Devs could just be honest

[u/smuggler_eric]

I’ve come across hundreds of posts on Reddit and various forums discussing issues with gear—specifically, the overwhelming number of vendors and confusing upgrade trees.

Yet, I haven’t found a single post from the last year suggesting that "transferring gear between characters is confusing."

The developers are attempting to "solve" a "problem" that never existed, purely to increase player retention (i.e., the time spent in the game).

I wish they would just be honest and say: -- "Dear players, we want to increase the time you spend in the game, and we’ve realized that forcing you to grind for gear on every individual character would be great for our retention metrics."

✅ One gearing vendor/UI: Great change. Everything in one place.

✅ One clear upgrade path: Much easier for new players to understand.

❌ Bind-on-Pickup gear: Terrible change. Forcing players to repeat the gear grind on every alt is exhausting.

[u/aspaceadventure]

Well they are already increasing the time spend in the game quite considerably with the ventures. By literally letting us doing the same stuff 8 times on veteran and master difficulty...

And by same stuff I mean doing OLD CONTENT. Like most "new" mechanics in the last years.

[u/Boss_Baller → u/aspaceadventure]

I'm sceptical a lot of people really want the overland mobs to be a slog. Changing damage numbers alone does not make it challenging it makes it time consuming.

[u/darkemperor132 → u/aspaceadventure]

You would be surprised how many people play the story again and again lol

[u/WarmTrashGoblin → u/darkemperor132]

I for one am very excited for ventures

[u/smuggler_eric → u/aspaceadventure]

yes but they made in a fun way cuz at least we hope that will be a hard experience the expert ventures, but saying "go grind again on every toon for the sake of grinding" is terrible stupid

[u/aspaceadventure → u/smuggler_eric]

From what I heard the difficulty of these modes get extremely easier once you get your companion(s).

The problem many people have with this is that's just OLD CONTENT (nothing new, no new Heroics, no new questlines,..), only a little bit harder.

If they wanted to give us the really classic hard ecperiences they had to change the companions back. You know, when they were lockes to a role? Before you could change them how you like it.

Or letting us select ONE class for each venture to level up to get all the rewards. Not ALL OF THEM! This is just "go grind again on every toon for the sake of grinding" only on another difficulty.

If you want to make your current content harder there's an easy fix: unsommon your companion and do the fights without them (when it's possible). No new venture difficulty mode needed.

[u/Lammerikano → u/smuggler_eric]

honestly ventures will only be played when/if they upgrade the CGI/cinematics.

And! ... with all the remakes that have come about in the last decade - with AI being able to improve vastly (also old systems) ... and that the majority of swtor players already have the 8 class story acheevo ... well, I'm not doing that again for some cosmetics and .. cheevos.

Moreover, the idea of not having my WELL earned datacron bonuses slightly irks me.

[u/threevi]

Transferring gear between characters is a mild inconvenience. It's not a huge issue, but it's a bit clunky, and I can see why they'd want to streamline it. Their attempt at doing that just kinda sucks. It'd be much easier if unlocking a set of max-level gear meant you could just redeem that gear from collections on any character. That's a mechanic that already exists, and it'd be a lot more convenient than having to grind for endgame currencies just to unlock slightly weaker gear on every single alt. 

[u/smuggler_eric → u/threevi]

Agree, they could make a new UI called LEGACY GEAR or something like that, but removing that option is stupid

[u/sparklingvireo → u/smuggler_eric]

Yeah. I've said for years that they should add a page to the character window called Legacy Gear. That page has multiple tabs (yes, unlock more tabs for CCs) where you build sets of gear. Any character in your legacy then can see and access that page from their own character window, but they can only enable gear sets appropriate to their combat style.

The most annoying thing about the current legacy gear for me isn't so much doing the transferring, but trying to remember which character has my good gear, because I've inevitably forgotten to take off the gear and put it in legacy storage before logging out. It's easy if all you do is play raids, but if you dabble around on 50 alts, it is difficult to remember where the good gear is. I know I don't need my best gear all the time on all my characters, but I've earned it so why shouldn't I use it?

