Expertise - the Debate Thread, Place your Vote!

[Savej]

If you completely removed expertise and pvp gear and let us get pve tokens for top-rated gear doing nothing but pvp that would be ideal. Since I suspect pve raiders (and probably some devs) would have a cow if that happened, I am going to say that expertise is needed.

[xxdragonragexx]

Sure if they simply removed the stat and did nothing else to address the balance. Thats not what the OP is saying.

 

PVP should have an equal level of gear obtainable via PVP that could complete with HM raiders and the like. Its not a hard idea to consider, just requires a rebalance of gear. Right now with Expertise, this clearly favors PVP gear making everything else useless to use - this is not the case the other way around though.

 

In regards to the comments on it being a Time Sink having two sets of gear to get, sure and they are probabily right that it was part of the business model to create such things, but again you can still have the time sink without Expertise, still have tiered gear unique to PVP that you can get equal in stats/power to PVE gear of the same level.

 

You then have the option .. to grind out the better gear from PVP, or join OPs, HM, FPs etc and obtain this way. Or if you have the time and want both to play both paths.

 

People are looking too narrowly at the issue and just looking at the way the system is now, rather than opening their minds to other possibilities and solutions.

 

I dont think ANYONE wants PVP to become a side act, with no progression or benefits, nor do I want to see PVE people become the new War Hero players that we see now. We need balance back in and not to force players to get special gear simply to play at a decent level. We need warzones to be about skill, team work and tactics not the gear vs gear system that is in place now. This only benefits players who are true PVPers and everyone else suffers.

 

PVE and PVP need equalivalent gear so neither side is at a disadvantage.

 

If this is more fun, you will see far less people leaving warzones and also find queues filling more as more PVE players will be enticed to play knowing they can contribute and have fun.

 

Like I said over and over, unless you can prevent people from skipping pve dungeons by using pvp gear then nothing will ever change and pvp stat is needed. This is also a gear progression MMO. You cannot delete gear progression, it will always be there.

[Arkerus]

I have to laugh. There are a lot of PvE players in this thread who are almost offended they have to go farm a new gear set to compete in PvP.

 

You know I have to do the same when I want to PvE right?

[paul_preib]

I think I'll have to give my stance and let you be the judge where it falls in terms of which vote. I feel that a strong differentiating statistic between pvp and pve gear is important, and think pre 1.2 it was really in a good place (you aren't running a nightmare op in BM gear but you can to regular ops and 4 man hardmodes with it just fine, likewise full rakata is not preferable to BM in a warzone unless you have some hardcore guard/taunt/peel/cc support to keep mobs off of you, yet you still can be somewhat effective).

 

 

To me that is the place of the pvp stat, to make the top tier pvp gear and the top tier pve gear comparable in effectiveness to one tier below max in the opposite respective playstyle (i.e. BM<--> columni, Rakata<-->champion)

 

 

That means that I think expertise should be in the game as a differentiating stat, but its current linear growth and increasingly high representation on pvp gear that makes each gear type far more ineffective then before in the opposite stylistic arena is a mistake. Essentially sub 1.2 expertise situation gets a big Yes on necessary value, post 1.2 get's a no vote for taking it too far.

[Lockexxi]

While allowing crossover is nice in the "let casual players do what they what" sense, even if the highest tiers (progression ops/highest rated pvp warzones etc.) required you to use the best pve gear for pve and pvp gear for pvp, it mucks things up all over the place. Without a pvp stat like expertise you have people that have to farm one to do well in the other even if they hate that half of the game.

 

There are plenty of pvpers that find pve the most boring **** ever, but they'll still go to raids just for that new weapon/overpowered trinket (happened time and time again in WoW and you all know it). Conversely, during TBC I had a Druid tank and I had to get pvp gear just to be crit immune (back when resilience effected crit chance from non-players). Protip: Feral (especially one with starting tank gear, not dps gear) wasn't very amazing in pvp in early TBC.

