Expertise - the Debate Thread, Place your Vote!

[ehtom]

It is needed.

[DarthKhaos]

Not yet. That's why I used the word "eventually". There will come a time where level 50 PvP will need to be bracketed, or Recruit-geared 50s won't stand a chance. Inflation happens. It doesn't have to do with the ability to find people or not. Segregation is bad, regardless.

 

I'd rather see statless PvP where everyone is in the same pool than that crap again.

No it wouldn't. Have you ever played an MMO before? As the tiers go up so will what is available cheaper or for cash. They'll let you buy battlemaster gear with cash and war hero with warzone comms and the new Elite Wombat gear for raited warzone comms + war Hero item. So no... Sorry to bust your bubble.

[swifferdude]

hmm, tough one.... I'd say............ not needed... skill should be the reason players are good in a wz, not just one stat tht changes the game completely

[JeramieCrowe]

No it wouldn't. Have you ever played an MMO before? As the tiers go up so will what is available cheaper or for cash. They'll let you buy battlemaster gear with cash and war hero with warzone comms and the new Elite Wombat gear for raited warzone comms + war Hero item. So no... Sorry to bust your bubble.

 

RIFT would like to have a word with you...

[Cleanx]

It is needed.

 

I hate pve. I hate spending several hours farming timed encounters. I hate standing around dooing dps/healing, waiting for a boss to reach 75%, couse then i need to move i that direction, or start over, couse some idiot failed to mobe, even tho he knew he had to... Couse the tactic is to move at75%. So why the hell should i need to do so to obtain the best gear for pvp? And why the hell should the guys that love this be able to get gear that is better for pvp, than us that loves the pvp challenge. We need expertise to devide the two.. Pve, and pvp. Pvp gear should be better for dooing pvp by far, compared to the no brained obtained pve gear. In wow, i had to do pve to get the overpowered trinkets and ****. They forced me into dooing pve, to be the best possible geared for pvp.

 

Expertise is the way for us pvp monkeys to survive the harder hitting pve scrubs. Pve gear has more dmg, more endurance, and would without expertise be the best gear obtainable for pvp aswell. And it should not.

Tho, the current pvp doesent reward good players, only the nolifers that farm all day. But thats another issue.

Expertise mitigate the extra dmg pve players do, nothing more. So it balances the stat difference. Why is this a bad thing.

[DarthKhaos]

RIFT would like to have a word with you...

Ok and then what? Look at patch 1.2 it is way easier to get BM gear and they gave us a cash bought starter PvP set. do you honestly think they're going to keep it that way and increase the top set making the gap larger? Yea right.

[JeramieCrowe]

Ok and then what? Look at patch 1.2 it is way easier to get BM gear and they gave us a cash bought starter PvP set. do you honestly think they're going to keep it that way and increase the top set making the gap larger? Yea right.

 

You have information that guarantees either way? There are too many other ways to do PvP right than creating GvG. Maybe it's just me, but I hate GvG.

[RenegadeSLX]

Its needed

 

Unless stats can be normalized for pvp in which case it wouldnt be needed.

 

PvP shouldnt be about gear. Ever.

[DarthKhaos]

You have information that guarantees either way? There are too many other ways to do PvP right than creating GvG. Maybe it's just me, but I hate GvG.

But it is not gear vs gear when the gear is easy to get and the difference in it isn't large. Then it becomes skill vs skill. Ok break it down to me. EXACTLY how the gear should work. Where's the best gear located, how long it would take to get said gear etc etc etc. I've broken it down to you guys previously let''s here your call.

[Coopiexxx]

Needed, I just think it has been overdone. I'm noticing that some people have become un-killable. I think the amount needs to be cut in half.

[JeramieCrowe]

But it is not gear vs gear when the gear is easy to get and the difference in it isn't large. Then it becomes skill vs skill. Ok break it down to me. EXACTLY how the gear should work. Where's the best gear located, how long it would take to get said gear etc etc etc. I've broken it down to you guys previously let''s here your call.

