To the devs, Musco, Keith and everyone else in charge.

Right now in 5.9 we have a gearing system based on CXP, unassembled components, getting parts from raids etc

and above all you CAN UPGRADE from 236 to 248. This way both PVE and PVP have a pretty straightforward way of getting their gears without doing much of the things they hate to do.

Why has this upgrading system been disrupted by the 5.10 update? why can't we just have the normal UPGRADING SYSTEM available from 248 to 252 and 258 (with some faster progression if you do Ossus stuff)

what is the meaning behind this. No lessons learned. Didnt you upset a huge player base and pretty much lost half of your subscriber base when you went from 4.0 to 5.0 rng crate based gearing progression?

why make it even more complicated now with 5.10... that you can upgrade now only with shematics obtained, "Masterwork Data Crystal" grinding with strict weekly non-sense caps and being forced to farm it based on a lotto system of weekly obejctives etc...

A very high conversion rate of unassembled components to masterwork data crystal with strict weekly cap followed by even insane higher conversion rates. For what? because 0.1% of the population managed to get like 50k UC and so the other 99.9% have to get punished by these insane hoarders? how about let these 0.1% get a free pass and make the other 99.9% work a fair amount for the gear and not vice versa.

And what happens if you have a alt or fresh lvl70? you just skip straight to lvl 252/258 gear and rendering 230-248 gear progression useless?

is this evident more, more and more... devs dont play this game actively. Too much reliance is put on big data and what the "statistics are showing"...like the extreme outliers are having a enormous impact in the decision makings instead of the mean.

Why has this upgrading system been disrupted by the 5.10 update? why can't we just have the normal UPGRADING SYSTEM available from 248 to 252 and 258 (with some faster progression if you do Ossus stuff)

Here a point that i'd like to hear the game designer voice ! it's look "obvious" to change something who works.

I would like to know why the change is necessary too... but expecting an answer is semi-delusional. If they haven't bothered replying to any of the other threads questioning thia decision why'd they reply to this one.

Unfortunately what their customer desires is just about the last thing they seem to care about.

To the devs, Musco, Keith and everyone else in charge.

 

Right now in 5.9 we have a gearing system based on CXP, unassembled components, getting parts from raids etc

and above all you CAN UPGRADE from 236 to 248. This way both PVE and PVP have a pretty straightforward way of getting their gears without doing much of the things they hate to do.

 

Why has this upgrading system been disrupted by the 5.10 update? why can't we just have the normal UPGRADING SYSTEM available from 248 to 252 and 258 (with some faster progression if you do Ossus stuff)

 

what is the meaning behind this. No lessons learned. Didnt you upset a huge player base and pretty much lost half of your subscriber base when you went from 4.0 to 5.0 rng crate based gearing progression?

 

why make it even more complicated now with 5.10... that you can upgrade now only with shematics obtained, "Masterwork Data Crystal" grinding with strict weekly non-sense caps and being forced to farm it based on a lotto system of weekly obejctives etc...

 

A very high conversion rate of unassembled components to masterwork data crystal with strict weekly cap followed by even insane higher conversion rates. For what? because 0.1% of the population managed to get like 50k UC and so the other 99.9% have to get punished by these insane hoarders? how about let these 0.1% get a free pass and make the other 99.9% work a fair amount for the gear and not vice versa.

 

And what happens if you have a alt or fresh lvl70? you just skip straight to lvl 252/258 gear and rendering 230-248 gear progression useless?

 

is this evident more, more and more... devs dont play this game actively. Too much reliance is put on big data and what the "statistics are showing"...like the extreme outliers are having a enormous impact in the decision makings instead of the mean.

I think they just want to force players to grind more and more instead of whining about lack of new content. They have no resources to make new content, fix buggs etc so they are just trying to draw attention from these problems by giving players more forced grinding to do so that slaves (oh sorry - players) stopped whining and start doing something long enough for them to milk money from CM

I think they just want to force players to grind more and more instead of whining about lack of new content.

understand for new player... but for 7 years vet... having to spend 200h for gear up again... it might be consider as a lack of respect !

