Dear Expertise, You Are Terrible

[Finnius]

Let's take a minute to do a thought experiment. Expertise both increases damage you do to other players and reduces damage you take from them while also buffing healing so that is (supposedly) roughly equivalent to PVE levels. So here's a funny idea.

 

DON'T SPLIT YOUR PLAYER BASE IN HALF.

 

Yeah, you heard me. If you remove expertise from PVP gear and replace it with relevant stats you end up with roughly the same stat spread on PVP and PVE gear, meaning gearing is more a choice about what set you want to wear rather than what set you HAVE to wear.

 

If you really need the PVPers to be mechanically better, give the PVP gear set bonuses. Noticeable, but not overwhelming. Because honestly, when a fully geared DPS can sit on a guy in PVP gear for half a minute and barely scratch him, you have a severe design flaw.

 

A geared, well-played character, whether in PVP or PVE gear should never be able to be ignored. Sadly this is the case right now.

 

You then tier PVP and PVE gear the same way they are now - meaning skill still leads to rewards. Oh look, now your entire player base can play both halves of the game rather than having one half gimped against the other half at all times.

 

It also means the PVPers can PVE. I honestly don't see the problem with this.

 

It doesn't help that when you introduce a stat that negates the skill of the other side you create a gap that will only grow with time. On an imbalanced server, that gap will never recover.

 

tl;dr

Expertise is a bad stat and has no actual purpose aside from splitting your player base. Discuss.

[Cataphractone]

Expertise is a bad stat and has no actual purpose aside from splitting your player base. Discuss.

 

Yep. That is exactly what it is for.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Cataphractone

[JackBauerFTW]

Couldn't agree more, Expertise is a ridiculous stat. Get rid of it. It will also help out new 50s instead of them getting owned for the first 100 warzones they play.

[deadsaber]

most my guild is pvp and we used to do all pve in our pvp gear and it easy but you do pvp in pve gear thats it your dead no chance if it was me i would remove it so people dont get steam roled in pvp

[maticlandarr]

Blind leading the blind around here.

[xPROOF]

Doesnt take long to get battlemaster gear anymore, do what i did and tough out the hard losses and beatings, then get revenge, its all time consuming but easier.

[Kunda]

If you really need the PVPers to be mechanically better, give the PVP gear set bonuses. Noticeable, but not overwhelming. Because honestly, when a fully geared DPS can sit on a guy in PVP gear for half a minute and barely scratch him, you have a severe design flaw.

 

A geared, well-played character, whether in PVP or PVE gear should never be able to be ignored. Sadly this is the case right now.

 

We are in the PvP forum, right? Where the majority of the complaints since 1.2 have been about damage being too high, and people dying too quickly, yes? If you're playing a DPS class and you can't scratch someone in PvP you're severely outgeared or skilled, and that isn't an expertise problem. You'd have the same issue fighting someone in Campaign gear if you were wearing Tionese.

[Olympic]

The WoW generation loves it.

[Sanduval]

The WoW generation loves it.

 

And we have a winner!

[Echoo]

I heard a rumor they were going to remove expertise.

[MorgonKara]

Let's take a minute to do a thought experiment. Expertise both increases damage you do to other players and reduces damage you take from them while also buffing healing so that is (supposedly) roughly equivalent to PVE levels. So here's a funny idea.

 

DON'T SPLIT YOUR PLAYER BASE IN HALF.

 

Yeah, you heard me. If you remove expertise from PVP gear and replace it with relevant stats you end up with roughly the same stat spread on PVP and PVE gear, meaning gearing is more a choice about what set you want to wear rather than what set you HAVE to wear.

 

If you really need the PVPers to be mechanically better, give the PVP gear set bonuses. Noticeable, but not overwhelming. Because honestly, when a fully geared DPS can sit on a guy in PVP gear for half a minute and barely scratch him, you have a severe design flaw.

 

A geared, well-played character, whether in PVP or PVE gear should never be able to be ignored. Sadly this is the case right now.

 

You then tier PVP and PVE gear the same way they are now - meaning skill still leads to rewards. Oh look, now your entire player base can play both halves of the game rather than having one half gimped against the other half at all times.

 

It also means the PVPers can PVE. I honestly don't see the problem with this.

 

It doesn't help that when you introduce a stat that negates the skill of the other side you create a gap that will only grow with time. On an imbalanced server, that gap will never recover.

 

tl;dr

Expertise is a bad stat and has no actual purpose aside from splitting your player base. Discuss.

 

It's not a design flaw, it's intentional. If you want to compete in PvP you have to put the time in.