 

I'm not an armchair developer. I just know that I would like PvP to return to real PvP before the days that some "genius" decided to reward PvP. PvP-statted gear, and statted gear in PvP started because some less skill people couldn't accept the fact that they were less skilled.

Edited May 5, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[DarthKhaos]

I'm not an armchair developer. I just know that I would like PvP to return to real PvP before the days that some "genius" decided to reward PvP. PvP-statted gear, and statted gear in PvP started because some less skill people couldn't accept the fact that they were less skilled.

Oh this is funny. You're telling me you can't explain how it should work but you want the current system to change? To REAL PvP?

 

Dude if the system is changed you'll either end up with a system where either the raiders are the top PvPers forcing PvPers to PvE or Raiders being forced to PvP to get their gear.

 

This is an MMO GEAR MATTERS. The current system allows PvPers to get comparable gear quickly so it's less about gear and more about skill. This is something you're not getting.

[DarkHelsing]

Oh this is funny. You're telling me you can't explain how it should work but you want the current system to change? To REAL PvP?

 

Dude if the system is changed you'll either end up with a system where either the raiders are the top PvPers forcing PvPers to PvE or Raiders being forced to PvP to get their gear.

 

This is an MMO GEAR MATTERS. The current system allows PvPers to get comparable gear quickly so it's less about gear and more about skill. This is something you're not getting.

 

Play a game other than WoW and you'll understand what he is talking about and you'll lose all your points that you think are valid. WoW is the Carebear of MMOs. If someone swears in General Chat you can have them 72 hour banned, instead of Blizzard just telling the person reporting it to turn on the word filter and stop crying.

 

If you grew up through the MMO rise, WoW created an entire Generation of skill-less, sad, ego-manic players. I have a buddy to this day that tells me how amazing of a players he is because he Raided in Vanilla WoW, when things were so hardcore and blah blah blah. The reason WoW did so well, and if this stings to many of you it's because the truth hurts; WoW did so well because any idiot could play it and succeed, and because any idiot can play it, subscriptions were high because there are more poor players in this world than there are good ones.

 

Any time my friend launches into his "I'm an awesome Gamer because I ran a guild that Raided Vanilla WoW", I start drifting off in my mind to the days to Ultima Online, how I spent 8 months trying to get a certain sword, one day while out I tried to save someone from an attacking dragon, we both died, he made it back to his corpse before I did, looted my body, said thanks, and went about his merry way. Everything was lost, everything... not damaged, not a few things destroyed in my inventory, every piece of gear on your character and in your inventory was lootable if you died. Then I'd start thinking of DAoC, and how much fun that game was. Then I'd remember raiding Towns in ShadowBane in these massive PvP battles that would crash the server. Then I'd remember Lineage 2 and how all Mobs were Heroic Mobs, and only Elf Archers were capable of soloing because of their high run speed. I start to remember the games that actually were hardcore, they required more work than actual game enjoyment just to stay competitive. Then I remember my first time playing WoW, it was just before WotLK came out, I rolled a Rogue, picked my own talent spec, people laughed at me and no one would let me in a guild... until I placed top 3 for the season in the arena 2v2 with my buddy, and I did that with less than 8 full days of play time on my character... not because I am super awesome, but because WoW is stupid easy. After that season, finding a guild was easy. All the screen shots I have from WoW, Arena's, BG's... if I died once, I was unhappy. If I didn't have the most killing blows and most honorable kills, I was unhappy with my performance. I have several screen shots of people rolling toons on my sever named "agdagds" just to whisper me and tell me they were reporting me for cheating because what I was doing was impossible and blah blah blah. After that toon, every other toon I spelled with an ascii code that looked normal so people couldn't whisper me. The game was meant to be played casual, and it was brain dead simple for anyone coming from more complex MMOs. WoW is fun when I'm bored, I'll play for two weeks, max out all my gear again, play for another week or two, then un-sub again... there's simply nothing HardCore about WoW that can keep players that desire that hardcore element.

