That's some idea as well. But then again better gear is not a problem when fighting mobs, it's the pvp combat that becmes very uneven. So maybe this cap should apply oinly to pvp combat. Actually gear collecting is kind of weird when it comes to PvP as this promotes spending lots of time hammering WZs over being actually skilled Maybe its that PvPrs are scared of being owned by new players who catch on quicker I mean, why make the game harder for new people, if they don't know how to play in the first place? They don't have the practice, even with equal gear they should be loosing anyway. I don't know if you're a game designer but I hope you're not as you fail to see it is possible to make a game so that different character types have equal, or at least close chances when fighting. Take a look at Starcraft and its 3 different races for example. Or maybe you like games where you win, not because you're better at it but because the rules say you always win. But that's for lame people, isn't it?

A game where you play against other human needs to gilve players roughly equal chances to be enjoyable. an example: suppose I like to play PvE but I'm intertested in some fun situations when meeting other faction in game so i pick PvP server. Now I play mostly ops, you do WZs. We play the equivalent classes (like marauder vs sentinel same skill tree etc) I've got full 180 set, you got full PvP set (whatever the good stuff is named there). We fight 10 times in some questing area. Say we have roughly the same rotation, use the same abilities etc. Do I have a chance of winning even 1 time? Is this a balanced game? Does it promote WZ players or not? So I actually was wrong suggesting to make expertise irrelevant, thos wouldn't be balanced, it should make good PvP gear equal to ~ 180 or something like that. Other thing are the stealth based classes which have a huge advantage in open pvp. Is this balanced? So you say I cry (I find it sort of insulting btw) about ganking, it wasn't my first point there but I think the possibility of ganking as it is now is a flawed design. There are 2 key contepts in the game - level and gear, and this is fine. What is not fine is that when being a low level you can be prevented from doing almost anything by one player. You can find three dozens of other players on the planet and you will still loose. I think it that even high level should not be invincible. So then if a ganker is pestering you, you gather 2 other players and kick his ***. Some clever bolster would do it. I think it would make the game much cooler. But this will probably never happen and we will have ganking as an amusement for some weird minded people. Closing note, you can disagree with me and that's fine, especially if there's some reasoning behind it. What I'm not interested in is people saying this is complaining, crying or whatever. Or that this is what you signed up when you joined PvP server. If you plan on posting like that just go do something else with your time.

The thread was about introducing some more balance into the game. I guess I expected answers like "Its a pvp server, deal with it" (ah very useful input thank you so much) so whatever.

If you are in a questing area you've already got some PvE gear. Chances are you don't have a PvP one. So would be good to have expertise limited to where you can get it - WZs. Then again you get bolster on WZ so it's not as important as it was before there - someone probably noticed people don't really like the experience to be just dying. Expertise gives a ridiculous advantage in non-PvP areas though and, since they sort of balanced WZs, why not do it for open pvp? Unfortunately no. You can try using some AOE ability but for example a guardian/jugg doesn't have a good one for that.

Recently I've been thinking more about PvP encounters (I'm on a PvP server) while questing / doing dailies. So ok, its a PvP server but still I there are things that look like they were supposed to prevent excessive ganking (or fully PvP geared players from farming others). There are heavy lvl 55 mobs in bases, there is the PvP extended stealth time etc. The problem is, those things don't work. Eg, I do my oricon stuff and then a shadow/assasin shows up, destroys me ofc (class balance is another thing here). Ok, he had his fun, I'd like to rev there and continue but no, he can see when I get up, AOE and my PvP stealth is useless. About high lvl base defense mobs - why allow classes that have stealth to go past them? They can still easily gank inside and then run away into stealth again. I get that it's a PvP server, I usually don't atack other players in the open but it opens some more possibilites and can make the game more fun. Especially when you destroy someone that has attacked you. But for that you need some chances against PvP geared people, the classes should be balanced (I'm pretty much convinced now that you stand no chance against stealth classes in the open, and even if you're better they'll just run away). Things that IMHO could help: Add a buff after death that prevents dmg from player that killed you, say 15min, unless you attack. Make expertise not matter out of WZ/pvp areas, this stat shoud be for WZs. But then on WZs there is PVP bolster while you don't get it anywhere else. Do something with permanent stealth, maybe add some 'detectors' in bases that would expose hidden players.