Expertise - the Debate Thread, Place your Vote!

[DarthKhaos]

Metajedi while I admire your enthusiasm you failed to take into account 2 things.

1. World PvP (To some it doesn't happen often to others they actually go out to find and fight players out in the open world)
   
2. Players want to be able to customize their gear.
   

Like it or not players mix and match their advance class gear to give them the stats they want. Healers with some dps gear for crit healz, tanks in dps gear for more dmg and other things.

 

Take away some more customization players have been accustomed to and quite frankly expect in their game and things go south.

[DarkDruidSS]

Metajedi while I admire your enthusiasm you failed to take into account 2 things.

1. World PvP (To some it doesn't happen often to others they actually go out to find and fight players out in the open world)
   
2. Players want to be able to customize their gear.
   

Like it or not players mix and match their advance class gear to give them the stats they want. Healers with some dps gear for crit healz, tanks in dps gear for more dmg and other things.

 

Take away some more customization players have been accustomed to and quite frankly expect in their game and things go south.

 

This is the problem that BioWare dug themselves into with the customization of gear. You would have to strip all of that out if you want true balanced stats where every class is on par with others from that class. You would have to nueter SWTOR ....

 

It's not something this game can take right now. You would have to completely remove any kind of gear progression or customization in a game that is built around both of those concepts. People are already complaining that rated War Hero is just a different color. What do you think will happen if you have zero progression other than fluff?

[Metajedi]

Metajedi while I admire your enthusiasm you failed to take into account 2 things.

1. World PvP (To some it doesn't happen often to others they actually go out to find and fight players out in the open world)
   
2. Players want to be able to customize their gear.
   

Like it or not players mix and match their advance class gear to give them the stats they want. Healers with some dps gear for crit healz, tanks in dps gear for more dmg and other things.

 

Take away some more customization players have been accustomed to and quite frankly expect in their game and things go south.

 

all too true my friend, its honestly something I had not considered. But you certainly have a point. If gear customization is really important to people than im fresh out of ideas lol.

 

I would still push for the system I described ( which I am now called the Equal player system ) over our current system even if we do homogenize all the stats and leave out customization I think from a utilitarian perspective it would make most people happy, in spite of losing the customization.

 

Anyone have any suggestions for some how marrying gear customization with the Equal Player system which essentially equalizes all stat differences between players?

 

 

EDIT :

 

Perhaps we can equalize stats and still have customization some how,. I was thinking about a secondary talent tree.... every player would be given the same number of points ill arbitrarily set it at 10.

 

Then the player can choose to customize his character, maybe not in gear, but in performance itself, lets say he throws " pvp" points into increased crit, or surge,,,or extra health or what have you/

 

Obviously this system would need a lot of testing, but I think its possible to get it good and balanced... this way people have a little wiggle room to customize stats, but everyone is still generally equalized to the same point....

 

Lets say someone who dumps ALL of their points into extra Health ( which I assume would be popular) maybe those extra 10 points will only account for 10 % of the HP difference between a person with Max points in Health and no points in health. I think 10 % is a more reasonable number to deal with then the 30 % difference you see between a geared person and a fresh 50 ( even a fresh 50 with recruit gear ) and thats just the HP difference, not even talking about the expertise difference.

 

Obviously this stat tree would only come into effect while in world pvp or battle ground areas.

Edited May 23, 2012 by Metajedi

[DarthKhaos]

Now I'm all for an equal playing field this is why I am against the homogenization of PvP & PvE gear. It increases the gap and causes the haves to dominate the have nots longer. Now if they introduce some seriously competitive PvP like a tournament then everyone should be given the same rank gear.

[Crixa]

Against. I don't need expertise to beat pve'rs moonlighting in my warzones. What I'd really like would be to see the pvp gear made to share the same stats as the pve gear. That way there is no advantage gained by raiding rather than pvping and it lets people who have sworn off pvp in favor of pve to try their hand at it without being penalized for their decision. Really we need more people queuing up, so why add a gate to their participation?

[Klapton]

It is not needed.

[Butterstoo]

Not needed, just another time sink/grind. PvE should be able to PvP without being gimped and PvP should be able to PvE is they want to.

