Tionese commendations and crystals are useless, just like centurion commendations are useless.

Honestly, this is true. Unless you are supremely unlucky, by the time you get enough Columi commendations to buy anything, you'll already have no use for them.

I think the 'reason' that the drop rates are minimilised is to encouraage participation in the normal mode operations. But if that is the case frankly its unneeded. Normal mode operations are the base level, supposed to be done in gear available right from when you hit 50, its meant to be a low cost kind of operation to just go through for an easy time. As such I dont think hard flashpoints need to be paced gear wise to force you through normal modes. After all there are guilds/players that might want to go straight to the hard modes rather than doing operation grinding x3 difficulties.

I think its rather daft that hard flashpoint final bosses drop columi gear as well. Its very... nonsecal compared to the tionese drop rates there. They should make the minibosses there drop tionese crystals as they already do (slightly buffed in the amount they drop, make bosses not drop crystals but do drop tionese commendations. Then remove any columi gear tokens or gear (a friend swears that HK dropped him a columi lightsaber but I really cba to check) that exists and replace them with tionese tokens/gear.

That way you get 3 tionese commendations a flashpoint, probably the same crystal droprate as currently but giving a defined niche to the minibosses, and end this insanity wwith the columi gear. It kind of makes tionese progression route meaningless. And perhaps give crystals a conversion rate, like warzone to mercenary commendations. Considering crystals are from the same content as the commendations that shouldnt be too controversial. Something like a 10-20 conversion rate.

As for it 'sensing' your group composition I would like less cunning crap to drop with no cunning players... but its like how I feel about changing the op auto-assign thing. Have to be careful there as players should have the ability to gear their offspecs. That said, if the commendation rate was adjusted to what I suggested. i suppose you could gear from a smart drop based system that checked your specs and class makeup in the group, then buy your offspec stuff/companion gear from the commendations.

In theory it should be pretty simple. But I wonder if the drops are generated when the instance is created. If that's the case, you don't want to restrict loot to the group that created the instance, because people can drop and be replaced. WoW works like that as I recall, and I imagine there's a reason for it.

 

Not that you couldn't design around that. For example, create loot priority lists for each boss when the instance is created, and when the actual kill comes, discard items that can't be used by the current group until you get one that is useful.

 

Of course, there's the question of farming content for companion gear. If only loot useful to the current group is obtainable, the only companions that can be geared up are the ones that share your armor type & primary stat (or those of someone else in the group).

They could do something that would make it a much higher probability that somebody in the group would benefit along the lines of what you suggested. And if they wrote the code in the first place to make this very hard to do, then this just shows BW's noobishness in terms of MMOs I guess. Anyway, it is disappointing that they are repeating the same tired formula of other MMOs. I need to erect my shrine to the 'Random Gear Drop' god again I guess to play end game, and it is a shame.

Random loot is random.

If you were playing WoW, you just wouldn't have any loot period. Oh you'd have like 10k valor usable to buy useless crap, but yea.

I agree though that since they put in an alternate way of getting gear, they should've made it not be so useless.

Also crystals are dumb, and I agree that they serve no purpose.

I'm not sure how this is Bioware's "noobishness".

WoW certainly never has and never will stack loot drops to favor a certain comp.

The entire HM system is borked. I made a post about this yesterday and had the fanbois shouting I was trying to "make things easy." What I want is to make it worth while.

 

As pointed out, the drop rates suck. Horribly. We've gotten more gear for classes not present than classes present (lots of Trooper gear when we didn't have any Troopers). What happened to the regular FP where they see what classes are available and tailor drops based on that?

 

Then you have the commendations, also as pointed out. I got either 1 or 2 commendations for finishing HM FPs. And about 12 Crystals. But, as pointed out, you can't buy anything with the extra crystals (gear is about a 1:2 Commendtion:Crystal ratio, not 1:6). IMO, they need to up the rate of Commendation drops (7-8 HM per piece of gear would be reasonable, requiring upwards of 100 HM FPs to be fully geared) and if they keep the same stupid ratio of Commendations/Crystals, a way to buy commendations with Crystals.

 

That, and well, fix all the borked encounters, bugs and loot boxes that don't open. How the hell did this stuff make it past QA? Did they even DO any testing on this content? I know public testers didn't, because BioWare didn't let them, but did their internal team do any? I remember someone posting, a dev, that the internal testers were what they really cared about, yet they either aren't doing their job or this stuff isn't being tested.

 

What scares me is they are already pushing new content (new OP bosses and a new FP) with the current OPs and FPs in such shambles. Apparently they think poorly finished content is as good as having "lots" of content.

I don't even understand the point of a multiple currency system in the first place. If its to limit gear acquisition then what is the point? The 1 day HM lockouts already take care of that so you'd be limited to the max # of currency you get from running 6 HMs a day anyways (assuming you can do them all). Just remove 1 of the 2 currencys (crystals or commendations) and adjust the prices accordingly based on the possible 6 hard modes you run a day, and make the daily quest bonus large enough to create diminishing returns on grinding all 6 every day.

