Not one of the wins I was in counted. What am I missing?

Abandon the mission and get it again from the droid?

A lot of the RNG-hatred could be assuaged by certain tweaks, such as removing or reducing the odds of getting the EXACT SAME result as the last time.

What's interesting is that whatever code is in place that chooses the daily CXP bonus seems to work reasonably well. It is rare to see duplicates within the week (the game week of course, from Tuesday to Tuesday.) We also don't get the same conquest two weeks in a row, unless its planned (e.g. the Pirate Incursion event starting next week and going for two weeks.)

But GSF is a nightmare on SS. I picked it up early Tuesday (10ish est(maybe earlier?)) to try and get it done before the mission swapped at 2, and it took 4+ hours to get 5 matches.

I've finished the timed weekly on a character for the past two nights, on Satele, playing from about 10 pm eastern daylight time to midnight or 1 am. /shrug. Remember that a school/work WEEKDAY 10 am eastern time is 7 am pacific and midnight eastern Australian time. Even Ossus' two PVE instances only had about 31 people and fleet had 21 people at 11 am eastern today. I would fully expect to wait a while in between Story mode operations, Master mode flashpoints, and GSF pops in the time frame you are talking about.

The time cost of each are unequal also:

- x4 MM OPs - say 15 mins each = 1 hour

- SM Ops - 1 lockout = 15 mins (OR 1 full op = 1 hour)

- 8 PVP Medals - 1 match = 10 mins

- 3 GSF Wins = ? (no idea, I skip this one)

A good group can complete Hammer Station master mode in about 20 minutes, and Hammer Stations is probably the easiest hard mode. So that rotating timed weekly will be about 80 minutes to complete. Depending upon the story mode activity finder operation of the day, that could be twice as long as a full operation.

Its not a bad thing that the rotating timed weekly has varying levels of time commitment, in my opinion. They are designed to be an extra bone thrown to the masses of people incapable of completing master mode Gods from the Machine operation and earning the 258 gear the "quick" way via Forgotten crafting materials (I put "quick" in quotes because the resource requirements for crafted 258 gear are still absolutely insane.) They serve as a bonus path for people interested in a particular playstyle, or an incentive to try a new one. People keep coming at this issue from the perspective that we are entitled to this pathway to 258. This pathway exists because people complained so much in the fall of 2018 about the gear only being available for MM GOTM raiders. Its an appeasement more than an entitlement.

You are spitballing based on your own experience, not on data. There is no precedent that states all quests and rewards have to be equally balanced per time spent. There are dozens of heroic quests that demonstrate the lack of equality across the board. Thats why people do alderaans 15 second click and run aeay quest more than the kill 50 npc quest for the same 21k credits.

 

 

There is still a random aspect in eho wins the boxes from the queen. I dont see people complaining about the fact only 3 crates drop, but its as much RNG chance to win as any other part of the game.

 

People dont realize what they are asking for when they ask to get rid of RNG. Once most, if not all RNG is removed, people will complain that upgrades will come too slow, or that they have no incentive to play anymore because gearing was accelerated. There WILL be a fallout. I just dont think most people complainig are looking at the big picture.

True on the point of difficulty of the missions, i'm just thinking of making it balanced and fair. Oddly enough its easier and less time to do one pvp mission for 8 medals or one GF OP, then it is to do 4 HM fps or win 3 GSF matches. By having it balanced a fair, more people would be willing to do them. Although I think the reason why they designed the missions that way was because the numbers showed that GSF and ranked were not popping that often, so they throw a mission in there for a reward. (GW2 has done this before also, to revitalize a "dead" game mode. For the people who only played that game mode, they loved it. All the others......detested it. Seems to be a similar case here, although that's only in ranked, I don't hear GSFers complaining about sucky players ruining games, unlike in ranked.) All I'm thinking of it just lowering the numbers, not making it free, not making stupid high, just lowering them a bit for what seems like the outliners of difficultly is all.

Also, maybe its because I do not limit myself to ONLY one game ever (I get bored easy and have a short attention span and I also detest gambling.), but I don't see a issue with the gear NOT being gambling and being "faster" due to players actually having a choice in picking which piece of gear they want instead of their 4th crit relic? Also yes you might be correct in getting the said piece is a PUG is "random" but there is nothing wrong with asking, or forming a group of friends that just give you all the gear. I don't see a issue with that at all. The main gambling RNG issue I have is ONCE you have the box, the contents are random. THAT needs to change to be like all the other token drops in every other OP, so people can choose which piece they want.