 

I played the first 3 arena seasons in WOW, it was PvE/raiders that had the best gear, and dominated when S1 came out. That let us earn more points to buy the arena gear faster too. I was ticked at blizz when they gave out S1 gear to any nub that could que up for a BG.

 

War Hero still takes zero skill and is all grind. There is no world PvP they only place I can use PvP gear is in WZ and the only place I can use PvE gear is in OPs. I don't feel like grinding either one to be honest right now. Be nice to grind for "one" ultimate set of gear that I could mod some with either stack stam, AP, etc.

[DarthKhaos]

Not needed, just another time sink/grind. PvE should be able to PvP without being gimped and PvP should be able to PvE is they want to.

 

I played the first 3 arena seasons in WOW, it was PvE/raiders that had the best gear, and dominated when S1 came out. That let us earn more points to buy the arena gear faster too. I was ticked at blizz when they gave out S1 gear to any nub that could que up for a BG.

 

War Hero still takes zero skill and is all grind. There is no world PvP they only place I can use PvP gear is in WZ and the only place I can use PvE gear is in OPs. I don't feel like grinding either one to be honest right now. Be nice to grind for "one" ultimate set of gear that I could mod some with either stack stam, AP, etc.

And here we have it. An honest person as to why they don't want expertise.

[DarkHelsing]

What does SWTOR and this thread have in common?

 

They are both going no where...

 

I guess you could call this a bump for bumps sake...

 

You know Guild Wars 2 won't have a PvP stat... then again it has no gear progression at all in PvP and only any progression at all if you WvW since you still gain levels in WvW unlike Conquest mode. If you get new gear in PvE then you get to kepe the looks in PvP... I think.. but that is it.

 

Here's hoping a game without a pvp stat.. .because there is no gear progression... can make it. Granted at least open world PvP in the WvW areas has a reason to tie it to the game. It makes life better for the faction in control by giving buffs to that faction. So at least there is a reason to constantly PvP.. that and your server is pitted against other servers depending on how your server does... so being a top server will eventually be known by all. Sadly, none of that will ever come to SWTOR because it can't handle more than 16 people fighting each other.

 

As for SWTOR.. too late to change the system. It has to have expertise because it was built around it. Best you can hope for is your alternative methods in other games.

 

I laughed at the the first two sentences!

 

And I have to agree with your entire post too.

[DarkHelsing]

And here we have it. An honest person as to why they don't want expertise.

 

That's what I've been saying, because it happened in WoW it seems to have scarred players for life - now they feel it can't ever be done properly... and to me that's kind of sad... just because WoW got it wrong right up front, doesn't mean every game that follows WoW can't have a better handle on the situation.

[DarkHelsing]

updated

[DarkHelsing]

After the 1.3 video from James Ohlen, I'm even more concerned.

 

He speaks about leveling again, the Legacy being able to allow you to change how a player wants to level, something about allowing leveling via PvP and such. Granted that is not a whole lot of information, if end game doesn't change, this will further bother me due to the ever climbing issue of players having all these options and choices while leveling that allow players the freedom to jump back and forth between things, inter-mingle gear, and do what they want without punishment... then when you hit end game, players are surrounded by restrictions and punished for trying to inter-mingle while being forced into one play style or the other.

 

 

I do not think this game is going to recover. Not just because of Expertise, like I've said before the end game content is massively messed up, my focus point is Expertise only because of the foundation of thinking it represents and I feel that foundation is the flaw in SWTOR End Game.

[Fotizz]

pvp gear acquirement adds time to the end game lifespan. Nothing more. Take it out and you have EVEN LESS end game. Why so much discussion about it. In two weeks of moderate playing time i got into full battlemaster gear from zero. Make it even easier so we can do dailies all day long...

