Thank you for the direct answer, Eric, but in my opinion I think this is an unfortunate design decision.

 

Restricting Renown ranks to max level effectively makes the sub-75 game a race to get to level 75 as quickly as possible so one can participate.

Hasn't it always been that way? When the expansion comes we play the new story and hit max level at the end. Halfway through we get some makeweight gear to make us feel warm and fuzzy, but there is no real gear progression for those 4 levels. Alternatively we level up doing PVP and old dailies. With level sync we get XP from everything, so 1-2 tours of heroics should see us at 75. The time we spend at 71-74 is simply too short to put much effort into it.

 

That being said, if there are particular places that you feel lower level gearing is particularly rough, let us know!

-eric

Something to incentivize lowbie pvp. We used to be able to lowbie pvp and earn currency for gear at max level.

Also, lowbie drops that scale better when upscaled in flashpoints or events like dantooine. I really don't understand the scale up. On a level 39 operative, I get the best bolster on dantooine with a purple chest pc and nothing geared in 3 slots. Equipping an empty shell in one of the empty slots makes my dmg go up, but my armor rating go down.

First of all, thank you for the reply.

I have to mirror ceryxp's comment though and say that I think this is not a healthy design decision regarding the leveling experience before you hit lvl 75, and especially for players that are F2P and Preferred. I understand that your main goal is to make the endgame progression more rewarding in order to get more people to subscribe. But even as a subscriber this will continue to devalue the entire level progression before lvl 75 and keep it as a chore to rush through.

Admittedly, I have been strictly a solo player from opening day of SWTOR, satisfied to play and replay the Classic storyline over and over to the tune of 100+ alts over my SWTOR career, and was so sorely unimpressed with the KOTFE/ET storyline outside of the Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior classes that I have never felt compelled or motivated to take any of my other Classic characters into that section of the SWTOR storyline (even to get to the post-KOTFE/ET content).

Still, I find Ceryxp's comments on the expected changes compelling and sensible and personally feel there's merit to what was put forth by him. I'm hoping and looking forward to seeing a much-deserved response from Eric or the team.

When you first told us about the galactic renown system during the livestream I immediately pictured it as an analogous system to how legacy progression works, with a portion of any xp any of your characters earn flowing into renown xp and the crate reward being tied to the character item rating and level.

This was exactly my perception, too, as I watched the livestream. It was the first time that I began reconsidering my choice to leave the KOTFE/ET and post-KOTFE/ET content out of my non-force user characters' experience and remain within the Classic milieu. Eric's post to clarify that Renown would be limited to 75+ only was disappointing and discouraging after the initial impressions conveyed through the livestream.

I may be a story-only player who has very little understanding about the gearing aspect of the game, with its stats, buffs, and so on (as long as I can engage with the PVE environs to the point where gameplay has a certain flow to it, which it presently does— at least within the Classic portion of SWTOR)... I still like to see some sort of investment taking place in the background. At the start, it was my Legacy level (which has been locked at 50 for years now); it was satisfying to slowly, slowly see it creep across below my regular Leveling bar to the point where when I finally reached Legacy Level 50, I was thrilled.

This was especially "worth" my efforts because it was Legacy-bound rather than character-bound— the whole Command Rank leveling system is unappealing to me for the simple reason that I have absolutely no interest in repeating activities over and over and over in order to level each and every alt through the Command Rank leveling system to reach 300.

Out of morbid curiosity, I recently decided to move a Jedi Knight fully through the available content to see what Command Rank level I end up at after I've done every single solo-able mission (Class, Planetary, Heroic, and optional). I purchased a Master Datacron to start at 70, purchased the character-based Legacy perks to max out Command Rank XP earnings, and keep a Command XP buff going at all times... and having just arrived at Hoth I am presently Command Rank 55. I have little reason to believe that by the time I reach the end of the available content (KOTFE/ET and post-KOTFE/ET included) I will be anywhere reasonably near Command Rank 300— the idea of repeating Heroics and other repeatable content the number of times required to achieve 300 is, quite frankly, going to get a Simon Cowell "That's a NO from me" response.

To do this again for each and every alt...?! I'd be insane, given the reason why I stay subscribed to support Bioware. Others' mileage varies, of course.

So, to have been led to one conclusion about the upcoming Renown leveling system from the livestream to another conclusion through Eric's clarification post simply reinforces my decision to leave the KOTFE/ET and beyond's content to those made of sturdier drive than me. Why should I? For gear that is far beyond my capacity as a subscriber to earn unless I were to become a different type of subscriber?

Not that I would ever begrudge those who play primarily for the gearing aspect of SWTOR and engage in the unbelievably repetitive work that is required to that particular end: I marvel at their drive but it's not something that I can do (or would choose to do). My sons are the sort who love earning gear in their MMO platform, WOW, so I do get it. They're happy, and that makes me happy for them— although I'd really like to see them doing that in SWTOR.

