Gearing Feedback

[Pricia]

I copied a GSF toon to the PTS and I'm not impressed.

 

I'm a solo player who plays GSF because I pretty much have to for Galactic Season. The rewards stink. No upgrade part for dailies, and 3 FP parts for the weekly. Did I mention I'm a solo player? How is that supposed to help me? I'm assuming it's the same for PVP....

 

You know, it was said that solo players are "conquest players." That is a lie. You don't get the necessary parts to upgrade your gear just from Conquest. You're still forced to do other activities, and doing ANYTHING that isn't solo is basically a waste of time, you will get parts you will probably never end up using because you will never get enough of them to upgrade anything.

 

Guild's looking for a 4th for a flashpoint? "oh no sorry, it would be a waste of time for me, I'll just get stuff I'll never be able to upgrade."

 

Oh and getting 80 before finishing stories will be pointless now, as you will get NO REWARDS towards gear improvements playing stories. Nothing. Even KotFE/KotET will give no cache, so no upgrades. Total waste of time.

 

I hope someone realizes how stupid it sounds before this goes live.

 

What NEEDS to be done for this to work

 

- ONE upgrade currency - you can get more doing group activities

- drastically reduce the number of required currency for each piece

- doing ANY mission should grant you at least one upgrade currency

- finishing a STORY flashpoint should give you some currency and a gear upgrade

- finishing a VET flashpoint should give you more currency and a gear upgrade

- finishing a chapter should give you a gear upgrade

 

And I mean, that the new gear is bind to legacy is nice and all but give solo players a reason to even bothering wasting time transferring gear between characters by actually giving us gear drops.

 

This is my constructive feedback. I hope it doesn't fall on dead ears. Again, with your designed system.. I have NO PLANS to even start gear grinding because it will take me YEARS for all my characters.

[merovejec]

Nope you don't get any GEAR drops as a solo players. You only get upgrade parts.

 

Yes my bad, I wrote it incorrectly.

 

Overall im confused by the system, why does it need to be so complex? It was like this at game launch where every planet had its currency to buy gear. Now you need multiple currencies to buy a piece of gear. Sure, you get most of the currencies just by playing, but still why bother like that? When I have enough of one i go to vendor and realize, oh weit, a few more heroics, then 1 or 2 more flashpoints.... what is that?

 

Please realize that we have played those heroics, dailiy areas or FPS a zillion times already. What players want is an expansion like RoftHC or Revan where you got new gear, new level, but also a new daily area where you could get the gear. Yes, 5.0 and 6.0 were fine in terms as "play what you want" but what we see on PTS is a bit too much. You are trying to make up for the lack of content by giving us a big grind for gear.

 

As it was said, since not much is changning or being added to the game just let people buy the gear. Only have raiders grind the gear they need for ops. There is no point to hide the gear for common players behind NiM ops. You are really overcomplicating things. Until now we have seen a huge number of player friendly changes that helped in many aspects of the game, so please, do this in terms of gear acquiring too!

[Lady_Myajha]

Yes my bad, I wrote it incorrectly.

 

Overall im confused by the system, why does it need to be so complex? It was like this at game launch where every planet had its currency to buy gear. Now you need multiple currencies to buy a piece of gear. Sure, you get most of the currencies just by playing, but still why bother like that? When I have enough of one i go to vendor and realize, oh weit, a few more heroics, then 1 or 2 more flashpoints.... what is that?

 

Please realize that we have played those heroics, dailiy areas or FPS a zillion times already. What players want is an expansion like RoftHC or Revan where you got new gear, new level, but also a new daily area where you could get the gear. Yes, 5.0 and 6.0 were fine in terms as "play what you want" but what we see on PTS is a bit too much. You are trying to make up for the lack of content by giving us a big grind for gear.

 

As it was said, since not much is changning or being added to the game just let people buy the gear. Only have raiders grind the gear they need for ops. There is no point to hide the gear for common players behind NiM ops. You are really overcomplicating things. Until now we have seen a huge number of player friendly changes that helped in many aspects of the game, so please, do this in terms of gear acquiring too!

 

If I'm going to guess, SWTOR is sliding even more to a grind F2P style game then it already is, possibly with a P2W model being more heavily added. Need that extra currency, well hell buy the 5 pack in the Cartel Market for just 500 cartel coins. Stinking casual solo player and don't have time to grind? Buy the combo pack for 2000 cartel coins. Oh and we'll make it random too, so there's a good chance that RNGesus won't like you and you'll have to buy even more from the cartel market.

 

Not saying that it's where it's going, but hey it's EA, and they love their in-game purchases. I wouldn't be surprised if they're setting it up for that eventuality, just in case.

[SeCKSEgai]

When I first started, flashpoints weren't particularly popular as they effectively offered no gear reward.

 

After our negative feedback about an rng heavy system was largely ignored I left soon after (Criticism of current system ignored only to get changed again anyway).

 

Coming back about a year ago, the current system, while still too rng heavy at least gave us options in the content.

 

On PTS the entire experience just feels like a painful grind to the point its like the game is telling me to leave.

 

Currency rewards are insanely restrictive to the point where an entire FP is worth less than 5 coms and the only meaningful reward is in a weekly or conquest one time per week. And for JUNK gear that is supposed to be an upgrade.

 

I'm currently waiting on PTS for conquest to rollover again just so I can pick up one of the implant legendaries. But its already been a lot of work just to unlock something I've had access to in the past. I even copied multiple characters over just to cover the 6500 frags needed, but because I spent most of the conquest earned medals upgrading 318 to 320 I can't afford to buy it.

 

And frankly PTS is a reflection of what its like when you're having to rely on group content during less populated hours. I even went as far as running a solo master mode red reaper. Couldn't finish Ikoral as he always spawned at least one add (usually 2) and ended up enraging. And I made several long-winded attempts with both 320+ and 306 augmented. Scaling went up, damage output did not, at least not really.

 

Suffice it to say --- we are expected to go through all these hoops for lousy gear because we're "told" its an upgrade. Me going through all this content on PTS I can't help but feel I'm pushing hard to net achievements for a game I'm not gonna want to touch once this all goes live.