Also, I know other people might not think through all the different ramifications of choices, but I do a lot of times. And im perfectly fine with it. Here take for example what happened right after 3.0 dropped. During 2.0 era, I was seeing people do 16m OPs daily, because the comm reward was doubled and people LOVED IT. And when 3.0 dropped, people were still doing them to get gear. (Because people by an large couldn't beat Rav and ToS on 16m SM, let alone 8m SM) But what happened 3-4 months after 3.0 launched? They removed the double rewards from 16m OPs, now they gave the same number of rewards as 8m, so there was no incentive to run them anymore, and alas they died out....FAST. (Also as a side fact, they did not announce ahead of time those changes, just like the heroic cred changes they did, they just....did them. Not even added to the patch notes till people started complaining. Even though I detest that kind of mindset, im not bashing them. Just asking for more communication is all, because doing it like that for fear of backlash, makes it seem like there are underhanded shady things going on.) So why would adding choices to gear and letting people choose, instead of gamble for gear is such a bad thing? They have done it in the past and it worked fine, people didn't get tired of the 16m runs, in fact they liked them.

8 medals isn't nearly as easy in GSF as it is in PvP. So that's not equal, at all. Also MM FP aren't that hard, just uncheck the longer difficult FPs, or hell just do Hammer Station 4 times if you must. It's all a matter of opinion though, isn't it? For me MM FP and PvP is easy, GSF is annoying, and I raid 5 days a week so the Operation one is also easy. 3 weeks of any of these things is just bad overall.

 

lolz the RNG ... smh

As much as I would want 3 weeks of the pvp one, since its easy and I like pvp somewhat, you are right, in having the same thing over and over is not a good thing, hence why it needs to NOT have random events and should be on a schedule, then there is literally NO WAY POSSIBLE for any of the weekly events to repeat. EVER.

Step One: Troll

Step Two: Bait

Step Three: Report

Step Four: Rinse Repeat.

You can avoid all of that by replacing your step one with, Step One: Hit Ignore.

Did it months ago, best thing I ever did.

All The Best

By having it balanced a fair, more people would be willing to do them.

No, this is a false presumption.

1.) The developers could choose to make all four as equally difficult as the GSF mission, instead of what everyone is assuming they would do, which is to normalize around the "8 medals in a single unranked match" mission.

2.) People complain just as heavily when GSF is a conquest event. They also complained when GSF was a bonus activity for CXP when CXP was more important. They'd still complain regardless of how easy it is. This is because players still feel like the rotating timed weekly is an entitlement, rather than a bonus pathway.

3.) Those that are willing to risk account actions by going into GSF matches and hoping to be carried, whether its for conquest points, CXP, or hoping to be carried to a win, don't care about how it affects the gameplay of GSF veterans who are truly invested in the mode and want to see it succeed. Making it easier to complete the requirement will exacerbate the problem of AFK'ers or whatever you like to call them. Just ask the ground pvp'ers how they feel about the "desert-after-my-8" people.

Why even random and not just a weekly rotation. There's already enough RNG - looking at you useless relics

 

The time cost of each are unequal also:

- x4 MM OPs - say 15 mins each = 1 hour

- SM Ops - 1 lockout = 15 mins (OR 1 full op = 1 hour)

- 8 PVP Medals - 1 match = 10 mins

- 3 GSF Wins = ? (no idea, I skip this one)

 

PVP for 10 mins or MM FPs for an hour+

So they should eliminate the lower duration quests to be much longer, equal go gsf and 4MM.

A lot of the RNG-hatred could be assuaged by certain tweaks, such as removing or reducing the odds of getting the EXACT SAME result as the last time. Because of this lack in design, we have the same GSF weekly for 3 weeks in a row. This lack is why people get non-optimal relic drops for 3 weeks in a row.

The game doesnt cant decipher what is the most optimal relic for your specific build. Just because one person wants mastery/power relics doesnt mean the next person does. While your experience and expectations may feel ephemeral mending and crit are wasted relics, the guy beside you might actually be happy he got those. Besides, you can disintegrate them anyways.

Secondly, lesser items should be RNG, while the top items should be ultra rare, but with a clear grind path. Let me explain, if a boss drops specific X item, but only a small percentage of the time -- this is fine. This is the same concept as an Ops boss like Corruptor Zero dropping his Corruptor Blade in DF. Now if Corruptor Zero had a chance to drop a special RNG loot box that might or might not contain the Corruptor Blade -- that is bad.

This is still RNG that the boss will drop the itemin the first place, then RNG that you will win. You cant escape RNG in a game like this.

]

Ive never found a loot system that 100% of the population was ecstatic about. I likely never will.

