Expertise is a problem.

[Quinlynn]

All these threads ever amount to is that some peope grinded out War Hero and augmented their gear and you dont want to put the time in to do it yourself.

 

If I want to PVE I have to invest the time to gear up.

 

If you want to PVP, you have to invest the time to gear up.

 

Every MMO has this basic principle so if you dont like it or think its unfair, your simply in the wrong game Genre.

 

Every MMO has gear. Not every MMO has expertise and that is the subject of this discussion.

 

People should not need to acquire multiple sets of gear to do different activities. Gear should be gear. Some uber gear could be attained by PVP and some by PVE, thus encouraging all players to at least try each play style.

[Meanerr]

I like the concept of Expertise.

 

I also like the the suggestion above to make Expertise not tied to gear.

 

I think a good idea would be to tie Expertise to one's Valor level, maybe 10 Expertise points per Valor level (1000 Expertise at Valor 100).

 

Those who PvP more often will have more Expertise and the matchmaking system can balance team matchmaking around the team's total Valor level.

 

Just a thought.

[RefugeASSASSIN]

Every MMO has gear. Not every MMO has expertise and that is the subject of this discussion.

 

People should not need to acquire multiple sets of gear to do different activities. Gear should be gear. Some uber gear could be attained by PVP and some by PVE, thus encouraging all players to at least try each play style.

 

Why because YOU dont think that people should? This game has ALWAYS had 2 end game tiers of gear going all the way back to beta and probably before. Why should it be changed now because a small portion of the population doesnt want to invest the time to get the gear wih the Expertise? Thats a bit Elitest dont you think? The point is its always been this way so players either knew this going in or didnt bother doing any research and had it dropped on their face by a geared 50. Its not like it was changed against them mid grind, if anything the changes have been for easier gear aquisition not the other way around.

 

The majority of the people who make these complaints are the ones who were PVE heroes who have raided the small handful of flashpoints and Operations and are quickly becoming bored with the game, then they decide to try to PVP to do something different and find the grind is not to their liking. Changing the game design and removing Expertise (which essentially removes PVP gear) only caters to these people who dont want to invest time. Period.

 

I didnt necessarily like the grind either, but I like to PVP and I had to grind my way to full WH either by myself or with 1 other guildy for over 95% of the Warzones it took me to get to 81 Valor. I did it the long and hard way and I dont think that everyone who put their time in should get smacked in the face because someone cant put in the time to grind out Battlemaster in 2 weeks time and be completely competitive. And YES full Battlemaster with Augments is more then competitive in the level 50 bracket because heres a newsflash: NOT EVERYONE IN THE WARZONE IS A FULLY MODDED OUT WH. Most only have 1 or 2 pieces. When you are running into fully modded out teams of full warhero, thast just a failed Ranked queue you ran into anyways so your gear wont mean jack **** anyways.

 

Dont even get me started on free campaign gear and Battlemaster gear you can buy with comm's and wear before Valor 60, those carebear changes were enough.

Edited July 26, 2012 by RefugeASSASSIN

[Senatorial]

I have a better recommendation. Pvp a lot in lowbies. Save up coms.

 

Start out, full recruit plus 2 pieces of BM and one warhero.

 

Every week you should be able to earn at least 2 to 3 pieces of BM just by finishing the dailies and weeklies. Assuming you don't pvp so much you get nearly full BM within one week. Yes this takes a lot of matches so it's not the norm.

 

Every time you get a piece of BM you should augment it. You will have it for awhile, what are you waiting for?

 

Well yes, I did this. Or will do it, rather, I'm about 20k XP from level 50 on my marauder. But I only got up to 3500 Ranked comms today, and of the 10 levels since level 40, I only got through about 4 outside of PvP. Pre-50 comm farming is of course viable if you're dedicated enough, but most people hitting 50 will not have all that saved up. Plus getting augments costs a lot, etc.

 

This gear progression is just as fast if not faster than you can get columi, since you can only do each op once per week, but you can do several fps to get columi faster, but it takes a lot of fps or good rng

 

Yes it then takes a long time to get warhero, but it takes a long time to get campaign gear too unless you have good rng.

 

I wasn't really talking about time, more about who/what it is you're forced to go up against as you're doing it.