[Crystal_Mind]

For players who run group content, this is a tedious downgrade from 6.x-era, but it’s not completely unreasonable. The crate system, and the ability to gear alts with occasional side-grade drops provides some relief and flexibility from the price-gouging vendor upgrade system.

 

For solo players, it’s a different story.

 

Let me be blunt: This is the single worst implementation of gearing I could have imagined for solo players. Without crates, they have no guaranteed armor progression except by grinding unreasonable amounts of currency. Worse, they have no ready way to gear alts through side-grades. Unlike players who engage in group content, a solo-player on the “conquest” gear track must grind up every set of gear from scratch, a feat that will take approx. a month per set of dedicated grind if I’ve done my math right. I am both immeasurably disappointed and angry on behalf of several of my more casual guildmates.

 

It’s one thing to incentivize group content, but this system outright penalizes solo players. It’s not the same thing. Please add some kind of crate-upgrade path for solo/conquest players to bring them up to the same gearing rate as the group-content players. And for the love of all that’s reasonable, give them a side-grade option for their alts! The conquest gear system as it stands on PTS is abominable.

 

And then we have to talk about the legendary items, which is 7.0’s answer to set bonuses. 6500 frags per piece? If you’re not running group content, tech frags have become a pipe dream.

 

In my experience, most solo players do not sit there grinding heroics and dailies all day. But that’s what you’re asking them to do. Grind is not content. 10-year-old grind is definitely not content. Sure, it’s not a sleepwalk for group players, but based on what’s on PTS, compared to group players, solo-players will simply… not have a set bonus, not be rewarded for their playtime outside a slim subset of content, and have no relief whatsoever for alts after building their initial gear.

 

What are you thinking????

[Pricia]

For players who run group content, this is a tedious downgrade from 6.x-era, but it’s not completely unreasonable. The crate system, and the ability to gear alts with occasional side-grade drops provides some relief and flexibility from the price-gouging vendor upgrade system.

 

For solo players, it’s a different story.

 

Let me be blunt: This is the single worst implementation of gearing I could have imagined for solo players. Without crates, they have no guaranteed armor progression except by grinding unreasonable amounts of currency. Worse, they have no ready way to gear alts through side-grades. Unlike players who engage in group content, a solo-player on the “conquest” gear track must grind up every set of gear from scratch, a feat that will take approx. a month per set of dedicated grind if I’ve done my math right. I am both immeasurably disappointed and angry on behalf of several of my more casual guildmates.

 

It’s one thing to incentivize group content, but this system outright penalizes solo players. It’s not the same thing. Please add some kind of crate-upgrade path for solo/conquest players to bring them up to the same gearing rate as the group-content players. And for the love of all that’s reasonable, give them a side-grade option for their alts! The conquest gear system as it stands on PTS is abominable.

 

And then we have to talk about the legendary items, which is 7.0’s answer to set bonuses. 6500 frags per piece? If you’re not running group content, tech frags have become a pipe dream.

 

In my experience, most solo players do not sit there grinding heroics and dailies all day. But that’s what you’re asking them to do. Grind is not content. 10-year-old grind is definitely not content. Sure, it’s not a sleepwalk for group players, but based on what’s on PTS, compared to group players, solo-players will simply… not have a set bonus, not be rewarded for their playtime outside a slim subset of content, and have no relief whatsoever for alts after building their initial gear.

 

What are you thinking????

 

Thank you.

[Akea]

I have to echo the issues being raised in this thread.

 

I took the conquest route.

 

Not having gear drops doesn't feel fun or rewarding and it's a waste of the player's time to grind tokens. I was getting one token per mission doing KOTFE and KOTET. I had 22 tokens when I finished KOTET. I would've had 25 had I been 80 when I started KOTFE.

 

Regardless, mainhand/offhand cost 20 tokens each and the rest of the slots cost 10. I'd rather not bother trying to upgrade my armor. I'll just wait until catch up gear is added to the game.

[Schwarzherz]

Gearing from the perspective of a PvP player. There are two sides to gearing through PvP. For players who only play PvP, it may take quite a long time. You do get a gear upgrade for each weekly, and you also get enough of the Thyrsian Production Accelerant through both the weekly and the games you play. But if you want to upgrade a part at the vendor, you also need Aquatic Resource Matrixes. Currently, you can't get them by completing the personal Conquest or the PvP Daily Mission. The Weekly also only gives 2, but you need 20 of them for an upgrade on the first levels and later even 35 per piece. Each Weekly of a Daily Area gives 25 and additionally 3 per quest and each Weekly Heroic Mission gives 20 and also additionally 3 per quest. But if a PvP player has to do a Weekly Heroic Mission or a Weekly Daily Area for every Vendor Upgrade, this is going in the wrong direction. It would be much fairer to PvP players if they could play PvP exclusively, get their gear together in a timely manner, and not have to complete several PvE missions to be able to afford an upgrade. Dozens of PvP weeklies just for a vendor upgrade is too much of a good thing. To solve the problem, reaching the Personal Conquest as well as the Daily PvP Mission should also grant Aquatic Resource Matrixes. In addition, the number of Aquatic Resource Matrixes from the PvP Weekly should be increased. Also, the Aquatic Resource Matrixes cost per upgrade could be lowered.

 

Golden Augments for Tech Fragments will be even harder to get. The CM-1337 component was available for a short time on the fleet for 10,000 Tech Fragments. Although this was probably just a bug as you could also buy the OEM for 10,000 Tech Fragments there and now the RPM and OEM for 10,000 Tech Fragments each, although you can get them for 7,500 Tech Fragments each. One wonders where the point is. But even those 7,500 Tech Fragments will be harder to get now, especially with the removement of Renown. In addition, the Elegant Chest of Loyalty now gives 150 Medals of Commendation instead of the 2800 Tech Fragments. And the CM-1337 component still takes 7 OEM and 14 RPM to craft. That's still over 150,000 Tech Fragments for one augment. I hope that either the Tech Fragment prices for OEM and RPM will be reduced significantly or that new augments will come with the new Operation / Daily Area and this time these will be available to all kind of players.

