The Expertise stat has to go...

[Espo]

I wish I was beating a dead horse, but “Expertise” is still in the game. I think the developers did an awesome job with the most of the aspect of PVP. I enjoyed being able to get almost 4 matches an hour before expertise made it needed for the separation of level 50s and non-level 50s. Now I’m lucky to get two matches an hour. It is not fun to be one of 5 to 8 players trying to pound on one Battlemaster geared player and not even move his health and not a healer in sight. Is this skill, no it is a reward for playing the game non-stop.

I’m not above working for what I need to be competitive in the game. I loved the fact I could be rewarded for PVP with EXP, Credit and Tokens. Tokens that gave me a chance to get better gear. Win or lose depending on the time of day I play I think I average 50 tokens a match. So it takes 16 matches to get a single back pack that gives me a chance for a piece of armor, or 3 of a different token. I’ve pull 4 bags guess what I’ve gotten, yep, your right 12 tokens. 64 matches and I can’t even buy one piece. I feel for my guildie, he has pull 20 bags, guess what he has gotten, yep 60 tokens. 320 matches and he can buy just one piece, a lesser piece like boots.

With those odds of getting needed gear for PVP only and not enjoying getting my butt handed to me by someone who’s only skill is the expertise stat I’ve stopped playing my level 50 toon and so have my kids. That is one story line complete and as soon as I finish the other 7 I think I’ll end my three subscriptions. Then wait for an expansion. Which by the way will more than likely raise the max level then everyone will have to get new raid gear.

I’m just wondering why my money is less valuable than those that who play all the time. Thank you for taking the casual player out of the game.

[Hans_Brix]

If you introduce a PvE only stat it simply shifts the current problem we have in pvp onto the pve community, it doesn't fix the problem so I am against a pve only stat. They implemented such a thing in LOTRO, called radiance. Bosses in raids had a "gloom" rating which was countered by "radiance" on raid gear. You needed a certain amount of radience to perform even remotely well against a boss.

 

All that ended up happening was radience, a pve-only stat that only affected bosses, ended up segregating the community. The hardcores, including myself, ground our gear first and got max radience from one set of instances, then focused on raids. The hardcores, myself included, then had no motivation or incentive to repeat lower level instances so the next set of people coming through found it harder to get radience to be able to raid. This meant less new blood for the raiding community and less flexibility if you were a few people short. It took two years, but eventually Turbine admitted their mistake and removed radience. Immediately, more people were raiding and everyone was happier.

 

 

 

Whenever you a stat like expertise or radiance, all it does is segregate the community between the haves and the have-nots. It is bad for the long term surviability of the community. However, at the same time, I fully understand the desire to keep pvp and pve gear completely separate.

 

 

The solution, as I've said a few times in this thread, is to make the on ramp extremely easy and to remove the progression of the exclusive stat. So, if Bioware are keeping the expertise stat, my advice would be:

 

1) Remove all expertise from level 1-49 gear as we'll have the level 1-49 bracket, thus no1 pvping before 50 has to worry about expertise.

 

2) At 50, add a new set before centurion, purchasable for credits, which adds up to 1000 expertise but has lower stats than centurion

 

3) Edit centurion, champion and battlemaster gear so that the full sets add up to 1000 expertise.

 

These three simple steps would solve all the issues with expertise (once the 50 bracket is implemented...). It keeps expertise in there so that pvp gear is completely separate to pve gear so that hardcore pve raiders can't use their epic raid loot to walk all over pvpers. However, it removes expertise as a progression route so that it no longer amplifies the gear gap. By having a purchasable set at 50, there is a very easy on-ramp so fresh 50s can purchase the set instantly and then start pvping without being at an expertise disadvantage. finally, there still remains a pvp gear progression as battlemaster still has superior stats to the other sets, so the carrot is still there for dedicated pvpers.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Nice idea, but I think it needs to be shifted to PvE gear. Have FPs drop gear along with purchasable gear or mods with a PvE stat which allows for a transition to raiding.

