This is what we know so far from the PTS and the Devs. (Source is Dulfy : http://dulfy.net/2018/10/13/swtor-masterwork-armor-crafting-acquisition-in-patch-5-10/)

 

There are vendors on Ossus that will sell the gear directly for 4 Masterwork Data Crystals each. They also require Hero reputation rank (something to consider if you buying gear via alts).

 

Here are some of the ways you can acquire Masterwork Data Crystals

 

1 each week from new Weekly Event Missions (i.e. complete 4x Master Mode Flashpoints)

1 each week from [WEEKLY] Daily Area: Ossus (i.e. do all the heroic daily missions on Ossus once)

500 Unassembled Components per Masterwork Data Crystal for the first exchange of the week, 1000 Unassembled Component for subsequent exchanges (unsure of weekly hardcap) with a vendor on Ossus

Very rare drop from Command Crates at Command Rank 300

 

The important things here are each piece will cost 4 crystals. You can earn 2 crystals from weeklies. One of them 4x Master Mode flashpoints? (Yep, this is starting to look like a gearing system for only MM players, the smallest percentage of players in the game. Bias much and unfair?

Then you start with unassemble components.

 

If you are a prolific Alt player in pvp, you may have a lot of UCs or if you are like me, you will hardly have any because you’ve been trying to gear up 10 Alts. In my experience, it’s the people who don’t play many different class Alts, that have the most UCs. I’ve currently got 2000 and none of my Alts are fully geared yet.

 

What this means for me is I’ll be lucky to get one piece of armor a week for one Alt, maybe 2.

As a pvper this is unacceptable and totally unfair. Even if I had a tonne of UCs, I wouldn’t get more than one Alt geared in a month and probably not even that.

I don’t play master mode ops, so I won’t even be able to get the mats to make them. It’s stupid that Bioware drop whole pieces of armor in MM for those players and then “only” give “them” access to the mats. Why do they need the mats except to make them rich?

MM players won’t need to craft for themselves if they get drops. It’s totally ridiculous to give them the mats to make them super rich. (Once again bias to this small percentage of people, which coincidentally, Keith belongs too).

The mats shouldn’t be locked behind MM at all. They dont need them if they are progression raiders. As much as I don’t want the mats to only be available in OPs, if they have to put them in OPs, they should be in veteran mode to allow those guys to craft gear so they can progress to MM. Ideally they should also make them available for pvpers.

 

If you aren’t rich, you won’t be able to buy the armor because it will be ridiculously priced because it will be a sellers market

If you don’t already have 100000 UCs sitting there, it will take you months to gear one Alt.

If you play multiple Alts like it do, you won’t ever get them all geared or even half unless you play 24/7

 

You are also going to create a system of mega wealthy players that can dominate every part of the game’s economy. They will increase the already terrible inflation on the GTN and once they get enough credits, they will just list the crafted gear at ridiculous prices because they don’t need the credits fast.

 

That will also mean some people will use real money to buy CM items to sell to these guys at stupid prices so that they can get enough credit so buy the crafted gear. It becomes a de facto way to pay to win.

The winners from all this are Bioware and the MM players like Keith. Remember they weren’t even going to make MM until Keith decided he wanted it because he belongs to a progression raid guild. Gearing for pvp won’t affect him, so why should he care.

MM players won’t ever need to spend CCs again because they’ll just use all those credits to buy it off the GTN. The rest of us slubs will be supporting the game’s elite.

 

All of this will have a massive negative affect on pvp.

You will have the super rich and MM players dominating everyone because of an unfair and massive gear advantage.

That is not fun for anyone in pvp. After a while it won’t even be fun for them.

What this does is make people angry and rage and quit.

Then they stop pvping or stop playing the game. This is what happened in 5.0 and we saw a big chunk of pvpers leave.

The game can’t supoort that many pvpers leaving again. It will kill pvp for good.

 

I know if this system goes ahead as described and we end up in the gear god situation, I will stop playing pvp altogether. I play for fun.... not to get angry, frustrated or to be yelled at, which is exactly what this will cause.

