While I was at work earlier, I was formulating a well thought out response. Now that it's almost 5 in the morning that I begin this comment, my brain is weary and I'll try and make this as brief as possible.

 

GC should never have been the main path to gearing. If you'd have kept the old system in place and added GC as free crates as a thank you to your loyal customers (with actual useful/fun things), your customers wouldn't be in an uproar. Sure they'd be complaining that there wasn't any meaningful new content, and they'd be right to, but the grumbling would have been minimal.

 

First off, every op boss should drop off gear tokens. EVERY BOSS should drop gear tokens. Even if it's just one token per boss except for final boss dropping two. This whole bosses have a percentage to drop gear thing instead of all bosses dropping gear is just your way of gating us to keep from getting gear in a timely manner. We know it. You know it. You know that we know it. HM FP bosses need to drop UCs. Actually everything part of the game needs to reward UCs. Make UCs the new coms with a new name. Also final bosses of HM FPs should drop 230 non set bonus gear. This way players can get thier T1 ear, implant, relics, mainhand, and offhand from doing HM FPs. People like doing group content and seeing loot drop. It's just frustrating doing group content and bosses only drop cxp boosts and occasional crafting material.

 

Next, the GC crates. The pink elephant in the room. The only gear that should drop is tier gear. But not the gear itself, but it should be unassembled tokens. This way if we get a duplicate gear drop we can use the token to either have a secondary spec or to get tier pieces to our alts through the legacy gear. The rates that tier gear drops should be increased dramatically. By the time we hit T2 command rank, we should be within a piece or two of a full set of tier 1.

 

Now what else should be in the GC crates. I'm sorry, but the empty orange gear that is currently in the crates is just downright ugly and just plain unwanted. You did change it so the empty shells are boe so they could be sold on the gtn, which did give me an idea that would make the GC crates so much better. The GC crates should drop random items from all the CM packs. From the first packs all the way to the present. Armor, weapons, emotes, regens, mounts, you name it it should be available as possible chance to appear in our crates. Bronze, silver, gold and dare I say platinum items should all have a chance of appearing in our crates. You already have the code in place to do this......chance cubes. I learned in college when studying programming, reuse code when you can to make things easier on you. You have the system in place to do this, it would just take a tiny bit of modifying. This would bring the fun to GC crates. Imagine the bragging rights in fleet chat when someone gets an unstable peacemaker's lightsaber out of a crate. As it is now GC crates are full of useless junk.

 

Add to this, every week offer a whole shipment of packs/hypercrates for sale in the market. Start at the first shipment and go down the line till you hit the most recent shipment then start it all over again. Every week, rotate the shipments out. Once people start getting armor pieces from way back that wasn't available anymore, they may be willing to buy packs/hypercrates from that shipment to complete the set so they can unlock it. Granted not all shipments are going to be sought after. Some weeks you may not sell as many, but really, now much resources does it take for you to switch out available shipments every week?

 

Fix GC. Make it an added bonus instead of the main path to gearing. Drastically reduce the costs of UC to buy gear. Add UC to all grouping content and things like dailys/weeklys. Increase drop rate of tier gear in GC crates. Make tier drops in crates unassembled gear tokens. Get rid of the crappy greens/blues gear in crates. Put items in the crates that we actually want. OP bosses should always drop gear. Stop making us depend on RNG for getting our gear.

 

This wasn't as eloquent as I originally planned, but I hope I still got my point across. You all need to fix this, and fix it fast before you lose even more subs.

What people don't realize is that 5.1 should bring a method to get a specific piece of gear, once you reach rank 300 and you don't have full 242 you can use the amassed components to buy your missing pieces.

 

Bioware made sure this system cannot be used as an alternative gearing method, which they did well. So i dont get this complains about "not getting enough components, etc" It was not meant for you go grind 500 million PVP matches to buy a full set of 242 gear.

 

and what you fail to grasp is that alot of us made it to tier 2 and 3 before the stupid addons with vendors requiring the pieces that you didnt save up and sold to vendors instead after taking out the mods and so on for legacygear.

 

me, I made it to tier 3 before they added the new vendors and im pretty xxxxxx cause of that as I dont have the required pieces for each gear needed to turn in with unassembled pieces in tow...so if I want a full set for my toon im forced to do 500+ pvp matches because im forced to buy tier one and tier two items before I can touch tier 3.

 

so in essence im punished hard cause I made it to tier 3 before they added yet another failure to GC.

 

and no, I dont even like pvp but am forced to do hundreds of matches on top of each others to get the gear I want by buying pieces I dont have any use of several times over or I can try going for NIM ops with bosses that might drop or not until the last one where I have to roll vs 8 other players and hope I get lucky.

 

so sorry but you failed to understand why GC and the new vendors didnt solve stuff at all, it just made it worse fo alot of us.

Is there an ETA on these changes?

