Just dinged 50 ... What should be the gear discrepancy

[Khoraji]

 

That is why i would rather play LVL 49 or less PVP. Then everyone's base stats are LVL 49

 

No they aren't. Gear still makes a difference. And not having all of your abilities at lvls 10-48 is a huge deal.

 

All level 10's vs all lv 40-49 players will yield the same result as all BM vs all WH.

[DakotaDoc]

No they aren't. Gear still makes a difference. And not having all of your abilities at lvls 10-48 is a huge deal.

 

All level 10's vs all lv 40-49 players will yield the same result as all BM vs all WH.

 

Well, that is true to a certain ext. I do better with my LVL 22 Guardian (I use as a slicer for aug parts)

in PVP then I do my 50 Sage in WZ's

 

i was one of those foolish people that dinged 50 and entered a WZ with LVL 47 PVE gear. Imps would target me in mass. It was as if they could smell me. Yes, taking up valuable air would best describe me then. I built up enough creds to buy a full set of recruit gear and a couple BM parts. I notice now that IMP's do not target me in mass nearly as much. I think some kind of briefing or tool tip for new 50's is in order. So they understand the importance of expertise rated gear in PVP.

[Spaj]

You are one of the developers? Level of clulessness is about there.

 

Op's talking about retarded system. Hes not asking BM set right after 50, he asks gear you can actualy play with.

 

Right now 13k dude is a empty place in a team.

 

Recruit gear should be worst of 3 sets, but it should not be that bad.

 

There is more at stake here than it may seem. Given that the full set of Recruit gear is free via a quest if this is upgraded in terms of raw stats in anyway it will become the default PVE set for fresh 50s for free. Already i've been subjected to healing a HM FPs with a "tank" in full recruit gear melting in seconds.

 

Recruit gear should not make other content/gear/items obselete else it should no longer be able to be free.

 

If the set had a time/work/credit substantial cost then it could easily be justified to increase the expertise. I just dont see how a free item can be given a significant value without it affecting other areas of the game.

 

But given if a new player does only the daily each day losing, he is gaining a BM piece every second day. It does not take long before the pendulum shifts and effectiveness grows such that it is unlikely to be constant losses till WH.

 

P.S. 19-20k people are not getting there with just gear. Datacrons would have been completed. Augments sourced etc. The disparity is not just the gear set. Time spent in the game improving/preparing count for a great deal.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Spaj

[Raggok]

You think you guys in full recruit gear get face-melted by Augmented WH's? Hardly. Try stepping into a WZ with ZERO expertise, none of your gear is rated over 100, and getting straight rocked by full BM's. You get it? All the guys you piss and moan at for wrecking you in their WH went through the same, if not worse, than you.

 

So, your argument is: my experience was so miserable, everyone else's experience should be miserable too.

I've seen griefers use the same exact argument when confronted on why they take their max level character and go kill lowbies on a full PvP server.

 

I was one of the first fully remodded BM characters on my server before the major changes were made. I cut down Centurion and lesser geared people in droves, but I did not enjoy it. I'm sure they didn't enjoy it either. The only fights I enjoyed were against equally geared opponents or 1vNs. You know those "who are the best PvPers on the server" threads? Yes, you will find my name in those.

 

What you don't understand about those of my mindset is that not only do we not like it when a bad player wins only because of their gear, we don't like it when we beat a good player only because of our gear. We want competitive meaningful fights regardless of which side of the gear disparity we fall on. This is something you will never understand.

[Daikeru]

I'm PvPing in my recruit geared Shadow and I'm doing just fine. Sure, gear wreaks havoc on your damage and defense capabilities, but your utility is still there. My stuns and mezes aren't any shorter or have longer CDs. My knockbacks, immunities, and stealthing capabilities are still there. I can still pull the ball carrier into the pre ignited fire trap to watch them burn. I can mez reinforcements in a Novare or keep a healer/sniper annoyed with my interrupts and CC. I can guard and node and call for reinforcements just fine on Civil. It's not like gear takes away your ability to type in chat, or diminishes the effectiveness of your CC as well as other abilities. In recruit gear you focus on using your utility to your advantage more than "I"m going to smash this guy's face in". As a 14k hp Shadow the recruit gear experience isn't that bad.

