Heres a wild thought how about we wait and see what happens on the test server instead of groaning on a website? This game is dying anyway its only a matter of time before EA Cut its ********s off so to speak. EA already closed an office due to layoffs who is next i wonder??? Biofail???.

And i love this game its just sad the way its going

Thanks for the reply. This new bolster system... It would be nice for us to know a few details about it, so if you or someone else in the know would clarify further on the following points, I would be much obliged.

 

1) Does the new bolster system take into account level disparity between character level and gear level

 

2) Does the new bolster system take into account the quality of the gear you wear (will purples be better than greens?)

 

I see no harm in revealing those things to us now instead of when 2.0 hits live.

----edit----

Found your reply in another thread;

 

 

I'm afraid that your bolster system will fail at doing it's job due to the disparity presently seen in what people can wear in the 30-54 bracket.

 

pre- 50, people are limited to PvE gear that closely follows levels, but any and all people who presently sit at max level have a plethora of options...

1) People have present end-game PvE gear min-maxed (will the bolster system handle them by decreasing main stat and endurance and increase expertise?? What about armour ratings?)

2) Present end-game PvP gear, how will the bolster system work there? What about the min-maxed people who haven't bought the expansion?

 

I'm very confused as to why exactly you're doing a 30-54 bracket instead of keeping the old 10-49 one and create a 50-54 one and a 55 one. You see the need for 3 brackets, why make the balancing act so difficult for yourselves by doing the very arbitrary split of 10-29/30-54/55??

A main reason the current lowbie bracket works is the fact alot of the advanced classes have a VERY useful capstone ability (e.g. guardian leap/intercede) Putting level 30-49 people up against 50+ people is inherently flawed due to how useful a 50+ char is compared to a guy under level 50.

I don't think you are correct. It is going to look at your gear and then boost it up to level 55 blue. Level 50 purple augmented blah blah blah will be no better or worse than 30 green crap. It will all be 55 blue. They have effectively made 10-54 pvp all about skill.

This it utterly ridiculous.

First of all, the Pre-50 bracket worked fine! What we SHOULD be seeing is a 10-49 / 50-54 / 55 division of brackets.

Second of all, this is going to hurt a lot of people's play styles: For instance, when my guild mates get bored of the level 50 grind, we hop on our pre-50 characters for a bit of fun together. Problem? The level discrepancy that occurs because we level at different rates means now we can't do that together.

Third, because they're effectively cutting an entire bracket in half, the earlier bracket will be DEAD. People won't be able to PvP much or at all until they hit thirty because of a LACK OF OTHER PLAYERS IN THAT LEVEL, after which point they'll be pitted up to as high as level 54s? Which, as has been discussed, will include a fair share of people wearing the pre-existing PvP gear.

I don't think you are correct. It is going to look at your gear and then boost it up to level 55 blue. Level 50 purple augmented blah blah blah will be no better or worse than 30 green crap. It will all be 55 blue. They have effectively made 10-54 pvp all about skill.

Official post I quoted states that bolster will take into account individual gear pieces. I'm curious about how the system will weigh things and how it will be able to balance things out.

this new bracket not only has a huge disparity in skills and talent point pool, it also has a huge gear disparity it needs to deal with to make pvp enjoyable. Not balanced. Just enjoyable...

Not asking for the moon tbh.

The main problem here is not gear, assuming bolster works as intended (for example, boosts everyone up to 21khp and 1500 expertise). It is seasoned level 50 PVPers who have played thousands of games going up against fresh 30s who do not have all their abilities. I know of many people in my PVP guild such as myself who would just roflstomp level 30s... it would not even be fun.

My suggestion would be to temporarily have a 50-54 bracket for say about 1 month, to give the hardcore PVPers time to PVP amongst themselves to get to 55. After a month you can switch it to 30-54.

Bah I think it means Tuesday maintenance. Boo!

trademark.

I think the level 50s will be gimped against level 51-54s.

Remember that the new (cool) skills can be trained at level 51.

These should either have been only trainable at 55 or the top bracket should be 51-55.

Then also remember that the level 50s will no longer have max skills.

ex: TD for my Merc now requires 36 points instead of 31.

That only leave 5 points to benefit from cross tree skills.

Except for the min/maxed gear that EA/BW claims will be bolstered out,

current level 50s will be more like current level 45s in 2.0

Many people who do not buy the expansion will probably end up quitting after a short time.

If I could pick the brackets I'd choose 10-34, 35-50 and 51-55.

Then you let people start buying level 55 gear at level 51.

The bolster system would help the 4 levels compete with 55s as they gear up.

Are they really for seriousing us??

 

leveling through PvP won't be enjoyable... At all...

at least until every single current lvl 50 PvP'er get all their min/maxed WH/EWH toons to the 55 bracket.

