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Galactic Command Gearing Changes, 5.1 and Beyond


EricMusco

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Hey folks,

 

Since the launch of Knights of the Eternal Throne, we have received a lot of great feedback about the gearing changes we made through Galactic Command. In this post, I want to highlight the changes we are making next week. However, we know this will not address all of your concerns, so let’s also talk about additional changes we plan to make.

 

Our primary goal for Game Update 5.1: Defend the Throne was to allow players to work towards specific pieces of gear through PvP and Operations. Additionally, we wanted to provide a means to help players gear their other Characters. Here are the changes coming next week:

  • New currency: Command Tokens - This currency comes from Command Crates. Each Crate will drop Command Tokens based on the Tier of the Crate (Tier 1 – 5 tokens, Tier 2 – 8 tokens, Tier 3 – 12 tokens). These tokens are a Legacy-wide currency and will be retroactively granted (based on your Command Rank) when 5.1 launches.
  • New currency: Unassembled Components – This currency is a reward for playing Warzones and Galactic Starfighter and can be used to purchase Unassembled Gear Pieces.
  • New currency: Unassembled Gear Piece - These drop from Operation bosses or are purchased with Unassembled Components and can be turned in along with Command Tokens for specific pieces of gear. The last boss of each Operation has a 100% chance to drop Unassembled Gear Pieces (2 pieces for 8-man, 4 pieces for 16-man). Each other boss in an Operation has an increasing chance to drop them (the second boss having a higher chance than the first boss, and so on). Refer to this forum post to see where each item slot will drop.

 

With these new currencies, players will be able to go to new vendors and purchase specific items. Here are some of the vendor details:

  • Unassembled Component Vendor: On this vendor you can turn in Unassembled Components to purchase a specific Unassembled Gear Piece. You can only purchase Tier 1 Unassembled Pieces in this way. However, you can turn in Tier 1 pieces along with Unassembled Components to upgrade them to Tier 2 and 3 respectively. Refer to this forum post for more details on this vendor.
  • Unassembled Gear Piece Vendor: With this vendor you can turn in one Unassembled Gear Piece for a specific slot (ex: Unassembled Helm Tier 1) along with Command Tokens for that respective piece of gear. Refer to this forum post for more details on this vendor.

 

The changes listed above are really focused on allowing players to work towards a specific piece of gear. However, we also wanted to allow players to level their alts a bit quicker and so here are some of the changes coming for that:

  • New Character Legacy Perk: Increase all Command XP Earned by 2/4/6/8/10%.
  • New Command XP Boost: This can be purchased with Command Tokens and provides a 15% boost (this boost stacks with the Legacy perk but not the MTX boost). This boost only works per Tier at the following costs:
    • Tier 1 – 20 Command Tokens
    • Tier 2 – 28 Command Tokens
    • Tier 3 – 44 Command Tokens

 

The above changes are coming next week with Game Update 5.1! Additional concerns you have raised are listed below:

 

Operations Lacking for CXP

We have been looking at all of the places that players can earn CXP and although our intent is that Operations (especially Veteran/Master) would be the best source of CXP, that is not true currently. We have been working to rebalance the CXP gains of Operations across the board so that they are at least on-par with the best sources of CXP in the game. We plan to include these changes with Patch 5.1.1, but we will give you more information on scheduling once we lock it down.

 

Galactic Command Gearing Alt-unfriendly

One of the biggest concerns expressed is Galactic Command forces a player into working only on one character. Although that wasn’t our intention, we agree with you. For starters, in 5.1 we are implementing the Legacy-wide currency of Command Tokens, legacy bound boosts you can purchase with Command Tokens, and the legacy perk to speed up leveling. We know that isn’t enough, so we are exploring additional options so that when you are playing any character, there is a way to potentially provide benefit to all other characters in your legacy as well. I have no specifics to share at this time, but I am working to have more details available for our January 26th Livestream.

 

Command Rank Leveling Speed

We monitor Command Ranks across the game, along with player feedback on the rate at which players are leveling. The Legacy perk and additional boost will help speed up leveling, but we will continue to review. Let’s see how it feels after 5.1. We’ll discuss with you and make further adjustments, if needed.

