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December Producer Livestream Wrap-up


EricMusco

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Hey folks,

 

Thank you to everyone who tuned in today. Here is a wrap-up of what we talked about:

 

New Chapter 1 KOTET Trial

In-game events live in December:

Gearing Changes in Galactic Command

  • You can work towards specific pieces of gear through endgame activities.
  • Elements of working towards those pieces are legacy-wide.

In PvE

  • Unassembled Gear pieces are a guaranteed drop from the last boss of each Operation, with specific drops on a boss (Ex: Soa dropping chest).
  • Each other boss in an Operation has a chance to drop any token. Bosses that are later in an Operation have a higher chance then those early in the Op.
  • Turn in an Unassembled Gear piece along with Command Tokens (which come from Command Crates) to get that piece of gear.

In PvP

  • Playing any Warzone will earn you Unassembled Components. You earn more based on medals, match outcome, etc.
  • Turn Unassembled Components into a PvP vendor with a Valor requirement to get an Unassembled Gear piece.
  • Turn in an Unassembled Gear piece along with Command Tokens (which come from Command Crates) to get that piece of gear.

General Notes

  • Command Tokens are legacy-wide.
  • Command Tokens will be retroactively granted to each character based on their Command Rank when 5.1 goes live.

 

My interview with SWTOR Central -

 

Our next livestream will be in January!

 

-eric

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This is a repost because I really want someone to see this:

 

Please consider buffing GSF rewards if you're going to buff unranked PVP.

 

The past two weeks have been great for GSF. People are playing more than they have in years, and it's because ti's actually been worthwhile to do so. I love the changes you talked about on the stream, but if you don't increase the rewards for GSF as well, people are going to stop playing it. Again.

 

We're not even asking for new content. That would be great, but realistically, we understand that we are never going to get it when the player base is so small. That's fine; it makes sense. But we are asking you to give people a reason to play. Offer some sort of reward for playing a minigame with a punishing learning curve and a community so small that matchmaking is impossible. It's not easy to keep people around through the learning period.

 

Help us out? No, you don't need gear you get to play GSF, but the whole point of the system is that you can play the way you want to and get gear that way, right? Since bolster is still a thing it would be pretty easy to argue that you don't need gear to play unranked PVP either.

 

Those of us who still play GSF love it. We don't ask for much. Help us keep getting new players interested.

Edited by DakhathKilrathi
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Forgot to ask in the livestream and probably wont get an answer:rak_03: But is there any reason why there isn't any Arcann decor for our strongholds? Acina is missing as well.

 

Anyway a big + on the changes!

Edited by Eshvara
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I really enjoyed the stream. It was great to hear Ben talk about operations players, and him using the word "raid" (even though it's frowned upon by marketing) showed me that there are still devs left who know what raiding is all about. :)

 

Being a progression player, I have two requests:

 

  • Please post the loot tables (which ops boss drops which token) either in the patch notes or on the forums, so we don't have to figure it out ourselves and can plan ahead.
  • Please change the CXP requirements post-rank 181. Right now, getting past 181 feels like a punishment because the loot stays the same, yet the CXP per rank increases. Any of these changes would improve the system:
    • Make it so 181 is the maximum rank.
    • Make the CXP per rank constant for ranks 181-300, so it no longer increases.
    • Decrease the CXP for rank 300 so that there's a small reward for players who get to the end. E.g. one crate every 4000 CXP instead of the 4500-5000 CXP it now requires.

Edited by Jerba
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In PvE

Unassembled Gear pieces are a guaranteed drop from the last boss of each Operation, with specific drops on a boss (Ex: Soa dropping chest).

Each other boss in an Operation has a chance to drop any token. Bosses that are later in an Operation have a higher chance then those early in the Op.

Turn in an Unassembled Gear piece along with Command Tokens (which come from Command Crates) to get that piece of gear.

 

what does that mean ? in Pve we have to do OP now ?

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So if I'm reading this right, the only way to get tier 3 gear with PVE will be either the current Command Crate system OR NiM (Master Mode) operations. But if you have a certain valor amount, you can go to the pvp vendor and trade in your tier 2 unassembled piece + tokens = tier 3 piece.

 

So even if you do nothing but operations, if your valor meets the requirement, you could still take advantage of the pvp vendor. Take hard mode (veteran) operation boss unassembled tier 2 drops to the pvp vendor, add in some tokens, and out comes tier 3. You won't have to do Master Mode.

 

It seems like it will be beneficial to do both PVP and PVE, which sounds fantastic to me.

Edited by teclado
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Nothing in that stream led me to believe that BWA has really listened to the concerns of the players.

They are still primarily concerned with protecting their egos by retaining RNG/GC in any way they can.

 

Nothing mentioned addresses the concerns of players wanting to gear up multiple Alts to fill different roles for their guilds.

 

Nothing mentioned addresses the concerns of casual players who don't (for whatever reason) engage in Ops/WZ - these people are still being thrown under the RNG Grind-Fest Bus.

 

Nothing in that stream gives me any confidence re-subbing would be an appropriate use for my money.

 

All The Best

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So if I'm reading this right, the only way to get tier 3 gear with PVE will be either the current Command Crate system OR NiM (Master Mode) operations. But if you have a certain valor amount, you can go to the pvp vendor and trade in your tier 2 unassembled piece + tokens = tier 3 piece.

