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What I see from the PTS


Hawkebatt

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The stat balance is strange and way low for anyone to run the 1.3s GCD other than a healer. Unless you like low crits.

Though this may only be an issue with the DXUN operation as everything else will lower you down to its level.

 

The armorings, mods, and enhancements are confusing from the start. The current stuff is balance and straight forward. With 20 different types per letter you have 20 different armorings 60 different mods and about the same for enhancements. ear, implants have several versions as well. Very confusing.

 

The stats on these items have no balance what so ever. As much as fifty point difference on them or more.

 

Set bonuses are junk really some of the ability bonuses are fine but the raw 2% is a sad joke on the player. 2% with 2000 points is only 40. This is the same as a crystal oh wait a crystal has 41 points. 2200 crit would gain 44, same with say 2200 alacrity 44, with the power one I am sitting at 6891 so 2% of that is 134 rounded up. That is not worth to put in a set bonus. A raw 2% would definitely be worth it. The 4% Mastery (750 points at 11950) is about the only thing that is somewhat worth it, but that is a 4 piece set bonus on top of a worthless 2 piece bonus.

 

These maybe general sets, but the 2 piece bonus is on class sets as well. As they stand they will not have a high priority to get.

 

Tacticals need to be set and labeled for the class and spec that it is for. They need to say vigilance/vengeance or madness/balance not inquisitor/consular or knight/juggernaut My balance sage uses Force in Balance just like a shadow, but is only for the shadow or deception assassin.

 

They need better definitions and to not show up if my spec cannot benefit from it.

 

Level sync good for when it first came out allowed you to gain from all content on all planets, but just taking in the health on ossus in 258 you drop from around 130k to 116 that extra 14k health is critical in operations. I can see people who can now clear nim gods not getting through story. Level sync the operations at first thought is counter productive to the people who do raid as the balance at the lower raids will make them even easier than they are now or impossible to finish as our toons have changed since the operation was corrected. Example of tanks doing a certain amount of dps and with everyone else beign throttled it will be even worse to pass the dps check. If this is set up like the master mode flashpoint at seventy if you go in vet mode ops or nim ops might be better balanced and a challenge. But if no matter what gear you are wearing you can't get more dps to pass the enrage timer this level sync fails.

 

The biggest issue will be what the point to doing operations if the only one worth doing will be the one at level 75 for the challenge?

 

Back to the top as far as gear balance compared to content. Level sync was to make the content current. Down level sync as far as it is looking will make all other operations either too hard or way too easy.

 

From a person who has a ton of alts this gear system is one of the better ones as once I have 306 gear on one toon I have it for all.

Problems if I am in dps spec I want to only see dps gear and mods. If I am on a healer then only healer gear ie crit and alacrity no tank or accuracy gear.

 

The same with my tank only tank gear. If I pay to get a mod for my dps I expect a dps mod. Tank for tank healer for healer. Current system is giving out 50% tank gear at 325 tech parts the same as some gear pieces getting something that is not for you is pointless and a rip off. Kai Zykken's random special gear piece should come with 306 if you are 306 period as again it is trash if it is not the same level or I it doesn't have purchase protection like the other pieces.

 

I can understand the RNG factor, but when applied to something I am paying for I expect to get something I can use.

 

For me so far this expac is interesting but completely confusing. The new crafting is not worth doing it as it stands. Only good thing is once I have three sets dps tank and healer I am done three toons plus weapons and offhand. I have no clue about what will be BIS and see little need to have it or chance to get.

 

People like to see improvements. Bigger stats better gear, higher dps, threat hps, but if no matter what they do they cant improve for 95% of the content, or what they breezed through before is now a big grind they wont do it. If they don't do it they don't have anything to do. If they have nothing worth doing or to grindy to do with a lessened reward than they will just log off and do something else. I do not like the chapters cause even on a stealth toon you can not avoid the mobs that are around every corner and every ten steps at times. Other chapters have to many hoops to do multiple times.

 

I do something to get something and I don't see any of the content worth doing if I can not gain something from it. 236, 242, 248, 252, 258 those were goals. Where are my goals if everything is nerfed including my toon?

 

End confusing rant.

Edited by Hawkebatt
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I do something to get something and I don't see any of the content worth doing if I can not gain something from it. 236, 242, 248, 252, 258 those were goals. Where are my goals if everything is nerfed including my toon?

 

For most? 300/302.