 

At least with making a stat like expertise important it keeps the pvpers out of pve more effectively (barring the people that enjoy both and have different gear for both). I think I noticed that Rakata and BM (I think) generally have the exact same stats (acc/power/surge/whatever) on a slot (chest vs chest, leg vs leg) and the Rakata one just had more of a primary stat and possibly endurance. No variance on the secondary stats which means pvp gear could be used to at least see content (story mode, etc.) without being too gimped. Unfortunately the reverse is no longer true (until pve gear is half a dozen tiers past recruit gear... but they'll probably just turn BM into recruit as the patches go by).

 

And it's an MMO. It'll always require gear. If there was no expertise stat you would hit 50, walk into a warzone, and people in full Rakata/Campaign/whatever would wreck your **** just like they do now. Would just promote you to avoid doing warzones until you farm up some gear from non-pvp activities which isn't a healthy model to promote players to jump into pvp. The recruit set, while week compared to BM/War Hero of course, is still a decent entry point vs. walking into pvp with 0 expertise and leveling greens. Very affordable too, if you're not too lazy to do dailies two or three times - which any serious pve player should be more than capable of doing thereby allowing them to jump into pvp without being completely gimped whenever they choose.

 

 

If you want a game that doesn't require a gear grind for pvp, go play a shooter like CoD or an RTS like Starcraft. RPGs have always been about increasing the power of your character.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Lockexxi

[Aussiedroid]

Like I said over and over, unless you can prevent people from skipping pve dungeons by using pvp gear then nothing will ever change and pvp stat is needed. This is also a gear progression MMO. You cannot delete gear progression, it will always be there.

 

I agree mate, I was saying the same thing as such. At the moment though you can skip PVE content and use PVP gear for most content so its a bit unbalanced.

 

We still need the progression in there for PVE or PVP, but the difference is I don't think Expertise is the ideal way of accomplishing this.

 

Myself, I would still play PVP if there wasnt any progression as such, but I know a lot would still like this included and I am not apposed to the idea at all. It just needs better balance of gear.

[Carico]

With many of you wanting to reference wow, how are you guys perfectly fine with the way they have their system? You can have a fresh max lvl toon, and get him fully geared in at minimum the tier just below max in 1 week, 2 weeks if you're slacking, and with this all you have to do is run heroics. You never have to set foot an a single raid, but yet in a couple weeks can be fully raid ready. So with all of you so willing to take those handouts and skip all the content up to the current tier, why would it be so different to let people acquire pve gear by other means? Yes, in this argument they still are doing pve, but simply running the same heroics over and over (which are already easy) doesn't show your skill, it by no means proves you belong in an endgame raid, yet all of you accept this with open arms. So how would that be any different from making the gear the same? If they choose to acquire the gear from pvp, so be it, if they choose to skip out on awsome storyline and game play by skipping to the current tier content, that's their choice.

[Halifax]

Expertise is in no way or shape required. If the developers want to reduce damage/healing in PvP in order to slow things down then can and should simply add a straight across the board reduction in those abilities in PvP. Problem solved. That's the only purpose of Expertise in PvP is a slight reduction in Damage and slight boost in Healing with 2 players in equivalent expertise. So, why bother with such a stupid system when they have the capability to fix it across the board for everyone regardless of gear? People in worst gear will have only one disadvantage less stats vs 2 disadvantages now (expertise in fact makes it thrice as disadvantageous due to players with it taking less damage and dealing more to those with less expertise).

 

It's a stupid and totally unnecessary system. Expertise only exists to force a schism between PvE and PvP and to aid in elongating the gear grinds, while punishing those without the stat.

[RobNightfall]

Never has been needed.

[customkb]

That's not a fact at all, it's your opinion.

 

The fact is that the pvp stat was a band aid for an issue in vanilla wow where pve had 3 tiers of content but pvp only had 1. Rightfully so the people that prefered to pvp most didn't like getting steamrolled purely based on gear. The fact is that this is a situation that hasn't existed for a good 6 or 7 years despite being an argument that gets trotted out every time this discussion comes up. In wow at least since TBC there has been a new pvp tier for every pve tier so there has been gear parity and even if the pvp stat didn't exist the only reason pvp players would get steamrolled by pve players is if they were better players (especially when you consider that pve gear has an abundance of 'useless' stats such as hit).

