Another way to look at this is -----> they are simply feeding the perpetual arms race within the PvP player base. Some PvPers love it and some hate it... so it really is a no win.

What do I mean?

You know.. where some PvPers feel they must have some equipment advantage at all times... and hence love it when something new is added stat wise and they race to be the first and have some temporary advantage ... even when largely trivial. Which in turn triggers a "must get them too" meme in a players mind... and the arms race continues.

If PvPers really want no arms race in their MMO... they should be working to make stats not matter in PvP at all.. but that would anger the "must have an advantage through equipment" crowd.

Smart PvPers, even smart end game PvEers, simply will not chomp on a carrot just because it is there. They will assess if there is value worth the effort/investment and make a choice accordingly. With this augments.. there is really little actual enrichment of stats from these.... but some players will obsessively chase even 1 stat point, which is their right.. but I question the value of doing so.

ROFL If you can't scrape up 200k, I'll be glad to run some dailies with you & show you how to make YOUR own credits. lol

Quit spending it on all those new clothes too.

I know...armor is my kryptonite...bought me a Cassus Fett set last night actually...sadly, I've wanted it since it was released into the game, yet I have no toon I actually want to wear it

Another way to look at this is -----> they are simply feeding the perpetual arms race within the PvP player base. Some PvPers love it and some hate it... so it really is a no win.

 

What do I mean?

 

You know.. where some PvPers feel they must have some equipment advantage at all times... and hence love it when something new is added stat wise and they race to be the first and have some temporary advantage ... even when largely trivial. Which in turn triggers a "must get them too" meme in a players mind... and the arms race continues.

 

If PvPers really want no arms race in their MMO... they should be working to make stats not matter in PvP at all.. but that would anger the "must have an advantage through equipment" crowd.

 

Smart PvPers, even smart end game PvEers, simply will not chomp on a carrot just because it is there. They will assess if there is value worth the effort/investment and make a choice accordingly. With this augments.. there is really little actual enrichment of stats from these.... but some players will obsessively chase even 1 stat point, which is their right.. but I question the value of doing so.

I think you attribute more malice and demand/entitlement to the PvP community than there actually is. I think most of them will take a gear advantage when offered, or will feel compelled to get said gear to just not be behind the curve, but it's not like I have ever heard anyone ever ask for new augments or a new gear tier mere months after just getting a new one that is costly to acquire. Of all the foot stomping that goes on around here, this is not one of the topics that I've ever seen, except to say that it is ridiculous that they keep adding grind to old content in place of new content, and gear to ease the pain of class nerfs instead of just leaving well enough alone. (And those complaints I happen to agree with...)

.

I think you attribute more malice and demand/entitlement to the PvP community than there actually is. I think most of them will take a gear advantage when offered, or will feel compelled to get said gear to just not be behind the curve, but it's not like I have ever heard anyone ever ask for new augments or a new gear tier mere months after just getting a new one that is costly to acquire. Of all the foot stomping that goes on around here, this is not one of the topics that I've ever seen, except to say that it is ridiculous that they keep adding grind to old content in place of new content, and gear to ease the pain of class nerfs instead of just leaving well enough alone. (And those complaints I happen to agree with...)

 

.

I understand the PvP community rather well actually.

And I never said they were demanding new gear... only that some PvPers love the chance to get a gear advantage quickly through new gear.. and as such can and will chase it for the min/max advantage it gives them for a time if they are early in on the new gear. Whereas other PvPers could really care less and PvP more for fun and casual enjoyment over being the best of the best at any costs.

In reality.... if a studio removes gear from the PvP equation completely... some players will love it... because it then becomes pure skill vs skill. Yet others will hate it because they very much want some early gear advantage over other PvPers. And frankly.. these dynamics are not new in any regard where MMO PvPers are concerned. The actual game they play may change and said game can and will evolve over time, but the actual dynamics and characteristics of the spectrum of PvPers has not really changed much in a decade. The only new variable is we now days have more Arena Junkies in the PvP spectrum.

At the end of the day..... the issue with new gear or elements of the gear (such as augments) is an economic one more than anything else. Which is why those with poor in game wealth complain and those who work a wealth plan to support their PvP needs just grab the new gear and go with it ASAP.

