This game lacks epeen

The difference between the CE vendor and Raiding is the CE vendor can be PURCHASED. The reason the CE vendor should only have fluff is because they shouldn't force you to PAY MORE for exclusive game-changing items.

What they very much SHOULD do is force you to PLAY more for those game-changing exclusive items. The only way to do that is give them stats and armor that casual players cannot get (and don't need to play casually).

Yes, if players want full Rakata (or whatever top-end gear) they very much should be forced to group up and take on the content that drops it.

So the hardcore minority is not playing anymore while the casual majority is enjoying the game?

IMO there's 3 things that BW should have done slightly differently that would have fixed a lot of the end-game issue (Not including bugs).

1 - Leveling. Currently if you do all the class quests, all the side quests and all the bonus quests you out-level the content. And that's not including PVP, Space Missions, Flashpoints etc. The XP gain should have been reduced so that if you did ALL the quests AND one of the above (PVP, Space, FP) while leveling you would not out-level content before even getting to a planet.

2 - Gear (PVE). Gear should not be gained from "Commendations". End game gear shouldn't be purchased from a vendor period. As a Raider, it gives you nothing to look forward to. YAY a TOKEN dropped.. Yipady-Crap.. End game gear should drop from the mobs, and you should have to kill the stuff before you ever see it. It leaves you wondering if there's some Rare uber drop in that loot table that nobody's ever seen.

3 - Gear Tiers / Raids - The current set-up is fundamentally flawed for raiding guilds. It encourages smaller groups, and fragments the community. As to the "I want to solo for epics" crap, that doesn't work in MMOs long-term. WoW is a EXCEPTION to the rule, not a standard to strive to. The reason so many of the recent games have flopped a few months after release is there's nothing to keep people long term as you see all the content and have all your gear before the developers could possibly push more content out.

T1 (Tionese) should be Level 50 / HM Flashpoints, and Normal Ops ONLY

T2 (Columi) Should be very Rare Drops in HM Flashpoints, Semi-Rare (every other boss) in 8-man HM Ops, and Standard loot (every boss) in 16 man HM Ops

T3 (Rakata) should be very Rare Drops in 8-man HM Ops, Semi-Rare in 16-man HM Ops, and Standard drops in Nightmare.

Currently there is no incentive to run anything over 8-man hard-mode Ops other than saying you've done it. And you can't run anything over 8/16 hard-mode unless a sizeable chunk of your raid is already in full Rakata/Battlemaster and they get nothing for it other than a title.

And again, to the people who want to solo for epics. YOU DON'T NEED EPIC GEAR TO SOLO!. It should be exclusive gear for the people who have cleared the hardest content in the game AS A TEAM. Not something you can gain from commendations, tokens, and dailies. If you only have a few hours of playtime a week, you don't need this gear to do anything you'd be doing in the game.

Without something to work towards, there is no purpose to playing.

Why?

As a devil's advocate, if the player pays as much for the better gear as they would subscribing to get it and it makes their play experience more enjoyable, where's the harm. A small mark or designation on the "earned" armor would allow the epeen/bragging rights factor to exist. If you think about, all giving the more skilled player the edge does is make PvP less competitive.

I often am fine with motivators that many misrepresent as being "forced" to do one thing or another. The general consensus is that being forced to do anything as a terrible hardship that should be avoided so, why should forcing players to kill what drops the gear instead of paying it be acceptable in this case.

I am not even sure if I disagree with quoted post but, it is supported by little beyond what the poster thinks should be.

I believe the word you're looking for is "fun".

You know, what people used to play MMO's for prior to the WoW era?


Why does everything within an MMO have to revolve around getting gear or titles or achievements or pets or mounts? Why is it that people can't enjoy playing a game because it's fun?

I mean seriously, what happened to you people?

I don't PvP much at all. I personally just don't enjoy it. That said...

From your post, I should be able to just go and buy the best PvP gear there is so I'm on par with the PvP playerbase, even though I did nothing to earn it?


You want the end game gear, you should do the end game content. Not harvest and sell mats on the GTN to make a bunch of credits and then go buy the best gear you can afford.

The difference between the CE vendor and Raiding is the CE vendor can be PURCHASED. The reason the CE vendor should only have fluff is because they shouldn't force you to PAY MORE for exclusive game-changing items.

What they very much SHOULD do is force you to PLAY more for those game-changing exclusive items. The only way to do that is give them stats and armor that casual players cannot get (and don't need to play casually).

Yes, if players want full Rakata (or whatever top-end gear) they very much should be forced to group up and take on the content that drops it.

I'm at the point in my life where I appreciate that games are giving up "light" versions of content thats achievable to everyone. The days where certain items are restricted to the top few people per server are over, that works when you had a 1 million customer base, not so much when its up to 15-20 million or more potential customers. Theres no reason to bell curve your content and alienate customers by only letting a few people feel cool.

To people who want challenges, get used to titles and achievements etc rather than things like the black-red sabers.