http://www.swtor.com/blog/pvp-economy-and-ranked-rewards-restructure-game-update-3.3

 

It was 4075 for an unranked set, and ranked warzone commendations were removed in 3.3. They were replaced with tokens that we still have, so no ranked comms were not still around in 4.0. It cost 20,600 in total to go from unranked to ranked set, but again, the unranked set was competitive. You didn't need the ranked set at all in warzones and as long as you were augmented they really didn't make that much of a difference in ranked either and honestly a few days of warzones even playing casually is all it took to get a full BiS ranked set unlike the current situation that takes MONTHS and will be worse in 6.0.

 

They increased how many comms you got, they added a system that allowed you to transfer warzone comms with a legacy token so all your characters could share warzone comms and the cap was boosted to 200,000 making pvping while leveling a lowbie character extremely worthwhile (unlike now where the game practically discourages it...) You literally have to be insane to argue that the pvp system we had before the implantation of GC was not perfect for pvpers. Hands down it was the best thing for pvpers. Gear was cheap and easy to get and it kept lowbies active as well.

 

It only cost 4k comms to get an unranked set in 4.x. It didn't take long at all to get a full set and warzone comms could be traded via legacy so just doing your dailies and weeklies on a main while you were leveling your alt to cap would easily earn enough comms to gear out your alt as soon as they hit level cap, especially if you were doing the lowbie pvp dailies and weeklies while leveling as well.

Yes I remember that around 4.3? they changed the comm system so you could buy tokens to store extra Comms or transfer them to other Alts. This allowed you to gear up to ranked as soon as you hit level 65. That was the pinnacle of pvp gearing in this game and then they destroyed it 5 months(?) later with 5.0, which caused a mass exodus of pvp players.

PvP Gear Cost

We think that getting a full set of PvP gear is too much of a grind. This is so much the case that only about 2% of PvP players have a full Dark Reaver set. Having at least Exhumed gear is a barrier to entry to being successful in PvP for the majority of players, so we looked to reduce the time and cost of getting there. We have reduced the entry PvP gear costs by roughly a third, and a full set (not min/maxed) will now cost about 4075 Warzone Commendations

This is the most important part of that Bioware post. They firmly and irrevocably stated that they thought getting a full set of pvp gear was too much of a grind.

3.0-3.2 gearing was much less grind than now. And 6.0 grind will be even worse than 5.0 or 5.10 grind. So where did Bioware forget that 3.2 grind was too much and made 3.3 and essentially 4.x less of a grind (with zero RNG).

What the heck happened at Bioware that they forget the lessons learnt in the past?

This is the most important part of that Bioware post. They firmly and irrevocably stated that they thought getting a full set of pvp gear was too much of a grind.

3.0-3.2 gearing was much less grind than now. And 6.0 grind will be even worse than 5.0 or 5.10 grind. So where did Bioware forget that 3.2 grind was too much and made 3.3 and essentially 4.x less of a grind (with zero RNG).

What the heck happened at Bioware that they forget the lessons learnt in the past?

Who knows at this point. Granted there's a lot of turnover of developers in many studios, but you'd think someone would remember this. Same with the whole RNG idea. Someone at BW HAD to have remembered how much hatred there was for the battlemaster bags.

Those two systems are just going to make pvp unplayable.

You have every right to complain about the new gearing system if you think it will be bad, but you really should avoid hyperbole. From all of your posts, you seem to think that gear is more important in pvp than it really is.

With max bolster, everyone will be working with the same stat pool, which is the most important thing. Will min/maxers squeeze out a bit more damage? Sure, but it will be a long/expensive grind for very minimal gain.

You might be saying "no, it won't be minimal, it makes a huge difference!" and that's just not true. There's a sorc on Star Forge that recently got over 1500 while using full accuracy. That's 746 wasted points, yet he got to gold just because he's a decent player. I played with an op in ranked the other day with 231 gear on, and he was still very good, because he knew how to play his class. I could give another dozen such examples to prove that gear and min/maxing, even in the current game, matters very little. In 6.0 it will likely matter even less.

Also, I am a min/maxer myself, but I do it just because I like being optimal, not because I think it will give me some great advantage. And while 6.0's gearing system may not be ideal, I will simply adapt to whatever it is (granted, I am willing to do some pve).

