Are there any plans to either:

1) Raise bolster in warzones to 248 or beyond.

2) Or to reintroduce PVP gear and expertise.

These are the only viable options I can think of. Increasing the rate of UCs in warzones is not really an option: too small an increase and it would not solve gear disparity for PVP, and too large an increase and it would rival Operations as a means to get gear.

Are these options currently being considered? And if the answer is a solid no, then please just say so.

And I can only urge you to re-read your own past reflections on gearing for PVP.

I would like expertise back as well, but if that wouldn't work out, maybe there should be another way to separate PvP from PvE players.

When I came back with my old content PvP set there was no fun to be had in warzones. I PvP'd for a while as I decided to just accept it but it became way too frustrating not standing half a chance!

Now I'm farming solely PvE with a friend and our two companions to get geared to use it in PvP. It's extremely mind numbing to do the same fp 3 times a day for 4-6 hours, but it works.

Someday I'll have all the right gear for PvP through PvE!

Just gonna put this here, cause it needs saying again.

Unless youre a dedicated nightmare ops junkie with a team that can clear them efficiently, IE an hour or so, on the regular, without fail, youre wasting your time gearing through OPS. (10 hours of failing to clear bosses vs gaining 300+ comps in the same amount of time + the RNG boxes is a no brainer)

There are only about 10 or so guilds on harb that seem to be able to do this, and there are very limited slots on their teams, most are full up, and youll struggle with frustration trying to teach a new team how to run the mechanics, its absolutely abysmal how few options one has down this path.

PvP on the other hand is a steady guaranteed source of gear, albeit requiring you to participate in PvP, and probably do well if you want to be efficient, but at this juncture of the game, warzones and starfighter are the ONLY way to gear efficiently for most of the game population.

Only the elite raiders will find gearing "easy" through OPS, those of us that do OPs casual or non-hardcore get left out.

I do not believe the current gearing system for PvP is bad, I have several characters fully geared (one is tier 4, two are tier 3, and several others tier 2), and thats only playing a few hours during the week with some grind sessions on the weekends. (hammer runs and the like for boxes, pvp for comps)

The RNG sucks, but filling in the gaps with the comps system is pretty good if you actually work at it and dont try to just do one or the other.

Now I'm farming solely PvE with a friend and our two companions to get geared to use it in PvP. It's extremely mind numbing to do the same fp 3 times a day for 4-6 hours, but it works.

Which fp are you grinding? Seems like a poor return on your time spent.

Which fp are you grinding? Seems like a poor return on your time spent.

Hammer station, it's really quick, takes about 15minutes with 2 people + companions, sometimes less. and I get around 3 levels per run with disintergrate! I'm rank 233 now. I started with fractured but it takes longer and gives less. The quest alone from hammer station with the boost gives 9.2k, and then there are the blue packs from the two bosses and the purple one from the last one. Idk if there are faster ways to do it, but this seems to be the easiest. I'm expecting to be 300 today or tomorrow. But probably tomorrow as I have to work today,

Hammer station, it's really quick, takes about 15minutes with 2 people + companions, sometimes less. and I get around 3 levels per run with disintergrate! I'm rank 233 now. I started with fractured but it takes longer and gives less. The quest alone from hammer station with the boost gives 9.2k, and then there are the blue packs from the two bosses and the purple one from the last one. Idk if there are faster ways to do it, but this seems to be the easiest. I'm expecting to be 300 today or tomorrow. But probably tomorrow as I have to work today,

I don't understand why a 15m fp you are doing 3 times takes 4-6 hours?

A Master Hammer run with a good group of four (even on GF pops with pugs), takes 15 minutes or less (10 if the group is really good) and yields about 18-20k CXP (21k with optional boss)

The weekly bonus gives another 15k for doing three of them.

So doing just the weekly 3 in about an hour with a solid group will yield about 80-90k cxp (15+ crates @ 300). and going on without the weekly running is still a steady 60k/hour.