 

For the record, retail WoW did this too and it chased some away. Not me, but some. The goal there is 460-475 atm (since hitting the current max of 600 is an almost impossible grind).

 

The only real annoying part of this for me is how unbalanced some of these pieces are. Not overpowered, not even close, just... weirdly unbalanced. A 272 shouldn't have less in any stat than the base 268s the level booster on Odessen gives you, but some do and it's really weird.

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So I need to add one thing that is bothering me is the cost of mats to make anything in crafting.

 

A simple stim will cost me a ridiculous amount of mats to make just one stack of four. roughly a hundred different mats for one thing.

 

For anything crafted gear wise you need conquest and flashpoint, ops, or pvp mat rewards and five weeks of collect if you have one toon and no guild for one piece.

 

Tool tips on the new UI character tab are not there if I want to see what my armoring has for numbers or my enhancement. I have to rip it out just to see exactly what I have. Still works for older gear, but not the newer gear.

 

I find the new character tab bland and generic. The old one was perfect

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I think lvl sync for ops is going to make anything sub lvl cap a walk in the park, cause u can just hit stat cap and do more dps relatively speaking. The less HP though in 258 on ossus is troubling though.

 

Still, i do not understand y they r going out of their way to do stuff that is not needed. Have all the ops at max lvl. Y do there need to be so many complications. Has BW never heard of the acronym KISS? It stands for keep it simple silly.

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I think lvl sync for ops is going to make anything sub lvl cap a walk in the park, cause u can just hit stat cap and do more dps relatively speaking. The less HP though in 258 on ossus is troubling though.

 

Still, i do not understand y they r going out of their way to do stuff that is not needed. Have all the ops at max lvl. Y do there need to be so many complications. Has BW never heard of the acronym KISS? It stands for keep it simple silly.

 

This never once since i play swtor ive heard somone said ''would be nice it these ops scaled down to our level'' why even put time and effort into that kind of feature, When there so many other things player are asking since day 1 like a cosmetic weapon slot

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Level Sync

 

The current PTS version is total BS

My 306 geared 228 augmented toon is at 169 mastery and 147 endurance or 1505 health, no power 5436 16.77% damage reduction. Assassin

 

My level ten twink toon she is at 541 mastery 402 endurance or 4345 health and 119 power. 768 armor 21.52% damage reduction.

My level 10 Sage when SHE IS NAKED SHE HAS 287 Mastery, 144 Endurance. A level ten NAKED has 118 more mastery and only 3 less endurance!

Naked with buffs 331 Mastery 151 Endurance 11 Power

With vendor gear from Lenks no left side no off hand. 323 mastery 178 endurance. six pieces with stats.

With class buffs and level 16 stim. 369 Mastery 187 Endurance and 11 power.

In Acolyte gear from fleet with left side from pvp quest. 464 Mastery 306 Endurance, 69 Power. So even a level ten in full vendor bought gear has more.

 

Live toon Guardian

My 258 adjusted to level 12 toon with full 236 augments is at 501 mastery 259 endurance or 2900 health and 45 power. 1398 armor 35.4% damage reduction.

Same toon on pts in 258 gear 169 mastery 131 Endurance 0 power 8668 armor 29.32% damage reduction

 

All three are wearing the best that can be had for their level. Augmented and stim boost with all four class boosts. Even with being in purple gear my level ten should be able to beat each of them silly without even trying. My 258 live toon would have the advantage against my level 10 toon on live.

 

The stats are not even consistent for armor or damage reduction as one guardian in the exactly the same gear is 7370 different in armor.

 

With how the level reduction is now handled a level 10 with green armor could beat a level seventy five hands down. That is wrong and sad and needs to be fixed big time.

 

I also understand that we have all our skills and our crit, alacrity and accuracy has not been changed. I also under stand my 306 toon has no problem soloing veteran Hammer station with the reduction of stats.

Edited by Hawkebatt
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On a side note I did some heroics and some dantooine stuff and the few random world drops I got were all 270ish wityh my 306 geared toon.

 

I don't expect that to change. Even on live right now, green gear and blue gear from heroics are at a lower level. There's no reason to expect endgame gear from that type of content.

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While I agree with other posters here on the state of Level Synch, go back and check out the derived stat for damage bonus. It should be way higher for the level 75 character in 306 gear under Level Synch. I think it is this stat that is making like 4 manning story mode Karagga's Palace so doable.

 

Its it wrong? I think so. Is it unsatisfactory: I think so.