That said, im all for a system that allows direct purchasing of the specific item a player wants.....BUT it needs to be gated so no specific population can just overabundantly collect their full set within an extremely short period of time.

If a direct loot system is implemented, it needs to have these specific criteria to maintain balance.

Endgame items need to be available for all regardless of interests, skill or average playtime

Endgame items need to be limited to 1 every 2 weeks or so (possibly more due to legacy gear)

I don't believe any game can Totally get away from RNG, but I absolutely Do believe it can be fine tuned to work for the players in many different ways.

Think of when the program *Cycles from previous to next (In this case the Weekly) in order to Prevent this but to keep the range of Possibilities when the time to cycle comes the *Previous activity would get a "Very Low Bias" this also would only last for the cycle event. This would Prevent or "Greatly Reduce" the Chance of getting the same event two times in a row. On the next cycle the last event would get the very low bias. This Retains the same range but chances are greatly reduced. From here the system can be further Fine Tuned indefinitely as phases, trends or situations evolve. Some items, activities are liked by more, some less this process can be modified over and over to satisfy changing situations.

Ive never found a loot system that 100% of the population was ecstatic about. I likely never will.

 

That said, im all for a system that allows direct purchasing of the specific item a player wants.....BUT it needs to be gated so no specific population can just overabundantly collect their full set within an extremely short period of time.

 

If a direct loot system is implemented, it needs to have these specific criteria to maintain balance.

Endgame items need to be available for all regardless of interests, skill or average playtime

Endgame items need to be limited to 1 every 2 weeks or so (possibly more due to legacy gear)

How would the direct system you describe work? You say 1 piece every two weeks or maybe longer due to legacy gear but I fail to see how this would add anything of value to anyone. There are 14 pieces to a set, soon to be 15. If your system is per toon and all gear is legacy, then everyone could have a fully geared toon on week one with 15 toons. If the restrictions are set per account then you are describing a system that would take 30 weeks to attain one set. Really? 7.5 months to acquire a single set? Possibly longer due to legacy gear? How would this be any better received by the players than what transpired with the first iteration of the Command System from 5.0 release or from the Ossus time gating? These questions are not an attack but a desire to understand your view point.

No, this is a false presumption.

 

1.) The developers could choose to make all four as equally difficult as the GSF mission, instead of what everyone is assuming they would do, which is to normalize around the "8 medals in a single unranked match" mission.

2.) People complain just as heavily when GSF is a conquest event. They also complained when GSF was a bonus activity for CXP when CXP was more important. They'd still complain regardless of how easy it is. This is because players still feel like the rotating timed weekly is an entitlement, rather than a bonus pathway.

3.) Those that are willing to risk account actions by going into GSF matches and hoping to be carried, whether its for conquest points, CXP, or hoping to be carried to a win, don't care about how it affects the gameplay of GSF veterans who are truly invested in the mode and want to see it succeed. Making it easier to complete the requirement will exacerbate the problem of AFK'ers or whatever you like to call them. Just ask the ground pvp'ers how they feel about the "desert-after-my-8" people.

Oh this is very true that they could make it "Win 3 pvp matches, do 2-3 GF OPs." then what it is currently, but I highly doubt they would since this would just make people give up and leave, or cause a uproar.

GSF is ok, I don't hate it, but pretty much the only main issue I have with it is the queue times. Imo, cross server queues would do wonders for all game modes and types. Btw, was it ever explained as to why they cant do cross server queues or have they never answered it?

Also, I havnt pvped for the past few months, but I have been these few weeks, I don't see anyone just afking at all in my pvp matches. I see people leave all the time at the beginning because its huttball for the 6th time in a row, but that's it. But you are correct in this is a issue that needs to be corrected. Hence why I was saying for medals in GSF also, because it means you actually have to do something in the game instead of just sitting around waiting to get carried for a win. Maybe the pvp one should be upped to 16 medals or 28? So it means people have to play more instead of just sitting around doing nothing? Also I get 8 medals a lot by sitting and defending points, but im not sitting and not doing anything.

The game doesnt cant decipher what is the most optimal relic for your specific build. Just because one person wants mastery/power relics doesnt mean the next person does. While your experience and expectations may feel ephemeral mending and crit are wasted relics, the guy beside you might actually be happy he got those. Besides, you can disintegrate them anyways.

 

 

This is still RNG that the boss will drop the itemin the first place, then RNG that you will win. You cant escape RNG in a game like this.

]

But does 300 UC = the time invested for all the dailys you did? I don't see that as equal. All they have to do is give a option to pick the relic and it solves both player issues. One player who wants SA, gets SA. Another player who wants ephemeral, gets ephemeral. That seems equal to me.

