tl;dr revert bolster changes. Edited January 25, 2017 by Gabzizzle

Eric,

 

In 4.0 the bolstered gear rating to 200 was fine because players were not required to grind forever to get on a level playing field. You could get enough comms in lowbie PVP to go straight into 70's in full 208 and comms were transferrable between alts. Grinding for months on end to achieve a level playing field is not in the best interests of the player base and it shows to you need to go back to 2 sets of gear (PVP and PVE). My only issue with bolster pre patch was TTK on players was too high and not enough people were dying but the nerf needed to be down to 232 for everyone (making 242 gear redundant for everything bar operations and master solo) or nerf it down to 242. Gear should not be a determining factor in PVP.

Thank you for this communication. I appreciate the time. I mean no disrespect, but your post has given me some concerns.

• I guess my first issue is that, this isn't the first time something so big has failed to be communicated. How does this continue to happen?
  
• Second point. Bolster incorrectly set at 250 for 5.0. How does that happen? How the heck does the patch go through final testing and check with such an incorrect rating? That's ridiculous.
  
• If it was 8 points different prior, why have it be 10 now and increase the distance between have and have nots?
  

Edited January 26, 2017 by Kirtastropohe

Eric,

 

In 4.0 the bolstered gear rating to 200 was fine because players were not required to grind forever to get on a level playing field. You could get enough comms in lowbie PVP to go straight into 70's in full 208 and comms were transferrable between alts. Grinding for months on end to achieve a level playing field is not in the best interests of the player base and it shows to you need to go back to 2 sets of gear (PVP and PVE). My only issue with bolster pre patch was TTK on players was too high and not enough people were dying but the nerf needed to be down to 232 for everyone (making 242 gear redundant for everything bar operations and master solo) or nerf it down to 242. Gear should not be a determining factor in PVP.

 

Can't say it any better than this.

Complain, complain, complain. I LOVE THE CHANGE!! THANK YOU!!! I dont really like the grind but it brings me back to yester-year when you HAD to grind for Ranked gear, then grind some more ranked comms to min max your stats. So...I dont mind.

Hey folks,

 

For those unaware, in Game Update 5.1 we made the following change:

• Bolster now improves players up to 232 Item Rating (down from 250).

 

This change raised quite a few questions from the PvP community as to why we made the change. I spoke with the team about it and I want to start by confirming that this change is intended, let’s talk about why! When we released Game Update 5.0, Bolster was incorrectly set to Item Rating 250. The goal of Bolster is that it gives a player a minimum bar of power. That is so that they can enter PvP and not be too far behind someone who is at maximum gear, but it allows them enough room so that if they are a more skilled player, they can prevail. Still, getting gear is important and the 250 Bolster made getting any gear virtually unneeded for PvP progression.

 

The reason we moved Bolster down to 232 Item Rating is because of its rating relative to the best gear in the game, which is Item Rating 242. This means that someone with brand new gear entering into a Warzone is at worst, 10 Item Rating away from the best geared players. As an example, this works almost identically to how it worked prior to Knights of the Eternal Throne. During Fallen Empire, the best PvP gear in the game was item rating 208 and Bolster would raise your character to 200, an 8 rating difference. In short, the difference in power now should be almost identical to the difference that existed prior to KOTET.

 

That being said, part of this issue is that we did not communicate this at all to you ahead of time. Not only that, it was similarly missed in the patch notes so you received no warning at all of this change or why it happened. We messed up communicating this to you and I apologize for that. It was never our intent to hide this from you, it was just missed. I have been talking with the team yesterday and today about the changes that were missed and what procedures we can adjust to ensure we don’t miss them in the future.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

First of all, thanks for the update. Much appreciated.

 

But this is not analogous to 4.0. In KOFTE, you could very quickly get to BiS PvP gear just doing dailies (even while leveling). For a relatively low amount of comms, you would be in BiS gear quickly and not need bolster. This essentially made gear irrelevant in PvP. However now it's nearly impossible to get BiS gear without massive grind. So that means there is a major gear differential between those who've grinded to and have 242 and those without, making quality of gear determinative of outcome for most matches b/w skilled players.