 

We've sitting here doing the grind with no goal and every day more and more players leave.

Is there an ETA on these changes?

 

We've sitting here doing the grind with no goal and every day more and more players leave.

 

ETA is as soon as they are down to one hundred people left in game..... then they will only have to have everyone on one server. Much easier for them in workload.

Is that limited to the new Ops? Or will that include all the gateway content like recycled HMs & Ops and the new heroic area, as well as Uprisings? Leaving guaranteed loot drops specific to the new Operations bosses as a carrot to engage them would be as tacky as putting Command Crates in the Cartel Market.

 

They didn't commit to keeping loot on all the bosses. When the first boss is released, they said he'll drop gear. The did not commit to him keeping it after more bosses are out.

The first set of changes will likely be next week in Game Update 5.1.1. The second set of changes a few weeks later (likely end of Feb) in 5.1.2. I am working on the final details. I am really hoping to get the post out today with all of the details, tomorrow the latest.

 

-eric

 

Thanks for the update. Looking forward to the post.

Edited February 2, 2017 by stoopicus

The first set of changes will likely be next week in Game Update 5.1.1. The second set of changes a few weeks later (likely end of Feb) in 5.1.2. I am working on the final details. I am really hoping to get the post out today with all of the details, tomorrow the latest.

 

-eric

 

I hope someone at BW understands that your FIRST set of changes needs to be substantial, not just tweaking CXP rates. If it's just tweaking CXP rates it's not going to help the failed, frustrating, often infuriating system called GC.

 

But it should have nothing to do with how to obtain gear in Operations and nothing to do with how to obtain gear via PvP because it is not a system that can ever serve both functions equitably. I have seen no "improvement" suggested that changes this, nor do I expect to.

 

And you won't until they get rid of GC or the game shuts down. BW is going to drive this system right off the cliff and take the game with it, apparently.

 

Well said, and exactly how I feel about it. As I've said in other threads on this forum, I think a system like Galactic Command would work great as a supplemental gearing source: a way for casuals and solo players to get gear that would normally be unavailable to them, and a way for more regular/hardcore/whatever players to get some occasional extra frosting on top of their regular earnings from PvP and ops. It's the fact that GC and its terrible RNG is the core of the gearing system now that's the problem.

 

Yep. As an extra cookie it could be great. As the primary gearing system it's terrible.

 

GC should never have been the main path to gearing. If you'd have kept the old system in place and added GC as free crates as a thank you to your loyal customers (with actual useful/fun things), your customers wouldn't be in an uproar. Sure they'd be complaining that there wasn't any meaningful new content, and they'd be right to, but the grumbling would have been minimal.

 

I expect at this point they'd have a lot more customers than they do now. They've lost a lot and it's taking so long for them to "tweak" and "adjust" the system, people are getting invested in other games. Those people aren't coming back without huge incentives and maybe not even then.

My bad, that's funny wording. The goal is that the average time for a crate is 30 minutes. The super-aggressive people will still be ahead of that curve.

 

-eric

 

Are us story players going to be included, or are we going to be stuck with 20 cpx for all pre -KotFE quests? It's faster to gear running around killing golds for 2cpx than doing vanilla story

The first set of changes will likely be next week in Game Update 5.1.1. The second set of changes a few weeks later (likely end of Feb) in 5.1.2. I am working on the final details. I am really hoping to get the post out today with all of the details, tomorrow the latest.

 

-eric

 

As others echoed, next week changes need to be measured and substantial, not a pointless crutch (like the UC and Ops gear in 5.1). You guys clearly failed to measure the system at implementation and pointlessly changed it twice. If you miss next week again, that will be a third strike. This means either whatever you are saying is smoke in mirrors or that the devs team fail to do basic math and logic.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Ottoattack

@Eric - Why more feedback ? So you can ignore it ? I never read any feedback like "Battle master bags all over again! or the 4.0 Gearing is too complicated. If you would really listen to feedback you should have killed GC and give us the old system. Better - you should never ever had invent this GC BS and instead

make some more Ops, Planets, Daily Areas. The Players asked for it a million times on a million places. In Cantinas, this Forum here over and over, Reddit, Twitter...

 

But you ignored it and gave us GC.

 

So - why more feedback ? You already have all the answers.

One of the changes really needs to be bumping the golds back to 10cxp per kill.

 

Then, make a tweak that limits it to phased areas so the farmers don't take mobs away from other people doing heroics.

 

If this absurd system is kept in place, at least let people go through it how THEY want to, not how you want them to.

Our goal at launch was 60 minutes per crate. Right now we are seeing times both below and above that goal with an average time per crate being little higher than our target, but not much. It is one of the data points we looked at to plan for our new target. Which if you are math savvy, our new goal is you will get crates twice as fast as before (or more).