 

Only problem with that is then those who min max will still have the advantage. There isn't just main stat and endurance on those gear

True, but if they know how to optimize their gear that well they deserve to have stat advantages. And the lowered expertise gap should help balance other stat differences.

The difference here is that you sometimes have to fight really hard against stronger pvpers, better gear, but you also sometimes fight against really terrible pvpers.

Also, I like how you're always against a full team of full WH w/ augs. One side never has recruit gear.

I'm exaggerating how bad it is for people who care about PvP. Point is, people who are unlucky enough to have only a bunch of Recruit shouldn't have to grind through losses and get 3-shotted by overgeared players every other match. Plus this creates elitists, like a guy in a similar thread saying Recruit-geared players shouldn't be allowed in warzones.

[RefugeASSASSIN]

I like the concept of Expertise.

 

I also like the the suggestion above to make Expertise not tied to gear.

 

I think a good idea would be to tie Expertise to one's Valor level, maybe 10 Expertise points per Valor level (1000 Expertise at Valor 100).

 

Those who PvP more often will have more Expertise and the matchmaking system can balance team matchmaking around the team's total Valor level.

 

Just a thought.

 

That really wouldnt do anything. The principal still stands: "the more you PVP the faster you gear up" In your case the "gear" would just be the valor Expertise, same concept. The problem with expertise is people tie it to the reason they are under performing in a Warzone, when the reality is that between full Battlemaster and full warhero the total difference in Expertise is under 100 total points, which is nothing. At that point, main stat and power stacking become more critical for Min/maxing your character out.

[Scritchy]

If I want to PVE I have to invest the time to gear up.

 

If you want to PVP, you have to invest the time to gear up.

 

Every MMO has this basic principle so if you dont like it or think its unfair, your simply in the wrong game Genre.

The difference is that PVE is based on progression and PVP should be based on competitiveness, not time spent grinding commendations.

 

Not every MMO is based on gear > skill, just the ones with really horrible competitive PVP.

[RefugeASSASSIN]

The difference is that PVE is based on progression and PVP should be based on competitiveness, not time spent grinding commendations.

 

Not every MMO is based on gear > skill, just the ones with really horrible competitive PVP.

 

PVP is competitive and you earn Comm's from participating in Warzones and completing dailies and weeklies. I could see the complaints if you got nothing for losing, but thats simply not the case, you just get less. If you enough to simply finish your daily every day, in 2 weeks there is no reason you shouldnt have full Battlemaster or 1 or 2 pieces short tops. Full battlemaster is complettive when you bring it into the Expertise argument which this thread is about because the difference in expertise in BM and WH is minimal.

 

I can also tell you gear isnt the end-all be-all of endgame PVP. I stil pug most of my matches and if I get put on a team that has no clue what they are doing, doesnt listen or pay attention, my War Hero gear isnt carrying that team to a win no matter what im wearing.

[Scritchy]

PVP is competitive and you earn Comm's from participating in Warzones and completing dailies and weeklies. I could see the complaints if you got nothing for losing, but thats simply not the case, you just get less. If you enough to simply finish your daily every day, in 2 weeks there is no reason you shouldnt have full Battlemaster or 1 or 2 pieces short tops. Full battlemaster is complettive when you bring it into the Expertise argument which this thread is about because the difference in expertise in BM and WH is minimal.

 

I can also tell you gear isnt the end-all be-all of endgame PVP. I stil pug most of my matches and if I get put on a team that has no clue what they are doing, doesnt listen or pay attention, my War Hero gear isnt carrying that team to a win no matter what im wearing.

The PVP problem is gear, not just Expertise. Claiming it is just Expertise is short sighted.

 

Yeah, pretty much anybody can tell you that 1 person who isn't clueless isn't going to make up for 7 that are. Great job, gear can be overcome by teaming folks up with a bunch of buffoons.

[Vetril]

I question vertical gear progression to begin with. I reject your "bigger is better" mentality. Edited July 27, 2012 by Vetril

[iTryHard]

The point isn't that those in recruit gear are too lazy to grind for War Hero, it's that it's stupid to have to suffer through 1000s of warzones to reach a point where you can have balanced PvP and not get your face kicked in for the duration of a warzone. The solution apparent to me is to just make the gaps between gear smaller, those that PvPed more would still have an advantage, but not to the point that gear > skill. I also think that removing expertise is dumb because then people who haven't even set foot in PvP but have done HM EC will be able to have the BiS gear instantaneously.