Instead you get a few dozen crystals to the handful of commendations you get each day making it take over a week of daily hard modes just to get a single Tier 1 item when if you really wanted to you could run 42 Flashpoints a week and have 42 chances at Tier 2 items..... I'm completely geared in Rakata and Columi minus my Mainhand Weapon (grrrrr) and I still don't even have enough Commendations to buy a Tionese MH Weapon yet. All my Tionese Crystals/Commendations = Companion loot.

Yeah I can see how they don't want us to lose interest too quickly. However, that ominous feeling like you're wasting your time running content because you're not going to get any gear is what causes people to quit entierly and cancel subs. It's a balancing act, but I feel its too much tuned on the 'time wasting' side. At least in HMs. I hear Operations are loot pinyatas!

they are loot pinyatas to only a few, our BH merc just got his 4th head last night, thats 3 of his companions geared in head slot lol, yet my BH Tank is still waiting to have a head assigned....

the pre assigned loot is a fking disgrace imo. master looter should mean what it says, and give us the means to give the items to who ever we like and not what some random generator thinks.

they are loot pinyatas to only a few, our BH merc just got his 4th head last night, thats 3 of his companions geared in head slot lol, yet my BH Tank is still waiting to have a head assigned....

 

the pre assigned loot is a fking disgrace imo. master looter should mean what it says, and give us the means to give the items to who ever we like and not what some random generator thinks.

Yeah the random loot in Ops is terrible. I wish I could give away some of the things it assigns me to friends who actually need the drops. I feel bad doing the runs because I don't need the loot on Normal but at the same time they don't really have anyone else to bring so it comes down to taking the chance that a piece I get goes to a companion or they just don't do it at all and nobody gets anything.

Did false Emp this morning at 2am my time. Pulled him into position for the knockback at 11% and WHAM I go sailing through god knows where. Poof boss dies, I can't zone into the instance, and my chest token drops.

No real problems with their system I just needed to ( Q _ Q ) somewhere while praying the tickets get read.

The crystal / commendations are mixed so that you should run a few hard-modes and complete EV weekly to balance the two out. If you do one or the other exclusively you'll be short on one or the other. After 2.8 EV clears I have bought two pieces of tionese gear with almost enough change to buy another. My weekly operations quest did not trigger on any of the three kills that should have completed it.

Did false Emp this morning at 2am my time. Pulled him into position for the knockback at 11% and WHAM I go sailing through god knows where. Poof boss dies, I can't zone into the instance, and my chest token drops.

 

 

 

No real problems with their system I just needed to ( Q _ Q ) somewhere while praying the tickets get read.

 

The crystal / commendations are mixed so that you should run a few hard-modes and complete EV weekly to balance the two out. If you do one or the other exclusively you'll be short on one or the other. After 2.8 EV clears I have bought two pieces of tionese gear with almost enough change to buy another. My weekly operations quest did not trigger on any of the three kills that should have completed it.

I feel your pain friend. One of the very first HMs we finished I got the unresponsive UI bug when my Tier Helm dropped and could not roll on it. Reloading the UI removed the Need/Greed dialogue and it went to my friend's companion :/.

Thankfully I have gotten it again since.

Of all these complaints (that I completely agree with btw) I would like to add one of my own.

Can we has a REAL master looting system please?

My 8 man raid group runs a setup of:

1 Jugg tank

2 Sorc Heal

1 Sorc DPS

2 Merc DPS

1 Sniper

1 Mara

Its a really nice ranged heavy raid group. Last night when we cleared, we got lots of pointless loot that no one really needed. I have so many freaking sets of bracers that Broonmark is starting to spit at me about it...

Now that in and of itself is fine. Random drops are random. What I have a problem with is when we downed SoA, a tanking saber drops....and is auto assigned to our FREAKING MARAUDER. W T F BIOWARE.

/signed

Tionese crystals are a joke. By the time you get enough commendations for a piece of Tier 1, it's literally impossible not to have enough crystals. In fact, there is an excess of them, and since they have no other uses, they have no reason to exist.

Merge them with commendations, make said commendations drop from bosses, and tweak the cost of Tier 1 as needed.

Me and some friends have been runningen Black talon HM everyday since we went 50, so far, i got 3 epic belts, 3 epic wrists, and 2 epic ears.... god, my companion even got those agent token bracers!

But during ALL our HM's, we haven't seen a single tank items drop from a boss, not for any class, can any1 comfirm they have seen tank loot drop?

P.S. the best way to get stable and easy gear upgraes, is during the H2 / H4 on illum / belsavis, giving epic mods / enchanment / armoring, resulting in a epic a day...

a tanking saber drops....and is auto assigned to our FREAKING MARAUDER. W T F BIOWARE.

darn, i feel for you

Beside, if you got the loot too fast, people would complain about "lack of content" So you keep them trying, paying and well.... you get the money.