Which is why RNG needs to be removed or have a catching mechanic to it. So say the blade drops is RNG, ok that run didn't drop it, but you get a token where after you farm enough of them, you can go to a vendor and buy it there. But its a once a weekly item, and you need 100 or so of them. (That's either 2 years for one character, or less for people with alts. Or if 2 years so too high for one character, put the limit to 50 then. I would say use it as a daily item, but since OPs lockout are weekly and not daily, the number needs to be less then if it was daily.)

I don't believe any game can Totally get away from RNG, but I absolutely Do believe it can be fine tuned to work for the players in many different ways.

Think of when the program *Cycles from previous to next (In this case the Weekly) in order to Prevent this but to keep the range of Possibilities when the time to cycle comes the *Previous activity would get a "Very Low Bias" this also would only last for the cycle event. This would Prevent or "Greatly Reduce" the Chance of getting the same event two times in a row. On the next cycle the last event would get the very low bias. This Retains the same range but chances are greatly reduced. From here the system can be further Fine Tuned indefinitely as phases, trends or situations evolve. Some items, activities are liked by more, some less this process can be modified over and over to satisfy changing situations.

Or.....just have a set schedule which has no RNG to it? Even though this fixes the issue, sadly Bioware will never do it because of the guild conquest mess.

Btw, was it ever explained as to why they cant do cross server queues or have they never answered it?

Yes they have. The engine can't handle it. Basically, during testing, characters would get "lost" when returning back to their origin server.

How would the direct system you describe work? You say 1 piece every two weeks or maybe longer due to legacy gear but I fail to see how this would add anything of value to anyone. There are 14 pieces to a set, soon to be 15. If your system is per toon and all gear is legacy, then everyone could have a fully geared toon on week one with 15 toons. If the restrictions are set per account then you are describing a system that would take 30 weeks to attain one set. Really? 7.5 months to acquire a single set? Possibly longer due to legacy gear? How would this be any better received by the players than what transpired with the first iteration of the Command System from 5.0 release or from the Ossus time gating? These questions are not an attack but a desire to understand your view point.

Perhaps the gate would need to be more open to allow gearing slightly faster than i initially proposed, but i hope it doesnt allow people to gear up extremely fast for competitive balance, but also doesnt take forever to gear up either. People will use every possible trick and strategy they can find to tip the balance in their favor, so each of these methods need to be gated in some form. The system needs to be balanced for the player who players 18 hrs a day 5 days a week AND the player who plays 2-3 hrs a couple days a week. Its hard to create a system that maintains that balance, but its important for the health of the game.

They can see which timed weekly there was last week and if it is the same as the current week, then choose another.

The solution is that simple.

The last two days I've decided to grin and bear it , so I started playing GSF to try and get my 3 wins, hoping I got on a good team, after several matches I found myself finally getting the hang of combat, after upgrading my equipment on the ship it became even easier... now I'm kind of enjoying GSF where before I hated it with a passion....

I think they need to put in some tutorial where you can fight against PvE opponents so you can get the hang of flying and what not..

Yes on geometric distribution. That's what I was thinking of.

And I think you're referring to the law of large numbers (probability theory)?

Law of large numbers is close, it has to do with n > 30. The condition I listed is actually a more rigorous condition that must be fulfilled before we can assume a set of proportion data is normal (bell-shaped), which would demonstrate that a large portion of the data clusters around the mean, with only a minority on the outer tails of the curve (more than 2 standard deviations above/below mean).

Yes they have. The engine can't handle it. Basically, during testing, characters would get "lost" when returning back to their origin server.

Ahh....that is sad As cross server queues would fix a lot of population in modes issues for pops. Oh well, maybe in the future they can figure it out lol

Perhaps the gate would need to be more open to allow gearing slightly faster than i initially proposed, but i hope it doesnt allow people to gear up extremely fast for competitive balance, but also doesnt take forever to gear up either. People will use every possible trick and strategy they can find to tip the balance in their favor, so each of these methods need to be gated in some form. The system needs to be balanced for the player who players 18 hrs a day 5 days a week AND the player who plays 2-3 hrs a couple days a week. Its hard to create a system that maintains that balance, but its important for the health of the game.

