Progression Changes coming in 7.5.1

[DeannaVoyager]

14 hours ago, Christie_Swift said:

Devs, please DECREASE  PERSONAL CONQUEST  objective from 100K to 50K or increase current conquest reward rates by 50%.

Yes please.

 

12 hours ago, Rykon said:

Why should there be more hammer station runs? To advance in your weekly flashpoint quest, you need to list randomly, it does not work with selecting a specific flashpoint

That's the thing:  HS spammers don't care about the weekly, but they are put in the same GF queue with people who prefer random. Those people are then forced to participate in that HS spam which kinda makes GF totally unusable for everyone who wants random flashpoints. Other than that, I think the person you quoted wasn't exactly happy about the upcoming HS spam.

 

Suggestion to devs:  Can we get rid of the option to select/deselect certain flashpoints because it's being abused? If someone wants to spam HS they can walk in. It's very easy: the entrance is at the fleet. There is no need to ruin GF from everyone else. It has become unusable for people who want random fps and that's the main reason I don't even do flashpoints anymore.  It used to function as a group finder for random content, now it's functioning as a group finder for HS farmers.  This thing needs to be changed back to serve everyone, not just the lazy HS spammers.

 

[DarthCasus]

21 hours ago, WaffleQwop said:

As happy as I am to hear that you guys are doing anything in regards to Operations, I don't think that this is a very good thing. We should try to push players into Veteran and NiM raiding more. I am gonna assume that since you're increasing rewards for SM operations that the rewards will be increased for Vet and NiM. At least, I hope so. Because if not, that would be pretty foolish considering the weekly for a veteran op gives you 65 or 75 OP-1s I believe, with NiM being 175 I believe. I might have my numbers off a little bit there but you get the idea.

People clearly don't want to run them as is. The interest isn't as apparent there given the sort of community they've cultivated after years. I'm for it if they want to provide extra incentive for people to step up, but you don't do it by making SM less worthwhile. If there IS something the playerbase has shown that they're willing to go hard for, it is vanity. Legacy and character titles, outfits, glow effects, etc. They still could do this, but it doesn't have to come at the cost of increasing appeal to the very first steps to operations.

[cannibithobbal]

5 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

Suggestion to devs:  Can we get rid of the option to select/deselect certain flashpoints because it's being abused? If someone wants to spam HS they can walk in. It's very easy: the entrance is at the fleet. There is no need to ruin GF from everyone else. It has become unusable for people who want random fps and that's the main reason I don't even do flashpoints anymore.  It used to function as a group finder for random content, now it's functioning as a group finder for HS farmers.  This thing needs to be changed back to serve everyone, not just the lazy HS spammers.

I actually haven't gotten Hammer Station a SINGLE TIME in the last two weeks and I've been grinding FPs (I actually kept getting Black Talon on imp over and over and over again, which I am willing to bet is definitely NOT people specifically selecting that one).  I don't think this is that big of a problem rn.

Even if it was a huge constant problem though, I do NOT want the select/deselect to be disabled because when I'm trying to run the FPs that are for the seasons objectives, I want to be able to select only those so that I'm able to get the achievement.  And also sometimes I just get tired of doing Black Talon, Esseles, The Foundry, etc and am willing to sacrifice my bonus weekly rewards to just deselect all the FPs that are mega long and give me a headache.

Personally I wish they would do the opposite and actually let you deselect up to 2-3 FPs and still qualify for the weekly quests and other repeatable bonus rewards.  Because both factions have 2-3 that are just a total pain.

[DeannaVoyager]

18 hours ago, cannibithobbal said:

Personally I wish they would do the opposite and actually let you deselect up to 2-3 FPs and still qualify for the weekly quests and other repeatable bonus rewards.  Because both factions have 2-3 that are just a total pain.

I could live with that. Or better yet, they could just remove the requirement to use GF for the weekly. It shouldn't matter if people use the group finder or not. A flashpoint is a flashpoint and they should all count for weekly.

[FlatTax]

@BryantWood, is progression being monetized in any new ways?

[eabevella]

I'll good with whatever FPs as long as it's not Black Talon/Essels.

GET RID OF THEM AND PUT KDY BACK.

Maybe raises the reward of KDY: give loot after every sub-section so it has more than 1 final boss loot since that's the one thing people complained about but even without, its still 1000x better than Black Talon/Essels. Plus there is a reputation track for doing KDY, I doubt people who want it can find anyone doing that now.

[WaffleQwop]

So I don't know if we have an answer to this or not but, since storymode operations will now give either a crate or 70 OP-1s, will Veteran and Nightmare modes rewards be increased as well? I understand why they are increasing rewards for Storymode operations, but I am confused on these numbers.