Of course you were trying to keep the bolster nerf knowledge away from the community. If you hadn't, you would have communicated the upcoming changes well ahead of time, like you did other changes in the patch notes (such as the Frankenstein's monster of a gearing system you've come up with to try to pretend that GC isn't a complete failure). Couple that with it being left completely out of the patch notes as originally issued, and then being sneakily snuck into the patch after the servers re-opened (which you guys did not even acknowledge until players on the forums called you out on it!), and it becomes clear this was a deliberate and calculated omission on the part of EAWare employees to keep PvP players in the dark and unable to provide negative feedback about the change until it was a done deal.

 

Shame on you, shame on all of you.

Edited January 25, 2017 by AscendingSky

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

It's very nice to have some feed back in the pvp forums for a change.

 

The current gearing system makes gearing all but impossible for people that log on to pvp for a couple hours each day.

With the new bolster I'm essentially being punished in warzones because:

A). I don't play 6 hours a day

B). When I do play, all I feel like doing is pvp.

 

The fact that I can't properly gear my toon(s) for pvp through pvp seems redundant.

Edited January 26, 2017 by nzologic

I'm just gonna say it... This smells if when the game was released.... PvE players (or PvP players who wanted the best gear) would grind out PvE gear because it was FASTER... Just like now. This gave them a HUGE advantage. Just like now.

 

Expertise forced that PvE gear would not be relevant in PvP, which was the problem. We are right back there. And the difference in stats now is larger in 10 rating of difference then the old 8.

 

Again I said this is EXACTLY what would happen when PvP gear was removed... And look where we are.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Psychopyro

..... the 250 Bolster made getting any gear virtually unneeded for PvP progression

 

I am mind boggled as to why this is viewed by you all as a bad thing?

 

Especially considering how 4.0 pvp gear costs were drastically reduced to give everyone easy access to top tier gear. The only reason I have stuck around in 5.0 as a sub has been because the 250 bolster removed the need to invest effort into your controversial (and may I add not "exciting") cxp system.

 

Respectfully, is Swtor in maintenance mode? If so, please let the content that exists currently speak for itself, rather than trying to compel/coerce subscriptions out of players with a gear grind.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Azidahka

You compared it with 4.0 in which bolster brought you to 200 with 208 being the best gear. However in 4.0 there was a requirement for you to be fully pvp geared to even queue for ranked. This meant that the largest gap in ranked would be 204 to 208 (a 4 item rating difference). Right now that gap is much larger due to the new change. Is there any plan to lessen the gap in ranked at least?

I don't mind and enjoy the new bolster changes. But it's not like I am gonna stay subbed unless you sort out other matters >:{

We hear you on that and we are committed to continue working on improving the gearing experience in the game. Still, we want to make sure that Bolster is set up properly going forward. We don't want to not fix Bolster because of gearing issues, let's just work on improving gearing as well.

 

-eric

 

People don't want to have to care about gearing for PVP clearly. You have many, many people saying they had tons of fun with bolster how it was and now it's been nerfed they aren't enjoying PVP any more.

 

If you really want to do the best by your player base I suggest discussing the concept of a full time bolster for warzones that puts everyone at the same stats regardless of gear. Then it's just a question of balance between classes which is always of course tricky.

 

People want to have fun and just PVP. It's that simple. Those really serious about gearing for PVP can take that to ranked.

 

Also just to point out you've now made a massive disparity in earning gear in that an operations player can earn gear far faster than a PVP player which they can then take to PVP and dominate. It's actually giving an advantage to a small portion of the community capable of HM/NIM ( err veteran/master ) raiding in an area that isn't Vet/Mast raiding - surely that can't be intended?

 

Until you scrap PVP gearing you are going to always have this problem going forward of trying to balance how people earn gear between PVE/PVP as they share the same gear. Wasn't so bad with expertise gear as that kept them separate but it is different now and needs to be considered rather quickly.

Eric,

 

Considering the way many including myself feel about the game right now I appreciate you coming onto the forums and answering questions. It is something that is needed to build a better community.

 

That being said I have to admit I don't care about the correction to bolster to bring it into line with what it was before. Unfortunately it makes the RNG gearing issue even more apparent.

 

Many of us understand the corporate world and what may be going on behind the scenes to drive such changes, but Galactic Command is an utter catastrophe when it comes to gearing. I would suggest making it much easier and less complicated to gear as it should be. Find something else that drives people to cause them to grind if that's what you need.