 

The reason for this switch follows: A PvP stat not only affects the person with the gear, but also the person he's hitting with that gear. Any positive gained for the person with the gear is a negative for the person on the receiving end. However, with the same type of stat on PvE gear, it's only a positive, since the NPC doesn't care that it's getting hit harder or hitting less on the player.

 

The key to the plan is the first step of gear, which is easily attainable, has the full PvE stat value, just lower main attributes. Just as the above poster stated.

[Seventh]

I wish I was beating a dead horse, but “Expertise” is still in the game. I think the developers did an awesome job with the most of the aspect of PVP. I enjoyed being able to get almost 4 matches an hour before expertise made it needed for the separation of level 50s and non-level 50s. Now I’m lucky to get two matches an hour. It is not fun to be one of 5 to 8 players trying to pound on one Battlemaster geared player and not even move his health and not a healer in sight. Is this skill, no it is a reward for playing the game non-stop.

I’m not above working for what I need to be competitive in the game. I loved the fact I could be rewarded for PVP with EXP, Credit and Tokens. Tokens that gave me a chance to get better gear. Win or lose depending on the time of day I play I think I average 50 tokens a match. So it takes 16 matches to get a single back pack that gives me a chance for a piece of armor, or 3 of a different token. I’ve pull 4 bags guess what I’ve gotten, yep, your right 12 tokens. 64 matches and I can’t even buy one piece. I feel for my guildie, he has pull 20 bags, guess what he has gotten, yep 60 tokens. 320 matches and he can buy just one piece, a lesser piece like boots.

With those odds of getting needed gear for PVP only and not enjoying getting my butt handed to me by someone who’s only skill is the expertise stat I’ve stopped playing my level 50 toon and so have my kids. That is one story line complete and as soon as I finish the other 7 I think I’ll end my three subscriptions. Then wait for an expansion. Which by the way will more than likely raise the max level then everyone will have to get new raid gear.

I’m just wondering why my money is less valuable than those that who play all the time. Thank you for taking the casual player out of the game.

 

Not only does this hurt the casual player... it also hurts the casual PVP player whom is a hardcore PVE player which in turns hurts the PVP playerbase since it is diminishing due to this.

 

PVP is about the skill of a player vs another... maybe they just need a PVP warzone where gear is not a factor where people can duke it out evenly... well at least as even as class balancing will take it.

[Sanchpanza]

Okay, I doubt anyone will be reading this far back but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

 

Seperating PvP gear and PvE gear is important. The first reason for this is quite simply that not everyone wants to raiding AND PvPing, but if you could do one and then be excellent in the other, then people who only do one option would miss out.

 

Lets say PvP gear was good for PvE for example; Now, at the moment, it really isn't hard to get champion gear. I've heard a lot of whining about it, but just as an example, I have a jedi knight who is level 22 and sitting on 3 champion bags... how long have I been PvPing with them you ask? 2 days. And not hardcore PvPing at that, literally doing maybe... 15 matches a day, 20 at an outside. Really not that much. If I'd been doing nothing but PvP I think I'd probably be sitting on more bags tbh, and I even posted a topic on this forum about troubles I'm having with that class... with my healer I get a load more commendations easily.

 

Anyway, so, champion gear isn't hard to get. Now, lets extend that out to when I'm level 50. I'm going to reclaim those bags (and more that I plan to get ofcourse!) and hopefully get a full set of gear without ever once doing a raid, but I'm suddenly geared up to the point where I can raid. This means that all those people who only PvE'd and were waiting to start raiding to get good gear are going to be less desirable candidates than me. That just isn't fair on them. They loose out on what they've specialized in because I happen to have gear from what I specialized in, which is a completely different aspect to the game.

 

There is also another aspect to this, that people do not seem to understand. Working towards gear is not just supposed to be a time sink to make you take a long time to get stuff, it's supposed to teach you how to play those roles to the best of your ability. Some people can pick this up very quickly, I will grant you that, and for some classes it isn't all that different. But for the essential classes in a group (healers and tanks) PvP and PvE have a major component of the game that differentiates them; Threat.

