An explanation (With some stats) on why bracketing is not necessary

[amonre]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOvx28ikYWI&feature=channel_video_title

no you're wrong

i have so many other videos of me just killing low levels like they're nothing too

 

you're ridiculous

 

And what is your gear like? More importantly, what is your expertise rating?

[Trackeri]

simple fix to expertise : add in small amounts of it on level 20 and level 40 pvp gear sets, and make bolster increase expertise by a % based on your level. (so say, a 20 has 1/3rd of a 50's expertise with the 20 set, reducing down to 1/6th at level 40, whereby getting the 40 set with more expertise boosts back up to 1/3rd expertise again).

 

suddenly lowbies can put up a bit more of a fight against people at 50 who stack expertise, as they have some themselves now giving incentive to pvp and use pvp gear, and suddenly you've made all that pvp gear mediocre for PVE so people don't just faceroll some matches for a godly set of armour at 20 and 40. also theres no longer such a shock at hitting 50 as you've been making use of the expertise stat while you level.

[Dogfatherxx]

Any level 50 who does not realize the significant advantage that they have over people that are not 50 must be a terrible PVPer. I can not remember the last time I lost a 1 on 1 fight with anyone 49 and below and I do not consider myself a great PVPer. I am all for bracketing and hope that they patch it in this month like they siad they will. There is just no reason not to do it, especially on a PVP server like mine where there are hundreds of 50s of both factions PVPing all the time.

[justcallmetarzan]

Today, i'm going to explain why [bracketing is] a bad idea.

 

 

You see, the tiered gear 50's get access too that gives expertise does not actually give the necessary expertise to "faceroll" through warzones.

 

Not sure what warzones you've been playing in or what expertise you've been using...

 

 

It only starts to do this when you obtain T3 gear in larger quantities. Prior to that it gives you an edge in combat. Something that would be over-powered if you were fighting in a vacuum. However, warzones are anything but. The T3 issue is also easily mitigated by a simple change on Bioware's part.

 

Wait, I'm confused... above you say that level 50 gear does not let you faceroll a WZ, but here you say that T3 gear does. Is T3 gear inaccessible to level 50's?

 

So what you mean to say is that level 50's with non-pvp gear or limited amounts can't faceroll a WZ. Yes... because they have no expertise.

 

 

Gear, unfortunately, as it is now, is a stepping stone that certain people at 50 use to buff themselves to insane levels.

 

LOL WUT? I suppose the purpose of gear is to look good? People do not abuse gear to buff themselves to insane levels... it's part of the game.

 

Since Bioware apparently ignored this in favor of 50's bracketing, which will unfortunately not fix the real problem at hand

 

I assume you mean that buff/stim stacking (not gear) is what people use to "buff themselves to insane levels" ??

 

and the community ignored it in favor of shouting down people who didn't provide the necessary statistics

 

Stats that are, noticeably, absent in this post.

 

 

<Blah, blah, blah - pop all stims, blow all CD's, boom happened.>

 

By only stacking a few of the buffs, I was easily able to win almost every fight, even without full tier 2 gear.

 

Really? That's your argument? That by popping a bunch of buffs, you can overcome the vast disadvantage you have?

 

Here's some food for thought too - you began by talking about why bracketing is a bad idea, but then go off about percent increases to expertise, which is only available to level 50's - so in other words, you've actually provided a very good reason TO use brackets.

 

The fact that a non-50 or non-pvp geared player can blow CD's and use stims, etc... to overcome the insane handicap of expertise doesn't mean that bracketing is a bad idea.

 

 

When I stacked everything I had (expensive, but entirely doable if you play often), I, to date, have not lost a single fight.

 

Oh I get it now - people should be forced to blow all cooldowns and consumables because bracketing is a bad idea.

 

In addition to that information, since people keep debating the issue of scoundrels being potentially overpowered, I watched, and was also a victim to a T1 scoundrel stunning someone, chugging their buffs, and then one-shotting them.

 

There was no counter to this. If the guy broke the stun, he'd hit them with his secondary, and finish the combo up anyways. Even if he survived it, he had like a sliver of health left. The tank he did this too was geared in T2/T3's.

 

To that end, i'd say that scoundrels and operatives themselves are not overpowered.

 

The real problem is that this method of exploiting the stats scales extremely well with their method of play, in a way that puts them leagues ahead of most other classes.

 

I'm confused what you think "overpowered" means.

