Mixed feelings about 7.5.1

[SentinalMasterWW]

I watched through basically a lot of the highlights in the recent Livestream and my thoughts are mixed. 

I want to start though by sharing a message I got from Beyrahl AKA Cease Faith, Really knowledgeable guy who has been an advocate for PVP. He didn't see the point to sub to share his thoughts so he sent me a DM to share with you all.

Quote

"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."

This is pretty cool; it definitely helps put a step forward to make gearing more straight forward. However, the ideology of Hyde & Zeek still complicates players, and I do think the whole blue & purple enhancement thing should go just to further simplify the system. 

Then I would say we truly have a straight-forward system and potentially a way to swap our implant (set bonus pieces) for the same thing but with different stats, giving us full control over build diversity or stat sharing unification. 

Anyway, updating and fixing old systems is definitely a nice place to start and of which PvP should be looked at. There's tons of improvements to both QoL and player enjoyment just waiting to be done.

For example, it's been an incredibly common sentiment from the PvP community that raising the group limit for warzones from 4 is a negative. Majority players don't like it, and it's only adding to the spiraling state of PvP.

Lack of incentive for players to contribute. Most games since players cannot leave without being punished will just find a spot to AFK and not contribute or do the bare minimum to avoid being booted. This isn't good, and often times you have even seen streamers do this; this shouldn't be okay and isn't a healthy thing for PvP. There really should be more rewards for actively taking part in the game and engaging in combat and understanding you're meant to face resistance and often times perish multiple times because of it. The fewer players contribute, the worse this experience becomes. 

Mercy is something most other games have, and SWTOR only has it if too many leave. Sometimes matches aren't going to be fair, and having a way to end relatively unbalanced matches sooner would be going a long way for those who find those matches not worth trying in and result in them AFKing. It's not a perfect solution and ultimately takes work to get right, but it'd go a long way for the mental health of players with defeatist mentality.

Balancing MM is not something that'll typically be a common occurrence when players aren't putting forth effort. Balancing Matchmaking. As a whole, limiting things back down to 4M for Warzones will go a long way. This is currently what kills most players drive to play the game, as playing against 4 dedicated players was already oppressive and relatively unfun if players decided they did not want to contribute, leaving you in a landslide of a disadvantage. 
Then looking into smaller groups or non-grouped matches, limiting tanks further to only 1 per team as a hard cap unless there's 2 groups and they're both running tanks should be heavily enforced. The limit for healers being only 2—while it is a reasonable cap. In most situations, it'll be far more fun to face 3 healers than it would be to deal with more than 2 tanks, which is quite the occurrence nowadays. 
The healer limit should be more relaxed and allow for 3 healers way more frequently than they do, but prioritize matching 2 healers over 2 healers. There also should be at least a little weighted balancing towards ranged classes, not all being stacked on one side versus all melee. 
Anyway, this will never be perfect, but current restrictions and group size availability only make it less enjoyable.

lastly, bolster.  It basically does nothing for max level, and I do think that's for the best. But I do think the bare minimum of giving players stats of at least the basic blue augment if they're missing them would not only make new player PvP feel better but make PvP better as a whole. 
Gear matters quite a lot, and in general, players who are inexperienced often do not get their gear right, let alone afford to augment their gear that they're constantly replacing. 
To avoid issues like what we had before that got augments disabled, just simply adding in a check if the player has augments or not is all that's needed, then giving x amount of stats for each missing augment. 
Augments these days add up to 5,000-6,000 stat points; that's multiple pieces of gear! 

Thanks for taking the time to read a rather quick write-up. I share the sentiments of most of the PvP community and find it relatively easy to access knowledge here by scraping the PvP forums. Whether it's worth it for you guys to give us any sort of acknowledgement or changes... Suppose we'll just have to continue to wait and see, or just continue to let PvP decay. 

Anyways onto my thoughts. 

Gearing

The changes to gearing look to be a good thing, being able to convert gear is a solid idea. Though like Cease stated Hyde & Zeek can muddy the water so to say. 

The question I had though and others I will share at the end is mainly regarding to why Thyrsian gear was not included. 

Overall though more changes to core systems and improving them is a good thing to see. 

Galactic Seasons 7 

The new seasons being based around the bounty event is interesting I guess. The new armor is just not something I am a fan of, the recent armors to PVP seasons and galactic seasons have been misses in my opinion. 

Date Night

So  another Date night thing and it was Vette and Jorgan. Vette should've been honestly part of the first date night but whatever. Jorgan I feel is a weeker one to go with Vette. I would've done either Kira or Jaesa or even Mako. 

