General Thoughts on the new system?

[KStone]

I've been holding off on posting my thoughts and opinions but I want to share my opinions and see what you all think.

 

1) Gearing is horrible. many of my 306 gear is still better than a lot of the 320 / 326 stuff that you get.

2) There isn't incentive (better gear, better stats, better gear looks, etc) to bother with the new season. I'm capped at 15/15 season tokens and a blatant lack of desire to spend them on anything (I have both SH's already... more access to companions would fix this or the ability to spend the tokens on something for faction points - something).

3) The deliberate breaking of equipment past level 75 "because they want to phase it out".

4) Deliberate breaking of class functions.

5) It's now impossible to get 'good quality' stuff unless I join a group set for MM / NiM raids.

6) Groupfinder for Flashpoints: Why did they choose to disable it completely? By disabling it, it's impossible to do the 'Groupfinder daily & weekly'.

7) Now there's a limit on Heroics for completion lootings. Apply this limit to a daily FP can count towards something (can only do Red Reaper 3/day for counting towards anything, or Hammer Station, etc) instead of Heroics (which need to be completed often for KotFE things).

 

These are what I've noticed, and am generally unhappy with. What're your guys thoughts (pls keep it civil) on play 1 week in?

[juliushorst]

Fully agree on all points. And one more:

- Balancing changes and caps on all stats are awful, everything dies slowly, it's not fun.

[KStone]

I wonder if they're having the issue that FF:XIV did where the number caps are getting to the maximum alotted and they tried to basically nerf the game instead of doing what SE did and crunch everything from bosses HP's, to attacks, etc. SE's way takes WAY more time to fix, but it does explain some of their faux pax's they've done since last week.

[Nefla]

It was unnecessary and it's worse than it was before

[KStone]

It was unnecessary and it's worse than it was before

 

Not disagreeing at all. Just trying to wonder what made them do these unnecessary and drastic measure to end-game gear and content.

[Catalan]

Sunsetting the game. Consolidation of game assets and gear systems makes it easier to run with minimal dev resources.

[Raansu]

The concept of the pve gearing is fine. 6.0 made end game pointless and it needed to change. You should NOT be able to get the best gear by spamming the two easiest FP's in the game.

 

Making all the gear sets static and limiting moddable gear to only NiM raids is not fine though.

 

PvP gear progression is just.....just give us pvp gear back with the legacy warzone comm system from 4.X

 

The UI is gross and the inventory box literally gives me a headache.

 

The ability pruning was stupid. Leveling a PT and at level 40 I have less skills than I would have at level 15 pre-7.0. Its made leveling up incredibly boring. I'm sorry that people don't know how to keybind and are unable to read tooltips, but don't punish everyone else for it. Also the general concept with the new skill tree is absolutely trash. Making players choose between a CC, mobility, or a DCD while actively removing other CC's from some classes and not others is beyond stupid (marauders lose no longer have intimidating roar making their level 73 choice incredibly difficult. Meanwhile PT's still have their AOE CC baseline, so their ST CC is nowhere near as difficult of a choice)

[Ryukan]

I dislike the new system enough that is has killed the game for me. I could not care less about the Combat Styles system, not liking the removal of skills/abilities, not liking the new gear system, just feeling like the whole thing is underwhelming, unnecessary and unwanted. Oddly enough the UI is the one thing that doesn't bother me. I feel like I can identify things in the inventory easier and the icons stand out more. But I realize that this is not the case for a lot of people and I can understand that as well, I play on a 55" display so the UI changes may affect me differently than many players that use smaller displays. My sub is done in March and I've already uninstalled the game. Time to move on from this janky game that feels more like a platform for the Cartel Market than anything else. Edited February 23, 2022 by Ryukan

[OlBuzzard]

I've been holding off on posting my thoughts and opinions but I want to share my opinions and see what you all think.

 

1) Gearing is horrible. many of my 306 gear is still better than a lot of the 320 / 326 stuff that you get.

2) There isn't incentive (better gear, better stats, better gear looks, etc) to bother with the new season. I'm capped at 15/15 season tokens and a blatant lack of desire to spend them on anything (I have both SH's already... more access to companions would fix this or the ability to spend the tokens on something for faction points - something).