I think most of them will take a gear advantage when offered.

They absolutely will. You dont need to look that far behind when the Light&Dark xp armor was available, and those extra bit of stats were tied to the armor shells instead of augments. I saw so many people in that gear for those extra few points of stats it was crazy.

Adding new augments 10x times again and again is a terrible idea and feeds into the GTN price inflation too (not everyone crafts/do mats race either. If this would be SWGalaxies crafters would be rich af)

My raid's gonna need my tank dps back after it was taken away from us, so I'll take the new augs.

Even if there wasn't this idiotic system of making pvp and pve stats and gear the same, I'd still be in favor of it. Clearing the hardest content is a priority.

My raid's gonna need my tank dps back after it was taken away from us, so I'll take the new augs.

 

Even if there wasn't this idiotic system of making pvp and pve stats and gear the same, I'd still be in favor of it. Clearing the hardest content is a priority.

You are in favor of new augments even when you dont need any new augments to clear current content? Why?

You are in favor of new augments even when you dont need any new augments to clear current content? Why?

Because he's about to lose a few hundred DPS and needs that edge back? Tanks are losing 5-20% DPS when 5.9 drops. Some are hoping the 240-rating augs will close that gap a bit. Teams that are barely clearing the content now may not be able to do it at all with the drop to tank DPS.

My raid's gonna need my tank dps back after it was taken away from us, so I'll take the new augs.

If your raid is relying on tank DPS to clear DPS checks and beat enrage timers, the DPS in your raid needs to step it up.

If your raid is relying on tank DPS to clear DPS checks and beat enrage timers, the DPS in your raid needs to step it up.

Yes, four DPS doing 9.8k can clear the content. Not every team has four DPS that can pull that off, though, and I don't begrudge those teams for whom the extra 300-400 DPS they've got now to help them clear content.

I understand the PvP community rather well actually.

Do you even post in the PvP forum? I know that's not what it takes to "understand the PvP community rather well", but I've seen you make quite some disparaging or grossly hyperbolic statements about PvPers in the past in this forum, so I question the veracity of your claim.

The way I see it, from Bioware's perspective the new augments fill two purposes:

a) There are too many players who already have BIS gear and they want to create something people can work towards. That said, creating the new augments in-game will likely be harder than the last ones so that it takes longer for the community to acquire them. Like others have said before, it is meant as a bridge until the next large update when an entirely new grind starts and all of our gear will be outdated. I agree with the OP that the time span between the release of the last new augments and these ones were remarkably short.

b) It is important to vary the difficulty of a game as the player progresses. If the difficulty was steady the player gets the feeling that nothing ever changes no matter what they do. Sometimes it needs to become easy to give the player a feeling of achievement, sometimes it needs to become harder (by the introduction of new operations and flashpoints with a heightened difficulty in master and nightmare mode, respectively) to present a new challenge and goad the player. The new augments will make the game easier, not much easier, but it will probably be noticeable.

What I don't quite understand is what the PvP community's stake in this is. The treadmill I described above works only for PvE. In PvP one's opponent always has the same options as the respective player themselves.

I agree with the OP that the time span since the release of the last augments is remarkably short and find this new upgrade rather inconvenient, if not an outright bad thing.

Adding new augments 10x times again and again is a terrible idea and feeds into the GTN price inflation too (not everyone crafts/do mats race either. If this would be SWGalaxies crafters would be rich af)

It is terrible but it most certainly does not add to gtn price inflation. On the contrary it will reduce it by making people spend their credits on these instead of items with a limited supply and in the process removes some credits from the game via gtn tax too.

If the difficulty was steady the player gets the feeling that nothing ever changes no matter what they do.

And that is exactly what is happening now:

• Nerf Skill
  
• New Augs to bolster nerfed skills to pre-nerf level
  
• Rinse
  
• Repeat
  

No actual progression ever made, we just constantly take one step back (nerf) and then some time later one step forward (new Augs).

And that is what Bioware calls "new content" now.

All The Best

No actual progression ever made, we just constantly take one step back (nerf) and then some time later one step forward (new Augs).

