Too many see 6.X through rose colored glasses (gear)

[sithBracer]

For some reason, a lot of people seem to think the gear system in 6.X was amazing, or at the very least superior to what 7.0 came up with and what we have now.

The fact is, many people just feel that way because at the end of 6.X, they were at the end of their grind. If you all had to start all over from the 7.0 version of 270 gear with no amps, you would all be throwing your cups.

But for all those that seemed to forget, let's take a trip down memory lane at what the gearing system them was REALLY like.

The start at 270

First, you start at 270, the base gear that everyone started with. And the fastest way to get your gear up was to just run fps over and over and over and over. So everyone just ran hammer stations over and over and over and over again. For those that had lives they had to do this for a little less than a month, for those that didn't they could get it done in maybe 2 weeks. After you finally got your 306 gear, the REAL grind began.

The grind for set bonuses

After you got your 306 gear, then you needed to start your real grind. The grind for set bonus pieces. Each set bonus piece had a credit cost in it which did nothing except hurt new players, and it also had a tech fragments cost associated with it. So in order to get those tech fragments what did everyone do? That's right, they ran hammer station over and over and over and over (are we having fun yet?) and over again. And when you finally got enough tech fragments for one set of gear with set bonuses ... you got to start all over on your next set bonus, so that means ... that's right, more hammer station!! Wow, fun fun fun.

The grind isn't over yet

Ok, so you got your gear, you got your set bonuses, you min maxed it, now you are done right? lol, oh you sweet summer child, you aren't even close, because now you have to get amps. Amps were random "extra stats" that armorings had that were just there to torture you. Unfortunately those random extra stats made a very big difference in output, sometimes between 10-15%. And the only way to get them was to either spend tech fragments  on random armorings and pray or reroll them with a credit cost each time. Each armoring was different but the average spent on rerolling was 250M. So new players get a nice big FU and are forced to continue grinding, because ... reasons. Are we having fun yet?

Finally it's over ... or is it?

Well, yes and no because sometimes the best gear and tacticals available weren't the best gear for pvp. That's right, some of the best set bonuses and tacticals were sold by a npc once every few months. Well, technically the schematics were. So if you missed out on them you would either have to wait, or buy them off GTN for a very high price (it's how I made a few billion btw). If you got the schematic, well you had a different grind because the mats required for it were pretty extensive.

 

Well that was fun wasn't it? Let's compare it to the 7.0 gearing system (for pvp), shall we?

 

The new beginning, more hammer station?

You would also start at the bottom with 320 gear. You could run some conquest stuff, flashpoints, heroics, whatever you wanted all to try to get your gear to 326. It didn't matter if it was 326 green, blue or purple, it just had to be 326. I personally just ran flashpoints and was able to get it all to 326 in less than 2 weeks, and believe me, I wasn't trying hard. So at the very worst, you would have to run hammer station for 2 weeks. So far, just as terrible, right?

While you were doing that, you could get thyrisian crates from warzone weeklies and GSF weeklies. Open them up and they give your lowest level gear piece a level up, which incidentally were all 326s, which means the next level piece would be 328 purples. You could raise your implants and relics to 328 blue/green to avoid getting those which means you only need the armor pieces, earpiece and weapons.

 

Now the real grind begins ... right?

Not really, all that was left was your 2 legendary implants because you can easily just share your gear with all your alts. So the only thing your alts needed was their own legendary implants. The grind to get the first legendary implant was a little long since it cost 6500 tech fragments for the implant and to upgrade it to it's next level. However, once you just get one of them to max level, the cost for all the rest of them goes down to 2500 each. The grind for the first one took about a week if you were going slowly.

 

That's it?

Yeah pretty much.

 

Ok, but that was then, now it is probably absolute hell, right?

Now, it is easier than ever. You don't have to do any of the stuff above except the implants, because we have zeek and hyde. All we need to do is get just one purple rakata piece to its max level, go to zeek and hyde, dismantle that piece and we can just buy the purple enhancements along with blue mods/armorings/hilts/etc. at 2 levels higher than the highest thyrisian gear. Your stats in PvP will be exactly the same.

But this takes forever right?

It took me about a day. But if you are new, it might take you 2 weeks to get your first rakata piece to a high enough level to dismantle. If you have multiple characters you can easily do it in 1 week.

 

So, can anyone give a reason why 6.X was in any way better in terms of gear? I would love to have the conversation.