 

So we get to the crux of the argument which is that it's simply a case that some pvp players have a superiority complex that pvp is somehow better than pve and that pve is the easy game (see the usual carebear comments that also get trotted out). Really it's that they're afraid because they don't want to put time into one aspect of the game and have someone come along that's put an equal amount of time into the game overall but in a different area beat them at 'their' game.

 

Personally I think stats could be removed from any of these games and the only place it wouldn't be an improvment is in the community being able to keep check of balance between classes to an extent. In all other areas it would make for a better game that was focused on you vs the mechanics, be that learning the movement and abilities of a given boss (pve) or class (pvp). Incidently I don't think anything is popular because of an pvp stat, I think it's completely the opposite that the most popular game has a pvp stat so thats just what people have got used to.

 

The only argument for a pvp centric stat is one of making you spend more time.

 

Does anyone actually read posts anymore? Seriously? Either you didn't read, can't comprehend simple sentences, or you're blatantly stupid. I didn't say Expertise i.e. a special PvP stat is needed. I said a system to balance PvE and PvP is needed. Which is a FACT not an opinion. If there was no system, dedicated PvP would not exist, therefore eliminating a large portion of the player base that wants to only PvP and not be force to PvE to keep up. Expertise is a "band-aid" style of solving the issue. However, it is a simple and effective method that is easy to understand and balance both for the player base and developers. Do I personally like the Expertise system? Yes. Is it the only or even best answer? Obviously not. Please read posts before you just instantly assume illogical outcomes.

[Carico]

Does anyone actually read posts anymore? Seriously? Either you didn't read, can't comprehend simple sentences, or you're blatantly stupid. I didn't say Expertise i.e. a special PvP stat is needed. I said a system to balance PvE and PvP is needed. Which is a FACT not an opinion. If there was no system, dedicated PvP would not exist, therefore eliminating a large portion of the player base that wants to only PvP and not be force to PvE to keep up. Expertise is a "band-aid" style of solving the issue. However, it is a simple and effective method that is easy to understand and balance both for the player base and developers. Do I personally like the Expertise system? Yes. Is it the only or even best answer? Obviously not. Please read posts before you just instantly assume illogical outcomes.

 

I don't know why so many of you have the belief that making the gear the same would force you into doing something you don't want to do. It can be adjusted between drop rates, and comms in pve, and comms / item cost in pvp, and possibly something like weekly comm caps (I'm sure BW had metrics to determine this), the rate you again gear can be made relatively equal. The only question is do you want to pve or pve? For those opposing the change, the choice is already made, and the change would not effect your play style in the least. For those who like to do both, or are new and aren't quite sure which they want to do, they could easily do both, and not have any significant advantage towards pve nor pvp gear acquisition. The thought that making this change will all of the sudden force people to do an aspect of the game they don't want to do is ludicrous propaganda.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Carico

[BAPK]

It is needed.

 

It may be simplified in a way that people with less understanding of game mechanics don't cry about it all day long.

"Expertise" on an item is just a very big sign which reads "USE THIS FOR PVP, USE SOMETHING ELSE FOR PVE".

[Carico]

It is needed.

 

It may be simplified in a way that people with less understanding of game mechanics don't cry about it all day long.

"Expertise" on an item is just a very big sign which reads "USE THIS FOR PVP, USE SOMETHING ELSE FOR PVE".

 

The whole premise of the argument to remove expertise is to have all the gear the same, but if there are stats that become more favorable for pvp than pve, someone would have to either not figure it out, or to not simply ask someone, either in fleet or on the forums. As smug as a lot of people are there's still many out there willing to give answers. Keeping it on gear simply to flag it as pvp gear is completely useless.

Edited April 30, 2012 by Sireene
use of retarded - PM'd

[Rouncer]

Keeping it on gear simply to flag it as pvp gear is completely useless.

 

and yet keeping it on gear to ensure that the gear with that stat predominates in PvP is so very useful.