 

Level Synch almost completely ignores contributions of mastery, endurance, and power from gear. Instead, it assigns them from a preset cap based on the content's maximum level to calculate health and damage bonus. The only reason I say "almost" is it will pay some attention to gear if a stat like mastery was lower than the cap, but also higher than a floor. If a stat is below the floor, it is set to the cap. Except for damage reduction, this behavior makes gear not matter.

 

Is it out of balance? Certainly.

 

Take Ossus on PTS. A level 70 character with 258 gear, fully augmented, will have health 138K with about a 3600 damage bonus on Ossus. Then take that character to Odessen and insta-level to 75, but keep the gear. Then go back to Ossus. Health will be down to 116K with a damage bonus of about 3300. Tertiary stat performance will be about half due to the expanded level 75 stat pool. Mastery doesn't matter. Endurance doesn't matter. Power doesn't matter. Stims don't matter, except for Proficient. With this kind of nerf, Ossus becomes more dangerous particularly the instanced heroics, the world bosses, and veteran mode Queen.

 

Level Synch does not correctly model the quality of the gear being worn, how well it is augmented, etc. On Ossus, it seems like it basically applies a template of whatever a typical character would have in unaugmented blue 242-244 gear and calls it good. In 306 gear, the only difference is about a 126K of health and about 1200 more points to damage bonus, granted from 19 stacks of an "iLvl Adjustment" buff, and of course, defense (if applicable) and tertiary stats that are closer to expected.

 

I'm left almost wishing for a terminal that would let me freeze my character at 70.

Edited by TerraStomper
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Level 75 with 258 I rating 92-120 damage and 35.5 bonus damage. level eight gear I rating 32 82-120 bd 35.5 1373health

sitting in stronghold base 75 damage is 342-365 bonus damage 295.4 in the level eight gear.

 

Level ten with level eight gear 143-162 damage 106 Bonus damage 2797 health

with her purple gear with left side 210-240 damage 151 bonus damage 4345 health

naked 73-77 damage 72.1 bonus damage 1810 health

 

I do have all datacron bonus stats.

 

Anyone who goes from level 10 to 11 will be then throttled to 169 mastery and 131 health. Just tested this.

Edited by Hawkebatt
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I don't expect that to change. Even on live right now, green gear and blue gear from heroics are at a lower level. There's no reason to expect endgame gear from that type of content.

 

I did expect that to change as the gear drops are supposed to be close (relevant) to my gear level if not matching. I expect this for all gear drops it should not matter where I am or what I am doing or who I am fighting. They might as well keep the current trash drops or restore the original trash drops for each planet if the change is not on everything.

 

I would like to see the original gear to drop from the flashpoints, operations since we are going back to their starting levels.

I would like to see the original heroic 4s to be put back in the game as well. There was no need to take them out.

 

but I know that will not happen.

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I did expect that to change as the gear drops are supposed to be close (relevant) to my gear level if not matching. I expect this for all gear drops it should not matter where I am or what I am doing or who I am fighting. They might as well keep the current trash drops or restore the original trash drops for each planet if the change is not on everything.

 

I would like to see the original gear to drop from the flashpoints, operations since we are going back to their starting levels.

I would like to see the original heroic 4s to be put back in the game as well. There was no need to take them out.

 

but I know that will not happen.

I expect higher level gear to drop from those lower level quests, but at a much lower frequency. I expect the frequency/chance of gear above your current ilvl to increase based on difficulty of content. Maybe 1% from level 10 syncd quests up to 100% from NIM content. Maybe MM flashpoints at around 50%, and vet at 15% chance.

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This is an excellent thread - thanks to OP and others's for pointing out so clearly what's happening on PTS.

 

Gearing is evolving, and I think it's moving in the right direction, but the fundamentals being forced on the entire SWTOR universe except for lvl 75 planet(s) is broken and misguided.

 

Simply put, I do not believe level sync, the way it is implemented by BW in this PTS, is going to work for most players in the game, even if the tuning finally gets the stats more in line with what we're used to on live. Unless level scaling is altered to take into account all gear obtained in lvl 75 content, I personally have little interest in continuing in SWTOR.

 

For ALL OTHER content except Lvl 75, 306 BiS gear is sub-optimal. There can be no good reason for this.

 

I get that the majority of players probably don't set foot in HM & NiM ops, but there are a lot of dedicated players that do (and all of them are subs...). I can't speak for them, but I don't see myself sticking around with level scaling as currently implemented in SWTOR (live & PTS) suddenly being imposed on Ops (and FPs) in 6.0.

