The changes will not be enough. Continuing to tie standard gearing to galactic command is a mistake again. One piece of guaranteed loot for an eight person op that takes an hour or more is not fair risk reward set up either. Making them do all that then still requiring something else is silly. To fix the system they really need to hear what they have been told. And clearly they have been told their new system is not liked or wanted by enough people that they sent out a survey, held another live stream, and are making changes right away. But they still aren't listening and really accepting what they are being told.

To fix things they need to accept their system is not acceptable as the standard gearing method in the game for those who actually do group content. Remove any aspect of command rank/command level/or command tokens from the standard gearing method. What does that mean? Wel let's list that:

1). Every single operation boss drops a guaranteed ua piece, everyone, not a chance to drop them, they all drop them every time.

2) The bosses in hm flashpoints should drop something for the people playing those, maybe partial pieces similar to PvP match.

3) PvP you can earn partial pieces and eventually full ones.

4) None of these piece require anything to do with with command rank, none. No command tokens, nothing. You have a UA you go and turn it in for the piece you earned. End of story. The piece you earned is not based on command level, its based on the difficulty of the boss you beat. Beat a sm boss, you get a sm UA piece. Beat a hm boss, you get a hm UA piece. I don't care if your command rank is 1 or 300, you beat a NiM boss and get the UA from it, you get a NiM level piece. For PvP you want a hm level piece, fine first you collect the sm one using your pieces now with that and set of more pieces you can now get a hm pice. Command rank and tokens are not involved in this in any way.

That is the standard gearing method now. For the alternate method for those who only do solo play they can use the command crates and command tokens. Allow them to buy the piece they want with x number of tokens given they have the right rank. This would allow them to complete sets slowly but still complete them with a known workaround for when lady luck isn't their friend. This method can also be used for raiders/pvper as a secondary method.

I don't include GSF because it has no gear requirement nor use. You don't use gear you would earn in any of these methods so its not really key to being able to complete or enjoy that part of the game. People who play GSF wont need any better gearing options then they have now.

I admit this system favors raiders vs PvPers. But there is a reason. Risk vs reward. There is no risk of getting nothing in PvP. You will get something if you participate. Getting 8 medals is easy, you can do that sleep walking for the most part. The only two classes that can come up short even doing well are sentinel/mara and gunslinger/sniper, because they mostly medal only through objectives and damage they have more limited ways to get to 8. Every other class has healing/guarding as a method that will make getting to 8 super easy. More importantly there is no cost to PvP outside of time, you put the time in you get the gear you don't have to repair or gather 8 people you que and your good. In an op you risk failure. If you fail to get past a boss, you don't get loot not only for that boss but all the remaining bosses. If underlurker on HM stops you that's not one piece you failed to get but three. And there is significant cost to repairing your gear afterwards. Worse the time usage is much higher, you can fail at underlurker as I mentioned above and do so spending two hours of your playing time. In two hours you can easily do 4(very low ball 8 would be possible on a friday night) PvP matches and have 4 pieces of a token the raider will have 2 full pieces, but divided among 8 people.

Anyway their fix is sugar coating it isn't a real fix. It still includes too much random and their silly galactic command stuff which should have nothing to do with standard gearing. They need to really listen this time and remove the random from the standard gearing process.

Well said.

They are slowly realizing people hate this system. However people hated it before it went live, people hate it after it went live and people will hate it in the future. Now, Bioware is "reinventing the wheel" as one user said in another thread.

So the system is soooooo GREAT that you are implementing parts of your own system aka admitting defeat! I really dont get their thinking.

1). Every single operation boss drops a guaranteed ua piece, everyone, not a chance to drop them, they all drop them every time.

No. Simply and utterly no. This is subjective. It is rooted in my own (subjective) sense of rewards:

I do not need this participation token principle. There is no issue with running an operation two or three times for a piece of gear. Espescially not on different characters. There is no reasonable justification to say: "You just did one run of Ravagers story mode! Here is an entire set of tier 1 gear for your troubles!" It's a boring mechanic, and it is ten times worse than 4.0 with it's highlighted operations ever was.