 

You might think "It doesn't matter, if you're a tank you generate threat anyway", for my Jedi Knight example. This, quite simply, is not the case. For example; I can run around a PvP map in my DPS form, have my skills all in my DPS tree but still get the same protection statistics at the end of the match; You can use your taunt and shield abilities without ever being in the Tanking form/stance/thingy. So, if I did that, every single bit of my experience would be in doing damage. Now..you might think that damage=threat. And it does, I'll give you that. But what you might not realise is that you can tank a WHOLE lot better if you're specced for tanking - There are atleast 2 skills you can ONLY get from your tanking tree, it modifies atleast 1 of your skills to actually be usefull where in a dps spec it really isn't that usefull, not only this but it modifies another skill to generate more focus, it makes another skill cost nothing if you leap...the list goes on. The play style is completely different, the skill set up is completely different, and the damage you can take vs the damage you can do is wildly different.

 

Now.. Imagine you are a tank class. You've spent all your time PvE'ing, learning to tank against NPC enemies, learning flashpoints to do in hard mode when you hit 50, reading up on operations... you hit 50, you start advertising that you are looking for certain groups, but to your horror you are repeatedly rejected because people with better gear, but who have never PvE tanked in their whole TOR time, are getting your spots. And not only that, they don't do good at it, which makes the people they group with think "Damn, tanks need to be REALLY highly geared to do well", when, infact, you could have done a much better job.

 

Just think about that scenario. Then reverse it for trying to PvP when people with PvE gear who have no idea what they're doing take your PvP slots. Either way, it's not a nice scenario.

 

Different armour sets exist for a reason. There is a reason you have to earn them. It's almost like a rite of passage; "Hey, he has that gear, he actually must know what he's doing to have got it, or atleast have quite a few hours experience".

 

Stop the expertise whining, please. Because if it were the other way round there would be a shizzle-ton more whining about people not knowing what they're doing, people would start interrogating you about your ability when you joined a group, PUGs would be very rare, and the casual player would lose out even more.

 

You may think "He's talking out of his bottom". And you're entitled to think that. But I'll tell you this - I'm not the most experienced MMO player out there, but what I have played is some of the genre defining games; UO, EQ, AO & WoW. Each of those games was ground breaking in it's own way (if you doubt that claim then just google them, look at when they were made and what they introduced), I've seen all these things introduced and I've seen what happened before they were about. Seperating PvP gear from PvE gear is a GOOD thing, for many reasons more than the one I outlined above. I would be happy to discuss this further, but really people, stop making accusations about what the stat does to gameplay if you don't have the background knowledge to back it up.

[Gorto]

Guess what...

 

Good Pvpers kick ***

 

Bad Pvpers get there asses kicked

 

That is a simple fact that will remain the same with or without expertise.

 

A good pvper will do whatever is necessary to get gear for pvp. (You can get a full set of centurion gear just off the daily and weekly quests in maybe 5 weeks. Assuming you get 0 champ item tokens and dont purchase any champion bags).

 

So any good pvper is not running around with 0 exp they will get pvp gear and smoke people.

 

Bottom line is if you think that if they remove expertise all of a sudden your gonna be rocken in pvp WRONG.

 

You are still gonna get rolled cause you are a bad pvper.

[Guardious]

And also to prevent competitive pvpers from being forced to raid.

 

Seriously, no one seems to remember the old days when the raiders would dominate PvP based on gear advantages and everyone would whine about that.

 

The game is built around gear progression. Having two different paths for PvE and PvP is a good thing because it allows people to focus on what they like to do without feeling like they have to do everything if they don't want to. If you want a completely level playing field from the get go, there are many other different types of PvP games out there.