 

WHAT'S EVEN THE MEANING OF THIS POLE??? pffff

 

nevermind this game is running already on fumes and if it werent for the free month it only would be up on the free weekend passes

Edited May 24, 2012 by Fotizz

[JeramieCrowe]

WHAT'S EVEN THE MEANING OF THIS POLE??? pffff

 

Well, since you asked:

 

pole noun \ˈpōl\

 

Definition of POLE

 

: a long slender usually cylindrical object (as a length of wood)

[LucasEighty]

It is needed & this poll is stupid

 

only reason i voted is because the last thing we need is BW listening to anymore halfwit ideas

[Lanja]

I don't get why we want to have a stat-based firewall between PVP'ers and PVE'ers. Coming from KOTOR (i.e. this is my first MMO), I have only played PVE thus far. I'm curious about checking out PVP - and fully expect to have my rear end handed to me by veteran PVP'ers for a while if I do - but I would expect that to be due to their greater skill and experience operating in the PVP environment, not because they've got some hard-wired stat bump that one can only get via grinding PVP. (I can see how alternate gear sets and talent specs might be desired though).

 

I should think that PVP, at its core, ought to be about whether Player X knows PVP tactics better, has spec'd and geared his character more appropriately, makes better use of terrain vs a live opponent, and ultimately combines all that to take down Player Y on otherwise equal terms. Expertise, as a stat, seems to work against that by.

 

How about giving us two tabs on our character sheets, one each for PVE gear and PVP gear preferences (perhaps even including the same gear item with two alternate sets of mods), combined with 2 alternate skill builds (again one for PVE and one for PVP). They could even make us buy these like storage vault bays. That would ENCOURAGE PVE'ers to jump the fence and try out PVP play, and vice-versa.

 

I could also see value in using experience level and Valor to group players into different pools for PVP; to keep things competitive for veteran PVP'ers and give novices a kiddie pool to train up in. As with heroic missions, if you're too far below level you can't get in. If you're short but close to level, you can and are rewarded for punching above your weight. If you're way over level you can play, but get no real exp/Valor pay out for slaughtering small fry.

 

Long-story-short, I'd vote "No" for Expertise. A standard set of stats, plus the Valor ranking system, ought to do fine. Anything more than that makes this two games and sets of players rather than one game and one community.

[AutoCocker]

I vote No for expertise. Hell i think not having it is the main reason the 1 - 49 bracket is so much more popular.

 

If i had my way it would simply be columi/rakata/blackhole that could be acquired via pve or pvp. PvE side would be slightly quicker to get your gear due to the nature of items dropping from doing ops etc but a pure pvp player would be able to achieve the same thing if all he wanted to do was pvp and buy them all. Granted i am sure this would give the pvp/pve hardcores a heart attack for whatever reason.

 

As it stands level 50 pvp has very little to do with skill and more to do with which team has the most expertise.

Edited June 5, 2012 by AutoCocker

[DarkDruidSS]

I don't get why we want to have a stat-based firewall between PVP'ers and PVE'ers. Coming from KOTOR (i.e. this is my first MMO), I have only played PVE thus far. I'm curious about checking out PVP - and fully expect to have my rear end handed to me by veteran PVP'ers for a while if I do - but I would expect that to be due to their greater skill and experience operating in the PVP environment, not because they've got some hard-wired stat bump that one can only get via grinding PVP. (I can see how alternate gear sets and talent specs might be desired though).

 

I should think that PVP, at its core, ought to be about whether Player X knows PVP tactics better, has spec'd and geared his character more appropriately, makes better use of terrain vs a live opponent, and ultimately combines all that to take down Player Y on otherwise equal terms. Expertise, as a stat, seems to work against that by.

 

How about giving us two tabs on our character sheets, one each for PVE gear and PVP gear preferences (perhaps even including the same gear item with two alternate sets of mods), combined with 2 alternate skill builds (again one for PVE and one for PVP). They could even make us buy these like storage vault bays. That would ENCOURAGE PVE'ers to jump the fence and try out PVP play, and vice-versa.

 

I could also see value in using experience level and Valor to group players into different pools for PVP; to keep things competitive for veteran PVP'ers and give novices a kiddie pool to train up in. As with heroic missions, if you're too far below level you can't get in. If you're short but close to level, you can and are rewarded for punching above your weight. If you're way over level you can play, but get no real exp/Valor pay out for slaughtering small fry.