 

I'm also disturbed by the current state of Mods. There's another thread with a spreadsheet illustrating the sheer number of mod variants, and it makes NO sense. The stats pools are off, there is already WAY too much RNG gearing in this game, now it's just been made 100s of times worse by having to land that ONE out of 19 variants of mod on every slot in every single piece of gear. This needs to not exist.

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This never once since i play swtor ive heard somone said ''would be nice it these ops scaled down to our level'' why even put time and effort into that kind of feature, When there so many other things player are asking since day 1 like a cosmetic weapon slot

 

From what I can tell, each operation is most optimally tuned to whatever level it was released at. For example, EV was created when players were level 50. So when an XP is released and adds +5 levels, the devs have been artificially scaling each mob/add/boss up to the current server level.

 

It's my understanding that the devs want to switch that around, and instead revert the operations back to their OG level, while bolstering players down to level 50, 55, etc.

 

This makes sense to me. It's a lot easier to tweak bolster and cap players, than to edit each encounter in every single operation. Additionally, some bosses are kind of broken because they are not at their original level.

Edited by Rion_Starkiller
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From what I can tell, each operation is most optimally tuned to whatever level it was released at. For example, EV was created when players were level 50. So the devs have been artificially scaling each mob/add/boss up to the current server level.

 

It's my understanding that the devs want to switch that around, and instead revert the operations back to their OG level, while bolstering players down to level 50, 55, etc.

 

This makes sense to me. It's a lot easier to tweak bolster and cap players, than to edit each encounter in every single operation. Additionally, some bosses are kind of broken because of they are not at their original level.

 

People are saying doing it this way messes up player stats for Vet Modes and Master Modes.

 

I wouldn't know, I rarely do Vet Mode ops and have never done a Master Mode OP

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Okay so a few things I noticed today just messing around since PTS came back online.

My detailed tool tips are back when looking at my gear on my toon or in my legacy. Good we have it back where it was.

Better would be it showed the Amplifiers and set bonus as well.

Amplifiers are showing up under details with a color scale like gear saying how good the amplifier is. This is nice to know I am on top with a gold color or green if it is way too low. Problem is that left side shows a far lower color than right side gear. Had a 1% at yellow on left side but a 0.65% at purple on right side.

 

306 gear testing DPS on my lightning Sorc I play lightning the base gear gave me 8k DPS 1.4GCD and power crit relics

306 modded gear aug 228 1.4GCD running mastery and crit relic did only 8.9k DPS so I am not impressed with the difference in DPS. 5388 to 6161 base damage to 5875 to 6661 base damage bonus goes from 3843 to 4302 so that 900 DPS could just be from the increase in mastery.

With me not knowing the spec and having a bit of lag the DPS I was getting was not impressive but it is similar to what most are doing at 70 so no real change in dps as far as I am concerned.

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As far as the level sync is going in no way should a level 11 be WEAKER that they were at level 10.

This makes what they have done with level sync terrible. It was done without any thought of how it should go.

They made this change with no thoughts in the difference between a level 11 ton with quest greens and a level 70 with 258.

The solution is not hard make the level sync balance with the green gear you can get at those levels. rank 32 on a level ten toon. What ever that toon has for stats everyone else get when you are over the sync. Hammer station should be a level 16 in rating 46 gear and so on every 4 level or what ever is slightly under the planet or flashpoint level cap.

 

For ops it should be whatever the best gear was at the time IE the nim gear stat with augments of the time. So if I have my full 258 set and I go into Gods of the Machine I should still have the same stats. If I went into Gods with my 306 gear then my stats should scale down to what I would have had in 258 and not what I might have had in 230 gear.

 

Ossus with 258 gear and I only have 106 k health??? compared to 132k on live? you cant survive story Gods with that health

 

The I19 buff that I have should always give me comparative gear no matter where the gear dropped from whether a starter planet or Onderon. I can see it being green gear but its Ilevel should be very close to 306. Only gear gear I saw that was 300 was a modifiable green

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So for the 18th I put on my 268 gear and did a few Hammer stations. Selected my gear drop tab as Deception.

 

I got only two pieces per boss instead of the four that I started out with per boss.

 

When I switched to Darkness I got two tank pieces.

 

When an enhancement dropped in Deception gear selection it was still a tanking enhancement.

 

Takes 276 gear to show that a 268 with an augment is better.

 

Still showing a side grade as better when it is only switching from critical to accuracy.