 

yes, SWOTR is more like WoW than any other MMO,but SWTOR caught my attention because of KOTOR 1&2. So I originally started SWTOR simply to PvE because I wanted to know the finishing story to KOTOR 1&2. However I was impressed at the different ways to level in the game, the choices given, missions, flashpoints, pvp, rail shooters, etc. Then I was impressed on being able to customize my gear, level my gear. Then I was impressed at the crafting and how I was able to level and actually use the stuff I was crafting. I played all 16 classes I was so impressed with it. Then I was impressed with how PvP balance was, I was impressed with the Bolster system used to help balance the classes in PvP. Of course I rolled on PvP server, it's my background of MMOing. But World PvP was a joke, Ilum was a Joke, and level 50 was a slap in the face from what players were used to during the 1-49 trip. It wasn't terrible, Expertise needed to go or atleast be brought down to an unchanging set bonus, gear needed back the customizing it had prior to level 50, and world PvP needed a serious re-vamp. Then Patch 1.2 took everything even further down the road of horrible choices. Expertise got larger, Expertise furthered the removal of gear customization, and Expertise furthered the gap that will happen during PvPvE. So just as I tought I finally found a casual game that was still fun enough for me to want to actually play, they destroyed everything that was fun from 1-49, and turned level 50 into a testing grounds for bad ideas.

 

I went from playing least a couple hours every day pre-patch 1.2, till I think it's been an entire week since my last log in. Last week when I looked at server statuses, all but 3 were on low, when I spoke with my guild WZ que times were at the highest they've ever seen... so I'm not the only one that no longer wants to log into the game. And if you think we are the minority... think again, BioWare wouldn't have given out a free month of game time if they didn't think that players needed an incentive to keep playing their game... if a ship isn't sinking, Captains don't start throwing out life preserves for no reason...

[DarkHelsing]

updated

[ShadowOfVey]

Expertise is needed.

 

One of the things I like about swtor is the current gear setup.

[DarkHelsing]

updated

[DarthKhaos]

Play a game other than WoW and you'll understand what he is talking about and you'll lose all your points that you think are valid. WoW is the Carebear of MMOs. If someone swears in General Chat you can have them 72 hour banned, instead of Blizzard just telling the person reporting it to turn on the word filter and stop crying.

Firstly not once have I mentioned WoW. I discussed why the stat is needed. In your entire rant how was these uber items achieved in Ultima Online? Via PvE. There was no way to get gear even if it's the same as PvE gear via PvP. This is a significent difference.

 

I'll say this again. In an MMO gear ALWAYS matter. Even if you didn't have any PvP gear those with better or higher tier gear is at an advantage against those who do not so those saying they don't want a gear vs gear game makes me laugh.

 

I'll break it down again for you. You have Basic, Intermediate and Advance gear. In PvE the difference in quality (or power) of the gear from Basic to Intermediate OR Intermediate to Advance is larger than it would be in PvP. Why? Because if the difference is small people would be able to skip Intermediate gear ans work straight to Advance gear. In PvP the difference is small so players have a fighting chance.

 

Then there's how fast you can achieve the gear or rate of progression. In PvP you need to have a faster rate of progression from Basic to Intermediate so that players can be competitive against those in Advance gear. If you have this progression take too long you will find less and less players PvPing because those in Advance gear dominating longer. The rate of progression from Intermediate to Advance can be much longer. In PvE however the rate of progression from Basic to Intermediate to Advanced should be a more linear.

 

If these two things are not put in place what would happen is PvErs would be forced to PvP for gear or vice versa.

Is this simple enough for you?

 

In addition you can have more progression points in PvE than PvP. If in patch 1.3 they decide to bring out another operation and tier of raid gear this would not affect PvP and they can keep adding more tiers of raids. Hell they only would have to adjust the Basic Intermediate & Advance gear for PvP if a level increase is implemented.

Edited May 8, 2012 by DarthKhaos

[DarkDruidSS]

Firstly not once have I mentioned WoW. I discussed why the stat is needed. In your entire rant how was these uber items achieved in Ultima Online? Via PvE. There was no way to get gear even if it's the same as PvE gear via PvP. This is a significent difference.

 

I'll say this again. In an MMO gear ALWAYS matter. Even if you didn't have any PvP gear those with better or higher tier gear is at an advantage against those who do not so those saying they don't want a gear vs gear game makes me laugh.