 

QFT, this is the fact, it was indeed the opposist as mentioned years ago, how soon we forget. Anyone can get the good gear at 50, but if you want to pvp with the big boys, do what many of us have or are doing. Start pvp'n at 14 and don't stop. I have toon dedicated to the pvp spec tree and that's all I play them for. Did you know there is actually a pvp spec tree for everyclass? If your making these armor content comments, I gather that as a no.

[gotem]

Add a blue level 50 pvp set and this thread goes away.

 

It's dumb a fresh 50 goes into PvP with 0 of a stat that means everything in PvP.

[Guardious]

Add a blue level 50 pvp set and this thread goes away.

 

It's dumb a fresh 50 goes into PvP with 0 of a stat that means everything in PvP.

 

Hell no,

 

If you start pvp'n your first time at 50, you deserve your fait...

 

A: you have no clue what to do on any map

B: chances are your solo

C: you have no skill other then pve to go by, so your concept of pvp and what to do when ==0

D: giving you any better gear options (blues) wouldn't even help, the reason people are getting owned is because of the above. Expertise helps, no argument, but skill vs expertise and add teamplay? no comparison. You still need a team that knows what it is doing to win a round , no matter what gear you own.

 

This comes from first hand experiance, I have no doubt many here have that same experiance. You could in fact ,eliminate all gear from pvp, the downfall would be we like to earn things for our time doing things we love. It's that little extra (knowing what is to come) that keeps us pvp'n just like end gamers like to raid. We do it for the fun, the glory and defniitly the gear.

 

What others here have to realize is, you have to work for it, just like the rest of us. I am sorry if you don't have the same amount of time to play or you feel left behind. But everyone you complain about having this uber gear didn't just get it for free. They did or are doing the same exact grind you are. You are no more special then the guy standing right next to you.

[Sanchpanza]

Add a blue level 50 pvp set and this thread goes away.

 

It's dumb a fresh 50 goes into PvP with 0 of a stat that means everything in PvP.

 

But the thing is...there shouldn't be whining!

 

You get 50 commendations easily, even if you're owned out of the warzone. With that you would only need to do 16 matches to get a champion bag.

 

I've had horrible stats at the end of a warzone, but because I participated my best, tried to support my team-mates and such, I've ended up with like 80 commendations. Doing that consistently is only 10 matches to get a bag.

 

I'll grant you that getting the higher level stuff is harder, but getting your first set of gear really isn't that hard!

[Dwimmerlaik]

What do Wow and Rift have in common seeing as some one else mentioned the names.... They both have extremely low new PvP player uptake. Getting people to enter PvP in those games and stick with it long enough to be on par gear wise (Or close enough to be competitive) simply doesn't happen, at a rate that replaces outgoing players.

 

Both of those games have PvP communities that loose members faster then they replace them with new Ex PvE Playing converts. The PvP stats make it VERY VERY hard to introduce new players to the fantastic world of PvP that we all get. I think most of us will grind on alts when we have too ect... because we are already hooked. There was a time when every one of us was not a PVP player... admit it none of us came to PvP first.

 

The bracketing that PvP stats creates drives away growth. It will become a problem for TOR in the future as well.

 

Quoting this because it is extremely relevant to the topic, and simply cannot state the issue better. I'm not professing that I have some amazing idea to separate PvP and Raid gear progression, but a "PvP Stat" is a terrible concept to rely on.

[Mallatic]

I don't mind getting my rear kicked until i get enough to buy my gear it is a game so i will survive and eventually get my gear and then if i am getting my teeth kicked with the gear well then that's my own fault.

[gotem]

Hell no,

 

If you start pvp'n your first time at 50, you deserve your fait...

 

A: you have no clue what to do on any map

B: chances are your solo

C: you have no skill other then pve to go by, so your concept of pvp and what to do when ==0

D: giving you any better gear options (blues) wouldn't even help, the reason people are getting owned is because of the above. Expertise helps, no argument, but skill vs expertise and add teamplay? no comparison. You still need a team that knows what it is doing to win a round , no matter what gear you own.