 

In addition, non-modable gearing also feels very limited. You can play without Accuracy in PvP, but not without Alacrity, because at least two gear pieces have this stat and there is no other option. It would make more sense if every gear piece with a tertiary stat were also offered in all variants (Accuracy, Alacrity and Crit). The players could then decide for themselves how much of one of these stats they would like to have.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Schwarzherz

[JaeOnasi]

Main gearing acquisition and upgrade flows are now on PTS!

 

Prefacing this by saying this is not intended as an attack on anyone, so please don't take it that way. I love this game, and I appreciate what the Devs do. I'd like to keep this game around quite a bit longer to continue enjoying it. So, I have a very vested interest in making sure you understand what this gearing change will do to this game.

 

PTS 7.0 gear has taken the absolute worst aspects of grinding pre-6.0 gear, combined it with the absolute worst aspects of grinding 6.0 gear, and then added additional time-gates, currencies, and tier gates to create a monstrosity of a gearing system that somehow is even worse than any previous version. This is already infuriating my guildmates and me to the point that some have already un-subbed or are letting their subs run out rather than grind for weeks on end through old content and what little new content there will be.

 

Let me put this in financial terms for EA. Frustrated players unsubscribe, log out, and don't come back to a 10 year old game. And the proposed gearing is going to frustrate players enormously.

 

Let me be even more blunt: this new gearing system is an unmitigated disaster.

 

The worst of pre-6.0:

1. Non-moddable gear (until 5.0)

2. Had to turn in the previous gear piece to get the next higher gear piece

3. Certain stats were available only on certain pieces (e.g. accuracy only on boots and gloves)

4. Impossible to min-max DPS without buying multiples of the same piece for both healing and dps enhancements

5. Time-gating the currency needed to purchase set bonus pieces

6. Character bound items

7. Set bonus drops in Ops were heavily RNG-based.

8. Ops was clearly favored over other modes of obtaining gear

9. You couldn't exchange a set piece of one type for the next higher set piece of a different type--you could only exchange an initiative implant for the next higher initiative implant rather than any kind of implant.

10. You had to know what 258 pieces you needed in order to pick your 248/252 pieces correctly so you didn't waste currency buying the wrong thing at the lower levels.

 

Worst of 6.0:

1. iLevel meant equipping pieces that weren't ideal stats in order to get better iLevel drops. When I started gearing my tank, I had to put on 306 dps gear just to get 302/304/306 tank pieces.

2. We had to go through nearly 20 item levels to get from 270 to 306 rather than the 3 item levels in 5.0 (248/252/258)

3. Set bonus, tactical, and modding options were so numerous that they were somewhat confusing unless someone consulted guides/theorycrafters for BiS suggestions.

 

Currently on PTS:

1. Non-moddable gear is back (WHY?????)

2. Stats are not in the least optimized on non-moddable pieces--I can't reach 110% accuracy at all with 318/320 gear even with the max proficient stim and every available armor piece/implant/earpiece. My alacrity and crit are also laughably low.

3. Have to turn in the previous ilvl piece for the next ilvl piece at the vendor--which means you can't even use the lower ilvl item for an alt

4. Can't exchange one piece for a different version of the same piece at the next ilvl--e.g. I can't exchange a 320 initiative implant for a 322 adept one--I'm stuck with choosing only a 322 initiative one--this will have major implications for gearing the final ilvl if I pick the wrong thing at the beginning ilvl.

5. Both types of required currency are time-gated at such a high degree that it's going to be impossible to gear up alts to any significant level--you need at least 5 different sets of a single type of gear to get BIS if you play every spec--tank, heals, and _three_ DPS (to account for the alacrity differences in classes with alacrity boosts as an inherent part of the class). The BIS gear I have for infiltration shadow is most definitely not BIS for TK sage or Gunnery Commando--you need 3 different alacrity amounts to get to the correct GCD for those.

6. DPS from 318 and 320 gear is WORSE than my min-maxed 306 gear--but I'm stuck using the 318 stuff because I won't get an decent ilvl drops if I don't equip those.

7. Have to grind through SIX ilevels of gear at a glacially slow pace to get 330 Ops gear--and Ops players will be stuck augmenting non-moddable gear that isn't even top iLvl just to be able to get enough dps to do vet/nim Ops.

8. Can't use a single currency like tech frags to buy other higher iLvl pieces--have to have TWO currencies PLUS the lower ilvl set piece PLUS credits to buy a piece.

9. There are FIVE tracks of gear (WHY????)

10. Gear for Ops can only be obtained in Ops--which means that if a player like me who has time to do a few flashpoints after work but not a full Ops is stuck either committing a lot more time doing just Ops or missing out on important gearing. Some of my guildmates hate Ops and just want to do flashpoints/uprisings/overland content, and we want to game together. I want to be able to play with ALL my guildmates, not just the ones interested in only Ops. I definitely don't want to be stuck doing only Ops to get BIS gear. Despite the inordinate amount of time I've put into this game over the years, I still do have to work at a non-gaming job to pay for my SWTOR addiction, and some evenings, I'm just too darn tired to take on a full Ops.

11. Have to know what BIS gear pieces you want at 330 so that you can select the correct 318 pieces--even if those are clearly sub-optimal stats at 318, unless you just love grinding for useless pieces ad nauseum. In 5.0, if you screwed up and picked the wrong 258 piece, at least you only had to go back 1 ilvl to 252 and work on that to get to the best piece. Now, you have to know exactly which helm you need at 330 in order to pick the correct one at 318. That's unreasonable at best.

12. Top gear is Ops-only (WHY?????)--and it outranks PvP and other gear. I guarantee you are going to have HUGE complaints about that once it hits live.

13. Set bonus moved from six pieces to a single legendary. That's actually a good move--but I get no set bonus for a very long time while I wait to unlock the legendary on every single toon. At least with the 6 piece set, I can benefit from at least part of the set when I have 2 and 4 pieces. The grind to get to the legendary on every single toon is extremely long and tedious.