3) The deliberate breaking of equipment past level 75 "because they want to phase it out".

4) Deliberate breaking of class functions.

5) It's now impossible to get 'good quality' stuff unless I join a group set for MM / NiM raids.

6) Groupfinder for Flashpoints: Why did they choose to disable it completely? By disabling it, it's impossible to do the 'Groupfinder daily & weekly'.

7) Now there's a limit on Heroics for completion lootings. Apply this limit to a daily FP can count towards something (can only do Red Reaper 3/day for counting towards anything, or Hammer Station, etc) instead of Heroics (which need to be completed often for KotFE things).

 

These are what I've noticed, and am generally unhappy with. What're your guys thoughts (pls keep it civil) on play 1 week in?

 

Fair summation. IMO these are the main reasons for most of the objections (that I've ran across).

 

Additional thoughts

** If the gear is messed up ... why mess with the gear?

** If there are restrictions on getting the gear why are they restricted in the first place ?? (Yeah I get the ridiculous argument of THIS IS a MMO ... so get over it! If you restrict the gear it will restrict those who play .. and I think we know where that's headed.)

** BUGS (too many!! .. way too many) Especially the one with Malgus!

[Raansu]

Fair summation. IMO these are the main reasons for most of the objections (that I've ran across).

 

Additional thoughts

** If the gear is messed up ... why mess with the gear?

** If there are restrictions on getting the gear why are they restricted in the first place ?? (Yeah I get the ridiculous argument of THIS IS a MMO ... so get over it! If you restrict the gear it will restrict those who play .. and I think we know where that's headed.)

** BUGS (too many!! .. way too many) Especially the one with Malgus!

 

Its impossible to get the top tier gear in FFXIV without doing savage raids, yet that game is doing perfectly fine. and no one complains about that games gear progression. In fact most praise it. Gear progression isn't the problem with swtor and you know it. FFXIV offers a ton of content outside of raiding and the game doesn't make you feel compelled to log in every single day, nor does it make players feel compelled to get the very best gear outside of people doing savage progression because there's plenty of other things to do in the game and they always add catchup mechanics for casual players to gear up.

 

SWTOR's problem is lack of CONTENT. Ya'll don't need the best gear in the game to do your solo content. The problem is there is nothing else to do in the game.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Raansu

[KStone]

Its impossible to get the top tier gear in FFXIV without doing savage raids, yet that game is doing perfectly fine. and no one complains about that games gear progression. In fact most praise it. Gear progression isn't the problem with swtor and you know it. FFXIV offers a ton of content outside of raiding and the game doesn't make you feel compelled to log in every single day, nor does it make players feel compelled to get the very best gear outside of people doing savage progression because there's plenty of other things to do in the game and they always add catchup mechanics for casual players to gear up.

 

SWTOR's problem is lack of CONTENT. Ya'll don't need the best gear in the game to do your solo content. The problem is there is nothing else to do in the game.

 

Keep in mind, FF:XIV hasn't changed how gearing works. They had to do a work-a-round for various things because people were maxing out and bosses were maxing out on DPS and HP's respectively, but as far as *how* you get gear and any kind of things like that, they've never said "Okay, well you used to be able to do this and we don't like that anymore so we're gonna do this".

 

I get that FF:XIV is huge and they're (imo) obviously trying to emulate it, but you can't break the game trying to make it something it isn't. I like the second-class option, something like that was perfect for this game. The right guild will give you something to do daily or weekly with guild-based events, but joining raids with friends now goes from "I can join that raid because I have the right equipment stuff for it" to "I'm never gonna be able to get that because I'm a casual player".

 

I could as a casual player farm the 306 mods and eventually get to be able to join the 'end-game raids' for fun with friends on harder difficulties. Now, that's a lot less possible.

[DWho]

SWTOR's problem is lack of CONTENT. Ya'll don't need the best gear in the game to do your solo content. The problem is there is nothing else to do in the game.

 

This is the core problem. Gearing is the only "end game" when there is no significant content released.

[Raansu]

"I can join that raid because I have the right equipment stuff for it" to "I'm never gonna be able to get that because I'm a casual player".

 

I could as a casual player farm the 306 mods and eventually get to be able to join the 'end-game raids' for fun with friends on harder difficulties. Now, that's a lot less possible.