 

This comes from first hand experiance, I have no doubt many here have that same experiance. You could in fact ,eliminate all gear from pvp, the downfall would be we like to earn things for our time doing things we love. It's that little extra (knowing what is to come) that keeps us pvp'n just like end gamers like to raid. We do it for the fun, the glory and defniitly the gear.

 

What others here have to realize is, you have to work for it, just like the rest of us. I am sorry if you don't have the same amount of time to play or you feel left behind. But everyone you complain about having this uber gear didn't just get it for free. They did or are doing the same exact grind you are. You are no more special then the guy standing right next to you.

 

Hell yes,

 

This isn't my first time in PvP I rerolled Republic from a 50 near BM (pre patch) Empire player.

 

I know how to PvP I don't need to learn anything.

 

There is no amount of positioning in the world that will save me once a geared player sees me with my HP and gets a hard on because they know I have 0 expertise. I simply become a way for geared players to earn there 5k damage medal.

 

It's not fun getting dominated where no amount of skill would save you. Rather just AFK at a point and watch TV.

 

A blue PvP set that costs commendations would be earned btw. If it costs several thousand commendations you would have to PvP a lot to earn them.

 

So instead of having fresh 50 players with respectable expertise who could actually contribute to your team winning you want them to be ****** geared free kills for geared players as a way to "learn" PvP. Also having to PvP pre 50 just helps players learn the game too which counters another one of your points but whatever.

 

Your idea is a great way for an MMO company to fail.

[gryhmr]

simply put expertise is a huge mistake right out the gate, almost as much as ilum.

[Torcer]

Wouldn't alot of the problem be solved by having Expertise scale on gear just like every other Stat? Break the brackets down to 20, 40, and 50, and add put Expertise on PvP gear in each bracket. For the life of me, I don't understand why Expertise is only on the 50 gear.

[Okamakiri]

Guess what...

 

Good Pvpers kick ***

 

Bad Pvpers get there asses kicked

 

That is a simple fact that will remain the same with or without expertise.

 

A good pvper will do whatever is necessary to get gear for pvp. (You can get a full set of centurion gear just off the daily and weekly quests in maybe 5 weeks. Assuming you get 0 champ item tokens and dont purchase any champion bags).

 

So any good pvper is not running around with 0 exp they will get pvp gear and smoke people.

 

Bottom line is if you think that if they remove expertise all of a sudden your gonna be rocken in pvp WRONG.

 

You are still gonna get rolled cause you are a bad pvper.

 

Then there's no problem removing it from the game. amirite? or you just trolling?

[Posixgod]

A level 50 PvP bracket simply will not save the PvP in this game.

 

There is no logical explanation for having a PvP stat in this MMO game, or in fact any MMO game. The only possible reason for Expertise to exist in this game is to screw over people who cant grind it first.

 

Even if you did have a 50's only bracket, you'd be creating more problems than you're fixing. Aside from all the obvious queue time issues, the 50's bracket will suffer from the exact same problems we have now; the bracket will divided up into New 50's and Old 50's, ie. people who dont have their 10% Expertise bonus yet, and those that do.

 

But you might say, "Everyone will become an Old 50 eventually." and yes, they might. But then what would be the point in everyone having the same 10% Expertise bonus, when all it's going to do is cancel out everyone elses 10% Expertise bonus. The only outside issue there is that healing will still be 10% stronger, but if you wanted that why wouldn't you just lower the Trauma debuff by 10%?

 

It's honestly unimaginable to even begin to hope to understand what anyone was thinking when they thought putting Expertise into the game would be a good idea.

