This suggests to me that "obtaining BiS gear" isn't the END of the game for many players. And people will continue to log in even after they obtain it.

 

TL; DR;

If Tier 5 gear were made available faster and at much lower effort and resource cost, it would make the activity of obtaining it more fun for players, and encourage more participation, with little downside.

For PVPers getting the gear is just an inconvenience it is not a reason for playing. We gear up as fast as possible so we can be on even ground with the ones wearing BiS in the WZs. The fun is in the competition, not the gearing process. I guess the developers of this game don't get it.

Correct on the second part. It's been proven ad nauseum many players enjoy playing 10-20 different toons and/or more. I know for PVP I enjoy many different specs, and gearing them quickly is important so I am not a gimp for my team and so I can also compete against those in BiS.

My playtime actually decreased once I found my playtime was spent having to gear up instead of competing fairly against others who have BiS gears. Since coming back, I got 2 toons in BiS, and 2 toons partially geared. It's taken 3 months of a lot of time in WZs to get this far. Most recently I basically rotated 2-4 toons whereas before I used to run 8-10 toons that were all geared in BiS. Playing more toons means more time on the game.

Again, I personally don't find gearing them fun, it's a chore. The fun part is doing PVP on a level playing field, and I imagine raiders for PVE have a similar viewpoint. No one enjoys a slow grind just to get on a even playing field with other players so as to not be a handicap for whatever it is we are doing.

The only argument I've seen against easy gearing is that once people are geared they would get bored and leave. But consider that we've had 248 gear for a year and a half, with very little new content, and people are still playing!

Excellent point!!! I hate that stupid excuse. Those of us still playing, sure as hell aren't doing it for freaking gear.

That said, I'm not advocating for pointless new gear tiers. I'm happy to have something new to do, but TWO new tiers of gear for a daily area and 1 MM version of an operation? That's just not quite good enough.

Why do we have 2 new tiers of gear if 6.0 and +5 levels is right around the corner (6-ish months?) I don't get it.

What games don't have gear progression? Even SP RPG's you want to get the cool new uber armor/weapon. You have a philosophical difference of opinion regarding gear - great. But know that the devs won't be reinventing the wheel.

When you get the best uber gear available in a single player RPG do you suddenly stop playing?

Why do we have 2 new tiers of gear if 6.0 and +5 levels is right around the corner (6-ish months?) I don't get it.

Because it's not right around the corner. They won't say that, but their actions do.

When you get the best uber gear available in a single player RPG do you suddenly stop playing?

No, but I am usually at end-game. Take KOTOR, for example. You get the best jedi star forge armor while you're on the very last mission of the game . Imagine if SWTOR worked that way. People would be lining up to do the last chapter of KOTET/INathema/etc.

To me, this whole gearing situation stems from Bolster. Why do any of us need gear with Bolster? Why do we need levels with Bolster?

What games don't have gear progression?

No, but I am usually at end-game. Take KOTOR, for example. You get the best jedi star forge armor while you're on the very last mission of the game . Imagine if SWTOR worked that way. People would be lining up to do the last chapter of KOTET/INathema/etc.

A fair point.

But if the game is fun, one will continue to play even when you've reached the pinnacle of gearing. Horizon Zero Dawn is a great example. I managed to get decked out in what was basically "best in slot" armor and weapon modifications. But I still felt like running through a NG+ with all my uber gear simply because I enjoyed the game so much.

Anyone who stuck around SWTOR for the last year or so surely likes the activity of playing the game more than simply getting gear. So my argument becomes, if the devs are going to add Tier 5, why not make it more fun to obtain by reducing the grind?

A player still around for 18 months with 248 gear as the pinnacle, is hardly going get bored and leave the moment they get 258.

A fair point.

 

But if the game is fun, one will continue to play even when you've reached the pinnacle of gearing. Horizon Zero Dawn is a great example. I managed to get decked out in what was basically "best in slot" armor and weapon modifications. But I still felt like running through a NG+ with all my uber gear simply because I enjoyed the game so much.

 

Anyone who stuck around SWTOR for the last year or so surely likes the activity of playing the game more than simply getting gear. So my argument becomes, if the devs are going to add Tier 5, why not make it more fun to obtain by reducing the grind?

 

A player still around for 18 months with 248 gear as the pinnacle, is hardly going get bored and leave the moment they get 258.

If the game is fun, and you are able to earn new gear when they introduce it ... what is the problem? It's not like they introduced new content that would force you to have the new gear BEFORE playing new and harder content. You can still play everything with Tier 4 gear (or even lower) and let the newer gear come as you earn the ability just playing what you like to play in game.

It's only a grind if you decide to pursue it in a grinding manner. MMO players need to learn to pace themselves.... but this has been a problem with some segments of the MMO player base (across various MMOs) for years now.... the need for instant gratification.

Honestly, I can't name a single update that has been beneficial to casual players, gearing wise, from 5.0 to now, so it's really nothing new to me. The only real change is the method of getting said gear.

Crafted gear in 5.0 has in fact been in a very good state for the purposes of gearing casual players. Whereas the state of crafted gear in 4.0 sucked for some months until they did a crafting revamp well after 4.0 dropped.

