite as much.

[Galbsadi]

Bully for you you're a billionaire, many players aren't and amassing millions let alone 10s of millions isn't so easy if you aren't buying speculatively from CM or prowling GTN for steals to flip and prices to inflate.

 

I'm sorry, but hard disagree here. You can literally run a few flashpoints in a day (spammer station, anyone?), collect a whole bunch of disposable gold gear (that's all garbage for you), deconstruct it, get a Legendary Ember for roughly every 5 gear pieces, and sell each one for roughly a million credits. I average 10 pieces of loot per flashpoint, and spammer station takes about 15 minutes, so that's 8 million credits per hour right there. No fishy emails or breaking ToS, just playing the game, for an hour.

 

Setting the broken economy aside, as it takes so little time to level to 75 anyone "new" to the game could be in the position of wanting to gear an L75 within days of starting in the game.

You do have a point there. That first gear up to 306 does take a while...maybe almost as long as it takes to level to 75. I would very much disagree about "longer" though. It's a fairly simple grind: run Flashpoints, equip anything that's an ilvl upgrade, break everything else, spend tech fragments (it's like 300 per piece) on slots that fall behind, repeat. Takes about a week, conservatively estimating. As far as augments, yeah, that could be a bit of a grind (although not as bad as you're saying, again, 8 million credits per hour just running flashpoints), but those also are something that, at this point, I'd probably skip for the next couple months if I was a newer player, because you can get 'enough' to experience so much without touching them anyhow. (In fact, of my characters, only two or three have fully augmented gear.)

 

So the experience for those that may have struggled/laboured to equip their collection of toons may well be a lot less blase than your "I can buy anything so wahey pay-2-max for me!".

 

That's the thing: I *can't* buy anything. I said that I have a couple billion, then qualified that with I am relatively poor. I can buy most Legacy unlocks, sure, because the war on inflation is over, and inflation won, but items on the GTN that people used to buy for a few million or tens of millions? They go for tens of BILLIONS now, and I can't touch them. It's the same as it's always been for me, just the number of zeroes have changed.

 

Yes, the "nuke the old end-game, here's the new end-game 5 yds along" has played out repeatedly before both here and most everywhere else but why does it need to be done that way? They can make us spend our time grinding all manner of things which don't become useless come the next expansion, and they're the things often monetised, so why invent a mechanism that requires so much effort and frustration, passed off as "challenge", for the paying customers only to then snap it out of existence without acknowledging what was involved in those achievements/acquisitions?

Again, this is simple: so newer players actually have an opportunity to get into endgame content. Imagine if you HAD to run every operation from before 6.0 to even enter Dxun. How many people would be doing Dxun? 5? 10 per server?

 

Agreed, 306/286 will hopefully overlap the trash mob drops for the next few levels but then if we're losing our set bonuses does it have to, it's just "ordinary" armour now? We'll be collecting new sets or new tacticals or new doodads to bring the magic back.

Basically.

 

Why should noobs be fast-tracked to "equal footing" with veterans of many hours of practice and effort invested?

Why SHOULDN'T they? If you're interested in end-game raiding, do you want to spend your time having to train somebody through every operation in the game before doing the one you want every single time someone leaves the game for any reason? You yourself said that you've looked at, and I presume also played, other games. Why should it be harder for you to come back to SWTOR if you try another game? Because that's what you seem to be asking for here.

[Alssaran]

It's a standard MMORPG gearing experience ever since at least 2005. A new expansion releases and previous gear is replaced by new, better gear. There's been memes about this for ages.

 

The things I farm to last (in most MMORPGs) are rare cosmetics, decorations, mounts, titles and achievements. Hence why I don't actually spend hundreds of millions of credits per character on golden augments. I get purple ones to the best of my ability for 1/10th of that price and call it a day. 306 gear with decent amplifiers and purple augments is good enough for 99% of the content I do.

 

Why SHOULDN'T they? If you're interested in end-game raiding, do you want to spend your time having to train somebody through every operation in the game before doing the one you want every single time someone leaves the game for any reason?

 

People have been over this time and time again: it is detrimental to a game's health if new players are treated as second class citizens and can't catch up with their friends quickly, be that with a boost or easy gearing. Nobody wants to join an MMORPG their friends are playing only to hear the words: "but we can't actually play together for 300 hours unless we sacrifice all our progress."

 

It's good to have long-term cosmetic rewards and rare cosmetic items that can show how long you've been playing (e.g. the Founder title), but gearing being long and tedious has never really worked out. That's why MMOs have moved away from it for close to 15 years now.

Edited August 28, 2021 by Alssaran