 

You might be saying "no, it won't be minimal, it makes a huge difference!" and that's just not true. There's a sorc on Star Forge that recently got over 1500 while using full accuracy. That's 746 wasted points, yet he got to gold just because he's a decent player. I played with an op in ranked the other day with 231 gear on, and he was still very good, because he knew how to play his class. I could give another dozen such examples to prove that gear and min/maxing, even in the current game, matters very little. In 6.0 it will likely matter even less.

 

Also, I am a min/maxer myself, but I do it just because I like being optimal, not because I think it will give me some great advantage. And while 6.0's gearing system may not be ideal, I will simply adapt to whatever it is (granted, I am willing to do some pve).

How many dozens of examples do you have of someone getting completely obliterated in ranked wearing 230 gear? Or do those people not queue any more? Or are they so far down below bronze that you never get stuck with them because you're in gold tier? Anyway, what I'm saying is that you're experience is the exception, not the norm, since your rating influences who/what you get queued with.

But to be fair, I enjoy min-maxing, and I do more than pvp in this game, so I am biased -- because I can acquire gear from other difficult content. So I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you -- just your example.

How many dozens of examples do you have of someone getting completely obliterated in ranked wearing 230 gear?

For sure, the vast, vast majority of people that show up in ranked in 230s get crushed. But those people are getting destroyed because they are new to ranked and/or bad at the game. It has nothing to do with their gear. If you put those players in min/maxed 258s, they would get killed just as quickly and easily. One of the most notoriously bad players on Star Forge (rhymes with Bilsall) has 258s on most of his toons and he still gets globaled almost every game.

With max bolster, everyone will be working with the same stat pool, which is the most important thing. Will min/maxers squeeze out a bit more damage? Sure, but it will be a long/expensive grind for very minimal gain.

One of the buffs from tacticals is a reset on the CD for marauders force stealth and as a sent/mara player I literally laughed my butt off at how broken that is and how much I'm going to abuse the hell out of that tactical and that's jsut ONE example of the many insane tacticals that we know of right now.

I don't give a damn about the ilvl right now as long as bolster doesn't break (lets be real, it breaks every time they change it), I'm concerned about the inherent balance issues that will come with amps and tacticals of which will completely break what little balance exists right now.

I'm concerned about the inherent balance issues that will come with amps and tacticals of which will completely break what little balance exists right now.

Well, for amps it's really up in the air. My impression is that they won't make much difference, but we'll have to see.

As for tacticals, that's a fair point, because some are clearly better than others, and it's conceivable that those without certain tacticals will be at a significant disadvantage. So Bioware should be cognizant of that and not make it very difficult to get them compared to the regular gear.

Min - maxing will be about tactical’s and weapons this time round. Amps are a big “maybe” at this stage.

Bolster will only be for mastery and endurance and won’t min - max your secondary stats like alacrity, crit, accuracy, def, absorb or even power.

If you want a higher alacrity build or more crit you will need to min - max those yourself. We know that higher alacrity or crit can make a big difference.

Any mastery specific items are going to worth less for pvpers than higher power or secondary stats. So say good bye to all your mastery augments and mastery crystals.

Conclusion : Bolster will help get everyone to a base level for regs and that’s it. Anyone serious about pvp will need to grind to min - max or they will be disadvantaged using Bolster only.

Min - maxing will be about tactical’s and weapons this time round. Amps are a big “maybe” at this stage.

Bolster will only be for mastery and endurance and won’t min - max your secondary stats like alacrity, crit, accuracy, def, absorb or even power.

If you want a higher alacrity build or more crit you will need to min - max those yourself. We know that higher alacrity or crit can make a big difference.

Any mastery specific items are going to worth less for pvpers than higher power or secondary stats. So say good bye to all your mastery augments and mastery crystals.

Conclusion : Bolster will help get everyone to a base level for regs and that’s it. Anyone serious about pvp will need to grind to min - max or they will be disadvantaged using Bolster only.

Which is another reason to just give us back 4.x pvp system. The half *** bolster and this stupid rng grind is just a net negative for pvpers.

Which is another reason to just give us back 4.x pvp system.

This is exactly what we need ^^

Which is another reason to just give us back 4.x pvp system. The half *** bolster and this stupid rng grind is just a net negative for pvpers.

I forget, it's been a while. Was 4.0 the one where we could outfit a toon in full min-max gear in a couple of weeks or less, and able to transfer all gear and even buy specific mods and enhancements for tokens as needed?

If that is the one then it will forever be a mystery why that was ever changed. Not only does the team that changed that need to be sacked, those who hired them also need to be sacked. This game will never recover from that mistake.