[TrixxieTriss]

While 6.0 had its issues, especially having way too many types of the same pieces. It really was better than what 7.0 released with. I would go back to 6.0 gearing in a heartbeat over this current system. 

All the devs really needed to do to fix the 6.0 gearing was to reduce the number of gear types down to the old 6-8 versions. Instead of the 19-21 versions that 6.0 had. That & making gearing up faster in PvP than it was so we didn’t have to run Flash points to gear up. But honestly, even that wasn’t as painful as the current system. 

They took our feedback of reducing the 19-21 different types too far with 7.0. We went from being able to ridiculously customise too much to not being able customise at all. And then it took 12 months till they even added mods back in for everyday players. Which actually made a lot of players like me unsubscribe for that period.

6.0 wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than this current system.

[sithBracer]

6 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

6.0 wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than this current system.

Why was it better?

Edited January 16 by sithBracer

[Nee-Elder]

23 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

Why was it better?

Speaking only for myself  of course:  i personally really enjoyed the  min/max'ing  of  'amps'  ( amplifiers ) .

i also  enjoyed the idea of  "grinding"  specific  Ops & such for  completing Class-specialized  gear-sets.  ( rather than current grind for Tech Frags + overcomplicated currencies  ad nauseum )

[meddani]

only needing tech fragments and nothing else for gear is already a major factor why 6.x gearing was better than what we currently have.

all the variations of lethal mods alac/adept enhacement could've been reduced though lol.

another negative imo was amplifiers, for example: if you want the best gear for mara you need 3 different descent of the fearless sets because all 3 speccs needed different amplifiers for the best possible damage output: periodic intensity, weapon mastery and armor penetration .

Edited January 16 by meddani

[sithBracer]

21 minutes ago, meddani said:

only needing tech fragments and nothing else for gear is already a major factor why 6.x gearing was better than what we currently have.

So, all the other nonsense is ok, as long as you don't need just one other ops catalyst as your requirement to buy/upgrade gear ... JUST ONCE ... wow, just ... wow.

[sithBracer]

40 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

Speaking only for myself  of course:  i personally really enjoyed the  min/max'ing  of  'amps'  ( amplifiers ) .

That's fair, we like what we like.

[Samcuu]

You forgot to mention that in order to min max properly (high power mods) you needed to buy an unidentified mod from the vendor and then let rng decide if it was what you needed or not. Also I never even got the best set bonus for Vanguard because it was locked behind the nim Dxun raid. 

The amplifiers were a joke, from my experience they purposely made a gold crit rate (whatever u want to call it?) Worse if u were trying to unlock the amplifier you needed on the class you needed it. I got so fed up trying to get the gold amplifiers on my scoundrel that I swapped to sorc and, what a surprise kept getting the scoundrel gold amplifiers unlocked on a toon that didn't need them. Fortunately you could just swap ur armorings around in the legacy bound gear...but yes it was a mess.

7.0 gearing while seemingly more complicated due to the different currencies is so much easier and better than 6.0 I always laugh when I sew ppl say we need to go back to that lol. 

[sithBracer]

22 minutes ago, Samcuu said:

You forgot to mention that in order to min max properly (high power mods) you needed to buy an unidentified mod from the vendor and then let rng decide if it was what you needed or not. Also I never even got the best set bonus for Vanguard because it was locked behind the nim Dxun raid. 

The amplifiers were a joke, from my experience they purposely made a gold crit rate (whatever u want to call it?) Worse if u were trying to unlock the amplifier you needed on the class you needed it. I got so fed up trying to get the gold amplifiers on my scoundrel that I swapped to sorc and, what a surprise kept getting the scoundrel gold amplifiers unlocked on a toon that didn't need them. Fortunately you could just swap ur armorings around in the legacy bound gear...but yes it was a mess.

7.0 gearing while seemingly more complicated due to the different currencies is so much easier and better than 6.0 I always laugh when I sew ppl say we need to go back to that lol. 

 

I didn't really forget, I just wasn't sure if a lot of people actually did it. I know I personally didn't. thanks for adding it in there though.

And yeah, I admit that 7.0 gearing was less intuitive and had a bit of complexity behind it, but I easily figured it out in one day and sites like vulkk explained it in great detail, so it was always a quick google search away.

[TrixxieTriss]

14 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

sites like vulkk explained it in great detail, so it was always a quick google search away

You shouldn’t need to go to a 3rd party site to understand what should intuitively be in the game. It’s poorly designed if you have to. That can also be said about min/maxing in 6.0 because there were way too many versions of the same thing. 