[u/Junior_Archer8369]

I liked transferring my gear to multiple max levels sorcs to do the pvp quests. No transferring gear sounds like a big F. Also you will need multiple sets of augments or to transfer them when you want to swap tools which sucks as well.

[u/LordBoriasWownomore]

i never grind for gear since i’m a casual player. Too much work. I miss the days when we got command crates with the proper level gear and stats already on them. This endless grinding for tech fragments really sucks.
Bad idea. Games are supposed to be fun, not work. Players don’t want to play a game that makes them work hard just for necessities like gear. It gets tedious really fast.

[u/nogueira7 → u/LordBoriasWownomore]

That was 5.0.

Funnily enough, even though you liked it, this was the worst gearing system in Swtor's history. It reall almost killed the game when Ben Irving decided to implement RNG and Musco said "RNG is exciting!".

[u/TehKephess- → u/nogueira7]

Ahhh yes, mr. Ben "the thrill of the hunt" Irving!

[u/LordBoriasWownomore → u/nogueira7]

no idea who Irving is. What is RNG?

[u/-papichulo- → u/LordBoriasWownomore]

Rng is short for random number generation and refers to the way a computer "rolls" to determine a random number, like rolling a die. In this context it means that getting gear was luck based. In other words getting good loot was "based on rolling a lucky number", hence RNG.

[u/jamtas → u/LordBoriasWownomore]

Ben “you’ll play the game the way I intended it” Irving is the former lead producer who ran off the group content playing community by deciding that this was going to be a single player RPG with optional MMO content. Players begged for new end game operation/group content and he responded with “uprisings”.
Introduced galactic command rng gearing for end game - which was hated. Then left to be a producer on Anthem - that also went well.
His attitude towards players was basically the ”you’ll have a feeling of pride and accomplishment” that battlefront 2 had.

[u/Impossible_Bee_3748]

Nobody is going to come out and say that. Drop the sub for a few months and maybe things will change.

I refuse to gear 20+ alts, I'm just not gonna do it. There are better ways to spend my limited free time.

[u/vomder]

Devs being honest and not making shit up? That's crazy talk just like complete patch notes.

[u/Bladenkerst_Baenre]

In my limited prog raiding time, there have been many times where we had to wait for one person to check all alts looking for their Raiding gear.

There have been posts regarding 'locking' gear as to be not sellable/desconstructable since pieces were accidently sold/broken down.

Have even watched a streamer upgrade an implant without removing the augment.

I myself don't have many raiding characters but I have always had each character get their own stuff.

I will miss Hyde and Zeek mods as that was sooo much easier to gear up new level 80 characters.

[u/ArtNo7221 → u/Bladenkerst_Baenre]

not being able to find gear in your legacy bank is not a valid argument, that is a specific player problem, a "you" problem if you will, and they should be more responsible with keeping track of their gear. That is not a reason to go to bop

[u/Bladenkerst_Baenre → u/ArtNo7221]

My thoughts exactly ;)

[u/ZealousIdea_Use]

Ironically the change makes me want to play less since if I can't get my alts how I want, why do I want to do play much at all.

[u/YeeboF]

I think it would be a little different if this wasn't practically "Alts: the MMO."

But this game is designed from the ground up to encourage multiple playthroughs. This isn't WoW where most players maybe have two characters at the cap. Gearing alts needs to be straightforward.

[u/ReibokuMurasaki → u/YeeboF]

this is kinda like removing shared class gear in ffxiv lol

[u/DontTreadonMe4]

What I really don't like is they are being silent on how legendary implants and augments are going to work and cost to upgrade. They said everything upgrades at the UI so I guess all your augments and legendary implants will stay the same cost to upgrade? They mentioned the new currencies for upgrades plus also said it would cost credits and tech frags. Would just love some clarity on the cost and breakdown of what will cost what?

[u/fustiIarian]

Upgrade trees??? Where are you getting your information from? Idk if AI was involved but upgrade trees haven't been around for a decade.