Storymode weeklies will now give 70 OP-1s, and unless it has been said somewhere and I missed it, Veteran mode weeklies will remain at 75 OP-1s... See where I am going with this? Incentive to do Veteran mode will be decreased drastically, and I understand "most" players don't do Veteran modes, but this change will certainly make that worse.

I am all for people having an easier experience in gearing up (not that it was hard to begin with), I'm just saying if we're increasing SM rewards to almost exactly match Veteran mode rewards, what's the point of Veteran? Vet weeklies should be pushed up to 150 OP-1s I suppose, with NiM being pushed to 225 or 250. Just some thoughts.

[DanteYoda]

Maybe after 80 make the information easy to understand on how to level up gear and progression.. New customers haven't got a clue what to do after level 80.. The story goes to hell after illum and the progression is even worse, changing all this is nice but new customers still wont have a clue wtf to do with it all..

 

Tutorials in this game are terrible.. after level 80 its just what do i do now?..

[eabevella]

8 hours ago, WaffleQwop said:

So I don't know if we have an answer to this or not but, since storymode operations will now give either a crate or 70 OP-1s, will Veteran and Nightmare modes rewards be increased as well? I understand why they are increasing rewards for Storymode operations, but I am confused on these numbers.

Storymode weeklies will now give 70 OP-1s, and unless it has been said somewhere and I missed it, Veteran mode weeklies will remain at 75 OP-1s... See where I am going with this? Incentive to do Veteran mode will be decreased drastically, and I understand "most" players don't do Veteran modes, but this change will certainly make that worse.

I am all for people having an easier experience in gearing up (not that it was hard to begin with), I'm just saying if we're increasing SM rewards to almost exactly match Veteran mode rewards, what's the point of Veteran? Vet weeklies should be pushed up to 150 OP-1s I suppose, with NiM being pushed to 225 or 250. Just some thoughts.

This is a good point.

VM is already awkward partly due to how dumbed down SM is and if the rewards is not scaled up, people will have less reason to do it: if they want grind they do SM, if they want challenge they do NiM.

This huge imbalance also raises another issue other than the OP-1 reward: it will be more difficult to "encourage" people to do difficult content because you have to be a private dedicated group to do NiM and no one pug VM other than EV/KP (even KP is less because no one bother to learn the puzzle). By having less and less people willing/able to run a dedicated NiM group (I feel like more people are leaving than joining, and training a new guy to be able to carry another newbie takes time), it's just a vicious cycle of less and less people doing endgame contents, thus the false idea (or willingly ignorant) that no one "wants" to play difficult contents. The problem is always balance: both rewards and difficulties between SM/VM/NiM. But that is a problem can't be easily solved unless there's a systematic revemp other than a brainless "scale up to lv80/makes gears have more numbers", and getting the simple OP-1 rewards scaled accordingly is at least better than nothing.

[WaffleQwop]

17 hours ago, eabevella said:

This huge imbalance also raises another issue other than the OP-1 reward: it will be more difficult to "encourage" people to do difficult content because you have to be a private dedicated group to do NiM and no one pug VM other than EV/KP (even KP is less because no one bother to learn the puzzle). By having less and less people willing/able to run a dedicated NiM group (I feel like more people are leaving than joining, and training a new guy to be able to carry another newbie takes time), it's just a vicious cycle of less and less people doing endgame contents, thus the false idea (or willingly ignorant) that no one "wants" to play difficult contents. The problem is always balance: both rewards and difficulties between SM/VM/NiM. But that is a problem can't be easily solved unless there's a systematic revemp other than a brainless "scale up to lv80/makes gears have more numbers", and getting the simple OP-1 rewards scaled accordingly is at least better than nothing.

I would love if Broadsword somehow revamped Veteran and NiM content, not just with an increase of OP-1's but just better boss loot in general. I wish there were unique items or gear sets that could only be obtained through Veteran and NiM content. Imagine a few different sets of gear with perhaps a return of set bonuses, but that this gear is only gotten through harder mode content. 

See, you can literally get to 344 gear score and with full Rakata pieces without ever even doing Veteran or NiM content. WHY? This is something that has bothered me since I returned to the game this January and figured out how the gear system worked. I really don't think it was thought out very well. Now with these changes coming, it will be even easier to get full 344 set of gear without even having to try. Now I am not saying that I want gearing to be difficult. Quite the opposite, and I to an extent appreciate these changes coming. This may push more players to do storymode operations and get into raiding.