6.0 was way from perfect. We all acknowledge it had issues, especially the RNG vendor & gear for PvP being locked behind ops (which was still part of 7.0 for over 12 months). 

And yes, 7.x is better now better than 7.0 was at launch, but I would still take all those 6.x issues over the 7.x setup today.

Honestly, 6.x gearing could have been streamlined. They didn’t need to reinvent the gearing system to improve it. And what they did with 7.0 gearing drove many people away from the game. They literally took a hit in player population due to the changes made in 7.0 (including pruning). 

All they had to do was remove the RNG aspects at the vendors & amplifiers. Then reduce the number of different types of mods, armouring, enhancements, etc. And provide a path to obtain ALL gear sets outside of ops, especially for pvpers who needed them too. Doing that would have made the gearing much more enjoyable than 6.x was or 7.x is. 

Edited January 16 by TrixxieTriss

[sithBracer]

25 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

You shouldn’t need to go to a 3rd party site to understand what should intuitively be in the game. It’s poorly designed if you have to. That can also be said about min/maxing in 6.0 because there were way too many versions of the same thing.

Poorly designed is not the same as poorly explained. If a system is poorly explained, you can find ways around it with a simple google search. I agree you shouldn't have to, but it's honestly not a big deal. If it is poorly designed there is no escape, you have to play within the parameters of the system.

25 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

6.0 was way from perfect. We all acknowledge it had issues, especially the RNG vendor & gear for PvP being locked behind ops (which was still part of 7.0 for over 12 months).

That is simply not true. You can gear up from pvp. In fact, a well known streamer did. You can drastically speed it up by doing PvE and gsf, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. It was definitely not a requirement.

25 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Honestly, 6.x gearing could have been streamlined. They didn’t need to reinvent the gearing system to improve it. And what they did with 7.0 gearing drove many people away from the game. They literally took a hit in player population due to the changes made in 7.0 (including pruning).

They should've, could've, would've, but didn't. If we want to discuss what they could have done, we could write 20 novels. Lets talk about what they did do.

Also you have absolutely no evidence that gearing drove people away. 7.0 launch was absolutely atrocious with over 200 bugs fixed in the first week. There was almost no new content, the only new FP was broken, abilities didn't work, stats were all wonky, phantom GCDs were common, games were just shutting down randomly for people, people would die for no reason. The release was the worst swtor release in history. Simply trying to say that everyone left only because of gear or only because of pruning is just nonsense. Sure it could've been ONE of the many reasons why people left, just like Galactic Command was ONE of the many reasons people left in 5.X. But you have absolutely no evidence to point to gear or pruning and say "that is the only/main reason people left". (I'll make another topic about pruning btw).

25 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

All they had to do was remove the RNG aspects at the vendors & amplifiers. Then reduce the number of different types of mods, armouring, enhancements, etc. And provide a path to obtain gear ALL sets outside of ops, especially for pvpers who needed them too. Doing that would have made the gearing much more enjoyable than 6.x was or 7.x is. 

"All they had to do was, do exactly what I want and then everyone would be happy and I base this on nothing at all". See, anyone can say that. That's why I prefer to compare what actually happened instead what I wish would've happened.

I'm sorry, but in your posts I see absolutely no reason why 6.X gearing is better than 7.X. I only see "6.x is way better just because. While I admit 6.X had a lot of problems, all they had to do is xyz and life would be perfect, but even without it, it was so much better than 7.X just because".

Edited January 16 by sithBracer

[supertimtaf]

15 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Honestly, 6.x gearing could have been streamlined.

6.X gearing seemed easier to understand at first, but it was still a terrible gearing system lol. 7.X gearing is still also bad imo because there are too many vendors, too many currencies, too many gear sets that seemingly don't do the same thing but kinda does too... Imo the whole system deserves a rework to just make itself be simpler.

I mean... if you really wanted to do a better gearing system. What could you do for this ?

- First thing would be to get rid of all these useless currencies. Tech Fragments are good. Keep them. Get rid of conquest commendations, Ops catalyst, warzone accels, FP stabilizers... All these needs to go.

- Second thing would be to decide if your gear is actually moddable or just with static stats. Imo moddable is best, and all gear vendor should sell moddable gear. Static gear is awfull for accuracy cap management.

