You should be directing your post to Incendergel, who Varicite was sarcastically quoting.

At this point I think he is just trolling. There is nothing more to say that hasn't already been said in the 127 pages and counting. There is just a philosophical difference: 1) people who view it as a sport or competition 2) people who view it as a treadmill to get gear

If that is the best scenario you can come up with to improve PVP, other than rewarding grinders with gear, then this discussion has come to an end.

Well then I'm with you against those people.

Hard to say, because of the gear disparity. Perfect example of what I am talking about. Let skill/tactics, not gear, be the determining factor. But according to some people you should be a BM by now. It is super easy to get, and if you say otherwise, you are a liar.

Yeah, as I posted earlier, he is "chasing a ghost." He is arguing against the removal of PVP gear, although I am not sure who he is arguing against... Because as I laid out in my lengthy post, we pretty much agree.

Heh, if you are going to quote me, quote me in context. This is what I said: "Skill should always win out. Without gear disparity, the chances of skill determining the outcome drastically increase. Both 1) having PVP-specific gear; and 2) keeping the grind required to obtain the PVP gear to a minium help ensure that skill is the deciding factor. Sounds reasonable, right?" If that sounds unreasonable to you, and you think gear, obtained by increased playing time, should be the deciding factor, then we just don't have the same views on PVP. There really isn't much more to say.

If you read the OPs post, to which we are replying, we aren't complaining about the current grind (although it could be shorter) but we are opposing the OP's paradigm that PVP MUST reward gear for grinding. Just a philosophical difference between PVEers and PVPers I suppose. This is not a false statement. It is 100% a true statement. The phrase "whee bit of work," is not an objective measurement. It is a matter of degree. You dismantle your own argument when you say that it is determined by "your own style of play." So you openly admit it is a matter of degree, which you correctly pointed out is based on your style of play. You just disagree with the level of degree, not the statement itself (even if you don't realize it) - perhaps so much that it made you angry enough to call anyone who plays less than you a "liar." But that does not make it a false statement. Cool. That seems like an exaggeration, but I'm not going to call you a flat-out liar like you called me. It could just be because que times are longer when I play at night and the games are more competitive and thus longer. I really shouldn't have responded. Your post, and this response, really don't add anything are are simply tangential to an otherwise beaten-to-death post that simply highlights the philosophical differences between PVPers and PVEers. But I couldn't resist.

I found your problem - you are chasing a ghost. Nobody is arguing that PvP gear should be removed entirely. That is why your ridiculous scenario about a random Ilum encounter made no sense to anyone. Again, nobody is arguing that PvP gear should be removed entirely. We merely want the grind to get the best gear to be a short one. PvP gear is one of the best ideas an MMO has ever come up with. Warning - incoming WoW comparisons/history: Who remembers when they introduced resilience in WOW and the PVE raiders who were used to memorizing boss mechanics and farming content with good gear were no longer able to two-shot people in Battlegrounds? Brilliant! I love PVP gear. It allows PVPers to PVP. Vanilla WoW was frustrating because bad players who dedicated hours of their lives to 40-man raids would show up in a Warsong Gulch on their one off-night of raiding and be unkillable gods with their PVE gear. If you look at the posts from the PVPers our there, we want one over-arching thing - an equal playing field where competition is decided based on skill. PVP specific gear helps level the field. PVE is inherently a much larger time sink than PVP. You can log into the game, play a WZ or two, and be done in less than an hour. PVE takes much longer to organize and complete, which makes PVE gear that much more unattainable for casual, yet skilled players. PVP gear bridges the gap between skilled players with less time who don't have time to PVE (or don't want to waste their time PVEing) and unskilled players with more time who raid 5 nights a week. Reducing the grind to get the best gear also helps level the field. As has been discussed ad naseum, the shorter the grind, the less the gear disparity there is, the more the competitions will be decided based on skill, not gear. Skill should always win out. Without gear disparity, the chances of skill determining the outcome drastically increase. Both 1) having PVP-specific gear; and 2) keeping the grind required to obtain the PVP gear to a minium help ensure that skill is the deciding factor. Sounds reasonable, right?