 

New Endgame Content

We know addressing the gearing concerns is only half of the equation. Whether it came from the forums, social media, or even focus groups, the feedback is that you want more large group and MMO content such as daily areas and Operations. We will be discussing these very topics in our Livestream next Thursday, January 26, 2017, so come join us!

 

We want to thank all of your for your continued feedback about Galactic Command. Please keep it coming!

 

-eric

Edited by EricMusco
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will be retroactively granted (based on your Command Rank)

So players above Command Rank 300 will have their additional effort wasted, e.g. someone who got 310 Command Crates will only get tokens for 300 ranks?

 

Refer to this forum post to see where each item slot will drop.

Refer to this forum post for more details on this vendor.

I'm assuming those are the posts you mentioned at the end that haven't been released yet?

 

We monitor Command Ranks across the game, along with player feedback on the rate at which players are leveling. The Legacy perk and additional boost will help speed up leveling, but we will continue to review. Let’s see how it feels after 5.1. We’ll discuss with you and make further adjustments, if needed.

 

New Endgame Content

We know addressing the gearing concerns is only half of the equation. Whether it came from the forums, social media, or even focus groups, the feedback is that you want more large group and MMO content such as daily areas and Operations. We will be discussing these very topics in our Livestream next Thursday, January 26, 2017, so come join us!

Those changes are not nearly enough; for players to stop complaining, the CXP rate needs to be increased 3x to 5x, not just 10-20%.

But I'm waiting for next week's stream, then we will have a better idea of what we can expect in SWTOR.

Edited by Jerba
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Okay, some good steps forward (more still needed, but credit where it's due :) ). Two questions here thought:

 

1: Command XP Boost: Is that a timed boost or a permanent one, per character? Prices are making me think the latter, but it's not explicit.

 

2: Has there been any discussion about Disintegration values? 200 CXP seems like a really, really awful amount to get back, if you're not getting actually useful gear items in the packs. This could really stand to be buffed, it'd make the sting of a useless pack a lot softer, but I haven't seen much discussion about it come up.

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The most simple thing you could do would be to change the math under drop rate. You could make it easier to actually get the drops you want.

 

The non-set bonus gear could be purple just like the old system.

 

Finally, you could change the gear so that the set-gear dropped OPTIMIZED gear. Then people would not have to pray to get the same drops just to avoid how terrible even your set bonus stats are.

 

I do not expect you guys to actually fix the system.

 

So, what are you giving us? We have to PAY either credits or cartel coins PER CHARACTER to improve the GRIND.

 

You drop a terrible system on the players, then you make us PAY to IMPROVE our CHANCES at CRAPPY GEAR.

 

One of the worst decisions I have made is leaving swtor on a 6 month renewal.

Edited by BelenUmeria
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It kind of seems like anyone participating in Galactic Command now is going to have to grind significantly more than people that participate next week and both groups are likely going to have to grind more for the same rewards than someone else who particpates in a couple of months when Galactic Command XP is increased further.

 

So maybe crazy but isn't this suggesting if you want to maximum gear for the least effort your best off waiting 3 or so months when the rewards will be increased as it becomes apparent that 1000 hours of grinding for gear that you wont need for any future story content isn't really much fun . Maybe even leave it a year when I suspect a rank 300 token will be on sale much as the level 65 character token is now.

 

In short I'm not really sure how the wait and see approach is really helping many people that are playing now. Not to mention the proposed working towards gear seems really good for PvP (if your a pvper or don't mind sitting in the corner) but for PvE seems to require you to complete the hardest content to get the specific gear piece you need to complete the hardest content. Which if you can complete it already you probably don't need the gear, while doing 5 year old ops is unlikely to be much fun at this point.

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Did you forget to link to another thread?

Maybe he meant "thread". If you didn't read the PS it looks like that information will be added later:

PS - I will be making a few posts later today or Monday which contain a more detailed breakdown of how much currency you will earn, how much things cost, and where to get specific drops from Operations.

 

Well it seems to take some of the sting out of GC. Still not at all happy about it. Will have to play with the numbers to see if it drops below players' pain thresholds.