Or, as some others have already mentioned, cross server PvP queuing could be put in place to make it a fair field, as it is now though, individual servers do not have the population for this. Even introducing cross server queuing could be bad though since it ruins the sense of community you may get on a server, instead of pitting you against the people you liked to go against and knew you'd get pitted against total strangers, and friendly banter would stop, in addition the anonymity many would get would encourage flaming and trolling even more since it would be easy to say something and never be seen again by the flamed person amid the sea of other players.

[Quinlynn]

Why because YOU dont think that people should? This game has ALWAYS had 2 end game tiers of gear going all the way back to beta and probably before. Why should it be changed now because a small portion of the population doesnt want to invest the time to get the gear wih the Expertise? Thats a bit Elitest dont you think? The point is its always been this way so players either knew this going in or didnt bother doing any research and had it dropped on their face by a geared 50. Its not like it was changed against them mid grind, if anything the changes have been for easier gear aquisition not the other way around.

 

The majority of the people who make these complaints are the ones who were PVE heroes who have raided the small handful of flashpoints and Operations and are quickly becoming bored with the game, then they decide to try to PVP to do something different and find the grind is not to their liking. Changing the game design and removing Expertise (which essentially removes PVP gear) only caters to these people who dont want to invest time. Period.

 

I didnt necessarily like the grind either, but I like to PVP and I had to grind my way to full WH either by myself or with 1 other guildy for over 95% of the Warzones it took me to get to 81 Valor. I did it the long and hard way and I dont think that everyone who put their time in should get smacked in the face because someone cant put in the time to grind out Battlemaster in 2 weeks time and be completely competitive. And YES full Battlemaster with Augments is more then competitive in the level 50 bracket because heres a newsflash: NOT EVERYONE IN THE WARZONE IS A FULLY MODDED OUT WH. Most only have 1 or 2 pieces. When you are running into fully modded out teams of full warhero, thast just a failed Ranked queue you ran into anyways so your gear wont mean jack **** anyways.

 

Dont even get me started on free campaign gear and Battlemaster gear you can buy with comm's and wear before Valor 60, those carebear changes were enough.

 

First off, I am valor level 86 and I didn't get it trade killing. My expertise is 1285 and while it coule be a little higher, I kept some BM stuff cause I like those stats better. IE, I grinded it out thank you very much.

 

Taking away expertise would not by default mean that anyone is getting a smack down. I guess unless you feel you need that advantage over player that don't have expertise. People jumping to the conclusion that removing expertise means WH gear becomes worthless have placed way too much emphasis on expertise vs. skill at PVP.

 

Right so fully geared WH teams have no place in regular WZs? LOL and this just confirms that expertise is stupid game mechanic.

 

Also, if you had any reading comprehension you would understand that I already stated both sets should continue to have a role in the game, just for customization and not for expertise.

 

Thanks for caring.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Quinlynn

[xxdragonragexx]

The point isn't that those in recruit gear are too lazy to grind for War Hero, it's that it's stupid to have to suffer through 1000s of warzones to reach a point where you can have balanced PvP and not get your face kicked in for the duration of a warzone. The solution apparent to me is to just make the gaps between gear smaller, those that PvPed more would still have an advantage, but not to the point that gear > skill. I also think that removing expertise is dumb because then people who haven't even set foot in PvP but have done HM EC will be able to have the BiS gear instantaneously.

Or, as some others have already mentioned, cross server PvP queuing could be put in place to make it a fair field, as it is now though, individual servers do not have the population for this. Even introducing cross server queuing could be bad though since it ruins the sense of community you may get on a server, instead of pitting you against the people you liked to go against and knew you'd get pitted against total strangers, and friendly banter would stop, in addition the anonymity many would get would encourage flaming and trolling even more since it would be easy to say something and never be seen again by the flamed person amid the sea of other players.

 

It is called a time sink. End game content is called a time sink. In most MMO it is gear. Level 1-49 has lots of pve, quests, and stories for content but it is not possible to create those kinds of content every 3 months just to keep subscription money flowing. So MMO companies created gear grinds which are easier to implement. You have to pay the time or the time sink to enjoy the game.

