An unbiased look at the Expertise system in SW:TOR...

[TheFishes]

So I've been reading the posts on this forum for a long time now, and when you filter out the "Nerf <class that killed me> NOW!" threads and the "I R in PvP, PvP R bad, unsub" threads, there are some genuinely good ideas in here. That being said, I wanted to cover the most commonly addressed topic that people who actually want to discuss the systems bring up. Starting with...

 

Expertise is both in theory and practice a flawed system...

Almost everyone on the forums would agree with this, but VERY few people have taken the time to actually ask why... Here's what it comes down to:

Expertise was implemented, I can only imagine, because the developers wanted to differentiate between PvP and PvE gear. The issue that arises is that PvP is all about putting out enough damage to kill the opponent while simultaneously having enough survivability to outlast said opponent... Objectives aside, that's what it's all about. Now when you add expertise to the mix, you get a natural imbalance of power based solely upon gear (which is based solely upon luck thanks to RNG gearing) and a bad taste gets left in everyone's mouth.

So how do we fix it?

Expertise, while I admit the intentions behind it were good and could be used to pave the road to hell, needs to go... It's as simple as that. My suggestion is that the PvP gear itemization is looked at in a light where instead of a new "PvP specific" stat is included, the normal stats are reworked on the gear in a more pro-PvP way. Now you may be asking yourself...

So what does that even mean?

Here it is, and I'm going to use the two top set chest pieces in game to illustrate my example... Sorry this is from a healing standpoint, but that's the first place my mind goes...

 

Rakata Force Mystic Robe (PvE)

105 End, 122 Will, 48 Crit, 51 Alacrity

 

Battlemaster Force Mystic Robe (PvP)

92 End, 94 Will, 50 EXP, 48 Crit, 51 Alacrity

 

Looking at them side by side, I happen to see it plain as day what needs to happen...

First: Take the PvE gear and swap 10% of the Endurance value into the primary stat value

Second: Take the Expertise bonus from the PvP gear and switch it to flat endurance

Third: Take another look at the set bonuses that were thrown on last minute...

 

By making this fix, the stats on the gear would read as follows:

 

Rakata Force Mystic's Robe (PvE)

94 End, 133 Will, 48 Crit, 51 Alacrity

 

Battlemaster Force Mystic Robe (PvP)

142 End, 94 Will, 48 Crit, 51 Alacrity

 

Now, looking at this as I'm typing it, it's obvious that the PvP gear slightly outweighs the PvE gear (yes, I'm doing this math while I'm typing this) so a further suggestion would be to normalize the Endurance/Primary stat differential... ie: bring the PvE Primary stat up to 142, or drop the PvP End down to 133... Assuming a normalization of 1:10 for endurance, the PvP gear (if End is dropped to 133 to normalize) stands at an extra 390 HP than the PvE gear, and the PvE piece has an extra 39 Willpower on hit, making your heals hit far harder and thus, allowing force consumption to go way, WAY down during nightmare operation boss fights.

 

Now the next question people will have:

What's to keep dps from using the PvE gear in PvP, and tanks from using the PvP gear in PvE...?

 

Simple as these 3 basic truths:

1 - If people want to be glass cannons (Max front end damage w/no survivability whatsoever) then nothing's going to stop them, but right now, expertise is allowing them to be "Iron Cannons" where they are maxing their output AND getting survivability...

2 - RNG keeps telling me "this is the gear you're going to get, DEAL!" This will slightly decrease the number of people complaining about RNG not getting them the gear they want because there is a second avenue to get gear. Now this gear will not be optimized for PvP, but it won't be the 100 steps backward from the people that have their full battlemaster sets. People will rush through to get PvE gear, and after about a week of seeing great numbers in yellow, but crap on the scoreboard due to 1.5k deaths, they will strive harder to advance their pvp gear set and not rest on PvE gearing... Basically, see basic truth #1!

3 - TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR SET BONUSES BIOWARE!!!!!!! Really, who was the genius who put a bonus to consumption on a PvP based set. Now, there will be a few instances where Consumption needs to be used to maintain a LONG battle in open world PvP (if that ever gets fixed), but 9/10 times, sage/sorc would benefit far more from something like "resurgence has a reduced cooldown," or "dark infusion's cast time is reduced by .5 seconds..." Not terribly game breaking, but a bit more useful than a consumption bonus... Making the 4 piece bonuses worth it is what keeps people from running 2 and 2 from their sets... And on that note, make the 2 and 4 piece set bonuses on PvE gear damn near necessary to doing the top tiered content. (PvP and PvE weapons that have procs on them would go a long way in helping with this...