- To prevent players from accumulating gear too fast (yes this is a concern in every MMO, and is the reason why we have so many currencies right now, is to prevent players from earning gear too fast), just put a weekly cap on tech frags. Increase the amount of tech frags you get from pvp tho because current rates are absolutely garbage :')

- Now you have one tier of gear that's "starter" gear, we call it T1. You buy it with tech frags, it's legacy bound. You also have implants for set bonuses, fine.

- Right next to the gear seller and implant seller, you put in a "gear upgrade" seller and a "implant upgrade" seller. Condition to upgrade should be displayed *even if you don't have the prerequisite*, not like right now where clicking on a vendor you can't use will just not open it, making it even more confusing than it already is.

- To upgrade, just ask for "starter" gear + more tech frags. Congrats you have an T2 upgrade. You can even put a T3 upgrade vendor if you really want, to upgrade gear to be BiS for MM operations. For PvP you could set the bolster to actual T2 ilvl so it's "easy but not too much" to get actual PvP BiS

- Then for next expansion, instead of *reworking* the whole system again, you just convert all tech fragments into the new endgame currency, "Tech Parts" or whatever, with a ratio of 100 to 5 or something like that. So it's not that much of a pain for players who did grind tech fragments for the past expansion.

You now have a perfectly fine gearing system that works with every content without the need for useless currency ;D
There you go, actual gearing system that's manageable and easy to understand for all players. Who would have guessed. And it's also far easier to balance and fix if values are incorrect, leading up to far less dev time and investment from Broadsword on the long term, which is what will definitely be of interest to them due to their limited ressources.

Honestly this is just 4.0 gearing slightly improved and reworked. Which is what they should have done right from the start because that system was one of the best we ever had. And I would be really curious to know what motivated them to change for... Whatever 5.x gearing was :')


Now just make sets of two implants for every class. Remove 80% of the set bonuses we have now to keep only the ones 90% of players are using. You also gain more dev time and make it less confusing for new players too. Which should always be what you want when working on a MMO or any kind of RPG



Anyway rant over, I just wanted to show that you could actually make gearing much, much better without actually taking from 6.X or 7.X altogether. The goal of this discussion shouldn't be to settle "what was better between 6.X or 7.X" but "what can we do to make the game better for 8.X if it ever comes"

[TrixxieTriss]

12 minutes ago, supertimtaf said:

4.0 gearing slightly improved and reworked. Which is what they should have done right from the start because that system was one of the best we ever had

100% agree. 4.0 had the best gearing system.

[TrixxieTriss]

29 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

Poorly designed is not the same as poorly explained. If a system is poorly explained, you can find ways around it with a simple google search. I agree you shouldn't have to, but it's honestly not a big deal. If it is poorly designed there is no escape, you have to play within the parameters of the system.

49 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

True, but both 6.0 & 7.0 were poorly designed 

 

30 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

That is simply not true. You can gear up from pvp. In fact, a well known streamer did. You can drastically speed it up by doing PvE and gsf, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. It was definitely not a requirement

There were certain sets locked behind ops for most of the 6.x gear. So what I said was true. And only gearing through PvP was monstrously long. Im talking many months compared to pve content talking weeks.

33 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

Also you have absolutely no evidence that gearing drove people away

Actually I do. Myself, wife, guild & friends all stopped playing with in weeks of 7.0 gearing being released & gearing was the main reason, with pruning being the 2nd for some. I wasn’t the only one who complained on the forums & then unsubbed over it. If you don’t believe me, go back & look. The other evidence you’re looking for is the significant drop in player numbers with 6-8 weeks of 7.0 releasing. The numbers should go up after a major patch. Which they did at first, but then dropped back down very quickly to go well below what they were before release. This trend continued until BioWare started listening to the feedback on gearing & started making changes. As soon as that happened, you started to see player numbers increase again. That’s all the evidence you need to know gearing was a major factor. 

 

40 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

I'm sorry, but in your posts I see absolutely no reason why 6.X gearing is better than 7.X

You’re right, I didn’t make a case for why it’s better. I said I preferred 6.0 gearing. To be transparent I also said it wasn’t perfect & I still prefer 6.0 gearing with its issues over 7.0 gearing, which I absolutely hate with a passion. IMO, it’s the second worst gearing system this game has ever had. If I had to choose between them, it would be always be 6.0. But if I had to choose a gearing system, it would be 4.0.
 

