The developers made the bolster in PTS. Where should have remained.

I don't think anyone disagrees with this.

We completely understand that the desire from everyone would be that WH/EWH was viable in both open world PvP and Warzones, but unfortunately that just was not a possibility in this case.

 

-eric

Or, the new bolster system could have been kept in development until it was fully tested and ready to deploy.

One of the first things we want to address are concerns about how our change has affected players in WH and EWH in the open world. The simple explanation is that due to the way our itemization works, we had to make the choice that WH gear would either be good in open world (and not viable in Warzones) or viable in Warzones (but lacked Expertise in open world situations). We decided that since a large majority of the PvP that occurs in our game and the place where players worked to receive the gear is Warzones, that we would side with Warzones overall.

 

We completely understand that the desire from everyone would be that WH/EWH was viable in both open world PvP and Warzones, but unfortunately that just was not a possibility in this case.

 

-eric

The elefant in the room is bolster in 55...it's just not working

Players wearing PvP gear totally overwhelming PvE players in the Open World environment who are doing PvE missions should never have been allowed in the first place.

Having to wear pvp gear on a pvp server while doing pve? What a fashion fax paux. Outragous. It's like wearing black to a wedding ! or bright colors before spring. The horror...

Actually, it's about time that Expertise was eliminated in the Open World altogether. Players wearing PvP gear totally overwhelming PvE players in the Open World environment who are doing PvE missions should never have been allowed in the first place.

 

Expertise should only work in WarZones. In the Open World, it should be a balanced playing field so everyone has a chance to enjoy the combat versus PvPers descending for a giggling gank-fest on players performing PvE quests in what is, basically, the PvE environment.

 

There should be PvP in the Open World - that has proven fun when appropriately geared players clash. Expertise gives a gravely unfair advantage (especially when much of the Open World PvP is exp-geared PvPers ganking players 10 - 20 levels below them).

So you are proposing that endgame PvP gear gets the same stats as endgame PvE gear then - or are you saying "It's about time PvE'rs gets an advantage over PvPers in...PvP"?

Actually, it's about time that Expertise was eliminated in the Open World altogether. Players wearing PvP gear totally overwhelming PvE players in the Open World environment who are doing PvE missions should never have been allowed in the first place.

 

Expertise should only work in WarZones. In the Open World, it should be a balanced playing field so everyone has a chance to enjoy the combat versus PvPers descending for a giggling gank-fest on players performing PvE quests in what is, basically, the PvE environment.

 

There should be PvP in the Open World - that has proven fun when appropriately geared players clash. Expertise gives a gravely unfair advantage (especially when much of the Open World PvP is exp-geared PvPers ganking players 10 - 20 levels below them).

Ummm no... you should roll on a PvE server if you feel that way.

Why can't you emergency patch it?

A week is a long time to have a broken and exploitable system in warzones.

One of the first things we want to address are concerns about how our change has affected players in WH and EWH in the open world. The simple explanation is that due to the way our itemization works, we had to make the choice that WH gear would either be good in open world (and not viable in Warzones) or viable in Warzones (but lacked Expertise in open world situations). We decided that since a large majority of the PvP that occurs in our game and the place where players worked to receive the gear is Warzones, that we would side with Warzones overall.

 

We completely understand that the desire from everyone would be that WH/EWH was viable in both open world PvP and Warzones, but unfortunately that just was not a possibility in this case.

 

-eric

If this is the way your itemization works, do you guys realize that every single time you raise the level cap, you're going to need to strip all expertise from previous tiers of PvP gear if bolster remains the way it is?

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

 

I know there is still a bit of confusion around the Bolster system, how it affects stats and Expertise and I am working on getting some more information on it. Sometime after 2.0.1 I am going to work with the combat team on getting a “mathy” post explaining a bit about Bolster and how it works which will hopefully work to clear up some confusion. As you can imagine, it is a pretty complex system.

 

I hope that alleviates some of your concerns with the issue of PvE v PvP gearing and thank you all for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

This is more like it. Thanks Eric.

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

 

I know there is still a bit of confusion around the Bolster system, how it affects stats and Expertise and I am working on getting some more information on it. Sometime after 2.0.1 I am going to work with the combat team on getting a “mathy” post explaining a bit about Bolster and how it works which will hopefully work to clear up some confusion. As you can imagine, it is a pretty complex system.

 

I hope that alleviates some of your concerns with the issue of PvE v PvP gearing and thank you all for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Admitting there is a problem is the first step =)

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

 

I know there is still a bit of confusion around the Bolster system, how it affects stats and Expertise and I am working on getting some more information on it. Sometime after 2.0.1 I am going to work with the combat team on getting a “mathy” post explaining a bit about Bolster and how it works which will hopefully work to clear up some confusion. As you can imagine, it is a pretty complex system.

 

I hope that alleviates some of your concerns with the issue of PvE v PvP gearing and thank you all for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Glad the issue has been identified, 6 more days of carebearing, than I can get back to PvP.