 

Long-story-short, I'd vote "No" for Expertise. A standard set of stats, plus the Valor ranking system, ought to do fine. Anything more than that makes this two games and sets of players rather than one game and one community.

 

First, holy necro batman.

 

Second, your first couple of sentences made me want to immediately be a douche, but instead i will try to respond nicely. It's a long winded response, but since you opened the can of worms I will cover the debate.

 

Expertise while creating an initial gap between PvE and PvP seems bad except for the barrier to entry for PvP is incredibly low with the new credit bought PvP gear. This gear while not awesome does give you a fighting chance against geared players.

 

As an example I hit 50 on my sniper Friday night. I had my 2k wz comms and 3.5k ranked comms saved. So I bought my War Hero sniper rifle right off the bat. I crafted my augemented sniper rifle and put my WH mods in it with a crit augment. Since then I have only managed to get 2 pieces of BM gear... horrid queues times and the fact that with such a low population on my server there seems to be 1 pre-made constantly stomping others and unfortunately I never seem to be on the pre-made's side... so I have mostly losses since Friday night. In fact I have 6 wins total for my weekly so far... just to show you how bad it is.

 

However, all that said... I have 1,040 expertise currently. Which is mostly recruit gear. In the few 1v1s I have managed to get into I have held my own and killed WH geared people. I know they are WH geared because since my server is such low pop all the matches are imp vs imp and I check people's gear on the fleet to pass the time.

 

The only real time that over geared people pose a signficiant problem is if there are more than 2 of them against you. Which is most of the time in WZs, but realistically even if you were all the same expertise then 2v1 is a hard battle to win for most classes. So that really isn't an expertise problem.

 

Once everyone gets full War Hero then the expertise gap vanishes and it is purely a skill based game (assuming that classes are balanced within reason). Now, why have the expertise to begin with? To attempt to keep the PvErs at bay that are rocking full rakata gear or maybe even some campaign gear. Without a barrier to entry then PvErs will have the best gear. If you look at the PvE gear currently in the game it has better stats than you can get on War Hero gear... because Expertise is the balancing point.

 

If Expertise was removed then PvE geared players would dominate from gear alone. This is a PvE game. So they need their gear to complete the PvE portion of the game which is balanced by making the mobs hit harder and harder and giving them ever increasing HP. Players on the other hand that don't PvE wouldn't have access to that kind of gear and players don't scale the same way that PvE mobs do. So there is a point where PvE gear makes PvP pointless because it would drastically lower the TTK which is already pretty low with expertise balancing things.

 

Also if you take out expertise then you would have to have 1 armor to rule the all. It can't be altered and then you would lose all the customization that SWTOR has brought to the genre. People want to be able to change their mods in PvP just like you can in PvE to make your gear suit your play style. If you have 1 global mechanic that normalizes everything like 1 universal gear set then you strip out one of the best features in SWTOR and one they they keep adding more things to be able to change.

 

TLDR: This game... SWTOR. Has to have expertise or a similar stat/mechanic to balance the game. Whether it is internal or controlled by the players. This poll is not going to change anything becuase this game was designed around the mechanic. All we can hope for is other games to try other methods if you don't like this system.

[Pekish]

I am a pvper and honestly know you HAVE to HAVE expertise to play in pvp and i do get mine easily since i play pvp the most but still i dont really get why they made it

 

the root of the problem was forcing PVP people to play PVE to get gear and this is wrong we all know.

If RAKATA was the best and accessible only through PVE that would be a big problem

 

but yuo don't necessary need expertise to solve this problem what if RAKATA was sold both with Commandation or form raid as long as yuo can get the top set doing what you like to do everything is fine

 

what they did is adding an extra layer of farming and separate the public in an MMO (personally i think separate the public is ALWAY WRONG)... they needed a extra layer of farming or we would be ALLLLLL with rakata 3 mounth ago.