 

For reference, people doing aggressive CXP farming are already doing so at a rate quite a bit faster than every 60 minutes. Our new targets are that someone will get a crate every 30 minutes, without a boost.

 

-eric

 

Eric,

 

You guys really, really need to stop playing customers for fourth graders. You have some very highly educated people that play this game that can smell BS from halfway around the world.

 

A simple Excel spreadsheet of what people can grind MAXIMUM in an hour of casual play would have told you that is about 2,000 CxP with the limits you established. So what do you do, set higher limits at 4,990 CxP on the levels. So you knew, we know you knew, and you know that we know you knew that it is complete garbage that an hour was your original intent. It wasn't, nor was it ever.

 

Most people in this game can do basic math. You guys do yourself no favors by telling people stuff they know to be completely untrue. Case in point, if you only take one thing from these posts, go into Ben's office and tell him never to say "RNG is exciting" again. It isn't even funny and it infuriates customers when he does that.

 

I personally do not know the objectives of the team behind the scenes at BWA, and I really don't care. I have tried to think of another MMO (outside of the SWG NGE) that has gone through such lengths to really anger a good portion of their paying customer base and, honestly, I cannot think of a single one.

 

I wish you guys the best. You are really going to need it in the coming months.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Wayshuba

The first set of changes will likely be next week in Game Update 5.1.1. The second set of changes a few weeks later (likely end of Feb) in 5.1.2. I am working on the final details. I am really hoping to get the post out today with all of the details, tomorrow the latest.

 

-eric

 

Will any changes be made retroactively.

 

Or is it a case that people should quit and come back the end of Feb? Cause at the moment it is looking like its a case that people that participated in Galactic Command are getting everything they worked for devalued, while the best thing to do anytime BW implament a new system is to unsub, come back months later and get to play the decent version with good rewards.

 

Or would it be even better to come back in 6 months when you will probably have removed the rng element. Seriously it feels like you dislike your loyal customers and constantly think you can treat them like crap cause new players will flock in to replace them.

Here's the deal.

 

People who are upset about GC aren't upset because they hate the game. They are upset because they love the game. They want it to be the success it could be but are frustrated that the dev team isn't making it happen.

 

We've given feedback and you know the feelings of many on GC and RNG. But time and time again promises are made, we are told to wait and see before we comment/complain. We didn't we can see what the changes will do and we let you know that right off. But were ignored. When the changes hit it turned out not as the dev team said but as many posters did. And so we complained again and again the dev team said they were listening, they would make changes and they then listed those changes....and again many posters pointed out how those changes are not what was asked for nor what was needed....and again we were told to wait and see....and again it hit, did nothing and again we complained....and now again your telling us they are listening and they are making changes.....

 

So far they have hung on to GC and RNG with a deathgrip. Until they are really willing to let go, and allow that system to die the death it needs to you really aren't listening. We will be back at this again and agian until there are either no players left or the dev team changes. Can you save us all the time and trouble by just jumping ahead to that point this time, we tired of waiting for you to do the right thing, its time to just do it.

@Eric - Why more feedback ? So you can ignore it ? I never read any feedback like "Battle master bags all over again! or the 4.0 Gearing is too complicated. If you would really listen to feedback you should have killed GC and give us the old system. Better - you should never ever had invent this GC BS and instead

make some more Ops, Planets, Daily Areas. The Players asked for it a million times on a million places. In Cantinas, this Forum here over and over, Reddit, Twitter...

 

But you ignored it and gave us GC.

 

So - why more feedback ? You already have all the answers.

- i dont have idea why they do this but screaming will not help. That attitude and others will kill this game faster than gc system. Just perfect .. i love this game and soon i must see all serwers off because some stupid morons cant stop flaming. They ignored content and now they refocusing .. its their bussiness and crying from all ppl dont change much. They listen to fix little gc system. But they want it in this game and dont think they will back to old system. Sooner this game will die. You dont like play, then dont pay and farewell. If you want perfect mmo with new ops in every month then create new mmo alone or wait more months when Swtor will have more content. Edited February 2, 2017 by Trlance

If you want perfect mmo with new ops in every month then create new mmo alone or wait more months when Swtor will have more content.

 

Why create you own MMO? Wow releases 4 raids a year, FFXIV releases 3 to 4 raids a year, ESO releases new content every quarter and has now committed one quarter to just updates on new group content. Heck, even The Secret World has released three new group instances in the last two years.

 

The point is, if you want regular group content on a yearly basis all you have to do is play any MMO that isn't SWTOR.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Wayshuba

- i dont have idea why they do this but screaming will not help. That attitude and others will kill this game faster than gc system. Just perfect .. i love this game and soon i must see all serwers off because some stupid morons cant stop flaming. They ignored content and now they refocusing .. its their bussiness and crying from all ppl dont change much. They listen to fix little gc system. But they want it in this game and dont think they will back to old system. Sooner this game will die. You dont like play, then dont pay and farewell. If you want perfect mmo with new ops in every month then create new mmo alone or wait more months when Swtor will have more content.