We have a good number of casual players in our guild happily running around and doing everything they want to do in 240s. Fully augmented, 240s are more then good enough for the casual player in 5.x.

It's only a grind if you decide to pursue it in a grinding manner. MMO players need to learn to pace themselves.... but this has been a problem with some segments of the MMO player base (across various MMOs) for years now.... the need for instant gratification.

You're not wrong.

Many players will choose to skip the Tier 5 grind. Which is completely fine, no problems here. I myself fall into that boat -- I won't be chasing the 258 carrot if the implementation on the PTS moves forward unchanged. Not a problem for me whatsoever.

But I'm trying to flip the argument around 180 degrees.

Why not add the Tier 5 gear with a "less" grindy approach simply to get more players engaged? It could be made into a more fun activity in and of itself. Regardless of whether or not it was "needed".

 

Why not add the Tier 5 gear with a "less" grindy approach simply to get more players engaged? It could be made into a more fun activity in and of itself. Regardless of whether or not it was "needed".

Because once you get it where are you going to try it and show your shiny?? Endlessly recycling old content?Cause what we got last 2 years isnt even worth repeating more than once for about and hour or two, because this the maximum playtime for this so called " content". When you cant produce new things you send players on a wild banta chase for infinite renewing tiers of gear....well at least the players you got left if any at all. Thing is this can only work once or twice, before people catch on. This new gear will be "the content" for most of next year i guess.

I for one have absolutely no interest in grinding for some gear ....only 1 operation (the most boring one) like a mindless or MM FPs, i have done hundreds of time. So for me its a skip. Considering the state of PvP, i am glad i no longer play it, being an avid PvPer 3.0 and 4.0. I will stick to GSF and story, when i log in once or twice a month.

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

 

Let that sink in. Until they fix the mess that 5.x gearing is and reintroduce separate PVP gear, they must make any new gear accessible to pvpers at the same rate with MM players. Plus this gear must be accessible by playing PVP. Not gated behind any kind of story or any stupid reputation grind, pve weeklies (lol) and other...smelly things .

This

Or up bolster to max

That won't work because the counter argument will than be PVPers should get weekly lockouts and only get UCs if you're on the winning team, the losing team gets nothing. Ohh yeah, and 60K repair costs for 258 geared player every time the player dies in PVP like when raiders in NiM die.

Being that NiM worthy players constitute maybe, maybe 10% of the player base, I guess they'll also have to be adding tons of things into PVP that can instantly kill the entire team in mass in a split second no matter who screwed up one time to ensure the skill level to do PVP is limited to 10% of the player base. PVP players will also have to be in VC on a mandatory basis.

For the remaining 80% of the player base, they better get real rich real fast.

Crafted gear in 5.0 has in fact been in a very good state for the purposes of gearing casual players. Whereas the state of crafted gear in 4.0 sucked for some months until they did a crafting revamp well after 4.0 dropped.

 

We have a good number of casual players in our guild happily running around and doing everything they want to do in 240s. Fully augmented, 240s are more then good enough for the casual player in 5.x.

That's a good point, I completely forgot that gear can be crafted to 246.

The deal is this, PvP heroes:

If you don't want to do PvE, you don't *have to*.

The people who *do* play the game, will have an edge in gear.

If all you do all the time, is PvP, then perhaps you'll have an edge in skill.

Stop burning up time here, when you could be working on those l33t skillz.

Why...do you...use colours...mate?

 

Also...

http://i.imgur.com/BrJ7UyM.jpg

He needs bright colours to get attention to his supposition argument other wise it won’t get traction against a real logical argument.

I see he hasn’t once refuted my arguments because I guess they are “too complicated”. Instead he just comes out swinging at me by saying I’m trying to make it overly complicated and to sow fear.

Rainbows are pretty and everything, but lack any substance but vapour.

The deal is this, PvP heroes:

 

If you don't want to do PvE, you don't *have to*.

 

The people who *do* play the game, will have an edge in gear.

 

If all you do all the time, is PvP, then perhaps you'll have an edge in skill.

 

Stop burning up time here, when you could be working on those l33t skillz.

Cool story....one question why is playing PvP not playing the game? Is an hour in a raid slower then an hour playing ranked PvP?

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

For those who didn’t click the link

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. For the Dark Reaver/Ranked set we didn’t reduce the price as much, but Ranked Warzone Comms will no longer be used to buy them; pieces will now be purchased with Warzone Comms and the previous tier gear piece. (Ranked Warzone Comms have been removed from the game, but we’ll touch on that more in the Ranked Reward changes found below.) A full Ranked Gear set will now cost about 16,525 Warzone Comms, much less than the current price of around 29,000 Ranked Comms. The exact prices are still being finalized, but this is the spirit and intent of the changes to PvP gear prices that you'll be seeing. In addition, the character cap for Warzone Comms will be raised to 200,000 and the Daily/Weekly Missions will have increased Credit rewards. These changes will make it easier and faster to gear up and get to a competitive level in PvP. Our hope is that the reduced grind makes for a more enjoyable Warzone experience.