They have no resources to make new content,

If so... why just adding tier 5 with the current system ... Bioware prov ONCE AGAIN that they have a lake in managing time and resources.

If so... why just adding tier 5 with the current system ... Bioware prov ONCE AGAIN that they have a lake in managing time and resources.

I agree with this sentiment. They obviously have the resources to come up with unnecessary gear grinds, so what they would seem to lack is creativity or caring for their long term playerbase.

I didn't need "new" every few months to hang around, I merely need what i enjoy doing to be enjoyable.

To the devs, Musco, Keith and everyone else in charge.

 

Right now in 5.9 we have a gearing system based on CXP, unassembled components, getting parts from raids etc

and above all you CAN UPGRADE from 236 to 248. This way both PVE and PVP have a pretty straightforward way of getting their gears without doing much of the things they hate to do.

 

Why has this upgrading system been disrupted by the 5.10 update? why can't we just have the normal UPGRADING SYSTEM available from 248 to 252 and 258 (with some faster progression if you do Ossus stuff)

 

what is the meaning behind this. No lessons learned. Didnt you upset a huge player base and pretty much lost half of your subscriber base when you went from 4.0 to 5.0 rng crate based gearing progression?

 

why make it even more complicated now with 5.10... that you can upgrade now only with shematics obtained, "Masterwork Data Crystal" grinding with strict weekly non-sense caps and being forced to farm it based on a lotto system of weekly obejctives etc...

 

A very high conversion rate of unassembled components to masterwork data crystal with strict weekly cap followed by even insane higher conversion rates. For what? because 0.1% of the population managed to get like 50k UC and so the other 99.9% have to get punished by these insane hoarders? how about let these 0.1% get a free pass and make the other 99.9% work a fair amount for the gear and not vice versa.

 

And what happens if you have a alt or fresh lvl70? you just skip straight to lvl 252/258 gear and rendering 230-248 gear progression useless?

 

is this evident more, more and more... devs dont play this game actively. Too much reliance is put on big data and what the "statistics are showing"...like the extreme outliers are having a enormous impact in the decision makings instead of the mean.

I could not agree more. Great post - well worded too. I'm especially pleased you mentioned going straight from level 70, at CR1, to full 252/258 gear...it's nullified the entire CR system.

I would like to know why the change is necessary too... but expecting an answer is semi-delusional. If they haven't bothered replying to any of the other threads questioning thia decision why'd they reply to this one.

 

Unfortunately what their customer desires is just about the last thing they seem to care about.

Given that I think most players in the discussion believe a new tier of gear is not needed to play any content current content and that they are not retuning content to need the new gear .....In my comment to you in another thread......

Here's a conspiracy theory to play with -----> maybe this is all a pre-6.0 experiment by the studio to determine once and for all how much players chase gear for gear sake VS chase gear to be able to play the game. If this were in fact true..... then players chasing this gear will send the message to the studio that what they did here is great and to do more of it... so I encourage players to be mindful of what they do about this gear... because the studio will be watching and analyzing logs to determine player motivators.

I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories.. but every controversy in an MMO forum has them and apparently needs them.

If so... why just adding tier 5 with the current system ... Bioware prov ONCE AGAIN that they have a lake in managing time and resources.

Adding a new tier of gear is not that big an effort really, when it is simply incremental boost in stats. They are simply scaling up from tier 4 marginally here (3-4%). Set bonus will not change, and no new content that actually must have this gear is being added. So it's pretty easy to just gen up a new tier set in this case.

More effort to put in the new vendors and a new sub-currency for the vendors. The new sub-currency is also something I think they are doing to make it easy to harmonize all the different pathways to getting the gear via vendor.

Thinking that adding this new tier is labor intensive is misplaced in my view. It really is more on par with adding some new CM content... because they are not making an expansion style change to gear methodology.. they are simply doing a rinse-&-repeat with a modest scaling in stats. They probably are not even designing new skins... just pulling some skins they already have (released previously or not) off the shelf.