 

 

Removing the stat doesn't mean PvP Gear has to go, the point of PvP Gear/Experience/Credits in the first place is so that people who want an alternative to PvE can still progress. There all kinds of stats in this game that mean you could make all kinds of PvP Gear Sets, whether they are Purple or Mods, so people can look however they want to, or however you want them to look, and they can mix and match all these different pieces of gear to whatever their hearts desire. To give you an idea of the combinations of gear that could be possible:

 

- Primary Stat

- Endurance

• Crit Rating
  
• Surge
  
• Alacrity
  
• Power
  

 

Now reverse the Primary Stat and Endurance, so that Endurance is the bigger of the two and look how much choice you have... something for everyone, even. Now when you're 50 and you arent bolstered anymore, you can decide which stat you want more of, in return for lower stats on other stuff, or you can even decide to have an equal balance.

 

A crazy thing, having a choice, isn't it? Like choosing to have Fun over Frustration. Or choosing to resubscribe... or perhaps not.

 

 

 

I'm not even mad.

 

This is such a horrible post, you give absolutely no supporting reasons as to why Expertise ISN'T needed in the PVP environment.

 

Similar to other MMO's with PVP, a stat of this nature is necessary, obviously the dev's felt the same.

 

Next?

[Treebyrn]

I have a feeling 3 months from now Expertise arguments will no longer matter... in fact I bet you will not see but maybe 1 post on the pvp forums about it. I will however venture to say that the pvp forums will be filled with "Merge severs now, it takes 1 hour just to get a warzone match", "Make cross server warzones so we can get faster warzone pops".

 

You would think pvp'ers of all types would relish the idea of more people participating in pvp but that does not seem to be the case. In fact it seems as if people would rather keep the pvp community small thus making Biowares decisions on what to dedicate their developers time and money on much easier. Seriously if you were bioware what would you spend the time and money on, a dieing pvp community or a thriving pve community?

 

If you for one would like a thriving pvp community then you need to encourage not only Bioware but the hard core pro expertise people to rethink the path pvp is on right now.

[Avindra]

Add a blue level 50 pvp set and this thread goes away.

 

It's dumb a fresh 50 goes into PvP with 0 of a stat that means everything in PvP.

 

They had this since day 1 it was in drummond kaas near the trainers, it was changed 2 updates ago to match the normal level 20 and 40 pvp vendor.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Avindra

[Sanchpanza]

Hell yes,

 

This isn't my first time in PvP I rerolled Republic from a 50 near BM (pre patch) Empire player.

 

I know how to PvP I don't need to learn anything.

 

There is no amount of positioning in the world that will save me once a geared player sees me with my HP and gets a hard on because they know I have 0 expertise. I simply become a way for geared players to earn there 5k damage medal.

 

It's not fun getting dominated where no amount of skill would save you. Rather just AFK at a point and watch TV.

 

A blue PvP set that costs commendations would be earned btw. If it costs several thousand commendations you would have to PvP a lot to earn them.

 

So instead of having fresh 50 players with respectable expertise who could actually contribute to your team winning you want them to be ****** geared free kills for geared players as a way to "learn" PvP. Also having to PvP pre 50 just helps players learn the game too which counters another one of your points but whatever.

 

Your idea is a great way for an MMO company to fail.

 

As I tried to point out in my post, and as many companies have learnt in the past; Giving people equivalent gear from raiding that they can use in PvP is an even bigger way to fail.

 

You also say in your post that it would take several thousand commendations to get anyway... well...isn't that the same as now? Several thousand commendations gets you like 4-5 champion bags. I really don't see where you're going with this, unless you're saying that people should be able to buy it too. In that case you're just going to destroy any point in people PvPing at lower levels. I mean, I'm sure as Sh-- hell not going to get my *** handed to me repeatedly by 45-49 pre-made groups to get crappy level 20 and 40 gear and there's no point me saving up commendations early if I can just buy in at 50 and get those commendations 3 times quicker.

 

To be honest, I think your whole argument is flawed and you haven't thought out what you've said in the least bit. You just don't like the fact that you switched sides and don't automatically get acknowledged for the 'great' pvper you are and are making reactionary posts to it. Go back and read what people have said about why PvP stats are put into games.