 

So there you are, my 18-35 cents... Take it for what it's worth, but frankly I think this would be a MUCH better system than what we have in place...

 

Emperor Punjab

<Dastardly>, Tarentatek

Master Ghoti

<Parjir Darasuum>, Death Wind Corridor

 

More sense on other topics to follow in other threads, I have a long day at work ahead of me...

Edited January 30, 2012 by TheFishes

[TheFishes]

-------------TL;DR VERSION--------------

Expertise if Flawed

 

math, math, math, math, opinion, opinion, math, math...

 

Fast, easy fix to Expertise: add Exp total to End for survivability and eliminate Exp

 

math, opinion, opinion, opinion, math...

 

Have a look at set bonuses and make them more geared toward PvP or PvE respectively

 

math, opinion, opinion...

 

Signature

Edited January 30, 2012 by TheFishes

[Vesperr]

Expertise is ment to make difference between PvP and PvE gear, so one who goes PvE cant simpy join warzone with their rakatas and faceroll everyone, he first has to earn his gear. It'll still give him advantage as stats difference between rakata and centurion is too great. Rakata and champion, thats where you can choose.

[goxwerd]

I hate expertise in this game but i can tell you that having PVP gear just being health heavy does NOT work.

 

Vanilla WoW tried it and we all pvped in raid gear while loling at the GMs. Its an ok thought on paper but unless someone in pvp gear has 2x the health of a raid geared player players still will go for more dmg.

 

 

PVP gear should either have extra mitigation or extra dmg. Not a stat that basically buffs everything in pvp and def not a stat/gear that in first wave of pvp gear outclasses anything else completely.

 

I do not know why BW decided to go off the deepend with PVP gear rather than just making pvp gear the best gear for pvp while not make everything else not viable.

Edited January 30, 2012 by goxwerd

[TheFishes]

Expertise is ment to make difference between PvP and PvE gear, so one who goes PvE cant simpy join warzone with their rakatas and faceroll everyone, he first has to earn his gear. It'll still give him advantage as stats difference between rakata and centurion is too great. Rakata and champion, thats where you can choose.

 

Except the expertise stat is allowing too much of a disparity between players who are all pvpers... And while I am myself a PvP hardcore player, I don't think people should be completely unable to play pvp (ie: be farmed by me for valor) if they don't have the expertise gear, and sadly, many of the PvEers / Casuals I talk to say they have stopped PvPing all together because it's impossible to compete on ANY level...

 

Just a thought though... Look at DAoC (revered as best PvP game ever) and Warhammer (while it had a flawed game, the PvP system was well laid out...) as examples...

 

Wait a minute, didn't BW have the Mythic team helping them create this game? How then did we end up here?

[goxwerd]

the thing is. DAOC was rvr with no real battlegrounds like we have today.

 

Imo having gear be gear is more than fine in openworld pvp/RVR. But when you get into a warzone/competitive pvp everything is min/maxed and under a microscope and people will demand a gearset for that.

[TheFishes]

I hate expertise in this game but i can tell you that having PVP gear just being health heavy does NOT work.

 

Vanilla WoW tried it and we all pvped in raid gear while loling at the GMs. Its an ok thought on paper but unless someone in pvp gear has 2x the health of a raid geared player players still will go for more dmg.

 

 

PVP gear should either have extra mitigation or extra dmg. Not a stat that basically buffs everything in pvp and def not a stat/gear that in first wave of pvp gear outclasses anything else completely.

 

I do not know why BW decided to go off the deepend with PVP gear rather than just making pvp gear the best gear for pvp while not make everything else not viable.

 

This was mainly because in Vanilla WoW, the Grand Marshall gear was put in around the time that MC was the biggest deal... As raid gear went forward, GM gear stayed the same. And it also has to do with the fact that there was SOOOO much unnecessary Stam on PvE pieces...

 

Just a thought...

[Semitote]

So tanks need to grind PvP gear to get their BiS for PvE. Good idea.

[Vesperr]

Wait a minute, didn't BW have the Mythic team helping them create this game? How then did we end up here?

 

Because they copied it from WoW ^^

 

I am not a fun of expertise myself but if Bioware chose to hande it this way (so we have to spend more time grinding for gear) then there's not much we can do. Its same as RNG, people hate it but its "working as intended".

[danatharia]

I'll be honest, I didn't take the time to read the entire OP, but I just want to chime in with my opinion anyway.

 

Expertise grants + to damage and healing and - to damage recieved, right?

 

Doesn't that mean that when everyone are decked out in full PvP gear the damage boost/reduction will both be cancelled out by the other? Only leaving the Healing boost?

 

Doesn't that mean that expertise is only really good for killing people without expertise?