Oh and I predict massive QQ at premades since the impact they have will increase by a truckload.

 

Right now you only have to worry about badly geared weekend warrior puggers, in 2.0 there will be lvl 30s soloqueueing who will get in games with veteran premades geared to the nines.

 

BTW I really hope BW makes endgame PvP gear purchaseable pre-50 if those brackets will be implemented. AT LEAST let lowbies start getting their WH gear sorted.

So what you are saying is, PvP is returning to what it was at release when people left in droves?

Jusy when you think BW can't make things worse than they currently are.......they go and dazzle you all over again with their bizarro logic.

Unbelievable.....I want my money back on the expansion.

Hey gang, let me see if I can bring some clarity to the situation. We do indeed have a new level of "Recruit" that we are bolstering towards, that is based on the new 55 gear. We believe that this bolster level will allow players to complete with any possible gear combination in the 30 - 54 bracket. Obviously we've had a few bumps in the road on PTS regarding current bolster, but we should be getting that fixed up soon , and everyone can get back to the business of PvP.

 

Thanks for everyone's feedback, not just on this but on everything, it is really helping us make a better game.

Hey gang, let me see if I can bring some clarity to the situation. We do indeed have a new level of "Recruit" that we are bolstering towards, that is based on the new 55 gear. We believe that this bolster level will allow players to complete with any possible gear combination in the 30 - 54 bracket. Obviously we've had a few bumps in the road on PTS regarding current bolster, but we should be getting that fixed up soon , and everyone can get back to the business of PvP.

 

Thanks for everyone's feedback, not just on this but on everything, it is really helping us make a better game.

Gear is not the thing I would be worried about in any way, because as you write, you can just use the bolster system for that. Abilities are talents on the other hand would be a big issue.

If you feel like there would be too few players if you made the bracket 50-54, then in my opinion the lowest you can go is 46-54, that way at least everyone who plays in that bracket can go all the way into one of the talent trees.

Please don't screw up lowbie PVP, at the moment it's so good.

On a side note, couldn't you also remove expertise altogether and bolster to the highest gear level to finally make PVP about player skill instead of gear?

No, because a lot of us who PvP do not PvE at all. Grinding for the gear from WZs is something to do for those who don't PvE. It isn't about the gear,I was able to roll many fully modded ewhs with WH gear before I got the better gear myself. It still has a lot to do with skill over expertise. Don't be lazy.

It will be fine with bolster system. The bolster system is busted on PTS atm but when they figure that out get on PTS and test it, Its they only way to know if its agood system or not. So instead of going to PTS and auto lvl to 55 to exploit a bug keep at 50 or bring a lvl 30ish toon over to see.

By reading some of the posts here a lot of them have not even been on PTS or have read the notes in detail, nothing is LIVE yet so if you dont like the new idea get on PTS and test. Say why you don't really think its a good idea in a constructive post without becoming irrational. The Dev's are communicating with us, and they respond much better to factual evidence that the system may need to be changed.

Philastra it is common sense and reading through the lines. From everything I've read the bolster will bring people up to about a recruit lvl. Recruit gear is horrible lol. Furthermore my 50s are aug'd as well and most 30s won't be fully aug'd. It is very very likely that this will be a horrible experience for anyone not in aug wh/ewh. For many of the pugstompers they might enjoy this for awhile but for everyone else it will just be sad.

Also I have a feeling that 10-29 is going to be twink ptech or go home lol.

Bernie....seriously dude ***. What evidence do you have that 30s will be equal to augmented elite wh 54s? I mean seriously!

I have no evidence, just what they said. The argument was about people that are all tricked out at 50. The dev actually posted in this thread that everyone will be boosted to 55. So people that are geared at 50 aren't really going to have an advantage gear wise because everyone will be at 55 blue. Of course, they will have more abilities though.

I guess you could run into a few people that stop at 54 and have fully maxed out 54 gear. Maybe they will put a stop to that somehow.

My guess though is that they have put some thought into this and their plan is better than what we have currently. For example, a level 10 getting smashed by a geared 49.

The only real issue I see is that there won't be enough players in each bracket.

Philastra it is common sense and reading through the lines. From everything I've read the bolster will bring people up to about a recruit lvl. Recruit gear is horrible lol. Furthermore my 50s are aug'd as well and most 30s won't be fully aug'd. It is very very likely that this will be a horrible experience for anyone not in aug wh/ewh. For many of the pugstompers they might enjoy this for awhile but for everyone else it will just be sad.

 

Also I have a feeling that 10-29 is going to be twink ptech or go home lol.

It sounds like there will be a recruit MK-3 from the Dev post.