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You've no idea how happy you'll make people now that you said new ops >: D

 

 

One Question; will we be able to upgrade gear via PvP shards that we got from GC crates or Ops unassembled pieces?

 

 

Also, will the HM/NiM Drops be 236/242 golds or 234/240 purples?

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Galactic Command Gearing Alt-unfriendly

One of the biggest concerns expressed is Galactic Command forces a player into working only on one character. Although that wasn’t our intention, we agree with you. For starters, in 5.1 we are implementing the Legacy-wide currency of Command Tokens, legacy bound boosts you can purchase with Command Tokens, and the legacy perk to speed up leveling. We know that isn’t enough, so we are exploring additional options so that when you are playing any character, there is a way to potentially provide benefit to all other characters in your legacy as well. I have no specifics to share at this time, but I am working to have more details available for our January 26th Livestream.

 

Thanks for recognizing the changes are not enough, but to reiterate why the legacy boosts won't help at all: Nobody I know thinks buys lots of CM cxp boosts makes playing alts any more appealing, so I don't know why adding a 15% boost that doesn't stack with that helps at all.

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Still going to wait until the livestream on the 26th to decide whether or not to stop subscribing. The changes are welcome, but it's still nothing like having token and gear vendors.

 

The boost system is gated in a very poor way. Grind 20-44 additional levels in each tier to get a 15% boost?

 

So... let's say you lose a WZ with 8+ medals. Instead of 530 CXP you'll get 609 CXP. That's after grinding out 20 command level tokens in Tier 1. If I'm reading this correctly, you'll need 28 more command levels to turn in the tokens from to get the same 15% in Tier 2. This is not worthwhile. Finally, you'll need 44 command levels for the extra 15% at Tier 3.

 

Why does this matter? Well, gear imbalance is already starting to show in PVP regular matches. Before, in past expansions, the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 optimized PVP sets was minimal, and could be made up for by skill until you could afford Tier 2. Now, the gap between entry crafted gear with old set bonuses and people who are pushing high command ranks will be huge and not made up for with skill, particularly when these high command level players group together. The matches end up basically pointless, and you can't queue until they stop as well. It's only January, roughly 1.5 months after 5.0 started, and this has already happened. Can you imagine how it will be in, say, May?

 

It's good to see the words Daily Area and Operation used, but until BW gives substantial details, preferably with estimated target dates, it's hard not to be skeptical of what they announce. Players have been strung along for keeping their subscriptions active for a long time (though I didn't mind for additional Chapters in KotFE, most did), particularly those that wanted endgame group content like new Operations, FPs, WZs, and Daily Areas.

 

I hope the livestream is thorough and takes the concerns of the remaining subscribers seriously. Otherwise, a lot of even the most dedicated subscribers will give up (I've personally been subscribed for all but 2 months since launch). Everyone has their limits, and the Galactic Command system, even with these changes, still makes it a lot harder to play your characters properly than before. There needs to be good reason to stick around, i.e. new endgame content that's worthwhile, unlike Uprisings, to put up with the Galactic Command gearing.

 

Even though I can understand some scenarios for why it's not possible, one of the best things you could do for subscribers is to return regular token, commendation, and PVP gear vendors into the game, and make Galactic Command either supplementary gearing (for example, for solo players to have a chance at the best gear, even if a low one), or re-think entirely what it's used for. I imagine one of the reasons this isn't possible is it was somehow "dictated" to be in the game from higher-ups in the first place. If that's not the case, please consider that the design folks made a big mistake and return the gearing vendors. This in itself will keep your remaining subscribers around a lot longer than these incremental "band-aid" fixes.

Edited by arunav
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Since the launch of Knights of the Eternal Throne, we have received a lot of great feedback about the gearing changes we made through Galactic Command. In this post, I want to highlight the changes we are making next week. However, we know this will not address all of your concerns, so let’s also talk about additional changes we plan to make.

 

Not even close to addressing our concerns. So far, this is what I expected, all smoke and mirrors and you still demand we grind your stupid Galactic Command system to get gear. That isn't going to cut it or get me to give you another nickle, much less a sub.