[TheFishes]

So tanks need to grind PvP gear to get their BiS for PvE. Good idea.

 

Read the post, this is addressed...

 

Thanks for playing!

[TheFishes]

I'll be honest, I didn't take the time to read the entire OP, but I just want to chime in with my opinion anyway.

 

Expertise grants + to damage and healing and - to damage recieved, right?

 

Doesn't that mean that when everyone are decked out in full PvP gear the damage boost/reduction will both be cancelled out by the other? Only leaving the Healing boost?

 

Doesn't that mean that expertise is only really good for killing people without expertise?

 

ding ding ding!

[Atamosk]

I think the problem with not having the gear have xperties on it is whats the point then of even offering gear. It would be an easier way for people to gear up in raid. i mean thets be honest the stats on that arent bad you are losing 40 but compare that to gear that is pre raid at 50

 

expertise in this case is flawed because it increases dmg output.

 

which makes sense if your fighting all people in pvp gear.

 

this gear should strictly decrease dmg taken, to increase pvp fight times, also so you outlast dmg if someone does deside to skip expertise.

 

this would increase the reason to have the gear but at the same time not make the people who have it totally out of everyones league just harder to kill.

 

The idea of xpertese is neceserry because gear from pvp is belittled by pve gear. i assume that 40 abse stat is way better then that hp gain.

 

I dont have a problem with experties at all. I just think that taking away the dmg and healing increase would improve the gear in terms of balance around people who dont have it.

[BallisticBob]

@ OP

Your whole post is Flawed

What you really mean to say is....Hey i'm a PvEr it's not fair that my pveeee purples aint as good as PvP purples

 

Sure l all for change the pvp gear make it more fair all round for casuals vs hardcore players

but when we do this lets also BAN all PVeeeee gear from any PvP combat

[Kolbenito]

Comparing gear to vanilla wow is not telling the whole story. Gear in this game is nothing like vanilla wow. For one thing that gear had not damage boost/reduction on it. The main difference was the set bonuses. Players completing their set is not limited to one player per faction each week. You don't need to be in the top 5 honor earners for your faction for a month or two, after consistently being among the top earners for a few months prior to that. You completed a blue PVP set at rank 10 and the epic set at rank 13, weapons were 14. Finally once you achieved a given rank you simply bought the rewards for modest amount of gold off the vendor. The other side of the coin is that in vanilla wow you could raid just fine in PVP gear, I wore my set for a long time after I started raiding as a tank and dps.

 

The bag system is brutal, it's still nothing compared to the rank 14 grind. Let's hope nobody tries that system again lol.

 

Saying they copied expertise from wow is not completely true either. Resilience reduces damage taken from players, that's it. It used to also provide crit reduction, and did a better job when it did this. In this game Expertise does that as well as increasing your damage done to players. The double dipping on damage reduction and damage increases is what makes Expertise wonky. So when you fight a much better geared player they not only take less damage from you, but they do more damage to you from Expertise in addition to their superior gear quality. Equally geared players, there is no net benefit to Expertise. It's an odd system.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Kolbenito

[TheFishes]

@ OP

Your whole post is Flawed

What you really mean to say is....Hey i'm a PvEr it's not fair that my pveeee purples aint as good as PvP purples

 

Sure l all for change the pvp gear make it more fair all round for casuals vs hardcore players

but when we do this lets also BAN all PVeeeee gear from any PvP combat

 

@ballisticbob

 

Actually, I'm only missing 2 PvP pieces (boots and 1 implant) and I'm just a community conscious poster... I have little to no PvE gear because I work and can't make raid times (I think I have 4 pieces)... So, Lawyered...

 

/thanksforplaying

[MonkeylordX]

I tend to disagree with getting rid of expertise. Most of the complaints I hear are people fighting someone else who has higher expertise and losing. Which I am sure happens a lot.

 

If you look at the expertise stat it does make a noticeable difference in PVP fights. You get damage reduction which is huge while also getting damage bonus which is also huge. Basically making it a double whammy.

 

The reason expertise needs to exist is to prevent the old WoW problem of having (Forcing) to PVE to PVP. I do not care for operations. Just not something I have interest in at this point. With that said I really enjoy PVP so that’s what I do; I PVP.

 

PVE and PVP fights are very different hence why I don't enjoy operations. they are very different skills sets and not everyone’s cup of tea. With the no expertise system the PVE'er though would have an exponential advantage over the PVP'er in PVP; the part of the game he is not focusing on but the equipment he has dominates in PVP while also dominating in PVP.