Thanks for keeping us up to date, my rage has now been downgraded to defcon 2.

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

 

I know there is still a bit of confusion around the Bolster system, how it affects stats and Expertise and I am working on getting some more information on it. Sometime after 2.0.1 I am going to work with the combat team on getting a “mathy” post explaining a bit about Bolster and how it works which will hopefully work to clear up some confusion. As you can imagine, it is a pretty complex system.

 

I hope that alleviates some of your concerns with the issue of PvE v PvP gearing and thank you all for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

That's fine for solving the disparity issues in 55 WZs, but does nothing to address the absurdity of having to (pre-55) pve in pvp gear and pvp in pve gear! Wouldn't it be just better to remove Expertise altogether? Then level out the pvp and pve gear so they're the same at each level, and no more bolster issues. Of course bolster would be necessary in WZs 1-54, but using the pre 2.0 system, which worked fine.

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

Well, its good that your vision is to have pvp gear better then pve gear in endgame warzones. But it's quite terrible that all these "not intended" issues are happening ALL OVER. I really would like a sensible explanation as to HOW all this happened? How is it possible this many obvious bugs slip through testing?

I know there is still a bit of confusion around the Bolster system, how it affects stats and Expertise and I am working on getting some more information on it. Sometime after 2.0.1 I am going to work with the combat team on getting a “mathy” post explaining a bit about Bolster and how it works which will hopefully work to clear up some confusion. As you can imagine, it is a pretty complex system.

 

I hope that alleviates some of your concerns with the issue of PvE v PvP gearing and thank you all for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Yeah it might be complex, but it needs to be explained simply.

What you REALLY need though, is to explain and show us what you have in store for pvp this year. Show us a roadmap and give us a reason to bother to stick around...i know i could use some incentive right now.

Will you finally live up to your promises of adding pvp content and warzones on a regular basis? Will Open World PvP be adressed and given incentive? What is your plan?

I could really use something to look forward to...

Well, its good that your vision is to have pvp gear better then pve gear in endgame warzones. But it's quite terrible that all these "not intended" issues are happening ALL OVER. I really would like a sensible explanation as to HOW all this happened? How is it possible this many obvious bugs slip through testing?

 

 

 

Yeah it might be complex, but it needs to be explained simply.

 

What you REALLY need though, is to explain and show us what you have in store for pvp this year. Show us a roadmap and give us a reason to bother to stick around...i know i could use some incentive right now.

 

Will you finally live up to your promises of adding pvp content and warzones on a regular basis? Will Open World PvP be adressed and given incentive? What is your plan?

 

I could really use something to look forward to...

Could not agree more

That's fine for solving the disparity issues in 55 WZs, but does nothing to address the absurdity of having to (pre-55) pve in pvp gear and pvp in pve gear! Wouldn't it be just better to remove Expertise altogether? Then level out the pvp and pve gear so they're the same at each level, and no more bolster issues. Of course bolster would be necessary in WZs 1-54, but using the pre 2.0 system, which worked fine.

I personally would be fine with that, but I can see why raiders would have an issue with it. The problem with that is that raiding would become pointless or greatly devalued from a gearing/reward standpoint. Scheduling and organizing raids and then wiping over and over to get things on farm is a PITA and will seem much less worth it if you can get the same gear from warzones.

Here is my fantasy solution to all current problems with PvP gear, expertise, and bolster:

-Revert bolster in pre-55 warzones to the 1.7 system.

-Remove bolster from level 55 warzones

-Restore all expertise to WH/EWH gear (revert WH/EWH to 1.7 or initial 2.0 stats)

-Introduce the Recruit MK 3 gear set, which will have the same stats as whatever the bolster target was supposed to be; this will achieve the intended goal of reducing the gear gap while eliminating all the many problems associated with bolster. If this gear would have base stats which are too high and trivialize part of the PvE gearing progression, a PvE stat can be introduced and put on all PvE gear which will be in effect in whatever content you don't want people using PvP gear in which would make PvP gear unusable in that content (operations, world bosses, optionally flashpoints).

-A PvE stat would allow you to raise the base stats on Partisan/Conqueror to be equal to Arkanian/Underworld because you won't be able to use them in PvE anyway.

-If it's too much work to add a PvE stat to all gear, you can achieve a similar effect by making expertise act as a debuff in PvE.

Glad the issue has been identified, 6 more days of carebearing, than I can get back to PvP.

 

Thanks for keeping us up to date, my rage has now been downgraded to defcon 2.

awwwww yeah

-A PvE stat would allow you to raise the base stats on Partisan/Conqueror to be equal to Arkanian/Underworld because you won't be able to use them in PvE anyway.

Duh! Such an obvious solution. Have a PvE only stat too!

You make PvE raid grind gear and PvP WZ grind gear have same basic stats. Then, they differ by an extra stat that only applies in each realm: PvP keeps expertise and PvE gets another stat that works only there. That's fair to everyone because PvPers get an advantage for their efforts when on their turf and vice versa for PvErs.