 

A good guild would help you get the gear you needed.

 

That said, unless you're rolling into NiM raids, the gear you can get from FP's and SM Ops is more than enough to run HM Ops, so your excuse to being unable to jump in and run a raid is nonsense.

[red_onion]

I disagree with you on GS... even if you don't want to earn any more tokens, there's still the CC reward which given the current state of the hyperinflated economy that's really the only way I'm buying new armor sets and weapons without buying credits from gold sellers or playing the GTN rather than the game... so happy for the CC, but I don't think that's enough to keep me subbed given all the other issues with 7.0. They should raise the cap from 15 at this point... it's arbitrary and maybe it was meant to stop players from having both strongholds in Season 1 but it serves no purpose now.

 

Likewise, the caps should be removed on all the new currencies. I don't mind earning them passively and maybe turning around and putting an armor set together down the road, but I'm not going to play some dumb game of trying to constantly equip and earn more currency which means I'll have everything maxed out and won't be spending on anything, won't be getting better gear... there's just no point to invest in the new gearing system. I used to run ops because guilds wanted and extra body and I had the gear and the stats to help, but I'm not motivated enough to gear up just to do content I was meh about in the first place. I enjoyed joining guild activities but I don't enjoy Ops for their own sake and would never bother with a PuG.

 

I HATE the ability changes, both mechanically in how they contribute to fights and superficially just enjoying various animations. Am I doing less damage because my Sin lost Spike? Marginally... but now I don't have a fun move to do coming out of stealth so the game is just less dynamic, basic. Likewise with my Mara, for me there's no question I'm choosing Mad Dash over Force Choke because it gives me more overall utility and I'm a whore for extra AoE and gap closers but I lose the joy of picking up a fool while slicing them to shreds... it was just FUN, now it's gone.

 

It's also lost utility in the rare event I'm working a heroic in the PvP instance or something and someone jumps me, it's nice to have a stun available immediately, not after I swap to some other loadout. Sure I can plan ahead for a PvP match but I can't optimize for open world and be prepared for fighting another player simultaneously... before you could, maybe not "optimized" but I still had the ability even if they weren't as dialed in to specific content, it was there. And it's not like we gained any simplicity removing the utility point system, the skill tree that replaces it will confuse new players just as much imho and they'll still just run off to Merlin or Vulkk to let someone else tell them how to set their character up or ignore it altogether.

 

Conquest changes are awful. Regardless of what an alt-less player thinks of my army of alts, previous builds of the game encouraged it in various ways as well as the "play your way" nonsense they were pushing at the time. It takes 4x the effort now... the rewards aren't worth the work, so gone is my primary reason for logging in daily and being active in a guild. I'm semi-retiring most alts and no longer contributing to many guilds nor am I logging in as often. There's less incentive to do any heroics.

 

Along with this, Conquest was one of the only good ways to reliably make credits in the game without it feeling like a grind because I was having fun and knocking out several goals at once... I'm not going to grind for tech fragments in an Ops just to earn tech fragments and I'm not going to earn as many passively from conquest so that's one less thing to sell (at least they knocked the price of the RPM/OEM down to 7500 which is a positive, I guess). Likewise, I'm not earning nearly as many flagship encryptions... add to this the current state of the economy. The economy is a rant in of itself but not part of the new system so I digress.

 

In addition to conquest changes we can factor in Renown which was helpful with conquest... it was an imperfect system and I think Command was better but losing it altogether means there's no longer any sense of achievement once a toon is max level which I think is a negative... it should have been replaced by something. On the upside at least we can buy the old Command gear now but we should have been able to do that with 6.0, it just wasn't their priority.

 

The changes to how level sync works is effectively another nerf. Companions have been nerfed... both debates in of themselves but both result in more of a grind for the same old content... more of a grind for rewards that take longer. Heroics take longer in addition to giving less conquest, so just all the more reason to not do the daily grind I used to because the amount of grind has increased significantly. This is offset somewhat by the ability to share kills with other players but that assumes other players are on the same heroic and you aren't in a phase. Then there's trying to solo stuff like Star Fortresses and vet/mm KOTFE which are that much more grindy, slow, and annoying with these unnecessary nerfs (comps were already nerfed into the ground, delayed healing/dps they just had more health while now I have to put my comp on heals just to keep my companion alive.