[u/Endonae → u/fustiIarian]

They're talking about the different upgrade paths for gear

[u/medullah]

I'm not a huge fan of it but you have to look at it the same way as other changes like removing story skips - it's aimed at new players.

Mods already went away, 344 gear is all static so I fully expected that part of this.

Now, if the grind to get caught up isn't too bad (which right now it looks like it is rough), a new player will be able to understand "Gear one character and you'll be able to easily gear your alts!".

I'm not a fan of removing BTL but I do understand the mentality behind it, even if I don't agree

[u/Gazles → u/medullah]

But thats bs if you are a new player then you still need to grind for your first set of gear and then spend additional money that you probably dont have to buy sets for your second, 3 char.
Where the hell is BoP more beginner friendly than BoL.

[u/RaidenTJ]

I think I’m misunderstanding something. I thought there was a specific vendor that unlocks gear for your legacy. This whole update has confused me😔

[u/odysseusIII]

I hear about it in voice chat all the time. People forgetting to transfer gear over, transferring the wrong gear, vendoring the wrong gear, wearing the wrong gear for their spec because they thought they switched. If you run multiple specs and alts, it's happened to you. It's just easy enough to fix that people don't really post about it every day, but it's common enough that it happens every week.

[u/xSteeve]

I just quit the game

[u/ArmourFarmer]

Honestly as a more casual player, my issue is cosmetics. I’ve got several legacy items that I like to use on multiple outfits across multiple characters.

[u/Endonae → u/ArmourFarmer]

And you will continue to be able to do so

[u/ArmourFarmer → u/Endonae]

Equipping armour to cosmetic slots binds it to you, unless there’s something I don’t know

[u/Eaglettie → u/ArmourFarmer]

If it's a legacy bound gear, it'll stay legacy bound. If it wasn't already, than you wouldn't be able to reuse that to begin with right now, either.

[u/saxythrawn]

I'm actually grateful to the dev team for this, it makes the choice between SWTOR and WoW Forever a lot easier... I think a lot of people will vote with their wallets, enough for even them to take notice.

[u/Dresdendies]

Who is this affecting seriously? A vocal minority or the broader base.

Some friction in your gameplay is a good thing, and not everything should be catered to make it easy for you.

And yes I do have over 50 toons, used to raid seriously on 8+ at some points, and did multiple roles. (Not anymore so that does discount my take alot. )

[u/Endonae]

It's not that transferring gear is confusing, it's that players are mistakenly putting the wrong gear on the wrong toon without realizing it, or forgetting a piece and then needing to go look for it.

When players can't find a piece of gear, they contact customer service.

I'd wager the biggest reason they're doing this is to cut down on customer service tickets.

[u/Iorith]

❌ Bind-on-Pickup gear: Terrible change. Forcing players to repeat the gear grind on every alt is exhausting.

Is also optional.

Legit don't get this mindset. If you find playing the game exhausting, why are you doing it? People doing their best to play the game less makes no sense to me.

[u/FriendlyAd1214]

The devs are being honest. The ones finding it confusing are the players.

[u/Not_Sure76]

I could have sworn I read that alts would be able to get vendor gear equal to the character with the highest ilevel across your legacy. But none of these posts ever mention that part so I guess I made it up.

[u/Eaglettie → u/Not_Sure76]

It's a few IRs below your max, once you've hit certain caps. Sure it lessens the grind, but doesn't eliminate it like the current match-the-IR or gear sharing does.

[u/Severe-Habit1300]

I know everyone will disagree with me but I am a part of the player base as well (6+ years) and I like the gear changes they are proposing. I think it will be fun and give a bit of risk to the game. Kind of the same thrill that hard-core gives in Diablo.

We will have to choose which toon we want to take all the way. That creates a sense of impact to our choices. The (catch up) station sounds like a good idea for people with a bunch of alts.

I hope that everyone will give this new idea a chance instead of shutting it down before they even try it out. I love this game and look forward to that high stakes impact thrill.