In that sense, I think earning renown xp should start with lvl 10. Even if the accumulated renown xp would be much less compared to max lvl characters, you would still feel like your meager lvl 12 character is contributing to your legacy as a "family member" and a renown crate drop from a low level character could be valuable even for a max level character. I think doing it that way could populate the planets across the board and It would also nicely tie into your wise decision to make all the gear legacy-transferable.

My thoughts, too! In fact, I want to add that alongside earning Renown (the very name suggests the logic that as a character begins their adventure, they would gain renown across the Star Wars Galaxy— something which is even embedded within the various Classic storylines' dialogue) from Level 10 (or, once a character leaves their starting planet to begin their adventure), it would be especially rewarding to receive an initial set of gear upon reaching level 75 for all the obvious work that went into someone grinding to the extent necessary to get to 75 and to prepare them for what comes next— and then allow gear improvements to build on that under the Renown system.

To that end (an initial set of gear upon reaching level 75), tie this earnable level 75 gear set to content: it becomes available upon completing all solo-able content (Heroics, Flashpoints, and Class and Planetary missions). Players who aren't interested in a "template" gear set suitable to their particular characters' class and aren't interested in committing to the storylines would still be in a very good position to enter the 75+ portion of SWTOR, if I'm understanding gear progression correctly, since the potentially upcoming system would simply build on whatever gear those players would have earned up to level 75 anyhow, leading to better things for those players; I presume that the gear that one earns through PVP and group aspects of SWTOR always results in far better gear than what a solo player will ever see (or need!).

Just thinking out loud, I suppose.

Hey!

 

I am seeing this question still pop up quite a bit so let me clarify. Renown is a max level supplementary gearing system, you will not start earning RXP until you are level 75. A lot of the things we talk about relating to gear being relevant to your character, such as targeting your item rating, are mostly referencing end game gearing only.

 

The reason for this is that throughout the rest of the game, the vast majority of Mission rewards, especially story, already drop gear intended for your character. Some content also already drops "relevant" gear such as from daily mission crates. What we are talking about is improving the gearing experience at endgame, there are not many changes planned for the rest of the experience.

 

That being said, if there are particular places that you feel lower level gearing is particularly rough, let us know!

 

-eric

I want to echo what the others have said here -- having the GR start at 75 is truly a death blow to pre-75 gameplay. What will happen is that people will power through the first 74 levels as fast as possible. As others have pointed out, if the aim is to "play what you want" then this decision pretty much kills that for people who enjoy replaying the class stories. Sure, you can still rerun them, but if you know that doing so (w/out the MD) will mean that nothing you do pre-75 will count toward your max-level toon, it will be pretty discouraging to players who have this preference. Also, please note that (leveling) gear is a secondary consideration here. The main issue is one of incentive to play content that "doesn't count." So even adding RXP, crafting currency, and crates w/out gear to them to would be welcome.

Even if the MD is considered a workaround for this, the datacron doesn't enable lowbies PvP. So this will drive yet another nail into the coffin of lowbies PvP -- which affects PvP in general for a number of reasons. I won't dive in too much into how important lowbies PvP is to PvP in general, or how lowbies is itself a separate and addition gameplay option that many enjoy. That's been done elsewhere many times.

I understand (even though you didn't say it) that there is an attempt to keep Galactic Renown limited to subs, which I can respect. So if that's the concern, one suggestion would be to add a datacron, similar to the Master's Datacron, which allows Galactic Renown to begin at level 1. This would allow players to earn RXP, crafting mats and currency (once at max crafting level - which I usually am by roughly level 25), and crates, but while leveling. The main reason I stopped buying the MD is because I couldn't do lowbies content with it: mostly PvP, but also I didn't like the OP feeling while leveling class stories. Such a datacron, while not ideal b/c it costs real money, would help make doing leveling content tolerable again....

I know you are directing this question @EricMusco - but let me say that it's not really possible to level via lowbie/midbie pvp any longer. There are just not enough queue pops to level this way and anytime it does give you a match, it's almost guaranteed to be an arena because there just is not anyone queueing for these matches since 5.0 did away with any real reward for doing so. It was an unintended consequence of changing the gearing system to have all PvP and PvE gear be the same, meaning you could no longer earn tokens or currency that you could save up to purchase PvP specific gear when you reached max level, but that system was amazing and made playing PvP in the lower brackets much more worthwhile.

 

I would HIGHLY encourage you guys to come up with better rewards for lowbie/midbie PvP and help get this game mode back as part of the leveling experience. It all but died with 5.0.

 

.

I want to highlight this post because every single part of it is spot on - devs please take note...

Galactic renown isn't needed to gear from 1-74. It is easy to gear out doing whatever content you are already doing regardless if it's PvP, or PvE content. Heroics drop gear if that is the content you enjoy. If not, you can buy Armorings, mods, and enhancements on fleet to gear very easily for any other content that you desire to play.

Galactic renown should be a max level gearing system that is meant to keep us as subscribers.

And as for getting High end game crafting mats, No lowbie character should be getting those since they are not at end game level.

Galactic renown isn't needed to gear from 1-74. It is easy to gear out doing whatever content you are already doing regardless if it's PvP, or PvE content. Heroics drop gear if that is the content you enjoy. If not, you can buy Armorings, mods, and enhancements on fleet to gear very easily for any other content that you desire to play.