14. Almost no explanation of how this all works. I can figure it out fairly easily since I understand the theorycrafting underpinnings and stat pools--but I'm the extreme outlier exception and definitely not the rule. I also don't have the most efficient method of currency acquisition figured out yet. When I tried to explain this new gearing system to my family (who all also play), their eyes glazed over and they said, "We'll just ask you what we need to pick when it hits live." If you need an outside influencer guide or Geeky Theorycrafting Mom to explain the gear, you're not explaining it well enough for the average player.

15. Lower tiers of gear are definitely under-tuned for certain parts of the game, e.g. vet/master mode Kotfe/Kotet.

 

So, bottom line: we've gone backward not one but two full expansions to sub-optimal, non-BIS gear that requires not one, but two separate time-gated currencies to obtain, lower levels of which can't be transferred to other toons, and requires 6 or more grind levels for the BIS version which is obtainable only in Ops. All of this coming after you spent the entirety of 6.0 exclaiming "Play as you like--you can get the best, moddable gear doing ANY content in game!"

 

7.0 is most definitely no longer a "Play the game as you like" system in order to obtain gear.

 

How does the flow of acquiring gear feel?

Ungodly, insanely slow, especially compared to 6.0, which admittedly was extremely fast once you got a single toon to all 306 gear. It is impossible as a DPS to reach 110% accuracy without an accuracy augment, even with selecting all available accuracy pieces (both Force Lord gloves/boots, Targeter's helm, and initiative implants/earpiece) at the vendor and using the max proficient stim.

 

I did some flashpoints with a guildmate on PTS. I got a single blue drop that was 320. He got absolutely no gear. We didn't get enough of the new currency to do more than upgrade 1 or 2 pieces--and that was after I made conquest on that toon. Neither of us came anywhere close to the required currency to unlock the legendary. This is markedly slower--exponentially slower.

 

What are your thoughts on the pace to acquire gear?

 

Time-gating two separate currencies (Why TWO??? No previous expansion had more than one) certainly accomplishes your goal of slowing down gear progression, if by slowing down you mean "Speed of molasses in the arctic winter cold" slow. Slugs could travel across the US faster than we can obtain decent gear.

 

 

Feel free to leave general feedback as well

 

Others have stated quite well that this gearing system is atrocious for solo players. I understand wanting to reward group play, but penalizing solo players and small guilds is a singularly terrible way of doing that. This PTS version makes gearing much, much more difficult for solo players or small guilds who can't or don't regularly participate in Ops or even MM flashpoints. You're penalizing solo/small group play by making it extremely difficult to impossible to earn the currencies needed for legendaries and higher ilvl gear.

 

Moving the set bonus to the legendary is an interesting move that I think people will like eventually--but the cost is way too high right now.

 

Gating gear to specific activities is unwise. As I noted above, in 6.0, if I wanted some gear pieces but didn't have time to do an Op that day, I could run a flashpoint or two with a couple of guildmates in our small guild to work on gearing up and preparing my toons without committing a full 2+ hours to an Op. That way, I was fully geared and ready to go to take on the challenges of vet mode Ops. We also didn't have to fight over gear pieces, either, except for 2 sets. If I didn't get the piece I wanted, well, I at least got tech frags so I could buy the piece at the vendor (or wait for pieces of the 2 sets to show up on Kai).

 

I play a lot of alts. When I do flashpoints and Ops, I do often use my main, but because I'm one of the more experienced players in any given guild group and have geared toons, I will switch from DPS to tank or from melee dps to ranged dps depending on what our other players have available. I'll obviously also switch if I have a lockout on my main. I have every main toon I play outfitted in his/her own set bonus because it was impossible for me to remember which of the 20-odd toons I regularly play had the set bonus gear on. I have 9 deception assassins/infiltration shadows that I play regularly for conquest because I like that class, and switching the gold-augmented, min-maxed armor and remembering later which toon had it was too much trouble. I needed a darn spreadsheet to keep track of who had that armor last, so I finally just got each one of those toons his/her own death knell set and threw blue augments into the toons I didn't regularly take to Ops. I was OK with that, because I had enough tech frags/weekly crate gear drops to do that.

 

So far, the only thing I'm seeing is BioWare taking away anything remotely positive in gearing--

*ability to obtain BIS gear doing ANY content

*ability to mod gear and min-max it to squeeze out the very best DPS/heals/threat--No, I don't just want to play my best only in Ops--I want play to my highest level in ANY content, be that heroics, MM flashpoints, or PvP. I practice rotations on flashpoint bosses because that's far more interesting than standing in front of a parsing dummy for hours.

*ability to purchase pieces with tech frag system

*ability to gear up multiple alts to allow those of us who are in smaller guilds to switch classes quickly to adjust to the needs of our guild group--transferring the armor from toon to toon to toon and remembering just which toon has the armor set is a pain in the arse.

*ability to earn a SINGLE currency fairly quickly doing any content in order to buy gear pieces and get the set bonus. I'm going to hit the currency cap on one of the currencies before I can get enough of other currency to buy the needed items, and I need a darn spreadsheet to figure out which kinds and how much of each currency I need for what gear. If I wanted to play a spreadsheet MMO, I'd go play Eve Online.

*ability to even earn a set bonus equivalent (legendaries) relatively quickly.

*ability to use amplifiers to squeeze out a little more dps/survival/heals/etc

 

I"ve never seen this game take so much away from players in something that is supposed to be an expansion.

 

My suggestion: Dump this gear change entirely. There is absolutely no reason to reinvent this wheel when you have a limited staff to begin with.

 

Gear sets too confusing? Fine, decrease some of the gear set options.

Some of the gear sets too powerful? Fair point--but adjust the abilities of the overpowered sets down and boost some things in the underpowered gear sets.

Enhancement/mod/armoring options too confusing? Get rid of the types that are never used. You could get rid of about half of the enhancements (the versions that aren't BIS) and still leave tons of options for min-maxers.