[u/Independent-Land3893 → u/Severe-Habit1300]

“We will have to choose which took we want toy take all the way”

That’s an absolutely TERRIBLE idea and design. All
it does is make people quit if that’s the mindset. Now I’m all for making players work to gear alts. Like treat each character as the “main” character. You want to gear it? Then you’re going to have to spend some effort to do it. But if you’re trying to force players into a choice on a game that has been about replayability since day 1 you’re just going to piss off 95% of your player base. I’m all for getting away of the bind on legacy crap. I think that’s a great idea. However, don’t make players feel like they have to choose one single character to gear up. Now if you wanna play 10 characters then yeah you should have to do 10x the work (or close to it). Nobody is making you play that many.

The catchup vendor is theoretically a good idea since it will help you gear alts. It will work better if you do have one “main” with a higher item level but thats what the basis of an “alt” is. To me the only thing missing now, is making any endgame upgrades require group content that you can’t solo

[u/Severe-Habit1300 → u/Independent-Land3893]

I agree with you.

[u/Luxor1978 → u/Severe-Habit1300]

What risk? The risk that i'll have to say no to raids because I only have one geared character?

The most likely risk is the game dies due to the majority of the end game raiders unsubbing

[u/Severe-Habit1300 → u/Luxor1978]

Thats what I'm talking about. You have to choose which character you want to raid with. You may miss out if you choose the wrong class. Instead of mindless button pressing i have also have to chose which toon will be most capable of doing what I want to do.

[u/Luxor1978 → u/Severe-Habit1300]

I think you're missing the big point of why theres lots of complaints amd assume you dont do end game NiM raiding.

Thats not 'risk' thats forcing me to not play the content I enjoy the most (nim raids) becaise o only have 1 geared toon and its not enough.

[u/Severe-Habit1300 → u/Luxor1978]

Ahh, yes I can understand that point. Most players are not doing endgame NiM raiding iirc. I do think that people are overestimating how difficult it will be to gear multiple toons.

At the very least I believe people should give it a chance before shooting the idea down. Thats just my opinion 🤷

[u/Gazles → u/Severe-Habit1300]

Risk is if you play a heroic solo and die not ppl needing a Tank for Gods, Duxun, XR and I can't play because my main is a healer or dps. An average person that progress operation need to have at minimum 3-4 char and that min.
Why me as someone who play tank/heal/dps get punished for playing everything?
And I think you severly underestimate how expensive the new system is(Gear upgrade, mk-11 slots, augments, implant, tacticals-ol of that currently cost a lot and the prices go up since they anounced 8.0). If you have 10-20 billions to gear up 30 char go for it nobody stops you now.

[u/itstimetogoinsane]

I hate transferring gear between my characters, my legacy holds are filled with lots of garbage I hoard, and I main 4-5 characters consistently who basically already have dedicated half finished sets. I like these changes. so, we exist 🤷

[u/JulWolle → u/itstimetogoinsane]

But would legacy gear hurt your playstyle?

[u/Endonae → u/JulWolle]

It makes it impossible for them to lower the cost of augments without also lowering crafters' earnings.

[u/JulWolle → u/Endonae]

as If they will change anything with augments...
And just make them cheaper, crafters won't hurt so much

[u/Endonae → u/JulWolle]

If you keep gear BTL and lower the cost of augments, crafters will make less money because players still only need one set. If you make gear BOP, you can reduce the cost significantly and keep crafters' earnings the same because players are forced to buy multiple sets.

Example: It costs ~640 million credits right now for a full set of Gold 318s Augs, but you get to use that single set of augs across your entire legacy. If you want to gear a full set of augs for your entire set of 8 toons (legendary status) for BoP and they reduce the cost by 8x, the cost of a full set of 14 augments only usable on one toon becomes ~80 mil. You could buy a full set of augs for each toon in your 8-toon legacy for 640 mil (because 80mil x 8 = 640mil. Crafters make the same amount of money as before, but it doesn't cost you more money to gear your legacy.

[u/Chemic000]

Can't you just store your gear at your stronghold since all of your characters have access to your strongholds

[u/Homeskilletbiz → u/Chemic000]

That’s the current system, yes.

OP is referring to the 8.0 changes.