 

Detecting and stopping someone doing this is just about next to impossible (And actually is impossible for many AC's, as they don't have a stealth detection method outside of rampant paranoia.). Fixing the buff stacking so that you can't run multiple expertise buffs at once would fix that particular issue.

 

So would removing a stunlock from the game... but this really digresses from bracketing.

 

 

If you're for this, I hate to say this, but you either don't understand the back-end of the game, or you're quite frankly, in full on "screw you, got mine" mode. It's certainly not skillful, if that's your take on PVP, and plays off of an unaccounted for issue in beta---That expertise stacking is additive instead of being multiplicative off of current expertise, which is the core aspect of this that lets people do this.

 

There is no way this is balanced. And the people pointing it out are only going to increase in number after this upcoming patch, once more and more people hit 50 and encounter this.

 

So what you've provided here is actually a very powerful argument FOR bracketing. Non-50's have no expertise to increase with buffs and stims. So at the very least, there needs to be a 50's only bracket (and I'm glad one is coming).

 

There is absolutely nothing at all in your OP that addresses the fact that lower levels can't touch expertise-equipped 50's in pvp. That's why brackets are needed. There are really two solutions - brackets, or expertise on lower level gear that gets bolstered.

 

Really, the best solution is to put expertise on lower gear AND implement brackets, perhaps with internal bolstering to even differences between, say, 30's and 39's.

 

Your entire argument against brackets depends utterly on the presence of expertise. Basically, you've pointed out that buff-stacking is a problem even when level 50's are fighting each other. That has absolutely nothing at all to do with the situation where people without expertise are fighting people with expertise - which is the real need for brackets.

 

I'm not sure where you get the idea that brackets aren't needed. Not only do 50's get expertise gear, they get different levels of it... so people are literally in the situation where you can be at 0 expertise fighting someone with 250 expertise - a HUGE advantage, not withstanding the extra talent points that can be put into increased damage or increased mitigation talents.

 

Brackets are definitely needed. MAYBE they wouldn't be needed (other than a 50 and non-50 bracket) if expertise was on lower gear and it worked with bolstering.

 

Maybe the OP was trolling?

[Jooji]

If they bracket the warzones 50s will get heavily punished with huge Q times. I do agree 50s should get their own bracket, but wait another few months until there's more 50s before doing so...

[justcallmetarzan]

If they bracket the warzones 50s will get heavily punished with huge Q times. I do agree 50s should get their own bracket, but wait another few months until there's more 50s before doing so...

 

IMO it depends on the server right now. On some servers, there are way more sith than republic, which means there are also more lvl 50 sith than lvl 50 republic.

 

Long story short, sometimes it will be a hodgepodge of rep levels vs 8 lvl 50 sith. Guess who wins?

 

So bracketing, or even intra-faction queueing would probably work on some (mostly pvp) servers that have the populations to support it. But I would imagine fairly soon that there will be a large enough 50 population to implement brackets across all servers.

[Repefe]

LvL 50 players die ... even if they are bis geared. Problem is when enemy raid has average lvl 45 and your raid has average lvl 25, they have to mess up really bad to lose the warzone. That's also the reason why win:loss ratio is on some servers so messed up.

[Repefe]

If they bracket the warzones 50s will get heavily punished with huge Q times. I do agree 50s should get their own bracket, but wait another few months until there's more 50s before doing so...

 

Keep leveling brackets but strip gear from everyone and give them default bolster. Let gear matter in lvl 50 bracket only.

[Zeromentor]

For those of you saying it is impossible to get expertise before level 50, buy any weapon with expertise from the PvP Vendor, break it open, take the enhancements and equip them.

 

Hint: Level 46 Assault Cannon holds 25 expertise.

 

That means people saving all their warzone comms until 46 can buy 8 cannons and fully outfit themselves with expertise, then pop stims and buffs and pretend to be T3 BM PvPers in the new 10-49 bracket.

 

Congrats, nothing was solved with brackets. Fools. OP is right.

[Repefe]

For those of you saying it is impossible to get expertise before level 50, buy any weapon with expertise from the PvP Vendor, break it open, take the enhancements and equip them.

 

Hint: Level 46 Assault Cannon holds 25 expertise.

 

That means people saving all their warzone comms until 46 can buy 8 cannons and fully outfit themselves with expertise, then pop stims and buffs and pretend to be T3 BM PvPers in the new 10-49 bracket.

 

Congrats, nothing was solved with brackets. Fools. OP is right.