(Although I will say I think the devs might have gotten a bit carried away with the Expertise stuff.) Originally they said it would be like a small 5% bonus over PvE gear for PvP, but it's actually more like 20% or so at the highest tier. Even just in Champ gear my guy would have something like a 10% bonus to damage and a 7% reduction vs someone in Columi. -not including the small difference in attribute stats. That's nothing to sneeze at, PvE gear is severely gimped in the lvl 50 PvP bracket.

Edited April 29, 2012 by MorgonKara

[Ushela]

Expertise is a bad stat and has no actual purpose aside from splitting your player base. Discuss.

 

Yep, sounds like its working as intended. Move along please, nothing to see here but noobs who dont understand the game...

[Finnius]

Yeah, obviously I don't understand the game. Obviously. Just a noob in Columi. But wait, BM gear is viable through most of the HMs in the game, meaning it grants access to almost everything a PVE player actually works for. But let's flip that around and try to PVP in Columi gear. You might as well be wearing greens.

 

Why? Expertise. End of story.

 

Rather than having both sets of gear viable for either activity and slightly under-performing in the one it wasn't specifically meant for, we have a balance where one set of gear is viable for both and the other sucks if you're not in PVE. Seems like good design.

 

But by all means, assume I'm just a noob.

[Azrienov]

I was fine with expertise the way it was before 1.2. If you want PvE content to be cleared with PvE gear, then give it a stat on par with expertise. Call it "Stat to help clear PvE content." Scale it exactly as if it were pre-1.2 expertise. PvP gear should offer an edge, sure, but not a massive lol edge. I mean when you have to stack 1000 expertise to be good in pvp, I'd say that someone went overboard in designing.

 

After you include the new PvE stat, scale the pvp armor stats up to match their tier pve counterpart. Shazam. You have two equally good pieces of armor that can be used anywhere. They have their own set bonuses so you can mix and match. Oh, and each gives a slight edge in their own realm of designation. However, a player can now clear PvE content and enjoy PvP content in the same gear.

 

This is a logical solution, and therefore must be ignored because of all the work that would go into scaling the PvE content to take "Stat to help clear PvE content" into account in the fights. The good news is this: Star Wars will kill itself under its own inertia, and be free to play soon enough

[rizBRAH]

So dont use your pve gear in pvp?

????

[Finnius]

So dont use your pve gear in pvp?

????

 

Sure, as soon as Bioware makes it impossible to use your PVP gear in PVE.

[Teabaker]

Yep. It just splits the game in half.

[Aussiedroid]

Completely agree Expertise is NOT needed at all to provide a good PVP experience.

 

The OPs suggestions to rebalance the gear to provide both PVE and PVP players equal level of stats is the best way forward. We are only a few months into the game and the gap between gear has increased significantly.

 

This was an issue in Wow as it was introduced so late in the game development that this stat was needed to rebalance the game, but even there it caused some big issues. Here we have a new game that could have been designed with PVP in mind from the start - not using a special stat to try to provide balance.

 

What does Expertise result in:

- Players not having fun in warzones

- Players being forced to spend more and more time in PVP simply to get to a competative level. This is an MMORPG after all??

- Player segregation PVE vs PVP camps

- Less people queuing for warzones in the long term.

- The need for two individual sets of gear and having to change this each time you enter warzones.

- Players with no skills, simply owning everyone else coming up under them.

- A game that has nothing to do with player skills only what gear they have grind.

- A game where your gear determines the winning team.

- Massive amounts of players leaving warzones in progress due to their disatisfaction.

- Faction who gets ahead of the other will always have a clear advantage and sped up progression where as the loosing faction will need to work harder. This will get worse over time.

 

Game needs to cater for those who primarily PVP and those that primarily PVE. Gear progression is needed in the game but the balance needs to be there to allow PVE to compete in PVP and likewise for PVP to compete in PVE content. Game still needs progression paths for both but does not need Expertise to distinguish and segregate. This way you can still solely PVP and get good gear and not worry about coming across a high end PVE as you can get the same.

 

Those that PVP as their mainstay in this game should have advantages over PVE, but this advantage should be down to their knowledge and experience in the warzones and how to play their character, not simply because they have spend xx hrs and got their War Hero gear.

 

To all those comments that say, nut up or shut up, this is the way it works so join the club, or you just don't understand how it works, must be a noob .. well I think we do understand .. we simply don't accept this is the best system we could have. It has its flaws and needs improvement before everyone stops queuing. There is a reason why there has been so many threads on this topic .. as it is a primary concern that is yet to be addressed.