It is disingenuous to call the gear disparity a "false" issue, because it is "there for all to obtain." Technically everything in an mmo is "there for all to obtain." Maybe, as it currently stands, pvp gear is fairly easy to obtain in this game, and maybe it is easier to obtain than it used to be, and thats fine. Most of the posts are in response to the OPs pining for gear rewards for pvp grinding. There is just a fundamental disagreement between the PVE community and the PVP community about whether gear based rewards should be given for PVP grinding. Let me just say that a "whee bit of work," is a statement of degree, and means different things to the guy who plays this game like a part-time (or full-time) job vs. the guy who plays more casually. I tend to agree with you here. If you look carefully at people who share my position, it can be distilled down to these points: You should PVP for the pure fun of PVP. Gear disparity detracts from the fun of PVP. Gear should not be used as incentives for PVP (See #2, above) Non gear-based incentives (ratings) can be a boost for the PVP experience.

It's self-evident from the post. Once you hit level 50, PVP progression does not inherently require you to fight players with higher stats the way PVE does. In a true PVP progression system, you fight players with better skill (rating/ranking). Contrary to popular belief skill =/= stats. See my post about 5 pages back on the differences between PVE and PVP (if indeed these differences are not patently obvious), and why comparing progression between the two is apples to oranges.

This pretty much sums up the idealogical difference. I'm going to call camp #1 the PVP community. If you fall into camp #2, then there is a good chance: 1) You do both PVE and PVP 2) You prefer PVE to PVP 3) You don't play this game just to PVP It all comes down to the philosophical question - who should Bioware cater its PVP experience to? I assert they should cater to the PVP community - including those who only play this game to PVP and have never set foot in a raid/operation. Not to say camp #2 shouldn't PVP, in fact the more the merrier. Just don't expect it to be PVE (wins based on repeatable, memorized mechanics and gear advantages), and you will be fine.

Really? I thought you were smarter than this. Please take your straw man out of this forum. I, nor the vast majority of people opposed to stat-based gear rewards, want "to be as good as someone who has played the game longer, learned the ins and outs of maps, other classes, and whatever else they may or may not have gained." In fact, you are 100% wrong - we want exactly the opposite! If you play a lot, then you should be a better, smarter player, and your increased skill/experience/technique should be your only advantage over the "lazy" players. In fact, if you have honed these skills, it is precisely why you do not need a gear advantage. I don't see anyone saying otherwise, well, other than you and your straw man. Let me flip around your example of people who "don't keybind, don't know how to LoS/Pillar Hump, etc." These are the type of people we want to expose! If you suck, and your competition is on your equal gear level, you will be exposed. You can't hide behind huge RNG crits or health pools. You can't assume that all people who grind are good and all people who don't are bad. There are good players who don't grind, and bad players who do grind, and vice versa. Your example goes both ways - with equal gear, both the good players and the bad players will be revealed - neither the grinders nor the casuals will be able to hide behind gear. Sounds reasonable right? That is why if you are arguing for a gear advantage, it makes you look like you fear being exposed.

All good points, and we mostly agree, however we diverge in the value we place on external pvp "incentives" (rankings, titles, gear, etc). I find these "incentives" are nice bonuses, but are not the ultimate motivation for why I pvp. I pvp because I enjoy it. To the extent a game has balanced, well thought out, competitive pvp, that is all I need. The "incentives" are just gravy, but all NON-GEAR incentives for the most part only serve to add to my enjoyment. My beef is when GEAR is used as the incentive. I'm not saying you fall into this camp, but a lot of people who want gear from pvp grinds seem to be those who hide behind gear to mask their lack of ability.