I forget, it's been a while. Was 4.0 the one where we could outfit a toon in full min-max gear in a couple of weeks or less, and able to transfer all gear and even buy specific mods and enhancements for tokens as needed?

 

If that is the one then it will forever be a mystery why that was ever changed. Not only does the team that changed that need to be sacked, those who hired them also need to be sacked. This game will never recover from that mistake.

3.3 they reduced the costs to dirt cheap. Some time in 4.x they added legacy token packs that you could buy with a stack of 500/1000 warzone comms that you could send to alts.

And ya I agree. The decision to change it is mind boggling. Then again, this is a dev team that admitted galactic command was a bad system and then are turning around and making a loot system that's even worse.

"Hey guys, they community really hated RNG, so what should we do with 6.0?"

"Oh, oh, I know! Lets add 19 tiers of pve gear with RNG drops and lets even make the vendor RNG!!!"

"Brilliant!"

Community: wt..............

3.3 they reduced the costs to dirt cheap. Some time in 4.x they added legacy token packs that you could buy with a stack of 500/1000 warzone comms that you could send to alts.

 

And ya I agree. The decision to change it is mind boggling. Then again, this is a dev team that admitted galactic command was a bad system and then are turning around and making a loot system that's even worse.

 

"Hey guys, they community really hated RNG, so what should we do with 6.0?"

 

"Oh, oh, I know! Lets add 19 tiers of pve gear with RNG drops and lets even make the vendor RNG!!!"

 

"Brilliant!"

 

Community: wt..............

The decision to change was quite logical if you look at EA"s current games....

3.0-4.0 was a period when the game was receiving more content than it has since 5.0 and people had plenty of things to do. After KOTET-KOTFE this game got almost nothing, only spacebar worthy 20 minute long stories and some OP that was released with one boss at a time ?

Since they possibly don't have the manpower to release a lot of content, they have to keep us subbed and playing this game, yes ? In this case it's RNG that gives more RNG over RNG.. and horrible gearing systems like Ossus that is designed to make us gear up as slowly as possible. And now 6.0 takes that to the next level as expected.. The news my friends who play on PTS give me aren't very encouraging, but I still hope they make it at least half decent.

Regarding this topic with PVP gear. Yes it was the best system this game had,. but you want expertise back because you assume they'd make gearing as easy as it was in 4.0. This is where you are very wrong I'm afraid. You really think they'd make PVE-ers grind to death while PVP-ers would get bis in one week ? LOL

It's EA we are talking about here. It's easy to see why " RNG is exciting" since Galactic Command was introduced. Like we are ranting over things we have little power to change.

It's EA we are talking about here. It's easy to see why " RNG is exciting" since Galactic Command was introduced. Like we are ranting over things we have little power to change.

I don't get whats easy to see about it given that the pvp population was healthy during 4.x and the pvp population after 5.x and the overall population in general plummeted with the rng crap on top of lack of content. Makes me wonder how EA is still in business.

What gets me is that people think there are only 2 options:

1.) PvP and PvE each have their own gear set.

or

2.) PvP/PvE share a set.

In 4.x we had #1, and the thing which was terrible about that is obvious, you grind 1 set and give up playing the other half of content in the game, no-one really grinded 2 sets. OPSers had their game, PvPers had theirs, a waste.

In 5.x we have #2, but implemented very very wrong. The PvPers want a BiS set in 2 weeks or less of grinding, OPSers are fine with a long grind to get the set.

OUTSIDE THE BOX IDEA TO SOLVE IT:

Instead I would like to see this: you can have 1 set for both that still allowed PvPers and OPSers to have the appropriate length of gear grind and still allowing players to participate in both PvE/PvP. With this idea we leave the gearing to be ONE SET, but every piece will have an optional "Expertise" slot in it.

When you do daily/weekly PvPs you will gain the Expertise items such that it will take you about two weeks to be fully BiS with PvP. What I mean is, the other slots will be mostly meaningless for PvP, only the expertise will matter. And when you do ANY ACTIVITY you'll be gaining better gear for PvE, like it is now. So you'll have 1 set of gear, progressing for PvE at the PvE pace, and progressing for PvP at the PvP pace.

I have not come accross any other ideas offered which will give us as many benefits and as few drawbacks as this. Not to mention it would be super easy to develop, just take the current gearing, add expertise slots, change PvP code to scale only based on expertise.

In 4.x we had #1, and the thing which was terrible about that is obvious, you grind 1 set and give up playing the other half of content in the game, no-one really grinded 2 sets.