 

You cannot make the final set unique and accessible in all the way crafting/farmingPVE/farmingPVP because in tht way you will have the pubblic rush it to incredible speed and you wont be able to hold interest

 

So EXPERTISE is not about pve or pvp is not about creating an advantage or anything those are CONSEQUENCE the real REASON behind EXPERTISE is to create something to FARM! (and is all right is a MMO that mechanic is normal) to extend interest in the game without the need of adding content.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Pekish

[UGLYMRJ]

It IS needed

 

1. I do not believe it would be fair to have some PvE players geared to the gills having NEVER played a single war zone. And that goes both ways, expertise is the separation between PvP and PvE and a much needed separation. I think they should be achieved apart from another.

 

2. Aside from that... I like the grind, I wouldn't mind more of a grind but the separate gear grinds satisfy that for now.

[Drakinor]

It is NOT needed, having a single stat that outweighs ALL other stats just for PvP in my opinion is ridiculous. As it stands now at 50 PvP a classes main stat has almost no purpose. To me the fact that going in with no expertise will get you 1-3 shot while having alot of it allows you to slaughter fresh 50s is ridiculous. I dont understand why they decided to make 10-49 fairly equal, other than skills available everyone has an equal chance, where at 50 even in full blues your getting ***** by those in battlemaster, then when you get into full battlemaster your doing the ******.

 

People want to brag about PvP "skill" well take away expertise, put em all on a level playing field and you may find "skill" but as it is right now its more about who has been doing the grind longer.

 

EDIT: What it comes down to is either dedicate fully to pvp to max out gear or just get stomped in pvp. You should NOT have to chose only one side of the game.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Drakinor

[DarkDruidSS]

I am a pvper and honestly know you HAVE to HAVE expertise to play in pvp and i do get mine easily since i play pvp the most but still i dont really get why they made it

 

the root of the problem was forcing PVP people to play PVE to get gear and this is wrong we all know.

If RAKATA was the best and accessible only through PVE that would be a big problem

 

but yuo don't necessary need expertise to solve this problem what if RAKATA was sold both with Commandation or form raid as long as yuo can get the top set doing what you like to do everything is fine

 

what they did is adding an extra layer of farming and separate the public in an MMO (personally i think separate the public is ALWAY WRONG)... they needed a extra layer of farming or we would be ALLLLLL with rakata 3 mounth ago.

 

You cannot make the final set unique and accessible in all the way crafting/farmingPVE/farmingPVP because in tht way you will have the pubblic rush it to incredible speed and you wont be able to hold interest

 

So EXPERTISE is not about pve or pvp is not about creating an advantage or anything those are CONSEQUENCE the real REASON behind EXPERTISE is to create something to FARM! (and is all right is a MMO that mechanic is normal) to extend interest in the game without the need of adding content.

 

No, PvE gear isn't the option... I guess you didn't read my post. PvE gear is made to fight PvE mobs. The higher the gear the harder the mobs you are talking about facing. These mobs could have millions of HP and you gear is designed to take them down in a certain amount of time.

 

Players even in PvE gear don't scale like PvE mobs do. Eventually you would have a major imbalance in PvE gear killing way too fast. How do you get around that? You make a separate gear set with separate stats or you completely remove any customization in the game by making PvP gear universally the same... like GW2. Then you would have PvPer's upset that they can't mod their PvP gear like PvE players can. Especially when you can't make 1 gear set that will make all builds happy.

[Lanja]

First off, DDSS, thanks much for opting for the thougthful (i.e. non-douchy) resonse. I realize that, in trying to gauge whether PvP is something I can enjoyably dabble in, I am wading into rather unfamiliar waters, so I appreciate candor and forbearance.

 

I didn't realize that PvE gear would give someone an overwhelming advantage in PvP. I would think that one ought to be able to find equally good gear through whichever mode of play one prefers. If that's not the case, then that is something the game designers ought to fix, otherwise it again creates an either/or choice between PvE and PvP.

 

Having said that, I had not considered the PvE mob-scaling issue you raise. If I understand you correctly, PvE gear is designed to allow a player to prevail over PvE opponents (mobs, bosses, etc) that will have far more HP than opponent(s) in PvP will. The damage and defense boost provided by the Expertise stat then is an attempt to even that out. However, I would have thought it simpler to just have the damage and defense bonuses from any gear apply differently in PvE mob/boss vs. PvP duel environments, rather than even it out via a whole new stat. (In essence having the Expertise even-out function as a passive background thing, rather than a stat to grind up.)