 

I'm not spending 6 hours or more (and that assumes we actually get the ops boss down, rather than spending a night trying and failing) just to grind for tokens I have to combine with boss drops to make a piece of gear. If you think you've come up with a good idea, you're nuts. Feel free to pass that on to Ben. He should be out of work.

 

Our primary goal for Game Update 5.1: Defend the Throne was to allow players to work towards specific pieces of gear through PvP and Operations. Additionally, we wanted to provide a means to help players gear their other Characters. Here are the changes coming next week:

  • New currency: Command Tokens - This currency comes from Command Crates. Each Crate will drop Command Tokens based on the Tier of the Crate (Tier 1 – 5 tokens, Tier 2 – 8 tokens, Tier 3 – 12 tokens). These tokens are a Legacy-wide currency and will be retroactively granted (based on your Command Rank) when 5.1 launches.
  • New currency: Unassembled Components – This currency is a reward for playing Warzones and Galactic Starfighter and can be used to purchase Unassembled Gear Pieces.
  • New currency: Unassembled Gear Piece - These drop from Operation bosses or are purchased with Unassembled Components and can be turned in along with Command Tokens for specific pieces of gear. The last boss of each Operation has a 100% chance to drop Unassembled Gear Pieces (2 pieces for 8-man, 4 pieces for 16-man). Each other boss in an Operation has an increasing chance to drop them (the second boss having a higher chance than the first boss, and so on). Refer to this forum post to see where each item slot will drop.

 

What a bloody mess. You had a system that worked fine and you still have to code base for. Your new system is a disaster in complexity and doesn't fix the majority of complaints about GC. Do you really expect us to be stupid enough to think BW actually listens based on this? Really?

 

(snip)

 

The changes listed above are really focused on allowing players to work towards a specific piece of gear. However, we also wanted to allow players to level their alts a bit quicker and so here are some of the changes coming for that:

 

(snip)

 

Another fail. We still are stuck grinding one character for hundreds of hours to get them gear that might be what we need or to get sufficient tokens to buy the gear we need.

 

The above changes are coming next week with Game Update 5.1! Additional concerns you have raised are listed below:

 

Operations Lacking for CXP

We have been looking at all of the places that players can earn CXP and although our intent is that Operations (especially Veteran/Master) would be the best source of CXP, that is not true currently. We have been working to rebalance the CXP gains of Operations across the board so that they are at least on-par with the best sources of CXP in the game. We plan to include these changes with Patch 5.1.1, but we will give you more information on scheduling once we lock it down.

 

I am surprised you actually sued the word "Operations" in your post. However, if GC is still in place creating operations isn't going to save this game or dev jobs.

 

Galactic Command Gearing Alt-unfriendly

One of the biggest concerns expressed is Galactic Command forces a player into working only on one character. Although that wasn’t our intention, we agree with you. For starters, in 5.1 we are implementing the Legacy-wide currency of Command Tokens, legacy bound boosts you can purchase with Command Tokens, and the legacy perk to speed up leveling. We know that isn’t enough, so we are exploring additional options so that when you are playing any character, there is a way to potentially provide benefit to all other characters in your legacy as well. I have no specifics to share at this time, but I am working to have more details available for our January 26th Livestream.

 

What you are announcing isn't even close to enough. Do you all still think you have months to fix this mess? You had that at launch because you had a bigger player base and EA was willing to fund changes. You no longer have the F2P card to play. You no longer have the cash shop crd to play. All you have is fast fixes, and this isn't fast and so far it isn't a fix.

 

Command Rank Leveling Speed

We monitor Command Ranks across the game, along with player feedback on the rate at which players are leveling. The Legacy perk and additional boost will help speed up leveling, but we will continue to review. Let’s see how it feels after 5.1. We’ll discuss with you and make further adjustments, if needed.

 

you've done nothing to fix this and on top of that, ignored the feedback that WE DO NOT WANT GC tided to ANY end game gearing. Is that difficult to understand?

 

New Endgame Content

We know addressing the gearing concerns is only half of the equation. Whether it came from the forums, social media, or even focus groups, the feedback is that you want more large group and MMO content such as daily areas and Operations. We will be discussing these very topics in our Livestream next Thursday, January 26, 2017, so come join us!