Want to add iLvls? Fine, add more iLvls to the armorings/mods/enhancements/implants/earpieces/relics.

Gearing too fast? I prefer not to slow that down, but you can decrease the tech frag drop rate and/or increase the tech frag cost for set pieces and armor modifications. You could even keep the tech frag cost low for, say, 322 gear, and increase the tech frag cost for the very highest ilevels if you feel the burning need to slow down gearing progression.

 

If figure if I'm going to gripe about it, I'll suggest a few solutions. If you're hell-bent on going through with this gear change, at least do these things:

1. Make all levels of the gear moddable

2. Go back to needing only 1 currency

3. Significantly increase the rate that that currency drops

4. Significantly decrease the currency cost for a gear piece

4. Collapse the gear options down to one single track. There is absolutely no reason to separate conquest gear from flashpoint gear from Ops gear from PvP gear. Adjust the modification iLvls if you have to, but don't penalize solo players and small guilds for not being able to do large group activities. If someone decides they don't want to get BIS gear to do conquest, fine, they can just cap themselves out at 320 and decide individually not to pursue higher gear ilvls. You don't need 5+ different gear sets to do that.

5. Allow gear to be earned from completing any activity--"play as you like" was one of the best things to come out of 6.0.

6. Don't take the gear piece to get the next higher ilvl at the vendor. Let people use that lower piece for alts at least.

 

I get "grinding for gear is an MMO thing"--but the PTS gear grind in its current form is a nightmare that belongs in the dust heap of the Jurassic era of gaming when developers were just starting to get a handle on what makes an MMO fun. Other MMOs have figured this out. Grinding for weeks on end for gear, especially crap gear you won't keep, is Not Fun.

Edited December 29, 2021 by JaeOnasi

[klizilii]

Some good points from all the confusion in here. Clearly people are not understanding the fact that gear upgrades never drop. You have to get them through upgrades or weekly crates. I think a lot of players will be confused over the changes that once they earn the baseline level 80 gear, nothing that drops will be an upgrade and way less gear will drop.

 

Communication is going to be key to prevent players from being frustrated and not knowing how to get gear.

Edited December 28, 2021 by klizilii

[xordevoreaux]

I want to thank everyone for their feedback in this thread, it's enlightening.

Hopefully the powers that be will read the details, and reconsider some points.

 

Unfortunately, given the time constraints before 7.0's release, it may be 7.1 or 7.2 before some of these issues are addressed, but I'd prefer that over...

...never

[Darthjantom]

Relic of Primeval Fatesealer doesn't work on PTS, keeps saying "access denied" when trying to use.

Also it seems to me there is WAY too much currencies.

And way too large a quantity of each currency gained and needed ofor upgrades.

This will just end up being like tech fragments where you keep getting constant popups saying you are close to the limit, only worse as its like 5 different currencies now.

It's also a pain to keep track of how much you need and to keep spending stuff before you hit any cap.

Not to mention you still need to get aquatic ones from heroics/dailies even to upgrade the flashpoint/pvp ones, so basically you apparently cannot upgrade the content specific sets by doing said content only.

EDIT: The currency issue is actually something I have noticed with most of the more recent daily areas/events, where everything seems to reward dozens (if not hundreds) of tokens and everything costs a large amount as well, when the same could be easily achieved rewarding single tokens like older events and lowering the overal cost of items so it still matches the same amount of effort needed to get an item as it is now getting hundreds of tokens easily.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Darthjantom

[bloomerpoodin]

My experience with the gear and gearing that I have tested on pts so far has unfortunately been overwhelming negative. I like that set bonuses have been replaced by the new legendary items... but that is it... making all of the new gear static is a huge mistake, to talk about player choice and improving peoples experience and to then go and throw amplifiers and modable gear out the window is just asinine. 6.0 gearing was in my opinion the best so far, all that needs to be done is raise the item rating limit, replace set bonuses with legendary items that come with different stat combinations like the current implants and earpieces (eg. Pummeler's Retaliator Package, Bulwark's Retaliator Package) and then keep going with the same system (keep renown). Dumbing things down to this level seem like an enormous leap backward, it's like they took 6.0 and removed all of the gear except for the static onderonian armors that we've been breaking down for tech frags and leaving us with no options to optimize our stats, and call that an upgrade! In spite of the fact that separating class from story was a good idea, getting that long-awaited feature is not worth everything we are going to lose with the launch of 7.0 as is. With the amended release date being only a month and a half away the best way forward at this juncture is to throw the baby out with the bathwater for the time being. Roll out the new story content and activities ect. (and if possible maybe even the legendary items) as an update to 6.0, then send the rest of this thing back to the drawing board, I wouldn't care if it took another year. The fact that Bioware only realized that this expansion had some serious issues a mere few weeks before launch is highly alarming. Give my thanks to whoever it was in the company that got this thing delayed, they did you all a huge favor because if 7.0 would have launched when it was supposed to it would have surely been a sad end to a great game. Edited December 29, 2021 by bloomerpoodin
typos

[hplaRnotwo]

Main gearing acquisition and upgrade flows are now on PTS!

 

• How does the flow of acquiring gear feel?
  
• What are your thoughts on the pace to acquire gear?

When I started the grind for item rating 322, I found I already was able to get to item rating 320 just by going through all the content. That drastically changed when I tried to grind for 322, because using my pacing of completing CZ-198 dailies and Heroics made the grind to 322 HELL.

 

It took 2 days worth and two characters worth to get my sniper to level 322 and I just finished this morning because I was able to unlock the Legendary Items and equip some 326 ear pieces in there. I was several heroics away from burning myself out for the week.

 

There was no smooth transfer between 320 and 322 for me, as the transition felt more a punch in the gut that landed 6 times harder than the last one instead of a steadily increasing amount. I predict the higher tiers to land 10 times harder with each rating of item rating gained.