And, you could then put back the old bolster system for lower level PvP as is. Top level PvP can be bolstered as such for PvE grind gear: replace the PvE stat with entry level expertise in WZs. Raiding in PvP gear could bolster to entry level PvE stat.

As the game progresses you keep periodically raising the entry levels for bolstered expertise and new PvE stat so that the advantage doesn't get out of hand for either side.

Duh! Such an obvious solution. Have a PvE only stat too!

 

You make PvE raid grind gear and PvP WZ grind gear have same basic stats. Then, they differ by an extra stat that only applies in each realm: PvP keeps expertise and PvE gets another stat that works only there. That's fair to everyone because PvPers get an advantage for their efforts when on their turf and vice versa for PvErs.

 

And, you could then put back the old bolster system for lower level PvP as is. Top level PvP can be bolstered as such for PvE grind gear: replace the PvE stat with entry level expertise in WZs. Raiding in PvP gear could bolster to entry level PvE stat.

 

As the game progresses you keep periodically raising the entry levels for bolstered expertise and new PvE stat so that the advantage doesn't get out of hand for either side.

Good points...that would be ideal...but unfortunately I don't see this happening. My guess is that they're going to fix the 55 WZ imbalance between between pvp and pve gear and leave it at that.

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

<snip>

 

-eric

 

Thanks for the update on continued efforts to fix bolster. One specific issue that has been brought up a bit: It appears that top tier PvE hilts and barrels are going to be a better bet than their PvP counterparts, even when bolster is working as intended. Is this a rumor you are prepared to dispel, or a legitimate concern?

...players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true

ROFL!

Fail system is fail.

gj, keep patching the failsystem or not (result is the same either way) and losing more subscribers.

I really have to ask, do you guys have any idea what the hell is going on with your game AT ALL??

First one of your guys posts that naked bolster was quashed in a community blog, then, despite 3 months of testing and that statement, naked bolster goes live.

Then there's that ilum xp farming thing, you say you're going to patch it, deploy a patch for however many hours....then somehow the ONLY thing that was supposed to be patched during the downtime WASN'T patched, so you have to deploy a patch to patch the patch?

And now, a statement saying that the pve gear isn't as good as pvp gear in pvp....

A caveat, I'm at home with a sick infant so my numbers might be a little off, but I think the expertise value while under Bolster was set on underworld gear at 1332.

but oh wait, lol, jk, it's actually better.

...players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true

Seriously, What the hell is going on here? Do you guys not communicate with each other at all? Is your only programmer fred, but nobody likes fred, so nobody talks to him, even though he's really the only one who knows what's going on and as a result you post false information repeatedly? Do all of us PAYING CUSTOMERS a favor and TALK TO FRED before you post any further baseless claims regarding what gear is good and what is not under this Flagrantly BROKEN system.

Or if you want a simple fix, then just remove this BS system completely from AT LEAST 55 PVP. As for the pvers who want a free ride without putting in time to gear up, too bad, earn your pvp gear like EVERYBODY ELSE currently is.

Hey, EricMusco, ignore all my above points if you like, but just answer this question:

Do you realize that you are causing EA to lose money in the form of subscribers (and thus cartel coin purchases) by continuing to defend this Obviously broken bolster system to the bitter end?

You might be able to iron out all the bugs from this system in 6 months....but at what cost??

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

This is excellent news and I'm glad to see you guys are earnestly working to get PvP back on track.

Still going to run Scum and Villainy though. It's not that I don't trust you guys, but...well, you know.

The second issue we want to address is concerns over the balance between level 55 PvE and PvP gear. We have seen some reports from players around the forums and in this thread that they are seeing players wearing Underworld or Arkanian gear having higher stats under Bolster than people wearing Partisan or Conqueror.

 

After some investigation, it appears that this is true, but it is not intended. Although we always want to keep the PvP environment competitive even for players not wearing full PvP sets, Partisan and Conqueror should be performing better in Warzones than their PvE counterparts. We will be deploying a fix for this in 2.0.1 which will be coming out on Tuesday.

 

I know there is still a bit of confusion around the Bolster system, how it affects stats and Expertise and I am working on getting some more information on it. Sometime after 2.0.1 I am going to work with the combat team on getting a “mathy” post explaining a bit about Bolster and how it works which will hopefully work to clear up some confusion. As you can imagine, it is a pretty complex system.

 

I hope that alleviates some of your concerns with the issue of PvE v PvP gearing and thank you all for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

You need to work on ridding bolster from 55. When another player has higher stats in his pve gear with the enhancement exploit than I do in my conq/partisan mix it's just ridiculous! Bolster for pre-55 is fine,you need something to get you there. But it has no place in 55. Also an EASY fix is to make partisan gear available at 52 or 53;With this people will be ready for 55 pvp when they reach that level.