I just want to know, how in 2 years time a dev team goes from being logical to totally illogical regarding gearing?

Easy. They were always inconsistant. Ironically thats the only stance they managed to be consistant about. This happens when people dont use their own product and then willingly run it into the ground. In any other industry people would call the devs incompetent and worse. In the gaming industry, they are just average EA puppets.

What was wrong with the old system? I mean they could have left the old system with pvp and pve gearing and added the galactic command for those players that do not do any operations and no pvp - would be an easy and fast solution.

Maybe removing the highlighted operation was a good thing as nightmare gear should stay in nightmare. And maybe they could have made the t3 gear a ranked pvp gear for the pvp section. this way t1 and t2 would be achieved by most players and t3 would be the "bonus" gear for those who do the hardest content.

If you are not happy with just having t2, then you can craft the 240 stuff.

I just want to know, how in 2 years time a dev team goes from being logical to totally illogical regarding gearing?

Ben Irving took over as lead producer in summer 2015. Just saying...

Unless you spend you're whole life checking every server, you can't possibly be able to judge the real state of these. Check one for a few minutes isn't enough. Do you check different servers at different hours on a same day to get a real view ? And then check every activities and so ??

Why bother when a computer program (torstatus) is so much more efficient and doesn't get bored doing it?

This time last year the servers were even dipping into "Heavy" territory. Now? The trendlines are approaching the very sparse pre-KotET levels we saw over the Summer. That strongly suggests that population levels are going to be worse in a month or two.

You already know the answer to that question. Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

Sadly I do 😢

Keith, I hope you can discuss this and what you intend to do with GC moving forward. It's not exciting.

Thanks for bumping this! Good read.

Big problem. Gearing while playing ops is more faster than pvp right now. Yesterday, after the 2 hours of ops 8HM, french guild (4 ppl in grp) with their group leader had change master looting and did remove leitenant rank on rest 4ppl before the roll at the end. We got nothing. They got MK15 components, void catalysts, isttotopes, piece of gear. And "goodbye, hahaha". As a pvp player i have dissapoint and rage. Friendly gameplay and easy gearing in 5.1? Did u want it BW after the 5years?

 

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Try gearing BIS gear doing only OPs and tell me how much easier it is to get BIS only raiding as compared to only PVPing.

In order to get BIS gear from raiding you need to get mk-15 unassembled token . In order to get that you have to do NiM Operations. Good luck with that.

PVP has it better with regard to BIS gearing than PVE does, which should be the exact opposite.

Also unless there was a change I am unaware of, Operations to not drop UCs. Only PVP drops UCs. Additionally if you do PVP weekly and dailies you get guaranteed void catalysts and isotopes. Over all PVP's got it better, save for class balance which is terrible.

Try gearing BIS gear doing only OPs and tell me how much easier it is to get BIS only raiding as compared to only PVPing.

 

In order to get BIS gear from raiding you need to get mk-15 unassembled token . In order to get that you have to do NiM Operations. Good luck with that.

 

PVP has it better with regard to BIS gearing than PVE does, which should be the exact opposite.

 

Also unless there was a change I am unaware of, Operations to not drop UCs. Only PVP drops UCs. Additionally if you do PVP weekly and dailies you get guaranteed void catalysts and isotopes. Over all PVP's got it better, save for class balance which is terrible.

Can we not go down the PvP vs. PvE thing and just try to stay in the spirit of this thread please...

Lets stay on topic, take the PvE vs. PvP war to another thread, please.. BW need to see this and the feedback and we cannot let the thread turn into a bicker fest.

Fair enough. My apologies.

Things change. So any post by any BW staff is subject to change and is only going to be valid until the next post. That applies to this game and real life. Anyone who has even a mild interest in politics will know that.

Funny though OP, I have never seen a post sort out by any player that was written by a BW staff member that said one thing and has since changed, when the change was for the better. You don't mind when it changes then do you? No thought not. Or are you saying everything BW says should be written in stone as the saying go's? Think very carefully before you answer that one and think what else would have to change back.

Things change. So any post by any BW staff is subject to change and is only going to be valid until the next post. That applies to this game and real life. Anyone who has even a mild interest in politics will know that.

 

Funny though OP, I have never seen a post sort out by any player that was written by a BW staff member that said one thing and has since changed, when the change was for the better. You don't mind when it changes then do you? No thought not.

So from this we are supposed to get what? Do you have an opinion on the topic? We would love to know your thoughts on PvP gear deficit and how it should be managed or do you prefer a gear deficit in competitive PvP...Please do expound.

Keith, I hope you can discuss this and what you intend to do with GC moving forward. It's not exciting.

GC is fun. RNG is not

So from this we are supposed to get what? Do you have an opinion on the topic? We would love to know your thoughts on PvP gear deficit and how it should be managed or do you prefer a gear deficit in competitive PvP...Please do expound.

I don't have an issue with it now. In-fact I will change that, get rid of it altogether. That way you won't have to worry about getting it and everyone else will be on an even playing field should they want to get into it.

I don't have an issue with it now. In-fact I will change that, get rid of it altogether. That way you won't have to worry about getting it and everyone else will be on an even playing field should they want to get into it.

Agreed, even playing field for all in WZs is the goal.

Agreed, even playing field for all in WZs is the goal.

Well something we can agree on then. As for my last post, it was more to do with the OP finding a post 2 years old saying Oh you said this!