With that said, I reiterate what I previously stated, that Veteran and NiM rewards need to be overhauled. At the least, the OP-1 rewards need to be increased to now match the gains that SM is getting, and I think it would really help interest with Veteran and NiM operations if the devs decided to make boss loot better and perhaps add some unique items that can only be gained through the harder content. 

[WaffleQwop]

21 hours ago, DanteYoda said:

Tutorials in this game are terrible.. after level 80 its just what do i do now?..

There is a LOT for you to do, and I know that it must be overwhelming for new players in the same way that WoW is extremely overwhelming with content. After completing Chapter 3 of story, most players skip Ilum and go straight into KOTFE and KOTET, with some even skipping that to get to the most recent point that they can. I always go to my ship and click the mission terminal, it offers the different story jumps. 

Other than story, PvP is fun and exciting although not what it once was. I encourage new players to gear up first and then try PvP as it can really be a fun time. Newer players that reach level 80 also then start to work on their end game gear, through conquest commendations and flashpoint FP stabilizers, and the OP-1 currency that is gained through doing raids, also called operations. I agree with you though that new players are likely to be confused and wonder what exactly they are supposed to do. This is partly the devs fault for having the story go on for so long and be convoluted and ridiculous, while also neglecting end game content like raids and PvP.

[eabevella]

On 7/30/2024 at 5:20 AM, WaffleQwop said:

I would love if Broadsword somehow revamped Veteran and NiM content, not just with an increase of OP-1's but just better boss loot in general. I wish there were unique items or gear sets that could only be obtained through Veteran and NiM content. Imagine a few different sets of gear with perhaps a return of set bonuses, but that this gear is only gotten through harder mode content. 

See, you can literally get to 344 gear score and with full Rakata pieces without ever even doing Veteran or NiM content. WHY? This is something that has bothered me since I returned to the game this January and figured out how the gear system worked. I really don't think it was thought out very well. Now with these changes coming, it will be even easier to get full 344 set of gear without even having to try. Now I am not saying that I want gearing to be difficult. Quite the opposite, and I to an extent appreciate these changes coming. This may push more players to do storymode operations and get into raiding.

With that said, I reiterate what I previously stated, that Veteran and NiM rewards need to be overhauled. At the least, the OP-1 rewards need to be increased to now match the gains that SM is getting, and I think it would really help interest with Veteran and NiM operations if the devs decided to make boss loot better and perhaps add some unique items that can only be gained through the harder content. 

I absolutely hate the gear gating in 7.0 aka HM R4 only (even the pieces are gated by specific bosses which is completely *censored*). Personally I don't like the idea of gear gating. I'd rather people focus on the skills instead of gears when they want to learn NiM for the long run. But if I need a middle ground, I'd settle with a boarder gear gate: 1 type of gears but different max lv you can get from solo+sm/hm/nim. The Tioness/Rakata/Culumi way of "sorting" players is redundant and only exists as unnecessary obstacles that confines people in an imaginary boarder of "play styles" and discourages people from trying new things, which is supposed to be encouraged (people play more modes = people spend more time in game = profits).

Agree with the the OP-1 rewards, if SM is getting 100 OP-1, VM should probably give 150, NiM should probably give 300. Personally I think there should also be a nice increase of rewards in chronological order so people are encouraged and rewarded to do the more difficult ops (it also works in a story sense since the early operations is a big Dread Master arc and the operations after that are independent stories).

More special drops like the Kanoth wing would be nice. But they need to be with a more reasonable drop rate like the Brontes wing.

[DeannaVoyager]

I would like to see gearing  system with gear pieces from different type of content would have the same stats but different name and/or outlook. That way everyone would have a way to get max gear, but those who want to feel "special" would get to keep their special gear that can only be earned from MM ops. Mounts and titles should be enough to "show off", but I guess they are not.

[eabevella]

21 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

I would like to see gearing  system with gear pieces from different type of content would have the same stats but different name and/or outlook. That way everyone would have a way to get max gear, but those who want to feel "special" would get to keep their special gear that can only be earned from MM ops. Mounts and titles should be enough to "show off", but I guess they are not.

Gear number means nothing even without NiM Nef/Dash grind since you can be carried in most NiM OPs, at least part of it, to get the gears anyway.

Personally I'd rather they keep the gearing simple and for all, and if someone wants to flex? Play MM sniper and be top dps lol

[Shadak]

I just hope they stack. 

[DeannaVoyager]

On 8/1/2024 at 9:06 AM, eabevella said:

Gear number means nothing even without NiM Nef/Dash grind since you can be carried in most NiM OPs, at least part of it, to get the gears anyway.