I have no evidence, just what they said. The argument was about people that are all tricked out at 50. The dev actually posted in this thread that everyone will be boosted to 55. So people that are geared at 50 aren't really going to have an advantage gear wise because everyone will be at 55 blue. Of course, they will have more abilities though.

I guess you could run into a few people that stop at 54 and have fully maxed out 54 gear. Maybe they will put a stop to that somehow.

 

My guess though is that they have put some thought into this and their plan is better than what we have currently. For example, a level 10 getting smashed by a geared 49.

The only real issue I see is that there won't be enough players in each bracket.

So what you are saying is that you have faith in the bolster system BW is going to implement. You believe the bolster system won't have any trouble bolstering any and all gear combinations people might roll with... A level 49 guy fully twinked will be bolstered up as much as a lvl 50 Min/max WH/EWH (same armour ratings as the lvl 55 pvp gear)

A lvl 30 guy fully twinked would be bolstered to the same level as the lvl 50 guy with end-game PvE stuff...

I am sorry, but I don't have your faith in the developer's choices.. Bolster has been broken on the test server since it got opened with patch 2.0 If they haven't fixed that yet, what is the point of having the test center?

I don't believe they will be able to make a bolster system work in the 30-54 bracket, I just don't see how they can extrapolate the stats fairly/correctly from such a hugely diverse level range and equipment range.

Having a 10-29 bracket will make that bracket starve out and will be dominated by the classes that mature early

the 30-54 bracket will be HELL for the classes that mature late (yeah some classes need a full 31 point build to be viable in pvp)

There's no reason whatsoever as to why the devs have chosen level 30 as the breaking point... It's completely random and arbitrary. I would like to see a dev reply with a logical reason for WHY they chose 30 and not a higher level..

10-40

41-54

55

or

10-44

45-54

55

makes alot more sense to me (IF you want to change the 10-49 bracket)

A level 30 guy has half the amount of talent points you have @ lvl 50 (21 vs 41)

How is that balanced? (yeah a lvl 10 guy is worse off vs a 49 guy but why repeat the mistakes done earlier?)

No, because a lot of us who PvP do not PvE at all. Grinding for the gear from WZs is something to do for those who don't PvE. It isn't about the gear,I was able to roll many fully modded ewhs with WH gear before I got the better gear myself. It still has a lot to do with skill over expertise. Don't be lazy.

However the most viable solution to PVP problems is the removal of Expertise / PVP only gear. 2.0 would be a perfect patch to remove expertise.

However the most viable solution to PVP problems is the removal of Expertise / PVP only gear. 2.0 would be a perfect patch to remove expertise.

That would require the high end PvP gear to be on a par with the high end PvE gear. PvPers would be able to entirely skip the intended PvE gear progression and just jump into the hardest available content right away and Bioware, obviously, doesn't want that - I'm almost sure that is part of the reason why the BiS PvE gear is of a much higher item level than the "new" PvP gear in 2.0. The far lower armour rating, min/max damage and Force Power/Tech Power on the PvP gear will make PvPers gimped in PvE content; Expertise gimps PvE gear in PvP content.

Well my point is that I see no logic at all in the 30-54 bracket choice. 40-54 maybe... 42 or 45-54 maybe... but 30?? It's such a strange choice..

 

the 10-29 bracket will be starved (you level a lot faster in those levels compared to later ones)

the 10-29 bracket will be ill-suited to prepare you for the 30-54 bracket (kiddie pool is very shallow, grown up one is too deep.)

Valid feedback, and something we continue to debate internally. When we talk about separating the playing population by hard lines, there are always 2 main concerns that often compete directly against each other: A)Can the players inside that bracket reasonably compete against each other, and B)Are there enough players in the bracket to keep wait times reasonably small.

We have initially chosen 30 as our new break point because that is the level in which players start having complete combat rotations (often because they've gotten a really important ability from a skill tree) and our data of who actually queues into Warzones has shown that we've got a good pool on each side of that break. We continue to analyze who is playing, however, so certainly if we ever feel like a particular PvP bracket is being starved we should make changes to it. Unfortunately, that's what we believe would happen with a 50 - 54 bracket. It might be populated initially, but would quickly become empty as players hit 55 and for everyone following the initial surge of levelers there would significantly increased wait times to get into PvP.

A number of players are concerned, reasonably I think, about the power differential between a fresh level 30 player and a current 50 player in augmented EWH gear being inside the same bracket. Our new bolster system should make those players reasonably competitive statistically, both with compensation for the lower items as well as some compensation for having fewer skill points/abilities (if you are lower level). Once we get this bolster bug fixed up, everyone should be able to see the kind of stats you are getting from the bolster and should give everyone a better basis for discussion.