Since bosses will no longer drop gear in operations will there be lock outs on the operations?

Since valor will be the requirement for ranked, will it be changed to legacy wide or remain the way it is now?

Expertise is being removed from the game.

And good riddance! Edited October 17, 2016 by Pietrastor

And good riddance!

Agreed.

Expertise was meant to accomplish a few things:

 

1. Have unique gear that balanced PvP and PvE.

2. Prevented PvE gear from being used in PvP.

3. Forced players to actually PvP in order to gain PvP gear.

 

How exactly does removing expertise and streamlining all gear resolve the issues SWTOR tried to prevent at launch? If anything, I see class balancing being even worse now and I see warzone quality dropping even lower since anyone can just queue regardless of gear.

With thte removal of crystals as a currency, will we be able to buy non-gear items that are currently on the various crystal vendors, especially high-rank companion gifts and exotic crafting mats?

Crystals and Warzone Commendations will also be phased out in Eternal Throne, we will have more details on our conversion plans in the coming weeks.

Hm, commendations/crystals were always nice to get in flashpoints and operations, that way if you get no loot, you at least got crystals which you could turn in for companion gifts, decorations etc. Will there be an alternative fallback loot from bosses (besides credits)?

Edited October 17, 2016 by Jerba

Expertise was meant to accomplish a few things:

 

1. Have unique gear that balanced PvP and PvE.

2. Prevented PvE gear from being used in PvP.

3. Forced players to actually PvP in order to gain PvP gear.

 

How exactly does removing expertise and streamlining all gear resolve the issues SWTOR tried to prevent at launch? If anything, I see class balancing being even worse now and I see warzone quality dropping even lower since anyone can just queue regardless of gear.

 

With the Expertise Bolster, Expertise was basically a dead mechanic anyway.

Agreed.

 

Disagreed.

 

How are BioWare going to stop the hardcore PvE players coming into normal PvP and simply rofl stomping players due to better gear? Is Bolster going to adjust all players to the same level? Or are you just going to let this happen (it's one of the reasons why we have Expertise after all, to stop end-game raiders simply destroying PvP orientated players due to gear differences).

 

Has this issue been addressed? If so how has it been addressed?

I see warzone quality dropping even lower since anyone can just queue regardless of gear.

Yes, I forsee more people participating in the WZs. Which is what should be the goal, even at the cost of lower quality. But that can be solved with matchmaking, more people = more groups to split into more experienced (valor) teams etc

Disagreed.

 

How are BioWare going to stop the hardcore PvE players coming into normal PvP and simply rofl stomping players due to better gear? Is Bolster going to adjust all players to the same level? Or are you just going to let this happen (it's one of the reasons why we have Expertise after all, to stop end-game raiders simply destroying PvP orientated players due to gear differences).

 

Has this issue been addressed? If so how has it been addressed?

 

PvP players will be able to get the same level of gear via GC by playing PvP. And you can get through how many matches in the same time it takes to get through a single op again?

Since bosses will no longer drop gear in operations will there be lock outs on the operations?

Interesting question; it would definitely make sense to revamp the lockout system, though I don't expect them to do it.

However, lockouts should not reset when you leave the instance or log out; there are many guilds that need more than one raid night to clear an operation, especially in NiM. Ideally, there'd be a button to reset lockout or something.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Jerba

Hey folks,

 

As we talked about a bit on the stream, there are some gearing changes happening with Knights of the Eternal Throne. For starters, I recommend you read this thread where I have provided more detail on the changes. The purpose of this thread is to go over how these changes will impact PvE and PvP gearing. Here are some more of those details:

• Expertise is being removed from the game.
  
• Any color crystals which have Expertise on them will be converted to a new type of color crystal – Mastery.
  
• There is no longer an Expertise requirement to get into Ranked Warzones, this will be replaced with a Valor requirement.
  
• PvE and PvP will share the same gear in Eternal Throne.
  
• Crystals and Warzone Commendations will also be phased out in Eternal Throne, we will have more details on our conversion plans in the coming weeks.
  

That covers an overview of how the changes will impact PvP and PvE gear in Eternal Throne. Please let me know of any questions you may have and I will work with the team to get you answers.

 

-eric

 

 

Eric I wont to know what happens to the warzone Commendations we have now do we get any thing out of them or do we just spend them now on stuff

Disagreed.

 

How are BioWare going to stop the hardcore PvE players coming into normal PvP and simply rofl stomping players due to better gear? Is Bolster going to adjust all players to the same level? Or are you just going to let this happen (it's one of the reasons why we have Expertise after all, to stop end-game raiders simply destroying PvP orientated players due to gear differences).

 

Has this issue been addressed? If so how has it been addressed?