Yes, but it does serve it purpose. Suppose level 50 was still max level and Rakata gear still the best gear in game (I don't quite remember the power level, I think it might have been rating 144 and used to end game gear with the first operation, Karraga's Palace). All tactical changes that happened still took place, but without an increase in power level, they would have been squeezed into the existing 50 levels. Would you still be playing the game?

Yes, but it does serve it purpose. Suppose level 50 was still max level and Rakata gear still the best gear in game (I don't quite remember the power level, I think it might have been rating 144 and used to end game gear with the first operation, Karraga's Palace). All tactical changes that happened still took place, but without an increase in power level, they would have been squeezed into the existing 50 levels. Would you still be playing the game?

I'm currently going through the bad side of this : There is fewer and fewer content for levels below 70. I mean, who goes into FPs with a level lower than 70 ?

And it is even worse with OPs. No character can go into OPs these days below level 70. At least I have never seen that since the shift to level 70.

And even if I was going into "group content" below level 70 - I would be hurting the group with a severe lack of a) abilities b) damage/healing/aggro or both.

I have a few characters below level 70, and I really don't want to play KOTFE or KOTFE even although I'm a subscriber, but that ends for me in an dead end. The makers of this game were very eficcient in forcing everyone going into level 70 - where everything is acessible only via subscribing - by locking out content for lower levels.

Which means that lower level content is - what I had kind of predicted - rotting qaway.

I really do miss the times when I could go into an OP with level 50.

I'm currently going through the bad side of this : There is fewer and fewer content for levels below 70. I mean, who goes into FPs with a level lower than 70 ?

And it is even worse with OPs. No character can go into OPs these days below level 70. At least I have never seen that since the shift to level 70.

And even if I was going into "group content" below level 70 - I would be hurting the group with a severe lack of a) abilities b) damage/healing/aggro or both.

 

I have a few characters below level 70, and I really don't want to play KOTFE or KOTFE even although I'm a subscriber, but that ends for me in an dead end. The makers of this game were very eficcient in forcing everyone going into level 70 - where everything is acessible only via subscribing - by locking out content for lower levels.

Which means that lower level content is - what I had kind of predicted - rotting qaway.

 

I really do miss the times when I could go into an OP with level 50.

Um yes you can go into Ops at level 50. Jump into a pug on fleet. Or start one yourself. People run low levels frequently. It's not a big deal & it bolsters you to 70 plus gives decent XP/levels. Now you can't do HM but that's it.

It doesn't hurt the rest of the Ops group unless they're failures already. lol

Same goes with FP's but I do say that's different than Ops because a level 15 in a FP with 70's can't keep up even with bolster because of lack of abilities/utilities. Even if health is fine.

BW this is honestly ridiculous. The 236 augments came out barely 5 months ago, and you released them after mostly nerfing DPS classes thereby pretty much negating any real benefit from the augments. These augments served merely as a credit sink which most people avoided anyway by probably buying credits to buy these augments. 236s have costed millions and millions of credits ever since they released and, with all of this being said, now you want to add MORE new augments?

 

You seriously can't expect any normal legit player or crafter to afford these. Before I took a break around 5.6 I was lucky enough to sit on a few hundred million credits, and when I came back the vast majority of my balance was eaten away by buying augments for my Sorcerer healing and DPS gear. And these 2 sets of gear are still the ONLY 2 in my possession with full 236 augs! Ridiculous!

 

When I told my ranked PvP friends about the new augments, they could not believe you guys are doing this and some have even claimed they may just buy credits to afford them...

 

Please for the LOVE of GOD do NOT add new augments. They are NOT needed nor are WANTED.

The game needs a gear grind. There's literally nothing new to do. What little trickle content we get is old in a week.

The new augments are not necessary to excel at the game. They are a nice reward for doing top-tier content. I imagine the devs would have liked to add another tier and levels to Galactic Command, but can you imagine the rage?

I know, it's totally ridiculous. Most of my friends are simply PvPers and all I'm really interested in in this game is ranked PvP and then playing regs sometimes with my friends - we can't afford this. In PvP these incremental stat increases matter more than BW realizes, as PennyAnn stated earlier, and those of us that don't have an exorbitant amount of credits (like PvPers) don't make the income in order to afford these. We don't play the GTN, we aren't crafters, we don't do prog raiding, and we don't buy cartel items to resell.