 

This occurred in pre arena WoW with raids. You could not compete in high end PVP without also raiding. The addition of resil in WoW elminated this to an extent which is the same situation for expertise.

 

With your example of stat changes as a DPS'er from a PVP standpoint I would never select the PVP gear over PVE gear without expertise. Willpower is my primary stat for all forms of damage and abilities and the stamina difference will never pace well enough to make that not king over the primary DPS stat. The only balance that could work in that manner is to gap stamina so much and replace with secondary stat on PVE gear. We are talking 120 endur on PVP gear with 50 on PVE gear. Enough that the PVE'er is short a 40% HP on the PVP'er to balance the damage issue.

 

TL;DR: Expertise exists to allow PVP'ers to PVP and PVE'ers to PVE and not cross over efficiently. If you got crushed by a guy with more expertise I am sorry, it happens just as a guy with more PVE gear will do more healing/damage then you. In the end skill in PVP still rules as I fought many people with a lot better gear then me who still eat dirt even in mirror circumstances.

 

If you want to fix expertise some, remove the damage bonus and just have it reduce damage taken. This ups survivability while also not scaling damage output included with the survivability.

 

/rantover

Edited January 30, 2012 by MonkeylordX

[Oloh]

Expertise is there for one reason, and one reason alone....to aid in balancing the damage to healing/mitigation ratios in PvP without affecting PvE. It is one thing that the developers "designed" very well.

 

As it stands, PvE gear will always be useful in PvP, but will always be the best in PvE. PvP gear will always be useful in PvE, but will always be the best in PvP. Mission accomplished.

 

The rest is details. They have some tweaking to do, but the balancing "slider" is there. So, its just a matter of changing the values on the three numbers that Expertise gives to get it right....and changing those numbers does not impact PvE.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Oloh

[vindianajones]

I'll be honest, I didn't take the time to read the entire OP, but I just want to chime in with my opinion anyway.

 

Expertise grants + to damage and healing and - to damage recieved, right?

 

Doesn't that mean that when everyone are decked out in full PvP gear the damage boost/reduction will both be cancelled out by the other? Only leaving the Healing boost?

 

Doesn't that mean that expertise is only really good for killing people without expertise?

 

Yes, which makes it useless and unnecessary. The only thing it accomplishes is creating an artificial barrier to newly minted level 50 players, and also experienced level 50 players in PvE gear who wish to enter PvP and have a fighting chance.

 

The OP is right. PvE and PvP gear should be similar based on their tiers. There should be nothing stopping a Battlemaster geared player from replacing a Rakata geared player in PvE, nor stopping a Rakata geared player from replacing a Battlemaster in PvP. Why does this exist? Because dev teams are too lazy to balance the time taken / risk / benefit involved in matching PvE and PvP sets? Are they afraid of the backlash from PvE players or PvP players when they don't suddenly have an unfair advantage? Or is it simply a case of "WoW did it, so it must be right"?

 

Why the desire to cripple players in one portion of the game, requiring them to grind twice (Once for PvP, once for PvE) if they want to do both? Why can't players have roughly equivalent gear sets that they can choose from, or even mix and match? There is literally no good reason that expertise or any PvP/PvE exclusive stat should ever exist. A balanced game and gearing system has no need for this. PvP'ers don't deserve a free stat boost against PvE geared players - they already have the advantage of experience. Same goes for PvE, they deserve no advantage over people who chose to gear through PvP. You're just locking people out from enjoying all facets of the game, and it's stupid.

 

Unfortunately, they'll never get rid of it, but they most certainly should.

Edited January 30, 2012 by vindianajones

[Murah]

I'll be honest, I didn't take the time to read the entire OP, but I just want to chime in with my opinion anyway.

 

Expertise grants + to damage and healing and - to damage recieved, right?

 

Doesn't that mean that when everyone are decked out in full PvP gear the damage boost/reduction will both be cancelled out by the other? Only leaving the Healing boost?

 

Doesn't that mean that expertise is only really good for killing people without expertise?

 

Excellent point.

 

player killing shouldn't be about gear. It should be about skill and ability. What crazy utopia is this?

 

A new pvper is already new, and at a disadvantage compared to someone that has been doing it for months. Experience is the expertise replacement.

 

You might say, but I want cool rewards and gear and stuff for pwning faces! okaaayy... let's look to DAoC once again. Your reward for being awesome at pvp was fame (leaderboards you could see on a website, with weekly, monthly, and all-time stats, per server, per class). As you ranked up in player killing points (valor in swtor), you unlocked new titles, which were always displayed to the enemy (no option to hide or change it). And the best reward of all, new stat increases (minor ones, yet decent, nothing god-making) or abilities (usually with big cooldowns)

 

So what was the different between someone that pvped a lot versus the noob? A lot. noob got rolled usually. But it wasn't hard to catch up, and gear had very little to do with it.