[sithBracer]

22 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

True, but both 6.0 & 7.0 were poorly designed

You’re right, I didn’t make a case for why it’s better. I said I preferred 6.0 gearing. To be transparent I also said it wasn’t perfect & I still prefer 6.0 gearing with its issues over 7.0 gearing, which I absolutely hate with a passion. IMO, it’s the second worst gearing system this game has ever had. If I had to choose between them, it would be always be 6.0. But if I had to choose a gearing system, it would be 4.0.
 

While I agree that 4.X was the best gearing system, and late 2.X had the best class balance, this topic is strictly about 7.X and 6.X.

23 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Actually I do. Myself, wife, guild & friends all stopped playing with in weeks of 7.0 gearing being released & gearing was the main reason, with pruning being the 2nd for some. I wasn’t the only one who complained on the forums & then unsubbed over it. If you don’t believe me, go back & look. The other evidence you’re looking for is the significant drop in player numbers with 6-8 weeks of 7.0 releasing. The numbers should go up after a major patch. Which they did at first, but then dropped back down very quickly to go well below what they were before release. This trend continued until BioWare started listening to the feedback on gearing & started making changes. As soon as that happened, you started to see player numbers increase again. That’s all the evidence you need to know gearing was a major factor.

A bunch of like minded people agreeing on something is not really evidence. I have a bunch of friends who say that 7.X has a better gearing system. Also, for you and your friends, did you think 6.X gearing was awesome and the change in 7.X was literally the main reason you left? Or were you all just fed up with how gearing was 5.X and after, with 7.X being the straw that broke the camels back? Would you all really stay if everything else remained the same but you had to start from 270 once again with no set bonuses or amps? Because, I highly doubt it.

[TrixxieTriss]

10 hours ago, sithBracer said:

A bunch of like minded people agreeing on something is not really evidence.

I stated that people unsubbed or stopped playing because of it. I didn’t offer how many because how would I know that. You’re the one that asked for some evidence that people did unsub & now your moving the bar when I provide it.

My statement was correct as long as one person unsubbed because of the changes. I unsubbed, that’s my personal evidence right there. But I also know for a fact that my whole guild unsubbed & I know my wife & family did too. I also know of many other people who unsubbed because they PM’d me here on the forums to tell me & I’ve not seen them come back. 

Edited January 17 by TrixxieTriss

[sithBracer]

5 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I stated that people unsubbed or stopped playing because if it. I didn’t offer how many because how would I know that. You’re the one that asked for some evidence that people did unsub & now your moving the bar when I provide it.

My statement was correct as long as one person unsubbed because of the changes. I unsubbed, that’s my personal evidence right there. But I also know for a fact that my whole guild unsubbed & I know my wife & family did too. I also know of many other people who unsubbed because they PM’d me here on the forums to tell me & I’ve not seen them come back. 

Yeah, but that is not what I asked. I asked for some evidence proving that 6.X is superior to 7.X. Simply saying "I know some people who unsubbed because of 7.X gearing system" is not evidence. I know some people who unsubbed because they hated how the pvp gear looked in 4.X (seriously). That doesn't prove anything. In my statements I proved that the gearing in 6.X took a lot longer, cost a lot more and was more inefficient because you couldn't even share it.

Now, I'll ask again. What is better about the 6.X gearing system?

BTW, it's ok if you just like it more. You are allowed to like anything for your own personal reasons despite it being worse than something else. But if you are claiming it is better, please explain why.

[TrixxieTriss]

2 minutes ago, sithBracer said:

What is better about the 6.X gearing system

Everything from my point of view.

[Nee-Elder]

3 hours ago, Samcuu said:

The amplifiers were a joke,

They were a great  credit sink  though.

Plus, i just personally like  side-grinds ( or mini-games )  and the amps  thing  sorta reminded me of  SWG when i used to make specific stat'd Crafting-Suits.

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

4.0 had the best gearing system.

i liked it the best, including 'expertise' system and especially prior animations like 'ravage' & such.

And heck, just think where  SWTOR would be now if they had kept  4.0 gearing & skill trees ( and Crafting )  and just made tiny subtle changes here & there, combined with  all the content we've gotten since that era.

Edited January 17 by Nee-Elder

[septru]

23 hours ago, Nee-Elder said:

They were a great  credit sink  though.

Were they though? 

 

Amplifiers took out millions of credits from the economy. Credit sellers injected trillions of credits back into the economy. I seem to remember inflation going up throughout 6.0. But that's besides the point because amplifiers were by far the most pointless, and needlessly complicated, addition to gearing that has ever existed. 