 

Considering how the amount of resources to get higher and higher gear levels for conquest scales relative to it, 60 Aquatic Resources is way too much to get a piece of 322 gear. Not the whole armor set, a piece. Without modifying it accordingly, it will take many weeks let alone months to get 3 of my toons maxed out to what item rating Conquest allows at my pace. That's not even touching Operations yet; an entire challenge in it of itself getting enough people motivated to do it. Either boost the output of Aquatic Resources gained by these missions, or decrease the cost of 322 conquest gear by say 40 Aquatic Resources per piece and increase at the same rate from there.

 

In a nutshell there is a very stark contrast between getting item rating 320 and 322, as 320 was easy to get just by completing story content whilst 322 took grinds of weekly Heroics, CZ-198 weeklies, and other methods of getting there, of which those methods I will probably not focus on. Since these weeklies give 25 Aquatic Resources, 60 Aquatic Resources for a single piece out of 13 other pieces is pushing it for my solo-heavy pace, which shouldn't happen with the ideology of "Playing at your own pace" presented with 7.0.

[merovejec]

Thank you for all your contributions, which are mostly negative towards the 7.0 gearing. This really needs to be said however, since the system is really a combination of the past mistakes.

 

As I have said before, ever since Keith took over the directing there have been many improvements to the game and this 7.0 gearing just completely ruins all those positive changes up to now. I realize that Devs have the data, they see for example that people have no problem to farm TC over and over again, everyday and from that they deduce that people are willing to accept a certain grind in the game. Sadly this is not something people actually wish for in 7.0!

 

I remember the gearing in 2.0 when we got RotHC. We got DP and DF and the old system of gearing via ops. Everyone was able to do SM opses for decent gear and also you could do other activities (mainly FPS) for currency which gave you 186 items i think. However, back then the FPS and other things were still "current content" as it was just 3 years after launch. Now we have 10 years after launch and we are still supposed to be do the same heroics, the same fps, ops which will get us the newest gear..... thats just right!

 

What I personnaly would welcome is something like Uprisings, new content which would be used to acquire the gear. Simply something new, not the old stuff overe and over again. Even now when i have to play the full story and all expansions, even my kids ask me why the heck im doing that again! 7.0 will be only about that! We get just the possiblity to play the stories with different combat styles, thats all. I also dont want another job to come home from work and grind heroics and fps just for gear.

 

Please do not make the mistake of letting this gearing system go live. As everyone here said, it takes too long, gear is unmodded, not legacy, too many currencies etc. What we would welcome is a simple way to gear for the solo players, faster way for group players, very fast way for NiM players and lastly also a decent way for PVP players. GSF should be a bonus to help out any of the methods.

[Vajratunda]

The gearing is very slow and the upgrade costs are too expensive. Especially the amount of resources you get from completing weekly activities is too low. Gearing just to item rating 322 on one character is very grindy. While I understand that you shouldn't get gear to easy it shouldn't be such a hard grind. One weekly mission should give you enough resurces to upgrade at least 3-5 pieces. Gearing up one single character should be doable with one single character.

Unranked warzones should maybe have a system similar to gsf, where win counts double and loss only once towards the weekly, since if you lose in a battle you currently get nothing, not even resource currency like aquatic matrix or medals of commendations, which is really discouraging

The 999 cap for medal of cemmndation should alos be raised. Many player a probably going to play on several characters and finish conquest on several, you end up hitting the cap pretty quickly. Just two days in I already ended up with over 600 Medals of commendation. Considering that Medals are also the most used currency for gearing, you definetly need to be able to carry more.

 

Flashpoints give you currently a lot of doubles, gear with the same item rating of the gear you are already wearing. So far only the boxes you get from completing the weekly missions give you a guaranteed upgrade.

Also I am not sure if every boss is supposed to drop a gear piece for every player or just the final boss.

The amount of isotope should be higher. Completing 3 veteran mode Flashpoints for the weekly should give you enough currency to upgrade around 3 pieces of gear. Otherwise it doesn't feel very erwarding to play.

 

The neuro key mission is actually quite fun. Since it is a oe time mission it is easily combined with the gearing process.

[Ranadiel_Marius]

Ugh, I hate writing this post. I don't like being negative, and I would much rather be constructive on realistic solutions to minor problems. However I don't see any kind of stopgap measure that stops this system from being horrible. I genuinely don't think that there is anything even remotely redeemable about this system. It is slow, unfun, and flips a middle finger to solo-players. I would say that it needs to be chucked in the trash and never spoken of again, but I realize that that can't happen because we are too late in the development cycle for a major change like that to be made to 7.0. I doubt there is even enough time to change the system in 7.1, but you want feedback so here are my thoughts.

 

How does the flow of acquiring gear feel?

Slow and unfun. I upgraded to a full set of 322 gear using the conquest gear as that is what I would theoretically be doing on Live. To get a full set of gear, I had to run every heroic planet available and run a couple of others on a second character. I took advantage of the 3-peat bug on weekly heroic missions to reduce the amount of time spent on running missions, and it was still tedious. On Live where the bug will presumably be fixed, so I would have to do 3x the work I did on PTS? I am not going to do that at all. Running the same heroics 3x in the same week (and if you want to get all the tokens you have to since very few if any planets have 2x the required number of Heroics for their weekly) would be insanely tedious. Spamming the same Heroics over and over again is not fun.

 

This will likely be made even worse on Live where there are going to be a dozen people competing for the same objectives on the world map. So you are going to have to carefully choose your Heroics to spam. Actually that brings up another point, in order to reduce the time running things, you are basically going to be required to run stealth since it trivializes so many Heroics. So now instead of us getting the freedom to play the character we want and do the content we want, we instead get pigeonholed into playing Heroics via stealth or wasting all of our time. Yay! >.>

 

Regarding other gearing methods, I am horrible at PVP, so it took me forever to get the weekly, but I sort of expected that. FPs were fine? 2-3 hours for a single improvement is not something I would do on live, but I guess it is alright? Maybe? I imagine there is going to be a lot of grief on live anytime anyone enters a FP queue as a non-stealther, but that is pretty much expected with the introduction of Combat Styles.

 

What are your thoughts on the pace to acquire gear?

 

I think I kind of bled into this answer with my prior comments, but way too slow. I currently have 8 characters geared out in optimal sets at 306. I doubt I am even going to bother getting a single character to 326 in 7.0.

