Is there a gear imbalance/crunch, similar to the previous credit crunch?

All these things. Not sure what the idea is behind designing the game to make it take months to make one character usable. As for specifics, I'd also like to see the agility challenge reworked to have at least one tier drop both mk5 syringes and mk3 Droid callers. A tier three gear piece being one of the primary bottlenecks is ridiculous.

For F2P players is almost impossible to get gear. I mean, taking one month to gear a toon to GL X is really a problem when you have +40 characters in line.
I've only spend money in this game twice back when Rex and Echo were released (I'm a huge CTs fan and I wanted to get them). It wasn't much money ($30) and I still don't have them. That being said, I won't spend +$100 just to be able to play my toons in the newest content. I know this game is suppose to be somewhat grindy, and that's fine. You almost never ran out of things to do, but the grind is no longer user friendly.
They should add some sort of gear heist, where you can get some of the most needed pieces and the final tier could drop a few Raid gear pieces as well

EDIT: They should rework challenges too. I have like 2k or more useless pieces, while constantly running out of some other type of gear. The unbalance is too big to be ignored.

Gosh, where to begin...

Ok. The Obvious.

1) The Gear Challenges
Great concept, but doesn't really work to help established players, let me explain from my own experience.

The highest Tier appropriately rewards some of the higher tier pieces of gear, but not all, and certainly not in proportion to the actually most needed gear, IE: Cuffs. Also, when established players are focused on these high end pieces of gear, and rightly so, the low to mid range gear for newer toons, gets completely neglected, by design.

The flaw here imho is in the tiers of rewards, not only do the higher-end tiers need to reward a wider variety of high-end gear, they also need to reward low-end gear from previous challenge tiers.

For example:
T1: Class E.
-All White Gear, Drops Randomly.

T2: Class D & E.
-Primarily Green(D) All Non-Raid gear Drops Randomly, Some White(E) gear.

T3: Class C, D, & E.
-Primarily Blue(C) All Non-Raid gear Drops Randomly, Some Green(D) and White(E) gear.

T4: Class B, C, D, & E.
-Primarily Purple(B), All Non-Raid gear Drops Randomly, Some Blue(C) Green(D) and White(E) gear.

T5: Class A, B, C, D, & E.
-Primarily Gold(A), All Non-Raid Gear Drops Randomly, Some Purple(B) Blue(C) Green(D) and White(E) gear.

This would relieve at least the low end grind, for established players who need to focus on existing high end content while also letting them enjoy newly released characters without dropping everything else they're doing to go back to square one for a new character.

The other obvious, or maybe not so...

2) Surplus of unused gear
-How about a Gear conversion system that takes 2 white MK1s and can make 1 MK2 out them, 2 MK2s and make an MK3, and so on?

3) Painfully Low Drop Rates
Grinding gear from missions is fine, but the higher level stuff takes way too long. I am actually NOT looking forward to the next level / gear cap increase, because it can already take MONTHS to "finish" just a SINGLE character. This seems extremely excessive.

One solution could be to link the Drop rate to Player Level with a small, but not excessive, bonus multiplier to make gear drop more often the higher the player level.

It's a problem for lvl 85 like me who likely has 25+ characters to be worked on simultaneously. Today, got 2 purple salvage I needed per 120 energy.

It wasn't so much a problem when only 5 peices of blue gear + some white and green were needed to complete a peice. . . But that's no longer the case. In a very mild example...

I currently I have 13 characters that need a particular kind of gear. 13 @ 20pieces each, =260 pieces needed at today's drop rate of 2 per refresh.... Doing 2 refresh per day... is 65 days. Over 2 months and that's JUST for one part of 6 gear slots for the 13 characters @ their current gear level. Not the next, or the one after that which requires versions that need 50 each, and/or need it multiple times...

Stun Cuffs are even worse as one of the 50 piece variations that are needed a ton but are just a very discouragingly long grind.

It means literally MONTHS needed to get a character up playing level. That amount of time working on something not bringing any benefits can rob the joy out of the game, and same can be said if the only alternative to months of frustrating/boring grinding is having to spend an uncomfortable amount of money for a tablet game.

My hope, is that we can get a grip on this before your most loyal and established customers/players are driven away for a quicker fix of fun. Your most loyal & max level players should be shown appreciation by giving them some relief on this issue.

Best,
SithLordSnake

I did a poll yesterday in the squad and character strategy. With a sampling size of 302 players, we have a 93% of dedicated players who think the gear situation is imbalanced.

Please, can Devs make a statement about this ok the Friday community update? We just want some communication, or remarks (even a "WAI" would be a good starting point).

Thanks a lot!

Please discuss so that we have an answer.

We can still hope, when 93% of their customer base is unhappy, there is something wrong.

Well it's 93 percent of the poll sample. I agree gearing sucks. But players and devs have different POVs. The best way to look at this game is like gambling in a casino. Odds are stacked in the favor of the house. Being close to something will tempt people to spend money. It's frustrating yes. And I think a bone should be thrown in the form of gear event. But it has been a bit better. Stuns and cuffs in ships help. The prize box gives gear as well. The best way for a ftp to accumulate gear if it is the sole focus is to save crystals. If 1,400 is a bit too steep. Save up 300 for all the holos almost every toon needs Atleast one and it helps.

"Vinny_Vader_Vedi;867492" wrote:
Well it's 93 percent of the poll sample. I agree gearing sucks. But players and devs have different POVs. The best way to look at this game is like gambling in a casino. Odds are stacked in the favor of the house. Being close to something will tempt people to spend money. It's frustrating yes. And I think a bone should be thrown in the form of gear event. But it has been a bit better. Stuns and cuffs in ships help. The prize box gives gear as well. The best way for a ftp to accumulate gear if it is the sole focus is to save crystals. If 1,400 is a bit too steep. Save up 300 for all the holos almost every toon needs Atleast one and it helps.

Even with a 20% error you would still have a majority of unhappy customer. I agree with a gear event! I use the strategy about holoprojectors, I am now in surplus... but I still miss the cuffs and guns.

Well yea of course. But we all need gear. No one but trolls are going to say getting gear shouldn't be easier. I remember when I just started playing forums were flipping about pre- crafting gear and had no idea what they meant. Now I know. Gears 7-9 are pretty terrible.

"Mvnson;867503" wrote:
"Friday Update" Lmfao. There was a dev message yesterday. Expect no further communication for at least 1 week on any subject matter.

Actually, @CG_Kozispoon has been awesome as of late and super helpful answering a lot of players questions.

"Neo2551;867453" wrote:
We can still hope, when 93% of their customer base is unhappy, there is something wrong.

Wow, let's misrepresent the information you have just a little more....