 

This isn’t only going to affect current players.

What if you are a new pvp player and a newly minted lvl 70. You’ll have no credits, no UCs and will be lucky to gear one character in 12 months (worse than now). Imagine going into pvp under those circumstances. Not only are you learning, but you are also getting stomped by gear gods that you have no hope of competing with in under 12 months.

How much of a turn off would that be. If I was a new player and experienced that, I’d be gone so fast.

 

The only saving grace will be if Bioware up Bolster to 252 in pvp. If they don’t, I think this will be the end of pvp in this game and probably accelerate the demise of the whole game.

 

For those of you who dont Pvp, this will affect you too if you are into playing space barbies. Prices on the GTN are going to skyrocket once the super rich become mega rich. They’ll be able to buy everything good before you can afford it and either use it themselves or re-list it much higher. Inflation is going to be rampant if this system goes ahead in its current format. If you don’t believe me, look what happened in the past when a select few were able to generate massive amounts of credits through exploiting. Prices on the GTN jumped and theyve never recovered.

 

I don’t just think this is going to only have a negative affect on pvpers, I see this being a problem for the whole game.

Edited October 14, 2018 by Totemdancer

This game was doomed the moment they implemented the horror that is the command crate system. This is literally forcing RNG onto the players. If I want RNG I will buy CM packs, but i dont want gearing to be RNG. I'm only here for the new expansion next month then I'm out again because it looks like BW still hasn't learned. I used to play the game almost every week before Command Crate HorrorShow. Last time I played it was 8 months ago. This game is on life support and once BW's new game fails the studio will enter EA's graveyard and so will SWTOR along with it.

It's an excellent point, OP, that the situation will drive up prices on the GTN for other items, and that will affect even for those of us who do not PvP or do the Ops that would require the gear. I had not even considered that point. Thank you for raising it.

Been a while since I got super hardcore into PVP, was one of the people who slowed down and just outright stopped by 5.0 from the massive changes. But 4.0, I believe it was 4.0, had maybe one of the best gearing systems in terms of PVP. It was simple at it's core and easy to get into, but allowed a lot more customization for stat line ups allowing you full control over how you played the class. I remember it as a time where experimentation with classes was encouraged, and I even had a lot of fun with a survival marauder. During a time when most people viewed Marauders unplayable cause of how squishy they were and people would focus fire them. So I made a build with a slightly drop in DPS for increase HP and used a lot of protection to keep me in the fight longer allowing the % based healing to keep me alive longer, while also keeping the DOTs up.

 

 

I normally reached the top of the chart and had highest damage taken a lot in those matches. I've not gotten to much into the current system so can't really say much about it, outside of my minimal experience. But it feels like experimentation, in PVP, is not as encouraged cause of how streamlined gear is and more grindy to earn.

 

 

Just my perspective as a PVP player mostly and would like to see a return to 4.0 gearing system, but who knows I've lost touch with the game for a long time so I might be the minority.

Geez, you have to do MM Ops for the mats, and grind reputation in the daily area for the pieces.....This really sucks for pvp.

 

For crying out loud BW, give us 4.x pvp gearing back.

 

Edit:

 

Geez one of the mats needed to craft:

 

"Ancient Tome: 100k credits and 65 Relics of Ossus off the Reputation vendor"

Edited October 14, 2018 by Raansu

This is what we know so far from the PTS and the Devs. (Source is Dulfy : http://dulfy.net/2018/10/13/swtor-masterwork-armor-crafting-acquisition-in-patch-5-10/)

 

 

 

The important things here are each piece will cost 4 crystals. You can earn 2 crystals from weeklies. One of them 4x Master Mode flashpoints? (Yep, this is starting to look like a gearing system for only MM players, the smallest percentage of players in the game. Bias much and unfair?

Then you start with unassemble components.

 

If you are a prolific Alt player in pvp, you may have a lot of UCs or if you are like me, you will hardly have any because you’ve been trying to gear up 10 Alts. In my experience, it’s the people who don’t play many different class Alts, that have the most UCs. I’ve currently got 2000 and none of my Alts are fully geared yet.