 

I for one just finally got into PvP again after years away from it. Because of the time it's going to take to get geared enough to actually compete, I am actually looking for another game to play.

Thank you for finally fixing this!

I am mind boggled as to why this is viewed by you all as a bad thing?

 

Especially considering how 4.0 pvp gear costs were drastically reduced to give everyone easy access to top tier gear. The only reason I have stuck around in 5.0 as a sub has been because the 250 bolster removed the need to invest effort into your controversial (and may I add not "exciting") cxp system.

 

Respectfully, is Swtor in maintenance mode? If so, please let the content that exists currently speak for itself, rather than trying to compel/coerce subscriptions out of players with a gear grind.

 

I think it's a bad thing. Getting boosted from 115k to 140k hit points is ridiculous in my book. I want a goal to work towards besides improving my PVP skills. It gives me another reason to play. In that light, 4.0 gearing was too easy, because it was too fast. The problem is that the pendulum has swung waaaaaayyyyyy to far the other direction now.

Still, getting gear is important and the 250 Bolster made getting any gear virtually unneeded for PvP progression.

I think this is the disconnect. Gear is NOT important from a PvP mindset. It's important in scripted fights with computers that are designed to be defeated by players of a certain power level.

 

Being able to min/max stats is one thing, but being unviable because of gear removes the player aspect of PvP. You create handicaps that favor people with more time to play. It seems every recent decision has been made to increase the time we need to play without adding much of anything to do. All there is now is the grind, but PvPers just want to PvP, starting and ending with an even playing field. It's just time gating to suck the money out of my wallet.

 

Fix Bolster so that PvP is less about gear and more about skill. You might start to foster a community of players dedicated to PvP for the sake of PvP and not for some NPC rewards.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bolster is fine, all that needs to be changed are things like the amount of components for wz's and/or the price of the gear when buying with components. As Eric mentioned, 232-242 is not much different from 200-208 at all. If the gear progression was sped up a bit, I think things would be working much better.

 

A helpful tip for others trying to gear up is to strip all the pieces of gear you get, especially duplicates. Use the pieces in legacy gear and send to your alts. this way you can have the shell to trade in and even duplicates will give you a benefit. yes, some pieces may not be useful like sending shield drops to a dps, but things like Lethal mod for example is pretty universally used. now all your 208's will jump to 230's at the very least and can continue to replace as you get better drops. Doing the same thing as you hit t2 brings all your alts over bolster to at least 234.

 

Another thing you can try is looking for crafters at t2-t3 who a lot of the times will craft for just the mats and maybe a small fee so they can keep the crits to sell on the gtn. 230-234 gear is pretty common, you may even be able to craft it yourself.

The pvp burst does not exist in 5.0, up bolster and nerf life plz Edited January 26, 2017 by Boubasisi

Still, getting gear is important

 

No, it isn't. The silver lining to to this GC ****show is that gear didn't matter for pvp. It was the only thing that made 5.0 tolerable.

Edited January 26, 2017 by kvandertulip

It gives me another reason to play

 

More power to you if you can stomach the/a gear grind or even find some good in it. For me, 'pvp' is my reason to play, in and of itself. If that reason isn't good enough for me on any given day, then I just don't log in.

 

For me, the silver lining in 5.0 pvp was that bolster was finally doing an okay job at creating an even playing field. With a little work, anyone could get near BiS gear if they put in some small effort and made sure to respect the caps on certain tertiary stats. Personally I want to love swtor and have been loyal to bioware for over a decade, but in the absence of any new and meaningful pvp content, I am not going to stay subbed for the privileged of access to a gear grind .

Hey folks,

 

For those unaware, in Game Update 5.1 we made the following change:

• Bolster now improves players up to 232 Item Rating (down from 250).

 

This change raised quite a few questions from the PvP community as to why we made the change. I spoke with the team about it and I want to start by confirming that this change is intended, let’s talk about why! When we released Game Update 5.0, Bolster was incorrectly set to Item Rating 250. The goal of Bolster is that it gives a player a minimum bar of power. That is so that they can enter PvP and not be too far behind someone who is at maximum gear, but it allows them enough room so that if they are a more skilled player, they can prevail. Still, getting gear is important and the 250 Bolster made getting any gear virtually unneeded for PvP progression.