 

Prior to hitting L50 myself, I was almost always queued for a match, but now even with my Expertise gear the level differences between players at L50 is far too large and find swinging my lightsabres at a player for several mins without denting their health by any decent mark is futile. Its not that I dont know how to play, or know the strengths of my character, I simply am outgunned. Likewise vs a healer, they can outheal any damage I throw at them and cannot be intruppted or stunned for long enough to break them down.

 

The other player has got to be sitting back laughing at my attempts as they clock their 50+ kills... I still question how much fun it can be for them to steam roll the opposing force without competition... surely they would also like a good competitive and engaging game right??

[Barrgil]

To be honest, I think expertise is fine but it really does separate the player base quite a bit. Let's take a look at this example:

 

New player just got to 50, he/she has a few options:

IF gear is worse than recruit gear, they buy it and join the fight in PvP with 800+ expertise. Goes in fine, but gets utterly decimated due to lack of knowledge.

IF gear is better than recruit gear, they buy it and join the fight in PvP with 800+ expertise. Goes in fine, but still gets destroyed since their base stat pre-recruit was way better.

IF gear is sub par with recruit gear, they buy a FEW (say about 500 expertise worth) since they don't want to drain their base stat. Goes in fine, but also gets crushed since they only had 500 expertise.

 

I think it would be a good idea to spread the warzones into tiers such as:

Recruit tier: Fresh 50s with Recruit gear go up against each other until they break 900 expertise. (Say, must have at least 500 expertise to even join a warzone)

Intermediate tier: 50s with 900-1100 expertise go up against each other, as usual.

Experts tier: 1100 expertise and up, for those with 2 or 3 pieces of War Hero in their full-on battlemaster set.

 

This is just an opinion. Obviously, this probably will never happen but I'm just suggesting.

[Bloberts]

Expertise is a stat that encourages the player to gear through pvp for pvp gear. If you can't handle shelling out for recruit gear or spending any time at all getting a decent pvp set then pls just stick to heroic 4 mans.

[xPROOF]

To be honest, I think expertise is fine but it really does separate the player base quite a bit. Let's take a look at this example:

 

New player just got to 50, he/she has a few options:

IF gear is worse than recruit gear, they buy it and join the fight in PvP with 800+ expertise. Goes in fine, but gets utterly decimated due to lack of knowledge.

IF gear is better than recruit gear, they buy it and join the fight in PvP with 800+ expertise. Goes in fine, but still gets destroyed since their base stat pre-recruit was way better.

IF gear is sub par with recruit gear, they buy a FEW (say about 500 expertise worth) since they don't want to drain their base stat. Goes in fine, but also gets crushed since they only had 500 expertise.

 

I think it would be a good idea to spread the warzones into tiers such as:

Recruit tier: Fresh 50s with Recruit gear go up against each other until they break 900 expertise. (Say, must have at least 500 expertise to even join a warzone)

Intermediate tier: 50s with 900-1100 expertise go up against each other, as usual.

Experts tier: 1100 expertise and up, for those with 2 or 3 pieces of War Hero in their full-on battlemaster set.

 

This is just an opinion. Obviously, this probably will never happen but I'm just suggesting.

 

If you do that you will have to go by rank, because what people will do is Lower their expertise so they can get in the easier warzones and smash on new recruits when they have like 4 pieces are warhero and the rest as Rakata/campaign or Super Modded gear. With the type of players people are complaining about I see this happening.

[Barrgil]

If you do that you will have to go by rank, because what people will do is Lower their expertise so they can get in the easier warzones and smash on new recruits when they have like 4 pieces are warhero and the rest as Rakata/campaign or Super Modded gear. With the type of players people are complaining about I see this happening.

 

True, but they could implement a lock system when you get "promoted" above your tier so you can't go back down. Obviously there will be exploits and flaws but from what I've seen so far, new 50s even with Recruit gear don't stand much of a chance against the others.

[Keadil]

Expertise is a bad stat and has no actual purpose aside from splitting your player base. Discuss.

 

Nothing to discuss. Expertise is a crutch for those that have no skill. The challenge in pvp is supposed to come from battling a thinking player that can react to your moves. Good going Bioware in removing skill from pvp, bravo.

[vimm]

Expertise makes it possible for the developers to make changes to PvP without throwing off the balance of PvE.

[Zunayson]

We are in the PvP forum, right? Where the majority of the complaints since 1.2 have been about damage being too high, and people dying too quickly, yes? If you're playing a DPS class and you can't scratch someone in PvP you're severely outgeared or skilled, and that isn't an expertise problem. You'd have the same issue fighting someone in Campaign gear if you were wearing Tionese.

 

Yes, I'm completely bad and unskilled because I hit for half the damage. Cool.