Uh, what? No one had to give up playing the other side. You could easily run SM OPs in pvp gear and get a set of pve gear fast to progress into the HM OPs. I grinded 2 sets of gear and I know a lot of other pvpers who did as well. Not every pvper is pvp only players. Some do actually play pve as well, they just focus more on pvp. Same with pve players diving into pvp. Lucky for them pvp gear during 4.x was super easy to get.

OPSers had their game, PvPers had theirs, a waste.

How is that a waste? That's how it should be. PvP and PvE are two different game types and should be treated as such.

In 5.x we have #2, but implemented very very wrong. The PvPers want a BiS set in 2 weeks or less of grinding, OPSers are fine with a long grind to get the set.

I think you'll be surprised to know that most pve players are not fine with a long grind. Most want a grind that ends with a actual reward like how OPs used to be with the last boss always dropping a specific token piece plus earning a currency during the raid itself. What pve players have a problem with is the RNG obviously.

OUTSIDE THE BOX IDEA TO SOLVE IT:

Instead I would like to see this: you can have 1 set for both that still allowed PvPers and OPSers to have the appropriate length of gear grind and still allowing players to participate in both PvE/PvP. With this idea we leave the gearing to be ONE SET, but every piece will have an optional "Expertise" slot in it.

 

When you do daily/weekly PvPs you will gain the Expertise items such that it will take you about two weeks to be fully BiS with PvP. What I mean is, the other slots will be mostly meaningless for PvP, only the expertise will matter. And when you do ANY ACTIVITY you'll be gaining better gear for PvE, like it is now. So you'll have 1 set of gear, progressing for PvE at the PvE pace, and progressing for PvP at the PvP pace.

Not really seeing how this is better or different than simply having 2 sets of gear. Your end result is still telling people to grind twice.

I have not come accross any other ideas offered which will give us as many benefits and as few drawbacks as this. Not to mention it would be super easy to develop, just take the current gearing, add expertise slots, change PvP code to scale only based on expertise.

Because there doesn't need to be any other ideas. The system in 4.x was perfect for both pvpers and pvers.

I will explain this one more time.. and then I am giving up on this as a "discussion" to put it kindly.

Expertise is NOT a stat. It is a bolster to divide time to BiS between PvE and PvP.

What do you mean it's not a stat? Expertise did not increase your damage, nor did it increase your defence. Expertise had a percentage balance that made it so vs expertise, both players did the exact same damage. It did not change your numbers, dps, hps or threat.

If expertise wasn't a stat why did it exist? It was a PvP bolster. PvP would grind for 2 weeks and end with a gear set that was bare gear rating for OPs and Bis for PvP. Likewise, NiM gear was earned after many weeks of PvE OPs grind, "could" go toe to with expertise, but was ultimately at a number disadvantage... Because you didn't earn the gear by PvP. If I work at state farm, and Juny works at mcdonalds, Juny decides she wants to work at state farm, she doesn't get to start working with me. I've been working in insurance for XX many years, no mcdonalds noob can do my job.

Conclusion: Expertise was not a stat. It was a implemented design to seperate pvp grind from pve. Please stop argueing "bolster expertise" will work, or that making expertise a stat you buy as an external stat. This is not what it was for, nor is it a good idea.

PS: why is applyable expertise to pve gear a bad idea: because you will unlock true gear supremacy. Imagine a wz, where you go in, NiM gear, and suddenly get your head shoved through a wall by a NiM geared mando with 2018 expertise to boot. inc 80k Heatseekers.

I will explain this one more time.. and then I am giving up on this as a "discussion" to put it kindly.

 

 

Expertise is NOT a stat. It is a bolster to divide time to BiS between PvE and PvP.

 

 

What do you mean it's not a stat? Expertise did not increase your damage, nor did it increase your defence. Expertise had a percentage balance that made it so vs expertise, both players did the exact same damage. It did not change your numbers, dps, hps or threat.

 

Conclusion: Expertise was not a stat. It was a implemented design to seperate pvp grind from pve. Please stop argueing "bolster expertise" will work, or that making expertise a stat you buy as an external stat. This is not what it was for, nor is it a good idea.

Sorry m8, but expertise was a stat and it did increased damage done and decreased damage taken in pvp areas.

Vs players with same amount of expertise as you, it did nothing in the end.

(For this part i dont remember the actual numbers) Say if you had 1k expertise you gained 10% damage increase and 5% damage reduction. If you added 100 more expertise you would gain like 1% more damage increase and gain 0.5% damage reduction. It is literally the same concept as any other stat like accuracy, crit, alacrity, (rip surge).