 

The reason we moved Bolster down to 232 Item Rating is because of its rating relative to the best gear in the game, which is Item Rating 242. This means that someone with brand new gear entering into a Warzone is at worst, 10 Item Rating away from the best geared players. As an example, this works almost identically to how it worked prior to Knights of the Eternal Throne. During Fallen Empire, the best PvP gear in the game was item rating 208 and Bolster would raise your character to 200, an 8 rating difference. In short, the difference in power now should be almost identical to the difference that existed prior to KOTET.

 

That being said, part of this issue is that we did not communicate this at all to you ahead of time. Not only that, it was similarly missed in the patch notes so you received no warning at all of this change or why it happened. We messed up communicating this to you and I apologize for that. It was never our intent to hide this from you, it was just missed. I have been talking with the team yesterday and today about the changes that were missed and what procedures we can adjust to ensure we don’t miss them in the future.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

You're delusional. PvP is not about gear and since you never post here, I'm guessing the unsub threats are actually being carried through. The bolster allowed matches of skill than gear and as someone who was playing with characters who used green 190 gear and characters who were done under bad Expertise- you made a situation where people are hopelessly outmatched because their Expertise is bad when it doesn't exist.

 

There was every reason to leave Bolster where it was except one- you wanted PvP players desperate to gear, more so than being worried about bolstered stats so this was done deliberately. It didn't need to be fixed. It shouldn't be that my main is the only character who can withstand it because I spent millions on a lightsaber, on augments that has given her a quasi fighting chance despite wretched RNG. My healer has no set pieces past her 208 set and she's level 21 Command Rank and has almost zero pieces of any 230.

 

I want this upcoming emergency fix with Uprisings to include one to Bolster- then you can come back to us and make it so people can gear up as fast as they could in 4.x, irrespective of Command Rank. Because this bolster change is spiteful otherwise and turns PvP into the very thing Expertise existed to prevent.

Wow, I honestly did not expect to see an explanation. Hmmm. Well I appreciate it very much, and that seems to make sense. It's nice to get the info from an official source. Kudos, Eric!

 

Personally, bolster seemed OK to me in the handful of games I played yesterday. Definitely bolstering to a lower item level, but perhaps we were just spoiled by the mistaken 250 bolster haha. It did make gear advancement seem trivial and mostly unnecessary prior to 5.1, but I was actually quite fine with that.

 

On my Marauder, I keep two gear sets: one for HM operations, one for warzones. I don't want 110% accuracy on my warzone set, nor do I want the same mix of alacrity and crit because sustained dps on an operations boss generally has more uptime than when chasing targets in pvp. So even though we got rid of expertise, I still see improvements with using a dedicated pvp set with some different enhancements and augments. The point is, it takes so long to get gear now that I have to make a choice: apply my new piece to my pvp set or apply it to my operations set. With the 5.0 ultra bolster, it was a pretty easy choice. Now I'm quite torn. I really don't want to have to spend a bunch of credits to pull enh / aug every time I change activities. But I guess I might have to do just that.

 

I'd like to see a bit of a simplification that would allow me to truly just have one gear set. Make augments and tertiary stats generic such that they contribute to your tertiary stat pool. Give us an interface that allows us to increase or decrease the various tertiary stats within the tertiary stat pool budget. If I want to increase power at the expense of alacrity, let me do that without having to pay for pulling enhancements. I understand this would have massive implications for crafting - suddenly all of the various augment schematics would become one schematic. On the plus side, it would drastically simplify things for new players: they wouldn't have to fret over which types of augments they need. Simply apply augments and have the system give you some default tertiary stats based on your discipline. The tweakers can tweak to their hearts' content. Of course I would still need a separate set for healer vs dps (in order to get the set bonus). But my Marauder would be very happy.

 

You could even have two different saved configurations: one for pvp and one for pve. Have it automatically switch when you enter a warzone, and have a manual override (for open world pvp).

 

Anyway, I'm just trying to not complain without offering up any ideas for a solution. Perhaps I'm totally missing something and my idea will never work. Can't hurt to toss it out there.

 

Thanks!

Edited January 26, 2017 by teclado