 

Skill > Gear. I've never bothered to get 208 gear for PvP and can roflstomp people in min/max'd 208 gear.

 

When they don't have two OP skilled sages on their team keeping everyone invincible...

 

That being said, the serious issue here is going to be the differences in set bonuses, and now PvP vs. PvE balancing is gonna get even worse.

 

Not to mention the highly probably chance you won't be able to get a full set of BiS gear from the new command system.

 

IMHO, these are not good changes, at all. Removing Expertise is controversial at best, removing loot drops from bosses is going to be a nightmare. Especially considering the number of raiders who hate the storymode content, heroics, etc. that they'll be forced to do to get BiS gear.

 

~ Eudoxia

Edited October 17, 2016 by FlavivsAetivs

PvP players will be able to get the same level of gear via GC by playing PvP. And you can get through how many matches in the same time it takes to get through a single op again?

 

Difference is, by the sounds of it those of us who simply jump in and out of PvP are now going to be penalised for doing so. So those players that continously end-game raid or win-trade... are going to always have better gear. There will be no even footing at all, from how I'm seeing this change.

 

I'll wait until I see this fleshed out before jumping to conclusions, however I'm not liking the sound of the end-game gearing at all with command ranks and crates.

IMHO, these are not good changes, at all. Removing Expertise is controversial at best, removing loot drops from bosses is going to be a nightmare. Especially considering the number of raiders who hate the storymode content, heroics, etc. that they'll be forced to do to get BiS gear.

 

~ Eudoxia

Balancing will be the key. If doing Opses rewards, say, 4x the Galactic Points than anything else thus effectively dumps way more crates on you faster, then it will still be totally worth to do Ops and gear the fastest this way. Edited October 17, 2016 by Pietrastor

sounds like they just want people to quit the game, nothing really new just grind the same thing for a different achievement.

I think this is the first stream where there weren't any giveaways...

...

 

Wrong. Gear does matter. Just because you happened to go against bad players does not mean gear doesn't matter.

 

Removing expertise will just lead to more nerfs and more of a balancing nightmare between PvP and PvE.

 

Who cares about gear no longer dropping on operation bosses. The entire system is being streamlined into this "Galactic Command" forcing everybody (regardless if you are a raider or a PvPer) to have to do all content in order to get the best gear. This isn't really a win-win for anybody, except maybe casual gamers who don't want to do specific endgame content to get quality gear.

Expertise was meant to accomplish a few things:

 

1. Have unique gear that balanced PvP and PvE.

2. Prevented PvE gear from being used in PvP.

3. Forced players to actually PvP in order to gain PvP gear.

 

How exactly does removing expertise and streamlining all gear resolve the issues SWTOR tried to prevent at launch? If anything, I see class balancing being even worse now and I see warzone quality dropping even lower since anyone can just queue regardless of gear.

 

Because right now there isn't anything to prevent someone from queing in pve gear anyway. All this does is make it so that people starting out with a new toon or whatever don't get steamrolled due to gear, they get steamrolled due to being bad.

 

They are making valor the requirement to get into ranked (which I think is probably better than gear, as long as its reasonably high, like 30, 40, or even 50.

Wrong. Gear does matter. Just because you happened to go against bad players does not mean gear doesn't matter.

 

Removing expertise will just lead to more nerfs and more of a balancing nightmare between PvP and PvE.

 

Who cares about gear no longer dropping on operation bosses. The entire system is being streamlined into this "Galactic Command" forcing everybody (regardless if you are a raider or a PvPer) to have to do all content in order to get the best gear. This isn't really a win-win for anybody, except maybe casual gamers who don't want to do specific endgame content to get quality gear.

No, they can only do Heroics/Dailies and they will still hit max Galactic Command cap and get all the crates, just way waaaaay slower than those who do multiple types of content, they said it on stream

Yes, I forsee more people participating in the WZs. Which is what should be the goal, even at the cost of lower quality. But that can be solved with matchmaking, more people = more groups to split into more experienced (valor) teams etc

 

If I understood correctly, FTP and preferred won't be able to participate in pvp/fps/ops anymore so I'd expect less people participating.

Eric. Since all endgame gear is now the same, does that mean the set piece bonuses for PvP and PvE are identical? Since it all comes from Galactic Command crates now, I'm under the impression there is just one, unified set piece bonus for everybody depending on your advanced class.

If I understood correctly, FTP and preferred won't be able to participate in pvp/fps/ops anymore so I'd expect less people participating.

 

They will be, same with heroics/dailies, or Ops (after buying Ops passes) and Flashpoints. But they will not be getting any Galactic Command crates with gear (nor leveling their Galactic Command ranks). This is still pretty major, they're competly locking end-game gearing behind subscription-wall

Edited October 17, 2016 by Pietrastor