[Kraigan]

Wow, you can still run around in stealth with bad gear...who knew.

[Siorac]

Very good posts from you.

 

When a game has RPG elements it's gameplay is going to fall somewhere between CvC and PvP. It can never be full PvP because it has different classes, which is fine by me because I like a game having different classes. What I don't like (and I'm not alone) is when gear becomes too big of a decider in the outcome of fights.

 

I think it would be good to view the dynamic on a sliding scale. People who defend gear disparity and time-sink gear progression would be closer to the CvC side of the scale.

 

CvC||---X----------------||PvP

 

While those who want skill and execution to be more of a factor in determining the outcome of fights are on the other side of the scale.

 

CvC||-----------------X---||PvP

 

For those who tell the more PvP inclined people to go play a FPS, you are wrong. MMORPG developers have full control of where their game ends up falling on this scale. It's just the sad case that they almost always (especially over time) fall to the CvC side of things. I believe that is because they are subscription-based and they really NEED those neverending carrots-on-the-stick and timesinks to keep peope invested in their game. It's harder to step away from a game that you have invested so much time and work into playing.

 

Now, those who are more on the PvP side of things aren't interested in carrots-on-the-stick and gear progression. They will PVP just for the sake of PvP. They don't need rewards or gear advantages as an incentive. If the PvP is dynamic and fun they will continue to play the game. Developers have almost completely ignored this style of player for a very long time. But, that time is coming to end. Games that are too reliant on gear will never see this particular group of players again after August.

 

No, developers haven't ignored that type of player. They really just need to play FPS games. Or Jedi Academy in multiplayer. Or something like that.

 

Seriously, in an RPG, PvP gameplay should be "mucked up" by RPG elements; the sliding scale should be closer to "CvC" than to "pure PvP". A lot closer. I hate that people want every MMORPG to be a freaking twitch-based action game. There are millions of those, play them, don't turn another genre into FPS just because you like that.

 

Also, hyping GW2 is so boring now. Yeah, we get it, many people have a huge hard-on for it. Have fun. I'll stick to RPGs over half-assed action games, thank you.

[Ronthuz]

Bioware can easily cater to people with this mentally. Make another queue where everyone has 100hp, damage is consistant with health, and there are no rewards. Then you can enjoy playing with others of the same mentality. Let me know how it goes and have fun

[MidichIorian]

At the War Hero level, this argument disappears entirely.

Then it becomes a matter of class instead.

[bekkilyn]

I don't mean to be mean but I think a lot of the discrepancy isn't gear it's practice. If you pvp sub 50 a lot, you'll do ok at 50 with recruit gear. I hit 275k right after 1.2 rolled out as a fresh 50, 2nd match as a marauder. (yaya op) I did have the luxury of having a rank 78 jug, devils advocate here.

 

This has a ring of truth. From all of these posts and threads complaining about how they are *completely* ineffective in recruit gear while I'm sitting there puzzled because my mostly recruit gear character has been doing just fine in most cases, I've been trying to figure out the reason for the difference in my experience vs. theirs. Is it because they played just a couple or three 10-49 warzones before moving up to 50, and then found out they had to use more strategy at 50 vs. just running into a group of reds headlong, and then complaining because they can no longer just rush in blindly and directly slaughter everything in sight and not have to depend on teamwork so much? Gear only goes so far without practice and coordination.

[AlyxDinas]

I'm not how anyone who played the old bag based RNG could take complaints about gear progression too seriously. Starter set is free, loser comm acquisition rate was adjusted from being outright insulting, BM requires no major time investiture.

 

Am I a fan of expertise? Hell no. I hate the idea. I think stats should be normalized by build/roll. But do I think that the path of upwards mobility in this game is steep? Not at all.

