Whould you rather equip gear that you like, or gear that is rare?

In other MMOs high end gear is class specific and only obtainable through endgame content. It can't be sold or traded so only those that completed endgame goals could get it. This meant that it carried a certain prestige among those that valued it and was BiS for the most part.

Since just about everything in this game can be sold or recolored there is little rare gear that shows off your in-game efforts (except your wealth of course). This is good and bad. I wore some ugly gear in WoW because it was BiS and showed off what I had accomplished so I liked the gear even if it didn't look as good as other gear in the game I might have preferred to wear.

In this game I just swap the mods and wear what I like. Sure I don't get to show off my accomplishments in my gear but I do get to look cool in the gear I want to wear (at least I think I do ), so I prefer SWTOR in this regard.

The worst thing in WoW for the longest time was everyone of a particular class looking identical because everyone was wearing the same tier sets. There's a reason why the introduction of Transmogrification was so popular. A lot of people really do prefer to look how they want to look while having the proper stats equipped for raiding and PVP.

it devalues the effort put in. It would be like MIT saying only people who can score 100 on our exam can take our course. Then you study your *** off for it and score 100 only to hear that next year MIT says anyone can study that same course as long as they have the money to pay for it.

It would annoy anyone to have their effort devalued. its human nature and is perfectly reasonable.

dont care that much about rarity but i really dislike other classes being able to wear gear that was originally meant for a certain class... like all those jedis running around with cowboy hats etc..

You have grown the list of inapt analogies on the internet by 1.

Rarity of an item typically affects how much you may like it. Once everyone has it it may no longer feel special, or you may get sick of seeing it.

Some people kinda put "individuality" and "showing off" together.

I want to be unique in game, i'd like to show off my achievements to people, but I sometimes get disappointed when this certain item somehow becomes more accessible to everyone.

Some of these people may like to role play a lot in game.

It has nothing to do with "finding self worth as a person by using trying to be a special snowflake in a video game" as a certain person has said on this forum before.

It's funny because my Trooper wears a set from Balmorra bonus series and my Agent wears one of the basic low-level Armomech chests (just with a color dye). And they're actually unique-looking since I rarely, if ever, see anyone else wearing these pieces. Even though they're ridiculous cheap and easy to obtain. Definition of rare got heavily skewed with the flood of Cartel gear most wear nowadays.

Colleges change admission requirements all the time. I needed good (not great) scores to get into my college of choice. Five years later they were admitting people with deficiencies as long as the check cleared. Certainly didn't mean my scores or efforts meant nothing. I still earned them and in doing so learned skills and values that help me beyond my education. I went to grad school where it seemed that because the check cleared it was nearly impossible for my peers to fail even when they clearly showed half the effort. In the end my GPA was only slightly better despite putting in far more effort. Did that devalue my accomplishment? No, I have my diploma and the benefits that accomplishment provides when it comes to better employment options. At no point was going to college entirely about being better than my peers, it was about getting my degree. I could care less what others got or how they got it.

This is the issue with MMOs and gear/pets/etc. This isn't real accomplishment. Nothing here is tangible or improves your actual life. Defeating NiM SV doesn't get you a raise or promotion. In general it doesn't improve the quality of your real life very much, if at all. The value we put on all of the gear and such is shallow vanity, temporary joy and fleeting satisfaction. When someone else can get it easier, it no longer has the same value as your effort provides no other benefits to future success. That is just the way it works in MMOs and if it is why you play and directly affects your enjoyment then MMOs are always going to disappoint you. This hamster wheel of getting the best stuff, having it become worthless and then earning the next "best" thing is a part of every MMO.

Find other reasons to play that reward you in a way that the accomplishments (earned or not) of others do not diminish your enjoyment and you will probably be happier with the game in general.

Something I like definitely. If its rare, and I like it, so much the better, especially if I can get it.