Considering pops, resets, and all the trappings of grinding FPs, each run is 20 minutes total time.

Heck even the vet mode yields 10k a run or so (all those trash mobs add up pretty quickly, they alone are a couple thousand)

This is with all perks unlocked and a superior boost active, but its 10 or so ranks an hour at WORST if your group is clearing each time efficiently.

I don't understand why a 15m fp you are doing 3 times takes 4-6 hours?

Oh, I grind the boost out and do that multiple times, so thats 2 hours times 2 or 3. I see that the way I wrote it can come across as confusing.

A Master Hammer run with a good group of four (even on GF pops with pugs), takes 15 minutes or less (10 if the group is really good) and yields about 18-20k CXP (21k with optional boss)

 

The weekly bonus gives another 15k for doing three of them.

 

Heck even the vet mode yields 10k a run or so (all those trash mobs add up pretty quickly, they alone are a couple thousand)

 

This is with all perks unlocked and a superior boost active, but its 10 or so ranks an hour at WORST if your group is clearing each time efficiently.

I don't like relying on randoms, so I just do it with 2 and companions. it isn't any slower with a full group and no mistakes are made. Sorc healer + Assassin Dps and 2 level 50 companions, heal and dps works fine. On master mode!

....

There are only about 10 or so guilds on harb that seem to be able to do this, and there are very limited slots on their teams, most are full up, and youll struggle with frustration trying to teach a new team how to run the mechanics, its absolutely abysmal how few options one has down this path.

 

PvP on the other hand is a steady guaranteed source of gear, albeit requiring you to participate in PvP, and probably do well if you want to be efficient, but at this juncture of the game, warzones and starfighter are the ONLY way to gear efficiently for most of the game population.

THIS ^^. For the vast majority of PVE players, gaining 248 gear is extremely difficult with the crappy Tier 4 crates, Yet the worst PVP'ers can get a full set simply by loosing warzone after warzone.

Oh, I grind the boost out and do that multiple times, so thats 2 hours times 2 or 3. I see that the way I wrote it can come across as confusing.

 

 

I don't like relying on randoms, so I just do it with 2 and companions. it isn't any slower with a full group and no mistakes are made. Sorc healer + Assassin Dps and 2 level 50 companions, heal and dps works fine. On master mode!

If you can clear it efficiently, the group setup doesnt matter. I just sometimes run with a fully geared group of friends and we can clear it in about 11 minutes currently (start to finish) Anything less than 20 minutes is still good IMO.

If you can clear it efficiently, the group setup doesnt matter. I just sometimes run with a fully geared group of friends and we can clear it in about 11 minutes currently (start to finish) Anything less than 20 minutes is still good IMO.

I guess it doesn't, but the less people for me personally the better, assuming it doesn't take too long due to lack of gear, at this point which isn't an issue anymore. But the more people you have the more chance there is for some to go afk or other things. I think our fastest run duo was about 13 minutes, but generally its just 15.

Putting Bolster back to 250 is the fastest, simplest, cheapest and IMO the best solution as it will be set like it was pre 5.x, which was higher than the ranked gear.

Ranked gear still gave you better stats than regs too.. so people with BiS would still have the best gear and stats, but it would be a smaller gap

Just gonna put this here, cause it needs saying again.

 

Unless youre a dedicated nightmare ops junkie with a team that can clear them efficiently, IE an hour or so, on the regular, without fail, youre wasting your time gearing through OPS. (10 hours of failing to clear bosses vs gaining 300+ comps in the same amount of time + the RNG boxes is a no brainer)

 

There are only about 10 or so guilds on harb that seem to be able to do this, and there are very limited slots on their teams, most are full up, and youll struggle with frustration trying to teach a new team how to run the mechanics, its absolutely abysmal how few options one has down this path.