 

If lots of people will pay $15 a month for a game with no time sink or no content, just warzones and endless pvp, then there will be no need for gear grinds. Unfortunately, people will not pay $15 for just endless pvp and warzone experiences.

[Hizoka]

Bad players love expertise because they spend the time to grind out gear to cover teh fact that have no skill...

 

 

Good players hate expertise because its a "stupid removal" stat, the more you have the more stupid you can be and still compete.

 

 

PvP should be PLAYER vs PLAYER, not Gear vs GEAR as it is now. Use the damn bolster mechanic to make it an even playing field so that skill is the defining factor not who has more time to grind gear.

[xxdragonragexx]

PvP should be PLAYER vs PLAYER, not Gear vs GEAR as it is now. Use the damn bolster mechanic to make it an even playing field so that skill is the defining factor not who has more time to grind gear.

 

Skill based pvp MMO usually fail which is why Bioware didn't go with that type of model. At least with WoW clone model, they sold 2 million copies which will never happen with skill based or non gear based MMO.

[Hizoka]

Skill based pvp MMO usually fail which is why Bioware didn't go with that type of model. At least with WoW clone model, they sold 2 million copies which will never happen with skill based or non gear based MMO.

 

so every MMO that wasn't wow was a failure? seriously....

 

and they sold 2mill copies because its star wars not because of a stupid PvP gear system.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Hizoka

[hyuplee]

Today, there are many people who want Expertise removed from the game. Right now in SW:TOR's PvP it's not based on the player's skill or technique, no it's based on some stupid system WoW thought was an excellent idea. A real life situation is an Operative and a Tank Powertech engage in combat. The Tank Powertech has 1095 expertise, the operative has 1290. The operative vanishes uses his only 5 attacks that do damage and brings the Powertech's health to 40 or 30%. Then a teammate walks in to finish the job. and it's GG! The Powertech had no chance, not to mention the fact that Expertise can dominate the whole team in a warzone. It's not even player versus player, no it's expertise versus expertise. SWTOR just copied another one of WoW's ideas. GJ Bioware!

 

Expertise is a good system. Please don't assume you represent the opinion of the mass. Thank you.

Edited July 27, 2012 by hyuplee

[ArchangelLBC]

Even if it is just a gear grind they're not going to remove it.

 

As it is if you want the best PVP gear you have to grind out PVP. Some days you win, some days you lose. Until you're geared and going with guild premades you'll probably lose more than you win.

 

If you want the best PVE gear you go do PVE (with the exception of War Hero relics).

 

The good thing for players is that if you don't want to do one of them you don't have to to enjoy the other. The good part from BW's perspective is that if you want to do both you're going to have to grind both, and grinds are time sinks and tine sinks keep subs going.

 

Asking them to remove an entire gear grind from the game is just being short sighted.

 

That being said, like I said they should make recruit gear have 56 level mods, or make an easily attainable set of purple gear with 56 level mods (maybe 100-200 normal comms for each?) so the stat disparity isn't so very very large. It's that stat disparity between BM and Recruit (NOT the difference between BM and WH) that causes fresh 50s to be crushed since the amount of people in full battlemaster or better is much larger than the number of people in full war hero.

 

 

As it stands, pay your dues, suck it up for a week or so and you'll be just fine from a gear perspective (skill is another matter entirely. I'm full BM with a war hero weapon and I suck out loud).

[Helig]

I'd rather have Expertise as a PvE stat. It's the PvE that needs outrageous numbers (namely, healing) to be balanced, and PvP often suffers for it through imbalance, or nerfs.

 

Trauma looks like a temporary knee-jerk solution to PvE-centered scaling of healing.

[Lord_Karsk]

I think it's only a minority wanting this

 

 

Tell that to the 2/3 of the PvP player base that have left the game. Not to mention all those new to MMOs

who came here for STAR WARS then when they tried PvP got theyr face kicked in in WZ because of no

lvl 50 bracket this winter and a Ilum that preyed on the weak faction.And then add expertise to make sure

to get more people to leave,people who dident want wow 2.If there was no expertise the progression from

49-50 would hae been perfect, now it's a joke for both pvp/pve.