Personally I'd rather they keep the gearing simple and for all, and if someone wants to flex? Play MM sniper and be top dps lol

Oh yeah. I know that, you know that, but I guess the people who want better gear than the casuals can get from casual content don't know that. 😉

[Wulfurkin]

So these upgrade caches being exchangable means we can finally stop nefradash farming for purple rakata gear and instead do mmfp's? If thats the case i genuinely have nothing but praise for these changes.

[Wulfurkin]

On 7/24/2024 at 12:34 PM, jamiesafc said:

I think these changes will make things better for newer players regarding endgame content, but they will fundamentally make things worse. 344 Rakata gear is already significantly overpowered for SM/VET operations (it’s helpful for NiM) and VET/MM flashpoints. There needs to be consideration to make content harder. I understand that SM operations and flashpoints exist for a reason, and they should stay easy. However, as it stands, no one is learning mechanics, cleanses, or DCDs in the easier content. This is a fault of the difficulty level—why would a player learn these things when there is no need at all to learn them? The step up to some of the harder vet operations and NiM operations is such a steep increase that not many people do it.

 

VET and MM flashpoints are far too easy. There are some great bosses in flashpoints with pretty cool mechanics to learn (Mokan, the bonus boss in the Battle of Rishi, springs to mind), but these can mainly be ignored. With even more people having max gear, it's only going to get worse. To address this, one of two things needs to be done. Either leave the current difficulty as it is and add a new difficulty tier—NiM flashpoints, along with some new achievements and a few titles. This would be an easy way to bring new content to the game for people who want harder content, and I suspect the balancing wouldn’t be too hard to get right as the mechanics are already there. Or, VET and MM need to be increased in difficulty. VET should be somewhere between the current VET and MM difficulty, and MM needs a difficulty increase.

 

For operations, I think the changes aren’t particularly great. These new changes will just encourage people to steamroll through SM operations on multiple alts, get the gear, and then they will get it so quickly that any real challenge and sense of achievement is gone. Once you hit max gear, then what? You haven’t needed to do Nefra/Dash runs, so you haven’t even had any exposure to slightly harder content.

 

I think there needs to be an increase in rewards for VET and MM operations. I would even encourage the weekly lockout on SM operations to try and encourage more VET and MM operations engagement (I know this would be very controversial).

People shouldnt be forced into harder content just to gear their characters, this is especially true as up to this point some of the hardest operations cant even be cleared without maxed out gear. Im glad the devs are making purple rakata gear more accessible instead of keeping it gated behind nim bosses, this never made sense to me.

[madarsrikards]

On 7/23/2024 at 11:41 PM, BryantWood said:

Trade for Better Rewards
Along with the choice for currency instead of Upgrade Caches, we’re going to be adding a way for players to convert their Upgrade Caches to better gear. 

• Trade 3 Elite Decurion Upgrade Cache and credits for 1 Supreme Decurion Upgrade Cache
• Trade 3 Supreme Decurion Upgrade Cache and credits for 1 Rakata Upgrade Cache

I don't think this is correct. 3 Supreme Decurion blue bags trade for 1 Columni bag. Which means going from green bags to Rakata is 3x longer path than this post makes you believe, at 4 green bags per week.

[jamiesafc]

5 hours ago, Wulfurkin said:

People shouldnt be forced into harder content just to gear their characters, this is especially true as up to this point some of the hardest operations cant even be cleared without maxed out gear. Im glad the devs are making purple rakata gear more accessible instead of keeping it gated behind nim bosses, this never made sense to me.

I'm pretty sure ops was last balanced based on 330 gear on the release of 7.0 and there hasn't been any changes since. You can still complete nim ops on a set of green conquest base level conquest gear if you know what you are doing.   A slight upgrade from 340 blue to 344 purple gear is not much of a difference in numbers but can help you min/max if you are going for timed runs and stuff. 

You could always get the best gear from doing easier content, farming op1's and using the vendor to buy and upgrade the pieces, doing fp's/conquest and converting to op1's and buying gear.  For the set of people who do NiM raids are usually the ones who are organising raids on fleet, usually the ones who are GM's bringing new players in to end game content by doing instructional runs, setting up new prog teams.

Currently there is little keeping these players in the game and the longer this goes on the more these players will leave which will have a negative effect across the whole game. 

[Wagerbane]

Missions and B3-S1 Droid are too far away from time frame. I have to stand around inside the game for 5 minutes for reset. It will not work for me because my work schedule. Time frame needs to be gone or remove away from the game. Remember the game works well with my schedule before time frame.