 

Feel free to leave general feedback as well

 

I've spent three days trying to come up with some idea on how to improve the system, and the answer I keep coming back to is that the system is irreparably broken. I realize that isn't a helpful answer since the system is going to live whether anyone likes it or not (and based on discussions I have seen and had the answer is no one likes it). The only improvement I have thought of is adding 60 aquatic matrices to the weekly conquest rewards. I still think the system needs to be completely scrapped, but it will at least address the issue of PVP, FPs, and Ops not having a good source of aquatic matrices for upgrades while giving conquest players enough for an upgrade.

 

Also I think there needs to be a serious discussion internally about what the point of gearing even is. I mean I know the actual reason for gearing is player retention by giving us something to do, but with the excuse of "non-op players don't need the best gear since they aren't doing the hardest content," I think there is a genuine question that has be asked of "Okay why do non-op players need gear upgrades at all?" What is supposed to be our motivation in getting on this treadmill to grind out this gear if we are going to be getting subpar gear for putting in hours and hours of time? At this point, the new gearing system is just telling me that there is no reason for a solo-player to bother, so I'm probably just going to be skipping the entire thing. Meaning that this system is a failure at retaining players for the sake of just gearing. And keep in mind, I am not a casual player, I just went through 20+ hours of playing solely for the sake of a title and a mount. And having done all of that, I still think that grinding to 326 is a waste of my time because it is way too long and the reward of subpar equipment is not worth it. Whenever you get around to fixing this mess, whether it be 7.1, 7.2, or 8.0, you need to to undo the raider/non-raider distinction if you want me to seriously consider bothering with gearing again.

[Toraak]

Please do not make the mistake of letting this gearing system go live. As everyone here said, it takes too long, gear is unmodded, not legacy, too many currencies etc. What we would welcome is a simple way to gear for the solo players, faster way for group players, very fast way for NiM players and lastly also a decent way for PVP players. GSF should be a bonus to help out any of the methods.

 

1 Thing that needs to be corrected. Gear is Legacy bound on the PTS. For an example: I moved my sniper gear (minus legendaries, and MH/OH) from my sniper to my assassin on the PTS just fine and had no issues using it.

 

Edit: personally I don't mind the gearing system for the most part, but as I put in a post awhile ago BW should increase the Aquatic Resource Matrix's acquired from the Heroic Weeklies (which can be done 3 times per week) from 20 per weekly to 40-50. This would make Grinding for gear for Solo players much better. This would mean each planet they would receive 3 Per heroic, and 40-50 per Weekly. While the weekly cap for them would still be there (As would the medals of Commendation cap) it won't feel as much of a grind for them.

 

While FP and Ops players will still have restrictions from weeklies as well (Not all Operation weeklies are on the terminal each week). Something I wonder how many actually noticed. Ops players will also have a limitation on how quickly they'll be able to gear. They'll have to use many different characters running the Ops on the terminal (same for FP players doing multiple characters for completing FP weeklies) to gain gear, so the Time gating isn't just for Solo players.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Toraak

[Pricia]

 

How does the flow of acquiring gear feel?

 

 

This will likely be made even worse on Live where there are going to be a dozen people competing for the same objectives on the world map. So you are going to have to carefully choose your Heroics to spam.

 

Why, you don't like waiting 5 minutes for the "blackout" objectives to respawn with 5 other people spamming right click to get credit first?

 

Why am I not surprised they didn't change any respawn timer on clickies...

 

SIGH.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Pricia

[merovejec]

1 Thing that needs to be corrected. Gear is Legacy bound on the PTS. For an example: I moved my sniper gear (minus legendaries, and MH/OH) from my sniper to my assassin on the PTS just fine and had no issues using it.

 

Ah ok, my bad, but still, now you gain gear on one toon and its useable by all, even set bonus, even MH, OH, its a great system!

Edited December 29, 2021 by merovejec

[pyrietboletje]

To answer the question of how the flow of acquiring gear and the pace feels…

I have many questions and concerns about this…. Many… Way too many concerns.

 

First of all: The rewards for Aquatic Resource Matrix is WAY TOO LOW for PvP.

PvP dailies give you 0 and the weekly gives you only 2. This must be a bug.. Right?

As doing your PvE dailies (black hole, etc) give you 25 aquatic resource matrix’s. This makes it literally IMPOSSIBLE to gear if you mainly do PvP content in the game. (Hello having to complete 15x weeklies for just ONE piece of gear upgrade).

 

Besides: Why do we need to do PvE content to get PvE tokens (aquatic) for PvP gear? That doesn't make sense.

 

This brings me to my concern about the costs of gear. Aquatic Resource Materix will cost 30, 35 and up to even 60 and more to upgrade depending on PvE and PvP gear.

For PvE i can understand having to spend Aquatic Matrix’s but for PvP? With the weekly reward being this low (and matches + dailies non rewarding) it’s an impossible grind for PvP players.

 

What also concerns me is what if you are a PvP player who wants to switch to PvE. I think there should be a way to convert your current PvP gear into let’s say PvE (OPS) as it will literally make you grind all the different types of gear as there is a limit to it. It’s NOT rewarding and NOT respecting the time you spent in your grind.

 

That is one way of putting the whole experience of this. a grind. a NON ENJOYABLE grind for gear.

 

It is a way of keeping players on the game and spending time in the game. But will it be enjoyable? If this will make it live…. I’m not sure if I will even bother playing any end-game content anymore and soly will play it for the story and that’s it.

 

With how the gear grind is right now will I MAYBE grind one character to max conquest gear and don’t bother even with the grind of getting max PvP or PvE (OPS) gear as I have a feeling my time spent in the game is not respected by this grind. I come to play this game to enjoy my time after work. And this makes it feel like I’m having to GRIND and WORK non enjoyable grindy-work and getting barely anything back or being able to afford for the work i put in.

 

I spent 30 hours into the PTS with both the story for the rewards and getting the character to 322… and it felt very unenjoyable seeing how this is unfolding.