 

What this means for me is I’ll be lucky to get one piece of armor a week for one Alt, maybe 2.

As a pvper this is unacceptable and totally unfair. Even if I had a tonne of UCs, I wouldn’t get more than one Alt geared in a month and probably not even that.

I don’t play master mode ops, so I won’t even be able to get the mats to make them. It’s stupid that Bioware drop whole pieces of armor in MM for those players and then “only” give “them” access to the mats. Why do they need the mats except to make them rich?

MM players won’t need to craft for themselves if they get drops. It’s totally ridiculous to give them the mats to make them super rich. (Once again bias to this small percentage of people, which coincidentally, Keith belongs too).

The mats shouldn’t be locked behind MM at all. They dont need them if they are progression raiders. As much as I don’t want the mats to only be available in OPs, if they have to put them in OPs, they should be in veteran mode to allow those guys to craft gear so they can progress to MM. Ideally they should also make them available for pvpers.

 

If you aren’t rich, you won’t be able to buy the armor because it will be ridiculously priced because it will be a sellers market

If you don’t already have 100000 UCs sitting there, it will take you months to gear one Alt.

If you play multiple Alts like it do, you won’t ever get them all geared or even half unless you play 24/7

 

You are also going to create a system of mega wealthy players that can dominate every part of the game’s economy. They will increase the already terrible inflation on the GTN and once they get enough credits, they will just list the crafted gear at ridiculous prices because they don’t need the credits fast.

 

That will also mean some people will use real money to buy CM items to sell to these guys at stupid prices so that they can get enough credit so buy the crafted gear. It becomes a de facto way to pay to win.

The winners from all this are Bioware and the MM players like Keith. Remember they weren’t even going to make MM until Keith decided he wanted it because he belongs to a progression raid guild. Gearing for pvp won’t affect him, so why should he care.

MM players won’t ever need to spend CCs again because they’ll just use all those credits to buy it off the GTN. The rest of us slubs will be supporting the game’s elite.

 

All of this will have a massive negative affect on pvp.

You will have the super rich and MM players dominating everyone because of an unfair and massive gear advantage.

That is not fun for anyone in pvp. After a while it won’t even be fun for them.

What this does is make people angry and rage and quit.

Then they stop pvping or stop playing the game. This is what happened in 5.0 and we saw a big chunk of pvpers leave.

The game can’t supoort that many pvpers leaving again. It will kill pvp for good.

 

I know if this system goes ahead as described and we end up in the gear god situation, I will stop playing pvp altogether. I play for fun.... not to get angry, frustrated or to be yelled at, which is exactly what this will cause.

 

This isn’t only going to affect current players.

What if you are a new pvp player and a newly minted lvl 70. You’ll have no credits, no UCs and will be lucky to gear one character in 12 months (worse than now). Imagine going into pvp under those circumstances. Not only are you learning, but you are also getting stomped by gear gods that you have no hope of competing with in under 12 months.

How much of a turn off would that be. If I was a new player and experienced that, I’d be gone so fast.

 

The only saving grace will be if Bioware up Bolster to 252 in pvp. If they don’t, I think this will be the end of pvp in this game and probably accelerate the demise of the whole game.

 

For those of you who dont Pvp, this will affect you too if you are into playing space barbies. Prices on the GTN are going to skyrocket once the super rich become mega rich. They’ll be able to buy everything good before you can afford it and either use it themselves or re-list it much higher. Inflation is going to be rampant if this system goes ahead in its current format. If you don’t believe me, look what happened in the past when a select few were able to generate massive amounts of credits through exploiting. Prices on the GTN jumped and theyve never recovered.

 

I don’t just think this is going to only have a negative affect on pvpers, I see this being a problem for the whole game.

 

Playing blade and souls now. Nice new pvp changes, not hard donation system which has no influence on players power, new awesome engine. Swtor is recked, they dont need pvp players

Great post, I have nothing to add.

