Orange Gear, Epic Loot and all the Shouting

I didnt say keep things the way they are. I do agree that orange gear should be viable at end game , i just think its being implemented poorly.

If they made Armoring mods with set bonus's attached to them that dropped off of raid bosses or maybe that you could buy from commendations (like i suggested above) it would make alot more sense. It also wouldnt give them an excuse to be lazy about the new epic loot they put in. If they go ahead with the plan and just make epic loot a vassal for mods that is going to be put in orange gear anyways then what is the point.

End game progression in PVE in most mmo's (including this one) happens solely through gear, if they just make it about mods (that have nothing unique about them) to stick into existing armor that is already in the game , it takes away alot of that progression. Ill explain why, orange gear at the moment has nothing rare about it really there is no "rare drop" orange gear that you can get off of high level bosses that are a challenge or anything. Mods on the other hand have nothing unique about them, they dont make your gear look any different they are just stats to put into something, by taking this away there is a disconnect in gear progression. You put mods that arent unique into gear that isnt a challenge to get, dont you see how that could be a problem? They need to add rare drops, unique armor , weapons , relics that arent part of sets (there isnt any armor drops in end game PVE that arent part of a set, there is essentially 4 sets at the moment, tier gear, exotech, xenotech, energized. That is unnacceptable in my opinnion)

The problem is not the effort. The problem will be

a) The absurd prices these critted crafted orange items will be paid for (1million+) because raider and generally min-maxers want them for their BiS equipment, and in that regard BiS trumps everything.

b) Existing purple and orange items from quest rewards, fp/op drops, vendors etc will be obsolete for anyone trying to get BiS gear, nullifying like half of the visual appearance choices available, which brings us back to square one - the need to equip only certain specific items instead of the ones we prefer the look most of.

It boggles the mind how many people rail against more customization options in an MMO, a genre that centers, in part, around ownership and authorship over a player's character.

I LOVE the idea of Modifiable gear becoming more prevalent and accessible at all levels. It will allow players to have more control over their character's appearance - that's all... and that's a good thing in my book.

The only argument I see being a real problem with removable base-mods is that Cybertech crafters will be put out of work. Hopefully there is something planned for Cybertech that will make it viable after 1.2.

I just think they could have gone about it better. Right now in Hard mode operations their are level 58 mods that drop if they say kept that system and added in an armoring drop that maybe you could get from commendations as well as from raiding, this armoring drop would have a tier set bonus, by doing this they arent making end game drops just a container for mods and they are giving people the option to wear any orange gear they would like throughout the game by obtaining these armorings from a few different methods.

It just seems like the current method bioware is going to implement will give them the excuse to continue making an abysmally low amount of new gear per new raid/ flashpoint / commendation vendor like they have currently done. I wanted that to change.

What people are mainly criticising is the fact that these changes do not give us enough options - anything not crit-crafted (which includes drops, quest rewards etc) will be , though fully moddable, inferior to crit-crafted orange stuff.

It's like they open up all these options just to take away half of them again that very instant.

This is incorrect, because all purples will be moddable as well. They will be just as orange are now. They have and will continue to have the possibility of having an augment slot upon crafting.

This whole argument is here because in End Game most crafting is pointless.

Let anyone stick any mods in any orange, RPers rejoice you have your look and with armour set bonus so your not gimped.

Let Armourmech and Synthweavers stick one augement slot on one peice of armour, hurray those crafters have a perk and make made with Biometric Alloys so non raiders can make them like the Biochems can do

Do the same with Artificers and Armstech on their guns.

All Crafters get relevant in end game
RPers get their dreams of matching gear
Noone gets forced into wearing BiS gear.

Problem solved....next.

If purple raid drops will be moddable in the same way that orange pieces are now, why not just add an augment slot to them by default? This would make them equivalent to crit-crafted orange, and thus continue their BiS status while giving raiders the option to get other looks if they so wish. Casuals who don't feel the need for an aug slot can keep on using regular oranges while perhaps aspiring to crit-craft as the next part of their own gear progression.

Extra market for crafters, high-end gear continuity for raiders, aspiration for casuals who want to gear up and start raiding themselves.

I fully expect the next stages of Update Patch 1.2.1-1.2.5 to be BioWare adjusting the price to remove end level gear mods. 1st it'll be like 1m credits for remove a lvl 50 mod & everyone will hate it & BioWare will be confused cause they know hardly anything about MMO players. Then they'll whisper something to some interviewer on some other website that BioWare has heard the outcry of the prices of end level gear mod removal, so they're adjusting it 25% lower on the upcoming 1.2.1 test patch.

At this point it'll still cost too much to remove max level mods but something like 20% of the playerbase that have loads of credits cause they've been farming dailies non-stop have paid the high fees, while the armormech & snythweaver crafters are selling every single piece of crit-crafted augment orange gear no lower than 300k credits because BioWare set that as the price range for orange crit-crafted augmented gear on the GTN.

Update patch 1.2.3 lowers the price to remove mods too far to the other spectrum, now it's so cheap to remove level 50 mods it only costs 1000 credits or less, but hardly anyone can afford to buy new crafted orange augmented gear from crafters cause it still costs too much in materials & RNG to make one of these items, that crafters cannot sell even the ugliest pieces for less than 250k credits. Also RAGE ON THE FORUMS cause players that used to be rich ingame are now screaming at BioWare & want refunds on all their wasted credits cause they now can't afford to buy the new orange augment crafted items off the GTN.

Then it's the middle of April & update patch 1.2.4 comes along & I complain on the forums that BioWare isn't doing a very good job with customizable gear. Biodrone's will hate on me thread, RP'ers & similar minded players missing out on customization in TOR will agree with me & then unexpectedly & without warning colormatch gets turned off this patch again because it's been intermittently blanking out full armor color & texture patterns for the past 3 weeks & the playerbase is mad.

Y'know...worst case scenario or is it just another day for BioWare & EA?

Make all Raid gear drops have a chance to have a empty aug slot in it.... now everyone has a chance of getting a aug slot regardless if it's crafted gear or raid gear dropped in the dungeons.... problem solved..