As said things change. Everything is subject to change. Every change will benefit some and annoy others. Gear is a different subject and of cause it should be talked about. Digging a 2 year out of date post by BW is another matter, because it is out of date and no longer the present. Many BW posts in the development tracker have already said that the way you get gear has changed. Making that post quoted in post one redundant.

Well something we can agree on then. As for my last post, it was more to do with the OP finding a post 2 years old saying Oh you said this!

But that's the thing, I am kind of glad he did do that. The reasons BW gave then are just as applicable now, even if the situation is not precisely the same. In fact things are much worse now and if anything BW needs to realize they do NOT want to kill off the remaining PvP community.

But that's the thing, I am kind of glad he did do that. The reasons BW gave then are just as applicable now, even if the situation is not precisely the same. In fact things are much worse now and if anything BW needs to realize they do NOT want to kill off the remaining PvP community.

I do understand what you are saying I really do. However worse for you is not worse for everyone. Not for me in any case.

Second having recently done PvP for a few weeks and already given up on it. It was nothing to do with gear. I did not have the best gear and mainly had 230 with just a few set items and 234 gear. I still did alright without higher gear even against others how did have better gear. It was the PvP community itself that was the issue. Ok I was not on the receiving end of the torrent of abuse nor was any of the recent thread complaints about new player in WZ's directed at me as the player(S) mentioned the servers they were on, which was not mine. I still found it off putting to such a degree I decided PvP was not for me. This was the second time I have tried PvP and left the first time for the same reason. As such if the PvP community wants more players at least some of them need ask why less are playing that part of the game. Yes I am sure some players moved on for whatever reasons, that however does not explain why present players are not getting involved in it.

As said before asking or talking about gear is fine and of cause as it is affecting the PvP lot I don't have any issue with bringing it up. Still though bringing up a 2 year old thread which subsequent threads by BW have already said has changed seems a cheap shot to me. Still you are not me and naturally have a right to see it differently.

I play a lot of characters and have not really had much of an issue getting set gear for many of them. Ok it's the lower end of set gear but my GC levels is not all that high. I also make the most of any gear I get twice by putting the bits in legacy gear. Since I stopped PvP'ing again my main character now has set gear in all but one item, the headgear. If I was just playing that one character I could just put it down to luck, but have found that most of my characters getting at least 1 set gear item approx. every 8-12 crates. I personally don't think it all that bad. I do like the recent change though made to GC and am still expecting a few more changes to come. So think it is improving. I don't think BW will get rid of GC or RNG system. At least not in the short term, maybe not ever.

If it is any consolation, it's nearly always the bads that are the loudest. Without fail. Check the scoreboard at the end.

Well of cause I was not in any way implying it is all of the PvP community. Still it only takes one player to put off another.

We think that getting a full set of PvP gear is too much of a grind. This is so much the case that only about 2% of PvP players have a full Dark Reaver set.

I wonder what % of players currently have full 242? My guess is it's very small. Then they introduced a new gear tier. *facepalm*

Bring back cheap PvP gear. Expertise was in the game for a very good reason. Without it, as it stands right now, SM ops will get you 236 much faster than running PvP will.

What did we really gain by getting rid of expertise? Let's think this through...

More fair open world PvP between PvP and PvE players.

- Did you forget that we have separate instancing now, so PvE players can bypass that entirely? Speaking of open world PvP, how's that going?

Don't have to have separate PvE and PvP gear sets.

- Only if you are OK with mediocre performance in warzones. PvE and PvP optimal stat allocations are different. By the way, you didn't have to have separate gear sets before they got rid of expertise, because of bolster. Sure you had lousy expertise in your raid gear...but pvp gear was DIRT CHEAP, so you didn't have to run warzones in your raid gear for long.

What did we lose by getting rid of expertise?

Gearing is painfully slow. We can't make it such that PvP can get gear too quickly, otherwise it will tick off raiders.

You can't optimize your gear stats for PvP or PvE without sacrificing performance in one activity or the other, unless you are OK with burning loads of credits every time you swap activities, manually pulling enhancements and augments. How about those 50k credit enhancement pulls? Fun times, no?

Forget playing alts. You will never get good gear on more than 1-2 characters. Unless you play SWTOR 24/7...

Raiders feel like they have to PvP in order to supplement their gearing, and upgrade 242 - 248. I'd say that 99% of players don't ever run NiM operations. Even so, it looks like NiM drops are bugged. It's seriously easier for NiM raiders to run a bunch of warzones to go from 242 - 248. If expertise were brought back, those raiders would have no reason to run warzones in their raid gear.

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I suppose the summary is this. We got rid of expertise in order to make an activity that many do not enjoy (PvP) appear to be more accessible to those who don't enjoy it (PvE players), while simultaneously making gearing for PvP a major pain for those who enjoy PvP the most.

An analogy would be this. Imagine that Coca-Cola changed their recipe to make it taste more like Pepsi in order to appeal to Pepsi drinkers. Those who enjoyed Coke for what it was would be put off, while the Pepsi drinkers wouldn't really care for the new Coke because it still tastes kind of like Coke. Worst possible marketing move.

Handing out gear doesn't keep players invested (e.g, subscribed) - when you're not making content, shove them in a hamster wheel and keep leading them on with empty promises.

I agree 100%.

If the game itself had been put in a good direction, story, fp's, ops, etc, command crates wouldn't matter to me.

Even if they fix command crates, that just helps PVP, and does nothing for the rest of the game.