Adding a new tier of gear is not that big an effort really, when it is simply incremental boost in stats. They are simply scaling up from tier 4 marginally here (3-4%). Set bonus will not change, and no new content that actually must have this gear is being added. So it's pretty easy to just gen up a new tier set in this case.

 

More effort to put in the new vendors and a new sub-currency for the vendors. The new sub-currency is also something I think they are doing to make it easy to harmonize all the different pathways to getting the gear via vendor.

 

Thinking that adding this new tier is labor intensive is misplaced in my view. It really is more on par with adding some new CM content... because they are not making an expansion style change to gear methodology.. they are simply doing a rinse-&-repeat with a modest scaling in stats. They probably are not even designing new skins... just pulling some skins they already have (released previously or not) off the shelf.

Have we seen the stats on the new gear? After a painful amount of stat adding, 242 --> 248 gave you a roughly 7% increase in total stat pool. (236 to 242 was about 8.4%)

https://imgur.com/a/CUmFDOp

248 --> 258 is an even bigger leap in item level, which would seem to imply a bigger leap in total stat pool.

I am not fond of the drop off in system either. We could upgrade directly 242 --> 248, but not 248-->258? These vendors will also inevitably be locked behind the new planet, so if i want to gear a new toon i have to do the planet to do so?

And adding more "hamster wheels" is just stupid, frankly. The crowd that played because of MM gear grinds left almost 2 years ago for other games where gearing via MM was a thing.

Have we seen the stats on the new gear? After a painful amount of stat adding, 242 --> 248 gave you a roughly 7% increase in total stat pool. (236 to 242 was about 8.4%)

https://imgur.com/a/CUmFDOp

 

248 --> 258 is an even bigger leap in item level, which would seem to imply a bigger leap in total stat pool.

 

I am not fond of the drop off in system either. We could upgrade directly 242 --> 248, but not 248-->258? These vendors will also inevitably be locked behind the new planet, so if i want to gear a new toon i have to do the planet to do so?

 

And adding more "hamster wheels" is just stupid, frankly. The crowd that played because of MM gear grinds left almost 2 years ago for other games where gearing via MM was a thing.

Here's a SS from Dulfy on 258 gear stats: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/swtor-masterwork-armor.jpg

And adding more "hamster wheels" is just stupid, frankly. The crowd that played because of MM gear grinds left almost 2 years ago for other games where gearing via MM was a thing.

Once again.. we are in complete agreement on this point.. so you are preaching to the like mind here.

As for the actual final gear stats.. until they finalize PTS testing and bundle the patch.. we won't know for absolute sure. But it is clearly incremental (see Dulfy) ... not an expac style reset (where once an expac drops.. random green drops from mobs ~ the BiS of the pre-expac. Is it 3% or 5% or 7%... does not really matter that much at the scales of gear we are playing at right now... because generally.. gear tiers flatten out within an expac release as they progress, NOT widen. Widening comes when a new expac drops. A percentage point here and there matters much more when it means make/break in the ability to complete an encounter. It may give more head room for the player who lacks skill or skill discipline.. but that's about it.

And I encourage players to let it sink in that in all likely hood random green mob drops will be at rough parity with your coveted BiS gear when a new expac drops. The only thing missing will be set bonus on those greens.. but since everyone will be leveling new levels again... it does not matter much as people dial in to the new expacs BiS once they reach level cap.

Here's a SS from Dulfy on 258 gear stats: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/swtor-masterwork-armor.jpg

Dang it now more math to do, edit in a few

Ok its 5%

That's it? Meh

Keep in mind this is all very rough as im literally googling the item then adding all its stats for a total and taking a %difference.

Out of comparison i considered the augments:

228 --> 236 in just the augment was a 28.5% increase

236 --> 240 is 5.31%

BUT when you add this to the stats on the 248 gear:

248 + 228 --> 248 + 236 is a 2.5% total stat pool increase

248 + 236 --> 248 + 240 is a 0.6% increase in total stat pool

So this gear change will be roughly twice as significant as 236 augments. Trying to decide what that implies.