 

PvP on the other hand is a steady guaranteed source of gear, albeit requiring you to participate in PvP, and probably do well if you want to be efficient, but at this juncture of the game, warzones and starfighter are the ONLY way to gear efficiently for most of the game population.

 

Only the elite raiders will find gearing "easy" through OPS, those of us that do OPs casual or non-hardcore get left out.

 

I do not believe the current gearing system for PvP is bad, I have several characters fully geared (one is tier 4, two are tier 3, and several others tier 2), and thats only playing a few hours during the week with some grind sessions on the weekends. (hammer runs and the like for boxes, pvp for comps)

 

The RNG sucks, but filling in the gaps with the comps system is pretty good if you actually work at it and dont try to just do one or the other.

It has been mentioned in other threads. Trying to get 248s directly through MM Ops is not an effective or efficient strategy; the loot table is not even complete. On the other hand, doing VM Ops to get 242s is a practical method; they're also more accessible to a larger portion of the player base and don't require one to be particularly elite. Upgrading 242s through UC from PvP takes much less time than gearing solely through PvP which will require 6,000 or so UC per character. The drops from tier 4 crates then become a supplementary source of gear. YMMV.

Reintroduction of PvP-Gear would be very easy. Instead of armor pieces, GC-Crates can drop Tokens, that we can exchange in pve oder pvp-gear.

That would also solve the problem of Implants, Earpieces and Relics, we already got or which are useless.

Reintroduction of PvP-Gear would be very easy. Instead of armor pieces, GC-Crates can drop Tokens, that we can exchange in pve oder pvp-gear.

That would also solve the problem of Implants, Earpieces and Relics, we already got or which are useless.

PVP gear should not be connected to GC unless you gain PVP-tokens in the same manner as the 3.3 - 4.7.3 era.

The whole point is to make PVP about skill and not gear. It should not take longer than 2-4 weeks to get BiS for PVP.

Just gonna put this here, cause it needs saying again.

 

Unless youre a dedicated nightmare ops junkie with a team that can clear them efficiently, IE an hour or so, on the regular, without fail, youre wasting your time gearing through OPS. (10 hours of failing to clear bosses vs gaining 300+ comps in the same amount of time + the RNG boxes is a no brainer)

 

There are only about 10 or so guilds on harb that seem to be able to do this, and there are very limited slots on their teams, most are full up, and youll struggle with frustration trying to teach a new team how to run the mechanics, its absolutely abysmal how few options one has down this path.

 

PvP on the other hand is a steady guaranteed source of gear, albeit requiring you to participate in PvP, and probably do well if you want to be efficient, but at this juncture of the game, warzones and starfighter are the ONLY way to gear efficiently for most of the game population.

 

Only the elite raiders will find gearing "easy" through OPS, those of us that do OPs casual or non-hardcore get left out.

 

I do not believe the current gearing system for PvP is bad, I have several characters fully geared (one is tier 4, two are tier 3, and several others tier 2), and thats only playing a few hours during the week with some grind sessions on the weekends. (hammer runs and the like for boxes, pvp for comps)

 

The RNG sucks, but filling in the gaps with the comps system is pretty good if you actually work at it and dont try to just do one or the other.

If pve grinding is bad on your server it doesnt mean it is bad everywhere. On tre 20+ guilds are running nim operation, and always looking for new members. Currently the best way to gear uo is get 230-242 gear via operations and then buy 248 gear via unassembled components. Which means devs are actually forcing both pvp and pve players do whatever they DONT WANT to do. Pvp players hate pve, whilst pve players hate pvp, so why force us to do what we dont want to? In addition to this, due to Erics recent posts they are going to buff pve gearing progression with making pve bosses drop unassembled components, which apparently will make gearing balance even worse. Who wants to play a game which forces players to do what they DONT WANT to do? I already stated in this thread (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=925161) that we need changes.

P. S. When we get cross-server queues?

P. S. When we get cross-server queues?

They have just stated that is never going to happen.