Bioware knew all of this back then and adjusted the gearing system to make it better. Which by the way every pvper loved and Bioware had perfected it by 4.x.

Then they forced 5.0 gearing on us and destroyed years and years worth of gearing design that made pvp gearing perfect.

Pvpers were outraged and a bunch of people left. Now they are going to do it all over again and people will leave.

Why do they constantly keep trying to remake the wheel and keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Regardless of wether you like the announced gearing or not, you can’t argue logically that it isn’t going to make people leave the game again.

There are a fair few pvpers who’ve already said as much, both in the game, on other social media platforms and on these forums.

Can the game really afford for another bunch of dedicated pvpers to leave?

For that matter, can the game really afford to alienate any play group and make a bunch of them leave?

Bioware themselves said the pvp community is the most stable in the game when it comes to people coming and going based on new content.

Are they trying to test that to see what it will take to make pvpers leave?

It makes no logical sense to have a summer of pvp and spend all that time and money for the pvp community to then go and drive them away 3 months later.

There is no synergy to this road map. It feels like they are leaping from one lot of content to another and not looking at the big picture.

If they don’t change how gear works for pvpers in 5.10 and go ahead as announced, then more pvpers will leave. We already have people leaving because of desync not being fixed or even talked about by Bioware.

This system will be worse for pvp than 5.0 was because we hardly have any pvpers left to lose.

The deal is this, PvP heroes:

 

If you don't want to do PvE, you don't *have to*.

 

The people who *do* play the game, will have an edge in gear.

 

If all you do all the time, is PvP, then perhaps you'll have an edge in skill.

 

Stop burning up time here, when you could be working on those l33t skillz.

I PVE, PVP, craft, and am sitting on both a mountain of credits and UCs. Gearing changes won't affect me and I'll be in 258s or whatever the new top tier will be, likely on Day One.

Just because it doesn't affect me however doesn't mean I should sneer at players who won't have access to the new gear without changing their playstyle, that they need to "play the game." I'm not even sure what you're trying to say there, as PVP is playing the game. It may not be your preferred playstyle but it is no less "playing the game" than doing PVE.

Cool story....one question why is playing PvP not playing the game? Is an hour in a raid slower then an hour playing ranked PvP?

Yeah because you potentially spend an hour in a MM raid wiping to the same boss and making no progress XD

At least bad matches are just over with quickly.

As a pvper I don't really care about the new system. At first I did but then I looked at it and figured out I will have 2 full legacy sets easily and at least 3 characters equipped with 258 imp/ear/relics within the first month of 5.10. If I want to go nuts and spend ucs inefficiently I could probably do that in a little over a week (depending on time to get to "hero" with the new faction). But I doubt I will go nuts. I have no problem with the new challenge. And I also don't have a problem with gear mattering in PvP.

I firmly believe that removing gear as a factor in PvP as some like to suggest BW do would break PvP in this game - people in general would stop doing it; qs would die.

I firmly believe that removing gear as a factor in PvP as some like to suggest BW do would break PvP in this game - people in general would stop doing it; qs would die.

I firmly believe the opposite. I believe would gear req be removed more people would be encouraged to enter PVP environment without the fear of getting instantly owned by someone 2 gear tier levels higher than you. PVP games for the majority are skill games, new Battlefronts were terribly received exactly because of these kinds of advantages, and Disney made them completely pull the system back. Now after taking a lot of fire they've finally revamped the system earlier this year so that everything that used to give players advantage over others, are unlocked at the start. As it should have been from the beginning.

I for one would play a lot more pvp if I could use my ungeared alts more reliably, and not just my decked out mains. This new gap will just further decrease their effectiveness and they'll likely remain untouched by me completely till next levelcap, and therefor decrease the time I spend playing pvp since alt weeklies are no longer fun to do.

I agree with OP but heh, one look at the forums and anyone could understand why this game's community has gone to the wolves and BioWare's lack of engagement (no, not a stream to go over basic stuff or a pop in to produce more questions than answers) with the community is abysmal. It's not like we have the population to decide what's best for the community through rash changes or listening to those who hold on to this ancient dogma of casuals being people who like and only do solo content, thus not needing a suitable way to engage in more than brain numbing story content. I'd say I'm fairly casual these days, only being able to be ingame for around 12 hours a week, 18-20-ish if I push it on my off days, yet I've touched everything barring ToS, Rav and GftM. I run MM's for fun, I love to join Ops groups with good spirit and enjoy RP every once in a while but there's a strong difference between me and Gary who plays the same amount of time but is still trying to get all of his alts to their 50's. He's a solo casual, I'm not.

There are plenty of people who play the game 'casually' AFTER being longtime hardcore players. There's no real incentive to gear multiple toons if you're on a schedule with actual responsibilities as opposed to how we once were able to play all day. There's those who only participate in higher levels of content but have had either near or 5 year old content to run or the lower quality newer stuff so why would we want to stay on the treadmill? Galactic Command as a system is, in my eyes, a flop and the lack of player-friendly improvements to it alone makes this current issue a far-off afterthought. How about we do something about improving incentives for getting to this new, unnecessary, gear tier and then worry about who 'deserves' or 'needs' it after? Yeah?