 

Oh, and for the record, I had no problem coming near the top of the table even when there were 50's on my and the enemy team geared up when playing with my healer and my tank. If you can't do that compared to a moderately skilled pvper who still has much to learn then I suspect you're not as great at pvp as you think you are. Sure, my damage wasn't that high, but my protection or healing stats were some of, if not THE highest on the table. You can be useful in PvP even if you're not able to take people out 1-1.

 

Not only that, but to be perfectly honest, if you choose to start PvPing at 50 isn't that a bit silly when you KNOW that you can only get expertise ratings from champion gear and above? I mean...every single person in this thread must know you need 800 commendations per champion bag...it's not like they couldn't easily have 10 bags waiting when they get to 50 by only doing 5 pvp matches a day until they're max level.

 

 

I have a feeling 3 months from now Expertise arguments will no longer matter... in fact I bet you will not see but maybe 1 post on the pvp forums about it. I will however venture to say that the pvp forums will be filled with "Merge severs now, it takes 1 hour just to get a warzone match", "Make cross server warzones so we can get faster warzone pops".

 

You would think pvp'ers of all types would relish the idea of more people participating in pvp but that does not seem to be the case. In fact it seems as if people would rather keep the pvp community small thus making Biowares decisions on what to dedicate their developers time and money on much easier. Seriously if you were bioware what would you spend the time and money on, a dieing pvp community or a thriving pve community?

 

If you for one would like a thriving pvp community then you need to encourage not only Bioware but the hard core pro expertise people to rethink the path pvp is on right now.

 

Hmm... you see, the problem with your argument is that in the games I've been in where there is PvP gear, there hasn't been a problem with people not wanting to play. The problem has been people wanting to play on the side that wins all the time. I hate to use a WoW example but how many people re-rolled to horde to be on the winning side, rather than trying to work together and win on alliance? I know of at least 20 people who over my time in WoW said they were switching purely because of PvP.

 

Also, do you think I want to PvP with, or against, people who spit their dummy out and throw a tantrum when they have to go through the same process as everyone else to get geared up? I mean...seriously...would you whine that it's too hard to get raiding gear to do the top end raids? I suspect not, because people know, in general, that if you want to be good in raids you need to put quite a lot of effort into it. Why people think the same should not apply to PvP and they should be able to step into an arena with someone who's been PvPing all day every day and be able to have the same gear as them is beyond me.

 

I'm willing to bet that 90% of the people who are 50 and geared up either started PvPing early, and got their *** handed to them, or started PvPing at 50 and got their asses handed to them. Those that are geared are the ones that were willing to put up with not being SUPER UBER FANTASTIC SUPERMAN straight away and knew they had to put some time and effort into excelling at what they do. I'm also willing to bet that half the people who whine about this don't change their specs for PvPing and go rolling in specced for PvE and expect to be brilliant.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Sanchpanza

[Velix]

It's a stupid stat, and bad for the game.

 

I disagree. I mean, yeah sure, a PvP stat is kind of a dumb idea. But what else would we do? PvP needs a reward system, just like PvE... how do we reward people in mmos? GEAR! Ok, so do we give the PvPer gear that would make him awesome at PvE? Well, no, because maybe he's good at PvP but he is inexperienced at PvE because he spends all his time in war zones and no time refining his rotation or learning when to use key abilities for PvE situations. Additionally, what if getting said gear is easier in PvP than it is in PvE (which I believe it is)? Then everyone's going to PvP til they get such awesome gear that they and their guildies can farm all the operations without ever having to work on progression--oh wait, if you already have top-end gear, why do operations at all?

 

So you see where I'm going here? There needs to be something to delegate what is PvP gear and what is PvE gear. Now in defense of "Expertise"... In WoW there was resilience. Let me explain how expertise is a better idea than resilience.

 

Resilience=reduces damage taken from other players

Expertise=reduces damage taken from other players/increases damage dealt to other players/increases healing done to friendly players

 

So because resilience reduced damage taken, it produced a very slow PvP environment that turned WoW PvP from being somewhat fast-paced to an absolute slugfest with endless, boring, no-consequences type fighting eventually resulting in a player dying. In fact, in arenas, you would seriously run into situations where players could fight for up to a half hour with no deaths occurring on either side.