 

The best gear in DAoC (before the silliness of toa) was crafted, and then spellcrafted (also a player craft). Occassionally a bunch of people would kill a dragon, and there'd be weapon/armor upgrades that were slightly better than what you had.

 

Basically, it created a situation where gear wasn't a problem. You weren't trying to keep up with anyone gear-wise. What you wanted to do was kill more and more people so you could unlock more skills, which made it easier to live and kill more people.

 

Of course, this means that the gear from pve raids needs to not be too over the top, or you'd have hardcore dungeon raiders pwning pvp faces whenever they felt like it. And since pve raid progression is about gearing up to handle the next dungeon, they need to either:

1) completely change the philosophy of that. For example, instead of dropping gear, the bosses drop keys, or pieces to a key, that eventually lets you in the next dungeon. All kinds of lore/stories could be made up for reasons why you have to collect stuff to enter the next dungeon.

 

2) or disallow pve raid gear in warzones and open pvp zones.

 

tldr: gw2 won't have these problems

[Torleen]

I'll be honest, I didn't take the time to read the entire OP, but I just want to chime in with my opinion anyway.

 

Expertise grants + to damage and healing and - to damage recieved, right?

 

Doesn't that mean that when everyone are decked out in full PvP gear the damage boost/reduction will both be cancelled out by the other? Only leaving the Healing boost?

 

Doesn't that mean that expertise is only really good for killing people without expertise?

 

Yes, which is why it makes grinding for PVP gear extremely frustrating. Because basically to get it you just have to agree to be willing to be farmed by people who have it for weeks until you get it.

[Raque]

Yes, which makes it useless and unnecessary. The only thing it accomplishes is creating an artificial barrier to newly minted level 50 players, and also experienced level 50 players in PvE gear who wish to enter PvP and have a fighting chance.

a 10% bonus to damage done and taken is a barrier? Hell, if the classes damage output is balanced within 20% of each other that would make it far more balanced they any MMO ever. Expertise is not much of a limiting factor into getting in, especially with how easy it is to get your first few pieces of PvP gear.

 

(Sure Expertise goes up to 20%, but with diminishing returns hitting hard after 10% you are sacrificing to much to higher)

[Glaucs]

Expertise grants + to damage and healing and - to damage recieved, right?

 

Doesn't that mean that when everyone are decked out in full PvP gear the damage boost/reduction will both be cancelled out by the other? Only leaving the Healing boost?

 

Doesn't that mean that expertise is only really good for killing people without expertise?

 

This is the pro and con of the expertise stat in my opinion. Since the stat gives bonuses to which ever player has more expertise compared to the other in the fight it will cause the more geared player to beat the less geared player (assuming equal skill). This rewards time spent in pvp as better gear will lead to having advantages over worse gear(although the rng bags causes all sorts of other inequalities which really seems to be the root of the pvp gear problem). This is good or bad depending on your point of view and situation; if you are a fresh 50 you will not be about to 1v1 someone who has BM gear, which is as it should be in an mmo as acquiring gear is a key part of the genre.

 

The area where the concept of this stat succeeds is once the full set is acquired, aka end game. Assuming the full pvp set has the same amount of expertise across all classes (I have not checked this), this results in a skill vs skill fight between fully geared people, i.e. full champ vs full champ or full BM vs full BM, because the expertise would get canceled out. This makes expertise and end of the road stat, so to speak, because it will ultimately create a situation where pvp fights are won or lost based on skilled play/class balance and not differences in gear. This is better than a flat/% bonus to defense or offense because in those situations imbalance will result. If it was a defense boost then tankier classes or classes that could absorb more damage to begin with will get more from the stat than less tanky classes. Similarly, if it was a damage boost then classes with more reliance on damage output to win fights would have an advantage over classes that did not rely on damage output as they would gain more from the stat. The real disparity here is again caused by the rng bags where one pvper of the same valor rank may have less gear simply because of luck.

 

The last small issue is the healing bonus; this would mean that a healing hybrid may have an advantage over other classes because their healing bonus is unreduced and this might give them incentive to add a little healing to their play instead of being 100% dmg. I don't know whether the bonus to healing from expertise is even a factor for any non-healer but in theory it could make a difference.

 

tl:dr => Expertise is good for pvp when it is equal between players and bad when one has more than another. This means that in the long term, once people get geared up competition will be more even. It should not be a flat/% bonus to defense or offense because that results to either tankier classes getting more out of the defensive stat or burst classes getting more out of the damage bonus.