 

Instead of punishing those of us who need this gear for activities such as endgame PvP and PvE and don't do much else, they should actually balance classes and buff the DPS of the classes they nerfed so there is no need for these new augments. We got 236s 5 months ago... WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER TIER RIGHT NOW.

*** are you talking about? PVP is how you GET the augments. You don't need the new augments for regs. But they are a nice option.

I don’t understand why we were given new augments only for them to become obsolete after 5 months, making the 236 ones are not easy nor cheap when you have to wait on a chance for one of the mats you need to drop from a Command Crate, or buy them for 1.5 mil on the GTN, I know it’s available from ranked pvp Daily and weekly but I don’t do ranked pvp and have stopped unranked as it’s just not as fun or appealing as OPS are so it just seems like Bioware is just pulling at strings in hopes people will do the flashpoint when I probably won’t if there ends up being a kill option for Theron (will be watching for a video on YouTube) so these augments will not be an incentice to do the flashpoint for me.

Personally if I was Bioware I would have attached the drop to the Iokath OPS, on my server it’s almost impossible to get an OPS group for GOTM because of the difficulties with IZAX, for a lot of people it’s how you have to have at least one person survive at the end of everything just to complete the OPS and that’s not a worthwhile thing for many of us who enjoy OPS to go into an OPS and have a slim chance of completing it without a total whipe at the end cause no one survived the explosion where if the chances of them dropping per boss in SM would be a lot more incentive for people to do the OPS than a flashpoint that comes with the main story that you can randomly be pulled into, though when it comes to Crisis and Traitor, if either pull up I just don’t hit the travel button leave the group and take a lockout to avoid them but my choice and I am just making it clear to Bioware that these augments are not inticing enough for me to want to do the flashpoint with current possibilities right now. No thanks Bioware.

Yes, but it does serve it purpose. Suppose level 50 was still max level and Rakata gear still the best gear in game (I don't quite remember the power level, I think it might have been rating 144 and used to end game gear with the first operation, Karraga's Palace). All tactical changes that happened still took place, but without an increase in power level, they would have been squeezed into the existing 50 levels. Would you still be playing the game?

It's not inherently bad to introduce a new gear level or even a level cap, but it really should be done with a expansion when things are fresh, new, and you're facing different opposition. Yes... it serves as a way to reset the player, but it's masqueraded and hidden, these new augments as are the 236 ones are made solely to introduce a new tier level to grind with no story, continuity or other reason, or at least a good one. Their implemented as a grind due to the lack of content and to make up for loss output due to nerfs.

It makes sense to get new gear upgrades in a expansion as the world, technology, information, and your own skill evolves. You come across a new deadly enemy (Zakuul) and they have more advanced blasters, better saber techniques, stronger and more flexible armor, more efficient medical advances etc. etc. You defeat these enemies and then loot and pillage them adopting your own stronger pieces of armor, weapons, and equipment, and in doing so, adopt new techniques, tactics, or using their own arsenal against them.

These new augments have no story, no reason to truly be integrated other than grinding = content or to make up for nerfs. Theirs no new enemies your facing to explain the increase in stronger equipment, no real story, no any excuse other than to move the goalpost.

And yesh... if the cap was 50 this entire time I still would be playing.

It is terrible but it most certainly does not add to gtn price inflation. On the contrary it will reduce it by making people spend their credits on these instead of items with a limited supply and in the process removes some credits from the game via gtn tax too.

Uhhh... yes it does. All signs are pointing to these new augments being even more expensive than the 236s. The new augs will likely entail needing more mats than the 236s, and with the 236s "settling" at a cost of 3, 4, or 5mil (and they were 6, 7mil+ few weeks after they released) I can't imagine what their going rates will be by those who will be able to "win" the mats race and control the market before prices "settle". I wouldn't even dare call augments costing more than a million "settling" at all. This inflation is disgusting and I'm extremely ticked off that BW won't do anything about it. This isn't affordable to any player who casually plays this game or is only interested in one facet of it (like myself with ranked PvP).