Why is Bioware so silent on major gear issues from 5.10?

The sad but honest truth.

Ill be honest with you. I didnt read past this because its your opening statement and doesnt provide any proof (or link of proof) that the game is less fun now than at any point in the past. Fact is you are making your argument based on something that is unmeasurable from a metric standpoint and has so many variations that its impossible to meet from a companies standpoint. Fun is something that cannot be predicted by a company, and can only be implemented when you have a solid idea (read: not a randomly scattered spectrum of thousands of players) of what the majority of your playerbase finds fun. Time has told us that MMOs, and the grind that is innately a part of it, is fun enough for people to buy an MMO and pay a sub and play for hours and hours, years and years. So that is the MMO definition of fun, or expected fun from the general playerbase. Its about as detailed as it can get from a general "what is fun" question.

I find text based MMOs and sport simulators fun. Do you? How many other people do? Some people find fairness to be fun. Do you? Fun is completely relative to whoever you ask, and therefore impossible to determine what will be fun for an entire MMO audience, or even 50% of them. Devs can only expect to pitch their own version of what is fun. You are naive if you think they can truly take input from thousands of differing sources and conclude that 51% or more of their consumer base will definitely agree that its fun.

I will be more than happy to review the rest of your post if you are able to provide the data showing that Swtor is less fun the way it is now. Ill be waiting.

This alone demonstrates Olegs contribution to nearly everythread he posts. Total 180” degree point of view to the majority (or all the posters in the thread) and asking for proof without reading further into the post he’s replying too after reading two lines of an opening statement.

When trying to sink another person’s argument, it helps if you read the post first. Not doing so often makes the point for them.

And i clarified why in my post, which it sounds as though you didnt read either.

Based purely about what I've seen here in the forums and on the r/swtor subreddit, it's rare for anyone to express any indication that they DO find the 5.10 gearing changes fun.

I've seen plenty of complaints. I've seen plenty of people indicating they're skipping the 258 grind. I've seen plenty of people who have indicated they're working around the gearing restrictions and will be gearing up anyways. Nothing in these posts indicate that it is "fun".

I've also seen people who are critical of other people complaining, but those posts don't really say "I find it fun", they say some variation of "you're wrong for complaining because ______"

I'm sure I've missed a post here or there, but off the top of my head, I wouldn't be able to link to any specific post that clearly states they find the new 5.10 gearing system fun.

Has anyone stated they truly found gearing and/or grinding to be fun, in the first place? And if so, what's different between that gearing/grinding that was previously fun, but isnt anymore? In the big picture, not much has changed from gearing system to system.

I can say personally that I enjoyed the PvP gearing in 4.0. It was fast, straightforward, and allowed me to get past the activity of 'getting ready for PvP" and move straight onto the activity of "doing PvP". Other eras of PvP gearing less so. For me (and many many others), gearing is the least enjoyable part of PvP.

As far as PvE gearing goes, I actually did find it fun in the early game.

1. I did SM flashpoints to get familiar with how they worked, and received Tionese gear.
2. I then starting doing HM flashpoints and received Columi gear, which increased my overall power level.
3. I then started doing SM operations and received more Columi gear.
4. I then started doing HM operations and received Rakata gear.

It was relatively straightforward. What I didn't like was the RNG aspect of how gear would drop for a random class. Occasionally, we'd even see gear drop for a class that wasn't present. This was annoying and stupid.

Later on, this was changed so that a "token" would drop for any class. Suddenly, the only RNG you had to worry about was "did I win the drop". It also allowed you to gear up alts easier.

Then, 1.3 introduced the group finder, black hole gear, and back hole commendations. This currency allowed you to purchase the EXACT piece of gear you were looking for. Further reducing RNG.

This continued through the 2.x and 3.x eras. PvE gearing was relatively straightforward, and generally (for me anyway) enjoyable.

PvE gearing in 4.0 was weird. The idea that "featured" HM operations dropped better gear than NM operations was a mistake. It was the era of players doing EV/KP over and over and over. I didn't play much during this area.

5.0 was horrible as far as gearing goes. Everything became RNG. Nothing dropped from any content at all, and there were no currencies that could be used to purchase gear. The only thing you could do is grind grind grind out points for a chance for a random piece of gear. I'm going to guess that more gear was "disintegrated" during the 5.x era than loot drops were sold at a vendor during the entire time of 1.0-4.x.

But changes were made over time, and by the time 5.6 rolled around the GC gearing system had been adjusted to be a more workable system that as near as I can tell, many people seemed to be fine with.

1. Gear actually dropped from the hardest content.
2. UCs could be used to purchase gear.
3. Disintegrating gear gave UCs.
4. UCs were legacy currency.
5. There was a clear upgrade path from 230-236-242-248.
6. A wide variety of content in the game could assist one in their gearing path.

Now we have the 5.10 system. Which added another layer of RNG. Another currency. No upgrade path from 248. Requires players to focus on specific content. Has significant restrictions (e.g. 2 MWCs purchasable per week). No legacy currency. Slot-bound enhancements. Outrageous crafting materials requirements.

So I hope this answers your question:

Man. Thank you for writing this. ^

This is exactly my sentiment, and biggest issue with those who want to criticize those of us that have criticized the new gearing system, conquest, and other parts of the game that simply have been made far less enjoyable than they were in the past with the most recent changes.

These people who want to criticize the ones who are critical of the new system not once have said, "the new system is great, your complaints are way off the mark!"

Instead, what we get is, "you guy's shouldn't complain there are other reasons to enjoy SWTOR," or offer up other diversions that turn into personal attacks instead of an honest discussion of how these recent changes are NOT enjoyable and have actually hurt the game.

The defenders here on the forums can rationalize the changes all they want, but not one of them have proclaimed the changes have been in the best interest of the game, nor have any of them said the changes have improved the gameplay and made the game more enjoyable. That says a lot about the most recent changes to the game.


And this! Gearing was FUN during this period of time, you knew what was needed to gear up, and there was a very solid route to get your gears, added bonus was you could customize your gears so many different ways it was actually enjoyable.

I am going to go with the 180 version here.

It is obvious by the posters that they are less happy with the changes. The fact that people have left the game in droves after updates that they were warned not to release but did anyways... 5.0 is an excellent example.

You again seem to be playing to an extreme version of an extreme minority.

The stated example of massive player loss... measurable by fleet population alone (so much so they have merged servers like 4 times), it is easy to see that YOU would need to prove that more are happy than unhappy about those changes.

People have complained, they didn't listen, and now many if not most of those people are gone.

I am not going to argue with you here. All the evidence anyone needs is in the server merges and fleet population... or for folks like me who have been around from pre-launch - just looking at empty friends lists. Those players are now playing other games. I am more on the forum now than the actual game - I am actually playing something else as well and have been for over the past year.

Everyone should just put the forum spammer (troll) on ignore. I find that it cuts a thread like this down from 7000 pages to only 30 pages.