[Carico]

and yet keeping it on gear to ensure that the gear with that stat predominates in PvP is so very useful.

 

it sounds like you're being sarcastic, trying to imply I'm arguing to keep it on the gear. If you've been reading this thread I've actually been arguing to remove it, because you'd be right, it is useless.

[Kriesha]

The fact is that the pvp stat was a band aid for an issue in vanilla wow where pve had 3 tiers of content but pvp only had 1.

 

I always thought resilience in WoW was put in because peoples damage capabilities far outclassed their defensive capabilities so something had to be put in to keep PvP from coming a 1-shot game... AFAIK, resilience only reduced the amount of damage you take in pvp, not increased the damage you deal in pvp (which is not how Expertise works). So resilience had a purpose, Expertise is just an unnecessary segregator.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Kriesha

[Lord_Karsk]

It is not needed.

[Carico]

I always thought resilience in WoW was put in because peoples damage capabilities far outclassed their defensive capabilities so something had to be put in to keep PvP from coming a 1-shot game... AFAIK, resilience only reduced the amount of damage you take in pvp, not increased the damage you deal in pvp (which is not how Expertise works). So resilience had a purpose, Expertise is just an unnecessary segregator.

 

Resilience in WoW also used to reduce crit chance. And that's exactly why they added it. But if they'd adjust stats for pvp, then the only thing they'd have to do for pve is reduce the hp on a boss. The bosses dmg out put is already tuned, defensive capabilities tuned. Hp is the only thing that would have to be adjusted. So balancing gear to serve both purposes shouldn't be rediculously difficult.

[Sobkiewwicz]

Need? Air, water, food.... ok, so maybe not 'needed'.

I'd still vote for expertise is desirable.

It provides multiple avenues of advancement in end-game.

 

If the argument is, should Bioware redesign the PVP game such that every class/spec is balanced in a way that allows a singular advancement of ability in PVP & PVE, then sure... I guess I could agree to that. But, I just have absolutely no faith in them to accomplish such a thing. Thus, expertise, a small crutch.

[DarkHelsing]

To me that is the place of the pvp stat, to make the top tier pvp gear and the top tier pve gear comparable in effectiveness to one tier below max in the opposite respective playstyle (i.e. BM<--> columni, Rakata<-->champion)

 

I like this statement a lot. It's a re-worked system, a bit, but rewards PvEers with the better PvE gear, but puts them only one tier below PvPers; vice versa.

 

Responses like yours are why I opened this thread, people disagree all the time, but both sides can have good points and good ideas and good compromises. Sucks that you have to sift through posters trying to defend their opinion by nothing more than saying your opinion is stupid because it doesn't agree with theirs.

[DarkHelsing]

Need? Air, water, food.... ok, so maybe not 'needed'.

I'd still vote for expertise is desirable.

It provides multiple avenues of advancement in end-game.

 

If the argument is, should Bioware redesign the PVP game such that every class/spec is balanced in a way that allows a singular advancement of ability in PVP & PVE, then sure... I guess I could agree to that. But, I just have absolutely no faith in them to accomplish such a thing. Thus, expertise, a small crutch.

 

I like that.

[Xinika]

Lol @ these threads.

[DarkHelsing]

updated

[Xinika]

updated

 

I have an idea for a new thread: Remove PvP.

[DarkHelsing]

With this post you just pointed out how tiny your brain actually is and ... *326 word count snip*

 

It looked like you typed a lot after that, probably spent some time doing so... but I only made it as far as the above partial sentence and the lone brain cell in my mind, after crying over his broken eyeglasses (there was time now), had an epiphany - with my tiny brain there's no possible way I'd ever be able to comprehend such brilliance that makes up your responses, the sheer modesty, the overwhelming compassion towards others, I am just not capable of being able to fathom something of such depth and insight... so I took a bite out of the cold hard truth of that which has been staring me in the face all this time... and that truth is...

Hmm, I forgot, tiny brain you know.

 

Thanks for your vote.

Edited April 27, 2012 by DarkHelsing