 

Every lvl 50 player vs somebody who will have to get to level 46 and will have to leave every wz before it's end. I think lvl 50 bracket would be a good start. That or balance the teams better ... lvl 10 player is not equal to lvl 50 player.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Repefe

[MrHotter]

I'm not a big fan of consumables being a nescesity for PvP.

 

I'd rather not spend x amount of hours grinding/crafting for every x amount of hours I plan to do PvP.

 

I'm all for toning down the stacking of expertise.

 

I know there are other games where the line between 'pro' and 'noob' was just a willingness to spend hours farming mats and crafting instead of doing the fun parts of the game.

 

This reminds me of a twink in the games who name we will not say who would toss bombs and chug healing pots every time they were off cooldown. He would do that for hours at a time, so he must have spent many more hours gettting those potions/bombs ready. He'd also have a long list of potion buffs even if they were 5-15 min potions.

 

I'm just not sure how this means we should not have a seperate bracket for the 50s. A level 50 is the only one in the warzone with access to the 'real' PvP gear and that gives him an advantage over anyone who is not 50. You don't let the high school kids play dodgeball with the kindergartners for a reason.

[justcallmetarzan]

For those of you saying it is impossible to get expertise before level 50, buy any weapon with expertise from the PvP Vendor, break it open, take the enhancements and equip them.

 

Hint: Level 46 Assault Cannon holds 25 expertise.

 

That means people saving all their warzone comms until 46 can buy 8 cannons and fully outfit themselves with expertise, then pop stims and buffs and pretend to be T3 BM PvPers in the new 10-49 bracket.

 

Congrats, nothing was solved with brackets. Fools. OP is right.

 

Oops - our bad... because there is one way to get expertise IF you spend your badges and IF you have the open slots to put the enhancements in... therefore brackets aren't needed.

 

Right.

 

The fact that this only affects 4 levels (46, 47, 48, 49) notwithstanding, this doesn't solve the expertise problems of the 10-45's. I would hazard a guess that if that was really a viable way of pvp'ing, more people would be doing it, and BW would implement some kind of hotfix.

 

Easier to go from 46 to 50 and get the real pvp gear.

 

Brackets would, again, solve the expertise/non-expertise problem. All you've done is move the threshold from 50 to 46.

[Zeromentor]

Oops - our bad... because there is one way to get expertise IF you spend your badges and IF you have the open slots to put the enhancements in... therefore brackets aren't needed.

 

Right.

 

The fact that this only affects 4 levels (46, 47, 48, 49) notwithstanding, this doesn't solve the expertise problems of the 10-45's. I would hazard a guess that if that was really a viable way of pvp'ing, more people would be doing it, and BW would implement some kind of hotfix.

 

Easier to go from 46 to 50 and get the real pvp gear.

 

Brackets would, again, solve the expertise/non-expertise problem. All you've done is move the threshold from 50 to 46.

 

Yeah, because a random bag system makes it so easy to get full champion gear. Go back to your bridge you troll.

 

And guess what? You can get expertise from guns all the way down to around level 26 or 30. Yeah, so what then? Bracket everyone into their own seperate bracket? level 10, level 11, level 12, all to make it fair? Let's go all out, everyone gets 1 button and 1 HP. Winner is the first to get in range and spam the button to attack.

 

So can keep fighting it, but you've already lost. Stop reaching and give in. You've been outplayed.

[Repefe]

Yeah, because a random bag system makes it so easy to get full champion gear. Go back to your bridge you troll.

 

And guess what? You can get expertise from guns all the way down to around level 26 or 30. Yeah, so what then? Bracket everyone into their own seperate bracket? level 10, level 11, level 12, all to make it fair? Let's go all out, everyone gets 1 button and 1 HP. Winner is the first to get in range and spam the button to attack.

 

So can keep fighting it, but you've already lost. Stop reaching and give in. You've been outplayed.

 

It's broken ... let's not fix it.

[CHRISGG]

And what is your gear like? More importantly, what is your expertise rating?

 

Do you see the DATE on that video? December 24th.

 

How much gear do you think I had?

[Zeromentor]

It's broken ... let's not fix it.

 

No one is saying that. Instead, I propose fixing a flat tire with a spare, not pulling the nail out, slapping a bandaid on it and saying it'll be fine for the next 50 miles.

 

There are MANY other systems that could work. Brackets are a cheap cop-out and would last a whole 2 weeks before people starting whining about the same thing happening, but with level 46s instead of 50s. Then when they cut them, it'd be level 36s. Then they'd whine more. SAME PROBLEM EXISTS, BUT WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS!!!