 

I'll break it down again for you. You have Basic, Intermediate and Advance gear. In PvE the difference in quality (or power) of the gear from Basic to Intermediate OR Intermediate to Advance is larger than it would be in PvP. Why? Because if the difference is small people would be able to skip Intermediate gear ans work straight to Advance gear. In PvP the difference is small so players have a fighting chance.

 

Then there's how fast you can achieve the gear or rate of progression. In PvP you need to have a faster rate of progression from Basic to Intermediate so that players can be competitive against those in Advance gear. If you have this progression take too long you will find less and less players PvPing because those in Advance gear dominating longer. The rate of progression from Intermediate to Advance can be much longer. In PvE however the rate of progression from Basic to Intermediate to Advanced should be a more linear.

 

If these two things are not put in place what would happen is PvErs would be forced to PvP for gear or vice versa.

Is this simple enough for you?

 

In addition you can have more progression points in PvE than PvP. If in patch 1.3 they decide to bring out another operation and tier of raid gear this would not affect PvP and they can keep adding more tiers of raids. Hell they only would have to adjust the Basic Intermediate & Advance gear for PvP if a level increase is implemented.

 

I know this was just posted, but it deserves a quote. This is why expertise is need.

 

Gear has always mattered. The people claiming otherwise either A) didn't pay attention or B) were new to MMOs so they didn't know better.

 

Before there was PvP gear... WoW wasn't the first to have it because EQ2 had PvP gear as well and it was sold from a PvP vendor.... there was only PvE gear. Those that raided dominated PvE and PvP. You can go back to EQ for all I care... that is how it was. Top end raiders would blow people out of the water, only PvP was new back then so a lot of people never understood WHY they kept losing. DAoC is a slight exception... true you didn't have extremely special gear.. you had special unlockable abilities granted through ranks which is an entirely different story and not the subject of this thread... it has it own problems.

 

WoW was just the first game to my knowledge that put in a PvP specific stat to fulfill 2 functions. 1) create a barrier of entry so that PvErs have to put in some time to get gear to compete in PvP like they had to do in PvE which also ensures that PvPers didn't have to worry about top end raiders coming in and dominating and 2) create a means to adjust damage to players so that it could scale at a reasonable rate since players are not equal to raid mobs.

 

The only other way around this is to have a system kinda like GW2 where everyone is granted the same armor which is designed specifically for PvP and puts everyone on the same playing field. BUT, that isn't exactly true because true level 80s in GW2 will hit harder than players bolstered to level 80 for world PvP. Granted at the end when everyone is level 80 then it should be fairly balanced... but you are talking about a game designed around PvP first and foremost instead of a game designed around PvE like pretty much every other MMO on the market.

 

Gear progression is and always will be a staple for MMOs. GW2 might be doing itself a disadvantage by eleminating the gear progression in PvP. Time will tell, but I have a strong feeling that the lack of gear progression will ultimately only cater to the hardcore PvPers and a lot of the casuals will end up trying the PvP and leaving because they don't have a progression goal to achieve. True PvPers... you know the ones that PvP for just the enjoyment of killing players instead of AI... are the minority and why most games are designed with PvE in mind from the begining.

 

People like progression. They like knowing that time invested gives them an advantage over people that didn't put the time in. MMOs are all about superiority complexs. That is why even FPS games now have some kind of progression. Give people something to work towards to keep them playing and so they can flex their Epeen at people that can't put in the time to get the same rewards.

[LordRaeth]

PvP is just about unplayable now unless you have the best pvp gear which is impossible to get if you're facing those who took advantage of the Ilum bug and have had the best pvp gear from the off.

 

Swtor is going to lose a lot of gamers to GW2 at this rate, at least there it has WvWvW which rivals the good days of WaR.

Edited May 8, 2012 by LordRaeth

[DarkDruidSS]

PvP is just about unplayable now unless you have the best pvp gear which is impossible to get if you're facing those who took advantage of the Ilum bug and have had the best pvp gear from the off.