 

All of this, plus new gear mats apparently only dropping from Gods (which is my least favorite most gimmiky ops there is) I have no interest to farm just this one ops for gear endlessly, when there should be ten other already existing nims to choose from.

 

I've been mostly doing just PVP along side some old raids recently. They botched huttball with the CC nerfs, now they botch gear for pvp too.. Yeah, no reason to stick around. I'll sub for story bit and then move elsewhere for prolonged play.

This system doesn't encourage you to play what you like, but what Keith wants you to play. And if that's the only way to be competitive in a completely different game mode, it's a a bad biased game design.

 

I would have been happy to just run Gods for progression once and go back to pvp, since I really don't like that aoe lag gimmik fest of a raid. But, since apparently not farming it will directly affect your performance in PVP (not to mention the pain of trying to use alts), I'll just skip this one entirely I think and come back for the next level cap, and pray to whatever deity Davs worship that they'd wise up by that time and stop doing nonsensical progression decisions.

The more I consider all the secondary affects this will have on the game, the more I think this will hurt the whole game.

Imagine that. An online subscription game that can't reliably add new content introduces a super grindy new grindfest. It's almost as if they want you doing the same thing over and over to acquire the new shiny marginal upgrades in order to keep you on the treadmill. And people said this wasn't really an MMO. Edited October 16, 2018 by kodrac

Imagine that. An online subscription game that can't reliably add new content introduces a super grindy new grindfest. It's almost as if they want you doing the same thing over and over in order to acquire the new shiny marginal upgrades. And people said this wasn't really an MMO.

 

You mean... sort of like the Dark vs. Light event a few years ago where to complete the achievement for all 7 pieces of xp gear you had to basically regrind a ton of old content? That kind of grindy MMO?

You mean... sort of like the Dark vs. Light event a few years ago where to complete the achievement for all 7 pieces of xp gear you had to basically regrind a ton of old content? That kind of grindy MMO?

 

Sort of. I mean that kept you on the treadmill, but there wasn't enough shock and outrage. No, I'm talking about the kind of grindy MMO that makes you do the same raid over and over and a reputation grind in order to marginally upgrade your gear because they know gear is the only shiny new stuff players will obsess over. Well, besides fancy new furniture, but they let you outright pay for the chance to get that stuff.

Bioware is taking the wrong way, once again, with this Tier 5 Gear !

There no need new Tier Gear with a new kind of achievement.

Don't really understand the Bioware purpose whit this new set.

It's an excellent point, OP, that the situation will drive up prices on the GTN for other items, and that will affect even for those of us who do not PvP or do the Ops that would require the gear. I had not even considered that point. Thank you for raising it.

 

While this could be an outcome from this new gear, I very much doubt it will actually be the case. That point is deliberate pretexting by the OP to serve his point of view.

 

The OP is correct that the centerpoint of focus for needing the new gear is MM OPs. Duh!

 

The fact that some PvPers feel it is mandatory for their ongoing PvP has some merit.. but just like the PvE side of the game... gearing of alts in BiS should not be trivial or easy. If you make it so you can gear every character on your account in BiS in a few weeks of casual effort.... then what will you do? Most likely come back and complain about boredom and lack of anything to do or chase. Why is content that is too easy a sin in some players eyes, and yet demand that gear be super easy to acquire? Seems duplicitous to me.

 

The only reason this gear is being added at this point in 5.x is probably because this studio knows that gear = reward for getting on a hamster wheel and going round and round and round and round. It gives players something to strive for.. and is not intended to be dispensed through a "welfare model". Most players do not even need this gear at all with the current release level of the game.

 

But as forum members.. we will never reach consensus on gearing of alts. So this entire discussion is academic. Too many player feel that they are justified in putting all their alts in BiS gear and doing so with little time or effort required. This is actually not normal in MMOs.. and as such represents the antithesis of MMOs.

 

I know the OP is an avid PvPer, as are many others.. and I encourage them to provide logical and reasoned feedback to the studio on the PTS forum ----> raising bolster such that this gear is largely unnecessary in PvP. Lamenting the degree of difficulty to get the new gear is NOT the right approach here.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Andryah

Bioware is taking the wrong way, once again, with this Tier 5 Gear !