Edited January 18 by septru

[Nee-Elder]

3 minutes ago, septru said:

Were they though?

well,  was for me at least  lol

3 minutes ago, septru said:

I seem to remember inflation going up throughout 7.0. 

hmm, on Star Forge  it seems like inflation is curtailed a bit .  ( i guess that's more a result of 7.3 or 7.4  and you meant just initial 7.0 vanilla ? ) 

But anyways, my overall  point ( or wish )  is that  4.0 era , with aspects of  6.0 & 7.0 , had remained intact and then now years later  SWTOR would have the best of all eras , instead of obliterating each era in favor of the next. ( typical Coders  wanting to put their own silly stamp on things )

[supertimtaf]

30 minutes ago, septru said:

But that's besides the point because amplifiers were by far the most pointless, and needlessly complicated, addition to gearing that has ever existed. 

Imagine using RNG for gearing or getting BiS >_>
I don't know why they added it, it was pointless, and only served to drive further the difference between new and veteran players. As well as being exceptionnally frustrating.

But I guess they do were desperate to add credit sinks. Just that this was the worst way to do it.

[supertimtaf]

24 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

typical Coders  wanting to put their own silly stamp on things

Imo it's not even that. It almost seems like that if the designers don't "reinvent" a whole system at each expansion well they're scared to have nothing to do at work.
Which is... Idk. Weird ? Wrong ? Instead of wanting to remake a system  into a completely different iteration, why not take what's working, improve it, and work on *other systems* ?

This game could use more things to keep us busy besides raiding and PvP. They tried that with galactic seasons but I mean... Going on actual treasure hunts maybe, or smaller activities that aren't heroics would do wonders to the game.

[Zunayson]

I love 7.0, and I'm not even being sarcastic.

I don't understand the complaint that there's too many currencies. I mean, there is, but prices and rewards are balanced so that you don't have to worry about frags or conquest. At least in my case.

I don't see why people liked amplifiers. Maybe I have to leave it at that because some people like a grind -- that's fine. But it's just another barrier to playing your toon the way you want. Let me explain: it's unlikely you could switch disciplines and keep the same amplifier set. So switching disciplines likely meant you had to swap your armorings. Tedious, and since when did anyone mix & match or customize?

I don't understand the complaint that moddable gear is great. Everyone seems to agree that 6.x had too many mod variations, so you're left with alac, crit, and accuracy, right? So choosing your gear is just like choosing the enhancement. I suppose some people used those to avoid going over accuracy or alacrity caps? But that's what augments should be for. (Otherwise, they're just another silly grind like amplifiers!) I suppose some people must have liked it when there were some mod variations like the high-endurance mods with the B postfix? But since when did anyone run those? 

I don't understand any complaints about legendaries. Set Bonuses have the same problem amplifiers do, which is needing to change 7 things just to switch disciplines. Plus, 6.x set bonuses failed to accomplish a stated goal by the developers. All of the set bonus threads (for example this one) say: "Our goal for set bonuses is to introduce new bonuses, and potentially with even new sizes so you can mix and match." But when did anyone mix & match set bonuses? 6 pieces were just too powerful. The new legendaries actually accomplish the goal, because at least some classes actually mix and match those (I agree not all do, and that's a problem).

In all these cases, I think the devs basically looked at how people actually played pruned a bunch of garbage, and I'm really happy about it. The new gearing system is way alt-friendlier, now that set bonuses are just 2 implants. 

I actually never knew about hyde and zeek. Because I'm autistic, I simultaneously grinded flashpoints, heroics, and pvp in the first 2 weeks of the xpac and got iratings of random assorted sets (a little 324 of thyrsian, a little 324 of rakata or whatever), then opened my remaining pvp crates to get shiny 326s of various tertiary stats. Now I have cargo holds full of those boxes, and I get gear capped in about a day.

[Nee-Elder]

47 minutes ago, Zunayson said:

 So switching disciplines likely meant you had to swap your armorings.

i never switch ( or switched ) disciplines.

i just switch ( and switched )  characters.

There's nothing else to do in this game other than create new ALTs ,  so imho  it's far more "tedious"  to always have to change  gear from Legacy bank or whatever.

Takes me like 20 seconds to swap characters though.

p.s.  i never use  'loadouts'  either, since i already have an ALT character  covering  nearly every spec anyway.

Edited January 17 by Nee-Elder