+1 people are loot whores these days then they complain about how faceroll everything is when theyre steemrolling through everything with their best in slot.

The loot system amongst other things does need work but i think it would be a big mistake to start giving away epics left right and centre.

people are too used to welfare epics from the WoW expansions

Whats annoying for my guild and me is that I have had the columi Leg pieces AUTO assigned to me in 4 Eternity Vault Normal Modes now, and I have got 2 Guardian DPS Legs and 2 Guardian Tank Legs.. Why do this? Why not just Auto assign a Token that can be Exchanged for Any Piece to 1 Person per Boss? or Let people Roll on that, Come on theres Smarter Ways.. At least this way Prevents Ninjas but still thats like 0.0001% of Raids that will happen.

Edit: Then our first Hard Mode run, Our Off-Tank Vanguard got 5 Rakata Pieces from 4 Bosses on Hard Mode, One Healer got 2 Rakata Pieces and One Smuggler got a Rakata Piece, 5 Trooper Items Dropped!!! Thats Insane. They need to sort this

The way loot is generated seems screwy to me. It seems partially based off who your group leader is and who is in your group.

For example, I was running Taral V normal just to get some items/cash/LS/DS points, and generally I would get the same stuff repeatedly with little variation. After inviting a couple of guildies, all of a sudden I got stuff that I had never seen before. Bare in mind, this is after around 2 days of farming the place and at least 3 dozen runs through the place.

Once we started doing Hardmode instances, it got weirder. For some reason everytime I am group leader, Smuggler or Trooper gear will always drop, no matter what the instance. When I made my Guildmaster group leader, he always seemed to get Jedi Knight gear.

However gear is generated is definitely does not seem random. Seems broken to me.

The risk/reward ratio for normal ops versus HM FPs is beyond screwed.

HM FPs other than BT are about 2 hours of work for one Tionese token (3 if it's the daily). Bosses drop one piece of gear and some crystals. You have to wade through 4 times the trash of EV on most of them.

You get 3 tokens per boss in EV, and they're all jokes except for Soa. Pugs can get 12 tokens in 8man normal EV in the same time as it takes to do one HM FP on top of buckets of loot.

As it stands, you're best off just running HM BT every day to get dialy/weekly done and not bothering with the other buggy HM FPs that have mountains of trash.

Me and some friends have been runningen Black talon HM everyday since we went 50, so far, i got 3 epic belts, 3 epic wrists, and 2 epic ears.... god, my companion even got those agent token bracers!

 

But during ALL our HM's, we haven't seen a single tank items drop from a boss, not for any class, can any1 comfirm they have seen tank loot drop?

 

P.S. the best way to get stable and easy gear upgraes, is during the H2 / H4 on illum / belsavis, giving epic mods / enchanment / armoring, resulting in a epic a day...

Tank loot is all that freaking drops when I am running HM FPs

BW really needs to re-evaluate the time spent vs. reward formula for Hard Modes. I suggest a 100% commendation system, where ALL gear is bought (except maybe weapons, relics, implants). Then I'd tune the drop rates so players were able to afford a new piece of armor every 3-4 HMs or so.

 

This would even the playing field for people, making it so one person couldn't gear up amazingly fast (the gunslinger in my static party last night got 6 drops over the course of 4 FPs), and also would make it so people can get totally screwed.

See, while I agree you should never run 10-20 runs and get nothing, I don't like currency only loot systems. It is what makes grinding heroics in WoW so...well...grindy. Currency means you don't care about the bosses or where you are, and only care about getting the run done as fast as possible. I don't like this kind of loot setup.

If you are going to do anything like this, then I would say drop tokens for specific slots or something like that. That way you have to do X boss to get X token. You don't need to have that token be only for specific classes but by making it a token, you are still in THAT instance for a reason. You aren't just grinding commendations / points.

They could do something that would make it a much higher probability that somebody in the group would benefit along the lines of what you suggested. And if they wrote the code in the first place to make this very hard to do, then this just shows BW's noobishness in terms of MMOs I guess. Anyway, it is disappointing that they are repeating the same tired formula of other MMOs. I need to erect my shrine to the 'Random Gear Drop' god again I guess to play end game, and it is a shame.

no need to erect any shrine, just do pvp and run EV on reg and hard modes

The whole Commendation system should just be combined to just Tionese Crystals, and the costs reworked accordingly. It makes no sense to have 2 currencies used for one thing.

It's the same thing as the PvP currency with Mercenary Commendations. They aren't used for anything. They might as well just increase the cap to 4000 WZ Commendations and remove Merc Comms entirely.

those crystals also driving me nuts, they seem so redundant, whats with all the redundancy in this game? like merc comms exclusively traded in from wz comms, why not just charge 800 wz comms for the bags instead?

^ this.......................................

I'd love to see a BW dev respond to this thread. But we all know they don't have the b@lls to address real issues when they're too worried about emotes working on my stupid speeder...... priorities please.