Stomp those straw men into the ground more please! Nobody is "dismissing the very people who make mmos work." I certainly am not. I welcome them. The more the merrier. What we are dismissing is their attitude that "hey I play a lot so I deserve better gear that way I won't ever stand a chance of engaging in a fight where I don't have a distinct RNG advantage." I just don't think they are entitled to any special gear because they happen to play a lot. Let increased levels of skill, tactics and technique be their reward for copious amounts of playing time. And I don't recall any specific argument about a 4% gear increase. This has largely been an abstract debate about the length of the grind required to place all pvpers on equal footing gear-wise, which would lead to the most balanced, and fun, competition.

This pretty much sums it up.

Incentive =/= fun. Fun can be the incentive for grinding, and maybe it is for you, but it isn't for the rest of us. When I pay taxes, my incentive is not to go to jail, not fun. The incentive for most pvpers to grind is to be able to get the gear necessary to compete on an equal level with the people who play all day. Would I rather the grind be a minimal one, perhaps long enough to learn the mechanics of my class and the general layout of the warzones? Yes. Then people would be able to contribute without having to grind for hours on end first. I know I speak for the majority of pvpers when I say that the grind is what we have to do to get where we want to be, not something fun. The fun is in playing competitive, engaging, warzones against competent opponents. Real pvpers understand this.

Sure you rattled off some general similarities (both require you to log into SWTOR, for example), but if you think about it, there are glaring differences, and they all revolve around that fact that in PVE, one side is controlled by AI. PVE, by design, is incredibly gear dependent. Once you have the proper gear and learn the mechanics, you can farm the content. The AI doesn't adapt. It doesn't mix things up, it doesn't focus down the healers, it doesn't work together to outsmart/out-technique your operation. It is what it is. So the only way to increase the difficulty of the encounter is to increase the damage and health of the boss, which in essence makes the encounters even more gear-dependent, and add some abilities to the encounter. Then once you learn the additional mechanics, you can farm that level too. Essentially this requires gear, and the ability to watch Youtube and memorize the boss fights. Rinse and repeat. In other words, because devs don't have a way to make the bosses smarter, they make them hit harder and last longer. So you need the better gear to beat the harder bosses. Further, in PVE, there is no winner and no loser. You don't compete against the AI. If anything, you compete against other players to see who can beat the AI faster (server/world firsts, etc.). So there is no fairness/fun issue by giving the more dedicated players better gear. If I am casual, I can do a lower level/tier operation. If you are hardcore, you can do the hardcore content. We both have the gear required for our operation, and everyone is happy. In PVP, you don't need to increase the hit points/damage of your opponents in order to make the fight tougher. You can increase the quality, skill and wits of your opponent, which you can't do in PVE. This is typically done through a ratings system - the higher rating you get, the higher rated opponent you get. This scheme is NOT gear dependent, and therefore distinguishable from PVE. In fact, gear rewards just screw up the natural order of this scheme. If you put bad players in good gear, or good players in bad gear, you tend to have dumber warzones, which lead to less satisfying outcomes (less fun). Also, as there is no loser in PVE, there is a loser in PVP. And the PVP community at large would prefer that the outcome of the game be based on the mechanics of the class and on the tactics/skill of the players/teams, and not based on the level of gear which is inextricably linked to play time. That is what PVEers don't seem to understand. They see that lots of playing time, grinding gear and memorizing fights grants them success in PVE, yet seem genuinely upset when this formula does not work in PVP. I never said that. Nor do I believe it. It will, however, expose those who use their gear as a crutch, and separate out the actual good players. This will lead to increasingly better competition. I'm not sure what you are saying here. I don't think cosmetic changes are the answer, I think rankings/ratings are a step in the right direction, with titles/cosmetic gear as the icing on the cake.

I agree pvp needs work. But the change is not to reward the people who play 5x more than everyone else with special gear that makes them that much stronger than everyone else. Their reward for increased playing time is and should be increased skill/tactics. The purpose of pvp is in the competition, not the incentives. If you make a balanced, fun, competitive, engaging pvp system, then people will play it, regardless of the external rewards (i.e. uber gear). Don't entice us to play the game by adding more grinding, entice us by adding more warzones, more abilities, better balance, more world pvp, etc. Give us shorter queues (cross server WZ's plz) and dual spec to mix it up. (Some tangents, I know). Although I agree that there should be rewards, they just shouldn't be better gear.