 

I do like that GSF weeklies are now four matches instead of 10 but at the same time I hate that if I don't finish a mission yesterday I have to go back and grab it today when I'd rather just have it stay in my missions log even if advancement is reset. The fact that it does reset means I'm less likely to start a new mission at the end of the night or if I think it's too much of a grind. I enjoy passively completing tasks when I get around to it and don't like being put on a timer... unnecessary change from my perspective.

 

I suppose I'm happy that Alliance armor sets were added to collections.

 

Overall I'm pretty negative about 7.0 and the more I play it the more I dislike it, rather than the opposite happening where I start to get used to it and move on. Although it's really hard to adjust when the inventory screen gives me a literal headache if I look at it for more than like five seconds at a time.

[OlBuzzard]

Its impossible to get the top tier gear in FFXIV without doing savage raids, yet that game is doing perfectly fine. and no one complains about that games gear progression. In fact most praise it. Gear progression isn't the problem with swtor and you know it. FFXIV offers a ton of content outside of raiding and the game doesn't make you feel compelled to log in every single day, nor does it make players feel compelled to get the very best gear outside of people doing savage progression because there's plenty of other things to do in the game and they always add catchup mechanics for casual players to gear up.

 

SWTOR's problem is lack of CONTENT. Ya'll don't need the best gear in the game to do your solo content. The problem is there is nothing else to do in the game.

 

I'm not always after BiS (particularly with Augments). I did enjoy the 306 gear. It allowed me to enjoy areas of the game that we previously were not able to. I might also add that the mess with Ossus (connected to the gear grind etc) was IMO pathetic ! (I hated it .. period!)

 

To put thing in a little better perspective: I enjoyed SoV when it was first released aside from the BUGS. You can check my posting history if you like.

 

IMO ... if the gearing system is done right there is room for all of us. Set things up where we can enjoy a variety of difficulty levels. Not everyone plays the same as I do ... and I DANG sure don't play the game the same way others might! The difference is that I don't have a problem understanding that point of view. Face rolling everything is not the answer. Hiding stuff away from a significant part of the audience usually creates division not prosperity (something we really don't need right now).

 

** some players want solo from a "story" standpoint only

** some enjoy a challenge

** still others prefer every movement to be a near death experience

 

Soooo why not make it available to select the level of difficulty regardless of whether we are playing solo or in a group?

[Raansu]

I'm not always after BiS (particularly with Augments). I did enjoy the 306 gear. It allowed me to enjoy areas of the game that we previously were not able to.

 

Like what? The entire game is level synced outside of max level raids.

 

Raids and pvp were literally the only places the 306 mattered at all.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Raansu

[XxHazenxX]

Sunsetting the game. Consolidation of game assets and gear systems makes it easier to run with minimal dev resources.

 

This ^

 

Been saying it this whole time. The game is going to be taken offline in favor of Ubisoft's SW game just like SWG was taken offline in favor of SWTOR.

[red_onion]

That said, unless you're rolling into NiM raids, the gear you can get from FP's and SM Ops is more than enough to run HM Ops, so your excuse to being unable to jump in and run a raid is nonsense.

 

That still requires specifically setting out to grind FPs and SM Ops. In 6.0 it took me forever to get to 306 because I refused to grind for it specifically... but I got there eventually just doing my weekly conquest and being smart about passing the best gear between alts before opening crates.

 

A good guild will still help you, but some of us don't want to be carried or a burden either, we want to be ready to go with gear at the very least because we are casual enough that we likely aren't messing around in StarParse or trying to optimize or set bonus, tacticals, etc. with a rotation if we even bother to learn a complex rotation. I make sure to know my core ability and what's filler, and which strengthen another if used in the correct order, and if I run out of resources and can't attack for two seconds because I didn't do the rotation right... whatever. We do the basics, 110% accuracy, 306 gear, 1213 alacrity, etc. But having reasonably good gear doesn't totally make up for being more casual in combat and I still don't consider unaugmented 306 as BiS, it was just accessible (that said I felt reasonably capable with anything above maybe 290 for the content I was helping with).