If you want gear, you can certainly work for it. Just handing you an entire set of tokens for every mindless SM run you do is the most boring suggestion I have ever heard.

Safety mechanics so you are rewarded a single piece of guaranteed gear for your time investment of X hours? Sure. But there's no way in hell I'd agree to someone getting an entire set of gear as personal loot for running a single operation on a single evening. It's boring. It's instant gratification. It beats the entire point of working for BiS gear. If you can just run one SM, one HM and then one NiM to get BiS gear on almost any character? What's the point of gear progression?

If this was meant to represent that every boss drops a token similar to 4.0, and that drop doesn't involve personal loot, then I take that back. I can get behind that.

2) The bosses in hm flashpoints should drop something for the people playing those, maybe partial pieces similar to PvP match.

That can be discussed though. There should be a way for everyone to obtain set pieces through certain activities. The rate at which the different activities acquire the full tokens should be different though.

No. Simply and utterly no. This is subjective. It is rooted in my own (subjective) sense of rewards:

 

I do not need this participation token principle. There is no issue with running an operation two or three times for a piece of gear. Espescially not on different characters. There is no reasonable justification to say: "You just did one run of Ravagers story mode! Here is an entire set of tier 1 gear for your troubles!" It's a boring mechanic, and it is ten times worse than 4.0 with it's highlighted operations ever was.

 

If you want gear, you can certainly work for it. Just handing you an entire set of tokens for every mindless SM run you do is the most boring suggestion I have ever heard.

 

Safety mechanics so you are rewarded a single piece of guaranteed gear for your time investment of X hours? Sure. But there's no way in hell I'd agree to someone getting an entire set of gear as personal loot for running a single operation on a single evening. It's boring. It's instant gratification. It beats the entire point of working for BiS gear. If you can just run one SM, one HM and then one NiM to get BiS gear on almost any character? What's the point of gear progression?

 

If this was meant to represent that every boss drops a token similar to 4.0, and that drop doesn't involve personal loot, then I take that back. I can get behind that.

 

 

 

That can be discussed though. There should be a way for everyone to obtain set pieces through certain activities. The rate at which the different activities acquire the full tokens should be different though.

I think your misunderstanding me. One UA from each boss for the entire group of 8 players. So no one person will end up with a full set of gear after one run, 5/8s of the people will get one piece each.....

I['m not sure why they refuse to admit the GC system is a failure for end gamers. The message was clear, get rid of it as far as end game gearing goes, but instead of doing that, they have come up with a system more complicated than anything they had before. I don't get it and I doubt it will bring back most of the subs who have already left, but we'll see. My sub goes into Feb, so I'll hang out and see how it goes. But, I'm also looking at other games still.

bw wont get rid of it no matter how bad things get because of business. Keeping in GC and the massive grind it brings combined with the RNG is a carrot on a stick they have to push in game. They have no real repeatable content besides uprisings and apparently there not a bit hit (similar to GC).

What we will get is convoluted ways to push gamers into the GC grind (now for comamnd tokens) and then change things like uprisings CXP as to push gamers there just like they moved to PVP because it was too good to pass up even if you hated PVP and just stood around.

bw has no plans to give up on GC or the RNG casino aspect of 5.0

No matter what awesome suggestions gamers make or how well a better idea is presneted. If they cannot keep GC, you might as well have not said it.

Look at the proprosed changes coming to GC and RNG gearing. Did it really solve all that much? No not really.

One because we have no idea of the command rank costs. Cost to high and you are still subject to the garbage RNG crates.

Two, because unassembled pieces do not drop off every boss. Meaning even if you killed HM or Nim bosses, you are still subject to the RNG we were trying to get away from except the last boss. There kicker there being some early bosses are much harder than the last ones.