 

Galactic renown should be a max level gearing system that is meant to keep us as subscribers.

....

The concern isn't gearing from 1-74. We'd be happy to leave the gearing part out. The concern is with the ability to earn RXP/currency while leveling 1-74 that can be used at max-level. The devs have laid out a "play what you want" goal, and this is about keeping people who enjoy leveling content from being discouraged.

If the concern is keeping this limited to subs, I've suggested other ways (allowing currency/RXP to accumulate while leveling, but only be usable at max level, or offering an equivalent to master's datacron but that doesn't max your level, etc.).

...

And as for getting High end game crafting mats, No lowbie character should be getting those since they are not at end game level.

A character should be able to craft high end gear once their toon(s) hit the highest crafting level. It's been this way in the past and was this way for a long time. But in any event, given the level-sync and play as you want goal, the distinction between "end game level" and not is really just arbitrary. For example, one player can get the MD and "insta-max," earning RXP, mats, etc. on Tython, while the level 1 player doing the same exact content does not....

Hey!

 

I am seeing this question still pop up quite a bit so let me clarify. Renown is a max level supplementary gearing system, you will not start earning RXP until you are level 75. A lot of the things we talk about relating to gear being relevant to your character, such as targeting your item rating, are mostly referencing end game gearing only.

 

The reason for this is that throughout the rest of the game, the vast majority of Mission rewards, especially story, already drop gear intended for your character. Some content also already drops "relevant" gear such as from daily mission crates. What we are talking about is improving the gearing experience at endgame, there are not many changes planned for the rest of the experience.

 

That being said, if there are particular places that you feel lower level gearing is particularly rough, let us know!

 

-eric

I'm going to toss out there that you might consider expanding and changing the systems starting at level 1 so players can learn and understand it. 2 weeks ago I spent literally hours helping a friend get her gear together and understanding Ossus. I wish I had recorded it to share with you, but I didn't. Gearing in this game is a convoluted confusing mess, and I have limited faith that the changes described so far, while better, are going to fix it. I wish we would just earn 1 type of currency then go spend it on vendors in the Fleet. The harder the content, the more you earn, this keeps all content relevant, while still promoting harder content for faster gearing.

The concern isn't gearing from 1-74. We'd be happy to leave the gearing part out. The concern is with the ability to earn RXP/currency while leveling 1-74 that can be used at max-level. The devs have laid out a "play what you want" goal, and this is about keeping people who enjoy leveling content from being discouraged.

The devs have also stated that the Renown system will reset seasonally anyways, so there is a very possible chance many of these alts will never even make it to max level before the season change, essentially making that renown gain pointless. Its a waste of resources, imo, to implement it.

Keep it simple, once you get to 75 (assuming your toon even gets there), AT YOUR OWN PACE, doing what you want, you will start gaining renown.

The concern isn't gearing from 1-74. We'd be happy to leave the gearing part out. The concern is with the ability to earn RXP/currency while leveling 1-74 that can be used at max-level. The devs have laid out a "play what you want" goal, and this is about keeping people who enjoy leveling content from being discouraged.

 

If the concern is keeping this limited to subs, I've suggested other ways (allowing currency/RXP to accumulate while leveling, but only be usable at max level...

I agree with this.

Awarding small amounts of currency while leveling (even without activating galactic renown) doing class missions or WZs. I miss the crystals from 4.X

Hey!

 

That being said, if there are particular places that you feel lower level gearing is particularly rough, let us know!

 

-eric

A change that would help with gearing in lower levels would be changing the gear drops in veteran flashpoints to moddable artifact gear (or even just prototype for preferred/F2P players so they can use it). I use my DvL gear when levelling, and I know some people use Cartel Market gear or the gear from the adaptive gear vendor to mod their gear while levelling, so not being able to pull anything out of Flashpoint gear when levelling hurts.

A change that would help with gearing in lower levels would be changing the gear drops in veteran flashpoints to moddable artifact gear (or even just prototype for preferred/F2P players so they can use it). I use my DvL gear when levelling, and I know some people use Cartel Market gear or the gear from the adaptive gear vendor to mod their gear while levelling, so not being able to pull anything out of Flashpoint gear when levelling hurts.

The term for orange shells is custom gear (adaptive means it adapts to light/med/heavy and there is non-customizable adaptive gear)..

There is also an appearance tab where you can set your appearance to be anything you like and therefore your appearance isn't tied to the pieces you equip for the armor/stats. If you get a drop in a fp or from an heroic, just equip it if it is better than what you have on (it won't mess up your appearance unless it is a weapon).

A lot of people have shown that gear (while leveling) is nearly meaningless... People level naked except for a weapon. Leveling is also so fast, if you get something decent for your current level, you'll level out of it before you really notice anyway..

Bolster (in unranked PvP and FPs) also tend to make gear pretty meaningless.

The game, as it stands now, doesn't need any gearing while leveling fixes (unless they fix it to make gear meaningful again).