 

People just can't seem to absorb that into their brain. Brackets SOLVE NOTHING.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Zeromentor

[justcallmetarzan]

Yeah, because a random bag system makes it so easy to get full champion gear. Go back to your bridge you troll.

 

Right, because it's SOOOO hard that people can't get full champion gear. There aren't ANY people in full champion gear. My mistake. You don't get, what, 1 per day, + 4 extra per week? 11 bags if you do your daily/weekly quests?

 

(Edit: bag values...)

 

Sorry you have bad bag RNG?

 

And guess what? You can get expertise from guns all the way down to around level 26 or 30. Yeah, so what then? Bracket everyone into their own seperate bracket? level 10, level 11, level 12, all to make it fair? Let's go all out, everyone gets 1 button and 1 HP. Winner is the first to get in range and spam the button to attack.

 

Nobody has ever suggested that. Way to strawman. Too bad you're awful at it.

 

But brackets make sense for like 10-19/20-29/30-39/40-49/50. The differences in available talent points are enough reason for those brackets once the servers are well-populated (or if it's cross-server).

 

The point the bracketing proponents are making is that there needs to be at least a 50/non-50 bracket ASAP because it's gotten to the point where it's completely futile to try to pvp until you get close to level 50, because the 50's are just so much stronger. And that difference will keep growing as more and more 50's get Battlemaster gear.

 

So can keep fighting it, but you've already lost. Stop reaching and give in. You've been outplayed.

 

Right... Battlemaster vs. some expertise enhancements. No need for brackets. My bad...

 

Do you even read what you type?

Edited January 12, 2012 by justcallmetarzan

[Radiatonia]

Battlemaster takes Valor Rank 60 to even start getting pieces of it.

 

And keep in mind that not only does that mean you have to start the random gear bag grind from scratch, but also that they're changing BM tokens to commendations only soon. Which will further increase the amount of time needed to get full BM. You're looking at the sort of grind that could take over a month to do, maybe more, depending on how BM gear gets modified by Bioware.

 

Also, I mentioned a fix for that issue that doesn't require bracketing in my OP. And it's been mentioned multiple times by several people now throughout the topic. In fact, someone proposed an alternate solution that is entirely doable with a bit of tweaking not a page or two ago.

 

Simply tallying up and averaging out to the median of the expertise bonuses 50's possess in a given PVP match could also be a fix, if the averaged expertise was assigned to players. It would require some fine tuning on Bioware's part, but it's entirely doable. Especially with the resources they have available.

 

This would keep them at about the median of strength, while not giving anyone a significant advantage (Except for the people who are twinked/set up specifically for PVP. But that's unavoidable no matter what system you use.). It would also be another possible solution that would remove the need for 50's bracketing.

 

I have mixed feelings about this solution. On one hand, it removes the issue of expertise being the dominant stat in PVP if you start seeing alot of people showing up in T3 full sets. On the other hand, it also homogenizes things a bit, if the numbers aren't tweaked carefully in the bolstering system. Bioware could probably do it, however.

 

 

Like I said before however, either way they need to deal with expertise buff stacking first before any of this is really viable, though. It's not going to go away just because you try and shove it off in a corner. As another person pointed out, you can do the same thing pre-50. It's just that most people haven't figured it out yet.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Radiatonia

[justcallmetarzan]

Brackets are a cheap cop-out and would last a whole 2 weeks before people starting whining about the same thing happening, but with level 46s instead of 50s.

 

Noooo... the entire point of bracketing is that 50's get expertise. Non-50's get no *feasible* expertise without wasting all their commendations and ripping apart the same piece of gear for mods/enhancements/whatever IF they have the open slot to put it in, regardless of the probable dps loss for doing so.

 

What really needs to happen is expertise gear for lower levels (say, a craftable set for every 5/10 levels) AND a bracketing system. But that's long term. Short term, a bracketing system to separate 50/non-50.

 

People just can't seem to absorb that into their brain. Brackets SOLVE NOTHING.

 

I can only presume you mean nothing besides the non-access to expertise gear.

[Zeromentor]

Right, because it's SOOOO hard that people can't get full champion gear. There aren't ANY people in full champion gear. My mistake. You don't get, what, 1 per day, + 4 extra per week? 11 bags if you do your daily/weekly quests?

 

(Edit: bag values...)

 

Sorry you have bad bag RNG?

 

 

 

Nobody has ever suggested that. Way to strawman. Too bad you're awful at it.

 

But brackets make sense for like 10-19/20-29/30-39/40-49/50. The differences in available talent points are enough reason for those brackets once the servers are well-populated (or if it's cross-server).