It's crazy trying to watch bw force GC and RNG into the game to prolong already old content but thats why bw wont let us get away from GC. I'm realy starting to think there is a small CO leak at bw headquarters.

well 1 token per op is a bit too little, considering S&V for example has 7 bosses... but this way they're making sure people actually finish the raids they do instead of just winning the piece they wanted and dropping out after that. i know it doesn't happen all that much, but it happen. :D let's not criticize the gift we're getting, okay??

i mean, let's at least wait until 5.1 drops and we can test it out.... and then we can start whining again lol.:D

it might not be enough, i'll agree, but really, it's a good place to start :D give them a break, it was nice of them to reach out and try to fix the mess they created

So much this

The changes will not be enough. Continuing to tie standard gearing to galactic command is a mistake again. One piece of guaranteed loot for an eight person op that takes an hour or more is not fair risk reward set up either. Making them do all that then still requiring something else is silly. To fix the system they really need to hear what they have been told. And clearly they have been told their new system is not liked or wanted by enough people that they sent out a survey, held another live stream, and are making changes right away. But they still aren't listening and really accepting what they are being told.

 

To fix things they need to accept their system is not acceptable as the standard gearing method in the game for those who actually do group content. Remove any aspect of command rank/command level/or command tokens from the standard gearing method. What does that mean? Wel let's list that:

 

1). Every single operation boss drops a guaranteed ua piece, everyone, not a chance to drop them, they all drop them every time.

 

2) The bosses in hm flashpoints should drop something for the people playing those, maybe partial pieces similar to PvP match.

 

3) PvP you can earn partial pieces and eventually full ones.

 

4) None of these piece require anything to do with with command rank, none. No command tokens, nothing. You have a UA you go and turn it in for the piece you earned. End of story. The piece you earned is not based on command level, its based on the difficulty of the boss you beat. Beat a sm boss, you get a sm UA piece. Beat a hm boss, you get a hm UA piece. I don't care if your command rank is 1 or 300, you beat a NiM boss and get the UA from it, you get a NiM level piece. For PvP you want a hm level piece, fine first you collect the sm one using your pieces now with that and set of more pieces you can now get a hm pice. Command rank and tokens are not involved in this in any way.

 

 

That is the standard gearing method now. For the alternate method for those who only do solo play they can use the command crates and command tokens. Allow them to buy the piece they want with x number of tokens given they have the right rank. This would allow them to complete sets slowly but still complete them with a known workaround for when lady luck isn't their friend. This method can also be used for raiders/pvper as a secondary method.

 

I don't include GSF because it has no gear requirement nor use. You don't use gear you would earn in any of these methods so its not really key to being able to complete or enjoy that part of the game. People who play GSF wont need any better gearing options then they have now.

 

I admit this system favors raiders vs PvPers. But there is a reason. Risk vs reward. There is no risk of getting nothing in PvP. You will get something if you participate. Getting 8 medals is easy, you can do that sleep walking for the most part. The only two classes that can come up short even doing well are sentinel/mara and gunslinger/sniper, because they mostly medal only through objectives and damage they have more limited ways to get to 8. Every other class has healing/guarding as a method that will make getting to 8 super easy. More importantly there is no cost to PvP outside of time, you put the time in you get the gear you don't have to repair or gather 8 people you que and your good. In an op you risk failure. If you fail to get past a boss, you don't get loot not only for that boss but all the remaining bosses. If underlurker on HM stops you that's not one piece you failed to get but three. And there is significant cost to repairing your gear afterwards. Worse the time usage is much higher, you can fail at underlurker as I mentioned above and do so spending two hours of your playing time. In two hours you can easily do 4(very low ball 8 would be possible on a friday night) PvP matches and have 4 pieces of a token the raider will have 2 full pieces, but divided among 8 people.

 

Anyway their fix is sugar coating it isn't a real fix. It still includes too much random and their silly galactic command stuff which should have nothing to do with standard gearing. They need to really listen this time and remove the random from the standard gearing process.

well 1 token per op is a bit too little, considering S&V for example has 7 bosses...