 

So even if you do nothing but operations, if your valor meets the requirement, you could still take advantage of the pvp vendor. Take hard mode (veteran) operation boss unassembled tier 2 drops to the pvp vendor, add in some tokens, and out comes tier 3. You won't have to do Master Mode.

 

That might work for a main, but the thing about progression raiding is many run through content with multiple alts. I'm also expecting the valor requirement to be rather high (70+) to prevent raiders from skipping Master Mode Operations.

 

BioWare is essentially making gear progression work as they did previously in both systems. The main difference is that it's the same gear, so PvPers are going to gear faster due to the nature of gear being the same. In other words, there is an incentive for doing all endgame content and not just focusing on one aspect.

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Can you clarify what command tokens are a little more? Are they used exclusively for Op/Pvp gear? Or do they have other uses? Can we trade them in / disintegrate them for CXP?

I watched the stream, and they were pretty clear on this, so I will answer for you.

 

Command tokens are just a currency. You cannot disintegrate them or convert them to CXP in any way. Unassembled tier N (N=1, 2, 3) gear piece + tokens (amount TBD) = tier N gear piece.

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Unassembled tier N (N=1, 2, 3) gear piece + tokens (amount TBD) = tier N gear piece.

 

Translation... we are moving from single grind to DOUBLE grind. Grind crates for tokens, and grind OPs for a chance to roll on an unassembled gear piece. Depending on the costs at the vendor, this may be better or worse..... very much TBD.

 

The vendor path is a good one as it provides certainty of effort (since you can see on the vendor in advance what you need). However it really should be a reputation style vendor in my view, where GC level progressively unlocks access to purchase specific items. Double grinding makes little sense, unless they significantly reduce the GC grind and no indications of this so far.

Edited by Andryah
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Nothing in that stream led me to believe that BWA has really listened to the concerns of the players.

They are still primarily concerned with protecting their egos by retaining RNG/GC in any way they can.

 

Nothing mentioned addresses the concerns of players wanting to gear up multiple Alts to fill different roles for their guilds.

 

Nothing mentioned addresses the concerns of casual players who don't (for whatever reason) engage in Ops/WZ - these people are still being thrown under the RNG Grind-Fest Bus.

 

Nothing in that stream gives me any confidence re-subbing would be an appropriate use for my money.

 

All The Best

Here's how you gear up alts. Run operations on your main, get unassembled drops. Use tokens from any character + unassembled pieces, take them to vendor, get piece. Pull armor / mod / enh from that piece, put it in a legacy gear piece, send to alt.

 

Alternatively, run warzones on your main. Get unassembled components. Turn unassembled components into vendor and get unassembled gear piece. Turn in unassembled gear piece + tokens in to vendor, get gear piece. Once again do the legacy gear thing to send stuff to your alt.

 

If you refuse to do any pvp or ops, then yes: you will have to endure the RNG grind as it is right now.

 

For me, I'm quite happy. Good solution, BW. It's certainly not as easy to get pvp gear as it was in 4.0, but beggars can't be choosers I guess. This is enough to keep me subbed.

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So....the PVE still grind ? So what did they change ? add more gear in OP and PVP ?

 

BioWare has provided a path for PvPers and raiders exclusively to guarantee gear. If you do not run operations or warzones/arenas, you still have to deal with the RNG crate system.

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I applaud you for at least addressing payer concerns quickly, however the changes will make the system too confusing, it will be far more confusing than 4.0 something which you claimed was too confusing. I don't think a command token is needed at all, just have the unassembled gear piece be able to be exchanged for gear without a command token. And I still think GC needs to be legacy wide, the legacy system is made for something like GC.
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BioWare has provided a path for PvPers and raiders exclusively to guarantee gear. If you do not run operations or warzones/arenas, you still have to deal with the RNG crate system.

 

I guess their reasoning is if you do not do OPs or competitive PvP... you don't need higher tier gear... you may want it and you may get it from crates in the long run... but you don't need it.

 

AND... players thinking they do not need to grind crates now... have not yet seen the token requirements to match with an unassembled gear item to get the item they want. ;)

Edited by Andryah
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BioWare has provided a path for PvPers and raiders exclusively to guarantee gear. If you do not run operations or warzones/arenas, you still have to deal with the RNG crate system.

 

So in the end , they arent going to change the CXP reward ? Say for exemple how much you get from Heroic or Flashpoint or re-doing Kotfe and Kotet chapter ?

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Nothing in that stream led me to believe that BWA has really listened to the concerns of the players.

They are still primarily concerned with protecting their egos by retaining RNG/GC in any way they can.

 

Nothing mentioned addresses the concerns of players wanting to gear up multiple Alts to fill different roles for their guilds.

 

Nothing mentioned addresses the concerns of casual players who don't (for whatever reason) engage in Ops/WZ - these people are still being thrown under the RNG Grind-Fest Bus.

 

Nothing in that stream gives me any confidence re-subbing would be an appropriate use for my money.

 

All The Best

 

 

Adding a form of gearing to pvp and ops specifically is something people have been quite vocal about. And they are adding it.

 

Legacy command tokens will help alts.

 

Casual players don't need nim gear and can play the game just fine in their crafted gear. If they want to do the more challenging things they need to do more activity, but not necessarily grouped. That I think is reasonable, its similar to before, but better because they have a shot at set gear in the cmd system, RNG willing.

 

I think the changes are good, was happy to see they are listening, but still need to see how it plays out.

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