 

I agree to your point that most players don't "need" the best possible gear but neither do NiM raiders since the bosses will be balanced according to what they are expected to put out regardless. Skill should be the difference maker, not gear level. Want to make gear a carrot on a stick, they could easily do that with augments. Plus then it just turns into "game is too easy" again because you give the best possible gear to one group of players but most content is balanced for what the majority are expected to reach... so best gear is a counter productive carrot. Better to have unique titles, mounts, armor sets, and that sort of thing as incentive imho.

[OlBuzzard]

Like what? The entire game is level synced outside of max level raids.

 

Raids and pvp were literally the only places the 306 mattered at all.

 

I like to use the SoV chapter as a good example. Some players suggest that it could be done with less. BUT .. for me (at least) even though I did not have ANY BiS augments I was able to navigate it just fine the first time.

 

You could probably do that area with less when it was first released. It is areas like SoV that I would love to see more of IF WE have access to the gear.

 

I doubt that makes much sense. But it's the best way I know to explain it to someone (anyone). My apologies but, I've never mastered the technobabble (so that's on me).

[Raansu]

That still requires specifically setting out to grind FPs and SM Ops. In 6.0 it took me forever to get to 306 because I refused to grind for it specifically... but I got there eventually just doing my weekly conquest and being smart about passing the best gear between alts before opening crates.

 

Good news. The conquest gear that drops is also more than enough for FP's and SM Ops lol.

 

I agree to your point that most players don't "need" the best possible gear but neither do NiM raiders since the bosses will be balanced according to what they are expected to put out regardless.

 

Except they do need that gear.....That's the entire point of gear progression is to move on to harder content. Skill can't make up for lack of stats on your character preventing you from beating the boss before it enrages.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Raansu

[Sarfux]

I have never ever been so disappointed in a patch or expansion in this game, in it's entire existence. I have been here since before the game was even an alpha. when it was just forums. i tested alpha, beta, and i have been here EVER since. a long long paying sub. giving thousands and thousands to this game over the years. I have then had a guild for 5 and a half years of that time and still do. I will be informing my guild that if things dont drastically change, I'm just gonna head out. It's obviously different now, and this old vet just doesn't wanna fight about it anymore, or argue. I'm tired of getting into it with people.

 

I was a huge defender of bioware in the past, but not anymore. they screwed the pooch one too many times now. So i'll be working on selling things, slowly shutting down my guild, spreading my wealth to new players, and that's that. i'll be doing it over the next couple of months. lots to tear down.

 

Good luck bioware...

[NogueiraA]

5) It's now impossible to get 'good quality' stuff unless I join a group set for MM / NiM raids.

This is what made me unsubscribe and buy End of Dragons the new Gw2 xpac.

 

They wanna reward HM/NiM raiding? OK I get it but MM FP should reward purple gear 326.

I have thousands and thousands of hours on raiding in this game, I simply can't deal with anymore.

 

If I want to gear 326 I gotta pvp / GSF or MM raids. I have 7 valor 100 characters, can't deal with pvp anymore, it's just not fun anymore for me, I played it too much.

But I love running MM FP's, it should not give me 330 but 326 would be totally fine.

[Lenlo]

This patch was severely under cooked.

[OlBuzzard]

 

[/snip ... snip]

 

 

..... it should not give me 330 but 326 would be totally fine.

 

This part right here would probably apply to many of us. That would also depend upon how the rest eventually works out (augments ... etc).

 

That gives me the best of "both worlds" so to speak. That allows me to dive into something more challenging from time to time.

 

Note to NogueiraA ... my apologies for snipping so much out of your quote. I'm personally not quite ready to bail out just yet. There are several things I am watching closely to see what develops in the next 2 - 3 months.

 

Hopefully, the ability to get decent gear won't be restricted to "group(s)" only.

 

(And in case some others might be wondering ... I don't need for someone else to determine what gear I need/want. That is my choice.)

[Eli_Porter]

Gearing is just too slow and convoluted. I know so many people who feel forced into content they dislike (GSF + WB farming) and as they see others passing them in gear they just quit. And these are raiders too, people who this gearing system was supposedly built towards.

 

If 7.1 hopes to lure raiders back, the road to 326 needs to be shortened and simplified. Give bosses upgrades, consolidate the currencies and upgrade paths.