 

I will watch, but I hold out no great hope that you are going to tell me what I need to hear to actually stay in the game. As you can verify, I have removed my payment info from my account. I will not return it until you tell me I don't need GC for anything to do with end game gearing and that gearing is going back to a system we've told you we want. Have Ben give that some thought before Thursday, or pass on my suggestion that he look into a new career in a new field.

 

We want to thank all of your for your continued feedback about Galactic Command. Please keep it coming!

 

I expect you'll get more positive feedback in the forum now that so many people have left the game and can no longer post here. I will continue to tell you what I think of your poor design decisions until I too can no longer post.

 

I would suggest you start planning how you are going to explain the loss of subs and failure of your grand scheme to EA share holders and how you are going to get EA to continue to pay your paychecks.

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Hey folks,

 

...snip...

 

A big long diatribe and not a single mention of one of the biggest thing grinding people - the sheer volume of utter junk that these packs deliver.

 

Thanks but no thanks. I am out of here for good soon - just another causality to your clueless RNG grind. I have NEVER seen a company go out of it's way like you guys to INTENTIONALLY upset so many paying customers.

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A step in the right direction, but this is not even nearly enough.

 

This game has gone from having a quite good gearing system, to having a absolutely horrid one. So a lot more work needs to be done if you keep insisting on keeping Galactic Command.

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Thanks for recognizing the changes are not enough, but to reiterate why the legacy boosts won't help at all: Nobody I know thinks buys lots of CM cxp boosts makes playing alts any more appealing, so I don't know why adding a 15% boost that doesn't stack with that helps at all.

 

People ask for legacy wide CxP, instead you get boost tokens.

 

I swear no one at BioWare must have spent more than five minutes thinking about the problems this was going to cause in game. Either that, or Ben has an under-served ego the size of Texas and nobody challenged him on just how utterly stupid this system was... and it is about to get much worse.

 

How do they expect players to figure this out when they were too stupid to handle 3 crystal currencies and WZ commendations?

 

Complete hypocrites.

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Damit I hoped there would be only 1 tier of token so getting faster low ranks could get tokens for tier 3 gear. 3 Tiers makes you need tier 3 command rank and means this system actually could be confusing for some people.

 

Unassembled components from GSF - It's great that they changed their minds and did this instead of warzones being the only option.

 

10% CXP legacy perk - Nice.

 

New CXP boost - way too expensive, completely pointless when you can just buy the current 20% boost for 1m credits these days.

 

 

2: Has there been any discussion about Disintegration values? 200 CXP seems like a really, really awful amount to get back, if you're not getting actually useful gear items in the packs. This could really stand to be buffed, it'd make the sting of a useless pack a lot softer, but I haven't seen much discussion about it come up.

 

Also this. Disintegration should be a % of a full rank, not a static amount. Disintegrating tier 3 items should not give you 400 CXP and barely make a contribution compared to that 400 being 30% of a rank at low ranks.

Edited by DarthZaul
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Hey folks,

 

One of the biggest concerns expressed is Galactic Command forces a player into working only on one character. Although that wasn’t our intention, we agree with you.

 

You are actually admitting that you guys really didn't have a clue this was going to happen? You have now confirmed what many believed when you refused to listen to warning not to launch this system.

 

Good luck. Once this month runs out for me the only time I'll have to worry about this system is when the shareholder report come out (yeah, I actually happen to be one of them too).

Edited by Wayshuba
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So let me see.....my sub money goes for developing solutions for features implemented by a dev team that made the game worst than it was before 5.0....and also, i have to read they agree on those mistakes but the solutions proposed in the new patch are;

 

1. Spending credits for a perk so i can keep grinding for a piece of gear

2. Spending cash for a boost so i can keep grinding for a piece of gear

3. A couple of "hey guys we know u know" about content and lack of new stuff

 

Sons, I did not vote for u guys, I PAY for this game. ok? there's a big difference if u are a politician or an enterprise deliveriing a service that FAILS. So pls stop making promises and beeing POLITE and DELIVER SOLUTIONS.

 

/unsusb after 5 years

 

WORST UPDATE EVER

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