 

Expertise should have been a stat you could put on any gear to use against bosses in raiding

and no were else,

Edited July 27, 2012 by Lord_Karsk

[Kilikaa]

I remember my six years of SWG very well. Yes, they were all NGE era years BUT there was no expertise. There also was none of this gear grind that we have in TOR. You bought a crafted suit of armor and used it for everything. There were many differant looks. You had Padded, RIS, Mado, BH, Bone, Tantel and later Imperial and Rebel Spec Ops. There was Storm and Scout trooper armor as well. You could mix and match them as you see fit. Stat wise you could get it made with either higher Kinetic protection, Higher Energy or balanced.

 

Why do I bring this up, you may ask? To show that expertise is NOT needed. BW can make WH equal to Campaign, BM equal to BH and Recruit equal to Rakata. Stats are basically the same. Differant set bonuses can be given to each. WH offers a differant bonus than Camp, for instance. These sets can be used in both types of content. It is up to the player to grind out what they want. Does the set bonus of the BH gear suit you better? Grind it. WH more your style? Grind it. If the belt or bracers are added into the set bonus then you can get 2 pieces from 3 differant sets and get the 2-piece bonus from each. You can even rip out the mods and put them into the orange gear you want to wear.

 

By doing this the pvp would now be more skill based and less gear. If you are a hardcore pvp type then you continue to work towards your WH set. Not interested in pvp? Keep plugging away for that BH set so you can eventually get Camp gear. This will also eliminate a problem I have run into many times with my now full WH geared Shadow:being discriminated against due to my pvp gear. I have been told several times that I am "useless" in Ops, including regular story mode EV and KP. People actually refused to take me on runs because of my pvp gear. How can i get the pve gear needed to do Hard Mode runs if nobody wants me on a Story Mode?

 

Remove expertise, make the tiers of gear equal for both types of content and keep the grind so that people can go after what they prefer most. The way I see it everyone wins. Am I wrong about this?

Edited July 27, 2012 by Kilikaa

[MbaxterBeau]

Oh so maybe the fact of removing Expertise doesn't satisfy everyone. You're telling me that PvP is balanced? That a person with full BM gear has any chance to living up to a Full Augmented War hero? That a Full Recruit has a chance? Nope. Expertise is a problem. PvP is completely and utterly useless when it's all based on a SINGLE stat. That powertech was screwed no matter what, not because a teammate came and helped him at last second, but because an operative which has no DPS, expertise buffed him to ultimate extremes. Tell me that is fair. And by actually surviving to do the daily or weekly guess what you get MORE EXPERTISE to bring even more unbalance to PvP. HOW INTELLIGENT!

 

No expertise is so people who play a nerfed class or just have zero skill have something to stack so they can feel OP. It's sad that gear can't be about style for a race or character but has to be something added into games to feed the trolls.

 

I wish people could win with skill and strategy instead of gear stats and how many hundred times they completed a war zone.

[denpic]

No expertise is so people who play a nerfed class or just have zero skill have something to stack so they can feel OP. It's sad that gear can't be about style for a race or character but has to be something added into games to feed the trolls.

 

I wish people could win with skill and strategy instead of gear stats and how many hundred times they completed a war zone.

 

Thats just rediculous

[ArchangelLBC]

I'd rather have Expertise as a PvE stat. It's the PvE that needs outrageous numbers (namely, healing) to be balanced, and PvP often suffers for it through imbalance, or nerfs.

 

Trauma looks like a temporary knee-jerk solution to PvE-centered scaling of healing.

 

From the PVE side it always seems like perfectly viable PVE classes are getting nerfed due to PVP QQing idiots (hi2u Grav Round nerf). I went from 1.2 to 1.3 feeling gimp and min/maxing just to be middle of the road in raids because you people couldn't figure out how to interrupt grav round? Really? Sorry off topic, but really expertise in this context is just a way to get around having to have two entire different combat equations for PVE and PVP, which is known as lazy.

 

Why do I bring this up, you may ask? To show that expertise is NOT needed. BW can make WH equal to Campaign, BM equal to BH and Recruit equal to Rakata. Stats are basically the same. Differant set bonuses can be given to each. WH offers a differant bonus than Camp, for instance. These sets can be used in both types of content.

