Love the Bag System. Let's Take it to the Next Level, BW:

When you make entry gear ridiculously hard to get and base the other rewards on RNG in a system that requires a stat that can't be attained anywhere else then it's flawed no matter how you spin it.

And don't be a smart ***. Just because I don't instantly respond doesn't mean you win by default.


Edit: And it's not just an issue of centurion commendations being too hard to get. You can dedicate weeks to this game and never be rewarded with more than 1 piece of gear. Or even worse be rewarded with the same piece over and over.

ROTFLMAO and spilled my drink.

you're my new internet hero

It wasn't specifically for you, it was for everyone not understanding the system. Now I agree and laugh at the OP's comment. I think its funny too. And yes BW didn't do an awesome job on the system but the system is still in our favor.

Is it annoying/frustrating getting duplicates? Yes. Is it annoying that un-assembeled pieces can't be used to gear up your companions unless they wear your armor? Absolutely. Is it unfair that we are able to effectively "skip" tier 1 and get tier 2 relatively quickly? NO!


EDIT: And again. If we want to scream for more than 3 Coms per bag I will jump on board. Perhaps 7-10 per bag is more reasonable?

This is (in my opinion) why the system sucks. I understand it quite well, but that doesn't mean that I can't dislike it.

There should be a logical progression of gear through the tiers. As they are designed, this is Centurion > Champion > Battlemaster. The first problem is of course the fact that they simply give you random items. People have often compared this to PvE saying "well, boss loot drops are random too". Yes they are, but with PvE you know which bosses and which instances have a chance to drop the things you want. You keep doing those instances until you get what you want, and then you can stop. With the PvP system, you have no way of planning out how you want to grind this stuff. The other notable difference is that even if you don't earn something from a boss in PvE, chances are one of your group/guild mates did earn something. Not the case with PvP bags where a large amount of useless, economically worthless, non-tradeable duplicates exist. If you have every piece but the helmet, you have a ~10% chance to get a piece of gear from the bags, and ~8% chance to get the specific item you need. Your chance of getting a specific item that you need reduces with each item that you receive, to the point where it becomes around or less than 1%.

The second problem is with the tiering and the choice to make the Champion bag system backwards. If you're going to give away tokens to save up and a chance to earn a piece of gear, they should ideally be giving a small number of Champion tokens along with a piece of Centurion gear. This makes 100% more sense than the current implementation, because this way when you get Centurion gear it isn't worthless. The player can plan out his upgrade/gear progression by saying "Well, I got the Centurion Chest, Helm, Legs, Gloves out of my bags and I have enough Champion tokens to buy one piece, so I'll grab the weapon". The way it works right now, you can randomly screw yourself out of a bunch of Centurion tokens - something I've done 4 times now. You save up a bunch of the T1 (Cent) tokens from bags, and finally have enough to buy something. You buy it, open a bag a day or two later and get the same set piece in T2 (Champion) form. You've just wasted 10+ bags worth of Centurion tokens as that item has now been rendered worthless. I personally have wasted around 100 Centurion tokens this way, as I had no way of knowing when or what I would receive from the Champion set. I can't get those tokens back.

The third problem stems from the first, and that is that the system creates an "unfair" balance between lucky players and unlucky players. Over a large enough population of course, the random system is close to being truly egalitarian, but this is a game where people are paying for entertainment. They want to earn rewards based on the effort they put in. It's not an idealistic system and it shouldn't be looked at that way. There are numerous threads on this forum from people with complaints that are reasonable, even if they appear to be whining. It really is not "fair" in the context of a game where time spent / risk should = reward that a player who recently hit 50 and got lucky has 6 pieces of Champion gear, while a player who has been grinding for weeks only has 2 pieces of Champion gear and maybe a few Centurion pieces. This does happen unfortunately, and no, it shouldn't.

The fourth problem is that duplicates in this system are useless. In PvE raiding environments, duplicates are usually welcome, because if one person already has the item, that means other players now have a better shot at getting it themselves. Duplicates from PvP bags have a few functions right now, none of which are desirable. First, you can sell them back to the merchant for a measly amount of useless credits. I think this explains itself. Second, you can remove the non-expertise mods and basically make yourself a piece of makeshift PvE gear in an orange item (helps none in PvP where expertise is king). Third, you can give it to your companion (helps little/none in PvP since you can't use them on Ilum or in Warzones). Fourth, you can get the other set for your class if you want, but this is only useful once, and personally I haven't touched the "Defense" pants that I have four pairs of, because Defense stats are all but useless in PvP. This is a separate issue all together. The items have no redeeming qualities. You can't trade them with other players (this would be more than welcome), you can't really make any significant use out of them. They're not worth anything economically, and they're barely worth anything personally.

A better system would be to have players earn Centurion bags right off the bat at level 50. These bags would always have a flat number of Centurion tokens in them, perhaps with a very small (5% or less) chance of getting a "crit" bag with extra tokens. Don't give a random piece of gear, don't ever do that, because then the problems run full circle. Once you reach a certain valor rank, start awarding Champion bags. These will always have a set number of Champion tokens as well as a smaller number of Centurion tokens, so you can continue to gear with Tier 1 at a slower rate while you fill in with Tier 2 gear. Rinse and repeat with Battlemaster. There's no downside to this system. It still rewards time spent properly, it removes the agonizing randomness from the system, and it allows players to accurately plan out their progression and earn the items that they need or want. It makes infinitely more sense, as does every other suggestion given by players on these forums. This random system simply has no upside. It's utterly pointless, and I feel like you'd have to be drunk to come up with it and think that it was a good idea. It's simply foolish to put in a system that is frustrating like this in a game that people are paying for to have fun. Like it or not, "fun" in MMO's means earning gear and seeing rewards from your work. The system as it stands does not possess these qualities and as such is flawed.

Can you recap how the WoW arena gear system worked again? I don't quite recall.... Must arena, get your comms once per weak, still wont have enough for an item?

So is this system better or worse. And I know.. This isn't WoW (Thank God)

Funny analogy, but flawed argument. If you think of this game as a job, there is something fundamentally wrong here.

/bump for OP truthiness.

They need to remove centurion commendations from champion bags. Add a centurion bag for a low cost that rewards centurion commendations and tokens. Bump the price on champion bags up and make them reward 3 champion commendations or 1 commendation and 1 token (which can be used on whatever piece you want). And finally make battlemaster bags contain battlemaster stuff.

Not only do they make PvP hard for new players to get into by having a PvP stat. They had to make the entry gear impossibly hard to get and make everything else a random which might leave you with nothing ever. Without any new players the PvP community will eventually stagnate.

Whoever designed this system needs to get another job because they clearly have no idea what they're doing. The fact that they still haven't done anything about this awful system speaks poorly about bioware's ability to manage their game.

+1

Your 2nd and 4th points are the best and I completely agree. The system is backwards and I have been saying that ever since its inception. Even from what I said here, what I am saying is the system is backwards, and that we are complaining about getting Champ before Cent.

Are the duplicates a problem, of course and I already stated that. You and I are essentially on the same page. I am not vouching for this system but whats killing my brain is the lack of understanding people give the system before criticizing it. At least you know why you don't like it.