 

You believe SWTOR will have more content later ? So EA is going to invest in this game ? Really ?

 

We have less and less content over the years, so where is the budget for that content you're talking about. They need a year for 1 Operation (first in three years), but you think they'll start making more content. Good luck with that.

Edited February 2, 2017 by RswanBing

You believe SWTOR will have more content later ? So EA is going to invest in this game ? Really ?

 

We have less and less content over the years, so where is the budget for that content you're talking about. They need a year for 1 Operation (first in three years), but you think they'll start making more content. Good luck with that.

 

While I agree operations have been too long in coming, I can actually see why they are doing this. The last operation they added, people completed in a few weeks or 1 month and then they came screaming to the forums they have nothing to do. Maybe this way they can spread it out so we have something more to do.

 

Everytime they add something, people finish it within a few weeks and then come running to the forums saying they don't have anything else to do.

Why create you own MMO? Wow releases 4 raids a year, FFXIV releases 3 to 4 raids a year, ESO releases new content every quarter and has now committed one quarter to just updates on new group content. Heck, even The Secret World has released three new group instances in the last two years.

 

The point is, if you want regular group content on a yearly basis all you have to do is play any MMO that isn't SWTOR.

I fully support this idea - then this MMO can return its focus to story and solo options with sporadic group content as side content.

 

Raiders can play Raid-focused MMOs that cater to their tastes, solo-/story-centric players can play story-focused MMOs that cater to their tastes, and players with diverse tastes can pick the MMO or MMOs they individually like best.

Edited February 2, 2017 by DarthDymond

Yes but the point I was trying to make overall and that TUXs seemed to fail to get as it seemed he wanted to argue for the sake of arguing

No - I wanted you to be accurate - you weren't. You claimed gear had always been RNG and that is simply not true. Gear was 100% static from the same boss, guaranteed to drop each and every time. That's the complete opposite of random.

No - I wanted you to be accurate - you weren't. You claimed gear had always been RNG and that is simply not true. Gear was 100% static from the same boss, guaranteed to drop each and every time. That's the complete opposite of random.

 

I think the point Menace was trying to make, while the gear was guaranteed to drop it was not guaranteed you would get the piece so that part was RNG as you were never guaranteed to get anything that dropped. I know I ran some operations and there were times I winded up with nothing from the run.

I fully support this idea - then this MMO can return its focus to story and solo options with sporadic group content as side content.

 

Raiders can play Raid-focused MMOs that cater to their tastes, solo-/story-centric players can play story-focused MMOs that cater to their tastes, and players with diverse tastes can pick the MMO or MMOs they individually like best.

 

WoW developers did a good article on this once on the problem with MMOs. It was basically to have a successful MMO you have to first grasp that no one type of customer focus will allow you to succeed because their are not enough of them. Basically, an MMO succeeds by catering to a variety of minority groups that collecitvely make up a player population and success. So there are story players, raiders, PvPers, crafters and decorators, etc. Each group may make up 10% of a customer base.

 

So, if you think SWTOR can survive on those that are just here for story, you might not have been in in the 1.0-1.6 era when that was pretty much what they had and the game almost went belly up as a result. In other words, it will be fine if the PvPers, raiders, dungeon runners go elsewhere. But for those here for just story - guess what? You won't be getting anymore story because there will not be enough customers left to keep the lights on.

No - I wanted you to be accurate - you weren't. You claimed gear had always been RNG and that is simply not true. Gear was 100% static from the same boss, guaranteed to drop each and every time. That's the complete opposite of random.

 

Tux I wouldn't get involved in an arguement with him. He is arguing semantics constantly and that is in general the sign of someone you don't want to bother arguing with. Semantic wars are all about obscuring the real issues, avoid them when possible.

While I agree operations have been too long in coming, I can actually see why they are doing this. The last operation they added, people completed in a few weeks or 1 month and then they came screaming to the forums they have nothing to do. Maybe this way they can spread it out so we have something more to do.

 

Everytime they add something, people finish it within a few weeks and then come running to the forums saying they don't have anything else to do.

 

I agree with you, most players finish content very quickly. But in SWTOR particular case, problem is also there's not a lot of content. Compared to others major mmo, it's a joke.

 

Maybe you're right about the way they realease this operation, but even so, It will change nothing. With one boss at a time, players will have nothing to do as fast as before maybe even faster. And when the operation will be completed, for many players it will not be real new content, because they already play most of it. I'm afraid they're shooting themselves in the feet if that's the case.

 

But IMO, reason for this "One boss after another" release is they just don't have enough people to deliver things faster. I may be wrong, but I really think that's the main reason.

Edited February 2, 2017 by RswanBing