Speaking about that you made a typo in your sig. 5/5 nim s&v doesn't compute

Speaking about that you made a typo in your sig. 5/5 nim s&v doesn't compute

... oops >.> lol didn't even notice >.> thanks lol. it's just habit to think that there's 5 in every one of them x.x

but seriously, as soon as the stream is out, and they are taking steps towards us people start wailing for more. come on, let's at least wait and see what happens once 5.1 comes out:eek:

well 1 token per op is a bit too little, considering S&V for example has 7 bosses... but this way they're making sure people actually finish the raids they do instead of just winning the piece they wanted and dropping out after that. i know it doesn't happen all that much, but it happen. :D let's not criticize the gift we're getting, okay??

i mean, let's at least wait until 5.1 drops and we can test it out.... and then we can start whining again lol.:D

it might not be enough, i'll agree, but really, it's a good place to start :D give them a break, it was nice of them to reach out and try to fix the mess they created

No. No more giving them a break or waiting to see how these changes work. They demanded that the first time when everyone with half a brain saw the train wreck coming. They ignored every comment about how hated their system would be said wait and see and then...we hated it even more. So sorry, no they had their chance to do right, THEY FAILED.

Now THEY NEED TO ACTUALLY LISTEN and change their direction before its too late once again. Drop this focus on galactic command.

But the real problem is that people dont gather up for anything else than daily reward. No other operations than the one that is on gf. Fleet is stagnated and everyone is doing pvp because its the fastest way to do the freaking cxp grind fest. Meanwhile the guaranteed loot would bring more movement to the game. There would be a damn reason to do something else than uprisings or pvp.

This would help with that. People would gather for ops again. Even for hm fps if we come up with a decent reward for them too. It would be an MMO once again.

No. No more giving them a break or waiting to see how these changes work. They demanded that the first time when everyone with half a brain saw the train wreck coming. They ignored every comment about how hated their system would be said wait and see and then...we hated it even more. So sorry, no they had their chance to do right, THEY FAILED.

 

Now THEY NEED TO ACTUALLY LISTEN and change their direction before its too late once again. Drop this focus on galactic command.

and i tell you again, this is NOT entirely true for the entire community. a lot of people are just angry about the RNG. i was a bit pissed that there was no way to make the grind faster or mitigate bad RNG, cause force knows, RNG certainly hates me, but in my opinion they're giving us a way to still keep gearing up. you think 1 token guaranteed is too little? yes i think so too. am i gonna yell at them to scrap the entire system? no i won't. if i think raids are not rewarding enough, i'll go pvp instead. at least i won't depend completely on luck.

do i hope they make some more steps forward such as having more than 1 token per raid? hell yes. do i hope they add token fragments as reward for flashpoints and uprisings and groupfinder reward? absolutely.

but again, i'm not gonna behave like a rabid creature and demand complete surrender lol.:D

... oops >.> lol didn't even notice >.> thanks lol. it's just habit to think that there's 5 in every one of them x.x

And seriously, not even Zorn & Toth from EC? It has always been one of my favourite ops.

I['m not sure why they refuse to admit the GC system is a failure for end gamers. The message was clear, get rid of it as far as end game gearing goes, but instead of doing that, they have come up with a system more complicated than anything they had before. I don't get it and I doubt it will bring back most of the subs who have already left, but we'll see. My sub goes into Feb, so I'll hang out and see how it goes. But, I'm also looking at other games still.

Exactly, they can keep the GC system for those who actually like it and for those non-end game players to gear. But all we want is to be able to gear like we did in Operations in 4.0, nothing more nothing less and they already know how 4.0 worked so what's the issue?

Exactly, they can keep the GC system for those who actually like it and for those non-end game players to gear. But all we want is to be able to gear like we did in Operations in 4.0, nothing more nothing less and they already know how 4.0 worked so what's the issue?

Well if they change Ops gearing to the way it was in 4.0 it will force people who PvP to play OPs in order to compete in PVP.

And seriously, not even Zorn & Toth from EC? It has always been one of my favourite ops.

eee i'll have to check lol, i totally forgot about htat horrible place, i've got some serious trauma in that op

Well if they change Ops gearing to the way it was in 4.0 it will force people who PvP to play OPs in order to compete in PVP.

very much this^^

No. No more giving them a break or waiting to see how these changes work. They demanded that the first time when everyone with half a brain saw the train wreck coming. They ignored every comment about how hated their system would be said wait and see and then...we hated it even more. So sorry, no they had their chance to do right, THEY FAILED.