 

Expertise is better than resilience because less emphasis is put on survivability. Two level 50s sporting 600 expertise each will wind up having an identical duel to two level 50s with 0 expertise. If you have the same expertise as your opponent, it will have no bearing on the fight. If you have more expertise, obviously you will have an advantage. The point is, expertise counteracts enemy expertise, whereas resilience simply made you stupidly hard to kill.

[Elysion]

I like how all the people who say it needs to exist never have a way to deal with all the problems the stat provides. They just say it needs to exist.

 

There are other ways to reward pvp, honestly its very sloppy what they did just adding something that is proven flawed already, they had an opportunity to design a system with out it, and they did (all level bracket with bolster system), but in the end what, they were too lazy to come up with a way to reward pvp other than a pvp stat?

Edited January 24, 2012 by Elysion

[Treebyrn]

Hmm... you see, the problem with your argument is that in the games I've been in where there is PvP gear, there hasn't been a problem with people not wanting to play. The problem has been people wanting to play on the side that wins all the time. I hate to use a WoW example but how many people re-rolled to horde to be on the winning side, rather than trying to work together and win on alliance? I know of at least 20 people who over my time in WoW said they were switching purely because of PvP.

 

Also, do you think I want to PvP with, or against, people who spit their dummy out and throw a tantrum when they have to go through the same process as everyone else to get geared up? I mean...seriously...would you whine that it's too hard to get raiding gear to do the top end raids? I suspect not, because people know, in general, that if you want to be good in raids you need to put quite a lot of effort into it. Why people think the same should not apply to PvP and they should be able to step into an arena with someone who's been PvPing all day every day and be able to have the same gear as them is beyond me.

 

I'm willing to bet that 90% of the people who are 50 and geared up either started PvPing early, and got their *** handed to them, or started PvPing at 50 and got their asses handed to them. Those that are geared are the ones that were willing to put up with not being SUPER UBER FANTASTIC SUPERMAN straight away and knew they had to put some time and effort into excelling at what they do. I'm also willing to bet that half the people who whine about this don't change their specs for PvPing and go rolling in specced for PvE and expect to be brilliant.

 

First of all people wanted to go from alliance to horde because for the longest time horde had the best pvp racials. Now ask youself... why would people want to switch sides for racial abilities... because it gave you an edge in PVP. It is the same thing with pvp only gear... it gives you an edge. Blah Blah Blah we understand you worked hard for you gear... I mean racing to level 50 as fast as you could so you could farm lev 30's is exhausting.

 

Oh and you are already fight against or with people who have spit their dummy out (not sure what that means) because I am pretty sure there have been plenty of republic players who re-rolled empire to make the uphill climb a little less annoying.

 

I am also not arguing that someone who pvps 2 days a week should be equally geared with someone who pvps 7 days a week. The gear should be different but not as drastic as it currently is with the expertise loaded gear.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Treebyrn

[Avindra]

They just need to add the NPCs in Drummond Kaas they sold the blue 50 expertise gear back in.

[Daeth]

They just need to add the NPCs in Drummond Kaas they sold the blue 50 expertise gear back in.

 

/agree

 

Put them in the Fleet too. They need this blue set back as an intro PvP set.

[Donnach]

I haven't read all the messages in this thread so I dunno if someone has already mentioned this: What about the Guild Wars model?

 

In that game everyone in pvp had the same level gear i.e. two rangers had identical stats on their gear, two mesmers had the same etc. In this venue pvp was one based only on knowledge + skill, no gear advantage whatsoever was included. Everyone entered the battle on equal footing.

 

Subsequently, the rewards in that game were purely aesthetic, but were cool enough to make the grind rewarding. I know I spent more time then I should have grinding to get the look I wanted.

 

I apologize if this has already been discussed, otherwise I would like to know why this might or might not work.