 

What I like is conquest however. 200 Medals, Tech Fragments could be a bit more increased (make it 500 or 1k?) and also add in some aquatic resource matrix’s would be nice. And bring down the costs ( a lot) of the upgrades.

And the same goes with group finder. Only getting a few MoC (Medals of Commendation) is nice… but that’s also everything said with it.

 

Also bring down the cost of the Legacy Implants or increase the Tech Fragment rewards you get.

 

TLDR: Bring the rewards up. Bring the costs down. Balance the rewarding for PvP and PvE (Flashpoints/OPS) and reconsider adding in a feature where you could transform PvP gear into PvE and visa versa as your time is literally wasted on the previous grind if you decide to change the way how you play and change gear sets.

[Pricia]

To answer the question of how the flow of acquiring gear and the pace feels…

I have many questions and concerns about this…. Many… Way too many concerns.

 

First of all: The rewards for Aquatic Resource Matrix is WAY TOO LOW for PvP.

PvP dailies give you 0 and the weekly gives you only 2. This must be a bug.. Right?

As doing your PvE dailies (black hole, etc) give you 25 aquatic resource matrix’s. This makes it literally IMPOSSIBLE to gear if you mainly do PvP content in the game. (Hello having to complete 15x weeklies for just ONE piece of gear upgrade).

 

Besides: Why do we need to do PvE content to get PvE tokens (aquatic) for PvP gear? That doesn't make sense.

 

This brings me to my concern about the costs of gear. Aquatic Resource Materix will cost 30, 35 and up to even 60 and more to upgrade depending on PvE and PvP gear.

For PvE i can understand having to spend Aquatic Matrix’s but for PvP? With the weekly reward being this low (and matches + dailies non rewarding) it’s an impossible grind for PvP players.

 

What also concerns me is what if you are a PvP player who wants to switch to PvE. I think there should be a way to convert your current PvP gear into let’s say PvE (OPS) as it will literally make you grind all the different types of gear as there is a limit to it. It’s NOT rewarding and NOT respecting the time you spent in your grind.

 

That is one way of putting the whole experience of this. a grind. a NON ENJOYABLE grind for gear.

 

It is a way of keeping players on the game and spending time in the game. But will it be enjoyable? If this will make it live…. I’m not sure if I will even bother playing any end-game content anymore and soly will play it for the story and that’s it.

 

With how the gear grind is right now will I MAYBE grind one character to max conquest gear and don’t bother even with the grind of getting max PvP or PvE (OPS) gear as I have a feeling my time spent in the game is not respected by this grind. I come to play this game to enjoy my time after work. And this makes it feel like I’m having to GRIND and WORK non enjoyable grindy-work and getting barely anything back or being able to afford for the work i put in.

 

I spent 30 hours into the PTS with both the story for the rewards and getting the character to 322… and it felt very unenjoyable seeing how this is unfolding.

 

What I like is conquest however. 200 Medals, Tech Fragments could be a bit more increased (make it 500 or 1k?) and also add in some aquatic resource matrix’s would be nice. And bring down the costs ( a lot) of the upgrades.

And the same goes with group finder. Only getting a few MoC (Medals of Commendation) is nice… but that’s also everything said with it.

 

Also bring down the cost of the Legacy Implants or increase the Tech Fragment rewards you get.

 

TLDR: Bring the rewards up. Bring the costs down. Balance the rewarding for PvP and PvE (Flashpoints/OPS) and reconsider adding in a feature where you could transform PvP gear into PvE and visa versa as your time is literally wasted on the previous grind if you decide to change the way how you play and change gear sets.

 

And no upgrade part at all for the GSF daily.

[Toraak]

Ah ok, my bad, but still, now you gain gear on one toon and its useable by all, even set bonus, even MH, OH, its a great system!

 

The MH/OH are still bound by legacy, as are the Legendaries, however they are still based on the Combat style you use. For example a Sniper Combat style can not use a Lightsaber for a MH. or a Generator for an OH. That combat Style still requires a Sniper Rifle as a MH, and a Knife as it's OH. The legendaries are also combat style related, since they are your set bonuses now, so using a sniper legendary on an Assassin wouldn't work really either.

 

However you could share a Sin based MH/OH, and Legendary with any Shadow or Assassin Combat spec character in your legacy.

 

Edit: Remember I never said it was perfect gearing system either. I did say they should Increase the amount of Aquatic Resource Matrix's a decent amount. But better then the RNG nonsense of 6.0.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Toraak

[xordevoreaux]

I'm going to make a honest go of 7.0. I've too much invested in the guilds I run and the people in them not to.

 

Currently, on my main account, I've 38 toons on Star Forge, almost all of them 75, each level 75 SM raid worthy, some HM worthy, each wearing its own full set of 306 gear, with augs.

 

In 7.0, as it stands now, it'll take 4 weeks for a soloer to acquire one set of legacy gear via conquest.

Four. Weeks.

 

If gearing remains this onerous, I'll need to answer some questions for myself when the expansion hits.

 

How bored / frustrated will I be not gearing to the extent and as easily as I could in 6.0?

 

Will I be happy triaging at most a half dozen of those 38 toons, upgrading them to be raid-worthy?

 

For the remainder that will never be upgraded, how long do I think I can play space barbies with them, running around in old 306 gear, before I'm permanently bored or frustrated playing those non-raid toons?

 

I group with my guildies for ops three times a week, maybe four when we have a random op.

The rest of the time I'm soloing.

 

Please don't let 7.0 be a monumental grind for soloers. EQ2 went major stupid in that regard. Please don't do it here.

Edited December 29, 2021 by xordevoreaux

[Pricia]

More craziness when it comes to drops here.

 

I ran an heroic.

 

I got Thyrsian production accelerants as drops. Why do PVP items drop in heroics? The solo grind is horrible enough as it is, at least give us APPROPRIATE drops.

 

So far, out of all the solo content I've done, I have got ONE aquatic resource matrix as a drop... and five useless parts for the "conquest" gear track.

 

It is not ok.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Pricia