Cartel Market 

So CM stuff is not something I get out of my chair and scream and yell in joy about, but the recent additions are actually nice. 

I was suprised to see the Imperial Commando armor actually come to the game, its been something asked for by players for a long time. So its nice to see that come in. 

The Vision inspired lightsabers are actually really cool. I could actually see myself getting both along with their tunings as they are actually unique designs. The Katana esque design helps make them stand out. 

While I do diss this game for focusing more on Cartel Market sales rather than shifting focus towards the game itself, I will give the Cartel Team credit and say they have been making really great items so props to them. 

Lastly regarding the whole firebolt bundle thing, I honestly can't be bothered to say much. Its just another price bundle people can buy if they want. 

Closing Thoughts 

My thoughts like I said are mixed, there is some good some eh stuff. I really wish we could get PVP fixes or new modes. A New Flashpoint or Operation, or heck even Nim R-4. 

That said I have 4 questions to ask @JackieKo @EricMusco or @BryantWood.  

1. While there is no definitive answer, in 7.5.1 will it come with Class changes? I understand this is something that usually drops with the patch notes but it has been 3 updates and no class changes in said updates. 

2. Why was Thrysian gear (PVP Gear) excluded from the gear conversion system? Is it because PVP caps at 336? Or will PVP gear come at a later point?

3. Regarding the current Status of PVP, is there any plans or talks by the Dev team to in the near future address the current issues facing the game mode? 

4. Has there been a discussion in the Dev team about possibly undoing Class Pruning and returning Class abilities?

 

Edited July 25 by SentinalMasterWW

[akdonkey]

If you asked me Gearing was the best with play how you want. I'm an Alt-A-Holic. I could just play different alts through the Stories. Earning Gear. At the time 306 gear was the best. I had so many alts fulling geared and so many different armor sets. Just by running alts Through Story content. I get some did not like that or others Thought they had to run Flashpoints daily to earn certain sets. You did not. Now that it's gone, I'll just say this. I put 306 dps gear on a tank and ran it through the class story and by the time it was done I had a full set to 306 tank gear. With that system you always earned the same as or better gear. Almost every Loot was something usable or you could break it down for Jawa trash.

That was the most forward-thinking progressive gear system ever thought of. It allowed everyone to earn worthwhile armor sets and components.

[Samcuu]

23 hours ago, SentinalMasterWW said:

While there is no definitive answer, in 7.5.1 will it come with Class changes? I understand this is something that usually drops with the patch notes but it has been 3 updates and no class changes in said updates. 

There was actually some class changes in the last patch, it was very minimal but it was there. Maybe not even necessarily balancing more like bug fixes but they fixed some stuff with sorc and PT iirc. Again tho ur right they didn't 'balance' anything. 

[Toraak]

6 hours ago, akdonkey said:

If you asked me Gearing was the best with play how you want. I'm an Alt-A-Holic. I could just play different alts through the Stories. Earning Gear. At the time 306 gear was the best. I had so many alts fulling geared and so many different armor sets. Just by running alts Through Story content. I get some did not like that or others Thought they had to run Flashpoints daily to earn certain sets. You did not. Now that it's gone, I'll just say this. I put 306 dps gear on a tank and ran it through the class story and by the time it was done I had a full set to 306 tank gear. With that system you always earned the same as or better gear. Almost every Loot was something usable or you could break it down for Jawa trash.

That was the most forward-thinking progressive gear system ever thought of. It allowed everyone to earn worthwhile armor sets and components.

Just because the gear said 306, doesn't mean it was actually GOOD GEAR however. That gearing system had so much horrible gear and so many players simply used it anyway. They didn't understand the stats on most of it were truly terrible.

 

Those of us that were going for the actual stats understood how bad that system truly was as we had to fight past the RNG to get exactly what we needed to properly gear. So many Variations for every armoring, mod and enhancement just to get the right ones. It was a good day when that system got replaced.

[akdonkey]

On 7/25/2024 at 9:21 PM, Toraak said:

Just because the gear said 306, doesn't mean it was actually GOOD GEAR however. That gearing system had so much horrible gear and so many players simply used it anyway. They didn't understand the stats on most of it were truly terrible.

 

Those of us that were going for the actual stats understood how bad that system truly was as we had to fight past the RNG to get exactly what we needed to properly gear. So many Variations for every armoring, mod and enhancement just to get the right ones. It was a good day when that system got replaced.

Your probably right. However, for someone like me who did not do operations. I have never had any success with those. I always had a fresh supply of drops that I could figure out my mods with.  It gave me a since that I was doing good.