 

Swtor is going to lose a lot of gamers to GW2 at this rate, at least there it has WvWvW which rivals the good days of WaR.

 

Welcome to 1.2 where valor rank doesn't matter and everyone has to get War Hero gear. The ilum abusers now have zero advantage over anyone else that was in full BM gear at the start of 1.2 and everyone can buy recruit at 50 to get them a fighting chance.

Edited May 8, 2012 by DarkDruidSS

[LordRaeth]

But recruit is terrible, it's barely better than centurion (which is also annoying as it took me ages to get that) It's still not easy when you're getting constantly rolled by those already in war hero when you're in recruit, it may just be more prominent on my server but it used to take me 24 hours to get 3 wins to simply do the daily and most of the loses where straight loses where you'd get barely any reward.

 

Just because it's a bit easier getting the gear, doesn't make the game balanced when the difference between the gear is bigger than before.

Edited May 8, 2012 by LordRaeth

[skidrows]

PvP is just about unplayable now unless you have the best pvp gear which is impossible to get if you're facing those who took advantage of the Ilum bug and have had the best pvp gear from the off.

 

Swtor is going to lose a lot of gamers to GW2 at this rate, at least there it has WvWvW which rivals the good days of WaR.

 

That is no not true, the difrens between BM and WC is not that big and if you done some WZ before 50 you should have so you can buy 1-2 pices of BM direct and then in 1week or so you have the full gear even if you lose alot.

Edited May 8, 2012 by skidrows

[LordRaeth]

That is no not true, the difrens between BM and WC is not that big and if you done some WZ before 50 you should have so you can buy 1-2 pices of BM direct and then in 1week or so you have the full gear even if you lose alot.

 

The difference between recruit and War Hero is big though and when you're on a server that has a poor population it's a lot more prominent to see. I may get 1 or 2 warzones an hour if I'm lucky and most of the time they result in rolls.

 

In complete honesty, I did well when I was wearing part centurion part champion before 1.2 now however even with the supposed upgrade from the recruit gear, I did as badly as when I wore no pvp gear pre 1.2

Edited May 8, 2012 by LordRaeth

[Jadescythe]

The difference between recruit and War Hero is big though and when you're on a server that has a poor population it's a lot more prominent to see. I may get 1 or 2 warzones an hour if I'm lucky and most of the time they result in rolls.

 

In complete honesty, I did well when I was wearing part centurion part champion before 1.2 now however even with the supposed upgrade from the recruit gear, I did as badly as when I wore no pvp gear pre 1.2

 

Pre 1.2 I was in a centurion champion mix and I was topping heals in that. After the patch, nothing changed but I've easily been able to get into full BM now. I almost always PVP alone, sometimes with 1 other and rarely with 2 others. I don't win as many games as I could if I was rolling in a premade and still think I win about 40% of the time. I think your experience is less about the gear you are wearing and more about the groups you are playing with/against. If you are only getting in 1 or 2 WZs in an hour, then the people who are playing are the people who really want to play and probably are in groups who can focus fire and coordinate strategy much easier.

 

If you don't have at least 4 or more BM pieces since the patch launched, you need to reevaluate your PVP strategy. If you cap one objective in a game, you should easily be able to get at least 3 medals just for defending (1500, 3000, 5000 defender points). If you get the 2.5 dmg or heal medal and the 75k dmg or heal medal than you already have 5 medals without even having to have a decent team. If you don't want to defend, then attack their node and get the same medals for attacking. And if the PVP on your server is that competitive, then find a good group to roll with and, if you have the skill, you'll come out on top more times than not.

[DarthKhaos]

PvP is just about unplayable now unless you have the best pvp gear which is impossible to get if you're facing those who took advantage of the Ilum bug and have had the best pvp gear from the off.

 

Swtor is going to lose a lot of gamers to GW2 at this rate, at least there it has WvWvW which rivals the good days of WaR.

What nonsense are you talking? None of my characters have warhero I'm not working wards replacing my Battlemaster for Warhero and I'm handling myself well. Battlemaster vs Warhero is not a guarantee loss unless you suck.