There no need new Tier Gear with a new kind of achievement.

Don't really understand the Bioware purpose whit this new set.

 

Gives players something tangible to strive for. No more, no less. [note my use of the word "strive"... because that word fits the profile of this gear quite well.

 

For those that are "easy pickings" for being taunted onto a new hamster wheel.. they will see this as an atrocious step by the studio. Those that do an actual personal assessment of "need" (not "want") in order to do content... will quickly conclude that this gear is way beyond diminishing returns in terms of effort vs reward. I do believe the studio thinks players are smart enough to do said assessment and follow whatever conclusion they arrive at. [perhaps the studio over estimates the objectivity of players in assessing gear need.. not want.. need.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Andryah

...

It's the (weekly) 4 MM Flashpoints that drop the Masterwork Data Crystal, not MM GFTM. Looks like MM GFTM will straight up drop gear.

 

You need 10k rep to reach Hero rep rank, assuming it works like all other reps. This means it will take you 2-ish? days to purchase any gear with Masterwork Data Crystals. Thus anyone that does the NiM GFTM operation will likely start have gear on Day 1.

 

Speaking of crate drops, will there be Tier 5 crates? If not, will Tier 4 crates drop T5 gear? If so, can I stockpile T4 crates and hope to get lucky?

 

------------------------

 

From what I can tell, the best way to gear (assuming you can't do NiM GFTM) will be to:

• Do 4 MM flashpoints per toon for 1 crystal each
  
• Do your Weekly Ossus mission per toon for 1 crystal each
  
• Buy 1 crystal per toon per week for 500 UC's
  
• Stockpile crystals until you achieve Hero reputation.
  

 

Looking at the mat requirements, I don't think I will be crafting armor unless the mats drops are very frequent. I suspect the crafting method is a money sink to control the inflated market.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Rion_Starkiller

It's the (weekly) 4 MM Flashpoints that drop the Masterwork Data Crystal, not MM GFTM. Looks like MM GFTM will straight up drop gear.

 

^^ This is my understanding as well.

 

You need 10k rep to reach Hero rep rank, assuming it works like all other reps. This means it will take you 2-ish? days to purchase any gear with Masterwork Data Crystals. Thus anyone that does the NiM GFTM operation will likely start have gear on Day 1.

 

Yeah.. it's not like a rep grind is tough in this game.... though they sometimes throttle how much you can gain in one week. But that means you can work rep grind in conjunction with actually doing content that drops the MWS... which is from a practical standpoint what players will be doing.

 

And since rep is generally legacy wide.. you only have to do it once on one character, right?

^^ This is my understanding as well.

 

 

 

Yeah.. it's not like a rep grind is tough in this game.... though they sometimes throttle how much you can gain in one week. But that means you can work rep grind in conjunction with actually doing content that drops the MWS... which is from a practical standpoint what players will be doing.

 

And since rep is generally legacy wide.. you only have to do it once on one character, right?

 

Yeah but if each daily drops a rep token, and the weekly drops a large rep token, then you will need to do it on multiple toons to get to 10k rep in 1-2 days. But yeah, it's legacy wide reputation.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Rion_Starkiller

Yeah but if each daily drops a rep token, and the weekly drops a large rep token, then you will need to do it on multiple toons to get to 10k rep in 1-2 days. But yeah, it's legacy wide reputation.

 

But if it is throttled per week, like they sometimes do.. it's been a legacy wide throttle, so running alts won't get you anywhere. Running alts might be less boring, and/or to progress alts for something else, but it won't benefit the faction rep buildup.

 

If I recall, in the past when they put a throttle on something like this.. it just draws it out for several weeks, rather then letting someone grind it all up in one day.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Andryah

I looked up the other reps. They are capped at 12k gain per week. So if 10k is needed for heroic rank, you will definitely be able obtain that rank in the first week assuming you have enough alts.