 

I agree that we want lots of gear options to suit individual play styles, rather than one set of "gotta have it or your dead" uber-gear (or one set each for PvP and PvE for that matter), but I think that's a broader issue.

 

Thanks again for shedding some light.

[Vycwulf]

Is it needed? Not really. A separate pvp stat is the way game developers say "I GIVE UP" on being able to balance rewards between pvp and pve. If you look, battlemaster isn't too far off Columi(or whatever it's called) gear. That probably annoys quite a few people that do nothing but pve, not that I care really. I haven't done an op in this game and happy about it.

 

It's what we have though, so it's what we have to deal with, unless the devs basically want to revamp all the rewards.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Vycwulf

[DarthKhaos]

Is it needed? Not really. A separate pvp stat is the way game developers say "I GIVE UP" on being able to balance rewards between pvp and pve. If you look, battlemaster isn't too far off Columi(or whatever it's called) gear. That probably annoys quite a few people that do nothing but pve, not that I care really. I haven't done an op in this game and happy about it.

 

It's what we have though, so it's what we have to deal with, unless the devs basically want to revamp all the rewards.

I thought this thread was dead but low and behold after how many days of the OP bumping his own thread with updates when no one posted triggered more people to post.

 

Now as for the above post. statements like this does not make you look smart. The PvP stat is not there because the devs "Gave up". Saying this because you don't understand both game mechanic and people behavior is sad. The 2 are inter related. Let's say the best gear can be obtained through PvE AND/OR PvP one of two things will happen.

Either players will feel forced to PvE AND PvP to compete with players who's been doing this longer than them. Then they'll complain that they are forced to do content they don't want to do to get the gear they need. That group A can get items faster by PvE (or PvP depends on who's complaining), Or in the case where they make progress the same for PvE & PvP then PvPers will complain that it takes too long to get gear good enough to compete or PvErs complain that they get their gear too fast and now got nothing to strive for.

OR If you place restrictions that once you get either X amount of gear or commendations you can't get more so if you get it through PvE you can't get more from PvP for that week or vice versa. (A form of lock out.) This would cause players to not do content because they can't get anything out of it. Think about during the first 2 months of the game (even now to a lesser extent) PvE gear was so easy to get people ran the Operations once and that was it because they could of gotten the gear through hard mode so it was faster. You get people not doing the content making it harder to find groups for content and people complaining about there's nothing to do because they got all their gear for that week or all the best gear.

 

I've tried to explain this in this post before and some people just don't get it. PvPers NEED a different progression rate than PvErs. You got to get PvPers up from Basic gear (Recruit) to Intermediate gear (Battle Master) fast so they can compete against the Advance gear (War Hero) the progression rate from Intermediate to advance can be super long. Then there's the difference in quality of gear. Anyone who PvPs can tell you that someone in full Battle Master can take out someone in Full War Hero. Why? Because the difference in gear between the two is small. You NEED that in PvP so those in the best gear don't dominate those without the top gear for very long. They can still get pwned by people without the top gear.

 

You CANNOT do this for PvE. You need a more linear (or steady progression) for PvE throughout all the gear from Basic to Advance. Also the difference between them must be greater or people will skip content like in the beginning where people went from regular Flashpoints to Hard Mode Operations and skip both Hard Mode Flashpoints & regular Operations.

 

Back in the day you could NOT get gear through PvP only PvE so they ruled. You can't use the same system for awarding gear as back then when you add into the mix gaining gear through a totaly different form of game play. Imagine if you could gear gear with stats for raiding through Space Missions. Think about that for a second and that's basally what you're trying to do by removing Expertise.

 

Bottom line this is an RPG. Even in the days of table top RPGs your gear matters. Better gear makes you stronger. By separating the PvE & PvP gear players can do what they want and also players who PvP don't get dominated by those with the best gear for a long period of time. People who want to only PvE, only PvP or WANT to PvE & PvP are not complaining. It's those who WANT to PvE & PvP AND not get both gear who are complaining.