[Samcuu]

12 hours ago, Wulfurkin said:

So these upgrade caches being exchangable means we can finally stop nefradash farming for purple rakata gear and instead do mmfp's? If thats the case i genuinely have nothing but praise for these changes.

Idk I kinda like nefra/dash farms. I'm not a pve'er at all and these introduced me to doing nim raids, which once you learn are really fun imo. I think that people who are going for the best gear in game should have to play some harder content to get it. 

[Thraka]

These changes are nice, I suppose, but shortsighted. Why are the upgrade caches bind on equip? It rewards single character play, and massively penalizes spreading play across alts. I can't see any reason why we couldn't have these legacy bound except to frustrate people who don't focus on a single character.

 

[Jhera_]

On 7/23/2024 at 4:41 PM, BryantWood said:

Hey Community!

As we continue through the Legacy of the Sith expansion, we want to make further adjustments to improve the experience of our gear progression. Patch 7.5.1 will contain adjustments to increase reward choice and give more opportunities for progression.

More Choice in your Rewards
To help players progress towards Artifact gear, we’re going to increase the choice of rewards from missions. Players will be able to choose between the Upgrade Caches or more currency.

• Veteran Flashpoint Weekly missions will reward an Elite Decurion Upgrade Cache or an additional 130 FP-1 Stabilizers.
• Master Flashpoint Weekly missions will reward a Supreme Decurion Upgrade Cache or an additional 310 FP-1 Stabilizers.
• Daily and Heroic Area missions will reward a Noble Decurion Distribution Chest or 25 FP-1 Stabilizers.
• Story Operations Weekly missions will reward a Tionese Upgrade Cache or 70 OP-1 Catalysts.

More Opportunities to Get Stronger
We want to support players making more progress each week. We’re going to increase the amount of times our [WEEKLY] Missions can be completed and increase the weekly progress caps on our progression currency.

• Flashpoint Weekly missions can be completed 4 times per week
• Daily and Heroic missions can be completed 3 times per week
• Story Operations missions can be completed 4 timer per week

We’ll also be increasing the availability of Operations missions, allowing more choice in which Operation you run each week.

• Operation weekly mission rotating eligibility has been removed. All [WEEKLY] missions are now available from the Operations Terminal on the Fleet ships.

Weekly Progress currency caps will be increased to go along with these changes.

• FP-1 Stabilizer will have a Weekly Progress cap of 4,000 (up from 3,000)
• OP-1 Catalyst will have a Weekly Progress cap of 3,000 (up from 2,000) 

Trade for Better Rewards
Along with the choice for currency instead of Upgrade Caches, we’re going to be adding a way for players to convert their Upgrade Caches to better gear. 

• Trade 3 Elite Decurion Upgrade Cache and credits for 1 Supreme Decurion Upgrade Cache
• Trade 3 Supreme Decurion Upgrade Cache and credits for 1 Rakata Upgrade Cache
• Trade 3 Tionese Upgrade Cache and credits for 1 Columi Upgrade Cache
• Trade 3 Columi Upgrade Cache and credits for 1 Rakata Upgrade Cache

As always, we’ll continue to monitor feedback around gearing and itemization!

Catch you later, I have to gear up for the new Lair Boss!
 

how about you remove the 8 man premades from pvp? Its literally killing the queue as there are few people even playing anymore as it is and the solo pugs are dropping like flies. The engine also runs like dogwater so its unfortunate to have to make superqueues to defeat these regstar replica holding posers while watching my FPS die in mid.

[steveerkcanjerk]

On 8/20/2024 at 8:29 AM, Wulfurkin said:

People shouldnt be forced into harder content just to gear their characters, this is especially true as up to this point some of the hardest operations cant even be cleared without maxed out gear. Im glad the devs are making purple rakata gear more accessible instead of keeping it gated behind nim bosses, this never made sense to me.

Harder content should give better gear, thats pretty much how every mmorpg works just about, especially those tied to vertical progression. Also you do not need 344 to clear the content, people had already cleared the content well before the gear all its doing is making the process easier. That is one of the big motivators of going into harder content is to get more powerful after completing and then using that gear to help put content on farm. Over time through an expansion catch up mechanics are introduced now normally this is supplemented by a new raid tier or something else. But if you are unable to meet the dps, heal, tank checks that are in this game at 340 or 339 Gear Score its a skill issue. 

Also people do so much dmg that mechanics literally get skipped all the time. There are so many fights you can just blow through without a worry in the world and you didn't need 344 gear to do it.