 

http://dulfy.net/2013/02/12/swtor-galactic-reputation-guide/

 

*Assuming Ossus rep follows the same pattern as other rep.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Rion_Starkiller

This is what we know so far from the PTS and the Devs. (Source is Dulfy : http://dulfy.net/2018/10/13/swtor-masterwork-armor-crafting-acquisition-in-patch-5-10/)

As a solo regular player (not in the least casual) that gearing info is actually much better than the super-doom I thought it was going to be. There will be a way for me to gear up - albeit slowly. I only ever gear my main to max; so trying to gear alts won't be a problem for me. I remember it took me forever to get my main into 248 gear through the RNG/UC fiasco BEFORE they nerfed GC and made it a lot easier. I feel a lot more positive about the new gearing system now. And it's possible they might make some small improvements before launch too.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Sarova

Bioware is taking the wrong way, once again, with this Tier 5 Gear !

There no need new Tier Gear with a new kind of achievement.

Don't really understand the Bioware purpose whit this new set.

 

New tiers are always necessary for newer, more difficult content and for expansions to reset the grind and put everyone on equal footing at the start of expansions.

 

New tier isn't the problem, the problem is how ludicrous the grind is and how it ultimately hurts pvp heavily.

It's the (weekly) 4 MM Flashpoints that drop the Masterwork Data Crystal, not MM GFTM. Looks like MM GFTM will straight up drop gear.

 

You need 10k rep to reach Hero rep rank, assuming it works like all other reps. This means it will take you 2-ish? days to purchase any gear with Masterwork Data Crystals. Thus anyone that does the NiM GFTM operation will likely start have gear on Day 1.

 

Speaking of crate drops, will there be Tier 5 crates? If not, will Tier 4 crates drop T5 gear? If so, can I stockpile T4 crates and hope to get lucky?

 

------------------------

 

From what I can tell, the best way to gear (assuming you can't do NiM GFTM) will be to:

• Do 4 MM flashpoints per toon for 1 crystal each
  
• Do your Weekly Ossus mission per toon for 1 crystal each
  
• Buy 1 crystal per toon per week for 500 UC's
  
• Stockpile crystals until you achieve Hero reputation.
  

 

Looking at the mat requirements, I don't think I will be crafting armor unless the mats drops are very frequent. I suspect the crafting method is a money sink to control the inflated market.

 

After re-reading Dulfy's page, she says:

1 each week from new Weekly Event Missions (i.e. complete 4x Master Mode Flashpoints)

Which means the MM Flashpoint weekly is just an example. So possibly any weekly will grant you the 1 crystal, including your Weekly PvP mission.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Rion_Starkiller

You mean... sort of like the Dark vs. Light event a few years ago where to complete the achievement for all 7 pieces of xp gear you had to basically regrind a ton of old content? That kind of grindy MMO?

I suppose it's a bit off topic to the subject of this thread, but my objection to the 2016 DvL event was that existing characters were not allowed to participate.

 

I can understand the part about needing new characters for the "leveling class story" portions, but not for the rest. I would have enjoyed participating in the event by re-runing old flashpoints and operations. Or taking an alt through KotFE (I had only run a single character through it at the time). So I decided the to skip the event.

 

As much as it was simply an old content grind, they could have made it more interesting to participate.

As a solo regular player (not in the least casual) that gearing info is actually much better than the super-doom I thought it was going to be. There will be a way for me to gear up - albeit slowly. I only ever gear my main to max; so trying to gear alts won't be a problem for me. I remember it took me forever to get my main into 248 gear through the RNG/UC fiasco BEFORE they nerfed GC and made it a lot easier. I feel a lot more positive about the new gearing system now. And it's possible they might make some small improvements before launch too.

 

This is exactly how I feel, gearing will be MUCH easier and probably faster for me overall.

I like this change.

You mean... sort of like the Dark vs. Light event a few years ago where to complete the achievement for all 7 pieces of xp gear you had to basically regrind a ton of old content? That kind of grindy MMO?

 

You mean like making a bunch of Alts and paying money to open slots and then have the Alts made irrelevant 3 months later with 5.0.