Thanks to Bioware for a clear path for solo gear...

I actually have 186 mods in my weapons.

I'm a soloist, I don't care how hypothetical people would view me in group content I probably won't do unless I overlevel it then solo it.

The 190 gear on Ziost is easier to obtain for less cost, since they give you most in drops and you do not need to spend tons of basics as you would for 186 purples.

The OP, based on what I seen in another post, has NO INTEREST in grouping for FP's or OPS....

Yes this is nice for people who like to solo but it makes it difficult for those of us that run missions with boyfriends, girlfriends, friends as we have to repeat the missions twice. The Yavin weekly can be done in a group but doing the Revan fight twice, or how many is in your group can be a headache.

You are correct.

Also, I believe the numbers you need to complete a Ziost set...going from memory, and assuming you get none in drops...

Ziost Holowhatsits = 57
Basic Coms = 380

I actually take the same approach myself. With real life, I may have step away from the computer at any given time while gaming and I just can't dedicate a solid block of time to group instance runs unless I'm the only one in the house. I just don't feel it is fair to other players if I have to bounce on very short notice in the middle of a run.

But my initial thought on this is that not everyone that goes this route will be soloists. Many will be group content players and I think even when doing guild runs they may be looked down on simply because they are trying to jump over solo content with raid rewards.

I do believe the intention of the game developers was to ease tensions within the community. Give everyone access to basic level gear that should be sufficient to get the average pug group through content that they otherwise would not be ready for.

KotFE makes me happy to take an hiatus from ops for a while (because I'm just BORED with it,) but I have to say - PVE content is much more fun with my geared character. I know that, on that toon, I can kill any mob I see (Commander Janarus, or whatever is his name is, for example.) Pulling three or four groups and using AoE is fun. It's nice.

Nothing wrong with that.

That's how MMO's evolve.

Old content becomes obsolete and replaced by new content.

Granted 186 and 190 gear is not the same as raid gear since there are no bonuses to the gear, but it IS nice to be able to gear alts and companions with the lower tier gear and only have to worry about one main toon for raiding gear if you go that route. I remember in the past, whenever I did raids, I wanted gear for my mains and alts and companions because it was the only gear good enough. But now that we can at least get fair quality lower non raiding tier gear, it doesn't feel like I HAVE to raid. I can do raids now if I want to see them or do something different without feeling like it's mandatory just to do normal pve questing.

I just like to zap things on my Sorc with a 204. It's a nice feeling

Agreed! I love that about 3.0. As a solo player, my gear is far from the best, but I don't feel like I'm pathetically weak anymore compared to people who group up and do the hard stuff. I especially like how they made companion gearing easier for solo players. It is a nice way to boost the power of a solo player without impacting group content, and probably makes it easier to balance the difficulty level of solo content.

I don't play a ton of characters, so honestly, I don't think I'll mind doing this gearing thing again with KotFE, provided it isn't a longer or more arduous process.