Unfortunately that can never be. So the best thing to do is go for the lower casual people, because then they can get the gear in a timely manner that works for them and they are happy. The people who play more often are also happy because they get it faster. Now looking at balance and competitiveness? Imo, remove gear from pvp or put the bolster at max gear rating. That eliminates the gear difference of some people farmed it faster then others because they have more time and more alts. Then pvp is just about skill, knowledge and teamwork. And if the people who start crying that the gear comes to fast, there are other games? Also, there are not that many devs at Bioware and making new content takes time. They do not have the budget of Blizzard to put out a new xpac with multiple different new content every year. Honestly its great we are getting what we are getting now. Do I wish we ha more? Freaking heck yes. This is Star Wars, this should have a lot of funding to it but alas the bean counters say nught. So we have to make do with what we got.

The last two days I've decided to grin and bear it , so I started playing GSF to try and get my 3 wins, hoping I got on a good team, after several matches I found myself finally getting the hang of combat, after upgrading my equipment on the ship it became even easier... now I'm kind of enjoying GSF where before I hated it with a passion....

 

I think they need to put in some tutorial where you can fight against PvE opponents so you can get the hang of flying and what not..

I don't dislike it. The only issue I have with GSF, is queue times. I can complete like 2-4 planets of heroics before one pops. (And not just Ord Mantell, Coruscant and Ilum, like Tatooine, Nar Shadda and Hoth)

The game doesnt cant decipher what is the most optimal relic for your specific build. Just because one person wants mastery/power relics doesnt mean the next person does. While your experience and expectations may feel ephemeral mending and crit are wasted relics, the guy beside you might actually be happy he got those. Besides, you can disintegrate them anyways.

This is simply not true. Literally every class/spec guide you read will tell you to wear Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault. Even the tank guides tell you to wear these two relics.

• Have a look: http://dulfy.net/2016/12/22/swtor-5-0-class-guides-master-list/.
  
• Also, have a look here as well: https://vulkk.com/2016/10/08/everything-swtor-knights-eternal-throne-one-place/#CLASS_GUIDES_50.
  
• The numbers on Smarty's spreadsheet work under this assumption as well: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tTZEODvA4-N_wLXlizG654Ii1z9gI88HavBk1WbTsk0/edit#gid=1340830784.
  

So who is this "guy beside me" that is happy he got an Ephemeral Mending relic? I've never met him nor heard of him. I can only assume he is new to the game, and simply doesn't know any better.

This is still RNG that the boss will drop the itemin the first place, then RNG that you will win. You cant escape RNG in a game like this.

Yes, I was trying to explain to you the difference in types of (seemingly) acceptable RNG versus non-acceptable RNG.

This is simply not true. Literally every class/spec guide you read will tell you to wear Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault. Even the tank guides tell you to wear these two relics.

 

• Have a look: http://dulfy.net/2016/12/22/swtor-5-0-class-guides-master-list/.
  
• Also, have a look here as well: https://vulkk.com/2016/10/08/everything-swtor-knights-eternal-throne-one-place/#CLASS_GUIDES_50.
  
• The numbers on Smarty's spreadsheet work under this assumption as well: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tTZEODvA4-N_wLXlizG654Ii1z9gI88HavBk1WbTsk0/edit#gid=1340830784.
  

So who is this "guy beside me" that is happy he got an Ephemeral Mending relic? I've never met him nor heard of him. I can only assume he is new to the game, and simply doesn't know any better

 

 

 

Yes, I was trying to explain to you the difference in types of (seemingly) acceptable RNG versus non-acceptable RNG.

There are many different ways to enjoy a game.

This is simply not true. Literally every class/spec guide you read will tell you to wear Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault. Even the tank guides tell you to wear these two relics.

 

• Have a look: http://dulfy.net/2016/12/22/swtor-5-0-class-guides-master-list/.
  
• Also, have a look here as well: https://vulkk.com/2016/10/08/everything-swtor-knights-eternal-throne-one-place/#CLASS_GUIDES_50.
  
• The numbers on Smarty's spreadsheet work under this assumption as well: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tTZEODvA4-N_wLXlizG654Ii1z9gI88HavBk1WbTsk0/edit#gid=1340830784.
  

So who is this "guy beside me" that is happy he got an Ephemeral Mending relic? I've never met him nor heard of him. I can only assume he is new to the game, and simply doesn't know any better.

 

 

 

Yes, I was trying to explain to you the difference in types of (seemingly) acceptable RNG versus non-acceptable RNG.

Are you trying to say that because someone number crunched the optimal items/stats for each spec, that items/mods that don't conform to the optimal are not acceptable? Iirc, Musco said that drop rates were going to increase in 6.0 but they may not be what is best for that toon. That they could be transferred to another being that they will be Legacy. With that in mind, I don't think your idea of trimming drops to meet optimal stats will become a reality.

On a side note, some times that use relic for a tank does come in handy for the extra cooldown. Not everything needs be on the healers.