 

The one modifiable piece showed 272 rating with a 270 armoring, 276 mod and a 272 enhancement Meh, but an improvement over the 268 I was wearing.

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I would love level lock not just for certain toons or levels but since they are bringing back the level of the flashpoints, Operations, and other content that I could then lock my toon for that planet until I am ready to move on. or lock my toon at the tier one pvp level or lock it for level fifty if I had a NIM geared toon for level fifty.

 

With a level lock my main would be locked at 70. I would just advance one of my other toons. I have some toons that will never go passed Ziost or Revan. I had for a long time did not allow one of my toons past chapter 3. For her the Emperor was dead along with the war. I have gear that is bis for level 55.

 

I have a level 10 in purple gear just because I could but would love to be able to do stuff with her without the fear of leveling. I could then do this for other toons and crafting levels. A side part of the game but with a level lock it would make it easier.

 

Not that this is part of the PTS but still would be nice. WoW has level lock for those unwilling to level certain toons. Might be a thing for RP players as well. You can't level your toon to the next level unless the story RP promotes you to the next rank. Would bring another level to a lot of niche players.

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So I need to add one thing that is bothering me is the cost of mats to make anything in crafting.

 

A simple stim will cost me a ridiculous amount of mats to make just one stack of four. roughly a hundred different mats for one thing.

 

Your guess/estimate is really low. I made a post calculating the cost of crafting (here), but basically, one purple drug stack crafted totals 712 mats used. It's even worse than you thought, heh.

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From what I can tell, each operation is most optimally tuned to whatever level it was released at. For example, EV was created when players were level 50. So when an XP is released and adds +5 levels, the devs have been artificially scaling each mob/add/boss up to the current server level.

 

It's my understanding that the devs want to switch that around, and instead revert the operations back to their OG level, while bolstering players down to level 50, 55, etc.

 

This makes sense to me. It's a lot easier to tweak bolster and cap players, than to edit each encounter in every single operation. Additionally, some bosses are kind of broken because they are not at their original level.

 

Whether you have 290k or 16k HP, the reverse-bolster won't address the fact that new abilities make more than half of the operations trivial even at the highest difficulty(minus the last bosses where the multi-phase nature of the encounters will still somewhat challenge people). And that's pre 6.0. With the changes they're bringing to classes, coupled with the reduction in HP(which will not account for the new way most classes function now), my guess is that outside of Gods NiM and the new operation, everything else will be a faceroll.

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Gear has always been close to your level, even world random drops. With the new system if I am 306 I still maintain that if there is a world drop and it is BOL then it better be within my I rating level. I don't care where it came from. If it is going to be green 270-274 then it should be BOE.

 

If I go into an operation I do not want to bum rush the whole operation and kill the last boss in a bit over the time to run all the way from the start to the final boss. If it is not balanced at all with us being level synced to the operation there will be no other reason to run it other than getting achievements if we can face roll everything with half an ops group. Sorry I want the operation level synced to my level so it is a workable challenge. Or at least the VET and MM modes. MM flash points are level 70 on PTS if this is intended then I can see that for the Operations too. Have not seen KP on pts.

 

Speaking of BOE there is none so no one can find cheap gear to sell on the GTN. If the BOL is made for all toons some how then all cheap gear on the GTN or world skins that people like but cant find or don't have the will to grind for will dry up.

 

This brings my request of bringing the flashpoint and operation original drops backs for cosmetic reasons.

 

On today I did Hammer Station with my 306 gear didn't get a single 306 to come from the boss. Did get a Simulated gear piece.

 

Ran the weekly on CZ 198 and got only a 270 green random drop. The renown the quest was telling me I would receive 195k only gave me 88k

 

Ran the Onderon Weekly and only got 95kish with the weekly quest saying 212k So legacy and boost was not working.

 

Onderon Map is very low quality compared to what it started with. Mini map is horrible too.

Turned in a bunch of visual bugs that will make some quests hard to complete. Many of the quest points need to be raised or the vegetation thinned a bit to see them. Didn't have any real problem finishing the quests. Though the untamed torch quest is a bit buggy with the champion not being green until you light the pyre.

 

The two reward chests from Onderon gave no 306 gear. The four renown crates I got only one was 306.

With the reduced amount of gear coming from the Hammer Station bosses this will make gearing take longer. I see them reducing the gear drops to only one per boss and then the gear grind will drop to a crawl.

 

I like the hell out of BOL gear, but Hate the RNG.

Edited by Hawkebatt
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