 

First off they would have to make Recruit equal to columi. With the exception of armorings and barrels (from a stats perspective) this is already mostly the case with BM being equal to Rakata and War Hero being equal to Black Hole/Campaign (you should probably know that Black Hole gear is the same gear level as Campaign. Depending on class the Black Hole is actually better most of the time).

 

They aren't going to do this because, as mentioned, double the grind to participate in both aspects of endgame means double the time sink, and that means people stay subbed longer.

 

They shouldn't do this because top tier raiders who never PVP shouldn't be able to step into any PVP match and own people purely from a gear perspective You think fresh 50s are getting crushed now? Similarly, if you make War Hero equal to campaign/black hole across the board then a lot of raiders will say there's no point to doing top tier PVE content when you can get the same exact gear facerolling warzones (some already argue that BH gear makes HM EC largely obsolete). The unique gear is a huge part of the draw for many PVE raiders. If they make the PVE raid gear unique and powerful to differentiate it then that just gives rise to the earlier problem of PVE raiders rolling in with their unique OP gear from top tier content (because the raid bosses aren't going to complain that players are OP) and absolutely roll over top tier PVPers. Expertise in this context is there to make it so that if players are sacrificing too much expertise to use top tier PVE gear they're actually going to be at a distinct disadvantage.

 

So to sum up that last wall of text: PVE gear needs to be uniquely powerful as an incentive to raiders.

PVP needs to be doable by people who don't want to have to raid when they don't want to just to get that gear to be competitive.

 

How can i get the pve gear needed to do Hard Mode runs if nobody wants me on a Story Mode?

 

Go use group finder to get a few pieces of columi from HM FPs or Story Mode ops? I'll say that full War Hero is enough to do HM EV, possibly KP, but WH loses quite a lot of HP in comparison to PVE gear.

[Orcron]

Today, there are many people who want Expertise removed from the game. Right now in SW:TOR's PvP it's not based on the player's skill or technique, no it's based on some stupid system WoW thought was an excellent idea. A real life situation is an Operative and a Tank Powertech engage in combat. The Tank Powertech has 1095 expertise, the operative has 1290. The operative vanishes uses his only 5 attacks that do damage and brings the Powertech's health to 40 or 30%. Then a teammate walks in to finish the job. and it's GG! The Powertech had no chance, not to mention the fact that Expertise can dominate the whole team in a warzone. It's not even player versus player, no it's expertise versus expertise. SWTOR just copied another one of WoW's ideas. GJ Bioware!

 

I am fond of the expertise system for pvp. The way they have it now to earn war hero sucks *** but I do not disagree with it. It's a good time sink and when I finally earn my last war hero item I'll have a since of accomplishment. Most players now fiddle with 2-4 toons. An when they are pvping an meet a fully done singe toon player they will know it.

 

So in saying expertise is a problem I say suck it up earn your items an enjoy the game. I would hate to NOT have expertise an get owned by end game raiders in the gear they earn. That is a horriable type system an I highly favor the expertise type system. Both end game raiding an pvp are completely different game plays an should be treated as such (as it is now)

[DarthOvertone]

There should be no separation between pve and pvp gear. The same separation in the pve gear can be used for all gear. Expertise should be removed. I know why it is there but it's not a smart system and neither is the pve/pvp separation. I just don't understand the need for it. I believe the game would be a lot better off without it. Just my opinion.

 

This got me thinking further on the issue. When you think about it, Expertise is really a lazy way of separating PvE from PvP. The better way of making the separation would be via the content itself. Make the endgame PvE and PvP content distinctively different. So that different stats, skills, and even ACs are emphasized in the two different formats. The rewards you receive in each area then reflect the needs for the content to be completed.

 

You would therefore tailor make the gear sets for each endgame style to perform better in that setting. So the PvE gear gives you the edge you need to kick azz in an endgame raid. The PvP set gives you the edge you need to do better in PvP. In each set, include mods/enhancements that peeps on both sides would desire so they appeal to min/maxers. Suddenly, you have more players exploring all of the endgame content and PvPing overall.

 

This is a better solution and it would work. Just look at all the carebears that PvP right now for their WH relic, or the PvPers that carebear it up to get armor mods for their orange belts. The barrier is completely unnecessary if the Devs would simply put a little more effort into better endgame design.