 

Now THEY NEED TO ACTUALLY LISTEN and change their direction before its too late once again. Drop this focus on galactic command.

Wait, so they listen and take steps and you cry because they didn't take enough steps?

Don't make perfect the enemy of the good.

Also, your idea is just terribad. Returning to bosses dropping tokens or gear that we have to roll for is a return to the ninja life. I and many others were so @#$%^$%# tired of people stealing gear. Props to the devs for an attempt to improve the current system after listening to feedback, but returning to gear drops means returning to uneasy ops and wondering who is going to run away with my gear.

It was always RNG, because that's what /need is. To quote the world's best spy: "duh and/or hello". The difference is that the new RNG created a worse drop rate of set bonus pieces. If they can bring the overall drop rate back closer to where it was without subjecting us to the greed of our fellow ninja players, I call it a solid win.

I'll leave your 'half a brain' quip out there, although if you're going to keep softballing them over the plate...

It was always RNG, because that's what /need is.

You are wrong. The loot was KNOWN (not the random crap, the token). Your roll on it may have been RNG, but you 100% knew EXACTLY what was dropping from every boss, every time. If you went with a group of friends and needed the chest, and they agreed, you were 100% guaranteed to get it from the correct boss.

You are wrong. The loot was KNOWN (not the random crap, the token). Your roll on it may have been RNG, but you 100% knew EXACTLY what was dropping from every boss, every time. If you went with a group of friends and needed the chest, and they agreed, you were 100% guaranteed to get it from the correct boss.

Yep. Winning the lottery is random, playing the lottery is not.

I was fairly impressed that they're working toward a change so soon. While it isn't dumping the stat'd gear from the RNG system, which is what I would prefer, I think this is a good starting point to fixing the bad idea.

From what I understood, and please correct me if I didn't understand correctly, each boss from an op will drop some sort of gear token that's somewhat randomized for the early bosses. For the final boss of the OP there will be a specific piece of gear that is known so the people who need it know where to go in order to get it.

Each CXP box will also drop the new currency, used in conjunction with the tokens, to get other specific pieces of gear from a vendor.

To me, this system solves my main complaint with the RNG from the CXP boxes...the having to rely on "RNGesus" for your gear. Now you have a specific way to work toward a full set of gear, that isn't random in any way, and still uses the CXP boxes which the devs are so geeked about.

Also, you still have the chance at set pieces from the CXP boxes like (the new) normal.

My main issue with the idea of only the boss dropping a guaranteed gear token is the fact (as someone else has pointed out in another thread) people will just start creating lockouts to the end boss and farming it over and over and over, just like they do for conquest points now. Why do the whole op and spend hours for one token when you can spend 15 minutes on the final boss alone, then switch to an alt and do it again?

This is why I'm going to keep pushing for each ops boss to drop a token. (Maybe a random token for the non-final boss drops? So you'll still get a token for sure but it could be for any slot? That might throttle gearing up a bit without depriving people of the actual drops). Just make sure we don't do the highlighted HM of the week again; farming EV and KP for top end gear in 4.0 was definitely too easy.

My main issue with the idea of only the boss dropping a guaranteed gear token is the fact (as someone else has pointed out in another threat) people will just start creating lockouts to the end boss and farming it over and over and over, just like they do for conquest points now. Why do the whole op and spend hours for one token when you can spend 15 minutes on the final boss alone, then switch to an alt and do it again?

 

This is why I'm going to keep pushing for each ops boss to drop a token. (Maybe a random token for the non-final boss drops? So you'll still get a token for sure but it could be for any slot? That might throttle gearing up a bit without depriving people of the actual drops). Just make sure we don't do the highlighted HM of the week again; farming EV and KP for top end gear in 4.0 was definitely too easy.

That won't be a wise strategy. This would mean that you lose all the possible gear drop from the other bosses. For conquest people do it exactly because they are not interested in the loot.