 

The point the bracketing proponents are making is that there needs to be at least a 50/non-50 bracket ASAP because it's gotten to the point where it's completely futile to try to pvp until you get close to level 50, because the 50's are just so much stronger. And that difference will keep growing as more and more 50's get Battlemaster gear.

 

 

 

Right... Battlemaster vs. some expertise enhancements. No need for brackets. My bad...

 

Do you even read what you type?

 

1. I've openned 51 bags and gotten 3 champion items. 2 implants, 1 gauntlet.

 

2. Twinks. Look it up. Brackets fix nothing, don't even try to argue for it.

 

3. BM are a league all their own, and level 50 brackets won't stop Valor 60 players with full BM, chowing down on stims and buffs from EATING entire teams of new 50s. That's a lot like a pack of 40s fighting a champion geared player with stims and buffs, with almost no difference. Nothing is solved.

 

 

I could call you many names, but you have nothing backing you. No statistics, no videos, nothing. And I've seen what brackets cause. I know from logic and analysis what WILL (not might, WILL) happen.

 

SO yeah. I'm ignoring you. I'm 100% convinced that you either have your own motives for being for brackets, or being for chugging stims and biochems. Either way you have nothing to add to the discussion.

[justcallmetarzan]

Battlemaster takes Valor Rank 60 to even start getting pieces of it.

 

Yes, but there are people on Rakata that have pieces of Battlemaster already... it's not too uncommon to see several people in a WZ with full champion and a couple pieces of Battlemaster.

 

The point is that it is impossible for lower levels to compete with them in WZ. It just doesn't work.

 

The slowness with which the already wide gap gets wider isn't the issue. The gap itself is.

[Radiatonia]

Yes, but there are people on Rakata that have pieces of Battlemaster already... it's not too uncommon to see several people in a WZ with full champion and a couple pieces of Battlemaster.

 

The point is that it is impossible for lower levels to compete with them in WZ. It just doesn't work.

 

The slowness with which the already wide gap gets wider isn't the issue. The gap itself is.

 

Way to ignore the rest of my post, buddy! Troll harder.

[justcallmetarzan]

1. I've openned 51 bags and gotten 3 champion items. 2 implants, 1 gauntlet.

 

Bad RNG - I'm 6 for 8 on bags with all unique pieces.

 

2. Twinks. Look it up. Brackets fix nothing, don't even try to argue for it.

 

As I mentioned before, if bolstering doesn't scale linerally, then there are no such things as twinks.

 

Furthermore, within brackets, the difference between a twink/non-twink is just the existence of pvp gear. It's no different than a 50 with no gear and a 50 with gear. A geared 50 is not a "twink" - why would you call a geared 39 (in his 30-39 bracket) a "twink" ??

 

3. BM are a league all their own, and level 50 brackets won't stop Valor 60 players with full BM, chowing down on stims and buffs from EATING entire teams of new 50s. That's a lot like a pack of 40s fighting a champion geared player with stims and buffs, with almost no difference. Nothing is solved.

 

Two problems here - first, you're comparing non-expertise to expertise. 40's plus boosts cannot down expertise-geared 50's plus boosts. Your model depends on the 50's playing nice. Second, the rate at which you get expertise when you hit 50, compared to when you hit 60 valor is MUCH different.

 

 

I could call you many names, but you have nothing backing you. No statistics, no videos, nothing. And I've seen what brackets cause. I know from logic and analysis what WILL (not might, WILL) happen.

 

SO yeah. I'm ignoring you. I'm 100% convinced that you either have your own motives for being for brackets, or being for chugging stims and biochems. Either way you have nothing to add to the discussion.

 

Oh I must have missed all the videos, stats, etc... in your posts. There are several possibilities for what brackets would do - none of them unsavory, so long as there is a separation between the expertise and non-expertise users. It's really, really simple.

 

I'm not sure why you think that 0 expertise can be made up for with stims and boosts when the people that have >0 expertise can use the EXACT SAME stims/boosts on gear that will benefit MORE from it... it makes no sense at all.

[justcallmetarzan]

Way to ignore the rest of my post, buddy! Troll harder.

 

I guess here you mean the three paragraphs you edited in after I posted. But no matter... the rest of the first couple paragraphs had nothing of substance.

[Zeromentor]

I guess here you mean the three paragraphs you edited in after I posted. But no matter... the rest of the first couple paragraphs had nothing of substance.

 

Do you even play the same game as the rest of us?