How you manage to concluded that it is not a stat like the others is very odd. The only difference is that it only worked in pvp areas where others stats worked everywhere.

because, no one seems to be able to understand what it was for, and those who do aren't bothering to tell you. or are banned from the forums.

expertise, 2018 points.

this reddit post explains how regardless of additional dmg or dmg red you still did the same dmg. to expertise.

the inherent issue with this topic is everyone thinks expertise turned the tides, or it boosted you, or something. it didnt. vs expertise it did normal dmg.

what expertise did was, if your gear had that stat it was super easy to earn.

if it didnt? it wasnt. easy as that.

expertise gear in 4.0 I believe was 208. 208 was bottom level operation gear. it couldnt do any BiS op content. Like wise, BiS NiM gear couldnt handle ranked, or regs to a point.

its early morning so my thoughts are a little scattered but the point is, if your gear had an expertise number on it, it was easy to obtain, if it didnt, it wasnt.

(the healing thing was a whole other topic, but its why the pvp debuff you get nerfs healing by 15%)

PS: my only interest here was to explain expertises purpose, it was not to talk about the need to possess both pvp and ve set, carry multiple armor, ya dada. I dont particulary care about that, but Im not even going to bother touching on it, since they won. eric asked if we wanted expertise, they all b*tched that multiple sets were to heavy, so now we have max bolster. I have my own reasons for despising that, but not going to bother talking about it.

If you ever had a 1v1 against someone in full highend operations gear (which was 2-3 lvls higher than ranked pvp gear) vs expertise pvp gear you could definitely tell the difference.

If you did massive hits in pvp, 99% of the time it was because the other player had no expertise. This would happen in both WZs and OWPVP.

Now, wether you want to call that a stat or not is up to you guys. I’m not going to get into that. What I will say is the expertise system was a lot more involved than just separating gear or being part of Bolster because there was no Bolster in OWPVP.

There were time I would have my 208 gear on both me and my comp and would farm nodes on Yavin. You could nearly guarantee that some operations guys with much better stat gear and with much higher health, would see me as easy pickings because my health looked low, and they would jump me. It never ended well for them because my 208 Expertise gear with lower stats was boosted by having expertise take care of extra damage output and absorbing damage in a pvp situation. This wasn’t represented as an increase on the stats board. Expertise was the stat, you had to look at your combat logs to see the difference.

If you every had a 1v1 against someone in full highend operations gear (which was 2-3 lvls higher than ranked pvp gear) vs expertise pvp gear you could definitely tell the difference.

If you did massive hits in pvp, 99% of the time it was because the other player had no expertise. This would happen in both WZs and OWPVP.

Now, wether you want to call that a stat or not is up to you guys. I’m not going to get into that. What I will say is the expertise system was a lot more involved than just separating gear or being part of Bolster because there was no Bolster in OWPVP.

There were time I would have my 208 gear on both me and my comp and would farm nodes on Yavin. You could nearly guarantee that some operations guys with much better stat gear and with much higher health, would see me as easy pickings because my health looked low, and they would jump me. It never ended well for them because my 208 Expertise gear with lower stats was boosted by having expertise take care of extra damage output and absorbing damage in a pvp situation. This wasn’t represented as an increase on the stats board. Expertise was the stat, you had to look at your combat logs to see the difference.

Hi Trixx, I just wanted to say WB, I mean formally. WB Trixx! ;)

P.S. I told you, you couldn't leave.

your lack of understanding for why it existed is why it will never come back. I explained why it existed, you presist in insisting it was a stat advantage, as long as you choose to see it that way, you have no one to blame but yourself for its removal from swtor.

it was removed from swtor because pve'rs insisted it was an unfair stat advantage. as long as you continue to echo their cries, swtor wont see expertise again.

your lack of understanding for why it existed is why it will never come back. I explained why it existed, you presist in insisting it was a stat advantage, as long as you choose to see it that way, you have no one to blame but yourself for its removal from swtor.

 

it was removed from swtor because pve'rs insisted it was an unfair stat advantage. as long as you continue to echo their cries, swtor wont see expertise again.

Because it was a stat advantage.....if you didn't have expertise I'm one shotting you. I did it all the time during events on pot5. Its not my fault people roll on a pvp server then run out in the open world with pve gear.

expertise, 2018 points.

🤔 Is it a coincidence that expertise went away in the year 2018? or was the optimal expertise value a prediction, or statement of fact?