[kweassa]

Dinged 50 yesterday and grabbed my recruit set. I have something in the range of 12,500 to 13k hp's depending on buffs. I have been playing mmo's and pvping in them since 1999. How do game developers consistently create dumb barriers to entry for new players by creating silly gear discprepancies.

After running about a dozen WZ's and fighting against 19 and 20k hp players that I can assume are WH and augmented, it's disconcerting to see more than a twice to three times the power in player gear. I can barely tickle these guys and my HP's go down faster than ever experienced as a level 10 in WZ's. I predominantly levelled up through pvp, so I understand the mechanics of SWTOR pvp.

 

The main point of the thread is what should be the power difference in mmo's between fresh max level characters with welfare gear versus the guy who has squeezed 18 hours a day for the last 3 years on his guy. My assessment is about 30 to 35 percent more powerful. Between HP and damage discrepancy, the current SWTOR ratio is about 100 to 150 percent better.

 

I don't care about getting mauled for the first 50 to 100 games to get some gear, it's just dumb that that's the game design. In my experience players will still grind a ton to go from welfare gear to the 30 percent better gear.

 

So as to the post, What's the community's opinion on what the ratio should be in power increase from beginner gear to maxed out gear?

 

Power levels are a reward for your time and effort put into the game.

 

They're fine. If you want to compete at the same level, make the same amount of effort to get your basic gear/stat preparation.

 

It's not as if the difference is like in EVE, where you start out with a paddling boat, and then soon get to meet people operating at the power of the danged US 7th Fleet in the middle of the pacific.

Edited July 12, 2012 by kweassa

[Dahools]

Power levels are a reward for your time and effort put into the game.

 

They're fine. If you want to compete at the same level, make the same amount of effort to get your basic gear/stat preparation.

 

It's not as if the difference is like in EVE, where you start out with a paddling boat, and then soon get to meet people operating at the power of the danged US 7th Fleet in the middle of the pacific.

 

Look at it from another perspective, do you think fully geared out PVP er's that have been maxed out for months want to fight 13k opponents? There are about a half a dozen posts in this thread that talk about "earning your gear" by just chalking it up and taking your licks. I haven't PVE ed in an mmo in years, yeah I level up solo but group PVE content is boring as hell to me. There is zero challenge and yes it's pretty much the same across all mainstream mmo's, someone's tanking, someone's healing, and the rest are beating on something. I pvp. Right now, i'm deadweight on a team in recruit gear. As a sith juggernaut I have very little utility like a sith assassin or other CC heavy classes. In a few weeks I'll have full BM, along with some random WH pieces I got from saving up 3500 RWZ comm's from pre 50 pvp. At that time I will compete.

 

The point i'm making is that the ramp up time from totally worthless to a contributor is bad game design. And for the pve guys worried that welfare pve gear will replace or ruin pve just add an extra stat to expertise that causes that particular piece of gear to do 75 percent less damage to pve mobs. Problem solved, PVP gear should be worthless in PVE and vice versa. PVE and PVP are two distinct different games.

 

This is an mmo they are designed around gear progression. I'm fine with progression, just sick of stupid timesinks in max level PVP that not only ruin the experience for me but also ruin it for those on my team that are geared out knowing that i'm a liability. All I do is PVP, I'll have fully augmented WH gear in a month, at that time I do not want to fight guys with 13k hp's. Let people buy BM pieces pre-50 or something.

 

I had some guy laugh at me last night for being a 13k hp juggernaut queing for WZ's. I asked him chat what he proposes, I was wearing full recruit with some WH implants. HE told me to go pve. And as we all know that gear is **** in pvp. Of course he was clueless, I had no other outlet but to just keep queueing. And don't get me wrong, I do ok sometimes as much as 250 to 300k damage, but we would have won those games anyway. In competitive games with WH geared out toons facing off, i'm a gnat. I'm fine doing it, but as previously stated it's bad game design. Make it take 3 or 4 months of constant queueing to go from full BM to full augmented WH. That would be a much better set-up.

 

Swtor better wake up, the end of August approaches and competition approaches.