If you enjoy the grind that MMO's have become, hats off to you. Most everyone I know enjoys playing the game, not logging on to do dailies/grind valor/etc. How about a paradigm shift. Instead of spending your free time and effort to get the shiny objects, why not spend time and effort using the shiny objects! Welfare epics were coined by people who played WOW way too much but failed to develop the commensurate level of skill/technique befitting of their days played. When they went from steamrolling people who simply played less to suddenly losing overnight in an equally matched fight, they coined that phrase as an excuse for their ineptitude. I have no sympathy for those people. If you are legit, who cares if noobs have the same gear. If anything now they don't have an excuse when you beat them. If your fancy is tickled by character progression, then you should be perfectly happy with ratings/rankings and/or cosmetic gear/titles. Comparing the PVE grind to PVP is apples and oranges.

All I hear is "I <3 PVE." Seriously though, I'm ok with pvp progression, to a degree, but ultimately the deciding factor in pvp should be skill. I know this comes as a shock to the hardcore MMOers who think that time played = win, but in optimal pvp, skill/technique/ability/teamwork = win.

This is not even close to what I said, in fact, this is the exact OPPOSITE of what I was implying. Either you did not read my post, or you did not understand it. Again, you completely misunderstood my post. I 100% agree. The "rewards" for playing more should be increased skill and technique, NOT better gear. Because, hey, if you are more skilled, why do you need a built-in external advantage? Insult war heroes? I applaud them. I only reserve my insults for the war heroes who succeed by their gear alone, and not their ability. I'm sorry if my post did not make this blatantly clear. Wait a minute - you just admitted that your increased play time resulted in increased skill. You want more on top of that? That is where you lose me (and all of the other true pvpers/competitors). To be fair, this is actually two questions . I never said the reward should be the same for you or the noob - I specifically said the reward should be different. You would get a higher rating, just like the fastest guy at the Olympics got the gold medal, and the people he beat didn't.

The argument that allowing everyone the same level of gear is akin to "handing out trophies for participation" is just plain silly. Olympic medals and championship trophies, like warzone ratings and cosmetic gear/titles, are recognitions of excellence. Gear is not. Gear is the equipment you use to compete. A more astute analogy would be that allowing everyone the same level of gear is akin to handing out standardized helmets/pads/cleats/ to both football teams. Which is a good idea. I've never heard Oklahoma complain that it isn't fair because up-and-comer Boise State gets to wear the same equipment. True competitors and pvpers understand this, as evidenced by the plethora of posts in this thread. Those that use their gear as a crutch in pvp are the only ones crying foul that outcomes will be determined by skill, not hours logged. Let your skill, not your gear do the talking.

This "gold medal" analogy is completely inapplicable. The last time I checked Usain Bolt doesn't run any faster when he is wearing his gold medal around his neck. As one of the original posters aptly noted, it would be an insane folly to reward the winner of the Indy 500 with a faster engine unavailable to other competitors. A gold medal, like a championship trophy, a warzone rating, or a title, is simply a form of recognition. Last I checked recognition/bragging rights/accomplishment seem to be sufficient motivators for true competitors (see Madness, March).

Yes, it should, and it does. That advantage is called increased experience and skill. If the only reason Mr. War Hero (who logs 8+ hours per day) is able to beat Mr. Casual (who plays a few hours at night/on the weekend) is a gear advantage, then Mr. War Hero needs to work on his pvp game. If Mr. War Hero is able to stand on his skill and experience, then why would he care if Mr. Casual fights him on equal footing? A true pvper and competitor would prefer that all matches be based on who is actually better, not who has a distinct gear advantage because they grind more. Gear is not, nor should it be, a reward for hours logged. If you are unable to take advantage of the the vast hours played advantage you might have over other players and use it to out-skill or out-technique them, then you need only blame yourself.