PVP gear should not be connected to GC unless you gain PVP-tokens in the same manner as the 3.3 - 4.7.3 era.

The whole point is to make PVP about skill and not gear. It should not take longer than 2-4 weeks to get BiS for PVP.

Pretty much this!

For the vast majority of PVE players, gaining 248 gear is extremely difficult with the crappy Tier 4 crates, Yet the worst PVP'ers can get a full set simply by loosing warzone after warzone.

Unfortunately it seems many PvE players are doing this but since most seem to have never done any warzones before it's turned the whole thing into a loss after loss nightmare. In Huttball they seem to think other players are trash mobs to be cleared, the ball spawn point is the boss they must gather round and there's always the twits who thinks they can run the ball solo. In all the capture WZs they will capture then run away and/or ignore assist calls for defence as well as treating ANY mid point like a fabled legendary boss that they must conquer at all costs. I would love to create or join a dedicated PvP team to avoid this but on my server it's not likely.

I'm hoping the Devs are adding more PvE ways for people to get unassembled components leaving PvP free for those who actually know how the wz work.

Are there any plans to either:

 

1) Raise bolster in warzones to 248 or beyond.

2) Or to reintroduce PVP gear and expertise.

 

These are the only viable options I can think of. Increasing the rate of UCs in warzones is not really an option: too small an increase and it would not solve gear disparity for PVP, and too large an increase and it would rival Operations as a means to get gear.

 

Are these options currently being considered? And if the answer is a solid no, then please just say so.

 

And I can only urge you to re-read your own past reflections on gearing for PVP.

1. No do not make it 248, otherwise there is no reason to grind better gear, but it can be raised a bit bolster to make a bit more fair the gameplay perhaps.

2. Absolutely no to making 2 seperate endgame sets again where 1 is ''wz gear bound with expertise'', but a yes for a hidden ''class bound bolster'' what all classes passively then have in both PVE/PVE what can be then tweaked & is only visible for bioware (so it means in not 1 way gear bound).

PVP missions just need an increase of reward to make it more attractive (like let the weekly give 1 or 2 chance cubes for example and a few more tokens.. the possibilities are endless without even thinking for 1 moment that bringing back PVP gear would do an better job, if you wonder why? it is because people are above all greedy, and thus willing to fight over such things(cosmetics/wealth can be attractive enough to let people queue for PVP (and also let world PVP happen.. we have to low rewards for PVP instances and the resource nodes are too few to topple it all off on Iokath (so no reason to fight over resources), that is why it still did not happen world pvp there).

In greed, there lies the solution to let PVP pop even more and even for world pvp, you must let people attract to it, and it is in fact harder content the pvp instance for example, so it should be more rewarding then the pve instance, otherwise you get people for not any 1 reason off their feet to do something like this, same applies for normal warzone queues).

And if you wonder why, no WZ gear with expertise? Because for years people hated to farm 2 sets of gear on PVP servers and walk around with it in their inventory. It is also extremely weird and was a stupid design in this regard, we can complain a lot about Galactic Command, but this was a good change to make 1 solid endgame gear.

The thing can be also achieved by letting the system with ''class bound bolster'' fix the job for us, and then we can be all happy and then you only need to grind 1 set of gear.

I said the same just like Lionflash (who called it bolster, I think it is perhaps better to call it like that and not expertise) I posted in:

''Sorry, simply a no (to bringing back WZ gear), it is better now gearing is so much easier now in concept. We never need to swap anymore between 2 full sets and farm 2 different endgame sets. We can all say a lot of things where wrong with galactic command but this was a good thing, what so many people asked for years on pvp servers, never made fights fair, and if bioware succeeds to make world pvp more attractive again then it will mess up the gameplay there in those areas. So only thing I can think of to find a middle ground is that bioware make 2 invisible buff stat they can tweak for each class a little bit to make 1 class a bit better then the other for pvp/pve to find the balance for all classes. This avoids them temparing with the rotations and most abilities, avoids players that they must grind 2 different sets and walk around with it in their inventory if they want to switch isntances. It must be something also what we can not see and only on bioware's end, what can make and help perhaps bioware for some crude fast adjustments when they notice they overpowered perhaps 1 class a little a bit to much. If they notice it did not work and it is too crude then they can take a closer look at it, just like we see with normal class balancing. This system can be then fast and easy (literally almost 1 button they need to turn up or down speaking figurely) and make it able to faster response, if they say "okay we notice that xxx class does 1% too much damage" and that they tune down then the class with 1% then all abilities dps/healing are lowered. If you wonder how should this work? Just like the old system with expertise, but be aware that then 2 different hidden 'expertise stats' must be made 1 for pve, other pvp, to make fine tuning possible for both grounds. So I hope I gave you an idea how it can be done different, something in the middle of the whole topic. But imo it is okay how we now discuss with bioware openly how the class balances work and that they ask us for our opinion and that we talk about it, so an solution can be found, without to look for gear or make a new hidden 'expertise pve/pvp system. And also an absolute big no, to let us players deal with that whole problem with gearing/ farming 2 different sets. Greets.''

nonsense

The old 204 set toke 1-2 weeks of casual play. The 208 set took 2-4 of casual play. Most could go into level 65 with BiS as they had collected comms from low and midbies. Warzones were only a problem for people who DID NOT BOTHER TO SPEND 2 MINUTES TO READ THE GDAMN BOLSTER RULES! You guys run end game PVE and demand that players "know mechanics" and "have so and so level gear" and be "this particular class", and yet you could not spend 2 minutes to educate yourself about bolster, and blamed everyone when you exploded. #¤%#¤%¤#%¤#%#¤

Stop justifying this extremely annoying PVE grind just so you have avoid having 2 sets. You think gear disparity was bad before? It is much, much worse now. Don't post nonsense in this thread again.

They have just stated that is never going to happen.

Omg, where, why? *** this game is going to die lol people are sicked to run contents with same players. Even on tre i see too often same faces on warzones and flashpoints.

Omg, where, why? *** this game is going to die lol people are sicked to run contents with same players. Even on tre i see too often same faces on warzones and flashpoints.

In this interview I think:

"Cross server never happening, data center upgrades (1 of 3 upgraded) will enable server merges in the future, technical limitations relating to guilds, ships, and banks. If happening, likely to a new server with a new name."

Fully agree. I actually sent a message to Keith a few days ago regarding this exact same topic.

It is no secret to anyone that the new gearing system has caused a large amount of problems throughout the game.

 

In a perfect world each activity would award players with gear at a different rate. For example an OPS player would expect to be fully geared for their tier within a few weeks. And you seem to have somewhat fixed that so far, OPS are almost back to where they need to be.

 

However PVP is still in a horrible state when it comes to gearing up. You introduced Un-assembled components to try and give PVPers a reliable way to complete their gear, however it is still nowhere near fast enough for a competitive environment.

 

Currently if a fresh player were to play a warzone with a full set of 230 gear for the set bonus, they would still get destroyed by anyone in 246s. To catch up to that player they would have to spend a ridiculous amount of time grinding in order to be even remotely competitive.

 

So as you have most likely noticed, this results in some very one sided fights throughout the match.

 

It is also worth noting that most PVPers enjoy playing numerous alts for whatever their group requires. Galactic Command has single-handedly killed the idea of competitive alts unless you want to dedicate a large amount of time towards gearing them up as well.

 

Now I’ll be the first to say it : The Expertise stat was far from perfect. But it still served a very important purpose, it allowed PVPers to gear up in under a day without making gear from PVE content irrelevant.

 

I understand that we are now far too late into the expansion for such a large change. But I hope that you strongly consider adding back PVP gear in the next major update.